Closing summary
That’s all for today. Thank you for following along with our live coverage.
Russia summoned the French ambassador to its foreign ministry on Friday in connection with comments made by Stephane Sejourne, the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sejourne said that Paris was not interested in dialogue with Moscow as statements from Russian officials contained false information.
Local police are searching for a Russell Bentley, a US national and Russia supporter who went missing in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. Bentley moved to the Donetsk oblast in 2014 to fight for a Russian separatist militia against Ukraine. According to his X bio, he was a correspondent for the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik News, and a Russian federation citizen.
A Russian drone damaged equipment at a substation in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast overnight, cutting power to a number of households and individual consumers, Ukrainian energy operator Ukrenergo said on Telegram. The attack came after Russian missiles and drones destroyed a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine on Thursday, destroying the Trypilska coal-powered thermal power plant near the capital. Ukrenergo said 399 settlements were without power as of Friday morning, with a blackout in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Kherson oblasts.
After months of delay, the US House speaker is negotiating with the White House on advancing wartime funding for Ukraine – a package that would deviate from the Senate’s $95bn foreign security package and include several Republican demands. House Speaker Mike Johnson has been facing mounting pressure regarding a Ukraine aid package, not just from Joe Biden, who has repeatedly chastised Republicans for not helping Ukraine, but from hard-right members of his own party who remain staunchly opposed to additional Ukraine aid. Johnson is set to travel to Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Friday to meet with Donald Trump – who has said he would negotiate an end to the conflict as he tries to push the US to a more isolationist stance.
Ukrainian authorities conducted a search of a high-ranking priest of Moscow-linked church. Sources told the Kyiv Independent that the premises of Archpriest Mykola Danylevych, a senior member of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, was searched this morning by the security service of Ukraine. The Moscow Patriarchate-linked church has repeatedly been accused of aligning with the Russian government, which the church has denied. The church had yet to comment on the search on Danylevych.
Thousands of Russian soldiers are fleeing the war in Ukraine, lying low while awaiting the results of their asylum applications to western countries like Germany, France and the US. Asylum claims from Russian citizens have surged, but few are winning protection – policymakers remain divided over whether to consider Russians in exile as potential assets or risks to national security. Fewer than 300 Russians got refugee status in the US in fiscal year 2022 while less than 10% of the 5,246 people whose applications were processed last year got some sort of protection from German authorities. In France, asylum requests rose more than 50% between 2022 and 2023, to a total of around 3,400 people.
Three people were injured on Friday when Russian forces attacked a town in the Donetsk oblast, the Ukrainian state emergency services said.
A Russian rocket struck five-story building in Kostyantynivka in the Kramatorsk district, sparking a fire on balconies from the second to the fifth floor. Rescuers were able to extinguish the fire quickly, but the building sustained a number of damages.
