KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles and drones killed at least 11 civilians and injured 40 others in Ukraine on Monday in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as “horrific attacks.”
Since Russia launched its all-out invasion of its neighbor more than four years ago, its forces have conducted bombing in an effort to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure and sap morale. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, according to the U.N.
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In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a rescue worker puts out a fire of a tractor destroyed by a Russian strike on Mykolaiv region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a rescue worker puts out a fire of petrol station damaged by a Russian strike on Poltava region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a passengers minivan is seen damaged after a Russian drone strike in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a rescue worker with paramedics move an injured man into an ambulance after a Russian drone strike on passengers minivan in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
A Russian missile targeting infrastructure struck the central city of Dnipro, killing five people and wounding 29, Zelenskyy said on social media. Russian drones also hit a passenger minibus in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three and wounding six, including a child, he said.
Russia drones also killed a 69-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man in the northeastern Sumy region, National Police said. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said a daytime Russian strike killed one person and wounded five others in the northeastern city.
Other deadly attacks occurred in at least six other regions of Ukraine, authorities said. No further details were immediately available.
Some customers in eight Ukrainian regions were left without power Monday after Russian strikes, while hot weather drove up electricity use as people turned on air conditioners, grid operator Ukrenergo said.
Zelenskyy renewed his plea for Europe to step up its development of air defenses to block Russia’s ballistic missiles.
“People need greater protection from such horrific attacks,” Zelenskyy said. “Above all, we need anti-ballistic capabilities. It is essential that Europe is as active as possible in developing its own anti-ballistic defense – its own systems and missiles.”
A marked shift has taken place in the war in recent months, Western officials say, as Ukraine’s expanding drone strikes have brought fuel shortages in Russia and Russia-occupied territory. The attacks have weakened the Russian military’s supply lines to the front in eastern and southern Ukraine, slowing their advance, according to analysts.
Ukraine’s innovative drone engineering has given it an edge and made it a world leader in the technology’s military use. It is now helping partner countries after previously pleading for foreign military support.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday acknowledged that Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russia’s oil facilities have caused fuel shortages. The scarcity has triggered public anger and frustration as people wait in line for hours at gas stations.
But Putin ruled out making concessions to end the invasion and insisted that Russia will ultimately prevail in the war despite what he called “temporary” setbacks.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s position on Ukraine remains unchanged, insisting that Russian troops are continuing their front-line offensive.
Their effort “makes us confident that our goals will be achieved,” Peskov told reporters.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the Kremlin's stance is an attempt to push the West and Ukraine to giving in to Russia’s demands.
But, it added, “Russia’s battlefield performance continues to decline in 2026 and Russia’s ability to seize its objectives militarily is in question.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 209 Ukrainian drones from late Sunday through early Monday.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 82 of the 108 drones that Russia launched overnight.
Hatton reported from Lisbon.
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 Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a rescue worker puts out a fire of a tractor destroyed by a Russian strike on Mykolaiv region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a rescue worker puts out a fire of petrol station damaged by a Russian strike on Poltava region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a passengers minivan is seen damaged after a Russian drone strike in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Monday, June 29, 2026, a rescue worker with paramedics move an injured man into an ambulance after a Russian drone strike on passengers minivan in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
An attorney in Washington state promised “miracles” to tens of thousands of immigrants seeking legal status in the United States.
Instead, Alexandra Lozano created fake stories of domestic abuse and human trafficking to apply for humanitarian visas without her clients' knowledge, according to several lawsuits and a legal ethics investigation. They say she preyed on immigrants’ desperation to drain their bank accounts while leaving them at risk of deportation.
She is accused of hiring workers who didn’t have proper legal credentials and building an assembly-line system to rush through applications, even copying clients’ signatures onto documents they never saw.
“I put the trust of my family with her,” 30-year-old Gabriel Martinez Garcia said. After they paid $30,000, he said Lozano duped his family and got his mother placed in removal proceedings despite her marriage to a naturalized U.S. citizen. “We believed in her and then she just let us down.”
Lozano's firm, Luz del Camino Legal, closed this month amid a barrage of allegations. She permanently surrendered her law license rather than face discipline from the bar association, and denies wrongdoing.
While federal data shows immigration service scams are rising sharply, Lozano’s alleged scheme stands out for its scale. The bar says her signature is on more than 53,000 pending cases.
It's unclear how many cases were fraudulent or to what extent her clients were complicit. The ones suing her say they had no idea.
The consequences of her downfall are hitting the immigration system “like a tidal wave,” said Erika Gonzalez, an attorney with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.
The Trump administration last year started overhauling the humanitarian programs Lozano allegedly exploited, claiming a surge in applications since 2020 was a sign of widespread fraud. The administration tightened the programs' restrictions and slowed processing rates, which advocacy groups say will hurt legitimate victims.
Lozano specialized in getting visas through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which covers all genders.
These programs seek to protect victims from having their immigration status weaponized by abusers. Evidence standards are more flexible, making the system more accessible to victims. But it's also easier for an unscrupulous firm to exploit, immigration attorneys say.
Lozano's firm probed clients for issues at home or work, then spun them as abuse cases that didn't meet the threshold for these humanitarian programs, according to attorneys representing dozens of her old clients.
Although clients quickly secured work permits, they often faced trouble years later when seeking permanent residency and their claims faced greater scrutiny.
Angelo Calfo, an attorney representing Lozano, said clients were expected to review their applications before signing and blamed them for any false statements.
“Alexandra’s practice has always been to fight for her clients, zealously pursue every lawful option available to them, and support their efforts to build lives in this country,” his statement said.
The bar accused Lozano of fraud in May and her firm shut down June 10. She’s being investigated by the fraud unit of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press. The Department of Homeland Security, which runs the immigration agency, declined to comment.
At least 920 immigration service scams were reported in 2025, which is more than the first three years of the Biden administration combined, according to Federal Trade Commission data analyzed by the AP. Experts say that's probably an undercount, given immigrants’ reluctance to come forward.
Lozano is accused of enlisting hundreds of employees in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina to provide legal advice to clients and handle visa applications. That would mean clients never got consultations from a U.S.-licensed attorney.
“Alexandra was telling us to please invent more information about the abuse because it is not real abuse,” said Rafael Alvarez, who worked for Lozano from 2022 to 2024 in Colombia. “There were a lot of cases that were not true.”
Lozano's former chief operating officer, Amy Rios, testified in 2024 that the firm earned $1.7 million teaching other law firms its legal strategies for humanitarian visas and “changed the way many attorneys now approach immigration law.”
Recent lawsuits accuse at least two other firms in Texas and Ohio of replicating Lozano’s tactics, which they deny.
Erika Sanchez and her husband entered the U.S. unlawfully. Multiple lawyers told them there was no way to adjust their status from within the country.
But Lozano promised a successful outcome after just one consultation in 2020, according to a lawsuit the couple filed in May alongside seven other former clients.
The couple trusted the firm when it asked for their signatures on blank paper, Sanchez said, and lived on a tight budget to pay Lozano more than $32,000.
“We truly did believe that she was doing the right thing,” Sanchez said.
She added that they never saw the application submitted by the firm for her husband, which they later learned contained false claims that his teenage daughter abused him. He is now in removal proceedings.
Some former clients say they didn't discover the alleged fraud for years. Nora Murillo Moreno said the firm told her about the fake abuse claims on the day before her green card interview. She panicked.
“Should I say what really happened, or what is written?” Murillo Moreno said. “I knew things didn’t match.”
Attorneys suing Lozano say her rise parallels an exponential increase in visa applications for trafficking and domestic abuse cases.
Domestic abuse claims more than tripled between the 2020 and 2025 fiscal years, from nearly 15,000 applications to upward of 53,000 per year, according to immigration agency data. There were also nearly twelve times as many applications from parents alleging their child abused them.
During that same period, human trafficking claims jumped from around 1,000 applications to more than 37,000.
In December, the immigration agency said it would overhaul its domestic violence visa program due to “rampant fraud" based on the increase in filings, without offering other evidence. The changes include narrowing definitions of abuse and giving greater weight to evidence supplied by alleged abusers.
Cecelia Levin, an attorney with the nonprofit Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, said making these visas harder for actual abuse victims isn't the answer. Instead, the Trump administration should focus on enforcing the law against attorneys running scams, she said.
Immigration attorneys say Lozano’s social media was filled with red flags, like claiming the Virgin Mary blessed all her cases.
In 2023, the Washington bar said it had concerns about Lozano’s law practice but dismissed an ethics complaint against her, according to a document obtained by the AP. The complaint alleged deceptive advertising and other misconduct, but the bar said she was protected by disclaimers.
Sara Niegowski, a spokesperson for the bar, said it blocked Lozano from practicing law “as quickly as possible.”
Former clients are now scrambling to get their case files from the defunct firm. Hundreds showed up for recent consultations with volunteer attorneys in Washington and Oregon.
Many applied to join a lawsuit seeking financial compensation for legal malpractice. Another class action lawsuit aims to recoup their attorney fees. On Friday, a statement from the federal immigration agency told ex-clients how to withdraw their cases or update their addresses so processing could continue.
Vicente Omar Barraza, an attorney behind the malpractice lawsuit, said hundreds of former clients told him they still don't know what Lozano's firm wrote in their applications. He’s worried many people lost viable pathways to legal status.
Garcia Martinez, who says his mother is in removal proceedings because Lozano mishandled her case, lives every day in fear that she will be deported.
“I’m just praying really, really, really hard for her,” Garcia Martinez said. “None of this should have happened.”
Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, and data journalist Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
Gabriel Martinez Garcia rests his hand on a tree as his mother's name tattoo is visible on his wrist, in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
The former office of Alexandra Lozano Immigration Law, now operating as La Luz del Camino Legal, on Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Tukwila, Wash. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, holds a Hail Mary necklace given to him by his mother, which he wears every day, in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, poses with an email advertisement from attorney Lozano displayed on his phone in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. . (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, holds a Bible close to his chest as tattoos of his parents are visible on his wrists, in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
