French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that Paris will send new interceptor missiles to Ukraine as Russia escalates its air attack on Kyiv. Macron expressed his ‘horror’ at the Russian attack on a mall in Kryvyi Rig, which killed at least 16 people. He announced to President Zelensky the strengthening of France’s support, with the delivery of interceptors and the continuation of cooperation.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has pulled Russia’s ambassador from London, accusing Britain of taking the ‘path of confrontation’. Andrey Kelin, who served as the Russian ambassador to the UK for over seven years, vacated his post on 21 July. It is understood that Moscow has not sought to appoint a replacement amid fears of a diplomatic breakdown.
Ukraine believes Russia is planning to mobilise an additional 300,000 troops for its war effort after parliamentary elections in September, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. In comments to reporters released on Sunday, Zelensky added that Russia could draft hundreds of thousands more in 2027 for its key goal of capturing the rest of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
A Russian online retailer Ozon warehouse in the Orenburg region was hit in a drone attack. Two industrial facilities were hit by drone debris, including a warehouse owned by Ozon. The governor of Russia’s Orenburg region Yevgeny Solntsev said that the Russian defence ministry had repelled six drones over the region, adding that no one had been injured.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Kyiv had opened ‘Pandora’s box’ with its strikes on Russian economic targets, saying that Russia would hit back at Ukraine’s ‘most sensitive economic sectors’. Ukraine has escalated a campaign of drone strikes targeting Russian economic infrastructure, including oil refineries and online retailers’ warehouses, seeking to destroy infrastructure it says is central to Russia’s war effort.
Police in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast have launched a criminal proceedings against the director of the mall in Kryvyi Rih, which was struck by a Russian attack that killed at least 16 people. Officials said that the director was being investigated for negligence after the business allegedly remained open during an air raid alert and during the Russian strike.
