Russian forces have launched ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, killing at least 13 people and wounding 33, officials said.

Explosions rang out across several districts of Kyiv early on Thursday, shaking buildings and setting off car alarms, according to the Kyiv Independent, a Ukrainian news outlet.

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The blasts hit the Sviatoshynskyi, Solomianskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts.

In the Solomianskyi district, a nine-storey residential building collapsed and caught fire following the attack, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. He said a children’s hospital in the district was also damaged, with windows shattered and cars burning on the grounds.

“People are trapped” at another residential building, he continued, with parts of Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts also without electricity.

Ukraine’s Emergency Services said at least 33 people were wounded in the “massive attack” on the capital, with fires breaking out in residential buildings and at warehouses.

It said rescuers were at the scene of the attacks and had retrieved at least two people from the rubble of collapsed buildings.

An attack in the Brovary district of the Kyiv region killed one person and wounded another, Kyiv region’s Governor Tymur Tkachenko said.

“One industrial facility has been damaged. All relevant services are on site, working to extinguish the fire,” Tkachenko added.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine said air alarms continued to sound in the city on Thursday morning.

“We know that two fuel industrial facilities were hit,” she said.

MacAlpine said Russia’s escalating missile attacks across Ukraine were causing growing concern as Ukraine faces a shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles. The lack of sufficient air defences will be “a problem when Russia begins to target energy infrastructure, sites that will keep the heat and electricity on this winter”, she said.

The attacks also prompted security responses in neighbouring NATO member states.

Poland’s military command said it had mobilised aircraft and activated air defences to protect its airspace, particularly in areas bordering Ukraine.

Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said radar systems detected aerial targets near the Ukrainian border overnight, prompting the scrambling of two Spanish jets deployed on NATO missions and a Romanian air force helicopter.

The ministry said a drone entered Romanian airspace near Galati before crashing in an unpopulated area in Tulcea county.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had shot down 726 Ukrainian UAVs between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning over several regions, as well as over the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

New defence minister

The attacks came a day after Ukraine’s parliament confirmed Yevhenii Khmara as the country’s new defence minister. Lawmakers approved his appointment 312-2, well above the 226 votes needed.

Khmara is a career intelligence official who rose through the ranks of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). He previously led its Alpha special operations unit, whose personnel have reportedly been linked to Operation Spiderweb, last year’s drone attack deep inside Russian territory.

Addressing parliament before the vote, Khmara pledged to “do everything to defend Ukraine, to reduce Russia’s war potential as much as possible, and to force the enemy into a just peace”. Zelenskyy called the confirmation a sign that “Ukraine needs more strength. And it will have it.”

Not everyone was convinced, however. Opposition lawmaker Solomiia Bobrovska said pulling Khmara from intelligence work was “a mistake”, even while praising him personally.

A protester reacts during a demonstration at the start of a parliamentary session on the appointment of Ukraine’s new defence minister, in Kyiv [AFP]

Khmara’s confirmation fills the vacancy left by former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. He was ousted in July after a public rupture with the armed forces commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, who was also replaced weeks later amid public pressure.

The rupture reverberated further when, a day before Khmara’s confirmation, Fedorov released a video calling for Ukraine to move towards holding elections, currently suspended under wartime law.

He argued that the country faces a “systemic crisis of governance”.

The political fallout spilled into the streets on Wednesday, as dozens of demonstrators rallied in Kyiv in support of Fedorov’s call.

“It’s like we are in a trap,” protester Emilia, who gave only her first name, told Al Jazeera. “Because we have not had any elections, so the members of parliament, the people who are in the executive branch of power, they understand that, ‘Hmm, I can sit here and do whatever I want.’”

Several others said they backed the idea of renewing the country’s leadership. But they were sceptical that a real vote could be held while the war continues.

Ukrainian law currently bars elections during wartime, and no major political figure has publicly pushed back on that since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Zelenskyy’s term ended in May 2024, but the country has postponed its presidential election while martial law remains in effect.

In official discourse, Kaliningrad is increasingly portrayed as Russia’s western stronghold: resilient, patriotic, and under constant external pressure. However, propaganda must also compete with people’s everyday experiences. Rising prices, logistical disruptions, security alerts, and the militarization of public life shape how residents perceive the consequences of Russia’s war.

The weakest point of the Kremlin’s propaganda in the Kaliningrad Oblast is the clash between the official worldview and the everyday economy. One can repeat familiar formulas about ‘unfriendly countries’, ‘sanctions pressure’ and ‘the threat from the West’, while seeing that the usual food basket is becoming more expensive, familiar goods periodically disappear and the region is increasingly dependent on complex and costly logistics. In Kaliningrad, the war is felt through the price.

This does not mean that the region has experienced a permanent food crisis, but Kaliningrad lives in a state of heightened vulnerability to disruption. According to the Bank of Russia(opens in a new tab), in March 2026 annual inflation in Kaliningrad Oblast was 7.08 percent, compared to 5.86 percent for Russia as a whole. In December 2025, according to Rusprodsoyuz(opens in a new tab), the minimum monthly food basket in Kaliningrad Oblast cost 20 percent more than the Russian average.

Potatoes became a symbolic example. Under normal circumstances, this is an almost invisible product, part of the routine of daily stability. In June 2025, residents complained about the lack of potatoes in stores. Authorities explained that local stocks had run out and that the shortage in retail was later compensated by supplies from other regions and countries.

The authorities tried to present the situation as manageable – the shortage was not catastrophic, supplies would arrive, Belarus was ready to help, and local potatoes should not be exported, but should remain within the region. But the very fact that the governor discussed limiting the export of potatoes from the region, while the President of Belarus publicly promised (opens in a new tab) to supply Kaliningrad with food, shows that this was no longer an ordinary seasonal price fluctuation. For Kaliningrad, this is a reminder that if something breaks within the region, replacing it is more difficult, because any compensation depends on a route.

Logistical anxieties

It is logistics that makes the daily economy of Kaliningrad political. People’s lives are made through corridors, ports, ferries, quotas, subsidies and bypasses. Maritime transport is an alternative to land transport through the EU, where sanctions restrict the transit of certain goods.

In 2026, this dependence became even more apparent. After sanctions against Lukoil, sea shipments of oil products on the Kaliningrad route tripled.(opens in new tab)to 61,000 tons. Since the end of 2025, the company has shifted almost all such cargoes from land transit to sea routes. This looks like adaptation, but it also shows dependence. The region relies on constant reconfiguration of routes.

For Kremlin propaganda, this situation is ambiguous. On the one hand, any difficulties can be explained by external pressure: sanctions, Lithuania, Poland, the EU, the ‘economic war of the West’. A clear example of this context appeared as early as 2025, when Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said (opens in a new tab) that Kaliningrad needed special mechanisms to deal with ‘opposition and problems created by neighbors, “partners” in quotation marks’, again presenting the region’s economic and logistical difficulties as a result of hostile external pressure.

This allows public anger to be directed outwards rather than towards Moscow. On the other hand, the more daily life depends on subsidies, ferries, supplies from Belarus, imported potatoes and decisions from the federal center, the less convincing the image of a stable fortress becomes. This is the main paradox of Kaliningrad.

Sabotage, fear and militarization of everyday life

The next layer of propaganda is not just the image of an external threat, but its constant movement closer to everyday life. If the narrative of the besieged fortress explains why the region is supposedly under pressure from NATO and the West, then reports of sabotage and terrorist attacks make this threat almost internal. The danger is no longer somewhere in television geopolitics, but close at hand – in a communication tower, a gas pipeline, a road, a military convoy, a railway station or an infrastructure facility.

Over the past few years, the FSB reported numerous detentions of residents of the region suspected of alleged sabotage activities, including arson attacks on transport and communications infrastructure.

In 2025, such reports moved even closer to ordinary urban infrastructure. In February 2025, the Kaliningrad FSB reported(opens in a new tab)the detention of three Russian citizens who, according to the agency, had planned to set fire to the power supply equipment of a mobile communications base station “in the interests of Ukraine”. In May 2025, the FSB announced(opens in a new tab)the detention of a 25-year-old Russian citizen who was suspected of preparing a terrorist attack on the route of a military parade convoy during the events of May 9.

The key point here is not the number of cases, but the fact that Kaliningrad residents are encouraged to see danger not only in Ukraine, NATO or ‘hostile neighbors’, but also within their region – in people nearby, suspicious contacts, other people’s phones, money transfers, conversations and interest in infrastructure facilities. The war thus becomes not only an external conflict, but also an internal regime of suspicion.

A special element of this logic is the creation(opens in a new tab)in 2025 of the BARS-39 combat army reserve. Officially, the authorities explained it as a measure to strengthen the territorial defense of the region. Governor Alexey Besprozvannykh said(opens in a new tab)at that time he had turned to the Ministry of Defense after requests from residents and veterans’ organizations, while the first wave of reservists underwent training at the Khmelyovka training ground. Later, the governor himself, members of the regional government and heads of municipalities joined BARS-39, and the official presentation emphasized that service and training would take place only within the region.

The political meaning here is more important than the military one. BARS-39 transforms anxiety into organized behavior. The population is invited not only to believe that the region is under threat, but to participate in a ritual of defense – to register, to attend training, to take a piece of land, to guard ‘one’s home.’ Even if most residents never join the reserve, the very fact of its public promotion normalizes the idea that Kaliningrad lives in a special defensive regime.

The psychology of drone warfare

The topic of drones occupies a special place. Unlike the Russian border regions that regularly face attacks from UAVs, the Kaliningrad Oblast does not have a direct air corridor from Ukraine through Russian territory. A possible Ukrainian drone flying to Kaliningrad would have to cross the airspace of other states or rely on a much more complicated scenario – for example, be launched from the sea, from within the region itself or as part of a local sabotage operation. That is why the threat from drones in Kaliningrad is perceived differently than in the Belgorod, Kursk or Rostov regions. Geographically, it is less visible and requires additional explanations.

On May 25, 2026, residents of the Kaliningrad Oblast received a warning.(opens in a new tab)of the ‘drone threat’ for the first time. According to messages from the emergency warning system and regional authorities, the ‘warning system was activated’ and Khrabrovo airport temporarily restricted arrivals and departures. At the same time, no public information was provided about a specific drone, its route, where it was detected, captured or shot down. This is crucial – it was not a confirmed attack or a downed aircraft, but a warning signal with an obscure factual basis.

Even if the true nature of the threat remains unclear, the signal itself produces the necessary psychological effect: the war suddenly appears not somewhere far away, but over Kaliningrad. Residents are invited to feel themselves part of the same danger zone in which the Russian border regions live. This creates a sense of being connected in the same war: the region may not be near the Ukrainian front, but it is nevertheless included in the general map of the war.

In this sense, the drone warning of May 25, 2026 became a continuation of the ‘besieged fortress’ narrative. And the less visible such a threat is from a geographical point of view, the more obvious its political function becomes – to arouse anxiety, strengthen trust in security agencies, justify the militarization of everyday life, and once again present Kaliningrad not as an enclave far from the front, but as the western border of Russia already involved in war.

The myth of the outpost mail: the price of reality

The Kaliningrad Oblast shows how Kremlin propaganda works in wartime not only through television narratives, but also through the reformatting of everyday life itself. Kaliningrad is increasingly presented not as a distinctive European border, but as Russia’s western outpost surrounded by enemies. In this logic, the war against Ukraine no longer looks like Moscow’s aggression and is presented instead as part of the supposedly necessary defense of Russia as a whole and Kaliningrad in particular.

But it is precisely the local experience that makes this construction tangible. Kaliningrad residents may be encouraged to imagine themselves living in a protected fortress, yet their daily lives increasingly tell them something else – the region has become more closed, more expensive, more dependent and more unsettling. Propaganda can direct irritation outward – towards Ukraine, NATO, Lithuania, Poland and the ‘collective West’ – but it cannot completely erase the personal feeling that life has deteriorated. That is why the main conflict in Kaliningrad is not between belief and disbelief in propaganda, but between the official mythology of the post and the real experience of people who see the price of war in shops, at borders, on supply routes and change, writes defense24.

The GeoPost

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A concentration of NATO military aircraft was detected near the Kaliningrad region on August 18, according to reporting by Welt.

The airborne deployment included an E-3 AWACS airborne early warning and control aircraft, an American EA-37B Compass Call II electronic warfare plane, and an ARTEMIS II reconnaissance aircraft flying simultaneously in the airspace.

A NATO representative stated that the alliance conducted an operation led by the United States that involved American and Norwegian fighter jets, Polish ground units, the E-3 AWACS, and additional forces.

OSINTdefender analyst noted that while flights by E-3 AWACS and ARTEMIS II aircraft are common in the area, the inclusion of the newly deployed EA-37B electronic warfare aircraft suggests that the United States and NATO had a specific operational requirement for intelligence gathering or electronic warfare near Kaliningrad, according to Welt.

Bundeswehr University military expert Carlo Masala remarked, “One can only hope that Russia understood the message.”

The Kaliningrad region is considered one of Russia’s most heavily militarized territories. The enclave houses air defense systems, missile complexes, and military infrastructure capable of posing a threat to Poland, the Baltic states, and NATO logistics routes.

As a result, the alliance views the territory as a critical component of Russian military capability along its eastern edge.

This non-standard NATO aviation movement occurred following warnings from US intelligence regarding risks of potential Russian aggression against an alliance member to test its commitment to collective defense, as reported by Welt.

Additionally, two weeks prior, Lithuanian officials stated that the Kremlin might consider targeting critical infrastructure in the Baltic states using captured Ukrainian drones to obscure direct involvement.

On August 19, 2026, NATO reconnaissance aircraft simultaneously carried out flights in two key directions—over the Black Sea and near Belarus.

According to the analytical channel Coffe Report, the American ARTEMIS II reconnaissance aircraft, a Bombardier Challenger 650 with registration number N159L, conducted a mission over the central part of the Black Sea, south of Crimea, to gather intelligence on Russian forces.

At the same time, a NATO AWACS aircraft with registration number LX-N90445 operated over the Baltic states and Central Europe alongside another E-3 AWACS and an aerial tanker to monitor military activity and coordinate aviation operations across the region.

Earlier in May, fighters participating in NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission were reportedly scrambled three separate times over one week to identify and escort Russian aircraft accused of violating flight regulations.

In late April, Swedish and Danish fighter jets also intercepted Russian Tupolev Tu-22M bombers escorted by Su-35 fighters over the Baltic Sea.

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