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Ukraine hit a major Moscow oil refinery for a second time in a week and disrupted commercial flights at the city’s airports in one of its biggest drone attacks since Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago, Russian officials said Thursday.

The attack came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the United States and France, and had won key pledges of further support from the G7 summit this week.

Zelenskyy was expected in Brussels later Thursday for talks with NATO and European Union leaders, including discussions about the possible building of a continental system to protect against ballistic missiles. Russia has relentlessly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defenses struggle to counter.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil facilities, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for the war and make Russians feel the consequences of the invasion. Some areas have reported fuel shortages.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X: “One of the most popular questions asked by Muscovites this morning is ‘What is going on?’ I can answer. Your country started a war of aggression against ours. For years, it has been killing our people. Now that you know what’s going on, ask Putin when he is planning to end it.”

Huge fires rage at Moscow refinery near Kremlin

Images and video released by the Russian media showed massive fires raging at the Moscow Oil Refinery, located about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Kremlin. Thick black clouds of smoke rose over the city.

The refinery is one of Russia’s biggest, according to its official website, and produces more than a third of the Moscow region’s fuel. It was last attacked by Ukrainian drones on Tuesday, catching fire, but officials said the blaze was swiftly put out.

Flights from four Moscow airports were temporarily halted, transport and aviation authorities said.

In the Moscow region, which surrounds but does not include the capital city, a drone hit a residential building in the town of Zhukovsky, and the building was being evacuated, according to Gov. Andrei Vorobyov.

Buildings elsewhere in the region were damaged by drone debris and 16 people, including two children, were wounded, according to Vorobyov.

Ukrainian drone attack embarrasses Putin again

The Russian Defense Ministry said that its air defenses overnight shot down 555 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions, with almost 200 intercepted as they were approaching the Russian capital.

That was roughly double the number of drones that Russia launched at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.

The attack was the latest embarrassment for Russian President Vladimir Putin, after a Ukrainian drone attack on his hometown of St. Petersburg earlier this month just as he held a showcase economic forum in the city with foreign VIP visitors.

Putin on Thursday was in Kazan, some 700 kilometers (430 miles) east of Moscow, hosting leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as Russia seeks to bolster business and other ties with the nations of the regional bloc.

Zelenskyy said the attack on Moscow was part of Ukraine’s efforts to force Putin to the negotiating table. The Ukrainian president has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by Trump but Putin has refused, and U.S.-led peace efforts have petered out.

“If Putin does not want to end this war and wants to continue it, we will not sit quietly — we will respond,” he added in a voice message to a group chat with journalists.

Ukraine disrupts Russian supply lines with drones

As well as pledges of more diplomatic and military help at the G7 summit, Ukraine recently has gained momentum on the battlefield against Russia’s bigger army thanks to its high-tech drones, Western officials and analysts say.

Longer-range drone strikes are choking Russian supply lines in occupied regions of Ukraine, in addition to disrupting Russian oil production.

Macron said the G7 summit was “very important for Ukraine” because its supporters — crucially including the United States — vowed to help it, although the French president provided no details. The U.S. under Trump has cut back assistance to Ukraine, leaving the Europeans as the biggest suppliers of military and financial aid. Trump and Zelenskyy have had an at times strained relationship.

“America is with us on Ukraine, that is very important,” Macron told reporters as he and Trump left the Palace of Versailles near Paris.

BRUSSELS — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on Thursday, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take responsibility for their own security.

“This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” he told his NATO counterparts in Brussels.

Hegseth lambasted European allies for failing to provide U.S. forces access to bases in Europe to launch attacks on Iran, calling it “shameful.”

“These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access, basing and overflight that never should have been in question at all,” he said.

Taking the microphone at the top of the meeting, Hegseth also railed against migration and gender equality policies in Europe, in remarks reminiscent to those of Vice President JD Vance in February last year that angered many Europeans.

“Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus has been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity. Europe’s borders flew wide open, welfare states expanded, defense budgets cratered. Along with Europe’s belief in itself and its civilization,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth’s comments largely mischaracterized European policies today. On defense, European allies and Canada have launched an unprecedented effort to boost defense spending and expand their armed forces. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that they spent $90 billion more on defense last year, a 20% increase over 2024. And while Europe accepted large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers more than a decade ago, most countries have tightened their borders since.

The Trump administration now wants a reboot of the 32-nation organization to turn it into a “NATO 3.0” capable of deterring any threat, Hegseth said.

Hegseth’s remarks came a few weeks after the United States told its allies that it would no longer supply certain warships and aircraft if one of them comes under attack. European allies and Canada are trying to work out how to plug the gaps.

NATO’s supreme allied commander, an American, is working on backup plans to defend Europe after the U.S. signaled on June 3 that it would no longer supply an aircraft carrier and support ships, aerial refueling planes and dozens of fighter jets, among other military assets, in a crisis.

The Trump administration insists that it needs to be able to plan for two simultaneous conflicts and wants more military resources at hand should a conflict break out with China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Under NATO’s collective security guarantee – Article 5 of its founding treaty – the 32 allies pledge that an attack on one of them will be considered an attack on all. It does not oblige them to provide military support, although many likely would.

In essence, the United States is scaling back how it might help should an ally trigger Article 5. The U.S. has by far NATO’s biggest armed forces. It does not intend to withdraw its nuclear weapons in Europe, which are key to NATO’s deterrence.

To underscore that point, NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group issued its first statement in 19 years after it had assembled at Thursday’s meeting.

In the statement, it “recalled that the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance remain the supreme guarantee of Allied security and underpin NATO’s extended deterrence architecture.”

The ministers “agreed to continue enhancing NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission by modernizing NATO’s nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests.”

CAIRO — The interim deal reached by the United States and Iran to end their war will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bring the two adversaries back to the negotiating table over Tehran’s nuclear program, according to details released by both countries. It will also give Iran an immediate benefit, allowing it to sell its oil freely again.

Besides the new oil revenue for Iran, the two sides are more or less back where they were 3½ months ago — before Israel and the U.S. launched their war, which has left thousands dead across the region, triggered a global energy crisis and shaken the American economy.

Iran and the U.S. will enter a 60-day period of negotiations, and hanging over them will be the question of whether U.S. President Donald Trump can wrest a better deal than the 2015 nuclear accord he scuttled eight years ago.

Here’s what to know based on details released by U.S. officials and Iranian state media:

The interim deal would get the oil flowing again

Trump signed a physical copy of the deal Wednesday while dining with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles.

In Tehran, President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the document, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, which posted an image of him holding up the deal with his signature and Trump’s.

Under the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, and the U.S. will lift its blockade of Iranian ports — both of which should push gas prices down. Passage through the waterway will be toll-free for 60 days, and the deal doesn’t preclude fees after that, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to read details of the draft, which has not yet been officially released by Washington.

Iran’s closure of the strait, through which around a fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war, proved perhaps its strongest weapon. It drove up global fuel prices, made food and other products like fertilizer more expensive, and helped push U.S. inflation to 4% ahead of this fall’s midterm congressional elections.

With the deal in place, the Islamic Republic has survived the most serious attempt ever by Israel and the United States to topple its government, despite the thundering opening volleys of the war that killed Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials.

Iran will be able to sell oil freely

The deal immediately waives, but doesn’t eliminate, sanctions that Trump imposed on Iran’s oil exports, allowing it once again to sell its crude on the world market and restoring a revenue stream worth billions.

Last year, Iran earned an estimated $45 billion from oil sales. But it had only one major buyer, China, and had to ship its crude through a shadow fleet of tankers to elude sanctions, eating into its profits. Under the blockade since April, its exports have nearly ground to a halt.

With the waiver, Iran will likely be able to find more customers and sell its oil for higher prices.

Iran got promises for the future

The draft agreement calls for Iran’s highly enriched uranium to be “downblended” — or diluted — under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The two sides will work out the details during their negotiations as well as generally discuss Iran’s enrichment program, which it says it has a right to continue.

Iran developed the material in response to Trump’s scuttling of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear accord with world powers that prevented it from enriching uranium to high levels. He criticized the deal for giving Iran a huge windfall. But the interim deal outlines even more lucrative incentives if Iran reaches a new nuclear agreement.

One is the eventual lifting of all international sanctions, which would seem to go further than the 2015 accord. That agreement lifted sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program but kept others in place over what the U.S. alleged were Tehran’s support for terrorism and rights abuses.

The interim pact also promises a $300 billion fund for postwar reconstruction. It’s not clear where that money will come from — but Trump said the U.S. would not contribute.

To give a sense of the extraordinary scale of the fund, the World Bank estimates that Syria, after 13 years of civil war, needs $215 billion for reconstruction; the Gaza Strip, largely flattened in two years of war between Israel and Hamas, needs $53 billion.

The deal also promises to unfreeze billions of dollars worth of Iranian assets held abroad under a procedure the two sides will work out, according to the text provided by U.S. officials.

Iran’s missiles and support for proxies don’t seem to be on the table

The Trump administration said its war aims were to “obliterate” Iran’s missile arsenal, “sever its support” for armed proxies in the region, “annihilate its navy,” and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon.

The seven weeks of U.S.-Israeli bombardment are believed to have heavily damaged Iran’s missile arsenal and production facilities as well as other parts of its military. How heavily isn’t known, though, and Iran continued to fire on Israel as recently as last week. Meanwhile, Iran’s ties with its militant proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq — appear as strong as ever.

Neither the missile arsenal nor Iran’s support for its allies appears to be on the table in the upcoming negotiations.

War in Lebanon could threaten the deal

The deal calls for an end to the war in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah.

However, Israel and Hezbollah aren’t parties to the agreement. Iran insists Israel must withdraw from the large swath of southern Lebanon it is occupying, but the interim deal doesn’t explicitly require that and only ensures Lebanon’s “territorial integrity.”

Israel has vowed to keep troops in Lebanon, while Hezbollah says it is committed to resisting Israel “until full withdrawal is achieved.” Fighting between the two could derail the deal unless the U.S. and Iran can rein in their respective allies.

US-Israeli ties have been strained

Israel was squeezed out of the negotiations with Iran, and Israelis from across the political spectrum have called the deal a disaster, directing their fury at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tensions between Trump and Netanyahu, meanwhile, have occasionally spilled into the open, including when the American president described the Israeli leader as “crazy.”

At the G7 summit in France this week, Trump said that Netanyahu “has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”

Netanyahu is left in a precarious situation ahead of national elections later this year. His relationship with Trump may require downscaling a military campaign in Lebanon that is broadly popular in Israel.

Much depends on the final agreement

The 2015 agreement negotiated by the Obama administration severely limited Iran’s nuclear program for 15 years. During that period, Iran could only enrich uranium to a low level, far below what’s needed for a weapon. It could only stockpile 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of the material and had to sharply reduce its centrifuges carrying out enrichment. It was also put under stricter inspections by the IAEA.

One main criticism was the 15-year time limit, after which opponents said Iran would be able to quickly ramp up its ability to produce a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

A key question now will be whether the U.S. can win stricter limits for a longer term.