{"id":255403,"date":"2025-07-11T05:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T05:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/255403\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T05:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T05:46:11","slug":"zelenskyy-seeking-to-bolster-ukraines-air-defences-at-rome-conference-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/255403\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskyy seeking to bolster Ukraine\u2019s air defences at Rome conference | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened a conference in Italy on rebuilding his war-battered country, as it comes under relentless ground and air attacks from Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the Rome gathering, the Ukrainian leader held a flurry of meetings on Thursday, including a video call with leaders from about 30 countries in the so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing<\/a>\u201c, as he sought to secure financing to bolster his country\u2019s defences, which were this week strained by Russia\u2019s largest missile and drone attack<\/a> in more than three years of war.<\/p>\n

Spelling out his country\u2019s needs at the conference, Zelenskyy said the focus was on \u201cmore air defence supplies\u201d and \u201cinvestments in interceptor drones, air defence systems, and missiles\u201d.<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom and France are spearheading talks among the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d on how to support a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, including potentially deploying peacekeeping forces to police any future peace agreement with Russia. This week, the office of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the call would cover \u201cstepping up support for Ukraine and further increasing pressure on Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the UK said it would supply more than 5,000 air defence missiles to Ukraine and provide up to 283 million pounds ($384m) in aid.<\/p>\n

The success of the coalition\u2019s operation hinges on United States backup with airpower or other military assistance, but the administration of President Donald Trump has made no public commitment to provide support.<\/p>\n

Amid growing uncertainty about US commitment to Kyiv\u2019s defence, despite Trump\u2019s recent U-turn<\/a> on pausing critical weapons deliveries, Zelenskyy had a \u201csubstantive\u201d meeting with Trump\u2019s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, on Wednesday. He will also talk with US officials on Thursday with the aim of adopting \u201cthe next package of US sanctions in the near future\u201d, according to Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctions must be imposed faster, and pressure on Russia must be strong enough that they truly feel the consequences of their terror,\u201d said Zelenskyy on social media.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the conference, Zelenskyy pleaded for a greater use of Russian frozen assets to help rebuild his country\u2019s war-ravaged economy. \u201cNot only the income from these assets, but the assets themselves must be used and much more actively than they are now to help save lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The conference, the fourth of its kind, hosted on this occasion by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, will ostensibly be looking to the future, pairing international investors with Ukrainian counterparts to hammer out joint partnerships that will rebuild and prime the country for European Union membership.<\/p>\n

Italian organisers said 100 official delegations were attending, along with 40 international organisations and development banks and 2,000 businesses, with the participation of civil society and local Ukrainian governments.<\/p>\n

Meloni said participants had already pledged over 10 billion euros ($11.73 billion) to help Ukraine.<\/p>\n

While in Rome before the conference, Zelenskyy met Pope Leo on Wednesday, marking the second in-person encounter between the two leaders since the pontiff was elected as head of the global Roman Catholic Church in May.<\/p>\n

According to a Vatican statement, the pair \u201cdiscussed the ongoing conflict and the urgent need for a just and lasting peace\u201d.\u00a0Both sides raised again the possibility of the Vatican hosting peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv \u2013 an idea dismissed by Russia in May.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Lavrov met with United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Malaysia, where countries part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN<\/a>) are meeting and said the two sides had \u201cfrank\u201d talks.<\/p>\n

Rubio told reporters Lavrov had floated something \u201cnew\u201d on the conflict, but did not elaborate.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not a new approach. It\u2019s a new idea or a new concept that I\u2019ll take back to the president to discuss,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that it was not something that \u201cautomatically leads to peace, but it could potentially open the door to a path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubio said he also shared Trump\u2019s anger that the war was still ongoing and criticised Moscow\u2019s lack of \u201cflexibility\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ten-hour raid<\/p>\n

As the conference got under way, Zelenskyy said Russia launched 18 missiles and about 400 drones during an overnight attack on Ukraine that primarily targeted the capital.<\/p>\n

Officials reported two deaths, 13 injured and fires in apartment and non-residential buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enemy\u2019s massive night attack on Kyiv region lasted for almost 10 hours,\u201d Mykola Kalashnyk, the Kyiv region\u2019s military administration chief, wrote on Telegram.<\/p>\n

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera\u2019s Rory Challands said residents of Kyiv had to spend another night in bomb shelters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother night hunched over mobile phones in the dark for updates on how many drones are in your area, another night listening for that change in pitch that a Shahed [drone] engine makes when it goes into its terminal descent, and another night listening to the boom of detonations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The attack came a day after Russia\u2019s record barrage<\/a> of 728 drones and 13 missiles, which killed at least one person. It followed Trump\u2019s pledge earlier this week to send more defensive weapons to Kyiv.<\/p>\n

A Russian air raid also killed three people and injured one in the front-line town of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine\u2019s east, national emergency service officials said.<\/p>\n

Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader was throwing a lot of \u201cbullsh*t\u201d at US efforts to end the war that started with Moscow\u2019s invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Thursday\u2019s conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Trump to \u201cstay with us\u201d, saying that the US and Europe were \u201con the same page\u201d in \u201clooking for a stable political order in this world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s air defence units destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones overnight, RIA state news agency reported on Thursday, citing the Russian Ministry of Defence.<\/p>\n

A five-year-old boy died of burns sustained in a Ukrainian drone attack on a beach in the Russian city of Kursk on Wednesday, regional Governor Alexander Khinshtein said on Telegram, raising the death toll in the attack to four, including a member of Russia\u2019s National Guard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy opened a conference in Italy on rebuilding his war-battered country, as it comes under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,2199,12,332,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-255403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-italy","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","14":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114833023570434071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}