What happened
Russia has promised to intensify its attacks on Ukraine after Kyiv launched its biggest drone assault on Moscow since the start of the war.

Russian officials said almost 200 drones were directed at the capital overnight as part of a wider barrage involving more than 1,000 drones across the country. Several struck targets in and around Moscow, including the Kapotnya oil refinery, a key fuel facility that has been hit multiple times in recent weeks.

Who said what
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would continue carrying out “massive group strikes on a regular basis”, describing the Ukrainian attacks as terrorism. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defended the operation as a “fully justified response” and warned: “If Ukraine burns, so will Moscow.”

Ukraine “hopes to bring the consequences of the war closer to ordinary Russians”, said Pjotr Sauer in The Guardian. The “apocalyptic images served as a stark reminder that Moscow and its suburbs are no longer insulated from the conflict and are increasingly a part of it”.

What next?
Hard-liners in Russia have responded to the assault by urging the Kremlin to respond, said Paul Sonne and Nataliya Vasilyeva in The New York Times. “How much further Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear stockpile, can go with its conventional arsenal is unclear”, but the calls for reprisals have “raised the prospect of a new cycle of escalation.”

What happened
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Sarah Mullally, has formally apologised for the Church of England’s role in the forced adoption of thousands of babies in the post-war period.

The Church ran about 100 mother and baby homes where pregnant, unmarried women would be sent, and whose babies – up to an estimated 200,000 – would be taken from them. Many mothers were forced to work in kitchens and laundries, and scrub floors.

Who said what
“We are profoundly sorry for the pain, trauma and stigma experienced – and still carried – by many people because of historical adoption practices in homes affiliated to the Church of England,” said Mullally. The Church recognises that “prejudice – including on the grounds of race and disability – shaped and defined experiences and outcomes”.

Engaging with the Church has been “distressing and re‑traumatising”, said the Adult Adoptee Movement. “An apology without corrective action is meaningless.”

What next?
Though the apology did not mention compensation, the Church might be liable for “financial redress”, according to The Telegraph. “Payments could reach £660,000 in rare and exceptional circumstances.”

Keir Starmer is also expected to make an apology in the House of Commons.

The new mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, has promised to treat the alleged abuse of children in dozens of state nursery and primary schools in the city as an “absolute priority” amid growing outrage from parents and the public.

Child protection officers carried out a wave of arrests last month, “dramatically accelerating the authorities’ response to a scandal that has shaken the French capital and undermined faith in its schools”, said France 24.

The focus of the police investigation is on so-called “monitors” in the capital’s after-school care system. They are not employed directly by schools or the education ministry, but recruited by city or local authorities “often without training or professional diplomas, and increasingly on a casual basis, with many paid by the hour”, said The Guardian.

Prosecutors have been examining more than 100 allegations of mistreatment, physical violence and rape of children as young as three by monitors during lunch breaks, nap times and after-school activities.

As well as announcing dozens of suspensions and vowing to have better vetting of people who apply to be after-school monitors and improved training for recruits, Grégoire has also agreed to set up a cross-party inquiry and convene an assembly of parents tasked with exploring ways to improve child protection and rethink after-school hours.

“I know there is a clear breakdown of trust in the state school system,” he told the municipal council. “But we will get there; we have no choice.”