Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,217
Here is how things stand on Wednesday, June 25 :
Fighting
Russian missile strikes on southeastern Ukraine killed 17 people in the city of Dnipro and injured more than 200, damaging dozens of buildings and infrastructure facilities.
Two people were killed in a Russian attack on the city of Samara.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Hennadii Shapovalov as the new commander of Ukraine's ground forces. He will also oversee military recruitment efforts overseas as part of a broader mobilisation effort.
Russia says it intercepted dozens of drones overnight across its territory, including the Voronezh region on the border of eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces say they captured the village of Dyliivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region.
Zelenskyy said on X that Russia and Ukraine have not moved any closer to a ceasefire. 'The Russians once again openly and absolutely cynically declared they are 'not in the mood' for a ceasefire. Russia wants to wage war. This means the pressure the world is applying isn't hurting them enough yet, or they are trying very hard to keep up appearances.'
Diplomacy
The White House said United States President Donald Trump will meet Zelenskyy during a NATO summit in The Hague this week. The meeting will be a second attempt after Zelenskyy failed to meet Trump earlier this month in Canada when the US president abruptly left a G7 summit.
En route to the NATO summit on Tuesday, Trump declined to say whether he supported NATO's Article 5 clause calling for collective self-defence. 'Depends on your definition. There's numerous definitions of Article 5,' he told reporters on board Air Force One, adding, 'I'm committed to being their friend.'
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the security bloc's 'military edge is being aggressively challenged by a rapidly rearming Russia, backed by Chinese technology and armed with Iranian and North Korean weapons' before the summit.
NATO members are expected to support a push to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 10 years. The move is seen as a bid to appease Trump and deter Russia.
Finance
The Netherlands, the host of the NATO summit, announced a new 175-million-euro ($203m) aid package to Ukraine, which includes drone detection radars. The news follows another 500-million-euro ($580m) deal to make 600,000 drones with Ukraine.
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The US forces dropped 14 30,000-pound (13,000kg) bunker-buster bombs, while Navy submarines are said to have coordinated strikes by cruise missiles at the Natanz and Isfahan sites. The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) – the most powerful bunker-buster bomb in the US military arsenal weighing nearly 13,000kg (30,000lb) – was used in the strike. The US intervention was understood to be critical for the Israeli campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities, especially Fordow, due to its depth that kept it out of reach for the Israeli military. How did the DIA report contrast with Trump's claims? In March this year, the US spy chief Tulsi Gabbard had informed Congress that there was no evidence Iran was building a nuclear weapon, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had not authorised the nuclear weapons programme that he had earlier suspended in 2003. On June 17, as Israel and Iran continued to trade ballistic missiles, Trump was returning to Washington from the G7 summit in Canada, when he snubbed his own administration, including the spy chief Gabbard, saying she and the intel agencies had gotten it 'wrong'. He claimed that Iran was 'very close' to having a nuclear weapon. On June 22, the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities. 'The strikes were a spectacular military success,' Trump said in a televised address. 'Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.' The next day, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, 'The damage to the Nuclear sites in Iran is said to be 'monumental.' The hits were hard and accurate. Great skill was shown by our military. Thank you!' On Wednesday, at the NATO summit, he reiterated his stance. 'The last thing they [Iran] want to do is enrich anything right now… They're not going to have a bomb and they're not going to enrich,' he said at The Hague. Top officials from his administration, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have repeated the obliteration claims since then. 'Based on everything we have seen – and I've seen it all – our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons,' Hegseth said in a statement provided to Reuters. 'Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target – and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission.' How has Trump, the White House reacted? Trump spent a good amount of time letting off steam on his Truth Social platform after the DIA report dropped. 'THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!' Trump wrote in all-caps, referring to the reporting by The New York Times and CNN. 'FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY,' Trump said in a post. The US president also posted a series of apparently bizarre videos, including one of B-2 bombers taking off to a 'bomb Iran' song in the background. Trump is currently in the Netherlands, attending this week's NATO summit, and reiterated to reporters that the damage from the strikes was significant. 'I think it's been completely demolished,' he said, adding, 'Those pilots hit their targets. Those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit. 'That place is under rock. That place is demolished,' Trump responded to a question on the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. He took further shots at CNN, saying: 'These cable networks are real losers. You're gutless losers. I say that to CNN because I watch it – I have no choice. I got to watch it. It's all garbage. It's all fake news.' He said the intelligence following the strikes in Iran was 'inconclusive'. 'The intelligence says we don't know. It could've been very severe. That's what the intelligence suggests.' 'It was very severe. There was obliteration,' he reiterated on Wednesday. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called the DIA assessment 'flat-out wrong' and leaked to the press 'by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community'. 'The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program,' she said in a statement. 'Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: Total obliteration.'
