Deadly Overnight Strikes, Hormuz Standoff Deepens

Overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine killed two people and wounded fourteen, President Zelensky said, after one of the deadliest hits struck a private home in Zaporizhzhia, killing Liudmyla and Vasylyna and leaving three-year-old Artem without his mother and grandmother. Zelensky again urged Trump to impose new sanctions on Moscow. The exchange continued both ways. A Russian drone wounded one person in Kyiv at dawn, and a strike on an Odesa-region road destroyed three trucks and injured three more. Ukraine's General Staff said it struck back at the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region, hitting fuel supplies for Russian forces. Meanwhile, the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz sharpened: Iran's foreign minister said Tehran offered, via Qatar, to reopen the strait within a week if Washington honors a June memorandum, even as Iran set its own seven-day deadline over shipping there. Trump rejected Iran's maximum demands in the nuclear talks, pushing for a narrower deal focused on curbing enrichment. Against that backdrop, Poland offered $15,000 a year per US soldier to keep American troops on its soil, as analysts debated what a US drawdown from Europe would mean for Ukraine. Elsewhere, Brazil's Lula banned online gambling days before a tight election, and Washington and Beijing agreed to open a direct channel on artificial intelligence.