Brutal safari aerial strikes on public transportation in Kherson killed two and injured 8

At least two people were killed and eight others injured after Russian troops launched two separate drone attacks on civilian buses in Kherson on May 2.

According to the Kherson Oblast Governor , the first strike occurred at around 7 a.m. in the city’s Dnipro district. A municipal worker and a woman were killed at the scene, while seven other civilians were wounded. Authorities have not yet released details about their condition.

Several hours later, another Russian drone targeted a second bus, injuring the driver, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his back and legs.

“All victims of the attack are civilians, and the Russians clearly understood this,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media. the

The latest strike comes less than two months after another Russian drone attack on a civilian bus in Kherson on March 11, which injured 10 people. At the time, Prokudin described the strike as a deliberate attack on civilians.

Located on the front line along the Dnipro River, Kherson has faced constant drone and artillery attacks since Ukrainian forces liberated the city in late 2022.

The USA plans to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany amid rising transatlantic tensions

The United States will withdraw around 5,000 troops from Germany, a key NATO ally, amid growing tensions between Washington and Berlin over the war in Iran.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced the decision on May 1 following a week of sharp exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump had earlier threatened to reduce the American military presence after Merz criticized Washington’s handling of the conflict with Iran.

“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating — or rather, very skilled at not negotiating — letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” Merz said on April 27 while speaking to students in western Germany.

“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so I hope that this ends as quickly as possible,” he added.

Trump responded by calling Merz “totally ineffective.”

A senior Pentagon official, speaking anonymously to Reuters, described the recent comments from Berlin as “inappropriate and unhelpful.”

“The president is rightly reacting to these counterproductive remarks,” the official said.

The Pentagon said the troop withdrawal is expected to take place over the next six to 12 months. The move would reduce U.S. troop levels in Europe to roughly where they were before 2022, when President Joe Biden increased deployments following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The announcement came on the same day Trump unveiled plans to impose a 25% tariff on cars and trucks imported from the European Union beginning next week, while exempting vehicles manufactured at U.S. plants. Germany, the EU’s largest car exporter, is expected to be among the hardest hit.

German officials downplayed the significance of the withdrawal, saying a reduction in U.S. personnel had been anticipated.

“We Europeans must take on more responsibility for our own security,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. He added that the withdrawal would affect part of the roughly 40,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Germany.

Germany is “on the right track” in strengthening its own military capabilities, Pistorius said.

Germany hosts the largest U.S. military presence in Europe, with about 35,000 active-duty personnel, and serves as a major hub for training and logistics. On April 22, Berlin unveiled plans to significantly expand its armed forces over the coming years in response to growing threats from Russia.

While Germany reacted calmly to Trump’s announcement, other NATO members voiced concern. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that the decision reflected “a disastrous trend” in transatlantic relations.

“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community is not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance,” Tusk wrote on X. “We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.”

NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said the alliance is “working with the U.S. to understand the details” of Washington’s decision regarding its military posture in Germany.

Russia accelerates property seizures in occupied Mariupol

In occupied Mariupol, things are getting tense. Russia has intensified its campaign of property looting in the occupied city of Mariupol, beginning mass evictions from apartments declared as “ownerless.”According to Petro Andriushchenko, former advisor to Mariupol’s mayor, Russian occupation authorities are accelerating the process as summer approaches.

Many apartments belonging to residents who fled or were killed during the 2022 siege are now being seized. Putin’s decree from December 2025 legalized this large-scale property theft, allowing Russian-backed authorities to confiscate homes showing “signs of being ownerless.”Local collaborators plan to sell most of these apartments or allocate them to Russian public-sector employees by June 1.

This fits into a broader strategy of demographic replacement, where Russians are encouraged to move into occupied territories through subsidized mortgages while original Ukrainian residents are left homeless or displaced.

Russian drones targeted four gas stations in Kharkiv within minutes

Russian forces attacked at least four petrol stations in Kharkiv with drones during the day on May 2, local authorities reported.

The Mayor of Kharkiv said the strikes hit petrol stations in four districts of the city — Kholodnohirskyi, Osnovianskyi, Novobavarskyi, and Kyivskyi — within less than 30 minutes. Another Russian drone struck an apartment building in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district.

Later, the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration reported that a 62-year-old man suffered blast injuries in the Kholodnohirskyi district as a result of the attack. Three other civilians experienced acute stress reactions, including a 61-year-old man and two women aged 38 and 48.

The strikes came one day after Russian drones targeted five petrol stations across Kharkiv Oblast on the morning of May 1.