World
US sanctions Russian oil companies as Moscow holds nuclear drills
The U.S. Treasury Department said Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, were targeted in a bid to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.
The United States hit Russia’s major oil companies with sanctions on Wednesday and accused the Russians of a lack of commitment toward ending the war in Ukraine, as Moscow conducted a major training exercise involving nuclear arms, Reuters reported.
The new sanctions were unveiled one day after plans for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin fell apart. Trump told reporters he cancelled the meeting because “it didn’t feel right to me.”
The U.S. Treasury Department said Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, were targeted in a bid to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.
The move marked a sharp turnaround for the White House, which has veered between pressuring Moscow and taking a more conciliatory approach aimed at securing peace in Ukraine. Only last week Trump appeared ready to hold off on new actions targeting Moscow.
“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. Oil prices extended gains after Bessent’s comments, rising by more than $2 a barrel.
For months, Trump has resisted pressure from U.S. lawmakers to impose energy sanctions, hoping that Putin would agree to end the fighting. But with no end in sight, he said he felt it was time.
Trump said he was still not ready to provide Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles, which Kyiv has requested. Talking to reporters as he met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump said it would take the Ukrainians at least six months to learn how to use them.
Ahead of a meeting next week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, Trump said he would like to see Xi use his influence on Putin to halt the fighting. Xi and Putin have formed a strategic alliance between their countries, read the report.
In a fresh show of force, the Kremlin released video showing General Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff, reporting to Putin on the drills. Russia said it fired missiles from ground launchers, submarines and aircraft, including intercontinental ballistic weapons capable of striking the United States.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its long-range Tu-22M3 strategic bombers flew over the Baltic Sea, escorted at various points by fighter jets from foreign – presumably NATO – states.
At key moments in the war in Ukraine, Putin has issued reminders of Russia’s nuclear might as a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies. NATO has also been conducting nuclear deterrence exercises this month.
EU countries also approved a 19th package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine, which includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports, the Danish rotating presidency of the EU said on Wednesday.
The Wall Street Journal said the United States lifted a restriction on Ukraine’s use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies, which would allow Ukraine to increase attacks on targets inside Russia. In a social media post, Trump denied the report.
On Wednesday, Sweden said it had signed a letter of intent to export Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine, as European governments act to boost Kyiv’s defences in a war that has ground on for three years and eight months since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and shows no sign of ending soon, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian pilots have been in Sweden to test the Gripen, a rugged and relatively low-cost option compared to aircraft such as the U.S. F-35.
Kyiv aimed to receive and start using Gripens next year and expected to acquire at least 100, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a visit to Swedish defence manufacturer Saab.
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other with heavy overnight missile attacks as renewed uncertainty enveloped the U.S.-led peace effort.
After months of stalled diplomacy, Putin and Trump spoke last week and unexpectedly announced they would hold a summit in Hungary soon.
But following a phone call on Monday between the two countries’ top diplomats, the White House said the next day that Trump had no plans to meet Putin “in the immediate future”. Trump said he did not want to have a wasted meeting – something the Kremlin said Putin also wanted to avoid.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, departing Washington for the Middle East on Wednesday, told reporters the United States would still like to meet with Russia, Reuters reported.
Russian officials said that preparations continued for a summit. “The dates haven’t been set yet, but thorough preparation is needed before then, and that takes time,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The summit delay came after Russia reiterated to the U.S. its previous terms for reaching a peace deal, including that Ukraine cede control of the whole of the southeastern Donbas region, three sources told Reuters.
That amounted to a rejection of Trump’s statement last week that both sides should stop at the current front lines.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by state news agency RIA as saying he could not confirm that Moscow had conveyed its position as reported by Reuters.
Through the first nine months of his second term, Trump has pressed for an end to the conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.
Sharply critical at times of Zelenskiy, he has also expressed frustration with Putin.
European defence shares rose on the delay to the Putin-Trump summit. Most European governments strongly back Kyiv and have pledged to raise military spending to help Ukraine meet its defence needs.
European Union leaders are due on Thursday to discuss a proposal to use frozen Russian assets to extend a $163 billion loan to Ukraine. Moscow says the scheme amounts to theft and has vowed to retaliate.
World
One dead in new attack on Saudi airport, a day after Houthi strike kills 13
US aviation authorities issued a notice to US airlines to use caution while flying to or over the kingdom, Reuters reported.
One person was killed and nearly a dozen hurt in a new attack Riyadh’s international airport on Sunday, Saudi authorities reported, a day after a strike claimed by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, Reuters reported.
Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen said an unidentified projectile had targeted Riyadh’s international airport Terminal 4 on Sunday, causing a fire. Eleven people were wounded in addition to the fatality, the Saudi civil aviation authority said.
Coalition forces also said Saudi air defences had intercepted a cruise missile in the vicinity of King Khalid International Airport. They later added that a drone had been intercepted and destroyed in the country’s Eastern Province, and a ballistic missile launched towards Khamis Mushait had been intercepted. Emergency alerts were also issued in Abha, in the south, early on Monday but the danger had since passed, the Saudi Civil Defense said.
The strikes have exposed vulnerabilities in Saudi defence capabilities as the kingdom wages an air campaign against the Houthis, who are fighting a ground war in Yemen against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government.
Footage released by Saudi state television of the Saturday attack on the Riyadh airport showed scores of religious pilgrims lined up at a gate as they prepared to travel to Islam’s two holiest sites. A bright orange flash sent people running in panic, while parts of the roof appeared to cave in, read the report.
The airport was closed after the attack, the deadliest in the kingdom in more than a decade.
In a televised speech on Sunday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack and said the group had also struck the airport in Dammam in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province and two facilities of Saudi oil giant Saudi Aramco.
The Saudi government’s media office and Aramco did not respond to requests for comment.
The Saudi civil aviation authority confirmed the strike on Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport late on Sunday, adding that “damage assessments and safety inspections of airport facilities are under way.”
An eyewitness aboard a taxiing aircraft at Dammam told Reuters that around 8:30 p.m. (1730 GMT) on Sunday, they saw a projectile strike the tarmac beside several parked aircraft, causing a fire. The witness said the aircraft returned to the gate. Passengers disembarked and were told to leave.
Flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed several delays and cancellations on Sunday for arrivals and departures at Dammam airport, the kingdom’s third-largest.
The Houthis earlier on Sunday had renewed their warning against using Saudi airports. “We urge everyone to take our warnings seriously, and Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for any failed interceptions,” the group said.
Britain’s embassy in Saudi Arabia in a post on X advised British citizens against all but essential travel to Jeddah, Dammam and all airports in the kingdom except the airport in Medina.
US aviation authorities issued a notice to US airlines to use caution while flying to or over the kingdom, Reuters reported.
Saudi Arabia has recently stepped up its military involvement in Yemen, launching strikes against the Houthis and backing a government counteroffensive after the Houthis seized strategic territory along the Red Sea coast last month.
The Houthis said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia carried out 124 air strikes in Yemen in the past 24 hours. “Unless the Saudi enemy stops its aggression and interference in Yemen, worse is yet to come, God willing,” Yemen’s Houthi-run foreign ministry said in statements carried by Al Masirah television.
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday the United States was considering joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis in the conflict, a spillover from the wider war with Iran that the US and Israel launched in February.
In a post on Telegram, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said he told his Saudi counterpart that Tehran was ready to help facilitate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
A five-day conference of international energy organization WPC Energy opened as planned on Sunday at a convention centre about 10 km (6 miles) from the Riyadh airport, the Saudi energy ministry said.
A ministerial meeting of the International Energy Forum also went ahead, according to a media advisory from the ministry. It was not clear which ministers attended.
Italy’s energy minister, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, whose country was co-hosting, had said on Friday he would participate remotely via video link.
German officials were trying to organise a return flight for economy minister Katherina Reiche, read the report.
She was supposed to return to Berlin from Riyadh on Monday but the ministry said it appeared likely her flight would be unable to take off.
Separately, Saudi authorities announced that in-person classes at schools in Riyadh would be shifted to remote learning from Sunday until Thursday.
Sunday’s attack brought the death toll in attacks on Riyadh’s airport to 18 for the week. In Saturday’s attack, the dead included four Saudis while the remainder were foreign nationals, Saudi authorities said.
World
14 killed in two separate mass shootings across the United States
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro expressed his support for the affected community, describing the incident as a tragic loss of life.
At least 14 people have been killed in two separate mass shootings in the United States within hours of each other, according to local authorities.
Five people were shot dead at a home in Douglas, Georgia, on Friday evening, police said.
In a separate incident in Erie, Pennsylvania, nine people were killed, including two children and a pregnant woman. Authorities confirmed that the suspected assailant was also among the dead.
Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah described the scene as one of the most devastating incidents of his career, saying the motive for the shooting had not yet been established.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro expressed his support for the affected community, describing the incident as a tragic loss of life.
Authorities are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding both shootings.
World
Zelenskiy says letting Russia sell diesel to US is ‘investment in war’
“Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilised world,” Zelenskiy wrote on the X social media platform.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy criticised an accord on Friday between the US and Russia allowing Moscow to provide the US with diesel, calling it “an investment in a war that must be ended.”
He dismissed the accord, which was announced while a Ukrainian delegation was in the US to discuss how to seek a resolution of the war with Russia, as “a weak decision on the part of strong partners”.
“Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilised world,” Zelenskiy wrote on the X social media platform.
“Russia will ‘repay’ the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged. What is needed is real de-escalation with Russia on a reciprocal basis,” Zelenskiy said.
Trump said in a post on social media that he had agreed in a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would immediately supply diesel to the US and global marketplace. Trump said lower prices for Americans “is my Greatest Priority”.
Zelenskiy, speaking to reporters later on WhatsApp, said the accord would provide Moscow with additional funds to wage war and undermine any attempts to work towards a settlement.
“I believe our team is simply being used as a front. And that is certainly not fair, nor is it how partners should treat each other,” he said. “In my view, it is a weak decision on the part of strong partners.”
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