Ukraine and Russia exchanged another group of ill and severely wounded servicemen on Thursday, officials from both countries said. All of the Ukrainian troops need treatment, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a message on the Telegram messaging app that did not go into details on the numbers involved.

The talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine.

Russia had announced plans to create a so-called “buffer zone” in Ukraine's Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.