Conflict Zones
‘Somalia is dangerous’: Former US deportees struggle with fear, uncertainty | Migration News
Mogadishu, Somalia – Mukhtar Abdiwhab Ahmed sits in a plastic chair outside his house in Mogadishu. Nearby, children play, soldiers congregate, and rickshaws speed by under the scorching sun.
“If I knew I would end up here [in Somalia] I would have never gotten these tattoos,” the 39-year-old tells Al Jazeera, saying he has taken to mostly wearing long sleeves to avoid the negative comments and “dirty looks” he gets from people in the city.
Mukhtar spent most of his life in the United States but has struggled to readapt to conservative Somali society since being deported in 2018 under the first Donald Trump presidency.
Now, newly inaugurated for a second time in office, the Trump administration has once again announced removal orders for migrants he says are in the US “illegally”. This includes more than 4,000 Somalis who, like Mukhtar, face deportation to the country of their birth.
But lawyers, activists and Somalis who were deported from the US in previous years say the plan may put lives at risk as insecurity and instability still plague Somalia, readapting to a country many left as children is difficult, and work opportunities are scarce.
Meanwhile, Washington itself warns its own citizens about “crime, terrorism, civil unrest … kidnapping, [and] piracy” in the East African country, where attacks by the armed group al-Shabab are a common occurrence.
‘The wrong path’
Mukhtar and his family were among the first to flee Somalia after the collapse of the government in 1991. They left for neighbouring Kenya before Mukhtar and his older brother made it to the US as refugees.
The two settled in the south end of Seattle, Washington in 1995 – an area with high rates of poverty and youth violence, where Mukhtar says he fell into “crime, drugs and temptation”.
“At 16, I started getting into trouble,” he says. He skipped school, dabbled in crime, and was arrested and charged with a felony after stealing and crashing a relative’s car.
Though he tried to get his life on track, in 2005, he was charged with armed robbery. It was the then 19-year-old’s first time going through the system as an adult; he was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison.
The day his sentence ended, agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) visited him in prison, and instead of releasing him, transferred Mukhtar to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington – one of the largest immigration detention centres in the US.
“It felt like serving two sentences for committing one crime, and when I reached the immigration jail, I felt like an animal being taken to the slaughterhouse,” he says.
A few months in, ICE agents brought him a document to sign, saying he would be deported to Somalia. As part of its Criminal Alien Program, ICE works to identify and remove jailed migrants they believe “threaten the safety” of the US.
Mukhtar says he knew he wouldn’t be deported as Somalia was at war. It was 2007 and during that time, US-backed Ethiopian troops were in the country battling splinter groups that rose from the ashes following the ouster of the Islamic Courts Union, and the subsequent rise of its youth military wing, al-Shabab.
Tired of being in prison, Mukhtar decided to sign the document. But after he was released by ICE, he says he “kept going down the wrong path”. When he was arrested for burglary in 2015, he expected to be released after completing his one-year sentence, but ICE showed up again and sent him back to Northwest Detention Center for 11 months.
“It was like history repeating itself once again,” he says.
He again thought ICE would not deport him to Somalia “because of the war and instability back home”. But in December 2017, he was among 92 Somalis put on a deportation flight manned by ICE agents that prompted an international outcry after the plane did not make it to its destination for logistical reasons and it emerged that the deportees were abused en route.
“We were abused on the deportation flight,” he says. “I recall there were about 20 guards, they roughed up a lot of us, including one guy who was tased. They really beat us and, mind you, the whole time we were in handcuffs and shackled by our waist and feet for like 40 hours.”
Upon returning to the US, they were taken to an immigration detention centre and most of the Somalis on his flight filed motions to reopen their immigration cases to fight deportation.
However, others like Mukhtar accepted deportation to Somalia – rather than risk a lengthy court process and further jail time.
“If I look at all the times I’ve been incarcerated my entire life, it adds up to eight years, nearly a decade, and I couldn’t bear to stay behind bars any longer,” he says.
‘Too dangerous for ICE agents’
In March 2018, Mukhtar was one of 120 migrants on a deportation flight from the US – 40 Somalis, 40 Kenyans and 40 Sudanese, he says. The Kenyans were released upon the plane’s arrival in Nairobi, while the Sudanese and Somalis were placed on separate flights headed for Khartoum and Mogadishu, respectively.
“We were still handcuffed when we switched planes in Nairobi but the ICE agents didn’t continue the journey with us from Nairobi to Mogadishu,” Mukhtar says.
Other deportees sent back in past years also report ICE using a third party to complete the removal process to Somalia.
In 2005, Somali immigrant Keyse Jama was flown from Minneapolis to Nairobi by ICE, only for a private security firm to escort him to Somalia – at a time when most of the country was controlled by strongmen.
Anwar Mohamed, 36, who was deported a month after Mukhtar, says he landed in Nairobi before he and the other Somali passengers were placed on another flight to Mogadishu.
“When we asked the ICE agents why they weren’t going to escort us to Mogadishu, they responded by saying Somalia is too dangerous,” Anwar tells Al Jazeera.
“If Somalia is too dangerous for ICE agents to go, then why did the [US] government send us here?” he asks.
As of 2024, the US State Department has marked Somalia as a level 4 “Do Not Travel” country for US citizens, citing crime, terrorism and kidnapping, among other reasons. Al-Shabab and other groups opposed to the government continue to carry out armed attacks, including in places frequented by civilians.
While Somalia is deemed unsafe for US citizens, the Trump administration has marked 4,090 Somalis for deportation this year.
“The Trump administration is definitely endangering lives by deporting people to places like Somalia,” says Marc Prokosch, a senior lawyer at Prokosch Law, a firm in Minnesota that specialises in immigration cases.
“The balancing test for elected officials is whether it is worth it when considering our legal obligations [such the Convention Against Torture] and our moral and ethical obligations, compared to the obligations of protecting the safety and security of United States citizens,” he tells Al Jazeera, referring to the argument that migrants accused of violent offences should be deported for the safety of Americans.
Other immigration lawyers representing Somalis in the US have also voiced concerns, saying many of their clients are “terrified”, including exiled Somali journalists. One lawyer in Minnesota said in December that dozens of Somali asylum seekers have fled into neighbouring Canada over fears of an ICE clampdown.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has cautioned that Temporary Protected Status – which protects foreign nationals from “unsafe” countries from deportation – may not be renewed for Somalis under the new Trump administration.
‘I saw the lifeless bodies of my friends’
Like Mukhtar, Anwar also fled Somalia during the civil war in the 1990s. His childhood memories of the country are bleak, he tells Al Jazeera, recounting one day that stands out in his mind.
“I was playing outside [in Mogadishu] with a couple friends, then we found an oval-shaped object on the ground. That’s when my mother called me in for Asr [afternoon Muslim] prayer,” Anwar recounts. “And then I heard a large explosion.
“Everyone from our neighbourhood came rushing outside, including me. I then saw the lifeless bodies of my three friends strewn on the dirt road … They died from the oval object they were playing with.
“Years later, when I matured, then did I only realise it was a grenade we were playing with and my mother’s call to prayer is what saved me,” he says.
Not long after that day, Anwar’s older brother was murdered by armed fighters. That was the last straw for his family, he says. His mother sent him to Kenya in 1997, before he and his older sister moved to the US as refugees.
But in the US, Anwar got involved in crime and violence, ultimately being jailed for 10 years for robbery in a state prison in Missouri.
Soon after he was released, he once again found himself in handcuffs – this time on a deportation flight to Somalia in April 2018.
Returning to Mogadishu after decades, he found himself in unfamiliar terrain.
“When I had the chains removed after arriving [in Mogadishu] is when it hit me: I was free but I really wasn’t free,” Anwar says, feeling like he was still imprisoned by his traumatic childhood memories.
Anwar started having flashbacks of past experiences in Somalia. To make matters worse, Mogadishu was still in a protracted state of conflict, and he felt death was a daily reality.
When he made his way to his father’s house to reconnect with relatives he hadn’t seen in more than 20 years, he saw his siblings shaking hands and laughing with armed soldiers sitting on top of a pick-up truck mounted with an anti-aircraft gun.
“As a child [in Somalia] during the civil war, these kinds of people [armed men] were feared,” he says, “but now many of them wear uniforms, have allegiances to the state and are tasked with security.
“The same thing [guns] my mother was shielding me from when she sent me away to the refugee camps in Kenya as a child have become a part of everyday life.”
‘Every road I take can lead to death’
In March 2018, when Mukhtar’s plane landed in Mogadishu, he also found a society he couldn’t understand and a language he knew little of.
“It felt like starting life from scratch all over again,” he says.
Many Somali deportees from the US don’t have family members to return to because they’ve either been killed in the continuing three-decade-long conflict or fled the country and never returned, Mukhtar says.
“When you don’t have no one to come home to or a place to go, it leaves many deportees vulnerable and might force some to resort to crime as a means of survival.”
Upon returning to the city, Mukhtar saw tall apartment buildings, condominiums and paved roads in Mogadishu. It was different from the bullet-riddled buildings and bombed-out infrastructure he saw on television, he thought. But the realities of the war were around him in other ways, as he would soon find out.
“In Mogadishu, explosions are reality and can happen any moment … You can be walking down the street and an explosion can take your life. In this city, there aren’t warnings before bombings, only screams and cries that come after,” he says.
At first, Mukhtar settled in an old family home in the Waberi district – an upscale area home to government employees, security officials, diaspora returnees and locals working for international NGOs. But even areas that are deemed safe are not, he says.
One sweltering day, Mukhtar looked out of his window as a group of men played dominos, labourers trekked through a construction site, and young women sold tea outside.
“I was thinking of walking down the street to get cigarettes but I felt kind of lazy and decided to stay home,” Mukhtar says, “[then] I heard a very loud explosion.”
He later learned that the blast took place on the same road he always walked down.
“I could have died if I didn’t choose to stay home that day. I was lucky but you never know when you’ll meet the same fate as those caught up in that explosion,” he says.
“Every road I take can lead to death, and with every step, you think you’re going to die.”
‘No opportunities’
Added to the precarious security situation in Somalia is a lack of opportunities, deportees say.
Youth make up an estimated 70 percent of Somalia’s population, yet the country has a nearly 40 percent youth unemployment rate.
“There are no opportunities here and we don’t have a stable country,” says Mukhtar, who is unemployed. “If you’re a deportee, it’s much worse.”
Some deportees who speak both English and Somali have found work as interpreters, but most do not as they have lost their mother tongue in the years abroad.
Meanwhile, several have joined the police force or national army upon returning to Somalia.
“Many of these guys being deported from the US are coming to Somalia after serving 10 or 15-year prison terms,” Mukhtar says.
When they join the police or army, “they get $200 a month as a salary”.
Mukhtar has, at times, contemplated joining the police or the army, but decided against it.
“When you’re wearing a uniform and carrying a gun, you don’t know who or when someone is going to take your life,” he says.
Aside from threats to their physical safety, the cultural chasm between deportees and their countrymen also weighs on them.
Mukhtar says stigma from members of the community is something he still faces, despite having been back for several years.
“The tattoos I got at a young age also came back to haunt me,” he adds, saying that tattooing is viewed as alien or taboo by many in the deeply conservative Somali Muslim society, and that he’s even been verbally abused at a mosque when he pulled up his sleeves to perform ablution before prayers.
‘The card I’ve been dealt’
Anwar has also faced stigma.
“When I first came here, I stuck out,” he says, also mentioning his tattoos, which he has started to cover up.
“Everything from the way I walked to the way I spoke Somali. Everyone knew I wasn’t a local and when they found out I was deported from the US, they looked at me as if I was the guy who dropped the ball at the finish line.”
Being away in the US and far from Somali customs, culture and language all contributed to difficulties readjusting to life in Somalia.
“I didn’t adapt to this environment by choice. It was forced upon me, the day I arrived in chains,” he says.
He has even found himself stopped by intelligence officials and cross-questioned about where he’s from and what he’s doing here, he says.
“I asked myself how long is this going to go on,” he laments.
Still, he is determined to adjust to his new life.
“I changed my ways, got married and 1741842223 drive a rickshaw to get by. I try my best, but the hostility from some members of my community … makes living in an already hostile environment even more hostile,” he says.
“But I don’t blame them for their ignorance,” Anwar adds. “This is the card I’ve been dealt and I have to make the best of it.”
Conflict Zones
UN demands probe as Israeli forces kill more people near aid site in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News
Israeli forces have opened fire again on Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid from a distribution site in Gaza, killing at least three people and injuring more than 30, as the United Nations demands an independent investigation into the repeated mass shootings of aid seekers in the strip.
The shooting erupted at sunrise on Monday at the same Israeli-backed aid point in southern Gaza where soldiers had opened fire just a day earlier, according to health officials and witnesses.
“The Israeli military opened fire on civilians trying to get their hands on any kind of food aid without any kind of warning,” Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
“This is a pattern that’s been widely condemned by international aid organisations because it enhances the breakdown of civil order without ensuring humanitarian relief can be received by those desperately in need.”
Witnesses said Israeli snipers and quadcopter drones routinely monitor aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is backed by Israel and the United States.
A Red Cross field hospital received about 50 people wounded in the latest shooting, including two who were dead on arrival, said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Most had been hit by bullets or shrapnel. A third body was taken to Nasser Hospital in nearby Khan Younis.
Moataz al-Feirani, 21, said he was shot in the leg while walking with thousands of others towards the food site.
“We had nothing, and they [the Israeli military] were watching us,” he told The Associated Press news agency, adding that surveillance drones circled overhead. The shooting began about 5:30am (02:30 GMT) near the Flag Roundabout, he said.
The pattern of deadly violence around the GHF aid distribution site has triggered mounting international outrage, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday demanded an independent inquiry into the mass shooting of Palestinians.
“It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” he said. “I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”
The Israeli military has denied targeting civilians, claiming its soldiers fired “warning shots” at individuals who “posed a threat”.
The GHF has also denied the shootings occurred although doubts about its neutrality have intensified since its founding executive director, former US marine Jake Wood, resigned before operations even began after he questioned the group’s “impartiality” and “independence”.
Critics said the group functions as a cover for Israel’s broader campaign to depopulate northern Gaza as it concentrates aid in the south while bypassing established international agencies.
Aid is still barely trickling into Gaza after Israel partially lifted a total siege that for more than two months cut off food, water, fuel and medicine to more than two million people.
Thousands of children are at risk of dying from hunger-related causes, the UN has previously warned.
At least 51 people killed in 24 hours
Elsewhere in the territory, Israeli air attacks continued to hammer residential areas.
In Jabalia in northern Gaza, Israeli forces killed 14 people, including seven children, in an attack on a home, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence agency. At least 20 people remained trapped under the rubble.
Two more Palestinians were killed and several wounded in another attack in Deir el-Balah, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, while a drone attack in Khan Younis claimed yet another life.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that at least 51 Palestinians have been killed and 503 injured in Israeli attacks across the territory in the latest 24-hour reporting period alone.
Despite growing international condemnation, Israel’s military on Monday ordered the displacement of even more civilians from parts of Khan Younis, warning it would “operate with great force”.
Roughly 80 percent of the strip is now either under Israeli military control or designated for forced evacuation, according to new data from the Financial Times, as Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are crammed into an ever-shrinking patch of land in southern Gaza near the Egyptian border.
Israel has made little secret of its aim to permanently displace Gaza’s population as officials openly promote “voluntary migration” plans.
The Financial Times reported that the areas Palestinians are being pushed into resemble a “desert wasteland with no running water, electricity or even hospitals”.
Satellite images showed Israeli forces clearing land and setting up military infrastructure in evacuated areas.
Analysts who reviewed dozens of recent forced evacuation orders said the trend has accelerated since the collapse of a truce in March.
“The Israeli government has been very clear with regards to what their plan is about in Gaza,” political analyst Xavier Abu Eid told Al Jazeera.
“It is about ethnic cleansing.”
Amnesty International calls for an investigation into the ‘reckless’ attack in the violence-hit Zamfara state.
A military air strike in northwest Nigeria has killed at least 20 people, according to the military and local residents, prompting calls from human rights groups for an investigation into the attack.
The strike occurred over the weekend in Zamfara state, one of the regions worst affected by violence from armed groups, commonly referred to as “bandits”.
Nigerian Air Commodore Ehimen Ejodame said the strike followed intelligence that “a significant number of terrorists were massing and preparing to strike unsuspecting settlements”.
“Further intelligence confirmed that the bandits had killed some farmers and abducted a number of civilians, including women and children,” Ejodame said in a statement, adding that two local vigilantes were killed and two others injured in the crossfire.
However, according to residents cited by the AFP news agency, a group of local vigilantes pursuing a gang was mistakenly bombed by a Nigerian military jet.
The air force had been called in by villagers who had suffered an attack earlier in the weekend. Locals said an unknown number of people were also wounded in the strike.
“We were hit by double tragedy on Saturday,” said Buhari Dangulbi, a resident of the affected area. “Dozens of our people and several cows were taken by bandits, and those who trailed the bandits to rescue them were attacked by a fighter jet. It killed 20 of them.”
Residents told AFP that the bandits had earlier attacked the villages of Mani and Wabi in Maru district, stealing cattle and abducting several people. In response, vigilantes launched a pursuit to recover the captives and stolen livestock.
“The military aircraft arrived and started firing, killing at least 20 of our people,” Abdullahi Ali, a Mani resident and member of a local hunters’ militia, told the Reuters news agency.
Another resident, Ishiye Kabiru, said: “Our vigilantes from Maraya and nearby communities gathered and went after the bandits. Unfortunately, a military jet struck them.”
Alka Tanimu, also from the area, added: “We will still have to pay to get those kidnapped back, while the cows are gone for good.”
Amnesty International condemned the strike and urged a full investigation.
“Attacks by bandits clearly warrant a response from the state, but to launch reckless air strikes into villages – again and again – is absolutely unlawful,” the rights group said.
Nigeria’s military has previously acknowledged mistakenly hitting civilians during air operations targeting armed gangs.
In January, at least 16 vigilantes were killed in a similar strike in Zamfara’s Zurmi district.
In December 2022, more than 100 civilians were killed in Mutunji village while pursuing bandits. A year later, an attack on a religious gathering in Kaduna state killed at least 85 people.
Conflict Zones
Ukraine bombs Russian bases: Here are some of Kyiv’s most audacious attacks | Russia-Ukraine war News
Ukrainian drones struck multiple military airbases deep inside Russia on Sunday in a major operation a day before the neighbours held peace talks in Istanbul.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine had launched drone strikes targeting Russian military airfields across five regions, causing several aircraft to catch fire.
The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. Air defences repelled the assaults in all but two regions – Murmansk and Irkutsk, the ministry said.
“In the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire,” the Defence Ministry said. FPV drones are unmanned aerial vehicles with cameras on the front that relay live footage to operators, who in turn use those visuals to direct the drones.
The fires were extinguished, and no casualties were reported. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the Russian Defence Ministry said.
On Sunday night, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the “absolutely brilliant” Ukrainian drone attack on the Telegram messaging app.
But the Sunday attacks were only the latest in a series of audacious hits on Russian military facilities, territory and symbols of power over the past three years of war — often acknowledged by Kyiv, and in some cases widely believed to have been carried out by Ukrainian special forces.
What happened on June 1?
Zelenskyy said 117 drones had been used to attack the Russian bases on Sunday. “Russia has had very tangible losses, and justifiably so,” he said.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that it had hit Russian military planes worth a combined $7bn in a wave of drone strikes on Russian air bases thousands of kilometres behind the front line.
Targets included the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, about 4,300km (2,670 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and the Olenya airbase in south Murmansk, some 1,800km (1,120 miles) from Ukraine.
Earlier on Sunday, multiple local media reports in Ukraine claimed that the operation was carried out by the SBU using drones smuggled deep into Russia and hidden inside trucks.
At least 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airbases were hit, the reports said. The strikes reportedly hit Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities.
Russia is yet to confirm the extent of the damage, but the attack could mark Ukraine’s most damaging drone strike of the war to date.
Al Jazeera’s John Hendren, reporting from Kyiv, said it’s “an audacious strike, one that Ukraine has been waiting a long time and patiently to deliver, and it’s come after Russian air strikes into Ukraine have dramatically accelerated over the past couple of weeks”.
What’s the backdrop?
Both Russia and Ukraine have sharply ramped up their drone attacks against the other side in recent days.
Russia launched more than 900 kamikaze drones and 92 missiles last week, killing at least 16 civilians. Those attacks followed days of Ukrainian strikes on Russian military infrastructure in Russia’s Tula, Alabuga and Tatarstan regions, in which Kyiv used at least 800 drones.
Meanwhile, Ukraine sent a delegation to Istanbul led by its Defence Minister Rustem Umerov for talks on Monday with Russian officials. A previous round of talks, on May 16, led to a deal under which Ukraine and Russia exchanged 1,000 prisoners of war each. Monday’s talks led to an agreement on another prisoner swap.
Zelenskyy, who has previously voiced scepticism about Russia’s seriousness about peace talks, said that the Ukrainian delegation would enter the meeting in Istanbul with specific priorities, including “a complete and unconditional ceasefire” and the return of prisoners and abducted children.
Russia has said it has formulated its own peace terms and ruled out a Turkish proposal for the meeting to be held at the leaders’ level.
Monday’s meeting in Turkiye was spurred by US President Donald Trump’s push for a quick deal to end the three-year war. But the meeting did not lead to any major breakthrough.
Trump, who has increasingly demonstrated frustration with the lack of progress towards a ceasefire, recently vented his frustration at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Something has happened to him,” Trump wrote on his social media platform on May 25, referring to Putin. “He has gone absolutely CRAZY!”
Trump told reporters, “We’re in the middle of talking and he’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities.”
The US president is yet to react to Sunday’s Ukrainian attacks on Russian airbases.
The strikes are the latest in a series of stunning, headline-grabbing attacks that Russia has periodically suffered since it launched the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Crimea Bridge attacks, 2022 and 2023
In May 2018, four years after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, Putin drove a truck across a newly built bridge connecting the Russian mainland to the peninsula, enraging Ukrainians.
Ukraine would take its revenge, first in 2022 and then again in 2023.
In October 2022, a truck explosion that Russia blamed on Ukraine blew up a part of the bridge. Russia repaired the damage, and Putin tried to revive the symbolism of 2018, again driving across it, this time in a Mercedes.
But Ukraine would strike again. In July 2023, the bridge that serves as a crucial supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine was blown up. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee said the strike was carried out by two Ukrainian sea drones. Officials said two people were killed and a child was wounded.
Black Sea Fleet attacks, 2023
In September 2023, Ukraine launched a series of attacks on occupied Crimea, using drones and missiles to target key facilities of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol.
Satellite images showed that the first attack destroyed half of the Black Sea Fleet’s communications command centre in Verkhnosadove.
Ukraine followed up on that attack with a strike against the Saky airfield in Crimea, which was hosting 12 Russian combat aircraft, including Su-24 and Su-30 fighter-bombers, according to the Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne.
Then came the most devastating of the attacks, on September 22.
Ukraine hit the Black Sea Fleet command headquarters and claimed to have killed 34 officers, including fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov. A further 105 soldiers were reportedly wounded.
Kremlin attack, 2023
In the dead of night in early May 2023, the ultimate symbol of Russian power for centuries — the Kremlin — came under attack, as flashes of light from small explosions over the red building’s citadel were seen in images and grainy video around the world.
Moscow said that two Ukrainian drones had been used in the attack on Putin’s residence, but had been disabled by electronic defences.
“We regard these actions as a planned terrorist act and an attempt on the president’s life, carried out on the eve of Victory Day, the May 9 Parade, at which the presence of foreign guests is also planned,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Zelenskyy denied that his country had attacked the Russian capital or its president.
“We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory,” Zelenskyy told a news conference in Helsinki, Finland. But independent analysts, including from Western nations that are Ukrainian allies, believe Ukrainian special forces were behind the drone attacks on the Kremlin.
And a year later, Ukraine would blur the line between its territory and Russian land in the escalating war between the neighbours.
Kursk invasion, 2024 and 2025
Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack on the Kursk region on August 6, 2024, taking Moscow by surprise. Russia began evacuating the neighbouring Belgorod region as the country’s forces were forced to confront Ukraine’s offensive in Western Russia.
At the height of the incursion, Ukrainian forces claimed nearly 1,400 square kilometres (540 square miles) of Kursk — roughly twice the size of Singapore.
By the start of 2025, Russia had most of the territory it lost in Kursk before Ukraine launched a second wave of attacks in January.
However, Kyiv suffered a major setback earlier this year after Trump temporarily cut off all military and intelligence assistance. By early March, Russia had recaptured most of the territory.
UN demands probe as Israeli forces kill more people near aid site in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News
Military air strike kills at least 20 people in northwest Nigeria | Conflict News
Russia and Ukraine agree to prisoner swap but peace talks stall in Istanbul | Child Rights News
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