KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine kept up its heavy drone assault on Russia, setting fire to a major oil refinery in the south and killing at least two people, Russian authorities said Sunday.
Ukraine has markedly stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities in recent months, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for its invasion — now in its fifth year — and make Russians feel the consequences.
The campaign has choked Russian fuel supplies and military deliveries. According to Western analysts, it has also slowed Moscow’s efforts on the battlefield, heaping pressure on the Kremlin to come to the negotiating table.
“Tonight, our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. “Each (strike) means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”
Debris from downed Ukrainian drones sparked a blaze at the refinery in Slavyansk-na-Kubani, a town in Russia's Krasnodar region, east of occupied Crimea, according to Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev. The falling debris killed one person in Slavyansk and injured another in a nearby village, according to regional authorities.
The Slavyansk site is one of southern Russia’s major refineries, processing close to 4 million tons of crude per year, according to its operator’s website. It is also a key source of petroleum products intended for export through Russia’s Black Sea ports, including fuel oil, naphtha and marine fuel.
Photos and videos circulating on Russian social media showed a thick cloud of smoke over what users said was the Slavyansk facility. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the images.
Zelenskyy also claimed that a second Russian refinery, in the Yaroslavl region around 700 kilometers (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was hit during the nighttime strikes.
There were no immediate reports from Russian authorities about the Ukrainian strike on the Yaroslavl refinery. Local Gov. Mikhail Evraev reported on Sunday morning that some roads between Moscow and the region's capital, Yaroslavl, were temporarily closed due to “an enemy attack by Ukrainian drones”.
Yaroslavl's airport also briefly closed overnight, along with others in southern and western Russia, according to the country's civil aviation agency.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian drone strikes killed one person and injured another in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, its acting Gov. Alexander Shuvayev reported on Sunday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 213 Ukrainian drones during the night, including over Russia, occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.
Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine with 142 long-range strike drones and eight missiles overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force. Of those, 125 drones and seven missiles were struck down, the air force said.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, sappers remove a fragment of the Russian missile in a residential neighbourhood following an air attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a sapper examines a fragment of the Russian missile in a residential neighbourhood following an air attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” in negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks.
Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region and have imperiled negotiations for a lasting ceasefire. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman for both inbound and outbound traffic, setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran.
The global community has long considered the strait an international passageway, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. In recent days, Iran has twice attacked vessels going through a route on the Omani side of the strait backed by a United Nations agency.
Iran insists that it alone must govern the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated the claim during a state visit to Iraq on Sunday.
“Any interference in this matter, any attempt to establish new or separate arrangements from those currently being carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will only lead to further complications, delay the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and increase the level of tension, just as over the past two nights we witnessed incidents in the Strait of Hormuz that led to an increase in tension and confrontation,” he said in Baghdad.
The United States and Iran are still debating the terms of an interim peace deal, including shipping arrangements through the strait, removing a U.S. blockade and sanctions and addressing the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Under the memorandum of understanding signed earlier this month, the U.S. and Iran have 60 days to iron out the details.
The strikes threaten to torpedo the deal before it can be finalized. Continued fighting in Lebanon, where an Israeli soldier was killed by Hezbollah fire early Sunday, has also threatened the agreement.
The Kuwaiti military said air defenses intercepted incoming Iranian drones and missiles Sunday morning, just after the U.S. strikes.
Kuwait, which hosts a major U.S. Army base, said it had detected and intercepted two ballistic missiles and there were no reports of injuries or damage.
Bahrain's Interior Ministry said the Iranian strikes damaged a residential building near the international airport and no one was killed. The ministry released photos of an 8-story building, with the top floor destroyed, filled with rubble and its windows blown out.
Bahrain is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, whose base there came under repeated attack during the war. The damaged building on Sunday was not near the fleet's headquarters, in downtown Manama.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry denounced what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression."
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for both attacks.
The latest U.S. strikes came after the U.S. and Iran traded attacks earlier in the weekend.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” on Sunday, following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key mediator between Iran and the U.S.
In a social media post, Trump said the U.S. had “struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN!” He warned of a point where the U.S. may no longer be able to be reasonable “and will be forced to militarily complete the job.”
“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The incident follows a similar back-and-forth that occurred just days prior, when an Iranian drone struck a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman on Thursday, and the U.S. military retaliated with strikes.
Iran has consistently said the ceasefire must include a halt to fighting in Lebanon, where Israel has been battling the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group. Days after the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran in February, Hezbollah began firing at Israel in solidarity with its Iranian allies. Israel responded with an invasion that has occupied large swaths of southern Lebanon and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Israel has said it will not withdraw its troops until Hezbollah is disarmed.
Last week, Israel and the Lebanese government signed a framework agreement to end the conflict. But their deal did not include Hezbollah or Iran. Hezbollah has criticized the deal and rejected calls to disarm.
On Sunday, Araghchi again said during a visit to Iraq that the U.S. must force Israel to halt attacks and withdraw. Israel occupies around 600 square kilometers (231 square miles) in southern Lebanon, which it says it needs as a security buffer to halt attacks from Hezbollah.
But sporadic clashes have continued between Israel and Hezbollah.
The leader of the Iran-backed group said Saturday that Hezbollah would continue fighting until Israel withdraws from Lebanon, adding that the group considers the Israeli-Lebanese agreement signed on Friday to be “nonexistent.”
The frequency of Israeli strikes in Lebanon has decreased significantly since the Iran-U.S. deal was signed in mid-June, but strikes have continued, killing at least one person Saturday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Two separate Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon on Sunday morning — one in the town of Taybeh and another in the Nabatiyeh area, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Overnight, Hezbollah militants killed an Israeli soldier in the village of Deir Siryan in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli military. Hezbollah did not comment on the incident.
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Lidman reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa share a word after their meeting, at Al-Sakhir Palace near Zallaq, Bahrain Thursday, June 25, 2026. (Eric Lee/Pool Photo via AP)
