Russia threatens ‘coordinated strikes on a regular basis’ after Ukraine’s biggest assault on Moscow
Bryony Gooch, Alisha Rahaman Sarkar & Maira Butt
20 June 2026
The Kremlin has said that Russia is open to dialogue with Europe but “won’t accept ultimatums” in a statement on Friday.
Russian strikes killed at least two people and wounded two others in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy after Moscow threatened escalation for Ukraine’s biggest assault so far.
Another nine people, including four children, suffered injuries in Kharkiv, which was attacked with Russian guided aerial bombs.
Ukraine on Friday morning claimed that a crew member of a Panama-flagged ship was killed in a Russian drone attack in the Black Sea waters. Oleksiy Kuleba said that another vessel under the Saint Kitts and Nevis flag was also hit.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov previously warned of “massive coordinated strikes on a regular basis” in response to Ukraine‘s attack on a Moscow oil refinery for the second time this week.
Ukraine earlier launched a heavy drone strike on Russia in retaliation for damage done to a historic monastery in Kyiv this week. Hundreds of drones targeted Moscow overnight, hitting the Russian capital’s oil refinery for the second time this week, in one of the biggest aerial assaults on Russia of the war so far.
KEY POINTS
- Nato and Russia escalation could lead to nuclear strikes, says Lavrov
- EU extends sanctions against Russia for 12 months
- Russia says Ukraine drone attack hit Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
- Four children among nine injured in Russian attack
- Zelensky says he wants years-long war to end before winter
Ukraine accepts proposal from Brazil’s Lula to work for peace, Kyiv adviser says
President Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted an offer from Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to help work for a peace deal in Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said on Friday.
Zelensky and Lula met on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in the French resort of Evian-les-Bains on Wednesday, where the Ukrainian leader urged allies to increase pressure on Russia to end the more than four-year-old war.
The two presidents discussed what could reactivate diplomacy and Lula proposed several ideas, including contacts with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn told reporters.
“They agreed that, in particular, based on such ideas and contacts, they would try to achieve something and later they would discuss it based on the results,” Lytvyn said.
Russian attacks kill three in Ukraine’s Kramatorsk, governor says
Russian shelling killed three civilians in Ukraine’s frontline city of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, a local official said on Friday.
Vadym Filashkin, governor of Donetsk region, said on the Telegram app that six others had been injured in two attacks on the city, with strikes occurring near a high-rise apartment building and a car park.
Kramatorsk is in the so-called “fortress belt” of cities in eastern Ukraine seen by Russia as a key target in its slow advance to capture the entire Donetsk region.
Zelensky says Belarus should remove equipment used in attacks on Ukraine in one week
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that a week should be enough for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to remove equipment from his country used by Russia in its attacks on Ukraine, adding a threat of Ukrainian action if Lukashenko did not do so.
Zelensky said signal relay stations were located in two Belarusian regions bordering Ukraine that were used by Russian forces to help with steering during attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
“What’s the point of saying he (Lukashenko) doesn’t want to be in the war? Let him remove this equipment, let him switch it off. I think a week will be enough for him to do that,” Zelensky told a news conference in Kyiv.
“If he doesn’t do it, we’ll do it,” he said, without elaborating.
Tusk calls for calming of emotions between Poland and Ukraine
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that the task of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Polish President Karol Nawrocki was to calm emotions, not to stoke tensions, following Nawrocki’s decision to strip Zelenskiy of a top honour.
Nawrocki’s move came after Zelensky caused outrage by renaming an army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), nationalists who massacred Poles in World War Two.
Lavrov says Nato and Russia escalation could lead to nuclear strikes
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that an escalation between Russia and Nato could lead to a nuclear strikes exchange with catastrophic consequences.
“A direct confrontation between Nato and Russia could rapidly escalate into an exchange of nuclear strikes, with catastrophic consequences,” he wrote in an article posted on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.
“Under the banner of ‘strategic autonomy,’ Europe is witnessing a significant build-up of its military capabilities, including in the nuclear sphere.
“Paris’s intention to extend its ‘nuclear umbrella’ to several EU and NATO member states is a source of deep concern.
“This will do nothing to strengthen the security of France itself or the recipients of its so-called protection.”
‘No credible signs’ Russia wants to engage in serious negotiations, says EU’s Ursula von der Leyen
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission has said that the EU has had “no credible signs” that Russia wants to engage in serious negotiations to end the war with Ukraine.
“We must be able to convey our own messages directly to Russia,” she said on Friday.
“We will need a united European message when Russia comes to the negotiating table.”
How Ukraine’s new drone tactics are causing chaos in Russia after largest-ever attack on Moscow
Ukraine launched a powerful barrage of drones on Moscow on Thursday, triggering a huge explosion in one of the Russian capital’s key oil refineries.
Kyiv’s strategic deployment of medium-range drones is inflicting significant damage on Russia‘s struggling war effort, experts have said as Moscow’s ground offensive stalls.
Kyiv has scaled up its targeting of Russia’s critical oil infrastructure, the lifeblood of the Kremlin’s wartime economy, as part of a wider campaign to weaken its capacity to continue its war on Ukraine.
How Ukraine’s new drone tactics are causing chaos in Russia
Ukrainian officials say more resources have been focused on ‘middle strikes’ on radars and air defences around 180km behind the front lines.
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Reactions :
Writer and Political Analyst
Poland’s ultra-right, chauvinist, xenophobic, populist President Karol Nawrocki has stripped the Order of the White Eagle from President Zelensky. Ungrateful Warsaw, using Ukraine as a shield from fascist Russia, misrepresenting history to conceal its own responsibility for Polish imperialism and state directed genocide of Ukrainians in the 20th century. Detestable.
Check it out: Matching anti-Ukrainian hate propaganda from Moscow and Warsaw. Poles should be so proud their president is being praised by genocidal Russian war criminals for his treatment of Ukraine.
“No president of another country will dictate our history to us.”
- Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha
Absolutely right. Not Russia, not Poland.
Or do those who say that it is “Russia inciting anti-Ukrainian sentiments in Poland” claim that the Polish government is working in favor of Moscow? Or that Warsaw is a puppet government of the Kremlin?
………..
“Far too much energy is spent debating who should talk to Russia and how. Far too little is devoted to discussing how to bring about Russia’s defeat in the imperial wars of its own making.
For the Kremlin, negotiations are not a path to peace. They are another instrument for achieving its objectives by different means. Talks are used to buy time, exhaust opponents, undermine Western unity and seek relief from sanctions. As long as Russia believes that time is on its side, it has little incentive to end the war.
Peace without justice is not peace at all. It is merely a ceasefire before the next war. If the aggressor is left convinced that borders can be redrawn by force and that democratic societies will lose patience before it does, then the next conflict becomes only a matter of time.
History teaches us this lesson repeatedly.
We must be willing to speak openly about Russia’s defeat. More importantly, we must act to bring it about. Supporting Ukraine is of critical importance because every day Ukraine holds the line, it is defending the rest of Europe as well.
Too often, Russia’s defeat is portrayed as an uncontrollable catastrophe, the consequences of which would be worse than the continuation of aggression itself. This fear has become one of the Kremlin’s most effective weapons.
A just and lasting peace in Europe will not be built on fear of Russia’s defeat, but on the understanding that aggression must end in defeat. We should not fear Russia’s defeat. We should fear a world in which Russia comes to believe that it cannot lose.”
Read Marko Mihkelson’s argument in full here: https://lnkd.in/g-5-CA6j
Comment from :
DATELINE KYIV – DAY 1576 : 4502
“Ukraine must win, Europe must win and the Russians must go home defeated!” [Credit: Robin Horsfall]
“Any future negotiation with Russia cannot be reduced to Ukraine alone if Moscow’s military footprint remains embedded across Europe’s eastern security space.” [Credit: Kaja Kallas]
“It is high time for Europe to get out of bed and open the curtains. We are already late for work.” [Credit: Jade McGlynn] ____________
Wake up, Europe! ONLY THE DECISIVE DEFEAT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S ARMED FORCES IN UKRAINE WILL LEAD TO A JUST AND EQUITABLE PEACE, RUSSIAN ACCOUNTABILITY, AND A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR EUROPE AND THE WORLD.
If you want to win the war quickly, the only sure way to do it is boost Ukraine’s armed forces with every weapon they can absorb NOW. At present, a cease fire for its own sake will only inure to the benefit of the Russian Federation. Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words.
Time to stop enabling the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions. Time to unshackle your inner raging bull. Time to decapitate the snake.
V/r – IB An American in Ukraine (2019 – Present)
СЛАВА УКРАЇНІ! | СЛАВА ЗСУ! + СБУ! + ГУР + НГУ + ДПСУ | НПУ | ДСНС | ГЕРОЯМ СЛАВА!
Ariana Gic and Chris O’Shea keep hitting the nail on the head time after time.
“President Volodymyr Zelensky has accepted an offer from Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to help work for a peace deal in Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said on Friday.”
I fear that this is a mistake.
Lula is a snake; a vile crypto-communist analogue of Krasnov.
Europe will never learn. You don’t negotiate with a ruskie, you kick his teeth down his throat.
“Paris’s intention to extend its ‘nuclear umbrella’ to several EU and NATO member states is a source of deep concern.
“This will do nothing to strengthen the security of France itself or the recipients of its so-called protection.”
It didn’t stop putler from sending nukes to Belarus. What is good for one side is good for the other.
“The Kremlin has said that Russia is open to dialogue with Europe but “won’t accept ultimatums” in a statement on Friday.”
They could have added, “we are the ones that make ultimatums.”