A Russian overnight strike heavily damaged a German-owned car-parts plant in Zhytomyr Oblast, forcing it to halt production, the company said. No workers were hurt, but the destruction was extensive. One of the region's major employers now has no restart date.

A German plant knocked offline

Russia struck Zhytomyr Oblast overnight into 9 August and hit the Kromberg & Schubert plant, which reported the attack on Facebook. Its production lines and infrastructure took heavy damage. 

"The most important thing for us is that no employees were hurt in the attack," the statement said. 

With the damage so severe, the plant suspended operations for an indefinite period. A restart depends on a technical assessment and the full scope of repairs, the company added.

Kromberg & Schubert is a civilian manufacturer with 100% German investment. It has run in the Zhytomyr region for 11 years and employs about 3,500 people. The plant makes the wiring harnesses that thread through cars, supplying European automakers.

Vitalii Bunechko, head of the Zhytomyr Oblast Military Administration, called it one of the region's budget-forming enterprises. He said the administration and local authorities are working to help the strategic investor and keep the plant running.

Part of a wider overnight assault

Bunechko reported that Russia had launched a massive strike on the oblast overnight. The attack also damaged civilian infrastructure, he said. State Emergency Service crews contained the fires, and investigators began work at the site. 

Russia has repeatedly struck Zhytomyr Oblast during the war, stepping up its drone strikes on northwestern Ukraine, often exploiting Belarusian territory.

US negotiators have quietly kept a deal to let Ukraine help build Patriot interceptor missiles alive, even after US President Donald Trump publicly cast doubt on it, Reuters reported. Four people familiar with the talks said Washington never ordered them stopped. Ukraine, running low on air defenses, urgently wants the missiles to blunt Russia's growing ballistic strikes.

Russian daily drone attacks forced Kyiv to chase air defense from every direction at once, including home-grown interceptors. But this year, Moscow has increasingly turned to ballistic missiles, the hardest weapons for Ukraine to stop. US-supplied PAC-3 interceptors fired by Patriot systems are among the few weapons that can reliably shoot them down, and Ukraine has now run out.

The talks Trump seemed to kill

Last week, Trump appeared to reverse course, telling reporters the US had not agreed to let Ukraine build Patriots and must be "very careful about letting somebody build them." 

According to Reuters, two sources tied that to a tense White House meeting with Zelenskyy. Yet the negotiations pressed on. 

"No order was given to halt the discussions," one source said, adding that talks continued with US arms makers and military officials.

Matthew Whitaker, Washington's envoy to NATO, is leading the drive for a deal. He visited Kyiv last month to weigh options with Ukrainian officials and weapons executives. His spokesperson framed the trip around drone collaboration that would benefit US forces, without naming the Patriot plan. 

A senior administration official told Reuters that any agreement must protect US technology. 

Reuters: The Patriot deal Trump denied is quietly still alive

What Ukraine could build

The options include making Patriot components in Ukraine and shipping them to Germany for final assembly, the sources said. A US official called that the most feasible route. Germany already produces an older Patriot model, and the advanced PAC-3, the newest Patriot interceptor, is expected to follow.

Ukraine could instead join an existing US-European Patriot program, or build a cheaper version of the PAC-3. 

It might also tap Lockheed Martin's new lower-cost interceptor, the PAC-3 ACE, unveiled last month.

A promise made, then pulled back

During a meeting with Zelenskyy in Ankara last month, Trump said the US would license Ukraine to make PAC-3s. His later reversal caught many off guard, including Zelenskyy. In a follow-up call, US Vice President JD Vance assured him that deals between presidents would hold, one source said.

Explore further

Reuters: The Patriot deal Trump denied is quietly still alive

Ukraine's clock is running

Even with a deal, Ukraine would not receive newly built interceptors for a year or more. So Kyiv is urging allies to hand over some of theirs and exploring swaps to get missiles sooner. 

Earlier, Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine had run out of Patriots. That day, it intercepted just one of 27 ballistic missiles Russia fired. 

Global stocks of high-end interceptors have shrunk since the Iran war, with Patriots once bound for Ukraine diverted to US forces and Gulf allies.

Russia has damaged or destroyed close to 2,000 cultural heritage sites and thousands more cultural venues across Ukraine since its full-scale invasion began, Ukraine's Ministry of Culture reported. The losses grew again over the past month, and officials say occupied territory keeps the true scale out of reach. As the tally rises, more of Ukraine's allies are stepping in to help protect what survives.

The toll keeps rising

By the end of July 2026, Russia had damaged or destroyed 1,990 cultural heritage sites and 2,625 cultural venues, the ministry said. Russia "continues to systematically destroy" Ukraine's cultural heritage and infrastructure, it added. 

Over the past month, the count climbed by 90, adding 41 heritage sites and 49 cultural venues. Of the heritage sites, 47 are gone entirely: one of national significance, 44 of local significance, and two newly identified. The remaining 1,943 are damaged. The full list includes 192 sites of national significance, 1,605 of local significance, and 193 newly identified.

Explore further

France compares Lavra strike to bombing Notre-Dame, calls for tougher sanctions

A protected site struck in July

In July, a Russian attack damaged a site inside Odesa's historic center, which sits on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Kyiv and the Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts also saw fresh strikes on monuments. In the Zaporizhzhia and Sumy oblasts and in Kyiv, Russian forces hit heritage sites they had already damaged before.

The ministry records the most damaged heritage in Kharkiv Oblast, with 358 sites, followed by Kherson Oblast with 303, Kyiv with 272, Donetsk Oblast with 229, and Odesa Oblast with 211. Cultural venues have been hit across 354 communities, or 24% of all local communities in Ukraine. Over the past month, the Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Chernihiv oblasts saw the most new destruction.

Explore further

Russia loots occupied Crimea’s ancient sites through six illegal archaeological digs

Village clubs bear the brunt

Community and club venues form the largest group of damaged cultural facilities, at 1,300 sites, or 49.5% of the total. Russian attacks destroyed 283 of them and damaged another 1,017. The heaviest facility losses fall on the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Russia also re-struck previously damaged sites in the Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Sumy, and Donetsk oblasts.

The ministry stresses the figures understate the loss. Russia's occupation of nearly all of Luhansk Oblast and large parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Kherson oblasts blocks any full assessment. 

Explore further

Russia blames Ukraine for museum it destroyed in Huliaipole, erasing memory of anti-imperial fighter Nestor Makhno

Earlier, Sweden signed a heritage-preservation deal and the EU backing a UNESCO initiative to catalog Ukraine's losses.

Each month of strikes turns reversible damage into permanent loss, and much of it now sits in land Ukraine cannot yet reach. The World Heritage site already declared in danger in occupied Crimea shows how far the erasure can run if the war grinds on.

German security services believe Russia was preparing to assassinate the head of a company that supplies drones to Ukraine, according to Die Zeit. Two suspected agents who surveilled him have been arrested, and officials warn the case marks a deadlier turn in Russian operations inside Germany.

Surveillance of a drone-maker

Investigators say the target is Stefan Thumann, head of the Bavarian startup Donaustahl, which makes reconnaissance and kamikaze drones for Ukraine. In December 2025, a recruit filmed his home and photographed the nameplate, focusing on the man rather than the company, security services believe. Thumann has been outspoken against Moscow, posting that "Russia doesn't want peace. It wants the destruction of the West."

Two arrests

A foreign intelligence service flagged Thumann as high-risk in December 2025. Bavarian police arrested Serhii N., a former bricklayer from Kharkiv with no intelligence training, then released him before analyzing his phones. The devices later showed contact with Russian intelligence and attempts to trail his father, investigators found. He fled to Spain, and a Romanian woman, Alla S., continued the surveillance. Both were arrested in March 2026, in Spain and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Explore further

Fourth suspect arrested in arson attack on Czech factory that made drones and thermal optics for Ukraine

Russia recruits such disposable agents online, paying people from precarious backgrounds for surveillance, arson, and sabotage, and discarding them afterward. Ukraine's own SBU security service has reported dozens of cases in 2026 of Russia recruiting Ukrainians at home for arson and sabotage, often by forging Ukrainian security summonses to pose as their own government.

The BfV, Germany's domestic intelligence service, classifies the case as a suspected planned assassination. A federal investigating judge was not convinced, so the arrest warrant cites only suspected intelligence-agent activity. Lawyers for both suspects declined to comment.

Explore further

A French factory that makes drones for Ukraine was firebombed with Molotov cocktails

A widening threat

A second German arms company is reportedly in Russian intelligence's sights, investigators say. On 11 June, Serbian officers stopped a truck of concealed explosives apparently bound for Bavaria, home to Donaustahl, Quantum Systems, and Helsing. 

The threat has precedent: agents had Rheinmetall chief Armin Papperger watched in 2024, and an FSB killing struck a Georgian exile in Berlin in 2019. It fits a broader Russian sabotage campaign across Europe. 

Thumann, now under guard, still taunts Moscow: 

"You won't break me."

A Russian drone clipped one of Serhii’s wind turbines; his crew repaired the blade and carried on. He runs an oil-pressing plant in southern Ukraine, where the grid gives him about two hours of power and then 10 without. The turbine is one of six he has bought—Dutch machines, pulled from wind farms in the Netherlands for being too small, and shipped east.

In the Netherlands, a turbine like that is barely worth the paperwork. Over a blacked-out Ukrainian factory, it is worth shipping across a continent. That gap is turning into a market.

The market has formed largely on its own. Buyers like Serhii got their turbines through what Bert van der Lingen, vice-chairman of the Dutch wind association NedZero, calls “free market conditions”—private deals, one at a time—ahead of the Dutch government program meant to organize the trade, “Renewed Energy for Ukraine,” which began only in December 2025 and is still in start-up.

NedZero wrote to Euromaidan Press to correct an earlier report, drawn from the Dutch daily De Telegraaf, that called the turbines worn out. They are not.

A machine comes down in the Netherlands only because a newer model on the same spot would earn five or six times as much. The old one still works. Stripped, inspected, and fitted with new bearings and a rebuilt gearbox, it has “fifteen to twenty years of technical life remaining.”

“This is a story we want to see grow,” van der Lingen added, “and getting the baseline right helps that.”

Why blacked-out Ukraine wants Europe’s spares

Ukraine is one buyer in a market that predates the war. “There is an active world market for refurbished wind turbines,” van der Lingen notes: Dutch machines freed up by repowering already spin from Poland and the Baltics to Jordan, Kenya, and Chile, sold with maintenance records and spare parts to match.

The supply is thin, and slow to move. By NedZero’s own survey, 486 Dutch turbines are due to come down over the decade to 2035—a floor, it says, since not every producer answered—and only a portion will be shipped anywhere, fewer still to Ukraine. A market like this gets built one deal at a time.

What makes Ukraine the eager buyer is what Russia has done to its lights. Four winters of strikes have destroyed or damaged more than 80% of the country’s power-generating capacity, by the energy ministry’s own count—its big Soviet-built plants are so few and so concentrated that one missile can darken a whole region.

Kyiv’s answer is to scatter generation so widely that no single strike can repeat the trick, an approach the ministry describes as “energy cells.” One refurbished turbine beside one factory is that doctrine at its smallest scale.

Explore further

Wind farms are harder to destroy—so why won’t Ukraine let them scale? (INFOGRAPHICS)

Small, slow, and off the books

Money is the bottleneck. Development banks lend in amounts far too large for a handful of turbines—support from the big institutions starts at around €10 million ($11 million)—so small orders have to be bundled into projects large enough to finance. How many turbines reach Ukraine, the association says, depends on whether that bundling comes together.

Then there is the wiring. A turbine only makes power when the wind blows, not when the factory needs it. And most are built to shut down automatically when the grid fails, so a blackout silences them too—exactly when the factory needs them most—unless they are rewired, with batteries, to run on their own. That is what the microgrids are for.

NedZero cannot say how many Dutch turbines are already working in Ukraine. It has no consolidated count of what its country’s firms have delivered, nor of the megawatts they have added to the grid, and offers only to go and count them. What is coming free is on the books; what is already turning above a Ukrainian factory, holding its lights while the grid is dark, is not.

Three men were found guilty on July 8 in connection with an arson attack on Ukraine-linked businesses in London, which British authorities say was orchestrated by Russia's Wagner mercenary group, Reuters reported.

The alleged ringleader, Dylan Earl, 21, had already pleaded guilty to aggravated arson over the 2024 blaze targeting companies that were supplying Elon Musk's Starlink satellite equipment to Ukraine, according to Reuters.

The systems are considered vital to Ukraine's communications and defense against Russia's ongoing invasion.

Earl also became the first person convicted under the U.K.'s National Security Act after admitting to a separate plot to attack a wine shop and restaurant in London’s upscale Mayfair district and to kidnap its owner, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Two others, Jake Reeves, 23, and Earl’s associate, also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson, with Reeves admitting to a charge under the National Security Act for receiving a material benefit from a foreign intelligence agency.

A jury at London's Old Bailey court convicted three additional men, Nii Kojo Mensah, 23, Jakeem Rose, 23, and Ugnius Asmena, 20, of aggravated arson. They had denied the charges. A fourth man, Paul English, 61, was acquitted.

Two other defendants, Ashton Evans, 20, and Dmitrijus Paulauskas, 23, were charged with failing to disclose knowledge of terrorist activity. Evans was convicted on one count and cleared of another. Paulauskas was acquitted of both charges and reportedly broke down in tears as the verdict was read.

Commander Dominic Murphy of the London Metropolitan Police reportedly said he was confident the Wagner Group and the Russian state were behind the attacks.

The U.K. has designated the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization.

Earl had exchanged hundreds of encrypted messages with a supposed Wagner handler using the alias "Privet Bot" on Telegram. According to reporting by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the account was previously advertised by Grey Zone, a Wagner-affiliated channel.

Prosecutors said Earl expressed interest in fighting for Wagner and was encouraged to recruit contacts from British soccer hooligan networks, Irish republican groups, and organized crime circles, Reuters reported. He and Evans also admitted to unrelated charges of dealing cocaine.

The Russian Embassy in London has denied any involvement in the warehouse attack and accused the British government of blaming Russia for domestic issues.

The Kremlin has consistently rejected accusations of sabotage and espionage, despite growing evidence and convictions tied to Russian-linked operations across Europe.

‘Neither side wasted time’ — Ukraine’s economy minister on minerals deal negotiations with Trump’s ‘business-oriented’ administration

Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says her task is simple — to get the investment fund behind the closely watched minerals deal with the U.S. off the ground, and prove its detractors wrong. “There are so many criticisms from different parties that this fund is just a piece of paper we can put on the shelves — that it won’t be operational,” Svyrydenko, who is also Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, tells the Kyiv Independent at Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers on July 4, the morning

The Kyiv IndependentLiliane Bivings

BRICS summit participants condemned recent attacks on Russia’s railway infrastructure, according to a joint declaration on July 6 from Rio de Janeiro.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the attacks on bridges and railway infrastructure deliberately targeting civilians in the Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh regions of the Russian Federation on May 31, and June 1 and 5 2025, which resulted in the deaths of several civilians, including children," the document says.

Bryansk, Kursk, and Voronezh oblasts are all located near Ukraine’s northeastern border and have played a central role in Russia’s war effort, serving as key logistical hubs and launch sites for missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities–often targeting civilian infrastructure and causing casualties.

In their declaration, BRICS leaders also called for a negotiated peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

“We recall our national positions concerning the conflict in Ukraine as expressed in the appropriate forum, including the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly,” the document said. “We expect that current efforts will lead to a sustainable peace settlement.”

The statement comes a few days after a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 3, in which Putin said "Russia will continue to pursue its goals" in the war against Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended the summit in person, while Russian President Vladimir Putin participated via video link.

Brazil is a member of the ICC and a signatory to the Rome Statute, meaning it is obliged to arrest Putin if he enters the country.

The ICC issued a warrant for the Russian leader's arrest in March 2023 over the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The BRICS declaration also condemned recent U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities as violations of international law and criticized the presence of foreign forces in Syria and Gaza, calling for Israeli withdrawal from Syrian territory.

BRICS, originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has expanded in recent years to include Iran, Egypt, the UAE, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

Lavrov meets Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi at BRICS summit, reiterates Russia’s offer to mediate disputes over nuclear program

Russia reiterated its offer to mediate the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program during a meeting between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart at the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Reuters reported on July 6.

The Kyiv IndependentSonya Bandouil

The Atesh partisan group set fire to a signal cabinet that helps control traffic on a railway line near the Russian-occupied city of Yasynuvata in Donetsk Oblast, a route used for Russia's military logistics, the group claimed on Telegram on June 28.

Yasynuvata lies some 22 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the occupied city of Donetsk and is considered to be a major railway junction in the region.

According to the group, the sabotaged section is located near Russian military units, warehouses, and industrial facilities.

Atesh said the attack disrupted the delivery of a train carrying fuel for Russian forces.

"On Ukraine's Constitution Day, we remind the occupiers that this is an independent and free country. And Donetsk will always be Ukrainian," the statement read.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify these claims.

The Atesh partisan group regularly conducts sabotage attacks in Russia and Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories.

In early June, Atesh claimed to have destroyed a signal cabinet on the new Volnovakha-Mariupol railway, which had been recently built by occupying Russian forces.

Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia

Key developments on June 27: * Ukraine war latest: Ukrainian drones reportedly strike 4 fighter jets in Russia * North Korea deployed 20% of Kim’s elite ‘personal reserve’ to fight against Ukraine in Russia, Umerov says * Pro-Palestinian activists reportedly destroy military equipment intended for Ukraine * Zelensky signs decree to synchronize Russia sanctions

The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk

Ukraine's security service (SBU) is teaching teenagers how to avoid recruitment by Russian intelligence online, the New York Times (NYT) reported on June 21.

"Maybe not all of these special operations are reported in the media — but believe me, the enemy is not sleeping... They are working actively and carrying out illegal activities, as strange as it may sound, directly inside your phones," SBU spokesperson Roksolana Yavorska-Isaienko told students.

Approximately 22% of Ukrainians recruited by Russian intelligence to conduct sabotage or terrorist attacks are minors, Artem Dekhtiarenko, SBU spokesperson, said on April 2.

Russian intelligence attempts to recruit Ukrainian civilians online, offering easy money in return for sharing sensitive data or preparing sabotage or terrorist acts.

Russian intelligence finds its recruits using social platforms, including Telegram, Discord, and TikTok.

Unsuspecting teenagers are often offered hundreds or even thousands of dollars to conduct simpler tasks such as delivering packages or taking photos of energy sites, the NYT reports.

More serious tasks are commonly assigned to teenagers once they have been blackmailed for conducting less serious operations beforehand or when their phones are hacked to reveal compromising photos.

Russian intelligence is actively attempting to recruit Ukrainian nationals for illegal operations across the EU, Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) said on June 2.

"The recruitment of Ukrainians for hostile operations in Europe is yet another tool of hybrid aggression that the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine and the entire European community," HUR said.

The SBU caught a Russian agent as he was filming a military airfield in preparation for a Russian strike, the agency reported on June 15.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited the unemployed 24-year-old via the Telegram messaging app to collect coordinates for air attacks on airfields and logistic depots, the SBU said.

The Russian FSB allegedly offered "easy money" and instructed the recruit to find military facilities and carry out reconnaissance on the ground.

Love, sex, survival — Ukrainian author on how war shapes intimacy in Ukraine

In Ukraine, Russia’s war of aggression has upended not just borders but the country’s cultural landscape. Conversations about identity, gender, and sexuality have gained new urgency. Women are increasingly stepping into combat roles once dominated by men, while relationships can dissolve as quickly as they form. Many people

The Kyiv IndependentKate Tsurkan

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) caught a Russian agent red-handed as he was filming a military airfield in preparation for a Russian strike, the agency reported on June 15.

According to the SBU, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) recruited the unemployed 24-year-old via the Telegram messaging app to collect coordinates for air attacks on airfields and logistic depots.

The FSB had allegedly instructed him to find military facilities and carry out reconnaissance on the ground in exchange for “easy money.”

The man was detained outside an airfield in Rivne Oblast while filming its outer perimeter with a hidden camera in his car. The SBU seized a phone and the camera on the scene, while other evidence was taken from the agent’s apartment.

If found guilty, he faces life imprisonment for high treason.

The SBU regularly announces it has foiled Russian agents and terrorist plots against military and civilian targets. The FSB usually targets unemployed people, those with criminal records, or addicts, according to the SBU's data.

In April, the SBU detained an instructor at a training center in Lviv Oblast who was planning to assassinate the base's commanders. That same month, the SBU detained nine FSB agents, including five minors, for plotting terrorist attacks in central and eastern Ukraine.

More than a fifth of FSB recruits in Ukraine are minors.

Power cut off in Russia’s Kaliningrad in sabotage operation, Ukrainian military intelligence says

In the early hours of June 14, Ukrainian agents drained the coolant from the substation’s power transformer before setting the facility on fire.

The Kyiv IndependentDominic Culverwell

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) ignited an electrical substation during a sabotage operation in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, causing $5 million in damage and cutting electricity to a military production site, a source in HUR told the Kyiv Independent.

In the early hours of June 14, Ukrainian agents drained the coolant from the substation’s power transformer before setting the facility on fire. The inferno inflicted major damage on the facility and caused a power cut, impacting nearby Russian military sites.

"We once again remind you that Russia no longer has a rear either in the east, in the west, or anywhere else on the planet. Everything Russian involved in the war against Ukraine will burn, sink, and be destroyed regardless of its level of protection or location," the source said.

Ukraine continues to carry out numerous secretive attacks within Russia and occupied Ukrainian territories, targeting military sites, like airfields, as well as key infrastructure like railways and oil refineries.

The attacks involve HUR, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) as well as partisan and sabotage groups.

HUR was behind explosions near Desantnaya Bay in Russia's far eastern Vladivostok on May 30, which reportedly damaged military personnel and equipment. The operations took place approximately 6,800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, making it Ukraine's furthest incursion into Russian territory, if confirmed.

On June 1, the SBU launched Operation Spiderweb, a game-changing drone attack on four key Russian military airfields, damaging 41 planes, including heavy bombers and rare A-50 spy planes.

Ukrainian drones destroy Russian air defense systems in occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, military intelligence says

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) destroyed three Russian air defense systems using drones in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast on June 14, HUR says.

The Kyiv IndependentVolodymyr Ivanyshyn