From Kyiv to the Strait of Hormuz, the past 48 hours have brought heavy fighting, a deadly airport attack, mass unrest and fresh diplomatic movement across several of the world's most volatile fronts. Here is what is happening around the world on Thursday, October 22, 2026, and what to watch next.
Ukraine: Missiles pound Kyiv hours after US envoy meets Putin
Missiles struck Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, wounding 15 people in the capital and damaging metro infrastructure on the Southern Bridge over the Dnipro River, Kyiv authorities said. The barrage followed an attack on Wednesday evening that wounded six. Across Ukraine, officials said seven people were killed, including in the Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, and a drone hit energy infrastructure near Kremenchuk, a major industrial hub. Ukraine responded with one of its largest drone waves of the war: Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 630 drones were sent toward the Russian capital region overnight, most of them shot down, with two people wounded near Moscow and another injured in Lipetsk.
The strikes came hours after US envoy Steve Witkoff met President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg. President Donald Trump said the two sides were "maybe now the closest we've been" to ending the war, and the Kremlin said Russia was "in principle" ready to resume trilateral talks with Ukraine and the United States, possibly in mid-November, while cautioning that Ukrainian and European proposals lacked "substance." President Volodymyr Zelensky told Fox News that Ukraine would accept a peace deal freezing the war along current front lines if it retained control of at least 75 percent of its territory.
Strait of Hormuz: Iran says seven vessels hit in a single night
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said on Thursday that its forces struck four ships carrying out ship-to-ship oil transfers in the northern Persian Gulf, setting all four ablaze, and that three other vessels struck mines west of the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday night and caught fire. The IRGC said the ships had used an "illegal route" despite warnings, accused the United States of encouraging vessels to pass through a mined passage, and warned that continued US actions could extend the confrontation to American bases in the region. The claims, which did not identify the vessels or any casualties, could not be independently verified.
The incidents are the latest in a campaign that has seen more than a dozen strikes on vessels since late September, and a cargo ship sank earlier this week after striking a mine, the first reported sinking of the confrontation. Brent crude was trading above $110 a barrel amid the escalation. Trump said this week that the United States was not currently negotiating with Iran, adding that "something will happen fairly soon."
Saudi Arabia: One dead, eight injured in attack on Dammam airport
One person was killed and eight others injured in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on Wednesday evening, Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation announced. The United States urged its citizens in the kingdom to take precautions as the security situation developed. In a separate reported incident, a drone strike on a Saudi Aramco oil field killed two foreign nationals and injured an Indian worker, according to News18, amid a series of attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure attributed to Yemen's Houthi movement.
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom announced it would deploy Typhoon fighter jets to help defend Saudi Arabia against Houthi missile and drone attacks. The British Defence Ministry said the jets would play a purely defensive role and would not carry out attacks against the Iran-backed group. The airport attack is the most serious incident yet at a Saudi civilian aviation hub in the current wave of strikes.
France: Counting the cost of the worst unrest in years
France is still clearing up after nationwide protests on Saturday, October 17, turned into the country's worst unrest in years. The interior ministry said about 550,000 people marched in scores of cities, while the CGT union put the figure at 800,000. One protester died of a cardiac arrest in Paris, more than 500 police officers were injured, and around 2,400 people were arrested over the weekend. The government says more than 3,000 shops were pillaged or damaged, the 143-year-old town hall in Limoges was torched, and masked groups invaded the residence of the prefect in Bordeaux.
The movement grew out of a month of student protests that merged with anger over rising living costs and declining public services. Partial curfews were imposed in several cities, including parts of Paris, and the US Embassy advised Americans to avoid protest areas. President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence and addressed the nation on Sunday. The government has since announced state-financed furlough support and cash-flow funds for damaged businesses, and says extra police will be deployed if protests resume this weekend.
Sudan: Army drone strike on market in disputed Abyei kills 53
Local authorities in the disputed Abyei region said a Sudanese army drone strike on Amiet market on Monday killed 53 people and wounded at least 27, in one of the deadliest single incidents of Sudan's civil war in recent months. Authorities said 22 munitions were launched at the market, and that the victims included women, children, elderly people, merchants, South Sudanese returnees and Sudanese refugees. South Sudan's Foreign Ministry summoned the Sudanese ambassador and condemned the attack "in the strongest terms possible." Abyei is claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan.
Strikes across Sudan from Sunday to Monday killed more than 100 people, according to local reporting. On Tuesday, the Sudanese army said it had repelled a joint assault by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the SPLM-N rebel movement in Blue Nile state, saying its troops seized 15 combat vehicles and destroyed five others, claims that were not independently verified. The war between the army and the RSF, now in its fourth year, has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than 14 million people.
Gaza: Strikes continue under a strained ceasefire
In Gaza, medical sources said Israeli attacks on Wednesday killed four Palestinians, including two people hit by a drone strike on an electric bicycle in western Gaza City, while a 10-year-old boy died of wounds sustained in an earlier strike. The reported attacks came despite the ceasefire that has been in effect since October 10, 2025. Hamas accused Israel of repeated violations of the agreement, including restrictions on aid, and called on the deal's guarantors to compel Israel to halt the attacks and allow unrestricted humanitarian access.
On Thursday, Qatar and France jointly called for the full implementation of the ceasefire framework, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza under the agreed arrangements, an end to illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid. The statement followed talks in Doha between Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and French President Emmanuel Macron, who is touring the Gulf. Both countries also opposed any annexation of the West Bank and backed Palestinian national elections and a two-state solution.
What to watch next
Attention now turns to whether the signalled mid-November trilateral talks on Ukraine actually take place, and whether the nightly strikes pause in the meantime. In the Gulf, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the oil price will show how far the confrontation with Iran spreads, while in France the test is whether protests return this weekend and how the reinforced police deployment responds. In Sudan, mediators face pressure to respond after one of the war's deadliest market strikes.