Russia’s 11-Hour Assault on Kyiv

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‘Night of Horror’

Russian missile and drone strikes bombarded the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early Thursday, killing at least 21 people and wounding more than 90 others. The assault signaled Moscow’s unwillingness to surrender to recent long-range Ukrainian attacks, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin faces growing pressure to address the war’s compounding economic toll on his country.

It was a “night of horror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X on Thursday. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 74 missiles and 496 drones at Kyiv, damaging more than 30 locations across the city, including roughly 20 residential buildings. “Russia’s latest massive attack on Kyiv once again proves that the Kremlin rejects peace and deliberately chooses terror,” Sybiha added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied those allegations, saying that the operation was “exclusively against military or military-linked targets.” Russia has repeatedly struck civilian areas and infrastructure since the war began in February 2022, with the United Nations estimating that more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed thus far.

Thursday’s 11-hour bombardment was in retaliation for recent long-range Ukrainian attacks on critical Russian infrastructure. In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have successfully hit several high-profile targets, including sites in Moscow and St. Petersburg. On Friday, Kyiv launched one of its biggest drone assaults to date, targeting roughly a dozen Russian regions, including occupied Crimea, where local authorities declared a state of emergency.

And on Tuesday, Ukrainian strikes damaged one of Russia’s largest satellite communication centers for a second time in an aerial bombardment of the Moscow region. Local authorities said a 6-month-old baby was killed by a Ukrainian drone that crashed into a house in the town of Yegoryevsk, southeast of Moscow, and a 61-year-old woman was killed in Russia’s western Tver region when a Ukrainian drone that was shot down hit a home.

But Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil facilities—including an assault on Thursday that hit one of the country’s largest refineries, located in the Nizhny Novgorod region—have most fiercely ignited Moscow’s ire.

In an effort to turn the tide against Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has launched a 40-day blitz aimed at forcing Putin to the negotiating table. His strategy: target critical supply routes behind enemy lines, choking off Russian troops from vital fuel deliveries and slowing the Russian military’s forward momentum. Long-range drone attacks have specifically targeted oil and energy facilities that supply Crimea, triggering the Black Sea peninsula’s worst fuel shortages since Russia annexed the region in 2014.

Zelensky is expected to press Western leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, for greater air defense aid during next week’s NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey.

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What We’re Following

Low turnout concerns. Algeria held parliamentary elections on Thursday in what experts expect to be a test of public engagement and appetite for political change. Nearly 25 million people had registered to vote; however, low turnout at campaign events had worried officials that residents wouldn’t show up, prompting Algiers to declare Thursday a paid national holiday. Still, two hours after polling stations opened, nationwide turnout hovered around just 3 percent.

More than 1,000 candidates are competing for 407 seats in Algeria’s lower house, where deputies serve five-year terms. That does not include the nearly 270 politicians barred from running, including activists from the pro-democracy Hirak group as well as several members of the Islamist Movement of Society for Peace, which currently holds the second-largest portion of seats in the chamber. Algeria’s electoral authorities maintain that these individuals are banned for their “links to illicit financial networks” and “suspicious political activities.”

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has framed Thursday’s vote as part of a larger strategy to create a “new Algeria” following the 2019 Hirak uprising. But critics argue that parliamentarians only have a limited role in legislative affairs, leaving Tebboune with too much influence. And many Algerians appear to be far more focused on the country’s cost-of-living crisis than on playing politics.

Defying Russia’s influence. The European Union pledged an additional $20.5 million in economic support to Armenia on Thursday in an effort to woo the South Caucasus country away from Russian influence. The bloc also vowed to remove tariffs from nearly 80 percent of Armenian exports heading to the EU in what appeared to be a direct response to Moscow imposing sweeping trade restrictions ahead of Armenia’s parliamentary elections last month.

“I know Armenia is still facing significant economic pressure from Russia,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday. “But rest assured: When pressure mounts on our partners, the EU steps up.” Meanwhile, Russia continues to accuse the West of interfering in Armenia’s June election, which saw the incumbent Civil Contract party clinch 49.8 percent of the ​vote.

Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led single market. Last year, Russia made up roughly 35 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade; in contrast, the country’s trade with the EU only reached 11 percent. Yet in recent years, Yerevan has grown more disillusioned with the Kremlin, especially after it failed to broker a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Schism in the church. The Vatican excommunicated all formal followers of the Society of St. Pius X on Thursday, marking a dramatic end to Pope Leo XIV’s first major internal crisis since the beginning of his papacy. On Wednesday, the conservative breakaway faction consecrated four new bishops without the pope’s permission during a ceremony in Switzerland. These actions defied a personal order from Leo not to do so, and it heightened the decades-long standoff between church leadership and the traditionalist society.

Whereas Leo has pushed for modernizing the church—including by finding common ground between more conservative branches and more reform-minded efforts, such as ordaining women priests—the Society of St. Pius X has insisted on maintaining tradition by only holding Latin Masses and objecting to the Vatican’s efforts to pursue interreligious dialogue, even among other Christian denominations.

All practitioners “are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated” for going “against the will of the Holy Father and in open violation of canon law,” the Vatican wrote in a formal decree on Thursday. The society is also now barred from hearing confessions, officiating marriages, and holding Mass. Such a drastic step could affect thousands of worshippers and appears to conflict with Leo’s stated desire to make bridging divisions among Catholics one of his top priorities.

Odds and Ends

Two Russian nationals scaled New York City’s Empire State Building on Wednesday for a grand marriage proposal. The daredevil couple gained global notoriety in 2024 with the release of a Netflix documentary about their “roof-topping” exploits. Now, they’ve made headlines once again by unfurling a large banner calling for world peace atop the building’s spire—and promptly getting charged with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, criminal tampering, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.