UK ‘greenlights’ strikes against Putin’s forces in Russia as Ukraine on path to Nato

Kyiv‘s National Cancer Institute was busier than ever after a Russian missile struck Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital this week, forcing the evacuation of dozens of its young patients battling cancer.

Putin’s heaviest bombardment of the Ukrainian capital in four months severely damaged Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital on Monday, terrorizing families and severely impacting their children already battling life-threatening diseases.

Now, some families face a dilemma of where to continue their children’s treatment. Oksana Halak only learned about her two-year-old son Dmytro’s diagnosis — acute lymphoblastic leukemia — at the beginning of June.

China hit back at Nato for its “belligerent rhetoric” and warned against bringing “chaos” in Asia after the 32-member alliance called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The joint declaration’s sharpest tone yet on China came after the three-day summit Nato summit held in Washington on the 75^th anniversary of the formation of the bloc.

With its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its “large-scale support for its defence industrial base” China has become a war enabler, the communique said. The Nato members urged China to “cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort”.

Ukrainian refugee parents barred from bringing their two-year-old daughter to Britain after the UK’s sponsorship rules were suddenly tightened will now be reunited with their child after a government U-turn.

Oleksandra and Yaroslav, both aged 31, decided to leave their daughter Anna with her grandparents in Kyiv while getting set up with their own accommodation and establishing a new business after arriving in Britain under the Homes for Ukraine scheme in April 2022.

But after they overcame these hurdles, their application in April this year for Anna to join them was refused by the Home Office on the grounds that – as per rule changes brought in without warning in February – they were no longer eligible sponsors, being neither UK or Irish citizens nor having indefinite leave to remain.

Keir Starmer has signalled that Ukraine can use British Storm Shadow missiles to strike military targets inside Russia, a move likely to anger Moscow.

This comes after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the UK at the Nato summit in Washington for lifting the ban on using these missiles for attacks across the border.

While the prime minister emphasised that the use of the missiles must comply with international humanitarian law, he said it is up to Ukraine to decide how to deploy them.

Norway will give 1 billion crowns ($92.69 million) to boost Ukraine’s air defences, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Thursday at a NATO summit where alliance members have promised more aid to Kyiv as it fights Russian invaders.

The announcement came a day after Norway said it would give Ukraine six F-16 fighter jets. “The Ukrainians need more air defence to protect their population from Russian bombs and missiles,” Stoere said in a statement.

“The brutal attacks we have seen this past week show why it is so vital for the Ukrainians to have greater protection from Russian air attacks,” he added.

Russia will not attend a follow-up to last month’s Ukraine peace summit, state news agency RIA quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin as saying on Thursday.

Russia was not invited to the initial summit in Switzerland that was attended by representatives of 92 countries, and said that discussing the war in its absence was a waste of time.

Ukraine has said it wants to hold another such summit later this year, probably in the Global South, and that representatives from Russia could be invited this time.

Hungary does not want, and will not support, Nato becoming an “anti-China” bloc, foreign minister Peter Szijjarto told Hungary’s state television while in Washington on Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of a Nato summit, Szijjarto also said Ukraine’s admission to the alliance would weaken unity within the group.

It comes after Nato labelled China a “decisive enabler” of Putin’s war in Ukraine – in the alliance’s strongest rebuke of Beijing.

But Beijing hit back and accused Nato of smearing the country while demanding the transatlantic alliance stay out of Asia.

A record number of Chinese warplanes breached Taiwanese airspace as part of Beijing’s military exercises amid a key Nato summit, according to Taiwanese authorities.

Up to 66 Chinese aircraft were detected around the self-governing island and 56 of them breached the median line of the Taiwan Strait, Taipei’s defence ministry said. It is a single-day record for this year.

China’s military drills came amid a key Nato summit in Washington, where Western leaders issued their strongest-ever condemnation of Beijing for being a “decisive” enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine.