Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow tells US to evacuate diplomats from Kyiv as ...

Russia has issued a stark warning to foreign nationals, diplomatic missions and staff to leave Kyiv immediately as it will launch “systematic strikes”.

“Given the continued terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime against Russian civilians, @mod_russia will be targeting Ukrainian defence industry facilities in Kiev. Foreign nationals, including diplomatic missions & staff, should leave the city ASAP,” it said in a post on X.

Moscow has said it will attack targets in Kyiv linked to the Ukrainian military as well as decision-making centres.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, on a phone call with the US secretary of state Marco Rubio, also pressured the US to evacuate staff from its embassy.

Russian companies are ready to finance the purchase of heavier weapons and electronic systems to defend their plants from drone attacks, Alexander Shokhin, head ⁠of Russia's most powerful business ​lobby, ⁠has told President Vladimir Putin in a meeting.

According to remarks posted on the Kremlin's official website, Shokhin said the companies needed "not only ⁠light weapons of 7.62 caliber, but also larger ones, including various electronic warfare systems, laser installations and other calibers".

"Businesses are ready to finance all this work, but a mechanism is needed where financing schemes are clear. This could be a fund of some sort or another form of targeted financing," Shokhin - head ‌of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs - was ​quoted saying.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky met with the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya today and the two leaders discussed Russia's attempts to draw Belarus deeper into the war against Ukraine.

"Ukraine has ‌never been a threat to ‌Belarus. And ‌we are grateful to those Belarusians ⁠who stand with Ukraine – now, when the fate of both our independence and ‌the independence of ​every nation ‌that borders ⁠Russia is ⁠being decided," Zelensky ‌said ​on X after ‌the meeting.

Zelensky said Ukraine supports the “aspiration of the Belarusian people to free themselves from Russian interference”.

“We value every expression of support from Belarusians for a free Ukraine, and we know that the day will come when there will once again be good-neighborly relations between our states – based on the real independence of both Ukraine and Belarus from Moscow,” he said, sharing a video of their meeting.

There were no announcements of diplomatic departures from Kyiv as of Tuesday afternoon.

The European Union, French and Polish delegations publicly said that they would not leave.

The level of security threats posed by Russia to Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities “remains the same as in years and months,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement late last night.

Russia had urged foreign citizens, including members of diplomatic missions, to leave the Ukrainian capital as quickly as possible and told residents to steer clear of military and government facilities.

It said that “systemic strikes” on Kyiv were being prepared.

Russia has continuously launched missile and drone attacks on the capital for more than four years, it pointed out, adding that Ukraine was prepared to assist diplomatic missions seeking additional security measures.

Russia fired more than 100 drones and two ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said today.

The aerial attacks from Russia come just hours after it warned foreign nationals and diplomats to leave the country, claiming there would be an impending major attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Russian drones and missiles continued to target Ukrainian cities through the morning and into the middle of the day, as the Ukrainian Air Force warned people in Sumy, Chernihiv and Kyiv to take shelter.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya visited Kyiv yesterday after weeks of mounting warnings from ⁠Ukrainian officials Russian plans to draw Minsk more deeply into the war against Ukraine.

Tsikhanouskaya arrived a day after one of the war's biggest strikes on the Ukrainian capital killed four people and damaged historical sites, and amid Russian threats to launch further heavy attacks on Kyiv.

Tsikhanouskaya, an opponent of Belarus' president Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Moscow, said only a democratic Belarus could become a source of stability and security in the region.

"Lukashenko's rhetoric is shifting: we are preparing for war, of course, we want peace, but we ⁠are gearing up for war. And that, of course, is very alarming for people," ​she told reporters ⁠after meeting with Ukraine's foreign minister ‌Andrii Sybiha, on what she said was her first "working visit" to Kyiv.

Asked a phone call that French president Emmanuel Macron held on Sunday with Lukashenko, Tsikhanouskaya described it as "a warning" from Europe.

"If you take any steps to escalate the situation... there will be a response from our side," Tsikhanouskaya said, paraphrasing what she believed to be Europe's message to the veteran Belarusian leader.

Ukraine has inflicted serious damage to Russia’s air defence capabilities as it has destroyed more than 80 air defence systems since March this year, its defence ministry said in an update.

Ukrainian forces have significantly intensified their strike campaign against Russian air defence systems, it said, damaging almost twice as many Russian air defence and radar systems in April 2026 compared to October 2025.

“The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces have struck 81 Russian air defence systems since March 1, 2026, and the Ukrainian MoD noted that Ukrainian forces have struck 12 Pantsir air defense systems in occupied Crimea since the start of 2026,” the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank said.

“Ukrainian forces have been conducting a coherent campaign to suppress and destroy Russian air defences since late 2025 in order to destroy or temporarily degrade surface-based air defenses and let friendly aircraft operate safely,” it added.

At least six people, including four children, have died in a fire that broke out in a private house in Russia's Omsk region, local officials said.

Omsk lies in southwestern Siberia, 2,200km (1,370 miles) ​east ‌of Moscow.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

Ukraine reburied the repatriated remains of divisive military figure Andrii Melnyk, who worked with Nazi Germany to fight against Soviet rule, yesterday.

The ashes of the 20th-century Ukrainian military figure and his wife Sofiia Fedak-Melnyk were exhumed last week from Luxembourg and sent to Ukraine.

Their remains were reburied at the National Military Memorial Cemetery near Kyiv yesterday in a ceremony attended by president Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials.

"Today we all see that the Ukrainian idea can overcome what once seemed absolutely insurmountable," Zelensky said, speaking at the reburial ceremony.

"Now, when we are on Ukrainian soil, under our Ukrainian flag, to the sound of the Ukrainian national anthem, paying due tribute to our Ukrainian heroes, we feel in our hearts everything that Ukrainians were forced to go through, everything our people had to endure,” he said.

Ukraine says it used Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russian military targets in the occupied Luhansk region yesterday.

"Ukraine used Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles to successfully destroy an important enemy command-and-control and communications post in the temporarily occupied territory of Luhansk (Oblast)," a statement from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

“This strike underscores the strategic foresight, unity of planning, and deliberate actions that prove no position of the Russian aggressor is safe on Ukrainian soil," the General Staff said.

Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French cruise missile with a maximum range of around 155 miles (250km). The French call it Scalp.

Powered by a turbo-jet engine, the 1,300kg Storm Shadow travels at speeds of more than 600mph, is just over five metres long and has a wingspan of three metres.

Russia had blamed Britain after a Ukrainian strike using the same kind of missile targeting a vital munitions factory in March. The attack reportedly killed seven people.

Kyiv said it hit one of Russia’s “most important military factories”, the Kremniy El plant in the border city of Bryansk using the British-supplied missile.