Ukraine War News Today - Top Stories and Breaking Updates from Kyiv Post

Russia’s latest massive aerial attack shook Kyiv overnight – Kyiv Post correspondents show the aftermath in photos as residents mourn and the city begins to clear the wreckage.

The Ukrainian senior men’s national team will serve as ambassadors for their country during the upcoming football competition.

Next summer, the North American continent will host the FIFA World Cup. Canada, the United States, and Mexico will welcome millions of football fans from around the world as 48 national teams compete in football’s most prestigious competition.

To prepare for this tournament, the United States will host the FIFA Club World Cup, where teams from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia will participate. The competition will be held in June and July 2025.

As tariffs and Trumponomics take their toll on the world’s faith in the US dollar, Ukrainians are diversifying and investing more in euros to keep their savings.

Ukrainians are diversifying their savings and investing more in euros amid falling demand for the dollar, the National Bank of Ukraine’s (NBU) Deputy Governor Yuriy Heletiy told Kyiv Post during a briefing with journalists on Thursday. 

The trend echoes the dollar’s losing popularity on the global market after US trade disputes and rising geopolitical tensions. 

British-Ukrainian journalist Bohdan Nahaylo, Chief Editor of Kyiv Post, reflects on his long career as journalist in the UK, Germany and Ukraine.

June 6 is the Day of the Journalist in Ukraine. It has me thinking about my own career in the profession, spanning more than 40 years, about some of the highlights, and some of the lessons learned.

The son of Ukrainian wartime refugees born in Britain, in the provincial industrial town of Wolverhampton, as a young boy interested in Ukraine I could not imagine being published in the best of Britain’s press.

Reports say the overnight attack on a military airfield in Russia’s Bryansk region destroyed an Mi-8 helicopter causing its ammunition to detonate and damage an Mi-35 attack helicopter.

On the night of June 5-6, a drone attack on the airfield in the village of Oktyabrsky in Russia’s Bryansk region destroyed an Mi-8 military helicopter, while another, a Mi-35 attack aircraft, was damaged.

According to the Russian outlet Astra, the Mi-8 was destroyed in the strike, with its ammunition detonating on site, and the Mi-35 sustaining partial damage.

France and Belgium bought 97% of all Russian LNG imported into the European Union in 2024 and are afraid to back out of it.

France and Belgium, the EUʼs top consumers of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), are not supporting a Brussels EU Commission plan to completely ban the fuel by 2027. They both want more clarity on the legal and economic impact before deciding, Politico reported. 

The EU released a two-step plan to end all Russian gas imports by 2027 on May 6. The plan only requires a weighted majority of 15 countries for approval, not all 27 states, to be adopted.

Valeriy Chaly, former Ukrainian ambassador to the US (2015-2019) under both Obama and Trump, told Kyiv Post at the Black Sea Forum the US should act to intensify sanctions against Russia.

Ukraine’s Finance Minister requested parliament to revise the current 2025 state budget with the aim of increasing the allocation of funds for its defense needs.

Ukraine’s Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko will ask the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, to review this year’s spending in the light of the larger defensive needs of the armed forces.

Marchenko announced this during a parliamentary committee briefing on Thursday, June 5, Interfax Ukraine reported. 

Officials, cited by The Atlantic article, said Donald Trump was particularly angry that Ukraine did not inform Washington in advance of the operation.

The White House is privately debating whether to scale back support for Ukraine following a series of drone strikes that hit Russian military airfields over the weekend, according to multiple officials familiar with internal discussions.

The strikes, which targeted long-range bombers at bases deep inside Russian territory, were hailed by Ukrainian officials as a strategic victory.

Despite all the evidence, Russia claims Ukraine’s Spiderweb operation failed and that all damaged aircraft from its long-range bomber fleet would be repaired.

A senior Russian official has sought to downplay the effects of Ukraine’s audacious operation Павутина (Spiderweb) on Sunday.

Kyiv reports – that it destroyed more than a dozen of Russia’s strategic aircraft: Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3 bombers, and A-50 airborne early warning aircraft, and damaged more than two dozen more – are supported by satellite imagery, NATO, and other assessments.

Russia’s Interests in the Black Sea Region – Herbst, Poroshenko, Cmos, Coffey, Zingeris, Denysenko.

As Russia targeted civilian sites in Ukraine, drones struck its own military facilities – airbases, an oil depot, and a defense plant – causing explosions and fires.

While Russia spent the night of June 6 bombarding Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, military targets were burning on its own territory. Drones struck the strategically important airbase in Engels, home to bombers used in attacks on Ukraine.

Local residents reported explosions, air defense activity, and fires. Russian media admitted that “several targets” were shot down, but eyewitnesses confirmed direct hits.

As peace talks stall, Trump compares the war to kids fighting, saying Ukraine and Russia might need to “fight for a while” before peace happens, as the US hesitates to pressure Putin.

The United States said on Thursday that it remains committed to peace talks between Ukraine and Russia after President Donald Trump likened the war – begun when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukrainian territory – to a kids’ brawl, saying “let them fight.”

“President [Trump] wants to see those direct talks happen,” State Department’s Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott told Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent during a daily briefing when pressed about Trump’s comments.

Lord Ashcroft pays homage to his D-Day hero father and all those who stormed the beaches of Normandy in Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944, to hasten the end of the Second World War.

The fact that there are still Second World War veterans who are determined to travel to northern France this week to mark the 81st anniversary of D-Day makes me feel proud and emotional in equal measures. For these are former service personnel, now aged each side of their 100th birthdays, who could so easily stay at home but, just as they did more than eight decades ago, they have displayed a humbling sense of resolve and determination in journeying to Normandy.

This is because, for the most part, they want to pay their respects and remember fallen friends and comrades who died or were seriously wounded on or close to the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, while taking part in what became known as the “D-Day landings.” It’s incredible to think that on the British Normandy Memorial, which was officially unveiled on June 6, 2021 by His Majesty The King (then the Prince of Wales), there are the names of the 22,442 servicemen and women under British command who fell on D-Day and during the Battle of Normandy in the summer of 1944. The memorial, which is situated on a hillside overlooking Gold Beach, finally brought together the names of these brave individuals from more than 30 countries who gave their lives for their King, their country, their comrades and for wider freedoms.

There had been tense anticipation in Berlin about Merz’s first visit to Washington.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz avoided a feared public spat during his first meeting with American President Donald Trump, dodging the fate of some of his fellow leaders.

There had been tense anticipation in Berlin about Merz’s first visit to Washington, after Trump had used bilateral press conferences in the Oval Office to publicly confront the presidents of Ukraine and South Africa.

The UK Ministry of Defence said that Russian forces recorded around 34,500 casualties last month, a sharp drop from 48,000 in January, marking a 28% decrease.

Russia’s battlefield casualties fell to their lowest monthly figure this year in May, suggesting a slowdown in frontline offensives as Kyiv steps up pressure on Moscow with bold cross-border strikes, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.

Ukraine has raised the stakes in the three-year-long war by launching audacious attacks on strategic Russian assets — strikes seen as an embarrassing setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The National Bank of Ukraine says inflation has peaked, but will keep the key rate unchanged as war and weather risks still loom over the economic outlook.

Ukraine’s central bank, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), is keeping the key policy rate unchanged while warning that risks for inflation might reverse. 

The central bank decided to keep the key rate at 15.5%, NBU governor Andriy Pyshny announced during an online briefing with journalists on Thursday. 

Ukrainian intelligence has intercepted a call where a Russian commander was heard to order his troops to execute captured wounded Ukrainian soldiers.

In a newly intercepted call released by Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate (HUR), the commander of a Russian army unit is heard issuing a direct order that wounded Ukrainian soldiers should be executed rather than take them prisoner.

At the beginning of the conversation, the Russian officer warns his subordinates about the presence of Ukrainian forces. He states that one Ukrainian soldier has already been captured, but three others are still nearby:

A combined AFU-SBU strike on a Russian Iskander missile unit in Bryansk as it prepared to fire destroyed one launcher and likely damaged others, a Ukrainian report says.

Units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), in coordination with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), launched a precision strike on Russian ballistic missile forces in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast, successfully eliminating at least one Iskander launcher.

According to the AFU General Staff on Telegram, the operation targeted a Russian missile unit from the 26th Missile Brigade located near Klintsy, in Bryansk Oblast. The Russian troops were reportedly preparing to launch missiles at Ukraine, most likely Kyiv.

The strike came days after Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump in a phone call that Russia “would retaliate” for Ukrainian attacks on the airbases deep inside Russia.

Kyiv Post correspondents reported updates throughout the night — you can find them here.

Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack across Ukraine early Friday, June 6, killing at least four people and injuring 20 in the capital, Kyiv, as strikes hit cities and regions with a mix of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Kalibr missiles, and dozens of drones.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Russian forces are reportedly sustaining an average of 1,140 casualties per day and suffering disproportionately high personnel casualties for marginal, grinding territorial gains.
• The Kremlin continues efforts to falsely portray Russia as willing to engage in good-faith negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, despite Russia’s repeated refusal to offer any concessions.
• Ukraine’s allies and partners continued to provide military aid to Ukraine during the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (the Ramstein format) on June 4 and 5.
• Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced on June 5 the launch of a new initiative for joint production of Ukrainian weapons in Ramstein states in order to supply weapons to the Ukrainian military and to increase Ramstein states’ industrial capacity.
• North Korea reaffirmed its support for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine during Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu’s visit to North Korea on June 4.
• Russian authorities cracked down on a publication that has previously speculated about several Russian command changes.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Hulyaipole and in western Zaporizhia. Russian forces recently advanced in northern Kharkiv Oblast and near Kupyansk, Lyman, and Toretsk.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen says sanctions on Russia “are not the only way to maintain Ukrainian independence. NATO membership is one, continued US assistance to Kyiv is another.”

WASHINGTON DC – US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Thursday urged for what she described as “maximum pressure” against Russia over Ukraine, saying that she hopes President Donald Trump “realizes that giving into [Vladimir] Putin is not the right path forward.”

“The Ukrainian people are not giving in,” Shaheen said, addressing a Brookings Institution webinar, citing the recent Ukrainian strike deep inside Russia, which took out a third of the Russian strategic nuclear bomber fleet.

Blasts heard in the capital as initial reports emerge of three wounded, several fires. The attacks come about a day after Putin warned Trump that there would be retaliation for Operation Spiderweb.

UPDATED June 6, 2025 8:36 a.m., Kyiv time

The BBC is reporting that it has spoken to Kyiv Mayor Klitschko, who said the death toll in the overnight attacks in the capital has now risen to four and that rescue teams have been deployed to search for others under the debris.

The president sent condolences to a firefighter who arrived on the scene to find his daughter and grandson killed in the rubble.

There is no peace initiative in the world that Russia has not rejected, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address, and went on to offer his condolences for a Ukrainian rescue worker who found her family in the rubble of a Russian strike, and another police office killed in a different strike.

“Russia is proud of this,” he said. “It is proud of its ability to kill. And honestly, that’s about the only thing this state has truly mastered. Today’s strike on Pryluky in the Chernihiv region: Russian drones killed the family of a Ukrainian rescuer.”