Enemy of the state: Former senior government minister targeted by Russian ‘patriots' over Ukraine war stance
A headshot and profile of the Carterton mayor and former Minister of Defence has been added to the Russophobes website.
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NZ Herald
9 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
What each side wants from Alaska summit, including those on the sidelines
High stakes: Trump and Putin's summit amid Ukraine tensions. Photo / Getty Images 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. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not scheduled to take part in the summit, but has said there can be no peace deal without the country's 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 President 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 that Russia would face 'very severe consequences' if it did not halt its offensive. Trump hopes to broker a deal, but expectations for a breakthrough are low. Photo / Mandel Ngan, AFP 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. 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 Zelenskyy could take part in a subsequent summit. Despite providing military support for Ukraine and hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees, Europe's 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 yesterday. Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have signalled they are willing to deploy peacekeepers in Ukraine once the fighting ends, an idea Russia has vehemently rejected. -Agence France-Presse
NZ Herald
8 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Ukrainians confront prospect of losing Donbas in Trump-Putin talks
Precisely what will be discussed in Alaska remains to be seen. A small group of protesters has urged Trump not to sell out Ukraine at talks between him and Putin towards ending Russia's war in Ukraine scheduled for tomorrow in Alaska. Photo / Getty Images Two conflicting emotions are paramount among Ukrainians: exhaustion from the war, now in its fourth blood-soaked year, and revulsion at the idea of rewarding Russia in any way for its unprovoked invasion. Many Ukrainians seem unwilling to accept that all or part of the territories may be lost, even if Ukraine does not officially recognise a border change. 'No one recognises these territories as being under Russian control – just as no one recognised occupied Luhansk or Sevastopol from 2014 to 2022, even though de facto they were under Russian control,' said Oleksandr, a Ukrainian serviceman now fighting in Donetsk who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by first name because he was not authorised to speak to the media. If a peace deal is signed, Oleksandr added, it would not necessarily freeze the front line, because Moscow could regroup and launch another full-scale attack. 'No one believes it would really be a freeze,' Oleksandr said. Surrendering territory to Russia and untold numbers of Ukrainian citizens to Russian occupation would not be an easy decision, but there might be no choice, said a Ukrainian businessman with interests in Donetsk. Like some others interviewed for this article, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. 'Looking with cold eyes, I would say that with this situation, this is what we can get,' the businessman said. 'But if you ask me as a Ukrainian, as a citizen, of course I'm not satisfied.' However, the businessman said that despite inevitable misgivings, 'everybody will choose to stop the war. Because people are sick and tired of the war'. Economically, a swap of territory – trading occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia for unoccupied parts of Donetsk – could work, he said, as Zaporizhzhia contains key mineral deposits and mines, as well as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, the largest atomic energy station in Europe. For some, any deal would be welcome, even a temporary one. 'I don't know a single person in my unit who wants to keep fighting,' said Eugene, a member of the Ukrainian National Guard who serves in Donetsk and originally comes from Luhansk. He spoke on the condition that he be identified only by first name because he was not authorised to speak to the media. 'Everyone understands what Russia is; everyone understands that it's basically a three-year truce,' he said, using the examples of Chechnya and Georgia, where Russia resumed fighting in what became long conflicts. 'It's not cool at all to see all these people with torn-off heads, legs, arms,' Eugene said, lacing his speech with obscenities. 'And I no longer understand what we're doing this for.' 'Honestly, I just want to close my eyes so all this would be over, so everyone would just [expletive] off.' Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian territory was not his 'private property' to give away. What's more, without security guarantees, Russia would use the region as a 'springboard' to invade other parts of Ukraine – Putin would have an 'open path' to the Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, the President said. Ultimately, any changes to Ukraine's boundaries must be enshrined in the country's constitution, Zelenskyy said – a difficult process in a fractious democracy such as Ukraine. 'I'm not going to surrender my country, because I have no right to do so,' he said. In contrast, after holding illegal sham referendums in occupied Ukraine, Putin swiftly rewrote his country's constitution to incorporate the four Ukrainian regions into the Russian Federation, including parts of those regions that Russian troops do not control. Following Ukraine's pro-European, anti-Kremlin Euromaidan revolution, Moscow set off a war in Donbas in 2014. The Kremlin directed local proxy fighters there and supplied them with arms. At times, they also sent Russian troops without markings or insignia to back them up. More than 14,000 people were killed, the United Nations said. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it pushed even further into Donetsk, and in June this year occupied all of Luhansk. In recent weeks, Moscow's forces have made major advances, but the key Donetsk cities of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Kostiantynivka remain under Ukrainian control. But even a ceasefire leaving the front line where it currently stands would freeze Russian control over a large portion of Donetsk, all of Luhansk, and significant parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Russian control could ultimately extend beyond that, if the final agreement involves a 'land for peace' element – ceding to Russia all land that it currently occupies, or large portions after swaps with Ukraine. Recent opinion polls show growing support for a negotiated end to the war among Ukrainians, though they reject Russian demands. Last week, the US-based Gallup polling firm said that a survey in early July showed more than two-thirds of Ukrainians wanted to stop the war as soon as possible through talks – a strong reversal from 2022, when about the same percentage said Ukraine should fight to regain its territory. However, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, in a poll conducted from the end of July through the beginning of August, found that most Ukrainians remain opposed to any plan that formally cedes Moscow the occupied territories. 'Despite the aggressive actions of the Russians on the front and the brutal air attacks on civilian cities over the past few months, Ukrainian public opinion on issues of war and peace has not fundamentally changed,' KIIS executive director Anton Hrushetskyi said in a report summarising the results. 'Ukrainians, as before, demonstrate openness to negotiations and the possibility, albeit reluctantly, of approving difficult decisions.' Whether territories that Russia occupies are recognised as officially part of Russia is the main issue, said another businessman with interests in Donetsk. 'None of these questions are easy to answer, because, firstly, is [Russia's control] de facto or de jure?' he said. 'De facto, they're already under control. If the agreement is simply that the conflict is frozen on or near the current line of contact, that's what everyone expects as a peace agreement.' 'The next point is, is [whether] those territories will, de jure, be subsumed into Russia with the agreement of the Ukrainian state?' he said. 'I think that is where the difficult discussions will take place.' Still, a significant portion of the Ukrainian population will oppose a peace deal, whatever form it takes, said a former high-ranking Ukrainian official. 'Our President is in a very difficult position right now.' If there is a ceasefire in which Russia receives territory, 'part of society will be dissatisfied', the former official said. 'If there is no ceasefire, the other part will be displeased. And to find this golden mean should be extremely difficult.' Any agreement will lead to political instability in Ukraine, which Russia can manipulate and encourage, the former official warned, adding: 'There is no good agreement for Ukraine.' Anastacia Galouchka and Siobhán O'Grady contributed to this report.
NZ Herald
10 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Trump says Putin summit could fail, promises Ukraine say
'The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that's going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don't want to use the word 'divvy' things up. But you know, to a certain extent, it's not a bad term,' Trump said. US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet at an air base in Alaska. Trump has said he would include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in any decisions. Photo / Various Sources, AFP Zelenskyy has refused any territorial concessions to Russia, which has ramped up attacks and made sharp gains on the battlefield just before the summit. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said any future deal needed to ensure Ukraine's security. 'To achieve peace, I think we all recognise that there'll have to be some conversation about security guarantees,' Rubio told reporters in Washington, saying he was 'hopeful' about the summit. Trump has previously ruled out letting Ukraine join Nato and backed Russia's stance that Kyiv's aspirations to enter the transatlantic alliance triggered the war. Ukraine and most of its European allies reject Putin's narrative and point to his remarks denying the historical legitimacy of Ukraine. Shifting Trump tone Trump had boasted that he could end the war within 24 hours of returning to the White House in January. But his calls to Putin – and intense pressure on Zelenskyy to accept concessions – have failed to move the Russian leader and Trump has warned of 'very severe consequences' if Putin keeps snubbing his overtures. Putin on Thursday welcomed US efforts to end the conflict and said that talks could also help yield an agreement on nuclear arms control. 'The US administration... is making quite energetic and sincere efforts to end the fighting,' Putin told a meeting of top officials in Moscow. The talks are set to begin at 11.30am on Friday (local time) at the Elmendorf Air Force Base, a major US military installation in Alaska that has been crucial in monitoring Russia. 'This conversation will take place in a one-on-one format, naturally with the participation of interpreters,' Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow. He said that delegations would continue discussions over a working lunch and that Putin and Trump would hold a joint news conference. The White House has not confirmed any plans for a joint news conference. Trump faced heated criticism over his joint news conference after his 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki where he sided with Russia over US intelligence in accepting Putin's denials of interfering in the 2016 US election to help Trump. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine's president, right, arrives for a meeting with Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, at 10 Downing Street in London, UK, on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025. Photo / Getty Images European support for Zelenskyy Zelenskyy, who will not join Friday's summit in Alaska, met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, after talks a day earlier in Berlin. Starmer greeted the Ukrainian leader with a warm hug and handshake on the steps of his Downing St residence and later voiced solidarity. European leaders expressed relief after a call with Trump on Wednesday, saying he appeared focused on a ceasefire rather than concessions by Ukraine. A day before the summit, Ukraine fired dozens of drones at Russia, wounding several people and sparking fires at an oil refinery in the southern city of Volgograd. Russia, meanwhile, said its troops had captured two new settlements in eastern Ukraine, where it has been advancing for months. Diplomacy since Russia's invasion has largely failed to secure agreements beyond swaps of prisoners. Russia said on Thursday it had returned 84 prisoners to Ukraine in exchange for an equal number of Russian POWs in the latest exchange. - Agence France-Presse
