Russian

Media reports and independent monitor describe the latest strikes on Ukraine as ‘one of the heaviest’ since war began.

At least nine people have been reported injured as Russia launched a major drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital and the surrounding region.

An air raid alert was in place over the Kyiv region early on Sunday, with the local military administration saying Russia was attacking with drones and missiles.

Some Kyiv residents fled to metro stations deep underground for safety as the attack continued in the morning.

Many regions across the country were also under air raid alert, while neighbouring Poland closed airspace near two of its southeastern cities and its air force and allied forces scrambled jets in response.

In a statement posted on X, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia had fired “hundreds of drones and missiles” overnight.

He said the strikes destroyed residential buildings and caused “civilian casualties”.

“We must maximise the cost of further escalation for Russia,” he said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Ukrainian capital was under a “massive” assault and urged people to stay in shelters.

“In total, there are five injured,” Klitschko said on the Telegram social media platform, adding that they had been hospitalised.

An independent monitor described the attack on Kyiv as one of the biggest Russian strikes on the capital and the surrounding areas since the full-scale war began.

The Kyiv Post reported that the total number of aerial targets is still being assessed, but described the latest Russian attack as “one of the heaviest they had ever witnessed”.

Anti-aircraft fire rang out through the night as drones flew over Kyiv.

In the southeastern Zaporizhia region, the governor said Russian strikes there had wounded at least four people.

“Once again, residential buildings and infrastructure are being hit. Once again, it is a war against civilians,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said.

“There will be a response to these actions. But the West’s economic blows against Russia must also be stronger,” Yermak said.

Earlier, Poland’s armed forces said they had scrambled fighter jets in its airspace and put ground-based air defence systems on high alert in response to the Russian strikes in Ukraine.

The moves were preventive and aimed at securing Polish airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas adjacent to Ukraine, the forces said.

Estonian President Alar Karis says Russian fighter planes entering his country’s airspace is another sign that Russia is escalating its war on Ukraine. His comments come a day after US President Donald Trump said NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft that violate their airspace.

VLADIMIR Putin’s prized golden goose – Russia’s oil empire – has become a sitting duck, and it’s Ukraine’s drones that are pulling the trigger.

In the latest episode of Battle Plans Exposed, military intelligence expert Philip Ingram MBE lays bare how Kyiv has opened a devastating new front in the war in the oilfields, refineries and pipelines that bankroll Putin’s invasion.

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“This is the oil war,” Ingram says.

“It’s a highly strategic, calculated campaign to cripple the engine of Putin’s war.”

Watch the latest episode on The Sun’s YouTube channel here…

For decades, Russia’s vast energy reserves paid for everything from tanks and cruise missiles to soldiers’ salaries and propaganda handouts.

Before the invasion, energy exports made up around 40 per cent of the Kremlin’s budget.

Even under sanctions, oil and gas still bring in 30 per cent of Russia’s income.

The episode shows how Ukraine has zeroed in on this “river of oil money” with pinpoint strikes hundreds of miles inside Russian territory.

Long-range drones have torched colossal refineries, exploded pumping stations and set storage tanks ablaze – systematically dismantling Moscow’s refining capacity.

Footage of Rosneft’s Ryazan refinery erupting into flames after a single drone strike captures the scale of the destruction.

“This isn’t a military base on the border,” Ingram warns.

“This is a core piece of Russia’s national infrastructure – hundreds of miles from Ukraine.”

What makes these attacks so devastating is their precision.

Ingram explains that the real targets aren’t the giant tanks but the refinery’s processing units – “the heart of the refinery,” where crude is split into diesel for tanks, jet fuel for fighters and gasoline for the home front.

Knock one of these units out, and the entire facility is useless for months, even years.

The episode shows how Ukraine has already knocked out at least 12 per cent of Russia’s refining capacity – stripping away over 600,000 barrels a day.

That’s billions in lost revenue that can’t be pumped into Putin’s war chest.

The impact is twofold. First, it chokes the Russian military itself: “No diesel, and tanks don’t move.

“No jet fuel, and fighters are grounded,” Ingram says.

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Second, it hits ordinary Russians – with fuel shortages, soaring prices and the chilling sight of their industrial heartland burning.

The Kremlin’s response? Denial, spin and panic.

Moscow has been forced to ban fuel exports for six months, sacrificing vital revenue just to stop unrest at home.

“Putin’s greatest fear,” Ingram says, “is the Russian people rising up.”

This is asymmetric warfare at its most ruthless – cheap Ukrainian drones inflicting billion-dollar wounds on the Kremlin.

The episode shows how the campaign has shattered Russia’s aura of invulnerability, exposed its sprawling oil empire as a fatal weakness, and brought the war crashing into the lives of ordinary Russians.

And as Ingram puts it: “It proves that in modern warfare, the most effective battle plans aren’t always about brute force on the tactical frontline, but about finding your enemy’s single point of failure – and striking it again and again with unrelenting precision.”

It comes as Ukraine claims to have turned the tide on the eastern front in a brutal counter-offensive.

Kyiv’s top general Oleksandr Syrskyi said his troops had clawed back around 60 square miles since August, with Putin’s men retreating from a further 70 square miles north of bomb-blitzed Pokrovsk.

He boasted Russian forces had paid a horrifying price — 1,500 killed, another thousand wounded and 12 main battle tanks blown to pieces.

“Control has been restored in seven settlements and nine more have been cleared of enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups,” Syrskyi declared, claiming nearly 165 square kilometres were liberated and almost 180 cleared of Russian saboteurs.

The breakthrough follows a shaky summer where Russian “saboteurs” punched six miles through Ukrainian lines overnight, threatening to cut supply roads.

But Ukraine has regrouped and is now pushing them back, Syrskyi insisting: “In the past 24 hours alone the enemy have lost 65 servicemen, 43 of them killed in action, along with 11 pieces of equipment.”

The destroyed kit ranges from tanks to artillery, drones and even a quad bike used by desperate Russian troops.

Russia has tried to claw back the narrative, claiming it captured a hamlet south of Pokrovsk — a claim Ukraine flatly denies.

Instead, Kyiv points to wrecked Russian armour littering the battlefield and insists the Kremlin’s army is being bled dry.

The fighting comes as Volodymyr Zelensky prepares to meet Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Ukraine’s war leader is set to press the US president for tougher sanctions if Putin refuses to come to the table.

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Trump — who once called Putin a “genius” — admitted the dictator had “let him down”.

“I thought this war would be one of the easiest to solve because of my relationship with Putin. But he has really let me down,” he said during his visit to Britain.

But Britain’s spy chief Sir Richard Moore has poured cold water on any idea of a quick peace.

In a message aimed squarely at Trump, he said: “I have seen absolutely no evidence that President Putin has any interest in a negotiated  peace short of Ukrainian capitulation.”

He warned the world not to be duped by the Kremlin tyrant: “We should not believe him or credit him with strength he does not have.”

Moore added Russia was grinding forward “at a snail’s pace and horrendous cost” — and that Putin had “bitten off more than he can chew.”

He lauded Ukraine’s resistance and heaped praise on Zelensky, saying: “My admiration for him is unbounded,” while savaging Putin for plunging Russia into “long term decline” where he invests only in “missiles, munitions and morgues.”

The warning came days after Russia’s indiscriminate blitz killed three civilians in Zaporizhzhia — two women aged 40 and 79 and a man of 77 — even as Ukrainian forces notched up new gains and unleashed fresh revenge strikes on Russian soil.

Last month, Kyiv marked Independence Day with a wave of drone attacks crippling Russian energy sites and claimed to have wiped out three of the “Butchers of Bucha” in precision bombings in occupied Luhansk.

The Russian soldiers had been accused of taking part in the notorious 2022 massacre where hundreds of civilians were executed, tortured and raped as Putin’s troops stormed towards Kyiv.

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UKRAINE claimed its troops have turned the tide in a key part of the eastern front.

Kyiv’s top general Oleksandr Syrskyi said his troops had recaptured some 60 square miles in a major reversal since August.

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He also claimed Putin’s invaders had abandoned positions in a further 70 square miles north of the bomb-blitzed town of Pokrovsk.

The advances are welcome successes for Kyiv after months of Russian assaults wore down Ukraine’s morale.

Gen Syrskyi claimed Russian forces had suffered eye-watering losses including 1500 killed in action, another thousand wounded and at least 12 main battle tanks destroyed.

In a statement on Monday Gen Syrskyi said: “Control has been restored in seven settlements and nine more have been cleared of enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups.

“As of 12pm on 22 September 2025, a total of 164.0 km² have been liberated and another 180.3 km² cleared of enemy sabotage groups.”

Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy announced the counter-attack success last week.

The fight back followed a shock Russian advance in August.

Small groups of Russian “saboteurs” found weak points in the Ukrainian line and advanced almost six miles overnight, threatening to cut a key supply road between Dobropillia and Kostiantynivka.

Ukraine’s troops scrambled to contain the breakthrough and have now started to push them back.

Gen Syrskyi said his forces had continued to advance yesterday.

He said: “In the past 24 hours alone the enemy have lost 65 servicemen, 43 of them killed in action, along with 11 pieces of equipment.”

The wrecked Russian kit included four artillery guns, six drones and a quad bike which Russian troops used for assaults.

Gen Syrskyi claimed his assault teams “advanced between 200 m and 2.5 km in certain areas.”

The destroyed Russian weapons ranged from 12 main battle tanks to almost 60 motorcycles over the course of the counter offensive.

Russia hit back by claiming its troops had advanced to the south of Pokrovsk and captured the hamlet of Kalynivske.

Ukraine denied the Russian advance.

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It comes as President Zelensky prepared to meet Donald Trump at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Zelenskyy is expected to press Trump for sanctions on Russia if Putin refuses to meet them.

President Trump said Putin had “let him down” over peace in Ukraine.
Speaking during his state visit to Britain Trump said he thought the war in Ukraine would have been the easiest war for him to solve because of their relationship.

He said: “I thought this war would be one of the easiest to solve because of my relationship with Putin. But he has really let me down.”

The head of Britain’s MI6 warned Putin was “stringing us along”.

In a message aimed squarely at Donald Trump, the spy chief Sir Richard Moore said: “I have seen absolutely no evidence that President Putin has any interest in a negotiated  peace short of Ukrainian capitulation.

Sir Richard, who is known as C, used his final chief as head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence  Service to say Putin lies to the world, to his people and “perhaps even to himself.”

He said: “We should not believe him or credit him with strength he does not have.”

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Trump has called Putin a genius, repeatedly mentioned Russia’s size and strength, and he rolled out the red carpet for Putin when they met in Alaska last month.

Sir Richard, who has access to Britain’s most secret reports on Putin’s intentions, insisted the Russian dictator was still determined to bring Kyiv under Russian control.

He said: “Putin seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal.”

But he said Russia was doomed to fail.

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He said: “He cannot succeed. Russia simply does not have the wherewithal to fully subjugate Ukraine by force.

Sir Richard acknowledged Russian troops were “grinding forward on the battlefield”.

But he said it was at “a snail’s pace and horrendous cost”.

He said: “Putin has bitten off more than he can chew.

“History warns us never to underestimate a country fighting for its independence and for its very survival.

“Greater powers than Russia have failed to subjugate weaker powers than Ukraine.

“In the end, if we hold our nerve, Putin will need to come to terms with the fact that he has a choice – to risk an economic and political crisis that threatens his own rule, or make a sensible deal.”

Sir Richard, who has been tipped as a possible British ambassador to Washington, lavished praise on Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy.

He said: “My admiration for him is unbounded.”

By contrast he accused Putin of plunging Russia into “long term decline”.

He said: “He invests not in infrastructure, schools and hospitals but in missiles, munitions and morgues.”

Britain and European leaders have rallied around President Zelenskyy after the war leader had a disastrous meeting with President Trump in the White House in March.

Trump’s relations with Zelenskyy have since improved but Ukrainians fear he could cut US support to Ukraine on a whim.

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Trump threatened Russia with “serious consequences” if he didn’t make steps towards peace.

But Trump’s deadline passed with no penalties for Russia.

And Moscow has since flown a squadron of drones into Poland during a night-time blitz on Ukraine.

Sir Richard goaded the Russian president – who is himself a former KGB intelligence officer –  by encouraging Russians to spy for Britain.

And he boasted that some of Putin’s opponents were already “secretly working with MI6”.

Sir Richard was making his final public speech before stepping down after five years as the chief of MI6.

And he formally launched new “dark web portal” codenamed Silent Courier,  to help potential spies contact MI6 secretly from anywhere in the world.

He is due to be replaced by Blaise Metreweli, the first ever female chief of MI6, who is currently serving as Q, head of the MI6 gadgets.

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At least three people have been killed and more than 30 injured in a “massive” overnight Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky says.

He says regions across the country were targeted as part of a “deliberate strategy” to “intimidate civilians and destroy our infrastructure”, with one direct missile hit reported on a residential building.

Ukraine’s air force says Moscow launched 619 drones and missiles. Russia’s defence ministry says its “massive strike” used “precision weapons” and targeted military-industrial facilities.

Separately, Russia says four people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on the Saratov region. Kyiv says it hit a major oil refinery there.

Ukraine also says another Russian oil refinery was damaged in the neighbouring Samara region.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the claims made by the two warring sides.

Cross-border drone raids have become a prominent feature of the war. In July, a sustained Ukrainian drone attack forced the temporary closure of all of Moscow’s airports.

Kyiv has been systematically targeting Russian oil and other key industrial facilities, which play a key role in Russia’s continuing war effort in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Moscow has in recent weeks escalated its aerial assaults on Ukraine, while Kyiv and its Western allies – including the US – continue to call for a ceasefire.

Earlier this month, the main government building was hit in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv by what Ukraine said was a Russian Iskander cruise missile.

Zelensky said on Saturday that he planned to meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), taking place in New York next week.

Trump hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last month, hoping to secure a deal on ending the conflict. No such agreement was made.

Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The latest Russian aerial attack comes a day after Estonia requested urgent consultations with other Nato members after Russian jets violated its airspace – staying there for 12 minutes before being intercepted.

Russia denied violating Estonian airspace.

Tensions have been escalating recently after Poland and Romania – both Nato members – said Russian drones breached their airspace earlier this month.

Sept. 19 (UPI) — Russian fighter jets on Friday flew into Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, a move the country called a “brazen intrusion.”

Estonia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna confirmed the “violation of Estonia’s airspace,” in a statement on X.

“Three Russian MiG-31s entered our airspace over the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes. This is an unprecedented and brazen intrusion – clear proof of Russia’s growing aggression,” Tsahkna said in the post.

“Such actions cannot be tolerated and must be met with swift political and economic pressure.”

Tsahkna said Estonia would be summoning Russia’s top diplomat to demand an explanation.

The incursion by the Russian supersonic interceptor aircraft marks the fourth such violation of Estonian airspace so far this year.

“Russia has already violated Estonia’s airspace four times this year, which in itself is unacceptable. But today’s incursion, involving three fighter aircraft entering our airspace is unprecedentedly brazen,” Tsahkna said in a statement.

“Russia’s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure.”

The Russian military had not commented publicly on the report as of noon Friday.

International lawmakers quickly pledged support for Estonia.

“Russia is showing the full extent of its contempt for diplomacy and international law,”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X.

“Europe stands with Estonia in the face of Russia’s latest violation of our airspace. We will respond to every provocation with determination while investing in a stronger Eastern flank. As threats escalate, so too will our pressure. I call on EU leaders to swiftly approve our 19th sanctions package.”

The news comes as Russia overnight launched some 90 drones in a major attack on Ukraine.

Fighters from three nations responded to an intrusion of Estonian airspace by three Russian MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors on Friday. The NATO jets were scrambled under the alliance’s new Operation Eastern Sentry, created to protect Eastern Europe. That effort was stood up after Polish and Dutch fighters downed Russian drones that had intruded into Poland last week.

Italian Air Force F-35 stealth fighters responded to the incident, according to NATO. They are part of the alliance’s Baltic Air Policing mission. In addition, Sweden and Finland also scrambled fighters.

Sweden said it scrambled its JAS 39 fighters to intercept and monitor the Foxhounds over the Black Sea.

Following a violation of Estonian air space, Swedish JAS 39 fighters intercepted and monitored three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets over the Baltic Sea today. Sweden is always ready to ensure the safety, security and integrity of our airspace together with our allies.#WeAreNATO pic.twitter.com/gpTbmngiKc

— Försvarsmakten (@Forsvarsmakten) September 19, 2025

After the incursion, Lithuania’s defense minister made a veiled suggestion that NATO shoot down intruding Russian aircraft.

“Three Russian fighter jets over Tallinn is one more hard proof that #EasternSentry is long due,” Dovilė Šakalienė stated on X. “NATO’s border in the North East is being tested for a reason. We need to mean business. PS. Türkiye set an example 10 years ago. Some food for thought.”

Šakalienė was referring to an incident in 2015 when Turkish F-16s downed a Russian Su-24 over the Turkey-Syria border area.

Three russian fighter jets over Tallinn is one more hard proof that #EasternSentry is long due.

NATOs border in the North East is being tested for a reason.

We need to mean business.

PS. Türkiye set an example 10 years ago.
Some food for thought.

— Dovilė Šakalienė (@DSakaliene) September 19, 2025

“Earlier today, Russian jets violated Estonian airspace,” the alliance stated on X. “NATO responded immediately and intercepted the Russian aircraft. This is yet another example of reckless Russian behaviour and NATO’s ability to respond.”

Earlier today, Russian jets violated Estonian airspace. NATO responded immediately and intercepted the Russian aircraft. This is yet another example of reckless Russian behaviour and NATO’s ability to respond.

— NATO Spokesperson (@NATOpress) September 19, 2025

The Foxhounds entered Estonian airspace in the area of Vaindloo Island, located in the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, the Estonian military said.

The island is located about 15 miles north of the Estonian mainland and about 60 miles west of Russia. The Russian aircraft did not have flight plans and their transponders were turned off, the Estonian military noted. In addition, the Foxhounds were not in two-way radio communication with Estonian air traffic services.

“This is an unprecedented and brazen intrusion — clear proof of Russia’s growing aggression,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna stated on X. “Such actions cannot be tolerated and must be met with swift political and economic pressure.”

Today @MFAestonia summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires over another violation of Estonia’s airspace, when three Russian MiG-31s entered our airspace over the Gulf of Finland for 12 minutes.

This is an unprecedented and brazen intrusion — clear proof of Russia’s growing…

— Margus Tsahkna (@Tsahkna) September 19, 2025

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said he spoke with Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal about the incident.

I’ve just spoken with the Estonian PM @KristenMichalPM about the Russian air space violation today. NATO’s response under Eastern Sentry was quick and decisive.

— Mark Rutte (@SecGenNATO) September 19, 2025

The European Union condemned the incursion.

“Today’s violation of Estonia’s airspace by Russian military aircraft is an extremely dangerous provocation,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, exclaimed on X. “This marks the third such violation of EU airspace in days and further escalates tensions in the region. The EU stands in full solidarity with Estonia.”

Kallas added that she is “in close contact with the Estonian government. We will continue to support our member states in strengthening their defences with European resources. Putin is testing the West’s resolve. We must not show weakness.”

Today’s violation of Estonia’s airspace by Russian military aircraft is an extremely dangerous provocation.

This marks the third such violation of EU airspace in days and further escalates tensions in the region.

The EU stands in full solidarity with Estonia (1/2)

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) September 19, 2025

Estonia is considering invoking Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which forms the legal basis for NATO, Fox reported. Article 4 states that “the Parties [to the alliance] will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”

Poland invoked Article 4 after the Russian drone incursion.

It is not completely unheard of for Russian aircraft to breach NATO airspace. However, this incident raises additional concerns amid the ongoing war in Ukraine and what happened in Poland and Romania last week.

About 19 Russian drones entered Polish and Romanian airspace last week, officials said. As we stated in our initial report on the drone flights, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that at least three to four drones were shot down by Polish and Dutch fighters. Another three to four appeared to have crashed in Polish territory.

The previously mentioned Eastern Sentry was designed to initially deploy a mixed force of fighter jets and an air defense frigate. Eventually, however, the plan is to expand it to cover the region between the Arctic and the Black Sea, providing a bulwark against potential Russian drones and missiles. You can read more about that in our initial story about Eastern Sentry here.

“Eastern Sentry and this new approach will deliver even more focused and flexible deterrence and defense where and when needed to protect our people and deter against further reckless and dangerous acts like what occurred last week, Supreme Allied Command Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, explained on Sept. 12.

It is unclear what Russia’s intent was for this flight. Officials in Moscow have yet to comment. After the drone incursions into Poland, officials there said Russia was testing NATO’s resolve.

Regardless of why the Foxhounds were over Estonia, their presence added to a growing tension in Eastern Europe.

Contact the author: [email protected]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has presented a 19th package of sanctions on Russia, urging members of the European Union to adopt new sanctions on Russia’s exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in an attempt to push Moscow to end its “brutal” war in Ukraine.

“Russia’s war economy is sustained by revenues from fossil fuels,” von der Leyen said on Friday. “We want to cut these revenues. So we are banning imports of Russian LNG into European markets.”

The sanctions must be endorsed by all 27 EU member countries before they can enter into force.

“It is time to turn off the tap,” von der Leyen said, calling on members to quickly endorse the move.

“We want Russia to leave the battlefield and come to the negotiation table, and this is the way to give peace a real chance,” she added.

Russia is showing the full extent of its contempt for diplomacy and international law.

So we’re increasing the pressure.

With our 19th package of sanctions covering energy, financial services and trade restrictions ↓ https://t.co/uW7HuZp3br

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) September 19, 2025

EU sanctions have already targeted more than 2,500 entities, including banks, ministries, energy companies and officials.

Those being sanctioned include President Vladimir Putin, his close associates, dozens of Russian lawmakers and several oligarchs. The measures largely consist of travel bans and asset freezes.

Von der Leyen said the bloc’s existing sanctions are having an effect.

“Russia’s overheated war economy is coming to its limit,” she said, pointing to persistently high inflation in the country.

The EU has so far adopted 18 sanction packages against Moscow, though reaching agreement on new targets often takes weeks.

Russian LNG accounted for roughly 16 percent of the bloc’s total imports last year, with Europe being Russia’s largest buyer of LNG.

Hungary and Slovakia have opposed any phase-out of Russian LNG, creating potential obstacles to further action, and they have been known to use their veto power to gain concessions.

Moscow to ‘pay the price’

In a separate statement, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was moving up a previous pledge to end all imports of LNG before the end of 2027 by 12 months.

“Our aim is to speed up the phase-out of Russian liquefied natural gas by 1 Jan 2027,” she posted on X.

“Moscow thinks it can keep its war going. We are making sure it pays the price for it.”

Tearing children from their families and deporting them to re-education camps is beyond description.
We will not let Russia weaponize childhood itself.

We are also going to make is easier to sanction individuals involved in the abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) September 19, 2025

Kallas said the bloc was also looking to “make it easier” to sanction individuals involved in abducting Ukrainian children.

Since 2022, Russia has faced global criticism over the deportation of Ukrainian families, many of them with children.

“Tearing children from their families and deporting them to re-education camps is beyond description,” Kallas posted on social media. “We will not let Russia weaponise childhood itself.”

UK sanctions target Georgian businessmen

Meanwhile, the UK announced sanctions on Friday against two Georgian businessmen over their support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as two tankers carrying Russian oil.

“The UK has announced new sanctions targeting Georgia-linked supporters of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine,” the UK foreign ministry said in a statement.

“As Russia’s war footing weakens, the Kremlin is increasingly looking to proxies in third countries to support its war and propaganda operations, including in Georgia,” the ministry’s statement said.

Among the individuals sanctioned are Georgian media mogul and politician Levan Vasadze, whom the UK accuses of putting out pro-Russian disinformation.

Otar Partskhaladze, former prosecutor general of Georgia and someone London said had “extensive links to Russia,” was also sanctioned.

In addition, two tankers were sanctioned for carrying Russian oil to the Georgian port in Batumi in violation of Western restrictions.

“Putin’s war machine relies on an international web to spread lies and fund this network,” Minister of State Stephen Doughty said, according to the statement.

“We’re cutting off another lifeline by targeting and deterring those in Georgia who provide support for Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.”

Athletes will undergo checks to prove they do not actively support the war in Ukraine or have links with the army.

Russians will compete as neutral independent athletes without a national flag or anthem at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, the International Olympic Committee has said, maintaining the same sanctions as the Paris Summer Games last year.

The IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in October 2023 for recognising regional Olympic councils for Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, saying the move had violated the Olympic Charter.

“We also spoke about the Independent Neutral Athletes (AINs). This will be nothing new,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry told a news conference. “The executive board will take the exact same approach that was done in Paris (2024 Olympics). Nothing has changed.”

Russian and Belarusian athletes who reach qualifying times will be first vetted for any links to the Russian military or support of the war in Ukraine, both of which will exclude them.

Russian teams are banned from the Games. Belarus has acted as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine.

A small number of individual Russian and Belarusian athletes were allowed to take part as AINs in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics after first passing rigorous vetting by the IOC.

They competed without the Russian or Belarusian flag and anthem. Instead, they took part as neutral athletes.

Four Russian figure skaters in men’s and women’s singles were recently approved by the International Skating Union to try to qualify for the Games, which start on February 6, 2026 in Italy, as neutral athletes.

Sept. 19 (UPI) — Britain’s outgoing spy chief, Richard Moore, warned Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no intention of negotiating peace with Ukraine because he doesn’t view the former Soviet republic as having its own sovereignty.

Moore made the remarks at the British consulate in Istanbul as he prepares to step down from his role as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. He has led the organization, also known as MI6, for five years.

“I have seen absolutely no evidence that President Putin has any interest in a negotiated peace short of Ukraine capitulation,” Moore said as he address efforts by Britain and the United States to broker a deal to resolve the conflict.

Putin “is stringing us along,” Moore added. “Because the issue … has always been sovereignty: Putin denies Ukraine’s sovereignty and its very existence as a country and nation.”

Moore said Putin has attempted to portray that Russian victory over Ukraine is “inevitable,” but accused the president of lying to his people and the world.

“He seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal,” Moore said, adding that Putin doesn’t have the ability to take Ukraine by force.

“Bluntly, Putin has bitten off more than he can chew. He thought he was going to win an easy victory. But he — and many others — underestimated the Ukrainians,” Moore said.

“Indeed, Putin’s actions have strengthened Ukrainian national identity and accelerated the country’s westward trajectory, as well as persuaded Sweden and Finland into joining NATO.”

Moore chose Istanbul for his farewell speech because he said Turkey is of “pivotal importance” to the international community.

“On almost all of the issues that I have grappled with as chief of MI6, Turkey has been a key player,” he said.

Moore spent eight years living there, including four as British ambassador from 2014 to 2017. He also studied in the country as a student and his daughter was born there.

Upon Moore’s departure later this month, MI6’s current technology lead, Blaise Metreweli, will take over as head of the organization. She will be the MI6’s first female chief since its founding in 1909.

Ukraine has worsened fuel shortages across Russia in the past week as it has continued to hit Russia’s refineries and energy infrastructure with long-range drones while Poland has called for more oil sanctions in the wake of Russia’s first drone attack on NATO soil.

In the meantime, Russia’s creeping advance resulted in the capture of three villages over the past week, and perhaps for the first time, Ukraine’s command reacted by dismissing the retreating officers.

Russian forces took the villages of Sosnovka and Novonikolayevka in Dnipropetrovsk and Olhivske/Olgovskoye in Zaporizhia.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on Monday fired the two officers in charge of the 17th and 20th army corps, which are based in the two respective regions.

Since 2024, Ukraine has fought through slow, tactical retreats designed to cede limited ground for disproportionately high Russian casualties.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, has estimated that in May, June, July and August, Russia took 1,910sq km (737.5sq miles) of Ukrainian territory at a cost of 130,000 casualties, averaging 68 casualties per square kilometre.

Syrskyi’s dismissals could indicate a tougher approach towards land losses going forward.

Russian forces were suffering “significant losses” in Kupiansk and Dobropillia, two of the hottest points along the front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

Ukrainian defenders were advancing towards the Russian border in Sumy in northern Ukraine, he said.

Ukraine’s strategy – not purely defensive

Ukraine has launched a two-pronged strategy this year to choke off fuel supplies to the Russian economy and military and to kill Russian revenues from energy exports.

“The most effective sanctions – the ones that work the fastest – are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the Ukrainian people on Sunday.

“Russia’s war is essentially a function of oil, of gas, of all its other energy resources,” he said.

That day, Ukraine crippled Russia’s second largest refinery when its drones struck a processing unit accounting for 40 percent of the plant’s capacity.

Russian authorities said they shot down 361 drones, suggesting there were many other targets as well.

Industry sources told the Reuters news agency that the Kirishinefteorgsintez refinery, located in the northwestern town of Kirishi, would boost production at other units. Even so, the refinery could operate only at three-quarters of its capacity.

Last year, it produced 7.1 million tonnes of diesel and 6.1 million tonnes of fuel oil for ships.

Two days after the Kirishi strike, Ukraine’s military reported it also struck the Saratov refinery, which supplies the Russian military.

There is mounting evidence that the first prong of Ukraine’s strategy is working.

Russian state newspaper Izvestiya reported last week that fuel shortages had spread to 10 Russian republics and regions, including the central regions of Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov and Rostov as well as occupied Crimea.

Izvestiya’s report was based on interviews with the Russian Independent Fuel Union, an association of petrol station owners, which said many petrol stations had not received deliveries for several weeks and had been forced to shut down.

Regional governors have also recently confirmed fuel shortages.

Ukraine has struck at least 10 major Russian refineries this year, and the commander of its Unmanned Systems Forces estimated Russia has lost one-fifth of its refining capacity.

“The Russian war machine will only stop when it runs out of fuel,” Zelenskyy told the annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting in Kyiv on Friday. “And Putin will begin to stop it himself when he himself truly feels that the resources for war are running out.”

Fewer exports

The second prong of Ukraine’s strategy, choking off Russia’s cashflow from oil and fuel exports, has also been highly successful.

On Friday, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s largest oil offloading terminal at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea, according to sources at Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU).

The strike caused a fire at the pumping station and a ship moored next to it, forcing the terminal to suspend shipments, Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported.

Ukraine also struck pumping stations along the Transneft Baltic Pipeline System-2, which supplies crude oil to offloading terminals in the port of Ust-Luga, also in the Leningrad region.

“Oil and gas revenues have accounted for between a third and half of Russia’s total federal budget proceeds over the past decade, making the sector the single most important source of financing for the government,” Reuters said.

Russia has banned all exports of refined petroleum products since February and sought to increase exports of crude oil instead.

But even that goal may not be possible.

Russia’s biggest pipeline operator, Transneft, has reportedly told upstream oil producers they may have to cut their output because Ukrainian strikes have degraded its ability to store and carry oil to refineries and export terminals, according to three industry sources who spoke to Reuters.

Transneft dismissed the report as “fake news”.

EU seeks to end all imports

Poland called for a complete ban of Russian oil imports to the European Union after 19 Russian drones entered its airspace on September 10.

Most of the EU has banned Russian oil imports, but Hungary and Slovakia have an exemption until the end of 2027 because they said it’s cheaper for them to import oil via pipeline from Russia than to receive it through other EU countries.

That may change, the European Commission chief said on Tuesday. “The Commission will soon present its 19th package of sanctions, targeting crypto, banks, and energy,” President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media. “The Commission will propose speeding up the phase-out of Russian fossil imports.”

Ongoing sales of Russian energy to Europe have been a topic of concern.

Official EU imports of Russian oil have dropped by an estimated 90 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to estimates from the EU’s statistical service.

However, the EU never actually banned Russian gas, and the London-based think tank Ember has estimated it paid Russia $23.6bn for gas last year – almost $5bn more than it paid in military aid to Ukraine.

“I urge all partners to stop looking for excuses not to impose particular sanctions,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not want peace, he must be forced into it.”

UKRAINIAN children abducted during the war are forced to make military equipment used against their homeland, chilling research reveals.

Thousands of innocent youngsters shipped to more than 200 sinister camps across Russia are being subjected to brainwashing and being used as pawns by deranged Vladimir Putin.

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Sickenlingly, satelitte images shows children being used as slave labour to assemble drones and other supplies fuelling the tyrant’s war machine in Ukraine.

Military training has been observed at around 40 of the sites holding children as young as eight, including ceremonial parades and drills, and combat training.

Officials told The Sun it shows Kremlin stooges are teaching children to fight against their home, blasting their use as a “weapons” against Ukraine and beyond.

Daria Herasymchuck, advisor and commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation, told The Sun: “For those of us who have observed Putin’s actions up close for more than a decade, we are well accustomed to their evasion, distortion and calculated indifference. 

“We are appalled by the large-scale, logistical and operational capacity Russia is operating in – using children, who are always the most vulnerable victims in armed conflicts, in such a way, is deliberately cruel.”

Since megalomaniac Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and sent to at least 210 facilities inside Russia and occupied territory.

These sites range from summer camps and sanatoriums to a military base, and, in one case, a monastery, according to research by the Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).

Russia is known to have engaged in the deportation, re-education, militarisation and forced adopting of Ukrainian children since at least 2014 from the occupied territories of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk.

But since Putin’s ordered his troops in more than three years ago, researchers say these barbaric efforts have siginificantly expanded.

The HRL has used satellite imagery and open source materials to identify and track Ukrainian children snatched during the war.

Its horrifying report, Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization, reveals the staggering efforts Moscow goes to to brainwash these youngsters.

Children have been rounded up and moved to at least eight different location types.

These are cadet schools, a military base, medical facilities, a religious site, secondary schools and universities, a hotel, family support centers and orphanages, and camps and sanatoriums.

At least two new cadet schools have been constructed, and at least 49 of the 210 locations have been expanded since the start of the war.

Children are forced to develop “fire and naval training skills” at some sites as part of a warped militarisation campaign.

They are required to participate in “shooting competitions and grenade throwing competitions” as well as receive “tactical medicince, drone control and tactics” training.

In one instance, youngsters from Donetsk oblast received “airborne training” at a military base, the HRL’s report – shared with United
Nations Security Council- reveals.

Children have also been used to help produced military equipment for Russia’s armed forces, including drones.

Herasymchuck, of Ukraine’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative, told The Sun: “The report shows Russia is prepared to use Ukraine’s own children as a ‘weapon’ against Ukraine, and Europe more broadly.

“They are being trained to fight against their own homeland.

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“This is all part of Russia’s long-term campaign to erase the Ukrainian identity – central to this is the Russification and militarisation of Ukrainian children as the report outlines.”

Some youngsters have been held temporarily before returning home – while others have been held indefinitely.

As part of Putin’s callous regime to indoctrinate these children, many have been pushed into a network of so-called family centres.

Others have been pushed into Russia’s programme of coerced fostering and adoption – seeing them eventually placed within a Russian family.

For those who return home, Ukraine authorities have been told of the drastic work that has to be done to undo the damage.

Herasymchuck said: “Rehabilitation for children who return from deportation is one of the most sensitive and complex aspects of our work.

“These children have experienced not only physical displacement but also deep psychological trauma.

“When kids return, children often feel confused, disconnected, or afraid.

“These children have been taught not to resist. That is deeply alarming. Some carry guilt or shame. Others return with hostility or denial of their own identity.

“This is why our work does not end with bringing children home.

Children used as ‘weapons’

Exclusive by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)

RUSSIA is using abducted and brainwashed children as “weapons”, one of Zelensky’s staff battling to rescue Ukraine’s kidnapped kids warned.

Daria Zarivna told The Sun earlier this year that no peace deal will be brokered until Moscow agrees to return thousands of kidnapped youngsters home.

She warned Vladimir Putin‘s thugs are indoctrinating these youngsters and those living in Ukrainian territory under Russian control.

Bring Kids Back Ukraine operations director Daria said Moscow will push them into joining Russia’s army to use them as a “weapon” against Europe in the future.

Since Putin illegally invaded Ukraine three years ago, tens of thousands of children have been kidnapped and taken into Russia.

Kremlin stooges then disturbingly try to rid the youngsters of their Ukrainian heritage and brainwash them into becoming Russian citizens.

Sinister camps have been set up in Russia where children are sent before having their official documents altered and being placed in Russian families. 

Often the children are told that their loved ones have abandoned them and that they are now part of the Russian Federation. 

Mariana Betsa, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, told The Sun how some children have been abused and suffered sexual violence.

She said: “It’s not just a statistic, 20,000. It’s a life behind every person behind every statistic.

“We have so many families who were separated. We have so many children who were abducted.

“We need to return every single child.”

Presidential advisor Daria meanwhile warned Russia will use the children as a “weapon” against not only Ukraine, but the rest of Europe.

She said: “We are working on keeping this matter in the spotlight and we think that it is extremely important that it be a part of these talks because the Ukrainian children which Russia keeps under its control

“It’s a threat to global security, to Ukraine’s security.

“There are 1.6 million Ukrainian children currently staying in the temporarily occupied territories under the control of Russia.

“They’ve been indoctrinated, they’ve been militarised.”

READ MORE HERE

“Under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, Ukraine has built a reintegration system that provides each child with a tailored protection and recovery plan.

“Based on children’s needs, they receive medical care, psychological support, legal aid, safe housing, and access to education.”

The Sun previously spoke to one teenager who fell victim to Putin’s evil scheme.

Nastya, then 15, was abducted from Kherson Oblast when it was seized by Putin’s fighters at the beginning of the war in March 2022.

The terrified teenager was placed with a woman who also had ten other children in her care.

She told how she was abused and beat her until she was sent back to the police station where she had originally been held.

Nastya was then enrolled in a college, where she said she was routinely humiliated by soldiers who told her: “You are nothing.”

Eventually, Nastya was able to find a phone and make a call to her mother, who tracked down volunteers in Ukraine to help get her home.

In March 2023, arrest warrants for Putin and his twisted children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova were issued by the International Criminal Court.

Russia attempted to denounce the warrants as “outrageous and unacceptable”.

Lvova-Belova has attempted to portray the forced deportation of Ukrainian children as a Russian rescue mission since being appointed Putin’s children’s commissioner in 2021.

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Kyiv, Ukraine – Evhen Ihnatov was a young teenager when Russian forces occupied his hometown.

In the eight months of 2022 when the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was overtaken, his mother was killed and his brother was forcibly held in Russia.

“We buried her in the countryside. Grandma was beside herself,” Ihnatov told Al Jazeera of the tragedy that befell the family when his mother, Tamara, died. He was aged just 13.

On October 6, 2022, Tamara, 54, had boarded a minibus that was ultimately blown to pieces on a bridge by a misdirected Ukrainian missile.

His brother left for a Russian camp on the day she died.

Now 16 and living in Mykolaiv, studying in a college to become a car mechanic and working part time in a pizzeria, Ihnatov has spoken to Al Jazeera about life in occupied Ukraine.

After graduation, he said he might sign a contract with the army.

But that ambition felt impossible when he was living under Russian control, a period he survived with angst, the denial of all things Russian and a sense of dark humour.

Kherson is the administrative capital of the eponymous southern region the size of Belgium, which mostly lies on the left bank of the Dnipro River, which bisects Ukraine.

Russians occupied the region and Kherson city, which sits on the Dnipro’s right bank, in early March 2022 and rolled out in November that year.

According to Ihnatov, other witnesses and rights groups, Ukrainians were mistreated, assaulted, abducted and tortured from day one. Russia regularly denies intentionally harming civilians.

“They beat people, a real lot,” Ihnatov said. “Those who really stood up are no more.”

A former Ukrainian serviceman he knew was assaulted so violently that he spent a week in an intensive care unit, Ihnatov said.

In the first weeks of occupation, Kherson city was rocked by protest rallies as Ukrainians tried to resist the new rulers. Moscow-appointed authorities soon packed hundreds of people into prisons or basements in large buildings.

“Detained for minor or imaginary transgressions, they were kept for months and used for forced labour or sexual violence,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a historian with Germany’s Bremen University, told Al Jazeera.

Survivors have said they were forced to dig trenches, clean streets, trim trees and bushes, and haul garbage.

At least 17 women and men were raped by Russian soldiers, Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general at the time, said in May 2023.

Rallies stopped because of the crackdown, but most of the locals remained pro-Ukrainian, Ihnatov believes. He said the fewer pro-Russian locals were mostly elderly and nostalgic about their Soviet-era youth, attracted to the idea of Russia because of Moscow’s promises of higher pensions.

But to him, the Russian soldiers did not look like “liberators”.

He said many drank heavily and sported prison tattoos. In July 2022, the Wagner mercenary group began recruiting tens of thousands of inmates from Russian prisons with promises of presidential pardons and high pay.

“They look at you like you’re meat, like you’re chicken,” Ihnatov said.

He said ethnic Russian soldiers or ethnic Ukrainians from the separatist region of Donbas in the east whom he saw several times a day on patrols or just moving around were often hostile towards Ukrainian teenagers. Ethnic Chechens were more relaxed and gave them sweets or food, he said.

Fearful of Russian forces, the Ihnatovs – Evhen’s seven siblings and their single, disabled mother who occasionally worked as a seamstress – moved to their grandmother’s house outside Kherson. While still occupied, the village was not as heavily patrolled as the city.

There was a cow, some ducks and a kitchen garden, but they were cash-strapped and moved back to the city right in time for the new school year that began on September 1, 2022.

But Russian-appointed authorities were facing an education disaster.

Many teachers had quit to protest against the Moscow-imposed curriculum, and enrolment fell as some parents preferred to take a risk and keep their children in Ukrainian schools online.

A Russian curriculum was introduced in all of Kherson’s 174 public schools, and by August, Russia-appointed officials and masked soldiers began knocking on doors, threatening parents and offering them monthly subsidies of $35 per child who would go to a Russia-run school.

Ihnatov’s eldest sister, Tetiana, enrolled her school-aged siblings.

Students at Ihnatov’s school were herded into the schoolyard to listen to the Russian anthem. But he and his friends “just turned around and went to have a smoke”, he said.

The school was not far from his apartment. He remembered seeing about 50 children staring at Russian flags and coats of arms on the school building.

His class had 22 students. They were surprised by an oversimplified approach of new teachers who treated the students like they knew nothing.

“They explained everything, every little thing,” he said.

Communication between students changed. Their conversations became cautious, and they did not discuss sensitive issues, worried others would overhear them.

“Everything was happening outside the school,” he said.

The new curriculum was taught in Russian and emphasised Russia’s “greatness” while Ukrainian was reduced to two “foreign language” lessons a week.

“Everything was about references to Russia,” Ihnatov said.

However, to his clique, Russia’s efforts appeared half-hearted.

Teachers were more interested in fake reporting and just gave away A’s, he said.

“They didn’t force us to study, couldn’t make us,” he said.

“I’d crank up the music in my earphones, didn’t care about what they were saying, because anyway I’d get an A. We got good grades for nothing. They wanted to show that everyone studies well,” he said.

Only his history teacher would confront his group of friends while “the rest were scared,” he said.

Their rebelliousness could have cost them more than reprimands had Russians stayed in Kherson longer, according to observers.

“What they did only worked because the occupation was short term. Had the occupation gone on, the screws would have gotten tighter,” Victoria Novikova, a senior researcher with The Reckoning Project, a global team of journalists and lawyers documenting, publicising and building cases of Russia’s alleged war crimes in Ukraine, told Al Jazeera.

After school, Ihnatov took odd jobs in grocery shops or the city market and hung out with his friends.

Ukraine ‘never existed’

The new teachers paid special attention to history classes. Instructors from Russia or annexed Crimea were promised as much as $130 a day for teaching in Kherson, the RBK-Ukraine news website reported.

New textbooks “proved” that Ukraine was an “artificial state” whose statehood “never existed” before the 1991 Soviet collapse.

The erasure of Ukrainian identity went hand in hand with the alleged plunder of cultural riches.

Russians robbed the giant Kherson regional library of first editions of Ukrainian classics and other valuable folios and works of art after the building was repeatedly shelled and staffers were denied entry, its director said.

“My eyes don’t want to see it. My heart doesn’t want to accept it,” Nadiya Korotun told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, thousands of children in occupied areas were reportedly taken to summer camps in Crimea or Russia – and never came back as part of what Kyiv calls a campaign of abduction and brainwashing.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of forcibly taking 20,000 Ukrainian children away and placing them in foster families or orphanages.

In 2023, The Hague-based International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for the “unlawful deportation and transfer of children”.

Some of the abducted kids “broke”, a presidential adviser on children’s rights said.

“They are really maximally broken. Russians do absolutely everything to achieve that,” Daria Herasymchuk told Al Jazeera. “There were cases of Stockholm syndrome when [the abducted children] became Russian patriots.”

Ihnatov’s elder brother Vlad, 16 at the time, was among those who went to a camp – and was forcibly kept in Russia for a year until his sister travelled there to get him back.

In an unfortunate twist of fate, he had left for the camp hours before his mother was killed.

He was transported to a summer camp on Russia’s Black Sea coast and then transferred to the city of Yevpatoria in annexed Crimea, where he continued school – and was not allowed to return home.

His sister Tetiana travelled there to spend a week in a “basement” while Russian security officers “checked her”, Ihnatov said.

They returned to Ukraine via Belarus and Poland and “don’t talk much” about the experience, he said.

A month after his mother’s death, Moscow decided to withdraw its forces from Kherson city and the region’s right-bank area.

Ukrainian forces were greeted like long-lost family.

“The liberation was about nothing but joy, freedom and joy,” Ihnatov said.

But Russians holed up on the left bank and began shelling the city and flying drones to hunt down civilians.

“In a week or two, the cruellest shelling began. And then – fear,” Ihnatov said.

His sister decided to relocate the family to the Kyiv-controlled city of Mykolaiv, where they live in a rented three-bedroom apartment.

Sept. 14 (UPI) — Romania has summoned the Russian ambassador to Bucharest to lodge a protest over Moscow’s drone incursion into its airspace, making the second European nation whose airspace has been threatened by the Kremlin’s attacks on Ukraine in a week.

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it summoned Vladimir Lipaev to its headquarters on Sunday, a day after the incursion occurred.

“The Romanian side conveyed its strong protests against this unacceptable and irresponsible act, which represents a violation of Romania’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement. “Such recurring situations lead to the escalation and amplification of threats to regional security. The Russian side was requested to take, without delay, all necessary measures to prevent future violations of Romanian airspace.

Romania’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement it detected the Russian drone when a pair of F-16 jets were monitoring its border with Ukraine on Saturday at about 6 p.m. local time.

It said the drone was detected about 12 miles southwest of the village of Chilia Veche before it disappeared from radar.

A Sunday military assessment found that the drone flew for about 50 minutes before exiting Romanian airspace.

“The pilots received authorization to shoot down the target, but at the moments when they had direct contact, they assessed the collateral risks and decided not to open fire,” the Defense Ministry said.

Along with the Romanian fighter jets, German allies in Mihail Koglaniceanu scrambled two Eurofighter Typhoon jets to support the Romanian aircraft, which stayed deployed until 9:30 p.m.

The incident comes after Poland shot down at least three of at least 19 Russian drones that had breached its airspace overnight Tuesday to Wednesday morning.

Russia’s latest incursion into a European nation’s airspace has raised concerns throughout the region amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and has drawn condemnation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it an expansion of Russia’s war.

“The Russian military knows exactly where their drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air,” Zelensky said in an online statement. “Their routes are always calculated. This cannot be a coincidence or a mistake or the initiative of some lower level commanders.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called it a “blatant violation of EU sovereignty and a serious threat to regional security.”

“We are working closely with Romania and all member states to protect the EU territory,” she said in a statement.

“Suntem solidari cu Romania,” she added, which means, “we stand in solidarity with Romania” in Romanian.

Sept. 14 (UPI) — Ukraine launched large airstrikes late Saturday and into Sunday that hit a chemical plant and an oil refinery inside of Russia, authorities confirmed, as Russia tested a new hypersonic cruise missile during a joint exercise with Belarus.

Dmitry Makhonin, the governor of Russia’s Perm Krai territory, said in a statement Saturday that a Ukrainian drone flew into an industrial building in Gubakha. He said that no casualties were reported and that the chemical plant was operating normally.

“I appeal to all residents of the region — refrain from publishing photos and videos of the drone,” he said. “By posting such information on social networks, you are helping the enemy, who has made another pathetic attempt to intimidate us. They will not succeed. Victory will be ours.”

But a Ukrainian military intelligence source told The Kyiv Independent newspaper in Ukraine that equipment for urea production has been damaged. Urea is a nitrogen fertilizer used in agriculture that can also be used to make explosives.

The Russian independent media publication Astra reported that the plant hit is operated by Metafrax Chemicals, which has been targeted with sanctions by Britain and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed in a statement that it had hit the Kirish oil refinery in the Leningrad region of Russia.

“Explosions and fire were recorded at the refinery. The results of the impressions are being clarified,” Ukrainian officials said.

The Kirish refinery is one of the largest oil refineries in Russia and produces petroleum products, including automobile gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

Leningrad regional governor Alexander Drozdenko said on Telegram that three drones were destroyed in the Kirishi area but that falling debris sparked a fire, which was put out. Nobody was injured in the incident, he said.

Also on Saturday, falling debris from an intercepted drone hit another oil refinery in the Ufa district of the Bashkortostan region of Russia, regional governor Rady Khabirov confirmed. There were no casualties but the site suffered minor damage after a fire broke out.

“After that, another UAV was shot down. The scale of the consequences of its fall is still being clarified,” he said. “All services have been put on combat alert.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday its forces shot down 80 Ukrainian drones overnight across a wide area of Russia and occupied Crimea. The largest number, 30, were intercepted over the Bryansk region, while 15 were destroyed over Crimea, 12 over Smolensk, and 10 over Kaluga.

And on Friday, Russia said it had shot down hundreds of Ukrainian drones, many of them targeting facilities of the multinational Russian oil company, Lukoil, southwest of Moscow.

Ukraine’s airstrike comes as Russia on Sunday tested a new Zircon cruise missile on a target in the Barents Sea during a joint military exercise with Belarus.

“According to objective control data received in real time, the target was destroyed by a direct hit,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. “The area where the missile launch was conducted was closed in advance to civilian shipping and aircraft flights.”

Sept. 14 (UPI) — Romania has claimed a Russian drone entered its airspace Saturday near Ukraine‘s southern border, a move Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called an expansion by Russia in the ongoing war.

“The Russian military knows exactly where their drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air,” a social media statement by Zelensky said. “Their routes are always calculated. This cannot be a coincidence or a mistake or the initiative of some lower level commanders.”

Romania is the second NATO country to report such an incursion. On Wednesday, Poland said it had shot down three drones that had breached its airspace, according to the BBC.

Romania said it detected the Russian drone when a pair of F-16 jets were monitoring its border with Ukraine, according to a statement from the Romanian defense ministry.

It said the drone was detected about 12 miles southwest of the village of Chilia Veche before it disappeared from radar.

“The UAV did not fly over populated areas and did not pose an imminent threat to the security of the population,” the statement said. It said the defense ministry has teams on alert to monitor potentially hazardous fallout from the drone.

“People in Romania were never in danger but such actions by Russia are unacceptable and reckless, a social media post from the Romanian minister of foreign affairs said.

It is the latest incident in an ongoing series of escalations in the war between Russia and Ukraine, the latest chapter of which has been waged since February 2022.

Moscow has not commented on either incident.

Romania has scrambled fighter jets after a drone breached the country’s airspace during a Russian attack on neighbouring Ukraine, its Ministry of National Defence said, as Kyiv accused Moscow of expanding its war.

The Romanian move on Saturday came as Poland also deployed aircraft and closed an airport in the eastern city of Lublin over the threat of a drone attack.

Ukraine’s European Union neighbours have been on guard since Poland shot down Russian drones in its airspace earlier this week, with the backing of aircraft from its NATO allies.

Romania’s Defence Ministry said it detected the drone incursion late on Saturday, and scrambled two F-16 fighter jets as well as two Eurofighters – part of German air policing missions in Romania – while also warning citizens to take cover.

It said the jets followed the drone until “it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche.

Minister of National Defence Ionut Mosteanu said the F-16 pilots came close to taking down the drone before it left the country’s airspace, adding that helicopters would survey the area near the border to look for potential drone parts.

“But all information at this moment indicates the drone exited airspace to Ukraine,” he told the private television station Antena 3.

Romania, an EU and NATO state which shares a 650km (400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the social media platform X that data showed the drone breached about 10km (6 miles) into Romanian territory and operated in NATO airspace for about 50 minutes.

He alleged that the Russian military knows exactly where its drones are headed and how long they can operate in the air.

“It is an obvious expansion of the war by Russia – and this is exactly how they act,” Zelenskyy said.

“Sanctions against Russia are needed. Tariffs against Russian trade are needed. Collective defence is needed.”

Sweden also condemned the drone incursion in Romania.

Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard wrote on X that the breach was “another unacceptable violation of NATO airspace”.

“Sweden stands in full solidarity with Romania as a NATO Ally and EU Member State. We are always ready to contribute further to the deterrence and defence of the Alliance.”

NATO had announced plans to beef up the defence of Europe’s eastern flank on Friday, after Poland shot down drones that had violated its airspace, the first known shots fired by a member of the Western alliance during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

While Russia denies targeting Poland, several European countries, including France, Germany and Sweden, have stepped up their support for defending Polish airspace in response.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, expressed concern at the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace, but said that it remained unclear if it was a deliberate act by Russia.

“We think it’s an unacceptable and unfortunate and dangerous development,” Rubio told reporters before departing on a trip to Israel and the United Kingdom.

“No doubt about it: the drones were intentionally launched. The question is whether the drones were targeted to go into Poland specifically.”

Rubio said that if the drones were targeted at Poland, “if the evidence leads us there, then obviously that’ll be a highly escalatory move”.

“There are a number of other possibilities as well, but I think we’d like to have all the facts and consult with our allies before we make specific determinations,” he added.

The comments echo suggestions by US President Donald Trump that the Russian incursions into Polish airspace were a mistake.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, however, has dismissed that.

“We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it,” Tusk said on X on Friday.

Trump, meanwhile, said on Saturday that he was ready to impose major sanctions on Russia – just as soon as all NATO nations did the same thing and stopped buying Russian oil.

“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump has repeatedly threatened sanctions against Russia without following through.

United States President Donald Trump has said he is ready to sanction Russia, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow and impose their own sanctions on Russia to pressure it to end its more than three-year war in Ukraine.

“I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, which he described as a letter to all NATO nations and the world.

Trump proposed that NATO, as a group, place 50-100 percent tariffs on China to weaken its economic grip over Russia.

Trump also wrote that NATO’s commitment “to WIN” the war “has been far less than 100%” and that it was “shocking” that some members of the alliance continued to buy Russian oil. As if speaking to them, he said, “It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia.”

NATO member Turkiye has been the third-largest buyer of Russian oil, after China and India. Other members of the 32-state alliance involved in buying Russian oil include Hungary and Slovakia, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

If NATO “does as I say, the WAR will end quickly”, Trump wrote. “If not, you are just wasting my time.”

As he struggles to deliver on promises to end the war quickly, Trump has repeatedly threatened to increase pressure on Russia. Last month, he slapped a 50 percent tariff on India over its continued buying of Russian oil, though he has not yet taken similar actions against China.

Trump’s social media post comes days after Polish and NATO forces shot down drones violating Polish airspace during Russia’s biggest-ever aerial barrage against Ukraine.

Poland and Romania scramble aircraft

Polish airspace has been violated many times since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but never on this scale anywhere in NATO territory.

Wednesday’s incident was the first time a NATO member is known to have fired shots during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

On Saturday, Poland said it and its NATO allies had deployed helicopters and aircraft as Russian drones struck Ukraine, not far from its border.

Poland’s military command said on X that “ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have reached their highest level of alert”, adding that the actions were “preventative”.

Also on Saturday, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said that the country’s airspace had been breached by a drone during a Russian attack on infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine.

The country scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to monitor the situation, tracking the drone until it disappeared from the radar” near the Romanian village of Chilia Veche, said the ministry in a statement.

Little sign of peace

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed the prospect of penalties on states still doing business with Moscow.

In an interview with the US media outlet ABC News last week, Zelenskyy said, “I’m very thankful to all the partners, but some of them, I mean, they continue [to] buy oil and Russian gas, and this is not fair… I think the idea to put tariffs on the countries that continue to make deals with Russia, I think this is the right idea.”

Last month, the US president hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss an end to the war, in their first face-to-face meeting since Trump’s return to the White House.

Shortly afterwards, he hosted Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington, DC, for discussions on a settlement.

Despite the diplomatic blitz, there has been little progress towards a peace deal, with Moscow and Kyiv remaining far apart on key issues and Russia persisting in its bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

Russia claims advances

Russia on Saturday said it had captured a new village in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, which Moscow’s forces say they reached at the beginning of July.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said its troops had seized the village of Novomykolaivka near the border with the Donetsk region – the epicentre of fighting on the front. The AFP news agency was unable to confirm this claim.

DeepState, an online battlefield map run by Ukrainian military analysts, said the village was still under Kyiv’s control.

At the end of August, Ukraine had for the first time acknowledged that Russian soldiers had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Moscow had claimed advances at the start of the month.

The Russian army currently controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

The Kremlin is demanding that Ukraine withdraw from its eastern Donbas region, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for halting hostilities, something that Kyiv has rejected.

The Dnipropetrovsk region is not one of the five Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Crimea – that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

On Friday, Zelenskyy said that Putin wanted to “occupy all of Ukraine” and would not stop until his goal was achieved, even if Kyiv agreed to cede territory.