Russian air defences shoot down four drones headed for Moscow, mayor says
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said emergency services were working at the sites of the downed drones, but gave no information on potential damage.
The Defence Ministry said 94 drones had been destroyed over Russia overnight on Saturday and 45 more between 0800 MSK (0400 GMT) and 1350 MSK.
Outgoing flights at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport were temporarily paused on Saturday before they were later lifted, Russia's Rosaviatsia aviation authority said, citing "restrictions" over the capital's airspace as well as strong winds.
Rosaviatsia said incoming and outgoing flights at airports in several other Russian cities were also temporarily halted, including at St Petersburg's Pulkovo airport, citing safety concerns.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
The UN is our best defence against a third world war. As Trump wields the axe, who will fight to save it?
The United Nations and its agencies have long struggled with funding shortfalls. Now an entrenched problem is becoming an acute crisis in the shadow of Donald Trump's executioner's axe. The US is the biggest contributor, at 22%, to the UN's core budget. In February, the White House announced a six-month review of US membership of all international organisations, conventions and treaties, including the UN, with a view to reducing or ending funding – and possible withdrawal. The deadline for decapitation falls next month. Trump's abolition of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and scrapping of most aid programmes, has already badly damaged UN-led and UN-backed humanitarian operations, which rely on discretionary funding. Yet Trump's axe symbolises a more fundamental threat – to multilateralism and the much-battered international rules-based order. The basic concept of collective responsibility for maintaining global peace and security, and collaboration in tackling shared problems – embodied by the UN since its creation 80 years ago last week – is on the chopping block. The stakes are high – and Washington is not the only villain. Like the US, about 40 countries are behind in paying obligatory yearly dues. Discretionary donations are declining. The UN charter, a statement of founding principles, has been critically undermined by failure to halt Russia's illegal war of aggression in Ukraine (and by last month's US-Israeli attack on Iran). China and others, including the UK, ignore international law when it suits. The number and longevity of conflicts worldwide is rising; UN envoys are sidelined; UN peacekeeping missions are disparaged. The security council is often paralysed by vetoes; the general assembly is largely powerless. By many measures, the UN isn't working. A crunch looms. If the UN is allowed to fail or is so diminished that its agencies cannot fully function, there is nothing to take its place. Nothing, that is, except the law of the jungle, as seen in Gaza and other conflict zones where UN agencies are excluded, aid workers murdered and legal norms flouted. The UN system has many failings, some self-inflicted. But a world without the UN would, for most people in most places, be more dangerous, hungrier, poorer, unhealthier and less sustainable. The US is not expected to withdraw from the UN altogether (although nothing is impossible with this isolationist, ultra-nationalist president). But Trump's hostile intent is evident. His 2026 budget proposal seeks a 83.7% cut – from $58.7bn to $9.6bn – in all US international spending. That includes an 87% reduction in UN funding, both obligatory and discretionary. 'In 2023, total US spending on the UN amounted to about $13bn. This is equivalent to only 1.6% of the Pentagon's budget that year ($816bn) – or about two-thirds of what Americans spend on ice-cream annually,' Stewart Patrick of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted. Economic development aid, disaster relief and family planning programmes would be gutted. The impact is potentially world-changing. Key UN agencies in the firing line include the children's fund, Unicef – at a time when the risks facing infants and children are daunting; the World Food Programme (WFP), which could lose 30% of its staff; agencies handling refugees and migration, which are also shrinking; the International court of justice (the 'world court'), which has shone a light on Israel's illegal actions in Gaza; and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran's and others' nuclear activities. Trump is already boycotting the World Health Organization, the Palestinian relief agency (Unrwa) and the UN Human Rights Council, and has rescinded $4bn allocated to the UN climate fund, claiming that all act contrary to US interests. If his budget is adopted this autumn, the UN's 2030 sustainable development goals may prove unattainable. US financial backing for international peacekeeping and observer missions in trouble spots such as Lebanon, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kosovo, currently 26% of total spending, will plunge to zero. The withdrawal of USAID support is already proving lethal, everywhere from Somalia and Sudan to Bangladesh and Haiti. UN officials describe the situation in post-earthquake, conflict-riven, aid-deprived Myanamar as a 'humanitarian catastrophe'. Research published in the Lancet found that Trump's cuts could cause more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, a third of them children. The WFP, the world's largest food aid supplier, says its projected $8.1bn funding deficit this year comes as acute hunger affects a record 343 million people in 74 countries. And other donor states are failing to fill the gap left by the US. So far in 2025, only 11% of the $46.2bn required for 44 UN-prioritised crises has been raised. The UK recently slashed its aid budget by £6bn, to pay for nuclear bombs. UN chiefs acknowledge that many problems pre-date Trump. António Guterres, the secretary general, has initiated thousands of job cuts as part of the 'UN80' reform plan to consolidate operations and reduce the core budget by up to 20%. But, marking the anniversary, Guterres said the gravest challenge is the destructive attitude of member states that sabotage multilateral cooperation, break the rules, fail to pay their share and forget why the UN was founded in the first place. 'The charter of the United Nations is not optional. It is not an à la carte menu. It is the bedrock of international relations,' he said. Guterres says the UN's greatest achievement since 1945 is preventing a third world war. Yet respected analysts such as Fiona Hill believe it's already begun. The UK and other democracies face some pressing questions. Will they meekly give in to Trump once again? Or will they fight to stop this renegade president and rogue states such as Russia and Israel dismantling the world's best defence against global anarchy, forever wars and needless suffering? Will they fight to save the UN? Simon Tisdall is a Guardian columnist
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Russia downs 120 Ukrainian drones overnight, Defence Ministry says
MOSCOW, July 6 (Reuters) - Russia's anti-aircraft systems downed 120 Ukrainian drones overnight, mostly in regions bordering Ukraine, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday, reporting no damage. More than three years into the war, Ukraine has increasingly been using drones to attack targets deep inside Russia. The Defence Ministry said the drones that were intercepted overnight included 30 over the western Bryansk region, 29 in the Kursk region and 17 in Belgorod - all of which share a border with Ukraine. Another 18 drones were downed over the Oryol region, which borders Kursk and has been hit by previous Ukrainian drone attacks targeting oil facilities. Russia's civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, said it had lifted restrictions that were introduced overnight to ensure safety due to the drones at airports in St. Petersburg, Kaluga, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
World War III will start with simultaneous Xi and Putin invasions taking the globe to the brink of Armageddon, warns NATO chief Mark Rutte
NATO chief Mark Rutte has chillingly warned that World War II will start with simultaneous invasions from Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Secretary-general Rutte suggested the combined attacks from the Chinese and Russian leaders could trigger a World War nightmare and bring the planet to the brink of Armageddon. According to the NATO chief, China would start by seeking to grab Taiwan - while ensuring the Kremlin dictator simultaneously attacks NATO territory, amid fears Putin is anyway eyeing the Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, formerly part of the USSR. Russia today hit back at ex-Netherlands premier Rutte, claiming he had 'gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch ', while warning he should look forward to a future in a hellish Siberian labour camp. Stressing the urgent need to re-arm and boost military budgets, Rutte told the New York Times in a chilling vision of the future: 'Let's not be naïve about this. 'If Xi Jinping would attack Taiwan, he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, residing in Moscow, and telling him, "Hey, I'm going to do this, and I need you to to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory". 'That is most likely the way this will progress, and to deter them, we need to do two things' he added. Continuing his terrifying account, Rutte said: 'One is that NATO, collectively, being so strong that the Russians will never do this. 'And second, working together with the Indo-Pacific - something President [Donald] Trump is very much promoting, because we have this close interconnectedness, working together on defence industry, innovation between NATO and the Indo-Pacific.' Rutte warned that Putin is rearming at a fast pace, insisting that Western countries must increase defence spending. 'We have an enormous geopolitical challenge on our hands,' he said. 'And that is first of all Russia, which is reconstituting itself at a pace and a speed which is unparalleled in recent history. 'They are now producing three times as much ammunition in three months as the whole of NATO is doing in a year. 'This is unsustainable, but the Russians are working together with the North Koreans, with the Chinese and Iranians, the mullahs, in fighting this unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine. 'So here, the Indo-Pacific and your Atlantic are getting more and more interconnected. We know that China has its eye on Taiwan.' Senior Putin security official Dmitry Medvedev - a former Russian president and ex-premier - lashed out on X: 'Rutte has clearly gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch. 'He sees collusion between China & Russia over Taiwan, and then a Russian attack on Europe. 'But he's right about one thing: he should learn Russian. It might come in handy in a Siberian camp.' The warnings came as Russia continued its onslaught on Ukraine - days after Putin informed Trump by telephone that he had no intention of halting his war of invasion. Two multi-story buildings were damaged in the Vyshhorod district, the fire destroyed four garage premises and a car, and three more cars were damaged Putin pummelled Ukraine with four S-300 missiles and 157 drones, with 127 of the UAVs shot down or suppressed by electronic warfare. Explosions hit Kyiv and the surrounding region, with multiple people wounded and residential buildings damaged. In Ukraine's second city Kharkiv, a two year old child and a woman, 46, were among those hurt as Putin continued to terrorise civilians, seeking to weaken the population's resolve. The Russians also hit Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. Apartment buildings were also hit in Kramatorsk in drone strikes. Ukraine hit back with an attack sea drone seen being destroyed by Russian defences in Novorossiysk Bay in the Black Sea. Moscow was forced to close its major international airport Sheremetyevo due to the threat of drones. Rutte praised Trump for seeking to make progress with Putin. 'He is the one who broke the deadlock with Putin. When he became president in January, he started these discussions with Putin, and he was the only one who was able to do this,' said the NATO chief. 'This had to happen. A direct dialogue between the American president and the president of the Russian Federation.' Yet this had not yet resulted in a peace deal. 'We are not there yet, and that means that in the meantime you have to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to stay in the fight.'
