标签： Europe

On Wednesday, Ukraine carried out a coordinated series of long-range attacks targeting key assets hundreds of kilometers inside Russian territory, a calculated escalation of Kyiv’s strategy to increase the military and economic cost of Moscow’s full-scale invasion for the Kremlin. The strikes hit deep behind Russian lines at energy facilities and defense manufacturing sites, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who outlined the scope of the operation in a public social media address.

Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukrainian forces used domestically developed FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles to strike a key military industrial facility in Cheboksary, the capital of Russia’s Chuvashiya region. The site sits more than 900 kilometers (over 560 miles) from the active front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine, marking one of the farthest inland Ukrainian strikes to date. Zelenskyy noted the facility produces critical components for Russian attack drones and missiles, weapons Moscow relies on heavily for its ongoing campaign against Ukraine. Oleg Nikolayev, the regional governor of Chuvashiya, later verified the missile strike but declined to release further details on damage or casualties. Independent Russian outlet Astra News reported the target was the VNIIR-Progress plant, which manufactures antenna systems for Russian military drones.

Additional strikes hit a second key energy site in Russia’s Samara region, where local governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev confirmed drone attacks damaged multiple industrial facilities and left three people injured. Though Fedorishchev did not publicly name the affected sites, Astra published photographs showing a massive uncontrolled blaze burning at the region’s large oil refinery. Zelenskyy added that Ukraine’s domestic security agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), carried out separate attacks on two more oil infrastructure sites in Russia’s Vladimir region, located roughly 700 kilometers from the front.

The long-range assault also extended to Russia-occupied Crimea, where a Ukrainian drone struck a historic landmark in the port city of Sevastopol: a building housing a massive panoramic painting by 19th century artist Franz Rubo that depicts the 1850s defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Kremlin-appointed head of Sevastopol, claimed the artwork was completely destroyed in the strike.

The cross-border strikes come amid a prolonged period of stagnation along the roughly 1,000-kilometer front line, where both Moscow and Kyiv have been hampered by widespread drone use that prevents large-scale territorial advances. In response, both nations have increasingly turned to long-range strikes to weaken the opposing side’s military capacity and public morale. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the deep and increasingly audacious Ukrainian attacks pose a direct political challenge, undermining his repeated public claims that Russia is gaining the upper hand in the war, which entered its fifth year in 2025.

The latest strikes follow just one week after Ukrainian attacks set fire to an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and struck a nearby Russian naval base, an incident that overshadowed Putin’s major annual economic forum held in his hometown. That disruption marked just one in a string of recent political setbacks for the Russian leader: just weeks before the St. Petersburg attack, Putin ordered significant cuts to Moscow’s annual Victory Day military parade over widespread security fears of potential Ukrainian drone strikes on the capital.

Russia did not leave the Ukrainian strikes unanswered. Overnight, Russia launched a massive wave of drone and missile attacks across multiple Ukrainian regions. In the northeastern region of Kharkiv, regional administration head Oleh Syniehubov reported that a barrage of 26 drones struck early Wednesday, injuring four people. Overall, Syniehubov said Russian attacks across Kharkiv killed one person and wounded 15 others in the 24-hour period ending Wednesday morning. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, 10 people were injured in overnight Russian aerial strikes, according to regional governor Ivan Fedorov. In the Black Sea port city of Odesa, regional governor Oleh Kiper reported that Russian drone strikes damaged two residential apartment buildings, leaving a mother and her two children, aged 8 and 10, in need of medical care.

Ukraine’s Air Force reported that its air defense systems successfully intercepted 181 out of the 207 Russian drones launched in the attack. Russia’s Defense Ministry for its part claimed that its own air defenses shot down 326 Ukrainian drones overnight during the cross-border strike operation.

On June 9, 2026, as Pope Leo XIV kicked off a prayer vigil during his seven-day official visit to Spain at Barcelona’s Lluis Companys Olympic Stadium, a centuries-old cultural tradition delivered a one-of-a-kind Catalan welcome to the pontiff. At the peak of a nearly 33-foot human tower, or “castell” in the local Catalan language, stood 8-year-old Bruna Vall Galán, the youngest member of the famed Vilafranca del Penedes casteller collective selected to perform for the Pope.

Castells, recognized as a defining cultural treasure of northeastern Spain’s Catalonia region, are far more than a breathtaking display of physical balance, collective strength, and precise coordination. For Catalan communities, these towering human structures are a core pillar of regional cultural identity, binding generations together through shared practice and collective pride. The Associated Press was granted exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the Castellers de Vilafranca — one of the region’s most decorated castell groups — documenting the entire journey from the pre-performance bus ride to post-performance celebration.

More than 130 group members traveled 50 kilometers from their hometown of Vilafranca del Penedes, a small town nestled in Catalonia’s renowned Cava wine region, to Barcelona for the performance. Dressed in the collective’s iconic uniform: jade green shirts, white trousers, fitted black sashes, and red polka-dot bandanas, the team prepared for the high-stakes performance. The sashes and bandanas are not just decorative: they provide critical grip for climbers as they ascend and descend the structure built entirely of interconnected human bodies.

Ernest Gallart Pérez, president of the Castellers de Vilafranca, emphasized the inclusive ethos that lies at the heart of the castell tradition. “A fundamental richness of castells is that anybody can take part, independently of their age, their culture, their weight or height, their beliefs or ideologies. Every person has their place on the structure,” he explained.

For many members, castells are more than a cultural practice — they are a multigenerational family legacy. Bruna’s mother Maria Vall Camell joined the collective at 18, and later met her husband within the group’s tight-knit community. Aida Ibañez Sadurní, who performed alongside her father Xavier Ibañez Sanz, described the deep emotional bond the tradition fosters. “It’s union, family, strength,” she said. “When we get everybody down, we hug each other crying, and it’s the biggest emotion.”

Constructing a stable 10-meter castell requires months of dedicated training and coordination, though the full structure goes up in mere minutes. The process begins with a large, solid base: dozens of members stand pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in tight concentric circles, arms intertwined and heads rested against neighboring shoulders to distribute weight evenly. Successive smaller groups of climbers then ascend, forming stable standing rings layer by layer, until the “anxaneta” — the young child who serves as the tower’s symbolic peak — claims the top position. On Tuesday, that role fell to Bruna, who waved to the crowd of 40,000 from the summit before making the safe descent.

When the entire team reached the ground safely and the castell was disassembled without incident, Pope Leo XIV broke into a broad smile, and the stadium erupted in cheers as loud as a top-tier professional football match. Àngel Grau, the group’s head coach or “cap de colla”, spoke to reporters after the performance, still sweaty from the physical effort, beaming with pride. “It’s a relief, I’m very happy, very joyful,” he said, as the team made their way back to the buses for the return trip. “There were a lot of people watching us from around the world, and whether you believe a lot or believe less, it’s such an occasion for pride for us.”

Beyond high-profile events like the Pope’s visit, castells are woven into the fabric of everyday Catalan life, featured at patron saint festivals, regional competitions, and community gatherings that draw hundreds of participants annually. As Maria Vall Camell noted on the bus ride to Barcelona, the tradition captures the core of Catalan community values. “The human towers are like the skyline of Catalonia. They are an identity, very important for our culture, and they represent very well our society, that we work together as a team,” she said.

This coverage of religion and culture is part of an AP collaboration with The Conversation US, supported by funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Associated Press holds sole editorial responsibility for this content.

BARCELONA, Spain – On the second stop of his week-long tour of Spain, Pope Leo XIV used a high-profile evening youth rally at Barcelona’s iconic Olympic Stadium Tuesday to urge the country’s young Catholics to hold fast to their faith, while engaging in unprecedentedly candid conversations about two crippling modern challenges: youth depression and systemic domestic abuse.

Even against the backdrop of Spain’s widely documented modern secular shift, the American-born pontiff drew a massive crowd of roughly 40,000 attendees, who greeted him with deafening cheers as he traveled the stadium loop in his popemobile. The crowd’s energy surged each time the pope paused to bless infants or flash his now-famous signature “6-7” hand gesture, a moment that quickly became a highlight for many in attendance.

The event opened with a heartfelt tribute to Catalan cultural heritage, featuring a performance by the region’s world-renowned castellers – acrobats who build intricate human towers. When the smallest casteller reached the summit of an eight-story tower, waved to the crowd, and descended safely, Pope Leo led the audience in a warm round of appreciative applause. Going beyond pre-event plans, the pontiff also wove extended passages of Catalan into his remarks during the subsequent prayer vigil, a choice that resonated deeply with the local audience.

The centerpiece of the vigil was a raw, unflinching question-and-answer session with young adults, a standard format for papal visits but one that took on unusual gravity given the vulnerable stories shared. One young woman opened up to Pope Leo about surviving a suicide attempt and the persistent “darkness” that accompanies recurring depression. Another shared a harrowing account of her father’s attempt to kill her mother, a childhood spent in juvenile detention, and the lingering pain of grappling with whether she could ever forgive her abusive parent.

Pope Leo praised the young people for their courage and honesty in sharing their struggles publicly. He traced much of the current youth mental health crisis to a modern societal culture that demands constant perfection from young people and pushes them to hide their moments of pain and darkness. He framed the “silent illness” of youth depression as a shared burden mirroring the suffering of Jesus Christ during his crucifixion.

“In those dark hours, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus shared our pain and revealed to us the face of a compassionate God, who bears our sorrows, who suffers with us, weeps our tears and remains at our side with his presence full of love and mercy,” the pope told the crowd.

Beyond societal pressures, he also called out toxic family dynamics where domestic abuse is normalized as a root cause of many of the challenges facing young people today. “So many crime reports, even today, reflect a toxic climate in family relationships marked by abuse and oppression and, in particular, by violence against women, which unfortunately often leads to femicide,” he noted.

Pope Leo encouraged young people to draw comfort and strength from their faith, and earned resounding applause when he called for expanded, improved public health services to address both unmet mental health needs and the aftermath of domestic violence. “We are all called to address this dramatic reality, both personally and as a society, because we are responsible for confronting it in all its dimensions,” he said.

The pope’s Spain tour centers on a message of hope for young people in a country that was once overwhelmingly Catholic, but saw a steep decline in religious participation following the end of 20th century dictatorship and the transition to democracy. In recent years, however, both church leaders and sociologists have noted a growing spiritual curiosity among young Spaniards, with anecdotal evidence pointing to rising rates of adult conversion to Catholicism.

Patricia Garzón, a 25-year-old attendee who came to the vigil with a friend, shared her own experience of how faith sustains her amid modern pressures. “I believe that it is more difficult (for young people) today because before social media didn’t exist, and today we are constantly comparing ourselves with one another (online),” she said. “And we need someone from above to help us, to help us see that he loves us for who we are, not how others want us to see ourselves.”

The culmination of Pope Leo’s visit to Catalonia is scheduled for Wednesday, when he will formally inaugurate the newly completed central Tower of Jesus Christ at Antoni Gaudí’s world-famous Sagrada Familia basilica, one of the most visited religious landmarks in the world.

This coverage of religious news from the Associated Press was produced through a collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The Associated Press holds sole editorial responsibility for this content.