Russia "more inclined" to reach ceasefire, Ukraine says
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News.com.au
25 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Ukraine, European leaders counter Russian ceasefire plan ahead of Trump and Putin meeting
European officials have rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's demands that Ukraine give up its territories annexed during his war, pushing their own proposal instead. The counteroffer demands rock-solid security guarantees for Kyiv, including NATO membership, before any territorial concessions, European officials familiar with the talks told the Wall Street Journal. The European plan – put forward by the UK, France, Germany and Ukraine — also proposes that any land exchange must be reciprocal. If Ukraine gives up some regions, Russia must pull out of others, The NY Post reports. And a ceasefire agreement would need to be reached before any other steps are taken. President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday that Ukraine won't surrender land to Russia to buy peace. 'It is truly important that the Russians do not succeed in deceiving anyone again,' Mr Zelensky said after a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, without elaborating further. The proposal was presented Saturday in the UK to senior US officials that included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mr Trump's Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg and Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. The deal is meant to serve as a framework for n 'The future of Ukraine cannot be decided without the Ukrainians who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now,' French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X. Announcing the summit on Friday, Mr Trump said that 'there'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both' Ukraine and Russia, without providing further details. 'Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,' Mr Zelensky said on social media hours later. 'Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace. They will achieve nothing,' he said, adding that the war 'cannot be ended without us, without Ukraine'.
News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Russia cautious on Armenia-Azerbaijan deal, Iran reject border corridor
Russia cautiously welcomed a US-brokered draft deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Saturday, but Moscow's regional ally Iran rejected the idea of a new border corridor backed by President Donald Trump. The two former Soviet republics signed a peace deal in Washington on Friday to end a decades-long conflict, though the fine print and binding nature of the deal remained unclear. The US-brokered agreement includes establishing a transit corridor through Armenia to connect Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, a longstanding demand of Baku. The United States would have development rights for the corridor -- dubbed the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity" -- in the strategic and resource-rich region. But Russia's ally and the warring parties' southern neighbour Tehran said it would not allow the creation of a such a corridor running along the Iranian border. "With the implementation of this plot, the security of the South Caucasus will be endangered," Akbar Velayati, an advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the Tasnim news agency. The planned corridor was "an impossible notion and will not happen", while the area would become "a graveyard for Trump's mercenaries", he added. In a similar tone, Moscow said it would "further analyze" the corridor clause, noting there were trilateral agreements in place between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, from which no one had yet withdrawn. "It should not be ignored that Armenia's border with Iran is guarded by Russian border guards," said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Moscow, previously a key backer of Armenia, still has a military base there. Embroiled in its Ukraine operation, launched in 2022, it did not intervene in the latest conflict. This has strained the historically warm ties between Yerevan and Moscow, home to a large and influential Armenian diaspora, triggering Armenia's drift towards the West. - Waning influence - Christian-majority Armenia and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan went to war twice over their border and the status of ethnic enclaves within each other's territories. Moscow, once the main power broker in the Caucasus, is now bogged down in its more than three-year offensive in Ukraine, diverting political and military resources into the grinding conflict of attrition. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan praised the US efforts in settling the conflict. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev even said he would back President Donald Trump's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. The US-led NATO alliance welcomed the deal as a "significant step forward". But in Moscow, Zakharova refrained from even calling it a deal, referring to it merely as "the meeting of the leaders of the South Caucasus republics in Washington" -- adding, however, that it still deserved "a positive assessment". - Repackaging for Trump? - Analysts also sounded a note of caution, with the International Crisis Group pointing out that the deal left "a lot of questions unanswered". The two countries went to war twice over the disputed Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan recaptured from Armenian forces in a lightning 2023 offensive, sparking the exodus of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed on the text of a comprehensive peace deal in March. Much of the White House agreement was a "repackaging" of that, which helped both countries get on Trump's good side "by giving him a role," the Crisis Group's senior South Caucasus analyst Joshua Kucera said. Azerbaijan later added a host of demands to that March deal, including amendments to Armenia's constitution to drop territorial claims for Karabakh, before signing the document. Pashinyan has announced plans for a constitutional referendum in 2027, but the issue remains deeply divisive among Armenians, with Kucera warning that this could yet derail the process. Kucera called the corridor "one potentially significant development" from the White House meeting, but added that missing key details could prove "serious stumbling blocks". The US-brokered deal was "definitely a testament to the fact that Russia has been losing its influence" as its Ukraine operation had "diverted its attention and resources from some other areas of its traditional interest", Olesya Vardanyan, an independent analyst on the South Caucasus, told AFP. Nevertheless, she added, even if many details were still missing and nothing was guaranteed, the deal still gave Armenians "a promise of a better life and then maybe even more peace in the region".
Perth Now
4 hours ago
- Perth Now
Israel cops flak over military expansion in Gaza
International condemnation is growing over Israel's decision for a military takeover of Gaza City, while little appeared to change immediately on the ground in the territory shattered by 22 months of war. The United Nations Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on Sunday morning in New York. Health officials said that 11 Palestinians seeking aid were shot dead, and 11 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the past 24 hours. US special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to meet with Qatar's prime minister in Spain on Saturday to discuss a new proposal to end the war, according to two officials familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mediators Egypt and Qatar are preparing a new ceasefire framework that would include the release of all hostages — dead and alive — in one go in return for the war's end and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, two Arab officials have told The Associated Press. Families of hostages were rallying again on Saturday evening to pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There are fears for the fate of the 50 remaining hostages, with 20 of them thought to be alive and struggling. "The living will be murdered and the fallen will be lost forever," if the offensive goes ahead, said Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held in Gaza. A joint statement by nine countries, including Germany, Britain, France and Canada, said that they "strongly reject" Israel's decision for the large-scale military operation, saying it will worsen the "catastrophic humanitarian situation," endanger hostages and further risk mass displacement. A separate statement by more than 20 countries, including ceasefire mediators Egypt and Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, called Israel's decision a "dangerous and unacceptable escalation". Meanwhile, Russia said Israel's plan will aggravate the "already extremely dramatic situation" in Gaza. And Germany has said it won't authorise any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza until further notice. Officials at Nasser and Awda hospitals said that Israeli forces killed at least 11 people seeking aid in southern and central Gaza. Some had been waiting for aid trucks, while others had been approaching aid distribution points. Israel's military denied opening fire and said that it was unaware of the incidents. The military secures routes leading to distribution sites run by the Israeli-backed and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Two witnesses told the AP that Israeli troops fired toward crowds approaching a GHF distribution site on foot in the Netzarim corridor, a military zone that bisects Gaza. One witness, Ramadan Gaber, said that snipers and tanks fired on aid-seekers, forcing them to retreat. In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, some aid-seekers cheered the latest airdrops of aid. Hundreds of people rushed to grab what they could, though many have called the process degrading. Aid organisations have called airdrops expensive, insufficient and potentially dangerous for people on the ground. Israel's military said that at least 106 packages of aid were airdropped on Saturday as Italy and Greece joined the multi-country effort for the first time. Footage from Italy's defence ministry showed not only packages being parachuted over Gaza but the dry and devastated landscape below. "This way is not for humans, it is for animals," said one man at the scene, Mahmoud Hawila, who said he was stabbed while trying to secure an airdropped package. Barefoot children collected rice, pasta and lentils that had spilled from packages onto the ground.
