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NATO members Romania and Latvia say Russian drones violated their airspace
Two NATO members said Sunday that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day.
A drone entered Romanian territory early Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, Romania’s Ministry of National Defense reported. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions.
It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Later on Sunday, Latvia’s Defense Minister Andris Sprūds said a Russian drone fell the day before near the town of Rezekne, and had likely strayed into Latvia from neighboring Belarus.
Rezekne, home to over 25,000 people, lies some 55 kilometers (34 miles) west of Russia and around 75 kilometers (47 miles) from Belarus, the Kremlin’s close and dependent ally.
While the incursion into Latvian airspace appeared to be a rare incident, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, as recently as July this year.
Mircea Geoană, NATO’s outgoing deputy secretary-general and Romania’s former top diplomat, said Sunday morning that the military alliance condemned Russia’s violation of Romanian airspace. “While we have no information indicating an intentional attack by Russia against Allies, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
Latvia’s military on Sunday similarly said there were no indications that Moscow or Minsk purposely sent a drone into the country. In a public statement, the military said it had identified the crash site, and that a probe was ongoing.
Sprūds, the Latvian defense minister, sought to downplay the significance of the drone incursion.
“I can confirm that there are no victims here and also no property is infringed in any way,” Defense Minister Andris Sprūds told the Latvian Radio on Sunday, adding that any risks in the event were immediately eliminated: “Of course, it is a serious incident, as it is once again a reminder of what kind of neighboring countries we live next to.”
Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the incursions “a reminder (that) the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation go beyond Ukraine’s borders.”
“The collective response of the Allies should be maximum support for Ukraine now, to put an end to (Russian aggression), protect lives and preserve peace in Europe,” Sybiha said in a post on X.
Civilians reported killed in Ukraine
In Ukraine, two civilians died and four more suffered wounds in a nighttime Russian airstrike on the northern city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported. Two children were among those wounded, the administration said. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed later on Sunday that its forces struck foreign pro-Kyiv fighters in a village on Sumy’s northern outskirts. It was not immediately clear whether this was a reference to the same attack.
Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops continued to pound Sumy and the surrounding regions with airstrikes, and had lobbed at least 16 devastating “glide bombs” at the province by mid-afternoon. Russian forces shelled the city again during the day Sunday, wounding a teenager and a civilian man, the regional prosecutor’s office reported.
Three more women died Sunday after Russian forces shelled a village in the eastern Donetsk region, Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on the Telegram messaging app. Separately, Russian shelling killed a woman on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city in the northeast, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 58 from the massive Russian missile strike that on Tuesday blasted a military academy and nearby hospital in the eastern city of Poltava, regional Gov. Filip Pronin reported. More than 320 others were wounded.
Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to smash civilian targets, sometimes killing scores of people in a single attack.
Russian forces continued their monthlong grinding push toward the city of Pokrovsk, and also ramped up attacks near the town of Kurakhove farther south, Ukraine’s General Staff reported.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday its troops had taken Novohrodivka, a small town some 19 kilometers (11 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk. An update published Saturday evening by DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site, said Russian forces had “advanced” in Novohrodivka and captured Nevelske, a village in the southeast of the Pokrovsk district.
Pokrovsk, which had a prewar population of about 60,000, is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defense and supply routes, and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
Berlin raises prospect of peace talks with Russia
Also on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agree that Moscow should be included in a future peace conference aimed at ending its invasion of Ukraine.
“There will certainly be a further peace conference, and the president (Zelenskyy) and I agree that it must be one with Russia present,” Scholz told Germany’s ZDF public television.
A previous peace conference June 15-16 in Switzerland ended with 78 countries expressing support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” but otherwise left the path forward unclear. Russia did not participate.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy did not immediately comment on Scholz’s remarks, but said in a video address Sunday that he had held “important negotiations” with the German leader and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He did not give details.
TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
contributed to this report.
