Trump's envoys to meet Putin in Moscow before talks with Zelenskyy in Ireland

US President Donald Trump's envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday, before travelling to Ireland for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Axios reported on Wednesday.The planned meetings come after two days of US-mediated talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi, which ended with an agreement in principle on a major prisoner exchange.“One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalise the numbers tomorrow,” Kushner said after the talks.Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky and Ukraine's lead negotiator Rustem Umerov confirmed the planned exchange.

The two countries have periodically exchanged prisoners during their nearly five-year war.The talks marked the first meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in nine months. However, expectations of a major breakthrough remained low, with Washington seeking to revive its peace efforts, which have so far failed to produce significant results.Zelenskyy described the proposed prisoner exchange as a positive development but maintained that Ukraine would not agree to demands to surrender territory occupied by Russia in exchange for peace.

Meanwhile, fighting continued along the front lines, with both sides carrying out long-range missile and drone attacks. Three people were killed and 11 injured after a Russian daytime strike hit a market in the southern Odesa region, local authorities said. Residential buildings were also damaged, Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration, said.Overnight, Russian strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region and the eastern city of Kharkiv wounded seven civilians and damaged property, Ukrainian officials said.Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had shot down 627 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 150 over the region surrounding St Petersburg. Regional Governor Alexander Drozdenko said the drones had sparked a fire at the port of Ust-Luga, a major Russian oil export facility, injuring three workers.