Early Saturday Russia and Ukraine completed their second round of a large-scale prisoner swap that was agreed to in Istanbul talks last week.

The deal will see 1,000 POWs exchanged for 1,000 POWs but has to be completed in phases given the logistics and sheer size of the swap, with the first round of hundreds freed having taken place Friday along the Belarus-Ukraine border. The Saturday exchange involved each side bringing home 307 soldiers.

But despite this 'good faith' gesture of a successful ongoing prisoner exchange, the war is still raging, with an aerial war ramping up, given the hundreds of drones sent across both borders over the last week.

This continued overnight, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky early Saturday condemning Russian strikes on several oblasts, including in the capital Kyiv.

Zelensky identified in a social media statement that the fresh aerial assault targeted the Odesa, Vinnytsia, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kyiv and Dnipro regions. He alleged that Russian drones and missiles "targeted" civilians. At least 15 were wounded in these attacks.