Connect with us

News

Russia pounds Ukraine in new year’s second massive air strike

Published

on

Russia pounds Ukraine in new year’s second massive air strike

Stay informed with free updates

Russia has fired a second massive barrage of the new year on Ukraine’s capital and the country’s second-largest city, with the Ukrainian president calling on allies to accelerate financial and military aid to refill depleting air defences.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said four people were killed and more than 90 injured in Kyiv and Kharkiv after 100 missiles and drones hit the two cities. Rescue workers had rushed to locations affected to put out fires and sift through rubble for survivors, he added.

Without directly mentioning delays in US and EU financial and military assistance for 2024, Zelensnkyy nudged them to act, especially by providing more critical air defence systems.

Advertisement

“Our air defence warriors have been doing an incredible job for the past three days. Since December 31, Russian monsters have already fired 170 [Iranian] Shahed drones and dozens of missiles of various types. The absolute majority of them targeted civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said.

“I am grateful to all of our partners who are helping us,” he said, calling upon “everyone around the world who values life to bolster our air shield and hold Russia accountable for everything it has done”.

UN officials estimate that dozens of Ukrainians have been killed and scores more injured in recent days, as Russia has intensified its air campaign nearly two years into its full-scale invasion.

“The enemy repeated a mass strike with various types of air attack, as it happened a few days ago,” said Valery Zaluzhny, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, referring to a record nationwide air assault on December 29.

Describing Kyiv as Tuesday’s “main direction of the attack”, Zaluzhny said air defences intercepted 72 of some 99 drones and missiles fired by Russia.

Advertisement

In addition to casualties and damage to buildings, authorities reported disruptions in utilities and telecommunications in the Ukrainian capital.

Rubble and a damaged car at the site where a residential building was heavily damaged during a Russian missile attack on central Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday © Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters

Air strikes were also reported in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, which was heavily battered by air strikes on Saturday night.

Posting photos on social media of bombed-out residential buildings, the region’s governor Oleg Synegubov said a 91-year-old woman was killed and 44 people injured, including five children, by what he described as a “massive missile attack” that caused fires and damage to infrastructure.

Ukrainian officials said strikes also hit Ukraine’s southern port city of Mykolayiv and Kropyvnytsky, a central provincial capital.

On the Russian side, one person was killed and five injured in a missile attack on the Russian city of Belgorod on Tuesday. “A man was driving a car next to which a shell exploded. He died on the spot,” the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on his Telegram channel.

Advertisement

President Vladimir Putin on Monday vowed retaliation for Ukraine’s weekend attack on Belgorod, in which 24 civilians were killed, saying that the strike “will not go unpunished”.

Ukraine has blamed Saturday’s Belgorod explosions on the “unprofessional” actions of Russian air defence forces.

The Russian defence ministry said that one of the Russian missiles fired at Ukraine on Monday fell in its own border region of Voronezh and severely damaged several homes.

After early failed attempts to capture Kyiv and Kharkiv, Russia continues to occupy south-eastern regions amounting to 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory.

In a post on social media platform X citing “loud explosions in Kyiv”, US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink said “Putin is ringing in 2024 by launching missiles . . . as millions of Ukrainians again take shelter in freezing temperatures”.

Advertisement

“It’s urgent and critical that we support Ukraine now — to stop Putin here,” she added.

Additional reporting by Anastasia Stognei

News

In Indiana Primary Elections, Most Trump-Backed Challengers Beat Incumbents

Published

on

In Indiana Primary Elections, Most Trump-Backed Challengers Beat Incumbents

President Trump promised political payback last year when Indiana state senators from his own party voted down his plan to redraw the state’s congressional map to help Republicans.

On Tuesday, he got much of what he wanted, as at least five of the seven anti-redistricting Republicans facing Trump-backed challengers lost their primaries, according to The Associated Press. The results reflected Mr. Trump’s continuing sway over Republican voters and his ability to enforce political consequences for Republican officeholders who defy him.

In the other races, at least one incumbent won his primary and another race remained too close to call.

State legislative primaries are often low-drama affairs, but Mr. Trump’s involvement brought unusual levels of attention and outside spending. The president issued social media endorsements to the seven challengers and hosted some of them at the White House, while outside groups aligned with Mr. Trump poured money into the races.

As the challengers emphasized their ties to Mr. Trump, many of the incumbents focused on their own conservative credentials, as well as endorsements from groups supporting farmers, gun rights or abortion restrictions.

Advertisement

Rather than a contest between moderates and conservatives, the primaries became a test of how much deference Republicans owe Mr. Trump and how much control the president holds over rank-and-file voters.

“It’s not that anyone is less or more pro-life,” said Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, a Republican redistricting supporter who backed most of the Trump-endorsed challengers. “It’s really that, do you understand the battle we are in, and do you understand the role Indiana plays in that battle on a national stage?”

State Senator Spencer Deery, one of the anti-redistricting incumbents, described the election as a test of how much sway Washington policymakers and their allies have over state policymaking.

“What’s at stake,” he said, “is the question of whether state legislators are going to be free to listen to their constituents and to govern their state without the outside meddling of enormous financial sums of dark money.”

On Tuesday, voters had diverging views of the political landscape and of the president’s endorsement.

Advertisement

In Granger, Ind., along the Michigan border, Tony Xouris said redistricting was his top issue and that he turned out to vote for the Trump-backed challenger to Senator Linda Rogers, who voted against the redrawn map.

“She lost my vote,” said Mr. Xouris, a semiretired insurance agent. “She’s a RINO. She’s a bad Republican.”

But outside the polls in Schererville, Ind., near Chicago, Matt Bartz said he was voting for Senator Dan Dernulc even though Mr. Trump had endorsed a challenger.

“I’m a Trump supporter,” said Mr. Bartz, a retired steelworker. “I was under the understanding that he wanted states to regulate themselves, take care of themselves, but now he’s coming back with this revenge type of thing and I’m not happy with that.”

The races also split political leaders in Indiana, where Republicans have amassed power over the last 20 years, but where there are longstanding fissures between the party establishment and an ascendant movement that hews closely to Mr. Trump.

Advertisement

Gov. Mike Braun and Mr. Beckwith, along with some members of the congressional delegation, came out in support of many of the challengers.

On the other side, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who helped usher in Indiana’s era of Republican dominance, became a leading voice against redistricting. His successor as governor, former Vice President Mike Pence, endorsed one of the incumbents seeking re-election.

The rupture began last year when Mr. Trump was pushing redistricting nationwide in a bid to gain seats in Congress in the midterm elections. Several Republican-led states quickly fell in line, and some Democratic-led ones moved to counter with their own maps. But a critical mass of Indiana lawmakers remained opposed to the plan to draw a map that would position Republicans to flip the state’s two U.S. House seats held by Democrats.

When lawmakers returned to Indianapolis in December, the Republican-led House approved a new map. But the Republican-controlled Senate said no, with a slim majority of Republicans joining Democrats to vote the bill down even as Mr. Trump threatened political consequences.

“Any Republican that votes against this important redistricting, potentially having an impact on America itself, should be PRIMARIED,” Mr. Trump wrote in a November social media post that referred to two senators as Republicans in name only.

Advertisement

He soon followed through on that promise, endorsing challengers to seven of the eight anti-redistricting Republicans who ran for re-election this year. Other Republicans who voted against the bill have two years remaining in their terms or did not run for re-election.

Kim Bellware, Robert Chiarito and Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting.

Continue Reading

News

Trump-backed Ramaswamy wins Ohio governor primary, setting up a competitive Nov. race

Published

on

Trump-backed Ramaswamy wins Ohio governor primary, setting up a competitive Nov. race

Stephen Zenner/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Wealthy biotech entrepreneur and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has won the Ohio Republican primary for governor, according to a race call by The Associated Press.

He took an aggressive but traditional route to securing the nomination. On President Trump’s inauguration day, Ramaswamy announced he was leaving the president’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency. That evening, Trump threw his support behind Ramaswamy with what he called his “complete and total endorsement.”

Advertisement

Tuesday, Ramaswamy won with a comfortable margin over Casey Putsch, a northwest Ohio car designer and racing team owner new to politics who attacked Ramaswamy for his South Asian heritage.

Democrat Dr. Amy Acton will face Ramaswamy in the general election. In red Ohio, where a Democrat hasn’t been elected governor in 20 years, the race looks competitive. The Cook Political Report, which tracks elections, shifted the race from one Republicans were likely to win, to one that just leans in Ramaswamy’s favor. But the Republican has vast financial resources of his own and has raised an enormous amount of money.

Acton is the former state health director, appointed to the position in 2019 by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. She played a major role in Ohio’s response to the COVID pandemic, signing orders from DeWine that restricted in-person gatherings, shut non-essential businesses, and closed K-12 schools. Republicans have called her “Dr. Lockdown” and have used her pandemic response to campaign against her. DeWine has defended Acton’s work as health director, even though he’s endorsed Ramaswamy, and has said pandemic-related decisions “were made by the governor”.

Her campaign has focused on the high cost of living, an issue that has left voters disgruntled with Republicans. She’s called for child tax credits, reducing prescription drug costs, lowering utility costs and helping Ohioans stay on Medicaid, among other things.

When Ramaswamy launched his campaign in February last year, he said he wanted to see property taxes eliminated. He’s backed off that proposal, and now talks about instituting “the largest rollback of property taxes in the history of Ohio.” He’s also raised fears with a proposal to consolidate or close public universities in the state.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

Video: U.S. and Iran Make Competing Claims Over Strait of Hormuz

Published

on

Video: U.S. and Iran Make Competing Claims Over Strait of Hormuz

new video loaded: U.S. and Iran Make Competing Claims Over Strait of Hormuz

transcript

transcript

U.S. and Iran Make Competing Claims Over Strait of Hormuz

The U.S. and Iran both claimed to have control over the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday after the U.S. launched a naval effort to escort vessels through the vital shipping route. Some 1,600 ships are trapped in or near the waterway, which remains effectively closed.

These international waters belong to all nations, not to Iran to tax, toll or control. We’re not looking for a fight. But Iran also cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway. Two U.S. commercial ships, along with American destroyers, have already safely transited the strait, showing the lane is clear. We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact. They said they control the strait. They do not.

Advertisement
The U.S. and Iran both claimed to have control over the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday after the U.S. launched a naval effort to escort vessels through the vital shipping route. Some 1,600 ships are trapped in or near the waterway, which remains effectively closed.

By Christina Kelso

May 5, 2026

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending