KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian authorities tried to dampen public fears over Russia’s use of Iranian drones by claiming increasing success Monday in shooting them down, while the Kremlin’s talk of a possible “dirty bomb” attack added another worrying dimension as the war enters its ninth month.
Ukrainians are bracing for less electric power this winter following a sustained Russian barrage on their infrastructure in recent weeks. Citizens in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv lined up for water and essential supplies Monday as Ukrainian forces advanced on the nearby Russian-occupied city of Kherson.
Ukraine’s forces have shot down more than two-thirds of the approximately 330 Shahed drones that Russia has fired through Saturday, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, said Monday. Budanov said Russia’s military had ordered about 1,700 drones of different types and is rolling out a second batch of about 300 Shaheds.
“Terror with the use of ‘Shaheds’ can actually last for a long time,” he was quoted as saying in the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, adding: “Air defense is basically coping, 70 percent are shot down.”
Both Russia and Iran deny that Iranian-built drones have been used but the triangle-shaped Shahed-136s have rained down on civilians in Kyiv and elsewhere.
“First of all, we have to be able to counter the drones,” US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday at a press conference in Zagreb with Croatia’s leader. “It is a dangerous technology and it must be stopped.”
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was likely to use a large number of drones to try to penetrate the “increasingly effective Ukrainian air defenses” — to substitute for Russian-made long-range precision weapons “which are becoming increasingly scarce.”
That assessment came on top of a stark warning by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to his British, French, Turkish and US counterparts over the weekend that Ukrainian forces were preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device — a so-called dirty bomb. Britain, France, and the United States rejected that claim as “transparently false.”
A dirty bomb uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror. Such weapons don’t have the devastating destruction of a nuclear explosion, but could expose broad areas to radioactive contamination.
Russian authorities on Monday doubled down on Shoigu’s warning.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian military’s radiation, chemical and biological protection forces, said Russian military assets were on high readiness for possible radioactive contamination. He told reporters a dirty bomb blast could contaminate thousands of square kilometers.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday: “It’s not an unfounded suspicion, we have serious reasons to believe that such things could be planned.”
Ukraine has rejected Moscow’s claims as an attempt to distract attention from its own plans to detonate a dirty bomb. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht on Monday dismissed as “outrageous” the Russian claim that Ukraine could use a dirty bomb.
The White House on Monday again underscored that the Russian allegations were false.
“It’s just not true. We know it’s not true,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said. “In the past, the Russians have, on occasion, blamed others for things that they were planning to do.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that Moscow itself was setting the stage for deploying a radioactive device on Ukrainian soil.
The country’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said Monday he has urged the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog to immediately send an inspection team to the country to dispel Moscow’s claims. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in response that it was preparing “safeguards visits” in the coming days.
The UN Security Council scheduled closed consultations Tuesday at Russia’s request on what it claimed was Ukraine’s plans for a “dirty bomb.”
On the battlefield Monday, his office said at least six civilians were killed and another five were wounded by Russian shelling of several Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours, including Mykolaiv — where energy facilities were targeted — and the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.
Later in the day, the Ukrainian military reported they had “pushed the enemy out of” three villages in the eastern Luhansk region and one in Donetsk. Moscow has not immediately commented on the claim.
Russian authorities said Ukrainian troops fired rockets at the Kakhovka major hydroelectric power plant in the Kherson region. Vladimir Rogov, a senior member of the Russian-installed administration in the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, said the plant hadn’t sustained serious damage and continued to operate.
Russia and Ukraine have both accused each other of plotting to blow up the plant’s dam to flood the area as Ukrainian forces pressed an offensive on Kherson, which was captured by Russian troops early in the war.
Russian officials also accused Ukrainian forces of shelling a car with three civilians in the Kherson region, killing one.
Ukraine’s relentless artillery strikes on Kherson have cut the main crossings across the Dnieper River, which bisects southern Ukraine, and have left Russian troops on the west bank short of supplies and vulnerable to encirclement. The region is one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law last week.
Budanov, the Ukrainian intelligence chief, played down speculation that Russian forces were preparing an immediate exit from Kherson.
While Russian forces were helping tens of thousands of residents evacuate, “at the same time, they are bringing new military units in and preparing the streets of the city for defense,” he said.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities removed monuments of 18th-century Russian military chiefs Alexander Suvorov and Fyodor Ushakov from Kherson to save them from Ukrainian shelling.
On Saturday, Russian-installed authorities told all residents of Kherson to leave “immediately” ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops seeking to recapture the city, which sits on a key route to the Russian-occupied Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
A poll released Monday from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showed 86 percent of Ukrainian respondents agreed that Ukraine’s armed struggle with Russia should continue. Some 10 percent believed it was necessary to start negotiations with Russia even if Ukraine has to make concessions. The telephone poll of 1,000 adults from across Ukraine was conducted Friday through Sunday, it said.
Residents in Mykolaiv, northwest of Kherson, echoed the determination to fight on — even as their city endures shelling almost every night and residents must line up during the day for food and water.
“Ukraine is doing the right thing. Russians attacked us, and they must be beaten for that,” said Mykolaiv resident Mykola Kovalenko, 76.
With an eye on the coming winter, Kyiv and seven other Ukrainian regions on Monday planned rolling blackouts as authorities worked to fix the damage to energy facilities caused by targeted Russian shelling. Zelensky appealed to local authorities to make sure Ukrainians heed a call to conserve energy.
“Now is definitely not the time for bright storefronts and signs,” he said.
Ukraine cites success in downing drones, fixes energy sites
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Ukraine cites success in downing drones, fixes energy sites
- Ukrainians are bracing for less electric power this winter following a sustained Russian barrage on their infrastructure in recent weeks
Pentagon watchdog to review Hegseth’s use of Signal app to convey plans for Houthi strike
- Hegseth and other members of the Trump administration are required by law to archive their official conversations
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced Thursday that he would review Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to convey plans for a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen.
The review will also look at other defense officials’ use of the publicly available encrypted app, which is not able to handle classified material and is not part of the Defense Department’s secure communications network.
Hegseth’s use of the app came to light when a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to a Signal text chain by national security adviser Mike Waltz. The chain included Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and others, brought together to discuss March 15 military operations against the Iran-backed Houthis.
“The objective of this evaluation is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business,” the acting inspector general, Steven Stebbins, said in a notification letter to Hegseth.
The letter also said his office “will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”
Hegseth and other members of the Trump administration are required by law to archive their official conversations, and it is not clear if copies of the discussions were forwarded to an official email so they could be permanently captured for federal records keeping.
The Pentagon referred all questions to the inspector general’s office, citing the ongoing investigation.
President Donald Trump grew frustrated when asked about the review.
“You’re bringing that up again,” Trump scoffed at a reporter. “Don’t bring that up again. Your editors probably — that’s such a wasted story.”
In the chain, Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop — before the men and women carrying out those attacks on behalf of the United States were airborne.
The review was launched at the request of Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat.
In congressional hearings, Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern about the use of Signal and pressed military officers on whether they would find it appropriate to use the commercial app to discuss military operations.
Both current and former military officials have said the level of detail Hegseth shared on Signal most likely would have been classified. The Trump administration has insisted no classified information was shared.
Waltz is fighting back against calls for his ouster and, so far, Trump has said he stands by his national security adviser.
On Thursday, Trump fired several members of Waltz’s staff after far-right activist Laura Loomer urged the president to purge staffers she deemed insufficiently loyal to his “Make America Great Again” agenda, several people familiar with the matter said.
In his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Trump’s nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, would not say whether the officials should have used a more secure communications system to discuss the attack plans.
“What I will say is we should always preserve the element of surprise,” Caine told senators.
Putin envoy says diplomatic solution possible but differences remain after US talks
WASHINGTON: A senior Russian envoy on Thursday said differences remain between the US and Russia but a diplomatic solution to bring an end to the war in Ukraine is possible.
“I think (with) the Trump administration, we are now in realm of thinking about what is possible, what can really work, and how we can find a long term solution,” Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy, told CNN following talks with US President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington.
US Senate Republican pushes for congressional approval of president’s tariffs
- The Republican critics in Congress of Trump’s tariff moves remained a distinct minority
WASHINGTON: Republican US Senator Chuck Grassley introduced a bill on Thursday that would require congressional approval for new tariffs, the day after President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new taxes on a vast array of imported goods.
Grassley, whose home state of Iowa relies heavily on the global agricultural trade, joined Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington for the “Trade Review Act of 2025” which would require Congress to sign off on new tariffs within 60 days of their imposition or automatically block their enforcement. The move, made the day after four other Senate Republicans voted for a measure that would lift Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods, was the latest sign of dissent among Republicans as Trump’s aggressive moves fanned recessionary fears and sparked Wall Street’s worst day since 2022.
Neither Grassley’s bill nor the measure that passed the Senate on Wednesday were seen as likely to become law while Trump’s Republicans hold majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, where many of their members are voicing support for Trump’s moves.
Trump, who has long advocated for tariffs, said that the highest US trade barriers in more than a century would both raise federal revenue and drive manufacturing back to the US Economists have voiced deep skepticism about both possibilities.
Grassley, the longest-serving member of the US Senate, did not directly criticize Trump in introducing his bill. He noted that he had proposed a similar trade approach during Trump’s first administration, citing the US Constitution establishing congressional authority over trade issues, but that over time the legislature has ceded this power to the executive branch.
But some Republicans have indicated unease with parts of Trump’s tariff plans.
“I would have expected more targeted tariffs to meet the needs of where countries are taking advantage of us, and perhaps a more modest approach in the amounts,” Republican Senator Jerry Moran told reporters. He also expressed concerns that tariffs placed on US allies in Southeast Asia were similar to those placed on China, which he called a “damaging” economy to the US
Republican Senator James Lankford said he was surprised by the 17 percent tariff on Israel and hoped the US Trade Representative could explain why the tariff level on Israel was different from other countries. Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell — the chamber’s former Republican leader — provided the votes on Wednesday to pass Democratic Senator Tim Kaine’s disapproval resolution on the Trump trade approach toward Canada.
“Tariffs drive up the cost of goods and services. They are a tax on everyday working Americans,” McConnell said in a statement on Thursday.
About half of Americans, and one in five Republicans, believe that increasing tariffs on imports will do more harm than good, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday found. The Republican critics in Congress of Trump’s tariff moves remained a distinct minority. Indeed, the House earlier this month passed a measure meant to strip Congress’ power to challenge new tariffs imposed by the president.
“The president has been talking about unfair trade against the United States for 40 years, so he’s been very consistent on this,” said Senator John Barrasso, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican. “Long-term, I think this is very important for the country, bringing jobs and manufacturing back to America, focusing on our economy.”
Grassley’s Democratic co-sponsor, Cantwell, said that Trump’s tariffs risked long-term damage to the US economy.
“We can’t afford a trade war that lasts for two or three years, leaving our product off the shelves,” Cantwell said. “We cannot have arbitrary policies that create chaos and uncertainty.”
Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris
- Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground”
PARIS: A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel’s ongoing onslaught.
Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.
The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza’s past as a cultural melting pot, but the show’s creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
“The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage,” said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled “Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History.”
“But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand,” she told AFP.
One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.
Using satellite image, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha’s Palace.
Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground.”
“For now, it’s impossible to assess.”
The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.
The story behind “Gaza’s Treasures” is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalizing an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.
“It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged,” said Bouffard.
The idea of an exhibition on Gaza’s heritage emerged.
“We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before,” she explained.
Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.
The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza’s treasures.
In 1995, Gaza’s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).
Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis — traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.
“Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history,” Bouffard noted.
In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.
Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.
Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world’s most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.
And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.
The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.
Uganda’s president arrives in S.Sudan as crisis deepens
- The Ugandan leader, whose military was invited into South Sudan last month to help secure the capital, did not refer directly to the crisis in public remarks at the airport in Juba
NAIROBI: Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni arrived in neighboring South Sudan on Thursday, in the highest level mission there since clashes and the detention of the vice president triggered regional fears of a return to civil war.
Museveni was met at the airport by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, whose administration has accused First Vice President Riek Machar of stoking rebellion and put him under house arrest.
The Ugandan leader, whose military was invited into South Sudan last month to help secure the capital, did not refer directly to the crisis in public remarks at the airport in Juba.
The visit follows mediation missions by the African Union and an East African regional body this week to de-escalate the crisis.
Museveni told reporters he would hold talks “aimed at strengthening bilateral relations and enhancing cooperation between our two nations.”
Kiir said the two leaders would discuss “current political developments in the country.”
The standoff between Kiir and Machar, who led opposing forces in a 2013-2018 civil war that killed hundreds of thousands, has prompted the UN to warn that the world’s young nation could be on the brink of all-out conflict along ethnic lines.
Uganda backed Kiir’s forces during the civil war.
It sent troops last month amid fighting between South Sudan’s military and an ethnic Nuer militia in Upper Nile state in the northeast.
Machar’s predominantly Nuer forces were allied with the White Army militia during the civil war, but his party denies government accusations of ongoing links.
Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, also Museveni’s son, said on Tuesday he had ordered Ugandan forces to stop attacking the White Army so long as it ceases offensives against Ugandan troops.
Machar’s party says the Ugandan intervention violates South Sudan’s arms embargo.
Analysts say Kiir, 73, appears to be attempting to shore up his position amid discontent within his political camp and speculation about his succession plan.
