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Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 23 July 2025:

Fighting

• A Ukrainian drone strike on a private bus killed three people in the Russian-occupied region of Kherson, Russian-appointed local official Vladimir Saldo said. “Three more civilians were injured and are in serious condition,” Saldo added in a Telegram post.
• A Ukrainian attack killed a man in Russia’s Belgorod border region, the local governor said.
• A Russian glide bomb attack killed a 10-year-old boy in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the head of the city’s military administration, Oleksandr Honcharenko, said. The bomb, which caused a fire in an apartment building, also wounded five others, Honcharenko added.
• Russia launched multiple waves of attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region, including two separate drone attacks on a petrol station in the town of Putyvl, which injured 11 people, local officials said.

• The Russian army claimed that it captured the village of Novotoretske in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.
• Ukraine’s military said that a French-supplied Mirage 2000 fighter jet crashed after experiencing equipment failure during an assignment, with the pilot ejecting safely.
• A “massive” Russian drone attack damaged Ukrainian gas production infrastructure, said Sergii Koretski, the CEO of Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz. “Such attacks occur regularly. These objects are of no military significance,” Koretski wrote on Facebook.

Ceasefire

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that there is “no reason to expect” any “miracles” in ceasefire negotiations, as Moscow has yet to confirm if it will participate in peace talks in Istanbul on Wednesday, which were proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week.
• The Kremlin said it hoped talks could be held “this week”, with Peskov adding: “As soon as we are ready, we will make an announcement regarding the dates.”
• Outlining potential topics for discussion with Moscow in Istanbul, Zelenskyy said that Kyiv was ready to “secure the release of our people from captivity and return abducted children, to stop the killings, and to prepare a leaders’ meeting”.

• Ukraine said its ex-defence minister and current secretary of the security council, Rustem Umerov, will head Kyiv’s delegation to the proposed talks.
• Two Russian soldiers in need of medical care were handed over by Ukrainian authorities to be returned home, the Russian Ministry of Defence said. In a statement, the ministry said the release was undertaken on the basis of agreements reached in Istanbul last month.

Politics

• Zelenskyy signed a bill revoking the autonomy of two anticorruption agencies, after it was approved by a vote of 263 to 13 in Ukraine’s parliament.
• The European Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos called the decision a “serious step back” for Kyiv and added that independent bodies were “essential for Ukraine’s EU path”.
• Thousands of people gathered in Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine to protest against the bill, marking the first major protest against the government in more than three years of war against invading Russian troops.
• The bill came a day after Ukraine’s domestic security agency detained two National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine officials on suspicion of links to Russia.

Protests in Ukraine as Zelenskyy signs bill curbing anticorruption agencies

Zelenskyy’s new law weakening anticorruption agencies prompts mass protests across cities

President  Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a controversial bill that hands sweeping authority to Ukraine’s prosecutor general over the country’s independent anticorruption agencies.

This triggered the largest antigovernment protests on Tuesday since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. More protests are expected Wednesday.

The new legislation, now law, gives the prosecutor general power to control and reassign investigations led by the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

NABU and SAPO are two key institutions that have long symbolised Ukraine’s post-Euromaidan commitment to rooting out high-level corruption. Critics say the move strips these agencies of their independence and risks turning them into political tools.

Protests erupted in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odesa, with demonstrators holding signs reading “Veto the law” and “We chose Europe, not autocracy.”

Many saw the legislation as a betrayal of Ukraine’s decade-long push towards democratic governance, transparency, and European Union membership.

Just one day prior, Ukraine’s domestic security agency arrested two NABU officials on suspicion of Russian links and searched other employees.

Zelenskyy, in his Wednesday address, cited these incidents to justify the reform, arguing the agencies had been infiltrated and that cases involving billions of dollars had been stagnant.

“There is no rational explanation for why criminal proceedings worth billions have been hanging for years,” he said.

But watchdogs and international observers see a different danger.

Transparency  International Ukraine warned that the law dismantles critical safeguards, while the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, called it “a serious step back”.

The EU, G7 ambassadors, and other Western backers emphasised that NABU and SAPO’s independence is a prerequisite for financial aid and EU accession.

Despite Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka’s assurances that “all core functions remain intact,” disillusionment is growing.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s former foreign minister, declared it “a bad day for Ukraine”, underscoring the stark choice Zelenskyy faces: Stand with the people – or risk losing their trust, along with Western support.

Russia set for Ukraine talks in Turkiye, says progress will be ‘difficult’

Expectations are low before the latest round of talks between the countries, held amid US pressure to end the war.

A Russian delegation is heading to Istanbul before the latest round of peace talks with Ukrainian counterparts, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed, adding that he expected the negotiations to be “very difficult”.

A Ukrainian delegation arrived in Ankara Wednesday for bilateral meetings with Turkish officials ahead of the talks with Russia in Istanbul later, a Ukrainian diplomatic source told Reuters news agency. Kyiv is ready to take significant steps towards peace and a full ceasefire, the source added.

The  talks, the third iteration in recent months, will be held in the Turkish city on Wednesday evening, Peskov told reporters. The meeting, proposed by Ukraine last week amid sustained United States pressure to reach a ceasefire, will be the first between the sides in more than seven weeks, but expectations of a breakthrough are muted.

“No one expects an easy road,” Peskov told reporters.

Previous rounds of talks have led to a series of exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers.

But they failed to produce a ceasefire, as Russian negotiators refused to drop hardline demands that were not acceptable to Ukraine, including ceding four Ukrainian regions Russia claims as its own and rejecting Western military support.

No ‘miraculous breakthroughs’ expected

Peskov said the talks would cover the positions outlined in draft memoranda presented by each side, as well as prisoner exchanges. On Tuesday, he had said there was no reason “to hope for some miraculous breakthroughs”, saying such an outcome was “hardly possible”.

Rustem Umerov, a former defence minister and current secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, will lead Kyiv’s delegation, while Russia’s delegation will again be led by presidential adviser and former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky.

Ukraine previously complained that Medinsky was not a real decision-maker, accusing Russia of sending officials to the talks who were not empowered to make decisions to end the conflict.

Zelenskyy outlines modest ambitions

In a statement posted on social media platform X on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outlined his country’s goals from the negotiations.

They  did not include talks over a detailed ceasefire agreement, but instead proposed making arrangements for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which could, in turn, lead to an end to the war.

He said Ukraine sought “to secure the release of our people from captivity and return of abducted children, to stop the killings, and to prepare a leaders’ meeting aimed at truly bringing this war to an end”.

“Our position is fully transparent,” he said. “Ukraine never wanted this war, and it is Russia that must end the war that it started.”

 In another statement on Tuesday, he said work was being carried out to prepare rounds of prisoner exchanges agreed to at the previous talks with Russia.

“Throughout this spring and summer, we have managed to significantly intensify the exchange process,” he said.  “Among those freed from captivity are people who had been listed as missing, as well as those who have been held in Russian prisons and camps since before the full-scale war.”

‘Keeping the dialogue going’

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said there was no expectation that the talks would “be especially productive”.

“They are most likely going to retread the grounds that previous rounds of talks have trod, which is essentially …facilitating the exchange of prisoners, the handing over of soldiers’ remains.”

He said Kyiv was also eager to raise the issue of the return of children who had been taken from occupied territories by Russia.

“But I don’t think there’s any expectation here that these talks are going to be any significant breakthrough towards peace,” he said.

“It’s likely to be just keeping the dialogue going and making sure that there is progress on at least those small fundamental areas.”

Bloodshed continues

The talks are due to be held as Russia continues its bloody offensive against its neighbour, with its forces mounting sustained efforts to break through at eastern and northeastern points on the 1,000km (620-mile) front line.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had captured the settlement of Varachyne in Ukraine’s northeast Sumy region, about 6km (3.7 miles) from the border. In recent weeks, Putin announced his intention to create a “buffer zone” in the Sumy region by occupying Ukrainian border areas.

In other recent violence, Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed a 66-year-old woman overnight, the dpa news agency reported, quoting regional military governor Oleksandr Prokudin. Three people, including two 13-year-olds, were injured, he said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Moscow had launched 71 drones and decoys overnight, of which 45 were intercepted or brought down, the agency reported

‘Unbearable’: Ukrainians deported by Russia, stranded at Georgia border

Ukrainian deportees being held in a cramped Georgian border facility are trapped between two countries.

In a damp, crowded basement at the southern entrance of the Dariala Gorge, the mountainous no-man’s-land between Georgia and Russia, more than 90 Ukrainian deportees from Russia are being held.

The deportees at the Georgian border checkpoint can only step outside when they need the toilet, and they must go in pairs under the watchful eyes of Georgian border guards.

They are here because they can’t cross the border directly from Russia to Ukraine due to the war, and Georgia refuses to let them in because many have criminal backgrounds, so they are stranded. Some have now been living in the basement for nearly two months.

Most of these men – along with a handful of women – are former prisoners in Russia who have been deported after serving their sentences, but some have been expelled for other reasons, such as problems with their immigration documents.

On Sunday night, July 20, they mounted a protest.

“We’re not allowed outside!” one of the men shouted as they were surrounded by security personnel on the premises.

“We’re being tortured here,” called another.

“It’s damp, there’s [disabled people] here without medical attention, there’s nothing here at all,” he added.