Russian drones and missiles again bombarded cities across Ukraine on Saturday night into Sunday morning despite the completion of the largest prisoner exchange of the 3-year-old war. The Armed Forces Operational Command in Poland -- a NATO nation that borders Ukraine to the west -- said in a Sunday morning post to X that its fighter jets were scrambled during the Russian attack. "Intensive activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation has been observed, associated with strikes carried out on objects located, among others, in the western territory of Ukraine," the statement said. Ukraine's air force said in a post to Telegram that Russia launched a total of 367 "air attack vehicles" -- among them nine Iskander ballistic missiles, 56 cruise missiles, four guided air missiles and 298 attack drones -- at targets across the country.

Russia and Ukraine swapped hundreds more prisoners on Sunday, the third and last part of a major exchange that reflected a rare moment of cooperation in otherwise failed efforts to reach a ceasefire in the more than three years of war. Hours earlier, the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other regions came under a massive Russian drone-and-missile attack that killed at least 12 people and injured dozens. Ukrainian officials described it as the largest aerial assault since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russia’s Defense Ministry said each side brought home 303 more soldiers, after each released a total of 307 combatants and civilians on Saturday, and 390 on Friday — the biggest swap of the war.

Three children, aged eight, 12 and 17, were killed in the north-west region of Zhytomyr, officials said. The “massive night attack” also killed four people in the western Khmelnytskyi region, four in the Kyiv region and one in Mykolaiv in the south. Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, said the attacks clearly demonstrated Russia’s intentions to prolong the war. “Another night of terror in Ukraine, as Russians targeted our civilian population across the country with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones – killing people in their own homes,” she wrote on X.