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Russia launches a large-scale attack on Ukraine, killing 3 and wounding dozens

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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack targeting regions across Ukraine early Saturday, killing at least three people and wounding dozens more, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said attacks took place across nine regions, including Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.

“The enemy’s target was our infrastructure, residential areas and civilian enterprises,” he said, adding that a missile equipped with cluster munitions struck a multi-story building in the city of Dnipro.

“Each such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to intimidate civilians and destroy our infrastructure,” he said in a statement on his official Telegram.

Zelenskyy said he expected to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week. He also said the first ladies of Ukraine and the United States would likely hold separate talks focused on humanitarian issues involving children.

His comments, which he made on Friday, were embargoed until Saturday morning.

At least 30 people were wounded in the attack in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Serhii Lysak said. Several high-rise buildings and homes were damaged in the eastern city of Dnipro.

In the Kyiv region, local authorities said there were strikes in the areas of Bucha, Boryspil and Obukhiv. A home and cars were damaged. In the western region of Lviv, Gov. Maxim Kozytsky said two cruise missiles were shot down.

Russia launched 619 drones and missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force said in a statement. In total, 579 drones, eight ballistic missiles and 32 cruise missiles were detected. Ukrainian forces shot down and neutralized 552 drones, two ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles.

“During the air strike, tactical aviation, in particular F-16 fighters, effectively worked on the enemy’s cruise missiles. Western weapons once again prove their effectiveness on the battlefield,” the Air Force said in a statement.

Russia denies violating Estonia’s airspace

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied its aircraft violated Estonia’s airspace, after Tallinn reported three fighter jets crossed into its territory on Friday without permission and remained there for 12 minutes.

The incident, described by Estonia’s top diplomat as an “unprecedentedly brazen” incursion, happened just over a week after NATO planes downed Russian drones over Poland, heightening fears that Moscow’s war on Ukraine could spill over.

In an online statement published early Saturday, Moscow stressed its fighter jets had kept to neutral Baltic Sea waters more than 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from Estonia’s Vaindloo Island in the Gulf of Finland.

“On September 19, three MiG-31 fighter jets completed a scheduled flight from Karelia to an airfield in the Kaliningrad region,” it said, referencing the Russian enclave sandwiched between Polish and Lithuanian territory.

“The flight was conducted in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states, as confirmed through objective monitoring,” the statement said without providing details about the monitoring operation.

On Friday, Estonian officials said Tallinn had summoned a Russian diplomat to protest, and also moved “to start consultations among the allies” under NATO’s Article 4, which states that parties would confer whenever the territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.

Zelenskyy hopes to finalize security guarantees in New York meetings

Zelenskyy said that Ukraine and its partners have laid the groundwork for long-term security guarantees and that he hopes to gauge how close they are to finalizing such commitments during next week’s meetings in New York.

He said European nations are prepared to move forward with a framework if the United States remains closely engaged. He noted that discussions have taken place at multiple levels, including among military leadership and general staffs from both Europe and the U.S.

“I would like to receive signals for myself on how close we are to understanding that the security guarantees from all partners will be the kind we need,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said sanctions against Russia must remain on the table if peace efforts stall, and that he plans to press the issue in talks with Trump.

“If the war continues and there is no movement toward peace, we expect sanctions,” he said, adding that Trump is looking for strong steps from Europe.

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September 20, 2025

8/15: CBS Morning News

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President Trump gears up for high-stakes Putin summit in Alaska; Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signs Sonya Massey Act in effort to reform police hiring.

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September 19, 2025

The Grave Threat Posed by Donald Trump’s Attack on Jimmy Kimmel

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On Wednesday evening, ABC indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel, the host of its late-night show, after Kimmel discussed in his opening monologue the Trump Administration and the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was murdered last week. Some viewers accused Kimmel of erroneously suggesting that Kirk’s alleged shooter was MAGA, which Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called “some of the sickest conduct possible.” Hours before the suspension was announced, Carr raised the idea of punishing local television stations that continued to air Kimmel’s show. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said. Kimmel’s suspension was the latest in a string of attacks by the Trump Administration on media outlets, and especially on broadcast television networks. Disney, which owns ABC, and Paramount, which owns CBS, had already settled two frivolous lawsuits (for defamation and deceptive editing, respectively) that Trump brought against them. CBS News, now under new ownership, has taken a number of steps—such as hiring a conservative ombudsman—that were pushed by Carr. On Thursday, Trump explicitly stated that networks employing late-night hosts critical of him should potentially have their broadcast licenses revoked.

To talk about Kimmel’s suspension, and more broadly about authoritarian leaders and their response to comedy, I called Michael Idov, a novelist and filmmaker who ran GQ Russia between 2012 and 2014, and wrote and directed the 2019 film “The Humorist,” about a fictional comedian in the late Soviet era. (Idov’s most recent novel is “The Collaborators.”) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the similarities and differences between Trump’s and Putin’s approaches to cracking down on comedy and culture, the speed of Trump’s attack on institutions in his second term, and Russian comedy under Putin’s rule.

What did you think when you first heard this news about Jimmy Kimmel? What did it recall for you?

Slightly more than a decade ago, there was a spate of firings in the Russian media of more or less independent editors and producers who were one by one replaced by Putin loyalists. And an acquaintance of mine, in reference to several of these firings, coined a phrase that became a Russian meme at the time: “Links in a fucking chain.” Every time somebody would get fired and replaced, somebody would write “links in a fucking chain.” Honestly, that was my reaction. Last month, I saw that the Trump Administration declared that the National Endowment for the Arts’ creative-writing fellowships are going to be cancelled, and grants will now be contingent on writing on such topics as “Make America Healthy Again.” That to me was even more reminiscent of things I’d seen during my time in Russia.

It took more than a decade of Putin’s rule for the Russian Ministry of Culture to even start suggesting preferred themes to filmmakers and TV creators. And when they started suggesting themes, it was a scandal. Vladimir Medinsky, the Minister of Culture at the time, would say things like, “Oh, we want to see more films about heroic cosmonauts or the Olympics and the Second World War,” et cetera. People would say, “How dare he suggest topics like that?”

Can you step back and discuss the time line for the different changes in Russia? It seems like you are saying that they went after journalism before culture, to some degree.

Right. The first attacks on the news media came very early, within a year of Putin coming to power. In 2001, the network that was owned by an oligarch named Vladimir Gusinsky was taken over. And that was part of Putin’s first wave of consolidating power—in this case, getting out from under the oligarchs that helped put him in power. I would argue that the second wave came after 2004, in the wake of the so-called Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Putin and his people realized that they have to start paying attention to the internet and youth culture, and start creating these sort of AstroTurf movements, as well as generally keeping tabs on what’s going on in the online space. It had not occurred to them before.

But the overarching tendency here is that every time this happened, it was a reaction to an external event. Until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in 2022, repression of the media was always in response to something, and they took what they felt they needed and left the rest alone. Every time there was something that they wouldn’t touch. For example, glossy magazines were exempted for many years because the thinking went that, Well, the glossy-magazine culture is basically the urban élites talking to themselves, and we don’t really need to get into that space as long as we control TV news and daily newspapers. As time went on, the government felt it needed to control more aspects of the media and just the general informational space in order to stay in power.

Does the idea that these restrictions were often prompted by external factors fit with your answer that the early moves against the media were Putin trying to take power from the oligarchs who helped get him in power?

Well, I think that was the external factor. Putin saw firsthand, in 1996, under Boris Yeltsin, that a media strategy, which back then meant TV ads and skewed reporting, could swing an election. The first move was to close that loophole and to make sure that an independently held TV network with a robust news operation can never create a popular challenger to him. So that was the need. My long-held view on Putin is that he lacks anything resembling a master plan or a strategy. He is, however, a brilliant tactician with the sole purpose of surviving and keeping himself and his friends in power. And, basically, he will espouse any ideology or hold up or hoist any flag in order to make that happen. When, in the two-thousands, for example, it seemed more advantageous to present himself as a liberal reformer, he was a liberal reformer. When, in 2012, it was temporarily expedient to have Russia become almost like a religious state and really, really empower the Patriarch as one of the main decision-makers in the country, he did that.

This is the head of the Russian Orthodox Church?

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Isaac Chotiner

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September 18, 2025

Putin: More than 700,000 Russian soldiers on front line in Ukraine

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More than 700,000 Russian soldiers are currently fighting in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

Putin made the announcement at a meeting with parliamentary leaders in Moscow, the TASS news agency reported.

The meeting was primarily about creating quotas for the subsequent employment of veterans of the war.

“You see, there are more than 700,000 people on the front line,” Putin was quoted as saying.

Whether the figure Putin quoted corresponds to reality cannot be independently verified.

Military experts recently estimated the total strength of the Russian armed forces, including those outside Ukraine, at just under 1.3 million men.

Kiev’s forces are estimated at around 900,000 active soldiers.

Russia has been at war with Ukraine for over three and a half years and has occupied around a fifth of the country. Neither side has offered precise details of their losses to date.

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September 18, 2025

Trump says NATO must agree to stop buying Russian oil before U.S. will sanction Moscow

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President Trump signaled a new position on Russia’s war with Ukraine. He said the U.S. will agree to additional sanctions on Moscow, but only when NATO allies stop buying Russian oil. Willie James Inman has more details.

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September 13, 2025

Poland rejects Trump’s suggestion that Russia’s drone raid “could have been a mistake”

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Warsaw — Poland’s most senior officials on Friday dismissed President Trump’s suggestion that a major Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace could have been a mistake by Vladimir Putin’s military.

“We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a message posted on social media.

Polish authorities said they had recovered parts of 17 Russian-made drones, which fell without causing any injuries or major damage in the east of the country on Wednesday.

Polish and allied NATO fighter jets from Holland were scrambled to intercept the drones — a first such response to aerial Russian military incursions into NATO airspace since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stands in front of Polish Air Force F-16 fighter jets as he holds a news conference regarding the threat posed by Russian drones in Polish airspace, at the 32nd Tactical Air Base in Lask, southwest of Lodz, Poland, Sept. 11, 2025.

Agencja Wyborcza.pl/Tomasz Stanczak via REUTERS

Poland’s relatively new, conservative President Karol Nawrocki, in a social media post on Thursday, called the Russian drone incursion “nothing more than an attempt to test our capabilities and response. It was an attempt to test the mechanisms of action within NATO and our ability to respond.”

Other European capitals and the European Union also labelled the raid a Russian test of the NATO alliance’s resolve in the face of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, but Mr. Trump suggested otherwise.

“It could have been a mistake,” he told journalists late Thursday when asked about the incident. A day earlier, Mr. Trump issued a brief reaction to the incident, saying on his Truth Social platform: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”

The White House did not offer any clarification of Mr. Trump’s remarks.

Previously, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said in a social media post that the U.S. stood “by our NATO Allies in the face of these airspace violations and will defend every inch of NATO territory.”

European member states of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Vector illustration — A map graphic shows in dark blue the European nations which, along with the United States and Canada, are members of the transatlantic NATO defense alliance.

brichuas/Getty Images

Poland’s Deputy Minister of Defense Cezary Tomczyk also rejected Mr. Trump’s suggestion on Thursday that the drone incursion could have been inadvertent.

“I think this is a message that should reach President Trump today: there’s no question of a mistake – this was a deliberate Russian attack,” he told the Polsat News television network.

“On the night that 19 Russian drones crossed into Poland, 400 (drones) plus 40 missiles crossed into Ukraine,” added Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in a video message shared on social media, ahead of a visit to Ukraine’s capital. “These were not mistakes.”

Poland has requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the Russian drone incursion, which is set to take place Friday afternoon.

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September 12, 2025

Poland says it downed Russian drones in its airspace during Russian attacks on Ukraine

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Poland said Wednesday it had downed drones that entered its airspace during Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a post on X Wednesday that, “Last night the Polish airspace was violated by a huge number of Russian drones. Those drones that posed a direct threat were shot down. I am in constant communication with the Secretary General of NATO and our allies.”

Poland’s military said Wednesday it had scrambled aircraft alongside allies to shoot down “hostile objects” violating its airspace, a first for a NATO country during the war.

Apparent Russian drones and missiles have entered the airspace of NATO members — including Poland — several times during Russia’s three-and-a-half-year war, but no NATO country has ever tried to shoot them down.

A cornerstone of the Western military alliance is the principle that an attack on any member is deemed an attack on all.

A NATO source told Reuters the alliance isn’t treating the drone incursion into Polish territory as an attack and said early signs pointed to an incursion of six to ten Russian drones that was on purpose. “It was the first time NATO aircraft have engaged potential threats in allied airspace,” the source said.

The military also said on X that, “As a result of attack by the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory, there was an unprecedented violation of Polish airspace by drone-type objects. This is an act of aggression that posed a real threat to the safety of our citizens.”

It said efforts were “underway to search for and locate the possible crash sites of these objects” and “the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces is monitoring the current situation, and Polish and allied forces and assets remain fully prepared for further actions.”

Polish police said officers discovered a damaged drone in the eastern Polish village of Czosnowka, according to Reuters.

Hours later, Poland’s military said on X that the operations had concluded but the search for downed drones was continuing. “We urge that in the event of observing an unknown object or its debris, do not approach, touch, or move it. Such elements may pose a threat and contain hazardous materials. They must be thoroughly inspected by the appropriate services,” the military cautioned.

The Polish government announced it would hold an “extraordinary” meeting Wednesday morning.

Polish State Fire Service Commander Wojciech Kruczek and General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces, gather on Sept. 10, 2025 at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in Warsaw for an extraordinary government meeting, following violations of Polish airspace during a Russian attack on Ukraine.

Kacper Pempel / REUTERS

The incursion came as Russia unleashed a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, including in the western city of Lviv, around 50 miles from the Polish border.

UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT-WAR — Ukrainian air defenses fire at Russian drones above Kyiv during massive drone and missile strikes on Ukraine on Sept. 10, 2025

SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP via Getty Images

Warnings of further Russian aggression

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that eight Russian drones were “aimed toward” Poland in an overnight barrage that forced Warsaw to scramble air defenses. “It was not just one Shahed that could be called an accident, but at least eight strike drones aimed toward Poland,” Zelensky said, referring to Iranian-designed drones deployed by Moscow, adding that the incident represented “An extremely dangerous precedent for Europe.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiga, warned on X that Russian President Vladimir Putin “just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West. The longer he faces no strength in response, the more aggressive he gets. A weak response now will provoke Russia even more — and then Russian missiles and drones will fly even further into Europe.”

Poland’s newly-elected nationalist President Karol Nawrocki issued a warning along the same lines Tuesday, saying at a news conference in Helsinki that, “We do not trust Vladimir Putin’s good intentions. We believe that Vladimir Putin is ready to also invade other countries.”

European Union chief Ursula said Moscow had carried out a “reckless and unprecedented” violation of Polish airspace.

And the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, posted on X Wednesday that “we saw the most serious European airspace violation by Russia since the war began, and indications suggest it was intentional, not accidental. The EU stands in full solidarity with Poland. Russia’s war is escalating, not ending.”

NATO-member Poland, a major supporter of Ukraine, hosts over a million Ukrainian refugees and is a key transit point for Western humanitarian and military aid to the war-torn country.

Last month, Warsaw said a Russian military drone flew into its airspace and exploded in farmland in eastern Poland and depicted the incident as a “provocation.” In 2023, Poland said a Russian missile had crossed into its airspace to strike Ukraine. And in November 2022, two civilians were killed when a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile fell on a village near the border.

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September 10, 2025

Contributor: Russia wants what it cannot have

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Vladimir Putin is on a roll the past few weeks. First President Trump invited him to Anchorage. Then he got a three-way hug with China’s President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a summit in China. And an invitation to a grand military parade in Beijing.

Since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Putin had been shunted to the fringes of summit group photos. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he had been treated as a pariah by the United States and Europe. Indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide, he could travel only to countries that wouldn’t arrest him. In short, Moscow was not being treated with the respect it believed it deserved.

Trump thought that by literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska — and clapping as the Russian loped down the red carpet — he could reset the bilateral relationship. And it did. But not the way Trump intended.

The Alaskan summit convinced the Russians that the current administration is willing to throw the sources of American global power out the window.

Trade partners, geopolitical allies and alliances — everything is on the table for Trump. The U.S. president believes this shows his power; the Russians see this as a low-cost opportunity to degrade American influence. Putin was trained by the KGB to recognize weakness and exploit it.

There is no evidence that being friendly to Putin and agreeing with Russian positions are going to make Moscow more willing to stop fighting in Ukraine. Overlooking Russia’s intensifying hybrid attacks on Europe, in February, Vice President JD Vance warned Europe that it should be focusing instead on the threat to democracy “from within.” This followed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth‘s assurances that Ukraine would never join NATO. Trump has suggested that U.S. support for NATO and Europe is contingent on those countries paying up. In an event that sent Moscow pundits to pop the Champagne, Trump told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office that he just didn’t “have the cards” and should stop trying to beat Russia.

Did any of this bring Putin to the negotiating table? No.

In fact, the Kremlin indicated a readiness to talk with Trump about the war only when Trump threatened “very, very powerful” sanctions in mid-July. This time, he seemed serious about it. The Alaska summit happened a month later. The tougher Trump is with Russia, the more likely he is to get any kind of traction in negotiations. It’s unfortunate that the president has now gone back to vague two-week deadlines for imposing sanctions that never materialize.

Russia believes it will win the war. China has been a steady friend, willing to sell Russia cars and dual-use technology that ends up in drones that are attacking Ukrainian cities. It has also become Russia’s largest buyer of crude oil and coal. Western sanctions have not been biting the Russian economy, though they have nibbled away at state revenues. Europe and the United States have not been willing to apply the kind of economic pressure that would seriously dent Russia’s ability to carry on the war.

Putin keeps saying that a resolution to the war requires that the West address the “root causes” of the war. These causes, for Russia, relate to the way it was treated after losing the Cold War. The three Baltic nations joined Europe as fast as they could. Central and Eastern European countries decided that they would rather be part of NATO than the Warsaw Pact. When Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine started asking for membership in the European Union and NATO, Russia realized it wouldn’t be able to convince them to stay with economic appeal or soft power. It had to use force. Unable to demonstrate the attraction of its suffocating embrace, or the value of its Eurasian Economic Union, Russia believed it had to use force to keep Ukraine by its side. It reminds one of a grotesque Russian expression: “If he beats you, it means he loves you.”

The real “root cause” of the war in Ukraine is Russia’s inability to accept that centuries of empire do not confer the right to dominate former colonies forever. Mongolia learned this. As did the British. And the French. And the Ottomans. The Austro-Hungarians.

Eventually this war will end. But not soon. Russia is insisting on maximalist demands that Ukraine cannot agree to, which include control over territory it hasn’t managed to occupy. Ukraine will not stop fighting until it is sure that Russia will not attack again. Achieving that degree of certainty with flimsy security guarantees is impossible.

In the meantime, Ukrainian cities on the frontline will continue being wiped out, citizens in Kherson will continue being subjects of “human safari” for Russian drone operators, people across Ukraine will continue experiencing daily air raids that send them scurrying into shelters. Soldiers, volunteers, civilians and children will continue dying. Trump appears to care about the thousands of daily casualties. Most of these are Russian soldiers who have been sent to their death by a Russian state that doesn’t see their lives as worth preserving.

Trump is understandably frustrated with his inability to “stop the killing” because he has assumed that satisfying Russian demands is the answer. The opposite is true: Only by showing — proving — to Russia that its demands are unattainable will the U.S. persuade the Kremlin to consider meaningful negotiations. Countries at war come to the negotiating table not because they are convinced to abandon their objectives. They sit down when they realize their goals are unattainable.

Alexandra Vacroux is the vice president for strategic engagement at the Kyiv School of Economics.

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Ideas expressed in the piece

Putin has successfully leveraged recent diplomatic engagements to break out of international isolation, using meetings with Xi Jinping and Modi, along with Trump’s invitation to Alaska, to demonstrate that Western attempts to sideline Russia have failed. These high-profile gatherings signal to the world that Russia remains a significant player on the global stage despite sanctions and international legal proceedings.
Trump’s accommodating approach toward Putin represents a fundamental misreading of Russian psychology and strategic thinking, as Putin was trained to recognize and exploit weakness rather than respond to friendship with reciprocal gestures. The president’s willingness to question support for NATO and suggest contingent relationships with allies signals to Moscow that American global influence can be degraded at low cost.
Russia only demonstrates willingness to engage in meaningful negotiations when faced with credible threats of severe consequences, as evidenced by the Kremlin’s indication of readiness to talk only after Trump threatened “very, very powerful” sanctions in July. Conversely, accommodating gestures and vague deadlines for sanctions that never materialize encourage Russian intransigence.
The fundamental driver of the conflict stems from Russia’s inability to accept the end of its imperial dominance over former territories, not the grievances about post-Cold War treatment that Moscow frequently cites. Russia’s resort to force against Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova reflects its failure to maintain influence through economic appeal or soft power, revealing an outdated imperial mindset that refuses to acknowledge former colonies’ right to self-determination.
Meaningful negotiations will only occur when Russia recognizes that its maximalist territorial and political demands are unattainable through military means, requiring sustained pressure rather than premature concessions. Current Russian demands for control over territory it hasn’t occupied and Ukraine’s complete capitulation demonstrate that Moscow still believes it can achieve total victory.

Different views on the topic

The Russia-China partnership faces significant structural limitations that constrain the depth of their cooperation, despite public declarations of “no limits” friendship. While both nations conduct joint military exercises and maintain substantial trade relationships, their military collaboration remains “carefully managed and circumscribed by each nation’s broader strategic interests,” with no mutual defense agreements or deep operational integration between their armed forces^[1].
India’s apparent warming toward China and Russia reflects strategic autonomy principles rather than genuine alignment toward an anti-Western axis, as fundamental tensions between New Delhi and Beijing persist over unresolved border disputes and strategic competition in the Indian Ocean region^[2]. Recent diplomatic gestures may be tactical responses to trade tensions rather than indicators of a permanent realignment away from partnerships with Australia, Japan, the European Union, and other democratic allies^[2].
The potential for wedging strategies between Russia and China remains viable due to underlying structural tensions and competing interests, particularly in Central Asia where both powers seek influence. American policymakers increasingly recognize that the “reverse Nixon” approach of driving wedges between Moscow and Beijing could exploit inherent limitations in their partnership, as their relationship represents neither unlimited friendship nor a completely stable alliance^[4]^[5].
China’s military cooperation with Russia serves Beijing’s interests in testing tactics and equipment while maintaining careful distance from direct involvement in conflicts that could jeopardize its broader strategic goals^[1]. Chinese support for Russian drone production and dual-use technology transfers reflects calculated assistance that stops short of full military alliance, suggesting Beijing prioritizes its own strategic flexibility over unconditional support for Russian objectives^[3].

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Alexandra Vacroux

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September 9, 2025

Trump eyes new sanctions on Putin after largest-ever drone attack

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President Donald Trump says he’s ready to punish Russia with a “second phase” of sanctions after it launched its largest-ever barrage of drone and missile strikes on Sunday, damaging a cabinet building and killing a mother and her baby.

“Yeah, I am,” Trump told a reporter, who asked whether he’s ready to move forward with more sanctions following months of failing to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to cease his military operations or meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump said he still has plans to chat with Putin “over the next couple of days” though it remains unclear what he hopes to get out of the latest conversation.

A family with a baby take shelter in a building basement during a Russian missile and drone strike on Kyiv, Ukraine on Sept. 7, 2025. (Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

RUSSIA HITS UKRAINE WITH LARGEST AIR ATTACK OF THE WAR AS TALKS OF PEACE FLICKER

“Look, we’re going to get it done,” he told reporters on Sunday. “The Russia-Ukraine situation. We’re going to get it done.”

Trump said he was “not thrilled” with Russia’s Sunday attack, which damaged the Cabinet of Ministers Building in Kyiv and killed four, including a mother and her baby, after 810 drones and 13 missiles were fired across Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said it neutralized 747 drones and four of the fired missiles.

“I am not thrilled with what’s happening there,” Trump said. “I believe we’re going to get it settled. But I am not happy with them. I’m not happy with anything having to do with that war.”

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as leaves the White House in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

PUTIN WARNS WESTERN TROOPS IN UKRAINE WOULD BE ‘LEGITIMATE TARGETS’

The strike came just days after Putin alleged he was willing to meet with Zelenskyy so long as the Ukrainian leader traveled to Moscow – a move Western and Ukrainian officials alike said was not only a dangerous proposition for Zelenskyy, but lacked any real effort by Putin to engage in good faith negotiations to end the war.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that European leaders will also be heading to Washington D.C. this week to discuss next steps in ending the war, though he did not detail who will make the trip and whether Zelenskyy would be among them.

Putin said last month that his terms for ending the war would focus on freezing the front lines where they stand in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, but appeared to suggest that Ukraine would need to withdraw its forces from Donetsk and Luhansk, amid other stipulations.

Ukrainian building hit during Russian drone and missile strike

Rescue workers extinguish a fire in a 9-story apartment building in the Sviatoshynskyi district, hit by a Russian drone and partially destroyed from the 4th to the 8th floors in Kyiv, Ukraine on Sept. 7, 2025. (Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

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But on Monday, Ukraine’s military said it had recaptured the strategically important town of Zarichne in Donetsk – a region which Russia was assessed to occupy roughly 75% of last month.

Zarichne sits near Luhansk – a region which Russia is assessed to nearly fully occupy – and is near key transport routes connecting strategically important cities in Donetsk.

Ukraine last month also said it had made advances in areas near Pokrovsk in western Donetsk, where Russian forces have been concentrating their summer operation efforts.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.

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September 8, 2025

In a week of stumbles, Trump faces setbacks in court and abroad

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WASHINGTON — Facing viral rumors of his imminent death, President Trump emerged in the Oval Office on Tuesday alive and scowling. Core tenets of his economic policies were under strain. Flashy diplomatic overtures to Moscow appeared to be backfiring. And a scandal over a notorious sexual abuser that has fixated his base was roaring back to life in Washington.

It was a challenging week for the president, whose aggressive approach to his second term has begun to hit significant roadblocks with the public and the courts, and overseas, with longstanding U.S. adversaries Trump once hoped to coax to his will.

The president called for an expedited Supreme Court review of an appellate court ruling that he had exceeded his authority by issuing sweeping global tariffs last spring — a decision that, if left standing, could upend the foundation of his economic agenda. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued jobs numbers showing a contraction of the labor market in July, a first since the depths of the pandemic in 2020.

New art lining a hallway in the West Wing features photographs of Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where Trump said the Russian president had agreed to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss an end to the war. Yet, three weeks on, Russia had launched its most intense bombardment of Kyiv in years, and Putin traveled to Beijing for a military parade hosted by Xi Jinping, which Russian state media used to mock the U.S. president.

During an appearance in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump said reaching a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine has turned out to be “a little bit more difficult” than he initially thought.

And a rare spree of bipartisanship broke out on Capitol Hill — in opposition to Trump’s causes.

A tense hearing at the Senate Finance Committee with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid bare concern over the direction of federal vaccination policy and public health recommendations under his leadership across party lines.

Trump declined to stand behind him wholeheartedly after the hearing. “He’s got some little different ideas,” Trump told reporters, adding: “It’s not your standard talk.”

On Wednesday, moments after a group of more than 100 women pleaded for Trump’s help from the steps of the Capitol seeking transparency over the investigation of their alleged abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump dismissed the matter as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

“The Department of Justice has done its job, they have given everything requested of them,” Trump repeated on Truth Social on Friday. “It’s time to end the Democrat Epstein Hoax.”

Trump was close friends with Epstein for more than a decade. But his base has repeatedly called for the release of thousands of files in his case — and some of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress are set to vote against his wishes for a discharge petition directing the Justice Department to do so in the coming days.

A far-right political activist released hidden camera footage this week of a Justice Department official claiming the agency would redact the names of Republicans, but not Democrats, identified in the files. In the video, the DOJ official also suggested that Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was recently moved to a lower-security prison as part of a deal to keep her quiet.

Public support for Trump has appeared stable since July, with roughly 42% of Americans approving of his job performance across a series of high quality polls. But the end of the August recess in Washington — and the oncoming flu and COVID-19 season — could return public attention to subjects that have proved politically perilous for the president this week.

Polls show that a majority of the president’s Republican voters support vaccines. They oppose Putin and increasingly support Ukraine. And across the political spectrum, Americans want the Epstein files released, unredacted and in full.

A string of court losses

The president’s agenda suffered several setbacks this week, as federal judges across the country ruled his administration had broken the law in various instances.

In San Francisco, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of military troops in Los Angeles was illegal and barred soldiers from aiding immigration arrests in California in an order set to take effect next week.

In Boston, a federal judge said the Trump administration broke the law when it froze billions of dollars in research funds awarded to Harvard University. In another court ruling, a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of unaccompanied migrant children to Guatemala.

And on Friday afternoon, a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from taking away the deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians living in the United States.

While the court decisions represent a snag for key portions of the administration’s agenda, the cases continue to play out in court — and could ultimately turn in favor of Trump.

Legal experts are closely watching those decisions. In the case of the military troop deployments, for instance, some fear a reversal on appeal could ultimately hand the president broader power to send troops to American cities.

Trump has floated additional federal deployments — to Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans — in recent days.

Trump reacts to a bad week

Trump greeted the waves of bad news with a characteristic mix of deflection, finger-pointing and anger.

He warned that losing his appeal on tariff policy at the Supreme Court would render the United States a “third world country,” telling reporters, “if we don’t win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly.” And he said he was “very disappointed” in Putin.

After the parade in Beijing — which was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a longstanding U.S. ally now ostracized by Trump’s tariffs — drew widespread media attention, Trump wrote on social media that the countries were conspiring together against the United States.

“We’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China,” he wrote.

In another lengthy social media post on Friday, Trump accused Democrats of fueling the Epstein “hoax” as a means to “distract from the great success of a Republican President.”

Days earlier, survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse publicly pressured lawmakers to back a legislative measure to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier.

“This is about ending secrecy wherever abuse of power takes root,” said Anouska De Georgiou, who was among the Epstein victims who held a news conference on Capitol Hill.

A few high-profile Republicans also broke with Trump on the Epstein issue, calling for more transparency on the investigation. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she is willing to expose those who are tied to Epstein’s sex trafficking case.

On a phone call with Trump on Wednesday morning, Greene suggested he meet with Epstein’s victims at the White House while they were gathered in town. He was noncommittal, the congresswoman told reporters.

The survivors left town without a meeting. At the direction of the White House, Republican leadership continues to press Republican members to oppose efforts to release the files.

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Michael Wilner, Ana Ceballos

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September 5, 2025

9/5: CBS Morning News

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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. grilled on vaccines, COVID and CDC turmoil at Senate hearing; Putin warns foreign troops sent to Ukraine would be considered “legitimate targets.”

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September 5, 2025