Russia's claims that Ukraine is delaying exchange of soldiers' bodies are untrue, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday, urging Moscow to stop "playing dirty games" and return to constructive work. Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said on Saturday that Ukraine had unexpectedly postponed exchanging prisoners of war and accepting the bodies of killed soldiers for an indefinite period.

Russia's military released the statement after Ukrainian officials said Russia had launched an intense missile and drone barrage at Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in the early hours of Friday and that three people had been killed.

Russia bombarded Ukraine’s second-largest city with massive strikes in the early hours of Saturday, its mayor said, one night after Moscow carried out one of the war’s largest aerial assaults on Ukraine.

Overnight missile and bomb strikes by Russia on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv left three people dead and 22 hurt, while a Ukrainian drone attack in the Moscow region wounded two people, officials from both countries said separately on Saturday.