Here’s where things stand on Thursday, June 5: Fighting Russian drones have struck apartment buildings in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, triggering fires and injuring at least nine people, the city’s mayor said early on Thursday. New Ukrainian drone attacks hit energy infrastructure in Russian-occupied parts of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine, Russian-installed officials said. The Russian-appointed governor of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said the attacks left 97 settlements, with some 68,000 residents, without power. Russian forces have taken control of the settlements of Ridkodub in eastern Ukraine and Kindrativka in Ukraine’s Sumy region, the Russian Ministry of Defence said. Commenting on Ukraine’s attack on the Crimean bridge – a major Russian-built road and rail bridge linking Russia and the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula – the Kremlin said that while there was an explosion, the bridge was undamaged. Ceasefire talks Russian President Vladimir Putin said he does not think Ukraine’s leaders want peace after accusing them of ordering a bomb attack in Western Russia on Saturday, which killed seven people and injured 115. Putin described the attack, which struck a highway bridge over a railway line carrying passenger trains, as a “terrorist” action aimed at wrecking the peace talks. Putin also told United States President Donald Trump during a phone call that he would have to respond to Ukraine’s Sunday drone attacks, which targeted Russia’s nuclear-capable bomber fleet deep in Siberia and Russia’s far north. Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy aide to Putin, said the Russian leader told Trump on the call that ceasefire talks “on the whole were useful”, despite attempts by Ukraine to “disrupt” them. Two unnamed US officials have told the Reuters news agency that Ukraine’s drone attack in Siberia hit about 20 Russian warplanes, destroying about 10 of them, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was “going way up” after Ukraine’s drone attack over the weekend. Zelenskyy has proposed implementing a ceasefire until a meeting can be arranged with Putin. “My proposal, which I believe our partners can support, is that we agree a ceasefire with the Russians until the leaders meet,” he told a briefing in Kyiv. Pope Leo urged Russia to take steps towards ending its war on Ukraine when he spoke to Putin for the first time over the phone, the Vatican has said. International diplomacy North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met Russia’s Security Council secretary, Sergei Shoigu, as he pledged unconditional support for Moscow’s position on Ukraine. Ukraine is invited to the NATO summit in The Hague, which will take place in a few weeks, Mark Rutte, the military bloc’s chief, said. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will tell Trump on his upcoming visit that Europe is firmly on Ukraine’s side and that no chance for peace must be passed up, Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, has said. Wadephul also said that Germany is pushing for new sanctions against Moscow, which should be coordinated with the US, as he accused Russia of not seriously engaging in peace talks. Ukraine has discussed with the US how to make a minerals fund operational by the end of the year. The fund’s first meeting is expected in July, Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, who is also a deputy prime minister, said during her visit to Washington, DC. Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, DC, during his visit there. Kyiv’s allies have voiced a willingness to pay for defence manufacturing by Ukrainian companies in allied countries, Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov said after meeting Western counterparts at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. United Kingdom Defence Secretary John Healey said the UK will increase tenfold the number of drones it will deliver to Ukraine, aiming to ship 100,000 of the devices.

Western military planners have been carefully studying Ukraine’s successes since the war began. Destroying $7 billion worth of aircrafts with cheap drones is yet another one.