KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s Parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill presented by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that restores the independence of two of the country’s key anti-corruption watchdogs, reversing his contentious move last week that curbed their power and brought an outcry.

Last week’s measure by Zelenskyy to place the watchdogs under the oversight of the prosecutor-general prompted rebukes from Ukrainians, the European Union and international rights groups. It raised fears that the government could meddle in investigations and potentially shield its supporters from scrutiny.

Fighting entrenched corruption is crucial for Ukraine’s aspirations to join the EU and maintain access to billions of dollars of vital Western aid in the nearly 3½-year all-out war. It’s also an effort that enjoys broad public support.

Zelenskyy said he signed the bill into law less than two hours after its approval — an unusually speedy procedure for legislation.

“It guarantees normal, independent work for anti-corruption bodies and all law enforcement agencies in our state,” Zelenskyy said of the new law. “A truly productive day with real impact for the people.”

Zelenskyy has been the international face of Ukraine’s determination to thwart Russia’s invasion. The anti-graft changes that he backed last week tarnished his image abroad and put a question mark over his country’s efforts to meet standards set by the EU for membership.

“Ukraine’s move to restore powers of anti-corruption bodies demonstrates its resolve to quickly get back on course when European democratic values are at stake,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas‬ said on social media.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, who called last week’s legislative changes “a serious step back,” welcomed approval of the bill, saying lawmakers had “corrected last week’s damaging vote.”

“Today’s law restores key safeguards, but challenges remain,” Kos, who monitors the record of countries that are candidates to join the bloc, wrote on X. “The EU supports (Ukrainian) citizens’ demands for reform. Upholding fundamental values & fighting corruption must remain the priority.”

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Ukraine “is committed to reforms and the fight against corruption,” and that Zelenskyy “demonstrated a principled approach.”

“We got it fixed,” he wrote on X.

At the start of a livestream of the parliamentary session, which was the first to be broadcast in real time since the start of the war, two lawmakers could be seen exchanging punches. Although the reason for the scuffle wasn’t known, it occurred amid a tense atmosphere in the chamber where the speaker’s podium is flanked by Ukrainian and EU flags.

The backlash against Zelenskyy’s measures brought street protests across the country, the first major demonstrations since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022. Though the protests didn’t call for the president’s removal, the controversy threatened to undermine public trust in their leaders at a critical time.

Russia’s bigger army is accelerating its efforts to pierce Ukraine’s front-line defenses and is escalating its bombardment of Ukrainian cities. There is also uncertainty over how much additional weaponry Ukraine’s Western partners can provide and how quickly.

The Ukrainian branch of Transparency International also criticized last week’s legislation, saying it weakened one of the most significant reforms since what Ukraine calls its Revolution of Dignity in 2014.

Zelenskyy said his goal had been to speed up prolonged investigations, ensure more convictions and remove Russian meddling in investigations, which he didn’t detail.

He said he had taken note of the protests and decided to present a new bill to Parliament underscoring that the prosecutor general and his deputies cannot give orders to anti-graft agencies or interfere in their work.

Lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv, approved Zelenskyy’s new proposal with 331 votes and nine abstentions on Thursday, official figures showed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian capital Kyiv observed an official day of mourning Friday, a day after a Russian drone and missile attack on the city killed 31 people, including five children, and injured more than 150, officials said.

The youngest victim in Thursday’s strikes was 2 years old, and 16 of the injured were children, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

It was the highest number of children killed and injured in a single attack on Kyiv since aerial attacks on the city began in October 2022, according to official casualty figures reported by The Associated Press. It was also the deadliest attack on the city since July last year, when 33 were killed.

READ MORE: Russian missile and drone attack hits Ukrainian capital Kyiv, killing 9 people and wounding 124

The death toll rose overnight as emergency crews continued to dig through rubble. The Russian barrage demolished a large part of a nine-story residential building in the city, while more than 100 other buildings were damaged, including homes, schools, kindergartens, medical facilities and universities, officials said.

Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent months, ignoring calls from Western leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump to stop striking civilian areas after more than three years of war. The Russian tactic aims to spread terror and wear down public appetite for the war.

Russian forces are also pressing on with their grinding war of attrition along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where incremental gains over the past year have come at the cost of thousands of soldiers on both sides.

Ukraine wants more sanctions on Russia

Zelenskyy said that in July, Russia launched over 5,100 glide bombs, more than 3,800 Shahed drones, and nearly 260 missiles of various types, 128 of them ballistic, against Ukraine.

He repeated his appeal for countries to impose heavier economic sanctions on Russia to deter the Kremlin, as U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to gain traction.

“No matter how much the Kremlin denies (sanctions’) effectiveness, they are working and must be stronger,” Zelenskyy said.

His comments Friday appeared to be a response to Trump’s remarks the previous day, when the Republican president said the U.S. plans to impose sanctions on Russia but added, “I don’t know that sanctions bother him,” in reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In April, Trump urged the Russian leader to “STOP!” after an aerial attack on Kyiv killed 12 in what was the deadliest assault on the city since July 2024. “Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform at the time, but Russia hasn’t eased up on its barrages. Earlier this week, Trump gave Putin until Aug. 8 to stop the fighting.

Those demands haven’t persuaded the Kremlin to change strategy. Putin said Friday the conditions that Moscow set out last year for a long-term ceasefire agreement still stand. Putin has previously made it clear that he will only accept a settlement on his terms and will keep fighting until they’re met.

“Any disappointments arise from excessive expectations,” Putin said of negotiations. He did not mention Trump by name.

Putin said that he regards recent direct talks in Istanbul between delegations from Russia and Ukraine as valuable, even though they made no progress beyond exchanges of prisoners of war, and made no reference to next week’s deadline imposed by Trump.

In what Ukrainians may see as an ominous note, Putin said that Russia has started production of its newest hypersonic missiles. The Oreshnik’s multiple warheads that plunge to a target at speeds up to Mach 10 and cannot be stopped by air defenses, he said.

Ukraine called for an urgent U.N. Security Council meeting to be convened Friday, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said, in an effort to push Putin into accepting “a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”

Russian forces bear down on a key eastern Ukrainian city

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are under heavy pressure in the strategic hilltop city of Chasiv Yar, in the eastern Donetsk region where Russia is making a concerted push to break through defenses after some 18 months of fighting.

Zelenskyy said that Russian claims of capturing Chasiv Yar on Thursday were “disinformation.”

“Ukrainian units are holding our positions,” Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Thursday evening. “It is not easy, but it is the defense of Ukrainians’ very right to life.”

Even so, the Institute for the Study of War said that Ukraine’s hold on the key city is weakening.

“Russian forces will likely complete the seizure of Chasiv Yar in the coming days, which will open several possible avenues for Russian forces to attack Ukraine’s fortress belt — a series of fortified cities that form the backbone of Ukraine’s defensive positions” in the Donetsk region, the Washington-based think tank said.

Ukraine has tried to pressure the Russian army by striking rear areas with long-range drones that target rail networks, oil depots and arsenals.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday that air defenses shot down 60 Ukrainian drones overnight. More than half were destroyed over Russia’s Belgorod region on the country’s border with Ukraine, it said. Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said that one person was injured.

The Ukrainian air force, meanwhile, said Friday it downed 44 out of 72 Russian drones fired overnight. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

Ukraine approves law restoring independence of anti-graft watchdogs following backlash

toggle caption Efrem Lukatsky/AP

KYIV, Ukraine — After a public outcry and pressure from the European Union, a new law is now in force in Ukraine restoring the independence of state agencies investigating corruption.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy introduced this bill after facing his first major domestic political crisis since Russia’s full-scale invasion three and a half years ago. He and Ukraine’s parliament reversed course after approving a previous bill to place anti-corruption agencies under a Zelenskyy-backed prosecutor.

Thousands of Ukrainians took the streets in protest, calling it an authoritarian move.

“It is very important that the state listens to public opinion and hears its citizens,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on Thursday. “Ukraine is a democracy for sure. There is no doubt.”

toggle caption Sarakhan Vadym/AP

The two agencies — the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office — were created after 2014, when a pro-democracy revolution brought down a corrupt, Kremlin-aligned president, Viktor Yanukovych. The EU, which has given Ukraine more than $178 billion since January 2022, sees these agencies as crucial to institutional reforms Ukraine is required to complete before the country possibly joins the 27-member bloc.

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After last week’s move to weaken the anti-corruption agencies, the EU froze $1.7 billion in non-military aid. Writing on social media, Marta Kos, the EU commissioner for enlargement, said the new law “restores key safeguards but challenges remain.”

Thursday’s vote in parliament was livestreamed. Ukrainians watching at a square outside waited nervously as a timer inside parliament’s chambers counted down to the end of voting. When they saw that nearly all lawmakers supported the new law, they cheered and chanted.

Yehor Soboliev is a former lawmaker who, years ago, helped draft the legislation allowing anti-corruption agencies to conduct investigations independently. He now serves in the military and says transparency is especially crucial now.

“We are fighting a country that is many times larger than us, has many more resources and can throw them at us to conquer us,” he says. “Efficiency means survival. It’s simple: anything that weakens Ukraine’s ability to fight or preserve its freedom is a problem that must be solved immediately.”

Soboliev says this past week has shown that Ukraine “is probably the last country in the world where you can create a dictatorship.” And, he adds, that applies even as the country defends itself in a war against Russia.

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“We must simultaneously hold the frontline,” he says, “while also pushing democracy and this country forward.”

Donald Trump dampened expectations of a deal with Canada materializing at the last minute as his tariff deadline loomed Thursday — but the U.S. president did give a 90-day deadline delay to Mexico.

In a post on social media early Thursday morning, Trump said it will be very hard to make a deal with Canada after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Wednesday Ottawa intends to recognize a Palestinian state.

Read more:

Trump previously sent a letter to Carney threatening to impose 35 per cent tariffs if Canada doesn’t make a trade deal by Friday. The White House has said those duties would not apply to goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.

In a separate social media post, Trump said he spoke with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and agreed to extend Mexico’s trade deal deadline because the “complexities of a Deal with Mexico are somewhat different than other Nations because of both the problems, and assets, of the Border.”

Mexico already recognizes a Palestinian state.

Trump’s previous letter to Sheinbaum threatened 30 per cent tariffs. The Thursday post said the current 25 per cent fentanyl-related tariffs, as well as sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper and automobiles, will remain in place.

“Additionally, Mexico has agreed to immediately terminate its Non Tariff Trade Barriers, of which there were many,” Trump said. “We will be talking to Mexico over the next 90 Days with the goal of signing a Trade Deal somewhere within the 90 Day period of time, or longer.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not rule out further extensions and said there was still time for countries to negotiate ahead of the midnight deadline. She said Trump will be signing executive orders to implement the new tariff rates later Thursday.

“I do know that other foreign leaders around the world have reached out,” Leavitt said.

While Trump continued to claim in posts on social media that tariffs are making “America GREAT & RICH Again,” the president’s main tool for realigning global trade faced some sharp questions from federal appellate judges in court Thursday morning.

The Trump administration’s lawyer argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that there are still checks and balances on the president’s powers and he has the authority to use a national security statute to impose duties — despite the fact that the word “tariff” is nowhere in the International Economic Emergency Powers Act of 1977.

The act, usually referred to by the acronym IEEPA, gives the U.S. president authority to control economic transactions after declaring an emergency. No previous president had ever used it for tariffs and the U.S. Constitution reserves power over taxes and tariffs for Congress.

Members of the 11-judge panel on Thursday repeatedly questioned the Trump’s administration’s justifications for using IEEPA, asking whether the law extended to tariffs at all and, if so, whether the levies matched the threat the administration identified.

“If the president says there’s a problem with our military readiness and he puts a 20 per cent tax on coffee, that doesn’t seem to necessarily deal with (it)” said Chief Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore.

Thomas Berry, with the Washington-based Cato Institute, said that “based on the tenor and questions of the arguments, it appears that the challengers have the better odds of prevailing.”

The Institute provided an amicus brief — a legal submission from a group that’s not party to the action — to the hearing.

No decision was issued from the bench Thursday.

In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled in favour of a group of states and businesses pushing back on the devastating duties. It concluded that Trump does not have the authority to impose tariffs on nearly every country.

The Trump administration quickly appealed the lower court’s ruling on the so-called “Liberation Day” and fentanyl-related tariffs. Leavitt has said they expect the case to go before the Supreme Court.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 31, 2025.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s Parliament on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill presented by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that restores the independence of two of the country’s key anti-corruption watchdogs, reversing his contentious move last week that curbed their power and brought an outcry.

Last week’s measure by Zelenskyy to place the watchdogs under the oversight of the prosecutor-general prompted rebukes from Ukrainians, the European Union and international rights groups. It raised fears that the government could meddle in investigations and potentially shield its supporters from scrutiny.

Fighting entrenched corruption is crucial for Ukraine’s aspirations to join the EU and maintain access to billions of dollars of vital Western aid in the nearly 3½-year all-out war. It’s also an effort that enjoys broad public support.

Zelenskyy said he signed the bill into law less than two hours after its approval — an unusually speedy procedure for legislation.

“It guarantees normal, independent work for anti-corruption bodies and all law enforcement agencies in our state,” Zelenskyy said of the new law. “A truly productive day with real impact for the people.”

Zelenskyy has been the international face of Ukraine’s determination to thwart Russia’s invasion. The anti-graft changes that he backed last week tarnished his image abroad and put a question mark over his country’s efforts to meet standards set by the EU for membership.

“Ukraine’s move to restore powers of anti-corruption bodies demonstrates its resolve to quickly get back on course when European democratic values are at stake,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas‬ said on social media.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, who called last week’s legislative changes “a serious step back,” welcomed approval of the bill, saying lawmakers had “corrected last week’s damaging vote.”

“Today’s law restores key safeguards, but challenges remain,” Kos, who monitors the record of countries that are candidates to join the bloc, wrote on X. “The EU supports (Ukrainian) citizens’ demands for reform. Upholding fundamental values & fighting corruption must remain the priority.”

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Ukraine “is committed to reforms and the fight against corruption,” and that Zelenskyy “demonstrated a principled approach.”

“We got it fixed,” he wrote on X.

At the start of a livestream of the parliamentary session, which was the first to be broadcast in real time since the start of the war, two lawmakers could be seen exchanging punches. Although the reason for the scuffle wasn’t known, it occurred amid a tense atmosphere in the chamber where the speaker’s podium is flanked by Ukrainian and EU flags.

The backlash against Zelenskyy’s measures brought street protests across the country, the first major demonstrations since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022. Though the protests didn’t call for the president’s removal, the controversy threatened to undermine public trust in their leaders at a critical time.

Russia’s bigger army is accelerating its efforts to pierce Ukraine’s front-line defenses and is escalating its bombardment of Ukrainian cities. There is also uncertainty over how much additional weaponry Ukraine’s Western partners can provide and how quickly.

The Ukrainian branch of Transparency International also criticized last week’s legislation, saying it weakened one of the most significant reforms since what Ukraine calls its Revolution of Dignity in 2014.

Zelenskyy said his goal had been to speed up prolonged investigations, ensure more convictions and remove Russian meddling in investigations, which he didn’t detail.

He said he had taken note of the protests and decided to present a new bill to Parliament underscoring that the prosecutor general and his deputies cannot give orders to anti-graft agencies or interfere in their work.

Lawmakers in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament in Kyiv, approved Zelenskyy’s new proposal with 331 votes and nine abstentions on Thursday, official figures showed.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine