Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv warns Belarus it has list of 500 targets ready if Lukashenko joins Putin’s war – UK Times

The Czech Republic’s ammunition initiative for Ukraine has secured contracts to deliver around one million large-calibre rounds in 2026, the defence ministry said.

The scheme supplied about 1.5 million rounds in 2024 and 1.8 million in 2025, despite fears it could be scrapped after prime minister Andrej Babis took office with anti-Ukrainian coalition partners.

The Czech president, Petr Pavel, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine and its defence against Russian aggression.

Backed by countries including Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, the initiative matches donor funding with Czech arms traders sourcing ammunition globally.

Prague said nearly €1bn in financing has already been secured this year, including funds from profits generated by frozen Russian assets.

Over 50 countries have joined in condemning Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine on Saturday at the UN, saying Moscow had reached “a new and appalling level of aggression” by intensifying strikes on civilians and civilian infrastructure.

In a joint statement delivered on Tuesday by Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, ambassador Andrii Melnyk, the countries warned that Russia’s repeated use of nuclear-capable missiles constituted an “unacceptable escalation”.

The signatories included the European Union and a broad group of allied states, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Poland and the Baltic states.

“For the city of Kyiv, this was one of the most devastating attacks recorded to date,” the statement said, referring to the overnight barrage on 23–24 May, when Russian forces launched hundreds of aerial weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones, against Ukrainian cities and regions.

Russia said on Monday it had launched a campaign of “systematic” strikes on Kyiv targeting the Ukrainian capital’s “decision-making centres”.

It urged foreign citizens, diplomats and residents to avoid public buildings and leave the city “as soon as possible”.

Ukraine said the threats by Russia were “nothing short of shameless blackmail” and urged allies to ignore it – a call they have largely heeded.

With its warning to foreign nationals, Moscow is “effectively admitting that its shelling is aimed, among other things, at intimidating the foreign diplomatic corps”, it said.

The Russian government is asking its top banks to shoot down Ukrainian drones themselves, as Moscow struggles to defend key sites from attacks.

The Russian parliament has passed a new law allowing banks, including its largest, Sberbank, and other financial institutions to operate defence systems, Reuters reported.

It also asks banks to arm staff against drones without special forces involvement.

Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the State Duma’s financial committee, said the institutions will handle the cost themselves

Alexander Shokhin, the head of Russia’s most influential business lobby, told Vladimir Putin on Monday that companies were willing to purchase heavier weapons and electronic warfare systems to protect themselves from drone attacks.

Russia has handed Kazakhstan ​four Amur tigers, two of them cubs, to help the country restore its numbers of the animals, president Vladimir Putin said in an article ⁠issued ahead of his visit to the Central Asian nation this week.

Rich in energy resources and critical minerals, Kazakhstan shares a border with Russia and is a close ally of Moscow in a region where China and the United States are also expanding their influence.

The four animals captured ⁠in Russia’s far eastern region of Khabarovsk were flown ​to ⁠Kazakhstan, Putin said on ‌the Kremlin’s website on Tuesday, and are soon to be released into the wild.

Putin is no stranger to using animals to advance diplomatic efforts.

In 2022, Russia sent 30 grey thoroughbred horses to North Korea, and the two nations have steadily boosted ties since the invasion of Ukraine that year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a keen horseman.

Kazakhstan, which is trying to restore the tiger population in Central Asia, sees the Amur tiger as a close relative of the extinct Caspian tiger.

The Russian gesture boosts the country’s tally of the animals previously sent by the Netherlands.

On his visit, Putin will oversee ‌the signing of a ⁠deal for a nuclear power project in Kazakhstan, ⁠which currently has no nuclear power generation, and will discuss efforts ‌to boost the ​transit of Russian oil to ‌China through the country, ​the Kremlin has said.

There were no announcements of diplomatic departures from Kyiv as of Tuesday afternoon.

The European Union, French and Polish delegations publicly said that they would not leave.

The level of security threats posed by Russia to Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities “remains the same as in previous years and months,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement late last night.

Russia had urged foreign citizens, including members of diplomatic missions, to leave the Ukrainian capital as quickly as possible and told residents to steer clear of military and government facilities.

It said that “systemic strikes” on Kyiv were being prepared.

Russia has continuously launched missile and drone attacks on the capital for more than four years, it pointed out, adding that Ukraine was prepared to assist diplomatic missions seeking additional security measures.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met with the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya today and the two leaders discussed Russia’s attempts to draw Belarus deeper into the war against Ukraine.

“Ukraine has ‌never been a threat to ‌Belarus. And ‌we are grateful to those Belarusians ⁠who stand with Ukraine – now, when the fate of both our independence and ‌the independence of ​every nation ‌that borders ⁠Russia is ⁠being decided,” Zelensky ‌said ​on X after ‌the meeting.

Zelensky said Ukraine supports the “aspiration of the Belarusian people to free themselves from Russian interference”.

“We value every expression of support from Belarusians for a free Ukraine, and we know that the day will come when there will once again be good-neighborly relations between our states – based on the real independence of both Ukraine and Belarus from Moscow,” he said, sharing a video of their meeting.

Russian companies are ready to finance the purchase of heavier weapons and electronic systems to defend their plants from drone attacks, Alexander Shokhin, head ⁠of Russia’s most powerful business ​lobby, ⁠has told President Vladimir Putin in a meeting.

According to remarks posted on the Kremlin’s official website, Shokhin said the companies needed “not only ⁠light weapons of 7.62 caliber, but also larger ones, including various electronic warfare systems, laser installations and other calibers”.

“Businesses are ready to finance all this work, but a mechanism is needed where financing schemes are clear. This could be a fund of some sort or another form of targeted financing,” Shokhin – head ‌of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs – was ​quoted saying.

Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, and the EU summoned Russian representatives after Moscow threatened strikes on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and urged foreigners to leave.

Moscow stated on Monday it would strike Ukrainian military targets and ‘decision-making centres’ in Kyiv, a day after one of the city’s heaviest bombardments of the war.

The European Union’s diplomatic service summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires.

Spokesperson Anitta Hipper called Russia’s ‘threat to foreign citizens & diplomats to leave Kyiv is an unacceptable escalation’, urging Moscow to ‘stop hitting civilians’. The EU delegation remains.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide summoned Russia’s ambassador, Nikolai Korchunov, to address “the explicit threats against foreign personnel in Ukraine”.

Sweden summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday evening to “condemn Russia’s false claims of airspace violations in the Nordic-Baltic region and Russia’s threats against Latvia and other countries in the region”.