Video. Russian strike hits Odesa, killing one and injuring 17
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said the attack damaged residential buildings in the city's historic centre and struck both a nursery and an inclusive education centre. Among the injured were a pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl.
The attack follows a deadly night in Kyiv, where at least 14 people were killed and nearly 100 injured as missiles and drones hit the capital.
Russia has stepped up its aerial assaults in recent weeks, following a Ukrainian operation that targeted Russian air bases.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said peace talks have seen little movement, aside from a planned prisoner exchange.
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Euronews
20 minutes ago
- Euronews
Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenka 'cannot be trusted' in US envoy visit
Exiled Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Euronews that President Aliaksandr Lukashenka "cannot be trusted at all", following a report of a planned meeting in Minsk between him and the Trump administration's Ukraine envoy. Keith Kellogg, a longtime advisor to US President Donald Trump, is planning to travel to Belarus this week to meet Lukashenka, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing four sources. Kellogg has said privately that the trip could help kickstart peace talks aimed at ending Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to two of the sources. Two rounds of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year. However, Tsikhanouskaya said on Wednesday that Belarus was not a place for negotiations because Lukashenka "is part of this war". Lukashenka is a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and allowed him to stage part of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 from Belarus. "He's a co-aggressor and he's serving Putin's interest, and he cannot be trusted at all," Tsikhanouskaya told Euronews. Tsikhanouskaya described Russia's war in Ukraine as a blessing for Lukashenka and that he did not want it to stop. "(The government) is producing a huge amount of stuff for Russian army, and in this atmosphere of sanctions against Lukashenka's regime, it's a good source of income for him," she added. "So he's not interested in peace. He maybe wants to be important in this deal, but he's not an independent actor here." The West has imposed sanctions on Belarus over its support for Russia's war in Ukraine as well as presidential elections in August 2020 and January this year that were widely rejected by Western governments and derided as sham polls. Lukashenka is Europe's longest-serving ruler, having continuously governed the former Soviet republic for 31 years. Tsikhanouskaya ran against Lukashenka in the 2020 vote, and was forced to leave the nation shortly afterwards. Along with many international observers, she accused him of stealing victory from her by resorting to large-scale vote-rigging. Minsk and Moscow have both dismissed such accusations and Western criticism of the elections overall. In early 2020, during Trump's first term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo became the highest-ranking official from Washington to visit Belarus in more than two decades. However, relations between Minsk and Washington soured after Joe Biden became US president in 2021, and the US suspended operations at its embassy in Minsk in February 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This year, during Trump's second term, it appears that the US is attempting to improve ties with Belarus once more. In February, US officials visited Belarus to retrieve three political prisoners, according to a report in the New York Times. And in April, Belarus released Youras Ziankovich, a US citizen who had been jailed on allegations of plotting to assassinate the country's authoritarian leader. His supporters and Washington had called the charges bogus. Separately, the EU's foreign policy chief warned on Wednesday that Russia poses a direct threat to the European Union and said its massive defence spending shows that the Kremlin has a "long-term plan for long-term aggression". In an earlier interview with Euronews last week, Tsikhanouskaya said that the large-scale joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus taking place in the autumn might be a threat to NATO's eastern flank. "Don't forget the last military drills in Belarus ended with the attack on Ukraine", she told Euronews last week, referring to the upcoming Zapad 2025 manoeuvres.
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Trump on Iran strikes: 'I may do it, I may not do it'
Speaking as he watched installation of a new flagpole at the White House, Trump added that his patience "had already run out" with Iran and repeated his call for the Islamic republic's "unconditional surrender." "I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do," Trump told reporters on the South Lawn when asked if he had decided whether to launch US air strikes. "I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble, and they want to negotiate." Trump said Iran had even suggested sending officials to the White House for talks on Tehran's nuclear program in a bid to end Israel's air assault, but added that it was "very late." "I said it's very late to be talking. We may meet. There's a big difference between now and a week ago, right? Big difference," Trump added. "They've suggested that they come to the White House. That's, you know, courageous, but it's, like, not easy for them to do." When asked if it was too late for negotiations, he said: "Nothing is too late." Trump had favored diplomatic route to end Iran's nuclear program, seeking a deal to replace the one he tore up in his first term in 2018. But since Israel launched strikes on Iran six days ago Trump has moved in behind the key US ally and is now weighing whether to use US military power against Tehran too. 'I've had it' Trump issued a series of bellicose statements on social media on Tuesday, saying that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an "easy target" and calling for Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!". Khamenei said Wednesday the nation would never surrender and warned the United States of "irreparable damage" if it intervenes. Asked on Wednesday what he meant by his earlier statement, Trump replied: "Two very simple words. It's very simple -- unconditional surrender." "That means I've had it, okay? I've had it. I give up, no more, we go and blow up all the nuclear stuff that's all over the place," Trump said. Trump meanwhile backed Prime Minister Benjamin Netahyahu to continue Israel's offensive against Iran. Iran has hit back with salvos of ballistic missiles. Asked what he had told Netanyahu in a call on Tuesday, he said: "Keep going. I speak to him every day, he's a good man, doing a lot." The US president however rebuffed Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to mediate in the Israel-Iran conflict, saying Russia should end its own war in Ukraine first. "He actually offered to help mediate, I said 'do me a favor, mediate your own. Let's mediate Russia first, okay? You can worry about this later," Trump said. Iran later denied it had offered to send officials to Washington. "No Iranian official has ever asked to grovel at the gates of the White House," Iran's mission to the UN said in a post on X.
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Putin T-shirts, robots and the Taliban -- but few Westerners at Russia's Davos
Once dubbed "Russia's Davos", the annual Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is designed to attract foreign investment and is the biggest showcase of Russian technology and business. Some 20,000 guests from 140 countries are set to take part in the forum over the next four days, both online and in person, according to the Kremlin. But for the fourth year running high-profile European and American representatives have been absent amid Moscow's offensive on Ukraine, a stark contrast to before the conflict, when some Western leaders would attend. Among the states sending high-level government figures this year are the likes of China, Vietnam, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso. Taliban officials were also spotted at the expo, amid Russia's push to normalise ties with the militant Islamist group. Russian officials said some Western executives will attend. "American business representatives, but I can't say at what level," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. According to the official programme, not a particularly high one. A panel on Thursday, titled simply "Russia-USA", will feature the head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, some private investors, the founder of a microphone manufacturer and head of a crypto project. But in one high-profile win for Putin, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto skipped an invitation to the G7 in Canada, choosing instead to meet Putin and attend SPIEF. Humanoid robot Among the events on the first day of the forum were panels focused on artificial intelligence and investment in the Global South. Russia has channelled its economic interests away from the West and towards emerging markets in Asia and Africa due to sanctions over the Ukraine conflict. One stand handed out T-shirts featuring quotes from Vladimir Putin and other government officials. One from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov read: "Why the hell did I come here?" Technology was also on display. A humanoid robot flaunting a Dior handbag was seen walking around the exhibits. The forum comes amid intense speculation in Russia about the prospect of sanctions relief and the return of Western firms that left the country after Moscow launched its offensive on Ukraine in February 2022. Hundreds of companies sold off, abandoned or gave away their Russian operations -- ranging from McDonald's and Nike to Ford and Goldman Sachs. Putin has at times blasted them for departing, warned they will not be allowed to return and said Russia is better off without them. He has also introduced punitive counter-sanctions, restricting the ability of firms from so-called "unfriendly" countries from accessing their profits and imposing huge exit fees and taxes on any wishing to leave. Trump's return to the White House and opening of diplomacy with Russia led to a frenzy of headlines in Russian media about whether he would ease US sanctions. Russia's top economic negotiator, Kirill Dmitriev, said Wednesday that the United States may "in the next couple of months" announce joint projects with Russia in the Arctic, without elaborating. "The very important process of improving relations between American society and American companies towards Russia is currently underway," he was quoted as saying by state media. Once a fixture of Europe's business calendar, SPIEF was where Western leaders, CEOs and major investors gathered to seal deals on entering and expanding their footprint in Russia. Then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended in 2013, as did Mark Rutte, the Netherlands' prime minister and now the Secretary General of NATO -- the man marshalling the military alliance's response to Putin's Ukraine offensive. Its prestige started to dip after 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and was hit with the first tranche of Western sanctions. But even as recently as 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron and Japan's then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sat on stage alongside Putin.
