Railway power supply in Volgograd disrupted after Ukraine's drone attack, Russia says
There were no injuries as a result of the Ukrainian attack, the administration said on the Telegram messaging app, citing Governor Andrei Bocharov.
Russia's civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia said on Telegram that it had suspended flights soon after midnight on Sunday at the airport in the city of Volgograd, which is the administrative centre of the broader Volgograd region.
The extent of the damage and the scale of the attack were not immediately clear. Air raid alerts were introduced also in several other regions in Russia's west and south, warning of a Ukrainian drone attack, according to Telegram posts by regional officials.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Italy to tell EU terms for UniCredit's BPM bid remain despite deal collapse
ROME, July 29 (Reuters) - Italy will tell the European Union the terms it imposed on UniCredit's bid for Banco BPM remain in place even after the collapse of the deal, sources said, responding to criticism from Brussels that could ultimately lead to disciplinary steps. UniCredit ( opens new tab withdrew its offer for BPM ( opens new tab on July 22, blaming government intervention for scuppering the 15 billion-euro ($17.3 billion) transaction. Days earlier, the European Commission warned Italy that it could have breached EU rules by using its so-called golden powers aimed at shielding key assets to rein in UniCredit's takeover plans, giving Rome 20 working days to reply to its objections. Italy will send a letter of reply to Brussels as early as this week which will invoke national security considerations for the use of the golden powers, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The European Commission was not immediately available for comment. In the letter Italy will also say it has no plans to withdraw the decree that set the conditions for the collapsed deal, arguing that their legitimacy was largely upheld by an Italian court ruling this month, the sources added. Among several conditions, Italy told UniCredit it had to halt activities in Russia, except for payments to Western companies, by early 2026, to prevent savings collected by Banco BPM from benefiting Moscow's economy as it continues its war against Ukraine. The court ruling due to be referenced in the letter to Brussels axed some of the terms imposed by the government, but upheld the Russia-related conditions. Italy also asked UniCredit to keep investments in Italian securities of BPM-owned fund manager Anima Holding ( opens new tab, a provision that UniCredit said the court had made non-mandatory. While the EU said corporate mergers should be vetted at the EU level to prevent member states taking unjustified measures in their regard, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti argued national security was not for European institutions to judge. Should the government fail to persuade the European Commission that its use of the golden power rules was justified, Brussels could adopt a decision ordering it to revoke the conditions. Italy's use of its 'golden power' legislation is also under EU scrutiny in a separate process called EU Pilot. ($1 = 0.8672 euros)
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Fury as terrified Jewish father and his six-year-old son are 'attacked and called murderers' by enraged pro-Palestine crowd after stopping at Italian motorway service station
A furious row has erupted in Italy after a man claims he and his six-year-old son were attacked at a motorway service area by an enraged pro-Palestinian crowd. The man, who has not been named, and his son had stopped to use the facilities at the rest area while driving from Milan to their home in Paris after a holiday. They were both wearing traditional Jewish kippahs and attracted the attention of people at the services near Lainate on the main Milan-Lagi motorway. The father, who managed to capture the incident on video as he and his son were insulted and attacked, said they were both left 'terrified'. In the clip which was later uploaded to social media, a group of people can be heard shouting in Italian 'Palestina Libera '(Free Palestine)' and 'Go back home'. Others also shout in Italian 'Assassini' (murderers) while another adds: 'This isn't Gaza, here is Italy' and another can be heard shouting: 'You will go to hell sooner or later'. The man's son, can clearly be seen in the clip, and he looks on with a scared look on his face as the crowd increased their hostility At one point, the video appears to shake, as the man claims he is pushed to the floor and then kicked with the crowd demanding he delete the video. Police eventually arrived after ten minutes and the man and his son were questioned about what happened. The video was shared on several anti Semitic campaign groups, with one commentator writing:' This is how it started in the Netherlands when I was a boy in 1941. I'm seeing it happen all over again.' In an interview with Italian media, the man, named only as Eli, 52, said:' We were on our way back from a trip to Lake Maggiore and I was with my youngest son, his sister and her husband, who is Italian. 'We were driving back to Milan and then I was going to carry on back to Paris where I live and manage a clothes store. 'I was heading towards the bathroom when one of the cashiers saw me and shouted Free Palestine' and it was him who sparked everything off. 'I gestured that I couldn't speak Italian but that he should stop, and I then started to film him and at that point others joined in. 'People were shouting 'killers' and 'genocide' and I was trying to protect my young son and then tried to walk us both to the bathroom. 'When we came up the stairs from the bathroom, there was a crowd there and they told me to delete the video and started pushing me. The man – who managed to capture the incident on video as he says he and his son were insulted and attacked – said they were both left 'terrified'. 'At that point I lost sight of my son, and I thought I have to defend myself but I ended up on the ground. 'They were like animals kicking me. I couldn't see my son but fortunately a woman had taken him away and was looking after him in a corner. I saw wild animals.' When asked if he had expected something like this he said: 'Frankly, yes because of the climate of hate in Europe but I didn't expect it in Italy, I thought it was a tolerant country. 'I'm still shocked, the police questioned me for two hours after it happened and they are still investigating, things like this are happening all too frequently now. Later writing on X, Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini said:' What happened in the service area at Lainate is very serious. 'A father and his six-year-old son on holiday in Italy, attacked and insulted purely because they are Jewish, and called murderers. 'I had hoped that Jew baiting had ended with the death of Nazi fascism, it is unacceptable that in 2025 in our country it is still happening.' A spokesperson for Milan police said: Officers were called to the service area on Sunday evening (27 July) and are investigating the incident. 'CCTV from the scene has been obtained and is being examined, and also cameras in the car parking area are being looked at as some suspects went in that direction. 'We will be looking to see if any of those caught on film can be identified.'
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
Has Trump just become the very model of a modern liberal leader?
Giving an all-important green light to Keir Starmer for the UK to recognise Palestine… rejecting Netanyahu's claim that there is no food crisis in Gaza by saying there is 'real starvation'…giving Russia a '10 to 12 days' ultimatum over Ukraine… Was this the week that Donald J Trump became the kind of leader that liberals dream of? One day we may know the full story of this remarkable transformation – and, while there are many caveats, doubts and, very likely, disappointments to follow, we should at least cherish such unexpected developments as this. 'We have to get the kids fed' is as simple and powerful an instruction as we could possibly hope to get from the leader of the free world. No moral equivocation there, no 'both sides' – and no room for delay, is not a coincidence that, grudgingly and still inadequately, Israel is allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, and, as a result, lives will be saved. Trump isn't asinine enough to pretend that there is no starvation in the Gaza Strip, and, loyal as he may be, neither is he so beholden to his friend BiBi that he is going to be taken in by the most audacious and shameful attempt at gaslighting to that effect in the history of the State of Israel. We can maybe see what is happening here, both with Israel and with Russia, where Trump's patience with Vladimir Putin, another strong man he wished to build a partnership with, has also been exhausted. First, there is that decision where Trump decides he wants to build that rapport with a counterpart. Usually, this is a strong guy – Putin, Netanyahu, even Kim Jong-un in the first term. Let's not forget that he has even tried to get on terms with the ayatollahs in (oil-rich) Iran, much to Israeli alarm. Starmer, unusually, is someone Trump should despise, but instead declares that he just can't stop praising and liking the guy. It surpasses human understanding. Second, there's usually some sort of distant private deal on the side, maybe real estate or raw materials, maybe with US interests as well as family ones mixed in. Hence his partial rapprochement with Zelensky, built on rare earths. Notice also how Trump used to fantasise about building a golf course on the North Korean coast, or the bizarre plan to turn Gaza into a beach resort. When he basically told the world he had given up on Putin's sincerity, Trump could surely have wept about how Russia could be such a rich country… if only Putin had allowed Trump to get involved in the economy, he didn't quite add. Netanyahu, who was taken by surprise by the US-administered Gaza resort idea, may not be proving as useful in this enterprise as Trump first assumed he would – but that is certainly a more confusing picture. You may recall that in that unusually candid interview Trump recently gave to the BBC's Gary O'Donoghue, the president admitted that he trusts 'almost nobody', but that he wasn't yet 'done' with Putin. Well, now he is because, as Trump himself says, they are these nice, long, respectful conversations in which Trump listens sympathetically to Putin's case and Russia's wartime sacrifices – and then the Russians bomb a nursing home in Kyiv or something. The truth is that Trump has at times seemed too inclined to trust people he shouldn't, and all too ready to make enemies of natural allies – Justin Trudeau in Canada, Ishiba Shigeru in Japan – but when he finally works out that he's been played along, he will act accordingly. Hence the abandonment of Putin and the distancing of Netanyahu, whose policies, which Trump indulged, have destroyed Trump's plan for a lucrative new economic zone in the Middle East from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, based on his Abraham Accords programme. There is now no chance of Saudi Arabia normalising relations with Israel, greatly to Trump's annoyance. Last, Trump may not be the one-dimensional monster he is satirised as, though he's no one's idea of a hero. Prompted by First Lady Melania Trump, he seems to have been, at last, genuinely moved by the savagery that Putin has inflicted on Ukrainian civilians; and the same compassion about the starving children in Gaza seems to be impelling him to act with an unusual moral intensity. He can be driven by the humanitarian impulse in the same way anyone can. Of course, we need not get carried away. The United States is boycotting the UN two-state solution conference on the future of Palestine. The plan for a Gaza beach resort is still, apparently, Trump administration policy, with the prospect that the Palestinians will be driven from their homes; reports suggest the Americans have been looking for places where refugees could be resettled, which would be near enough to a forced displacement as to be a crime against humanity. Trump is not going to switch sides again and have America support the restoration of full Ukrainian sovereignty – and the Trump White House will continue to deny climate change, and launch trade wars as it fancies. Yet these last few days have seen some extremely welcome signs that Trump is capable of doing some good every now and again. Trump says he's stopped wars between India and Pakistan, Rwanda and the DRC, and Cambodia and Thailand. Exaggerated or not, the United States is playing the right sort of role. If it is now pursuing ceasefires in Ukraine and Gaza, in each case a peace that passeth all understanding, we should just take the wins – even if it means Trump takes the Nobel Peace Prize.
