Ukraine says Russia drone strike kills family of four in Sumy

Ukraine says Russia drone strike kills family of four in Sumy
Russia and Ukraine have been exchanging drone attacks since the conflict erupted. Above, Ukrainian police look at the engine of a drone after a Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 30 September 2025

Ukraine says Russia drone strike kills family of four in Sumy

Ukraine says Russia drone strike kills family of four in Sumy
  • Russian forces hit a residential building in the village of Chernechchyna, in the Krasnopillia community
  • Russia’s defense ministry meanwhile said it had “intercepted and destroyed” 81 Ukrainian drones overnight

KYIV: Ukraine said on Tuesday that a Russian overnight drone strike had killed a family of four in the northeastern Sumy region.
Oleg Grygorov, the head of the regional military administration, said Russian forces had hit a residential building in the village of Chernechchyna, in the Krasnopillia community.
“A couple with two young children lived in this house. Unfortunately, no one managed to escape,” Grygorov wrote on the Telegram platform.
“Rescuers (recovered) the bodies of four deceased people from under the rubble – parents and their sons, six and four years old,” he said.
“This is a terrible and irreparable loss for the entire community and the region.”
Russia’s defense ministry said it had “intercepted and destroyed” 81 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The governor of Volgograd, Andrey Bocharov, said the Russian military had repelled a “massive” Ukrainian drone attack over the southern region.
“According to preliminary information, there was no damage to structures or injuries,” Bocharov said.
On Sunday, a massive Russian drone and missile attack against Ukraine lasting 12 hours killed at least four people in the capital Kyiv, including a 12-year-old girl, and left dozens injured across the country.
Ukraine said it had been targeted by 595 drones and 48 missiles that night, most of which were shot down by air defenses.
The fighting in Ukraine is essentially taking place in the east and Russia controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called up 135,000 men for routine military service, the country’s biggest autumn conscription drive since 2016.
Conscripts are expected to serve for a year at a military base inside Russia, not to fight in Ukraine, although there have been reports of conscripted men being sent to the front line.
Since launching his full-scale military assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has put Russia on a war footing, boosting military spending to levels unseen since the Soviet era and expanding the size of the army.


Pro-Palestinian activists use lift to scale Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate

Pro-Palestinian activists use lift to scale Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate
Updated 59 min 26 sec ago

Pro-Palestinian activists use lift to scale Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate

Pro-Palestinian activists use lift to scale Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate

BERLIN: Pro-Palestinian activists climbed atop Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate and unfurled a large banner on Thursday before police arrested them.
Six activists wearing work vests and using a rented cherry-picker truck drove onto the tourist-packed square at noon, with three of them quickly using the lift to get on top of the 26-meter-tall structure.
“It happened very quickly,” Berlin police spokesperson Florian Nath said at the site. 
“We were here within minutes, but the basket was already on its way up, and we didn’t stop it then because it’s too dangerous in case something happens or people fall out.”

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A special police rescue team climbed up the Brandenburg Gate to detain the activists and bring them back down in an operation that lasted about an hour and a half.

The activists on top of the gate unfurled a banner reading “Never again genocide — freedom for Palestine.” They also lit flares and shouted slogans.
The other three activists, meanwhile, locked themselves in the cab of the truck, with police smashing a window to arrest them forcibly.
A special police rescue team climbed up the Brandenburg Gate to detain the activists and bring them back down in an operation that lasted about an hour and a half, Nath said.
All six activists were detained on suspicion of trespassing and other violations, Nath said.
He added that investigators were still checking whether the cherry picker had done any damage to the 18th-century gate.
Thursday’s incident was not the first time protesters or others have illegally climbed the landmark, a well-known symbol of Germany located near the heart of Berlin’s government district.
“We’ve had that happen quite a few times,” Nath said. 
“Our rescue team is very familiar with the routes up there. They’re very experienced.”