At least one dead after Russia launches strikes on Odesa and Kharkiv
Russian drones struck the Black Sea port city of Odesa and the northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight, killing at least one person, Ukrainian officials have said.
The attacks against Odesa sparked fires at several apartment blocks, Ukraine's Emergency Service said.
Flames engulfed a four-storey residential building in the city, which partly collapsed and injured three emergency workers.
A separate blaze spread across the upper section of a 23-storey high-rise, leading to the evacuation of 600 residents.
In total, one person was killed and 14 others were wounded in the overnight strikes against the port city, according to Odesa's regional prosecutor's office.
At least eight drones hit civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, injuring two children and two others, Ukraine's Emergency Service said. A further four people were injured in a second Russian strike on Friday.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched 80 Shahed and decoy drones overnight, with air defences intercepting or jamming 70 of them.
A Russian missile strike on a nine-storey Kyiv apartment building earlier this week was a sign that more pressure must be applied on Moscow to agree to a ceasefire, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
The drone and missile attack on Kyiv early Tuesday, the deadliest assault on the capital this year, killed 28 people across the city and wounded 142 others, Kyiv Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said.
'This attack is a reminder to the world that Russia rejects a ceasefire and chooses killing,' Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, and thanked Ukraine's partners who he said are ready to pressure Russia to 'feel the real cost of the war".
As Russia proceeds with a summer offensive across the roughly 1,000-kilometre front line, US-led peace efforts have failed to gain traction.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has effectively rejected an offer from US President Donald Trump for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine's mobilisation effort and a freeze on Western arms supplies.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday that the date for the next round of peace talks is expected to be set next week.
Ukrainian officials have not recently spoken about resuming talks with Russia, last held when delegations met in Istanbul on 2 June, though Ukraine continues to offer a ceasefire and support US-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting.
The two rounds of brief talks yielded only agreements on the exchange of prisoners and wounded soldiers.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is strengthening its role as the European Union's financial arm, with its financing ceiling for this year reaching €100 billion, a new record.
Against a backdrop of geopolitical tensions, the Bank is confirming its commitment to defence and security by tripling its lending. The EIB plans to devote 3.5% of total financing to the military sector. The institution mentions 32 flagship projects in the pipeline.
These announcements validate the extension in recent months of the EIB's security mandate, which marks a paradigm shift in the institution's mission.
This support will be available to all EU companies: public and private, large and small.
"We finance the public sector when it comes to infrastructure for large military barracks. Just this week we got the go-ahead to finance a very important piece of infrastructure in Lithuania, a military barracks that will house a brigade of the Bundeswehr (German army) very close to the Belarusian border," said EIB President Nadia Calviño.
"We are also financing large private companies for research and development programmes in the fields of innovation and industrial capacity," she added.
She also says that she is working with the European Commission to identify other key infrastructures for military mobility.
The EIB's commitment to defence does not, however, mean a complete turnaround. Climate change and clean energy remain priorities. The EIB deems climate action to go hand in hand with European security.
The Bank is therefore launching a new programme of investment in technology and innovation: TechEU. The scheme will provide €70 billion of equity, quasi-equity, loans and guarantees from the EIB Group between 2025 and 2027. It will also call on private capital to generate at least €250 billion of investment. The first wave of TechEU projects will be devoted to clean industries.
"This concerns the products needed to build energy networks. It's about guarantees for clean technology innovators. We also need to support the wind power industry and the deployment of power purchase agreements, which are essential to stabilise energy prices for Europe's major industries," said Calviño.
The EIB President stressed that the green transition and technology also contribute to the EU's strategic autonomy.
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