Mazzaltov World News provides you with the latest live coverage of Current Affairs, Sports, Health, Weather, Entertainment, Business and Travel News from around the world.

Here’s where things stand on Sunday 6 July 2025:

Fighting

• Ukraine’s military claimed an attack on the Borisoglebsk airbase in Russia’s Voronezh region, hitting a depot containing glide bombs and training aircraft. Russian officials did not immediately comment on the attack.
• Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian air defences shot down four Ukrainian drones headed for the Russian capital, forcing one of Moscow’s main airports to temporarily halt outgoing flights.
• This came as Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences had intercepted 48 Ukrainian drones in a period of just over five hours into Saturday evening, and 45 more during the day. Earlier, the ministry said that 94 drones had been destroyed over Russia overnight.
• In Ukraine, the Air Force said Russia fired 322 drones and decoys into the country overnight into Saturday. Of these, 157 were shot down and 135 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
• Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region was the main target of the attack, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. Regional Governor Serhii Tyurin said no damage, injuries or deaths had been reported.
• Russian forces occupied the Ukrainian settlements of Zelenyi Kut and Novoukrainka near the administrative border between the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions, Ukrainian military blog DeepState reported on Telegram.
• Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, warned on Saturday of a possible new Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region, in northeastern Ukraine.
• The Kyiv Independent reported that explosions damaged a gas pipeline and destroyed a water pipeline that supplied military facilities in Russia’s Vladivostok, citing an unnamed intelligence source.

Politics and diplomacy

• After speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, United States President Donald Trump said Ukraine would need Patriot missiles for its defence. Trump also voiced frustration over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s failure to end the fighting.
• Trump told reporters he was “very unhappy” about his earlier call with Putin. “It just seems like he wants to go all the way and just keep killing people… It’s not good. I wasn’t happy with it,” he said.
• In a post on X, Zelenskyy described his call with Trump as “extremely fruitful”, confirming that the pair “discussed air defence”.
• “I’m grateful for the readiness to assist,” Zelenskyy said. “Patriot systems are the key to defending against ballistic threats.”
• United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned Russia’s “large-scale drone and missile attacks” on Ukraine on Friday, describing the attacks as “reportedly the largest in over three years of war”.
• Guterres also expressed alarm at the “dangerous escalation and the growing number of civilian casualties” as well as concern about disruption to power at the “Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, once again underlining the ongoing risks to nuclear safety”.
• Adam Smith, a top Democratic legislator, has dismissed the Pentagon’s claim it held up weapons shipments to Ukraine over low stockpiles. Smith told NBC News his staff had “seen the numbers” and said the US is “not at any lower point, stockpile-wise, than we’ve been in the 3½ years of the Ukraine conflict”.

Economy

• Bloomberg reported that US investment firm BlackRock paused efforts to raise funds for a multibillion-dollar Ukraine recovery fund after Trump was elected, leading France to step in to work on an alternative fund.

Brazil hosts BRICS summit; Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi skip Rio trip

Leaders expected to decry US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs while presenting the bloc as a defender of multilateralism.

Leaders of the growing BRICS group are gathering in Brazil for a summit overshadowed by United States President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies while presenting the bloc as a defender of multilateralism.

The leaders, mainly from the developing world, will be discussing ways to increase cooperation amid what they say are serious concerns over Western dominance at their two-day summit that begins in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.

The BRICS acronym is derived from the initial letters of the founding member countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The bloc, which held its first summit in 2009, later added Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as full members. It also has 10 strategic partner countries, a category created last year, that includes Belarus, Cuba and Vietnam.

But for the first time since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping will not be attending in person, instead sending Prime Minister Li Qiang.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will also miss in-person attendance as he is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, as a signatory to the Rome Statute, would be required to enforce the arrest warrant.

The notable absences are raising questions over the group’s cohesion and global clout.

Now chaired by Brazil, leaders at the BRICS summit are expected to decry the Trump administration’s “indiscriminate” trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy. Global health policies, artificial intelligence and climate change will also be on the agenda.

The  BRICS countries say they represent almost half of the world’s population, 36 percent of global land area, and a quarter of the global economic output. The bloc sees itself as a forum for cooperation between countries of the Global South and a counterweight to the Group of Seven (G7), comprised of leading Western economic powers.

However, behind the scenes, divisions are evident. According to a source quoted by The Associated Press news agency, some member states are calling for a firmer stance on Israel’s war in Gaza and its recent strikes on Iran. The source requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be attending the Rio summit.

But Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman, reporting from Rio, said the group’s aim remains clear.

“The BRICS goal is to exert pressure for a multipolar world with inclusive global governance to give a meaningful voice to the Global South, especially in the trading system,” she said.

“It’s not super organised, nor does it have a radical global impact,” Newman added. “The real question is, can an expanded BRICS whose members have very different political systems and priorities form a sufficiently unified bloc to have any significant impact?”

UN chief ‘strongly condemns’ Russian drone assault on Ukraine

Antonio Guterres raises alarm over ‘dangerous escalation’ after hours-long Russian drone and missile barrage this week.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned a Russian drone and missile attack against Ukraine this week that has been described as the largest such assault in the three-year war.

In a statement on Saturday, Guterres’s spokesperson said the Russian strikes “disrupted the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, once again underlining the ongoing risks to nuclear safety”.

“The  secretary-general is alarmed by this dangerous escalation and the growing number of civilian casualties,” the statement read.

Ukrainian officials said Moscow fired more than 500 drones and 11 missiles at the capital Kyiv overnight into Friday in an attack that killed one person, injured at least 23 others and damaged buildings across the city.

The sounds of air raid sirens, kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated until dawn.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “deliberately massive and cynical”.

Russia  has been stepping up its long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities as United States-led efforts to reach a ceasefire to end the war have stalled.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, warned of a possible new Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region, a part of northeastern Ukraine that has seen heavy fighting since Russia invaded in 2022.

Moscow has been slowly grinding its way along several parts of the Ukrainian front line in recent months, throwing forth continuous waves of infantry as it seeks to press home its advantage in troops and munitions.

Russian forces have already pushed into northern Ukraine’s Sumy region over the past months, carving out a small foothold there.

Russia fired 322 drones and decoys into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said. Of these, 157 were shot down and 135 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Ukraine has also ramped up its retaliatory strikes in Russia, with the Ministry of Defence saying it shot down 94 Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday, along with 45 further drones in the morning and early afternoon.

Four Ukrainian drones also were shot down while approaching Moscow on Saturday, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Meanwhile, a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Rostov region, the acting governor said.

Separately, the Ukrainian military said in a statement on social media on Saturday that its special forces struck Russia’s Borisoglebsk military airfield in the Voronezh region, hitting a glide bomb store and a trainer aircraft.

The military said that other aircraft were also likely hit, without giving details.

The governor of Voronezh, Alexander Gusev, wrote on Telegram that more than 25 drones were destroyed over the region overnight. He said a power line was temporarily damaged, but made no mention of a military airfield.

The attacks come as Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said on Friday that he had a “very important and fruitful” phone conversation with US President Donald Trump in his efforts to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences.

The US president also spoke to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, a day earlier in a conversation that he said was disappointing.

“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there, and I’m very disappointed,” Trump said after the call on Thursday. “I’m just saying I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that it was “preferable” to achieve the goals of Russia’s invasion through political and diplomatic means.

“But as long as that is not possible, we are continuing the special operation,” he said.