Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy praises Trump for trimming Putin deadline by about 25 days
Two weeks had already passed since Trump threatened to act within 50 days, leaving 36 days remaining of the original deadline. The new ultimatum of '10 or 12 days' means the US president has given Putin about 25 fewer days to deliberate. Trump has threatened sanctions on both Russia and buyers of its exports unless progress is made.
On Monday, Trump indicated he was not interested in talking directly to Putin. 'If you know what the answer is going to be, why wait? And it would be sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs,' Trump said. 'I don't want to do that to Russia. I love the Russian people.' Zelenskyy said: 'I thank President Trump for his focus on saving lives and stopping this horrible war … Russia pays attention to sanctions, pays attention to such losses.'
The Russian airline Aeroflot was forced to cancel dozens of flights on Monday after an established pro-Ukraine hacking group said it had carried out a cyber-attack. Dan Milmo reports how departure boards at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport turned red as flights were cancelled at a time when many Russians take their holidays. Irate passengers vented their anger on social media. One wrote: 'I've been sitting at the Volgograd airport since 3:30! The flight has been rescheduled for the third time!' Another posted: 'The call centre is unavailable, the website is unavailable, the app is unavailable.'
A statement purporting to be from a hacking group called Silent Crow said it had carried out the operation with a Belarusian group called Cyber Partisans, and linked it to the war in Ukraine. 'Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!' said the statement. Silent Crow said the cyber-attack was the result of a year-long operation that had deeply penetrated Aeroflot's network, destroyed 7,000 servers and gained control over the personal computers of employers including senior managers. It did not provide evidence. It threatened to shortly start releasing 'the personal data of all Russians who have ever flown Aeroflot'.
Pjotr Sauer meanwhile reports how tens of thousands of passengers have seen their travel plans thrown into chaos in recent weeks, as Ukrainian drones repeatedly disrupt Russian airspace. The systematic Ukrainian campaigns aims to bring the war home to ordinary Russians, many of whom have otherwise experienced it only from their television screens. Pjotr Sauer writes that Ukrainian civilians live under the constant threat of being killed by missiles and drones, and Ukrainian officials have emphasised that life in Russia should not be comfortable for 'a population that, by and large, continues to support the war. The tactic seems to be bearing fruit: regular airport shutdowns and missed holidays have become a major talking point among the Russian public and a growing source of frustration.'
Blackouts took place in parts of Russian-occupied Donetsk during a mass attack by Ukrainian drones on Monday, according to reports. The electricity distributor Donetskenergo said three substations were hit, leaving about 160,000 customers without power. The independent Russian-run Astra Telegram channel said the Donbas Palace Hotel in Donetsk city was also hit.
Ukraine's Sumy region came under Russian attack on Monday into Tuesday evening, local officials reported. A man, 45, was injured by a drone while taking a cow out to pasture in the Krasnopil community, said Oleg Grigorov, head of the Sumy regional administration. A man, 66, was injured when his apartment was shelled. 'At around 5.45pm, the Russians attacked the Burynska community with four attack UAVs. The strike destroyed a local store,' Grigorov said. 'One of the saleswomen was injured – she was promptly provided with medical assistance and her life is not in danger. Damage was also recorded to residential buildings, a cultural centre, non-residential premises and cars.'
The US-German defence company Auterion will provide 33,000 artificial intelligence guidance kits for Ukrainian drones funded by a $50m Pentagon contract. According to the company, the kits enable manually piloted strike drones to autonomously track and hit targets up to a kilometre away – one way of circumventing electronic jamming that can cut a drone off from its operator. 'We have previously shipped thousands of our AI strike systems to Ukraine, but this new deployment increases our support more than tenfold,' said the CEO of Auterion, Lorenz Meier.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Former Trump and Epstein lawyer threatened with arrest over feud with pierogi vendor
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump 's former attorney Alan Dershowitz was threatened with arrest after getting into a spat with a pierogi vendor on Martha's Vineyard. Dershowitz was at the West Tisbury Farmers Market on Wednesday when he claims Good Pierogi declined to sell to him because of his 'politics'. Video of the aftermath showed a police officer threatening to arrest the lawyer for trespassing unless he left the area. 'They couldn't say no blacks, they couldn't say no Jews, and they can't say... no Trump supporters, I'm not a Trump supporter, but they can't say no Trump supporters,' he said to the officer. 'I've been going here for 53 this farmer's market. I have never been refused service,' he added. The two went back and forth for several minutes arguing about the law until the officer said Dershowitz was 'causing a disturbance'. 'I had four people come up to me and say that the gentleman with the blue shirt is causing a disturbance,' the officer said. 'I have multiple reports—' 'But they're wrong,' Dershowitz interrupted. 'I'm not causing a disturbance.' Dershowitz then said he wanted to stay at least 20 feet away from the pierogi stand and encourage people not to patronize them. 'If you do that on the premises you will be asked to leave because you're disrupting the business,' the officer said. Dershowitz tried to insist that he knew the law better than the officer, but the interaction wound down once the officer said he would arrest Dershowitz for trespassing if he stayed at the farmer's market. After some more arguing, Dershowitz agreed to leave. Krem Miskevich is the owner and operator Good Pierogi. Miskevich, who was born in Warsaw, Poland, also runs a catering business on Martha's Vineyard. Dershowitz told Daily Mail that Miskevich was the one who declined to sell him the six pierogi he asked for. 'And he said "no,"' Dershowitz claimed. 'I said "oh, you've run out of pierogi? Too bad." [The vendor allegedly said] "no no no, we have plenty of pierogi. I just won't sell them to you".' Dershowitz said he asked why and Miskevich allegedly replied, 'I won't sell them to you because I don't approve of your politics. I don't approve of who you've represented. I don't approve of who you support.' In a post on X, Dershowitz declared that he would be 'suing' and called the Good Pierogi a 'bigoted vendor'. Daily Mail approached Good Pierogi and Miskevich for comment. 'The clear implication was that he opposed me because I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate,' Dershowitz said. Dershowitz was one of the lawyers who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial in 2020. He was also part of the 'Dream Team' that convinced a jury to acquit O.J. Simpson in his 1995 murder trial. His most controversial past client though was unquestionably Epstein, whom he represented in 2008 when the financier was first formally accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. With the representation of Dershowitz and others, Epstein secured what many have called a lenient plea deal from the Miami US Attorney's Office that led to him only serving 13 months jail. Dershowitz didn't mention Epstein as a reason the pierogi vendor could have turned on him, however, he did claim that the vendor looked at him funny during an earlier visit when he was wearing a T-shirt that said, 'Proud American Zionist'. 'It became evident to me that he opposed my being a Zionist, my support for Israel,' he said. Dershowitz said he informed an official with the farmer's market that he would take 'legal action' against it 'to make sure that they only have booths by people who will sell to everybody, that they don't allow people to have booths on this quasi-public property that discriminate on the basis of race or religion or gender or politics'. He told Daily Mail that he isn't going to have to sue the farmer's market because management told him 'they're probably going to change their bylaws'. 'I don't have to sue. I've won,' he added. Ethan Buchanan-Valenti, the manager of the farmer's market, previously told the Vineyard Gazette that he is in the process of reviewing the bylaws, 'to make sure everyone at the market is always being respected and their rights protected'. A spokesman for the West Tisbury Police Department confirmed to Daily Mail that Dershowitz showed up to Saturday's farmer's market. 'He came by earlier today,' the spokesman said. 'There was no incident he caused. He was not disorderly.' The spokesman added that the Good Pierogi stand was not at the market today, as it usually only makes an appearance on Wednesdays. This is not the first highly public spat that Dershowitz has had with someone on Martha's Vineyard. Back in 2021, he and Larry David — whom he was friends with for 25 years — got into a screaming match at a general store, according to Dershowitz. The comedian was reportedly furious that Dershowitz patted Trump's former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the back, which was first reported by PageSix.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
HAMISH MCRAE: New Trump tariffs spoil the party
Donald Trump has proved a bit of a party pooper. There we were last week, celebrating strong results from Microsoft and other members of the 'magnificent seven' clan, plus some decent figures here from several of our biggest enterprises, and pretty spectacular ones from Rolls-Royce. The S&P 500 and FTSE 100 indexes of leading shares touched all-time highs. Trade negotiations seemed to be plodding along, with a decent deal between the US and the EU, even if businesses on the Continent were upset that it wasn't as good as the agreement that we in the UK got. Then, bang, the full list of tariffs was announced, coming into effect on Thursday for any country that had not closed a trade deal with the US. It includes some beefy figures. Switzerland was stunned to discover that it would be hit by a 39 per cent levy. You may not feel sorry for what is one of the richest countries in the world but it's rough on others. For example, South Africa gets 30 per cent and India 25 per cent. These figures will almost certainly be negotiated down and there are all sorts of exceptions. But meanwhile there is huge disruption. Until the end of last week the view of the markets was that global business was nimble enough to cope. Now they are not so confident. And it isn't only the Swiss enterprises that are being hit; it is also American ones. You see that best in the impact on Amazon. It produced some stunning results on Thursday and the shares were trading around their all-time high, valuing the company at well over $2.5 trillion (£1.9 trillion). Then came the details of the tariffs. Its share price fell by more than 7 per cent. It's silly to read too much into one day's market movement, but it's a useful reminder that Americans are being hit by Trump's trade policy, not just foreigners. We don't know how the cost of the tariffs will be carried. Some may be absorbed by exporters. But they can only do that for a while as we have seen when there are sharp currency movements. If the dollar suddenly weakens and they therefore receive less money in their own currency, exporters to the US eventually will have to increase their prices. What we do have is a feel for the extra revenue the US expects to receive. Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, estimates it will be an extra $300 billion a year. That's equivalent to about 1 per cent of national output. If a third of that ends up being paid by importers squeezing their margins and two-thirds by consumers in higher prices, that's a noticeable dent on living standards. Some items will go up by a big amount, and while many won't, the headlines will shock. The tax revenue will be useful, of course, but as the US federal budget deficit is running at 6 per cent of national output, it doesn't go far towards closing the gap. What happens next? Disruption is never good and even if, as seems realistic, world trade does settle down, there will be lasting costs from the tariff war. What will matter even more is whether, irrespective of all this, the US economy continues to grow at a decent clip. It managed to do so in the second quarter, at an annual rate of 3 per cent. But there are worries. Every time there's a weak number, as there was on Friday with jobs growth, the markets wobble. The housing market has gone soft in many areas. Consumer sentiment is fragile, though up a little in recent months thanks to booming share prices. So markets need to stay strong to maintain consumer confidence – and vice versa. It's a virtuous circle, but as we all know, that could flip. You can see why Trump is so hostile to the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell. The one thing that might ensure the boom continues a while longer would be a cut in interest rates. The Fed didn't move last week, while here the Bank of England is widely expected to reduce rates on Thursday. It was a stunning July for British investors and shares here remain solid value compared with US markets. The UK will probably gain from US tariffs, given the favourable deal we negotiated. But August will, I am afraid, be a less comfortable month.
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Russia dismisses Trump's warning of sending nuclear subs closer to country as a ‘temper tantrum'
RUSSIA has dismissed Donald Trump's warning he is sending nuclear submarines closer to Russia as a 'temper tantrum'. While the Kremlin has yet to respond, the US President has been mocked by local media. 2 Former major general Leonid Ivlev said it did not pose a new threat as the location of US naval forces is known and the range of submarines can be found online. Another retired lieutenant general called it 'meaningless blather'. And a Russian security expert told one paper: 'I'm sure Trump didn't really give any orders'. Trump had said he was ordering submarines to 'appropriate regions' after ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said they still had Soviet-era nuke capabilities. He said: 'Words are very important and can often lead to unintended consequences.' Trump has said that the US is "totally prepared" for a nuclear war following a slew of threats against America from a Kremlin comrade. He said: "If some words of the former Russian president [Medvedev] cause such a nervous reaction in the entire, formidable US president, then Russia is right in everything and will continue to go its own way. "Let him remember his favorite films about the "walking dead", as well as how dangerous a "dead hand" that does not exist in nature can be." Medvedev may have been referring to Moscow's"Dead Hand" nuclear weapons system, which is designed to launch a doomsday retaliation attack with full nuclear force - even if the Kremlin leadership is wiped out. He also warned that Russia "isn't Israel or even Iran." "Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Trump says US is 'fully prepared' for war after moving subs towards Russia 2
