Live, war in Ukraine: one dead in unprecedented strikes on Kharkiv, according to the city's mayor

The death toll from the Russian attack carried out overnight from Thursday to Friday rose to at least five on Saturday, with the discovery of the body of a young woman in the rubble in Lutsk, near the Polish border.

The attack, carried out across the country, was one of the most massive since the start of the war, with 407 drones and 45 missiles, according to the Ukrainian army.

One person was killed and at least seven injured in unprecedented Russian airstrikes on Kharkiv, Igor Terekhov, mayor of Ukraine's second-largest city, said Saturday.

The city suffered "the most powerful attack since the start of the war" in February 2022, the elected official announced, reporting "at least 40 explosions" in a short period of time. "The enemy is striking simultaneously with missiles, Shahed drones and guided aerial bombs," Mr. Terekhov detailed.

One person was killed and another injured in an attack on a private house in Kyivsky District, and six others were injured in the city center, according to the mayor.

A predominantly Russian-speaking city of over 1.4 million people before the war, Kharkiv is located less than fifty kilometers from the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine and is regularly targeted by nighttime strikes, like most other cities in the country. On Thursday, eighteen people, including four children, were injured in Russian airstrikes on Kharkiv.

French automotive and defense companies will produce drones on Ukrainian soil, Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Friday, describing it as a "win-win" partnership with Kiev. "We are going to embark on a completely unprecedented partnership where a large French car company – I won't name it because it's up to them to announce it – will join forces with a French defense SME to equip production lines in Ukraine to be able to produce drones," the minister announced on LCI channel.

These drones, the type of which he did not specify, will be intended for the Ukrainians, "but we will also provide them to our own armies (...) to have ongoing tactical and operational training that reflects the reality" of the conflict in Ukraine, he added. The Ukrainians will provide feedback on their use of drones in this war.

"There is no need to ask French citizens" to go and work on the production line that will be installed in Ukraine, according to him. For Sébastien Lecornu, the Ukrainians "are better than us in the ability to imagine drones and especially to develop the doctrine that goes with them."

Ukraine plans to use more than 4.5 million drones by 2025, which are responsible for 70% of the destruction of enemy equipment on the front lines. The French army, which has several thousand drones, is seeking to catch up in this area.

The White House is asking Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to soften his Russia sanctions bill , the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The sanctions bill, introduced on April ¹ by Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, seeks to impose a 500% tariff on imports from countries that continue to buy Russian oil and raw materials. On May 30, Volodymyr Zelensky met with the two senators in Kyiv .

The White House reportedly asked Lindsey Graham to insert waivers into the bill that would allow Donald Trump to choose which entities would be sanctioned and to change the word "shall" to " may ," which would effectively gut the bill. Blumenthal confirmed that negotiations with Trump administration officials were taking place behind the scenes, but did not comment on the substance of the discussions.

Republican Senator Roger Wicker said Wednesday that Donald Trump has asked the Senate to postpone a vote on the bill, which was scheduled to come up for a vote this week. At a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on June 5, Trump said the Senate was waiting for his approval to advance the sanctions bill. "They will be guided by me. That's how it has to be. They're waiting for me to decide what to do," he said.

The president added that he had a deadline in mind for the implementation of new sanctions against Russia, without providing further details, saying they would be imposed when it became clear that peace talks were not moving forward. He also said the sanctions could apply to both Russia and Ukraine.

American Joseph Tater, who has been in a psychiatric hospital since April , has left Russia, the official TASS news agency reported. In April, he was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment after attacking a police officer. He was arrested in Moscow in August 2024 .

Neither the U.S. Embassy in Moscow nor the U.S. State Department have commented. Reuters reported in May that he was one of nine Americans held in Russia whom the United States wanted released as part of a prisoner swap.

According to The Washington Post , Ukraine is intensifying a secret war against Russia. This secret war is being waged by two Ukrainian services, the SBU – which is supposed to focus on operations in Ukraine – and the HUR, which coordinate their actions, despite some rivalry, to put into practice the Ukrainian special forces' motto: "I'm coming for you," which expresses their determination to hunt down and neutralize their enemies .

According to the newspaper, Operation Spider Web , which has been planned for 18 months, could be the prelude to other similarly audacious attacks. The HUR gave a foretaste of this with an attack in Vladivostok on May 30. For its part, the SBU , which pushed the Russian Black Sea Fleet back into its ports and carried out an attack on the Crimean Bridge on June 3, is planning strikes against the Pacific Fleet, whose main bases are Vladivostok and Vilyuchinsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula, one of the two bases where nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines are stationed.

The Russian National Guard announced Friday that it had killed a man who was planning a drone attack on "a military site in the Ryazan region," southeast of Moscow, as Ukraine has stepped up similar operations since last weekend. "During his arrest, the criminal put up armed resistance and was neutralized," the National Guard said on Telegram .

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) on Friday, June 6, cut its key interest rate to 20%, slightly down from its previous rate of 21%, its highest level in two decades, and assured that it was regaining control of inflation, which had been running rampant for months. "Current inflationary pressures (...) continue to decline," the CBR said in a statement. "We are close to the scenario of balanced growth" and "without overheating," CBR President Elvira Nabiullina said at a press conference.

This is the first cut in the BCR's key interest rate since September 2022. At the same time, year-on-year growth slowed to 1.4% in the first quarter, according to official statistics, its lowest level in two years.

Prices have been rising rapidly across the Russian economy for months, fueled by massive military spending – not seen since the Soviet era – to fight the conflict in Ukraine and by severe labor shortages.

Sky-high interest rates have also hit businesses hard, with some of the country's top business leaders pressuring the central bank to ease monetary policy.

According to the BCR, inflation had slowed to 9.8% year-on-year as of June 2, but it is still far from the 4% target set by the authorities. "Monetary policy will remain tight for a long time," the BCR warned on Friday.

Despite severe Western sanctions, Russia posted strong economic growth in 2024, driven mainly by massive state defense spending, which is expected to increase by nearly 30% in 2025. Economists have warned, however, that this defense-led growth does not reflect a real increase in productivity.

General Christian Freuding, who is responsible for coordinating German military aid to Ukraine, told Reuters that European NATO members and Canada would be able to sustain Ukraine's war effort against Russia without U.S. support. He said Europe already provides about 60 percent of all Western aid to Ukraine, surpassing the United States over the past year.

General Freuding acknowledges, however, that some specific military capabilities, particularly in surveillance and air defense, still rely heavily on American equipment and would be difficult to replace in the event of a complete withdrawal by Washington.

He also warns of the rapid progress of Russian rearmament. Moscow plans to increase its ground troops to 1.5 million by 2026 and is rapidly replenishing its ammunition stocks. Moreover, Russia is strengthening its military presence near NATO's borders, particularly around Finland. According to him, a possible ceasefire in Ukraine could allow Russia to reorganize and prepare for an attack against NATO by 2029.

General Freuding also insisted that Europe has the political will and financial resources to maintain its commitment and raised the possibility of European countries purchasing American equipment to transfer to Ukraine, thus circumventing a possible interruption of direct US assistance.

The European Union is considering adding Russia to its "grey list" of countries whose anti-money laundering measures are deemed inadequate, the Financial Times reported Friday , citing European Commission officials. Although the decision was expected this week, the European Commission has delayed its final verdict for "administrative or procedural" reasons, the Financial Times reported. A decision is now expected early next week.

"There is very broad support for including Russia on this list," said Markus Ferber, a German MEP responsible for economic affairs for the European People's Party (EPP), the largest center-right group in the European Parliament. The majority of members of the European Parliament would support this move, although no formal consensus has yet been reached.

The EU's grey list generally aligns with the assessments of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the international body responsible for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.

Russia was suspended from the FATF in 2023 following its invasion of Ukraine. Efforts to place it on the EU's grey list have met with resistance, particularly from countries with close ties to Moscow, which are likely to block any enhanced surveillance measures. The EU's most recent internal draft grey list includes countries such as Algeria, Kenya, Laos, and Venezuela. Others, such as Barbados, the United Arab Emirates, and Senegal, could be removed. The FATF's "black list" includes Iran , North Korea, and Myanmar.

If implemented, this designation would further isolate Russia from global markets and strengthen compliance constraints on any remaining cross-border financial transactions with Russian institutions.

During Russia's combined missile and drone attack on Ukraine on the night of June 6, Meaghan Mobbs, the daughter of Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, addressed her father on social media.

"Noisy night in Kiev, Dad! Maybe it's the explosions and gunfire in the middle of the night, but I have a strange feeling the Russians don't want peace," she wrote on X, as Russia launched one of its most intense air assaults of the war.

Meaghan Mobbs is an American clinical psychologist, former Army captain, and Afghanistan veteran. She is the president of the RT Weatherman Foundation, which provides medical supplies and aid to Ukrainian organizations and hospitals.

"For us, this is an existential issue, a matter of national interests, security, our future and that of our children," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at his daily briefing, responding to a question about statements by Donald Trump.

The US president on Thursday compared the war in Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – to an argument between two children who hate each other: "Sometimes it's better to let them fight for a while and then separate them," he said, adding that he had shared this analogy with Vladimir Putin during their telephone conversation on Wednesday.

"In response to the terrorist acts committed by the Kiev regime, the Russian armed forces launched a massive strike overnight using long-range high-precision air, sea and ground weapons, as well as attack drones," the Russian Defense Ministry wrote in a statement, saying it had targeted "military" sites during its bombings which killed at least three people, according to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a nighttime Russian attack of "more than 400 drones and more than 40 missiles" that killed three people and injured 49 others. "Unfortunately, this number could increase," he added.

In total, the Ukrainian General Staff claims to have repelled 406 of the 452 aerial threats identified: 407 Shahed attack drones and decoy drones, 6 Iskander-M and KN-23 ballistic missiles, 36 Kh-101 cruise missiles dropped by Tu-95MS and Tu-160M ​​strategic bombers, two Iskander-K cruise missiles and one Kh-31 anti-radar missile.

The independent Russian media outlet Mediazona reports that Russian courts received 26,000 applications for recognition of missing persons in 2025. This figure, if we add the 22,600 applications filed in 2024, approaches 50,000.

The vast majority of these are linked to the war against Ukraine and come from military units and commanders, according to the media, which estimates their number at between 30,000 and 40,000.

Last year, the ^254th and ^488th Motorized Rifle Regiments had the highest number of applications, according to Mediazona . By mid-2025, brigades created in the Donetsk region are in the lead, with the ^1st Sloviansk Brigade (596 applications) taking first place.

The Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement that it had struck the Engels base (📌) in the Saratov region, a "concentration site for enemy aircraft remaining after the operation by the Ukrainian security services" , and the Diagilevo base (📌) in the Ryazan region, "where tanker aircraft and escort fighters used to carry out missile strikes on Ukrainian territory are based" .

Ukraine announced "multiple confirmed impacts on at least three fuel and lubricant tanks, followed by a large-scale fire (...) . Dozens of explosions were recorded near the targets. The results of the destruction are being evaluated" at the Engels base. As for the Diaghilevo base, "there are reports of a fire in the target area. The results are being analyzed."

In a message posted on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a nighttime Russian attack of "more than 400 drones and more than 40 missiles" that killed three people and injured 49 others. "Unfortunately, this number could increase," he added.

"Russia must be held accountable. (…) But the time has come for America, Europe and all countries of the world to put pressure on Russia to end this war. If someone does not exert pressure and lets the war take its time to kill, they are showing complicity and responsibility," the Ukrainian president urged.

In total, the Ukrainian General Staff counted 406 aerial threats repelled out of 452 identified: 407 Shahed attack drones and decoy drones, 6 Iskander-M and KN-23 ballistic missiles, 36 Kh-101 cruise missiles from Tu-95MS and Tu-160M ​​strategic aircraft, 2 Iskander-K cruise missiles and 1 Kh-31 anti-radar missile.

The mayor of Kiev has released a new report on the Russian drone and missile strikes that targeted his city overnight from Thursday to Friday. "Four people have been confirmed dead in the capital," Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram on Friday.