East Ukraine

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for immediate de-escalation and diplomacy in the Middle East and Ukraine. • He demanded that all parties cease actions harming civilians and restore navigational rights in the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab. • These calls for a ceasefire and humanitarian access aim to protect civilian lives and stabilize international shipping lanes.

The strikes come after it was revealed that Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s plane was almost hit by a drone when leaving Moldova this weekMeanwhile, Reuters reported that Nato allies interrupted a Russian plot training to unleash a secret weapon designed to disable critical undersea cables without leaving any fingerprints.Two 1,400 km subsea fiber-optic cables linking Svalbard to mainland Norway lie as deep as 2,700 metres below the sea’s surface. They carry ⁠vast amounts of satellite data downloaded at the SvalSat satellite ground station, the world’s largest and part of NASA’s Near Space Network. Continue reading...

Zelenskyy says dozens more injured as strikes leave thousands without electricity in Odesa regionOn behalf of the Irish presidency in the EU Council, Ireland’s defence minister Helen McEntee said the talks in Wicklow come “at a moment of profound challenge for all of us in terms of defence and security,” with closer cooperation needed “more than ever.”Ukraine, maritime security, and resilience against hybrid and cyber threats will be top of the agenda today, she says. Continue reading...

Attack hundreds of miles from border one of deadliest launched by Kyiv as it steps up campaign to weaken Moscow’s economyA “massive” Ukrainian drone strike on an industrial city deep inside Russia killed at least 13 people, according to the local mayor, as Kyiv steps up its campaign of long-range strikes on targets far from the frontline.Kyiv said it hit the Taneko refinery in the industrial city of Nizhnekamsk, around 1,200km (750 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The raid was part of a campaign to reduce the “military potential of the Russian aggressor,” Ukraine’s general staff said. Footage circulating online appeared to show smoke rising from the refinery in the city. Continue reading...

Huge missile and drone attack on Ukraine as Poland’s Tusk prepares to travel to impact site discovered in east of countryAt least 13 people were killed and dozens injured in another night of heavy Russian attacks on Ukraine, with neighbouring Poland also investigating an reported airspace violation and explosion on its territory.Russia launched 74 missiles and 284 drones against targets in Ukraine, with casualties reported primarily in Dnipropetrovsk and Lviv regions. Continue reading...

• UN human rights experts condemned the M23 armed group on Tuesday for orchestrating a "reign of terror" in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. • The Rwanda-backed group is accused of systemic sexual torture and violence targeting civilians within the territories it controls. • UNICEF has joined the call for an immediate end to these attacks, emphasizing the urgent need to protect children and humanitarian facilities.

• On July 2, 2026, international attention is focused on the ongoing implementation of the Doha talks between the United States and Iran. • Diplomatic efforts are currently centered on executing the Lebanon framework agreement and maintaining ceasefire arrangements to stabilize the region. • Security and freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz remain critical priorities amid evolving military operations and a dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

• A severe heatwave moving east across Europe caused power outages in Ukraine on Monday and left thousands of homes without electricity in the Paris region. • Extreme temperatures led to new record-highs in Slovakia and a record 40°C in Vienna, Austria, on Sunday. • The crisis is particularly acute in Ukraine, where the energy network was already severely strained by repeated Russian attacks.

Wave of almost 600 drones launched across 14 regions, after Moscow’s deadly three-day attack on Ukraine last weekAt least four people have been killed in a large-scale retaliatory strike by Ukraine on Russia’s regions, including Moscow, Russian authorities have said.The wave of almost 600 Ukrainian drones struck overnight across 14 Russian regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula and the Black and Azov seas, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday, with the region around the capital among the worst-hit. Continue reading...

Dnipro bore the brunt of the attacks but Odesa and Kharkiv were also targeted in largest onslaught for several daysRussian drone and missile strikes across Ukraine killed at least seven people overnight, including five in the city of Dnipro, Ukrainian local authorities have said.Reports say that at least 34 people have been injured in the strikes, which lasted “practically all night”, according to the Dnipropetrovsk regional head, Oleksandr Hanzha. The bodies of four people were found in the ruins of a house destroyed in the attacks, and workers continued to search for bodies on Saturday morning. Continue reading...

Representatives from EU countries are meeting in Luxembourg todayJust as expected.Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares has just confirmed that Spain, Slovenia and Ireland have requested a discussion on suspending the EU’s association treaty with Israel at today’s meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers.“European Union has to say today very clearly to Israel that that change is needed. That’s not the right path, and that while Israel continues in that path of a permanent perpetual war, we will not be able to [run our relations] in the same way.” Continue reading...

• Russian forces launched coordinated attacks across multiple fronts in Donetsk and Luhansk regions on April 17-18, capturing several villages and pushing Ukrainian defenses back by up to 3 kilometers in key sectors. • Ukraine's military command reports increased use of glide bombs and artillery strikes, with casualty figures on both sides rising significantly; Ukrainian officials estimate Russian forces have committed 50,000 additional troops to the spring campaign. • Military analysts warn the offensive marks Russia's most sustained push since winter 2023, potentially threatening critical Ukrainian supply lines and regional logistics hubs.

More than 100 injured across country after Russia launches nearly 700 drones and dozens of ballistic and cruise missilesEurope live – latest updatesRussia has carried out its deadliest attack against Ukraine this year, killing at least 17 people, and injuring more than 100, in a wave of drone and missile strikes across the country.Nine people died in the southern port city of Odesa, with four killed in Kyiv, including a 12-year-old boy. There were three fatalities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Another person died in Zaporizhzhia oblast. Continue reading...

Kremlin proposes 32-hour ceasefire starting on Saturday afternoon – with Ukraine expected to agree to planVladimir Putin has declared a 32-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over the Orthodox Easter weekend, after an earlier call from Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pause.The president’s decree, released by the Kremlin on Thursday, orders Russian forces to observe a ceasefire starting on 4pm Saturday and lasting until the end of Sunday. Continue reading...

• Russia launched a major offensive across multiple fronts in eastern Ukraine on April 7, with forces advancing in the Donbas region and attempting to encircle Ukrainian positions near Pokrovsk. • The US State Department announced a $1.2 billion military assistance package including air defense systems, artillery ammunition, and counter-drone equipment to bolster Ukrainian defenses. • Ukrainian officials report heavy casualties but say their forces are holding key defensive lines; NATO allies expressed concern about Russian momentum and pledged additional support.

Ukrainian president says Russia unlikely to accept – ‘for them, nothing is sacred’; Australian police arrest army reservist for joining war. What we know on day 1,504Ukraine’s president has renewed his offer to Russia of a mutual ceasefire on strikes against energy infrastructure. “If Russia is ready to stop strikes on our energy infrastructure, we will respond in kind,” he said. “This proposal has been conveyed to the Russian side through the Americans.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered last week to observe a ceasefire for Easter, which Orthodox adherents mark on Sunday (13 April) in Russia and Ukraine.In his remarks on Monday, after an overnight attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa killed three people and injured at least 16, Zelenskyy said Russia appeared unwilling to agree to the ceasefire. “We have repeatedly proposed to Russia a ceasefire at least for Easter,” he said. “But for them, all times are the same. Nothing is sacred.”Ukrainian drones attacked the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s oil shipping terminal in southern Russia early on Monday, damaging a mooring point and setting four oil tanks on fire, the Russian defence ministry claimed. The Ukrainian army said it had attacked a different terminal in the port of Novorossiysk – without mentioning the CPC, which did not immediately comment. The CPC pipeline handles about 1% of the world’s oil supplies, as well as about 80% of Kazakhstan’s oil exports.A reservist in the Australian army has been charged after allegedly working as a drone operator for Ukraine. The 25-year-old man from Felixstow, in the South Australian city of Adelaide, was charged by the Australian Federal Police with working for a foreign military without authorisation, the AAP news agency reported. It is the first time someone has been charged with the offence, with the man facing up to two decades in jail if found guilty. Australian laws limit the work defence personnel can perform with a foreign military, government or company without authorisation. The man allegedly travelled to Ukraine in May 2025 and returned to Australia in January 2026.A Russian ship carrying wheat believed to have sunk in the Sea of Azov after a drone attack has been found and towed to shore, Russia’s state news agency Tass said on Monday. The death toll has risen to three, it added. Crew abandoned the ship last Friday and made it to shore on Monday, according to Russian reports.Russia jailed on Monday a former governor of the Kursk border region, where Ukraine’s army broke through in 2024, for 14 years over alleged kickbacks for government contracts related to the construction of fortifications. Since August 2024, the Kremlin has gone after top regional and military officials for failing to stop the incursion – a massive embarrassment for Vladimir Putin. Alexei Smirnov, the former Kursk governor, was “sentenced to 14 years in prison and a fine of 400 million rubles [£3.8m/US$5m]”, a court statement said. Another former Kursk governor, Roman Starovoyt, who led the region until just before the Ukrainian breakthrough, died last year by alleged suicide – a fate that regularly befalls officials who run foul of the Russian president. Continue reading...

‘Ukraine has expertise concerning sea waterways, and the defence and reopening of maritime traffic,’ says president. What we know on day 1,500Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered on Thursday to provide Ukraine’s expertise in dealing with freedom of navigation in the Black Sea to those countries considering how to keep the strait of Hormuz open amid the conflict in the Middle East. The Ukraine president, speaking in his nightly video address, said the foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, had taken part in a virtual meeting devoted to reopening the strait of Hormuz, attended by about 40 countries. “Ukraine has relevant expertise concerning sea waterways, and the defence and reopening of maritime traffic,” he said. “If [our] partners are ready to act, we will consider how we can strengthen them, how we can apply our expertise, knowledge and technological potential.”Russia’s army recorded no territorial gains on the frontline in Ukraine in March, for the first time in two and half years, AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed. The Russian army’s advances have been slowing since late 2025 due to Kyiv’s localised breakthroughs in the south-east, and losing ground in March and February on the southern section of the frontline, between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the analysis showed. Across the entire frontline, Ukrainian forces managed to recapture 9 sq km in March.North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, gave “field guidance” at the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations, which is under construction , state media KCNA said. The museum in Pyongyang will be a place to commemorate the fallen soldiers sent to support the Russian army in the war in Ukraine. The construction of the museum is almost complete and Kim said the opening ceremony would be held in mid-April, marking the first anniversary of the deployment of the North Korean soldiers.Six Ukrainian children will be returned from Russia to their families in Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, citing efforts by Melania Trump to expedite their return. A seventh Ukrainian child will also be returned to their family later this month, the first lady’s office said in a statement. Ukraine says almost 20,000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and Belarus, where they are sometimes subject to military training and forced to fight against their own country’s troops.Russian strikes across Ukraine on Thursday killed at least two people and wounded dozens, officials said, as Moscow stepped up its attacks amid stalled peace talks. In the south-eastern Kherson region, Russia attacked “with artillery, mortars and UAVs”, the regional prosecutor’s office said on social media. A 42-year-old man was killed when a drone hit a civilian car, and 16 others – including a teenage boy and three police officers – were wounded in air attacks and artillery shelling, it added. In the Chernihiv region, north of the capital Kyiv, Russia attacked with a ballistic missile, the head of Chernihiv’s military administration, Dmytro Bryzhynsky, said on Telegram.Russian forces maintained a daylong barrage of drone strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, on Thursday, injuring at least two people, local officials said. Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, posted reports on Telegram throughout the day and well into the evening, noting strikes in four city districts. One city official said there had been at least 20 drone strikes. He said some had triggered fires and two people had been injured in an evening attack, including an eight-year-old girl.Russian forces carried out 129 attacks on Ukrainian gas and heating facilities during the recent 151-day heating season, the state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said on Thursday. “The Russians hit pipelines, gas production, underground storage facilities, heating systems – everything that Ukrainians depend on for heat and gas,” it said in a statement. Continue reading...

Ukrainian president says ceasefire could show diplomacy works, while Russia dismisses statement as ‘PR stunt’. What we know on day 1,499Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticised Russia for responding to an offer of an Easter truce with airstrikes. The Ukrainian president said on Wednesday he had spoken to US negotiators about an Easter ceasefire but Russian forces had fired more than 700 drones – many of them Iranian-designed Shaheds – targeting parts of western and central Ukraine in a rare daytime attack. Zelenskyy said: “Russia is responding [to the Easter ceasefire offer] with Shahed drones and continues its terrorist operations against our energy sector, against our infrastructure,” adding that he had discussed ways of advancing diplomacy with US negotiators. “A silence over Easter could be exactly the signal that tells everyone that diplomacy can be successful.” Russia’s foreign ministry rejected Zelenskyy’s proposal as a “PR stunt”.The Ukraine president said talks with US mediators aimed at resolving the four-year conflict were “positive”. The talks were held remotely on Wednesday with the US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the US senator Lindsey Graham, with Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, also joining the call amid the alliance’s continuing tensions with Washington. Zelenskyy thanked the US for its efforts to bring about peace and said the Ukrainian and US teams had agreed to strengthen a document outlining US security guarantees for any future peace deal. “This is precisely what could pave the way for a reliable end to the war.” In recent weeks Zelenskyy said the US had been pressuring Ukraine to make concessions to bring a quick end to the conflict after the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in late February. Talks with Russia are deadlocked over the question of land, with Ukraine refusing to cede to Moscow’s demands that it relinquish the eastern region of Donbas.Russia claimed to have full control of Ukraine’s Luhansk region on Wednesday, which Kyiv denied. Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had taken control of the entire Luhansk region – part of the Donbas – but a Ukrainian military official said small areas were still held by Ukrainian forces. Russia has previously made false claims of advances. The Russian defence ministry said in a statement: “Units have completed the liberation of the Luhansk people’s republic.” But Viktor Tregubov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian forces, said there were no changes to report in that region. “Unfortunately, we only hold small patches [in Luhansk], but those positions have been held by 3rd brigade for a long time,” Trehubov told the Associated Press. Russian claims of progress have in the past proved to be inaccurate. The Moscow-appointed head of Luhansk announced its full capture last June. Ukrainian officials have said that Moscow makes false claims of advances to persuade US negotiators a Russian victory in Ukraine is inevitable.Russia fired hundreds of drones at Ukraine, killing at least five people and destroying a postal terminal, Ukrainian officials have said. Ukraine’s Nova Poshta mailing company published an image on Wednesday of a warehouse in the western city of Lutsk in flames, with thick smoke pouring from its roof. As well firing 339 drones at Ukraine overnight, Russia launched more than 360 drones during the day, the Ukrainian air force said. One drone killed four people in the central Cherkasy region, while an earlier drone strike on a car in Ukraine’s frontline Kherson region killed a woman and badly wounded two other people, regional authorities said. Continue reading...

Fatih Birol says world is losing 11m barrels of oil per day, more than the 1973 and 1979 energy shocks combined; IRGC threatens to completely close strait of Hormuz if Trump acts on infrastructure threatsIran vows to destroy Middle East water and energy facilities if US attacks power plantsAFP is reporting that stocks have fallen while oil prices rose after Donald Trump and Iranian leaders traded threats over the key strait of Hormuz and Israel said the Middle East war could last several more weeks.The escalation hammered stock markets, with Seoul and Tokyo – which had been the standout performers before the war started – taking the brunt of the selling, shedding as much as six and five percent, respectively, at one point.Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said “threats and terror” are strengthening Iranian unity, after Donald Trump yesterday warned he would “obliterate” Iranian power plants if the strait of Hormuz is not opened within 48 hours.The price of oil increased early on Monday after Trump’s 48-hour ultimatum for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz or face decimation of its energy infrastructure – and Israel warned the war would continue for several more weeks. Shortly after the 2200 GMT open, the price of West Texas Intermediate – the US benchmark crude – for May delivery was up 1.8% to just over $100 a barrel, before retreating slightly.The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, gave an interview to NBC News earlier today. When asked if Trump was “winding” down the war or “escalating” it, Bessent said: “They are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes you have to escalate to de-escalate.”In the same NBC interview, Bessent said the US government has “plenty of money” to fund the war against Iran, but is requesting supplemental funding from Congress to ensure the military is well supplied in the future.Lebanon’s health ministry said Sunday that 118 children and 79 women are among those killed, and at least 2,786 others have been wounded, according to the Associated Press. The country’s death toll as of Saturday was 1,024 people.The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said he hopes to “re-establish” talks between Iran and the US about Tehran’s nuclear program despite the escalating nature of the conflict. “I’ve been having important conversations here at the White House, and also with Iran. There are some contacts, and we hope to be able to reestablish that line,” Grossi told CBS News.UK prime minister Keir Starmer and US president Trump spoke by phone Sunday evening, according to a statement from the UK government. “The leaders discussed the current situation in the Middle East, and in particular, the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to resume global shipping.”Pope Leo on Sunday said death and suffering caused by the war in the Middle East are a “scandal to the whole human family”, as he once again pleaded for an immediate ceasefire. “We cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering of so many people, the defenseless victims of these conflicts. What hurts them hurts the whole of humanity,” Leo said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square. Continue reading...