Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Azerbaijan on Friday for talks on “security and energy”, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP. Kyiv and Baku enjoy warm relations, with Azerbaijan repeatedly expressing support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sending humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion in 2022. Ties between Moscow and Baku have soured over the past year, after an Azerbaijani passenger plane was mistakenly hit by a Russian anti-aircraft missile in 2024, killing 38 people.

The trip follows one to Saudi Arabia, where Zelenskyy met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as the Ukrainian leader seeks to share Kyiv’s drone expertise with the Gulf countries affected by the war in Iran. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was “actively developing” its strategic security arrangement across three key areas, including exports of Ukrainian military expertise and air defence capabilities, energy cooperation to help Ukraine, and food security.

US weapons deliveries to Ukraine haven’t stopped despite the Iran war, and Ukrainian long-range strikes continue to hammer Russian oil production and manufacturing plants, Zelenskyy said on Thursday. “Of course, we are hitting what is painful for Russia, and it is very painful,” Zelenskyy said in voice messages to reporters, adding that Russian losses in the strikes have reached tens of billions of dollars. Russian officials have reported that attacks have struck infrastructure in regions more than 1,000km (600 miles) inside Russia.

Russia and Ukraine on Friday swapped 193 captured soldiers each, the second exchange this month in one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv. The two countries have exchanged thousands of PoW throughout the four-year war – with the swaps often the only result of otherwise stalled peace talks. Photos of Ukrainian prisoners getting off buses at the scene of the swap in northern Ukraine showed them looking pale but relieved and wrapped in blue and yellow flags, embracing each other, or crying on the phone to loved ones.

Ukraine’s defence ministry has fired a top commander after photos emerged of a group of emaciated soldiers who have been left on the frontline for months without proper food and water. The scandal erupted after the wife of one of the soldiers posted the images on social media. The four men appeared pale and visibly malnourished, with prominent ribcages and thin arms. Ukraine’s general staff said it had replaced the commander who was responsible for feeding the soldiers. The brigade acknowledged there were logistical problems and said deliveries were only possible by air because their location was extremely close to enemy lines.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday there was no prospect of Ukraine’s “immediate accession” to the EU, but suggested Kyiv could join meetings of the bloc’s members without voting rights. Ukraine is pushing to speed up its bid to join the 27-nation European Union as it fights Russia’s invasion on the battlefield. Kyiv’s progress has been blocked by Hungary’s nationalist premier Viktor Orbán, but his defeat in elections earlier this month raised hopes it can move to the next step.

German prosecutors Friday launched a spying investigation into phishing attacks targeting lawmakers on the Signal messaging app, with an MP saying the latest Russia-directed plot against Germany was a “wake-up call”. Germany, Kyiv’s biggest provider of miliary aid, has been battling a surge of cyber-attacks, as well as espionage and sabotage plots since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow denies being behind any such actions.