US reengages in Russia-Ukraine talks, Zelensky eyes pre-autumn summit

Fighting between Russia and Ukraine continues beyond the front lines, with Ukrainian forces this week launching strikes on Wildberries warehouses and other civilian infrastructure. Russia has responded by hitting Ukrainian ports and halting the country«s shipping.

Meanwhile, Moscow and Washington are holding talks and seeking new ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, while Kyiv leader Volodymyr Zelensky has announced plans to push for a trilateral summit in the coming months. Here are the key developments around the special military operation over the past seven days.

Mass strikes on marketplace warehouses and seaports

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is not limited to the combat zone. Russian regions regularly come under drone attacks. In addition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have stepped up strikes on Wildberries warehouses.

Drones attacked a warehouse in the Tambov region and the Moscow region. Eight people were killed and more than 60 were injured. A criminal case has been opened on charges of a terrorist attack.

A few days later, drones struck warehouses in Krasnodar and Stavropol. There were casualties. Two people were killed and 10 injured in the attack on a facility in Krasnodar. In the Stavropol region, five people sought medical help after the strike. The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case on charges of a terrorist attack.

Marketplace warehouses in the Leningrad region also suffered from drone impacts, sparking a fire. According to Governor Alexander Drozdenko, this occurred in the village of Novosaratovka in the Vsevolozhsk district. Three people were injured there, with their condition assessed as moderate.

Attacks on logistics centers also took place in St. Petersburg and Simferopol. The marketplace«s founder, Tatyana Kim, commented on the situation and spoke about the status of the goods.

«Today there was an attack on our logistics complexes in Shushary, Utkina Zavod (St. Petersburg and the region) and in Simferopol. Part of the premises and goods were saved,» she wrote on her Telegram channel.

According to preliminary information, no one was injured in the attacks on warehouses in Crimea and St. Petersburg. Emergency services are working at the scene and clearing the aftermath.

The south came under a massive missile and drone attack. In Stavropol, an industrial zone was damaged, and in the Rostov region, a wheat field caught fire.

There were also raids on the Kursk region, where drones struck a bus, a grocery store, and a bus stop in Lgov. Two people were wounded, one of them a 40-year-old Belarusian citizen.

Strikes also hit Vladimir, where a drone flew directly into an apartment. Residents were evacuated.

Due to the raids, an oil depot burned in Noginsk, Moscow region. Two people were injured in one attack in Domodedovo, where drones hit a private house and a car.

Five people were killed in the Belgorod region when a drone struck a passenger bus, and 23 were wounded, including a teenager; three of the injured were in serious condition.

Drone debris fell on the grounds of a church in Sochi, injuring a child.

«The girl was hospitalized for necessary medical care. There is no threat to her life,» the operational headquarters said in a statement.

Three people, including a child, died in an attack overnight on 23 July, with raids on Crimea, the Voronezh region, and the Belgorod region.

The strikes on Russia did not go unanswered. This week, at the Mykolaiv sea trade port, Russian forces attacked five dry cargo ships while they were unloading, according to Russia«s Defense Ministry. The vessels were delivering supplies for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

At the Odesa trade port, Russian forces used precision air-launched weapons to strike fuel and lubricant reservoirs used to supply the Ukrainian military. In addition, two unmanned boats were shot down in the Black Sea, along with a battery of the coastal missile system «Neptune».

Following this, shipping in Ukraine came to a halt. No vessel has entered the country«s Black Sea harbors since 22 July, the publication «Strana» reports.

Additionally, military cargo was destroyed in a Russian strike on a logistics center of «Nova Poshta». A massive strike was also carried out on military-industrial facilities and logistics centers in Kyiv and the Kyiv region. Russian troops destroyed a plant in Kyiv that produced equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The enterprise UKRTAC specialized in manufacturing personal protective equipment for the Ukrainian military. According to the plant«s founder, Severion Dangadze, warehouses were also completely destroyed in a direct missile hit. He called the nighttime shelling «the biggest tragedy in the company»s history». He wrote on his Facebook page (an extremist organization banned in Russia) that the plant«s employees were not injured.

Zelensky replaces army leadership amid nationwide protests

Kyiv leader Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Oleksandr Syrskyi from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The new commander-in-chief is Mykhailo Drapatyi.

«Together with Mykhailo, Yevhen Khmarа, and Pavlo Palisa, we determined how the configuration of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine should be updated,» Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel.

In 2004, Drapatyi graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Forces named after the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. He began military service immediately after graduation and carried out combat missions in Donbas in 2014. In April 2019, he was promoted ahead of schedule to the rank of colonel.

In February 2024, Drapatyi was appointed deputy chief of the General Staff for military training. In May, he took command of the operational-tactical group «Kharkiv», and in September, the operational-tactical group «Luhansk». In October 2024, he was promoted to major general.

Syrskyi had held the post of Commander-in-Chief since February 2024. His dismissal came amid mass protests in Ukrainian cities following the ouster of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

One of the reasons for the personnel changes was a conflict between Syrskyi and Fedorov. After the former defense minister left his post, protests took place in Kyiv, Lviv, and other cities, with participants demanding the commander-in-chief«s resignation and the return of the former minister to the Defense Ministry.

After his dismissal, Fedorov accused Syrskyi of obstructing army reforms, lacking a strategic plan to counter Russia, and using outdated methods of warfare.

After his appointment, Drapatyi gave an interview in which he said that many residents of Donbas are not a conscious population but people who want «freebies and don«t want to work».

«Having conversations, I observed this situation. I won«t say the majority, but a very significant number of this contingent don»t want to work, they want freebies; they don«t really care which country they live in or what it»s called,» the new commander-in-chief said.

He also commented on his attitude toward Russia. In his view, Russians are «a nation that has no right to exist».

The dismissals of Fedorov and Syrskyi were not the only personnel changes in the country. Zelensky also dismissed Andriy Hnatov, head of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and appointed Ihor Skibiuk in his place.

Foreign media have already reacted to this situation. According to the authors of the newspaper Berliner Zeitung, the resignations of Fedorov and Syrskyi, as well as the resurgence of protests against Zelensky for the second time since the start of the conflict with Russia, vividly illustrate the crossroads Ukraine faces.

The country is predicted to face chronic instability, deep dependence, and a scenario of failure. All these changes could lead to serious political consequences.

Zelensky«s attempts to demonstrate that he retains control may provoke an internal conflict within the military bloc, and the situation could be further inflamed by the commercial interests of those who manage the huge defense budget, writes «Strana».

Ukraine receives new aid

This week, Ukraine received new assistance. The country was given $690 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the current credit program, announced Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi.

«Ukraine today received the second tranche of about $690 million from the IMF under the new four-year program. The funds have already been transferred to the state budget and will be used to maintain macro-financial stability, particularly to finance priority expenditures,» he wrote on his Telegram channel.

Meanwhile, the United States is refusing to help Kyiv. The current administration will not allocate $400 million in military aid to Ukraine, said U.S. Senator Richard Durbin at a hearing on Capitol Hill.

«And you know that the current administration has informed us of the unavailability of these funds? The payment plan tells us to be ready to spend them in fiscal year 2029. That decision will be made by the new president, whoever that may be,» RIA Novosti quotes him as saying.

Russia and the U.S. seek new ideas to resolve the conflict

While Ukrainian authorities receive aid and carry out personnel reshuffles, the U.S. and Russia are exploring new ideas to resolve the conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that the Ukrainian crisis prevents Moscow and Washington from finding common ground on other issues.

However, the governments continue to seek new areas for potential cooperation. For instance, on 23 July, Rubio met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Philippines.

The politicians discussed the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict and commitment to the Anchorage agreements. During the summit, the sides considered the normalization of working conditions for Russian and U.S. diplomatic missions. Lavrov and Rubio also agreed to continue contacts, including within international organizations.

Russia«s top diplomat pointed out to the U.S. the inadmissibility of further arming Kyiv. Rubio was also briefed on the current situation on the line of contact between Russia and Ukraine.

«During the discussion of the Ukrainian issue, Sergei Lavrov conveyed to his American counterpart information about the real state of affairs on the line of contact and emphasized the inadmissibility of further pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and the overall destabilizing policy of European countries, which still seek to inflict a «strategic defeat» on Russia,» the Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Telegram.

After this meeting, U.S. President Donald Trump«s national security adviser noted that the Moscow-Washington talks in Anchorage had failed. Now the countries need to come up with new ideas to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. He stressed that Washington will continue to seek a path to end the crisis acceptable to both sides.

«I think both sides should have an incentive to end the conflict. That was the difficulty: finding a path that both sides can accept. And we tried and will continue to try to see if we can find a middle ground that leads to that. And we are ready to play a role in that,» the U.S. Secretary of State concluded.

Regarding the claim that the proposals made at the Russia-U.S. summit in Alaska had failed, the Russian Foreign Minister said that one needs to understand who exactly failed. He reminded that President Vladimir Putin arrived at the summit with U.S. proposals approved by American leader Donald Trump, which Russia had agreed to.

«If there is a proposal and there is agreement, then there were presumably agreed results in Anchorage? There were. President Trump, I won«t reveal a big secret, said more than once that this was our proposal, partly a compromise. We accepted that this is a compromise proposal, and any agreement should probably contain an inevitable element of compromise,» Lavrov said.

The foreign minister noted that Trump then added that Zelensky would do what he proposed.

«Well, it didn«t work out,» the minister said.

Despite this, Russia will achieve its goals, even if the U.S., following Europe, buries the Anchorage agreements. Moscow prefers to do this through diplomatic means, Lavrov concluded.

Meanwhile, foreign media are discussing upcoming Russia-Ukraine negotiations. Bloomberg believes Moscow will not resume talks with Kyiv until it gains full control over the Donetsk People«s Republic (DPR). The Kremlin responded to this statement, calling it unserious.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the conditions for ending hostilities were voiced by Vladimir Putin two years ago and remain relevant to this day.

«Everyone in the world, including Kyiv, knows these parameters well. We have repeatedly said that Kyiv only needs to make a responsible decision, and hostilities can quickly cease, moving on to serious and complex negotiations,» Peskov said.

The Kremlin representative stressed that foreign media publications on this topic should not be taken seriously.

«No need to pay special attention to them; they are more in the realm of speculation,» Peskov concluded.

He added that contacts on the Ukrainian settlement are ongoing, but it is premature to talk about accelerating the process.

Kyiv intends to push for trilateral talks in the coming months

Zelensky wants to organize a trilateral meeting of Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. before autumn. According to him, this winter Kyiv will either enter negotiations with Moscow or face a new escalation of the war. However, he said, the priority for Ukraine remains front-line stability and reaching the negotiating table.

«I think then there will be a trilateral meeting (of representatives of Moscow, Kyiv, and Washington on settlement). Of course, this all needs to be done before autumn,» the Ukrinform agency quotes Zelensky as saying.

It is also known that Zelensky plans to discuss this issue with his American counterpart Donald Trump. Next week he will travel to the United States, where he will reportedly hold a meeting on the «peace track», said Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

However, the final plan of the visit with a full list of meetings and participants has not yet been agreed. If Zelensky is unable to take part in the events in the U.S., a Ukrainian delegation will go instead.