World
Drone war, ground offensive continue despite new Russia-Ukraine peace push
Russia and Ukraine have launched a wave of drone attacks against each other overnight, even as Moscow claimed it was finalising a peace proposal to end the war.
Ukrainian air force officials said on Tuesday that Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions through the night, injuring 10 people. Kyiv’s air defences intercepted 43 of them – 35 were shot down while eight were diverted using electronic warfare systems.
In Dnipropetrovsk, central Ukraine, Governor Serhiy Lysak reported damage to residential properties and an agricultural site after Russian drones led to fires during the night. In Kherson, a southern city frequently hit by Russian strikes, a drone attack on Tuesday morning wounded a 59-year-old man and six municipal workers, officials said.
The barrage came days after Ukraine endured one of the heaviest aerial offensives of the war. On Sunday night alone, Ukraine’s air force claimed Russia launched 355 drones, a record number.
That escalation prompted United States President Donald Trump to declare that Vladimir Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” and to threaten new sanctions. The Kremlin brushed off the remarks, accusing Trump of suffering from “emotional overload”.
Russia said on Tuesday that its huge aerial assaults in recent days were a “response” to escalating Ukrainian drone attacks on its own civilians, accusing Kyiv of trying to “disrupt” peace efforts.
“Kyiv, with the support of some European countries, has taken a series of provocative steps to thwart negotiations initiated by Russia,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The ministry said its forces had shot down 99 Ukrainian drones on Tuesday, including 56 over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
It claimed that from May 20 to 27, air defence units intercepted more than 2,300 Ukrainian drones – 1,465 of them outside active conflict zones.
Russia seizes more territory
In a further setback for Kyiv, Russian troops have captured four villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, the local governor confirmed on Tuesday.
Oleh Hryhorov said Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka were now under Russian control, though civilians had already been evacuated. “The enemy is continuing attempts to advance with the aim of setting up a so-called ‘buffer zone’,” he wrote on Facebook.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also claimed it had taken the nearby village of Bilovody, pointing to further advances near the border.
Though Moscow’s main offensive remains in Donetsk, its push into Sumy shows how Russian forces are stretching Ukraine’s army thin across multiple fronts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned again this week that new Russian offensives were likely in Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Russian troops have been attacking in small groups on motorcycles, backed by drones. Ukrainian forces say they’re holding the line and targeting enemy positions with precision fire.
Military blog DeepState reported over the weekend that Russia now holds about 62.6 sq km (24 square miles) in the region – the first time it has secured a strip of border villages there.
Last month, a Russian missile killed 36 people in the city of Sumy.
Europe undermining peace talks, says Russia
Amid new territorial gains and escalating violence, Russia has shifted blame for the lack of diplomatic progress onto European leaders.
Putin met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine, according to a source from Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fidan also met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday as part of his two-day trip to Moscow.
During the meeting, Lavrov took aim at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, suggesting his recent comments on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons for strikes deep inside Russia reveal that the decision to greenlight such attacks was made long before it was made public.
Lavrov said Merz’s statement was telling – not only for what it implied about policy but for what it revealed about the current crop of Western leaders.
“This shows what sort of people have come to power in key European countries,” Lavrov said.
Merz had earlier stated that weapons supplied to Kyiv by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the US were no longer bound by range restrictions, clearing the path for deeper attacks into Russian territory.
On Tuesday, while on an official visit to Finland, Merz said Western allies had lifted restrictions on the range of weapons sent to Ukraine. He warned the war could drag on, citing Russia’s refusal to engage in meaningful talks. “We may have to prepare for a longer duration,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Moscow accused Ukraine and its European allies of deliberately undermining efforts to revive peace talks. “Since 20 May, Ukraine has ramped up strikes on Russian territory using Western-supplied weapons, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure,” it said.
Direct talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed on May 16 – the first in more than three years – but failed to result in a ceasefire. Russia has since insisted it is working on a serious draft agreement to end hostilities.
“This is a serious draft, a draft of a serious document that demands careful checks and preparation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding it had not yet been submitted.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the draft would lay out key terms for a political settlement and potential ceasefire, and would be presented to Kyiv once finalised.
Moscow has accused Ukraine of escalating attacks in recent days to derail the negotiations. In response to media reports about possible new US sanctions, Peskov claimed Washington was trying to sabotage the diplomatic process.
United States President Donald Trump has pledged there will be no tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, unless they are collected by his own country.
Trump’s statement, made in a Saturday afternoon post on Truth Social, is the latest sign that a recently signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) may be unravelling.
list of 3 itemsend of listRecommended Stories
“There will be NO TOLLS in the Hormuz Strait for 60 days during the Cease Fire Period, and there will be NO TOLLS after the 60 day period has expired,” Trump wrote, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America.”
Since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28, Iran has successfully used the Strait of Hormuz as a pressure point, closing the strategic waterway to traffic.
But under the terms of Wednesday’s ceasefire memorandum, the strait is supposed to reopen for an interim period of 60 days. During that time, Iran is barred from charging vessels for passage.
On Saturday, however, Iran’s joint military command said it had closed the Strait of Hormuz, citing a “clear breach” of the memorandum’s commitments.
US Central Command (CENTCOM), the agency that oversees military operations in the region, denied that report and maintained that the traffic continues to flow through the waterway.
The Strait of Hormuz has long been a flashpoint in the conflict between the US and Iran. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil and natural gas is transported through the strait, as well as about 30 percent of the global fertiliser trade.
Closure of the strait has caused global fuel costs to soar and has tested agricultural sectors across the world.
Trump had responded to Iran’s chokehold over the strait by imposing a US naval blockade on Iran’s ports in the region.
But that naval blockade was lifted under the terms of Wednesday’s memorandum. The deal also paused fighting on all fronts in the regional conflict, including in Lebanon.
The memorandum, though, was not intended as a long-term deal. It serves as a launching point for negotiations on key issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.
Several points of divergence also went unaddressed in the memorandum. Nowhere does the memo say that future tolls cannot be collected from the strait after the 60-day period expires.
Before the war, there was no charge for passage through the strait. Trump himself said in an interview with The New York Times that the waterway should remain “permanently toll-free”.
But he appeared to reverse course in Saturday’s post, once again floating the possibility that the US could extract tolls in the strait, while barring Iran from doing so.
No fees should be levied, Trump wrote, “unless they are imposed by and for the United States of America, should the deal not be completed”.
He explained that such a charge would compensate the US “for services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East for purposes of both past, present, and future reimbursement of costs”.
Trump used similar language in his New York Times interview earlier this week, floating the US becoming “the guardian of the Middle East” in exchange for 20 percent of its revenue.
Saturday’s post is not the first time Trump has mused about the US imposing tolls in the strait, either.
In April, for instance, he discussed the idea with reporters, saying, “What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won.”
There has been no indication that Trump’s plans have been officially presented to countries in the region, many of whom have struck a careful balance in their dealings with both the US and Iran during the war.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, have repeatedly said they will not rule out imposing tolls in the strait, framing the issue as a matter of sovereignty and regional negotiation. The strait sits between Iran and Oman.
Further discussions are expected on the matter in the coming weeks.
But such negotiations have been thrown into jeopardy amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Lebanon, which threaten to violate Wednesday’s ceasefire memorandum.
Iran claimed that Saturday’s closure of the strait was a result of new Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, which killed dozens of people after the ceasefire was announced.
Iranian officials have also said that any upcoming talks should focus on proper implementation of the initial memorandum, and that the 60-day negotiating period stipulated in Wednesday’s deal would begin after that was settled.
Pakistan, a top mediator between the US and Iran, has said that follow-up talks are set to begin in Switzerland on Sunday.
Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that an Iranian delegation, led by parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, has already arrived for the negotiations.
On the US side, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance are expected to attend.
Vance departed for Switzerland late Saturday.
new video loaded: Moscow Tanker Blast Most Likely Russian Missile, Video Shows
By James McManagan, Paul Sonne, Malachy Browne and Jackeline Luna
June 19, 2026
World
Man charged with attempted murder, released after allegedly forcing toddler into crocodile enclosure at zoo
Man FORCES child into crocodile enclosure
A British man has been arrested after allegedly forcing a 3-year-old boy into a crocodile enclosure at a zoo. The child suffered critical injuries, and authorities say the suspect did not know the boy as the investigation continues.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A man was released from custody on Friday after he was charged with attempted murder for allegedly forcing a 3-year-old boy into a crocodile enclosure at a zoo.
Cambridgeshire police said that the man, who remains unidentified, wasn’t fit to be interviewed.
The boy suffered critical injuries in the incident at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo in Huntingdon, England, north of London.
The 30-year-old man will remain on bail until Sept. 30, pending further inquiries.
GEORGIA MOM’S WALMART TRIP DEVOLVES INTO ‘TUG-OF-WARRING’ IN DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SAVE HER SON
A crocodile rests inside an enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst, a farm and zoo in Old Hurst, Cambridgeshire, Britain, on April 14, 2026. (Dorota Dee Trajdos/Reuters)
“The man, who is not known to the victim, was assessed as not being fit for interview,” police said in a statement.
The boy is in stable condition, after reportedly suffering a broken arm and pelvis.
He was saved from the crocodile by Tracey Johnson, the wife of the zoo’s owner.
MOTHER JUMPS INTO WATER TO SAVE 4-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER WHO FELL BETWEEN CRUISE SHIP AND DOCK
“I know Tracey very well and she’s a lovely lady and it’s nothing more than I’d expect from her,” a local told BBC News. “She’d always put her own life at risk to save someone else. She’s an extraordinary lady and very brave.
The villager added that Johnson put herself in “immense danger” during the rescue.
The owners said their tropical house would remain closed until further notice.
Crocodiles rest inside an enclosure at Johnsons of Old Hurst farm and zoo in Old Hurst, Cambridgeshire, Britain, on April 14, 2026. (Dorota Dee Trajdos/Reuters)
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the boy and his family following the incident that occurred today,” the owners wrote on social media.
Johnsons of Old Hurst is a farm and zoo north of London in Huntingdon, England. (Google Maps)
Huntingdonshire district councillor Charlotte Lowe said she couldn’t “fathom how it’s happened because they’ve got all the right protection and safety equipment, for want of a better word, in there,” The Guardian reported.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Cambridgeshire Constabulary for comment.
-
World7 minutes agoTrump vows Iran will not charge Strait of Hormuz tolls, but says US might
-
News30 minutes agoDOJ memo stokes fear among disability advocates of a return to institutionalization
-
Los Angeles, Ca2 hours agoArmed home invasion in L.A.’s Fairfax District leaves resident assaulted
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoTigers top Chicago White Sox 4-1; Detroit pitcher Troy Melton allows 1 hit in 6 innings
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoMLB Rumors: Latest Intel on Potential Matt Chapman Trade for San Francisco Giants
-
Dallas, TX2 hours agoDallas’ Fair Park to Get $2.5M Boost From McKesson – Dallas Weekly
-
Miami, FL3 hours agoAir quality alert in effect in Miami-Dade and Broward counties: National Weather Service
-
Boston, MA3 hours agoBoston Signs Big Blueliner Rylind MacKinnon To One-Year Extension
