https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/313972/ukraine-launches-offensive-against-russia-near-key-town

Ukraine launches offensive against Russia near key town
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 16 September, 2026, 00:00


A policeman pushing out a fire in gas station damaged after a Russian drone strike in Kyiv on Tuesday, amid Russian attack in Ukraine. | AFP photo

A Ukrainian army unit has launched a counter-offensive against Russian forces near Lyman, an embattled town in Ukraine’s east that Moscow has been edging towards for months, the unit’s commander said Tuesday.

Russia has seized around three-quarters of the Donetsk region since invading in February 2022, with Lyman one of the few urban areas in the region still under Ukraine’s control.

Its capture could pave the way for Moscow to sweep further south and threaten the Ukrainian-held strongholds of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, according to military analysts.

The area has been the site of intense battles throughout the four-and-a-half-year war.

‘The 3rd Army Corps has launched an offensive operation called Vivaldi in this sector,’ the Commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, Andriy Biletsky, said in a video on Telegram.

Ukrainian units have cleared Russian infiltrators from an area ‘about 75 square kilometres’, he added.

DeepState, a battlefield map linked to the Ukrainian army, showed Ukrainian troops had made a small pocket of gains north of the town.

There was no immediate public comment from Russia to Ukraine’s claims. Widespread drone use at the front has made large-scale troop movements almost impossible, preventing either side from gaining a clear advantage in the grinding conflict.

Russia’s advance in east Ukraine gained pace in August, but remained far slower than in previous years of its invasion, an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War showed earlier in September.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/314417/russians-vote-as-ukraine-war-drags-on-for-fifth-year

Russians vote as Ukraine war drags on for fifth year
Council of Europe body slams ‘fake’ Russia vote

Agence France-Presse . Moscow, Russia 19 September, 2026, 00:39


People vote in Russia’s parliamentary election at a polling station in Moscow on Friday. | AFP photo

Russians began voting Friday in a tightly controlled three-day election that is set to tighten president Vladimir Putin’s 26-year grip on power, in the country’s fifth year of war with Ukraine.

It is Russia’s first parliamentary election since Moscow sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022, setting off a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands.

Only parties that support Putin and the Kremlin’s military campaign have been registered to run. Moscow has also organised voting in occupied Ukraine.

The European Union slammed the elections, saying ‘repression’ had been used to eradicate opponents, while a Council of Europe body denounced the vote as ‘fake’.

While few Russians doubt Putin’s United Russia party will cruise to victory again, the vote offers a gauge of public support for the war.

Voting for all 450 seats in the Duma, Russia’s lower house, runs until 1800 GMT on Sunday.

Putin has ruled Russia since 1999 and his party has dominated politics since the early 2000s.

Moscow has banned criticism of the Ukraine campaign, and elections under Putin rarely produce surprises.

Putin had called on Russians to vote to show they back Moscow’s troops and to deliver an ‘answer to those who want to weaken Russia’.

The Kremlin published footage of the 73-year-old president voting online — rare footage of the longtime leader using technology.

On Moscow’s streets, several voters said they wanted the war in Ukraine to end — but on Russia’s terms, backing Putin’s goals.

Rail worker Sergei Korenets, 41, said he will back United Russia, voting for ‘stability’ — echoing Putin’s main slogan.

Asked whether four-and-a-half years of war amounts to ‘stability’, Korenets said: ‘Of course, I want all this (the war) to end as quickly as possible.’

But he did not want change at home, he said, as ‘I am satisfied from the point of view of my financial situation’.

Despite sweeping Western sanctions, Russia’s economy has not collapsed and life in the capital remains relatively normal even as Moscow bombards Ukrainian cities daily.

United Russia faces only parties that broadly back Putin’s policies and the war: the Communist Party, the nationalist LDPR, A Just Russia and New People.

Yabloko, which called for an end to the fighting, was barred from running shortly before the vote. One of its main figures, Lev Shlosberg, was imprisoned for criticising the war.

Russia has since 2022 introduced Soviet-style censorship and jailed war critics.

‘I am fully for the special military operation,’ 55-year-old Lyubov said in Moscow, using the Kremlin’s term for its offensive.

‘NATO cannot be at our borders,’ she added, repeating one of Putin’s arguments for launching the war.

But she criticised some social policies, still upset by Putin raising the pension age several years back, saying she wanted a ‘return to the Soviet economic system.’

Older voters are among Putin’s strongest supporters, though many complain about living standards.

Some fear the post-election period in Russia will bring a new military mobilisation, similar to the 2022 call-up of 3,00,000 reservists. The deeply unpopular move triggered a mass exodus of draft-age men.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Kremlin of planning a fresh mobilisation drive, an allegation Putin has denied.

Ukrainian strikes have caused increased disruption this year, hitting as far as Siberia and the Urals.

Putin’s political opponents have mostly been driven into exile and his main opponent Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison in 2024.

Russia’s exiled opposition has urged anti-Kremlin Russians not to boycott the elections but instead vote ‘against Putin’s party’.

Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya called on anti-war Russians to cast their ballots at noon on Sunday.

Yabloko disagrees, arguing that it was better not to vote.

‘You are suggesting that we once again go, like sheep, dancing to their tune, and vote for those who have caused the deaths of people in Russia and Ukraine?’ party chairman Nikolay Rybakov said this week.

But one Moscow voter, Yekaterina, who has lived her whole life under Putin’s rule, saw no reason for political change and was undeterred by the war.

‘I still trust my president,’ the 26-year-old said.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/314934/russian-strike-kills-4-in-ukraine

Russian strike kills 4 in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 23 September, 2026, 00:00


Ukrainian firefighters extinguish a fire at a building of Zaporizhzhia National University following a Russian drone strike in Zaporizhzhia on Monday, amid the Russian attack of Ukraine. | AFP photo

Russian strikes killed at least four people in Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, local authorities said Tuesday, as president Volodymyr Zelensky was in New York to plead Ukraine’s case at the United Nations.

For months, Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in intensifying long-range strikes targeting a growing number of civilian sites, including factories, warehouses and energy and port infrastructure, as well as ships in the Black Sea.

Interpipe, which makes steel pipes and railway products, confirmed that four of its employees were killed in a ballistic missile strike.

‘The death toll has up to now risen to four, while seven others were injured,’ it said in a statement.

‘The hostile attack also damaged the facility’s key production equipment and infrastructure, bringing the manufacture of products to a halt.’

Specialists were assessing how long the facility will be out of action, it added.

Earlier, Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said four districts in the city were targeted by ‘missiles, drones and artillery’.

Shelling hit warehouses and a business, which was severely damaged, he added.

Industrial sites were also targeted in Kryvyi Rig — Zelensky’s home city — and Pavlograd, both of which are in the region, according to the authorities there.

In the southern region of Mykolaiv, a Russian long-range drone killed a three-year-old child. Four other people were wounded in a neighbouring locality, one of them seriously.

Ukraine’s prime minister Sergiy Koretsky said 13 regions, as well as the capital, were attacked overnight and Tuesday morning.

‘The Russians are deliberately striking businesses, farms, warehouses, railways, energy facilities and residential buildings,’ he added.

Zelensky is expected to meet his US counterpart Donald Trump on Tuesday, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

‘There are concrete security proposals and de-escalation measures that could bring the end of the war closer. We are working to strengthen air defence and ensure sufficient financing for Ukraine,’ he wrote on X.

Washington has restarted its diplomatic mediation efforts aimed at stopping Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/315070/russian-strikes-hit-railways-shipping-transport-in-ukraine

Russian strikes hit railways, shipping, transport in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 24 September, 2026, 00:00



Smoke rises above the city following an air attack in Kyiv on Wednesday, amid the Russian attack of Ukraine. | AFP photo

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of increasing its targeting of civilian transport infrastructure after renewed attacks on petrol stations, shipping and railways left at least two dead.

The authorities in Kyiv said targets were hit in the capital and the surrounding area and a 42-year-old man wounded in a strike on a petrol station died in hospital.

A railway worker returning home after his shift was wounded after being hit by shrapnel.

Ukrainian Railways chief Oleksandr Pertsovsky said Kyiv’s rail network was ‘under fire’ and urged ‘maximum’ vigilance from passengers using the city’s central station.

Ukraine’s state-run railways have kept operating and been a lifeline since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

But Pertsovsky said earlier this month that strikes were worsening every week, after one attack hit a train used by diplomats near the Polish border.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of trying to ‘cripple the economy and destroy people’s lives’.

In Ukraine’s southern Black Sea port of Odesa, the captain of a cargo ship was killed in a Russian attack — part of a wave of strikes from both sides on commercial vessels designed to hit export revenues.

The head of the Odesa region, Oleg Kiper, said the Ukrainian captain was in charge of the vessel, which was sailing on the Black Sea under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.

At least 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been hit on the Black Sea since the start of the conflict, Turkey’s IMEAK chamber of shipping said.

Seventy per cent — or 163 attacks — took place in the first eight months of this year.

Turkey, whose vessels are increasingly in the firing line, has sent a proposal to Russia and Ukraine to end strikes on civilian ships but the two foes have failed to act on it.

‘The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea are unacceptable, regardless of who is responsible,’ Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

Russia’s defence ministry said its latest attacks on the Kyiv region hit a warehouse and business linked to the production of drones for the Ukrainian armed forces and similar sites were hit in the Odesa area, as well as a vessel delivering military cargo.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/315199/eight-killed-in-wave-of-russian-strikes-on-ukraine

Eight killed in wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 25 September, 2026, 00:00


This handout photograph taken and released by the National Police of Ukraine on Thursday shows a burning building and damaged vehicles following an air attack on an agricultural enterprise in Stara Hnylytsia, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian attack of Ukraine. | AFP photo

A barrage of Russian drone and missile strikes pummelled Ukraine on Thursday, killing six agricultural workers in the east and two people in the capital, Kyiv, in the latest in an intensifying exchange of attacks.

The strikes, which triggered air raid sirens and sent locals scurrying underground for shelter, came after both Kyiv and Moscow were at the United Nations and vowed no let-up in their long-range attacks, dimming any immediate prospects for peace in Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in New York seeking more Western support for stronger sanctions against the Kremlin, accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.

The increase in attacks, particularly on Kyiv, has prompted residents to consider contingency plans for the winter, if Russian strikes once again knock out the energy system vital for heating in bitter sub-zero temperatures.

Burnt-out cars and the smouldering remains of buildings were seen in Kyiv, emergency service images showed, after the early morning attacks that the authorities said included powerful ballistic missiles.

At least two people were killed across the city, prime minister Sergiy Koretsky said.

In the Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutor’s office published images showing the inside of a destroyed warehouse, with what appeared to be piles of apples strewn on the floor and a gaping hole in the roof.

The storage facility in the Chuguiv district, southeast of Kharkiv, was hit as employees were sorting vegetables, it added.

‘Preliminary data indicate that the enemy used a small-sized cruise missile known as ‘Banderol’,’ a statement read.

A Banderol is a low-cost hybrid weapon combining characteristics of a cruise missile and an attack drone. The Russian military has used them on a large scale, notably to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

Eight settlements in the region had been attacked in the last 24 hours, its governor Oleg Synegubov said.

In and around Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, officials said Russian strikes caused a fire at a shopping mall and also hit houses and businesses.

The latest attacks came a day after a series of Russian strikes killed at least seven people in Ukraine and sparked fires in Kyiv.

The capital, which is home to some three million people, has been the target of particularly intense drone attacks in recent days, hitting petrol stations and the rail network.

The Nova Post postal and courier company said one of its branches was destroyed and its sorting depot was damaged in Thursday’s strikes.

AFP analysis of data from the ACLED armed conflict monitor showed that there were more Russian strikes on the Kyiv region in the first 18 days of September than in any full month since the start of the war apart from March 2022.

Zelensky met NATO secretary general Mark Rutte in New York to brief him on the latest security situation, and made a renewed push for US-made interceptors against ballistic missiles and tougher sanctions on Russia.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has urged both sides not to target the other’s energy sector.

He also invited president Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 summit in the United States in December.

The Kremlin said it would consider the invitation — while the European Union said it would use the summit to keep condemning Russia’s war on Ukraine.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/315314/russian-attacks-kill-five-in-kyiv

Russian attacks kill five in Kyiv
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 26 September, 2026, 00:00


Ukrainian rescue personnel carry an injured person on a stretcher following an air attack in Kyiv, amid the Russian attack of Ukraine. | AFP photo

Russian daytime strikes on Kyiv killed five people on Friday, local authorities said, the latest in a wave of intensifying attacks on the war-torn capital.

Kyiv has faced increasing drone and missiles strikes in recent months, prompting renewed calls for air defence systems, including for advanced Patriot air defence systems that Ukraine hopes to produce with US licences.

New explosions rang out in the capital in the early afternoon, sending some people running for shelter, while others walked by without reacting, an AFP journalist saw.

Shortly after, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people had been found dead.

This followed an earlier attack, which killed a 14-year-old boy, in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called ‘an absolutely savage and sickening strike, devoid of any military logic’.

AFP journalists at the scene earlier saw residents gathering around a multi-storey building, with apartments on the ninth and 10th floors left charred.

While Russia used to target Kyiv mainly during hours of darkness, it now often attacks in broad daylight.

Alisa Boyko, who lived in the multi-storey building struck on Friday morning, said Russia’s objectives were clear.

Russian forces seek ‘to torment us’, she said, ‘so that everyone is affected, one way or another.’

Moscow has been increasingly firing at the capital with newly developed jet-powered drones, which have succeeded in bypassing some of the drone interception systems developed by Ukraine.

Residents have expressed hope that Ukraine will soon find countermeasures against the new drones.

‘This is a technological race and a technological war,’ said Mykyta Sysoyev, smoking outside his damaged building.

‘Unfortunately, people will suffer while we’re searching for solutions,’ he added.

Moscow has also increased its attacks with ballistic missiles, which Kyiv’s air force struggles to intercept.

US-designed Patriots remain the only system reliably able to counter Russia’s powerful ballistic missiles, experts say.

Zelensky has repeatedly called for more air defences, especially Patriot systems, including during his visit to the United States this week.

‘At our last meeting, President Trump emphasised to me that yes, I have made a final decision. Ukraine will receive licences for the production of Patriot missiles,’ Zelensky said in a voice note to journalists.

In July, Trump said it would be ‘pretty cool’ to grant Ukraine the licences, before backtracking, saying the United States should be ‘very careful’ before granting Ukraine authorisation.

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February, diverting supplies of the advanced systems.

Even if the licences are granted, establishing industrial capacity would require more than a year and would not meet Kyiv’s immediate needs.

In the southern region of Odesa, another person was killed in a repeated strike on a postal facility, authorities said.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/315628/russian-strikes-on-ukraine-kill-five

Russian strikes on Ukraine kill five
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 28 September, 2026, 00:00

Russian strikes on Ukraine killed five people, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday, warning the Kremlin’s forces were ‘relentlessly’ attacking Kyiv, a day after Moscow vowed to achieve its war aims ‘no matter the circumstances.’

One of the victims was killed in Kyiv, with authorities saying Russian strikes on the city and its suburbs damaged more than 16 sites — both residential and industrial.

Russia has upped attacks on the city in the fifth year of its invasion, as the capital braces for another winter of war.

US-led talks to end the war, launched by the Kremlin in 2022, have failed to lead to a breakthrough, with the UN warning of a rise in civilian deaths.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said three people were killed in night-time strikes on the southern Zaporizhzhia region and that a Russian drone strike killed one man in Kyiv.

Kyiv mayor Vitalii Klitschko said a woman and two 16-year-olds were wounded and hospitalised in the capital.

‘The enemy continues to relentlessly attack the Kyiv region with strike drones,’ Kyiv’s administration said.

‘Sixteen sites have been damaged,’ it added, saying this included 12 private houses in Kyiv’s outskirts, as well as a warehouse and production facility.

Authorities in the Odesa region said a ‘massive strike’ on the south of the Black Sea region killed one more person.

Regional head Oleg Kiper said Russian strikes damaged ‘a residential building, a medical institution, a hotel, a shop, as well as a warehouse used for storing grain crops.’

The attacks came a day after Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN Moscow intends to continue its military campaign ‘to the end’.

In Moscow, the defence ministry said Sunday that Russian forces seized a border village in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, where Russia controls pockets of land.

Russia does not claim the Kharkiv region as its own — unlike the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions — but has throughout the war attacked the region and seized land there.

Moscow said forces captured the small village of Khrypuny.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said it intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine.​

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/315749/russian-drone-hits-kyivs-academy-of-sciences

Russian drone hits Kyiv’s Academy of Sciences
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 29 September, 2026, 00:00


Rescue personnel carry a wounded elderly woman out of a multistorey residential building, damaged following a Russian aerial attack on Kharkiv on Monday, amid the Russian attack of Ukraine. | AFP photo.

Russian drones crashed into Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in the historic heart of Kyiv on Monday, in the latest deadly daytime attack on the Ukrainian capital.

Kyiv has increasingly been facing a round-the-clock bombardment of Russian drones and missiles, intensifying Europe’s worst conflict since World War II to levels unseen since just after it began in 2022.

The capital, where petrol stations, the transport network and communications infrastructure as well as residential buildings have been hit, again came under fire, after an air force alert warning of approaching drones.

Video footage shared online showed what appeared to be a high-speed drone smashing into the National Academy of Sciences at a sharp angle, exploding and sending acrid smoke into the blue skies above.

People were seen leaning out of windows for fresh air as bright orange flames engulfed part of the building.

‘A fire broke out. Employees were inside at the time of the strike,’ Ukraine’s prime minister Sergiy Koretsky said. ‘Preliminary reports indicate that one person was killed and four were injured.’

Central Kyiv is usually well-protected from Russian attacks, and the National Academy of Sciences is close to the German embassy, a cathedral, the national opera and government buildings.

But cultural sites, government buildings and schools have all been targeted before, according to the authorities in Kyiv.

Earlier this month, a Russian drone hit the headquarters of Ukraine’s SBU security services.

The academy called the attack ‘Russian terror’ and ‘barbarity’, targeting ‘peaceful people who were simply at their workplaces... Ukrainian science, education and culture’.

Elsewhere, Russian strikes killed four and wounded at least 19 at a business centre in the central city of Dnipro while there were unspecified fatalities and several children wounded when a residential area was hit in eastern Kharkiv.

The prime minister said in the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv, Russian forces damaged an ice cream factory and residential buildings were hit in Sumy, in the north, Rivne, in the northwest, and southern Odesa.

‘The danger persists in many regions. The enemy is intensifying its terror. I urge citizens not to ignore the alerts and to stay in safe places whenever possible,’ he warned.

In recent months, Russia has been deploying newer jet-powered drones that move faster and are harder to intercept than the traditional models, based on Iranian Shahed drones.

President Volodymyr Zelensky last week renewed his appeal to Ukraine’s Western allies to step up their military support, including for US-made Patriot interceptors capable of downing powerful ballistic missiles.

His request comes as Ukrainians consider their options with winter approaching, after Russian attacks last year on energy infrastructure cut power and heating as temperatures plunged to as low as -20C.

In an interview with Ukrainian television broadcast on Sunday night, Koretsky stopped short of saying that all residents in cities should leave before winter sets in, calling that an ‘extreme step’.

But he indicated that vulnerable people should relocate, to avoid overloading the hard-pressed emergency services as they deal with the aftermath of the relentless Russian strikes.

‘If a person lives, for example, on the 16th floor and for instance the power gets cut, why at that moment, when the state emergency service specialists need to focus on dealing with the consequences, should we be... handling people who need extra attention?’ he told TSN television.

‘For such people, it’s worth finding an alternative place to stay for the winter period.’

Meanwhile, European defence ministers discussed whether the bloc needed its own NATO-style emergency mechanism to bolster coordination against ‘hybrid attacks’ by Russia.

European governments say Moscow is stepping up its campaign of sabotage and interference against Ukraine’s supporters, as Kremlin troops struggle to make headway on the frontlines, more than four years after their full-scale invasion.​