Drone Strikes

Strikes resume in Russia and Ukraine after a three-day pause during US envoys’ visits to the countries’ capitals.

Russia has struck Kyiv after a three-day pause in attacks on the Ukrainian and Russian capitals expired, following a visit by two US envoys that yielded no tangible progress towards peace.

Two residential buildings were damaged by Russian air raids early on Tuesday, city officials in Kyiv said. Drones hit buildings in the capital city as well as in the Boryspil and Fastiv districts on the outskirts of Kyiv, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

An air raid alert, published by the Kyiv city military administration, urged residents to take shelter due to the threat of an “enemy” drone attack.

Following the reported attacks in Ukraine, Russian regional Governor Roman Busargin said a Ukrainian drone attack injured several people after hitting civilian infrastructure in Saratov, nearly 1000km from Moscow. The number of casualties from both incidents remains unconfirmed (621 miles).

Russia and Ukraine pledged to halt strikes on each other’s capitals for three days as Washington dispatched envoys to Moscow and Kyiv. However, fighting continued elsewhere.

Attacks paused after leaders Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine announced the ceasefire during the visits by US President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend.

Russia’s state news agency TASS confirmed that the three-day suspension Putin had ordered for his forces expired on Monday evening local time.

Witkoff and Kushner held talks with officials in Moscow and Kyiv regarding ending the conflict. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov called the more than three-hour meeting in Moscow on Saturday “highly useful”.

After talks with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, Witkoff said: “We’ve had a very meaningful discussion, substantive, important, and we are very encouraged, and we look forward to continuing this as long as it takes.”

Witkoff also raised the prospects of reviving three-way negotiations to end the war.

A White House official told the Reuters news agency that the next steps regarding the war, which Russia began with a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, would be announced in the coming weeks.

Germany has formally accused Russia of attempting an attack last month at the Leipzig-Halle airport, a state-owned facility in the eastern part of the country.

On Tuesday, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said his country’s intelligence community had determined that a drone discovered at the airport was consistent with Russian technology. The drone had been bearing explosives, according to official reports.

The announcement triggered several retaliatory measures, including the announcement that Germany would shut down a Russian consulate.

The incident is seen as part of a growing trend in Europe, where officials fear Russia is mounting a campaign of intimidation against members of the NATO military alliance.

What was found at the Leipzig airport? How have officials responded? And what does it say about tensions between Europe and Russia as Moscow’s war in Ukraine drags on? Read on for a quick explainer on the basics.

What happened at Leipzig airport?

An explosive-laden drone was found near a cargo plane belonging to the Ukrainian firm Antonov Airlines on the evening of August 4.

An employee flagged the drone, which was located in a cargo area near a runway, resulting in a temporary shutdown at the Leipzig-Halle airport, a major cargo hub in the eastern German state of Saxony.

Specialists were called in to defuse the explosives with a robot. A second drone was reportedly destroyed after it collided with an aeroplane near the airport.

Why does Germany blame Russia?

Dobrindt, Germany’s interior minister, said investigators identified a configuration and components resembling those seen in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“Taken together, the police investigations, the pattern and intelligence findings prove a Russian responsibility for the attempted attack at Leipzig airport,” Dobrindt said.

Germany’s government has not publicly shared specifics connecting the incident to Moscow or released all the evidence.

But Dobrindt said the device reflected “a high degree of technical expertise”. He added, however, that the task of carrying out the attack appears to have fallen to “low-level agents”, whom he described as people acting “on behalf of Russian state entities”. He did not specify which ones.

How has Germany responded?

Germany has taken a series of retaliatory actions since announcing the intelligence community’s findings.

Starting on September 18, a Russian consulate in Bonn, a major German city on the Rhine River, will be shuttered. The Russian House, a cultural gathering place in Berlin, will also be closed, though the date has yet to be determined.

German leaders said they would also recommend more Russians be added to the European Union’s sanctions list and consider heightening entry controls for Russian citizens.

The German Foreign Ministry has also summoned Russia’s ambassador to the country to discuss the incident.

How has Russia reacted to Germany’s claims?

Moscow has denied it had anything to do with the drone. The Russian Embassy in Berlin called the claims absurd and warned that the accusations would have consequences.

Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of pointing the finger at Moscow to distract from domestic problems and falling approval ratings.

He also suggested that Germany had planted evidence to frame Russia for the drone incident.

How have NATO and European allies responded?

NATO allies like Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Czech Republic have all backed Berlin’s claims against Moscow.

“Whenever Russian hybrid activities target one of our allies, we are all exposed,” the Czech Foreign Ministry posted on social media.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she would discuss the incident with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and EU foreign ministers are expected to prepare a joint response.

How has Ukraine responded?

Since February 2022, Ukraine has been battling a war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

There has been speculation that Moscow’s increasing military threats in Europe are designed to weaken NATO support for Kyiv.

Ukraine has welcomed Germany’s measures against Russia, with Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksii Makeiev praising Berlin’s response on Tuesday.

Germany has been a key strategic partner for Ukraine, and in April, the two countries unveiled a security cooperation agreement that would strengthen joint air defences.

As part of the deal, Berlin agreed to fund missile contracts for Kyiv, and the two would collaborate on drone co-production.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that his country’s airspace is becoming increasingly unsafe for civilian aviation, with both sides in the war increasingly relying on drone warfare.

What other actions has Russia been accused of in Europe?

Critics have long warned that Russia is taking an increasingly aggressive stance towards Europe, which has opposed its invasion of Ukraine.

The Associated Press news agency has logged some 200 incidents of sabotage and malign activity in Europe since the 2022 invasion.

Those acts include cyberattacks, espionage, disinformation campaigns, arson and interference with infrastructure.

One case, in March 2024, involved a warehouse in east London being set on fire. The facility stored aid for Ukraine, and prosecutors blamed the attack on members of the Russian-backed Wagner Group, a paramilitary organisation.

Such low-level operations are often called “hybrid” attacks, as they remain below the threshold of open conflict but still succeed in sowing unease through violence.

Why are these tensions erupting now?

Germany says covert operations like the attempted drone attack at the Leipzig airport are meant to undermine the country’s political backing for Ukraine in its defence against Russia.

The war has stretched for more than four years, and Ukrainian officials have warned that the coming winter may prove the most challenging yet.

The attempted drone attack also comes at a pivotal time for German politics.

On September 6, the eastern province of Saxony-Anhalt is holding elections, and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is hoping to make gains, building in part on public weariness with the war.

The AfD has called for strengthening ties with Russia and has been critical of support for Ukraine. It is currently leading in public opinion polls ahead of the vote.

Israel’s prime minister and defence minister praise the attack as Hamas calls for Israeli ‘crimes’ to stop.

The Israeli army has killed three Palestinians in Jenin in a rare air strike in the occupied West Bank, amid growing tensions in the territory.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it “eliminated” three people on Friday, one a Palestinian it described as a Hamas operative as well as two of his accomplices.

Hamas condemned the strike but did not claim the person targeted – whom the Israeli military identified as Qais Bitawi – as a member. Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement Bitawi was a senior operative of its armed wing.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military said the strike targeted a car carrying the men.

The Palestine Red Crescent ambulance service said Israeli ground troops ⁠raided the site of the drone strike, briefly detained medics and ⁠prevented them from transporting those wounded or killed to hospital.

The Red Crescent said its personnel were also detained after arriving at the scene.

The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that the Israeli drone strike had targeted a house under construction in the western area of Jenin City, and that three Palestinians were killed instantly.

Photos from the AFP news agency showed Israeli soldiers removing a body from a house under construction on the outskirts of Jenin.

‘Stop these crimes and end impunity’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the strike in a post on X, calling it a “successful thwarting” of the three targeted individuals.

After the attack, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz congratulated the military, police and Shin Bet for the strike and said the Jenin camp has been “evacuated of residents”. He added that the Israeli military is now “permanently stationed there, like other terrorist camps” in the West Bank.

Hamas condemned the strike in a statement mourning “the martyrs who fell in the occupation’s bombing of Jenin,” saying that Palestinians “will continue to cling to their land and rights”.

The group called on the international community “to take immediate action to stop these crimes and end impunity” and hold Israel “fully responsible for the repercussions”.

The occupied West Bank, home to the Palestinian Authority, has seen soaring violence by Israeli settlers and soldiers but has recently avoided Israeli military strikes that have devastated the Gaza Strip since the genocidal war began on October 7, 2023.

Military raids on Palestinian towns in the West Bank are common, but Israel last carried out a strike there in February 2025.

Friday’s strike in Jenin comes as separate Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least five people, and as Nikolay Mladenov, the high representative for the United States-led Board of Peace, warned that the failure of both sides to adhere to the roadmap for peace “threatens a collapse of the ceasefire in Gaza”.

US Southern Command says that Sunday’s strike targeted a vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.

The United States military said it struck a suspected drug-trafficking boat in the Pacific Ocean, killing two people.

In a Monday post on X, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said Sunday’s strike targeted a vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific.

“Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking,” SOUTHCOM added.

“This operation is a clear and decisive reminder that SOUTHCOM is taking the fight directly to the cartels.”

Grainy, black-and-white video accompanying the post appeared to show a boat moving through the water immediately before a large explosion.

The post stated that under the direction of SOUTHCOM Commander General Francis L. Donovan, the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal kinetic strike on the low-profile vessel.

“We are committed to imposing total systemic friction on narco-terrorists — disrupting their operations, dismantling their leadership and eliminating cartel terror across the region,” Donovan was quoted as saying.

“Let me be clear, we will not permit narco-terrorists to operate with impunity in the Western Hemisphere, nor will we allow their deadly poison to reach American communities. This operation is a powerful demonstration of our lethal precision, overwhelming capability, and absolute resolve to protect the U.S. homeland.”

The US military launched Operation Southern Spear in early September, with President Donald Trump arguing that Washington is effectively at war with Latin American drug cartels.

Since then, more than 200 people have been killed in strikes across the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, according to a tally by the AFP news agency.

However, the Trump administration has not provided definitive evidence that the targeted vessels were involved in drug trafficking.

Legal experts and rights groups warn that the attacks could amount to extrajudicial killings.

The Pentagon’s inspector general said in May that it would review whether the military followed standard targeting procedures, though the evaluation will not examine the legal authority behind the strikes.

Syria condemns attack in southwest as a ‘flagrant violation of sovereignty’ and a ‘blatant breach of international law’.

An Israeli drone strike in southwestern Syria has injured several people, the country’s foreign ministry says, in the latest of near-daily Israeli incursions and attacks in the area.

Syria’s official Alikhbariya channel reported on Saturday that a man was wounded when an Israeli drone hit his truck near the town of Beit Jinn in the western Damascus countryside.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying in a statement that it had targeted “a terrorist who advanced terror attacks in their final stages of preparation” in southern Syria. The activity “posed an immediate threat to our forces”, the military added.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that Saturday’s strike resulted in several civilian injuries.

It said it “condemns in the strongest terms” the targeting of a “civilian vehicle” by an Israeli drone.

“This attack constitutes a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and the integrity of its territory, and a blatant breach of international law, and comes in the context of repeated Israeli attacks on Syrian territory,” it added.

Israel sees southern Syria ‘as a security zone’

Saturday’s strike hit a small delivery truck on the main road between the Beit Jinn farmland and the town itself, said Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent Adham Abu al-Hussam, reporting from the area.

“Residents say [one of the victims is] a civilian who works as a driver, delivering goods and orders on this truck,” Abu al-Hussam said, adding that neighbours rushed a wounded man to hospital after hearing the explosion. He is in stable condition with an injury to his right hand, according to a medical source.

Abu al-Hussam said residents had reported Israeli reconnaissance drones flying over the area for four days. Beit Jinn, which lies near Jabal al-Sheikh and roughly 55km from Damascus, has been repeatedly targeted in the past year, including in a late November raid that killed 13 civilians, he said.

Muhsen al-Mustafa, a security and strategic researcher at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies in Damascus, told Al Jazeera that the attack could be Israel sending Syria’s government a message. “Israel currently treats Syria, particularly the south, as a security zone it is trying to fill any vacuum in.”

He said Israel had used a similar rationale days earlier when it struck Abu al-Duhur military airport in Idlib province, in northern Syria, saying the aim was to prevent a Turkish military presence there. That strike, he said, signalled that Israel’s declared security zone “isn’t limited to the south” but “extends even to Abu al-Duhur airport”, roughly in the middle of the country. “Israel’s security zone, it’s saying, extends further than that.”

Al-Mustafa suggested that Israel opted for a drone strike rather than sending in ground forces partly because of the November raid, when Israeli troops came under direct fire during the incursion into Beit Jinn, wounding six soldiers, three of them seriously. “Israel is always trying to apply pressure and ask for more in every round of negotiation,” he said.

A Syrian diplomatic source told Al Jazeera that Damascus remains committed to de-escalation and is pursuing a security arrangement with Israel through United States mediation, based on the 1974 disengagement agreement.

Russia’s Defence Ministry says 453 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight in various regions.

At least five people have been killed and 11 others injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine, authorities said.

A Russian drone attack on a bus in the front-line city of Kherson killed at least four people and wounded four others on Wednesday, Kherson regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

The attack took place at about 8:50am local time (05:50 GMT), and all the casualties were bus passengers.

In a post on the Telegram app, Prokudin said the wounded had been taken to hospital.

He posted blurred photos of a yellow bus with bloodied steps and shattered windows.

Russian forces regularly strike Kherson, which was under Moscow’s control from March to November 2022 – the initial months of the war – with drones, in what Ukraine says is the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Earlier this month, Ukraine accused Russia of chasing a man in a street market in Kherson with a remotely piloted FPV drone, calling it a “safari” targeting civilians.

The city had a population of about 280,000 before the war began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian forces, repelled from the city by a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the last quarter of 2022, are now positioned on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River, which flows past Kherson.

There has been an uptick in civilian deaths in the conflict throughout this year, the United Nations has reported, with 437 civilians killed in Ukraine last month alone, the highest monthly toll since May 2022.

Russian authorities reported 79 civilians killed in Ukrainian attacks in July, up from the previous month.

The four-and-a-half-year war continues to grind on, as United States-backed talks aimed at ending the conflict remain stalled.

In a separate Russian attack, one person was killed and seven others injured in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to regional Governor Ivan Fedorov.

Russian drones struck the regional capital, damaging both residential and nonresidential buildings and causing a fire.

Meanwhile, Russian forces struck a cargo vessel in the Black Sea near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing the Ministry of Defence.

The vessel was carrying military cargo, the ministry said.

It said Russia’s air defence brought down 453 Ukrainian drones overnight in various regions.

At the same time, Russian authorities were rushing to put out a small fire after a drone fell in an industrial area in the city of Ufa in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, the republic’s head Radiy Khabirov said on Telegram.

Khabirov added that a drone hit an apartment building and a few cars in Ufa, an oil refining hub, injuring one person.

Yemen’s Ministry of Information denounces Houthi attacks on Marib as ‘escalation’ that threatens lives and increases suffering.

Yemen’s Houthis have launched several strikes on the government-held city of Marib, also hitting residential neighbourhoods, according to local authorities.

The group hit the city with four ballistic missiles and four drones on Saturday, causing several injuries and damage to homes, vehicles and property, Marib’s provincial authority said.

A fifth ballistic missile later in the day also injured one person, Marib governorate officials said on X.

A sixth ballistic missile was launched by the Houthis towards Marib overnight, officials added early on Sunday.

It described the strikes as part of an “ongoing assault that threatens the lives of civilians, displaced persons’ camps, and residential neighbourhoods”.

Marib hosts the largest number of internally displaced people in Yemen, with more than two million of the roughly five million Yemenis forced from their homes over the course of the war living there.

Video footage verified by Al Jazeera showed destruction in the aftermath of Saturday’s strikes.

Yemen’s Ministry of Information said on X that the continued targeting of Marib’s densely populated areas marked a dangerous “escalation” that threatens lives and increases suffering.

The attacks on Marib came alongside clashes further south, where Yemeni government forces claimed drone strikes killed three fighters from the Iran-backed Houthis on Saturday, including field commanders, and wounded others along the Maqbanah front west of Taiz.

A separate strike destroyed a Houthi military vehicle in Jabal al-Zuhayb, killing several more fighters, a military source told the Yemeni News Agency (Saba).

The attacks are part of a rapid escalation that has gripped Yemen since early August, when Houthi missile and drone strikes on military camps in Marib and Hadramout killed at least 30 government soldiers, the deadliest single episode of the conflict in years.

Days later, Houthi missiles killed at least two civilians and wounded 14 in Marib, and further strikes killed seven people in the port city of al-Makha (Mocha).

The Houthis, backed by Iran, control much of Yemen’s northern territory, including the capital, Sanaa.

United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg warned the UN Security Council on Thursday that Yemen faces its highest risk of returning to full-scale war since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022, as fighting has intensified on multiple fronts and threatens to unravel more than four years of relative calm.

The deaths on board the Egyptian-owned Tihamah mark first shipping deaths linked to Houthis since the US-Israel war on Iran began.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government has accused the Houthi rebel group of killing at least six people and wounding 10 others in a double-tap strike on a cargo vessel in the Bab al-Mandeb strait.

The attack on the Egyptian-owned Tihamah on Tuesday marks the first shipping deaths linked to the Iran-aligned Houthis since the United States and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28.

Yemen’s Transport Ministry said three Pakistani nationals and one Indonesian national were killed after the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles at the commercial ship, sparking a fire and causing “significant damage” to the vessel.

Yemen’s coastguard said in a separate statement that the Houthis fired another missile at the ship as rescue personnel were evacuating the dead and wounded.

“The attack struck the site of the rescue operation and resulted in deaths and injuries among the forces participating in the response operation,” the coastguard said.

At least two troops were killed in the second strike.

Ten people were wounded in total, including seven crew members, it added.

Houthi-Saudi truce unravels

Yemen’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack and called on the international community “to move from condemnation to effective and decisive action” against the Houthis.

There was no official comment from the Houthis.

But the Houthi-run news agency Saba reported that the ‌group had attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in Bab al-Mandeb. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, the US military said it fired on a ship attempting to break its blockade of Iranian ports in the Gulf of Oman. The US Central Command said a Navy helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles at the Panama-flagged Vela Nova cargo vessel, but did not say if any crew members were wounded.

The escalation in Yemen follows the collapse of a years-long truce in the country’s civil war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government.

The breakdown of the United Nations-backed 2022 truce followed a Saudi air strike on the runway of Sanaa airport on July 13, preventing the landing of an Iranian flight carrying a high-ranking Houthi delegation.

The Houthis then attacked the Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia and announced a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. They have also attacked Saudi vessels as well as oil facilities in the kingdom, adding further disruption to the global economy.

The Saudi-led coalition, in turn, has struck Houthi-controlled Hodeidah and Kamaran, Yemen’s largest island in the Red Sea.

The Houthis have also launched attacks on government-held areas in Yemen, including the port city of al-Makha (Mocha) on the Red Sea and the central city of Marib, killing dozens of troops and civilians.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government on Tuesday said the Houthis launched 10 missiles and four drones during a series of further attacks on sites on the country’s western coast.

The Houthis said they had launched ballistic missile and drone attacks “targeting Saudi military buildups, weapons depots and command posts” in al-Makha and the central Marib province.

The UN has called for restraint, saying the renewed hostilities risk “drawing the country into a broader regional confrontation, with devastating consequences for its people”.