KYIV: A large Russian drone and missile barrage on Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil killed at least 25 people, including three children, authorities said Wednesday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky went to Turkiye in search of diplomatic support for his fight against Russia’s invasion.
The nighttime attack hit two nine-story apartment blocks in Ternopil, located around 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the Polish border, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. At least 73 people, including 15 children, were injured, emergency services said.
At least 19 among those killed were burned alive, including three children aged 5, 7 and 16, Klymenko said. Two dozen people are still unaccounted for, he said on national television, and rescuers expect to work at least two more days to complete the search of rubble.
Russia fired 476 strike and decoy drones, as well as 48 missiles of various types, at Ukrainian targets overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. The bombardment included 47 cruise missiles, with air defenses intercepting all but six of them, the air force said. Western-supplied F-16 and Mirage-2000 jets intercepted at least 10 cruise missiles, it said.
“Every brazen attack against ordinary life indicates that the pressure on Russia (to stop the war) is insufficient,” Zelensky wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
Zelensky meets with Turkish president
Zelensky met with Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara later Wednesday as part of his efforts to diplomatically isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin and bring more international pressure to bear on him. Putin has so far resisted making compromises, despite US pressure.
In brief statements to the press, Zelensky and Erdogan expressed their commitment to finding a peaceful settlement. Turkiye is a key broker in the Black Sea region, preserving relations with both Ukraine and Russia.
“We count on the strength of Turkish diplomacy, on (how) it’s understood in Moscow,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky said before the talks that he had seen “some positions and signals from the United States” about the war. He didn’t elaborate but tough new American sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, devised to push Putin to the negotiating table, are due to take effect on Friday.
A senior Turkish official initially said that US special envoy Steve Witkoff would join Zelensky in Turkiye, but backtracked later in the day and said Witkoff wouldn’t be coming. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity Tuesday because he wasn’t permitted to speak publicly about the arrangements.
Romania and Poland scramble fighter jets
Ternopil sits in a part of relatively peaceful western Ukraine, where many people from the east and south moved to as they fled danger along the front line.
Almost 50 people were injured in Russian strikes on three other Ukrainian regions.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it attacked Ukrainian energy facilities and military-industrial targets, including long-range drone depots, in retaliation against strikes by Kyiv on Russian territory.
Two Eurofighter Typhoon jets and two F-16s were scrambled in Romania when a drone entered the NATO member’s airspace during the Russian attacks, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said.
The Polish military said that Polish and allied aircraft were deployed in the middle of the night as a preventive measure. Poland’s Rzeszów and Lublin airports were closed temporarily to prioritize military aviation, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency said.
In northeastern Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian droned injured 46 people, including two girls, the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, wrote on Telegram. Drones hit several city districts, at least 16 residential buildings, an ambulance station, school and other civilian infrastructure, he said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Ukraine fired four American-supplied ATACMS missiles at the Russian city of Voronezh on Tuesday. All four were shot down, the ministry said, but the debris damaged a private house, an orphanage and a gerontology center. There were no casualties, the ministry said.
Ukraine’s General Staff on Tuesday reported firing ATACMS missiles at Russia without offering details.
Russian attack kills 25 in Ukraine’s Ternopil as Zelensky meets Erdogan in Turkiye
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Russian attack kills 25 in Ukraine’s Ternopil as Zelensky meets Erdogan in Turkiye
- At least 19 among those killed were burned alive, including three children
- “Every brazen attack against ordinary life indicates that the pressure on Russia (to stop the war) is insufficient,” Zelensky wrote
Climate activist group files second lawsuit against Sweden
- Sweden’s Supreme Court in February 2025 ruled that the complaint filed against the state was inadmissible
- “We still have a chance to get out of the planetary crises and build a safe and fair world,” Edling said
STOCKHOLM: A group of climate activists said Friday they were filing another lawsuit against the Swedish state for alleged climate inaction, after the Supreme Court threw out their case last year.
The group behind the lawsuit, Aurora, first tried to sue the Swedish state in late 2022.
Sweden’s Supreme Court in February 2025 ruled that the complaint filed against the state — brought by an individual, with 300 other people joining it as a class action lawsuit — was inadmissible.
The court at the time noted the “very high requirements for individuals to have the right to bring such a claim” against a state.
“We still have a chance to get out of the planetary crises and build a safe and fair world. But this requires that rich countries that emit as much as Sweden stop breaking the law,” Aurora spokesperson Ida Edling said in a statement Friday.
The group, which said the lawsuit had been filed with the Stockholm District Court Friday, said it believes the Swedish state is obligated “to reduce Sweden’s emissions as much and as quickly as necessary in order for the country to be in line with its fair share.”
“This means that emissions from several sectors must reach zero before 2030,” the group said, while noting this was 15 years before Sweden’s currently set targets.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency as well as the OECD warned last year that Sweden was at risk of not reaching its own goal of net zero emissions by 2045.
While the first lawsuit was unsuccessful, the group noted that international courts had made several landmark decisions since the first suit was filed, spotlighting two in particular.
In an April 2024 decision, Europe’s top rights court, the European Court of Human Rights, ruled that Switzerland was not doing enough to tackle climate change, the first country ever to be condemned by an international tribunal for not taking sufficient action to curb global warming.
In 2025, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that countries violating their climate obligations were committing an “unlawful” act.
