(KRASNODAR KRAI, RUSSIA) – Ukraine launched its largest drone strike of the war on the vital Russian naval and commercial port of Novorossiysk overnight, targeting naval ships, oil facilities and grain exporting infrastructure in a sustained assault.
Russian authorities reported Ukrainian drone strikes in the Krasnodar region, with four industrial facilities sustaining damage. The Russian defence ministry claimed it downed 502 Ukrainian drones during the attack.
Social media footage showed damage in the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Local authorities said drone debris damaged four residential buildings, killing a child and wounding two other people.
The attack comes amid a Financial Times report that Ukraine halted strikes on Russian oil tankers using the port after a request from US Vice President JD Vance.
At least three people have been killed and at least 20 have been injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine during the past day.
In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had presented new proposals to the United States aimed at ending the war. His comments came amid indications that American negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner could soon visit Moscow and Kyiv.
Zelensky said Russia is planning to mobilise hundreds of thousands of additional troops in the autumn.
Bohdan Nahaylo, editor in chief of the Kyiv Post, said Ukrainians are enduring the hardships of the war in the hope that pressure will eventually force change in Moscow.
“This is in the later stages of the fifth year of all out war and the 12th year of the war with Russia which started in 2014,” Nahaylo said. “It is a price that the Ukrainians are paying and are saying mostly are saying we are prepared to put up with this in the hope that eventually something will crack in Moscow, within society, within business circles and people will say enough there too. Maybe it is naive but look at it from an outsider’s perspective. What can the Ukrainians do at this stage?”
In a separate development, Romania has destroyed two Gerbera type drones near Neptun Deep, a major offshore gas project in the country’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea. The two drones were spotted by one of the vessels currently working on building the Neptun Deep, the EU’s largest offshore gas project.
Romanian Defence Minister Radu Iota said Ukraine had confirmed that the drones did not belong to its forces. The Gerbera type drone is a multi purpose UAV often described as a cheaper alternative to Iran’s Shahed 136 drone. It has a payload capacity of 5 kg and is designed for reconnaissance, signal relaying and kamikaze missions. Drones of this exact type violated Polish and Lithuanian airspace in 2025.
Meanwhile, Latvian border guards have discovered 15 migrants entering the country through a secret tunnel from Belarus. The discovery follows similar attempts in neighbouring Baltic countries and Poland.
Migrants attempting to cross into the EU’s eastern flank countries are getting creative. The first tunnel in Latvia has been discovered. In the area covered by the Silene border guard unit, a group of migrants who had been covered with dirt was found. Fifteen people were found attempting to cross through the tunnel in southeastern Latvia and later returned to their countries of origin.
Latvia is not the first country in the region to experience pressure from down below. Secret passageways have been found beneath the borders of Lithuania and Poland over the past two years as both countries have cracked down on illegal land crossings.
“This is not clan responsibility. They do their best. This is one of factors that they do not have enough completed, enough developed fences and all these infrastructures. Much more important factor, this is decision of policy makers,” an official said.
Since 2021, the EU has accused Belarus of facilitating illegal crossings of migrants from West Asian countries, with 9,000 irregular migrants having been detained by Latvia in 2026 alone. In response to the pressure on the border, Riga has temporarily closed border crossings with Belarus.
“Our main objective is to stop the hybrid threat being carried out by Belarus against the Latvian state and to curb irregular migration overall, to curb the flow of migrants into Latvia,” a government statement read. The government has launched Operation Werewolf, which will see all elements of the Latvian security apparatus and armed forces come together to protect the border. The operation will run through August to mitigate disturbances at the frontier.
In Germany, the Alternative for Germany Party (AfD) is leading in the polls ahead of regional elections in Saxony Anhalt with more than 40 per cent support. Experts say an AfD victory could affect Germany’s historical and higher education policies.
The nationalist Alternative for Germany Party is rising in popularity, a growing concern for Poland. “What should be a reason of concern is the complete rethinking of German historical policy which the AfD is standing for,” an analyst said.
Prominent members of the AfD have been vocal about their strong views on history, specifically the Second World War. In the upcoming elections in Saxony Anhalt, one of the ideas is, for example, to scrap the visits of school children to concentration camps, to have a less focus on the Nazi past, the Nazi history of Germany.
According to the latest opinion poll, the AfD could score a historic 42 per cent in the September Saxony Anhalt election, leaving other parties lagging far behind. Members of the German academia are warning against the potential changes to the curriculum.
“They already proclaim or propose special decisions they would like to take: gender studies, postcolonial studies, reducing of democratic culture,” a commentator noted.
Meanwhile, AfD members claim German universities have become too politicised. “The problem is that science is overshadowed and distorted by politics that is permeated and interwoven with political agendas,” an AfD representative said.
If the AfD is able to form a majority with another smaller party like the anti establishment BSW, it would mark the first time the far right party has managed to get a hold of governmental positions. But the former German ambassador to Poland told TVP World that is a big if. “They need to get over the 5 percent hurdle. That is not clear at all to me.”
The issue of watering down Germany’s Second World War past, while a cause of concern for Poland, will not be the main thing at stake in this local election. “Let us assume that the elections in all three regions that I have described earlier do not go well for the government coalition and possibly other parties, then that may have an impact on the stability of the government in Berlin,” a political analyst said.
The AfD may be ostracised by the rest of Germany’s political scene, but it is steadily climbing in opinion polls in general, mostly due to its strong stance on immigration. The election in Saxony Anhalt will be closely watched not only by Poland but also the German centre right government of Friedrich Merz.
Alexander Milinkevich, a prominent Belarusian pro democracy activist and former presidential candidate, died in Warsaw on Tuesday. He was described by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a leader of the Belarusian opposition, as “a man of exceptional dignity, a kind soul and a brilliant mind.”
The Belarusian opposition leader passed away at the age of 79 after a long illness. He ran against Alexander Lukashenko as the unified opposition candidate in the 2006 presidential election. Following his defeat in a ballot widely dismissed as rigged, he took part in street protests that were violently quelled.
Between 2007 and 2016, he ran the For Freedom movement, aiming to democratise his homeland and develop civil society. Following his death on Tuesday morning, Tsikhanouskaya, the current leader of the Belarusian opposition, issued a statement describing Milinkevich as “a man of exceptional dignity, a kind soul, and a brilliant mind, as well as an invaluable source of advice.”
Milinkevich had been living in exile in Poland after leaving Belarus in 2021 amid brutal suppression of anti government protests that followed another disputed presidential election the year before. Franak Viačorka, the chief adviser to Tsikhanouskaya, paid tribute to Milinkevich.
“He was a statesman of pan European scale and if he had become president of Belarus we would be living in a completely different country, free, independent, European, prosperous and everything could have turned out entirely different,” Viačorka said. “He knew how to inspire, to show the way with his wisdom and experience. He will be sorely missed by all of us, by all Belarusians, and by Belarus.”
A physicist by training, Milinkevich was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2006. A year later, he received Poland’s Casimir Pulaski Knight of Freedom Award for his pro democracy and human rights work.
In Turkey, the parliament is introducing a conditional pardon for thousands of Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK. The measure is part of the government’s peace initiative with the group and could help President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gain Kurdish support ahead of a possible early election.
On Monday, the Turkish Parliament passed a landmark law that provides a legal framework for the disbandment of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK. The law provides legal protections for many former militants and facilitates the suspension of prison sentences for some people convicted of PKK membership, allowing for the reintegration into society.
While some in southeastern Turkey received the news with open arms, others remain vehemently against the decision. “We have all been living together in Turkey for years and will continue to live together. We see the current peace process as a good thing,” one resident said.
Another added: “I am very glad that the law was passed so that people will not die and people will not fight. Why should people die? Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Circassians, they are all human.”
However, critics voiced strong opposition. “They will force us to walk around the same shopping centres and parks. I do not know how they can be reintegrated into society by releasing our killers. Because these people are baby killers, cruel people who have no understanding of humanity.”
This is the latest step in a peace process started by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who called on the group to disband in February of 2025. Just three months later, the group announced it would abandon its armed struggle, burning its weapons as proof of giving up their arms. In 1984, the PKK, designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the European Union, launched its insurgency that evolved into a wider armed conflict. During the 40 odd years of fighting, as many as 40,000 people lost their lives.
The race to find survivors continues in western Colombia after Monday’s 7.4 magnitude earthquake. The death toll has topped 250 with hundreds of people still missing. Colombian authorities say the earthquake is the most devastating to strike the country in this century. The government has declared a state of national emergency in response to the disastrous impact. Some 8,000 buildings have been damaged and more than a thousand completely destroyed. Some rural parts of Cali are still without power with traffic lights on several roads out of order.
Polish athletes have secured two silver medals at the 2026 European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, with Pia Skrzyszowska and Ewa Swoboda both finishing second in their events.
Skrzyszowska won silver in the 100 metre hurdles, missing gold by just one millisecond. The result brings her European Athletic Championship medal tally to four with one gold, two silver and one bronze. After the race, she said that she was motivated to compete for gold again. Just a day earlier, Ewa Swoboda claimed silver in the 100 metre sprint.
“I feel good. I think I stopped making last year’s mistakes. I am mentally and physically prepared. I was stressed before the eliminations, but I felt the weight off my shoulders once I was through the semi-finals. I was focused during the final, fighting for the medal. I knew this was not going to be easy, but once I stepped over the finish line, I was just happy to be on the podium again,” Swoboda said. “You come to the championships to win medals, to reach the podium. It does not matter what the exact time was. What matters is that I have this with me.”
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