TOP HEADLINES

• The United States has approved sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russian attackers as soon as pilot training is completed, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

• The first vessel that used Ukraine's Black Sea corridor is crossing through Turkey's Bosphorus Strait, a Reuters witness said on Friday.

• A Ukrainian drone smashed into a building in central Moscow on Friday after Russian air defences shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said. READ MORE BELOW

• A British-led group of European countries said on Friday it would provide about $115 million of air defense equipment to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian attacks.

• There have been direct contacts between Ukraine and Belarus but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put a halt to them, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said during an online interview broadcast on Thursday.

• Two Russian war ships repelled a Ukrainian attack with an unmanned boat near Crimea on Thursday, the Russian defense ministry said.

IN DEPTH

Ukrainian drone smashes into Moscow's Expo Center

A Ukrainian drone smashed into Moscow's Expo Center Complex on Friday after Russian air defenses shot it down, disrupting air traffic at all the civilian airports of the Russian capital, Russian officials said.

A Reuters witness who was in the area described hearing "a powerful explosion." Reuters images showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of a non-residential building which the drone hit.

The Russian defense ministry and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there were no casualties.

The Expo Center is a large spread of exhibition pavilions and multi-purpose halls, fewer than five kilometers away from the Kremlin.

"At about 4 a.m. Moscow time, the Kyiv regime launched another terrorist attack using an unmanned aerial vehicle on objects located in Moscow and the Moscow region," the Russian defense ministry said.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Air traffic was briefly suspended at four major airports around the capital – Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky – though later they reopened.

Russia's air transport agency said seven flights were redirected to alternative airports.

Subscribe to Storyboard: A weekly newsletter bringing you the best of CGTN every Friday