Hundreds released in Russia-Ukraine prisoner swap deal – as it happened | Ukraine

• Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war, with each side releasing 103 people, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Saturday. The ministry said the Russian soldiers exchanged on Saturday had been taken prisoner in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian forces captured territory there last month in their first major incursion into Russia.

• Ukraine has made a new call on the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia after a meeting between US and British leaders a day earlier produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons. “Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said Saturday.

• US historian and author Timothy Snyder on Saturday led a charity run in Kyiv to raise awareness of the conditions under which Ukrainian prisoners of war are held in Russia as the conflict approaches a third winter. The race came after a recent escalation in Russian missile and drone attacks, largely aimed at Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure.

• Iran’s foreign minister said that Tehran was open to diplomacy to solve disputes but not “threats and pressure”, state media reported on Saturday, after the US and three European powers imposed sanctions against the country’s aviation sector. Abbas Araqchi’s comments come a day after the European Union’s chief diplomat said the bloc is considering new sanctions targeting Iran’s aviation sector, in reaction to reports Tehran supplied Russia with ballistic missiles in its war against Ukraine.

• Nato could have done more to arm Ukraine to try to prevent Russia’s invasion in 2022, the outgoing head of the western military alliance said in an interview released on Saturday. “Now we provide military stuff to a war – then we could have provided military stuff to prevent the war,” Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly newspaper FAS.

• Russian forces shelled 15 border areas of Ukraine’s Sumy region a total of 84 times on Friday, killing two people and wounding nine, the regional authority said. The authority, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said two people had died near the town of Yampil, Reuters reported.

• Russian forces have taken control of the village of Zhelanne Pershe in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the state-run TASS news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Saturday.

• Former British defence secretary Ben Wallace said the wrangling over Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles in Russia was just benefiting Vladimir Putin. The Tory former minister said: “I’m just disappointed that it’s yet again, another tug of war around another capability.”

• Senior Russian security official and former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday Russia could destroy Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with non-nuclear weapons in response to the use of western long-range missiles by Ukraine. Medvedev said Moscow already had formal grounds to use nuclear weapons since Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, but could instead use some of its new weapon technologies to reduce Kyiv to “a giant melted spot” when its patience runs out.

• Moscow knows that the West has made a decision on whether to allow Ukraine to attack Russia with long-range missiles and has informed Kyiv, the TASS news agency cited Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Saturday. Ryabkov did not clarify what the purported decision was, but said that since Moscow’s verbal warnings to the West against further escalation have not worked, Russia would need to switch to sending signals in different ways.

• Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday. Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow. At a foreign policy summit on Friday afternoon, Biden said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

• Earlier, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage. Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it had acted on documents showing part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.

• Moscow’s ambassador to the UN told the security council on Friday that loosening the missile strike restrictions would mark an escalation to “direct war” between Moscow and Nato. Washington officials accused Putin of trying to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine, reports Andrew Roth. In Europe, leaders played down Putin’s threats. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said: “I would not attach excessive importance to the latest statements from President Putin. They rather show the difficult situation the Russians have on the front.”

• Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow’s advance on another front in Ukraine’s east. The Ukrainian president said in Kyiv on Friday that Russia’s counterattack in Kursk produced no major successes – contradicting Vladimir Putin’s accounts of Russian advances on both fronts. Zelenskiy said Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front. “So far we have seen no serious [Russian] success.” Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had occupied. The battlefield reports of either side were not able to be independently verified.

That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war, with each side releasing 103 people, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Saturday.

The ministry said the Russian soldiers exchanged on Saturday had been taken prisoner in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian forces captured territory there last month in their first major incursion into Russia.

• Nato could have done more to arm Ukraine to try to prevent Russia’s invasion in 2022, the outgoing head of the western military alliance said in an interview released on Saturday. “Now we provide military stuff to a war – then we could have provided military stuff to prevent the war,” Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly newspaper FAS.

• Russian forces shelled 15 border areas of Ukraine’s Sumy region a total of 84 times on Friday, killing two people and wounding nine, the regional authority said. The authority, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said two people had died near the town of Yampil, Reuters reported.

• Russian forces have taken control of the village of Zhelanne Pershe in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the state-run TASS news agency cited the Russian defence ministry as saying on Saturday.

• Former British defence secretary Ben Wallace said the wrangling over Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles in Russia was just benefiting Vladimir Putin. The Tory former minister said: “I’m just disappointed that it’s yet again, another tug of war around another capability.”

• Senior Russian security official and former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday Russia could destroy Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with non-nuclear weapons in response to the use of western long-range missiles by Ukraine. Medvedev said Moscow already had formal grounds to use nuclear weapons since Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, but could instead use some of its new weapon technologies to reduce Kyiv to “a giant melted spot” when its patience runs out.

• Moscow knows that the West has made a decision on whether to allow Ukraine to attack Russia with long-range missiles and has informed Kyiv, the TASS news agency cited Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Saturday. Ryabkov did not clarify what the purported decision was, but said that since Moscow’s verbal warnings to the West against further escalation have not worked, Russia would need to switch to sending signals in different ways.

• Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday. Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow. At a foreign policy summit on Friday afternoon, Biden said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

• Earlier, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage. Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it had acted on documents showing part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.

• Moscow’s ambassador to the UN told the security council on Friday that loosening the missile strike restrictions would mark an escalation to “direct war” between Moscow and Nato. Washington officials accused Putin of trying to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine, reports Andrew Roth. In Europe, leaders played down Putin’s threats. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said: “I would not attach excessive importance to the latest statements from President Putin. They rather show the difficult situation the Russians have on the front.”

• Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow’s advance on another front in Ukraine’s east. The Ukrainian president said in Kyiv on Friday that Russia’s counterattack in Kursk produced no major successes – contradicting Vladimir Putin’s accounts of Russian advances on both fronts. Zelenskiy said Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front. “So far we have seen no serious [Russian] success.” Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had occupied. The battlefield reports of either side were not able to be independently verified.

• The Ukrainian general staff said on Friday that Russian forces had focused their assaults near the town of Kurakhove, about 33km (20 miles) south of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured Dolynivka, positioned between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the latest in a series of localities Moscow says it has seized.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 49 Ukrainian prisoners of war had been returned from Russia, with Agence France-Presse witnessing the group being greeted at the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian president did not clarify whether it was part of an exchange with Russia, as is usually the case, but AFP journalists had earlier seen Russian prisoners of war being loaded on to a bus near the border.

• Romania started training its first group of Ukrainian F-16 pilots this week, the Nato country’s defence ministry said. The first four pilots had started their “theoretical training”, a ministry spokesperson told AFP, with practical training to follow “towards the end of the year”.

• Drone fragments fell on a municipal building in Kyiv’s Obolon district north of the city centre early on Saturday, said the mayor. Writing on Telegram, Vitali Klitschko said no fire broke out and emergency services were sent. He earlier said air defence units had been in action. A Reuters witness said explosions were heard. The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, urged people to remain in shelters as drones still posed a threat. The air raid alert was later lifted for the city but remained in effect for several regions of central Ukraine.

Senior Russian security official and former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday Russia could destroy Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with non-nuclear weapons in response to the use of western long-range missiles by Ukraine.

Medvedev said Moscow already had formal grounds to use nuclear weapons since Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, but could instead use some of its new weapon technologies to reduce Kyiv to “a giant melted spot” when its patience runs out.

“Holy shit! It’s impossible, but it happened,” he wrote in English on the Telegram messaging app.

Dan Sabbagh

Earlier, Russia announced it had revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats in Moscow on accusations of espionage.

Moscow’s FSB domestic spy agency said on Friday that it had acted on documents showing part of the Foreign Office was helping coordinate what it called “the escalation of the political and military situation” in Ukraine.

The Foreign Office, however, said the move had been made last month as part of a continuing diplomatic tit-for-tat. Sources indicated the British diplomats had left Russia weeks ago and were being replaced.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless … We are unapologetic about protecting our national interests.”

The British government expelled the Russian defence attache in May, accusing him of being an undeclared intelligence officer, and removed diplomatic status from several Russian-owned buildings in the UK.

Dan Sabbagh

Joe Biden dismissed sabre-rattling threats made by Vladimir Putin as the US president met with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at the White House on Friday.

Biden said he did not accept that Ukraine using western-made Storm Shadow missiles to bomb targets in Russia would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow.

At a foreign policy summit on Friday afternoon, Biden said: “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin.”

Biden and Starmer’s top foreign policy teams were meeting at the Blue Room in the White House. At the start of the meeting, James Matthews from Sky News jumped the gun by asking Biden: “What do you say to Vladimir Putin’s threat of war?”

Biden scolded him. “You be quiet, I’m going to speak, OK?” the president said, before beginning his prepared remarks.

Also present at the Blue Room meeting were Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, and David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary. Other British participants included Tim Barrow, the national security adviser, and Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray.

Nato could have done more to arm Ukraine to try to prevent Russia’s invasion in 2022, the outgoing head of the western military alliance said in an interview released on Saturday.

“Now we provide military stuff to a war – then we could have provided military stuff to prevent the war,” Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly newspaper FAS.

Stoltenberg pointed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s reluctance to provide weapons that Kyiv had asked for before Russia’s full-scale invasion because of fears that tensions with Russia would escalate.

After the war began, Kyiv, which is not a member of Nato, received one weapons system after another from its allies after initial hesitation.

Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, will step down in October from his role at Nato, which he has held since 2014. Dutch former prime minister Mark Rutte was announced in June as the organisation’s next boss.

In the interview, Stoltenberg said an end to the war in Ukraine would be achieved only at the negotiating table.

“To end this war there will have to be again dialogue with Russia at a certain stage. But it has to be based on Ukrainian strength,” he said.

Stoltenberg declined to confirm that he would take over from German diplomat Christoph Heusgen as chair of the Munich Security Conference after leaving Nato. He told FAS he had “many options” and would reside in Oslo.

Hello and welcome to the Ukraine live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you all the latest news from Russia’s war on its neighbour throughout the day.

We start with news that Russian forces shelled 15 border areas of Ukraine’s Sumy region a total of 84 times on Friday, killing two people and wounding nine, the regional authority said.

The authority, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said two people had died near the town of Yampil, Reuters reported.

Sumy region has long been the target of Russian shelling in the 2-1/2-year-old war. It lies opposite Russia’s southern Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have launched an incursion since early in August.

In other news this morning:

• Keir Starmer and Joe Biden have discussed letting Ukraine fire long-range, western-supplied missiles into Russia, while stopping short of any formal announcement. Vladimir Putin has threatened it would amount to Nato joining the war. The UK prime minister told reporters at the White House that he had a “wide-ranging discussion about strategy” with the US president but that it was not just a meeting about “a particular capability”.

• Biden dismissed Vladimir Putin’s sabre-rattling threats, saying he did not accept that Ukraine using Storm Shadows missiles against Russia proper would amount to Nato going to war with Moscow, reports Dan Sabbagh in Washington. “I do not think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.

• Moscow’s ambassador to the UN told the security council on Friday that loosening the missile strike restrictions would mark an escalation to “direct war” between Moscow and Nato. Washington officials accused Putin of trying to scare Nato countries away from supporting Ukraine, reports Andrew Roth. In Europe, leaders played down Putin’s threats. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said: “I would not attach excessive importance to the latest statements from President Putin. They rather show the difficult situation the Russians have on the front.”

• Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow’s advance on another front in Ukraine’s east. The Ukrainian president said in Kyiv on Friday that Russia’s counterattack in Kursk produced no major successes – contradicting Vladimir Putin’s accounts of Russian advances on both fronts. Zelenskiy said Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front. “So far we have seen no serious [Russian] success.” Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had occupied. The battlefield reports of either side were not able to be independently verified.

• The Ukrainian general staff said on Friday that Russian forces had focused their assaults near the town of Kurakhove, about 33km (20 miles) south of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured Dolynivka, positioned between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the latest in a series of localities Moscow says it has seized.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 49 Ukrainian prisoners of war had been returned from Russia, with Agence France-Presse witnessing the group being greeted at the border with Belarus. The Ukrainian president did not clarify whether it was part of an exchange with Russia, as is usually the case, but AFP journalists had earlier seen Russian prisoners of war being loaded on to a bus near the border.

• Romania started training its first group of Ukrainian F-16 pilots this week, the Nato country’s defence ministry said. The first four pilots had started their “theoretical training”, a ministry spokesperson told AFP, with practical training to follow “towards the end of the year”.

• Drone fragments fell on a municipal building in Kyiv’s Obolon district north of the city centre early on Saturday, said the mayor. Writing on Telegram, Vitali Klitschko said no fire broke out and emergency services were sent. He earlier said air defence units had been in action. A Reuters witness said explosions were heard. The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, urged people to remain in shelters as drones still posed a threat. The air raid alert was later lifted for the city but remained in effect for several regions of central Ukraine.