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Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 15 July 2025:
Fighting
- Russian forces launched drone attacks on Ukraine’s eastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, killing at least one person and wounding 21 others, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local authorities.
- The Ukrainian Red Cross said the attacks also damaged buildings in Sumy, including an educational and medical facility.
- The death toll from Russian attacks on Ukraine on Sunday has risen to six, including three people in Sumy, two others in Donetsk and one more in Kherson, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local officials.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed control of two more villages in eastern Ukraine: Malynivka in the Zaporizhia region and Mayak in the Donetsk region.
- Ukrainian drone attacks wounded two people in Russia’s Kursk region, and another person in the city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, which Moscow partially occupies, according to the Russian state TASS news agency.
- Another Ukrainian drone hit a transformer substation in Kreminna, in Russian-occupied Luhansk, setting it on fire, TASS reported.
- Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said its air defence units destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian territory as well as the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the Black Sea.
- Russian officials also said Ukrainian forces had launched a drone attack on a training centre at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Sunday evening, adding that “no critical” damage was recorded. This comes a day after the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said that it had heard hundreds of rounds of small arms fire late on Saturday at the plant.
Weapons
- United States President Donald Trump said Washington would be sending “billions” of dollars in military equipment, including Patriot air defence systems and other missiles to Ukraine, in a deal that would be paid for by NATO members.
- NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, speaking alongside Trump at the White House, said Ukraine would get “massive numbers” of weapons under the deal.
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country would play a “decisive role” in funding the supplies, while the country’s defence minister said Berlin and Washington would decide about sending two US-made Patriot air defence systems to Kyiv within days or weeks.
- Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticised the US support for Ukraine, saying that while “it seems” supplies to Kyiv will now “be paid for by Europe … the fact remains that the supply of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment from the United States continued and continues to Ukraine”.
Politics and diplomacy
- Trump also said that if Moscow failed to sign a peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days, he would impose “very severe tariffs” on Russia, including secondary tariffs of 100 percent.
- The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, welcomed Trump’s tougher stance on Russia, but said a 50-day ultimatum was “a very long time if we see that they are killing innocent civilians every day”.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that he had spoken to Trump and “thanked him for his readiness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace”.
- The Ukrainian leader also announced a major cabinet shuffle, asking Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko to become the next prime minister, and the incumbent prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, to be the defence minister.
- Svyrydenko said Ukraine was facing a “crucial time” and that her priorities would be “strengthening” its economy, expanding domestic support programmes and scaling up weapons production.
- US special envoy Keith Kellogg visited Kyiv and held meetings with Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov.
Regional security
- Former military officers in Sweden could be recalled to military service in case of need up to the age of 70, a government-appointed review suggested, as the country continues to rethink its security approach due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Denmark will donate European-produced satellite equipment to Ukraine to provide “secure and stable satellite-based communications”, the Danish Ministry of Defence said.
Trump facing criticism among MAGA supporters over Ukraine weapons package
The latest weapons package is something the White House insists is an example of the US president’s “peace through strength” policies and is not backtracking on a campaign promise.
However, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s most vocal supporters and former strategist Steve Bannon are saying just the opposite.
They are reacting angrily to the news of not only this deal, but also the fact that it has a 50-day deadline.
There is a prevailing sense among the MAGA movement that this is a European war and that the United States should not have any involvement or responsibility in it.
They believe that this is a decision made by elites that is going to adversely affect the working and middle class here in the US, who they say, as taxpayers, have to pay for this.
As a result, there’s a lot of pushback that’s going on. However, the White House reiterates that this is a deal to manufacture weapons in the US only, with NATO buying and distributing the weapons.
Meloni welcomes Trump’s ‘change of posture’ towards Russia
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said the “change of posture” on the part of the US towards Russia is “obviously welcome”, referring to Trump’s threat to impose steep trading restrictions on Moscow unless a peace deal is reached within 50 days.
Her comments during a news conference in Rome come just two days after Italy pledged more than 10 billion euros ($11.6bn) in aid to help rebuild Ukraine’s future at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Italy’s capital.
More from Kallas
We have some comments from the EU foreign policy chief after the foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels.
Kaja Kallas said the ministers will discuss Russian frozen assets during an informal meeting at the end of August.
“It’s important that everybody hears everybody’s arguments, and then we can also come up with compromises to address these sensitivities,” she said.
Kallas ‘really sad’ EU failed to approve new Russia sanctions
The European Union has not approved new Russia sanctions following Slovakia’s request for a delay in the vote, the bloc’s top foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said.
Kallas said she was “really sad” the sanctions did not get approved at the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, adding that the ball was in Slovakia’s court and expressing hope that the 18th round of sanctions would be approved tomorrow.
She said sanctions are also “necessary to starve Russia of the means to wage this war”, and the EU will keep implementing them.
Kallas also welcomed US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new weapons package for Ukraine, although she said the EU would like to see the US “share the burden”.
“If you promise to give the weapons, but say that it’s somebody else who is going to pay for it, it is not really given by you.”
How much could Trump’s sanctions threat hurt Russia?
Experts say a sharp decline in Russian energy flows from secondary sanctions would almost certainly lead to higher global prices, particularly for natural gas.
“The impact would probably be greater on natural gas prices than oil,” said Kieran Tompkins, senior climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics.
He pointed out that “the oil market appears to have sufficient spare capacity to more or less offset a loss of Russian exports”, owing to untapped OPEC supplies.
However, he said that “knocking out half of Russia’s crude and petroleum exports [on the back of Trump’s threat] could reduce export revenues by $75bn or so”.
In turn, Tompkins said that could induce a “fiscal crisis” in Russia, leading to “debt issuance ramping up, bond yields spiking and pressure for widespread fiscal tightening”.
You can read our explainer here.
Slovakia requests EU vote delay over new Russia sanctions
Prime Minister Robert Fico says Slovakia’s representative at the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels was asked to request a delay in a vote on a new package on sanctions against Russia on Tuesday.
Fico, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in December 2024, said the request reflected the positions of Slovak political parties on proposals from the European Commission to help the country overcome potential problems with gas supplies after a planned ban on Russian gas imports from 2028.
That plan is unrelated to the latest sanctions package, but Slovakia has connected the two issues.
Fico has been on a collision course with Western partners, taking a pro-Russian stance on the war in Ukraine. He has also sparred with the European Union over Slovakia’s desire to continue importing Russian gas and oil, as well as domestic reforms affecting justice and media.
EU Council sanctions five individuals for human rights violations in Russia
The European Council has imposed sanctions on an additional five individuals “responsible for serious violations or abuses of human rights and for the repression of civil society and democratic opposition in Russia”.
In a statement, it said the new measures target members of the Russian judiciary who played a key role in the persecution of Alexei Gorinov, a former Moscow district councilor who is imprisoned “in a strict regime colony on politically motivated charges for expressing his opinion on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”.
The sanctioned individuals “are subject to an asset freeze and EU citizens and companies are forbidden from making funds available to them”. They are also subject to a travel ban that prevents them from entering or transiting through the bloc.
US is ‘effectively taking itself out of the game’ by making NATO pay for weapons
Europe is now directly subsidising US weapon producers after Trump’s announcement that Washington’s NATO allies would pay for the latest weapons shipment to Ukraine, according to Ben Aris, founder and editor-in-chief of bne IntelliNews, a business media company.
“Europe has painted itself into a back corner,” he told Al Jazeera.
“It’s got a major war, the biggest since World War II, in its backyard. It’s nailed its flag to supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes, and America is stepping out of the game,” he said.
Europe now has to either support Ukraine or settle for peace “because Ukraine cannot fight this war by itself”, he said. “It’s done very well with the drones … but now Russia has moved on and is using missiles against which Ukraine has no domestic counter whatsoever”.
Shmyhal expected to become Ukraine’s defence minister
As we reported earlier, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has submitted a resignation letter, a day after Zelenskyy nominated First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko to replace him.
The Ukrainian president said Shmyhal is expected to be appointed as Ukraine’s new defence minister, while MPs are due to vote on Svyrydenko’s nomination later this week.
Zelenskyy said that he had already discussed priority tasks for the next six months with her.
“We are preparing the initial steps of the renewed government,” he said on Telegram, adding the main tasks would be to increase domestic weapons production and implement reforms to unlock Ukraine’s economic potential.
Photos: The impact of war on children in Ukraine’s frontier communities
Europe’s largest land conflict since World War II is transforming devastated Ukrainian frontier communities like Kalynove, a village 15km (9 miles) from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, and has inflicted both visible and invisible wounds on their youngest residents.
You can view a photo essay on how the Ukraine war has affected young children here.
Sweden will ‘contribute’ to new Ukraine arms shipment plans
Defence Minister Pal says Sweden will contribute to efforts to boost arms supplies to Ukraine following Trump’s decision to supply billions of dollars of weapons, including Patriot missile systems, via NATO.
“We welcome the American decision to make possible increased sanctions against Russia and to pave the way for the delivery of Patriots and other weapon systems to Ukraine,” Jonson said in an emailed comment to Reuters.
“Sweden will contribute”, he told the news agency, but did not provide further details about the support.
Life under Russia’s bombs – and all of its side effects
I’m wrenched from my sleep by what feels like an explosion in my stomach, as if a balloon has burst. This feeling is followed immediately by the sound of a real explosion. Now, I’m wide awake.
Phone messages cast a cold blue light into a corner of my room, warnings from our Ukrainian producer Luda that drones and ballistic missiles are incoming. As my eyes adjust to the harsh glow of the phone, I register that it is 2am and, in my deep slumber, I had missed the air raid siren that had gone off almost an hour earlier. Typically, the air siren will sound twice, once to signal the imminent start of an attack and a second time to sound the all clear.
My innate response is to turn over and return to the sanctity of sleep as quickly as I was rudely awakened from it, but a secondary explosion, likely a surface-to-air interception, makes this physically impossible and activates a certain morbid dread in the back of my mind.
Read more here.
Civilian casualties ‘almost doubled’ in second quarter of 2025
Jarno Habicht, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) representative in Ukraine, has said civilian casualties “almost doubled” in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the first three months of the year.
Speaking during a media briefing, he said the UN’s health agency had recorded 2,504 attacks on healthcare since the start of the war, involving 212 deaths and 768 injuries.
“That means that healthcare is not a safe place for the patients and healthcare workers – and it’s a violation of humanitarian law,” said Habicht.
He also sounded an alarm on “problem” behaviours growing during the war, including heavy drinking among adults and new tobacco products used by young people.
Ukraine’s PM Denys Shmyhal resigns
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has reportedly filed a resignation letter, as part of a major governmental reshuffle expected this week.
Shmyhal has been prime minister since 2020, the longest any Ukrainian head of government has served since the country gained independence in 1991.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday nominated Yulia Svyrydenko, first deputy prime minister, for the post.
Svyrydenko, 39, gained prominence this year during fraught negotiations around a rare minerals deal with the US that nearly derailed ties between Kyiv and its most important military ally.
Accountability must be at the heart of any move towards peace: UN
The United Nations has said any peace talks must include full accountability for the countless violations during the war.
“An immediate ceasefire is needed now to end this unbearable suffering,” Liz Throssell, a spokesperson for the office of UN rights chief Volker Turk, told reporters.
“Work on a lasting peace, in line with international law, must intensify – a peace that ensures accountability for gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law,” she said, noting “accountability must be” at the heart of “any move towards ceasefire, towards peace”.
Throssell said Turk wanted any negotiations to focus in the immediate term on ending attacks that affect civilians and protecting the rights of people in occupied territory.
They should also seek to return forcibly transferred or deported children, establish humanitarian corridors across the line of control and bring an end to the torture and ill treatment of prisoners of war and other detainees, she added.
Russia has unleashed record waves of drone and missile attacks over the past few weeks, with the number of Ukrainian civilians killed or wounded in June hitting a three-year high, according to UN figures, with 232 people killed and 1,343 injured.
“July has brought no respite for civilians in Ukraine,” said Throssell. So far this month, at least 139 civilians have reportedly been killed and 791 wounded, she said.
“Intense and sustained attacks using explosive weapons with wide area effects in populated areas are likely to have indiscriminate impacts and as such raise serious concerns as to their compliance with international humanitarian law,” said Throssell.
Lavrov says Russia wants to understand Trump’s motivation behind 50-day ultimatum
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Russia would like more clarity on Trump’s threat to impose severe tariffs on Russia unless a peace deal is reached within 50 days.
“We, of course, want to understand what is behind this statement [by Trump] – 50 days. It used to be 24 hours, it used to be 100 days, we have been through all of this, and we really want to understand what motivates the president of the United States,” Lavrov told journalists following a Shanghai Cooperation Organization Foreign Ministers meeting in the Chinese city Tianjin.
‘Pure hypocrisy’: Navalnaya slams Italian invitation for pro-Kremlin maestro
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny who died in an Arctic penal colony last year, has called on Italian authorities to cancel a concert by Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.
A personal friend of Putin, Gergiev heads the world famous Bolshoi Theatre. He has been shunned by Western countries since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 for failing to denounce the war, but he is to conduct what organisers have described as an “unforgettable symphony concert” on July 27 near Naples, in southern Italy.
“As Putin’s cultural ambassador, Valery Gergiev implements Russia’s soft power policy. One of his current goals is to normalise the war and Putin’s regime,” Navalnaya wrote in an editorial in Italian daily La Repubblica.
She described the concert at the former royal palace of Reggia di Caserta as a “test balloon” for boosting Putin’s image in Europe, noting that it was being praised by Russian authorities.
“Forgive me, but if the Kremlin is happy with you in 2025, then you are definitely doing something wrong,” Navalnaya wrote. “Any attempt to turn a blind eye to who Valery Gergiev is when he’s not conducting, and to pretend that this is merely a cultural event with no political dimension … is pure hypocrisy.”
Vincenzo De Luca, head of the Campania region that includes the Reggia di Caserta, defended the concert, saying “culture is a tool to keep dialogue open”.
He noted an Israeli conductor was also on the summer programme, adding, “We don’t ask those men of culture to answer for the political choices of those who lead their respective countries.”
Photos: Aftermath of drone attack on Russia’s Voronezh
For many Ukrainians, 50 days ‘is a very long time’
Ukrainians have welcomed Trump’s pledge of more US-made weapons being sent to Ukraine, even though it is not clear what exactly they will get and how quickly.
The timeframe for further arms deliveries that European countries have agreed to pay for is crucial. Still, some Ukrainians felt the US decision will not change the course of the war.
“If we take the situation as a whole, it hardly looks like this will fundamentally change anything,” Kyiv resident Oles Oliinyk, 33, told The AP.
Nina Tokar, 70, was also sceptical. “I have very little faith in [Trump]. He says one thing today, and tomorrow he may say something else.”
A Ukrainian army officer fighting in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region told the news agency the 50-day delay on sanctions “is a very long time.”
“They [the Russians] will say, ‘Give us two more weeks,’ and then in two weeks, ‘Give us another week.’ It will drag on until October or November,” he told The AP, using only the call sign “Cat” in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military.