The war, European inflation and China’s shadow banking demons were top of mind for market participants on Wednesday ahead of more key macro data out of the US.

Ukrainian drones targeted half a dozen regions inside Russia, in what observers described as the most ambitious foray yet. A pair of military cargo planes sat in flames at an airport in Pskov. As The New York Times helpfully noted, Pskov “is home to a well known paratrooper division that was implicated in last year’s massacre of civilians in Bucha.” Maria Zakharova, the Kremlin’s de facto propaganda minister, said the strikes “will not go unpunished.”

In Kyiv, three people (and counting) were killed after Russian missiles and drones damaged residential buildings. Ukraine intercepted Russian missiles and drones in Odesa and several other regions, officials said.

Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” is coming home daily for Russia. Ukraine’s drone attacks are mostly symbolic and probably do more to rally domestic morale than anything else, but they nevertheless serve as an unwelcome reminder to Russians that the war is on their doorstep. A handful of airports were closed around Moscow on Wednesday after the Kremlin downed a nearby drone. In all, eight unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down in Russia across five regions.

Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried at a private ceremony in St. Petersburg on Tuesday. Russian police blocked public access. Putin didn’t attend.

Meanwhile, inflation moved up again in Spain, where headline price growth recently receded to 2%. August’s increase was the second consecutive, but core prices cooled a bit, rising 6.1% from a year ago, down from July’s 6.2% 12-month pace. In Germany, which is mired in what one bank calls a “slowcession,” an unexpected increase in North Rhine-Westphalia price growth to 5.9% (0.5% MoM) underscored the intractability of the bloc’s fight to rein in an inflation impulse which is now embedded in wage-setting.

Separately, the European Commission’s economic sentiment index fell a fourth month. The juxtaposition between stubborn inflation and declining sentiment is yet another reminder that Europe is grappling with stagflation, complicating the ECB’s decision calculus.

Finally, Beijing instructed the trust units of Citic and China Construction Bank to take a look at Zhongrong International‘s books.

Zhongrong missed multiple payments on trust products to investors this month, raising concerns about liquidity at Zhongzhi Enterprise Group, the trillion-yuan conglomerate at the heart of China’s burgeoning shadow banking crisis.

As Bloomberg noted, it wasn’t clear what Citic and China Construction Bank’s involvement may presage, but the $6.6 billion 2021 bailout of Huarong was preceded by “a similar examination.”