CINCINNATI (AP) — In the most extensive action that the Cincinnati Bengals will get before the start of the regular season, defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence made his presence felt with an interception, several pressures and a terrific performance in a joint practice against the Chicago Bears on Thursday.
In a scrimmage portion of the practice, Lawrence made the play of the day by reading a screen and tipping the pass to himself.
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Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) arrives for a joint NFL football practice with the Cincinnati Bengals, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, left, and Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, right, talk during a joint NFL football practice Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Chicago Bears quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett, right, and and Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, left, during a joint NFL football practice Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cincinnati Bengals' Dexter Lawrence II works out during a joint NFL football practice with the Chicago Bears, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
On the following drive, a stop that closed it out, Lawrence had a key pressure followed by a sack.
The interception was the highlight of this entire Bengals training camp.
“I saw the ball get tipped,” linebacker Barrett Carter said. “As a defense, we need to get those. I’m thinking, ‘Who’s the closest to it?’ And then I see this large man under the ball. I was thinking, ‘Please, Dex, just catch it.’ I didn’t know if he had the ball skills or not. He did. I’m glad he’s on my team.”
The Bengals defense won the day. There was one more “scrimmage” session, and Myles Murphy denied the Bears’ two-minute drive with consecutive sacks. One of the sacks looked as if it could have been a safety.
“He’s an all-pro guy. He’s one of the best if not the best defensive tackle with (Chiefs DL) Chris Jones and all of them up there. He’s a force to be reckoned with," Bears quarterback Caleb Williams said. “They were a great test for us. They invested pretty heavily in the defense from last year and it showed up today. Then being able to cause some negative plays and things like that.”
The Bengals defense started slow but did a great job of closing out the practice.
“We were talking on the sideline before that period,” Murphy said. “We’ve got to end it out regardless of what the offense does. We’ve got to show them what we’re about.”
It wasn’t all perfect, and every level of the defense was given something to work on. The defense took a bit to get going and struggled more in the red zone. But on the whole, the defense won more than the Bears offense. The Bengals pass rush was the star of the day.
“The D-Line is a DB’s best friend,” cornerback DJ Turner said. “They were getting back there.”
The Bengals won both scrimmage sessions, closing out one of them with a field goal from Evan McPherson. After struggling to contain the pass rush all camp, the Bengals’ offensive line got to face a different opponent and took a step forward against the Bears.
“It was a great day,” center Ted Karras said. “We had a few things that we wanted to try. A couple of play actions could have been better in the base downs period. Other than that, it was smooth sailing. We got after it. Good runs. Good pockets. And we won both situations in the end.”
Wide receiver Tee Higgins had a productive day for the offense, and the run game continued to show promise.
The offense wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and the unit hasn’t had a consistent overall camp.
“We’re still figuring it out,” quarterback Joe Burrow said. “I think No. 1, we have to be more consistent. We’ve shown flashes, but not terribly consistent, and so we have to be better at that, for sure. And I definitely play a role in that. We have some things to fix, but we got three weeks until the first game, so we still got some time.”
The Bengals starters aren’t expected to play in the second preseason game on Saturday against the Bears.
There was one minor scuffle during the joint practice after Chicago’s Dayo Odeyingbo made contact with Burrow, which didn’t make wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase happy.
“I don’t care what we do, We just better protect Joe,” Chase said.
The Bengals’ first-team units got the overwhelming majority of the action on Thursday, so the preseason game will give the second, third and fourth-string units an opportunity.
The Bengals still have intriguing position depth battles at offensive line and cornerback. They could get more answers at those positions in the game on Saturday.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) arrives for a joint NFL football practice with the Cincinnati Bengals, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, left, and Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor, right, talk during a joint NFL football practice Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Chicago Bears quarterbacks coach J.T. Barrett, right, and and Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, left, during a joint NFL football practice Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cincinnati Bengals' Dexter Lawrence II works out during a joint NFL football practice with the Chicago Bears, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pounded the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the surrounding region with scores of missiles and drones in a nighttime aerial attack that lasted for hours and killed at least 16 people, officials said Thursday.
Moscow's forces have in recent months intensified their ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, exploiting Ukraine's chronic shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors, the sole weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down the missiles.
Large-scale Russian missile strikes have become a regular occurrence this summer. Just over two weeks ago, a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people, and nine were killed in the city two days before that. The United Nations said last week that Kyiv was one of the hardest hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.
At the same time, Ukraine has shifted the war onto Russian soil through long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have caused fuel shortages across the country. It has also unsettled the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded for countries to send more Patriot interceptors for defense, but international stockpiles are low amid the Iran war and Kyiv's more than four-year fight against Russia's all-out invasion.
Russia's overnight barrage also included cruise missiles and jet-powered drones that further strain air defenses, Ukraine's air force said.
Explosions boomed across Kyiv in the dark, but the air force said hits were recorded at 28 locations across the country. Emergency services said 15 people were killed in the capital, with another death in the wider Kyiv region. About 40 people were wounded, Zelenskyy said, as air raid warnings lasted until after dawn.
More than 38,000 people, including over 2,000 children, sheltered in Kyiv’s subway stations overnight, the system's operator said.
“It was a massive attack,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russia “had been preparing (it) for a long time, combining different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure."
The Russian Defense Ministry said it struck a Kyiv industrial site manufacturing components for Flamingo cruise missiles. Sites involved in the production and storage of drones, an ammunition depot and a logistics center were also hit, it said.
Russia is able to produce more than 200 cruise and ballistic missiles per month, Ukraine’s intelligence agency told news outlet Ukrainska Pravda in comments published Thursday. It has stockpiled more than 1,100 cruise missiles and about 130 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, as well as hundreds of missiles of other types, the agency was quoted as saying.
It was not possible to independently verify the report, and Russian officials do not routinely answer questions about the country's arsenal.
Russia and Ukraine have battered each other with drones and missiles as their armies struggle to gain the upper hand on the 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line.
Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s Tatarstan region, starting a fire, and the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Volna, in Russia’s Krasnodar region, where there was also a blaze. Ukraine has hit both facilities in recent months as part of its campaign to disrupt Russia’s vital oil industry.
Tatarstan leader Rustam Minnikhanov confirmed there had been a “massive attack” in the region, state news agency Tass reported, citing his press service. Many of the drones targeted Nizhnekamsk’s Zakamsk economic area, disrupting production at industrial sites and damaging residential buildings, Tass quoted him as saying.
The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 726 drones overnight over a number of Russian regions, annexed Crimea and the Black and Azov seas, in one of Ukraine's biggest aerial attacks of the war.
Russia’s relentless onslaught has spooked other European countries, especially those bordering Ukraine, which fear spreading attacks from Moscow.
Amid the attack on Kyiv, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command activated its military aviation operations, ground-based air defense systems and radar reconnaissance. Polish and other NATO military aircraft were deployed to monitor its airspace, Polish news agency PAP reported.
Romania’s Defense Ministry said an unidentified drone crashed and burned in an uninhabited area near the Ukrainian border. Two Spanish F-18 jets, deployed on a policing mission in Romania, were scrambled overnight to monitor a group of “air targets” near the border, the ministry said.
In addition, two Romanian F-16 fighter jets were deployed to destroy a naval drone seen near a major Black Sea gas project, Romania’s acting Defense Minister Radu Miruta said.
Moldova’s Defense Ministry also said its airspace was breached by at least one drone.
Russia “is increasingly testing the resolve of NATO and its partners, violating the sovereignty of neighboring states and deliberately expanding the risks posed by its war far beyond Ukraine," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saw a broad threat to the European Union. “An escalating campaign of threats is underway, unsettling our citizens and seeking to divide our Union,” she said on X.
Russia's overnight strikes hit 12 locations across Kyiv’s Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts, damaging 30 apartment blocks, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten, Zelenskyy said.
Larysa Bondaruk, 60, sat on the ground, holding her cat, Chanel, which had been rescued by firefighters. With tears in her eyes, she said her neighbor’s grandson had been trapped by the rubble and died. Her apartment was badly damaged.
“A rocket hit the roof. It was incredibly loud. Immediately, debris and doors were blown out. There were columns of smoke, columns of fire, screams, crying and despair,” she said. “Two people were killed in our building, but the rescuers responded quickly and professionally. I am grateful to them for that.”
In Solomianskyi district, the top two floors of a nine-story residential building were destroyed and fires broke out on other floors. People were also trapped in two residential buildings and a school shelter.
AP reporters Vasilisa Stepanenko and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, contributed.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Local residents sit in front of heavily damaged residential buildings after an overnight Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Local residents stand in front of heavily damaged residential buildings after an overnight Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Local residents sit in front of heavily damaged residential buildings after an overnight Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A local resident enters a heavily damaged residential building after an overnight Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
Relatives of a person killed during an overnight Russian attack comfort each other, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026 (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
An elderly woman holds her car as she sits with her belongings in front of heavily damaged residential buildings after an overnight Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk) CORRECTION: photographer's name corrected to Danylo Antoniuk instead of Dan Bashakov
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk) CORRECTION: photographer's name corrected to Danylo Antoniuk instead of Dan Bashakov
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk) CORRECTION: photographer's name corrected to Danylo Antoniuk instead of Dan Bashakov
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
People take shelter in a metro station during a night Russian attack, in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
A policeman stands next to the bodies of two people killed during an overnight Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
