News on the war between Ukraine and Russia: Kyiv launches major drone attack on Crimea as Zelensky’s foreign minister arrives in China

As part of a Czech-led initiative to purchase ammunition from around the world for Ukraine, 100,000 rounds of ammunition will be delivered to the country in July and August, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on Monday.

The Czech Republic actively supported Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression and took the lead in raising funds to supply more ammunition and grenades to Kyiv.

“In July and August we will ship a total of about 100 (thousand) more pieces. From September these deliveries will be accelerated,” Lipavsky told reporters in Brussels.

Russia claims its air defense systems at a port in Crimea destroyed more than 15 drones launched from Ukraine overnight.

The Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol said today that the Ukrainian attack on the city had been thwarted without loss of life or infrastructure.

“No objects were damaged in the city,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said on his Telegram channel.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will arrive in China today for talks to urge Russia’s closest ally to end the war.

Mr Kuleba’s visit is unusually long and will last from today until Friday, July 26. It comes at the invitation of the Communist Party of China and includes a meeting between Mr Kuleba and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning announced on Monday.

Despite its increasingly close “borderless” relations with Russia, China has presented itself as a neutral party. Beijing has not condemned the war, but has called for peace and presented itself as a mediator.

However, the US and Europe accuse China of supplying dual-use components and equipment that could help Russia in the war.

“This is the first bilateral visit to your country (China) in my capacity as Foreign Minister. We will discuss important issues such as restoring peace, deepening our bilateral dialogue and expanding trade and economic cooperation,” Kuleba said.

“We can achieve a lot if we work together.”

Ukraine’s top commander said on Monday that Russian forces were conducting relentless attacks to advance toward the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in the east, and that active fighting was taking place along the entire front line.

“The enemy ignores its relatively high losses and continues to advance towards Pokrovsk,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a statement from the Eastern Front.

According to openly available intelligence battlefield maps, Pokrovsk is less than 24 kilometers from Russian-occupied territory. It is also located at a road and rail junction, making the city an important logistics hub for the military in the east.

“Active fighting of varying intensity is taking place along the entire front,” Syrskyi said, noting that Russian forces were also trying to capture floodplain islands near the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Channel X that he respected US President Biden’s “tough but strong decision” to withdraw from the election campaign and thanked him for his help “in preventing (Russian President Vladimir) Putin from occupying our country”.

In a post, he said: “Ukraine is grateful to President Biden for his unwavering support of the Ukrainian freedom struggle, which has been and will continue to be critical, along with strong bipartisan support in the United States.”

“Many strong decisions have been made over the past few years, and they will be remembered as bold steps taken by President Biden in response to challenging times. And we respect today’s difficult but strong decision. We will always be grateful to President Biden for his leadership.

“He supported our country at the most dramatic moment in history, helped us prevent Putin’s occupation of our country, and continued to support us throughout this terrible war.

“The current situation in Ukraine and across Europe is no less challenging, and we sincerely hope that America’s continued strong leadership will prevent Russian evil from succeeding or its aggression from paying off.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba will visit China from July 23 to 26.

The Prime Minister is keen to maintain Britain’s position as one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters in the world – a role that will become even more important as support from other powers begins to falter, writes Maria Dejevsky

Earlier, the country’s top commander said Russian forces were launching relentless attacks to advance toward the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in eastern Ukraine, and that active fighting was taking place along the entire front line.

“The enemy ignores its relatively high losses and continues to advance towards Pokrovsk,” Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a statement from the Eastern Front.

The oil refinery in Tuapse was damaged in a night attack, officials in the Kaznodar region confirmed on Monday.

As part of a Czech-led initiative to purchase ammunition from around the world for Ukraine, 100,000 rounds of ammunition will be delivered to the country in July and August, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said on Monday.

The Czech Republic actively supported Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression and took the lead in raising funds to supply more ammunition and grenades to Kyiv.

“In July and August we will ship a total of about 100 (thousand) more pieces. From September these deliveries will be accelerated,” Lipavsky told reporters in Brussels.

EU foreign ministers will assess Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “unacceptable” stance on the bloc’s role in Ukraine and his trips to Russia and China.

Hungary took over the six-month rotating Council Presidency in July and almost immediately travelled to Moscow and Beijing to take part in a so-called “peacekeeping mission”, although none of its EU partners knew about it or had commissioned it to do so.

He also left a NATO summit early to meet with former US President Donald Trump, has been a sharp critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and maintains good diplomatic relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that the Hungarian government’s decisions were “unacceptable.”

He added: “We will discuss the events and the positions of the Hungarian government.”

Some EU member states would like to see a tougher stance from the Union towards Hungary and have proposed boycotting or restricting the ministers’ participation in an informal meeting in Budapest at the end of August.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters upon her arrival in Brussels that Borrell represented EU foreign policy to ministers and that it was “not surprising that the ego trips” had irritated many.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday: “For weeks, the Brussels foreign affairs bureaucracy and the heads of state and government of some EU countries have been gnashing their teeth over our peace mission out of frustration/envy/the perspective of exposing their failed strategy.

“All we get from our Brussels and European friends is a childish sit-in boycott and verbal karate.”