Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy rallies Europe allies before Trump-Putin meeting
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said she had spoken with Zelenskyy about the developments of the past days and 'next steps on the way towards a negotiated peace agreement and Ukraine's future membership in the European Union as well as its reconstruction'.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, reaffirmed France's full support for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the launch of talks aimed at reaching a lasting and solid peace, after a 'long discussion' with Zelenskyy and other European leaders. 'I reiterated to the Ukrainian president France's full support for establishing a ceasefire and launching discussions toward a solid and lasting solution that preserves Ukraine's legitimate rights and guarantees its security and that of Europeans.'
Zelenskyy said he had discussed a new International Monetary Fund financial assistance programme for Ukraine with the IMF's managing director, Kristalina Georgieva. 'We are prepared to carry out the necessary steps quickly. The government is already working on this.' Ukraine's current $15.5bn programme with the IMF expires in 2027.
Russian drone strikes injured three women in the Bucha district of Kyiv oblast and houses caught on fire, officials said early on Friday. Kharkiv was hit by Shahed drones, causing fires; while on Thursday eight injuries were reported from Russian shelling in Donetsk oblast.
The director of Russia's notorious Taganrog prison, where officials are accused of overseeing the systematic torture and starvation of hundreds of Ukrainian detainees, has been notified by authorities in Kyiv that he is suspected of having committed a war crime, write Shaun Walker and Andrew Roth. Aleksandr Shtoda, head of the Sizo 2 pre-trial detention centre in Taganrog, has been formally placed under investigation.
A Russian state-owned explosives manufacturer got around sanctions by buying equipment made by Germany's Siemens through a middleman who imports technology from China, Reuters has reported based on customs data and state procurement records. The equipment was for the recently expanded Biysk Oleum Factory (BOZ) in southern Siberia, which makes the explosives TNT and HMX and is listed as a supplier to the Russian defence ministry.
Reuters said it found no evidence Siemens knowingly supplied BOZ. A Siemens spokesperson said it strictly complied with international sanctions and demanded the same from its customers, but some goods could reach Russia without it knowing. It would report any sanctions contraventions to the authorities. Questions sent to BOZ and its parent company went unanswered, said Reuters.
Russia does not produce much of its own automated machine tooling – and Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan military consultancy in Poland, said continued delivery of western-made machines was helping Russia prolong the war. 'Without them, Russia's capacity to sustain or scale its war effort would be more time consuming, expensive and place a bigger burden on the labour market.'
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The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Proscribing Palestine Action has 'empowered' far-right, say protesters
Protesters in a UK town twinned with Al-Mawasi in Gaza blame the Palestine Action ban for an increase in violence and abuse against demonstrators. An organiser of the Friends of Al-Mawasi group, based in Hastings, East Sussex, said the UK Government has 'empowered' extremists by trying to 'demonise' Palestine supporters. In July, Hastings Borough Council passed a motion to back an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to all arms sales to Israel and to support the town's friendship links with the people of Al-Mawasi – a section of the Gaza Strip. Last month, at a fundraising walk, there were multiple alleged incidents of verbal and physical abuse from counter-protesters which were reported to the police. A woman, waiting for the demonstrators at De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, was pushed to the ground and called a 'f****** terrorist' for wearing a keffiyeh, while a Jewish man, whose father escaped the Holocaust, was repeatedly called a Nazi by Israel supporters. Both incidents were reported to Sussex Police after the walk on July 20. On Sunday, roughly 100 protesters ran a second fundraising walk from Hastings beach along the coast to Bexhill 'in defiance' of the abuse. Grace Lally, who helped set up the group and campaigned for the town to twin with Al-Mawasi, believes there is a 'clear link' between the Government action and the abuse. She said: 'Those extremists have been empowered by a Government that says, people supporting Palestine are terrorists, d'you know what I mean?' Ms Lally added: 'The reason it's being challenged in the court and the reason the court has given permission for a judicial review to be held is because of the chilling effect of that ruling which blurs the line between protest and terrorism.' She said it did not matter that the Government had only proscribed Palestine Action rather than all protesters. 'That (the decision) I think has emboldened people on the far-right, extremists, to sort of see anyone who's supporting Palestine as a legitimate target,' Ms Lally said. On Saturday, more than 500 people were arrested in central London for showing support for Palestine Action. Richard Wistreich, a member of Jews for Justice Hastings, was one of the demonstrators who faced abuse in the July fundraising march. He told the PA news agency that cars had parked on their route to Bexhill, with a couple of people waving Israeli flags and shouting abuse as the protesters passed by. Mr Wistreich, whose father escaped Poland in the late 1930s, said: 'At one point one of them got out of the car and saw my T-shirt, which made it quite clear that I am proclaiming myself to be Jewish. 'So I was then very loudly told that I was not a Jew and in fact I was a Nazi, in a very, very aggressive manner.' The woman wearing the keffiyeh, who wishes to remain anonymous, said a man approached her on the pavilion aggressively and said 'that scarf', which she ignored. She said: 'I wasn't responding to him at all because he looked so angry and then he went 'you're a f****** terrorist' and then he proceeded to grab the scarf and pull me close to him.' The woman said she tried to get his hands off her, but he pushed her to the ground and she hit her head, before two people intervened and pulled the man off her. On Sunday afternoon, the protesters were wary of further incidents but bolstered by much greater numbers, and the vast majority of passers-by seemed supportive. A few made comments which the protesters ignored. Before the walk, Green Party councillor Yunis Smith said: 'We may see some people trying to antagonise us, cause issues, trying to be abusive, aggressive, offensive, let's remember the strength, perseverance and patience that our Palestinian brothers and sisters have when we face this.' When links between the towns were first set up in 2022, Al-Mawasi, located in western Khan Younis, was a rural farming and fishing town with a population of 12,000. According to the United Nations, there were 425,000 displaced Palestinians living in the area as of June 19, and the protesters said the figure is now closer to 600,000. Israel is obliged under international humanitarian law to ensure adequate and safe shelter for internally displaced people, as well as access to food, water, and medical care, until they can return to their homes. A United Nations report released in June said that Israel had not made 'any effort' to comply with those laws since its offensive began. 'I can't understand how anybody, regardless of your political persuasion, can see this level of injustice and not break inside, I just don't, I don't get it,' said councillor Smith. Ms Lally said it was 'bittersweet' to have the council finally twin with Al-Mawasi given the devastation in the area, but still felt it was a positive step. 'Palestine is made up of communities of people and those people, they're not going away, they will rebuild, this will end, there will be a future for them and twinning sort of is just a testament to that,' she said.
The Independent
23 minutes ago
- The Independent
Russians crow over Trump-Putin summit being held in Alaska: ‘Makes the US an Arctic nation'
It's the first time that a Russian leader has been invited to American soil outside of the United Nations since 2007, and comes without the Kremlin having made any apparent concessions amid its war of aggression in Ukraine. Just days before the summit was announced, Trump was sharing his anger at Putin's consistent bombing of Ukraine and threatened to increase sanctions on Russia. The sudden decision to meet with the Russian leader prompted European and Ukrainian officials to scramble to respond to the new arrangement. One of the top interlocutors between the Kremlin and the Trump administration is Russia's special economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who argued that the decision to have the meeting in Alaska was symbolically significant. The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, roughly two cents per acre. 'Born as Russian America — Orthodox roots, forts, fur trade — Alaska echoes those ties and makes the U.S. an Arctic nation,' he said on X. Konstantin Malofeyev is a billionaire who the Obama administration sanctioned for funding separatists in Ukraine backed by the Kremlin and interfering in elections in a number of countries. He claimed Alaskans 'respectfully remember their Russian past and their Orthodox present.' Alexander Kots, a war correspondent supportive of the Kremlin, said in his Telegram channel that 'The meeting in Alaska has every chance to become historic.' 'That is, of course, if the West does not try to pull off another scheme,' he added. Meanwhile, analysts in the West urged caution. Michael McFaul served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration. 'Trump has chosen to host Putin in a part of the former Russian Empire,' he said on X. 'Wonder if he knows that Russian nationalists claim that losing Alaska, like Ukraine, was a raw deal for Moscow that needs to be corrected.' 'The symbolism of holding the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska is horrendous — as though designed to demonstrate that borders can change, land can be bought and sold,' said King's College London Russian Politics professor Sam Greene, according to The Washington Post. 'Never mind that mainstream Russian discourse maintains a claim that Alaska should be returned to Russia.' While Czar Alexander II offered up Alaska for sale, Putin has taken Ukrainian territory by force via the unlawful annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent full-scale invasion of the country in 2022, when he illegally claimed to annex four regions of Ukraine. Russia analysts told The Post that it's unlikely that the Kremlin has left behind any of its goals for Ukraine, such as demilitarization, the replacement of the current regime with a pro-Russia one, and for Ukraine not to join NATO. A senior fellow with the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, Tatiana Stanovaya, said Trump 'didn't want to fall into confrontation with Russia.' 'Trump himself said that further sanctions probably wouldn't force Putin to change his mind. We could see from these signals that Trump could be open to a new attempt, and he did so just days before the end of his ultimatum,' Stanovaya added. The deputy head of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Janis Kluge, told The Post that Putin's proposal is 'part of the war.' 'It's just a temporary ceasefire in exchange for land,' said Kluge. 'It is meant to give Putin an advantage in the longer run against Ukraine and the West.' A former top Kremlin official told the paper that Russia appeared willing to compromise, as it indicated that it was ready for a ceasefire. 'Politically, it is easier [for the Kremlin] to continue the war until Ukraine's final collapse than to make peace,' the anonymous official said. 'This is why they are clinging on to the idea that there needs to be a temporary but not permanent truce — and then in the meantime [Ukrainian] elections can be conducted.' While the Kremlin has pushed for a friendly regime in Kyiv, Ukrainians have often demonstrated their wish for free and fair elections and a democratic future as part of the European Union. Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov said, 'Russian troops are not going to make any step backward,' as part of a deal to reach a ceasefire. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that he wouldn't agree to any deal that included handing over territory to Russia, saying Ukraine's constitution prohibited it. 'There are no guarantees,' Markov added, according to The Post. 'But there are also no guarantees that Ukraine won't begin the war again.' He went on to say that Russia's top goal during the summit was to paint Europe and Ukraine as impediments to Trump's dream of achieving a peace deal. 'Russia hopes that Trump will finally become sensible and see that Zelensky is the main reason for the war that is happening now, and that the second reason for the war is European leaders … and that they are his enemies too,' said Markov, adding that Trump will realze that 'Putin is one of his few good political friends.'
Times
24 minutes ago
- Times
Ignorant government plans to tax bookies more could destroy racing
Tax the bookmakers more. It's a policy sure to garner public support, isn't it? The problem is not the idea of taxing the betting industry at a higher level, it is the way that the government is proposing to do it. It is not far-fetched to say that the changes, if introduced in the autumn statement, could be the death knell for horse racing in Britain. The government needs cash and the bookmakers are a soft target. The idea is to harmonise tax on bookmakers' profits on all their income streams. At the moment there is a division between tax paid on online casino profits (21 per cent goes to the government) and sports/racing betting (paid at 15 per cent). The suggestion is to charge 21 per cent across the board. There are exceptions, such as George Freeman (Conservative, Mid Norfolk) and Sally Jameson (Labour, Doncaster Central), but many MPs do not appear to understand the differences between betting on sports, which involves an element of skill, compared with casino betting, where bookmakers cannot lose. They also appear to be oblivious of the damage it will do to the racing industry, which provides jobs for 85,000 people. A further 10 per cent of bookmakers' profits from bets placed on horse racing are paid back to the sport. This levy came into force when betting shops were legalised in 1961 as a means to help fund the sport. It was introduced to combat the fact that fewer people would go racing once off-course betting was permitted, while also recognising the symbiotic relationship of the racing and betting industries. As a result, though, betting on racing is less profitable for bookmakers, making them keen to push punters towards higher-margin products, with online casinos being top of their list. The reason that racing will be badly hit by the proposed tax changes is that it will make bookmakers even less keen to promote betting on the sport, which provides the lifeblood of the industry. Modelling commissioned by the British Horseracing Authority suggested that increasing tax on betting on racing to 21 per cent, to level it up with betting on online casinos, would cost the sport £66million a year in lost income from levy, media rights and sponsorship. That would be ruinous for a sport that is already struggling. A hike in tax on online casino betting would make more sense and could generate the same level of revenue for the government. There is zero skill in betting on online casinos — bookmakers take a fixed margin, set by themselves, on a product on which they literally cannot lose in the long run. A higher level of tax on online casinos would have the added bonus of discouraging bookmakers from promoting a product that causes the majority of problem gambling. The Gambling Commission has already inflicted damage to racing's finances. In 2023 it produced a white paper suggesting that bookmakers should 'check for financial vulnerability' if a gambler lost either £125 in a month or £500 in a year. Bookmakers saw the proposals and, keen to avoid being hit with large fines, started making intrusive checks on their customers' financial situations to the extent that many punters now use offshore gambling companies that provide no income for racing or the government purse. The latter point is not hearsay — betting on racing has dropped 16 per cent in three years and polling carried out by YouGov for the Betting and Gaming Council recently found that 14 per cent of punters admitted to gambling on a black-market site. The public, many of whom are only cognisant of the biggest events, will perhaps believe that racing is a wealthy sport that can well afford the hit. That is a misconception. Flat racing in Britain has been kept competitive at an international level by the largesse of wealthy foreign owners, primarily from the Middle East. Even so, it is struggling at the top end, with prize money that compares badly with other leading racing nations. Much of the best bloodstock that is bred in Britain has been heading overseas for some time and it is now approaching a tipping point where British breeders will not be able to compete with similar operations abroad. Prize money at the bottom level is so poor that a horse can win eight races in a year and still not cover its costs. The vast majority of trainers and jockeys are struggling to make a living. The effects of overtaxing racing can be seen from recent events in India. In 2017 the government introduced a goods and services tax on money bet on racing at a rate of 28 per cent. Punters paid the price and as their returns dwindled many turned to illegal bookmakers who paid no tax. Government revenues from racing more than halved in five years. British racing has been revered throughout the world for decades. Its history has maintained its place in the minds of leading owners but the point is fast approaching where that is no longer the case. If the sport is to continue to provide work for so many, and continue to attract inward investment to the UK, the government needs to rethink its proposed tax changes.
