Russia hits Kyiv again as Ukraine's sacked defence minister calls for a wartime vote

Kyiv wakes to missiles, and Zelensky to a rival

Russian missiles hit Kyiv shortly after midnight on Thursday. A nine-storey block in the Solomianskyi district collapsed and caught fire [4]. A children’s hospital nearby lost its windows and cars burned on its grounds [4][7].

The death toll rose through the night, and the number you see depends on where the count stops. Mayor Vitali Klitschko first reported three dead and 20 wounded in the city [4]. City military authorities later put it at five dead and 23 wounded [6]. Add one man killed in Brovary, in the wider Kyiv region, and the figure reaches six [6]. Poland scrambled aircraft on what it called “preventative” flights while the missiles were still in the air [7].

The bombardment landed on a president already fighting on a second front. Mykhailo Fedorov, 35, whom Zelensky sacked as defence minister in July after six months in the job, posted a video address on Tuesday night [1][2]. He called for Ukraine to restore elections during the war. It is the first such demand by a major Ukrainian political figure since Russia’s full-scale invasion began [1].

“We must not let Putin decide when Ukrainians can choose their government,” Fedorov said [2].

Ukraine has not held a national vote since February 2022. The constitution bars elections under martial law, and Zelensky’s own term ran out in May 2024 [1][2]. Fedorov did not set a timetable and did not say whether he would run [2][3]. He also did not explain how a free vote could work with soldiers at the front, millions of citizens abroad and whole regions occupied [2][3].

The timing tells you what changed. Hours before the video, Zelensky formally nominated Yevhenii Khmara as permanent defence minister, closing the door on Fedorov’s return [1][2]. Fedorov had turned down other jobs, including deputy prime minister for military innovation, insisting he would come back only to defence [1][2].

What parliament did next

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s parliament confirmed Khmara by 312 votes to 2, far above the 226 needed [4]. Khmara is a career intelligence official who rose through the Security Service and once led its Alpha special operations unit [4]. He is not a public figure. Fedorov, whose sacking drew protests across Ukraine that still gather a couple of thousand people in Kyiv each week, is [1].

The same day, Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO opened an inquiry into an alleged laundering ring [5]. They say the group moved 150 million hryvnias, about $3.35m, to pay bail in an energy corruption case [5]. Those named as targets include a deputy head of the presidential office and the heads of a state-owned bank’s boards [5]. The MP Vadym Stolar confirmed investigators had searched his home [5]. Zelensky then fired a senior aide, Iryna Mudra, by decree after reports that her house was searched too [6].

For anyone following Ukraine’s Western funding: this is the pairing that matters. Money from Europe and Washington has always come attached to anti-corruption conditions. An inquiry reaching the presidential office is a test of whether those conditions bind.

The war carried on around the politics

A Russian drone struck a minibus in Kherson on Wednesday morning, killing four passengers [5][11]. Zelensky called it part of a “safari” against civilians [11]. In Zhytomyr, a drone-missile hit police headquarters, killing two officers and wounding more than 20 [6].

Russia and Ukraine each handed back 103 prisoners of war, with another exchange expected before the month ends [9]. Moscow said it downed 453 Ukrainian drones overnight; one started a fire at an industrial site in Ufa, an oil-refining city of 1.4 million [5].

Russia has begun importing petrol, its government confirmed. A cargo from India has entered the domestic market after Ukrainian strikes wrecked refineries and depots [8]. Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company, has capped sales at 30 litres per customer nationwide [8]. A country that exported fuel in peacetime is now buying it by ship and rail, on day 1,639 of the war [8].

Inside Ukraine, conscription has turned ugly. Al Jazeera documented men seized off the street in a practice Ukrainians call “busification” [10]. One was a 52-year-old with HIV and arthritis who says police chased him down in Kyiv [10]. Separately, Croatian police arrested a second Ukrainian national over the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline blasts [12].

One social-media post, two Koreas

Trump announced on Truth Social, hours before joint US-South Korean drills were due to start, that he was directing the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” them [17]. He called the exercises hostile to North Korea, and noted pointedly that Seoul had declined to join the US-Israeli war on Iran [17]. The exercise was cut from 11 days to five [17].

He then said he plans to meet Kim Jong-un this year, and disclosed that North Korea holds 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons [13][14]. That is an unusually specific intelligence figure to state in public [14].

Pyongyang’s answer came from Kim Yo-jong, the leader’s sister. She said she knew “absolutely nothing” about any secret talks, that the drills’ “provocative, aggressive nature” was unchanged by a shorter schedule, and that Washington remains an enemy [13][15]. She also denied Zelensky’s claim that North Korea plans to send tens of thousands of troops to fight for Russia [13].

The awkward part is in Seoul. President Lee Jae Myung has spent his term arguing for exactly this: fewer drills, more homegrown defence [16]. Getting it from Trump, unannounced, on a public holiday, has scrambled South Korea’s usual politics [16][17]. The conservative opposition called it a “security disaster”; progressive papers objected only to the manner of delivery [16]. Lee called publicly for “self-reliant defence capabilities” while insisting the 72-year alliance holds [17].

Gaza: money for a force nobody has agreed to

An Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians at Gaza City’s municipal police headquarters on Wednesday, medics said, wounding 15 [18][19]. The Hamas-led interior ministry said eight senior officers died along with a 13-year-old girl nearby [18]. Among the dead was Colonel Faten al-Sahhar, who headed the Women’s Police Department [19]. Israel’s military said it struck Hamas fighters operating from the station [18].

Reuters obtained notifications showing the US has told Congress it will send more than $206m for a proposed international force in Gaza [20]. It is the first real money for a plan that has stalled. Netanyahu rejected Trump’s roadmap and insists troops leave only after Hamas fully disarms; Hamas wants the withdrawal first [18]. Netanyahu’s coalition is behind in the polls with an October election coming [18].

Two other Israel-related moves landed. The Israeli army ordered a criminal investigation into the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024 [23]. It is the first time the army has admitted its soldiers fired on the family’s car [23]. And after Washington sanctioned the International Criminal Court’s president and a senior lawyer probing Gaza, the EU’s two presidents publicly backed the court [24]. The US has now sanctioned as many as 11 court officials [24].

On Iran, Trump promised “TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences” for any country that gives Tehran a lifeline, calling it “economic D-Day” [21]. A 60-day ceasefire expired on Monday [21]. The UAE has suspended all financial and economic dealings with Iran after saying it detected two ballistic missiles launched at maritime traffic; both fell into the sea [22].

Contested votes, quiet laws

Zambia’s opposition leader Brian Mundubile said he will go to court over an election that returned President Hakainde Hichilema with about 60% to his 38% [25]. Eleven people including senior opposition figures were arrested in a raid involving gunfire, and counting was suspended for hours over violence against polling staff and stolen ballots [25].

In the United States, primaries in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming delivered an upset [26]. State representative Angie Nixon, aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, beat the far better-funded Alexander Vindman for a Senate nomination [26][27]. Florida voted under a redrawn congressional map that observers say favours Republicans [27]. Separately, US gross national debt passed $40 trillion for the first time, reaching $40.05tn against a Congressional Budget Office forecast of $39.4tn for the year [28].

Two European decisions. Macron signed assisted dying into law after France’s Constitutional Council upheld it, joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada [30]. And Spain is preparing to move 500 migrant girls from Ceuta to the mainland [29]. Brussels favours returning them to Morocco, and several Spanish regions have refused to take unaccompanied minors [29].

The story nobody’s covering

Mongolia’s government apologised to China after protesters raided a Chinese-invested oil exploration camp and live-streamed it [31]. Two Mongolians were detained. A state secretary told Beijing’s envoy that Mongolia “would not tolerate interference with the lawful operations of Chinese companies” and called the protest damaging to national economic security [31].

Mongolia is landlocked between Russia and China and sends most of its exports south. Watch how a small state resolves the gap between what its citizens will tolerate at a mine and what its economy requires of its neighbour. It is a question a lot of resource-exporting countries will face.