The U.S. Senate passed a bill that funds ICE/Border Patrol operations through the end of Trump’s term; Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote no.
What to know about Trump’s immunity deal with the IRS
It’s “a legal absurdity,” said one expert.
June 3, 2026
……………
But acting attorney general Todd Blanche said this week he’s not backing down from giving immunity to the president over his past taxes — despite the questions about why Trump would need immunity and whether a president can do this.
“This is a breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system,” said Brandon DeBot with the independent Tax Law Center at New York University Law in a statement.
“Presidents don’t have the authority to immunize themselves from personal liability for not paying their taxes,” said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “So much of this is sending the message that there is no rule of law anymore, there are no restraints on the president, and the law is whatever Donald Trump says it is. And that’s a legal absurdity.”
Corruption by heads of government is not a new problem. However, it has more serious consequences today when practiced by dictators or authoritarian leaders. The mobility of wealth prevents effective recovery of the assets; the size of the stolen funds has major economic consequences for the country’s economic development. The problems that new governments experience in recovering corruption proceeds involve matters that are sensitive in terms of politics, law, and international relations. Ferdinand Marcos was President of the Republic of the Philippines from November 1965 until his flight in February 1986. Marcos declared martial law and imposed an unjust dictatorship in 1972. Marcos, his wife, and their associates probably looted, diverted, and laundered at least 5 billion dollars in public assets that represented foreign economic and military assistance and kickbacks from public works contracts in the Philippines. Marcos used an extensive and complex system of laundering money through Swiss and offshore banks. Swiss law, practice, and other factors posed major obstacles to recovering the hidden wealth. The Philippine Government identified the Swiss bank accounts from documents left behind by the deposed president. A Filipino banker devised a plan to recover the Marcos fortune. The banks admitted to the accounts’ existence only after awareness of the overwhelming evidence about them. Changes in Swiss law since 1986 should affect the acceptance of dictators’ funds in Switzerland; the laws will be important in all future cases of corruption involving heads of foreign governments
Isabel Kukanova dos Santos is an Angolan businesswoman, the eldest child of Angola’s former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country from 1979 to 2017. (Picture via Nuno Coimbra, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
Darling, grab your champagne flute because this is one royal saga dripping with billions, betrayal, and bikini-clad defiance to make the Chivayo divorce saga look like a picnic.
Isabel dos Santos was once the undisputed princess of Angola, Africa’s richest woman with a fortune that made jaws drop and eyes widen in envy. Forbes once pegged her at a cool US$3.5 billion, a glittering empire built on diamonds, telecoms, banking, and oil.
But oh honey, how the mighty have fallen. Today, stripped of assets worth over US$2 billion across continents, she is fighting her legal battles from a swanky 31st-floor apartment in Dubai Marina, where she treats us to videos of herself dancing poolside like the world is not watching her every move.
Born on 20 April 1973 in Baku, Azerbaijan, to Angola’s long-ruling president José Eduardo dos Santos and his Russian wife Tatiana Kukanova, Isabel entered the world with a silver spoon the size of an oil rig.
Her father ruled Angola with an iron fist for 38 years, from 1979 to 2017, and little Isabel was nicknamed “the princess” back home for good reason. She attended an all-girls boarding school in England before studying electrical engineering at London’s prestigious King’s College.
But this was no ordinary heiress content with trust funds. “I was taught to make my own way in life, and never to depend on any man, be it father, brother, or husband,” she once declared, painting herself as a self-made trailblazer with a fierce independent streak.
Her entry into business was pure glamour. At just 24, she snapped up a stake in Miami Beach, a chic beach bar and restaurant in Luanda overlooking the Atlantic. Picture it: weekends filled with the city’s elite sipping cocktails as waves crashed nearby. It was the perfect launchpad.
She built stakes in diamonds, telecom giant Unitel, Efacec in Portugal, EuroBic bank, and even chaired the state oil company Sonangol. By her forties, she was everywhere, from cement to media. Forbes crowned her Africa’s first female billionaire and the continent’s youngest, with an empire spanning hundreds of companies.
The trivia surrounding Isabel is deliciously extravagant. She married Congolese art collector and businessman Sindika Dokolo in 2002 in a lavish ceremony. For their 10th anniversary, they flew dozens of friends and family to Angola for a three-day blowout that screamed old money meets new power.
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A former assistant for Jeffrey Epstein alleged that she was victimized by three men while working for the late financier, reportedly including a Florida mayor who ran for governor in 2018.
Sarah Kellen, who worked for Epstein for 15 years, reportedly told lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee during a closed-door session Thursday that she had been assaulted by former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and celebrity hairstylist Frédéric Fekkai. She also accused late fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier of exposing himself to her, the Miami Herald reported, citing sources who heard Kellen’s testimony.
Newsweek‘sattemptsto reach Levine and Fekkai were unsuccessful on Friday. Demarchelier, who died in 2022, previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct detailed by The Boston Globe in 2018
Investigative journalist Tara Palmeri first reported the new allegations late on Thursday. Levine, Fekkai and Demarchelier were known associates of Epstein and appear in the Justice Department’s trove of evidence linked to the late convicted sex offender, Palmeri reported.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Philip Levine talks to the news media after g…Read More | AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Trump handed the spy agencies to a man who gives away cash on Twitter. In a Truth Social post Tuesday morning he named Bill Pulte — the 37-year-old homebuilding heir who runs the Federal Housing Finance Agency — acting Director of National Intelligence, over the CIA, the NSA, and sixteen other agencies. Pulte keeps the housing job too, along with the chairmanships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac he handed himself. He has no intelligence experience. What he has is a year of mining FHFA’s files to manufacture mortgage-fraud referrals against Trump’s enemies — Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Lisa Cook, Eric Swalwell — and a GAO investigation into how he did it. The watchdogs who asked how he pulled Democrats’ private mortgage records were fired. Now the man under investigation for misusing data access runs the surveillance state. Narativ has already placed his father, the developer Mark Pulte, inside Epstein’s own account of the rigged Maison de l’Amitié auction
From Narativ
Bill Pulte, one report:
Bill Pulte Family and Net Worth: All We Know About His Wife and Parents
Bill Pulte, a prominent figure in business and government, is the grandson of renowned homebuilder William J. Pulte, who founded PulteGroup, one of the largest residential construction companies in the U.S. Bill has carved out a distinct identity through his roles in philanthropy, social media, and as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
President Donald Trump raised eyebrows and fury on Tuesday by announcing his controversial head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, as acting director of national intelligence.
Pulte, who has no military or intelligence background, has long been steeped in scandal following his leading the charge to indict some of Trump’s political allies on allegations related to mortgage fraud.
Trump announced Pulte would succeed Tulsi Gabbard as the leader of the country’s intelligence and national security apparatus, saying he “has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America.” As director of national intelligence, Pulte will oversee the CIA, NSA, and various other federal agencies involved in intelligence collection – including the FBI. He will also serve as a principal advisor to Trump and the National Security Council on matters of foreign policy and national security.
Condemnation of the appointment resounded across party lines. Conservative radio host Erick Erickson reacted to the announcement, writing, “Bill Pulte is one of the worst members of the President’s team and has convinced Trump to do more stupid stuff than anyone else in the past year. He’ll be driven to work in a very short bus each day.”
I am reproducing this article by Popular Information, Substack:
Popular Information avoids hot takes and algorithmically-optimized sensationalism. Instead, we investigate, uncover new facts, and reshape the national debate.
Consider two examples from the last two weeks:
On May 18, Popular Information broke the news that Trump had promoted companies at public events on the same day he bought their stock. The story was picked up extensively by national outlets, including the Rachel Maddow show. Within a day, Vice President Vance was confronted with our reporting in the White House briefing room.
On May 27, Popular Information exposed that Lead Left and other purportedly “progressive” super PACs spending millions in Democratic primaries were connected to the House Republican super PAC. Within 24 hours, Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to respond to our reporting. On Monday night, I appeared on CNN to talk about the story.
Popular Information is a three-person newsroom but we can rattle the cages of the most powerful politicians in the world.
Rendering of Kushner’s planned Albanian resort. (Studio Genesis)
Jared Kushner’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Iran War are not going well. But he is only moonlighting as one of the Trump administration’s top diplomats. Kushner is also having problems at his day job as the founder of Affinity Partners, a private equity fund bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments.
Along with his wife Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Trump, Kushner is developing a multibillion-dollar resort on Sazan Island in Albania and nearby coastline. In an interview with the David Senra podcast published Sunday, Ivanka Trump described the project dreamily:
It’s an unbelievable, beautiful, 1,400-hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend’s boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that’s how we found it. We swam to the island, we went on a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top, and we were just captivated, and it stayed with us ever since. And over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it, but with a lot of restraint and care because the land is so beautiful that, really, the architecture has to be fully integrated into it, almost rise from it.
Ivanka Trump said the project is “the culmination of all of my experience in real estate, all of my travel, a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people increasingly want to live.”
But the reality of the massive project, which includes 10,000 hotel rooms and is located in one of Europe’s most environmentally sensitive areas, is a lot messier. In 2024, the Albanian government changed the law to allow the area, which was previously part of a protected national park, to be developed. After Trump’s election in November 2024, the Albanian government granted Atlantic Incubation Partners, an LLC linked to Kushner, “strategic investor“ status, clearing the way for permits.
Kushner’s LLC was granted that status “just weeks before the new US president’s inauguration, even without a business plan or feasibility study for the construction of a luxury resort on an uninhabited island once used by the army for shooting practice.”
An investigative report by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) found that the project involved a “network of shady individuals and companies“ including “a businessman accused of links to the Italian mafia, a former judge who resigned due to the vetting process, the daughter of a lawyer accused of forgery, the company of a murdered businessman and individuals linked to one of Albania’s biggest oligarchs, Shefqet Kastrati.”
In January, 41 environmental organizations from 28 countries wrote to Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and called for “the immediate suspension of any decisions advancing the project.” The groups said the resort posed “serious risks to the biodiversity and critical habitats of the area,” including “crucial habitats for some of the world’s most endangered marine species.”
Rama, however, has continued to defend the project. “There is not a single chance it will be stopped for as long as I am here,” Rama said at a press conference Tuesday.
“Albania Is Not for Sale”
On Senra’s podcast, Ivanka Trump said she was “just there [in Albania] walking the lands” to “sort of be with it and experience it alongside some of the greatest living architects of our time.” She did not mention that the property has been subject to mass protests.
On April 29, government officials allowed barbed wire fencing to be constructed around the coastal portions of the resort property. This cut off miles of beach from the public. Heavy machinery was brought in to construct access roads.
After the incident, “authorities revoked the licenses of two private security firms involved in the incident, arrested one guard and stripped the local police chief of his duties.” Fifteen protesters were also charged with crimes.
This week, protests expanded to Tirana, Albania’s capital, with thousands chanting “Albania is not for sale” and demanding Rama’s resignation.
In December, Kushner’s plan to build a Trump tower in Belgrade collapsed after the project became enmeshed in a criminal corruption scandal involving Serbian government officials. Prosecutors allege that government officials forged documents to remove cultural protections from the land where the tower was to be constructed.
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Jared Kushner Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks / Wikimedia Commons
Jared Kushner has said that financier Nat Rothschild helped him identify a remote private island in the Mediterranean during a yacht trip, as the Special Envoy for Peace’s expanding overseas property interests face growing political backlash in Albania over a planned luxury resort development on Sazan Island.
The admission comes as Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, faces criticism over a €1.4bn (£1.2bn) project on Albania’s Adriatic coast. People have been protesting the plan because they worry it could damage the environment and restrict access to land that is currently protected.
the British East India Company owed much of its success to their intelligence operation, right up until the Napoleonic Wars when Nathan Rothschild’s intel operatives got him news of Napoleon’s defeat far ahead of anyone else. Rothschild parlayed this information into owning a controlling share of British war bonds, which he bought up for pennies on the dollar after using his information to leverage panic selling. Rothschild, for all intents and purposes, had control of the British economy and used it to garner an immense amount of political control. His intelligence services evolved into MI-5 and MI-6 and subsequently Mossad — remember Rothschild effectively bought Israel with the Balfour Declaration (1917). WWII brought about OSS, an offshoot of MI-6, that turned into the CIA in 1946… these are all controlled by the Rothschild/Rockefeller diaspora, the CIA through
The Trump administration has hired Elias Irizarry, a convicted participant in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, for a position within a Pentagon office that oversees highly classified military operations, according to a report from the Washington Post. Irizarry was 19 at the time of the riot and later publicly expressed regret for his involvement, but his appointment has reportedly raised concerns among some Defense Department officials because of the sensitivity of the role. The story highlights ongoing debate over the administration’s approach to January 6 defendants and their place in government service. Critics view the hiring as troubling given the nature of the Capitol attack, while supporters may point to Irizarry’s completed legal consequences and stated remorse.
Posted by Aaron Parnas
Who Is Elias Irizarry? Convicted 6 January Rioter Hired for Pentagon Terrorism Post Despite a ‘Checkered Background’
Despite conviction, Irizarry apologised to victims’ widows, ran for public office, and secured a presidential pardon
Elias Irizarry, a convicted 6 January rioter pardoned in 2025, has been appointed to a highly sensitive counter-terrorism role within the Pentagon Stephanie Keith
Four people familiar with the situation reveal that the Trump administration has brought a convicted 6 January rioter—who subsequently expressed remorse for participating in the US Capitol insurrection— into a Pentagon office handling highly classified military operations.
Irizarry’s Background and Capitol Conviction
Legal documents reveal that when the Capitol was stormed, Irizarry was a first-year student at The Citadel, a public military academy based in South Carolina, while also participating as a cadet within the Civil Air Patrol.
YouTube Screenshot / Queen City News
Irizarry made his way to Washington with two other individuals, ultimately joining the mass of Donald Trump supporters who overwhelmed police cordons to infiltrate the building just as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory. According to legal briefs, he gained entry through a broken window while armed with a metal pole, but he did not use it to hit anyone.
Following a guilty plea to a misdemeanour charge of entering and remaining on restricted government property, Irizarry received a two-week jail sentence, according to legal records.
According to those legal records, Irizarry had attended Trump’s speech at the Ellipse before winding up at the Capitol entirely by chance, moving quickly afterwards to distance himself from the day’s events.
However, the presiding judge pointed out that Irizarry failed to intervene at pivotal moments during the unrest, notably standing by when one of his travel partners, Grayson Sherrill, used a rod to hit a police officer. Sherrill received a seven-month prison sentence in 2023 following a guilty plea for assaulting federal agents.
Microsoft didn’t cut services to International Criminal Court, its president says
Chief prosecutor’s email issues have spurred fears in Europe that Trump could trigger a “kill switch” through U.S. tech giants abroad.
The company’s President Brad Smith told reporters that Microsoft’s actions “did not in any way involve the cessation of services to the ICC.” | Michael Reynolds/EFE via EPA
Microsoft did not stop or suspend its services to the International Criminal Court, the company’s President Brad Smith said, following reporting that it canceled the email address of the court’s chief prosecutor targeted by American sanctions.
The Associated Press reported in May that Microsoft “cancelled” the email address of Karim Khan, the prosecutor who was directly targeted by a February executive order by United States President Donald Trump that claimed the court had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions” against the U.S. and Israel.
Smith told reporters on Tuesday that Microsoft’s actions “did not in any way involve the cessation of services to the ICC.”
A Microsoft spokesperson said that it had been in contact with the court since February “throughout the process that resulted in the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services.” The spokesperson added that “at no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC.”
Khan’s email disconnection has sparked Europe’s fears that Trump could flip a “kill switch” to cut digital services through American tech giants, as the continent seeks to become less dependent on U.S. technology. Companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others dominate Europe’s cloud and digital services sectors.
Microsoft declined to comment further in response to questions regarding the exact process that led to Khan’s email disconnection, and exactly what it meant by “disconnection.” The ICC declined to comment.
However, German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche reported Tuesday that Microsoft’s lawyers have now reached the view that it merely provides a technical platform and that its customers decide whether to give their employees access to its services. Microsoft would no longer intervene in scenarios similar to the ICC case, WirtschaftsWoche wrote.
Smith at the end of April said Microsoft would push back on orders to suspend European cloud operations, in an attempt to assuage fears about a Trump-ordered kill switch.
The company announced then that it would add a binding clause to its contracts with European governments and the European Commission, stating that it would keep the option open to go to court in the event other governments ordered it to suspend or cease cloud operations.
“People want to know that there’s more than words that we’re offering, that’s why we’re prepared to back this up with contractual commitments,” Smith said at the time.
Amazon and Google, Microsoft’s two main competitors on cloud services, also offer “sovereign” cloud services that seek to assuage Europeans’ concerns, though they have not publicly committed to challenging orders in the same way as Microsoft.
Khan’s email issue has also prompted calls for a major change of government policy in the Netherlands, where the ICC is based.
Bart Groothuis, a Dutch liberal member of the European Parliament, recently urged the creation of a European cloud, citing the ICC incident and saying “the world has changed.”
And Dutch national lawmakers on Monday petitioned the government to use 30 percent Dutch or European cloud services by 2029, as well as multiple other measures to wean the Dutch government off U.S. services like Microsoft.
It again signals a shift in the Netherlands, which has traditionally been one of the most Atlanticist, free-market and tech-friendly EU member countries.
Russia launched a large-scale deadly attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early Tuesday, damaging residential buildings, authorities said, as part of a broad offensive on targets across Ukraine.
At least 17 people were killed in the overnight assault that Ukraine’s military said involved more than 600 drones and dozens of missiles, including advanced hypersonics.
Six people were killed in Kyiv and 11 in the central city of Dnipro, including two children, according to Ukrainian officials. More than 100 people were wounded across the country. Five medical facilities were damaged or destroyed, the Ukrainian health ministry said Tuesday.
Inthe capital,the attacks damaged several residential and commercial buildings, sparking fires and burning cars, authorities said.
Kyiv’s air defenses appeared to be less active during a ballistic missile strike around 7 a.m. local time, with CNN producers in the city center hearing ongoing explosions, but not the firing of counter-air systems. A strong smell of smoke permeated the air in the city on Tuesday morning.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko described the overnight assault as a “massive enemy attack.”
There are fears people remain trapped under the rubble of a multi-story apartment block in Podilsky district that partially collapsed after a “double tap” Russian strike, according to Klitschko.
Emergency responders at a property damaged in Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on June 2. State Emergency Service of Ukraine
Images from Ukraine’s State Emergency Services show a fire engulfing a badly-damaged house as firefighters doused the flames, and the windows and facade of what appears to be the front room of another debris-filled home completely blown away.
“Throughout the night, the enemy launched massive attacks on the Kyiv region using drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Our peaceful towns and villages were once again under attack,” said Mykola Kalashnyk, the Kyiv regional governor.
At least 65 people were wounded across the city, Ukrainian officials said, in strikes that caused power outages and sent residents scrambling to shelters as air raid sirens sounded.
A suspected missile strike hit a 24-story residential building in Shevchenkivskyi district, sparking a fire, and a blaze broke out in a nine-story building in Podil after debris struck the roof, the mayor said. Elsewhere in the city, Russian strikes damaged a clinic and debris fell on the grounds of a kindergarten, Klitschko added. In Bucha, three homes, warehouse facilities and non-residential buildings were damaged, Kalashnyk said.
A residential building damaged in a Russian attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on June 2. State Emergency Service of Ukraine
An emergency worker surveys damage at a property struck during a large-scale attack on Kyiv on June 2. State Emergency Service of Ukraine
Russian attacks were also reported in Dnipro, where 37 people were wounded, and Kharkiv, where 14 were wounded including a child, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. A rescue operation is underway at the site of a four-story apartment building in Dnipro that authorities said was “effectively leveled,” as six people remain unaccounted for.
Among those killed in Dnipro was Maj. Anton Yarmolenko, deputy chief of the Fire and Rescue Unit, who was responding to a rescue call at the time, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs Ihor Klymenko said.
Altogether, Russia fired 656 drones and 73 missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to Ukrainian Air Force figures, which said the vast bulk of the drones and just over half of the missiles were shot down.
The aftermath of a Russian missile strike on a residential building in Kyiv overnight on May 24, 2026. (Ukraine’s State Emergency Service/Telegram)
Listen to this article or download for later
7 min
This audio is created with AI assistance
Editor’s note: This is a developing story and is being updated.
Russian forces launched a large-scale combined missile and drone attack overnight on May 24, targeting mainly Kyiv and the surrounding region, causing casualties and destruction across the capital.
Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones in an attack that lasted several hours, making the attack one of the largest in the last year.
Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground reported a massive series of wall-shaking explosions in Ukraine’s capital from around 1 a.m local time, and then again multiple times between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m, as Russia launched waves of ballistic and cruise missiles at the city.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported damage “in every district of the city,” as missile and drone strikes hit across the capital — including central areas that tend to see fewer strikes during Russian attacks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on May 24 that four people were killed and almost 100 others injured across the country as a result of the attack. In Kyiv alone, over 80 people were wounded, including three children, and two victims killed.
The National Art Museum, one of the oldest and most important museums in Ukraine, was damaged by a blast wave, according to the Culture Ministry. The collection, which ranges from classic to contemporary art, was not damaged.
The Kyiv Opera Theater, the Ukrainian House, the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium, and the Chornobyl Museum were among other institutions damaged in the attack.
Over 40% of the items in the Chornobyl Museum’s collection were “irrevocobly lost,” the Interior Ministry reported the following morning. Rescue workers and musuem staff began evacuating the exhibit immediately after the attack. Their efforts saved several irreplaceable artifacts, including a painting by Maria Prymachenko and the Ukrainian flag planted at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant after its liberation in 2022.
“With today’s strike, Russia attempted to destroy not only lives but also memory,” the ministry said.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that for the first time since World War II, the Foreign Ministry building sustained damage from an attack, although the damage wasn’t severe.
The Cabinet of Ministers, Ukraine’s government headquarters, was also damaged overnight, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko reported. A blast wave shattered windows, but no one was injured.
The building was damaged for the first time in a mass missile attack in September 2025.Windows blown out by a blast at the Cabinet of Ministers, Ukraine’s government headquarters, after a Russian mass missile attack overnight on May 24, 2026. (Yuliia Svyrydenko / X)
Civilian homes and infrastructure were also targeted. In Kyiv alone, about 30 residential buildings were damaged or destroyed, Zelensky said.
In terms of the number of locations damaged in the onslaught, the strike marks the largest attack against Kyiv of the entire full-scale war, Kyiv City Military Administration Head Tymur Tkachenko said.
“There were sounds… a terrifying explosion. A terrible explosion. Flames. For a brief instant — maybe a second — I lost consciousness,” Yevhen, a 74-year-old pensioner, told the Kyiv Independent at one of the attack sites.
“I can’t say I was scared. I wasn’t scared. You see, we Kyiv residents are already used to this. Our emotions have become a little dulled.”
Zelensky confirmed that Russia used its Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile during the attack, the third time Russia has used the sophisticated weapon against Ukraine. The strike targeted Bila Tserkva, a town 50 miles south of Kyiv.
0:00
/1:031×Ukraine’s State Emergency Service — Kyiv/Telegram
Among other damage to infrastructure in Kyiv, Russian missiles and drones struck a supermarket and shopping center, office center, dormitory, service station, garage, parked vehicles, and multiple warehouses across various neighborhoods of the city.
Ihor Smelyansky, the CEO of Ukrposhta — Ukraine’s national postal service — said that the agency’s headquarters on Kyiv’s central Independence Square sustained damage in the attack.
In Kyiv Oblast, Russian projectiles struck the communities of Fastiv, Bucha, Brovary, Bila Tserkva, Vyshhorod, and Boryspil, regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said. The attacks hit residential buildings, homes, garages, utility buildings, and a warehouse.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service — Kyiv/Telegram
Elsewhere in Ukraine, explosions were also heard in the cities of Cherkasy and Kropyvnytskyi, as well as in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, public broadcaster Suspilne reported.
In response to the attack, Poland’s Air Force said it scrambled Polish and allied fighter jets in an effort to protect Polish airspace.
Ukraine has requested emergency meetings of the United Nations Security Council and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) to coordinate an international response to Russia’s assault, Sybiha reported the morning after the strike.
“Putin is trying to intimidate Ukraine by attacking civilians and destroying residential buildings, museums, schools, and critical infrastructure,” the foreign minister said. “He is also trying to intimidate the world by launching IRBMs against peaceful cities.”
Sybiha also said the mass attack was Russia’s attempt “to compensate for the lack of military advances on the battlefield with terror against civilians.”
The latest attack began hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia was preparing a broader assault across the country, including the possible use of the Oreshnik medium-range missile against Ukraine.
“We are seeing signs of preparation for a combined strike on Ukrainian territory, including Kyiv, involving various types of weaponry. The specified intermediate-range weapons could be used in such a strike,” Zelensky said, warning citizens to remain vigilant.
Russia first used an Oreshnik against Ukraine in November 2024 in a strike on the city of Dnipro. The missile was most recently used in an attack on western Lviv Oblast on Jan. 9.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv issued a similar warning “concerning a potentially significant air attack” that may occur over a 24-hour time period. The embassy’s warning did not specify what type of weapons may be used.
Earlier in the night, Russian attacks injured civilians in southern and eastern Ukraine, including in Odesa and Kharkiv oblasts. Explosions were also heard in Kyiv as Russian drones targeted the capital, according to Tkachenko.
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