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Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 16 July 2025:

Fighting

• A Russian attack on the Kupiansk district in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed two people in their late 60s and injured two others, the regional prosecutor’s office said on social media.
• A Russian artillery attack on the outskirts of the Velykopysarivska community in Ukraine’s Sumy region killed a 50-year-old resident, regional authorities said.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its troops had occupied the villages of Voskresenka and Petrivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
• A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s western city of Voronezh wounded 27 people, local officials said. The city’s mayor, Sergei Petrin, said a kindergarten was damaged and children were being temporarily transferred to neighbouring facilities.
• Russian air defence units destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones over the Voronezh region, Governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.
• A drone crashed in an industrial zone in Russia’s Yelets city in the Lipetsk region, injuring one person, regional Governor Igor Artamonov said on Telegram.
• The governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said a woman was injured in a drone attack on the village of Sluchevsk.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said on Telegram that its air defence units destroyed 55 Ukrainian drones overnight across five Russian regions and the Black Sea.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that Ukraine “shouldn’t target” the Russian capital Moscow, and that he was “on nobody’s side…I want to stop the killing”.
• Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev dismissed what he described as Trump’s “theatrical” 50-day “ultimatum” for the Kremlin to end its war on Ukraine after the US president announced a deal to supply more weapons to Kyiv via NATO, and threatened tariffs on Russia.
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Trump’s remarks on Monday were “very serious”, adding that “some of them are addressed personally to President Putin”.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said that the US president’s “change of posture” towards Russia was “obviously welcome”.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced his resignation a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was offering the job to Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. Shmyhal is expected to become Ukraine’s defence minister.
• The European Union did not approve a new round of sanctions on Russia after Slovakia requested a delay in the vote.
• 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”.
• US citizen Daniel Martindale, who lived in Ukraine and passed information to pro-Russian forces that helped to target Ukrainian troops, has received a Russian passport in Moscow.

Weapons

• Several countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, said they would take part in the US scheme for NATO member states to buy US weapons for use by Ukraine.
• Prime Minister Petr Fiala has said the Czech Republic would not participate in the NATO weapons purchase plan, adding that his country is focused “on other projects and paths” to help Ukraine, including “through the ammunition initiative”.

Trump says Ukraine should not target Moscow

US president’s remarks follow report saying he encouraged Kyiv to step up strikes inside Russian territory.

United States President Donald Trump has said Ukraine should not target Moscow after he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if Kyiv could strike the Russian capital if he provided long-range weaponry.

Trump made the comments after The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that the US president had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up strikes deep inside Russian territory during their phone call on July 4.

The report, which cited two unnamed people familiar with the discussion, said Trump had also asked his Ukrainian counterpart whether he could hit Moscow and St Petersburg if supplied with weapons with enough range.

In response to a question on Tuesday about whether Zelenskyy should target Moscow, Trump told reporters at the White House that he should not.

Trump also told reporters that “we’re not looking” at providing Kyiv with longer-range missiles.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to confirm the discussion in a statement provided to multiple media outlets, but said it had been taken out of context.

“President Trump was merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing,” Leavitt said in the statement provided to outlets including ABC News and USA Today.

In a sharp pivot in his stance on the war, Trump on Monday announced that he would supply more weapons to Ukraine, and threatened to impose steep secondary tariffs on Russia’s trade partners if a peace deal is not reached within 50 days.

After returning to the White House in January, Trump repeatedly cast Washington’s support for Ukraine as a drain on the US and accused Zelenskyy of hindering efforts to make peace.

But the US president’s tone has shifted in recent weeks amid growing frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to negotiate an end to his invasion.

On Tuesday, the Kremlin said Trump’s recent statements, including the threat of sanctions, were “very serious” and that it would need time to assess the situation.

“We certainly need time to analyse what was said in Washington,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.

“And if and when President Putin deems it necessary, he will definitely comment.”

‘North Korea is now a more important ally for Russia than Iran or China’

Pyongyang is reportedly planning to deploy thousands more troops to back Russia, the latest sign ties are being strengthened amid war.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wept as he threw himself over the coffin of a soldier draped in the national flag, one of six or so who were lined up in a row.

Photographs of him mourning were shown at a gala performance at a theatre in Pyongyang late last month, celebrating the anniversary of a mutual defence pact signed by Kim and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The soldiers had been killed in action fighting alongside Russian forces in the war against Ukraine.

While  Ukraine’s NATO backers have refused to deploy boots on the ground, North Korean fighters have participated in fierce battles over the region of Kursk in western Russia, partly occupied by a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“North Korea is now a more important ally for Russia than Iran or China,” said Oleg Ignatov, senior Russia analyst for Crisis Group.

“North Korea supplies Russia with ammunition and some types of heavy weapons. As for the North Korean soldiers, Russian sources say they are professional and disciplined. At the beginning of the Kursk operation, they lacked the modern combat skills required for this type of war, which involves the use of large numbers of drones, but they quickly adapted.”

Looking ahead, there are signs that the Russian-North Korean alliance is advancing.

Two weeks ago, Ukrainian intelligence sources told CNN that North Korea was planning to triple its deployment along the front lines with Ukraine by dispatching up to 30,000 more soldiers.

Russia  welcomes the additional manpower as, according to a count kept by the Russian independent outlet Mediazona and the BBC, Moscow’s army has suffered more than 116,000 losses since launching a full-scale war on its neighbour in 2022.

Some  observers say North Korea, a famously isolated nation, also has plenty to gain.

“From a military operations point of view, North Korea now has had on-the-ground exposure to modern warfare, which South Korea does not,” said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow with the Stimson Center’s 38 North and POSCO fellow with the East-West Center.

“From a policy point of view, North Korea’s improved ties with Russia give Kim Jong Un greater strategic manoeuvrability, due to immediate benefits like Russia’s oil and wheat shipments and possible transfers of military technology to North Korea – to the longer-term opportunities that Kim Jong Un appears to see by nurturing this relationship.”

She added that this all gives North Korea “little to no incentive to engage the United States, much less South Korea”.

“North Korea’s relationship with Russia gives Kim stronger leverage vis-a-vis China, which could have broader regional implications in the longer term,” she said.

Russia has reopened long-dormant supply chains to the North, ignoring international sanctions.

“The countries have resumed traffic along the Khasan-Tumen line,” Neimat Khalilov, a political scientist and member of the Digoria expert club, told Al Jazeera, referring to the Russian border with North Korea.

“Russia supplies coal, fertilisers and iron ore via railway crossings, while [North Korea] supplies seafood and rare earth metals … Separately, it is worth noting the modernisation of the [North Korean] port of Rajin, which is taking place with the participation of the Russian Federation. The goal of the project is to make the port an alternative to South Korean hubs, thereby increasing cargo flow through Vladivostok to North Korea.”

‘A qualitatively new phase’

The modern state of North Korea owes its existence to the Soviet Union, which routed Japanese colonial troops occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, while US forces did the same in the south. A Soviet and Chinese-backed Communist state was established, and the USSR remained a close ally throughout the Cold War.

But after the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s, North Korea lost its crucial backer and a vital source of aid, plunging the country into a catastrophic famine. Relations with the new Russia were not hostile, but not particularly close. In the 2000s and 2010s, Russia even joined the global sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear programme and alleged human rights abuses.

However, Khalilov said, “With the start of the SMO [the war in Ukraine, which is known as a ‘special military operation’ in Russia], they entered a qualitatively new phase.”

Pyongyang made its position clear from the beginning of the war in early 2022, as one of only five governments to vote against condemning Moscow’s invasion at an emergency session of the UN. The others were Belarus, Eritrea, Syria and Russia itself.

“In 2023, former Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the DPRK, and a few months later, as part of the North Korea-Russia summit, DPRK leader Kim Jong Un made an official visit to Russia, where he held talks with Vladimir Putin,” said Khalilov. “Particular attention is drawn to the change in rhetoric: joint statements increasingly include formulations about ‘common values’ and ‘strategic partnership’.”

Khalilov noted that the deployment of about 15,000 North Korean forces on the Kursk battlefield was provided for by Article 4 of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, signed by Putin and Kim last June. This allowed one country to provide “military and other assistance” to the other in case of foreign invasion.

The Kremlin initially denied claims made late last year by Ukraine and South Korean intelligence that North Koreans were fighting alongside Russian troops. The Russian command appeared to have undertaken some effort to hide it.

In December, The Guardian reported that North Korean soldiers wounded in Kursk were being treated in secret at Russian hospitals, while the soldiers were issued fake IDs identifying them as ethnic minorities from Russia’s Far East, should they die on the battlefield.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that North Korean soldiers risked being executed by their own side if capture was imminent.

It was only in April that Russia and the North officially confirmed that their troops were fighting side-by-side, with Putin thanking “our Korean friends” for acting out of “solidarity, a sense of justice, and true comradeship” during the battle for Kursk. At the same time, Kim praised his soldiers on their “sacred mission.”

Russian officials have since promised North Korea that soldiers killed would be honoured in Kursk by erecting monuments and renaming streets after them.

Political scientist Fyodor Krasheninnikov has suggested the initial secrecy was sustained at North Korea’s request.

“They have their own internal logic – their own propaganda, their own ideology,” he told the exiled Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. “They needed to fit this into their domestic messaging. I think they asked the Russians not to bring it up. And once they figured out how to spin it at home, they decided the time had come to say, ‘Yes, that was us.’”

Russia monitoring Western weapons deliveries to Ukraine, Kremlin says

Moscow also confirms that no phone call is currently planned between Presidents Trump and Putin.

Moscow  is closely monitoring the West’s supply of weapons to Ukraine, the Kremlin’s spokesperson says shortly after United States President Donald Trump announced the resumption of arms deliveries to Kyiv.

Dmitry Peskov also noted on Wednesday that a new phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was not currently planned but could quickly be arranged, according to Russian news reports.

The comments from the Kremlin came two days after the US president showed growing impatience with Russia over its war in Ukraine.

In his sharpest rebuke of Moscow so far, Trump announced on Monday that Putin had until early September, 50 days, to accept a peace deal or his country would face steep US sanctions.

Trump said they would be secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s trading partners in a bid to isolate it from the global economy.

Russia’s approach, in the meantime, is to “keep calm and carry on” in the face of Trump’s threats, experts said. There’s no certainty the pressure will push Putin towards ending the war.

On the campaign trail before November’s presidential election, Trump boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.

However, after at least six phone conversations between Trump and Putin as well as several meetings between US officials and officials from Russia and Ukraine, no ceasefire has been reached.

“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said of his frustration with Putin.

The  US leader added that he would supply more weapons to Ukraine with European allies buying “billions and billions” of dollars of US military equipment to be transferred to Kyiv.

Patriot  air defence systems are included in the plan, which Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian missile and drone attacks.

Trump, however, has said Ukraine should not target Moscow after he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if Kyiv could strike the Russian capital if he provided long-range weaponry.

Trump made the comments after The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that Trump had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up strikes deep inside Russian territory during their phone call on July 4.

The report, which quoted two unnamed people familiar with the discussion, said Trump had also asked his Ukrainian counterpart whether he could hit Moscow and St Petersburg if supplied with weapons with enough range.

In response to a question on Tuesday about whether Zelenskyy should target Moscow, Trump told reporters at the White House that he should not.

Overnight, the Russian military launched 400 drones and one ballistic missile, targeting cities across Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and Vinnytsia.

The strikes injured at least 15 people and damaged energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.

Power was down for 80,000 families in Kryvyi Rih and other parts of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian air force stated it had successfully shot down most of the drones but 12 targets were hit by 57 drones and the missile.

In recent weeks, Moscow has increased its aerial bombardments against Ukraine with daily record numbers of drones and missiles being fired.

“Russia does not change its strategy, and to effectively counter this terror, we need a systemic strengthening of defences: more air defences, more interceptor [missiles], more determination to make Russia feel our response,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Wednesday.

After starting his second presidential term in January, Trump sought to portray Washington’s support for Ukraine as a drain on US resources.

Despite Trump’s more critical stance against Moscow this week, some American politicians continue to express concerns about his approach, warning that Putin could use the 50-day tariff deadline to capture more Ukrainian territory.

In a report that has yet to be independently verified, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that its army seized the settlement of Novokhatske in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.