US Treasury Secretary meets Zelensky, passes along draft agreement on critical minerals

U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks come after the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing undisclosed sources, that he asked President Volodymyr Zelensky whether Kyiv could strike Moscow or St Petersburg if provided with long-range U.S. weapons.

Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center's (AntAC) executive board and current member of the country's Armed Forces, was charged on July 11 with evading military service and fraud — an accusation he and his team reject.

Donald Trump encouraged the strategy so that Russia could "feel the pain" and agree to negotiations, the Financial Times reported, citing its sources.

"The stolen data includes confidential questionnaires of the company's employees, and most importantly, full technical documentation on the production of drones, which was handed over to the relevant specialists of the Ukrainian Defense Forces," a source in Ukraine's military intelligence told the Kyiv Independent.

The vote passed by 305 deputies, with 40 abstaining, and none voting against.

The parliament is set to dismiss the government on July 16 as Prime Minister Denys Shymhal submitted his resignation.

Following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Beijing on July 15, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that mutual trust between the two countries had "deepened" and called on both sides to "strengthen mutual support on multilateral forums."

The chief executive of Euroclear told the FT that the EU's proposal would amount to "expropriation" — forced seizure — because if Russia demands the assets back in the future, they would not be available.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called upon the EU to take action against Ukraine's conscription practices in an interview with Origo published on July 15, amid an ongoing dispute with Kyiv over the death of a Ukrainian conscript of Hungarian ethnicity.

"This statement from the U.S. president is quite serious. Some of what he said appears to be addressed personally to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

According to the SBU, Russian "special services" recruited the 27-year-old Lviv resident who was trying to obtain "easy money" through Telegram channels.

The facility reportedly manufactures batteries for missile guidance and glider modules, including for the Iskander system and cruise missiles, which Russia has been increasingly using to target Ukrainian cities.