Ukraine | Pakistan

Starlink access in Ukraine a decision for Musk: Rubio

US special envoy arrives in St Petersburg to meet Putin as Ukraine seeks to repair ties with Washington

Chief executive Sergei Palkin says the club’s Stamford Bridge base helps keep Ukraine’s plight in spotlight

Zelenskiy says Trump's post was his first news of the deal; Ukraine was ready if Russia agreed

Says the world's diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran

Ukraine wants peace but won't give in, Zelenskiy says on Independence Day

Unit could bring 120 ballistic missiles, six launchers for strikes against Ukraine

Zelensky says Ukraine intercepted just one of 27 Russian ballistic missiles due to Patriot interceptor shortage

Ukraine produces millions of drones yearly, carrying out thousands of drone strikes against Russia each day

A pledge by President Donald Trump to allow Kyiv to produce US Patriot air defence missiles is a victory for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky but it could take at least a year to start producing them, defence experts say. With its chronic shortage of interceptor missiles likely to continue until then, Kyiv faces tough choices over which targets are a priority to defend as Russia keeps pounding its cities and energy infrastructure. Trump’s promise on Wednesday, when he met Zelensky during a Nato summit in Ankara, was a significant gesture of support that marked a huge improvement in their relationship since they clashed at the White House in February 2025. Patriot interceptor missiles are vital for Ukraine’s defence at a time when Zelensky says Russia, whose battlefield advances have stalled, is trying to leverage its advantage in ballistic missiles by hitting Ukraine hard. The Patriot is the only weapon in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of stopping Russian ballistic missiles. Ukraine has brought down only four ...

Ukraine on Thursday launched its largest drone attack on Moscow in years, sparking fires, hitting a major oil refinery and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport. Russia vowed to retaliate for the attack as AFP reporters saw dramatic scenes of black smoke billowing over the capital’s southern skyline and drops of black rain mixed with soot falling from the sky. At least 17 people were wounded in the strikes, which also set a shopping centre and apartment building ablaze, authorities said. The attack came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometres east of Moscow. @dawn.today Scores of Ukrainian drones bore down on Moscow on Thursday (June 18), hitting the Russian capital's oil refinery for the second time this week in what Kyiv cast as a demonstration of its growing capabilities that should force Russia to accept a peace deal. A video posted on social media showed a moment of explosion at the refinery in the de...

Russian drones and missiles pounded Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv and Dnipro early on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding about 100, authorities said, following days of warnings about Moscow’s plans for a major assault. Russia has targeted Ukraine’s power supply and infrastructure in a war now more than four years old, while Ukraine has stepped up attacks this year on Russian oil facilities. Both deny targeting civilians. Last week, the Kremlin warned that it intended “systematic strikes” on targets in Kyiv in response to a drone attack on a dormitory in Ukraine’s Russian-held region of Luhansk, which killed 21. Ukraine denied the attack. Photographs showed large explosions and plumes of smoke billowing over high-rise buildings in Kyiv, where overnight strikes killed four people and wounded 58, including children, according to the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. An explosion over the city during a Russian missile and drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 2, 2026....

Zelenskiy says Ukraine can hit Russian logistics across the region

Russia on Monday declared a unilateral ceasefire with Ukraine between May 8-9, when Moscow marks its annual World War II Victory Day commemorations, and threatened a “massive missile strike” on Kyiv if Ukraine violated it. Ukraine responded by declaring a truce of its own between May 5-6, saying it was “not serious” to expect it to observe a ceasefire during a Russian military holiday. The quarrelling between the two sides comes with a lull in US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, as Washington shifts its focus to conflict in the Middle East. Russian strikes killed nine people across Ukraine on Monday, according to Ukrainian officials, while a Ukrainian drone crashed into a high-rise building in an upscale Moscow neighbourhood overnight. “In accordance with a decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, a ceasefire has been declared from May 8–9, 2026… We hope that the Ukrainian side will follow suit,” the Russian defence ministry said in a post on state-backed m...

Qatar and Ukraine signed a defence agreement on Saturday, which includes cooperation on countering threats from missiles and drones, the Gulf state’s government said, as Iran presses an aerial campaign against its neighbours. Earlier on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — during a previously unannounced flurry of visits to Gulf nations — said his country and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to cooperate on defence amid drones Iran launches in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes. Ukraine also signed an air defence agreement with Saudi Arabia during Zelensky’s visit to the kingdom, two senior officials told AFP on Friday. Kyiv has sought to leverage its expertise in downing Russian drones to help Gulf nations and has deployed anti-drone experts to all three countries Zelensky has visited during his diplomatic tour. “The agreement includes collaboration in technological fields, development of joint investments and the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial system...

Ukraine and Saudi Arabia have signed an air defence agreement during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the kingdom, which is facing Iranian drone attacks, two senior officials told AFP on Friday. Kyiv has sought to leverage its expertise in downing Russian drones to help Gulf nations, which are being attacked with the same kind of Iranian-designed Shahed drones that Russia fires on Ukraine. “The point of the agreement is that Ukraine will support them in developing all the necessary components of air defence, which they currently lack,” one official said of the document which, according to another was signed on Thursday. Both spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity. Kyiv has been using a mix of cheap drone interceptors, electronic jamming tools and anti-aircraft guns to down Russian drones fired at its cities on a nightly basis for four years. It touts its anti-drone defences as the best in the world. Ukraine has proposed swapping its interceptors for vastly more expensive air-defence missiles that G...

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were to resume a second round of peace talks in Geneva on Wednesday, as Washington’s top envoy signaled optimism in its bid to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. The talks are the latest diplomatic bid to halt the fighting, which has killed hundreds of thousands, forced millions to flee, and decimated much of eastern and southern Ukraine. The United States has been pushing for an end to the nearly four-year war, but has failed to broker a compromise between Moscow and Kyiv on the key issue of territory. Two previous rounds of negotiations between the two sides in Abu Dhabi failed to yield a breakthrough. But US envoy Steve Witkoff, representing the Trump administration at the talks, said President Donald Trump’s diplomatic efforts had made strides in Washington’s bid to end the conflict. “President Trump’s success in bringing both sides of this war together has brought about meaningful progress,” he wrote on X, without elaborating. “Both parties agreed to upd...

ISLAMABAD - The delegation of the European Union, team Europe in Pakistan and the Embassy of Ukraine on Wednesday strongly condemned Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine and reiterated their unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States will meet in Abu Dhabi on Saturday for the second day of negotiations on a plan being pushed by US President Donald Trump to end the almost four-year-long war. The first known direct contact between Ukrainian and Russian officials on the proposal began Friday. Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said the discussions focused “on the parameters for ending Russia’s war and the further logic of the negotiation process”. An initial US draft drew heavy criticism in Kyiv and western Europe for hewing too closely to Moscow’s line, while later iterations prompted pushback from Russia for floating the idea of European peacekeepers. Both sides say the fate of territory in the eastern Donbas region is one of the main outstanding issues in the search for a settlement to a war that has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and decimated parts of Ukraine. The UAE foreign ministry said in a statement that the talks were scheduled to last two days and were “pa...

Pakistan on Monday called on Russia and Ukraine to enter into a “sustained, meaningful and structured dialogue” to end their protracted conflict, warning that the nearly four-year-old war continues to inflict enormous human and economic costs and poses growing risks to regional and global stability.