On Friday May 16, Ukraine and Russia began the first phase of a prisoner swap, with each side releasing 390—270 soldiers and 120 civilians. The swap appears to have proceeded according to plans, as had been set in motion during the May 16 talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul.
Despite this positive step, however, Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a strong statement the same day about the dramatic increase in drone attacks by Ukraine over the previous days. “[F]rom May 20 to 8 a.m. on May 23, the number of aerial attacks amounted to multiples of what it used to be, with 788 strikes,” the statement read, “targeting Russian territory outside the area of the special military operation.” While Russia apprehended most of them, they reported that 12 drones hit their targets, causing a number of casualties.
The statement goes on: “Notably, even after the Ukrainian forces had been ousted from the Kursk Region, they keep trying to infiltrate our territory and launch drone, long-range artillery, and missile attacks. Under these circumstances, the President was compelled to make a decision on establishing a security buffer zone on adjacent territory in order to minimize the ability of the Ukrainian forces to infiltrate and to attack our border regions using various munitions.” President Putin had also announced that Russia would begin establishing buffer zones inside Ukraine for on the borders of the Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions. “Our armed forces are actively solving this task now,” he said May 23.
