Politics
Trump tells Zelenskyy U.S. should own Ukraine energy plants for security – National TenX News
U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that they had a constructive call about moving toward a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow, with the White House suggesting that the U.S. take control of Ukrainian power plants to ensure their security.
Trump told Zelenskyy that the U.S could be “very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” according to a White House statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz that described the call as “fantastic.”
Trump added that “American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure.”
The call between Trump and Zelenskyy came a day after the U.S. leader held similar talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s call with Zelenskyy was about half the length of his call Tuesday, during which Putin agreed not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire.
The White House suggested Trump did not agree with Putin’s demand during their Tuesday call that the U.S. end all military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine as part of any deal to end the war.
“Intelligence in terms of defence for Ukraine will continue to be shared,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
In a social media post, Trump said his call with Zelenskyy was to “align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs” as he seeks to bring a halt to fighting.
“We are very much on track,” Trump added.
Prior to his call with Trump, Zelenskyy said Putin’s limited ceasefire pledge was “very much at odds with reality” following an overnight barrage of drone strikes across the country.
“Even last night, after Putin’s conversation with … Trump, when Putin said that he was allegedly giving orders to stop strikes on Ukrainian energy, there were 150 drones launched overnight, including on energy facilities,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference in Helsinki with Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters that “attacks like these are precisely why President Trump is committed to peace.”
“It is time for the death and destruction to stop, and for an end to this endless war,” she said.
The White House added Zelenskyy asked Trump for additional air defences including Patriot missile systems, to which Trump said he would work with him to “find what was available, particularly in Europe.”
The Kremlin says Kyiv isn’t upholding its end of the bargain
Russia responded by saying it had halted its targeting of Ukraine’s energy facilities and accused Kyiv of attacking equipment near one of its pipelines.
“Unfortunately, we see that for now there is no reciprocity on the part of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The White House described the call between Trump and Putin as the first step in a “movement to peace” that Washington hopes will include a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea and eventually a full and lasting end to the fighting.
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But there was no indication that Putin backed away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv.
Russia is holding the ceasefire proposal ‘hostage’
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said that Putin’s demands during the call with Trump would amount to “Ukrainian capitulation.”
“Putin is attempting to hold the temporary ceasefire proposal hostage in order to extract preemptive concessions ahead of formal negotiations to end the war,” the ISW said in an analysis of readouts from the calls.
Stubb called the discussions between Putin and Trump a step in the right direction, but Finland’s president said that Russia needs to end its aggression.
“There are only two ways to respond to the proposal of the president of the United States: it’s a yes or a no — no buts, no conditions,” Stubb said. “Ukraine accepted a ceasefire without any forms of conditions. If Russia refuses to agree, we need to increase our efforts to strengthen Ukraine and ratchet up pressure on Russia to convince them to come to the negotiating table.”
Waltz said on social media that he and his Russian counterpart, Yuri Ushakov, agreed Wednesday that their teams would meet soon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, “to focus on implementing and expanding the partial ceasefire President Trump secured from Russia.”
It was not immediately clear who would be part of the delegations or if Ukrainian officials were also invited to take part in the Saudi Arabia talks.
Ukraine and Russia trade accusations
Shortly after the lengthy phone call between Trump and Putin on Tuesday, air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions as residents took shelter.
Despite efforts to repel the attack, several strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including two hospitals, a railway and more than 20 houses, Zelenskyy said. Russian drones were reported over Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Cherkasy regions.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its military had launched seven drones at power facilities related to the military-industrial complex in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, but that it shot them down after receiving Putin’s order to not hit energy infrastructure.
Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting its energy facility in the Krasnodar region bordering the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, several hours after the Putin and Trump talks. The ministry said that three drones targeted oil transfer equipment that feeds the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, causing a fire and leading one oil tank to lose pressure.
“It is absolutely clear that we are talking about yet another provocation deliberately concocted by the Kyiv regime, aimed at derailing the peace initiatives of the U.S. president,” the ministry said.
Russia said that its air defenses intercepted 57 Ukrainian drones over the Azov Sea and several Russian regions — the border provinces of Kursk and Bryansk and the nearby regions of Oryol and Tula.
Zelenskyy said that “words of a ceasefire” weren’t enough.
“If the Russians don’t hit our facilities, we definitely won’t hit theirs,” Zelenskyy said.
Meanwhile, the two combatants said Wednesday that they had each swapped 175 prisoners in one of the largest exchanges of the war.
Zelenskyy rejected Putin’s key condition that Western allies stop providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine. He said that doing so would endanger lives if citizens were blind to incoming air raids, and lead to the continuation of the war.
“I don’t think anybody should make any concessions in terms of helping Ukraine, but rather, assistance to Ukraine should be increased,” Zelenskyy said. “This will be a signal that Ukraine is ready for any surprises from the Russians.”
Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that it was “completely unsurprising” that Putin rejected the ceasefire, adding that it’s “imprudent for him to tell President Trump that directly, since Trump has made ending the war a very, very high priority.”
“What we have now, in effect, is a competition or rivalry between Kyiv and Moscow to persuade Trump that it’s the other side that is responsible for preventing Trump from achieving his goal of ending the war,” Gould-Davies said.
Zelenskyy said that one of the most difficult issues in future negotiations would be the issue of territorial concessions.
“For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian,” he said. “We will not go for it.”
Yehor Konovalov in Kyiv, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller in Washington, and Brian Melley in London contributed to this report.
Politics
UK refuses to invite Israeli government officials to London arms fair over the war in Gaza – National TenX News
The U.K. has barred Israeli government officials from attending the country’s biggest arms fair over growing concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The decision does not cover representatives of Israeli defense contractors, who will be allowed to attend the DSEI UK exhibition, scheduled for Sept. 9-12 in London. The event was formerly known as Defense and Security Equipment International.
“The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong,” the British government said in a statement. “As a result, we can confirm that no Israeli government delegation will be invited to attend DSEI UK 2025.”
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The decision comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer in July announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state unless Israel takes steps to end the crisis in Gaza, agrees to a ceasefire with Hamas and commits to a long-term peace agreement. Britain previously barred sales to Israel of any arms that could be used in the nearly 23-month war in Gaza.
Israel’s Defense Ministry said the decision was based on politics and “serves extremists.”
“These restrictions amount to a deliberate and regrettable act of discrimination against Israel’s representatives,” the ministry said.
The Israeli ministry said it would withdraw from the exhibition and will not establish a national pavilion.
Pro-Palestinian and anti-war groups have announced plans to for protests during DSEI, which will take place at the Excel center in east London.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Politics
Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows – National TenX News
Israel will soon halt or slow humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza as it expands its military offensive against Hamas, an official said Saturday, a day after Gaza City was declared a combat zone.
The decision was likely to bring more condemnation of Israel’s government as frustration grows in the country and abroad over dire conditions for both Palestinians and remaining hostages in Gaza after nearly 23 months of war.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told The Associated Press that Israel will stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the number of aid trucks arriving in the north as it prepares to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people south.
Israel on Friday ended recently imposed daytime pauses in fighting to allow aid delivery, describing Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold and alleging that a tunnel network remains in use, despite previous large-scale raids. The United Nations and partners have said the pauses, airdrops and other measures fell far short of the 600 trucks of aid needed daily in Gaza.
A ‘massive population movement’ coming
AP video footage showed several large explosions across Gaza overnight. Israel’s military Saturday evening said it had struck a key Hamas member in the area of Gaza City, with no details.
In recent days, Israel’s military has increased strikes on the outskirts of Gaza City, where famine was recently documented and declared by global food security experts.
By Saturday there had been no airdrops for several days across Gaza, a break from almost daily ones. Israel’s army didn’t respond to a request for comment or say how it would provide aid to Palestinians during another major shift in Gaza’s population of over 2 million people.
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“Such an evacuation would trigger a massive population movement that no area in the Gaza Strip can absorb, given the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and the extreme shortages of food, water, shelter and medical care,” Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement.
It’s impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City can be done in a safe and dignified way, she said.
Hundreds of residents have begun leaving Gaza City, piling their remaining possessions onto pickup trucks or donkey carts. Many have been forced to leave their homes more than once.
Killed while seeking food
Israeli gunfire killed four people trying to get aid in central Gaza, according to health officials at Al-Awda Hospital, were the bodies were taken.
An Israeli strike on a bakery in Gaza City’s Nasr neighborhood killed 12 people including six women and three children, the Shifa Hospital director told the AP, and a strike on the Rimal neighborhood killed seven.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said another 10 people died as a result of starvation and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, including three children. It said at least 332 Palestinians have died from malnutrition-related causes during the war, including 124 children.
At least 63,371 Palestinians have died in Gaza during the war, said the ministry, which does not say how many are fighters or civilians but says around half have been women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The U.N. and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
“There is no food and even water is not available. When it is available, it is not safe to drink,” said Amer Zayed, as he waited for food from a charity kitchen in Deir al-Balah on Friday.
“The suffering gets worse when there are more displaced people,” he added.
Israelis rally again to demand a ceasefire deal
Israelis waited to hear the identity of the remains of a hostage that Israel on Friday said had been recovered in Gaza. It also said it recovered the remains of hostage Ilan Weiss.
Forty-eight hostages now remain in Gaza of the over 250 seized in the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Israel had believed 20 are still alive.
Their loved ones fear the expanding military offensive will put them in even more danger, and they were rallying again Saturday to demand a ceasefire deal to bring everyone home.
“Netanyahu, if another living hostage comes back in a bag, it will not only be the hostages and their families who pay the price. You will bear responsibility for premeditated murder,” Zahiro Shahar Mor, nephew of hostage Avraham Munder, said in Tel Aviv.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
The Trump administration said Friday it was denying and revoking U.S. visas from members of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
That comes ahead of next month’s United Nations General Assembly, where Canada and several other countries have said they intend to officially recognize a Palestinian state.
The U.S. State Department cited the groups’ efforts to secure statehood recognition at the UN, along with their appeals to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice to investigate alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza, as reasons for the decision by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks,” the department said in a statement.
“The Trump Administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace.”
The statement did not name the officials being denied entry. It was not immediately clear if the list included Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to travel to New York for the UN gathering.
The Palestinians’ ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told reporters at the UN headquarters that they were checking exactly what the U.S. move means “and how it applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly.”
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Representatives assigned to the Palestinian Authority mission at the UN, led by Mansour, will be granted waivers so they can continue their New York-based operations, the U.S. statement said.
Mansour said Abbas still intends to lead the delegation to the high-level meetings and is expected to address the General Assembly — as he has done for many years — and to attend a meeting on the afternoon of Sept. 22 on a two-state solution co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. President Donald Trump will travel to New York and address the general assembly on Sept. 23, the White House said on Thursday.
Canada, Britain, Australia and France in recent weeks have announced or signalled their intention to recognize a Palestinian state during the meeting.
The countries have said their recognition is conditional on the Palestinian Authority — which has limited self-rule over parts of the occupied West Bank and has for years been positioning itself as a legitimate government alternative to Hamas in Gaza — undergoing reforms and new elections.
Abbas has signalled he will co-operate with the Western nations’ demands.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization is an internationally recognized coalition that represents Palestinian people in its occupied territories and abroad.
The Trump administration has staunchly backed Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. The U.S. has also refused to condemn expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Canada and other allies have said undermine two-state solution efforts.
Rubio hosted Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday “to reaffirm our two nations’ close cooperation,” the U.S. secretary said in a post on X.
Saar, asked after the meeting what the plan was for a Palestinian state, said there would not be any.
The Israeli minister on Friday thanked Rubio for holding the PA and PLO “accountable for rewarding terrorism, incitement and efforts to use legal warfare against Israel” in a social media statement.
Officials with the Palestinian Authority reject that they’ve undermined peace prospects.
Under the 1947 UN “headquarters agreement,” the U.S. is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York. But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, terrorism and foreign policy reasons.
Hamas earlier this month said it had accepted a U.S.-backed proposal on a ceasefire in Gaza that would see the release of some hostages in exchange for talks with Israel that would end the conflict and see the return of all remaining hostages.
But Israel has said it will only accept the full return of all the hostages and has pressed ahead with a plan to occupy Gaza City, which international monitors like the UN have warned could worsen a famine already afflicting the Palestinian territory.
Rubio last week announced sanctions against multiple International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors involved in the court’s investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza and the issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
—With files from Reuters
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
UK refuses to invite Israeli government officials to London arms fair over the war in Gaza – National TenX News
Israel soon will halt or slow aid to northern Gaza as military offensive grows – National TenX News
U.S. scraps Palestinian officials’ visas ahead of UN General Assembly – National TenX News
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