Russia's glide-bomb strike on Kramatorsk killed one person and wounded 18, the head of the Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, Vadym Filashkin, reported on the morning of 14 August. The Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office has opened a war-crimes investigation into the attack.

Russian forces dropped eight FAB-250 aerial bombs fitted with universal glide and correction modules (UMPK) on the city on the evening of 13 August, hitting residential areas including apartment buildings, the prosecutor's office reported. An apartment building and a car were damaged. Filashkin said the strikes also hit the nearby settlement of Bilenke.

The strike on the residential area was another instance of Russian forces using guided aerial munitions against civilian areas. Under international humanitarian law, civilian objects may not be deliberately targeted.

The toll rose overnight. Filashkin first reported at least one killed and 15 wounded on the evening of 13 August. By the next morning, the prosecutor's office had documented 17 of the wounded — seven men and 10 women aged between 47 and 85 — with blast and traumatic brain injuries, shrapnel wounds, cuts to the head, arms and legs, and abrasions and bruises. Filashkin's later update put the number of wounded at 18.

"Russia again turned an ordinary evening in the city into deadly danger. This is not an accident or a mistake — this is how the enemy wages war against our people," Filashkin said.

Deliberately directing attacks against civilian objects may constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law. The prosecutor's office has opened a pre-trial investigation under Part 2 of Article 438 of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

"In total, over the past day, Russians shelled populated areas of Donetsk Oblast 37 times. 624 people, including 90 children, have been evacuated from the front line," Filashkin reports.

Repeated pattern of glide-bomb strikes on Donetsk Oblast

Russian forces regularly use FAB-250 bombs equipped with UMPK to strike populated areas in Donetsk Oblast and other frontline regions.

On 11 August 2025, Russian aircraft dropped FAB-250 bombs equipped with UMPK on a residential quarter in Bilozerske, Donetsk Oblast. Two civilians were killed, a 43-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman, while seven others were injured, including a 16-year-old boy. Eight apartment buildings and six vehicles were damaged. A pre-trial investigation was opened under Part 2 of Article 438 of Ukraine's Criminal Code.

On 18 September 2025, Russian forces struck civilians with a FAB-250 bomb equipped with UMPK in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast. Five residents aged between 62 and 74 were killed; three men and two women were outside at the time of the strike. The facades of four apartment buildings were damaged.

On 25 June 2026, Russian forces dropped three FAB-250 bombs equipped with UMPK on Druzhkivka, Donetsk Oblast. A 56-year-old woman was killed, and four others were injured: a 68-year-old man and three women aged 51, 58, and 67, sustaining blast injuries and shrapnel wounds.

Russian security services are increasingly recruiting Ukrainians to carry out sabotage, terrorist attacks, and killings, with police reporting a sharp rise in attacks linked to such recruitment since 2024, according to independent Ukrainian outlet Babel.

Since the start of 2026, Ukraine’s National Police and Security Service have registered 31 terrorist attacks, 80% of which have been solved, while another 14 were prevented during preparation.

Authorities have also registered 11 cases of military personnel being poisoned that are being investigated for links to Russian recruitment.

From simple tasks to terrorism

Andrii Niebytov, deputy head of the National Police and chief of criminal police, said Russian recruitment became systematic in early 2024, Babel reported.

Russian handlers typically approach people through Telegram channels and chats where users seek work, easy money, or drugs. The first assignment may appear harmless: photographing a location, passing information, moving a package, or delivering an item.

The tasks can then escalate into property damage, arson, terrorist attacks, and killings. Police say handlers can gradually involve recruits in more serious crimes before using threats or blackmail to keep them under control.

The increase is reflected in police figures. Russian operatives used Ukrainian recruits to carry out nine terrorist attacks in 2024, according to data cited by Babel. The figure rose to 61 in 2025, including 27 attacks that police stopped during preparation. Authorities solved 52 terrorist cases that year.

Military personnel targeted through poisoning

One increasingly dangerous part of the recruitment campaign involves attempts to target Ukrainian service members.

Police have registered 11 poisoning cases since the beginning of 2026 in which investigators are examining or have established links to Russian recruitment, Babel reported.

In some cases, Russian handlers have used young women to establish contact with soldiers, arrange meetings, or deliver poisoned items.

In late July, police detained a 20-year-old woman in Poltava who is suspected of poisoning two soldiers with drugs allegedly provided to her by mail.

In Rivne, investigators are examining the death of a soldier allegedly poisoned by a minor girl with a drug mixed with alcohol. The Russian handler reportedly installed tracking software on the girl’s phone and remotely monitored her actions.

A toolkit built around vulnerability

Russian operatives use different entry points depending on the target. Some recruits are drawn in by promises of easy money or drugs, while others are manipulated through personal relationships or threatened with supposed criminal prosecution.

One scheme involves fraudulent call centers operating in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. Callers impersonate Security Service of Ukraine officials and accuse targets of offenses such as buying Russian-made goods or financing Russia.

Police are investigating 449 fraud cases involving this scheme. But according to Babel, the same tactic is now also being used for recruitment.

After intimidating targets, callers send fake summonses, notices of suspicion, or other documents through messaging apps. They then offer to help the person avoid prosecution in exchange for carrying out criminal assignments.

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Children used as disposable operatives

Russian handlers have also targeted minors, who can be easier to manipulate and may be used as intermediaries or perpetrators.

The National Police said 260 children have independently contacted authorities after being approached by Russian recruiters, according to Babel. Their reports helped prevent terrorist attacks in which minors were allegedly intended to be used as perpetrators.

Police say Russian intelligence services are constantly changing their methods, while the basic pattern remains consistent: identify a vulnerability, offer or impose an initial task, and gradually draw the recruit into more serious criminal activity.

Ukrainian authorities are urging people approached with suspicious offers or assignments to stop contact and report the recruitment attempt immediately.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on buying specialized gloves that pulse with electrical energy, which make it easier for agents to subdue people, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

A user manual for G.L.O.V.E, or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, sold by a company called Compliant Technologies, provides more specifics on how the gloves are supposed to work and allegedly be used.

Justice department asks justices to pause decision that blocked Trump’s order to tighten voting-by-mail rules

Donald Trump’s administration again asked the US supreme court on Wednesday to intervene to fully ⁠implement the president’s executive ⁠order restricting the ​use of mail-in ballots ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of US Congress.

The US Department of Justice filed a request asking the ⁠justices to put on hold a decision made on Tuesday by US district judge Indira Talwani in Boston that blocks the US Postal Service from nationwide enforcement ⁠of the directive’s tighter rules for voting by mail.

Lawsuit challenges executive order targeting international criminal court for investigating Israeli crimes in Palestine

Four prominent US human rights organizations have accused the Trump administration of using its “crippling” sanctions regime against the international criminal court (ICC) to undermine global efforts to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday, the groups – the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Institute – argued that the administration’s targeting of the ICC, as well as of groups and individuals affiliated with it or assisting its work, amounts to a “blatantly illegal attack on international justice”, the groups said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to pay LexisNexis millions more dollars for continued access to data it can feed into a Palantir platform, according to newly published procurement records. The data is to help, among other sections, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the part of ICE focused on deportation.

The documents provide some more insight into the sort of information ICE intends to use Palantir to process. In January, 404 Media revealed the existence of ELITE, a system Palantir made for ICE that helps the agency find which neighborhoods to target by bringing together data from private suppliers and government agencies.

The news comes as ICE arrested more than 51,000 people in July, many of those at airports.

A Russian overnight strike heavily damaged a German-owned car-parts plant in Zhytomyr Oblast, forcing it to halt production, the company said. No workers were hurt, but the destruction was extensive. One of the region's major employers now has no restart date.

A German plant knocked offline

Russia struck Zhytomyr Oblast overnight into 9 August and hit the Kromberg & Schubert plant, which reported the attack on Facebook. Its production lines and infrastructure took heavy damage. 

"The most important thing for us is that no employees were hurt in the attack," the statement said. 

With the damage so severe, the plant suspended operations for an indefinite period. A restart depends on a technical assessment and the full scope of repairs, the company added.

Kromberg & Schubert is a civilian manufacturer with 100% German investment. It has run in the Zhytomyr region for 11 years and employs about 3,500 people. The plant makes the wiring harnesses that thread through cars, supplying European automakers.

Vitalii Bunechko, head of the Zhytomyr Oblast Military Administration, called it one of the region's budget-forming enterprises. He said the administration and local authorities are working to help the strategic investor and keep the plant running.

Part of a wider overnight assault

Bunechko reported that Russia had launched a massive strike on the oblast overnight. The attack also damaged civilian infrastructure, he said. State Emergency Service crews contained the fires, and investigators began work at the site. 

Russia has repeatedly struck Zhytomyr Oblast during the war, stepping up its drone strikes on northwestern Ukraine, often exploiting Belarusian territory.

Satellite imagery has confirmed that Ukraine's Defense Forces destroyed a Russian electronic-warfare system built to jam Starlink at Gelendzhik in southern Russia, the Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi reported. Ukrainian drones hit the machine on the grounds of a Russian border-guard base during their sweep of the Black Sea coast. It is one more of these costly jammers Russia has lost, even as Ukraine's long-range drones cannot use Starlink over Russia.

Satellites caught the before and after

Satellite images published by the OSINT community Dnipro Osint show the site cleared at Gelendzhik, in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. The Volna Kupol Garant complex is gone. Researchers called it the third destruction of this jammer recorded in open sources. The strike landed on the grounds of military unit 2156, the Novorossiysk border detachment of Russia's FSB Border Service.

Ukrainian drones likely hit it alongside a 7 August strike on cargo ships near Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik. Geolocated photos from residents point to a repeat strike on the base on 8 August.

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The Volna Kupol Garant is built from trailers carrying satellite antennas. It tracks a passing Starlink satellite and beams a strong signal that scrambles the terminals below across up to 20 km². Starlink is the SpaceX satellite-internet network that Ukrainian drones rely on to reach their operators. Each unit costs about $1.8 million. A same-named firm registered in occupied Simferopol builds it. The developer also makes the Volna 3M jammer that Russia has fitted to Mi-8AMTSh helicopters to block drone satellite navigation.

Ukraine has knocked out these jammers before. The 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment, the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) Alpha special-operations center, and other Ukrainian units have struck such systems, including in occupied Crimea. The complex's weakness is its own power: beaming enough energy to reach a satellite makes it loud and easy to find. 

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And deep inside Russia, there is little Ukrainian Starlink to jam — SpaceX geofences the network to Ukrainian territory, and Elon Musk has refused Kyiv's push to use it for strikes into Russia so far.

The wider hunt

Ukraine's drone crews have spent 2026 tearing into Russia's air defenses and rear. The same run of Black Sea strikes that wrecked this jammer also burned a Russian S-400 air-defense system on the Gelendzhik coast. 

Ukrainian-language American broadcasting is coming back after more than a year of silence. Voice of America (VOA) is restoring service and returning part of its Ukrainian department staff to work, the outlet's head, Ruslan Petrychka, announces.

The return revives an American voice countering Russian propaganda in Ukraine at a moment when Russia is escalating both its strikes and its disinformation.

Petrychka called the decision very important, especially now that Russia cynically shells Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities daily, kills civilians, and continues large-scale propaganda campaigns against Ukraine.

"My colleagues are already preparing to resume broadcasts next week. I hope that even more employees of our service will return to work soon," he added.

Broadcasts resume next week

Petrychka said the service is already preparing to return to the air. His colleagues are getting ready to resume broadcasts next week, and he said he hoped more of the service's staff would return to work soon.

The Ukrainian service had gone dark along with the rest of VOA. Its staff, like the broadcaster's employees generally, were placed on administrative leave in May 2025, which suspended its broadcasting.

The shutdown followed a Trump order

The silence began with a White House decision. In March 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at cutting the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the parent company of VOA, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other US-funded international broadcasters, EP reported at the time. USAGM funding was to be cut to a minimum, and VOA employees were sent on leave.

Representatives of these organizations sued to challenge the decision.

A court forced the restoration

The revival came through the courts, not a change of heart. In March 2026, US federal judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Trump administration to restore VOA's work, after much of the broadcaster had effectively been shut down a year earlier, CBS News reported.

The Ukrainian service's return is one piece of that court-ordered restoration finally taking effect.

Flights at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle Airport were disrupted overnight as authorities investigated

[L'article Une vingtaine d’États américains contestent des droits de douane imposés par les États-Unis a d'abord été publié dans InfoBref.]

[L'article Une ancienne ministre devra verser 60 000 $ à un groupe anti-avortement  a d'abord été publié dans InfoBref.]

The European Union is preparing to blacklist more than 1,600 companies that it accuses of feeding Russia's war against Ukraine, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources. It would be the largest batch of firms named in a single European sanctions round, and it needs unanimous approval to take effect. Officials are aiming for adoption in the fall.

A blacklist built company by company

Together the listed firms turn over more than $20 billion a year and keep over 265,000 workers on their payrolls, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Approval would lift the number of entities the EU has sanctioned during the war by 50%, the same people said. The bloc's foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service (EEAS), has spent months on the draft, hunting for parts of Russia's military-industrial complex that earlier measures never touched. The draft skips category-wide bans and lists firms one at a time instead.

Bloomberg says the package would likely still fall short of the economic weight of earlier rounds aimed at Russian oil and banking. The EU adopted its 21st package on 23 July, with 218 new designations.

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Carve-outs keep blunting the packages

Adopting sanctions has grown harder as governments demand exemptions to limit damage at home, Bloomberg noted. Greece's objections shrank a proposed ban on moving Russian liquefied natural gas to third countries. France and Italy pushed to weaken a proposed entry ban on former Russian combatants, and other states killed proposed import bans on Russian fish. That same round also let raw Russian sable pelts back into the market.

Officials plan to send the draft to national capitals within weeks, leaving governments room to study it, with adoption planned for the October meeting of foreign ministers. The bloc is separately preparing restrictions tied to Russia's forced deportation of Ukrainian children, which could also land in the fall, the same people told Bloomberg. Nearly two dozen Russians have already been sanctioned over the abduction of Ukrainian children.

[L'article Deux Américains sont reconnus coupables du meurtre d’un couple québécois a d'abord été publié dans InfoBref.]