Leaders keep a wary eye on Belarus for any signs it might offer Russia help in Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Belarus' exiled opposition leader visited Kyiv on Monday as the Ukrainian capital cleaned up after Russia’s biggest missile attack of the year, and world leaders kept a close eye on how much support the Belarusian government is ready to provide for Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Russia and its ally Belarus held joint nuclear drills last week, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has increasingly warned in recent days that Belarus could provide a launchpad for Russia to open a new front in northern Ukraine. Some Russia troops entered Ukraine from Belarusian territory in Moscow's invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

In a further sign that concerns about any Belarusian role are increasing, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday, their first call since the all-out war began.

With that conflict more than four years old, the Russian army is locked in a hard and costly slog on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line that mostly snakes through eastern and southern Ukraine.

“Russia hit a dead-end on the battlefield, so it terrorizes Ukraine with deliberate strikes on city centers,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said in a post on X, in the wake of the weekend barrage that killed two people and damaged buildings across the Ukrainian capital.

With American-made air defense missiles in short supply because of the Iran war, Russian missiles are harder for Ukraine to stop. Meanwhile, U.S. efforts to stop the fighting made little progress and have now stalled.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who arrived by train for her first visit to Kyiv on Monday, said that France wants to send a warning to Belarus.

“The main goal — to warn Lukashenko that dragging Belarus into the war would be unacceptable,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press on Sunday.

“Lukashenko’s regime knows well what needs to be done to improve ties with the European Union, but it isn’t happening, instead hybrid attacks, nuclear blackmail and threats to the entire region continue,” she said.

Lukashenko, who has governed Belarus with an iron fist for more than three decades, relies on the Kremlin for cheap energy, loans and other support.

In the call, Macron “underscored the risks for Belarus of allowing itself to be dragged into Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine,” according to a presidential aide in the French leader's office who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the presidential palace’s practices.

Macron also spoke Sunday with Zelenskyy.

A terse readout released by the Belarusian presidential press service said that the call took place “on the French side’s initiative” and that the two leaders discussed “regional issues” and the relations of Belarus with the European Union and France.

Sunday’s heavy bombardment included Russia’s powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile, which can carry multiple warheads. Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted it can travel up to 10 times the speed of sound and evade air defense systems.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence services had received tipoffs from the United States and European countries that Russia was preparing to launch an Oreshnik.

In addition to the two deaths, at least 87 people were wounded in Kyiv, including three children, in the barrage, Zelenskyy said Monday. Twenty-one people were hospitalized.

The intense assault damaged buildings across the city, including near government offices, residential buildings, schools and a market, Ukrainian authorities said. Shattered glass still littered sidewalks on Monday.

“Every such strike only demonstrates yet again the true nature of Putin’s regime — the regime that doesn’t recognize human life, international law, or borders,” Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader in exile, wrote on Telegram after witnessing the attack's aftermath in Kyiv.

In other developments Monday:

Russia’s Federal Security Service said that divers found magnetic mines attached to the hull of a liquefied petroleum gas tanker in the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga. The tanker Arrhenius was bound for Samsun, Turkey, it said, adding that the limpet mines were made in a NATO member country. Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.

Meanwhile, a Russian missile hit a business in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Derhachi, killing two people and wounding 19 others Monday, Kharkiv regional administration head Oleh Syniehubov said. Seventeen people were hospitalized.

Associated Press writer John Leicester contributed to this report from Paris.

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

Ukrainian servicemen of the Cerberus Ground Unmanned Systems Company of the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Third Army Corps, conduct a drill with a combat ground drone during a training at the polygon in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

Ukrainian servicemen of the Cerberus Ground Unmanned Systems Company of the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade, Third Army Corps, conduct a drill with a combat ground drone during a training at the polygon in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

Rescue workers try to put out a fire at a residential building after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Red Cross volunteers help an injured woman in a shelter after a Russian strike on a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, officially began Monday.

More than 1.5 million pilgrims have arrived in Saudi Arabia from outside the country, Saleh bin Saad Al-Murabba, commander of the Hajj passport forces, said Friday. The faithful have been pouring into the country for the Hajj against the backdrop of a tenuous ceasefire in the Iran war and related regional tensions and uncertainty.

Egyptian pilgrim Samya Abdul Moneim said she was grateful to God that she made it to the Hajj, which is required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able to make it.

“I am in a state of blessing and happiness,” she said in Mecca on Sunday. “It’s an indescribable feeling, truly. I mean, thank God, I am in a blessing.”

Typically on the first day, many pilgrims in Mecca converge on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert. Ahead of that, pilgrims have been circling the cube-shaped Kaaba in the Grand Mosque in sweltering temperatures. For pilgrims, Hajj can be a deeply moving spiritual experience and a chance to seek God’s forgiveness and the erasure of past sins. Pilgrims perform the Hajj rituals over several days.

This Hajj "is, in effect, a hard reset for me,” Youssef Chouhoud, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, said Monday from the tent city of Mina. “I pray that I emerge on the other side of this journey with a new sense of purpose and the discipline to see it through.”

Around him, many pilgrims were resting and refueling, he said via WhatsApp, noting how demanding the pilgrimage is.

“It is for many pilgrims the most difficult thing they will ever do in their lives,” he said. “But nothing this meaningful is ever going to be easy.”

He found it inspiring “to see so many who have sacrificed so much to be here ... only to compete with one another in giving charity and helping each other along the way," he said. “All this in the hope that their intentions and actions may be accepted by their Lord.”

Many spend years hoping and praying to one day perform the Hajj or saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the trip.

As they brave the intense heat to perform religious rituals, many pilgrims have been using umbrellas for shade and carrying handheld fans. Volunteers hand out water bottles to help them stay hydrated and fans spray fine mists of water.

On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said a deal with Iran on the war, including opening the Strait of Hormuz, has been “largely negotiated” after calls with Israel and other allies in the region. He described it as a “Memorandum of Understanding pertaining to PEACE” that still must be finalized by the United States, Iran and the other countries that participated in the calls. That capped a week in which the U.S. weighed a new round of attacks on Iran.

Ahead of the trip for Hajj, some have said they were leaning on their faith as they embark on the journey amid the tensions and that they were feeling immense gratitude for the opportunity to go.

Hajj brings together large numbers of Muslims of diverse races, ethnicities, languages and economic classes, creating a sense of unity for many.

With uncertainty and global concerns high, authorities in Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, have in the run-up to the Hajj season emphasized contingency planning for the pilgrimage and issued instructions to ensure that additional travel costs not be passed on to Indonesian pilgrims.

In India, home to a large Muslim minority, pilgrimage planning has proceeded largely as normal, but high fuel prices have pushed up travel costs for pilgrims.

A reopening of the strait would begin to ease a worldwide energy crisis sparked by the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, which led Tehran to effectively close the waterway. Prices have spiked for oil, gas and several related products, jolting the world economy. The U.S. has blockaded Iranian ports for over a month, and Trump on Sunday said the blockade “will remain in full force and effect until an agreement is reached, certified, and signed.”

In response to the U.S.-Israeli attacks, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes and the conflict widened. A fragile ceasefire was reached in April.

In Saudi Arabia, pilgrims have been doing the ritual circuit around the Kaaba since arriving in Mecca over recent days. Pilgrims in Mina will camp there and pray and worship.

On Tuesday, in what is considered the pinnacle of the pilgrimage, the pilgrims will stand on the plain of Arafat, where they praise God, plead for forgiveness and make supplications. Many carry prayer requests from loved ones and raise their hands in worship with tears streaming down their faces.

Fam reported from Winter Park, Florida. Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

A group of Muslim pilgrims discuss the rituals of circumambulating the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site at the Grand Mosque during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A Muslim pilgrim reacts as a volunteer sprays water to cool them outside the Grand Mosque during the annual hajj pilgrimage at the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A Muslim pilgrim prays in front of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site in the holy city of Mecca during the annual hajj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

This photograph made with a slow shutter speed shows Muslim pilgrims circumambulating the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site at the Grand Mosque during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A Muslim pilgrim splashes water over his head too cool down outside the Grand Mosque during the annual hajj pilgrimage at the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)