TOP HEADLINES

• Ukraine is ready to launch its much-anticipated counter-offensive against Russian forces, a senior Ukrainian official told the BBC. The broadcaster said that Oleksiy Danilov would not give a date but said the assault could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week." READ MORE BELOW

• Chinese special envoy Li Hui and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed prospects for resolving the conflict at a meeting in Moscow on Friday. The Chinese foreign ministry quoted Li as saying that China would make concrete efforts for a political solution to the crisis, adding that Beijing had always kept an objective and fair position on Ukraine.

• The Netherlands is "seriously considering" sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine but has not taken any final decision yet, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said. Earlier this week, the Netherlands said it wanted to start training Ukrainian pilots.

• Poland will close its eastern border to freight vehicles registered in Belarus and Russia until further notice, according to a draft regulation from the interior ministry. The move comes as a Belarusian court upheld a decision to sentence a journalist with Polish origins to eight years in prison.

• Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by phone on Friday where he reaffirmed his willingness to establish peace talks with both sides. The leader also thanked Putin for an invitation to St. Petersburg, but had to decline as he "can't visit Russia at the moment."

• Two people were killed and 30 more were injured when a Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a crime against humanity.

• Russia has dismissed criticism from U.S. President Joe Biden over Moscow's plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, saying Washington had for decades deployed such nuclear weapons in Europe. 

• Iran has accused President Zelenskyy of anti-Iranian propaganda after he called for Tehran to halt the supply of drones to Russia, saying the leader's comments were designed to attract more arms and financial aid from the West.

• A drone attack on Russia's Pskov region near the border with Belarus damaged an oil pipeline's administrative building, according to local Governor Mikhail Vedernikov.

• Ukraine's defense ministry has claimed that Russia is planning to simulate a major accident at the Zaporizhzhia plant controlled by pro-Moscow forces in a bid to hinder a long-planned Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake territory occupied by Russia.

IN DETAIL

Ukraine finally set for counter-offensive

Ukraine is ready to launch its long-planned counter-offensive against Russian forces, one of the country's most senior security officials told the BBC.

Oleksiy Danilov, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, did not give a specific date, but told the British broadcaster that an assault to retake territory from Russian occupying forces could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week."

He added that Ukraine's government had "no right to make a mistake" on when the operation would begin because this was an "historic opportunity" that "we cannot lose."

Ukraine has been planning its counter-offensive for months, but has delayed its launch in a bid to train troops and receive as much military equipment from Western allies as possible.

Danilov said the armed forces would launch the attack when commanders calculated "we can have the best result at that point of the war."

Asked if the Ukrainian armed forces were ready, he replied: "We are always ready. The same as we were ready to defend our country at any time. And it is not a question of time.

"We have to understand that that historic opportunity that is given to us - by God - to our country we cannot lose, so we can truly become an independent, big European country."

Danilov also said he was "absolutely calm" about Russia starting to send nuclear weapons to Belarus, saying: "To us, it's not some kind of news."

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