Over the weekend, the German and Russian foreign ministers held a rare meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where the Associated Press reported that Germany called on Russia to get off what it described as a “dangerous path of escalation” toward NATO.
However, the Russians rejected that supposition, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in a speech to the full assembly, accusing Germany of serving as Ukraine’s top sponsor and also of failing to learn the lessons of World War II.
Lavrov also said in that speech that Russia would veto any efforts by Germany and Japan to become permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
And then, the Russians launched a series of attacks on Ukraine that killed six people.
A Rare Summit
The Saturday meeting between Lavrov and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul was believed to be the first face-to-face between the two foreign ministers since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Lavrov, per the AP report, said afterward that Wadephul reiterated Germany’s public position during the meeting.
Wadephul’s office said after the meeting that the Germans are open to better ties with Russia, but that would require Russia’s willingness to end the war in Ukraine.
The meeting had followed an incident in August in which a drone exploded at Leipzig Airport in Germany.
The German government has blamed Russia for the attack, although the Russians have denied their involvement.
Lavrov repeated this in his General Assembly speech, calling the weapon an “unclaimed drone.”
Lavrov also claimed in the speech that he believed an agreement to end the war had been reached during the August 2025 summit, when President Vladimir Putin met with President Donald Trump in Alaska, and that Russia is “ready to return” to that framework.
However, as events made clear over the weekend, the war between Russia and Ukraine remains far from over.
A Deadly Sunday in Ukraine
According to the AP, a man was killed in Kyiv when a Russian drone struck a non-residential building.
Another Russian drone strike killed a person and wounded five others on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, while another person died in Vyshneve after a drone strike damaged several vehicles.
There was also a report of Russian attacks on the southern Odessa region, with at least one person killed and others injured.
And on Sunday afternoon, a woman and a 16-year-old girl were both killed in Sumy, in Northern Ukraine, by guided bombs.
The New Putin Strategy: Attacks on the Internet — and McDonald’s
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also said that Russia attacked a data center in Kyiv that provides Internet services to Ukraine’s military.
This is part of a recent pattern of attacks by Russia that have targeted Ukraine’s Internet access and Internet service providers, as well as its e-commerce and banking infrastructure, in a way that Ukraine’s government says is meant to adversely affect daily life for Ukrainians.
In the middle of last week, The Guardian reported that around 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region suffered temporary Internet outages.
The following day, Poland, a NATO nation allied with Ukraine, said that a Starlink satellite station had caught fire.
Some local government officials in Poland had accused Russia of responsibility.
Also last week, Russian drones carried out a strike on a surprising location: A warehouse in Ukraine that’s used by the international fast food chain McDonald’s.
According to the Kyiv Post, it was part of Russia’s continuing campaign to attack civilian sites, as well as foreign businesses that have a presence in Ukraine.
Per Reuters, the warehouse is not owned by McDonald’s, but rather by a logistics partner of the chain.
Zelensky denounced the attack, in a social media post, as “an attack drone against ordinary food.” Indeed, McDonald’s has a complicated and intriguing history in that part of the world.
Journalist Thomas Friedman coined the concept of “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention” in the 1990s, observing that in the days of growing globalization, no two countries that both had McDonald’s had ever gone to war.
The theory has since been disproven various times, although it technically still applies when it comes to Russia and Ukraine: While the first McDonald’s in Moscow famously opened in 1990, during the waning days of the Soviet Union, McDonald’s announced in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, that it would exit the Russian market, declaring that “The Golden Arches will shine no more in Russia.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
