Achi news desk-
David Cameron’s attempt to persuade Donald Trump to allow the US Congress to push through $60bn in military aid to Ukraine appears to have failed, after the British foreign secretary did not even have a meeting with congressional speaker Mike Johnson, who could in theory put the package to a vote. Instead, Johnson was attacked by hard-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who renewed her threats of a snap vote to impeach him for even a vote count.
At a private dinner at Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, Cameron had encouraged the former president to acknowledge that he is in the United States interest that Vladimir Putin is not rewarded for seizing land from Ukraine. He also insisted that by the Nato summit in Washington this July, plans would be in place for all Nato members to reach or pass their defense spending target. He hoped that Trump would signal a change of course at least by smoothing the way for him to meet with Johnson. But it might not have been enough.
Russia claimed that Ukraine attacked the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for a third day with a drone but Ukrainian officials denied that Kyiv had anything to do with the attacks. Ukraine has denied being behind a series of drone attacks on the plant over the past three days, including three on Sunday, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said had compromised nuclear safety. The recent drone fell on the roof of the training centre, he said. No one was injured.
A woman and a child have been killed in the village of Klimovov in Russia by shelling, said the governor of the region. Aleksandr Bogomaz, the governor of Bryansk Region, claimed that artillery shooting was done by “Ukrainian terrorists”. Writing on Telegram, he said: “The shot was struck in the center of the village.”
Three people were killed in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region by Ukrainian mines on Mondaysaid the regional head of Russia-set Vladimir Saldo on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s military spy agency, GUR, hit the main production facility of a Russian aviation factory in the Voronezh region, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters. The source did not give details about the extent of the damage or the weapons used in the attack.
Ukraine’s air defense systems destroyed all 20 attack drones that Russia launched targeting Ukraine, Ukrainian air force chief Mykola Oleshchuk said on Tuesday. The drones were destroyed over Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Vinnytsia and Lviv regions, Oleshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app. He added that Russia had also launched four missiles from S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, but did not say what happened to those missiles.
A Neptune anti-ship missile launched in Ukraine was destroyed over the Black Sea, and four drones were downed over the Belgorod and Voronezh regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. “Four Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed by air defense systems on duty over the territories of the Belgorod (2 UAV) and Voronezh (2 UAV) regions, and a Ukrainian missile (the Neptune) was destroyed over the Black Sea off the coast of the Peninsula Crimea,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
An extraordinary meeting of the 35-nation Board of Governors of the UN nuclear watchdog called by Russia to discuss attacks on Ukraine’s Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station is expected to take place on Thursday, three diplomats said. The International Atomic Energy Agency has not yet announced a date for the meeting. The board’s rules state that any country on it, including Russia, can call a meeting. Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA said on Monday that Russia had done so.
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in China on Tuesday, underscoring the ever-friendly relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Wang said that China and Russia would continue to strengthen international cooperation and work together to maintain the stability of supply chains. Both sides agreed to start a dialogue on Eurasian security. Speaking after the meeting, Wang said the two countries should “resist hegemony and power politics”.
Russia and China will continue to cooperate in the fight against terrorism as part of their ever-strengthening relationship, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in Beijing on Tuesday after talks with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. “Thank you to the Chinese side for their sympathy in connection with the terrorist attack in the Moscow region on March 22 this year, for supporting Russia’s fight against terrorism,” Russian news agencies Lavrov said.
