Ukraine war briefing: War in the Middle East is bad news for Ukraine, says Zelenskyy
Zelenskyy says urgent need for anti-aircraft missiles, which are used in the Gulf to counter Iranian missiles and drones
It is understandable the world’s attention has shifted to the Middle East, but the situation is “not good for Ukraine”, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Paris. “There is nothing good for Ukraine in the war in the Middle East. ... It’s understandable that the attention of the world [is] moving to [the] Middle East. It’s not good for us,” the Ukrainian president said during a speech to students at the Sciences Po university on Friday. Kyiv is worried the war in the Middle East is drawing international attention away from the conflict in Ukraine – particularly from its urgent need for anti-aircraft missiles, which are used in large numbers in the Gulf to counter Iranian missiles and drones.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the son of Iran’s last shah that Iran must not cooperate with Russia, as the pair met in Paris on Friday. The Ukrainian president posted on X: “Ukraine truly wants to see a free Iran that will not cooperate with Russia or destabilize the Middle East, Europe, and the world.” Reza Pahlavi lives in exile in the United States and has offered himself as a transitional leader for Iran should the Islamic republic fall. Zelenskyy said: “I am grateful to the Crown Prince for his clear assurances of support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” adding that their teams would “remain in communication”. Zelensky said it was “crucial that the Iranian regime gains nothing” from the conflict and that the Iranian people have the right to “determine their own fate”.
The US had sought a postponement of the latest round of three-sided talks on a settlement to Ukraine’s four-year-old conflict with Russia, Zelenskyy was quoted as saying on Friday. The comments, quoted by various Ukrainian media outlets at the end of the France visit,claimed the US side said its negotiators were not permitted to leave the US in view of circumstances in the Middle East. He said Russia had not wanted to hold the talks in the US and had proposed alternative sites in Switzerland or Turkey.
The US is temporarily easing some of its sanctions on Russian oil, reflecting global worries about sharply higher oil prices due to supply shortages stemming from the Iran war. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said on X the country would lift sanctions on Russian oil that is already aboard tankers for 30 days. That means customers in other countries can buy it without worrying about sanctions punishment. The move, intended to soothe jittery markets over the disruption of Middle Eastern oil and gas supplies, underlines how the Iran war has boosted Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports, a pillar of the Kremlin’s budget as it presses its invasion of Ukraine. The Trump administration earlier had granted a 30-day reprieve to refineries in India.
Russian shelling killed one person and wounded six in southeastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the regional governor said on Friday. Oleksander Ganzha, the head of the region’s military administration, said on Telegram that Russian forces attacked two sites in the region. Further southeast, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said that four people were injured in a Russian attack near the region’s main town, also called Zaporizhzhia. Just over the Russian border in the Belgorod region, the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said one resident died in a Ukrainian strike on a village just inside the border.
Russia has named the US-based great-granddaughter of a Soviet leader a “foreign agent”, a term with connotations of spying that Moscow applies to people it views as engaged in anti-Russian activity. Nina Khrushcheva, 62, is a professor at The New School university in New York and has continued to make research trips to Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Her ancestor, Nikita Khrushchev, led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, when he was ousted by fellow members of the ruling politburo. Contacted by Reuters, Khrushcheva said she was not surprised to be added to Russia’s “foreign agent” list, which, as of Friday, contains 1,164 names, including politicians, journalists, artists, NGOs and media organisations. “It would have been sloppy on their part not to do this sooner or later,” she said, adding that it was too early to say what the practical impact would be.