Russia increasing pressure on Ukraine amid ceasefire negotiations
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has alleged that America's "silence" after recent Russian attacks is encouraging President Vladimir Putin, following Moscow's largest aerial attack yet.
The overnight attack saw Russia launch the highest number of drones and missiles in a single night since the war began.
At least 12 people, including three children, have been killed and dozens more were injured in widespread strikes across Ukraine.
The attack came a day after one of the heaviest assaults on the capital Kyiv since the start of the war.
Despite mounting international calls, Russia has continued to intensify its aerial campaign, showing no sign of halting its offensive and ignoring calls for a ceasefire.
Tymofiy Mylovanov is a former Minister of the Economy for Ukraine. He's now the President of the Kyiv School of Economics.
He told ABC NewsRadio's Victor Petrovic that while the attacks are significant, many in Ukraine have become used to them.
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ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Russia accuses Ukraine of postponing exchange of prisoners and soldiers' bodies
The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of indefinitely postponing a scheduled exchange of prisoners of war and soldiers' bodies, leaving more than 1,200 sets of Ukrainian remains waiting at an exchange point with no-one to pick them up. Russia and Ukraine on Monday conducted a second round of peace talks in Istanbul, where the two countries agreed to exchange more prisoners — focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded — and to return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers. "In strict accordance with the Istanbul agreements, on June 6, Russia began a humanitarian operation to hand over to Ukraine more than 6,000 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers, as well as to exchange wounded and seriously ill prisoners of war, and prisoners of war under the age of 25," Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said on Telegram. He said 1,212 bodies of killed Ukrainian soldiers were ready in refrigerated containers at the exchange point, located on the border between the two countries, but Ukrainian negotiators had not shown up. Russia had also handed over to Ukraine the first list of 640 prisoners of war, categorised as "wounded, seriously ill and young people", in order to begin the exchange, Mr Medinsky added. Ukrainian officials responsible for the exchanges did not respond to a request for comment. Mr Medinsky urged Ukraine to strictly adhere to the schedule and the agreements, and to immediately proceed with the exchange. "We are on site. We are fully prepared to work. International TV channels, news agencies and correspondents are welcome to come and see for themselves that this is indeed the case," he said. The Russian defence ministry said Ukraine is refraining from setting a date for the next round of prisoner exchanges. "The Russian side has provided the Ukrainian side with a list of 640 names, but the Ukrainian side is currently refraining from setting a date for the return of these individuals and the transfer of the corresponding number of Russian prisoners of war," Lieutenant General Alexander Zorin said in a statement. Representatives from Ukraine and Russia met for around an hour on Monday in Istanbul, for only the second such round of negotiations since March 2022. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the meeting as "great" and said he hoped the next meeting would include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US President Donald Trump. Both sides agreed to exchange more prisoners of war and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers. However there was no breakthrough on a proposed ceasefire that Ukraine, its European allies and Washington have all urged Russia to accept. The Kremlin said the process of reaching a settlement that would end the war in Ukraine was extraordinarily complex, and it would be wrong to expect any imminent decisions. Kyiv said Mr Putin is not interested in peace, but proposed holding more talks before the end of June. Mr Zelenskyy has also a proposed ceasefire until a meeting can be arranged with the Russian president. "My proposal, which I believe our partners can support, is that we agree a ceasefire with the Russians until the leaders meet," Mr Zelenskyy said. "At this time, people will understand that the nations, Europe, Ukraine and the whole world have a chance to end the war." Reuters
News.com.au
10 hours ago
- News.com.au
Russia launches major attack on Ukraine, killing 5
Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles, drones and bombs across Ukraine early Saturday, killing five people as it retaliated for a brazen attack on air bases days earlier. The Kremlin has accelerated its attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, while the latest ceasefire negotiations have failed to broker an end to the three-year war. The Ukrainian air force said Russia had fired 206 drones and nine missiles and added that "the air attack was repelled by aviation, anti-aircraft missile troops, electronic warfare and unmanned systems units, and mobile fire groups of the Ukrainian Defense Forces". In Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv, Mayor Igor Terekhov counted 48 Iranian-made drones, two missiles and four guided bombs before dawn and said the attack was unprecedented. The northeastern city of some 1.4 million residents is located less than 50 kilometres from the Russian border. - Unprecedented attack - "Kharkiv is currently experiencing the most powerful attack since the beginning of the full-scale war," Terekhov posted on Telegram around 4:40 am (0140 GMT), adding that drones were still buzzing overhead. The Russian strikes pummelled homes and apartment blocks, killing at least three people and wounding 17 more, the mayor said. A woman was also pulled alive from the rubble of a high-rise building. Kharkiv region Governor Oleg Synegubov said the wounded included two children. "Medical personnel are providing the necessary assistance," he wrote. Kharkiv was already reeling from an attack on Thursday that wounded at least 18 people, including four children. In the southern port city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed a couple and damaged two high-rise buildings, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, governor Sergiy Lysak said Ukrainian forces had repelled 27 drones and two missiles overnight, but two women aged 45 and 88 were injured. Rescuers in the western city of Lutsk, near the Polish border, meanwhile discovered a second fatality from Friday's strikes, describing the victim as a woman in her 20s. The aerial bombardments come days after Ukraine launched a brazen attack well beyond the frontlines, damaging nuclear-capable military planes at Russian air bases and prompting vows of revenge from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia's defence ministry meanwhile said Saturday that 36 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles had been downed across a wide swath of territory. Ukraine has been pushing for an unconditional and immediate 30-day truce, issuing its latest proposal during peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. But Russia, which now controls around one-fifth of Ukraine's territory, has repeatedly rejected such offers to end its three-year war. The Kremlin said on Friday the Ukraine war was "existential" for Russia. - Ceasefire hopes dim - The comments are Moscow's latest to dampen hopes for a breakthrough amid a flurry of meetings between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, as well as telephone calls between President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump, aimed at stopping the fighting. "For us it is an existential issue, an issue on our national interest, safety, on our future and the future of our children, of our country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, responding to remarks by Trump on Thursday comparing Moscow and Kyiv to brawling children. Ahead of the talks this week in Istanbul, an audacious Ukrainian drone attack damaged nuclear-capable military planes at Russian air bases, including thousands of kilometres behind the front lines in Siberia. Putin had told Trump he would retaliate for the brazen operation, 18 months in the planning, in which Ukraine smuggled more than 100 small drones into Russia, parked them near Russian air bases and unleashed them in a coordinated attack. Putin has issued a host of sweeping demands on Ukraine if it wants to halt the fighting. They include completely pulling troops out of four regions claimed by Russia, but which its army does not fully control, an end to Western military support, and a ban on Ukraine joining NATO. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed the demands as old ultimatums, questioned the purpose of more such talks and called for a summit to be attended by him, Putin and Trump.
ABC News
13 hours ago
- ABC News
Will Trump or Musk be able to hold back while flirting with mutually assured destruction?
Donald Trump sees himself as a world-class negotiator and deal maker — he will now need to bring all those skills to reach a ceasefire deal — not in Ukraine nor Gaza — but with Elon Musk. Musk now presents a real crisis for the Trump presidency. He's wealthy, powerful, unpredictable and he believes he's been wronged. And he knows a lot about the president and his family. This feud — carried out in real time on X — has captivated Americans. As one person posted on Musk's own online social media platform on Friday morning, when there was a lull in the abuse between the two: "What time do Trump and Musk wake up?" These are dangerous times for Donald Trump. Like a married couple, for the past year Musk and Trump have been with each other when the guests have left the dinner party. As each world leader has left the White House, as each influential member of Congress has shaken hands and left, these two have been left to do their own private debrief in the Oval Office. The relationship was so close that on one occasion when Trump was having a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump reportedly said to Zelenskyy words to the effect, "There's someone here I want you to say hello to," and handed the phone to Musk. A puzzled Ukrainian president was suddenly speaking to the world's richest man. That's how close Trump and Musk were during their political marriage. But now the divorce has come through and they're fighting about their legacies. Musk is trying to convince the world that he wanted to slash the US's crippling budget but that Trump sold out America by pushing a bill — the bill Trump likes to call "One Big Beautiful Bill" — through the House of Representatives. Trump is trying to convince the world that Musk is an erratic and unpredictable character, and that he's bitter because his bill cut subsidies to electric vehicles — which hit Musk's Tesla business — and that Trump asked him to leave. In recent weeks, Trump has had to have some fascinating calls — including with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, and with Chinese President Xi Jinping to bring an end to Trump's tariff war on the United States's trading partners. As wily as those two men are, he may need greater skills of persuasion — or threat — with Elon Musk. Within a few days of their split's fallout, Musk was threatening to support the impeachment of Trump, to support Vice-President JD Vance taking over and to withdraw funding for Trump's candidates in the mid-term election. Trump, for his part, was threatening to end government contracts enjoyed by Musk's Space X company. It's often said that information is power. If that's the case, these two have unparalleled information about each other. They have accessed each other's lives for more than a year. They know each other's families. They know each other's family problems. They know each other's business interests. They know each other's vulnerabilities — personal and business. On top of the power of information that comes with access, they both have raw power. Through his total control of agencies, Trump can access any tax or regulatory information on Musk and his businesses. Trump has shown he will use legal and regulatory powers to pursue his personal and political enemies. This makes Musk extremely vulnerable. Trump understands fully the power of his words from the Oval Office — this week within five minutes of him saying that he thought his friendship with Musk was over, Wall Street started selling Tesla shares. Then, when Trump began suggesting that he would end Musk's various government contracts, Wall Street panicked. Within an hour, Tesla shares had dived 14 per cent. Donald Trump had wiped billions off Musk's wealth. But Musk does not have the personality type to take this sort of thing calmly. He, too, has power — although his is not the ability to hit Trump's many financial interests (that he knows of) but rather to damage him politically. Like Musk, Trump is also vulnerable. Musk has the raw power that comes from being the world's richest man. He has his mass distribution publishing platform, X. By spending so much time with Trump and his family in both the White House — and for a time seemingly to live in Trump's Florida mansion, Mar-a-Lago — Musk would have knowledge of the Trump family's business dealings. It appears as if Trump decided some weeks ago that Musk was not long for the White House — that it was a matter of how to extricate Musk from the Oval Office without too much pain. Musk's behaviour became erratic. Those wild images of him waving a chainsaw and shouting that this was what he was using to cut government spending went down badly with many of those who had voted for Trump, particularly veterans who were suddenly losing entitlements. Then Musk made what appeared to be a Nazi salute. This, coupled with his strong support for Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party, made many Americans concerned about Musk's real views. When Musk, in a reference to the Holocaust, told AFD supporters that there was "too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that" and that the party's anti-immigration policies were "the best hope for Germany" it only heightened those concerns. Then reports began appearing about clashes between Musk and senior members of Trump's cabinet. Whether they were authorised by Trump or the White House or were from disenchanted members of Trump's cabinet is not clear, but what is clear is that a steady stream of leaks began appearing against Musk. One of the more damaging was that Musk had a blazing row in one cabinet meeting with Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. The report said that Trump allowed the fight to go for some time, before intervening to stop it — by siding with Rubio. Then came reports of a clash witnessed by many between Musk and Scott Bessent, the well-liked secretary of the Treasury. Musk had shouted at Bessent in a corridor that Bessent was not cutting enough staff from his department quickly enough, at which point Bessent reportedly shouted back: "F*** off!" The leaks all appeared well sourced, and the White House did not vigorously deny them. Someone, it seems, was out to get Musk, apparently preparing the ground for his political execution. Then came perhaps the most devastating leak of all — details of Musk's alleged erratic behaviour, and drug use, since joining Trump's campaign to return to the White House. The New York Times reported: "As Elon Musk became one of Donald J. Trump's closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies and donating about $[US]275 million [$423 million] to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people familiar with his activities. "Mr Musk's drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anaesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he travelled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it. "It is unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behaviour, insulting cabinet members, gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview. "At the same time, Mr. Musk's family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews." This was now going well beyond the narrative that Musk was difficult to work with. This was creating the impression that Musk was erratic and unpredictable. Musk strongly denied The New York Times story: "To be clear, I am NOT taking drugs! The New York Times was lying their a... off," Musk insisted. "I tried prescription ketamine a few years ago and said so on X, so this not even news. It helps for getting out of dark mental holes, but haven't taken it since then." Whatever the truth of it all, Musk's reputation was taking a belting — and however wealthy and powerful is, Musk would have known that his reputation was bleeding. How many big investment houses want to put money behind somebody who, when they google his name, "ketamine" comes up? So the break-up was inevitable. Musk says it was his decision, that his role as head of DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency — had come to a natural end. Trump has a different version — he says he asked Musk to leave. Whoever is telling the truth, the couple gathered in the Oval Office to announce their separation. Both tried to put their best face on it — not an easy task for Musk, looking dishevelled and with a black eye which he claimed he received while playing with his son. As part of this apparently amicable divorce, Trump opened a box and handed Musk a golden "key to the White House". But, unmistakably, the chemistry which the two had always shared was gone. It had all the authenticity of a married couple who can barely look at each other announcing their divorce and saying: "We remain good friends, we just grew apart, and we will always put the interests of the children first." That didn't last long. Within days, Musk could not help himself. He began posting on X his concerns about Trump's signature budget bill, which Musk says will push the United States towards bankruptcy by its massive increase in the country's debt levels. This was a direct challenge to Trump, who has pressured Republicans to officially name the bill "One Big Beautiful Bill". But Trump did something he rarely does: He sat back and did not take the bait. All Trump's instincts are to lash out at anybody that he thinks might be criticising him, but with Musk he stayed quiet. By the hour, Musk's tweets gathered impact. Finally, he went so far as to urge Americans to contact their members of Congress to lobby them to "Kill the Bill". Some Republicans backed Musk, which would have concerned Trump. The Trump side began fighting back, initially through Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, who Trump nominated to ensure the bill went through the House — which it has — and now to try to shepherd it through the Senate. Although the Republicans control the Senate, as well as the House, some of the more conservative senators agree with Musk that this bill — with its huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans — will push the US towards bankruptcy. The Republicans hold the Senate by only a slim margin. It will only take three Republicans to vote against the bill to defeat it. This would be a huge blow to the centrepiece of Trump's economic policy. Johnson dropped something that would have outraged Musk. He suggested Musk was opposing the bill not because he was committed to the US cutting its deficit but because it cut subsidies to electric vehicles — the mainstay of the Tesla business — and was therefore hitting Elon Musk's business interests. This went against everything that Trump and the White House had been saying for a year. Trump had often told his rallies that Musk was in fact losing money by concentrating on the political world and was doing it selflessly as he wanted to "make America great again". So now, through Johnson, Musk was being re-cast from the great American MAGA patriot to the selfish businessman only concerned about his own wealth. Seemingly outraged by what he saw as an attempt to undermine him personally rather than address the issue of the deficit, Musk doubled down, calling the bill "a disgusting abomination". All this became too much for Trump. He finally entered the fight, repeating not just the claim that Musk was upset about losing the electric vehicle subsidies but that Trump had asked Musk to leave his position. Trump was saying that he had essentially terminated Musk's role. For someone with a sense of self-worth as large as Musk's, the suggestion that Trump had essentially told him "you're fired!" — for which Trump was famous on his reality TV show The Apprentice — would have outraged him. Not many people can fire the world's richest man. Donald Trump was now saying that he had. And so Musk went ballistic. What he did next crossed a line beyond which he could never salvage any relationship with Trump or this White House. He seems to have realised that himself, beginning his post on X with both a sense of threat and glee: As far as the White House was concerned, Elon Musk was now a political terrorist — he had gone rogue and was out of control, seemingly prepared to push for the destruction of Donald Trump. Signing off with "Have a nice day, DJT!" (Donald J Trump), Musk had linked Trump to an investigation into a criminal sex trafficking operation which involved many high-profile people and centred on Jeffrey Epstein, the now-dead US financier. Trump had famously been photographed with Epstein, but so had many people who had been part of the New York finance and celebrity worlds of the 1980s and 90s. Where this now goes is anybody's guess. Neither of these two men operates according to convention of generally accepted rules. US media have reported that various mediators were trying to set up a ceasefire phone call, but Trump has failed in his phone call attempts to get ceasefires in Ukraine and Gaza and there's no suggestion that he will be any more successful in ending this "war" with Elon Musk. Musk has been on the inside of the Trump presidency — and the Trump family — for almost a year. He's had access to moments with the family when the cameras are not around and nobody is recording what is being said. If Donald Trump has personal, sexual or financial skeletons, Musk may well know what they are and where they are. Trump, for his part, has had insights into Elon Musk that few others have. If the reports of Musk being erratic and drug-fuelled during Trump's campaign are true, Trump would know about them. Like Musk, Trump has had insights into Musk's business and private life that few others would have had. The reason this battle is epic is that both men have raw power. Both men have the ability to destroy or wound each other. Both men are natural pugilists. Both men believe backing down is for wimps, part of the modern curse of "woke" culture. This is the ultimate clash of political power with financial power. In this modern age, which will win? Who will win? And which side does Vice-President JD Vance take? Does he show loyalty to his commander-in-chief, who hand-picked him to be his deputy? Or does he show loyalty to Elon Musk, one of the tech oligarchs with whom Vance has spent so much time cultivating? After all, these tech billionaires, who famously sat in the front row of Trump's inauguration in front of key figures who would sit in Trump's cabinet, can bankroll a "Vance 2028" campaign. Can Vance somehow keep both men onside when those two men are now clearly trying to wound the other? As to where this goes from here, Trump has become the most powerful man in the world — for the second time — by never taking a step back. Musk has become the most wealthy man in the world by overriding any obstacles put in his way. The key question now is this: Does the natural instinct of each man in this Shakespearean drama to attack their opponents and exact revenge when they feel they have been criticised outweigh the reality that each man is flirting with mutually assured destruction?
