11:04 p.m .: Ukraine placed one notch from default
Rating agency S&P lowered Ukraine's rating, which is now labeled "SD", or "selective default", the last notch before default, due to the moratorium on its external debt obtained on Wednesday.
Ukraine has obtained from its international creditors a two-year moratorium on its external debt, estimated at 20 billion dollars.
A group of Western creditors including France, the United States, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom had agreed on July 20 to a postponement of interest payments on the Ukrainian debt after a request from kyiv, urging other bondholders to do the same.
Ukraine's economy has collapsed since the start of the war with Russia launched on February 24 and could see its GDP plunge by 45% this year, according to the latest World Bank estimates from June.
Measures to defer Ukraine's payment of its bonds could save it at least $3 billion over two years, according to calculations by the Bloomberg agency.
9:49 p.m .: three dead in Russian bombings in Kramatorsk and Zaporizhia
At least three people were killed and 15 others injured Friday in Russian shelling of the Ukrainian cities of Kramatorsk in the east and Zaporizhya in the south, local authorities said.
"A new attack on Kramatorsk - according to initial information, we have two civilians dead and 13 wounded with certainty," Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said on Facebook.
"The shelling damaged at least 20 buildings and a fire broke out," he added, again calling on the local population to evacuate.
With AFP and Reuters
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