Drone Strikes

Iran’s Foreign Ministry says its air attacks on countries cooperating with the US are justified under international law.

Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denounced what it describes as “a resumption of Iran’s aggression” after the latest air attacks on its Riffa Air Base by Tehran.

In a statement, the ministry said the attacks on Sunday launched by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) violated international law and “no pretext can legitimise violations of state sovereignty”.

“Bahrain also rejects the use of its territory to settle accounts and holds Iran fully responsible for the attacks and their consequences,” the statement added.

Bahrain’s military said its defence systems intercepted several Iranian “aerial attacks” targeting the kingdom. Its Riffa Air Base is used by the United States military.

The IRGC has not commented. It had said on Friday that it launched an attack on a US early warning radar facility in Bahrain and destroyed it. Bahrain said it intercepted two drones that day.

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, noted that Iran had held back amid intermittent US attacks in the past weeks but in the past three days, it has fired twice at Bahrain.

“We were seeing the United States’s low-intensity warfare being conducted against Iran. From time to time, the US attacked Iran’s military assets – telecommunications towers specifically – in the southern part of the country,” he said.

But that appears to have changed. “It seems this is now the new rule of engagement,” Serdar added.

Iranian minister says attacks justified

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei defended Tehran’s attacks and accused Gulf countries of aiding US strikes against Iran.

“All the cases that indicate the role of the countries of the region in helping the US to attack Iran have been documented,” Baghaei said at a news conference on Sunday, adding that Tehran was taking diplomatic action and would “follow up on this issue seriously”.

He said missiles, drones and aircraft launched from military bases in neighbouring countries as well as logistical support provided to US forces were proof of these nations’ involvement.

“The responsibility of this group of countries in the region for the consequences … of the military aggression of the United States and the Zionist regime against Iran is clear,” Baghaei charged, referring to Israel.

Attacks on its neighbours, he said, were justified under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which established the rights of states to defend themselves from attacks.

“No action has been taken by Iran against the sovereignty of these countries,” Baghaei said, arguing that Tehran’s attacks are “purely defensive in nature” and have targeted only US military bases and assets used to attack Iran.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a post on X that it “condemned Iran’s brutal attacks on the sister kingdom of Bahrain as a flagrant violation of its sovereignty, a threat to its security, stability and territorial integrity”.

Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country “reiterates its categorical rejection” of attacks threatening the region’s stability.

“The security of Bahrain and the Gulf states is closely linked to Egyptian national security and is one of the pillars of Arab national security,” the statement added.

Doha, Qatar — Late one morning in March 1999, a United States B-52 bomber took off from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, headed southeast. Seven more jets followed, at two-minute intervals.

It was the start of the US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a campaign in which the Fairford base served as both a pivotal launchpad for American jets and as a fuel station for fighter planes. The British base had served a similar role during the Gulf War in 1991, and would do so again during the 2003 Iraq war and in the early stages of the US-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28, 2026.

But in October, the US pulled all 12 of its B-1 Lancer bombers from the Gloucestershire base, amid fears that they were no longer safe there from a growing Iranian threat. Days earlier, British security forces had made several arrests, and the country’s government has accused Iran of being behind a plot to target the base — a charge Tehran has denied.

RAF Fairford is not alone. Earlier this month, the US withdrew a dozen planes from another British base, RAF Mildenhall. And in July, reports said that the US had relocated many of its military assets from its bases in the Gulf that were badly hit by Iran during the war, instead moving them to bases in Jordan, while also considering a proposal to shift them to Israel.

For decades, these bases have served as the sharp edge of the US military’s ability to project power and wage wars thousands of miles from home. For close allies, whether in Europe or the Gulf, they also worked as security guarantors against other threats.

But Iran’s ability to severely damage US facilities in the Middle East during the war, and pose a threat as far as the UK, has for the first time turned these critical strategic assets into potential liabilities, both for American allies and for the US itself, say analysts.

“The US security umbrella is becoming a double-edged sword,” Simon Mabon, a professor of international politics at Lancaster University, told Al Jazeera. “When the security of US bases is called into question, it changes Washington’s calculation of their strategic benefits. It also gives European and Gulf states reason to think seriously about the bases, given that they are becoming targets.”

How the Iran war changed the bargain

Hosting American bases has long been perceived as integral to how US allies, whether in Europe, the Gulf or East Asia, deter threats that they themselves face.

Former US President Barack Obama once spoke of an “ironclad commitment” to Gulf security, while Britain regularly invokes its so-called “special relationship” with the United States. In doing so, Britain and the Gulf have long cast themselves as willing partners to a power that — at least before current President Donald Trump — presented itself as the benevolent guarantor of its allies’ security.

But a spate of recent security incidents, many linked to the war on Iran, is testing that narrative and raising questions about whose interests these commitments serve, and whether hosting American forces could be bringing danger closer to home.

US prosecutors have charged three men they describe as Iranian-backed operatives over their alleged roles in plotting nearly 20 attacks across the United States and Europe, including on RAF Fairford.

Meanwhile, in the Gulf, Iran explicitly cited the presence of US bases as justification for targeting its neighbours, bombing Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Iran also bombed Oman, which does not have a permanent US base; and Jordan and Iraq, beyond the Gulf, which do host major US military facilities.

A report by the Pentagon’s watchdog released in September revealed that Iranian attacks damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US military installations in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan in the first four months of the war.

At least five KC-135 aerial refuelling tankers were damaged when they were hit at the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. At least one of these airborne early-warning and control aircraft was damaged on the ground in a subsequent strike.

Experts say these incidents are sharpening a security dilemma for US allies in the Gulf and Europe. Hosting US forces can expose them to retaliation in a war they had no say in starting, while those same bases help defend some of those host countries from attacks, including by intercepting missiles and providing weapons transfers.

The war has disrupted flights and shipping, threatening the oil and gas exports on which much of the region depends. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that further military action against Iran was unnecessary for now. But the US naval blockade remains in place, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has yet to return to normal.

“While the utility of hosting foreign military bases has always involved a calculus of risk versus the assumed assurance it provides, the perception among Gulf Arab states is certainly shifting,” Mohammad Ali Shabani, a Middle East analyst, told Al Jazeera. “The vulnerability of these assets is increasingly front-of-mind for host governments, who have not sought war, yet have been drawn into it without having had any real say.”

The US calculation

Washington faces a dilemma of its own. Bases in Europe or the Middle East give it the reach to fight faraway wars, but their presence has also provided Iran with a litany of targets.

In March, an Iranian drone hit a hangar at a British base in Cyprus that the US also uses for intelligence and logistics operations. Tehran threatened Bulgaria after reports emerged that the Eastern European NATO nation had allowed the US to use its Bezmer airbase for refuelling of planes used to attack Iran. Weeks later, Bulgaria’s defence minister announced that the US air tankers had left Bezmer for good, with the country’s president declaring that the “mission is over,” bringing relief to the village that the base draws its name from.

And in the Middle East, several key bases used by US troops have been almost rendered unusable, with those in Kuwait suffering the heaviest damage, say analysts. An attack on the Port of Shuaiba killed six US service members and destroyed an army operations centre. Iranian drones and missiles damaged aviation facilities and injured personnel at Ali Al Salem airbase, while strikes on Camp Buehring damaged maintenance and refuelling facilities.

In Qatar, an Iranian strike damaged the early warning radar system at Al Udeid airbase, which houses the headquarters of US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) air operations. In Bahrain, an Iranian drone struck communications equipment at the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.

This damage raises a question about how much the US can still use these bases once they come under attack. Gerd Nonneman, a professor of international relations and Gulf studies at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera the war had shown that some bases were “themselves very vulnerable” and “unable to fulfil many of the tasks they were established for”.

Why bases are harder to defend

Mark Hilborne, a senior lecturer at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera “large bases are indeed becoming more easily targeted”.

“One of the technologies that has allowed this, alongside fairly cheap ballistic missiles, is drones,” he added.

Iran has invested heavily in developing cheap, domestically produced drones that inflict disproportionate damage to targets and exhaust far more expensive interceptor missiles.

Meanwhile in the UK, drones present US airbases with different challenges. While the nature of the reported threat to RAF Mildenhall remains unclear, the Fairford case concerns an alleged plot. “The range of actors who might target bases has changed,” Urban Coningham, a research fellow and course lead at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in the UK, told Al Jazeera. “Bases are more vulnerable, and that changes the risk calculation.

“Anyone can manufacture a drone in a basement … People looking to create mischief or mayhem can recruit organised criminals, making attacks harder to attribute.”

All of that, he said, makes bases “more vulnerable, and that changes the risk calculation”.

‘Policy conundrum’

As Washington moves some military assets out of bases in the Gulf and Europe, it could also come to rely more heavily on Israel, its closest ally in the Middle East. Shabani said there were “already signs that CENTCOM is moving towards using Israel as a key forward base”.

Israel launched the war on Iran in February alongside the US. With the oil and gas exports on which Gulf economies depend at risk, keeping US forces nearby allows Washington to respond, but it also leaves those forces exposed to Iranian attacks.

“The longer-term solution is to work with partners and ensure that allied forces are ready to fend for themselves,” RUSI’s Coningham said.

“There is a debate within the US policy establishment, and the Iranians are referencing it and saying that as long as US forces are there, they are a target,” he said. “That is the policy conundrum for the US. Ultimately, they can’t see any alternative to having bases in some form.”

The strike leaves more than 70 percent of northern Iraq’s Kurdish region without power.

A drone attack on the Khor Mor gasfield in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq has caused a fire at the facility and cut power to the region, according to Iraqi and Kurdish officials.

The Sunday night attack left more than 70 percent of the Kurdish region without power.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack or whether it was related to the United States and Israel’s war on Iran.

Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency Sanad has verified footage of smoke and flames rising from the vicinity of the gasfield in the Sulaimaniyah governorate.

Omid Ahmed, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Electricity, said the attack suspended gas supply to power plants in the cities of Erbil, Sulaimaniyah, Bazian, Chamchamal and Duhok, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.

The strike knocked between 2,500 and 2,800 megawatts of electricity generation off the grid, he said.

He added that the ministry would provide electricity to critical facilities, such as hospitals and water treatment plants, by operating hydroelectric power stations and other plants that run on alternative fuel.

Al Jazeera’s Peter Smith, reporting from Baghdad, cited security sources as saying the explosive-laden drone struck the Khor Mor gas storage facility, reducing the energy grid’s capacity by 70 to 80 percent.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi said there were no casualties as a result of the attack, based on an initial assessment, the INA reported.

Al-Zaidi also directed that a joint investigative committee be formed with the relevant authorities in the Kurdish region to investigate the circumstances surrounding the attack, INA reported.

The attack comes amid heightened regional tensions. A drone strike hit the same facility last year, with no group having claimed responsibility.

Colombian President de la Espriella says those behind the attack in Santa Rosa del Sur will have ‘nowhere to hide’.

A drone attack on a military base in northern Colombia has killed three soldiers and wounded at least 16, the country’s armed forces said.

The Colombian military said in a statement on Saturday that the attack hit a base in Santa Rosa del Sur, a small town in the foothills of the San Lucas mountain range. Authorities have not said who carried out the strike, the latest in a series of attacks on security forces as violence rises across rural parts of the country.

The area is rich in gold mines and has long been disputed by rebel armed groups including the Gulf Clan, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and smaller groups led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Footage shared on social media showed clouds of smoke rising from the base after three explosions, and soldiers taking cover in shelters made of sandbags.

“Those who were behind this attack… will have nowhere to hide,” President Abelardo de la Espriella wrote on X. “Every attack against our soldiers strengthens our resolve to defend Colombia.”

Rising violence

Violence has intensified in several rural areas since de la Espriella, a conservative, took office in August.

The president cancelled peace talks with rebel groups and has taken a confrontational approach, including more air strikes, deploying more troops in some cities and creating joint task forces to defend strategic assets such as a pipeline that runs from the Caribbean coast to central Colombia.

De la Espriella’s government argues that armed groups used ceasefires granted by the previous government to consolidate their grip on rural areas, where they tax local businesses and profit from the drug trade.

Some groups have responded by stepping up attacks on the country’s armed forces.

Last week, a military base in Tolima province was targeted with missiles made from gas canisters. The attack killed four civilians, including a two-month-old baby.

Police in the border city of Cucuta have been attacked several times with remotely activated bombs.

State forces and illegal armed groups carried out 34 attacks with bombs or explosives in Colombia in the four weeks to October 16, a 9 percent increase on last year’s four-week average, according to ACLED, a group that monitors armed conflicts.

A 2016 peace deal with FARC led to the demobilisation of more than 14,000 fighters, but smaller groups have since fought over the rebels’ former territory.

Iraqi foreign minister warns of potential regional war, says Baghdad seeking to resolve disagreements with Saudi Arabia.

Iraq has evidence that external parties have been using its territory to launch attacks on neighbouring countries, its foreign minister told Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview on Saturday.

Baghdad is investigating attacks launched from Iraqi territory against Gulf states and is seeking to resolve disagreements with Saudi Arabia through dialogue, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said.

Saudi Arabia has accused Iran-aligned groups operating in Iraq of attacking its oil infrastructure. In September, Baghdad confirmed that drone attacks on the kingdom’s East-West pipeline originated from Iraqi territory.

Hussein told Al Jazeera that Baghdad was negotiating with Iran-aligned armed factions to bring their weapons under state control and the process must be pursued through dialogue rather than force.

He also said they were in contact with Tehran regarding the issue of weapons held by Iraqi factions.

Hussein said Washington had formally requested the closure of all but two border crossings with Iran. He said that while Iraq welcomed friendship and an alliance with Tehran, it rejected interference in its internal affairs.

Hussein also said Iraq had lost about $60bn from the suspension of oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, but that shipments have resumed after understandings were reached with Washington and Tehran.

On the issue of combatting ISIL (ISIS), Hussein said that Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkiye have formed a committee to fight the group’s presence in Syria.

The full interview will air at 18:00 GMT on Sunday on Al Jazeera.

Sudan accuses Ethiopia of aiding RSF attacks, while Ethiopia claims Sudan backs Tigray rebels.

Ethiopia has ordered six Sudanese diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours and closed Sudan’s consulate in the border town of Asosa, according to Ethiopian and Sudanese officials.

The orders on Tuesday came as tensions between the countries rise, with Sudan accusing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group of using Ethiopian territory to launch drone attacks on civilian infrastructure. Ethiopia claims Sudan backs rebels in its northern Tigray region.

On Sunday, ⁠Sudan lodged a complaint against Ethiopia with both the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, accusing Ethiopia of allowing the RSF to use its territory to launch deadly drone attacks against civilian infrastructure in Sudan.

“The Sudanese government remains committed to its right to defend its territory. Nevertheless, it is making ⁠every possible effort to avoid an open war with Ethiopia,” Amjad Farid, political and foreign affairs adviser for Sudan’s Transitional Sovereign Council, said.

A direct military confrontation with Addis Ababa would severely strain an already exhausted Sudanese military apparatus, which is still involved in intense battles with the RSF in the southeast of the country.

Sudan’s military has repeatedly accused Ethiopia of aiding the RSF, which it has been fighting in a civil war since April 2023. Addis Ababa denies it supports the RSF in Sudan’s civil war.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia has accused the Sudanese military of backing rebels linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a charge Khartoum denied.

Severing diplomatic ties

Ethiopia also accused Egypt and Eritrea of supporting the Tigrayan rebels who launched an offensive ⁠against government forces in September. All three countries have rejected the accusations.

The latest expulsions of Sudanese diplomats follow Ethiopia’s decision to expel 10 Eritrean diplomats and close its embassy in Eritrea on October 1. Eritrea responded by severing diplomatic ties.

Ethiopia also expelled an Egyptian diplomat last month. For Egypt, its dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam remains a major strategic concern that has long strained relations between the neighbours.

Russian strikes also cut power to Ukrainian cities as Moscow claims 700 Ukrainian drones downed across multiple regions.

Ukrainian drone strikes have killed three people in Russia’s Belgorod region, while attacks cut power to multiple cities in Ukraine and parts of Russian-occupied Crimea, officials reported.

Local Russian authorities in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, announced the three deaths on Wednesday. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s overnight attacks damaged power generation facilities and substations in nine regions leaving emergency outages in many cities.

Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed on Telegram that it hit two power stations in Ukraine’s Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions. Ukraine has repeatedly said Moscow is targeting its energy grid as temperatures drop before winter.

Overnight, Russian attacks on critical infrastructure caused hours-long power and water outages across Kyiv and surrounding regions.

Residents in the capital were urged to use public drinking water fountains, and emergency centres offering hot tea and power points to charge devices were set up in the worst-hit areas.

There were also power outages in Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, home to approximately 2.5 million residents. Russia’s Ministry of Energy said Ukrainian strikes hit energy infrastructure overnight and that temporary outage schedules were in force. It did not say how many households were affected.

But reports also indicated that Russia-held Crimea ordered power cuts after an accident outside the region, a Moscow-installed ⁠official said, according to the Reuters news agency.

‌In addition to the capital, Kyiv, Russia also hit the regions of Poltava, Dnipro, Kirovohrad and Rivne, Reuters reported, citing Ukraine’s emergency service and local officials.

In southern Russia, a Ukrainian drone attack started a fire at a major warehouse belonging to Ozon, known as Russia’s Amazon. The strikes were on an Ozon distribution facility in the town of Adygeysk, in the Republic of Adygea, regional head Murat Kumpilov said.

Ozon said all workers were evacuated and no one was hurt, and that it had removed damaged goods from its listings and rerouted deliveries.

Russia’s Defence Ministry also said it downed 709 Ukrainian drones across 14 regions, Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Kremlin response to US midterms

Amid ongoing fighting between Russia and Ukraine, Russia’s Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin hopes United States President Donald Trump will continue his peace efforts after a sweeping Democratic victory in the congressional midterms dealt a blow to the president.

“President Trump continues to exercise his powers. We sincerely hope that he will also continue his peacemaking efforts,” Peskov said in a statement.

Whether a change in Congress could hinder Trump’s peace efforts, Peskov said, as cited by the state-run Interfax news outlet, that it was “an internal matter for America”.

Democratic control of the legislature in January is expected to bring a more vocal pro-Kyiv majority in Congress that could pressure Trump to change tack, but there is little hope that the US will return as a major financial backer of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy awarded US First Lady Melania Trump the Order of Princess Olga, which honours women who have contributed to Ukraine, according to a presidential decree on Wednesday.

The decree noted Melania Trump’s “significant personal contribution” in providing support for humanitarian aid and children in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials say the US first lady played a pivotal role in organising a six-day local ceasefire to evacuate civilians from the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, which ended on Sunday.

Attacks the latest to disrupt electricity supplies; army reports new defections from paramilitary RSF.

Drone strikes are reported to have hit three electricity substations in eastern and northern Sudan, the latest attacks in a concentrated campaign.

The attacks on Monday, which caused widespread power outages across parts of the country, brought the number of strikes reported to target Sudan’s electricity network to 18 over the past week.

Sudan’s military government has claimed that Ethiopia is aiding the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – which it has been fighting since April 2023 – in carrying out the attacks.

Facilities in New Halfa and Aroma in eastern Kassala state were hit early on Monday, while the al-Ghazali substation in Sudan’s Northern State was also targeted, according to local media.

Videos circulating on social media appeared to show fires at the facilities, with civil defence teams trying to extinguish the fires. Al Jazeera was not able to immediately verify the footage and reports.

On Sunday, Sudan’s government said it had filed complaints against Ethiopia with the United Nations Security Council and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, accusing Addis Ababa of involvement in the ongoing campaign of attacks on civilian infrastructure and power stations.

The Sudanese army also reported on Monday that a group of RSF members had defected by surrendering to its forces in Damazin, the capital of southeastern Blue Nile state.

The announcement follows a declaration, in video footage obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera, by senior RSF commander Siddiq Ander that he had defected.

In a statement, the army said that the development was the latest in increasing defections from the paramilitary group in Blue Nile state.

It added that the group’s commander had provided information concerning the management of military operations in Damazin, including “Ethiopian support” for the RSF.

EXCLUSIVE

Siddiq Ander has accused RSF leader Hemedti of running the paramilitary group like a family business and suppressing dissent.

Senior commander Siddiq Ander says he has defected from Sudan‘s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to exclusive video footage obtained by Al Jazeera.

The footage, published on Friday, shows Ander accusing relatives of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, of tightly controlling the group’s finances, weapons, troop movements and military promotions.

Ander’s exit follows a string of high-profile defections this year, with some commanders leaving alongside hundreds of fighters.

“It has become clear to us beyond any doubt that we were serving a purely family-based project controlled by Hemedti’s relatives in every aspect, money, weapons, fighters’ movements and the granting of ranks,” Ander said.

“Anyone who speaks out and tells the whole truth faces expulsion, imprisonment or a hidden death.”

Hemedti’s brother, Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, serves as the RSF deputy commander.

Senior commanders break ranks

A wave of defections has seen several senior RSF commanders leave the group this year, including Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Azraq al-Fanjari, who announced on October 8 that he was leaving, along with 300 officers and soldiers and 30 military vehicles.

Al-Fanjari also urged other fighters to abandon the RSF, expressing regret over the suffering caused by the war.

His announcement came after the September 25 defection of Al-Tayeb al-Wahidu, who joined the enemy Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) with 50 fighters in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, according to The Sudan Tribune.

Al-Wahidu cited abuses within the RSF as his reason for leaving.

Earlier, in May, Brigadier Ali Rizqallah, known as Savannah, announced his departure.

Yet another senior commander, Major General al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as al-Qubba, joined the SAF in April and was publicly welcomed by Sudanese leader and military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Al-Qubba’s departure followed disagreements over military appointments within the RSF leadership, the Tribune reported.

Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 after a power struggle between the army and the RSF, including disagreements over plans to integrate the paramilitary group into the regular military.

The conflict has since displaced about 13 million people and pushed parts of the country into famine.

The latest defections come as both sides increasingly use drones in attacks that have caused mounting civilian casualties.

On October 26, strikes hit a market and residential area in Nyala, an RSF-controlled city in South Darfur.

Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, reported more than 100 deaths, although other medical organisations recorded lower figures.

The United Nations says drone strikes have become the leading cause of civilian deaths in Sudan’s war.

Strikes hit a major bridge in the Ukrainian capital as leaders push for ‘direct discussions’ to end the war.

Russia has attacked transport infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital, targeting a major bridge, as the leaders of Finland and Norway held a rare call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a separate one with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Officials in Kyiv said the South Bridge was hit in overnight attacks on the city ⁠⁠that included 16 ballistic missiles and more ⁠⁠than 280 drones. Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck again while emergency crews were still dealing with the aftermath of the initial strikes.

“This is a serious escalation in Russia’s campaign targeting our logistics,” he said.

Russian attacks also caused deaths and injuries in the cities of Kharkiv and Pavlohrad.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Telegram that its forces had targeted transport infrastructure in Kyiv and a logistics hub in the Kharkiv region, along with industrial sites and cargo vessels it said were serving military purposes.

Officials in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said a drone strike on a bus killed one person and injured 30 others.

One person was also killed and six others were wounded in a drone attack on the Russian city of Bryansk, near the Ukrainian border.

The attacks come as the warring sides prepare for talks. On Friday, Kyiv and Moscow said they had agreed to hold United States-mediated technical meetings in Abu Dhabi in early November.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store called Putin from Helsinki on Tuesday to convey messages on future negotiations ahead of the Abu Dhabi meetings, according to a statement from both governments.

Zelenskyy, who spoke to the pair afterwards, said on X that they had told Putin real steps were needed to de-escalate attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities and infrastructure. He said they also discussed preparations for the November talks.

“There must be peace, de-escalation is needed, and Russia must stop dragging out the war,” he said.

In the Finnish-Norwegian statement, Stubb said the war’s outcome would directly affect the security of Finland and Norway, both of which border Russia, and of Europe more widely.

“Ending the war requires direct discussions,” he said.

Store said the two leaders had stressed the importance of de-escalation during the call.

Both leaders said they spoke for their own countries, not Europe, and that Finnish and Norwegian support for Ukraine would continue.

Most Western European leaders have avoided direct contact with Putin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

The calls come amid a renewed US push to end the war. The two governments described Tuesday’s call, held in consultation with Ukraine, as a follow-up to talks in Oslo on October 20 with Zelenskyy and US special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Witkoff met Putin in St Petersburg the next day, after which the Kremlin said it was ready to resume US-mediated talks with Kyiv that stalled in February.

US President Donald Trump has also credited his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, with securing a localised ceasefire in the southern Kherson region, which took effect on Tuesday to allow aid into the Russian-controlled town of Oleshky.

The two leading candidates condemn recent deadly Black Sea drone strikes but differ on the Ukraine war more broadly.

Bulgarians are voting in a presidential election amid the spread of Russia’s war on Ukraine to the waters off Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, President Iliana Iotova, 61, and ex-caretaker Prime ⁠Minister Andrey Gyurov, 50, were leading a field of 27 candidates in the polls.

⁠The presidency is a largely ceremonial post in Bulgaria. While major policies must be approved by Parliament, direct election gives the president greater political authority. The president leads the armed forces and can veto legislation, sign international treaties and appoint ambassadors.

The election has also gained attention after a series of drone attacks on merchant ships off Bulgaria’s coast that likely killed some two dozen international seafarers.

The drone strikes ‌sparked international condemnation and concerns about the growing reach of the war in Ukraine, prompting Bulgaria to seek allied assistance to bolster its maritime security.

The Bulgarian government has stopped short of explicitly blaming Russia for the attacks, but Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the outcome of the strikes “benefits the Russian Federation”.

Relations with Russia, West at stake

The two leading candidates for president have both condemned the strikes, but they differ on the broader war in Ukraine.

Gyurov, who served as caretaker prime minister this year, is backed by ⁠pro-Western, reformist parties and has long expressed support for Ukraine. He ⁠signed a security cooperation agreement with Kyiv during his time as premier.

“I want Bulgaria to have a voice of its own in Europe, a reliable NATO ally that defends its interests through preparedness, strong diplomacy and ⁠a clear position,” he said at a rally on Thursday.

Iotova, a former vice president, became acting president in January after Radev resigned to ⁠enter the parliamentary race, which he won on what many ⁠political analysts considered a Kremlin-friendly ticket.

Radev supports Iotova, and they both call for a diplomatic end to the war.

“My opponents argue that there must be ‌a war of attrition,” Iotova told a rally on Thursday. “The truth is, we are all the ones who are most exhausted.”

While there is a broad consensus among the parties in Parliament on the country’s pro-Western path, widespread pro-Russian sentiments based on traditional historical and cultural ties with Russia have divided society, particularly since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Dobromir Zhivkov, managing director of the Market Links polling agency, said Iotova is among those who advocate that Bulgaria take a more neutral position.

“They call for an end to aid for Ukraine and a halt to arms deliveries to Ukraine; we often hear them use Kremlin rhetoric and terminology borrowed directly from Kremlin propaganda,” he told The Associated Press news agency earlier this week.

Run-off vote expected

Candidates are also addressing public fears about the steep rise in energy prices and surging inflation, with many Bulgarians in rural areas struggling to make ends meet.

Polls by Alpha Research give Iotova 41 percent of the vote and ‌Gyurov ‌28 percent.

Voting starts at 7am (05:00 GMT), and polls close at 8pm (18:00 GMT).

Analysts expect none of the 27 candidates to secure the outright majority needed to win in the first round, however.

Turnout must also be above 50 percent of the 6.6 million registered voters, and Sunday’s turnout is expected to be less than 40 percent, which means a likely run-off on November 1.

Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are expected to meet in Abu Dhabi next month.

Ukraine says restrictions on its military’s Starlink satellite connections have been lifted after more than a week of disruption that hampered drone operations against Russian forces.

Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara said on Saturday that Starlink and Starshield connections were stable on equipment travelling above 400 kilometres per hour (250 miles per hour). He credited talks with Washington and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s diplomacy.

Ukraine relies heavily on Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite services for communications and drone missions. However, who ordered the restrictions remains unclear, with US President Donald Trump denying responsibility while defending Elon Musk.

The disruption further strained relations between Kyiv and Washington, already under pressure over Trump’s agreement to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel and allow US imports.

Trump also called earlier this month for Ukraine to have a new president, then suggested on Monday that someone other than Zelenskyy should negotiate for Kyiv. The exchanges follow their public confrontation at the White House in February 2025.

Talks planned in Abu Dhabi

The lifting of the Starlink restrictions comes as the United States seeks to revive peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are expected to meet in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November, more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the planned negotiations on Friday, while Zelenskyy also announced agreement on technical-level meetings.

It comes as Trump credited his wife, Melania Trump, with securing a local ceasefire in Oleshky, in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, which Russian forces have occupied since 2022.

Subsequent Ukrainian and Russian statements putting the ceasefire’s start on October 27, with the humanitarian operation planned for October 29.

Deadly attacks continue

A Russian missile strike on Lozova, in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, killed a man and wounded two others on Saturday, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said, while in northern Ukraine, a Russian attack on Chernihiv on Friday killed a man and wounded at least 25 people, local authorities said.

Shelling in Kramatorsk killed one person and wounded six, including three children, according to Donetsk officials. In nearby Sloviansk, attacks on Friday killed a 62-year-old woman and wounded four people, Mayor Vadym Lyakh said.

Ukraine reported strikes inside Russia on Friday and overnight into Saturday, including on Togliatti’s Togliattikauchuk petrochemical plant, a major synthetic rubber producer. Mayor Ilya Sukhikh confirmed industrial damage but reported no casualties.

Ukraine also said it struck Oryol’s Proton electronics plant, which it says makes missile components. Regional Governor Andrei Klychkov reported three deaths in an attack on an unidentified facility.

Authorities in Russian-occupied Crimea reported power cuts after overnight Ukrainian attacks.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defences intercepted a SCALP cruise missile, four Neptune missiles and 1,297 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones over 24 hours, TASS reported. The figures could not be independently verified.

All injured individuals were immediately transported to hospitals, civil aviation says updates to come.

One person has been killed and eight injured in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd International Airport in the eastern city of Dammam, the country’s civil aviation authority announced.

All of the wounded, whose injuries range from minor to critical, were transported to hospitals to receive medical attention, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, two people were killed after Saudi air defences intercepted a drone that was attempting to hit a facility at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield, the Ministry of Energy said.

It was the latest in a series of assaults on Saudi airports as conflict intensifies between Houthi forces and the Saudi-backed internationally recognised Yemeni government.

Last week, the kingdom reported that a projectile strike on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on October 11 killed one person and injured 11. On October 10, the civil aviation authority reported that a separate attack on the same airport claimed the lives of 12 people and injured more than 300.

On Wednesday, the US State Department ordered diplomats and family members to depart from its missions in Saudi Arabia amid the ongoing Houthi attacks. There are also plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US missions in the region, US officials told Reuters.

The US embassy in Riyadh issued a security alert on Wednesday about possible further attacks by the Houthis on Saudi Arabia.