Dnipro church hit by Russian missile mid-service
Dnipro church hit by Russian missile mid-service NewsFeed
A Russian missile attack on Ukraine's Dnipro region killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 200 others, including 18 children, Ukrainian officials said. As rescue crews combed through rubble, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO allies in the Netherlands to invest in Ukraine's defence.
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Al Jazeera
6 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump questions mutual defence as NATO gets set to boost defence spending
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NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, later pressed by reporters, said he has no doubt about the US commitment to NATO and its Article 5 guarantee. Increasing defence expenditure High on the agenda at the summit is an agreement to significantly increase defence expenditure across the 32 member states. This follows pointed criticism from the Trump administration, which says the US carries too much of the military burden. Trump has demanded that NATO allies increase their defence spending to 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), up from the current target of 2 percent. He has questioned whether the alliance should defend countries that fail to meet the spending targets, and has even threatened to leave the bloc. Speaking to reporters in The Hague ahead of the summit on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that NATO members were set to approve 'historic new spending targets' at the summit. 'The security architecture that we relied on for decades can no longer be taken for granted,' she said, describing it as a 'once-in-a-generation tectonic shift'. 'In recent months, Europe has taken action, action that seemed unthinkable just a year ago,' she said. 'The Europe of defence has finally awakened.' Speaking ahead of the summit, Rutte stressed that there was 'total commitment' from the US to the alliance, but he noted that it came with the expectation of a boost in defence spending. Meanwhile, Trump, while on board Air Force One en route to The Hague, published a screenshot of a private message from Rutte saying: 'Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world. You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done.' 'Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,' Rutte wrote. NATO confirmed that he had sent the message. US pressure Earlier this month, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered an ultimatum to NATO defence ministers at a meeting in Brussels, saying that the commitment to 5 percent spending 'has to happen by the summit at The Hague'. In response to the pressure, Rutte will ask member states at the summit to approve new targets of 5 percent of GDP for their defence budgets by 2032, with 3.5 percent to be spent on core defence spending and the remainder allocated to 'soft spending' on infrastructure and cybersecurity. In 2023, in response to Russia's war on Ukraine, NATO leaders agreed to raise defence spending targets from 1.5 percent to 2 percent of GDP. However, only 22 of the alliance's 32 members met the revised targets. While some countries like Spain have pushed back against the latest proposed hike as unrealistic, other members have already announced plans to significantly ramp up military spending in response to a changed security environment. Delivering a major foreign policy address in Berlin on Tuesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Germany would ramp up its spending to become 'Europe's strongest conventional army' – not as a 'favour' to Washington, but in response to the threat from Russia. 'We must fear that Russia wants to continue its war beyond Ukraine,' he said. 'We must together be so strong that no one dares to attack us.' Kremlin: NATO 'created for confrontation' The summit will be attended by the leaders of all 32 members of the transatlantic alliance, along with the leaders of allied countries, including Japan, New Zealand and Ukraine. While Kyiv is not a member of the alliance, its desire to join NATO was cited by the Kremlin as one of the reasons it attacked Ukraine in 2022. On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had no plans to attack NATO, but that it was 'a wasted effort' to assure the alliance of this because it was determined to demonise Russia as a 'fiend of hell'. 'It is an alliance created for confrontation … It is not an instrument of peace and stability,' Peskov said, the Reuters news agency reported. The Soviet Union presided over the Warsaw Pact, an alliance of communist eastern bloc nations created in 1955 as a counterbalance to NATO. It fell apart in 1991, at the end of the Cold War. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it a driving purpose to reestablish Moscow as a force against NATO and perceived encroachment on its borders and security.
Qatar Tribune
7 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
UK's commitment to landmine ban ‘unwavering', says minister
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Qatar Tribune
7 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Israel-Iran ceasefire off to a shaky start, draws Trump's ire
The ceasefire between Israel and Iran is already showing signs of strain – and has triggered frustration, and a televised expletive, from United States President Donald Trump, who accused Israel of undermining the deal just hours after its announcement. The ceasefire, brokered by the US and Qatar, came into effect late Monday following days of intensive missile barrages between the two foes. Israel's last wave of strikes targeted Iranian military infrastructure near Isfahan, prompting retaliatory drone launches by Tehran. Iran violated the ceasefire, 'but Israel violated it too', Trump told reporters on the White House's South Lawn on Tuesday as he departed for the NATO summit. 'So I'm not happy with them. I'm not happy with Iran either. But I'm really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning.' 'I've got to get Israel to calm down,' he said. 'Israel, as soon as we made the deal, they came out and dropped a load of bombs, the likes of which I've never seen before.' As he prepared to head to a NATO summit in The Hague in the Netherlands, Trump's anger flared on the White House Lawn: 'We have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the **** they're doing.' A day earlier, Trump boasted on his Truth Social app that 'the Ceasefire is in effect!' 'ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly 'Plane Wave' to Iran. Nobody will be hurt,' Trump wrote. Trump's unusually public display of anger at Israel saw the US leader apparently trying to force his ally to call off warplanes in real time on Tuesday. Earlier the same morning, he had posted on Truth Social: 'ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS' – without it being clear which bombs he was referring to. 'IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to quickly accede, with his office saying in a statement on Tuesday that Israel still carried out one more attack near Tehran after Trump's appeal, but is refraining from 'further strikes'. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz had said earlier on Tuesday that he had ordered the military to mount new strikes on targets in Tehran in response to what he claimed were Iranian missiles fired in a 'blatant violation' of the ceasefire. Iran denied launching any missiles and said Israel's attacks had continued for an hour and a half beyond the time the ceasefire was meant to start. For his part, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that his country would not fire at Israel if it was not fired upon, but that a 'final decision on the cessation of our military operations will be made later'. Despite the rocky start, Trump voiced support for the ceasefire itself, clarifying he is not seeking regime change in Iran, after some mixed messaging in recent days, and insisting that the ceasefire remains in effect. If it holds, the truce would be a big political win for Trump in the wake of his risky gamble to send US bombers over the weekend to attack three nuclear facilities in Iran that Israel and the United States claim were being used to build an atomic bomb in secret. US intelligence and the United Nations' nuclear watchdog had previously recorded no indication Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
