Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Serbia on August 8, his first trip there since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, meeting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and signing a memorandum of understanding covering EU accession, energy, and the path to peace; the MoU is the first formal bilateral agreement between Ukraine and Serbia since the war began

Ukrainian drones struck the Slavneft-Yanos oil refinery in Yaroslavl on the night of August 5-6, 2026, setting fires at one of Russia's five largest fuel processing plants located more than 700 kilometres from Ukraine's border; Zelensky confirmed the operation, saying the refineries fund Russia's war; a second refinery in Bashkortostan and a Wildberries logistics warehouse in Tver were also struck; Yaroslavl governor Mikhail Evraev announced traffic restrictions and described it as the largest-ever drone attack on the region; drones were also tracked heading toward Moscow

Russia launched a combined barrage of ballistic missiles and drones at Kyiv and surrounding Kyiv Oblast overnight on August 4-5, killing at least 17 people and wounding 44; Ukraine's air defences failed to intercept any of the ballistic missiles, and officials warned of critical shortfalls in Patriot-compatible interceptors as fires burned across the capital and its suburbs

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the Carpathian Initiative on August 4, a new regional cooperation format focused on security and post-war reconstruction; Czech Radio confirmed Czech Republic and Slovakia as partners while Slovak media including TASR reported Zelenskyy said the initiative would bring together eight countries with a launch planned for autumn 2026; Zelenskyy also disclosed that Ukraine has the missiles and mobile launchers for the FREYJA anti-ballistic framework but requires specific European components and joint financing.

Russia launched 30 ballistic missiles at Kyiv on August 1, killing at least ten people including a police officer on duty and injuring at least 28 across five districts; Ukraine's air defences intercepted some, but officials said Patriot-compatible interceptors are running low and urged urgent allied resupply; the attack came less than 48 hours after a separate major Russian strike on Ukraine

Russian forces launched a mass aerial attack on Ukraine overnight July 31, deploying 255 Shahed-type attack drones across the country, the Ukrainian Air Force said; the attacks killed 9 people and wounded 48 over the preceding day as Ukraine continued to reel from the July 30 mass missile and drone barrage; President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed his plea for faster Western air-defense deliveries, saying 'untimely assistance and delays in the delivery of anti-ballistic missiles lead to this kind of destruction'

Russia launched its largest overnight barrage in weeks on July 30, killing at least ten civilians and wounding more than 50 across Ukraine; a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into eastern Poland, a NATO member, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed it likely crashed there, triggering notifications to NATO allies and a fresh Zelenskyy push for accelerated Western air-defence deliveries

Ukrainian forces repelled a record 226 Russian combat clashes across all frontline axes on July 29, with 32 Russian soldiers killed near Pokrovsk alone; Russia launched 6,125 kamikaze drones and 190 guided aerial bombs in a single 24-hour period; Russian forces advanced toward Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast, fighting in Sumy, Kharkov, Dobropolye, Gulyaypole and Zaporozhye; Zelensky warned partners that 30,000 more North Korean troops are being prepared for deployment and said a massive Russian strike was imminent

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Lublin on July 29 for talks with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on returning from Washington; the two sides discussed defence cooperation, anti-ballistic missile defence, and security arrangements for Ukrainians in Poland, alongside historical reconciliation issues

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington on July 28 for a meeting with US President Donald Trump at 9:30am ET, his latest attempt to win firmer US support against Russia; the visit comes as Ukraine and Russia both escalate long-range strikes and US-led diplomatic talks remain at a standstill, with the US Senate due to vote the same day on Russian sanctions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the UK on July 27 for the first face-to-face meeting with new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham at a Royal Navy base; Burnham announced the UK would share the intellectual property of its Stone Cloak electronic jammers, which can interfere with Russian air-defense radar, with Ukraine, and both leaders stressed air defense, maritime security and joint defense production as priority areas

A Russian missile violated Polish airspace and landed in a field in eastern Poland's Lublin region before dawn on July 30, during a mass Russian barrage on Ukraine; NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte condemned the airspace violation and said the alliance would 'defend its territory'; Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said there was 'no reason to think Poland was targeted'; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed 'insufficient or delayed' air defense supplies for deaths in Ukraine during the same barrage

Ukraine struck oil facilities in Russia's Udmurt Republic, 1,400 km from the front line, and in Yaroslavl Oblast on July 27, with Udmurt Governor Alexander Brechalov describing it as 'the most massive attack in recent times'; President Zelensky also confirmed strikes on an oil export terminal in Russia's Rostov region; a separate overnight drone hit an apartment block in Rostov-on-Don, killing two people and injuring eight

Russia launched 147 drones at Ukraine overnight July 26-27, with Ukrainian air defense intercepting 145; Russian attacks killed at least 7 civilians and injured 58 in Ukraine, including at a Kryvyi Rih hypermarket; Ukrainian counterstrikes killed at least 5 people in southern Russia; President Zelensky warned that Russia is preparing a new mobilization wave, with losses exceeding recruitment

Russia struck a defense industry exhibition site in Kyiv Oblast on July 24 at around 11:20 a.m. local time, killing at least 10 people and injuring around 100; Ukrainian defense company representatives were present at the site when the missile hit, making it one of the most lethal daytime strikes on the capital region in weeks

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the UK on July 27 for his first meeting with new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham; Burnham announced the UK would share the intellectual property of its 'Stone Cloak' electronic jammers used to counter Russian air defence systems

Russia's leadership has ruled out returning occupied parts of Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts to Ukraine in any peace settlement, intending to keep them as buffer zones, while pressing to capture all of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to sources familiar with the Kremlin cited by Bloomberg on July 22

Ukrainian drones struck logistics hubs of Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, in Nevinnomyssk and Krasnodar overnight on July 22, causing large fires and injuring several people; separate strikes on occupied Crimea triggered blackouts across the peninsula and a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet was struck at Kursk's Khalino airfield

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met for 35 minutes on July 23 in Manila on the sidelines of the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting, the highest-level direct Russia-US diplomatic contact in months; Lavrov told Rubio arms supplies to Kyiv are inadmissible; Rubio said the US is ready to help end the 'senseless war' but acknowledged no quick path; both sides agreed to continue diplomatic engagement and discussed the Persian Gulf situation; no joint statement or concrete proposal was released

Under pressure from protests over the dismissal of Defense Minister Fedorov, President Volodymyr Zelensky removed General Oleksandr Syrskyi as Ukraine's commander-in-chief on July 21 and appointed Mykhailo Drapatyi, the army's eastern front commander, in his place

Laura Loomer, a far-right US blogger close to President Donald Trump, travelled to Ukraine on July 21, visited Bucha where Russian forces killed hundreds of civilians in 2022, and posted on X that she had been influenced by Russian propaganda; Zelensky's office welcomed the visit as an opportunity to show Ukraine's reality

Ukraine launched more than 400 drones toward Moscow and surrounding cities overnight on July 20; Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses shot down 385 of them; Ukraine's armed forces also struck an oil storage facility and logistics sites in Moscow Oblast and hit six vessels in the Black Sea; Russia struck Zaporizhzhia residential buildings and a dry cargo ship in Odessa in parallel

Ukrainian forces struck fuel storage facilities in Russia's Stavropol Krai and hit three shadow fleet vessels in the Black Sea on July 19; Russia's TASS reported fires in an industrial zone near Stavropol with no casualties, while President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes were a direct response to Russia's heaviest ballistic missile barrage on Kyiv

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on July 23, 2026, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila for 35 minutes of direct talks on the Ukraine war; Rubio said the US remains ready to help end the 'senseless war' but acknowledged there is no quick path to a deal; Lavrov told Rubio it is 'unacceptable' for Washington to continue arms deliveries to Kyiv; both sides reaffirmed their commitment to Russia's Anchorage summit framework and agreed to maintain contact

Russia launched 41 missiles of various types at Ukraine's capital overnight July 18-19, hitting several districts in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called one of the biggest ballistic missile barrages of the war; at least one person was killed and 17 others were wounded, with Ukraine's air defences under strain from a Patriot munitions shortage

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began reconsidering his wartime cabinet shake-up on July 17 under pressure from civil society and the armed forces, while dismissed Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov publicly blamed Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi for obstructing military reform and 'splitting the country'

Keir Starmer flew to Kyiv on July 16, in his final week as UK prime minister before Andy Burnham takes office, to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and reaffirm British military and financial backing for Ukraine, calling Ukraine's resistance central to European security

The Kremlin has hardened its position in potential peace negotiations, telling Bloomberg on July 22 that Russia no longer intends to return any occupied Ukrainian territories, including Sumy and Kharkiv border areas it has seized since January, and is pressing ahead with its goal of capturing all of Donetsk and Luhansk

France held its July 14 national day parade with troops and warplanes from partner countries across Europe, and Ukrainian soldiers marching alongside them; French President Emmanuel Macron hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at what Macron described as his tenth and last Bastille Day parade as president, with a record nearly 6,700 troops, 98 aircraft, 31 helicopters, and 315 vehicles on the traditional route from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde

Ukraine's parliament voted on July 14 to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, constitutionally triggering the exit of the entire wartime cabinet; President Zelensky called the move a change in political strategy, though the composition of the next government across key portfolios remained unclear

Ukraine and nine European nations, including France, Germany, the UK, and seven others, announced the Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition on July 13 in Paris at a Coalition of the Willing summit hosted by France's President Emmanuel Macron; the ten countries committed to build a shared anti-ballistic missile capacity for Europe under the Freya project, as more than 25 heads of state gathered at the Hôtel des Invalides on the eve of Bastille Day; the group also discussed a €70 billion support package for Ukraine

Ukraine's President Zelensky dismissed Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko on July 12, named Naftogaz CEO Serhiy Koretsky as her successor with an explicit energy-resilience mandate, and the Verkhovna Rada confirmed Koretsky by 289 votes on July 16 in the most sweeping wartime cabinet overhaul since Russia's full-scale invasion

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on July 12 that he would replace Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko after just over a year in office, with Svyrydenko to move into a new diplomatic role; the announcement triggered the formal resignation of the entire government; Zelensky described the reshuffle as aimed at prioritising foreign policy and security goals, without naming a successor

Russian forces killed eight people and wounded dozens in missile and drone strikes on Ukraine overnight on July 12, hitting regions including Sumy and Odessa, according to Ukrainian officials; President Volodymyr Zelensky called on allies for faster weapons deliveries; Ukraine's military separately claimed it shot down 349 Russian drones overnight over Russian territory, the Azov Sea and the Black Sea

The 36th NATO summit in Ankara concluded July 8 with Europe and Canada committing €70 billion per year to Ukraine for 2026-2027, the US authorizing Ukraine to produce Patriot air-defense missiles, and the summit communique naming China's nuclear build-up alongside Russia as a structural security concern for the first time in NATO history

Russia's Defense Ministry said its armed forces hit military-industrial and energy facilities in Kyiv and surrounding areas; Ukrainian authorities reported eight dead and 48 injured in the Kyiv region

France announced a Coalition of the Willing summit in Paris on July 13 bringing together at least 25 heads of state, with Ukrainian President Zelensky and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte confirmed as attendees; the coalition has grown to 37 nations and the Elysee said planning for post-ceasefire security guarantees is still underway

An overnight drone barrage hit the Vysotsk port oil terminal and Kronstadt naval facility, roughly 850 km from Ukraine's front lines; Russian governor confirmed a 'large-scale' attack and a major fire at the terminal

Ukraine's military claims Russia's June casualty rate of nearly 40,000, far above its monthly recruitment capacity, is unsustainable; the ISW calculates that at Russia's current pace it would take 14 years to fully capture Donetsk Oblast

Russia's General Staff told Putin on July 3 that its forces had taken the Donetsk fortress city; Ukraine's military denied the claim the next day, with Zelensky calling it 'another Russian lie' and geolocation showing troops from both sides interspersed inside the city

Drones hit hangars at Saky and Hvardiiske in occupied Crimea overnight July 3, damaging or destroying at least seven Su-30SM and Su-24 aircraft; Ukraine says the raid is part of Zelensky's 40-day campaign to degrade Russian air power

Russian General Gerasimov reported the town's fall to President Putin on July 3; Ukraine has not confirmed the claim; Kostyantynivka sits between Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and is a key logistics node in northern Donetsk

The two-day Ankara summit ratified Europe's largest Ukraine commitment, introduced China formally into NATO's threat framework, and was interrupted by Iran striking three ships and the US hitting 80+ Iranian targets, the largest exchange since the January ceasefire

At least 22 killed, 90+ injured; record use of ballistic missiles against the capital, with Zelenskyy cutting short his Ireland visit and Poland scrambling jets

Rome refuses a clause in the Ankara summit declaration committing to 'at least comparable' aid into 2027, leaving the paragraph in brackets ahead of the July 7-8 summit; Germany pushed hardest for the two-year signal

The alliance's 32 members convened in Ankara on July 7 after Trump held separate calls with Putin and Zelenskyy on July 5; South Korea's President Lee also attended; NATO Secretary-General Rutte urged members not to be 'naive' about China's military build-up

Defence Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz said six to eight written-off Polish MiG-29s will not be sent after Ukraine declined to grant access to its unmanned combat systems and counterdrone expertise, collapsing a deal agreed in principle last year

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian drones hit the Dubna communications hub, 310 miles inside Russia, used to coordinate forces on the front line, in the third strike on a Russian SATCOM facility and the second in a week; a six-month-old baby died after a drone struck a house in Yegoryevsk

In an interview aired Sunday on Russian state television, Putin said Ukraine had proposed a mutual suspension of deep strikes and dismissed it, calling Russian long-range strikes 'more destructive' and 'catastrophic' for Kyiv's depleted forces

74 missiles and 496 drones in an 11-hour overnight attack; 25 killed as the death toll climbed through rescue operations; Ukraine retaliated on Russia's 4th-largest oil refinery while Fedorov wrote to 40 countries for Patriot interceptors

An unannounced meeting on Russian-Belarusian relations and 'regional security', after Kyiv forced Minsk to switch off Russian drone-guidance repeaters

Intelligence warnings of a major strike were confirmed in the pre-dawn hours of June 26 as Russia hit Kyiv and multiple oblasts; 24 civilians killed across Dnipro and Kyiv, including strikes on cultural landmarks and residential buildings

The European Commission began drawing down its two-year, 90-billion-euro loan to Kyiv on June 25, with a separate first instalment of a six-billion-euro drone-procurement package to follow within days

Zelensky absent over the White Eagle row; PM Svyrydenko led Ukraine's delegation; von der Leyen delivered the opening EU disbursement from a €90B loan; energy and transport pacts dominate the deal sheet

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, begun February 24, 2022, is the largest armed conflict in Europe since 1945 and the defining fault line between Russia and the Western alliance.

Leaders agree the 2028–2034 MFF shape, roll Russia sanctions for 12 months, and start Ukraine accession talks

A WWII-memory rupture pits President Nawrocki against PM Tusk and Kyiv, with Moscow the only clear winner

Moscow leans wholly on the Trump–Anchorage framework, demands Ukraine stop its advance, and tells Kyiv to sign before any meeting

After Abu Dhabi and Geneva rounds put territory on the table, June brings a 185-for-185 swap and duelling summit venues, but no leaders' meeting