War Archive 2022 02/24 Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

[Saif]

‘We won’t just sit in defence’

Ukraine’s top military commander vowed to increase the “scale and depth” of strikes on Russia in remarks made public yesterday, saying Kyiv would not sit idly by while Moscow prolonged its three-year invasion.

www.thedailystar.net

‘We won’t just sit in defence’
Ukraine army chief vows to expand strikes on Russia

Rescuers carry a body from a damaged building following a Russian strike in Kramatorsk yesterday, amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: AFP

Ukraine's top military commander vowed to increase the "scale and depth" of strikes on Russia in remarks made public yesterday, saying Kyiv would not sit idly by while Moscow prolonged its three-year invasion.

Diplomatic efforts to end the war have stalled in recent weeks. The last direct meeting between the two sides was almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks have been scheduled.

Russian attacks on Ukraine have killed dozens of people during the interim, including in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to officials.

"We will not just sit in defence. Because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories," Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky told reporters including AFP.

Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets, which he said had proved "effective".

"Of course, we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth," he said.

Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war, targeting energy and military infrastructure sometimes hundreds of kilometres from the front line.

Kyiv says the strikes are a fair response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians.

In wide-ranging remarks, Syrsky also conceded that Russia had some advantages in drone warfare, particularly in making fibre-optic drones that are tethered and difficult to jam.​

 

[Saif]

Russian barrage kills 10 in Kyiv

Russia fired dozens of drones and missiles at Ukraine on Monday, ripping open a housing bloc in Kyiv, killing 10 civilians and burying others beneath the rubble...

www.newagebd.net

Russian barrage kills 10 in Kyiv
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 23 June, 2025, 23:56

Russia fired dozens of drones and missiles at Ukraine on Monday, ripping open a housing bloc in Kyiv, killing 10 civilians and burying others beneath the rubble.

A flurry of diplomatic efforts to end the three-year-long war have stalled, with the last direct meeting between Kyiv and Moscow coming almost three weeks ago and no follow-up talks scheduled.

AFP journalists heard drones over the capital and explosions ringing out during the barrage.

Kyiv resident Natalia Marshavska was awake during the attack and described how the buzzing of a drone grew louder until it was directly overhead.

‘I realised it was right above us. And then there was an explosion — all in a matter of seconds,’ she said.

The blast threw her across the room and shattered the windows in her flat before smoke began billowing everywhere, she said.

‘It was horrible.’

The Russian army said it had used precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles to strike Ukrainian military facilities.

‘All the designated targets were destroyed,’ it claimed.

Prosecutors in Kyiv said nine people were killed in the capital’s Shevchenkivsky district, including an 11-year-old girl. Another person was killed in Bila Tserkva just outside the capital, officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had launched 352 unmanned aerial vehicles — including Iranian-designed drones — and 16 missiles at Ukraine, adding that some of the munitions were provided by North Korea.

‘Everyone in countries neighbouring Russia, Iran and North Korea should be thinking carefully about whether they could protect lives if this coalition of murderers persists and continues spreading their terror,’ he added.

He landed in the United Kingdom — one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies — on Monday for a surprise visit, where he said he would be discussing defence issues and sanctions on Russia.

Zelensky met with Britain’s King Charles III at Windsor Castle and a Ukrainian source also said that he would meet UK prime minister Keir Starmer.

The visit comes ahead of a NATO summit later this week in The Hague.

Zelensky is set to attend on the side-lines but his involvement is being kept to a minimum to avoid a confrontation with US president Donald Trump.

Since returning to office, Trump has upended the West’s approach towards Russia’s war on Ukraine by undercutting Kyiv and opening the door to closer ties with Moscow.

The latest strikes came less than a week after another attack on Kyiv killed at least 28 people.

Separate Russian attacks on Monday in the southern Odesa region left two people killed and another dozen wounded, local authorities said.

Zelensky said a school was hit.

‘Sadly, some people may still be trapped under the rubble,’ he added.

In Moscow, the defence ministry said its air defence systems had downed 23 Ukrainian drones over western regions of Russia.

Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions since invading in 2022. It captured Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging a peace deal in order to prolong its full-scale offensive and to seize more territory.​

 

[Saif]

Zelensky urges NATO before Hague summit to support Ukraine defence industry

President Volodymyr Zelensky urged NATO countries on Tuesday to support Ukraine’s defence industry, speaking before a summit that is likely to heed US calls to sign off a big new spending goal for the alliance. US President Donald Trump, en route to the summit in the Netherlands, singled out

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Zelensky urges NATO before Hague summit to support Ukraine defence industry

REUTERS
Published :
Jun 24, 2025 21:27
Updated :
Jun 24, 2025 21:34

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky reacts next to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte (not pictured), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (not pictured) and European Council President Antonio Costa (not pictured) on the first day of a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands June 24, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Yves Herman

President Volodymyr Zelensky urged NATO countries on Tuesday to support Ukraine’s defence industry, speaking before a summit that is likely to heed US calls to sign off a big new spending goal for the alliance.

US President Donald Trump, en route to the summit in the Netherlands, singled out Spain for criticism after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared Madrid did not need to meet the spending target that the Americans have been demanding.

The two-day gathering is intended to signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that NATO is united, despite Trump’s previous criticism of the alliance, and determined to expand and upgrade its defences to deter any attack from Moscow.

TRUMP AND ZELENSKIY SET TO MEET

Trump is expected to meet Zelensky for talks at some point during the summit in the Dutch city of The Hague.

Zelensky said it was essential that Ukraine led in drone technology, which has shaped the battlefield and developed at breathtaking pace in the 40 months the war has lasted so far.

“Please, let’s make sure that our defence potential and potential of our partners work for our peace, not for Russia’s madness,” he said.

Rutte said the US leadership was committed to NATO. He added, however, that this came with an expectation that European countries and Canada spend more on defence.

The former Dutch prime minister underlined the need for transatlantic cooperation in the defence industry to meet the challenge of rearmament.

“Today, NATO’s military edge is being aggressively challenged by a rapidly rearming Russia, backed by Chinese technology and armed with Iranian and North Korean weapons,” he said.

“Only Europe and North America together can rise up to meet the challenge of rearmament.”

RUSSIA CRITICISES NATO’S SPENDING BOOST

The Kremlin accused NATO of being on a path of rampant militarisation and portraying Russia as a “fiend of hell” in order to justify its big increase in defence spending.

The summit and its final statement will be focused on heeding Trump’s call to spend 5% of GDP on defence - a significant jump from the current 2 percent goal. It is to be achieved both by spending more on military items and by including broader security-related spending in the new target.

However, the war between Israel and Iran and the uncertain status of a ceasefire make the summit much less predictable than Rutte - hosting the gathering in his home city - and other NATO member countries would like.

Russia has cited its neighbour’s desire to join the US-led transatlantic defence pact as one of the reasons why it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

NATO was founded by 12 Western countries in 1949 to resist the threat from the communist Soviet Union.

Russia denies any plan to attack the alliance, which now boasts 32 members, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “largely a wasted effort” to assure the grouping of this because it was determined to demonise Russia.

“It is an alliance created for confrontation ... It is not an instrument of peace and stability,” he said.​

 

[Saif]

Trump says he will probably meet Zelensky at NATO summit

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he will probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a NATO summit this week, opening a door for Kyiv to press its case for buying US Patriot missile systems and tougher sanctions to fight Russia. Trump made the comments to reporters on boar

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Trump says he will probably meet Zelensky at NATO summit

REUTERS
Published :
Jun 24, 2025 21:22
Updated :
Jun 24, 2025 21:22

US President Donald Trump walks to board Marine One to depart to attend the NATO Summit in The Hague, Netherlands, from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Jun 24, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he will probably meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a NATO summit this week, opening a door for Kyiv to press its case for buying US Patriot missile systems and tougher sanctions to fight Russia.

Trump made the comments to reporters on board Air Force One on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, a White House official said Trump was scheduled to meet Zelensky at some point during the NATO summit, taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday in The Hague.

Trump pulled out from a hoped-for meeting with Zelensky last week, when the US president left the G7 meeting in Canada early, saying he needed to focus on the crisis in the Middle East.

In comments released by his office on Saturday, Zelensky outlined his three priorities if a meeting with Trump were to take place at the NATO summit.

Firstly, he said he wanted to discuss weapons, saying that during the G7 summit, his aides had given US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent a wish-list of arms, including Patriot missile defence systems, which he described as worth “a very large amount”.

Zelensky said Ukraine was “ready to find the money for this whole package” rather than requesting it as military aid.

Secondly, he wanted to talk about sanctions on Russia, and thirdly about other diplomatic ways of applying greater pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.​

 

[Saif]

Russian strikes kill 11 in Ukraine

Russian missiles on Tuesday crashed into schools, hospitals and kindergartens in central Ukraine, killing at least 11 and wounding dozens more in a region coming under mounting pressure...

www.newagebd.net

Russian strikes kill 11 in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 25 June, 2025, 00:05

Russian missiles on Tuesday crashed into schools, hospitals and kindergartens in central Ukraine, killing at least 11 and wounding dozens more in a region coming under mounting pressure.

The attacks came as president Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the Netherlands to meet with allies on the side-lines of the NATO defence alliance summit.

He is expected to meet with US president Donald Trump on Wednesday to discuss more sanctions on Russia and arms procurement, a senior Ukrainian source said.

Emergency services in the Dnipropetrovsk region, now threatened by Russian battlefield advances, published photos of rescuers helping civilians covered in blood after the attack.

‘This is not a fight where it’s hard to choose a side. Standing with Ukraine means defending life,’ Zelensky said after the attack.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the strikes amounted to a ‘rejection of peace’ from Russia, which has rejected US and Ukrainian ceasefire proposals.

‘It is a matter of credibility for allies to step up pressure on Moscow,’ Andriy Sybiga said.

Ukrainian police said 11 residents of Dnipro were killed and two more were left dead in the nearby town of Samar. More than 100 people were wounded, according to a statement.

Police added that an administrative building, shops, educational facilities and a children’s hospital were damaged.

Russian forces, which invaded Ukraine just over three years ago, recently claimed to have reached the border of the central industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, to gain a foothold there for the first time of the war.

The attacks on Dnipro city, the region’s capital, came just hours after deadly overnight drone attacks.

Three people including a toddler were killed earlier in the northeastern Sumy region that borders Russia during the barrage, local officials said.

Oleg Grygorov, head of the Sumy region’s military administration, said a five-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble of a destroyed house.

‘The strike took the lives of people from different families. They all lived on the same street. They went to sleep in their homes but the Russian drones interrupted their sleep — forever,’ he said.

One man died next to his spouse in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s western border region of Belgorod, the region’s governor said, adding that the woman survived the attack.

Another drone had targeted a residential building in Moscow overnight, wounding two people, including a pregnant woman, the local authorities said.

Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine and claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions as its own since launching its invasion in 2022 — in addition to Crimea, which it captured in 2014.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging peace talks to prolong its full-scale offensive and to seize more territory.​