Zelenskyy refuses 'associate' EU offer as Ukrainian drones hit Sheskharis terminal and Perm chemical plant

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's proposal for an "associate" EU membership in a letter to European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Reuters and Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. Merz had floated a status that would let Ukraine attend Council meetings and appoint an "associate" commissioner without portfolio and "associate" MEPs without voting rights, framing it as a "decisive step" before full accession. "We are defending Europe -- fully, not just partially or with half-measures," Zelenskyy wrote, arguing that with Viktor Orban's electoral defeat to Peter Magyar in Hungary last month, the path to full negotiations is now open. Ukraine has held official candidate status since December 2023. A spokesperson for the German government, cited by Reuters, said Berlin's proposal "serves to open the necessary debate" and that "in substance it is now above all about opening the negotiation chapters, and on that there is a high level of agreement with the Ukrainian president's view."

Overnight, Ukrainian long-range drones struck the Sheskharis oil terminal at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea -- one of Russia's largest hydrocarbon export points, sitting at the end of pipelines from southern Russia and the Caspian -- as well as the nearby Grushovaya storage operated by Transneft, according to the Ukrainian general staff via Telegram. The tanker Chrysalis was also hit in the Black Sea. Novorossiysk mayor Andrei Kravchenko said two people were wounded; debris from a downed drone set "several technical and administrative buildings" on fire on the terminal grounds. Around 1,700 kilometres from the border, in the Perm region, Zelenskyy said Ukraine forced Metafrax Chemical to halt production; he said the plant supplies "important components for the Russian arms industry, including for drones, rocket engines and explosives." The Russian Defence Ministry reported intercepting 348 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over the Moscow region; the Ukrainian air force said it neutralised 102 of 124 Russian drones launched at Ukraine.

The diplomacy track moved at the same time. Starmer hosted a video call in the E3-Ukraine format with Zelenskyy, Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron centred, in Zelenskyy's words, on "how peace diplomacy can be revived and how Europe can play a role in it." Starmer's spokesperson said European support for Ukraine "will be reinforced further in the coming months." US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, said Washington was "ready to broker new peace negotiations" while acknowledging an impasse; Putin has offered to include Europeans in talks but proposed former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder -- his long-time friend -- as an interlocutor, an offer many on the European side described as "poisoned." NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in Helsingborg, "I have already invited him -- he will be there," confirming Zelenskyy will attend the alliance's summit in Ankara in early July. In his evening address Friday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had retaken "590 square kilometres" of territory from Russian forces since the start of the year and that a refinery at Yaroslavl, about 700 km from the Ukrainian border, had been struck in the past 24 hours.

The Russian return fire was also active. A Russian drone hit a funeral procession on the outskirts of Sumy -- roughly 30 km from the Russian border -- killing one and seriously wounding nine, according to regional governor Ihor Kaltchenko; local reports said a guided strike drone hit the road near a bus. Across Friday, Russian shelling killed four and wounded 25 in Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts: one killed and 20 wounded in Kherson, three killed and five wounded in Kharkiv, regional military administrations said. Naftogaz's CEO Serhii Koretsky said Russian forces had conducted a 24-hour-plus large-scale attack on the company's gas and oil infrastructure across Kharkiv and Poltava, with "serious damage to equipment and major fires" and personnel evacuated. The Ukrainian prosecutor's office said it has documented 11,000 Russian drone attacks against civilians and rescuers; Kherson alone accounts for 5,303 of those cases, 287 civilian deaths and 2,549 wounded.

Two days after Russia raised the death toll from the May 22 Ukrainian drone strike on a vocational-school dormitory at Lugansk Pedagogical University in Russian-occupied Starobilsk -- 65 km from the front and home to 86 students aged 14 to 18 -- Russian civil defence said the toll had reached 18 dead and three missing, with rescue work ongoing; Putin called the attack a "terrorist act" not "in any way accidental" and promised a military response. The Ukrainian general staff said it had struck a headquarters of Russia's Rubikon special drone unit and denied targeting civilians. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the strike through a spokesperson in New York, saying "we strongly condemn any attack against civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur." A UN Security Council meeting on the strike was convened at Russia's request. Separately, UNHCR's Kyiv representative Bernadette Castel-Hollingworth said a Russian missile on Wednesday hit a UNHCR warehouse in Dnipro, killing two and destroying about $1 million of aid intended for displaced people on the front; she said it was "the first time a UNHCR facility has been attacked" and that two clearly marked UN convoys had been hit by drones in Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson the previous week.