Russia shattered a six-week lull at , hurling a mix of Iskander ballistic missiles and Iranian-made Shahed drones toward the Ukrainian capital. Nine bodies—including a mother shielding her son—were pulled from burning flats; more than seventy neighbors arrived at hospital with glass and shrapnel wounds. Mayor Vitali Klitschko called the barrage “the worst night since 2022,” while firefighters battled secondary gas-line explosions for hours.
President Zelenskyy cut short an investment tour in South Africa and will crash a NATO foreign-ministers’ dinner tonight, brandishing fresh satellite photos and pleading for Patriot missiles. U.S. officials say F-16 pilot training “won’t finish before June,” leaving Kyiv reliant on 30-year-old MiG-29s. Moscow’s MoD bragged it “hit decision-making centers”; locals insist the only “decisions” made there were about bedtime. Markets shrugged—but Polish radar operators didn’t: Warsaw briefly scrambled two F-35s when a cruise missile kissed the NATO border before looping back into Ukraine.
