Russian Strikes Kill 12 Across Ukraine

Rescuers work at the site of the apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine March 7, 2026. (Reuters)
Rescuers work at the site of the apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine March 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Russian Strikes Kill 12 Across Ukraine

Rescuers work at the site of the apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine March 7, 2026. (Reuters)
Rescuers work at the site of the apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine March 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Russia fired a volley of missiles and drones across Ukraine overnight on Friday to Saturday, killing 12 people and wounding more than a dozen, including children. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched 29 missiles and 480 drones, several of which targeted energy and railway infrastructure. 

Authorities in Kharkiv, the second-largest city, said a ballistic missile strike destroyed a five-storey apartment block, killing 10 people. 

AFP reporters saw rescuers sifting through the debris, where several people were believed to be trapped. 

"Since last night, the rubble of a residential building in Kharkiv is being cleared following a Russian ballistic missile strike," Zelensky said on social media. 

The victims included two women and their two children, mayor Igor Terekhov said. 

"Russia has not abandoned its attempts to destroy Ukraine's residential and critical infrastructure," Zelensky added, urging the country's allies to continue providing military support. 

The Ukrainian leader said he informed French President Emmanuel Macron about the consequences of the attacks during a phone conversation. 

During the call, Zelensky said it was important that a 90 billion euro ($105-billion) EU aid package as well as the next round of sanctions against Russia, currently blocked by Hungary, "are implemented". 

Russia said it had carried out a "massive high-precision strike" against military targets in Ukraine. It routinely denies targeting civilian infrastructure. 

The Russian army said earlier it had intercepted over 120 Ukrainian drones overnight. 

The Moscow-installed authorities of Ukraine's occupied Kherson region said one person was killed and four were wounded in a Ukrainian drone strike. 

- Air defense supplies - 

An air raid alert was triggered during the night across the entire country. 

The Polish air force said on X it had scrambled military aircraft to protect its airspace in regions bordering Ukraine, as it usually does in the event of large-scale Russian strikes. 

One person died in Ukraine's eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk and three were wounded in the capital Kyiv, authorities said. 

In the Sumy region bordering Russia, a 24-year-old man died in his car when it was hit by a Russian drone, according to local officials. 

The drone barrages from either side follow on the heels of an exchange between Moscow and Kyiv of 500 prisoners of war each, in line with accords reached during the latest round of peace talks in Geneva. 

Negotiations appeared to have stalled amid a lack of progress and since the eruption of war in the Middle East. 

Zelensky earlier warned that a prolonged Middle East conflict could hinder deliveries of US-made air defense missiles. 

Ukraine is facing a shortage of expensive US PAC-3 air defense ammunition. 

Zelensky has offered to the United States an exchange of Ukraine's drone interceptors for the missiles. 

He has also suggested sending drone specialists to help shield Washington's Gulf allies from Iranian drones. 

A delay in US missile supplies during winter made Ukraine's civil infrastructure more vulnerable to widespread Russian airstrikes that left hundreds of thousands without heating in freezing temperatures. 



UN Maritime Chief Says No Country Has Right to Close Hormuz

FILE PHOTO: Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam governance, March 11, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam governance, March 11, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
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UN Maritime Chief Says No Country Has Right to Close Hormuz

FILE PHOTO: Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam governance, March 11, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam governance, March 11, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

The head of the UN maritime agency said Monday no country had a legal right to block shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a trade passage paralysed by the US-Iran war.

The International Maritime Organization's Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez addressed a news conference as access to the strait remained blocked six weeks after the war erupted with US and Israeli strikes against Iran.

The United States had threatened to begin a blockade on Monday of Iranian ports in and around the strait, which Tehran's forces have been controlling access to since after the war broke out on February 28.

"In accordance to international law, no countries have the right to prohibit the right of innocent passage or the freedom of navigation through international straits that are used for international transit," Dominguez said.

Iranian authorities have been allowing a trickle of vetted vessels to pass the strait through a route close to their coast and in some cases have reportedly levied a payment to let vessels through.

"This principle of introducing a toll on an international strait for international navigation is against the international law of the sea and the customary law," Dominguez said.

"It will create a very dangerous precedent."

The US vow to blockade Iranian ports meanwhile "doesn't make it any easier", he added.

"De-escalation is what is going to start helping us to address the crisis and to bring shipping back to the way that we used to operate."

He predicted that the extra impact of a US blockade on shipping would be negligible, however.

"With the very few number of ships that have managed to transit, an additional blockade is not going to exacerbate the situation in a level that it could be perceived."


NATO Allies Refuse to Join Trump's Strait of Hormuz Blockade

FILE PHOTO: A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo
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NATO Allies Refuse to Join Trump's Strait of Hormuz Blockade

FILE PHOTO: A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

The United States' NATO allies said on Monday they would not get involved in President Donald Trump's plan to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, further ratcheting up tensions within the increasingly fragile alliance. Trump said the US military would work with other countries to block all maritime traffic in the waterway, after weekend talks failed to reach an agreement to end the six-week conflict with Iran. The US military later specified that the blockade, due to start at 1400 GMT on Monday, would only apply to ships going to or from Iranian ports.

"The Blockade will begin shortly. Other Countries will be involved with this Blockade," Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday.

But NATO allies including Britain and France said they would not be drawn into the conflict by taking part in the blockade, saying instead that it was vital to open the waterway through which one-fifth of the world's oil usually passes, which Iran has effectively closed since the conflict began on February 28. Their refusal to participate is yet another point of friction with Trump, who has threatened to withdraw from the military alliance and is weighing pulling some US troops from Europe after several countries resisted supporting the US campaign against Iran by denying US military planes use of their airspace.

CONSIDERABLE PRESSURE

"We're not supporting the blockade," British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC.

"My decision has been very clearly that whatever the pressure, and there's been some considerable pressure, we're not getting dragged into the war," he said. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told European governments that Trump wants concrete commitments in the near future to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, diplomats told Reuters last week.

NATO could play a role in the strait if its 32 members could agree on the formation of a mission, Rutte said on April 9.

Several European countries have said they're willing to help in the strait but only once there is a durable end to hostilities and an agreement with Iran that their ships will not be attacked.

France will organize a conference with Britain and other countries to create a multinational mission to restore navigation in the strait, French President Emmanuel Macron said on X on Monday.

"This strictly defensive mission, distinct from the belligerents, will be deployed as soon as the situation allows," Macron said.

Britain is working on ways to reduce insurance premiums for ships passing through the strait once the fighting has stopped, according to a senior European official.

The Strait of Hormuz should be reopened by diplomacy, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Monday, adding that creating an international force to oversee it would be complicated as he called for NATO to reset its ties with Trump at a summit in Ankara in July.


Netanyahu Says Israel Supports Trump's Iran Naval Blockade

FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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Netanyahu Says Israel Supports Trump's Iran Naval Blockade

FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A map showing the Strait of Hormuz is seen in this illustration taken March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel supports US President Donald Trump's decision to impose a naval blockade on Iran, adding that his government is in full coordination with Washington on the matter.

"Iran violated the rules (of the peace talks in Pakistan), President Trump decided to impose a naval blockade," Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, according to a video statement released by his office, AFP reported.

"We, of course, support this firm position, and we are in constant coordination with the United States."

The US military said it would begin a blockade of all Iranian ports on Monday after weekend talks with Tehran ended without a deal.

Trump had announced on social media that he would blockade the strategic Strait of Hormuz trade route that he has been demanding Tehran fully re-open, after Vice President JD Vance left the failed negotiations with an Iranian delegation in Islamabad.

The US military said the blockade would begin at 1400 GMT, and apply to all ships leaving or seeking to dock at Iranian ports on either side of the key waterway.

Netanyahu said Tehran had violated the terms of the talks to begin with, saying Vance had briefed him after the negotiations ended in Islamabad.

"The breakdown came from the American side, which could not tolerate Iran's blatant violation of the terms for entering negotiations," Netanyahu told the cabinet.

"The agreement was that there would be a ceasefire, and that the Iranians would immediately open the strait. They did not do so. The Americans could not accept this."

Netanyahu also said Vance had told him the "central issue" for Trump was the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran and "ensuring that there is no further enrichment in the years ahead -- even decades ahead -- no enrichment within Iran".

"That is their focus, and of course it is important to us as well," Netanyahu added.