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Here’s where things stand on Saturday 26 July 2025:
Fighting
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces were facing fierce fighting around the city of Pokrovsk in the country’s east, a logistics hub near where Russia’s military has been announcing the near-daily capture of Ukrainian villages.
- Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, described Pokrovsk and five other sectors as among the most difficult theatres of war along the 1,000km (620-mile) front with Russia.
- Earlier on Friday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence announced the capture of two villages on either side of Pokrovsk – Zvirove to the west and Novoekonomichne to the east. A third village – Novotoretske – near Pokrovsk was declared “liberated” by Moscow earlier this week.
- President Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces were also “continuing to act” in border areas in the northern Sumy region, where Russian troops have gained a foothold in recent weeks.
- According to the popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState, Kyiv’s forces have retaken the previously lost village of Kindrativka in Sumy.
- Moscow is trying to establish in Sumy what Russia’s President Vladimir Putin calls a “buffer zone” between Russia and Ukraine.
Weapons and military aid
- Zelenskyy has toured a local factory producing interceptor drones, increasingly seen as a solution to protecting Ukrainian cities from Russian air attacks, and said a goal had been set to make up to 1,000 of the weapons each day. He said interceptor drones had proved efficient at downing waves of Russian attack drones.
- Zelenskyy also said his country was working to secure international funding for 10 Patriot air defence systems, following a deal that allows European states to buy weaponry from the United States and donate it to Kyiv.
- The US announced that it is providing a $4bn loan guarantee for the purchase of American military equipment by Poland, which borders both Russia and war-torn Ukraine.
- Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the 40-year-old Admiral Kuznetsov, is likely to be sold or scrapped, the chairman of Russia’s state shipbuilding corporation Andrei Kostin told the Kommersant newspaper.
- US President Donald Trump said he is looking at secondary sanctions on Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
- Acting US ambassador to the UN, Dorothy Shea, urged all countries, specifically naming China, to stop exports to Russia of dual-use goods that Washington says contribute to Russia’s industrial base and enable its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine.
- In response, China’s deputy UN ambassador, Geng Shuang, said China did not start the war in Ukraine, is not a party to the conflict, has never provided lethal weapons, and has always “strictly controlled dual-use materials, including the export of drones”. Geng also urged the US to “stop shifting blame” in the conflict.
- The European Parliament is considering proposals to speed up the European Union’s phasing out of Russian gas by one year, to January 2027, the Reuters news agency reported, as officials in Brussels prepare to negotiate a legally-binding ban.
- Russia-backed Indian oil refiner Nayara Energy has named Sergey Denisov as its new chief executive, after the firm’s previous CEO, Alessandro des Dorides, resigned following European Union sanctions that targeted the company, Reuters reports.
Ceasefire
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he may speak to Trump and President Putin this week to see if a leaders’ meeting in Istanbul is possible to discuss a ceasefire in Ukraine.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a summit between Putin and Zelenskyy could only happen as a final step to seal a peace deal, adding that it was unlikely that such a meeting could occur by the end of August, as Ukraine had proposed.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukraine’s top anticorruption investigator Semen Kryvonos said he did not expect attempts to derail his agency’s work to end, despite an abrupt U-turn by Zelenskyy on curbing the independence of two anticorruption agencies that fuelled rare wartime protests. Kryvonos said he was taken aback by those attempts.
- Trump said he would like to maintain the limits on US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments set in the 2010 New START agreement, which expires in February. Trump made the comments as he exited the White House on a trip to Scotland.
Regional developments
- Georgia hosted major multinational military exercises with NATO troops, despite its government facing growing accusations of drifting away from a pro-Western path and edging closer to Russia’s orbit amid the war in Ukraine.
Buildings burn as another wave of Russian attacks hits Ukraine
At least three people have died following another widespread air bombardment by Russia.
Two people were killed in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, the regional head, Serhiy Lysak, said, while a woman died of her injuries after being rescued from a burning apartment in Odesa, according to emergency services.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said 10 regions of Ukraine, including a number of cities, were hit in the overnight assault. Ukraine’s military said more than 340 explosive and dummy drones and 35 cruise and ballistic missiles were used.
Although it said 90% of these were shot down, suppressed electronically or lost, more than 30 got through.
One of the strikes hit a residential block in the southern city of Odesa, causing a fire on its upper floors.
Rescuers said five people were rescued from burning apartments – including the woman who later died. At least another six people were wounded.
The eastern city of Pavlohrad was subjected to what Serhiy Lysak called a “hellish night and morning”.
He said there had been “explosion after explosion” caused by drone and missile strikes, adding it had been the biggest-scale attack on the city to date.
Targets reportedly included industrial sites, a fire department, a clinic, a school, and a cultural institution.
Zelensky wrote of “important infrastructure” being damaged there. A missile plant is based in Pavlohrad, and the city has been struck in the past by Russia.
Russia’s defence ministry said it struck military-industrial enterprises that produce components for missiles and drones overnight, but did not specify where.
The north-eastern city of Sumy was also attacked. Zelensky said critical infrastructure had been damaged, cutting power to several thousand families.
There have also been strikes – including with guided bombs – on another town in the region, Shostka, which lies less than 50km (30 miles) from the Russian border. Officials said a “targeted hit” there had caused a fire. They did not say what had been struck.
Unverified video footage posted online purportedly of the incident shows a fierce fire and billowing clouds of grey smoke.
Zelensky once again stressed the importance of bolstering air defences, both in terms of supplies from allies, but also producing them in Ukraine, including more interceptor drones.
The Trump administration recently moved to free up weapons supplies, even if some of these – including much-needed Patriot air defences – will be paid for by other Nato allies.