KYIV, Ukraine: Russian strikes on Ukraine’s capital and its suburbs killed at least three people, Kyiv’s mayor said Friday as the air force issued a countrywide missile warning.
“Three people died in the capital. Six people were wounded. Three of them were hospitalized,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on Telegram.
Regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk urged people to stay in shelters until the air raid sirens lifted.
Ukraine’s air force warned “all of Ukraine is under a missile threat” after confirming Russian bombers were airborne.
In the western city of Lviv, the mayor said “critical infrastructure” was hit.
“All relevant services are working on the site, the fire is being extinguished,” Mayor Andriy Sadovy said.
The latest barrage comes after the US Embassy in Kyiv warned Thursday that a “potentially significant air attack” could occur at any time within the next several days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had echoed the rare warning in his evening address.
Hours before the attack, Moscow had slammed a post-war plan for European peacekeepers to be deployed to Ukraine and branded Kyiv and its allies an “axis of war.”
European leaders and US envoys have been engaged in a flurry of diplomacy seeking to finalize a plan to end the almost four-year-long conflict.
In its latest iteration, the proposal’s post-war guarantees for Ukraine include a US-led monitoring mechanism and a European multinational force to be deployed once the fighting stops.
Zelensky said Thursday that an agreement was “essentially ready for finalization at the highest level with the President of the United States” following talks between envoys in Paris this week.
Specific details, including about the size of the force and how it would engage, have not been made public.
Russia bombards Kyiv as Ukraine issues countrywide alert
https://arab.news/c96u7
Russia bombards Kyiv as Ukraine issues countrywide alert
- Ukraine’s air force warned “all of Ukraine is under a missile threat” after confirming Russian bombers were airborne
Thousands estimated to flee Cambodia scam centers after crackdown
- Hundreds of thousands have been forced to work in online scam hubs across parts of Southeast Asia
- New wave of releases come after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet pledged fresh crackdown
JAKARTA: Thousands of people are estimated to have been released from scam compounds across Cambodia over recent days, including more than 1,400 Indonesian nationals, who according to Indonesia’s Embassy in Phnom Penh have sought consular support to return home.
The online scam industry has flourished across parts of Southeast Asia in recent years, with hundreds of thousands of people forced to work in illicit operations in countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, according to a 2023 report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
A wave of foreign nationals released from scam centers in Cambodia have been seeking assistance from their embassies since last week, after Prime Minister Hun Manet pledged a fresh crackdown on the multibillion-dollar industry.
Jakarta’s mission in Phnom Penh said it has received reports from 1,440 Indonesian nationals since Friday.
“The number is quite huge, considering the Indonesian Embassy handled a total of 5,008 cases throughout 2025. Looking at the ongoing trend of law enforcement by local authorities, we expect that the flow of Indonesian nationals (seeking our assistance) will continue for some time,” the Indonesian Embassy said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
In an earlier release, the embassy said that some Indonesians traveled from provinces like Banteay Meanchey and Mondulkiri to reach the Cambodian capital, which would take them at least five hours by car.
“Following the arrest of a number of main perpetrators in various cities, many syndicate networks then disbanded and let their workers leave,” it said, while urging Indonesians to be more cautious.
“Don’t be easily tempted by unrealistic job offers abroad, promising high salaries with minimal requirements. Don’t get involved in online fraud operations abroad.”
Many trafficked foreign nationals were employed to run “romance” and cryptocurrency scams, often recruited to deceive strangers online into transferring large amounts of money.
Large queues of Chinese nationals have also been spotted in front of the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh this week, while Amnesty International has pointed to recent footage showing “the mass release and escape attempts from scamming compounds” across Cambodia.
In a statement issued on Friday, Amnesty said it had geolocated 15 videos and images, and reviewed social media posts that show people leaving, or having already left, multiple locations that have been confirmed as scamming compounds or identified as suspected sites for fraud operations.
“There are no official figures on the total number of scamming compounds in Cambodia, but for an Amnesty International investigation, our team visited 52 of 53 identified scamming compounds in 16 cities … a single scamming compound can employ thousands of workers,” Amnesty International Indonesia spokesperson Haeril Halim told Arab News.
He added that “many human rights violations” were found in the scamming compounds Amnesty investigated, including human trafficking, torture and other ill-treatment, forced labor, child labor, deprivation of liberty and slavery.
The recent releases of foreign nationals came after Chen Zhi, a Chinese-born Cambodian tycoon, was arrested and extradited to China earlier this month.
Chen was sanctioned by the UK and the US in October last year, with the US Department of Treasury accusing him of running “a transnational criminal empire through online investment scams targeting Americans and others worldwide.”
Estimates from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime show that scam victims worldwide lost between $18 billion and $37 billion in 2023.
