DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Turkish delegation had visited an air base in northern Syria the day before it was hit by Israeli airstrikes, Syrian officials said.
The Israeli strikes hit the Abu Duhur base early Tuesday, hours after the delegation had left, causing damage but no casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was “on the verge of breaching” an agreed-upon “status quo in security matters” by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.
Two Syrian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly said the Turkish delegation had visited the air base in the northwestern province of Idlib on Monday to review rehabilitation work underway at the facility.
It was the first confirmation of a Turkish presence at the Abu Duhur base.
Turkish and Syrian officials have not publicly commented on Turkey's role there but have condemned the attack, as did Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey who also serves as special envoy to Syria, and a number of Arab countries.
Turkish officials on Wednesday did not comment on the reported presence of a Turkish military delegation. But Turkey’s communications directorate accused Netanyahu of making “untenable allegations ... intended to legitimize Israel’s unlawful airstrikes targeting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It alleged that Netanyahu aimed “to pursue expansionist and destabilizing policies in the region ahead of the elections in Israel.”
Turkey “will resolutely continue to cooperate with the Syrian Government on a legitimate basis for the establishment of peace, stability, and prosperity in Syria, and will never allow the destabilization of Syria,” it said.
The Abu Duhur air base lies at a strategic location near the borders between Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces. During the time of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, who was ousted by a rebel offensive in December 2024, MiG-23 and MiG-21 fighter jets and L-39 aircraft operated out of the base.
Turkey has been supporting Syria’s effort to rebuild its armed forces by training Syrian personnel at Turkish military schools and bases, and by supplying equipment and logistical support. Officials have not disclosed the types of equipment involved. The two countries signed an agreement last year that formalized their military cooperation.
Earlier this year, Syrian troops also took part in military exercises held in Turkey.
Turkish officials have repeatedly stated that Ankara does not consider Syria’s security separate from its own.
Israel, meanwhile, has remained suspicious of the new authorities in Damascus, led by former Islamist insurgents. Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has said repeatedly that he does not want a conflict with Israel.
Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes around Syria after Assad’s fall, mainly destroying assets of the Syrian army to keep them out of the hands of his successors. The Israeli military also seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria, which it continues to occupy.
Turkey, a NATO member that also recently signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, gave no indication that it would respond militarily to the Israeli strikes in Syria, but the incident added further strain to already tense Turkish-Israeli relations.
Turkey and Israel once were close allies, but the relationship has been marked by deep frictions under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more than two-decade rule, despite brief periods of reconciliation. Erdogan is an outspoken critic of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, while Israel has been angered by Erdogan’s support for the Hamas militant group.
The fall of Assad’s government further strained their relations as the two rivals sought to curb each other’s influence in the neighboring country, with some analysts fearing that they could be headed toward a proxy war.
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Fraser reported from Ankara.
FILE - Decommissioned Syrian air force planes are seen at the Abu Duhur military air base east of Idlib, following the takeover of the area by Syrian opposition fighters on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced Wednesday that they are investigating senior officials in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, a day after the country’s recently fired defense minister called for national elections despite the ongoing fight against Russia’s invasion.
The revelation brought another test of Zelenskyy’s political resilience as Ukraine’s war with its bigger neighbor stretches into its fifth year.
Investigators are conducting an operation to expose a criminal organization allegedly led by a sitting and a former lawmaker, involving senior officials from the presidential office and other individuals, according to a joint statement from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Further details would be released later, the agencies said in a joint statement.
Zelenskyy made no public comment on the investigation but issued a decree dismissing Iryna Mudra from the position of deputy head of the Office of the President.
Zelenskyy remains dogged by high-level graft investigations.
Last year, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak resigned and was later named as a suspect in a major graft probe involving a luxury construction project in the biggest threat to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Also last year, a major embezzlement and kickbacks scandal involving the state-owned nuclear power company brought the resignations of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers.
The European Union has identified deep-seated corruption as one of the major hurdles to Ukraine's desired membership in the bloc.
Zelenskyy is already under pressure over his firing last month of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, one of the longest-standing members of his team and a close ally since he helped Zelenskyy win the 2019 presidential election.
Zelenskyy, seeking to reconcile tensions between the defense ministry's young and tech-savvy innovators and Ukraine's seasoned, Soviet-trained battlefield leaders, risked angering both sides by reshuffling his wartime leadership. He ousted both Fedorov, whose changes to military procurement aimed to stamp out corruption, and commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
That sparked days of street protests in support of Fedorov. For Zelenskyy, it was the second time in a year that a wartime decision triggered a strong public backlash, after he moved in mid-2025 to curb the powers of anti-corruption agencies.
Fedorov, in a video address posted to YouTube late Tuesday, called for elections to be held in Ukraine in a bombshell statement that appeared to directly confront Zelenskyy, who says a ballot can't be held under the martial law in place due to the war.
“We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war,” Fedorov said.
He said Ukraine is facing a systemic crisis in how it is governed, arguing that the current system is oriented toward protecting itself and resisting change. He also condemned corruption among officials without naming anyone, saying it had weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight the war.
Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately comment on Fedorov’s address. It was not immediately clear whether Fedorov's appeal for a ballot would resonate with Ukrainians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has balked at negotiating a peace deal directly with Zelenskyy, asserts that the Ukrainian president is an illegitimate leader because his term expired in 2024.
Ukraine’s Parliament approved Zelenskyy's candidate, Yevhenii Khmara, as the new defense minister in a vote Wednesday, a move that effectively closes the door to Fedorov’s return to the post, which he has sought, any time soon.
Lawmakers also gave their consent for Andrii Sybiha to stay on as foreign minister after holding the post in an interim role.
The political disarray comes after recent successes in the war for Ukraine. Using its innovative drone technology, it has repeatedly hit Russian oil facilities, causing fuel shortages. It has also shocked the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, Russia's biggest online retailer, and stalled front-line advances by Russia's bigger army.
But Zelenskyy has been unable to get traction in U.S.-led peace efforts, and Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia's ballistic missiles because more U.S.-made Patriot interceptors aren't available due to low international stockpiles.
In its latest strike on oil facilities, a drone hit an oil refinery in Ufa in Russia's Bashkortostan, its Gov. Radiy Khabirov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
The city of Ufa is located roughly 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of the border with Ukraine. There are three oil refineries in Ufa, and all three have been attacked before.
Russian air defenses overnight intercepted 453 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Wednesday.
The Defense Ministry said Russian forces on Tuesday evening hit a bulk carrier in the Black Sea, southeast of Odesa, that was carrying military equipment. On Wednesday, the Russian military struck what it said were fuel and lubricant storage tanks for the Ukrainian armed forces in the southern port of Chornomorsk.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a Russian drone attacked a minibus in the southern Kherson region on Wednesday morning, killing four people, said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration. Four women were also wounded in the strike and were hospitalized, he said.
Also, a Russian drone struck a civilian car in Kherson city, the region's capital, on Wednesday, killing a woman, Prokudin said.
Amid the fighting, Russia and Ukraine each sent home 103 prisoners of war Wednesday, according to Zelenskyy and the Russian Defense Ministry.
Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
People sing and hold up their cell phone flashlights during a rally to protest the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's Defense Minister in Kyiv, late Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People stand still for a minute of silence during a rally to protest against the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's Defense Minister in Kyiv, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People march during a rally to protest the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's Defense Minister in Kyiv, late Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
FILE - Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with Sweden's Defense Minister Pal Jonson in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, file)
