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 Thursday 10 July 2025:

Fighting

• Russia fired a large barrage of drones and missiles on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in the early hours, with officials reporting at least two deaths, 13 injured and fires in apartment and non-residential buildings.
• 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.

Weapons

• 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.

Politics and diplomacy

• 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.

Economy

• 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.

Top US, Russia diplomats discuss Ukraine, Syria and Iran on ASEAN sidelines

Rubio and Lavrov ‘confirmed their mutual desire to find peaceful solutions to conflicts’, Russian Foreign Ministry says.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have held rare face-to-face talks on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Malaysia, discussing the war in Ukraine, as well as developments in Iran and Syria.

“A substantive and frank exchange of views took place on the settlement of the situation around Ukraine, the situation around Iran and Syria, as well as a number of other international issues,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the meeting on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur.

Both  sides reportedly expressed interest in easing tensions and resuming dialogue in areas beyond the battlefield.

Lavrov and Rubio “confirmed their mutual desire to find peaceful solutions to conflicts, restore Russian-American economic and humanitarian cooperation, and facilitate unimpeded contacts between the societies of the two countries”, the ministry added.

The Russian side described the meeting as constructive, saying dialogue between Moscow and Washington would continue.

Rubio, , speaking to reporters after the 50-minute meeting, said he had delivered a clear message about the need for progress on the war in Ukraine.

“I had a frank and important conversation with Minister Lavrov,” Rubio said. “We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude.”

He said US President Donald Trump remained disappointed with what Washington, DC views as a lack of flexibility from Moscow.

Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader was throwing a lot of “b*******” at US efforts to end the war that started with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Rubio also signalled that a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi may take place during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) gathering. “I think we’re working on that – maybe, maybe we’ll meet,” he said at a press conference.

The meeting between the top Russian and US diplomats comes at a time of heightened global polarisation, with ASEAN serving as one of the few venues where dialogue among rival powers still takes place.

Zelenskyy seeking to bolster Ukraine’s air defences at Rome conference

Fourth conference on Ukraine reconstruction comes as Russia escalates attacks on country, amid doubts over US support.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has opened a conference in Italy on rebuilding his war-battered country, as it comes under relentless ground and air attacks from Russia.

The Rome gathering will see the Ukrainian leader hold a flurry of meetings on Thursday, including a video call with leaders from about 30 countries in the so-called “coalition of the willing“, as he seeks to secure financing to bolster his country’s defences, which were this week strained by Russia’s largest missile and drone attack in more than three years of war.

Spelling  out his country’s needs at the conference, Zelenskyy said the focus was on “more air defence supplies” and “investments in interceptor drones, air defence systems, and missiles”.

The United Kingdom and France are spearheading talks among the “coalition of the willing” on how to support a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, including potentially deploying peacekeeping forces to police any future peace agreement with Russia. This week, the office of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the call would cover “stepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia”.

On Thursday, the UK said it would supply more than 5,000 air defence missiles to Ukraine and provide up to 283 million pounds ($384m) in aid.

The success of the coalition’s operation hinges on United States backup with airpower or other military assistance, but the administration of President Donald Trump has made no public commitment to provide support.

Amid growing uncertainty about US commitment to Kyiv’s defence, despite Trump’s recent U-turn on pausing critical weapons deliveries, Zelenskyy had a “substantive” meeting with Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, on Wednesday. He will also talk with US officials on Thursday with the aim of adopting “the next package of US sanctions in the near future”, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

“Sanctions  must be imposed faster, and pressure on Russia must be strong enough that they truly feel the consequences of their terror,” said Zelenskyy on social media.

Speaking at the conference, Zelenskyy pleaded for a greater use of Russian frozen assets to help rebuild his country’s war-ravaged economy. “Not only the income from these assets, but the assets themselves must be used and much more actively than they are now to help save lives,” he said.

The conference, the fourth of its kind, hosted on this occasion by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, will ostensibly be looking to the future, pairing international investors with Ukrainian counterparts to hammer out joint partnerships that will rebuild and prime the country for European Union membership.

Italian  organisers said 100 official delegations were attending, along with 40 international organisations and development banks and 2,000 businesses, with the participation of civil society and local Ukrainian governments.

Meloni said participants had already pledged over 10 billion euros ($11.73 billion) to help Ukraine.

While in Rome before the conference, Zelenskyy met Pope Leo on Wednesday, marking the second in-person encounter between the two leaders since the pontiff was elected as head of the global Roman Catholic Church in May.

According to a Vatican statement, the pair “discussed the ongoing conflict and the urgent need for a just and lasting peace”. Both sides raised again the possibility of the Vatican hosting peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv – an idea dismissed by Russia in May.

Ten-hour raid

As the conference got under way, Zelenskyy said Russia launched 18 missiles and about 400 drones during an overnight attack on Ukraine that primarily targeted the capital.

Officials reported two deaths, 13 injured and fires in apartment and non-residential buildings.

“The enemy’s massive night attack on Kyiv region lasted for almost 10 hours,” Mykola Kalashnyk, the Kyiv region’s military administration chief, wrote on Telegram.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said residents of Kyiv had to spend another night in bomb shelters.

“Another night hunched over mobile phones in the dark for updates on how many drones are in your area, another night listening for that change in pitch that a Shahed [drone] engine makes when it goes into its terminal descent, and another night listening to the boom of detonations,” he added.

The attack came a day after Russia’s record barrage of 728 drones and 13 missiles, which killed at least one person. It followed Trump’s pledge earlier this week to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv.

A Russian air raid also killed three people and injured one in the front-line town of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s east, national emergency service officials said.

Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader was throwing a lot of “bullsh*t” at US efforts to end the war that started with Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.

Speaking at Thursday’s conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Trump to “stay with us”, saying that the US and Europe were “on the same page” in “looking for a stable political order in this world”.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones overnight, RIA state news agency reported on Thursday, citing the Russian Ministry of Defence.

A five-year-old boy died of burns sustained in a Ukrainian drone attack on a beach in the Russian city of Kursk on Wednesday, regional Governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Telegram, raising the death toll in the attack to four, including a member of Russia’s National Guard.

As Russia pummels Ukraine, cautious allies shift gears to help Kyiv

Germany and the US appear on the cusp of major policy changes, and Ukraine senses its opportunity to secure weapons.