Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills at least 4 people and wounds 70

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia unleashed a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine overnight into Sunday, killing at least four people, with Kyiv suffering the heaviest assault. It was the first major bombardment since an air attack on Ukraine's capital left at least 21 people dead last month.

Separately, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the U.S. was considering selling Ukraine Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Administration, confirmed Sunday's casualties via Telegram and said that 10 others were wounded in the attack, which targeted civilian areas across the city. A 12-year-old girl was among the dead. Thick black smoke could be seen rising from a blast near the city center.

“The Russians have restarted the child death counter,” Tkachenko wrote on Telegram.

Russia fired a total of 595 exploding drones and decoys and 48 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said Sunday. Of those, air defenses shot down or jammed 566 drones and 45 missiles.

Besides Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the bombardment targeted the regions of Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, and Odesa. Zelenskyy wrote on X that at least 40 people were wounded across the country. Later, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry stated the number of the wounded rose to 70, with more than 100 civilian objects damaged.

Zaporizhzhia's regional head, Ivan Fedorov, said that three children were among the 27 wounded in the region, adding that more than two dozen buildings were damaged in the capital, which that bears the same name.

“This vile attack came virtually (at) the close of U.N. General Assembly week, and this is exactly how Russia declares its true position. Moscow wants to keep fighting and killing, and it deserves the toughest pressure from the world,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview taped Friday, Vance said the U.S. administration was reviewing a request by the Ukrainian president for Tomahawk cruise missiles. Tomahawks have a range of around 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), which would put Moscow within the range of Ukraine's forces.

“It’s something that the president is going to make the final determination on. I know that we’re reviewing that request. We’re also reviewing a number of other requests,” Vance said.

The strikes that began overnight and continued after dawn on Sunday also targeted residential buildings, civilian infrastructure, a medical facility and a kindergarten, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who also said that damage was reported at more than 20 locations across the capital.

At Kyiv’s central train station, passengers arrived to the crackle of anti-aircraft gunfire and the low buzz of attack drones. Mostly women, they waited quietly in a platform underpass until the air raid alert ended. Parents checked the news on their phones while children played online games.

“The sky has turned black again,” said one woman at the station, who gave only her first name, Erika. “It’s happening a lot.”

Ilona Kovalenko, a 38-year-old resident of a five-story building struck in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, told The Associated Press that she woke up because of the explosion, which shattered windows.

“A neighbor kept knocking on our door. She was completely covered in blood and shouting, ‘help, save my daughter,’" said Kovalenko, who fled the building with her grandmother after the strike.

Oleksandra, the neighbor’s daughter, was the 12-year-old killed in the attack.

“Sadly, she died on the spot,” Kovalenko said. “We are in shock, to be honest.”

Another multistory residential building was heavily damaged by the attack. Emergency services personnel used power saws to clear the debris. Piles of glass littered nearby sidewalks as building residents, some looking shaken, sat on benches.

“There are no warehouses or plants here. We were sure that nothing would happen, but it hit us here,” Volodymyr, a retired Kyiv resident who only gave his first name, told the AP at the site of a missile strike.

The Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that Russia’s military only strikes military targets.

Russian officials didn't immediately comment on the latest attacks.

For some Kyiv residents, this wasn't the first time they had come under Russian attack. Mark Sergeev, a pastor who had already fled Russia-occupied Melitopol, found himself under attack again in Kyiv. He was sleeping on the second floor with his wife when the blast struck, with his children on the floor above.

“There was a blast, and a wardrobe fell on me and I was covered with glass. My wife was shouting: ‘Mark, where are the kids?’ I felt like this was like a death sentence,” Sergeev said. He called out to his older son Toper, who responded that he was alive, before pulling his younger child from the debris.

The pastor, who previously testified before U.S. Congress about Christian persecution in Russian-occupied territories, said that the attack brought back painful memories. “I am a pastor from Melitopol. We had a large Protestant church and a house that I built with my own hands, and the Russian FSB took it away and nationalized it,” he said, describing how Russian forces had forced his family to lie on the ground at gunpoint in 2022.

“And so, we lost our second home again,” Sergeev said.

The assault also triggered military responses in neighboring Poland, where fighter jets were deployed early Sunday as Russia struck targets in western Ukraine, according to the Polish armed forces.

Polish military officials characterized these defensive measures as “preventive.”

International concerns have mounted recently that the fighting could spread beyond Ukraine’s borders as European countries rebuked Russia for what they said were provocations. The incidents have included Russian drones landing on Polish soil and Russian fighter aircraft entering Estonian airspace.

Russia denied that its planes entered Estonian airspace and said that none of its drones targeted Poland.

The latest bombardment follows Zelenskyy's announcement Saturday of what he called a “mega deal” for weapons purchases from the United States. The $90 billion package includes both the major arms agreement and a separate “drone deal” for Ukrainian-made drones that the U.S. will purchase directly.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its air defenses shot down 41 Ukrainian drones overnight into Sunday.

Elise Morton reported from London.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A public tram runs against the background of rising smoke during Russia's massive drone and missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rescuers work at the site of an apartment buildings damaged during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)

Rescuers work at the site of an apartment buildings damaged during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Rescuers work at the site of an apartment buildings damaged during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

People clear the rubble at the site of an apartment buildings damaged during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Blood lies on the ground after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

People seen at the site of an apartment building destroyed during a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

People walk near apartment buildings damaged after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

PARIS (AP) — France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen returned to court Tuesday to appeal an embezzlement conviction, with her 2027 presidential ambitions hanging on the outcome of the case.

Le Pen, 57, is seeking to overturn a March ruling that found her guilty of misusing European Parliament funds. She was given a five-year ban from holding elected office, two years of house arrest with an electronic bracelet, a further two-year suspended sentence and a 100,000-euro ($116,800) fine.

Le Pen did not talk at her arrival at the courthouse.

As the trial was starting, she stood up silently in front of the panel of three judges while reasons for the proceedings were being read by the president of the court. The room was packed with a crowd of dozens of reporters and general public.

“I hope I'll be able to convince the judges of my innocence,” Le Pen told reporters Monday. “It’s a new court with new judges. The case will be reset, so to speak.”

The appeals trial is scheduled to last for five weeks, with a verdict expected at a later date.

Le Pen was seen as the potential front-runner to succeed President Emmanuel Macron in the 2027 election until last year's ruling, which sent shock waves through French politics. She denounced it as “a democratic scandal.”

Her National Rally party has been coming out on top in opinion polls, and Le Pen alleged that the judicial system brought out “the nuclear bomb” to prevent her from becoming France’s president.

The appeal trial, involving Le Pen, 10 other defendants and the National Rally party as a legal entity, is scheduled to last for five weeks. A panel of three judges at the appeals court in Paris is expected to announce its verdict at a later date, possibly before summer.

Several scenarios are possible, from acquittal to another conviction that may or may not bar her from running in 2027. She could also face an even tougher punishment if convicted anew — up to 10 years in prison and a 1-million euro ($1.17 million) fine.

In March, Le Pen and other party officials were convicted of using money intended for EU parliamentary assistants who instead had other duties between 2004 and 2016, in violation of EU rules. Some actually did work for the party, known as the National Front at the time, in French domestic politics, the court said.

In handing down the sentence, the judge said Le Pen was at the heart of a “system” set up to siphon off EU parliament funds — including to pay for her bodyguard and her chief of staff.

All suspects denied wrongdoing, and Le Pen argued the money was used in a legitimate way. The judge said Le Pen and the others did not enrich themselves personally.

The legal proceedings initially stemmed from a 2015 alert raised by Martin Schulz, then-president of the European Parliament, to French authorities.

The case and its fallout weigh heavily on Le Pen’s political future after more than a decade spent trying to bring the far right into France’s political mainstream. Since taking over the party from her late father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011, she has sought to shed its reputation for racism and antisemitism, changing its name, expelling her father in 2015 and softening both the party’s platform and her own public image.

That strategy has paid dividends. The National Rally is now the largest single political group in France’s lower house of parliament and has built a broad network of elected officials across the country.

Le Pen stepped down as party president in 2021 to focus on the presidential race, handing the role to Jordan Bardella, now 30.

If she is ultimately prevented from running in 2027, Bardella is widely expected to be her successor. His popularity has surged, particularly among younger voters, though some within the party have questioned his leadership.

Le Pen's potential conviction would be “deeply worrying for (France's) democracy,” Bardella said Monday in a New Year address.

European Parliament lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve arrives to an appeal court for far-right leader Marine Le Pen's appeal trial for an embezzlement conviction, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen arrives for her appeal trial after an embezzlement conviction, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Far-right party National Rally president Jordan Bardella speaks during his New Year address to the press, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen arrives at National Rally president Jordan Bardella's New Year address to the press, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, center, is framed by Louis Aliot, left, and conservative lawmaker Eric Ciotti during National Rally president Jordan Bardella's New Year address to the press, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026 in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)