Depot hit in city of Ekaterinburg and hundreds evacuated in latest attack on Russian online retail giant. What we know on day 1,625<\/p>\n
Ukrainian long-range drones hit a warehouse beloning to Russia\u2019s biggest online retailer in the Ural Mountains, more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) from the two countries\u2019 border, local officials and the company said on Friday. Wildberries said its warehouse in Ekaterinburg, Russia\u2019s fourth-largest city, was set ablaze in the attack. Most merchandise was not damaged, the company said. More than a dozen other Wildberries depots struck by Ukraine in recent weeks have burned down. The regional governor, Denis Pasler, said three drones hit the warehouse\u2019s roof. The Kremlin\u2019s representative in the region, Artyom Zhoga, said 800 people were evacuated from the warehouse and nobody was hurt. Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of Russia\u2019s security council on Friday and said in televised opening remarks that the meeting would focus on additional measures to \u201cstrengthen \u2026 protection of infrastructure facilities\u201d but gave no further details.<\/p>\n
Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the \u2060US Senate \u2060on \u200bFriday for passing \u2060a bill backing sweeping energy sanctions on \u2060Russia, saying it helped increase pressure on Moscow. The European Commission president, Ursula \u2060von der Leyen, also welcomed the vote, saying it came on the back on the EU\u2019s 21st sanctions package against Russia and showed that with complementary \u2060sanctions \u201cEurope and the United \u200bStates can \u200bonce again \u200bshow what historic \u200bpartners can \u200cachieve when \u200bwe \u200bact together\u201d. The US bill, intending to punish Russia and countries that buy its petroleum exports, advances a long-delayed measure backed \u2060by the late \u200bsenator Lindsey Graham.<\/p>\n
Russian strikes killed three people \u2013 including a child \u2013 and wounded three in a district north-east of Ukraine\u2019s capital, a regional military official said on Saturday. \u201cAs of now, the consequences of the enemy attack have been recorded at three locations in Brovary district,\u201d Kyiv\u2019s regional military administration chief, Tymur Tkachenko, said on Telegram. On Friday Russian strikes on \u2060Ukraine\u2019s south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region killed \u2060two people \u200band injured six, regional \u2060governor Oleksandr Hanzha said, amid nearly 50 \u200cattacks. Two people were killed \u200cnear the town of Nikopol on \u200bthe western bank of the Dnipro River, opposite \u2060the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear \u200bpower plant. Russia\u2019s defence ministry said its forces struck two \u2060more \u200bcargo vessels in \u2060the Black Sea being \u200cused in the Ukrainian military\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n
In Russian-occupied Crimea, two people \u2060were \u2060killed after \u200ba \u2060Ukrainian drone struck \u2060an \u200bapartment \u200cbuilding \u200cin \u200cKerch on Friday, \u200csaid the peninsula\u2019s Russia-installed governor, \u2060Sergei \u200bAksyonov.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy on Friday began his first official visit to Serbia to discuss security with a European country still closely allied with Moscow. Welcomed at Belgrade airport on Friday by the energy minister, the Ukrainian president had dinner with his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107. Zelenskyy said on X \u201cWe will discuss expanding economic ties between our countries, relations with the European Union, other areas that can benefit our nations, and security issues.\u201d Vu\u010di\u0107 and Zelenskyy are to hold official talks on Saturday at the presidential palace and make a statement to the press, according to the Serbian presidency. A senior Ukrainian official told AFP ahead of the trip it was an attempt to \u201cpull the Serbs away from Russia\u2019s side\u201d, but Vu\u010di\u0107 has insisted his decision not to sanction Moscow will not change.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Friedrich Merz convened Germany\u2019s national security council on Friday to discuss an explosive-laden drone found near a Ukrainian cargo plane and the midair collision of another aircraft with an unidentified object this week. Germany has not blamed anyone for the incident at Leipzig-Halle airport early on Wednesday, but the Russian embassy in Berlin on Friday claimed the discovery of a \u201cfabricated provocation\u201d was set up to blame Moscow. German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt has called the discovery \u201ca hybrid attack\u201d that spelled \u201ca new level of danger\u201d.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s supreme court said on Friday it would consider a lawsuit to bar Yabloko, the only officially registered party that opposes Moscow\u2019s war in Ukraine, from contesting parliamentary elections in September. The \u2060suit was filed by Rodina (\u2060or Motherland), a small pro-Kremlin \u200bnationalist party whose leader, Alexei Zhuravlev, denounced Yabloko as a western-backed movement bent on discrediting the elections and Russia itself. Yabloko accused Zhuravlev of making defamatory statements against it and said it would launch its own \u200csuit to protect its reputation.<\/p>\n