Ukrainians mourn 31 killed in Russian strike on Kyiv
A two-year-old was among the five children found dead after Thursday's sweeping Russian drone and missile attack, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday, announcing the end of a more than 24-hour-long rescue operation.
A total of 159 people were wounded in the multi-wave strike, in which Russia launched more than 300 drones and eight missiles early on Thursday, the latest in a campaign of fierce strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities.
The worst damage was to an apartment building that partially collapsed in the Sviatoshyn district in western Kyiv. Damage was also reported in at least three other districts of the capital.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday sharply criticised Russia's "disgusting" behaviour against Ukraine, while saying he was not sure whether sanctions would deter Russia. He has given President Vladimir Putin until August 8 to make a deal or else he will respond with economic pressure.
Natalia Matviyenko, 65, sitting near the damaged apartment building, said she did not place much faith in Trump's tough rhetoric.
"Trump just says, 'I'm upset with President Putin's behaviour.' And what? No results," she said.
The U.S. leader, who returned to power on a pledge to swiftly end the war, has in recent weeks rolled back his earlier conciliatory approach toward Moscow and signalled openness to arming Ukraine.
But a diplomatic effort to end the war has stalled, with Moscow not backing down from what Kyiv and its allies describe as maximalist demands.
On Friday, mourners laid flowers and lit candles at the wrecked apartment block, where rumbling excavators hoisted heavy pieces of rubble. The makeshift shrine included brightly coloured stuffed animals.
Oksana Kinal, 43, who was placing flowers to honour a co-worker who had been killed alongside a son, said she hoped Trump would follow up on his threat but also expressed doubt.
"I think America has a lot of points of leverage that can be used against Russia," she said.
"But will Putin listen to this? I don't know."
Kyiv's air force said on Friday that Ukrainian air defences had destroyed more than 6,000 drones and missiles across the country in July alone.
"The world possesses every instrument required to ensure Russia is brought to justice," Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X on Friday. "What is lacking is not power — but will."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
38 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's DoJ is demanding states hand over election information. Officials are wondering what they intend to do with it
The Department of Justice is on a mission to collect election information, including sensitive voter information, from states as part of President Donald Trump 's executive order cracking down on voting accessibility – but it's left state officials concerned. Over the last three months, the DoJ's Voting Section has reached out to at least 15 states seeking their voter roll, information about individuals who may have violated federal voting laws, and questions about the state's process for identifying and removing ineligible voters, the Associated Press reported. Traditionally, the Voting Section's main focus is to protect citizens' right to vote, but under Trump's direction, it's cracking down on voter fraud – a rare occurrence that Trump has mischaracterized as a major problem in the United States. But some state officials have flagged concerns with the swath of information being requested, saying voter rolls contain private information about individuals and cannot be shared without congressional notification. Utah's Lieutenant Governor Deidre Henderson, the state's top election official, said she refused to provide expansive information on the state's 2.1 million voters to the DoJ. 'We've offered the public voter list. If they want protected data, there's a process for government entities to request it for lawful purposes,' Henderson told The Salt Lake Tribune. 'We'll address that if it comes,' she continued, 'but so far we haven't identified any federal or state statute that would justify handing over to the federal government the personal identifying information of 2.1 million Utah voters,' Henderson added. Officials in at least four California counties told the Associated Press that DoJ officials requested information about the number of people removed from rolls for being noncitizens, including their ID numbers, dates of birth, and voting records. Trump has sought to conduct the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants, in part by targeting individuals using government information. In Colorado, DoJ officials demanded the state hand over 'all records' pertaining to the 2024 election – a massive trove of documents that includes ballots and voting equipment information, as well as records retained from the 2020 election. Last year, the Colorado state Supreme Court tried to bar Trump from appearing on the presidential ballot, claiming he was ineligible because he violated the Fourteenth Amendment by inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of Trump, declaring that states did not have the authority to determine a federal candidate's eligibility. In Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said she was denying the DoJ's request for the state's voter registration list, the names of officials who maintain the list, and the number of ineligible voters due to noncitizenship status. Officials had sent multiple requests for information, one of which insinuated that Maine had an unusually high number of registered voters, the Maine Morning Star reported. 'The nature of these questions suggest that the DOJ is more interested in keeping people that they don't like from voting than promoting voter registration and participation,' Bellows told Maine Morning Star. Already, DoJ officials had spoken to Bellows about a potential 'information-sharing agreement' to provide the department with information on registered voters who are ineligible to vote. Similar requests were made to Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. 'Why on Earth does the Department of Justice need the voter information from all 50 states?' Bellows asked. 'If Congress thought it was appropriate that there be a national voter file, Congress could have authorized the Department of Justice to do that, but they have not.' The DoJ's motivation in collecting such information appears to be to assist its efforts to identify and prosecute those who violate federal election laws. Trump has directed the attorney general and DoJ to collect election information from states to add extra safeguards to elections. Despite no evidence of mass voter fraud or noncitizen voting in the last several elections, Trump has continually claimed the 2020 election was rigged with mass voter fraud and that undocumented migrants voted in the 2024 election.
Daily Mail
39 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Texas homeowners sue Trump for border wall plans that'll ruin their picturesque walks and fishing spots
A group of Texas landowners are railing against President Donald Trump as he seeks to force them to sell parts of their property to build his long promised border wall. Residents in Starr County, in southern Texas, are being hauled to court to face off with high-powered administration lawyers who have filed eminent domain lawsuits. Eminent domain cases are used to force landowners to sell private property for public use, even if the owner does not want to sell. Alejo Clarke, who has lived in the county for 58 years, told The Wall Street Journal he is fighting back against the order. The Trump administration is seeking one acre of his land in order to erect the 18 foot wall. Trump was elected on a campaign promise to make America safer by securing the borders and conducting mass deportations. A spokesperson for the administration noted a border wall is 'the most safe and efficient way possible.' But Clarke claims doing so would cut him off from expansive plots of land where he has fished and hunted his entire life. 'I'm not gonna beat Trump - you know it and I know it,' he said. 'But if someone is going to kick your butt, are you just going to lie down?' Clarke maintained he has not noticed any security problems on his property, and said the billions of dollars the government has allocated to building the wall would be better spent helping farmers in the region bounce back from a water shortage. He claimed the government has offered just $3,000 in compensation for the land it plans to take. Clarke tried to fight a similar plan from the Trump administration during the first term in court by himself, but said that with only a seventh-grade education, he was out of his depth. Biden returned the land to him, but it's now once again at risk. He has hired a lawyer to help him fight the eminent domain lawsuit, but will struggle to afford the associated costs, he said. 'This is the piece they want to take out of me,' he said. 'My entrance y todo.' Raquel Oliva has found herself in a similar situation, fighting to keep land which has been in her family since 1798, growing crops of cotton, hay and tomatoes. The government filed proceedings in February to take over less than three acres of the family's land to construct a portion of the wall. But Oliva said the government's use of three acres would in turn block off access to more than 100 acres where her family has hunted, farmed and operated a gas well. The 75-year-old used AI to help her draft an objection letter to the government, arguing the wall would be detrimental to her family's work. She has requested a 16-foot access gate, an irrigation pipeline and more compensation. 'No one has a problem stopping illegal immigration or drugs, but we live on the border - it's always been like this,' Oliva said. 'Now it feels like an invasion of the government on us.' Since returning to power, the government has filed dozens of eminent domain lawsuits in Texas as the administration seeks to deliver on Trump's promise of securing US borders. These cases are often complex because they involve small patches of land with generations of owners and poorly documented titles. Some of the cases list upwards of 100 defendants who have ownership claims over tiny pockets of land, while others list 'unknown heirs' of late former owners. But Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said completion of the border wall is crucial to the government's policy and national security. ' Successful mass deportations mean nothing if we don't control the border and keep future illegal aliens out,' she recently wrote in a New York Post opinion column. 'That's why the BBB legislation also funds hundreds of miles of new border wall and water-based barriers in the Rio Grande, which will permanently secure the border for decades.' Trump is also ramping up a hiring spree for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The administration has carried out 239,000 deportations so far this year, according to data published by The Washington Post last lmonth.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Ukraine hacks Russian submarine key to Moscow's Arctic expansion
Ukraine claims to have pulled off a major hacking operation, obtaining classified data on a new Russian nuclear submarine and revealing potential vulnerabilities as Moscow intensifies its military presence in the Arctic. Beginning service in late July, the Knyaz Pozharsky is a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine — a key element of Moscow's nuclear triad. It is permanently based in Gadzhiyevo, Murmansk Oblast, and part of Russia's Northern Fleet. The hack potentially exposes the limitations of not only this submarine but the entire Borei class fleet, which underpins Russia's strategic position in the Arctic. The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine agency said the stolen files include detailed crew rosters, combat instructions, technical diagrams of combat systems and survivability measures, operational schedules and engineering reports. The schedule log is a comprehensive document showing the vessel's daily combat and routine operations, it said. • Why did Trump move his best nuclear deterrent? Not for strategic gain 'The information obtained by the intelligence officers allows us to identify the features and technical limitations of not only the Knyaz Pozharsky but also other submarines of the 955A project, which are critical to maintaining the imperial myth of the aggressor state of Russia,' the DIU added. Ukraine's reported Knyaz Pozharsky hack is the latest in a series of intelligence operations targeting Russia and its nuclear triad. In early June, Ukraine's GUR launched 'Spider's Web,' an unprecedented drone attack on Russian military airfields, which destroyed several strategic aviation aircraft, also part of Russia's nuclear triad. 'Nuclear weapons are the main symbol of Russia's global greatness,' Maxim Starchak, an expert in Russia's nuclear policy, wrote for Carnegie at the time. 'Operation Spider's Web was undoubtedly a blow to the Kremlin's pride.' The undermining of Moscow's nuclear prowess on Sunday came as the Russian and Chinese navies carried out anti-submarine drills in the Sea of Japan as part of a scheduled joint exercise. They are taking place just days after President Trump ordered two US nuclear submarines to be positioned in 'the appropriate regions' in response to remarks made by the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. No independent cybersecurity firm or Western agency has confirmed Sunday's claim, and Russia has issued no official statement acknowledging a breach. • How Dmitry Medvedev went from friend of the West to Trump baiter The Knyaz Pozharsky is a Project 955A Borei‑A class submarine, one of the most advanced elements of the Kremlin's nuclear triad, with high stealth capability, manoeuvrability and offensive power. Each sub carries 16 launch silos for R-30 Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles, with each missile capable of delivering up to ten nuclear warheads. The nuclear triad consists of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles that are the core of Russia's nuclear deterrent strategy. Russia has repeatedly escalated nuclear rhetoric throughout the Ukraine conflict, with senior officials threatening potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, though no nuclear arms have been deployed on Ukrainian soil. Last month, President Putin underlined the need to adapt to global military trends and strengthen Russia's nuclear and conventional forces, describing the triad as 'a guarantee of Russia's sovereignty'. During the commissioning event for the Knyaz Pozharsky, Putin announced plans to deploy six more nuclear submarines by 2030 that are to be equipped with Poseidon, an unmanned nuclear-powered underwater vehicle. In the Arctic, Russia has continued to step up its military and economic activities over the past decade. The region is strategically significant due to its vast untapped natural resources and emerging shipping routes. As ice in the region begins melting at increasingly earlier points in the year, shorter shipping routes have opened up throughout the Arctic for longer periods of time, allowing Russia to circumvent foreign powers. It is seeing growing competition, however, from its close ally China, which announced plans for an 'Arctic Silk Road' in 2018, also viewing climate change as an opportunity to access more favourable shipping routes. Russia's nuclear submarine fleet regularly conducts under-ice patrols and exercises in the region as part of Russia's effort to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent and assert military dominance. Alongside its military push, Russia is exploiting the added opportunity melting ice has opened up around the Arctic's energy reserves, focusing on oil, gas and minerals. The Northern Fleet, which operates the Borei-class submarines, regularly conducts exercises in Arctic conditions, including under-ice patrols.
