UR MAG

KYIV, May 25 (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday that it intended to launch "systematic strikes" on targets in Kyiv linked to the Ukrainian military as well as decision-making centres, and urged foreigners to leave, a day after one of its heaviest bombardments of the city since the start of the war.

Russian drone and missile strike in Kyiv

But ‌Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Kyiv's allies not to give in to "Russian blackmail." And the head of the EU mission in the city said the 27-nation ‌bloc was "not going anywhere."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement, that the impending strikes were "in response to the continuing terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime" ​against civilians in Russia.

The statement said Russia's armed forces "are starting systematic strikes on facilities located in Kyiv that are used for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as on centres where the corresponding decisions are being made."

An earlier Russian Foreign Ministry statement urged foreigners, including diplomats, to leave Kyiv as quickly as possible.

Russia has cited what it describes as a deliberate drone strike last Friday on a student dorm in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine's military denied the Russian accusations and said it had struck an elite drone command ‌unit in the area.

In Kyiv, rescuers tackled the aftermath of Sunday's ⁠strikes, which authorities said had killed two people and injured 91.

Moscow fired an Oreshnik hypersonic missile near Kyiv - its third use of the nuclear-capable weapon in more than four years of war.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha wrote on the social media platform X: "We are currently discussing with our ⁠partners that there is no need to give in to this Russian blackmail."

The head of the EU mission in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, said the Russian warning sought to sow panic.

"Russia wants fear. Panic. Isolation of Ukraine. It will not work," she said on social media. "The EU is not going anywhere. We are staying in Kyiv. We are staying with Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said around 300 sites across ​Kyiv ​had been damaged in the weekend strikes, including a newly opened museum devoted to the 1986 Chornobyl ​nuclear disaster.

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More than 70 foreign diplomats paid their respects to the ‌victims of the strikes in Kyiv, visiting the heavily damaged neighbourhood of Lukyanivka on Monday.

ATTACKS IN RUSSIA, UKRAINE

Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its own attacks against Russian infrastructure and industrial assets.

In Russia's Belgorod region, one man was killed and another injured in a missile and drone attack that also cut power and water supplies, local authorities said on Telegram.

The Russia-installed head of parts of eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, said seven people were killed in Ukrainian attacks, including a family of four whose car was struck in the industrial town of Horlivka.

In Ukrainian-held territory, two people were killed and 16 wounded in Russian attacks over 24 hours in the southern Kherson region, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.

In a missile attack on ‌Monday on the town of Derhachi near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city, two people were killed and more ​than 20 injured, officials said.

In the Black Sea port of Odesa, a frequent Russian target, the city's top ​official said one person was killed and three injured in a Russian strike.

A ​further 14 were wounded in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said. Emergency services said drones attacked a nine-storey apartment building in the town of ‌Pavlohrad.

The governor of those parts of Donetsk region held by Ukraine, Vadym ​Filashkin, said 12 people had been hurt in ​the frontline city of Kramatorsk.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022.

U.S. mediation has failed to broker an end to the war. Each side accuses the other of seeking to escalate the conflict, and Ukraine plans to send reinforcements to its northern ​regions to counter what it believes are Russian plans for ‌a new offensive.

Zelenskiy, in his nightly address, said Ukraine had made little progress with the United States in expanding production of anti-missile defences. He also repeated ​that Kyiv was "expecting new diplomatic measures" from Washington.

(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo and Alessandra Prentice in London; Additional reporting by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk, ​Editing by Kate Mayberry, Ros Russell, Gareth Jones and Ron Popeski; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Voters in Texas will see little of theRepublican candidatesfor U.S. Senate on Monday. But that's only if they stay away from screens.

Election 2026 Texas

There were no public campaign events scheduled for Sen.John Cornynnor state Attorney GeneralKen Paxtonon the final day of their more than yearlong quest for the GOP nomination. Instead, their fight for Tuesday's runoff continues as it has for months — intense and unabated — through advertising that has topped $109 million, heavily from Cornyn's side.

Cornyn is scheduled to host an annual, non-campaign event in San Antonio to recognize high school graduates attending the nation's service academies. The senator seeking a fifth term held his last public campaign event in Corpus Christi on Friday, ahead of Tuesday’s voting.

Paxton headlinedhis last events Thursdayin the Austin area and in San Antonio, content to let his campaign and a super PAC carry his primary message: thatPresident Donald Trump endorsed himon May 19.

Trump's announcement and accompanying dismissal of Cornyn, who has had an awkward public relationship with the president, came on the second day of early voting, which ended Friday.

Though the candidates were quiet over the weekend, Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sunday, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him.

Paxton, Trump posted on social media, “was also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” while calling Cornyn “VERY disloyal to me.” It was Trump's strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president's reproach ofLouisiana Sen. Bill Cassidybefore he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary.

After Trump's jabs, Cornyn still leaned into his support for the president just before Monday's event. The senator said that 99.3% of his votes aligned with Trump, that he “wants him to be successful” and then he referenced Trump’s previous comments “where he called me a good man and a friend.”

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As for endorsing his opponent, “obviously the president is entitled to make his pick," he said, but “Texans are a pretty independent breed and people will be making their own choices.”

Following Trump's call for retribution, Republican voters in Indiana and Kentucky have also chosen GOP primary challengers over incumbent GOP officeholders who have crossed the president or opposed his agenda.

For a contest that is expected to draw a fraction of Texas’ 18.7 million voters, the two candidates’ campaigns and supporting groups were continuing to bombard all Texans with advertising, though more by Cornyn's backers than Paxton's.

"It’s just a slug fest, with the campaigns and third-party groups slugging it out,” said Wayne Hamilton, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.

The combination of Cornyn's campaign and supporting super PACs has far outspent pro-Paxton groups over the past year, by almost nine-to-one. But the gap has shrunk as the runoff has approached. In the final week of the campaign, the combination of pro-Cornyn ad spending was less than twice that of Paxton's group.

Cornyn's network continued to air spots attacking Paxton over ethical and personal questions that have shadowed him with little effect throughout the campaign. The senator's consequent argument to voters is that Paxton would struggle in the general election and threaten to flip the seat blue.

“Paxton’s flaws and the baggage he brings to the general election is going to be exploited to the fullest by James Talarico,” he told reporters, before heading into Monday's ceremony and giving a speech devoid of campaign politics to the assembled graduates.

Cornyn’s campaign also had reprised an ad noting his tendency to vote in the Senate for Trump’s priorities.

Paxton's campaign and groups supporting him transitioned midweek to all ads noting Trump's endorsement, though Paxton's primary super PAC, Lone Star Liberty Fund, began airing one over the weekend aimed at raising questions about state Rep. James Talarico, the Texas Democratic Senate nominee.

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Daniel Donabedian:Jaylen Brown shouts out Derrick White for making the All-Defensive 1st Team:“Had a hell of a defensive season” He went on to say he’s jealous of White’s defensive timing: “His timing & ability to make impact plays…he’s gifted at that…His IQ sets himself apart.” @FCHWPO

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Here he is in his first postseason with the Spurs, having forced his way to San Antonio last season as part of his Sacramento Kings exit plan, and there’s already league-wide chatter about how his time here might be cut short. The assertion, shared by rival executives and media folks alike, is that rookie guard Dylan Harper (the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft) is simply too good to come off the bench for long and will eventually need to start alongside second-year guard Stephon Castle (the No. 4 pick in 2024).

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ANKARA (AP) — Police stormed the offices of Turkey’smain opposition CHP partyon Sunday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at party supporters and officials who had been holed up inside for three days.

APTOPIX Turkey Opposition

It was a violent end to a standoff between members of the Republican Peoples’ Party, or CHP, and a leadership team appointed by an appeals court, escalating tensions between the opposition and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Supporters had barricaded the courtyard entrance with buses and the building with furniture. Footage taken by local media in the courtyard and inside the building showed clouds of tear gas as riot police stormed through the premises, before journalists were removed by the police.

Once the raid began, supporters attempted to resist the police by spraying them with fire extinguishers, but were quickly stopped. Doors, furniture and the ground floor windows were destroyed in the melee.

Among those inside the building wasOzgur Ozel, elected as party chairperson in November 2023 but dismissed by the court ruling. A video from inside his office at the start of the raid shows him being served the court order removing him, which he promptly ripped up.

Leaving party headquarters to cheers from supporters outside, Ozel told journalists: “We are leaving (the building) now only to reclaim it in such a way that no one will be able to meddle again. When we return, neither this administration nor the administration’s collaborators will dare do this once more.”

Ozel asks his supporters to rebuild the party for a third time

Ozel and his supporters then marched to Parliament about 8 kilometers (5 miles) away, joined by hundreds of passersby despite heavy rain and hail. Before arriving at Parliament, he stopped at the National Sovereignty Park where he asked the crowd if they were willing to rebuild the party for a third time.

The CHP was first established in 1923 by Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but was shut down in a 1980 military coup, before reemerging in 1992.

Outside the legislature, Ozel rallied a crowd of hundreds, telling them that the CHP was “de facto shuttered” but would be reestablished.

Even if ousted as the chairperson of the CHP, Ozel is still an elected lawmaker from the western province of Manisa as well as the party's group speaker.

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The appeals court on Thursday nullified Ozel's election as CHP chairperson, suspending him and members of the party’s executive board.

The court ruling said Ozel should be replaced by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, his predecessor, who led the party for 13 years but never won any national elections.

Meanwhile, Ozel, in his first and only election as party leader, delivered a decisive blow to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party in the 2024 municipal polls.

The opposition says the decision was politically motivated to weaken the party as it struggles underwaves of legal casestargeting its members and elected officials.

Erdogan's eye is on the next election

The next presidential election isn't due until 2028, but Erdogan can call for an early vote. His main challenger, Istanbul MayorEkrem Imamoglu, a CHP member, has been imprisoned since March last year and is on trial on corruption charges.

Many observers have said the legal cases against the CHP — mostly centered on corruption allegations — are aimed at neutralizing the party ahead of the next election. The government insists that Turkey’s courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.

The vast majority of the party has rallied behind Ozel. He and most of the party had been inside the CHP headquarters in Ankara since Thursday’s ruling, with the new administration unable to enter. The rival teams were supposed to meet Sunday afternoon to figure a way out of the impasse.

Early on Sunday, a crowd gathered outside the office, watched by a growing police presence. Kilicdaroglu’s lawyer, Celal Celik, sent a request to Ankara police to assist in vacating the building, a move approved by the provincial governor.

The police raid comes at the start of a nine-day holiday for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, when many people are on vacation and out of the big cities.

Erdogan has ruled Turkey, first as prime minister and then as president, since 2003. His electoral record suffered a setback in 2019, when the CHP seized control of several major cities in local elections. In Istanbul, Imamoglu emerged as a popular and charismatic figure who many felt could successfully topple Erdogan.