标签： Europe

In a targeted strike that has raised tensions ahead of planned US-mediated peace negotiations this weekend, a Russian drone struck the central Kyiv headquarters of Ukraine’s top domestic security agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed. The attack took place on Friday afternoon, with the unmanned aerial vehicle striking directly at a room assigned to Oleksandr Poklad, head of the SBU’s operations in the building. As of Friday evening, it remained unclear whether Poklad was present in the facility at the time of the impact, but Zelensky said he had already spoken with the security chief to order a proportional, measurable response to the assault.

Zelensky confirmed in a Telegram statement that the drone was intentionally aimed at the senior SBU official’s office, a development that military analysts say points to improving accuracy in Russia’s latest generation of attack drones. The strike also fuels speculation that Moscow is ramping up offensive operations ahead of the scheduled diplomatic talks, in a bid to strengthen its negotiating position. “All emergency services are on the scene. Everyone affected will receive the necessary assistance,” Zelensky wrote in his public update. He added: “I instructed Poklad to deliver an appropriate, tangible response and, where possible, one that mirrors this strike, to the Russians once everything is ready. Our military will support this response.”

Visual footage of the attack circulated widely across social media and news platforms, showing thick black smoke billowing from two upper-floor windows on the building’s facade. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that five people were injured in the strike, though he did not specify whether the casualties were SBU staff inside the building. A nearby café, part of a popular local chain, suffered significant structural damage, and one civilian customer was transported to a local hospital for treatment. Stanislav Zavertaylo, co-owner of the damaged café, told the BBC that this was the third location of his chain to be destroyed or damaged since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. “Now I’m in shock because there’s a lot of damage. All the windows are broken, there’s a lot of glass, garbage,” he said.

In a separate announcement released Friday, Russia’s defense ministry confirmed it had also targeted a cargo vessel in the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk and a commercial tanker near Odesa in coordinated strikes overnight. Over the past several weeks, Moscow has significantly escalated its daytime airstrike campaign against key Ukrainian infrastructure and government targets, increasingly deploying faster, jet-powered drones that are far more difficult for Ukrainian air defense systems to intercept. It has not yet been confirmed what type of drone was used in the SBU headquarters attack.

This successful strike on a high-profile central Kyiv government building marks a rare breakthrough for Russian offensive operations. Prior to this attack, key Ukrainian government facilities in the capital had remained largely unharmed despite repeated Russian attempts to target administrative and security infrastructure amid the Kremlin’s ongoing military campaign. The SBU headquarters is located just a short distance from Kyiv’s iconic St Sophia Cathedral, the oldest standing building in the capital, and the agency plays a central role in Ukraine’s war effort, leading deep cross-border strikes against Russian military and infrastructure targets.

Witnesses in the area described the attack unfolding during a routine air raid alert, with a brief high-pitched whine of the incoming drone followed by a deafening explosion that sent shockwaves across nearby neighborhoods and sent plumes of smoke rising over the city skyline. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry representative Andriy Sybiha condemned the attack as a deliberate act of escalation timed to undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts. “Moscow launched this strike during a renewed push for peace – laying bare its true rejection of diplomacy,” Sybiha said, adding that the assault “is a major escalation that demands resolute responses.”

The strike comes just days ahead of a planned visit by US mediators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are set to travel to both Moscow and Kyiv this weekend as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire and end the 3-year-old full-scale war. According to Axios, which cited anonymous senior US officials, the envoys will first meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday, before traveling to Kyiv for talks with Zelensky on Sunday. Witkoff and Kushner have spearheaded President Donald Trump’s peace initiative since he took office, though the pair have yet to secure a breakthrough on a lasting settlement.

As Serbia prepares to lay to rest former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic — a convicted genocide perpetrator whose legacy continues to split the Balkans decades after the 1992-1995 Bosnian war — European Union officials have framed the coming days as a critical test of Belgrade’s commitment to European values amid its stalled bid for EU membership.

Mladic, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017 by a United Nations war crimes tribunal for overseeing some of the worst atrocities on European soil since World War II, died last week in a Dutch hospital at the age of 84. His remains were flown back to Serbia on a government-owned aircraft Thursday, triggering immediate international backlash over plans for official state honors at his funeral.

Upon the plane’s landing in Belgrade, Mladic’s casket was draped in Serbia’s national flag, carried by uniformed Serbian army soldiers to a waiting van, and escorted through the capital to a military hospital. Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic accompanied Mladic’s family on the repatriation flight, while crowds of nationalist supporters lit flares as the funeral cortege passed through the city. Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, confirmed public arrangements Friday: a military commemoration scheduled for Saturday, public lying-in-state at a central Belgrade church Monday morning, and a burial at a Belgrade cemetery later that day.

Initial comments from Vujic confirming Mladic would receive full state funeral honors sparked outrage across the ethnically fragmented Balkan region, where scars from the 1992-1995 Bosnian war — which killed more than 100,000 people and displaced over a million — remain raw. This is not the first time Serbia has honored a convicted war criminal with official military recognition: just last year, former army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic, also convicted of war crimes by the UN tribunal, was buried with full military honors at Belgrade’s cemetery for distinguished citizens.

Despite its formal status as an EU accession candidate, Serbia has long remained defiant in its reckoning with wartime actions during the Bosnian conflict, where it backed Bosnian Serb separatist forces. Many Serbs across Serbia and the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska still view Mladic as a national hero, and thousands held public vigils for him after his death, with large crowds expected to attend Monday’s burial. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a populist leader whose rule has overseen growing democratic backsliding and a freeze in EU accession talks, sought to distance himself from formal responsibility for the arrangements Friday, noting he had pre-scheduled official meetings for the day of the funeral.

“I have spoken to the Mladic family and I wish it all passes in a dignified way,” Vucic told pro-government outlet Informer TV, adding “I did all I could so that the funeral would pass as it should” without elaborating on what actions he had taken. The EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos reiterated Friday that the bloc is closely watching every step of the process, calling the coming days “a very important test” for Belgrade.

International criticism of the planned honors has mounted rapidly beyond the EU. Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Michael O’Flaherty urged both Serbian and Bosnian Serb authorities Friday to crack down on the public glorification of convicted war criminals, noting that such glorification violates Bosnian law and is not protected as free speech under the European Convention on Human Rights.

“I abhor the public glorification of Ratko Mladic, a deceased war criminal convicted for the Srebrenica genocide and crimes against humanity, including statements by officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s entity of Republika Srpska and in Serbia,” O’Flaherty said in an official statement. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot added that granting official funeral honors to Mladic would be “shameful and disrespectful for the victims,” saying he had already conveyed his strong condemnation to his Serbian counterpart responsible for European integration affairs.

Mladic’s conviction centered on his role in three core wartime atrocities: the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the four-year siege of Sarajevo, and the systematic abuse of non-Serb civilians in wartime concentration camps. The Srebrenica massacre, in which Mladic’s forces overran a UN-declared safe haven for Bosnian Muslims and executed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, remains the only genocide legally recognized on European soil since World War II. Mass graves of Srebrenica victims are still being uncovered decades after the massacre, and survivors and victims’ families continue to push for full accountability for all those involved in the atrocities.

As the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters its third year of full-scale combat following Moscow’s 2022 invasion, the war has reached a new juncture marked by intensifying air strikes and renewed hints of high-level U.S.-brokered diplomatic efforts to end the fighting.

Local Ukrainian officials confirmed Friday that a new wave of Russian attacks across the country overnight left at least three people dead and multiple others injured. In the southern Odesa region, one civilian was killed and five people, including a child, were wounded when a massive barrage hit multiple residential properties, including two multi-story apartment blocks, regional governor Oleh Kiper announced in a Telegram post. Two police officers were killed in overnight strikes in the central-eastern city of Dnipro, while a Russian drone strike on a residential building in Kyiv left three people injured.

The escalation of air attacks marks a shift in Russian tactics: what previously were primarily overnight raids on civilian and infrastructure targets now regularly occur during daytime hours, leaving Ukrainian communities under near-constant threat. The ground front line across eastern and southern Ukraine remains largely stalemated, with neither side able to secure major territorial advances in recent months.

In a parallel development that has drawn global attention, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Thursday in his nightly address that preliminary dates have been set for U.S. diplomatic envoys to hold meetings in both Moscow and Kyiv, with the Kyiv visit expected to take place in the coming days. Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine’s negotiation team maintains near-constant contact with U.S. counterparts and is actively preparing for the talks, stressing that sustained American diplomatic engagement is critical to advancing peace efforts. “This is very important. It is important that America remain actively engaged,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine is ready to hold substantive, high-level negotiations to end the conflict.

Unconfirmed reports from Russian state news agency TASS emerged Friday identifying the U.S. envoys as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who are scheduled to travel to Moscow first before arriving in Kyiv on September 5 and 6. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to confirm the visit when asked by reporters Friday, saying only that the media would be notified officially if such a meeting is scheduled. U.S. officials have also not yet issued any public confirmation of the trip.

Witkoff and Kushner previously traveled to Moscow in January 2026 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a meeting that Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov described as constructive at the time. However, Ushakov also acknowledged that “reaching a long-term settlement can’t be expected without solving the territorial issue,” a core sticking point that has blocked all previous negotiation efforts. Following that January meeting, diplomatic momentum stalled as the White House shifted its strategic focus to escalating tensions with Iran, leading Putin to describe the negotiation process as “frozen” during a public press conference this week. This upcoming trip would mark the first time the pair have visited Kyiv since the start of the full-scale invasion.

The renewed push for diplomacy comes as cross-border strikes have escalated on both sides. On Friday, Russian regional officials reported that a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack hit the Black Sea resort city of Sochi and the adjacent Sirius district, igniting a major fire at an oil depot. Russian media outlets expanded on the report, noting two separate fuel storage facilities were hit, one in each location.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, targeting oil facilities that form the backbone of Russia’s economy as one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters. Months of escalating Ukrainian strikes on refineries and key logistics hubs have caused widespread supply disruptions across Russia, growing economic pressure and mounting public frustration with the Kremlin’s failure to protect critical infrastructure. In response to the strikes, Putin issued a decree last month allowing the Russian state to temporarily seize control of critical infrastructure facilities if private owners fail to implement adequate security measures against drone attacks or refuse to rebuild damaged facilities. Independent analysts say the order is intended to force private energy and logistics companies to allocate more of their own funds to defensive measures and speed the return of damaged assets to operation, regardless of the financial cost to the firms.

In a separate development related to the expanding spillover of the conflict, Finnish authorities announced Friday they are investigating the discovery of a Russian-manufactured drone that washed up on a rocky shoreline in the Pellinge archipelago, located east of the Finnish capital Helsinki. The Finnish Border Guard confirmed the drone appears to be a Geoscan 701, a model produced by one of Russia’s leading domestic drone manufacturers. The model is marketed for large-scale aerial surveying work and is used by both Russian state and civilian operators, the border guard noted, adding that it is too early to determine who was operating the drone or what its intended mission was.

A local fisherman, Peter Kellgren, discovered the drone on Tuesday, telling state broadcaster Yle that the craft was found in open waters and appeared to have drifted ashore from another location.

This report includes contributions from Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Poland, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, and is part of ongoing coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict from The Associated Press.

While Europe wrapped up a record-breaking summer of extreme heat and many European political leaders stepped away for seasonal breaks, Russia never paused its expanded campaign of hybrid aggression across the continent. Alongside intensifying deadly military strikes on civilian infrastructure across Ukraine throughout August, Moscow has sharply ramped up a coordinated sabotage campaign targeting European defense and military-linked sites, according to senior European security officials and independent defense analysts.

The string of high-profile incidents began one month ago, when explosive-laden drones were discovered at Leipzig Airport, a key logistics hub for military aid bound for Ukraine. On Friday, German Interior Ministry formally pinned responsibility for the plot on Moscow, a claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly dismissed as unfounded, with Kremlin officials calling the accusation “absurd.”

The Leipzig discovery was just the opening act of a month-long wave of suspicious incidents stretching from Southern Europe to the Baltic. On August 10, a large fire broke out at a defense manufacturing plant owned by Bulgarian firm EMCO, with initial reports linking the blaze to a truck ignition during a fuel delivery. Three days later, a fire at the KNDS Ammo Italy facility outside Rome triggered a massive explosion; local prosecutors have opened an investigation into negligent disaster involving unknown persons, with local outlet La Repubblica reporting that foreign interference is a key line of inquiry.

On August 15, a fire destroyed the Tallinn factory of Milrem Robotics, a company that supplies unmanned systems to the Ukrainian military, per Kyiv Post. Estonian authorities have arrested two suspects and confirmed that possible Russian sabotage is being treated as a high-priority line of investigation. On August 25, Slovak police announced they had foiled an arson plot targeting a Ukrainian-owned drone manufacturer, seizing a large cache of incendiary materials and arresting three suspects who investigators confirm were acting on external orders. The case is notable because Slovakia has long maintained close political ties to Moscow.

The wave of incidents continued into late August, with Poland — a nation that has emerged as one of the most frequent targets of Russian sabotage — reporting two new attacks on August 30. A fire broke out at a helicopter component manufacturing facility in Lublin, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed arson cannot be ruled out. A second attack on Polish drone producer WB Group was caught on closed-circuit television, showing a masked individual throwing incendiary devices at the facility. Tusk labeled the incident a “continuation of Russia’s escalatory activities” across Europe. The pattern spilled into September, when German authorities arrested two Bulgarian suspects in Munich on suspicion of arson, after they allegedly threw incendiary devices from a vehicle at the site of defense firm Rhode & Schwartz.

While Russian-linked sabotage across Europe is not a new phenomenon — past plots have targeted seemingly random sites ranging from Ikea retail locations to Polish paint supply stores — analysts agree that the current concentration of attacks on military and defense infrastructure marks a significant shift. “The intensity of attacks on military sites we have seen over the past two months is unprecedented,” explained Daniela Richterova, a researcher in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She links this sharp uptick in activity to battlefield developments in the war in Ukraine, noting that Kyiv has increasingly expanded strikes deep into Russian territory, putting political and military pressure on the Kremlin to respond.

Richterova argues that the current Kremlin strategy is best described as “coercive signalling”: Moscow is raising the stakes for European nations that provide military support to Ukraine, aiming to pressure governments to pull back on aid by demonstrating the domestic security risks of backing Kyiv. Germany, which has become Ukraine’s largest bilateral supplier of military aid after ramping up support following the 2022 invasion, has become a key target for this campaign.

Other analysts offer alternative interpretations, suggesting that the sabotage campaign is as much about testing NATO’s defensive posture and willingness to respond as it is about cutting off military aid to Ukraine. “Russia is probing the boundaries of what European nations will accept as acceptable behavior, while collecting data on what attack methods work and which critical infrastructure is most vulnerable,” said Keir Giles, a senior researcher at the London-based Chatham House think tank. He frames the current campaign as deliberate preparation for a next phase of Russian aggression in Europe, designed to test how much retaliation Moscow can expect even after repeated attacks on allied territory.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which tracks cross-European sabotage incidents, notes that the current surge mirrors a similar spike in activity in 2024, shortly after Ukraine’s Western allies approved the use of long-range Western-supplied weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. That 2024 wave was dominated by a parcel bomb plot, where Russia was accused of sending packages containing liquid explosives to locations in the UK and Poland; one device ignited shortly before it was to be loaded onto a DHL cargo plane, an incident analysts now view as a test run for a larger future attack. “That plot marked a clear escalation in Moscow’s willingness to risk mass civilian casualties,” Giles added. The plot was so serious that the White House directly intervened to warn the Kremlin to halt the activity, drawing a line that Moscow appeared to acknowledge at the time, but attacks have continued unabated.

German domestic media recently published leaked details from a federal police report showing that more than 165 suspected sabotage incidents have been recorded across Germany alone in 2025, though the report does not officially assign blame for the majority of cases. German security sources familiar with the Leipzig investigation have told local media that the individuals who placed and launched the explosive drones at the airport are believed to be Russian operatives, with at least one thought to have entered Germany specifically to carry out the plot.

This would mark a break from the majority of recent Russian sabotage operations in Europe, which have almost exclusively relied on Russian proxies often described as a “gig economy of sabotage.” Most of these operatives are Russian-speaking residents from former Soviet states, recruited online to carry out attacks for cash rather than ideological commitment. The BBC previously reported on a case in Poland where a pair of recruited saboteurs had previously volunteered to fight for Ukraine against Russian forces, demonstrating the cash-driven nature of the work. Operational handlers almost always remain based in Russia, coordinating attacks remotely via online communication tools. The IISS compares this model to the use of disposable kamikaze drones: low-cost, easy to deploy in large numbers, and designed to be expendable if operatives are caught. The amateur nature of most operatives does lead to mistakes, however: the 2024 parcel plot was partially aborted after one operative failed to locate a correct parcel pickup point, abandoning the mission entirely. If Moscow deployed professional operatives for the Leipzig plot, analysts say that indicates the Kremlin prioritized a precise, successful attack on the critical aid hub. In the end, the drones malfunctioned and never reached their intended target.

Russian hybrid sabotage campaigns draw heavily on Cold War-era playbooks, according to Richterova’s research. Soviet-era sabotage target lists included almost identical types of infrastructure, and the Soviet Union relied on the same deniable, small-scale attack model during peacetime, with plans to scale up operations once open conflict began. “I think we are still in the grey zone between peacetime and open war, but the attacks we have seen over recent weeks are rapidly shrinking that grey space,” Richterova explained. “That increases the risk of miscalculation around what happens next.”

As NATO works to coordinate a unified response to the rising threat, key strategic questions remain unanswered: at what point do dozens of small, deniable attacks add up to an open act of Russian aggression that requires a formal allied response? The greatest risk of all, analysts warn, is accidental escalation. If an explosive package had detonated mid-flight on a cargo plane, or if a Leipzig drone had struck a commercial passenger aircraft, the resulting casualties would force NATO to take tangible action that could spark a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia. “A major accidental attack that causes mass casualties would leave NATO no room to step back,” Richterova said. “In the current heightened security environment, the alliance would have no choice but to respond.”