Zelensky renews offer to meet with Putin as officials say Russian attacks kill a child in Ukraine
Russian forces, meanwhile, pounded four Ukrainian cities in nighttime attacks that officials said killed a child.
Putin has spurned Zelensky's previous offers of a face-to-face meeting to end Europe's biggest conflict since World War II. But the Ukrainian leader insists that lower-level delegations like the ones expected for talks in Istanbul on Wednesday don't have the political heft to stop the fighting. The sides remain far apart on how to end the war begun by Russia's full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
'Ukraine never wanted this war, and it is Russia that must end the war that it itself started,' Zelensky said in a Telegram post.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that 'a lot of work needs to be done before having a detailed discussion on a possibility of high-level meetings,' effectively scrapping hopes of a summit any time soon. He didn't provide a date for the Istanbul talks.
Ukrainian and Western officials have accused the Kremlin of stalling in talks in order for its bigger army to capture more Ukrainian land. Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukraine.
Zelensky's announcement late Monday that the negotiations would take place generated little hope of progress. That is despite the Trump administration's efforts to push forward peace efforts, which have moved slowly because Putin is reluctant to budge from his demands.
Peskov said that 'we have no reason to expect any magical breakthroughs, it's hardly possible in the current situation.'
The previous two rounds were held in Istanbul, and Russian media reports said that the Turkish city likely would also host the meeting this time. The talks in May and June led to a series of exchanges of prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers, but produced no other agreements.
Russia, meanwhile, is driving hard to break through at eastern and northeastern points on the 620-mile front line. It is also firing upwards of 700 drones a night at Ukrainian cities.
Zelensky said that at the next Istanbul talks, Ukraine wants to secure the release of more prisoners from Russian captivity and the return of children Ukraine says were abducted.
The Ukrainian delegation will be headed by former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who is now the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. It will include representatives of Ukrainian intelligence, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the president's office, Zelensky said.
Peskov said that 'the issue of a Ukrainian settlement is so complex that even reaching agreements on prisoner exchanges or the return of bodies is already a success.'
Russian forces struck four Ukrainian cities in three regions in overnight attacks, killing a child and wounding at least 41 other people, officials said. From dusk on Monday, Russia struck the Ukrainian regions of Sumy in the northeast, Odesa in the south and eastern Kramatorsk.
In Kramatorsk, a glide bomb hit an apartment building, starting a fire, according to the head of the city's military administration, Oleksandr Honcharenko. A boy born in 2015 was killed, local officials said, without giving his exact age. Five other people were reported wounded.
The Sumy region came under multiple waves of attacks, the regional military administration reported. A drone hit a gas station in the town of Putyvl, wounding four people, including a 5-year-old boy, it said. A second drone strike hit the same location less than two hours later, wounding seven other people.
After dark, two powerful Russian glide bombs were dropped on Sumy city, wounding 13 people, including a 6-year-old boy. According to regional authorities, five apartment buildings, two private homes and a shopping mall were damaged in the attack. The blasts shattered windows and destroyed balconies in residential buildings, acting Mayor Artem Kobzar said.
Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Tuesday that air defenses downed 35 Ukrainian long-range drones over several regions overnight, including three over the Moscow region.
Novikov writes for the Associated Press.
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The Hill
19 minutes ago
- The Hill
Tens of thousands flee their homes as Thailand and Cambodia clash
SURIN, Thailand (AP) — Tens of thousands of people sought refuge on Friday as border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia entered a second day, heightening fears of an extended conflict. The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting behind closed doors later Friday in New York, while Malaysia, which chairs the 10-nation regional bloc that includes both countries, called for an end to hostilities and offered to mediate. The council did not issue a statement but a council diplomat said all 15 members called on the parties to deescalate, show restraint and resolve the dispute peacefully. The council also urged the regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations known as ASEAN, to help resolve the border fighting, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. Cambodia's U.N. Ambassador Chhea Keo told reporters afterward that his country, which called for the emergency meeting, 'asked for immediate ceasefires, unconditionally, and we also call for the peaceful solution to the dispute.' He responded to accusations that Cambodia attacked Thailand asking how a small country with no air force could attack a much larger country with an army three times its size, stressing, 'We do not do that.' UN Security Council urges restraint by both sides Keo said the Security Council called for both sides to exercise 'maximum restraint and resort to diplomatic solution' which is what Cambodia is calling for as well. Asked what he expects next, the ambassador said: 'Let's see how the call can be heard by all the members there.' Thailand's U.N. ambassador left the meeting without stopping to talk to reporters. The Thai Health Ministry on Friday said more than 58,000 have fled from villages to temporary shelters in four affected border provinces, while Cambodian authorities said more than 23,000 people have evacuated from areas near the border. The latest flare-up in a long-running border dispute between the two countries has killed at least 19 people in Thailand — mostly civilians —while Cambodia confirmed its first fatality on Friday. Thailand's acting prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, said Friday that Cambodia may be guilty of war crimes due to the deaths of civilians and damage caused to a hospital. He said Thailand had exercised the 'utmost restraint and patience in the face of provocations and aggression' from Cambodia. Tensions over a disputed border area erupted into fighting after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers on Wednesday. Clashes break out across border areas The Thai military reported clashes early Friday in multiple areas along the border, including near the ancient Ta Muen Thom temple claimed by both sides. Associated Press reporters near the border could hear sounds of artillery from early morning hours. The Thai army said Cambodian forces had used heavy artillery and Russian-made BM-21 rocket launchers, prompting what Thai officials described as 'appropriate supporting fire' in return. Thailand said six of its soldiers and 13 civilians were killed, including children, while 29 soldiers and 30 civilians were wounded. Cambodia's chief official in Oddar Meanchey province, Gen. Khov Ly, said a man died Thursday after a Thai rocket hit a Buddhist pagoda where he was hiding. At least four civilians in the province were also wounded Thursday. The Cambodian Education Ministry claimed that on Friday two Thai rockets had hit a school compound in Oddar Meanchey but caused no injuries. It said all schools in the province have been closed. The Thai army denied it targeted civilian sites in Cambodia, and accused Cambodia of using 'human shields' by positioning their weapons near residential areas. Thousands flee villages near the border As the fighting intensified, villagers on both sides have been caught in the crossfire, leading many to flee. Around 600 people took shelter at a gymnasium in a university in Surin, Thailand, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border. Evacuees sat in groups, on mats and blankets, and queued for food and drinks. Seamstress Pornpan Sooksai was accompanied by four cats in two fabric carriers. She said she was doing laundry at her home near Ta Muen Thom temple when shelling began Thursday. 'I just heard, boom, boom. We already prepared the cages, clothes and everything, so we ran and carried our things to the car. I was frightened, scared,' she recalled. Rattana Meeying, another evacuee, said she had also lived through the 2011 clashes between the two countries but described this flare-up as worse. 'Children, old people, were hit out of the blue,' she said. 'I never imagined it would be this violent.' At the nearby Phanom Dong Rak hospital, periodic explosions could be heard Friday, and a military truck arrived with three injured Thai soldiers, including one who had both legs severed. Thursday's shelling shattered windows at one of the hospital's buildings and damaged its roof. In the neighboring Sisaket province, more villagers took their belongings and left homes in a stream of cars, trucks and motorbikes after they received an evacuation order on Friday. Across the border in Cambodia, villages on the outskirts of Oddar Meanchey province were largely deserted. Homes stood locked, while chickens and dogs roamed outside. Some villagers earlier dug holes to create makeshift underground bunkers, covering them with wood, tarpaulin and zinc sheets to shield themselves from shelling. Families with children were seen packing their belongings on home-made tractors to evacuate, though a few men refused to leave. A remote Buddhist temple surrounded by rice fields accommodated several hundred evacuated villagers. Women rested in hammocks, some cradling babies, while children ran about. Makeshift plastic tents were being set up under the trees. Veng Chin, 74, pleaded with both governments to negotiate a settlement 'so that I can return to my home and work on the farm.' ASEAN chair calls for calm The conflict marks a rare instance of armed confrontation between ASEAN member countries though Thailand has tangled with Cambodia before over the border and has had sporadic skirmishes with western neighbor Myanmar. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Friday that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to a ceasefire and to withdraw their troops from the border, but requested more time before implementing the action, according to a report by Malaysia's Bernama national news agency. Anwar said he had spoken to both Cambodian leader Hun Manet and Thailand's Phumtham and urged them to open space for 'peaceful dialogue and diplomatic resolution,' while offering to have Malaysia facilitate talks. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also called for restraint and urged both countries to resolve disputes through dialogue, according to U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq. It's the latest flareup in longstanding border tensions The 800-kilometer (500-mile) frontier between Thailand and Cambodia has been disputed for decades, but past confrontations have been limited and brief. The last major flare-up in 2011 left 20 dead. The current tensions broke out in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a confrontation that created a diplomatic rift and roiled Thailand's domestic politics. Things got worse when a land mine wounded five Thai soldiers on Wednesday, leading Bangkok to close the border and expel the Cambodian ambassador. The next day, clashes broke out along the border.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How many more Gazan children need to die of hunger before the U.S. takes a stand?
Imagine an army captured the city of Philadelphia, fenced it in, closed its waterfront and opened just a few gates for supply trucks. Now imagine the army bombed Philadelphia's hospitals, razed land used to grow food, barred fishing and closed those gates to all but an intermittent trickle of aid. If you saw news footage of children dying of malnutrition and read U.N. warnings of mass starvation, would you doubt those reports? If the military blocking the food trucks was using U.S. public money to buy weapons, would you question the need to stop the flow of arms and demand that the military let aid in? Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israeli civilians, which constituted crimes against humanity, Israeli authorities have used starvation as a weapon of war in varying degrees, intermittently blocking all aid to the Gaza Strip, which resembles Philadelphia in size and population. Since Israel ended the aid shutdown in May, the government has permitted supplies to enter the territory in quantities catastrophically insufficient for its approximately 2 million residents. The Israeli military also razed cropland, banned fishing, destroyed hospitals and water infrastructure and cut electricity, rendering people almost entirely dependent on the obstructed external supplies. An estimated thousands or tens of thousands of people have died from complications related to the supply blockage, including malnutrition, dehydration and disease. Aid agencies are begging to be allowed to deliver food sitting in nearby warehouses or waiting just outside Gaza. Israel has controlled the movement of goods into Gaza since 1967 and, in the 1990s, built fences and walls around it, making residents dependent on the Israeli military opening crossings, in order to eat. What we are seeing play out now in recent months is weaponization of this control, with increasingly deadly results. The Israeli government denies famine or aid obstruction and blames the United Nations and Hamas for any shortages. Israeli officials accuse aid agencies of 'distributing lies,' say restrictions are needed to prevent diversion by Hamas, and argue that because tons of U.N. aid is still on the Gaza side of crossings, waiting to be distributed, there's no need to allow more in. On Friday, Reuters revealed the existence of a U.S. Agency for International Development report finding no evidence of systematic Hamas diversion of U.S.-funded aid. Official Israeli misinformation is not particularly sophisticated, but it's repetitive, relentless and reliant on Western dehumanization of Palestinians to help render the information Palestinians convey — with words and with images and videos they share of their emaciated bodies — suspect. Only racism — the belief that some people's lives are worth less than others, and that some people's statements are inherently unreliable — can explain American susceptibility to Israel's denial of starvation in Gaza. If you block food to a besieged population, nearly half of whom are children, what do you think will happen? Thursday's statement by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff that, in the absence of a ceasefire deal, he'll explore alternative options to 'try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza' would be laughable given the billions of dollars of U.S. support for the army that's blocking the food — if it didn't involve 57 children documented by the Gaza Ministry of Health to have died of malnutrition in just over two months. There are two things the United States government should urgently do to end U.S. complicity in the mass starvation. 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Hundreds of people have been fatally shot by Israeli forces or crushed in a stampede after walking for miles to reach the four highly militarized GHF distribution points that have replaced the hundreds of community distribution sites aid groups ran until Israeli authorities banned them from bringing in food for household distribution. Workarounds to parachute small quantities of food into Gaza were ineffective in the past and would be even less effective now, given the scope of the need and the desperation. The Israeli government is responsible for starving Palestinians in Gaza, but U.S. backing makes it complicit, too. How many more children need to die of hunger before the U.S. government admits that without food, human beings will die — and that U.S. economic, military and diplomatic support should not be used as a tool in mass starvation? This article was originally published on Solve the daily Crossword
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
European and Iranian diplomats meet in Istanbul
Iranian negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, said that the 'serious, frank, and detailed' meeting focused on the nuclear issue and the status of sanctions while agreeing to further discussions. The E3 nations had earlier warned that sanctions could return under a process known as the 'snapback' mechanism, which allows one of the Western parties to reimpose UN sanctions if Tehran doesn't comply with its requirements. 'Both sides came to the meeting with specific ideas,' Gharibabadi said in a social media post. 'It was agreed that consultations on this matter will continue.' Advertisement As the talks were ongoing, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, said that he hoped that the meeting would see the E3 nations reassess their 'previous unconstructive attitude.' European leaders have said sanctions will resume by the end of August if there is no progress on containing Iran's nuclear program. The snapback mechanism 'remains on the table,' a European diplomat said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, Advertisement 'A possible delay in triggering snapback has been floated to the Iranians on the condition that there is credible diplomatic engagement by Iran, that they resume full cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and that they address concerns about their highly-enriched uranium stockpile,' the diplomat said before Friday's negotiations. Tehran, meanwhile, has said that Washington, which withdrew from the 2015 deal during the first term of US President Trump, needs to rebuild faith in its role in negotiations. Gharibabadi previously said that Iran's engagement was dependent on 'several key principles' that included 'rebuilding Iran's trust, as Iran has absolutely no trust in the United States.' In a social media post on Thursday, he also said that the talks shouldn't be used 'as a platform for hidden agendas such as military action.' Gharibabadi insisted that Iran's right to enrich uranium 'in line with its legitimate needs' be respected, and sanctions removed. Iran has repeatedly threatened to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which commits it to refrain from developing nuclear weapons, if sanctions return. Friday's talks were held at the deputy ministerial level, with Iran sending Gharibabadi and a fellow deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-e Ravanchi. A similar meeting was held in Istanbul in May. The identity of the E3 representatives wasn't immediately clear, but the European Union's deputy foreign policy commissioner was thought to be attending. The UK, France, and Germany were signatories to the 2015 deal, alongside the US, Russia, and China. When Washington withdrew in 2018, Trump insisted the agreement wasn't tough enough. Under the original deal, neither Russia nor China can veto reimposed sanctions. Since the Israeli and US strikes on Iran, which saw American B-52 bombers hit three nuclear sites, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has accused the E3 of hypocrisy, saying that they failed to uphold their obligations while supporting Israel's attacks. Advertisement Against the backdrop of the conflict, in which Iran responded with missile attacks on Israel and a strike on a US base in Qatar, the road ahead remains uncertain. While European officials have said they want to avoid further conflict and are open to a negotiated solution, they have warned that time is running out. Tehran maintains that it's open to diplomacy, though it recently suspended cooperation with the IAEA. A central concern for Western powers was highlighted when the IAEA reported in May that Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% — just below weapons-grade level — had grown to more than 400 kilograms (nearly 900 pounds). In an interview with Al Jazeera that aired Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Iran is prepared for another war and reiterated that its nuclear program will continue within the framework of international law, while adding that the country had no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons. IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi, meanwhile, said that no date had been set yet to restart inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities. Speaking during a visit to Singapore on Friday, he warned that if inspectors 'do not return soon, there will be a serious problem, because this is an international obligation of Iran.' While he was 'encouraged' by Tehran's readiness to engage with the IAEA, Grossi said that the sides needed 'to move from words to the reality.'
