Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,232
Ukrainian air defence units were defending Kyiv against Russian drones early on Thursday for the second night running, with officials reporting a fire in a city-centre apartment building and drone fragments landing in different districts. At least two people were injured in the latest attacks, according to the AFP news agency.
A Russian air strike killed three people and injured one in the front-line town of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine's east, national emergency service officials said. A post on Telegram said the strike also destroyed a one-storey administrative building. Firefighters also extinguished blazes in four buildings, according to officials.
Vadym Filashkin, the governor of Ukraine's Donetsk region, which encompasses Kostiantynivka, said on Telegram that it was time to 'take a responsible decision. Evacuate to less dangerous regions of Ukraine!', amid Russia's latest offensive westward.
A five-year-old boy died of burns sustained in a Ukrainian drone strike on a beach in the Russian city of Kursk, regional Governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Telegram, raising the death toll in the attack to four, including a member of Russia's National Guard.
Russian forces advanced at key points along the front in eastern Ukraine, defeating Ukrainian units in at least six regions, including Donetsk and Kharkiv, and using missiles and drones to strike ammunition depots and airfields, the Ministry of Defence in Moscow said. It also claimed Russia captured a village in Donetsk.
The United States is delivering artillery shells and mobile rocket artillery missiles to Ukraine, two US officials told the Reuters news agency, days after President Donald Trump's administration halted shipments of some critical weapons to Kyiv.
Trump also said that he would consider sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, which he has previously said Kyiv would need for its defence.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he held a 'substantive' conversation with Trump's Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, in Rome shortly after Trump pledged to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv.
Zelenskyy met Pope Leo at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, where the pontiff told him that the Vatican was willing to host Russia-Ukraine peace talks. It was the Ukrainian leader's second meeting with the pope in his two-month-old papacy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will open the Rome conference on Ukraine on Thursday, with Zelenskyy and European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen in attendance. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Dutch leader Dick Schoof and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis are also expected to attend.
Merz has announced that he will make an offer of air defence systems to Ukraine during the Rome conference.
Ukraine said it detained a Chinese father and son, both suspected of spying on its prized Neptune antiship missile programme, a key part of Kyiv's growing domestic arms industry critical to its defence against Russian invaders. Kyiv has accused Beijing of helping the Kremlin's war effort.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Kremlin had evidence that Ukraine has repeatedly used antipersonnel mines that have injured civilians. Ukraine in June announced its withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention banning the production and use of antipersonnel mines.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov will visit North Korea this weekend, the latest in a series of high-profile visits by top Moscow officials as the two countries deepen military ties, according to Zakharova.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Lavrov on Thursday on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a senior US State Department official said.
Russian authorities have confiscated company assets worth some $50bn over the past three years, citing justifications ranging from illegal actions by Western countries to the need for strategic resources, underscoring the shift toward to a 'fortress Russia' economic model amid the war in Ukraine, the Reuters news agency reported, citing research from the Russian law firm Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners.
Italy is set to unveil a support scheme worth 300 million euros ($351m) for small and medium enterprises involved in the reconstruction of Ukraine, Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani said.
An Italian government source told the Reuters news agency that about 500bn euros ($585bn) would be needed for the reconstruction, recovery and modernisation of Ukraine, citing World Bank estimates.
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