Zelenskyy pledges to ‘bring war back to Russia’ after drones swarm toward Moscow – Europe live

 LIVE – Updated at 16:40

Russia intercepted 300 Ukrainian drones across the country and temporarily suspended operations from Moscow airport.

Closing summary

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today!

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pledged for the Ukrainian army to “bring the war back to Russia,” as he said the country’s “response will grow stronger with each passing day” (9:28).

He also criticised Russia’s “unjustifiable killings” in Ukraine, urging other leaders to bring the Russian aggression to an end (11:25), as Ukraine intensified attacks on Crimea to raise the cost of Russian occupation (12:30).

Zelenskyy was also locked in a bitter dispute with Poland’s president Karol Nawrocki over the decision to rename a contemporary Ukrainian army unit after the controversial Ukrainian Insurgent Army (10:06).

In other news,

Western Europe is enduring a ferocious heatwave forecast to break temperature records, with half of France on red alert, rail services in Belgium disrupted and sports events in Spain and Germany cancelled or postponed (16:40).

The much-awaited EU-UK summit, scheduled for July, is likely to be postponed after the resignation of the British prime minister Keir Starmer (13:24, 16:10).

Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš also confirmed that its president and former senior Nato general Petr Pavel will not be part of the Czech delegation for the next month’s Nato summit in Ankara (15:27).