Ukrainian drones carry out a raid on a refinery in Siberia. Kremlin: ‘New talks between Putin and Trump coming soon’

The Ukrainian president went on to add that “in the Kyiv region, sixteen people were injured and three lost their lives”. “A fire is still raging at the site of the missile attack in Vyshneve. Residents are being evacuated from a residential area. More than 400 rescue workers and police officers have been deployed to deal with the aftermath of the attack,” Zelenskyy said.

Last night the Ukrainian air defence failed to shoot down any of the 29 missiles travelling along a ballistic trajectory, highlighting the shortage of missiles for the Patriot systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. According to Ukrainska Pravda, this was stated by Colonel Yuriy Ignat, spokesperson for the Air Force. ‘The stock level is low, to put it mildly,’ he added. ‘We need something to shoot down ballistic missiles. There are enough systems; what is needed is a constant supply of missiles. The Russians are exploiting the fact that there is a severe shortage of PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptor missiles in Ukraine and around the world, so they are focusing more on ballistic attacks.”

Ursula von der Leyen has heeded this call: on X, she wrote that the latest Russian air strikes on Kyiv demonstrate that Ukraine has an “urgent need” for air defence systems. “We will discuss this this week in Ankara, at the NATO summit,” the President of the European Commission assured.

On the diplomatic front, following the lengthy telephone conversation at the weekend between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, Russia had indicated its willingness to seek a negotiated solution, not least in the run-up to the NATO summit in Turkey. Shortly afterwards, however, Poland was threatened in no uncertain terms: “Warsaw would do well to reflect on its own security,” declared Moscow’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov yesterday, after stating that Poland “has already set up production facilities on its territory for drones destined for Ukraine” and that the Russian Ministry of Defence “has already published the addresses of these facilities”.

Trump, for his part, is heading to Ankara with the intention of meeting Zelensky in person to discuss how to bring the war to an end. But his main aim is to remind NATO allies to honour the commitments they made last year: to increase defence spending.

Following the NATO summit, Putin and Trump are expected to meet again. “Yes, indeed, President Putin and President Trump have agreed that their contacts will continue shortly,” replied Dmitry Peskov – Putin’s spokesperson – as quoted by the Interfax news agency. According to Peskov, on the issue of Ukraine, Trump “is consistent; he is convinced of his understanding of what is happening, but, above all, he is open to hearing the information conveyed to him by Putin”.

The European Court of Human Rights is examining the application lodged by 111 Ukrainian civilians who were captured and held prisoner in the basement of a school in the village of Yahidne by Russian soldiers during the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. The Court itself made this known, announcing that it had notified the Russian government of the appeal.

Although Russia has been suspended from the Council of Europe, it remains liable before the Strasbourg Court for all acts committed prior to 16 September 2022. The notification of a case to a government is only the first stage of the proceedings, during which the Court seeks to gather all the information necessary to determine whether there has been a violation of rights by a State.

All those who have brought their cases before the ECHR allege that conditions in the basement were ‘inhuman’ and that Russian soldiers subjected them to systematic humiliation and threats of execution, resulting in a deterioration of their health and lasting psychological effects that required medical treatment. They also claim that, as the school had effectively been turned into a military base, Russia used them as human shields, thereby putting their lives at risk.

Three people also accuse Moscow of being responsible for the deaths of their loved ones whilst they were in the basement.

The applicants are among the more than 360 people detained for almost a month, from 4 to 30 March 2022, in the school’s basement, an area not exceeding 180 square metres, where they therefore had approximately half a square metre of space each. During their detention, the detainees report having had extremely limited access to food, water, natural light, toilet facilities, beds and seating, basic hygiene products, medicines and essential medical care.