France’s defence ministry on Friday announced that it will use a share of €1.4 billion euros in revenue from frozen Russian assets to finance the purchase of military equipment for Ukraine. EU member states agreed in May to use the interest generated by seized assets belonging to the Russian central bank to support Kyiv, a decision Russia has denounced as "illegal". Read our blog to see how the day's events unfolded.
This blog is no longer being updated. For more coverage on the war in Ukraine, click here.
Summary:
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a visit to Germany, asked for more weapons and permission to use them to strike targets in Russia during a meeting with Kyiv's allies at the US Ramstein Air Base.
- The UK said it would provide Ukraine with 650 missile systems worth 162 million pounds ($213.13 million) to help protect the country from Russian drones and bombing.
-
Russian forces have taken control of the village of Zhuravka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Russian media cited the defence ministry as saying on Friday. Ukraine meanwhile claimed to have recaptured a part of the eastern town of New York (or Niu-York), a settlement in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, in Kyiv’s first success on this part of the front in months.
-
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that President Joe Biden will approve an additional $250 million in security assistance for Ukraine at the opening of a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
-
France’s defence ministry announced that it will use a share of €1.4 billion euros in revenue from frozen Russian assets to finance the purchase of military equipment for Ukraine, the defence ministry announced on Friday.
Yesterday's key developments:
-
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia’s "primary objective" remains to capture Ukraine's Donbas region, adding that Kyiv’s incursion into Russia's Kursk region had failed to slow the Russian advance.
- Ukraine’s parliament accepted Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s resignation, which he tendered earlier this week along with a number of other ministers ahead of a government reshuffle.
- The parliament approved the nomination of Andriy Sybiha as foreign minister, part of the biggest reshuffle since the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
- Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 68 out of 78 Russia-launched drones in an overnight attack.
- The death toll in the Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Poltava on Tuesday rose to 54. Almost 300 people were wounded in the attack, which accounts for one of the single deadliest since the war began.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, Reuters)
