Kyiv hit with ballistic missiles as border violence spirals
Ballistic missiles strike Kyiv Sunday as border fighting intensifies. Deaths reported across Ukraine and Russia. Plus: Vucic quits amid Serbian unrest.
Kyiv woke to air raid sirens Sunday morning as ballistic missiles struck the Ukrainian capital, forcing residents underground. Mayor Vitali Klitschko told people to stay in shelters while air defences worked overhead. Explosions lit up the sky across the city.
The strike's timing matters—it comes after a brutal Saturday along the Russia-Ukraine border that left civilians dead on both sides. Russian artillery hammered Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy in eastern Ukraine, killing at least two people. Ukraine hit back, targeting Volgograd and Belgorod in southwestern Russia, plus Horlivka in Donetsk. Those attacks killed three.
In the Russian border region of Bryansk, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two people sitting in a car in a village near the frontier, according to the acting governor. Moscow claimed its air defences downed 124 Ukrainian drones between 8 am and 8 pm Saturday across various regions.
Nikopol, a town in Dnipropetrovsk that sits across the Dnieper River from Russia's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, took a battering again. Over 40 drone strikes and artillery rounds killed one person and wounded another, the regional governor said. The town's basically become a regular target at this point.
Meanwhile, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic announced he'd step down within weeks and call early elections, buckling under 18 months of anti-government protests over corruption and media control. The country's trying to join the EU but refuses to align with European sanctions on Russia—a sticking point Brussels won't ignore. Serbia also needs to sort out its judiciary and crack down on crime if it wants membership.
Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko met Friday at Putin's Valdai residence northwest of Moscow. The Kremlin said they discussed trade, economic projects, and regional security—though everyone assumes Ukraine dominated the conversation. Zelenskyy warned Lukashenko earlier this month to pull Russian equipment out of Belarus being used for attacks.
