Another 39 people rescued and brought to shore after incident on vessel at Red Sea resort
Six Russian tourists have died and 39 people have been rescued after a submarine sank near the resort of Hurghada, the latest in a series of fatal accidents involving tourists on Egypt’s Red Sea coast.
Four survivors, including at least one child, were admitted to intensive care, according to an official statement.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president says drone attacks just hours after ceasefire talks were ‘a clear signal to the whole world’
Ukraine’s president has accused Russia of being insincere about making peace as he reported an attack by 117 drones, before he headed to Paris for a discussion with EU and Nato leaders about establishing a post-conflict security force.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that launching nationwide strikes after negotiations over maritime and energy ceasefires was proof of Russia’s true intentions, though the Kremlin insisted the US-brokered talks were proceeding constructively.
Continue reading...A moratorium on attacks on ships in the Black Sea seems to be contingent on sanctions relief – a key Kremlin demand
The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.
Continue reading...Ukrainian officials say 88 injured in missile strike as US and Russian officials start talks on ceasefire deal
Ukraine has accused Moscow of making “hollow statements about peace” after 88 people were injured in a Russian missile attack as US and Russian officials began talks that Washington hopes will mark the first step toward lasting peace.
Seventeen children were among the casualties after the missile hit schools and residential buildings in the city of Sumy, Ukrainian officials said late on Monday, as Moscow appeared to be exploiting the window before any ceasefire to launch attacks on Ukraine.
Continue reading...Employees who may have to return home risk death or imprisonment at hands of authoritarian governments
Foreign workers at US government-backed media outlets being cut by the Trump administration say they face deportation to their home countries, where some risk imprisonment or death at the hands of authoritarian governments.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration moved to defund the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent federal agency that oversees the Voice of America (VoA), the US’s largest and oldest international broadcaster, and provides grants to Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other news agencies. The agency had around 3,500 employees with an annual budget of $886m in 2024.
Continue reading...Uncertainty remains over how and when 30-day halt on energy strikes would take effect amid a gulf on expectations
US and Russian officials have begun talks in Saudi Arabia as Donald Trump pushes to broker a limited ceasefire that Washington hopes will mark the first step toward lasting peace in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia have agreed in principle to a one-month halt on strikes on energy infrastructure after Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders last week. But uncertainty remains over how and when the partial ceasefire would take effect – and whether its scope would extend beyond energy infrastructure to include other critical sites, such as hospitals, bridges, and vital utilities.
Continue reading...Washington expresses optimism with latest round of negotiations beginning in Riyadh a day after Kyiv said it had ‘constructive’ US talks
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) say they have destroyed four Russian military helicopters in Russian border region of Belgorod using US-made Himars missiles with cluster munitions.
The SSO said, in a post on X, that two Ka-52 strike helicopters and two Mi-8 transport helicopters were concealed in a “hidden position” used for “rapid redeployment or attacks against Ukraine”.
Continue reading...As Washington signals hope for ‘real progress’, Moscow warns ‘difficult negotiations’ lie ahead
US and Ukrainian officials have met for further talks aimed at hammering out a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, with Washington signalling its hope for “real progress” even as Moscow warned that “difficult negotiations” lie ahead.
The gulf in expectations marked the start of the latest round of negotiations in Saudi Arabia, which was set to follow with a meeting between American officials and Russia on Monday. The US is pushing for a broad ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine by 20 April, according to Bloomberg, though sources said the timeline may slip given the wide gap that exists between Kyiv and Moscow’s positions.
Continue reading...Soviet spy defected to Britain from Moscow under threat of exposure after supplying information to MI6 and MI5
Oleg Gordievsky, the UK’s most significant cold war double agent inside the KGB, has died at his home in Surrey aged 86.
Gordievsky, who would eventually defect to Britain from Moscow under threat of exposure, was considered a key agent operating for the UK’s intelligence services working within the Soviet Union.
Continue reading...Intensive talks to take place next week on detail and structure of any British deployments if ceasefire deal reached
The UK is to “accelerate the pace and scale” of its military planning to be ready to support Ukraine, with No 10 saying all options, including troops on the ground, are possible.
Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said thousands of troops would be needed to support Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire and agreement to end the war with Russia, whether by “sea, on land or in the air”.
Continue reading...Amid uncertainty as to when part-ceasefire will take effect, Kremlin says it will cover only ‘energy infrastructure’
Waves of Russian drones pounded the Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, setting it ablaze in an attack that underscored Moscow’s intent to continue aerial assaults despite agreeing to a temporary pause in strikes on energy infrastructure.
Videos circulating on social media showed fires erupting in several parts of Odesa.
Continue reading...Alexander Skobov jailed for 16 years over social media post and alleged involvement in opposition group
A Soviet-era dissident has been sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia for his anti-war views, in a case that observers say highlights how the country’s repression now exceeds even parts of the Soviet period.
Alexander Skobov, a 67-year-old lifelong dissident, was sentenced on Friday by a military court in St Petersburg over a social media post supporting Ukraine’s 2022 strike on the Crimea Bridge, as well as his alleged involvement with the foreign-based opposition group the Free Russia Forum.
Continue reading...US president’s plan for American firms to run power plants is unrealistic and is opposed by Putin and Zelenskyy
As a demand, it is Donald Trump at his most confusing. The American president appears, at least according to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, to have told Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday that “American ownership” of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants would be their best protection in future – although the Ukrainian president said on Thursday that “the issue of property, we did not discuss”.
Of the four, the most significant, and the one that Trump has repeatedly referred to in the past week, is the vast, six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. It is Europe’s biggest nuclear generator, located on the southern bank of the Dnipro River. Before the full-scale Russian invasion it produced about 20% of the country’s electricity but it is now on the frontline of Europe’s largest war since 1945.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president says his country is ready to implement pause in strikes on energy and infrastructure
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a “very good telephone call” on Wednesday, according to Trump, in the first conversation between the US president and his Ukrainian counterpart since their disastrous showdown in the White House three weeks ago.
Zelenskyy described the call as “positive, very substantive and frank”, and said he had signed up to a partial ceasefire that Trump agreed with Vladimir Putin a day earlier. The White House said Trump had promised to help with a Ukrainian request to source more air defence batteries for Kyiv.
Continue reading...EU launches scheme to buy more weapons in Europe as Russia remains ‘a threat for the foreseeable future’
Europe needs to be able to deter potential invaders by 2030, the EU executive has said as it launched a push to buy more weapons in the bloc and from allied countries, rather than from the US.
The UK, US and Turkey will be excluded from defence contracts funded by a €150bn (£125bn) EU loans programme, unless they sign a security and defence partnership agreement with the EU.
Continue reading...The extraordinary demands of the Russian leader to weaken Ukraine would make a mockery of any peace deal
Donald Trump began his conversation with Vladimir Putin with a simple demand: a 30-day ceasefire on land, sea and air which Ukraine has already signed up to, as an initial measure on which to build towards a peace.
Instead, what the US president got from Putin were questions, half-offers and limited concessions – and, above all, an extraordinary demand from the Russian leader to weaken Ukraine that would make a mockery of any peace agreement.
Continue reading...Kaja Kallas says the bloc cannot automatically fill the gap left by the US
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, expressed disappointment over US funding cuts to Radio Free Europe and said the EU could not automatically fill the gap.
The US Agency for Global Media stopped grants over the weekend to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which was founded during the cold war and broadcasts to 23 countries, including Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Iran and Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Trump says negotiators have already discussed ‘dividing up certain assets’ and that he will talk to Putin on Tuesday
Donald Trump is to speak to Vladimir Putin on Tuesday after the Russian president last week responded to a US-brokered plan for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine with a series of sweeping conditions he said would need to be met.
The Kremlin confirmed on Monday that the two leaders were due to speak on Tuesday by phone, after Trump’s statement that he planned to discuss with Putin ending the war in Ukraine. The US president also said that negotiators had already talked about “dividing up certain assets”, including power stations.
Continue reading...Russia and allies were target of International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine
The Trump administration is withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine in the latest sign that the White House is adopting a posture favouring Vladimir Putin.
The Department of Justice said it was pulling out of the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA) two years after the Biden administration joined it with a commitment to hold Putin, Russia’s president, to account for the 2022 invasion and subsequent crimes committed by Russian forces.
Continue reading...French president says France, UK and others could each deploy ‘a few thousand troops’ to key locations to show Ukraine ‘long-term support’
Emmanuel Macron has said France, the UK, and other nations providing security guarantees for Ukraine after any eventual ceasefire would not be aiming to deploy a “mass” of soldiers, but instead could send contingents of several thousand troops to key locations in Ukraine without needing Russia’s permission.
The French president told regional French newspapers, including Le Parisien and La Dépêche de Midi, that “several European countries, and indeed non-European ones” had “expressed their willingness” to join a possible deployment to Ukraine to secure a future peace agreement with Russia.
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