
Russian Strikes Kill Six Across Ukraine
"Russian terrorists inflicted a massive strike on the railway infrastructure of Lozova," the Ukrainian Railways company posted on Telegram.
Ukraine's railways have been heavily targeted by Russia's army throughout its invasion, launched in February 2022.
Moscow has escalated aerial attacks ahead of a Friday deadline by US President Donald Trump to make progress towards peace or face massive new sanctions.
The nighttime strikes on Lozova in the eastern Kharkiv region left a passenger train mangled and charred and damaged the station building, with a pile of rubble on the platform.
Two people were killed in Lozova, Kharkiv's Governor Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram.
Among them was "a duty mechanic of one of the units", Ukrainian Railways said, adding that several trains had been rerouted.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 25 Iranian-designed Shahed drones at the city, striking civilian infrastructure.
"The railway was damaged, including a depot and a station," he said on social media, adding that 10 people were wounded in the attack.
Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 46 attack drones and one ballistic missile in the barrage, down from the several hundred that Moscow has launched in previous nighttime attacks.
A separate Russian strike on Ukraine's northeast Sumy region killed two people at an "agricultural enterprise" and wounded three employees, authorities said.
In the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, two more people died after "the Russian army hit a house with an FPV drone," said its governor, Ivan Fedorov.
In the Russian-occupied Lugansk region, four water utility workers were killed on duty in a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Svatovo, Moscow-installed officials said.
Trump's deadline looms after three rounds of peace talks in Istanbul failed to make headway on a possible ceasefire, with the two sides remaining far apart.
Russia's army has escalated attacks and accelerated its advance on the ground to capture more Ukrainian territory.
US envoy Steve Witkoff will visit Russia this week, where he is expected to meet with President Vladimir Putin, ahead of the Friday sanctions deadline.
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DW
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Russia's hybrid war on Moldovan democracy – DW – 08/07/2025
The Republic of Moldova will vote in an important parliamentary election in late September. Although the campaign has yet to start, Russia is already attacking on several fronts. For weeks, police in the Republic of Moldova have been posting alarming notices on their Telegram messaging channel. Authorities have repeatedly warned of "fake news" on social media sites, called on citizens not to take "election bribes" and released reports on the arrest of paid demonstrators. Most recently, Moldova's police posted a video explaining to voters how Russia is currently buying masses of votes through an app named "Taito." Moldovan President Maia Sandu described what is going on in her tiny country, sandwiched between southwestern Ukraine and northeastern Romania, after attending a Supreme Security Council meeting last week by pointing to the "unprecedented" example of Russia's efforts to "interfere" in the country's upcoming election on September 28 in order to control it again. But why? The result of the vote will determine whether the tiny republic remains a democratic nation on a path to European integration or whether an alliance of pro-Russian parties takes over the government and maneuvers it back into Moscow's orbit. And despite the campaign not having officially begun, events in the country are moving fast. Russia is apparently treating Moldova as a proving ground for various pre-election hybrid attacks. The aim is to relentlessly use acts of sabotage to sow doubt in the country's democratic system to create uncertainty and political chaos. Russia's tools? Paid public protests, massive vote buying in Moldova and among Moldovans abroad, flooding social media with fake news — and, increasingly, misguiding AI-generated content — and hacker attacks on IT systems. Beyond these, Russia has also increased the number of missiles and drones that it flies through Moldova's airspace en route to attacking Ukraine in an effort to create more fear of war among Moldovans. These efforts combined have transformed Moldova's national parliamentary election into a whole-of-Europe affair. Recently, the July 27 arrest of former Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc at the Athens airport in Greece has made for lots of headlines. Moldovan authorities have sought Plahotniuc's arrest on various charges — among others, for his suspected role in Moldova's so-called "Billion Dollar Heist" between 2012 and 2014 — since he fled the country in 2019. Last month, the Latvia-based independent investigative news magazine published a report claiming that Plahotniuc had traveled to Russia and Belarus several times in recent months to meet with Dmitry Kozak, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and currently vice president of Putin's presidential administration. When the name Kozak is uttered, alarm bells in Moldova set off. Kozak was the author of a 2003 plan that would have seen Moldova split up into a loose federation of small states. At the last minute, Moldova's then-president, Vladimir Voronin, refused to sign the so-called "Kozak Memorandum," a slap in the face for the Kremlin that neither Putin nor Kozak will have forgotten. Plahotniuc's meetings with Kozak are reported to have centered on how the oligarch could reactivate the network that he controlled before he fled Moldova, in order to return the country to Russia's fold. Although tiny agrarian Moldova and its roughly 3.5 million citizens are meaningless to Russia economically, it has nevertheless been the target of Russian neo-imperial aggression for three decades. It was in Moldova, in the spring of 1992, that Russia launched its first post-Soviet war against an independent country — under the same pretext it would use repeatedly thereafter, to protect Russian-speaking citizens from a supposedly fascist national government. The Kremlin supports a separatist regime of mafia-like Russian secret agents in Moldova's Transnistria region and has remained in breach of international law by stationing its own soldiers and a massive arms arsenal there. Moscow has also used Moldova's banks to distribute billions of dollars across the globe as part of its "Russian Laundromat" system and constantly threatens the country by shutting down gas deliveries. In mid-2019, Moldova actually made a massive step toward real democratic regime change, which had, until then, been a rocky journey despite never having fallen into the trap of a pro-Russian restoration. Moldova's voters chose the popular anti-corruption activist Maia Sandu to head their government, eventually making her president. Sandu's Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) won an absolute majority in Moldova's 2021 parliamentary election with the promise of enacting ambitious legal and economic reforms, with which it has had middling success. 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Shortly before the vote, authorities in Moldova announced that they had uncovered a network of operatives that had successfully purchased as many as 300,000 votes in the tally. The network behind the vote-buying campaign was run by Ilan Shor, a Moldovan-Israeli businessman. Shor is also rumored to have orchestrated the so-called Billion Dollar Heist before he joined Vladimir Plahotniuc in fleeing the country — first to Israel and then to Russia. Although a number of the political parties that Shor has founded have been banned in Moldova, he continues to exert influence from inside Russia. In preparation for Moldova's September election, Shor founded what he dubbed the "Victory" party alliance in Moscow. Moldova's Central Election Commission (CEC) barred the alliance from the vote in July. In September, observers expect that Putin's "second front," the pro-Russian four-party "Patriotic Bloc" that includes former-President Igor Dodon, will stand for election. Though Dodon is a Socialist in name, his party, in fact, stands for right-wing populist and Kremlin-aligned positions like all three of the other parties in the bloc. Fittingly, the leaders of all four parties traveled to Moscow for consultations before registering for the September parliamentary ballot. At the top of their election platform is the "restoration of relations with Russia." The Kremlin claims it has nothing to do with any of this. When Sandu accused Russia of engaging in massive election interference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov shrugged it off, saying simply that Russia does not involve itself with the internal affairs of other nations.


Int'l Business Times
an hour ago
- Int'l Business Times
China Says Trade Jumped In July, Beating Forecasts
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DW
2 hours ago
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I can't tell you yet," Trump said. "We did it with India. We're doing it probably with a couple of others. One of them could be China." Last week, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China could also face new tariffs if it continued buying Russian oil. As trade talks continue with Beijing, Trump has placed 30% tariffs on goods from China, a rate that is smaller than the combined import taxes with which he has threatened New Delhi. US President Donald Trump has announced he plans to impose a 100% tariff on semiconductors, a move that would increase the costs of electronic devices. "We're going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors," he told reporters at the White House, adding that the level would be "100%." Trump added that the import tax would not be levied on companies that manufacture computer chips in the United States. The announcement came as US technology giant Apple said it would add another $100 billion (about €85.8 billion) to the $500 billion it already planned to invest in the US, which Trump celebrated as the company "coming home." Brazil has taken the first step in a dispute settlement system within the World Trade Organization (WTO) over US President Trump's hefty tariffs on the country. In its request on Wednesday, Brazil said the US "flagrantly violates core commitments made to the WTO" by imposing the tariffs. "The Brazilian government reiterates its willingness to negotiate and hopes that the consultations will contribute to a solution to the issue," it added. The dispute settlement system has been stalled since Trump's first term in office. The US president slapped Latin America's biggest economy a hefty 50% tariff on over a third of Brazilian exports to the US. Far from economic reasons, the massive tariff rate comes in response to what Trump has called a "witch hunt" against his far-right ally Jair Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian president is on trial on charges of plotting a coup following his 2022 election loss. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Donald Trump is tightening sanctions loopholes that fund Moscow's war machine. What does a crackdown on Russia's oil trade mean for global markets — and economic heavyweights like China and India? DW has some of the answers here. US President Donald Trump's pressure on India to halt its oil imports from Russia and comply with sanctions on Iran has strained ties between Washington and New Delhi, who have enjoyed a healthy strategic partnership for decades. India has already said it saw the tariffs are "unjustified and unreasonable" and that it would take "all necessary measures" to safeguard its "national interests and economic security." Trump has claimed Indian authorities "don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine" and are helping fund Russia's war effort in Ukraine through their purchases of Russian oil. The tougher rhetoric is a marked shift in relations between India and the US. Ties have deteriorated in recent months, despite the display of personal warmth and symbolic friendship when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with President Trump earlier this year in Washington. Experts believes that despite Trump's "intimidatory" approach, India "does not seek a confrontation." Read the full story on the tense relations between the US and India over Trump's tariffs. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter said she had a "very good meeting" with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, discussing the incoming US tariffs on Switzerland. In the meeting, the pair "discussed bilateral cooperation between Switzerland and the US, and the tariff situation, and international issues," Karin-Sutter said. "We had a very friendly and open exchange," Keller-Sutter told reporters after the meeting in Washington, yet stopped short of mentioning whether it would help the country avert the 39% tariff set to come into effect on Thursday. A US State Department spokeswoman said the talks included "the importance of a fair and balanced trade relationship that benefits the American people." On July 31 last week, Trump announced a new set of "reciprocal tariffs," affecting some 67 countries. The levies, due to kick in on August 7, include a 10% so-called baseline tariff on countries where the US sells more products than it imports. The US president argued in a White House statement that "conditions reflected in large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the US that has its source in whole or substantial part outside the US." Leading trading partners including the European Union, Japan and South Korea will be subject to a 15% tariff. All are engaged in trade negotiations with Washington. Countries which meanwhile reached tentative trade agreements with the US, such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, will be subject to tariffs ranging from 19% to 20%. Much higher rates will fall on smaller economies such as Syria (41%, the highest on the list), which is just getting out of a civil war which spanned over a decade. Myanmar (40%), is still grappling with a civil war. Similar rates will also be applied to Laos (40%) and Iraq (35%). Despite being a significant trading partner, Switzerland is set to face a whopping 39% tariff. The latest tariff announcement means India is facing the highest US levy along with Brazil. This could put New Delhi at a significant disadvantage, particularly against regional competitors such as Vietnam and Bangladesh. The move could also shatter India's image as an alternative for US companies to Chinese manufacturing. Trump had already criticized tech giant Apple for its efforts to shift iPhone production to India to avoid the tariffs that had been planned for China. "I don't want you building in India," Trump said he told Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this year. However, smartphones are on a list of exempted products for now, shielding Apple from a major hit, even as it moves production from China to India. On Wednesday, Trump is expected to celebrate a commitment by Apple to increase its US investments by an additional $100 billion over the next four years. Other exemptions include goods targeted under sector-specific tariffs such as steel and aluminum, and sectors that could be hit later, such as pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. India's government spokesperson has defended New Delhi's purchase of Russian oil, saying that "imports are based on market factors and done with the overall objective of ensuring the energy security of 1.4 billion people of India." "It is therefore extremely unfortunate that the US should choose to impose additional tariffs on India for actions that several other countries are also taking in their own national interest," the spokesperson said in a statement. "We reiterate that these actions are unfair, unjustified and unreasonable. India will take all actions necessary to protect its national interests." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video US President Donald Trump promised in his inaugural address this year to "tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens." By setting new tariff rates, Trump aimed at reducing the country's trade deficit, which is when the US imports more from a country than it exports to that country, and first announced plans for a "reciprocal" tariff on February 13. But experts have warned that tariffs could cause chaos for global markets and disrupt the US economy at home. April 2: Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" when he announces long-promised "reciprocal" tariffs, declaring a 10% baseline tax on imports across the board starting April 5, as well as higher rates for dozens of countries that have a high trade deficit with the US. The calculations for the tariff rates cause widespread confusion. April 5: Trump's 10% minimum tariff on nearly all countries and territories takes effect. April 9: Trump's higher "reciprocal" rate goes into effect, but his administration says just hours later it is pausing higher rates while maintaining the 10% levy on most global imports. April 10: EU suspends its steel and aluminium tariff retaliation measures for 90 days — those measures were a response to Trump's 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminium that took effect in March. May 23: Trump threatens a 50% tax on all imports from the EU as well as a 25% tariff on smartphones unless those products are made in America. Trump says frustrated by lack of progress in talks with EU, writing on Truth Social: "Our discussions with them are going nowhere!" May 26: Trump says the US will delay implementation of a 50% tariff on goods from the EU from June 1 until July 9 to buy time for negotiations with the bloc. July 7: Trump signs an executive order to push the deadline for higher tariffs to August 1 and sends his first letters telling 14 countries' leaders that their exports to the US would face a new tariff rate. July 8: Trump says he's not going back on his word and insists that the August 1 deadline is the final one. July 9: Trump sends more letters, hitting Brazil with a 50% tariff rate. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promises to reciprocate. July 12: Trump announces a 35% tariff on Canadian goods, claiming Canada had "financially retaliated" to earlier duties. He says the EU will receive a similar letter soon. July 13: Trump announces a 30% tariff rate on the EU and Mexico, telling both that "whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added on to the 30% that we charge." July 31: Trump signs an executive order delaying the tariff deadline for the EU and other partners from August 1 to August 7. August 6: Trump announces a further 25% tariff rate on India's imports due to their purchase of Russian oil, bringing the total to 50%. US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he signed an executive order to impose an additional 25% tariff on India. He cited India's continued purchase of Russian oil. The order comes just a day before a separate 25% tariff on Indian goods was due to take effect. The latest decision is set to come into force in three weeks. Trump had threatend allies of Russia to stop importing oil from Moscow or face high tariffs. Ties between the US and India have taken a downturn as they failed to reach a trade agreement to avert Trump's tariffs. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video US President Donald Trump's tariffs on the EU and other trading partners are set to finally come into effect on Friday, following numerous delays since his first "Liberation Day" announcement back in April. The tariff threats have triggered widespread uncertainty and concerns about the impact on the global economy. Countries facing heavy tariff rates have sought to make deals with the Trump administration, but have also threatened to impose their own counter tariffs. Stick with our Trump tariffs blog for the latest updates, analysis and explainers.