Russia's strikes on Ukraine

Russia and Ukraine continued trading deep-strike drone and missile attacks through August and September, with Russia launching as many as 863 drones at Ukraine in a single 24-hour period and Ukraine using long-range drones built in secret field workshops to hit targets inside Russia; strikes on both sides regularly killed civilians, including at least nine in Russia's Belgorod and Astrakhan regions in one mid-August exchange and civilians in Ukraine's Sumy and Donetsk regions. In mid-September, Russian drones struck twice near Ukraine's border with NATO member Poland within a single day: one hit a Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train's locomotive in Volyn, just after a diplomatic delegation including former UK PM Boris Johnson had passed through the same station, and another hit a gas station near a border crossing, briefly halting cross-border traffic used to move Western military and humanitarian aid.

Poland and Ukraine called the strikes a deliberate 'escalation'; Polish President Donald Tusk warned Moscow appeared poised to intensify attacks near Ukraine's western border and said Poland could not rule out being hit directly, while NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte pledged the alliance would not be deterred and would reinforce its own eastern defenses, calling the strikes evidence of Putin's 'desperation' and 'desire to sow fear and terror.' EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the attacks were 'clearly meant to scare Western countries from supporting Ukraine.' Separately, Russia accused Ukraine of striking fuel trucks near the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, killing two servicemen and endangering the facility, while President Trump told Ukraine to stop targeting Russia's diesel fuel supply.