Author: Daily Sabah With Reuters
North Korea is providing 50% of Russia’s ammunition needs at the front in its war against Ukraine, Kyiv’s military spy chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Sunday. North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to support Russian forces, according to Ukrainian, U.S. and South Korean assessments, Pyongyang’s first major involvement in a war since the 1950s. Budanov told a press conference that North Korea had also begun large scale supplies of 170-mm self-propelled howitzers and 240-mm multiple rocket launch systems to Russia. North Korea has already supplied Russia with ballistic missiles as well, and in 2025 it plans to send 148,…
An American Airlines flight from New York to New Delhi was forced to land in Italy due to a bomb threat, the Flight Emergency site and airport sources said on Sunday. “American flight AA292 will divert to Rome en route to Delhi due to a bomb threat,” Flight Emergency, a flight-tracking account, posted on X. The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner flight with about 200 people onboard landed at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci airport at about 16:20 GMT, according to airport sources. The plane was over the Caspian Sea when the airline warned the crew of a bomb threat, sources added. A…
Pope Francis “is more unwell than yesterday”, the Vatican said in a statement on Saturday, adding that he had suffered a “prolonged asthma-like respiratory crisis” earlier in the day. The Vatican statement said the pope, who is being treated in hospital for double pneumonia, was alert, but added that the prognosis for him “remains guarded”.
The United States wants the U.N. Security Council to vote on a brief draft resolution marking the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Monday before the 193-member General Assembly votes on the same text, diplomats said on Saturday. The U.S. move at the U.N. pits it against Ukraine and the European Union, who have for the past month been negotiating with U.N. member states on their own draft text on the war, which is due to be voted on by the General Assembly on Monday. On Thursday, Reuters reported that the U.S. had declined to co-sponsor the text…
A second meeting between representatives of Russia and the United States is planned for the next two weeks, the RIA state news agency reported on Saturday, citing Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Moscow and Washington held their first talks on ending the nearly three-year war in Ukraine on Tuesday, aimed at restoring relations and preparing to conclude the conflict. The meeting will take place in a third country and the specific location is being agreed upon, Ryabkov told RIA in an interview, without naming who would attend from the Russian or American sides. Ryabkov said there was “principled agreement”…
Ukraine needs to rein in criticism of the United States, which is trying to secure a peace deal acceptable to all sides, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said Thursday in an interview. “They need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal,” Waltz told Fox News, referring to a critical minerals deal with Washington. At the same time, Waltz said he believed U.S. differences with Ukraine could be reconciled.
The Trump administration said on Wednesday it was rescinding federal approval of New York City’s congestion pricing program that is designed to reduce traffic and raise money to upgrade aging subway and bus systems. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the move will halt a program that “leaves drivers without any free highway alternative, and instead, takes more money from working people to pay for a transit system and not highways.” Under the program, which launched on January 5, most passenger vehicles are charged $9 during peak periods to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. Trucks and buses pay up…
The head of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency, Kyrylo Budanov, believes a ceasefire in the war with Russia could happen this year. “I think it is going to happen. There are most of the components for it to happen,” Budanov said in a YouTube interview with journalist Eynulla Fatullayev. He gave no details. Ukrainian officials largely dismiss the idea of a ceasefire, warning it will only give Russia time to rearm and prepare for further aggression. “How long it will be, how effective it will be – is another question,” Budanov added. Discussions about a possible ceasefire intensified after Donald…
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Wednesday that a Ukrainian drone attack on the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pumping station in southern Russia might have been coordinated with its Western allies. Putin said that he believed Ukraine could not have organised such an attack on its own and was likely provided with Western intelligence. “Attacks of this kind are impossible without space reconnaissance. Ukraine receives high-precision data on the targets only from its Western allies,” Putin said. A drone strike hit a pumping station on the oil pipeline in Russia on Monday, reducing flows from Kazakhstan to world markets pumped…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that he was counting on unity and courage from his compatriots and pragmatism from the United States. “We are standing strong on our own two feet. I am counting on Ukrainian unity, our courage…on the unity of Europe and the pragmatism of America,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. He said it was important that the current visit to Ukraine by the U.S. envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, be “constructive”.