Ukraine-Russia war latest: China told Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, says Zelensky – UK Times

Russia pummeled Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with ballistic missiles this morning, officials said. Reuters reported that a witness ⁠heard ​a series ⁠of powerful explosions ⁠in the city before ​the ⁠air alert ‌was announced.

The attack damaged a ‌non-residential building in ‌one district, while smoke was coming ⁠from another and an office building was in flames as a result of the ‌strike, the ​city military administration ‌said ⁠on the Telegram ⁠messaging app.

Volodymyr Zelensky has detailed the complications Ukraine is looking at after the US announced it will grant Kyiv a license to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors at home.

“There are no dates set yet, but there will be additional PAC-3s,” Zelensky said, after returning from Turkey where he met with world leaders at the Nato summit.

Zelensky said that while Patriot supply and production was “Ukraine’s number one priority”, the government was approaching the problem on “several fronts”.

“First, we’re seeking a license from the US to manufacture Patriot systems,” he said.

“Second, through the PURL program, we’re securing clear funding from Europe, and, through this program, acquiring PAC-3 and PAC-2 missiles for the corresponding systems. Third, we’re working… with our European partners to obtain additional missiles until we have our own system.”

US President Donald Trump lauded the “very good relationship” he has developed with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the Nato summit in Turkey on July 8, 2026.

In a meeting of the pair that lacked the acrimony of earlier encounters, Trump added that Ukraine has “such great people,” too. He has expressed different views privately in the past.

But what do everyday Ukrainians think of Trump?

For more than a decade, we have organised and conducted public opinion polls in Ukraine. While polling has become more difficult since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, our surveys have provided a window into Ukrainian public opinion in the territories not occupied by Russia.

The Kremlin said on Friday that President Vladimir Putin remained open to achieving Russia’s objectives through diplomacy, but that Moscow was carving out a wider buffer zone in Ukraine in response to Kyiv’s escalatory actions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about a Reuters article a day earlier in which three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Ukraine’s recent drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries and ports were strengthening Putin’s resolve to keep fighting for now.

Peskov said Russia believed that Kyiv had no desire for talks at the moments and that Moscow was therefore continuing its military campaign in Ukraine.

The hope is that an economic crisis in Russia leads to social unrest and political instability, possibly resulting in the collapse of the ruling regime. This would not be an unprecedented event in Russian history. The Soviet Union rapidly unravelled amid economic and political crisis in 1991. But how likely is this scenario for Russia today?

Russians are flocking to convert their cars to run on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) amid nationwide fuel shortages, escalating petrol prices, and long queues at filling stations.

These issues stem from recent Ukrainian attacks on refineries. Egor Popov, whose Moscow-based Garant-Gas company fits equipment for LPG conversions, stated that “demand had multiplied”.

Butane and propane, components of LPG produced during natural gas processing and crude oil refining, are also less emissions-intensive than petrol.

President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that China issued a direct warning to Russian president Vladimir Putin against the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, describing it as an “ultimatum-like form”.

Ukraine’s military confirmed it attacked a further dozen Russian tankers in the Sea of Azov, intensifying efforts to disrupt fuel supplies to Russian forces and isolate Moscow-occupied Crimea.

The Ukrainian defence ministry reported that in the first four days of the week, at least 36 Russian vessels, including 32 “shadow fleet” tankers and two dry cargo ships, were struck and set ablaze in the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, all of which were attempting to deliver fuel to Crimea.

These persistent long-range drone attacks by Kyiv have reportedly led to a significant fuel shortage across Russia.

This has led to widespread reports of escalating prices and extensive queues at petrol stations in numerous regions.