Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 15:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched drone attacks on Ukraine’s eastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, killing at least one person and wounding 21 others, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local authorities.
• The Ukrainian Red Cross said the attacks also damaged buildings in Sumy, including an educational and medical facility.
• The death toll from Russian attacks on Ukraine on Sunday has risen to six, including three people in Sumy, two others in Donetsk and one more in Kherson, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing local officials.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed control of two more villages in eastern Ukraine: Malynivka in the Zaporizhia region and Mayak in the Donetsk region.
• Ukrainian drone attacks wounded two people in Russia’s Kursk region, and another person in the city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, which Moscow partially occupies, according to the Russian state TASS news agency.
• Another Ukrainian drone hit a transformer substation in Kreminna, in Russian-occupied Luhansk, setting it on fire, TASS reported.
• Earlier, the Russian Defence Ministry said its air defence units destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian territory as well as the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, and the Black Sea.
• Russian officials also said Ukrainian forces had launched a drone attack on a training centre at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Sunday evening, adding that “no critical” damage was recorded. This comes a day after the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said that it had heard hundreds of rounds of small arms fire late on Saturday at the plant.

Weapons

• United States President Donald Trump said Washington would be sending “billions” of dollars in military equipment, including Patriot air defence systems and other missiles to Ukraine, in a deal that would be paid for by NATO members.
• NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, speaking alongside Trump at the White House, said Ukraine would get “massive numbers” of weapons under the deal.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country would play a “decisive role” in funding the supplies, while the country’s defence minister said Berlin and Washington would decide about sending two US-made Patriot air defence systems to Kyiv within days or weeks.
• Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticised the US support for Ukraine, saying that while “it seems” supplies to Kyiv will now “be paid for by Europe … the fact remains that the supply of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment from the United States continued and continues to Ukraine”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Trump also said that if Moscow failed to sign a peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days, he would impose “very severe tariffs” on Russia, including secondary tariffs of 100 percent.
• The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, welcomed Trump’s tougher stance on Russia, but said a 50-day ultimatum was “a very long time if we see that they are killing innocent civilians every day”.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that he had spoken to Trump and “thanked him for his readiness to support Ukraine and to continue working together to stop the killings and establish a lasting and just peace”.
• The Ukrainian leader also announced a major cabinet shuffle, asking Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko to become the next prime minister, and the incumbent prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, to be the defence minister.
• Svyrydenko said Ukraine was facing a “crucial time” and that her priorities would be “strengthening” its economy, expanding domestic support programmes and scaling up weapons production.
• US special envoy Keith Kellogg visited Kyiv and held meetings with Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov.

Regional security

• Former military officers in Sweden could be recalled to military service in case of need up to the age of 70, a government-appointed review suggested, as the country continues to rethink its security approach due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Denmark will donate European-produced satellite equipment to Ukraine to provide “secure and stable satellite-based communications”, the Danish Ministry of Defence said.

Source:

Al Jazeera and news agencies