South Korean embassy staff return to Kyiv.

The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the EU has thrown out Orban's attempt to block military aid for Ukraine as "it does not fall within the jurisdiction" of the court.

Footage from the attack site shows firefighters battling flames engulfing cars and pools of blood from victims on the asphalt near the mall.

Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SSO) carried out Kyiv's deepest strike into Russia so far in the full-scale war, attacking a natural gas facility 3,200 kilometers (1,988 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The air-raid alert related to drone threats has been in effect in Kyiv for more than six hours since the start of the day.

At the time of the drone violation, Zelensky's plane was taking off from Moldova en route to Norway.

Three former law enforcement officers now serving in a Ukrainian army brigade, whose name has not been disclosed, allegedly conspired with unidentified accomplices to illegally monitor Oleksandr Shyrshyn and gather confidential information about him, according to the State Bureau of Investigation (DBR) and the Prosecutor General's Office.

In this interview, The Kyiv Independent's Francis Farrell speaks with Mykola Bielieskov, senior analyst at Come Back Alive and research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, about why Russian advances have slowed, how Ukraine’s drone tactics are reshaping the battlefield, and the limits of relying on manpower alone.

The Moldovan President called for more air defense for Ukraine.

"They should stop providing any assistance to Kyiv," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.

"Believe me, this is not an easy process at all," Montenegro's European Affairs Minister Maida Gorcevic said, expressing solidarity with the EU reform work still to be done by Ukraine.

"Given the scale of the damage inflicted on Ukraine... any awards (of compensation) could potentially amount to billions, tens of billions, or hundreds of billions of euros," reads a Council of Europe statement.

The announcement comes amid an apparent rapprochement between Serbia and Ukraine.