标签： Europe

A devastating aerial assault on residential neighborhoods in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia has left one civilian dead and dozens injured, marking the latest in a years-long pattern of Russian use of largely uncountered heavy weaponry against Ukrainian population centers, regional officials confirmed Monday.

Over a 90-minute window Sunday evening, Russian warplanes deployed eight powerful guided glide bombs across four districts of the city, Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov announced. The attack killed a 71-year-old woman and left 31 people wounded, among them a 16-year-old girl. At least 22 multi-unit apartment buildings suffered significant damage in the strike, adding to the massive toll of civilian infrastructure destruction from Russia’s full-scale invasion, which entered its fifth year this year.

Glide bombs, a weapon Russia has relied on heavily since the beginning of its invasion, are modified Soviet-era munitions fitted with modern guidance systems that give them increased accuracy. Each weapon can carry up to 3,000 kilograms of high explosive, enough to leave massive craters and level entire city blocks. Critically, Ukraine currently lacks operational defense systems capable of reliably intercepting these weapons, leaving civilian communities vulnerable to repeated devastating strikes.

The deadly assault came on the heels of a wider wave of long-range Russian attacks across Ukraine that unfolded over the weekend and into Monday. In an overnight barrage from Sunday to Monday, Russia launched 181 long-range strike drones at targets across the country, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. While Ukrainian air defense teams managed to jam and shoot down 163 of the unmanned aerial vehicles, 18 penetrated defenses, damaging infrastructure at 13 separate locations.

The continued onslaught of ballistic missile and glide bomb attacks has pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to issue another urgent appeal to Western allies for additional air defense capabilities, specifically U.S.-manufactured Patriot systems. The Patriot platform is the only weapons system currently in Ukraine’s arsenal that can reliably intercept Russian ballistic missiles, but stockpiles of Patriot interceptors have been stretched dangerously thin globally amid ongoing conflicts including tensions in the Middle East tied to the Iran war.

“The world has Patriot missiles. What matters now is for our partners to make the political decision to provide the necessary packages,” Zelenskyy stated in a social media post Monday. “The United States knows what we need. Europe knows what we need. Anti-ballistic missiles must protect people — not sit in stockpiles.”

The plea comes amid uncertainty over U.S. support for Ukraine’s defense industrial capacity. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump walked back an earlier indication that he would approve a license to allow Ukraine to produce its own Patriot interceptors domestically, telling reporters Friday the issue remains under active review and no final decision has been reached.

In response to this delay, Zelenskyy has floated an alternative proposal: that tech entrepreneur Elon Musk allow Ukraine to use his Starlink satellite internet network to enable targeting of Russian ballistic missile launch sites located inside Russian territory. As of Monday, Ukrainian officials have not publicly confirmed whether the plan is moving forward.

Russian officials have meanwhile reported their own set of alleged strikes and Ukrainian counterattacks over the same 24-hour period. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its forces hit four bulk cargo ships carrying military supplies for Ukraine, three of which were located in Black Sea waters and one docked in the Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv, though no independent verification of the claim has been provided.

Russian-installed authorities in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, said three people were killed and two wounded in an overnight Ukrainian attack on the region. No further details on the strike were released by the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov.

Ukrainian drone strikes have also continued targeting Russian logistics infrastructure, hitting a key warehouse operated by Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer, in the Vladimir region, located east of Moscow. The strike sparked a large fire at the facility, the company confirmed Monday. Three people were injured in the attack, regional governor Alexander Avdeyev said. This latest incident is part of a sustained Ukrainian campaign that has hit more than a dozen Wildberries distribution hubs across Russia, causing significant disruption to the company’s national operations.

On Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defense forces intercepted 131 Ukrainian drones overnight across multiple Russian regions, annexed Crimea, and the Black Sea, matching the scale of the largest recent cross-border drone offensives by Ukraine.

This ongoing cycle of attack and counterattack underscores the continued intensity of fighting across the front lines and deep behind enemy lines more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On a quiet weekday in central Moscow, the heavy security presence that transformed Kudrinskaya Square just days prior has faded. The police cordon surrounding the upscale Balzi Rossi Italian restaurant has been dismantled, and official investigators have wrapped up their initial on-site work and departed the area. But the visible scars of Saturday night’s deadly attack still linger, telling a clear story of the violence that unfolded here.

Standing beside the restaurant’s open-air summer terrace, BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg, reporting from the scene, noted shattered glass panes and walls pocked with shrapnel damage — tangible evidence of the bomb that detonated, leaving death and injury in its wake. Official Russian state media has confirmed that at least three people were killed in the blast, and 21 others were injured, with several reported to be in critical condition in local hospitals.

Per Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee, the explosive device was carried by a woman who attempted to gain entry to the restaurant Saturday night. Multiple independent Russian news outlets have added context to the official narrative, suggesting the woman was likely working as a courier, tasked with delivering a package to a guest attending a private function at the venue. These reports indicate she may have been unaware the parcel contained an explosive. When a private security guard stationed at the restaurant blocked her entry, the device detonated moments later.

In the hours following the attack, unconfirmed reports circulated online claiming a high-ranking senior Russian military commander was among the guests at the private dinner. To date, however, no official confirmation of the guest list or attendance has been released by Russian authorities, and the Kremlin has not yet issued any formal comment on the incident.

While the Kremlin has remained silent, Russia’s Embassy in Italy was quick to release a statement on Sunday directly blaming Ukrainian forces for the attack. Without referencing unconfirmed claims of a Russian military target, the embassy framed the attack as an attempt to intimidate Italian citizens working in Russia. “It is clear that when planning a terrorist attack on one of the best Italian restaurants in Moscow, the Kyiv terrorists wanted to scare Italians working in Russia,” the statement read.

Local residents interviewed on Kudrinskaya Square almost uniformly linked the blast to the ongoing war in Ukraine, a conflict that has seen multiple targeted bombings of senior Russian military figures over the past two years, all of which Moscow has previously blamed on Kyiv.

“The explosions, the deaths, they frighten me,” local resident Ludmila told Rosenberg. “It’s probably linked to the war that’s going on.” Another resident, Galina, directed her anger at the United Kingdom for its military and political support for Ukraine, claiming the attack was the work of British intelligence. She went so far as to confront Rosenberg, a British journalist, over his past coverage of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “I’ve seen you asking our president nasty questions. It makes me want to come up and punch you.”

For Alexandra, a local resident who was walking her dog just steps from the restaurant when the bomb went off, the trauma of the incident is immediate and overwhelming. “I heard a loud bang. I realised immediately that it was an explosion. I live here in the building. It’s terrible,” she said. Days later, she still struggled to process what she witnessed: “I can’t get over this, I can’t. Because it basically happened right in front of me. It was terrible. I just don’t know how I’m going to get over this.”

Notably, the deadly bombing received almost no coverage on major Russian state-controlled television channels over the weekend following the attack. The Sunday morning flagship news bulletin on Russia-1, one of the country’s largest domestic broadcasters, led with segments on Russian missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, national celebrations for Paratroopers’ Day and Railway Workers’ Day, and updates on political developments involving former U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran. There was no mention at all of the explosion in central Moscow, just a short drive from the Kremlin.

Media analysts say the absence of coverage is consistent with a pattern from Russian authorities, who often limit coverage of domestic attacks to avoid stoking widespread public alarm. For residents who experienced the blast firsthand, however, that effort to downplay the incident cannot undo the fear and trauma the attack has left behind.

A devastating mid-air collision between two firefighting helicopters has left two people dead in Greece, as the country grapples with a wave of destructive wildfires fueled by record-breaking heatwaves that have swept across much of Southern Europe this summer.

Local authorities confirmed the identities of the victims: a Danish helicopter pilot and a Greek fire service liaison officer assigned to the mission. On board the second helicopter, a British pilot and a second Greek liaison officer walked away from the crash with their lives, though details of their current health conditions have not yet been released to the public.

Footage of the collision, which took place roughly 40 miles west of Athens in the Psatha region near the Attica-Boeotia border, captures one of the leased Bell helicopters striking the rotor blades of the other. The impact immediately ignited an intense blaze on the damaged aircraft, and both helicopters ultimately crashed into a deep ravine below the collision site.

The crash unfolded as hundreds of Greek firefighters have been locked in what local media has called a “titanic battle” to contain multiple large wildfires that have sprung up across the country over the past week. Blazes are burning across a wide swathe of Greek territory, spanning Porto Germeno, Psatha, Fokida, Megara and Kefalonia. Over 500 firefighters have worked around the clock for 72 straight hours to gain control of the spread, forcing mass evacuations of at-risk communities across the affected regions.

Greece is far from the only European nation facing this climate-fueled crisis. Early this same week, large uncontrolled wildfires broke out in both France and Spain, forcing widespread evacuations. The blazes near Madrid, Spain and Bordeaux, France have been partially contained but continue to burn, though approximately 300,000 people who were forced to leave their homes have begun returning to their properties.

Climate scientists and fire officials have repeatedly warned that human-caused climate change is drastically increasing the frequency and severity of extreme wildfire conditions across the Mediterranean. This year, an unusually mild and wet winter across Southern Europe encouraged more abundant vegetation growth across forests and wildlands. As successive record-breaking heatwaves rolled through the region this summer, that extra vegetation dried out completely, creating massive amounts of highly flammable fuel for wildfires to feed on. While most blazes are still ignited by human activity, whether accidental or intentional, the amplified heat and dry conditions driven by climate change make it far easier for small fires to explode into large, uncontrollable infernos.