A major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine is now under way, according to a Ukrainian source familiar with the matter.

The swap started on Friday, with Kyiv and Moscow swapping hundreds of prisoners.

As with previous exchanges, Ukrainian and Russian authorities were not expected to publicly state that it was taking place until after it had been completed. However, US President Donald Trump broke that convention on Friday, announcing the swap on social media as it was unfolding.

The agreement to release 1,000 prisoners on each side was the only significant outcome of the meeting between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul last week, which marked the first time the two sides have met directly since soon after Russia’s full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Istanbul meeting was initially proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to a ceasefire-or-sanctions ultimatum given to Moscow by Kyiv’s European allies – which many saw as a clear attempt by the Kremlin leader to distract and delay.

But while the return of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees will come as a huge relief to their families and loved ones, it remains somewhat underwhelming as the only tangible outcome of the highly touted meeting.

Prisoner swaps have been happening regularly, most recently earlier this month.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a government department, said the exchange on May 7, which saw more than 200 Ukrainian service members return home, was the fifth swap this year and the 64th since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The department said at the time that at 4,757 Ukrainian citizens have been released since March 2022.

Ukraine and its allies demanded that Russia agree to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Istanbul, but that did not happen.

Kyiv also offered direct talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Hours after the Al Haj bakery handed out its last piece of bread on Thursday, Jihad Al Shafie was still waiting, his hope of bringing some food to his family long gone.

Like many in the crowd standing outside the bakery in central Gaza, Al Shafie lined up early in the morning, anticipating freshly baked pita from the first deliveries of flour to enter the besieged territory since early March. He was forced to leave empty-handed, as many of the promised truckloads of food remained in southern Gaza, a dozen or so miles away.

For one hour on Thursday afternoon, the bakery “experienced unprecedented invasions,” according to the owner, as a mob descended on the facility in a scramble for food. Through the small window separating the workers inside from the crowd, desperate hands reached in, trying to get lucky enough to secure a bag of bread. The chaos vanished as quickly as the bread, leaving scores with nothing.

Ina’am Al Burdeini walked an hour from Al-Maghazi refugee camp to the bakery, only to find a crowd already there when she arrived. She, too, left empty-handed. “It’s exhausting, and we feel lost and abandoned,” said Al Burdeini, directing her anger both inside and outside of Gaza. “People are desperate. It’s time for action, not empty promises. Hamas get out!”

This week, Israel began allowing in the first trucks with food and humanitarian supplies since imposing a complete blockade of humanitarian goods on Gaza on March 2. More than 300 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since Monday, according to Israel’s Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which oversees deliveries.

It is a fraction of the aid that entered before the war, when 500 to 600 trucks per day came into Gaza, according to the United Nations. On Thursday, COGAT claimed “there is no food shortage in Gaza,” despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying this week that Israel was allowing “a basic amount of food” into Gaza “in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis.”

‘Needle in a haystack’

“The aid going in now is a needle in a haystack,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), on social media. “A meaningful & uninterrupted flow of aid is the only way to prevent the current disaster from spiraling further.”

And not all of the aid is reaching the Palestinian population, with some held up because of unsafe transit routes or looted on its way to distribution points. None of the trucks reached northern Gaza, where Israel has issued several evacuation warnings recently.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said 15 of its trucks were looted in southern Gaza while on their way to bakeries supported by the UN organization.

“Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity,” said the WFP in a statement Friday. “We need support from the Israeli authorities to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster, more consistently, and transported along safer routes, as was done during the ceasefire.”

The Palestinian NGOs Network condemned the looting of the humanitarian aid trucks. “The trucks, loaded with flour and intended to supply bakeries in Gaza City and the northern governorates, were looted — depriving children and families already enduring severe hunger of their basic food needs,” said the umbrella organization.

A joint US-Israeli aid program, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is supposed to start operating four distribution sites before the end of the month. But the UN and other humanitarian organizations have refused to work with the new group.

The new plan has come under criticism from top humanitarian officials, who warn that it is insufficient, could endanger civilians and even encourage their forced displacement.

The UN’s aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said last week that time should not be wasted on an alternative Gaza aid plan, writing on X: “To those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution, let’s not waste time: We already have a plan.”

On Friday, the Bakery Owners Association in Gaza announced that bakeries would refuse to operate “in light of the difficult circumstances facing the Gaza Strip,” calling on the WFP to distribute flour to families first.

The chairman of the association, Abdel Nasser Al-Ajrami, appealed to international organizations to “urgently intervene” with Israel to allow the entry of “flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and diesel fuel” so that bread is available for everyone.

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of Sebastião Salgado, our founder, mentor, and eternal source of inspiration,” Instituto Terra said in a post on Instagram.

“Sebastião was much more than one of the greatest photographers of our time,” the post continued. “Alongside his life partner, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, he sowed hope where there was devastation and brought to life the belief that environmental restoration is also a profound act of love for humanity.”

At least twelve people were injured in a hot air balloon crash near an archaeological site in Mexico on Friday, local authorities say.

The balloon undertook a “forced landing” in San Martin de las Pirámides after hitting an air pocket, according to a statement from the Civil Protection Coordinator for the State of Mexico.

The twelve crew members are being treated for injuries at a local clinic, the statement said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The apparent sound made when the Titan submersible imploded in June 2023 has been revealed in new footage released Thursday by the Marine Board of Investigation, the US Coast Guard’s highest level of inquiry.

Cameras on the sub’s mother ship captured the moment when Wendy Rush – whose husband Stockton founded OceanGate, the company which built the ill-fated vessel, and was one of five people who died in its implosion – heard a faint cracking sound similar to a car door slamming.

“What was that bang?” she says, turning to the people next to her.

At that point, the sub had reached a depth of about 3,300 meters and was about 90 minutes into its descent to the ocean floor to give passengers on board an up-close view of the Titanic.

That “bang” is thought to be the moment the sub imploded. However, moments later, the crew on the support ship received a message from the sub saying it had dropped two weights – which may have created the false impression it was still operating normally.

Every system which transmits data through the water has “some inherent buffering or delay related to how they do the signal timing or processing,” he explained.

“If the ‘weights dropped’ message was sent a few seconds before the implosion … the computer may not show the message immediately when it is received. The timing is tight, but possible. It really depends on the system they were using.”

Six seconds after that message, the mother ship lost contact with the sub, according to the timeline established by authorities investigating the doomed expedition.

When the sub failed to resurface, a dramatic international search and rescue mission unfolded in the remote waters several hundred miles southeast of Newfoundland.

Authorities found the Titan’s wreckage on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean days later, several hundred yards from the Titanic’s remains.

Rush, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman; businessman Hamish Harding; and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet were all killed.

Since the implosion, the sub’s fate has been held up by some as an example of the dangers of hubris and greed.

Testimony given during the hearings into the disaster painted a damning portrait of OceanGate and Rush, who charged passengers about $250,000 per dive despite several concerns being raised about the sub’s durability.

Two documentaries scheduled for release in the coming weeks – one produced by the BBC and the other by Netflix – will further investigate the causes behind the disaster.