The Chinese ambassador in Berlin has been summoned for urgent talks about media reports that Russian soldiers were being trained in China, the German foreign ministry said on Friday. These “deeply disturbing” reports point to support for Russia from Chinese state actors, in particular the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, it said. “Anything that enables Russia to continue its war of aggression against Ukraine also represents a threat to our security,” the ministry said. On 20 May, the German daily Die Welt reported that the Chinese army had secretly trained several hundred Russian soldiers on its territory, some of whom had been deployed in Ukraine, citing classified documents from European intelligence services.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed on Friday its forces had “completely” taken control of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, whose capture Moscow has long sought in its advance through Donetsk region. The battle for this city, which had about 78,000 inhabitants before the war, has been taking place since late 2025 and now constitutes the main Russian effort on a front more than 1,000km long. “The city is now entirely under our control,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. There was no independent verification of the claim.
A massive Russian glide bomb strike on the centre of the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Friday has killed at least four people, including a child, and injured 27, regional governor Oleh Hryhorov said. Other areas in the Sumy region and in southeastern Ukraine, closer to the frontlines, also came under Russian attack, killing a total of six people. After the attack, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Ukraine’s allies to intensify pressure on Russia “so that the terror can be stopped”. Sumy region, under near-constant attacks by Russian forces, is on the Russian border and Moscow has been trying to expand what it describes as a buffer zone there.
Ukraine is looking for ways to lower tension with Warsaw, Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk said on Friday, adding that Poland’s neighbour to the east should come to terms with its history in order to join the European Union. Diplomatic relations between the two countries deteriorated after Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland’s top honour because Zelenskyy had named an army unit after insurgents who massacred Poles in the second world war. Tusk, a political opponent of Nawrocki, has been trying to smooth tensions, and said he had received positive signals from Friday’s meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw. There are proposals for consultations between historians and talks between religious leaders from both nations, Tusk said.
Lithuania’s president said Friday his country wants to be integrated into western nuclear deterrence against Russia as it moves to end a ban on atomic weapons deployment. Speaking at a Berlin press conference, President Gitanas Nauseda said Lithuania was taking steps to remove the constitutional ban and added: “We would like to be the integral part of this nuclear deterrence.” “A few days ago, I initiated a constitutional amendment to remove the existing restriction on the possible deployment of nuclear weapons in Lithuania,” he added. Shortly afterwards, a group of 50 Lithuanian lawmakers submitted an amendment, which still has to be put before parliament.
The World Athletics Council on Friday reaffirmed its decision to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition, four years after it initially imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. World Athletics voted to end its eight-year doping ban of the Russian Athletics Federation in 2023 but the separate ban over the invasion of Ukraine kept out their athletes. “We presented options for the Council to consider on this matter, however the original decision remains on the sanctions that protect the integrity and fairness of our competitions, with no tangible movement towards peace negotiations having materialised,” World Athletics President Seb Coe said in a statement.
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