Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky mocks Putin’s failure to capture Donbas ‘15 times already’

Russia’s air defence units have downed or destroyed at least 419 drones overnight, its defence ministry said this morning.

Russia typically reports only how many drones its air defences say they downed, not how many Ukraine launched, and rarely discloses the full extent of damage unless civilians are killed or civilian sites are hit.

Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Iermolaiev has been reportedly injured in a deliberate blast in Monaco.

Ukrainska Pravda said he was targeted by Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 for ties to Russia.

A blast from an explosive device has seriously injured three people at a residential building in Monaco, and the attacker fled to France, local authorities said.

French and Ukrainian media reported that a Ukrainian magnate and his family were those injured.

French and Monaco authorities are searching for the attacker, whose motive is under investigation, Monaco’s most senior government official, Minister of State Christophe Mirmand, told reporters.

Russian attacks ​across Ukraine killed 10 people and wounded dozens on Monday, authorities said, with strikes continuing into the afternoon as the death toll climbed.

A missile attack in the southeastern city of Dnipro killed six people and wounded 29, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram.

He said a business, a school, private homes and cars had come under attack, “Russia launched a missile strike on Dnipro, targeting infrastructure,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr ⁠Zelensky said on X, adding that ​rescue ⁠operations were underway at the site.

“It is essential that Europe is as active as possible in developing its own anti-ballistic defence its own systems and missiles,” he said.

A Russian drone ​attack ⁠on a passenger minibus in Zaporizhzhia ‌killed two men and a woman, and injured eight others, including a 7-year-old boy, regional officials said.

The regional governor, Ivan Fedorov, posted footage on Telegram of a white minibus, its floor bloodied and back doors damaged, with a body of a man inside.

Another attack on the city in the afternoon hit a civilian van, Fedorov said, ⁠setting it on fire but causing no casualties.

A glide bomb also hit the northeastern city of Kharkiv, killing a 23-year-old woman and wounding 10 others, according to officials there. That strike damaged a tram and more than 15 cars, mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Another glide bomb flew in less than an hour later but failed to detonate.

Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, three large industrial cities, have come under repeated Russian attacks during the war, now in its fifth year.

North Korean troops have suffered more than 7,000 casualties while fighting alongside Russia, Ukrainian military intelligence.

The figures is significantly higher than previously reported by British and South Korean intelligence agencies, which estimated around 6,000 casualties between August 2024 and March 2025.

The updated figure, reported by Kyiv Independent, comes as Russia and North Korea deepen their military cooperation.

Russia may allow companies to temporarily produce gasoline and diesel with lower quality and allow lower quality imports, Kommersant daily newspaper said on Monday, as the country tries to ease the fuel crisis amid Ukraine’s attacks on its refineries.

The newspaper, ⁠citing a draft governmental document, said Russia may allow ⁠production of gasoline and ​diesel ⁠of the Euro-2 standard ‌with higher sulphur content and which has been banned since 2013, ‌for a year until ‌July 2027, as well as allowing the imports.

Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in the fifth year of the war, triggering widespread fuel shortages and price spikes as Kyiv tries to push Moscow to the negotiation table.

President Vladimir ‌Putin acknowledged on Sunday ​at a meeting with government ‌ministers and other ⁠officials that Ukrainian drone strikes ⁠had triggered fuel shortages in some ‌regions, but said ​Russia was dealing ‌with them.

Volodymyr Zelensky has ridiculed Russia’s goal to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, saying that the attempt has been made 15 times and failed.

“Since the start of the full-scale war, the Russian army has been given as many as 15 deadlines for capturing our Donetsk region. Russia’s political leadership remains obsessed with Donbas. They have entertained this delusion – that they would fully capture Donbas – 15 times already,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He recounted mutliple deadlines Putin set for his troops to capture the region but has instead faced a war of attrition.

“In 2022, the deadlines were 31 March, then 9 May, 1 June, 15 September, and 31 December. In 2023, Putin set two more deadlines for capturing Donbas: 1 March, and then, when that failed again, they moved it to 31 December. In 2024, there were again two such deadlines,” Zelensky said.

He added that last year when Russians wanted to convince Trump that Ukraine would “supposedly fall”, they had set three final dates to completely capture the Donetsk region.

He has warned that the deadline will be moved again if the war does not end.

“If Russia does not end its war, they will have to move this deadline again as well. If Putin wants to sacrifice another million of his soldiers to keep smashing against this wall, then the million Russians who have not yet been mobilised into the Russian army and are arguing in gas lines should think about what awaits them next,” Zelensky said.

In the weeks following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces ‌initially ⁠tried to advance on the capital Kyiv, but when they failed to complete that advance they withdrew and focused efforts on capturing Donbas.

Russia has captured all of the Luhansk region and large chunks of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Although Moscow’s forces are slowly moving westward through Donetsk region, Ukrainian officials say the advance has slowed considerably ​while Ukraine steps up its ​campaign of medium and ⁠long-range drone strikes.

The huge losses now coming home to Russians every day will not bring a leader who runs his country like a prison yard to the negotiating table – if he shows weakness, he knows he will end up in a coffin, says Bill Browder.

A French ​prosecutor has ordered the immobilisation of an oil tanker suspected of being part of the “shadow fleet” Russia uses ⁠to ship oil and gas and to skirt Western sanctions on Monday.

It comes the day after the Marseille prosecutor ordered Sunday the release of the ship’s captain, ⁠who was held ​in ⁠police custody for two days.

French authorities suspected the ship was ⁠sailing under a false flag. It was ​intercepted ⁠off Sicily on ‌June 23, the prosecutor’s office said.

“This new action against the shadow fleet, conducted days after ‌a similar operation by ‌Britain, shows Europeans’ determination,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a post on Instagram last week.

The oil ⁠tanker was sailing from Primorsk in Russia and sailed under a Cameroonian flag.

France has intercepted at least ​five tankers it says are part ‌of Russia’s shadow ⁠fleet, old vessels that Russia has relied ⁠on to ship oil and gas and to ‌skirt Western ​sanctions.

Moscow has ‌called such actions illegal.

Putin is rattled and Trump needs a win – this is the chance for Ukraine and her allies to force the collapse of Russia’s army and push back against its land grab, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley.