Russia and Ukraine trade airstrikes as reconstruction and security talks resume in Brussels

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine exchanged airstrikes overnight as talks were set to resume in Brussels on Thursday on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and security guarantees once the fighting ends.

The latest Russian aerial barrage underscored the scale of the rebuilding task, as did the ongoing search for people missing beneath rubble after a deadly airstrike in southern Ukraine on Monday.

Ukraine launched hundreds of drones at Russian targets. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces shot down nearly 500 drones overnight.

A Ukrainian attack killed five people and wounded 13 others on Thursday in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, Kremlin-installed officials said.

The strike hit a bus traveling between the regional capital, Luhansk, and a nearby town, said Leonid Pasechnik, the region’s Moscow-backed leader. Two teenagers were among the wounded, he said. Further details weren't immediately available.

Meanwhile, rescue teams continued to search for more than 30 people believed trapped in the wreckage of a former school and a nearby shelter hit by Russian guided bombs on Monday.

The attack in Komyshuvakha, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, struck as residents waited for humanitarian aid. It was one of the deadliest strikes in the region since the full-scale invasion began nearly five years ago.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 43 people have been confirmed killed. Efforts to identify some of the victims using DNA samples from relatives were continuing. Zelenskyy said in a message on X that one person who had been reported missing was found alive.

Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said that talks will continue for a second day at NATO headquarters in Brussels focused on postwar reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by the Ukrainian government's Western allies.

Umerov said that the discussions with officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union and NATO were also being attended by the World Bank and the U.S. investment group BlackRock.

“We separately discussed the threats from Russia to Ukraine and all of Europe, as well as joint steps to counter them,” Umerov wrote in an online post.

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said that representatives from the countries and organizations would meet again “to discuss the way forward on bringing about a just and sustainable end to the war in Ukraine.”

The Brussels meetings are taking place days before negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at trying to end the war. Late Wednesday, Zelenskyy said that he had held a 90-minute conversation with U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

“The negotiations must move forward at full throttle to bring this war to an end as quickly as possible,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X. “Ukraine is ready to take the necessary steps. Our proposals are clear, and we have given them to the American side.”

Kushner posted on X that talks are focused not only on “ending this terrible war, but on the broader security architecture needed to ensure that when the fighting stops, it never starts again.”

He paid tribute to Zelenskyy and his team's “constructive engagement and commitment to finding a path forward.”

In excerpts from an interview with German broadcaster ZDF, to be aired in full on Friday, Zelenskyy expressed hope that the Democratic Party's win in the U.S. midterm elections could usher in a new era of support for Ukraine.

“We have support from two parties — support from both parties. I am also grateful to the Republicans,” Zelenskyy said. He added that the Democrats “speak of renewing the ties between the U.S. and Europe, which have been somewhat lost in recent years. And that is very important to us.”

Ukraine’s air defenses shot down or suppressed 105 of 128 Russian attack drones overnight and into early Thursday, while Russian strikes wounded four people in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions, Ukrainian officials said.

Russian drones struck six areas in the Dnipropetrovsk region, wounding three people in the city of Dnipro. Infrastructure, residential homes and garages were damaged, regional administrator Oleksandr Hanzha said.

A Russian attack on logistics infrastructure west of the capital, Kyiv, caused a fire and wounded a man, the State Emergency Service said.

Video showed firefighters working to extinguish a blaze in the wreckage of twisted metal frames and shattered panels of a warehouse.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that its forces shot down 496 Ukrainian drones over 13 Russian regions overnight, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia, and the Black and Azov Seas.

More than 200 Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s Ryazan region southeast of Moscow, wounding one person, local governor Pavel Malkov said.

Malkov said that falling debris from the attack damaged power lines and sparked a fire at an industrial site. Russian media outlets later reported a blaze at Ryazan oil refinery, sharing pictures of plumes of smoke and the night sky glowing red.

A warehouse for Russian retail company Wildberries was also damaged, media outlets reported. The company hasn't yet commented on the attack.

Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

Firefighters walk at the site of a destroyed warehouse after a Russian drone attack in Sofiivska Borshchahivka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)

In this photo provided by Ukraine's 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade press service, an elderly woman passes by a burnt car on a damaged bridge across the Kazennyi Torets River in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (Iryna Rybakova/Ukraine's 93rd Mechanized Brigade via AP)

A firefighter tries to extinguish a fire at a destroyed warehouse after a Russian drone attack in Sofiivska Borshchahivka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)

MILAN (AP) — Multiple flights in Europe were targeted by bomb threats on Thursday, forcing emergency landings, searches and in several cases military escorts, in fresh disruptions following hoax threats earlier this week.

More than a dozen flights from cities including Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan and Warsaw were confirmed to have been targeted with bomb threats, most diverted to other airports for emergency landings while others landed safely at their destinations. So far inspections have not turned up hazardous or suspicious materials.

Such threats are not new, but the latest incidents come at a time of increased geopolitical tensions and other disruptions, including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions in Europe and mysterious triggers to alert apps. Authorities have warned that hybrid threats abound.

A flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to a military air base in western France because of a bomb threat, the French prime minister’s office said. The flight landed safely at the base in Evreux in Normandy, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s office said.

All 151 passengers and six crew members were safe and military bomb disposal teams were examining the plane, the office said. The passengers aboard the Aer Lingus Dublin-Rome flight were questioned and checked in groups of 10 inside the airport, the prime minister's office said.

Hours later, the plane was sitting on the tarmac with a Red Cross vehicle nearby and explosives experts with dogs seen examining the aircraft.

Italian authorities alerted France’s government to the bomb threat on the Aer Lingus flight, and a French warplane escorted it to the Evreux base, the prime minister’s office said. An investigation was opened by French aviation security authorities.

Italian air force fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight from Helsinki to Rome after an email threat was received, according to an airport official with knowledge of the situation. It landed safely at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport at around 9:30 a.m., and no explosive materials were found during an inspection y police bomb disposal experts, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Finnair said that two of its flights, including the one that landed in Rome, “faced unfounded hoax bomb scares." Nothing was found aboard Finnair AY1761, and the plane was scheduled to depart for Helsinki.

The other flight, operated by Jettime, from Helsinki to Vienna landed safely at its destination, and was expected to return to service after an inspection was completed, Finnair said.

Czech police said searches of four other planes that landed in Prague after being targeted by bomb threats turned up no threats. They did not give details on where the flights originated, and said they took precautions despite not finding the threats credible.

A LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed at its destination, where inspections found no hazardous or suspicious items, the airline said.

A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest landed safely in Bucharest following a bomb threat, airport spokesman Teo Postelnicu said. Checks turned up no threat, and air traffic was continuing on schedule.

A flight to Warsaw landed in Vienna following a mail to Polish authorities containing an abstract threat, said Stefan Loidl, a police spokesperson in Lower Austria province. Nothing was found and the plane continued to Warsaw.

He said there was also a vague threat to Vienna Airport concerning four other flights, which he declined to identify, but operations were not disrupted.

Polish authorities checked a LOT flight that was about to depart from Warsaw to Paris on Thursday morning after a threat was reported at Warsaw’s Chopin Airport, said airport spokesman Piotr Rudzki. No threat was ultimately identified. One runway at Chopin airport was temporarily closed while authorities carried out standard security procedures.

Three Ryanair flights bound for Sofia, Bulgaria, had to make emergency landings because of bomb threats on board. Two of the flights, one from Copenhagen, Denmark, and the other from Madrid, landed safely at Sofia’s Vasil Levski Airport, airport officials told reporters. The third Sofia-bound flight, from London’s Stansted Airport to Sofia, had been diverted and landed safely at the airport in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, Plovdiv Airport CEO Krassimir Peshev said.

The three planes that made an emergency landing in Sofia and Plovdiv were escorted by fighter jets on air policing duty, the Ministry of Defense said.

Several flights across Europe received hoax bomb threats earlier this week that prompted searches, diversions and, in one case, an escort by the Italian air force until landing, officials said.

The flights included Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The hoax threats came after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary after receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.

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Charlton reported from Paris and Biller from Rome. Associated Press writers throughout Europe contributed to this report.

An Aer Lingus Airbus A320 aircraft is seen at Evreux military air base after a flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to France amid reports of bomb threats targeting multiple flights across Europe, in Evreux, France, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

An Aer Lingus Airbus A320 aircraft is seen at Evreux military air base after a flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to France amid reports of bomb threats targeting multiple flights across Europe, in Evreux, France, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)