LIVE War in Ukraine: Ukrainian drone attacks cause five m…

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Armenia has opened an espionage investigation against an opposition politician, the first case of espionage apparently for the benefit of Russia in the country, authorities announced Friday.

Former MP Andranik Tevanian “engaged in espionage activities on the instructions of the representative of foreign special services, who was the director of the geopolitical center “Russia Caucasus”,” said in a communicated the Investigative Committee of Armenia. Andranik Tevanian, identified in the press release by his initials, appears on the electoral list of businessman Gagik Tsarukian, head of the Prosperous Armenia party, for the next legislative elections on June 7. Investigators suspect him of having collected classified information during a closed parliamentary session in April 2024, of having translated it into Russian and of having transmitted it to a representative of foreign intelligence services for the sum of 622,000 dollars.

Vladimir Putin himself delivers a new assessment of the Ukrainian drone strike. According to him, six people were killed and 15 others are missing

For the master of the Kremlin, this nighttime strike on a dormitory where there were dozens of teenagers “was not accidental” and took place “in three waves, with 16 drones targeting the same place”. He promised a response from his army, according to remarks broadcast on television.

At least four people were killed and 40 injured in a Ukrainian drone strike on a high school in the Lugansk region, occupied by Russia in eastern Ukraine, Russian authorities say in a new report.

According to Moscow, this attack was carried out at night using four Ukrainian drones which hit the building, belonging to the Luhansk State Pedagogical University, located in Starobelsk, a town of around 16,000 inhabitants located in territory occupied by Russia.

The Ukrainian attack which left people dead in the Lugansk region this Friday hit a building at the Starobelsk college, affiliated with the Lugansk Pedagogical University. According to the Russian Investigative Committee, which opened an investigation into “attack”, this attack was carried out with four Ukrainian drones. Photos published by the governor of this Russian-occupied region show seriously damaged buildings: one on fire and partially collapsed and the other with charred walls and broken windows.

Search operations are continuing and other people could be found under the rubble, according to the ministry.

According to the governor, 86 teenagers aged 14 to 18 were in these premises at the time of the strike. “It is a monstrous crime (…) by the kyiv regime,” denounced Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov during a press briefing. “Those responsible must be punished,” he added.

American Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured Friday that the American decisions on troop deployments in Europe announced in recent weeks by Donald Trump were in no way “punitive”.

“This is not a punitive measure, it is simply an ongoing process that already existed before,” he said during a NATO ministerial meeting in Sweden.

One person was killed and 35 others were injured overnight in a Ukrainian attack in the part of the Ukrainian region of Lugansk (east) controlled by Russia, authorities announced on Friday. “Enemy drones attacked” the building of the Starobelsk professional college, affiliated with the Lugansk Pedagogical University, and its university hall, wrote the regional governor installed by Moscow, Leonid Passetchnik, on the Russian messaging service Max.

Photos published by Léonid Passetchnik show the two buildings seriously damaged: one on fire and partially collapsed and the other with charred walls and broken windows.

Three employees of the Russian Railways Company, RGD, were killed Thursday in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine, the company announced. “A service locomotive was the target of a drone attack at Unetcha station, in the Bryansk region,” RGD explained in a press release, adding that the driver, his assistant and a technician had died. This small town is located between Ukraine and Belarus.

Russian border regions regularly suffer deadly Ukrainian bombings, more than four years after the start of the offensive by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Possible candidate for the Elysée, the president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella reaffirms in an interview with Point that he wants to “help Ukraine” but without “sending the money that France does not have”, while Brussels is preparing to release the first tranche of its 90 billion euro loan to kyiv.

France will have to contribute “18 billion over two years”, calculates the president of the RN, who wonders “how France intends to finance aid to Ukraine today”, given its budget deficits.