Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,217

Here are the key events on day 1,217 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Sappers of the Russian armed forces walk along a motorway as they search for explosives and demine an area near the town of Maryinka, in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region of Ukraine, on June 24, 2025 [Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters]

Published On 25 Jun 202525 Jun 2025

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, June 25 :

Fighting

  • Russian missile strikes on southeastern Ukraine killed 17 people in the city of Dnipro and injured more than 200, damaging dozens of buildings and infrastructure facilities.
  • Two people were killed in a Russian attack on the city of Samara.
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Hennadii Shapovalov as the new commander of Ukraine’s ground forces. He will also oversee military recruitment efforts overseas as part of a broader mobilisation effort.
  • Russia says it intercepted dozens of drones overnight across its territory, including the Voronezh region on the border of eastern Ukraine.
  • Russian forces say they captured the village of Dyliivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
  • Zelenskyy said on X that Russia and Ukraine have not moved any closer to a ceasefire. “The Russians once again openly and absolutely cynically declared they are ‘not in the mood’ for a ceasefire. Russia wants to wage war. This means the pressure the world is applying isn’t hurting them enough yet, or they are trying very hard to keep up appearances.”

Diplomacy

  • The White House said United States President Donald Trump will meet Zelenskyy during a NATO summit in The Hague this week. The meeting will be a second attempt after Zelenskyy failed to meet Trump earlier this month in Canada when the US president abruptly left a G7 summit.
  • En route to the NATO summit on Tuesday, Trump declined to say whether he supported NATO’s Article 5 clause calling for collective self-defence. “Depends on your definition. There’s numerous definitions of Article 5,” he told reporters on board Air Force One, adding, “I’m committed to being their friend.”

Advertisement

  • NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said the security bloc’s “military edge is being aggressively challenged by a rapidly rearming Russia, backed by Chinese technology and armed with Iranian and North Korean weapons” before the summit.
  • NATO members are expected to support a push to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 10 years. The move is seen as a bid to appease Trump and deter Russia.

Finance

  • The Netherlands, the host of the NATO summit, announced a new 175-million-euro ($203m) aid package to Ukraine, which includes drone detection radars. The news follows another 500-million-euro ($580m) deal to make 600,000 drones with Ukraine.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies