Closing summary
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 9pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s main news:
Ukraine’s counteroffensive plans are hobbled by the lack of adequate firepower, from modern fighter jets to artillery ammunition, the country’s military commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, said in an interview published on Friday.
A teacher and another employee of a school in the Donetsk region have been killed after the building was shelled, according to a report from Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster.
Pope Francis said there was no apparent end in sight to the war in Ukraine as his peace envoy wrapped up three days of talks in Moscow.
Russia is reducing its presence at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate (GUR) has claimed. GUR said that among the first to leave the nuclear power station were three employees of Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom who had been “in charge of the Russians’ activities”.
Ukrainian prosecutors charged a Russian politician and two suspected Ukrainian collaborators with war crimes over the alleged deportation of dozens of orphans from the formerly occupied southern city of Kherson, some of them as young as one, Reuters reported.
Overnight, the Russian army reportedly attacked military infrastructure facilities in the Zaporizhzhia region. Ukraine’s air force claimed four S-300 missiles and 13 Shahed drones were fired, and that air defence forces shot down 10 drones.
The US is strongly considering sending cluster munitions to Ukraine to boost its counteroffensive against Russian forces, according to several news reports that cite Biden administration officials.
Ukraine has conducted nuclear disaster response drills in the vicinity of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, regional officials say.
Updated
Speaking at a press conference, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, has said the commission “will focus prudently on the windfall profits from the immobilised assets of the Russian central bank”.
Belgium’s prime minister said earlier on Friday that the windfall profit from Russia’s frozen assets in Europe could provide $3.27bn (£2.57bn) a year to rebuild Ukraine.
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