People waved flags and ​shouted, “Long live the pope” as Leo was driven in the popemobile down ​Madrid’s main thoroughfare Paseo de la Castellana toward Cibeles Square, where ⁠he was due to preside over the Mass. Some tossed flower petals as ​he arrived in the square.

Some 1.2 million people were in the square and its ​surrounding streets, the Vatican and local organisers said.

“May Madrid remain a welcoming and inclusive city, where social life is inspired by genuine human values,” Leo wrote in a guest book as he ​was handed the key to the city by its mayor.

Leo began his trip on ​Saturday with meetings with migrants and the homeless and a vigil with about 600,000 young people ‌in ⁠Madrid. His June 6-12 visit also includes stops in Barcelona and the Canary Islands, where he will meet migrants who have risked their lives crossing there from West Africa.

Pope urges ‘disarming’ of AI in major manifesto

He said he hoped the visit, his first to an EU country outside Italy, ​would set an ​example to the ⁠world about respecting “every human being” and urged leaders to stop dividing electorates.

“I am delighted that he is praying for us migrants and ​for our safety,” said Andrea Margarita, a 72-year-old Peruvian who arrived ​in Spain ⁠six months ago, as she waited in the crowd in a wheelchair with her daughter.

After Mass, Leo was scheduled to hold a private meeting with fellow members of ⁠his Augustinian ​religious order in the afternoon before meeting figures ​from the world of entertainment, sport and culture at a concert venue in central Madrid.

In separate statements, Kyiv’s General ​Staff and the state atomic agency said ​a container-receiving building had been partially destroyed, ⁠but that no spent fuel had been ​stored there at the time of the attack.

A ​resulting fire was extinguished, and no injuries were reported.

Drone hits captured nuclear plant in Ukraine: IAEA

Russia has not publicly commented on the alleged attack on the ​facility, which is located around 15 km (9 ​miles) from the Chornobyl plant, the site of the world’s ‌worst ⁠nuclear disaster.

“This is not the first time Russian forces are putting Ukrainian nuclear facilities at risk,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.

Drones hit infrastructure in St. Petersburg, governor says

“Russia’s ​nuclear blackmail ​and threats ⁠to nuclear safety are systemic, deliberate, and unacceptable.”

In February 2025, a Russian ​attack drone damaged a containment arch ​over ⁠the Chornobyl reactor that was destroyed in the April 1986 explosion and meltdown. Russia denied responsibility.

Kyiv ⁠and ​Moscow have also traded accusations ​of attacking the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, ​Europe’s largest.

Polls show Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract party leading, backed by up ‌to 32% of voters, with the pro-Russian Strong Armenia party trailing in second place with up to 11%.

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Pashinyan has moved Armenia closer to the West since coming to power in 2018, and away from traditional patron Russia, which has provoked Moscow’s ire in ​the lead-up to the vote.

GDP per capita has also doubled under Pashinyan, a journalist and opposition ​activist turned politician.

“I really like how Armenia has been growing right before my eyes,” 39-year-old ⁠voter Karine Darbinyan said at a rally for Pashinyan in Yerevan’s central square on Friday.

Pain of Karabakh ​exodus

Pashinyan has faced a wave of criticism from the opposition and some sections of the public who have accused ​him of capitulating to Azerbaijan, particularly since the 2023 war.

He has countered by placing his peace effort centre stage in his campaign, above all the agreement he signed at the White House last August with Azerbaijan after on-and-off war that has raged ​since the late 1980s.

Armenia’s opposition is dominated by pro-Russian groups including Strong Armenia, formed last year by Russian-Armenian ​billionaire Samvel Karapetyan. He wants to keep Armenia close to Russia, a key supplier of energy and buyer of exports.

Ukraine fires wave of drones at Russia

At ‌a Strong ⁠Armenia rally in Yerevan last week, a woman who gave her name only as Gayane said she supported Karapetyan because he would ensure “that our Armenia remains Armenian”.

She said her roots were in Nagorno-Karabakh, the breakaway territory inhabited by ethnic Armenians that was retaken by Azerbaijan in the 2023 war. The region’s entire Armenian population fled ​after the chaotic one-day lightning ​offensive.

“We lost Artsakh, hoping ⁠it would remain with us,” Gayane said, using a historic Armenian name for the territory.

“The current authorities have taken away that hope from us. And Samvel Karapetyan ​has now given us new hope that we can at least preserve our Armenia ​and our ⁠traditions.”

Critics and rights groups have accused Pashinyan of authoritarianism after many of his opponents have been jailed in recent years.

The government broadly has defended the actions of law enforcement agencies against individuals whom it says are trying to foment ⁠coups.

A spate ​of arrests in the lead-up to the vote has targeted the ​opposition, including parliamentary candidates for the Strong Armenia party.

Polls open at 8 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) and close at 8 p.m. Some 2.48 million ​people are registered to vote in the landlocked country of 3 million.

Many of the drones targeted Saint Petersburg itself, the second Ukrainian attack on the city in less than a week, with Ukraine’s SBU security services saying it had hit a naval base.

Moscow and Kyiv have intensified drone strikes on each other in recent months as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, now in its fifth year, remain stalled and sidetracked by the conflict in the Middle East.

The strikes come a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposal for a meeting, drawing criticism from Zelensky, who accused him of “choosing war again”.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, while Abkhazia is a region of Georgia that Russia military occupies.

The measures, which would include asset freezes and travel bans, have yet to be finalised and countries may adopt different lists of individuals, the diplomats said.

The move comes amid escalating violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and underscores anger in many Western countries toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has expanded settlements. Diplomats say that expansion is aimed at undermining prospects for a Palestinian state.

No EU unanimity for tougher measures on Israel

The diplomats said that with efforts blocked at the European Union to advance tougher measures against Israel, several countries had concluded that coordinated national sanctions were the best option for now.

READ MORE: EU agrees long-stalled sanctions on Israeli settlers

“There is no unanimity at the EU level, so we have moved to discussions at the national level,” one diplomat said.

Two of the diplomats said the announcement would be in the coming days.

Another diplomat said Britain and Norway were among the countries France was coordinating with, although it remained unclear who else could join.

Most countries avoid publicly discussing national sanctions for fear that potential targets could shift assets in advance.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said after some new EU sanctions on May 11 that the bloc had “chosen, in an arbitrary and political manner, to impose sanctions on Israeli citizens and entities because of their political views and without any basis.”

Seven Western nations, including France, Britain, Australia and Canada, accused the Israeli government on May 22 of aggravating tensions in the occupied West Bank.

A key concern is Israel’s plan to build a settlement east of Jerusalem, known as the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, fragmenting territory Palestinians seek for an independent state.

“In the face of settlement expansion and violence in the occupied West Bank, we have already taken measures. More could follow,” a French diplomatic source said, declining to elaborate.

Britain’s Foreign Office declined to comment. The Norwegian foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

France hosts meeting to keep issue on the table

The push to increase pressure on Israel at the national level comes just days before France hosts a meeting on June 12 in Paris, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups and about a dozen foreign ministers.

The meeting will mark one year since the adoption of the New York Declaration, a non-binding United Nations resolution endorsed by the General Assembly that set out a roadmap towards a Palestinian state and led to about a dozen countries, including France, recognising a Palestinian state in September.

French officials have said they want to keep the issue on the international agenda as wars in Iran and Lebanon draw attention away from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while talks over Gaza’s future remain deadlocked despite a fragile ceasefire.

In his letter, which was sent to other countries, including the US, Zelenskiy said the majority of Russians had grown tired of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, high inflation and fuel shortages, and were ready for peace.

He also suggested that continuing the war could threaten Putin’s own position, saying that history had shown that when Russia got tired, change followed.

Speaking at an annual economic forum where some of Russia’s richest businessmen complained about high interest rates and economic stagnation stemming from the war, Putin said the letter did not come across as a sincere offer to hold talks.

“This letter contains some rather rude remarks. Was it a way to create the conditions for a face-to-face meeting or a way not to set up a face-to-face meeting? I think it was the latter,” Putin said.

Also read: Zelenskiy, in open letter, invites Putin to talks to end the war

Asked whether he would meet Zelenskiy, whom the 73-year-old Kremlin chief was careful not to name but to refer to only as “the letter’s author,” Putin was blunt:

“I don’t see the point in meeting; the only point is for the Ukrainian side to halt the advance of our armed forces. But we need agreements - not for six months, not for three months, but for the long term.

“Let the experts get to work and come up with some solutions. After that, we can meet,” the Russian leader said.

Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said Putin’s response to his proposal for a face-to-face meeting made it plain that the Kremlin leader did not want to end the war.

“Unfortunately, the Russian side is once again choosing war - everyone heard the response. A weak response. I think this response will have disappointed many in the world,” Zelenskiy said.

That meant, he said, trying to ensure that Russia had less revenue and “faced greater pressure”.

Russian war bloggers have similarly dismissed Zelenskiy’s letter as a malicious public relations stunt designed to stir up discontent inside Russia rather than end the war.

Hardline stance

In a meeting with international media on Thursday, Putin had stuck to his hardline stance on the war and said his troops were advancing on the battlefield every day. But he also said US President Donald Trump’s proposals for peace could end the fighting if Kyiv were ready to compromise. Both sides accuse the other of refusing to compromise.

The conflict has long turned into a grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine, with a high death toll on both sides.

Also read: Peace hopes dented as Russia says Ukraine tried to attack Putin residence

Russia, which is much bigger and stronger than Ukraine, still only controls about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory more than four years after Putin’s decision to send in tens of thousands of troops.

Meanwhile, Western sanctions and Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure and other strategic targets have begun to weigh heavily on the country’s economy, strengthening the arguments of some in the business and political elite that a peace deal should be struck.

Ukraine says it will not withdraw its forces from the part of the eastern Donbas region that it still holds and says it will never recognise Russian sovereignty over Ukrainian territory Moscow has seized.

This week, Russia again fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities and towns, including Kyiv, killing dozens of people. Ukraine has also stepped up its strikes inside Russia, including on its oil refineries.

“A localized ​ceasefire brokered by the IAEA took effect ⁠on the frontline near the Zaporizhzhya ​Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) today, paving the way for ​crucial power line repairs to prevent the threat of a nuclear accident,” the IAEA said in a ​post on X.

In the coming days, technicians ​from both sides will begin repairing war-related damage to ‌the ⁠750-kilovolt Dniprovska power line after extensive demining of the area, it said.

The power line was disconnected more than two months ago, ​leaving Europe’s largest ​nuclear ⁠power plant reliant on a single 330 kV line to supply ​the electricity needed to cool its ​six ⁠shutdown reactors, the post said.

The ZNPP had lost access to this line several times in ⁠recent ​weeks, the IAEA said, forcing ​it to operate its emergency diesel generators.

In his letter, Zelenskiy said the majority of Russians had grown tired of Ukrainian missile and drones attacks, inflation and fuel shortages, and were ready for peace.

Also read: Peace hopes dented as Russia says Ukraine tried to attack Putin residence

“If you do not personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war, Ukraine will continue fighting for its existence,” Zelenskiy said, warning that this could threaten Putin’s personal position. “It is a fact of Russian history that you know well: when Russia grows tired, change comes.”

Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of Crimea, writing on Telegram, said Ukrainian forces had hit a non-residential part of Simferopol, the peninsula’s main administrative town.

The strike killed three people and injured seven, he said.

In the Crimean port of Sevastopol, the local Russia-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said air defence units had intercepted more than 20 Ukrainian drones.

Razvozhayev made no mention of casualties, but said drone debris had damaged some buildings.

The air raid alert remained in effect in the city for nearly five hours.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea in 2014 - well before its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine - after public protests prompted a Moscow-friendly president to flee Ukraine.

Leaders in the region have taken measures to tackle fuel shortages after an intensifying campaign of Ukrainian strikes on oil industry targets, some deep inside Russia.

In the Boryspil area outside Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, firefighters were extinguishing a blaze after an industrial facility was hit in a drone attack overnight, with one person injured, Ukraine’s emergency service said on Telegram.

The post did not name the facility on fire. Boryspil, in Kyiv’s eastern suburb, hosts the capital’s main airport. It remains closed for civilian flights following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. On Wednesday, each side struck the other’s cities.

In Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine’s critical “fortress cities” along the 1,200-km (775-mile) front line, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians, according to Vadym Filashkin, governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

In the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Oleksandr Hanzha said Russian forces had injured eight people near the main regional centre of Dnipro.

Ukraine’s attacks on Moscow’s oil industry included a strike on an oil terminal in St Petersburg on Wednesday. Zelenskiy said the strikes enable Ukraine “to end this war on equal footing”.

In Russia’s border region of Bryansk, Acting Regional Governor Yegor Kovalchuk said a Ukrainian drone had killed a crane operator working for the local utility.

US-brokered talks aimed at moving towards an end to the more than four-year-old war have stalled as Washington remains focused on the conflict in Iran.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday that the risk of escalation in the war was “real”, more real than it was two years ago. Russia said last month it would launch “systematic” strikes on targets in Kyiv in response to what it described as a drone attack on a dormitory in Russian-occupied Luhansk region.

Ukraine denies staging the attack.

Twenty-three people died in Russian attacks on Kyiv and other cities early on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strikes as “fair” retaliation for Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine and threatened to launch more.

Some 20,000 people from 130 countries were to attend the three-day annual Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) — an event once dubbed “Russia’s Davos” — which began Wednesday.

The Kremlin vowed to respond to the strikes, which came a day after a barrage of Russian missiles and drones killed 23 people across Ukraine.

The attacks on Saint Petersburg damaged “several” infrastructure facilities, the city’s governor Alexander Beglov said.

“Several people were injured. There were no fatalities,” he said.

Ukraine said it had hit the Saint Petersburg Oil Terminal and the city’s Kronstadt military base.

An AFP reporter saw a plume of black smoke rising from behind the Peter and Paul Fortress, among the city’s most popular tourist attractions.

The commander of Ukraine’s drone forces said a Russian warship was hit at the Kronstadt naval base, posting black-and-white footage from the drone of what he said was the attack.

Saint Petersburg’s main airport closed for hours overnight, while several flights from Moscow to the northern capital were delayed.

Ukrainian officials said the attack was aimed at disrupting the SPIEF forum, where President Vladimir Putin will make a keynote address on Friday.

“The Petersburg forum is opening with a nice plume of black smoke in the background after Ukrainian strikes,” said Sergiy Sternenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian defence minister.

Smoke was visible from the conference venue as delegates gathered for the first sessions.

Valeria, a 32-year-old businesswoman travelling from Moscow to SPIEF told AFP she had got used to the threat of attacks.

“We have been living under such attacks for many years now,” she said.

During a press conference in Kyiv with NATO chief Mark Rutte, Zelensky said Ukraine was responding “accordingly” to deadly Russian bombardment.

“It’s just a matter of time before we can scale up the intensity of our responses,” Zelensky said.

Rutte said Ukraine was showing success taking out “some of the key capabilities and capacities of the Russians”.

Russian strikes on frontline regions of Ukraine killed four people earlier in the day, officials said.

Since Russia launched its full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022, SPIEF — previously Moscow’s premier economic event for courting Western investment — has been seen as a snapshot of Russia’s isolation on the world stage.

French President Emmanuel Macron, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were among those who addressed the forum alongside Putin.

Now Russia can only rely on its closest allies to attend. This year, the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania will be present, alongside ministers from Cuba, Belarus, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The Kremlin’s economy envoy Kirill Dmitriev said the forum was a gathering of “sovereign countries”, slamming “globalist” rivals like the annual Davos gathering in Switzerland.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres — who on Tuesday condemned Russian strikes on Ukraine — will speak at a panel on the environment on Friday.

The United States is sending Rodney Mims Cook Jr, head of the US Commission of Fine Arts who is overseeing President Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom, to the event. He will speak on a panel titled “Russia-US: A Cultural Dialogue”.

Several fringe figures from Western countries have also been invited — including right-wing commentator Candace Owens, Putin-backing US actor Steven Seagal and representatives of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Andrew Tate, the British-American self-described misogynist charged in Romania with human trafficking and accused of rape, landed in Moscow on Tuesday, triggering speculation he would attend the forum.

At least 23 killed in Russian attack, Ukrainian president says new assault possible

The city is hosting an economic conference, President Vladimir Putin’s “Russian Davos”, from Wednesday.

The strikes on cities including ‌Kyiv and Dnipro followed Russian warnings of “systematic” attacks on the capital after a drone attack on a dormitory in Ukraine’s Russian-held region of Luhansk last month. Kyiv denies targeting the dormitory.

It was the third heavy assault on Kyiv in under a month, but Russia has been relentlessly attacking Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, since it invaded its smaller neighbour in 2022.

U.S.-brokered talks on the war in Ukraine have stalled, with Washington focused on Iran, while Russian battlefield advances have slowed and Kyiv has boosted strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Zelenskiy calls for air ​defence supplies

Zelenskiy said there was evidence Russian forces could strike again on Tuesday night.

“According to our intelligence, another large-scale attack may occur tonight,” he said in his nightly video address.

“Please, I strongly urge ​you to pay attention to air raid alerts.”

Zelenskiy repeated that Ukraine was short of weapons to counter incoming Russian missiles. “Unfortunately, the current level of supplies for our air ⁠defence does not enable us to intercept a significant portion of the missiles,” he said.

He said more than 70 missiles and 650 drones had been deployed overnight and Russian forces had deployed 100 more drones throughout the ​day on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Ukrainian president urged Washington to send additional Patriot missile interceptors.

“If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic and other missile strikes, these attacks will continue,” Zelenskiy said on Telegram.

The Kremlin said the war had entered “a ​new paradigm” after what it called “inhumane acts of terror” by Ukraine’s military against civilians, echoing accusations Kyiv has made against Russian forces. Moscow warned last week of systematic strikes and urged foreigners to leave Kyiv.

Zelenskiy sent a letter last week to U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress, asking for air defence systems. As of Monday, officials said he had not received a response.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged partners to impose tougher sanctions on Moscow and provide more military support.

“Moscow is losing on the battlefield. No number of ​missiles can change this. What we can change is Russia’s ability to continue terror,” he said on X.

The U.S. has been Ukraine’s main foreign supplier of weapons but Kyiv has also been purchasing Patriot missiles through a ​NATO initiative, financed by its European allies.

‘Some kind of apocalypse’

Moscow’s war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands, forced much of the population out of their homes and devastated cities, towns and villages. Russia controls about one-fifth of Ukraine.

Ukraine has also ‌hit civilian ⁠targets during attacks on Russia or Russian-occupied areas, though on a much smaller scale. Both sides deny targeting civilians.

In New York, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemned” the Russian attacks. He repeated Guterres’ appeal for “immediate de-escalation, leading to a full, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire in this conflict.”

Photographs on Tuesday showed explosions and smoke billowing over high-rise buildings in Kyiv, where officials said seven people were killed, including one person Mayor Vitali Klitschko said had died while being treated in hospital. At least 90 were wounded.

“We couldn’t understand what was happening - some kind of apocalypse?” Olha Mudra, her face and clothes covered in dust, said at the site of one strike, accompanied by her ​six-year-old daughter Natalia.

Sixteen people were killed overnight, including two ​young boys, in the southeastern city of Dnipro, ⁠local officials said. New attacks later on Tuesday injured at least two more people.

In Kyiv, at least nine high-rise buildings, a kindergarten, a clinic, offices and administrative buildings were damaged. The attack cut power to 140,000 residents, power company DTEK said.

More than 40,000 took shelter in the Kyiv subway system - the biggest number in recent years. Some carried pets, ​belongings and mattresses.

The Russia-installed head of parts of Donetsk Region held by Moscow said one person died in a Ukrainian drone attack.

Hypersonic missiles

Ukraine’s Air Force said ​the attack included 33 hard-to-shoot-down ballistic ⁠missiles and eight Zircon hypersonic missiles, which appeared to be the largest number of such missiles used at once during the war.

The Zircon has a range of 1,000 km (625 miles) and travels at nine times the speed of sound, Moscow says. Ukrainian Air Force units shot down or neutralised 40 missiles and 602 drones, but no Zircon was listed among them.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had launched a “massive strike” on defence industry targets using high-precision long-range weapons, hitting 10 military ⁠production sites ​in Kyiv.

Russian regions also came under attack. The Ilsky oil refinery, in the southern Krasnodar region, caught fire after a drone attack, local authorities ​said on Telegram. Ukraine’s military confirmed the strike.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defence units had destroyed eight Ukrainian drones headed for the capital in the hours leading up to midnight on Tuesday.

Russia downed 148 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russian news agencies said, citing the defence ministry.

Reuters could ​not independently verify all the reports.

The burnt-out vehicle was found at a petrol station near the village of Amendolara in a vast farming area in the Calabria region.

CCTV images from the petrol station showed two people blocking the van’s doors from the outside and throwing liquid inside, Corriere della Sera reported citing law enforcement sources.

The images showed a fire breaking out and the two people running away, the report said.

At UNSC, Pakistan demands urgent global action to halt Israel’s Lebanon incursion

Firefighters found the bodies inside after putting out the fire.

“This is definitely murder, we just have to work out the details,” local police chief Antonio Borelli was quoted by Corriere as saying.

The paper said there had been 14 cases of arson involving cars and minivans carrying Pakistanis in recent months in the area, where there are tensions between migrants over the division of farm work and residency papers and accommodation.

Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah clashed overnight despite US President Donald Trump’s announcement that both sides had agreed to halt fighting ahead of US-hosted talks between Israel and Lebanon.

“Nothing can justify the continuation of military operations and Israel’s prolonged occupation deep inside Lebanese territory,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France TV.

Israeli troops on Sunday seized the Beaufort castle, which commands sweeping views of south Lebanon.

Israeli forces used the castle, also known as Qalaat al-Chakif, as a base during their previous two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000.

Tehran has said that a ceasefire in Lebanon remains a key condition for any deal with Washington to end the Middle East war.

Russia has targeted Ukraine’s power supply and infrastructure in a war now more than four years old, while Ukraine has stepped up attacks this year on Russian oil facilities.

Both deny targeting civilians.

Last week, the Kremlin warned that it intended “systematic strikes” on targets in Kyiv in response to a drone attack on a dormitory in Ukraine’s Russian-held region of Luhansk, which killed 21.

Ukraine denied the attack.

Photographs showed large explosions and plumes of smoke billowing over high-rise buildings in Kyiv, where overnight strikes killed four people and wounded 58, including children, according to the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.

“We couldn’t understand what was happening - some kind of apocalypse?” said Olha Mudra, speaking at the site of one strike, accompanied by her six-year-old daughter Natalia.

“Everything was covered (with debris), everything in smoke, you could see nothing,” she added, as she stood in front of a destroyed residential building and damaged cars.

Ukrainian drones hit targets across several Russian regions

A suspected missile strike on a 24-storey apartment building triggered a collapse, leaving people probably trapped under the rubble, Klitschko added, while a nine-storey apartment block was among other buildings set ablaze by suspected missile debris.

“In the Obolon district, cars are burning after being struck by falling missile debris,” Klitschko said.

“There are also fires at two locations in open areas, including one near a kindergarten.”

Thousands seeking shelter flooded into the Kyiv subway system early on Tuesday, witnesses said, some carrying belongings and mattresses, as the sound of defence systems repelling Russian attacks filled the air.

More explosions were heard in the capital after dawn, a Reuters witness said. 

Warnings of a major attack

Six people were killed and 36 injured in a missile and drone attack on the southeastern city of Dnipro and its surroundings, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on the Telegram messaging app.

All the injured were in hospital in moderate condition, he added, posting pictures of destroyed residential buildings, burnt-out vehicles and a damaged children’s playground.

Air raid warnings sounded over much of the country early on Tuesday after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s warnings the previous day of a possible major assault.

“Intelligence warnings regarding Russian strikes remain in effect. A massive strike is possible.

They have prepared one,“ Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“Our defenders are ready 24/7 to the fullest extent possible with the supplies currently available.”

In Ukraine’s northeastern region of Kharkiv, a child was among the 10 people injured in drone and missile attacks, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.

Russian regions also came under attack.

Ukraine drone attack kills one in Russia: governor

The Ilsky oil refinery, in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar, caught fire after a drone attack, local authorities said on Telegram on Tuesday.

In Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, an 11-year-old boy was injured after a Ukrainian drone hit a home, local authorities said on Telegram.

Russia downed a total of 148 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russian news agencies said, citing the defence ministry.

Air defence systems were also repelling drone attacks over Sevastopol, a Russian naval fleet base, in Russia-occupied Crimea, authorities there said. Reuters could not independently verify all the reports.

The Ukraine war has ground on since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Efforts to end it have made little progress, with the administration of US President Donald Trump focused on conflicts in the Middle East.

In a phone call on Sunday night, “I welcomed the determined efforts he is making to swiftly reach an agreement between the United States and Iran, which represents a unique opportunity to build a new security framework that brings together all the parties concerned, in order to allow for lasting stabilisation of the region,” Macron said on X.

Tehran has said that a ceasefire in Lebanon remains a key condition for any deal with Washington, after Israel’s military seized a medieval castle in south Lebanon as it expands ground operations against the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

“I also welcomed President Trump’s commitment to Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and underscored the importance of a robust ceasefire and of our collective support for the Lebanese authorities,” Macron wrote.

Cooper ​will meet her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and Chinese Vice President Han Zheng ​on June 2, before travelling to the southern tech hub of Shenzhen ⁠for a programme focussed on science and technology a day later, the government ​said.

The plans, announced on Sunday, come after Reuters reported last month on the visit, citing three ​sources.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chinese leader Xi Jinping hailed a reset in ties during the British leader’s visit to China in January, pledging greater cooperation on trade, investment and technology to the mutual ​benefit of both countries.

Trip to focus on tackling global challenges

Starmer, who is battling some of ​the worst popularity ratings of any leader at home, was the first British prime minister to visit ‌China ⁠in eight years, with his centre-left Labour government making improving relations with China a priority.

Cooper’s travel to China and India - the world’s second-largest and sixth-largest economies - comes at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, soaring oil prices following the US-Israeli war on Iran, ​and as Britain struggles ​with sluggish economic growth.

She is ⁠expected to be in India on June 4 where she is due to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar as well ​as entrepreneurs, academics and government partners who are delivering on the ​UK-India Vision ⁠2035 initiative.

The two countries signed a free trade deal last year that was aimed at boosting bilateral trade and improving market access across sectors. But India’s trade secretary Rajesh Agrawal said ⁠last ​month that its implementation had hit a hurdle over London’s ​new steel import curbs.

The British government said Cooper’s upcoming engagements “with these two major powers are expected to be ​focused on tackling the most significant global challenges”.

Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck the Saratov oil refinery on the Volga river, causing a large fire. Saratov regional governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram that “civil infrastructure” had been damaged in the strike, but gave no more details.

“During the night, our soldiers applied Ukraine’s long-range sanctions against an oil refinery in Saratov, Russia. This is about 700 km from the front line,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Not all the drones struck their targets. Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had downed 216 drones overnight.

Kyiv said it had also struck the Lazarevo pumping station in the Kirov region, northeast of Moscow and around 1,300 km (800 miles) from Ukrainian-held territory, which serves the Surgut-Gorky-Polotsk pipeline, shipping Russian oil from Siberia to Belarus.

Kirov regional governor Alexander Sokolov said drones had hit a facility in the region, but gave no further information.

In the Rostov region, which borders Ukraine’s Donbas, the focus of fighting in the more than four-year-old war, authorities in the town of Matveyev Kurgan said a major fire was burning after drones hit a fuel depot in the town, which adjoins the Russian-held part of Donetsk region. Ukraine confirmed the strike.

Governors in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions, both of which border Ukraine, also reported damage, with three civilians injured in Belgorod.

On the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula, Moscow-backed governor Sergei Aksyonov said authorities were introducing restrictions on sales of petrol.

He did not say why, but Ukraine has for months been attacking fuel infrastructure in southwestern Russia, close to Crimea.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 229 drones overnight, 212 of which were downed over northern and eastern Ukraine.

Russia accused Ukraine of hitting a garage at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in occupied Ukrainian territory on Sunday. Ukraine’s foreign ministry denied the allegation, which followed a separate accusation of a strike on the plant yesterday, which Ukraine also denied.

The UN’s nuclear energy watchdog, which has inspectors at the Russian-occupied and administered plant, said on Sunday its team observed damage to a turbine building caused by drones on Saturday, but did not specify whose drones.

It said that radiation levels at the site remained normal.

In a message on X after speaking with regional leaders, Macron said it was “essential” for an agreement to be reached quickly between the United States and Iran.

Macron held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed, and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

READ MORE: UN Security Council to hold emergency meeting on Lebanon Monday: sources

At France’s request, the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday  after the Israeli army, which is expanding its operations in Lebanon, seized the medieval Beaufort castle in the country’s south.

“France will continue to support the Lebanese authorities in their efforts to restore the sovereignty of the state and the country’s territorial integrity,” Macron wrote.

Regional stability “must begin with Lebanon, where it is urgent that all weapons fall silent, for good.”

More broadly, he said a ceasefire must be a “priority” between the United States and Iran, and called for the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz “without any conditions and in accordance with international law”.

“Talks must then continue in order to reach a comprehensive and robust agreement on other issues, particularly the nuclear and ballistic programmes and regional stability,” he added.

“France stands ready to fully play its part by helping to restore maritime traffic through the independent multinational mission set up with the United Kingdom,” he said.

Moscow’s troops captured the plant – Europe’s largest – in the first days of their 2022 invasion.

The International Atomic Energy Agency posted on social media that the Russian-run plant’s operator informed it that a drone had hit the turbine building on Saturday, “reportedly causing a hole in its wall”.

Russian media carried a statement from state-owned nuclear power firm Rosatom accusing Ukraine of a deliberate attack – a claim strongly denied by Kyiv.

The plant lies close to the frontline in southern Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of risking a nuclear catastrophe with attacks.

“There should be no attack of any kind from or against the plant”, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was quoted as saying in the agency’s X post late on Saturday.

“Attacking nuclear sites is like playing with fire.”

Rosatom alleged the drone was controlled via a fibre-optic cable, which ruled out “the possibility of an accidental strike”.

“Today, we have come one step closer to an incident that is highly likely to affect even those who live far beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine,” Rosatom CEO Alexei Likachev told Russian media.

Rejecting the accusations, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement that they lacked “logic”.

“It is unclear why Ukraine would strike its own nuclear power plant located on its own territory, which it itself seeks to regain under its sovereign control,” the ministry said.

“We consider these statements as yet another information operation by the occupying state.”

The strike blew a hole in the wall of the machine room but did not damage core equipment, Rosatom said.

The Russian-installed management of the plant later said that Kyiv had targeted the plant’s transport hub on Sunday, where vehicles transporting employees are stored.  

Six buses and two mini buses were “destroyed” as a result of the drone attack, it said on social media, adding that no staff members were hurt and that the plant was operating normally.

Authorities in Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia in April accused Ukraine of carrying out a strike which they said killed a transport worker.

Thousands of people poured into the streets of Paris for the match and to revel in PSG’s trimph.

But some mobs clashed with police, around 22,000 of whom were deployed across France after unrest last year when PSG also won the competition.

Highlighting an increased use of fireworks directed at law enforcement, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said in a press briefing 57 security forces were injured and that there had been “219 participants injured in France, including eight seriously”.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office announced the death of a young man following a motocross bike accident on the Paris ring road, and said a person was wounded with a bladed weapon in the capital and was in a critical condition.

Nunez said the 780 arrests was a 32 percent increase compared to the celebrations of PSG’s Champions League win last year.

In Saratov, a region on ​the Volga River with several ​oil refineries that has come under ⁠regular Ukrainian attack in recent ​years, governor Roman Busargin said on Telegram ​that “civil infrastructure” had been damaged.

In the Kirov region, northeast of Moscow and around 1,300km (800 ​miles) from Ukrainian-held territory, governor Alexander ​Sokolov said drones had hit a facility in ‌the ⁠Urzhumsky district.

Governors in Rostov, Voronezh and Belgorod regions, all of which border Ukraine, also reported strikes, with three ​civilians injured ​in ⁠Belgorod.

On the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula, Moscow-backed governor Sergei Aksyonov ​said authorities were introducing restrictions ​on ⁠sales of petrol.

He did not say why, but Ukraine has for months ⁠been ​attacking fuel infrastructure in ​southwestern Russia, close to Crimea.

“We will do our best” to meet the pledge, Babis told the Financial Times, but he ​said his government was grappling with a budget shortfall ​due to overspending by his pro-EU predecessor.

Czech President Petr ⁠Pavel has been at odds with the populist Babis’ government ​over its plans to scale back defence spending in the ​2026 budget. Even as he signed the budget into law, Pavel warned in March that military outlays were not corresponding to growing security threats and ​NATO spending commitments.

Babis told the newspaper that Prague was committed ​to meeting NATO’s new target of 3.5% of GDP by 2035 but ‌that ⁠NATO allies should focus more on improving capabilities than on spending targets, which could be easily manipulated.

The US plans to tell NATO it will shrink the pool of American military capabilities available ​to assist the ​alliance’s European ⁠nations in a major crisis, Reuters reported this month.

EU must be united over Russian, Chinese COVID-19 vaccines

President Donald Trump has long pressed NATO allies ​to spend more on their defence, a goal ​that has ⁠become increasingly prominent during Russia’s four-year war against Ukraine.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth told fellow defence ministers at an Asian security conference on ⁠Saturday: “The ​era of the United States subsidising ​the defence of wealthy nations is over. We need partners, not protectorates.”

The Federal Supreme Court said it had upheld a judgement against the four former employees of Gazprombank (Switzerland), who cannot be identified under Swiss reporting restrictions.

The bankers, who denied any wrongdoing, were found guilty by Zurich’s District Court in March 2023 and handed suspended fines totalling more than 450,000 Swiss francs (USD574,000). The men, three Russians and one Swiss, had appealed to Switzerland’s highest court after losing an appeal at a lower court in 2024.

In its ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court said that the men had failed to verify whether the money in accounts opened by Sergey Roldugin actually belonged to him. Instead, he could have been a so-called straw-man, holding the funds for someone else.

Roldugin was among scores of members of Putin’s inner circle sanctioned by the West, including Switzerland, after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Careful enquiries were not made into who was the beneficial owner, and although documents identified Roldugin as the beneficial owner, there were “multiple reasons to doubt this”, the court added in a statement outlining its ruling.

Numerous irregularities were identified, while more in-depth inquiries were needed because of Roldugin’s close relationship with Putin, the court added in its statement.

“Because of the bank employees’ breach of their duty of care, the true beneficial owner ultimately remained unclear,” it said. “Accordingly, they committed a criminal offence.”

Kremlin dismissed any links to Putin

A spokesman for Gazprombank said the Swiss ruling was disappointing, adding that it increased uncertainty over how due diligence rules were applied and added further complexity to an already demanding regulatory framework.

In Switzerland, banks are obliged to reject or terminate business relationships if there are doubts about the identity of the contracting party.

The original indictment against the four bankers said Roldugin had told the New York Times that he was certainly not a businessman and did not himself own millions.

The Kremlin has previously dismissed any suggestion that Roldugin’s funds are linked to the president as “Putinophobia”.

Roldugin, godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter Maria, deposited millions of Swiss francs in an account at the Swiss branch of Gazprombank in Zurich between 2014 and 2016, the first court was told.

The accounts were closed in 2016, while the Swiss bank ceased operations in 2024.

Swiss law meant clarifications were required over how Roldugin’s accounts received dividends worth millions of Swiss francs a year and how he had acquired a 20 percent stake in a media company with a value of more than 100 million francs.

Lawyers for the bankers argued during the original trial it was plausible that Roldugin was rich because he was friends with Putin. Although such favouritism may be frowned upon in Switzerland, this was not relevant, the defence said.

Kyiv was hit particularly hard last weekend by a huge Russian bombardment attack – one of the largest since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Moscow has warned foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv, threatening to escalate attacks as it seeks revenge for a Ukrainian strike on a dormitory and a vocational high school in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, which Moscow says left 21 people dead.

“We have intelligence information about Russia preparing a new massive strike,” Zelensky said in a social media message.

Also read: Russia strikes Kyiv with massive missile and drone attack, killing one

“Please pay attention to air alerts, protect your lives. Our services are working efficiently and are prepared; the Air Force and other defenders of our skies will be on duty 24/7, as always.”

The Ukrainian president has reiterated his call to allies to allow and finance the supply of Patriot missiles, which can intercept Russian ballistic missiles.

He wrote to US President Donald Trump and the US Congress earlier this week asking for Patriot systems to respond to the intensifying Russian air attacks.

Ukraine has also stepped up its strikes on occupied territories and on Russia in retaliation for the daily Russian bombardments.

US-mediated efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict have stalled since the outbreak of war in the Middle East, which is absorbing Washington’s attention and resources.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency met with Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana this week.

The Financial Times said the Kazakh leader had expressed his country’s “openness” to store the stockpile enriched to near weapons grade level.

Also read: Supreme Leader says enriched uranium must stay in Iran, Iranian sources say

The estimated 440 kilogrammes of uranium processed to 60 percent purity is at the centre of talks between the United States and Iran on extending the ceasefire in the war unleashed by US-Israel attacks.

US President Donald Trump has insisted that Iran must accept that it will not have a nuclear weapon and that the uranium is destroyed. Iran has insisted on its right to maintain a nuclear programme.

According to US news site Axios, a deal being discussed does not solve the uranium dispute, but would include an Iranian commitment not to build a nuclear bomb.

NATO member Romania says Russian drone hit block of flats, injuring two

“We stand in full solidarity with Romania and its people,” she wrote on social media. “As we continue strengthening our security and deterrence, especially on our Eastern border, we will keep increasing the pressure on Russia.”

“A 60-year-old man was killed in a synthetic fibre company” in Volzhsky following “a drone attack by the Kyiv regime,” Andrey Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said.

A 55-year-old woman was seriously wounded and hospitalised during the attack, which sparked a fire at the factory, as well as numerous other sites, he said, adding that all the fires were put out.

NATO member Romania says Russian drone hit block of flats, injuring two

Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 208 Ukrainian drones overnight.

In response to daily bombardments since Russia sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv has regularly struck within Russian territory, saying it is targeting energy facilities in a bid to dent Russia’s oil revenues.

The incident in Romania, also a member of the European Union, was likely to increase tensions on NATO’s eastern flank at a time when Ukraine’s allies are worried about Russia’s war on its neighbour spilling over its borders.

The drone hit the roof ​of a 10-storey block of flats in Galati and caused an explosion, the authorities said.

Russia hits Ukraine with Oreshnik missile

Romania, which shares a 650-km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine, ​has experienced Russian drones breaching its airspace 28 times since Moscow began attacking Kyiv’s ports across the Danube river, Romania’s ⁠defence ministry said.

‘Serious violation of international law’, Romania says

The ministry said it had recovered drone fragments that fell in Romania 47 times.

“Romania will take the ​necessary diplomatic measures in response to this serious violation of international law and its airspace,” Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Toiu said on X.

“Romania has informed the ​Allies and the NATO Secretary General of the circumstances and has requested measures to accelerate the transfer of anti-drone capabilities to Romania.”

The defence ministry said it scrambled two F-16 fighter jets and a military helicopter to monitor the attack, adding the pilots were authorised to shoot down any drones. The residents of border counties Braila, Galati and Tulcea were warned ​to take cover.

Romanian law allows it to shoot down drones during peacetime if lives or property are at risk, but it has not yet done ​so.

Ukrainian drones have strayed into Baltic countries’ airspace in recent weeks, sowing confusion and raising tensions with Russia.

In Friday’s incident, a fire broke out in a 10th-floor apartment after ‌the drone ⁠struck the building’s roof and exploded, Romania’s emergency response agency said. Two people were receiving medical treatment on site, it said, adding 70 people had evacuated.

State news agency Agerpres cited Galati’s emergency response agency as saying a woman and her child had been taken to hospital with minor injuries while two others had been treated on site for panic attacks.

Drone with unexploded payload also reported

The drone’s entire explosive payload detonated, and the fire was extinguished, the emergency agency said.

The ​defence ministry said radar lost contact ​with the drone as it entered ⁠Galati as it was flying very low to the ground.

Deputy Interior Minister Raed Arafat, who is in charge of the emergency response agency, told private broadcaster Digi24 the drone affected two building stairwells and damaged five cars.

In a separate incident, ​a drone without an explosive charge was found around Basesti in Maramures county in northwestern Romania and the ​area was secured, state ⁠TVR broadcaster said late on Thursday, citing local authorities.

The authorities were investigating the origin of the drone, which the report said had a wingspan of about 3 metres (10 feet), and how it happened to be in the area, TVR added.

Local authorities in southern Ukraine, meanwhile, said the Izmail port in the Odesa region came under attack ⁠from several ​drones early on Friday.

Izmail, close to the Romanian border, is home to the largest Ukrainian ​port on the Danube River and is a frequently targeted strategic location.

Galati was last hit in April, when a drone damaged an electricity pole and a household annex, prompting evacuations. Officials retrieved that drone ​to detonate its unexploded payload remotely.