The Pechersk Lavra, one of the most important historical and religious sites in Ukraine, was hit in Moscow's latest barrage of drone and missile attacks on Kyiv overnight June 14-15, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called "one of Russia's most serious crimes against Christian culture to date." Images circulating on social media show flames rising above the UNESCO World Heritage site, which contains structures dating from between the 11th and 18th centuries, including the gold-domed Dormition Cathedral. The head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan Epiphanius, confirmed that the roof of the cathedral caught fire in the attack, calling the strike another Russian crime "against humanity, against history, against Christianity." Some 42,000 Kyiv residents spent the night in the capital's metro stations to escape the aerial assault on the city. (EuroNews)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on May 26 reported that Russian authorities are unlawfully seizing civilian property belonging to Ukrainians in occupied areas of the country, in violation of international law. The laws of war prohibit the unlawful confiscation of private property unless strictly justified by military necessity.

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk on May 11 issued a high alert on the widening use of drones in the conflict in Sudan. Türk warned that unless the international community takes action without delay, the conflict in Sudan could enter a new, even deadlier phase.

The Sudan team at the Human Rights Office found that upwards of 80% of all civilian deaths from January to April—numbering at least 880—can be attributed to drone attacks. These include attacks on May 8 that killed 26 civilians in Al Quz, South Kordofan, and near El Obeid, North Kordofan.

With aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), Ukraine has opened a special fund for the restoration of the protective structure over the entombed reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The €30 million agreement was signed on April 26 during a Chernobyl International Conference on Recovery & Nuclear Safety, actually held at the site of the disaster that took place on that date in 1986. The "New Safe Confinement" structure has since 2016 provided a second layer of protection over the "sarcophagus" that Soviet authorities built to entomb the exploded reactor after the disaster. It was breached by a Russian drone strike on the site in February 2025.

A $106 billion EU emergency loan is now on its way to Ukraine, following the fall of Hungary's strongman Viktor Orban, who was holding it up. However, as a condition of the loan, Kyiv is obliged to re-open the war-damaged Druzhba pipeline, which sends Russian oil through Ukrainian territory to Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Germany. Kyiv is cooperating in getting the pipeline operational again—but is meanwhile drone-bombing Russian oil facilities on the Baltic and Black seas, in hopes of diminishing how much petrol Moscow will have to export through that pipeline. The strikes have caused "apocalyptic scenes" in the Black Sea port of Tuapse—air thick with toxic fumes, a huge column of smoke blotting out the sun, black rain falling from the sky. Russia, unwilling to sacrifice its own oil revenues but seeking to punish Europe for backing Ukraine, has announced that it will cut off the flow of oil from Kazakhstan through the Druzhba pipeline. (PRI, Al Jazeera, Reuters, E&E News, The Moscow Times)

Two US embassy "instructors" killed when the vehicle carrying them plummeted down a mountain ravine in northern Mexico's Chihuahua state on April 19 were actually CIA officers, according to a Washington Post report citing anonymous sources. The revelation contradicts initial claims by Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Jauregui denying that there was "any involvement of any foreign agent" in the raid on a methamphetamine lab raid in the remote southwestern corner of the state. The names of the two US personnel have not been revealed, but Chihuahua State Investigations Agency (AEI) director Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes and one of his agents were also killed in the crash that took place during the operation at the hamlet of El Pinal, Morelos municipality. (El Paso Times)

Two Palestinian water delivery truck drivers were killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip on April 17, prompting aid groups to halt activities in the area. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned that the attack threatens vital humanitarian operations supplying clean water to hundreds of thousands of people.

Ukrainian forces have captured a Russian position using only drones and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), President Volodymyr Zelensky boasted, describing the operation as a milestone in the evolution of modern warfare.