Ukraine-Russia warfare newest: China advised Putin to not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine says Zelensky
China warned Russian president Vladimir Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“I think you heard such voices in Russian media: ‘What if we respond to Ukrainian strikes with nuclear weapons?’ And it seems to me that this was the first time China … directly responded in an ultimatum-like form — that there can be no thought whatsoever of using nuclear weapons,” Zelensky told reporters on Thursday.
Ukraine attacked a dozen more of Russian tankers in the Sea of Azov, its military said on Thursday as it ramped up efforts to disrupt fuel supplies to Russian forces and isolating Moscow-occupied Crimea.
In the first four days of the week, Ukraine hit at least 36 of Russia’s ships and set them on fire in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, Ukraine’s defence ministry said.
These included 32 so-called Russian “shadow fleet” tankers and two dry cargo ships. “They were all trying to deliver fuel to Crimea,” the ministry said.
Kyiv’s long-range persistent drone attacks have sparked a massive fuel shortage across Russia, leading to widespread reports of escalating prices and lengthy queues at petrol stations throughout numerous regions.
Russia’s halts Don-Azov channel shipping after Ukraine attacks, affecting grain trade
Russia temporarily stopped shipping through the Don-Azov Channel, a navigable waterway linking the Don River with the Sea of Azov, three grain export industry sources said, according to Reuters.
The move followed a Ukrainian attack on 13 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov on Friday, including 10 tankers. Market analysts note that up to one-quarter of wheat exports from Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the grain, pass through the Sea of Azov.
One of the sources said Russia’s border guards notified shipping companies that all requests for passage through the Kerch Strait, which links the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, would not be accepted from 6.10pm local time on Friday.
The border guards report to the FSB security service. The notification did not say `when the halt would be lifted.
Russia’s leading grain-producing regions, Rostov and Krasnodar, lie along the Sea of Azov. The country’s second-largest port in the Black Sea region is located on the Kerch Strait.
Ukraine has recently intensified attacks on Russian petroleum refineries, triggering fuel shortages across the country. Many analysts and international organisations have warned about risks to global grain trade from the war in Ukraine because the Black Sea is used by both Ukraine and Russia for grain exports, although there have been no major disruptions to the grain trade during the four-and-a-half-year conflict.
Photos: Aftermath of Russian missile attack on Kyiv
Eight injured in Russian attack on Kyiv
Eight people, including an 11-year-old boy, have been injured in Russian attacks on Kyiv this morning, local officials said.
The attack also damaged buildings across multiple districts of the Ukrainian capital.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that four of the injured were hospitalised, while the remaining victims received medical treatment at the scene.
The strikes began around 3.40am local time when residents reported hearing initial explosions, prompting Ukraine’s Air Force to issue an urgent warning regarding incoming Russian ballistic missiles, Kyiv Independent reported.
Additional explosions shook the capital roughly 15 minutes later as air defences engaged the incoming threats.
The bombardment caused widespread disruption and property damage across Kyiv. Klitschko reported hit sites in the Dniprovskyi district, while Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, stated that a building was damaged in the Sviatoshynskyi district and a fire had broken out in an office building within the Solomianskyi district.
Kyiv faces fresh Russian missile attack, officials say
Russia pummeled Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with ballistic missiles this morning, officials said. Reuters reported that a witness heard a series of powerful explosions in the city before the air alert was announced.
The attack damaged a non-residential building in one district, while smoke was coming from another and an office building was in flames as a result of the strike, the city military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.
Zelensky says it is unclear when will Ukraine receive Patriot missile interceptors
Volodymyr Zelensky has detailed the complications Ukraine is looking at after the US announced it will grant Kyiv a license to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors at home.
“There are no dates set yet, but there will be additional PAC-3s,” Zelensky said, after returning from Turkey where he met with world leaders at the Nato summit.
Zelensky said that while Patriot supply and production was “Ukraine’s number one priority”, the government was approaching the problem on “several fronts”.
“First, we’re seeking a license from the US to manufacture Patriot systems,” he said.
“Second, through the PURL program, we’re securing clear funding from Europe, and, through this program, acquiring PAC-3 and PAC-2 missiles for the corresponding systems. Third, we’re working… with our European partners to obtain additional missiles until we have our own system.”
Watch: Trump says US will let Ukraine manufacture Patriot missiles
In pictures: Ukrainian servicemen continue combat missions in Donetsk
We asked Ukrainians what they think of Trump as US president touts a ‘very good relationship’
US President Donald Trump lauded the “very good relationship” he has developed with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the Nato summit in Turkey on July 8, 2026.
In a meeting of the pair that lacked the acrimony of earlier encounters, Trump added that Ukraine has “such great people,” too. He has expressed different views privately in the past.
But what do everyday Ukrainians think of Trump?
For more than a decade, we have organised and conducted public opinion polls in Ukraine. While polling has become more difficult since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, our surveys have provided a window into Ukrainian public opinion in the territories not occupied by Russia.
Kremlin says Putin remains open to Ukraine talks but is carving out a bigger buffer zone
The Kremlin said on Friday that President Vladimir Putin remained open to achieving Russia’s objectives through diplomacy, but that Moscow was carving out a wider buffer zone in Ukraine in response to Kyiv’s escalatory actions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about a Reuters article a day earlier in which three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Ukraine’s recent drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries and ports were strengthening Putin’s resolve to keep fighting for now.
Peskov said Russia believed that Kyiv had no desire for talks at the moments and that Moscow was therefore continuing its military campaign in Ukraine.
I have visited Russia every year since the Ukraine war began. The mood has changed
The hope is that an economic crisis in Russia leads to social unrest and political instability, possibly resulting in the collapse of the ruling regime. This would not be an unprecedented event in Russian history. The Soviet Union rapidly unravelled amid economic and political crisis in 1991. But how likely is this scenario for Russia today?
Source: independent.co.uk
