Russia, Ukraine trade accusations of infrastructure attacks
Ukraine's Zelenskyy, Trump speak by phone on Wednesday as push for ceasefire continues
Russia and Ukraine accused each other on Wednesday of launching air attacks that sparked fires and damaged infrastructure just hours after their leaders agreed to a limited ceasefire to halt attacks on energy infrastructure.
Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to temporarily stop attacking Ukrainian energy facilities but declined to endorse a full 30-day ceasefire sought by U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone call with the Russian leader on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had agreed to the U.S. proposed 30-day ceasefire before the Putin-Trump call and later supported the more limited ceasefire on energy targets.
Zelenskyy, in a joint briefing in Helsinki with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, said Putin's words were not enough and that Ukraine would provide a list of energy facilities it hopes the U.S. and allies would help monitor.
"I really want there to be control. But I believe that the main agent of this control should be the United States of America," he said, adding that Kyiv would be ready to commit to a ceasefire.
"If the Russians will not strike our facilities, then we will definitely not strike theirs."
Ukraine's president later in the day spoke with Trump. Trump said on social media he had a "very good telephone call" with Zelenskyy that lasted an hour, in what is believed to be their first conversation since an Oval Office meeting descended into a shouting match on Feb. 28.
Trump said his administration would soon provide further details related to the call.
Meanwhile, Russia's Defence Ministry said Wednesday it had conducted a prisoner exchange with Ukraine, finalized during the Trump-Putin call. The ministry said in a statement that 175 Ukrainian soldiers had been swapped for 175 Russian servicemen, in a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates.
Zelenskyy, on social media, confirmed "one of the largest" prisoner swaps to occur since the February 2022 invasion.
Russia says it shot down its own drones
The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday its air defence units shot down 72 of 145 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks. It added that 56 drones were lost, in reference to the Ukrainian military using electronic warfare to redirect them.
"The Russian attack affected Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv and Chernihiv regions," the military said on Telegram.
Russia's defence ministry said that its units destroyed 57 Ukrainian drones overnight, 35 of them over the border Kursk region. The ministry reports only how many drones were destroyed, not how many were launched by Ukraine.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov accused Ukraine of not respecting the 30-day moratorium on striking each other's energy infrastructure, saying it had tried to attack Russian energy infrastructure overnight.
Peskov told reporters that Russia had called off a drone attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure targets and had shot down seven of its own drones.
"They were just lining up in combat order, six of them were shot down by 'Pantsirs' [a surface-to-air missile system] and another one was destroyed by a [Russian] military aircraft," Peskov said.
"Unfortunately, we see that so far there has been no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv side. There have been attempts to strike at our energy infrastructure facilities," Peskov said.
Authorities in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar said early on Wednesday that a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a small fire at an oil depot located near the village of Kavkazskaya.
No one was injured in the fire, which spread across 20 square metres, but 30 employees were evacuated, the administration of the southern Russian region said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
"The work at the facility has been suspended," the administration said.
Russia accused of torture, disappearing prisoners
Within Ukraine's border, regional authorities in Sumy, in the northeast, said that Russia's drone attacks damaged two hospitals there, causing no injuries but forcing the evacuation of patients and hospital staff.
A 60-year-old man was injured and several houses damaged in a Russian drone attack on the Kyiv region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital, Mykola Kalashnyk, governor of the region, said early on Wednesday.
Russian forces also attacked the power system of Ukraine's state railway network in Dnipropetrovsk region with drones on Wednesday morning, the railway company said.
As the war continues, European Union leaders are set to meet Thursday and Friday, with aid for Ukraine among the likely topics up for discussion.
Amid the fighting, a United Nations commission accused Russia of making "widespread and systematic" use of enforced disappearances and torture of Ukrainians since the 2022 invasion.
Large numbers of civilians were detained in areas that came under Russian control, or were deported to Russia, where some later suffered torture and sexual violence, according to a new report which was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday.
Additional cases of rape and sexual violence against female detainees were also identified. A previous report published in 2024 by the commission said Russia had systematically tortured male Ukrainian prisoners of war.
"We are shocked by the report, which lays bare Russia's brutal treatment of detainees," Britain's ambassador, Simon Manley, told the council on Wednesday.
Russia's mission in Geneva said it would not comment on "politicized and one-sided reports." Previously, it has denied torture or other forms of maltreatment of prisoners of war.
Some 50,000 people have been reported missing in the war between Ukraine and Russia over the last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in February.