Western Oil Tanker Firms Flock Back to Russia After Price Plunge
From Athens to New York, oil tanker companies from Group of Seven nations are flocking back to the Russian oil trade.
Tumbling global oil prices this year brought western-owned ships back into legal compliance with a G-7 cap that was designed to curb the Kremlin's access to petrodollars. At the same time, sweeping farewell sanctions from the outgoing Biden administration temporarily disrupted a so-called shadow fleet of vessels that Russia had been using.
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Chicago Tribune
35 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
2 killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine as prospects for talks remain uncertain
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least two people, including a 9-year-old girl, officials said, as uncertainty remains about whether Kyiv diplomats will attend a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul. Russian troops launched some 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight and into Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage, it said. The girl was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a 16-year-old was injured, Zaporizhzhia's Gov. Ivan Fedorov said. 'One house was destroyed. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings,' Fedorov wrote on Telegram. A man was killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine's Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram. Moscow did not comment on either attack. Russia's Ministry of Defense said Saturday that it had gained control of the Ukrainian village of Novopil in the Donetsk region, and took the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region. Ukrainian authorities in Sumy ordered mandatory evacuations in 11 more settlements as Russian forces make steady gains in the area. The new additions bring the total number of settlements under evacuation orders in Sumy, which borders Russia's Kursk region, to 213. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said some 50,000 Russian troops have amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory. Speaking Saturday, Ukraine's top army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area. Syrskyi also said Ukrainian forces are still holding territory in Russia's Kursk region, a statement that Moscow has repeatedly denied. Russia said on April 26 that it had pushed all Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region after Ukrainian troops seized land there during a surprise incursion in August 2024. 'The enemy is holding its best units here,' Syrskyi said referring to Kursk, 'which it planned to use in the east.' Elsewhere, 14 people were injured including four children after Ukrainian drones struck apartment buildings Saturday in the Russian town of Rylsk and the village of Artakovo in the western Kursk region, local acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said. Andrii Yermak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, said Friday that Kyiv was ready to resume direct peace talks with Russia in Istanbul on Monday but that the Kremlin should first provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war. Zelenskyy said Friday that Russia was 'undermining diplomacy' by withholding the document. 'For some reason, the Russians are concealing this document. This is an absolutely bizarre position. There is no clarity about the format,' Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Moscow previously said it would share its memorandum during the talks.
New York Post
44 minutes ago
- New York Post
10 Ukrainian civilians killed in Russian air strikes, while Zelensky slams Russia for ‘not serious' peace talks
A barrage of Russian drone and missile attacks killed at least 10 civilians in Ukraine Saturday — including a 9-year-old girl — as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sowed new doubt whether Monday's peace talks in Istanbul will even take place. At least 32 people were injured in the attacks, as Russian troops launched more than 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight into Saturday, the country's air force said. The young girl was killed by a Russian strike on the frontline village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region — a 16-year-old boy was also injured, regional officials confirmed. Advertisement 5 Rescuers work to put out a blaze at the site of a Russian drone strike in the Odesa region. via REUTERS Moscow said Saturday it had gained control of a village in the Donetsk region and one in northern Sumy, leading to mandatory evacuations in 11 Ukrainian settlements near the Russian border – bringing the total number of Sumy settlements under evacuation orders to 213. 5 Ukrainian rescuers worked to extinguish a fire in a trolleybus depot following a drone strike in Kharkiv overnight. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement Zelensky also warned this week that Moscow was amassing more than 50,000 troops nearby in a sign of a possible offensive. In the southern region of Odesa, the attacks hit the town of Izmail, Ukraine's biggest port on the Danube River — infrastructure critical for the war-torn country's imports. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian leader cast uncertainty Saturday whether the planned peace talks scheduled for Monday in Istanbul, Turkey will happen, saying Kyiv is now preparing for 'new diplomatic steps' with Europe and the US. 'There is no clear information about what the Russians are going to Istanbul with. We don't have it, Turkey doesn't have it, the United States doesn't have it, and other partners don't either,' Zelensky said on Telegram. Advertisement 'It doesn't look very serious,' he said of the talks. 5 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still uncertain Ukraine will attend the talks Monday. Getty Images Zelensky also rebuked Russia for failing to turn over negotiating documents ahead of the Monday meeting – a nonstarter for Kyiv. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov unilaterally announced the talks Wednesday, saying Moscow would present a memorandum towards a cease-fire then. Advertisement But Zelensky countered that the Kremlin's plans should be offered up ahead of time — and accused Moscow of 'doing everything it can to ensure' the meeting is 'fruitless.' 5 Police officers carry a part of a Russian drone after the overnight air strike in Kharkiv. REUTERS 'For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,' he wrote on X Friday after hosting Turkey's foreign minister in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital city. Moscow had previously promised to present the document after last week's prisoner's exchange. Ukraine has sent its proposals to the US and Russia, which centers on 'a full and unconditional ceasefire.' 5 Growing increasingly impatient, President Trump gave Putin two weeks to prove he's serious about ending the war. POOL/AFP via Getty Images President Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and on Wednesday gave the Russian leader two weeks to prove he's serious about ending the war. Advertisement The Kremlin's sweeping demands, according to sources, remain unchanged from even before Putin launched his brutal invasion in 2022 — barring Ukraine, and any country east of it, from joining NATO as well as lifting Western sanctions on Russia. Delegations from the two countries last met in Istanbul on May 16 but the session yielded little other than an agreement for the war's largest prisoner swap.
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Trump's promises of easy wins meet reality during a rocky week
President Donald Trump returned to office promising to easily fix generationally intractable problems, from quickly brokering peace in Ukraine and the Middle East to overhauling the federal government and rewriting the global trade order. But this week showed just how far he is from solving any of them. Russian President Vladimir Putin has ignored his calls for a ceasefire with Ukraine. Trump, after he spent months mocking former President Joe Biden's efforts to rein in Israel's military activity, had to cajole Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against a strike on Iran. Billionaire adviser Elon Musk is exiting his high-profile government reform post amid a swirl of stories about interpersonal fighting within the West Wing and his drug use - and a fraction of the touted savings to show for it. The broadest blow may have come this week when the U.S. Court of International Trade found Trump could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify many of his tariffs, a shortcut Trump was hoping would allow him to negotiate quick deals without long investigations into other nations' trade policies or turning some of the power over to Congress. As of May 1, Trump was losing in 128 of the hundreds of lawsuits filed to stop his executive orders, with green lights from courts in 43 cases, according to a Bloomberg analysis. He often complains that going through normal government procedures takes too long. When a court insisted he allow thousands of deportees due process to fight their removal, he lamented how long thousands of trials would take. Similarly, he bemoans that working with Congress on any variety of issues would become bogged down in bureaucratic and legislative briar patches. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt complained bitterly about judicial rulings that don't go Trump's way, noting that in his first term, the number of judicial injunctions against Trump's policies "account for more than half of the injunctions issued in this country since 1963." She added that in his current term, Trump has had more injunctions in a month than Biden had in three years. "There is an effort by this administration to tackle these rogue judges and the injunctions and the blockades that we have faced in our broken judicial system in every case," she said. His trade policies are now causing whiplash for countries and businesses as the ruling is tied up in court. The White House has asked the Supreme Court to swiftly step in, even before an appellate court on Thursday temporarily allowed the tariffs to continue while they considered the case. But rather than retreat, or redesign his policies to withstand - or even avoid - court challenges, Trump lashes out, complaining about judicial overreach and Biden policies while touting other actions. "President Trump has quickly delivered on the promises he made on the campaign trail: Gas prices are down, the border is secure, migrant criminals are deported, and America is strong in the eyes of the world," said Anna Kelly, the deputy White House press secretary. Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, said Trump's words about tariffs, the Middle East and Russia made him look "strong and powerful," but that "now he's facing reality, and he's got to figure out how to get through this next period of time." Wars on 2 continents With his tariff regime and immigration policies slowed, Trump is also frustrated by two wars he promised would be easy to resolve. He has failed to secure the quick Ukraine peace deal he was hoping to wring out of a call Monday with Putin, with whom he is showing increasing irritation. "I'm not happy with what Putin is doing," Trump told reporters last weekend, adding he is considering new sanctions against Russia. The frustration is amplifying as Moscow is ramping up its attacks into Ukraine with some of the biggest strikes of the three-year war this month. In the Middle East, Trump is attempting what many of his predecessors have tried and failed to do - secure a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Trump, a staunch defender of Israel, has seen both Netanyahu and Hamas ignore his entreaties to stop strikes or release Israeli hostages. Tariffs and taxes The tariff ruling is now raising questions about whether Trump's tax bill, with tax cuts skewed toward the wealthy and spending reductions, will bring in enough revenue without the promised tariff revenue. The House's version of the tax and spending bill is headed to the Senate, where some Republicans are pressing for extensive changes. The bill includes a $4 trillion increase in the U.S. debt ceiling, adding urgency for Congress as the Treasury Department forecasts the U.S. otherwise could face a default as soon as August or September. Trump has worked the phones, directly pleading with some lawmakers, to support some of his nominees and legislative efforts. He's turned to social media and speeches to train criticism on GOP naysayers who could derail his tax cut legislation, deriding them as "grandstanders" that need to fall in line. DOGE As Trump works to get his tax bill enacted, Musk is leaving Trump's inner circle to return to his private businesses, raising questions about the future of the Department of Government Efficiency effort he spearheaded. The savings turned out to be a fraction of what Musk predicted. "He doesn't understand the larger complexities that are at play, the historical complexities that are at play," said Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, Lincoln Center. "And so we've seen time and time again that this is a president who creates a problem, creates a lot of hubub, then walks back from the problem and then says he solved the problem." --- (With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy.) Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
