Russia strikes Ukraine hours after Zelenskyy's UN address
Russian attacks on Ukraine's Kharkiv region and Kyiv killed at least nine people, including near a maternity hospital, shortly after Zelenskyy urged the UN to keep squeezing Russia's revenues.
Russian forces launched fresh strikes on Ukraine overnight into Thursday, just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the United Nations General Assembly.
A strike on a farm in the Kharkiv region killed at least seven people and injured a further 12. In Kyiv, two more people were killed, including one in the parking lot of a maternity hospital that was damaged in the attack. Eight people were injured in the capital.
Zelenskyy's appeal to the UN
The strikes came shortly after Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly that world leaders must keep cutting off Russia's revenues and hindering its ability to wage war, insisting that Russia's income streams must remain a target of international pressure.
Incidents in neighbouring countries
Several related incidents were reported in countries bordering Ukraine. In Romania, a drone crossed into national airspace and crashed near the village of Suceava. Two Romanian F-16 jets were scrambled but the drone came down before they could intervene, and no damage was reported.
Czechia said it scrambled Gripen fighter jets overnight to carry out a combat air patrol over Poland, helping guard allied airspace against potential threats linked to the large-scale Russian strikes across the border. The jets were not required to use force and returned safely to base in Czechia.
Poland, meanwhile, is investigating a suspected act of sabotage after a fire broke out at a Starlink satellite communications station in the centre of the country. Polish officials said the fire appeared to be a deliberate attempt to knock out the station and disrupt internet access for several institutions, including the Ukrainian military, describing it as possibly part of a new phase of hybrid warfare.
