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The attack on Kharkiv came as Russia also launched a barrage of drones on southern Ukraine from Russian territory and the occupied Crimean peninsula. The attack wounded three people and damaged port infrastructure as well as commercial and residential buildings in the city of Izmail on the River Danube, local officials said.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 17 of the 23 drones, most of them over the southern Odesa region.
Ukraine’s navy, meanwhile, said Russia had pulled all its vessels out of the Sea of Azov, a body of water connected to the Black Sea.
In the Russian capital, Moscow, a car bomb exploded injuring an officer from Russia’s military intelligence agency and another person, according to local media. Turkey later announced that a Russian citizen suspected of involvement in the attack had been arrested in the city of Bodrum, having arrived there from Moscow by plane.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also said it scrambled a Su-27 fighter jet to escort two British Typhoon fighter jets and an RC-135 reconnaissance plane over the Black Sea.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba was in Beijing on July 23-24, for what he called “very deep and concentrated” talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
It was the first time that Ukraine had reached out to China as a mediator with Russia since Moscow invaded its neighbour in February 2022. Kuleba’s visit came in the middle of a major diplomatic initiative by Ukraine to prepare favourable international conditions for direct talks with the Kremlin.
Kuleba said Ukraine was ready to engage “when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith,” but “no such readiness is currently observed on the Russian side.”
Wang also said that “conditions and timing are not yet ripe.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Kyiv must surrender the four regions of Ukraine his military partly occupies as a precondition to a ceasefire and talks. He also wants Ukraine to promise never to join the NATO alliance, and reduce the strength of its armed forces.
More than 80 countries joined Ukraine in demanding that Russia respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as a basis for peace negotiations at a conference in Switzerland last month.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said he would meet former US President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election in November. “We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting,” he wrote on X.
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