RussiaUkraine

Several Russian regions are facing fuel shortages because of Ukrainian attacks.

A Russian missile attack on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih has killed at least three people, as Moscow struggles with the economic strain of the four-and-a-half-year Russia-Ukraine war.

Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the Kryvyi Rih defence council, said in a post on Telegram on Tuesday that 25 people had been wounded in the attack, which he said used a cluster munition warhead.

“People died within 200 metres [660 feet] of each other because of this barbaric weapon,” Vilkul said, adding that a day of mourning would be marked on Wednesday.

Kyiv has previously accused Moscow of using cluster munitions, which scatter into smaller explosives when dropped.

Reacting to the attack, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more international pressure on Moscow to end the war and for quicker supplies of air defence systems.

“Every delay in implementing air defence agreements, every delay in supplies to protect Ukraine and Ukrainians is in effect a loss of life,” he wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine announced on Tuesday that its forces had targeted a railway bridge, a power plant and other key infrastructure in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Weakened rouble

Over the past few months, Russia and Ukraine have significantly ramped up attacks. As Moscow launches barrages of strikes on Ukraine, Kyiv in turn has targeted Russian refineries and infrastructure with its own drones.

Ukraine’s drone attacks have led to fuel shortages in Russia. Many regions across the country have reported restrictions on fuel sales and rising prices for oil products, creating concerns about the stability of Russia’s economy.

On Monday, the Moscow Exchange stock index fell by five percent before it rebounded slightly. It is still around its lowest level since March 2023, while the rouble weakened past the 75-mark against the US dollar for the first time since May 6.

The Kremlin dismissed concerns about the rouble’s weakness.

“The stability of the Russian economy, macroeconomic stability, is absolutely ensured,” government spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, efforts to end the war have remained effectively frozen as United States President Donald Trump has shifted his focus to Iran.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told foreign envoys in Moscow on Tuesday that the Americans seemed to be “abandoning any claim to the role of an objective mediator and are instead pursuing a course of escalating sanctions pressure on Russia”.

Gas sales in Russian-controlled Crimea have halted after Ukrainian drone strikes on the peninsula’s supply route. Drivers are now looking for other modes of transport.

The move comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was stripped of Poland’s top honour.

Top Ukrainian officials have said they are returning Polish awards after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was stripped of Warsaw’s top honour in a dispute between the allies over World War II massacres.

Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov; Ukraine’s ambassador to Warsaw, Vasyl Bodnar; and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Saturday they would relinquish awards bestowed by Poland.

“Our nations have long-standing relations and ⁠different pages of history – both ⁠heroic and tragic,” Budanov posted on social media. “However, this should be an occasion for deep reflection, not crude political speculation.”

Zelenskyy angered many in Poland over his naming of a military unit after a Ukrainian paramilitary organisation accused of massacring Poles during World War II.

In a decree on May 26, Zelenskyy named a military unit the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) – the name of a group that operated in the 1940s and 1950s.

On Friday, Polish President Karol Nawrocki announced he would strip Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, which was bestowed on him by Former Polish President Andrzej Duda in 2023 for services to security, resilience and the defence of human rights.

For most in Poland, “the Ukrainian Insurgent Army remains above all a formation responsible for cruel crimes against the citizens of the Polish Republic during World War II,” Nawrocki said on social media, adding that the decision would not end Poland’s support for Ukraine against Russia.

Ukrainian officials criticised the decision as one that played into Russia’s hands. Budanov, the Ukrainian Presidential Office chief, wrote on Telegram that it was “an unfriendly act toward our people” and “a gift to the Moscow aggressor, which will certainly use it against both of our countries”.

Foreign Minister Sybiha called it a “strategic mistake” while Bodnar said it was “especially painful” as Ukraine fends off Russian attacks.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a political rival of President Nawrocki, urged both sides to “calm tensions” in a post on X on Friday.

Conflict between Poland and Ukraine “delights Putin and shocks our allies”, he said.

The UPA fought against both Nazi German and Soviet forces, but is also accused of mass killings of Poles in Nazi-occupied areas. Ukrainians say UPA and Polish underground forces launched large-scale attacks and reprisals against each other that led to deaths among Ukrainian and Polish civilians.

Russia’s oil refineries have been heavily targeted, damaging its energy facilities and the country’s fuel crisis.

Ukrainian drones have hit a Moscow oil refinery for the second time ⁠this week while Russia fired missiles at Kyiv, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks support from the United States and Europe to reach a deal to end the war.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday that its air defences shot down 555 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, with almost 200 intercepted as they were approaching the Russian capital.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said several drones hit an oil refinery.

“Air defence forces continue to repel a massive attack. Several drones managed to reach the Moscow oil refinery,” Sobyanin said, adding that a shopping centre also suffered minor damage.

The attack on the oil facility is the second this week, after a drone attack on Tuesday halted operations at the refinery, according to the Reuters news agency, as widespread damage to Russian energy facilities worsens the country’s fuel crisis.

The regional governor said that in the surrounding Moscow region, a high-rise residential building, an industrial facility and a number of private houses were also damaged in the drone attack. The Sheremetyevo airport, Moscow’s busiest, suspended flights and evacuated people, as several sought shelter in the car park, the airport said in a statement.

Kyiv meanwhile came under a second Russian air attack this week, as ballistic missiles were unleashed on the Ukrainian capital, city officials said. Earlier this week, a major attack on Kyiv by Russia killed 11 people and damaged a UNESCO-listed 1,000-year-old monastery, drawing condemnation from European leaders. Russia denied striking the monastery.

The attacks come as Zelenskyy works to pressure Russia into negotiating an end to its more than four-year-long war. Zelenskyy said he had spoken to US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders from G7 countries to coordinate ways to end the ⁠war.

G7 leaders pledged to strengthen Ukraine’s air defences and increase pressure on Moscow’s war economy, including by tightening sanctions on the Russian oil and gas sectors.

Trump told reporters he was “gonna do whatever I can” to end the war.

Zelenskyy said he received important commitments from the G7, including “more air defence missiles along with licenses to produce them, and a winter support package.”

“Importantly, the US is ready to provide backstop across these lines of effort,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “It is key that everything discussed be implemented. Russia must come to learn that its war will never be normalised.”

Kyiv, Ukraine – After almost seven hours in a kilometres-long, snail-paced line made up of hundreds of cars at a gas station near Crimea’s administrative capital, Simferopol, Dilyaver was lucky enough to buy gas.

He paid $22 for 20 litres (5.3 gallons).

“There were teenagers running around offering gas for 300 rubles [$4.2], one almost got beaten up by angry guys in the line,” the 52-year-old Crimean Tatar man told Al Jazeera on Saturday.

He withheld his last name and personal details because an interview with foreign media could land him in jail.

Judging by licence plates and accents, some of the men in the line were Russian tourists who decided to cut their vacations short and flee via the $4bn, 19km (12-mile) long Crimean Bridge, Dilyaver said.

“The [tourism] season is ruined, that’s bad news for almost everyone here,” he said, referring to the annual arrival of millions of tourists that feeds many on the arid peninsula, where agriculture has suffered after Kyiv dammed a key water artery.

Dilyaver does not know when he will fill up his rundown Skoda again because he expects fuel shortages to get worse.

But the fuel problem is just the tip of the iceberg of problems Crimea has been facing.

“Crimea’s key problem is not because there’s no fuel,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University who analyses the Russia-Ukraine war, told Al Jazeera. “The problem is that Ukrainian drones began barraging over the peninsula’s domestic roads.”

Since mid-May, Ukrainian drones have attacked hundreds of trucks carrying fuel, ammunition and other supplies from southwestern Russia to Crimea via the “land bridge” through occupied Ukrainian regions.

The drones, whose operators sit in bunkers up to 200km (124 miles) away from the “land bridge”, also pepper roads with mines that weigh only 500 grams (1.1 pounds) and have magnetic or motion sensors.

Cargo ships trying to get fuel and food to Crimea or transporting steel and grain from occupied regions of southeastern Ukraine have also been attacked.

The attacks “illustrate Crimea’s vulnerability”. Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank, told Al Jazeera. “Ukraine can regularly, daily strike military, infrastructure sites in Crimea … Ukraine turned Crimea into an island surrounded by war and fire.”

‘Just the beginning’

Ukraine’s Third Special Battalion said earlier this month that its drone operators have “taken aerial control” of the strategic supply route from the occupied southern city of Melitopol to the Chongar bridge in northern Crimea.

“That’s just the beginning! There’s more to come!” the Battalion said in a Facebook video with footage of exploding and burning trucks.

Chongar is a key entry to Crimea that can barely be called a peninsula because Sivash, also known as The Rotten Sea, a labyrinth of lagoons, salt marshes and wetlands, divides it from mainland Ukraine, leaving only three strips of land wide and firm enough for roads and a railway.

Just more than a week ago, the Chongar bridge was damaged by drones and is only capable of letting light vehicles through, while buses and trucks take a pontoon bridge nearby.

“The bridge is open, the damaged part is cordoned off, one lane is operational, there are no traffic jams because there’s few cars,” a driver who passed through it wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian drones also struck fuel depots inside Crimea – along with air defence systems, airfields, military bases, command centres and the facilities of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet that relocated to the Russian port of Novorossiysk after losing at least a third of its vessels.

After Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014, Moscow spent billions of dollars to militarise Crimea by deploying frigates and diesel submarines; advanced S-400 air defence systems; tens of thousands of servicemen; and building new military bases, airfields, radar stations, garrisons and living quarters.

“Putin turned Crimea into a military base, and thus made it the most vulnerable place in the war with Ukraine,” Fesenko said.

The Crimean bridge alone cannot handle the redirected traffic as trucks weighing more than 1.5 tonnes are no longer allowed to pass through.

Early Monday, a Ukrainian drone struck a moving train, killing one of the drivers and prompting Moscow to halt the movement of nine other trains.

Their passengers are being evacuated by buses, Kremlin-appointed authorities said.

Days earlier, one of Russia’s most outspoken warmongers raised his voice about the panic in Crimea.

“What’s happening at Crimean gas stations is a real nightmare for locals and servicemen,” Igor Girkin, an ex-intelligence officer who led the first group of Moscow-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine in 2014, wrote on Telegram on June 1.

Kyiv “acts brazenly … trying to cut off the peninsula and our southern [military] groups from fuel supply,” Girkin, who was sentenced to four years in jail in 2024 after lambasting Moscow’s military failures in Ukraine, wrote from behind bars.

“To some, Crimea seems like a resort. No, today it’s a front-line region,” he wrote.

And to Crimean Tatars such as Dilyaver, what’s happening around them is part of a decades-old struggle for survival in Moscow’s shadow.

Since the annexation, his community of about 250,000, or about one-tenth of Crimea’s population, has been under constant pressure.

Masked officers break into the houses of community leaders, activists or observant Muslims at dawn to search for “extremist materials” that in many cases turn out to be religious texts, including The Quran for Children.

Arrests and trials follow – more than 100 Tatars have been sentenced to jail for “extremism,” “separatism” and “terrorism.”

Another dozen went missing without a trace and are believed to have been abducted and killed by Russian intelligence.

Dilyaver owned a tiny grocery store near Simferopol.

But he faced higher taxes and visits by government inspectors who demanded bribes, so Dilyaver, who also suffered a scam, closed the store. He barely makes ends meet now by selling deep-fried meat and cheese pies next to a bus stop.

Dilyaver’s parents were born in Soviet Uzbekistan after the 1944 deportation of every Crimean Tatar by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who thought their cultural ties to Turkiye posed a threat to the USSR’s security.

“We have a saying, ‘If a Russian lives next to you, keep an axe ready,’” Dilyaver’s 77-year-old mother Gulsum told Al Jazeera. “We suffered from them so much, and it’s far from over.”

Ukrainian attacks triggered food shortages.

Macaroni, flour, canned meat, fish and vegetables have already been swept off the shelves in some stores and supermarkets, Dilyaver said.

“The Soviet mentality is still at work. If there’s a problem – buy buckwheat,” he quipped, about the cheap and nutritious grain that symbolises resilience in the former Soviet Union.

Three people have been killed in the border region between Russia and Ukraine, according to officials, as the two sides launched attacks on each other in the latest exchange of fire.

In Russia, two civilians were killed and two wounded in the region of Bryansk after Kyiv struck the settlement of Suzemka with artillery, Acting Governor Egor Kovalchuk said in a post on Telegram on Friday.

A ⁠drone ⁠also hit an apartment building in Russia’s ⁠central region of Tatarstan, ⁠injuring three people, while industrial facilities were ‌hit, regional head Rustam Minnikhanov said on the Telegram messaging app.

Production work was ⁠not suspended, ⁠however, he added, but did not identify ⁠any plants. ⁠The region ⁠is home to key oil processing and petrochemical ‌facilities, among others.

⁠Russia’s ⁠city of Togliatti, home to ⁠the country’s biggest ⁠carmaker Avtovaz, also came under a drone attack overnight, Samara ‌region Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said on Telegram.

“Attention! Drone attack regime ⁠for Togliatti,” he ⁠wrote. Togliatti is a city ⁠on the ⁠Volga River some 800 km (500 miles) southeast ‌of Moscow.

These strikes are what Ukraine refers to as a “logistics lockdown”, said Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine, reported from Kyiv. She explained that they are mid-range strikes anywhere over 30 kilometres (17 miles) from the front line, using long-range drones and sometimes heavy weaponry to target things like oil refineries, bridges, logistics, and roads as a means of halting Russia’s front-line operations.

At the same time, she said, Ukraine also launches what it calls “long-range sanctions” against Russian targets – a “tongue-in-cheek term … that we’ve seen escalating over the past several months, where Ukraine is targeting Russia’s oil refineries and oil industry,” MacAlpine explained.

In Ukraine, a drone attack in the border region of Sumy caused casualties.

A 44-year-old woman working as a rail station operator died on her way to a shelter during the strike, according to the head of Ukrainian Railways, Oleksandr Pertsovkyi.

Another woman, a station attendant, was wounded in the attack, Pertsovkyi added.

Three people were wounded in separate attacks on Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region.

“We’ve seen continual threats by Russia before massive attacks, and we have certainly seen the results of those actions here in cities like Kyiv, where ballistics continue to be the Achilles heel for Ukraine”, MacAlpine said.

Russian fuel shortages after Ukrainian attacks

In recent months, Kyiv has carried out an increasing number of attacks on Russia and Russian-occupied territories.

On Thursday, fuel stations on the Russian-held Crimean Peninsula ran out of petrol after a Ukrainian campaign against the peninsula’s supply lines escalated.

A witness in Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city, told the Reuters news agency there was no fuel at most local petrol stations, with supplies struggling to keep up with a rationing regime imposed in recent weeks.

Another witness, in the resort town of Yevpatoriya, ⁠said there was a long queue outside the only petrol station open there.

Ukraine has been intensifying drone attacks on supply lines to the peninsula, which Russia seized from Kyiv in 2014. Local authorities have imposed fuel rationing regimes, with some foodstuffs also running short.

Besides Russian-held Crimea, only ‌two regions in Siberia have officially confirmed the shortages.

Most other regions have said the situation is under control, and that some disruptions were caused by panic buying. Moscow has denied there were any problems with fuel supplies.

• Population: 1.37 million
• Defence spending: 5.4 percent of GDP
• Border with Russia: 338km (210 miles)

Estonia, the smallest of the Baltic states, has experienced some dramatic incidents.

In September, Tallinn said Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered its airspace for 12 minutes. NATO scrambled Italian F-35s stationed in Estonia as part of the Baltic Air Policing mission. Russia denied violating Estonian airspace.

In March, a stray Ukrainian military drone crashed into Estonia’s Auvere power station.

In April and May, Estonian authorities said drones entered their airspace, grounding flights and prompting warnings issued to citizens.

Estonia’s intelligence services have said that the country does not believe Russia is preparing an imminent military attack on NATO, but that Moscow may be rebuilding its forces for the long term while engaging in hybrid attacks through drones, cyber operations, and sabotage.

Tallinn claims one such hybrid method is the so-called “Narva People’s Republic”, a pro-Russian separatist narrative that casts Estonia’s Russian-speaking border region as a distinct political entity, echoing the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” used by Moscow as a pretext for intervention in Ukraine.

Estonian authorities say it is part of a disinformation campaign rather than a credible separatist movement.

Its military has, at times, been bellicose in its statements.

In May, Estonia’s Lieutenant General Andrus Merilo argued that Russia is rebuilding its military much faster than many Europeans realise and that Estonia must be ready for a renewed military threat within the next few years, marking 2027 as a critical benchmark for readiness.

In September 2024, in an interview with the Estonian public broadcaster ERR, Estonian General Vahur Karus stated that if Moscow showed signs of preparing for an attack, Estonia could strike the Russians first.

“Our capability to neutralise the enemy on its own territory is crucial,” he said.

However, the government’s rhetoric has been more measured.

In April, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy suggested in an interview that a new wave of Russian mobilisation may be used to launch an attack on the Baltic states.

But Estonian politicians, including the foreign minister, warned that the remarks echoed Moscow’s objective of stoking fears and made cooperation difficult.

“We do not see Russia concentrating its forces or preparing in any way militarily to attack NATO or the Baltic states; rather, it is the opposite. Russia is not in a very strong position on the Ukrainian front, and economically as well,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told ERR.

“No one is in the streets panicking,” Tony Lawrence, a research fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security in Tallinn, told Al Jazeera.

The air incursions have “put people on edge”, but there is a sense that Russian forces are too preoccupied in Ukraine, he said.

The drone entered Latvian airspace due to ‘Russian electronic warfare’, the military says.

NATO fighters have scrambled to shoot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace from Russia.

The Latvian military said on Monday that French aircraft had destroyed “a foreign unmanned aerial vehicle that had entered Latvian airspace as a result of Russian electronic warfare”, without saying where the drone originated.

The incident adds a growing list of incursions from the Russia-Ukraine war into neighbouring countries that are part of the NATO alliance, sparking fears of escalating spillover effects as Moscow’s siege on Ukraine continues apace.

“Thank you to our French allies for shooting down the drone that penetrated Latvian airspace!” Riga’s Foreign Minister Baiba Braze wrote on social media.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs heralded the “swift decision-making and professional action”.

Defence Minister Raivis Melnis told reporters the drone was shot down just after 9am local time (07:00 GMT) near the village of Berzgale, located about 30km (18 miles) from the Russian border. No one was hurt, and no property was damaged, Melnis said.

The French military said in a statement that the jets took off from Siauliai airbase in northern Lithuania and destroyed the drone “over an uninhabited area”.

It added that the incident demonstrated France’s “commitment to contributing to the security of Europe’s eastern flank”.

Authorities had previously warned residents in some parts of eastern Latvia to shelter in place because of the threat.

Ongoing threat

Countries in the region have reported repeated drone incursions from air and sea in recent months, spawning concerns over the widening impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The issue has raised the political pressure in Latvia, leading to the resignation of Prime Minister Evika Silina last month.

The increased frequency of the reports comes as Ukraine has increased its attacks on Russia, with Moscow deflecting drones using electronic jamming. The statement from the Latvian military regarding “Russian electronic warfare” appears to suggest the drone shot down likely came from Ukraine.

Fragments of a Ukrainian drone were also found in a field in Moldova on Monday after it entered from Ukraine, an incident that officials also blamed on Moscow.

Last week, a maritime drone exploded in Romania’s Constanta port. Kyiv later confirmed it involved a Ukrainian drone that was knocked off course by Russian electronic interference.

However, it was a Russian drone that hit an apartment building in eastern Romania in late May, injuring two people and prompting Bucharest to call for NATO to speed up the transfer of anti-drone capabilities.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned after that crash that Russia’s war on Ukraine is “increasingly becoming a direct threat to countries on our Eastern border” and said solidarity with them was “absolute”.

The French military jet that shot down Monday’s drone is part of the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission, which has patrolled the skies of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia since they became part of NATO in 2004.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has turned down an offer for in-person talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he sees no point in meeting. Zelenskyy said Russia “has again chosen war” by rejecting his open letter appealing for a face-to-face meeting.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that the maritime drone was a ‘direct consequence’ of the Russia-Ukraine war. 

A maritime drone has exploded in Romania’s Constanta port, with several other drones discovered nearby.

The Romanian Ministry of National Defence said on Friday that the drone had self-detonated at 10:30am local time (07:30 GMT). The incident is just the latest incursion along NATO’s eastern flank, raising concern over the increasing spillover from Russia’s war on Ukraine to neighbouring states that are part of the Western military alliance.

The drone exploded near an oil terminal, without causing injuries. Interior Minister Raed Arafat said the port was evacuated after the detonation, and residents along the Black Sea coast were warned to take cover as helicopters surveyed the area for other vessels.

Kyiv later said it had informed Bucharest that Friday’s incident involved a Ukrainian maritime drone that was knocked off course by Russian electronic interference.

“While carrying out missions in the Black Sea operational area, one of the Ukrainian Navy’s unmanned surface vessels came under the influence of the enemy’s electronic warfare systems, lost control, and ended up near the coast of Romania,” the Ukrainian navy said.

Romanian President Nicusor Dan noted on Facebook that this was the “second security incident this week on the Romanian seaside”.

Earlier this week, Romania’s navy detonated a Russian YaRM-type anti-landing mine that had drifted to its Black Sea shore.

Last week, a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in Romania, increasing fears that the war started by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 increasingly risks spilling over to the region.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned on Friday that the maritime drone was a “direct consequence” of the Russia-Ukraine war.

“It is increasingly becoming a direct threat to countries on our Eastern border. Our solidarity with every Member State exposed to these threats is absolute,” von der Leyen wrote.

“And our response must match the urgency. Europe is investing massively in anti-drone capabilities, air defence and early warning systems,” she added.

Romania, which shares a 650km (400-mile) land border with Ukraine, has reported dozens of airspace breaches amid the four-year war, generally blaming Russia, and has asked NATO to help it bolster air defences.

The spillover of the war is also affecting non-NATO countries.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on Friday that five of its citizens were killed and three injured after attacks on two cargo vessels, which did not belong to Baku, in the Sea of Azov.

Kyiv said earlier that its drones had hit five ships in the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk – which sits between Russia and the Russian-occupied eastern regions of Ukraine.

Commander of the Ukrainian drone forces, Robert Brovdi, asserted that the vessels were involved in “stealing” Ukrainian grain and transferring military cargo.

Romanian President Nicusor Dan says that the Russian consul in the southeastern city of Constanta will be expelled and the consulate shut down after a drone intended for Ukraine crashed into an apartment complex in the border town of Galati.

Russia has urged foreigners to leave in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, and warned of more strikes on the city, suggesting a major escalation in its more-than-four-year-long war on Ukraine.

In a statement issued on Monday, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it planned to target “decision-making centres and command posts” and drone manufacturing facilities in the Ukrainian city in a series of strikes.

Due to these facilities being allegedly “scattered throughout Kyiv”, Moscow told “foreign citizens, including personnel of diplomatic missions and international organisations, to leave the city as soon as possible”, the statement read.

The ministry’s statement also urged Kyiv residents to avoid all military and administrative infrastructure facilities in the capital, which could be potential targets.

A later statement said that Russian Foreign Minister ⁠Sergey Lavrov had ⁠advised US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the plan and urged him to evacuate his embassy staff from Kyiv.

Moscow said these planned strikes were in response to a drone strike on a student dormitory in Starobilsk, in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine, which killed at least 18 people.

The threats come just days after Russian drone and rocket strikes on Kyiv on Saturday night killed at least four people and injured about 100 others.

What is behind Russia’s latest threats, and how significant are the threats to foreigners in Kyiv?

Here’s what we know:

Why is Russia threatening to attack Kyiv?

Ukraine has greatly improved its drone warfare capabilities in recent months, leading to more successful targeting of Russian military and energy infrastructure.

Most of these drones are homegrown interceptors, which have been designed to pursue attack enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) before they hit their targets.

They can also carry a wider range of payloads and do not self-destruct, unlike one-way drones, so they can be used again in future missions.

On May 17, at least five people were killed after Ukraine launched what Russian officials described as one of the largest drone barrages of the war, with waves of UAVs dispatched to Moscow and several other regions overnight.  The Indian embassy in Russia said one Indian worker was killed and three others injured in drone strikes in the Moscow region.

Moscow region’s Governor Andrei Vorobyov added that a woman was killed after a drone slammed into a house in Khimki, north of Moscow. Vorobyov added that apartment buildings and infrastructure sites were damaged in the attacks.

The Russian foreign ministry statement on Monday labelled the Staroblisk attack as a “flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law”, and “yet another blatant demonstration of the Nazi and terrorist nature of the Kyiv regime”.

What has Ukraine said?

Ukraine’s ⁠military has denied responsibility for the strike on the student dorm, saying it had struck ‌an elite drone command unit.

Since then, Russia has also heavily targeted Kyiv and its surrounding areas with massive missile and drone attacks. resulting in at least four people killed and more than 60 injured overnight Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Monday, Ukrainian officials also reported that strikes killed several people in the eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

So how significant are Russia’s latest threats?

While both Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly launched attacks on one another’s cities, this was the first time Moscow had issued a direct warning to foreigners in Ukraine.

Commenting on this threat, Ukraine’s Foreign ⁠Minister Andrii Sybiha urged allies not to give in to “‌Russian blackmail”.

French Ambassador Gael Veyssiere noted that people in Kyiv were going about their daily lives on Monday, after the weekend’s strikes.

“It’s ⁠a way to demonstrate resilience, and I think it’s extremely important that we, around the world, we would ⁠support that,” Veyssiere told the Reuters news agency.

According to Philip Bednarczyk, the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Warsaw office director, Russia’s latest threat comes after “its attempts to break Ukraine’s will to fight over the course of the coldest winter during this war failed”.

“It is becoming clear that their war aims are not being met on the front lines, and conversely, Ukraine has taken an upper hand. Russia needs to change tactics and the narrative somehow, and this warning is an attempt to do so,” he told Al Jazeera.

What is the status of diplomacy in peace talks?

Russia and Ukraine have been holding peace talks since the war began in February 2022, but with little or no concrete outcomes.

When Donald Trump became the president of the US for the second time in January 2025, he promised to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

He has since met both Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy in separate meetings to discuss ending the war, but so far these efforts have not borne fruit.

The truce talks have largely stalled due to Russia’s insistence on keeping territory it has seized from Ukraine.

On May 22, US State Secretary Marco Rubio said that while trilateral talks had been unsuccessful, the United States was ready to organise a new round of peace talks.

But Washington has also been occupied with its war on Iran, which broke out on February 28, and analysts say EU nations might have to play a bigger part in peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

“Unfortunately, US attention from this administration was not able to bring peace, and it looks that attention has gone towards other parts of the world, like Iran,” Bednarczyk said.

“Europe will have to take up that role, and I believe is capable of doing so, but it is extremely important to have American backing.”

But he was also sceptical about how serious Russia is right now about peace. “After all, this is their war of choice,” he said.

EU spokesperson Anitta Hipper says Russia’s threat to diplomats and foreign citizens is an ‘unacceptable escalation’.

Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the European Union have summoned Russian envoys a day after Moscow warned foreigners and diplomats to leave the Ukrainian capital ahead of renewed air strikes.

On Tuesday, EU spokesperson Anitta Hipper called Russia’s threat to diplomats and foreign citizens an “unacceptable escalation”.

Hipper added in a post on X that the charge d’affairs had been summoned, calling on Moscow to “stop hitting civilians & Russia to engage in genuine peace talks starting with a full and unconditional ceasefire”.

At the beginning of May, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a three-day ceasefire for Moscow’s celebrations to mark its victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 at the end of World War II, but fighting quickly resumed with both sides accusing the other of violating the agreement.

On Monday, Moscow said that it planned to launch more strikes on Kyiv after it launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine over the weekend that killed four people.

Among the weapons Russia used in its attacks were its Oreshknik hypersonic missile, which can travel 10 times the speed of sound.

The warning came after Russia accused Ukraine of targeting a vocational school last week in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region that killed 21 people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military on Friday to prepare options for retaliation in response to the attack.

“Under the current circumstances, the Russian Armed Forces are starting to launch systematic strikes against Ukrainian military-industrial facilities in Kyiv,” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Monday.

“The strikes will target both decision-making centres and command posts … We are warning foreign citizens, including personnel of diplomatic missions and international organisations, to leave the city as soon as possible,” it added.

But in response to the call to leave the country, Germany’s Federal Foreign Office said on Tuesday that Moscow was resorting to “threats, terror & escalation”, which is why they summoned the Russian ambassador.

“We made it clear to Russia today: We will not be intimidated by threats and will continue to support Ukraine with full force,” the ministry wrote on X.

Norway and the Netherlands also summoned their Russian ambassadors over threats to attack Kyiv.

With no clear end to the war in sight, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated on Tuesday that Washington had remained ready to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, as talks have stalled.

Russia has launched one of its largest attacks on Kyiv since the war began, firing hundreds of drones and missiles across Ukraine overnight.

Speaking to Al Jazeera after visiting damaged sites, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the strikes and the targeting of civilian infrastructure, as Ukraine vowed retaliation.

A Ukrainian strike collapsed a five-storey college dormitory in the Russian-occupied city of Starobilsk, killing four people and injuring at least 39 others. Rescue operations continue as more people are believed to be trapped under the rubble.

There appears to be a shift in the years-long conflict in Ukraine.

Last weekend, Ukrainian forces struck deeper into Russian territory, piercing its air defences in a large strike on the Moscow region.

This came a week after fears of a Ukrainian attack forced Russia to scale down its annual Victory Day parade.

Kyiv’s also been relentlessly striking Russia’s oil facilities and military logistics, as it tries to disrupt supplies to the front lines.

All this as Russian missiles and drones continue to target sites across Ukraine.

So, where does the war stand in its fifth year? Does any one side have the upper hand?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Peter Zalmayev – Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative

Pavel Felgenhauer – Russian foreign policy analyst

Mark Episkopos – Research fellow at the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia Program

Russia launched more than 1,400 drones and 56 missiles into Ukraine on Wednesday and Thursday.

Much of the onslaught was aimed at the capital Kyiv, days after Russia threatened to do so only if Ukraine attacked its Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square on May 9. It is a major Russian holiday commemorating the end of the Second World War.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had proposed a ceasefire, beginning as early as May 5.

Moscow did not respond until May 7, and presented its peace proposal as a unilateral initiative, accompanied by threats to punish Kyiv if it did not respect its terms.

Moscow said Russian front line units would “launch a massive missile strike” on central Kyiv if attacked.

Forty-three Russian drones and a number of ballistic missiles were launched into Ukraine on May 9, and another 27 drones on May 10. It was not until May 11 that Ukraine had a day of peace.

Moscow justified these attacks as reciprocity for Ukrainian assaults. Kyiv accused Moscow of breaking its own ceasefire.

Once the ceasefire was over, on the night of May 11, Russia launched 216 drones and followed up with a massive strike involving 892 drones overnight on May 12 and during the day on May 13.

The night of May 13-14 was worse with 675 drones accompanied by 56 missiles.

Official Ukrainian reports recorded strikes in at least 20 locations in the capital, including a nine-storey apartment building where 12 people were killed in the collapse.

“These are ordinary residential buildings, a school, a veterinary clinic, and other purely civilian infrastructure,” wrote Zelenskyy on his Telegram messaging channel. “These are definitely not the actions of those who believe that the war is coming to an end.”

Throughout the week, Ukraine said it shot down 92 percent of the 1,930 drones launched, close to Zelenskyy’s 95 percent kill target, with 41 out of 57 missiles downed.

Russia’s army slows down

Russia’s onslaught of came as its armies in eastern Ukraine slowed down.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, estimated they had advanced by an average of 2.9 sq km (1.1 sq miles) in the first four months of 2026, compared with 9.76 sq km (3.76 sq miles) a day in the first third of 2025 and 14.9 sq km (5.8 sq miles) a day between October 2024 and March 2025.

Two weeks into May, that daily average had already dropped to 2.63 sq km (1 sq mile), suggesting Russia’s advance is slowing almost daily.

The ISW recently estimated that Ukraine made net territorial gains of 116 sq km (45 sq miles) in April – its first such advance since a September 2023 counteroffensive.

Some of that success is attributed to Ukraine’s successful use of drones behind the front lines.

On May 8, the Azov Corps of Ukraine’s National Guard announced it had “returned to Mariupol”, four years almost to the day since it surrendered control of the city to Russian forces.

The Corps filmed drone strikes on Russian diesel tankers, army trucks and other logistics 160 km (99 miles) behind the front line along the T-0509 highway, which feeds the Russian war effort in the Donetsk region.

“The strike depth will increase,” said the Azov Corps.

Their strikes are part of a broader Ukrainian campaign to hit Russian logistics at middle ranges of about 120-150 km (75-90 miles) from the front line as announced by Zelenskyy at the end of April.

“This primarily involves military logistics, enemy warehouses and headquarters, air defence systems and other components,” he said, adding that Ukraine had increased its strikes at this depth five-fold during the past year.

“We’re already carrying out about five thousand successful strikes at a depth of 20 plus km (12 miles) every month,” said Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov this week.

Also this week, a Russian military reporter said Ukrainian Hornet drones were targeting Russian logistics on roads closer to the frontlines.

“Although the front line is more than 35 km away from the M-30, it is currently paralysed due to enemy [First Person View drone] surveillance,” wrote the Russian reporter.

“In 2014-2015 the front line was closer, but the M-30 was safer,” he added. “This is because many people think that if the front line moves away from large cities and logistics routes they become safer, but for some reason no one takes into account that the range of enemy drones, even FPV surveillance, increases more rapidly relative to the movement of the front line.”

Russia’s declining performance is not due to lack of effort.

“The enemy has intensified offensive actions along almost the entire front and is regrouping its troops,” said Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on May 8. “The most tense area is currently the Pokrovsk direction, where the Russian aggressor has concentrated about 106,000 personnel,” he said.

Since March, Ukraine has increased strikes against Russian oil infrastructure as many as 1,700 km (1,056 miles) inside Russia, in an effort to starve its war machine of diesel and export revenue.

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said the Ukraine Security Service (SBU) hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery and Perm oil pumping station on May 8 – Perm sends oil in four directions across Russia to refineries and export terminals.

Russian media reports said the fire from a previous strike on the pumping station was not put out until May 11.

The SBU also said it hit the Perm refinery that day.

During the week, Ukrainian forces struck drone bases and a radar research centre in Rostov-on-Don, the Bryansk chemical plant, an explosives warehouse in Nizhny Novgorod and other targets.

Fedorov on Monday thanked Germany for investing $1bn in Ukraine’s deep strike capabilities, when his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, visited Kyiv.

“Overall, Ukraine’s positions right now – on the front line, in our long-range sanctions, and in our joint results with partners – are the strongest they have been in years,” said Zelenskyy.

Finnish authorities scramble fighter jets; defence chief says false alarm but warns of potential repeats while Russian war persists.

Finland has stood down its defence forces after sounding an alarm over suspected drone activities in its airspace.

The authorities said on Friday that suspected drone activity above the Helsinki region no longer posed a threat and that the situation was ⁠returning to normal hours after launching an emergency response, including the launch of fighter jets and closure of the capital’s airport.

The alarm illustrates the tension stalking the region as Finland and the Baltic states eye Russian aggression and daily missile and drone attacks amid Moscow’s continued war on Ukraine.

The Helsinki City Rescue Department had warned the nearly 2 million inhabitants of Finland’s Uusimaa region to stay indoors starting about 4am local time (1:00 GMT), as fighter jets were scrambled. Helsinki’s airport was also closed for about three hours.

Later, President Alexander Stubb wrote on X that authorities had “demonstrated their readiness and capacity to react”, adding that the country was now facing “no direct military threat”.

Kimmo Kohvakka, director general for rescue services at the Ministry of the Interior, called the response a “precautionary measure” and said “daily life can continue.”

The incident arose amid growing concerns about regional spillover from the Ukraine war.

The Baltic states of ‌Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have reported a series of suspected Ukrainian drones headed for Russia entering their airspace, prompting domestic criticism over their ability to respond to military threats.

The situation has led to a full-blown government crisis in Latvia. Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned on Thursday after a coalition partner pulled support. The move followed the ousting of the defence minister after a drone crashed at a fuel storage facility.

In March, two drones crossed into Finnish territory and crashed after flying low over the sea and southeastern Finland.

Finnish authorities did not indicate the source of Friday’s drone activity.

However, defence forces operations chief Kari Nisula suggested that Finland had received information from Ukraine about drones potentially straying into the country, according to the Reuters news agency.

The military head added that there was no evidence that drones had entered Finland, but that such situations could happen again as long as Russia continues its war on Ukraine.

Prisoner swap

The incident in Finnish airspace unfolded as Ukraine maintained its drone attacks on Russian oil and energy infrastructure, and Kyiv continued counting the costs of a huge strike that killed two dozen people.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Friday that its air defence systems shot down 355 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow overnight, as well as the border regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk.

Among the targets was an oil refinery ⁠in the central city ⁠of Ryazan, about 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, according to the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces.

The attack killed three people ⁠and wounded 12, regional Governor Pavel Malkov wrote on Telegram. Two high-rise apartment buildings were struck, he said, while debris fell on the grounds of an industrial enterprise.

Meanwhile in Kyiv, the death toll from a Russian barrage on an apartment building on Thursday rose to at least 24 people, including three children, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Forty-eight people were wounded.

Amid the ongoing violence, Russia and Ukraine have moved ahead with a prisoner swap that saw 205 POWs repatriated on each side ⁠on Friday. It was the first step of a swap that is planned to ultimately see 1,000 people on each side return home.

The two sides also conducted an exchange of those killed in the fighting, with Russia handing 526 bodies to Ukraine and receiving 41 in return. Both Kyiv and Moscow thanked the United Arab Emirates for mediating the swap.

Zelenskyy wrote on social media that most of the prisoners returned to Ukraine had been in Russian captivity since 2022.

“We will continue to fight for every single person who remains in captivity,” he said.

A UN humanitarian convoy delivering aid to the city of Kherson was hit twice by drones, despite prior coordination with Ukrainian and Russian forces. No injuries were reported, and the UN has not attributed the attack to either side.

President Zelenskyy says rescue operations continue after Russia used ‘more than 1,560 drones’ during its overnight attacks.

Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones targeting Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, killing at least three people and wounding 40 others, Ukrainian authorities have said.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that the overnight strikes hit six districts of Kyiv and another six in the surrounding areas. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said attacks had targeted ports in the southern Odesa region and railways.

In a post on X, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said rescue operations were continuing following an attack on a nine-storey building in Kyiv after Russia launched “more than 670 attack drones and 56 missiles against Ukraine”.

“In total, since midnight yesterday, Russia has used more than 1,560 drones against our cities and communities. These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end,” he wrote on Thursday.

“It is important that partners do not remain silent about this strike. And it is equally important to continue supporting the protection of our skies,” Zelenskyy added.

The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, said 40 people were wounded in the attacks, including two children, while Ukrainian emergency services said three people had been killed.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Audrey Macalpine said people are still feared trapped under the rubble of the building.

Macalpine said it was one of Russia’s largest attacks of the war, “in a single 36-hour period just by sheer number of drones”.

The attack comes as a setback for efforts to end the war after United States President Donald Trump raised faint hopes for peace by brokering a three-day ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow last week, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin suggested the war could be winding down.

The truce – put in place as Putin presided over a scaled-down military parade in Red Square to mark the anniversary of World War II victory – was marred by allegations of violations by both sides.

Ukraine and Russia launched long-range drone attacks immediately after it ended on Tuesday.

The Kremlin has poured cold water on the idea that Putin’s vague comments, issued Saturday, about the war “heading to an end” could mean a softening in Moscow’s position.

On Wednesday, it repeated its demand that Ukraine fully withdraw from the eastern Donbas region before a ceasefire and full-scale peace talks can take place.

Kyiv has rejected such a move as tantamount to capitulation.

Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with drones and missiles early on Thursday, officials said, damaging several buildings, including one which partially collapsed with residents likely trapped under rubble.

One killed and four others wounded in attacks on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, local administration chief says.

Russia and Ukraine have resumed air attacks after a United States-brokered three-day truce expired, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying more than 200 drones were used to attack Ukraine overnight.

Russian aerial attacks across Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Tuesday morning killed at least one person and injured four others, according to regional administration chief Oleksandr Ganzha.

Russian drones also hit energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region, causing outages, and struck residential buildings and a kindergarten in the Kyiv region, according to local authorities. Russia also carried out attacks on the regions of Kharkiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Chernihiv, according to authorities.

More than 200 long-range drones were used in the wave of attacks, Zelenskyy said. “Russia itself chose to end the partial silence that had lasted for several days,” he said in a post on X.

Russia’s military, meanwhile, said its defences downed 27 Ukrainian drones over the regions of Belgorod, Voronezh and Rostov.

The exchange of aerial attacks came after the expiry of a 72-hour truce announced by US President Donald Trump on Friday, which he said he hoped would mark “the beginning of the end” of Russia’s four-year war on Ukraine.

The May 9-11 truce overlapped with Russia’s Victory Day, which celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.

But even before it expired, both sides accused each other of violating the truce by attacking civilians.

Zelenskyy said Russia was neither observing the truce nor “even particularly trying to”, adding there had been no calm in front-line areas despite a lull in large-scale attacks.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defence accused Ukraine of committing more than 1,000 ceasefire violations. It said Ukrainian forces attacked civilian targets in several Russian regions and carried out strikes against Russian military positions on the front line.

Russia’s military had “responded in kind” to the ceasefire violations, according to the Defence Ministry.

US-backed negotiations on ending the Russia-Ukraine war have made little headway and have been largely sidelined by the crisis in the Middle East amid the US-Israel war on Iran. Trump’s ceasefire announcement had raised some hope that US-led talks to end Russia’s invasion could be resumed.

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested for the first time that the Ukraine war may be “coming to an end” and expressed a willingness to meet Zelenskyy in Moscow or a neutral country once an agreement to end the war is finalised. He also accused the “arrogant” West of risking a global conflict, warning that Russia’s “strategic forces” are combat-ready.