Ukrainian drone strikes hit two Russian cities, injuring at least 16 ahead of US-Russia summit
Thirteen people were wounded, two seriously, when a drone struck an apartment building in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the acting regional governor said.
Three civilians were wounded in the city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, according to the governor of that region, who posted video appearing to show a drone striking a car in the centre of the city.
Separately, the head of Russia's Volgograd region said fallen debris from Ukrainian drones had caused a fire at an oil refinery.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to meet in Alaska on Friday as Trump attempts to bring about an end to the 3-1/2-year war. — Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Malay Mail
an hour ago
- Malay Mail
Why Putin is talking nukes before Trump summit on Ukraine
LONDON, Aug 15 — Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the eve of a summit with US President Donald Trump that their countries might strike a new deal on nuclear weapons as part of a wider effort to strengthen peace. The summit is about Ukraine, so why talk about nukes? Putin has been under pressure from Trump to agree to end the three-and-a-half-year-old war in Ukraine, something Moscow says is part of a complex of security issues that have raised East-West tensions to their most dangerous level since the Cold War. With Russian forces gradually advancing in Ukraine, Putin has rebuffed Kyiv's calls for a full and immediate ceasefire. But if the summit makes progress towards a new arms control treaty, Putin could argue he is engaging on wider peace issues. That could help him persuade Trump that now is not the right time to impose new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its oil and other key exports, as the US leader has threatened. It could also be part of a broader drive to improve relations with Washington, including on trade and economic issues, where the Kremlin says there is huge untapped potential. Why has Putin repeatedly talked up Russia's nuclear arsenal? Throughout the war, Putin has delivered veiled threats about using nuclear missiles and warned that entering a direct confrontation with Russia could lead to World War Three. They have included verbal statements, war games, and lowering Russia's threshold for using nuclear weapons. The fact that Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country gives it a stature in this domain that far exceeds its conventional military or economic power, allowing Putin to face Trump as an equal on the world stage when it comes to security. How many nuclear weapons do Russia and the US have? According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia and the United States have estimated military stockpiles of 4,309 and 3,700 nuclear warheads, respectively. China trails with an estimated 600. What does the existing US-Russia nuclear treaty say? Signed by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, the New START treaty caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy. Each is limited to no more than 1,550, and a maximum of 700 long-range missiles and bombers. Strategic weapons are those designed by each side to hit the enemy's centres of military, economic, and political power. The treaty came into force in 2011 and was extended in 2021 for five more years after US President Joe Biden took office. In 2023, Putin suspended Russia's participation, but Moscow said it would continue to observe the warhead limits. The treaty expires on February 5. Security analysts expect both sides to breach the limits if it is not extended or replaced. Trump said for the first time last month he would like to maintain the limits set in the treaty. 'That's not an agreement you want expiring. We're starting to work on that,' he said on July 25. 'When you take off nuclear restrictions, that's a big problem.' What are the other nuclear points of contention? In a symptom of the underlying tensions, Trump this month said he had ordered two US nuclear submarines to move closer to Russia because of what he called threatening comments by Medvedev about the possibility of war with the US. The Kremlin played down the move but said 'everyone should be very, very careful' with nuclear rhetoric. Separately, an arms race looms over shorter- and intermediate-range missiles, which can also carry nuclear warheads. During Trump's first presidency, in 2019, he pulled the US out of a treaty that had abolished all ground-based weapons in this category. Moscow denied his accusations that it was cheating. The United States plans to start deploying weapons, including SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles, previously placed mainly on ships, as well as new hypersonic missiles, in Germany from 2026. Russia said this month it no longer observes any restrictions on where it might deploy intermediate-range missiles. — Reuters
Malay Mail
an hour ago
- Malay Mail
Trump–Putin summit: What each side wants on Ukraine
WARSAW, Aug 15 — The US and Russian presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are to meet at a US air base in Alaska today for talks on the Ukraine war. Expectations are high for the first summit between sitting US and Russian presidents in more than four years, but Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart in their visions on how to end the conflict. It will be Putin's first trip to a Western country since launching his invasion in February 2022, as well as his first US visit in 10 years. Here is a look at what each side hopes to achieve from the talks: Russia For Putin, who has faced years of isolation from the West since the invasion, the summit is an opportunity to press Russia's hardline demands for ending the conflict. In a draft peace plan published in June, Russia called on Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions that Moscow claimed to annex in 2022. Ukraine has rejected the idea. Russia has also called on Ukraine to halt its military mobilisation, abandon its Nato ambitions, and for Western countries to immediately stop weapon supplies — something critics say amounts to capitulation. In addition to territory, Russia wants Ukraine to ensure the 'rights and freedoms' of the Russian-speaking population and to prohibit what it calls the 'glorification of Nazism'. It also wants Western sanctions lifted. Ukraine says Russia's allegations of Nazism are absurd and that it already guarantees rights to Russian speakers. Ukraine Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not scheduled to take part in the summit, but has said there can be no peace deal without its involvement. He has called the meeting a 'personal victory' for Putin. Ukraine has called for an unconditional ceasefire on land, sea and sky as a prerequisite to peace talks. It wants both sides to release all prisoners of war and demanded the return of Ukrainian children it says Russia illegally kidnapped. Ukraine says Russia has forcibly transferred thousands of Ukrainian children into areas under its control since the war began, often adopting them into Russian families and assigning them Russian citizenship. Russia rejects the kidnapping allegations but acknowledges that thousands of children are on its territory. Ukraine says any deal must include security guarantees to prevent Russia from attacking again, and that there should be no restrictions on the number of troops it can deploy on its territory. It says sanctions on Russia can only be lifted gradually and that there should be a way of reimposing them if needed. United States Trump promised he would end the war within '24 hours' after taking office in January. But eight months on, and even after repeated calls with Putin and several visits to Russia by US envoy Steve Witkoff, he has failed to extract any major concessions from the Kremlin. The summit is his first opportunity to broker a deal in person. The US president, author of the book 'Trump: The Art of the Deal' said on Wednesday that Russia would face 'very severe consequences' if it did not halt its offensive. The US leader initially said there would be some 'land swapping going on' at the talks, but appeared to walk back after speaking with European leaders on Wednesday. Trump has said he would 'like to see a ceasefire very, very quickly'. But the White House has played down expectations of a breakthrough, describing it as a 'listening exercise' for the former reality TV star. 'If the first one goes okay, we'll have a quick second one,' Trump said, hinting Zelensky could take part in a subsequent summit. Europe Despite providing military support for Ukraine and hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees, European leaders have been sidelined from the peace talks that may affect the region's security architecture in the future. European representatives were neither invited to the past three meetings between Russian and Ukrainian officials in Istanbul, nor to the Russia-US talks in Riyadh in February. In a statement last week, the leaders of Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the EU Commission warned there could be no meaningful peace without Ukraine's participation. 'Territorial questions concerning Ukraine can be, and will be, negotiated only by the Ukrainian president,' French President Emmanuel Macron said after speaking with Trump on Wednesday. Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have signalled they are willing to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine once the fighting ends, an idea Russia has vehemently rejected. — AFP
Free Malaysia Today
2 hours ago
- Free Malaysia Today
UN warns Russia, Israel of conflict sex crimes listing risk
Israel rejected the UN report's findings on its army, saying focus should be on Hamas's war crimes and the release of all hostages. (AFP pic) UNITED NATIONS : The United Nations warned Israel and Russia on Thursday that their militaries faced being listed as parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict in light of credible evidence of violations. UN secretary general Antonio Guterres's report said the two countries risked being added to a list of parties thought to use sexual violence including rape in conflict that includes Myanmar's military, Sudan's army and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. 'Due to significant concerns regarding patterns of certain forms of sexual violence perpetrated by Israeli armed and security forces and Russian armed and security forces and affiliated armed groups, these parties have been put on notice for potential listing in the next reporting period,' said the annual report. 'These concerns relate primarily to violations recorded in detention settings.' In the case of Israel, the report alleges 'credible information' military and security forces perpetrated patterns of sexual violence including 'genital violence, prolonged forced nudity and repeated strip searches conducted in an abusive and degrading manner.' In February, the Israeli army said it had charged five soldiers for abusing a Palestinian detainee at a site used to hold Palestinians following the start of the war in Gaza in the wake of the Oct 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas. Among the charges was an allegation that the accused had stabbed a man with a sharp object 'which had penetrated near the detainee's rectum.' The report said there was 'credible' evidence of violations 'against Ukrainian prisoners of war, in 50 official and 22 unofficial detention facilities in Ukraine' and Russia. 'These cases comprised a significant number of documented incidents of genital violence, including electrocution, beatings and burns to the genitals, and forced stripping and prolonged nudity, used to humiliate and elicit confessions or information,' it said. In 2024, the human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine documented 209 cases of conflict-related sexual violence, including rape, the report added. Israel has cooperated with a special representative on the issue of sexual violence in conflict, whereas Russia has not, the report said. The report said however that Israel's refusal to grant access to inspectors had frustrated her ability to determine patterns and trends. Israel rejected the report's findings and called a letter that accompanied it from Guterres 'unusual.' 'The UN must focus on the shocking war crimes and sexual violence of Hamas and the release of all hostages,' Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said. 'Israel will not shy away from protecting its citizens and will continue to act in accordance with international law.' Russia's embassy to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.
