UN: The UN Security Council will meet Monday to discuss Ukraine, a revised scheduled showed, after Kyiv’s mayor urged residents to leave the capital due to mass heating outages caused by Russian strikes.
“The Russian Federation has reached an appalling new level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by its terror against civilians,” Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk said in a letter to the Security Council seen by AFP on Friday.
The latest strikes left half of the residential buildings in Kyiv without heating in sub-zero temperatures, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said.
The Kremlin also confirmed firing an Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine for the second time since the war began in February 2022.
“The Russian Federation regime officially claims that it used an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the so-called ‘Oreshnik’, against the Lviv region,” the ambassador’s letter continued.
“Such a strike represents a grave and unprecedented threat to the security of the European continent.”
Moscow claims the Oreshnik, which can be equipped with both nuclear and conventional warheads, is impossible to stop
Ukraine’s request for the emergency UNSC meeting was supported by six members — France, Latvia, Denmark, Greece, Liberia and the United Kingdom — diplomatic sources told AFP.
UN Security Council plans emergency meeting on Ukraine Monday
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UN Security Council plans emergency meeting on Ukraine Monday
- Ukraine’s request for the emergency UNSC meeting was supported by six members
As Europe gets tough on migrants, Crete island sees spike in illegal crossings
- Eastern Libya has become a key launch point for smugglers, undercutting years of EU efforts to curb departures and making Crete a new pressure point
TYMPAKI, Greece: A Heron 2 drone whirs off the tarmac on a new surveillance mission. The aircraft’s sensors scan for boats along the 350-km stretch of sea between Libya and the Greek island of Crete and can detect activity hidden below deck.
Crete, Greece’s largest island, saw a threefold increase in irregular migration last year, becoming the country’s busiest point of entry with about 20,000 arrivals, even as overall irregular migration to Europe fell by 26 percent in 2025 compared with the previous year, according to data from Frontex, the EU’s border agency.
SPEEDREAD
One of Europe’s deadliest migration corridors, where unclaimed bodies often wash up on shore, the passage to Crete is fueled by wars and instability across Africa and is growing busier even as pressure eases on other Mediterranean routes.
As the EU readies tougher measures to combat illegal migration, Frontex says it will focus resources on Crete in an attempt to end the surge in arrivals.
Eastern Libya has become a key launch point for smugglers, undercutting years of EU efforts to curb departures and making Crete a new pressure point.
Many boats leaving Libya are overcrowded and barely seaworthy, attempting a long, exposed journey across the Libyan Sea, leading to tragedies such as a sunken fishing trawler that killed at least 700 in 2023.
Greek authorities recently rescued 20 migrants and recovered four bodies from a vessel in distress south of Crete. Dozens of others are believed missing.
Each rescue underscores the same brutal reality: The crossing is a gamble with lives.
The route to Crete is significantly longer and more perilous than the short trip from Turkiye to nearby Greek islands. It requires larger vessels capable of navigating the open sea for days and a different operational response from Frontex, including bigger patrol boats and expanded aerial surveillance.
