Zelenskyy to Latin America: every Ukrainian power plant is hit

Volodymyr Zelenskyy took Ukraine's repair bill straight to Latin America on Thursday, telling leaders in Madrid that Russia has battered his country's entire power grid. "Every power plant in Ukraine has been damaged in one way or another by attacks," he said, with repair crews grinding around the clock. His ask: equipment that actually fits Ukraine's grid, and fast.

Zelenskyy made the pitch on the sidelines of the Ibero-American Community summit, a 22-nation bloc of mostly Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries. He pointed at Spanish and Latin American companies as potential suppliers, arguing Ukraine needs "as much international cooperation as possible" to keep its energy system standing. In other words, he's shopping for grid hardware wherever he can find it.

Back in Washington, Donald Trump teased a blockbuster agreement with Russia after an unscheduled sit-down with Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin's envoy. Dmitriev was at the White House for talks with Ukrainian officials hosted by first lady Melania Trump, but Trump said he skipped that meeting. "It's going to involve more than Ukraine, and I could even say it might involve all of Europe," he told reporters in the Oval Office, without revealing the substance. The comments are likely to sharpen European fears that Washington is drifting toward the Kremlin and will lean on Kyiv for an unfavourable deal.

The war kept burning overnight. Ukraine and Russia traded airstrikes, and Russia's Ryazan oil refinery appeared to have been hit in a large drone attack on industrial sites south-east of Moscow, according to a Reuters video analysis. A Ukrainian strike on a bus killed five people and wounded 13 in Russian-occupied Luhansk, said the region's Moscow-backed leader, Leonid Pasechnik. In Komyshuvakha, near the frontline in Zaporizhzhia, rescuers kept digging for more than 30 people believed trapped under a former school and a shelter struck by Russian guided bombs on Monday — a disaster Zelenskyy said has now killed 43, with one person earlier listed missing found alive.

New leaked defence industry documents, obtained by a Ukrainian private intelligence firm and shared with the Guardian, reveal Moscow arranged to send Iran 90 launchers for the LMUR — a guided missile fired from attack helicopters that Russian forces have used heavily against Ukraine. The papers lay bare how deep the military pipeline between Moscow and Tehran runs.

In Europe, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni fired off a letter, seen by Agence France-Presse, blasting the continent's "disorderly" handling of Ukraine talks and demanding the EU settle on who actually speaks for it. Writing to European Council chief António Costa, she warned the scattershot format of meetings makes Europe look "utterly lacking in credibility" on its toughest dossier. Costa wrote back agreeing that Europe must act "with coherence, unity and determination" — a tidy reply to a messy problem.