Azerbaijan's top diplomat stood in the town that stopped Russia's drive on Kyiv and offered Ukraine help. Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has visited Irpin in Kyiv Oblast as part of an official visit to Ukraine, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said on X.

The visit is a marker of how far Baku has swung toward Kyiv as its relations with Moscow have collapsed. Ukrainian-Azerbaijani ties improved sharply in 2024 and 2025 after a series of aggressive Russian actions, including Russian forces shooting down an Azerbaijani airliner near Grozny in December 2024, killing 38, and later raids that killed two Azerbaijani citizens, prompting Baku to openly strengthen ties with Kyiv.

Bayramov chose to visit Irpin, the town that became a legendary bulwark against Russia's 2022 advance on Kyiv, where Russia killed some 300 civilians and left over 70% of housing destroyed before its liberation on 28 March 2022, Ukrainska Pravda reports.

Baku offers gas and energy cooperation

At a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Bayramov made a specific offer. Azerbaijan is ready to supply gas to Ukraine if needed and to expand cooperation on energy security, including the use of Ukraine's underground gas storage, he said, per Ukrinform.

Energy is the anchor of the relationship. Bayramov called energy cooperation one of the most important areas of economic ties between the countries, noting that Azerbaijan's state oil company, SOCAR, has been present on the Ukrainian market for a decade and has plans for future energy cooperation.

Ukraine's gas storage is an asset

Bayramov called Ukraine's underground gas storage system, the largest in Europe, a very important asset and said an extremely dynamic dialogue is underway between Baku and Kyiv on key elements of energy cooperation.

That storage matters strategically. Ukraine's vast underground capacity offers a route to move Caspian gas into Europe as an alternative to Russian supplies, part of why Russia has bombed Ukraine's southern gas infrastructure. An Azerbaijani offer to use it deepens a partnership Russia has reason to want severed.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will enable Ukrainian banks to provide up to 900 million euros ($1.05 billion) in new loans by sharing credit risks, the EBRD announced in a press release on July 7.

The loans will target companies in agribusiness, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, transport and logistics, as well as energy security projects.

The mechanism will be announced at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Rome on July 10-11. This represents the largest risk-sharing facility implemented in Ukraine since the war began, according to the EBRD's press release.

Due to destructive Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the EBRD will also focus on supporting distributed generation and renewable energy projects.

Russian forces have damaged most of Ukraine's thermal power plants and about 30% of power stations, disrupting nearly two-thirds of the country's total electricity generation, the bank says.

The EU, together with other EBRD donors, has developed plans to de-risk renewable energy investments to attract more private capital, which they will announce at the URC.

Nearly one-third of EBRD's wartime financing to Ukraine — 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) — has gone to the energy sector. This includes support for state-owned electricity transmission and gas companies, as well as financing for hydropower and small-scale distributed generation.

In a pre-URC press release, the EBRD also expressed interest in supporting the development of a natural graphite deposit in Ukraine following the U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement. Graphite is a strategic material used in batteries and defense applications.

The bank will launch the second phase of digitizing Ukraine's paper-based geological data archive to make information about mineral deposits more accessible, the EBRD reports.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, the EBRD has invested over 7.2 billion euros ($8.4 billion) in Ukraine's economy.

Zelensky, Trump discussed replacement of Ukraine’s US ambassador, source says

Oksana Markarova has held the post since April 2021, and played a central role in coordinating U.S. military and financial support during the early phases of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy