Father, 4-year-old Son Die in Russian Air Attack on Kyiv Region

Rescuers work at a site where residential buildings were damaged during a Russian military strike in a location given as Brovary, Kyiv region, Ukraine in this screengrab from handout video released August 11, 2024. State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
Rescuers work at a site where residential buildings were damaged during a Russian military strike in a location given as Brovary, Kyiv region, Ukraine in this screengrab from handout video released August 11, 2024. State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
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Father, 4-year-old Son Die in Russian Air Attack on Kyiv Region

Rescuers work at a site where residential buildings were damaged during a Russian military strike in a location given as Brovary, Kyiv region, Ukraine in this screengrab from handout video released August 11, 2024. State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS
Rescuers work at a site where residential buildings were damaged during a Russian military strike in a location given as Brovary, Kyiv region, Ukraine in this screengrab from handout video released August 11, 2024. State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS

A 4-year-old boy and his 35-year-old father died when debris from a downed Russian weapon fell on the house they were living in near the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.
A 13-year-old child was among the injured in the attack in the Brovary district, in the Kyiv region just northeast of the capital's metropolitan area, Ukraine's emergency services said on the Telegram messaging app.

Meanwhile, Russia's defense ministry said on Sunday Russian air defense units destroyed 14 Ukraine-launched drones and four Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles over the Kursk region bordering Ukraine.

Sixteen drones were downed over the Voronezh region, several hundred kilometers south of Moscow, and three drones over the border Belgorod region, it said. One drone each was destroyed over the Bryansk and Orlov regions, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were fighting in the surprise offensive in Kursk, as the border region's authorities rushed to evacuate civilians from areas at risk.

Moscow's forces are in their sixth day of intense battles against Kyiv's largest incursion into Russian territory since the start of the war, which left southwestern parts of Russia vulnerable before reinforcement started arriving.

In a sign of the gravity of the situation, Russia imposed a sweeping security regime in three border regions on Saturday, while Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow, sent more troops to its border with Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of violating its air space.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said he had discussed the operation with top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, vowing to restore justice after Russia launched a full-scale aggression on its smaller neighbour in February 2022.
"Today, I received several reports from commander-in-chief Syrskyi regarding the front lines and our actions to push the war onto the aggressor's territory," he said.
"Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and ensure the necessary pressure on the aggressor."
Russian President Vladimir Putin cast the Ukrainian attack - which military analysts say caught the Kremlin off-guard - as a major provocation.

Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Wednesday the attacks had been halted, but Russia has thus far failed to push the Ukrainian forces back over the border.
Russian military bloggers say the situation had stabilized after Russia's reinforcements, though they said Ukraine was swiftly building up forces.

Early on Sunday, Kursk officials said that 13 people were injured in the city after debris from a destroyed Ukraine-launched missile fell onto a nine-story residential building.
Alexei Smirnov, Kursk's acting governor, ordered local authorities to speed up the evacuation of civilians in areas at risk. On Saturday, Russia's TASS state news agency reported that more than 76,000 people had been evacuated.



Austria Chancellor Urges More Communications Monitoring after Taylor Swift Plot

A carriage passes police cars in Vienna on Friday, Aug.9, 2024. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)
A carriage passes police cars in Vienna on Friday, Aug.9, 2024. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)
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Austria Chancellor Urges More Communications Monitoring after Taylor Swift Plot

A carriage passes police cars in Vienna on Friday, Aug.9, 2024. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)
A carriage passes police cars in Vienna on Friday, Aug.9, 2024. (AP Photo/Heinz-Peter Bader)

Austria's chancellor said on Sunday his country's intelligence agencies should have greater power to monitor communications on messaging apps to stop extremists after a planned suicide attack at a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna was thwarted this week.

Swift's three planned concerts were cancelled after Austrian authorities got wind of a plot led by a 19-year-old youth to launch an ISIS-inspired suicide attack at a soccer stadium where tens of thousands of fans were planning to attend the shows.

News of the planned attack has reanimated debate over the tight restrictions Austria has in comparison to other western nations on the monitoring of messaging communications just as the country gears up for an election on Sept. 29.

"We really need our agencies to be upgraded technically so they're on an equal footing with terrorists, with organized crime, so we can combat them," Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in an interview with Germany's Bild newspaper, according to Reuters.

"It's vital that messenger services like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram can be decrypted for security authorities, under judicial oversight, while upholding the rule of law," added Nehammer, who is seeking re-election next month.

Nehammer, who said Austria received a tip from a foreign intelligence service over the planned Swift attack, said the main suspects so far in the case had been captured.

But he spoke of more arrests being made as police continue investigations among criminal networks. More ISIS supporters had been identified, he said.