Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukrainian authorities said that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 248 Russian servicemen have been freed under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean police on Wednesday raided the residence and office of a man who stabbed the country’s opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, in the neck in an attack that left him hospitalized in an intensive care unit, officials said.

The assault occurred when Lee was passing through a throng of journalists after visiting the proposed site of a new airport in the southeastern city of Busan on Tuesday. The attacker, posing as a supporter, approached Lee asking for his autograph before he took out a 18-centimeter (7-inch) knife to attack him.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Peter Magubane, a fearless photographer who captured the violence and horror of South Africa’s apartheid era of racial oppression, and was entrusted with documenting Nelson Mandela’s first years of freedom after his release from prison, has died. He was 91.

Magubane died Monday, according to the South African National Editors’ Forum, which said it had been informed of his death by his family.

The deputy head of Hamas, the Palestinian group which rules Gaza, has been killed in a blast in Lebanon, a senior Hamas official has told the BBC.

Local media said Saleh al-Arouri was killed in an Israeli drone attack in the south of the capital, Beirut.

At least three other people were reportedly also killed in the incident. Israel has not commented.

BERLIN (AP) — German authorities said Monday they detained another suspect in connection with an alleged threat of an attack on the world-famous Cologne Cathedral over the holidays, bringing the overall number of people detained in connection with the alleged plot to five.

The latest suspect, a 41-year-old German-Turkish man, was detained Sunday night in the western city of Bochum in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Thousands of Israeli soldiers are being shifted out of the Gaza Strip, the military said Monday, in the first significant drawdown of troops since the war began as forces continued to bear down on the main city in the southern half of the enclave.

The troop movement could signal that fighting is being scaled back in some areas of Gaza, particularly in the northern half where the military has said it is close to assuming operational control. Israel has been under pressure from its chief ally, the United States, to begin to switch to lower-intensity fighting.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Law enforcement authorities in Nigeria are using the country’s same-sex prohibition law to target the LGBTQ+ community while ignoring abuses against them, rights groups and lawyers say, in the wake of fresh mass arrests of gay people.

Nigeria is one of more than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries where homosexuality is criminalized in laws that are broadly supported by the public, even though the constitution guarantees freedom from discrimination, and the right to private and family life.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Despite its last-minute scheduling, the meeting at a bookstore in Russia’s westernmost city of Kaliningrad still drew about 60 people, with many outraged by a lawmaker’s efforts to ban abortions in local private clinics.

The weeknight turnout surprised and heartened Dasha Yakovleva, one of the organizers, amid recent crackdowns on political activism under President Vladimir Putin.

“Right now, there is no room for political action in Russia. The only place left is our kitchens,” Yakovleva, co-founder of the Feminitive Community women’s group, told The Associated Press. “And here, it was a public place, well-known in Kaliningrad, and everyone spoke out openly about how they see this measure, why they think it’s unjustified, inappropriate.”

Although abortion is still legal and widely available in Russia, recent attempts to restrict it have touched a nerve across the increasingly conservative country. Activists are urging supporters to make official complaints, circulating online petitions and even staging small protests.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Scores of protesters gathered on the streets of Ukrainian cities on Friday to demand a cap of 18 months on mandatory military service, amid new suggestions of possible Ukrainian and international weariness with the 20-month war.

Both the warring sides are striving to keep their military momentum, though neither side has been able to land a knockout blow, and the fighting is expected to drag on deep into next year.

Ukraine ordered a general mobilization of the male population between the ages of 25 to 60 when Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. The vast majority joined up as volunteers. As the war grinds on, Ukraine has ramped up the draft.

The 18-month service limit sought by the protesters would be the same maximum as before the war. It is currently open-ended for draftees. The protesters, who are part of a loose national network, want the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, to consider possible alternatives on service time.

Friday, October 6

Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulos travelled to four front-line locations in October. This is the second of four dispatches – read his first about subterranean life in a front-line town.

It is still dark when we leave Zaporizhzhia. The pre-dawn air is cold and fresh.

We compare how we slept – sleep is always at a premium on the road. We have a long way to travel today – a good 360km (224 miles) to a village in northeastern Ukraine called Hroza, which was devastated the day before by a Russian missile strike.

More than 50 people – one-sixth of the population – were killed while attending a memorial service. Ukrainian officials said the town was hit by an Iskander missile, a precision-guided weapon with a 700kg (1,550lb) warhead. There were no obvious military targets nearby.

On our way, we first stop in the city of Kharkiv, whose centre had been struck twice this morning. We rush to set up for a live shot near a 10-metre-wide (33ft-wide) crater in the centre of an intersection. The blast shredded the facades of nearby apartment blocks. Window frames and balconies hang in tatters. A mangled Toyota truck lies on its side as the blackened shell of a van is towed away.

Unbelievably, considering the extensive damage, no one was killed.

City engineers are already there, plans for utility pipes in their hands, checking for leaks. Volunteers methodically shovel rubble, their feet crunching on shards of glass and metal fragments. A team of telecommunication workers on ladders repair phone lines. The trunks of felled trees are neatly cut up and dumped on trucks as are clumps of tarmac. This is what passes for normal in Kharkiv. It is 11am.

Ramallah, occupied West Bank – Israel has arrested so many Palestinians in the two weeks since the start of its bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip that it has doubled the number of Palestinians in its custody.

There were about 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons prior to October 7 when the Palestinian armed resistance group Hamas launched an attack on Israel, which responded almost immediately with a relentless bombing campaign.

PASO CANOAS, Costa Rica (AP) — The fleet of buses roared past the Panama-Costa Rica border.

Hundreds of Venezuelan, Haitian and Ecuadorian migrants pressed their faces to the windows as they looked out onto a sign that read “Welcome to Costa Rica.” But few of them will see more of the country than the winding roads through foggy glass.