Mail sorting centres used by Nova Poshta, Ukraine's largest private postal company, were destroyed in Russian strikes overnight, the firm said. Elsewhere, four people were injured after drones struck an apartment building in Sevastopol, Crimea, according to the Moscow-installed governor.
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Ukraine’s former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has accepted a role as innovation adviser at Italy’s Defence Ministry, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said.
Fedorov, who was dismissed in July, said he would help Italy adopt modern warfare technologies, strengthen its defence sector and adapt to emerging security challenges.
Crosetto has previously praised Fedorov as a driving force behind military innovation in Ukraine during its war with Russia.
Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft reported an 18.4 per cent year-on-year decline in first-half net profit attributable to shareholders, to $2.5 billion (200 billion roubles), citing non-cash and one-off factors including exchange-rate effects and asset impairments.
Revenue edged up 0.6 per cent to $50.2 billion (4.3 trillion roubles) while EBITDA rose 23 per cent to $15.2 billion (1.3 trillion roubles). Capital expenditure increased 11.6 per cent to $10.0 billion (858 billion roubles).
Rosneft said liquid hydrocarbon production increased to 89.8 million tonnes, while oil refining fell amid repair work and continuing logistical constraints.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the U.S. had provided Kyiv with information about a series of meetings held in Moscow in recent days, without disclosing who took part.
“I thank them for the information and for the necessary tone of the conversation with Russia,” Zelenskyy said.
His comments follow reports that CIA Director John Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow to warn Russia against any attack on a NATO member. Reuters reported that the talks also covered Russia’s support for Iran, citing a source.
Russia's defence ministry released footage showing the launch of a mobile, solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
The missile was launched towards the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where its training warheads reached the designated area, according to the ministry.
Russia said the test was aimed at verifying the missile system's tactical, technical and flight characteristics, with all assigned tasks completed.
Serbia has secured a sanctions waiver from the United States for its Russian-owned NIS oil firm until September 30, Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said on Friday.
Handanovic announced the waiver in a post on Instagram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday he had ordered his military to increase its long-range drone strikes against Russia to 1,000 per day, up from around 300 currently.
“There needs to be more: there is a concrete goal, and we will fulfil this task,” he said in his evening address.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Ukraine had received information from the United States regarding meetings held in Moscow over the past few days.
The comments come after CIA Director John Ratcliffe travelled to Moscow for meetings with Russian officials.
The Kremlin on Friday declined to comment on Ukrainian expectations that Russia, Ukraine and the United States could hold a new round of talks in September.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said he had seen media reports about the proposal but could not provide any concrete information.
Ukraine's chief of staff said Ukrainian, Russian and U.S. representatives could meet next month, with Kyiv stressing the importance of U.S. participation.
The last trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States took place in February. Since then, Russian and Ukrainian representatives have held separate discussions with the U.S. team.
Russia said Friday that Ukraine peace talks remain on hold, with no new proposals on the table. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kyiv isn't genuinely seeking peace, so Russian military operations continue on the front lines.
The last round of talks, held under US mediation in Abu Dhabi and Geneva, stalled as Washington shifted focus to the Iran war.
Peskov added that no Putin-Trump call is planned, despite CIA Director John Ratcliffe's Moscow visit this week.
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had been informed of three drone incidents at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine earlier this week.
The IAEA said a drone strike on 25 August near the plant's cooling pond reportedly injured two employees, while two further drones on 26 August reportedly hit the dry spent nuclear fuel storage area and a sprinkling device at the power units. Radiation levels remained normal, the watchdog said.
Russia is considering equipping civilian vessels with "small arms, electronic warfare systems, and military personnel," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has claimed.
Zelenskyy said that Moscow was considering the measures due to Ukraine's success in blocking ships belonging to its Black Sea fleet in the port of Novorossiysk through drone strikes.
He added that Russia was planning to scale up production of ballistic missiles and urged countries to block the supply of components for these to Moscow.
Ukraine's Security Services have struck a Tu-95MS strategic bomber at the Engels military airfield in Russia's Saratov region.
An ammunition depot and a fuel and lubricants warehouse are also believed to have been hit in the attack, Kyiv's Security Services said.
It is the second time the agency has hit a strategic bomber in recent months. During an attack on 17 July, another Tu-95MS was critically damaged, with its tail section completely torn off.
Russian attacks on food warehouses in Ukraine have destroyed around 90 per cent of their storage capacity, Kyiv's Argriculture Minister has said.
"As of today, roughly 90 per cent of the food supply chains operated by retail have been disrupted, but that doesn't mean Ukrainians will be left without food," Taras Vysotskyi was cited by the Ukrinform news agency as saying.
He added that different supply options were being considered, including direct supplies from production sites to retail chains.
Sweden will deploy fighter jets and warships to Finland until at least the end of 2026, the Finnish Defence Forces have said.
"The Swedish equipment strengthens air surveillance in particular, releasing the Finnish Defence Forces' own resources for repelling violations and incidents, if need be," the country's military said.
The neighbouring countries, NATO's two newest members, already have a close bilateral defence cooperation. Finland has a 1,340-kilometre long eastern border with Russia.
"Sweden has responded to a request from Finland to strengthen its air defence due to the deteriorating security situation," Sweden's Defence Minister Pal Jonson said, adding that the Swedish armed forces may under the agreement, if necessary, help Finland repel violations of Finnish territory.
Countries bordering the Baltic Sea plan to establish a joint task force for drone defence that will allow them to react quickly in the face of the growing threat of hybrid attacks, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Friday.
Numerous incidents of possible sabotage affecting undersea cables and critical gas pipelines have taken place in the Baltic Sea, bordered by eight NATO countries and Russia, since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine in 2022.
The goal is to set up a task force that allows quick information exchange, said Dobrindt ahead of a meeting in the northern German city of Flensburg with his Baltic Sea counterparts.
"Foreign powers attempt daily to attack and undermine democracy, security and economic strength within the EU," said the Interior Minister in a statement on the meeting's objective.
He warned that such attacks could "take on a new dimension in the coming months" and the hybrid threat is "omnipresent."
The former Commander of the Ukrainian Border Guard brigade in Kyiv allegedly embezzled more than $269,872 (UAV 12 million) in funds meant for the purchase of drones in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, according to case documents.
Ukraine's Security Services arrested the official and three other people after it transpired 580 drones he purchased never arrived. According to data, the contracts for the supply of weapons were fictitious.
A 24-year-old woman is suspected of having planted the car bomb which killed a Russian Lieutenant Colonel in Saint Petersburg on Thursday, Russian newspaper Fontana has reported, citing unnamed investigators.
The Saint Petersburg-based newspaper said that woman is understood to have left Russia on a flight on Thursday, the same day of the explosion and a day before she allegedly planted the bomb.
Ukraine is disrupting the international supply of grains, oilseeds and crops by targeting ships carrying Russian agricultural products in the Black Sea and Sea of Azoz, Russia's top diplomat at the UN, Vassily Nebenzia has said.
Nebenzia, Moscow's Permanent Representative to the UN, accused NATO and European Union countries of providing drones and intelligence to help Russia carry out the attacks, in remarks made at a UN briefing on hunger and conflict.
"In July alone, more than one hundred such attacks were recorded against commercial vessels carrying Russian agricultural products. These strikes by the Ukrainian troops make no military sense and violate international law," he said.
Ukraine has struck a Russian Tu-95MS missile-carrying aircraft at the Engels base, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday.
"These are the aircraft that are carrying out strikes against Ukraine," Zelenskyy said on X, adding the strike was carried out by the Alpha unit of Ukraine's SBU domestic security service.
One person has been killed and 27 injured in a drone attack on an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow, the region's governor Mikhail Evrayev has said in a post on Telegram.
Ukraine struck the facility on Friday morning, Ukraine's General Staff confirmed in a post on Telegram.
The refinery, owned by Russian oil firm Slavneft, has now been hit eight times this year.
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has said he is "grateful" for efforts by four European Union (EU) foreign ministers to build momentum around the idea of using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine's war efforts.
"It is only fair and logical to use Russian assets, rather than only European taxpayers money’, to cover additional costs of defending Ukraine and the rest of Europe from the Russian threat," he said in a post on X.
On Thursday, the foreign ministers of Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain signed a letter calling on the EU to explore new options regarding how the bloc could use frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine.
"We believe now is the time to revert to the issue of how can we make further use of Russia's immobilised assets for the benefit of Ukraine," the letter said.
A drone struck a grocery store in the town of Pavlosky Posad, in the Moscow region, on Friday morning, Andrey Vorobyov, Governor of the Moscow Oblast said on Telegram.
According to Vorobyov, 46 windows were also blown out at a nearby health centre during the attack.
Efforts were underway to repair the windows and clean up the premises, he added.
Mail sorting centres belonging to Ukraine's largest private post firm, Nova Poshta, in Kyiv and Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, have been destroyed in Russian attacks, the firm has said.
Nova Poshta said on the Telegram messaging app that four guided aerial bombs hit its Sumy terminal and also damaged three trucks.
The company said no employees were harmed in the strikes.
Nova Poshta's facilities have been frequently hit since Ukraine was invaded by Russia in February 2022.
Kyiv recorded 13 air raid alerts in 24 hours on Thursday, the most in a single day since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian online newspaper The Kyiv Independent reported, citing officials.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said that Kyiv spent nearly 15 hours under air raid alerts on Thursday, in a post on X.
Four people were injured after drones struck a five-storey apartment building in Sevastopol, Crimea, on Friday, according to Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of the Russian-held peninsula.
Razvozhayev said drones and debris also damaged a hotel, a kindergarten and more than a dozen cars.
Grass near several oil product depots also caught fire, but the depots themselves were not damaged, he said. The fires were later extinguished.
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