Ukrainian Drone Hits Upscale Moscow Highrise in Rare Attack

Debris dangles from a damaged apartment building on Mosfilmovskaya street after a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP)
Debris dangles from a damaged apartment building on Mosfilmovskaya street after a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP)
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Ukrainian Drone Hits Upscale Moscow Highrise in Rare Attack

Debris dangles from a damaged apartment building on Mosfilmovskaya street after a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP)
Debris dangles from a damaged apartment building on Mosfilmovskaya street after a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow, Monday, May 4, 2026. (AP)

A Ukrainian drone hit a residential high-rise building in an upscale Moscow neighborhood overnight into Monday, the Russian capital's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

The rare attack on heavily protected Moscow comes just days before Russia's grand annual May 9th parade, which this year will be held without military hardware amid a heightened threat from Ukrainian strikes.

"A drone crashed into a building in the area of the Mosfilmovskaya (street). There are no casualties," Sobyanin said, referring to an expensive district next to the Moscow film studio and some 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Kremlin.

He added that the two drones that targeted Moscow have been repelled by the air defense forces.

Russian state broadcaster Rossiya-1 published a video showing collapsed walls and broken doors inside a damaged apartment.

Ukraine has fired drones into Russia throughout Moscow's more than four-year offensive, which has killed thousands and displaced millions.

Kyiv has in the past weeks stepped up its strikes targeting Russian oil infrastructure hubs: refineries, ports and depots.

But Ukrainian drones rarely reach Moscow, which is heavily guarded by numerous air defense systems.

Talks to end the war between the neighbors have gone nowhere.

Moscow is gearing up to hold its May 9th parade, which marks the victory over Nazi Germany. It has become a central event under President Vladimir Putin's long rule.

- Drone attacks -

Ukraine said Sunday it had hit several Russian ships -- a cruise missile carrier and three shadow fleet tankers -- as both sides fired hundreds of drones in a spree that killed at least eight people.

The two neighbors have been firing waves of explosive-packed drones at each other daily throughout the four-year war, as talks to end the conflict have gone nowhere.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday vowed to step up retaliatory strikes on Russian energy sites if Moscow did not halt its invasion.

"Russia can end its war at any moment. Prolonging the war will only expand the scale of our defensive operations," he said on social media.

The Ukrainian leader said his troops had struck a vessel equipped with cruise missiles at the port of Primorsk, in Russia's northwestern Leningrad region.

The region's oil export terminals have been hit several times in recent weeks, triggering massive fires that billow plumes of toxic black smoke into the atmosphere.

Kyiv says the strikes have knocked out billions of dollars' worth of Russia's vital export earnings.

Zelensky said Sunday three of Russia's so-called shadow tankers -- ageing vessels that ferry its sanctioned oil around the world -- were struck, one at Primorsk and two off the southern Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

He posted night-vision footage of a naval drone approaching one tanker at Novorossiysk.

The Russian governor of the Leningrad region had earlier confirmed a fire at the port after Ukrainian attacks.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear and Russian officials gave no details.

- 600 drones -

On the Russian side of the front line, two people were killed in the Belgorod border region, one near Moscow and a teenager in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine in separate attacks overnight and throughout Sunday.

In Ukraine, two were killed in the coastal Odesa region, one in the frontline Kherson region and another in an attack on the industrial city of Dnipro.

Photos from Dnipro showed the roof of a five-storey apartment block destroyed, wooden beams exposed and debris scattered into partially collapsed top-floor apartments.

Russia fired 268 drones and one ballistic missile in the overnight barrage, Kyiv's air force said.

Ukraine's army launched 334 drones at Russia, Moscow's defense ministry said.

Kyiv calls its attacks on Russia fair retaliation for Russia's nightly barrages of its cities.

Both sides deny targeting civilians.

Tens of thousands have been killed -- the vast majority in Ukraine -- since Russia invaded in February 2022.

In April, Russia fired a record number of long-range attack drones at Ukraine -- an average of more than 200 a day -- according to AFP analysis of data from Kyiv's air force.



ISIS Suspect Killed in Raid Ahead of Ankara NATO Summit

The prosecutor's office had on Tuesday confirmed issuing warrants for 241 people, with anti-terror police arresting 209 people in early morning raids in and around the city. (AFP file)
The prosecutor's office had on Tuesday confirmed issuing warrants for 241 people, with anti-terror police arresting 209 people in early morning raids in and around the city. (AFP file)
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ISIS Suspect Killed in Raid Ahead of Ankara NATO Summit

The prosecutor's office had on Tuesday confirmed issuing warrants for 241 people, with anti-terror police arresting 209 people in early morning raids in and around the city. (AFP file)
The prosecutor's office had on Tuesday confirmed issuing warrants for 241 people, with anti-terror police arresting 209 people in early morning raids in and around the city. (AFP file)

Police shot dead a man suspected of ties to ISIS group militants during a raid on a district near Ankara, security sources told Turkish media Wednesday.

The incident occurred during police raids early Tuesday, two weeks before the July 7-8 NATO summit in the capital Ankara that world leaders from 32 nations, among them US President Donald Trump, will attend.

The shooting happened in Sazagasi, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, during a simultaneous operations that saw police arresting more than 200 people, the DHA and IHA news agencies reported.

The suspect, M.K., was shot dead when a police special force unit raided an address where he was staying with his wife N.K.

IHA news agency said the pair had opened fire first on police, prompting a shootout.

"The police carried out an operation here, but I don't know who the suspects are supposed to be linked to," local neighborhood leader Nuri Demir told AFP by phone.

"We saw ambulances transporting wounded, but I don't know anything else," he added.

Contacted by AFP, neither Ankara's provincial governorate nor the Ankara public prosecutor's office would make a comment on the incident.

The prosecutor's office had on Tuesday confirmed issuing warrants for 241 people, with anti-terror police arresting 209 people in early morning raids in and around the city.

Of the total number wanted for arrest, 56 were identified as ISIS suspects, while 185 were identified as belonging to several far-left organizations branded terror groups by Ankara.

It was not immediately clear on Wednesday whether police had managed to round up any of the remaining 32 suspects.


Australia Spy Chief Warns of Iran Terror Threat

Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)
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Australia Spy Chief Warns of Iran Terror Threat

Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)
Police officers gather at the scene of a shooting incident at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 14, 2025. (Reuters)

An Australian citizen living in Iran who was a senior member of its Revolutionary Guards orchestrated a major antisemitic firebomb attack in Sydney, Australia's spy chief said Wednesday.

Giving an annual threat assessment, Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), said he was also concerned that an Iranian group active in Europe could conduct further attacks or an assassination in Australia.

ASIO has come under scrutiny after 15 people were killed in an antisemitic mass shooting at Bondi Beach in December, with an independent inquiry into antisemitism noting a drop in the share of funding for counter-terrorism investigations.

In his Canberra speech, Burgess defended the agency as it faced "concurrent, cascading, and compounding threats", and revealed details of investigations into two antisemitic firebombings traced to Iran.

An Iran-based Australian citizen orchestrated the 2024 firebombing of a Bondi restaurant, Lewis' Continental Kitchen, in the first major antisemitic attack in Australia, he said.

"This person is a senior agent of the IRGC Quds Force, running its networks around the world," he said, referring to the Guards' foreign operations branch.

A former Australian resident living in Iraq but working for Iran had directed another major firebomb attack, on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne, he said. Australia expelled Iran's ambassador last year over the attack.

- State hackers -

An Australian crime figure was arrested in January after pressure from Australian and Iraqi police.

"Iran recruited him through a complex web of Iraqi-based militia groups. Valuing his high wealth and criminal connections, the IRGC protected him and supported his illegal enterprises," Burgess said.

Iran continued to view Australia as a target, and could "conduct or inspire acts of arson, vandalism or even assassinations on Australian soil".

The Bondi Beach attack, allegedly by father-and-son killers, was shocking but not surprising in the context of a deteriorating global and domestic security environment, he said.

There were "misunderstandings" about how ASIO allocates resources, he added.

The number of officers working on counter-terrorism doubled between 2005 and 2025 and the agency was using new tools including artificial intelligence.

ASIO had foiled 31 major terrorism plots since 2014, and its cases had become more complex as people became radicalized in online chat rooms not prayer halls, within weeks, and at a younger age.

Burgess said state hackers had penetrated a critical infrastructure network, and outlined how a particular nation had sought to coerce eight people, including five Australians, to return to their place of birth to silence them.

Foreign spies were seeking to recruit Australians to reveal official secrets about AUKUS, the country's security partnership with Britain and the United States.

"What's more important: the liberty and agency of an individual, countering antisemitism, the availability of critical infrastructure or defending AUKUS? I don't believe we can prioritize the major threats -- you must deal with all of them," he said.


France Announces First Ebola Case

Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)
Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)
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France Announces First Ebola Case

Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)
Healthcare workers carry on a stretcher a patient suffering from the Ebola virus disease from an ambulance at the Ebola Treatment Center (ETC) in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on June 23, 2026. (Photo by Benediction MURHABAZI / AFP)

France on Wednesday announced its first confirmed case of Ebola identified on its territory, a doctor who had returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The health ministry "confirms today the identification of a first positive case of Ebola virus disease on national territory,” it said. Contacted by AFP, the ministry specified that the case was identified in mainland France.

The ⁠patient is being isolated and authorities are contact tracing, the ministry said ⁠in a statement, adding that the risk for the general European population was low.

Congo's Ebola outbreak, which has infected more than 1,000 people and killed 267, has ⁠had ⁠the largest number of confirmed cases within the first month of any episode of the disease, the World Health Organization has said.