Ukrainian officials say a port-bound foreign merchant ship and residential buildings were hit in recent assault.

A Ukrainian married couple, both aged 75, were killed in a Russian attack on Odesa, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia launched a series of drone attacks on and near Ukraine’s southern port city. The assault destroyed residential buildings and hit a foreign merchant ship, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Strikes overnight on Thursday injured at least 13 people. A separate attack killed the married couple and wounded another, reported Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Serhiy Lysak, head of the local military administration, shared images of a building engulfed in flames and another torn open along one side, as emergency crews worked inside.

“Municipal services have been working at the sites of the hits since night,” he said.

Separately, two ⁠Russian ⁠drones struck a bulk carrier as it headed through a Ukrainian ‌maritime corridor towards a Black Sea port in the greater Odesa area, Ukraine’s seaports authority ⁠said.

The attack triggered a ⁠fire that was ⁠put out by ⁠the crew of the Saint ⁠Kitts and Nevis-flagged vessel; no one ‌was hurt, according to preliminary information.

Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 107 drones at Ukrainian territory overnight, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. It said air defences “destroyed or jammed” 96 of the drones, while 10 drones and the two ballistic missiles recorded “hits”.

Russia said its air defences shot down 10 Ukrainian drones overnight.

The attacks come as a new series of European Union-imposed sanctions target Russia’s energy, banking and trade sectors.

Russia’s mission to the EU criticised the additional sanctions, which further clamp down on the “shadow fleet” of ageing tankers Moscow uses to evade oil export restrictions.

In a statement cited by Russia’s TASS news agency, diplomats at Russia’s mission to the EU said the measures ⁠lacked UN legitimacy and infringed the rights of third countries.

Alongside the sanctions, the EU also formally approved a 90 billion-euro ($106 billion) wartime loan for Ukraine that is expected to cover about two-thirds of its funding needs for 2026 and 2027, as the war continues for its fifth year.

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Israel has carved out a military zone inside southern Lebanon, raising fears it is entrenching its occupation under the cover of the ceasefire with Hezbollah, replicating the “Yellow Line” model imposed by Israel on Gaza. Al Jazeera’s Caolán Magee reporting from Beirut explains.

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Ruling against Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham will spawn a ‘broader chilling effect’, groups such as Amnesty and HRW warn.

A coalition of leading British civil society groups has condemned the convictions of two prominent pro-Palestine leaders, accusing the United Kingdom of an “authoritarian” approach to protesters.

Ben Jamal, 62, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Chris Nineham, 63, vice-chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, were earlier this month found guilty of breaching protest guidelines during a January 2025 demonstration.

Representatives from eight organisations – including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and freedom of expression group Article 19 – said in a letter on Friday that the convictions “should alarm anyone who believes in our basic democratic human right to protest”.

“Jamal and Nineham’s convictions are a testament to how far this country has swung towards adopting authoritarian approaches to protest, and the damage successive governments have done to our democratic rights to freedom of speech and assembly,” the groups said.

Liberty, Friends of the Earth, Big Brother Watch, English PEN and Greenpeace also signed the letter.

The case is “emblematic of the sweeping powers police now possess to strangle peaceful protest”, they added.

On January 18, 2025, in the midst of a mass pro-Palestine rally in London, Jamal and Nineham reportedly led a group of people to lay flowers commemorating Palestinians killed in Gaza at the headquarters of the BBC. Police had declared the headquarters off-limits for protesters.

But video footage shows an initial line of police allowing the group to pass before the arrest of Nineham unfolded, according to the letter. Jamal then encouraged the group to drop their flowers and return to the larger demonstration.

The duo were charged with failing to comply with protest conditions, while Jamal was also convicted of inciting others to do so.

Jamal and Nineham have since been sentenced to 18 and 12 months’ conditional discharge, respectively, along with £7,500 ($10,000) payments apiece in prosecution costs. Both men are appealing.

The convictions come amid heightened international scrutiny of the UK’s alleged crackdown on pro-Palestine activism after last year’s ban on direct action group Palestine Action.

In its annual report released this week, Amnesty International said the UK “continued to use counterterror laws to restrict peaceful protests” and specifically cited the January arrests that led to Jamal and Nineham’s convictions.

The eight groups also warned of a “broader chilling effect” against protest efforts that have historically won “many of the human rights we cherish”.

“Recasting those same forms of action as inherently suspect risks forgetting that history and hollowing out the very rights that those struggles secured,” the letter concluded.

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