Ukraine war: F-16 fighter jets with advanced US weapons headed for Kyiv

The US will reportedly arm dozens of F-16 fighter jets being supplied by other allies to Ukraine with advanced American weapons.

The fighter jets will be armed with American-made missiles and other advanced weapons, including long range guided bomb packs and air-to-air missiles like the AMRAAM and AIM-9X, reported the Wall Street Journal.

“We are confident that we will be able to supply all of those [weapons], at least the critical volumes that they need,” a senior US official said.

The first tranche of dozens of donated jets is due to arrive in Ukraine this summer. The aircraft will be flown by Ukrainian pilots being trained in European countries and the US.

Italian tax police have seized real estate assets and holdings worth around €41m from a Russian businessman, according to Florence prosecutors.

The man was under investigation in Ukraine for alleged corruption, fraud and money laundering, and the seizure was made at the request of Ukraine’s anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, according to the Florence prosecutors’ statement.

The Italian seizure is reportedly unconnected to rounds of Western sanctions on wealthy Russians implemented in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry claims to have captured the settlement of Pivdenne in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the latest report of a village falling to Moscow as it continues its push in the industrial Donbas area.

The Pivdenne settlement adjoins Toretsk, a Ukrainian stronghold and coal mining town towards which Russia began pushing in June.

Russia refers to the area with its Soviet-era name of Leninskoe.

The Ukraine military’s General Staff made no reference to Pivdenne in a late evening report, but said Russian forces had tried to breach Ukrainian defences near Pokrovsk 15 times in the past 24 hours.

Three skirmishes were still going on.

Ukrainian military bloggers dismissed any notion that Russian troops had pushed their way into Toretsk, but said areas around the town were gripped by heavy fighting.

One blogger calling himself “officer” said Russian soldiers were attempting to slip into the town in small groups.

Kyiv did not immediately comment on Pivdenne’s status.

Russia’s push for Toretsk is one of the most active combat zones in the Donetsk region, with Moscow’s forces also moving towards Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian transport hub around 70km (43 miles) west of Toretsk.

It comes after Russia claimed on Sunday that it had taken two villages, Prohres and Yevhenivka, on the approaches to Pokrovsk. Ukraine‘s General Staff recorded 40 Russia assaults in the Pokrovsk sector, with 18 clashes continuing.

US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell said Washington expects more engagement from India with Ukraine, responding to a question at a Senate hearing over Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Moscow visit this month.

“I think we’re likely to hear news of India engaging more directly in Ukraine. I’m grateful for that. I think India wants to play a responsible role globally,” Mr Campbell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Western countries have imposed sanctions on Moscow following its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but nations such as India and China have continued to trade with Russia.

Mr Modi met Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month just as a Russian missile attack struck a hospital in Kyiv and killed 44 people across the country, drawing international condemnation.

Indian media outlets have reported that Mr Modi is likely to visit Ukraine in August, his first visit to the country since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Asked about Mr Campbell’s comments, India’s Washington embassy referred to a news briefing in Tokyo on Monday by Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, at which he said more needed to be done to encourage negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict and that India was one of the few countries that was in touch with both sides.

“We do believe we should be more active there,” Mr Jaishankar said, adding that Modi met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Italy before his Moscow visit.

“I can reasonably expect there will be more contacts between us and Ukraine and between us and Russia as well,” Mr Jaishankar said, when asked about the possibility of Mr Modi visiting Ukraine.

Russia claims to have seized control of the settlement of Pivdenne in Ukraine’s  – marking the latest of several settlements claimed by Moscow’s forces in the Donetsk region in recent days.

It was not possible to immediately verify the claims.

Most of the Ukrainian capital was under air aid alerts this morning after Vladimir Putin’s forces launched an overnight drone attack on Kyiv and the surrounding area, the military said today.

“Air defence systems are being engaged in the region and on the approaches to Kyiv in particular,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Blasts rang out across the city in what sounded like air defence systems engaged in repelling an air attack, according to Reuters.

The city and most of Ukraine were under air raid alerts that began at around 8pm GMT yesterday.

The Ukrainian government has invited Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi to visit Ukraine and Beijing indicated it was “interested” in the proposal, Kyiv’s foreign ministry has announced.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba met with his Chinese counterpart last week during his first wartime visit to China, where the two spoke for more than three hours.

“We are ready to welcome Minister Wang Yi in Ukraine to see first-hand the consequences of the Russian aggression against our country and hold deeper bilateral talks with him on a number of bilateral, regional and international issues,” foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said.

China positions itself as neutral on the war, but declared a “no limits” partnership with Russia days before Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and hosted President Vladimir Putin for talks in May.

The European People’s Party (EPP) has raised security concerns over a decision by Hungary to ease visa restrictions for Russian and Belarusian citizens, fearing it could fuel espionage in the EU, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Manfred Weber, chair of the centre-right EPP, has written to European Council head Charles Michel to say the new Hungarian rules could “create grave loopholes for espionage activities … posing a serious risk to national security”.

“This policy could also make it easier for Russians to move around the (borderless) Schengen area, bypassing the restrictions required by EU law,” Weber said in his letter.

The letter was first reported by the Financial Times. The Hungarian government did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Mr Michel’s office had no comment on the letter, which highlights tensions between EU institutions and Hungary, current holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, as it seeks to maintain cordial ties with Russia despite the Ukraine war.

A European Commission spokesperson said it would be in touch with Hungary regarding the new rules, and that Budapest was bound to check whether they complied with Schengen regulations.

A diplomatic spat has erupted between Poland and Hungary that lays bare the deep tensions within Europe over how to deal with with Russia when it is waging war on Ukraine.

Poland, like Germany, France and most other European nations, is a staunch ally of Ukraine while Hungary’s populist prime minister Viktor Orbán is widely considered to have the warmest relations with the Kremlin among all EU leaders.

The Polish government has been openly critical of Hungary for its stance. The spat erupted when Orbán lashed out at Poland over the weekend.

“The Poles are pursuing the most sanctimonious and the most hypocritical policy in the whole of Europe. They are lecturing us morally, criticizing us for our economic relations with Russia, and at the same time they are doing business with the Russians and buying oil indirectly, and running the Polish economy with it,” Orbán said.

That triggered a denial and angry response from a Polish deputy foreign minister, Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, who said Sunday: “We do not do business with Russia, unlike prime minister Orbán, who is on the margins of international society — both in the European Union and Nato.”

Vanessa Gera and Balint Domotor have more in this report: