Ukraine war live: Trump promises ‘peace to the world’ after phone call with Zelensky

Residents angry over recent power cuts in southern Russia staged a rare public protest on Saturday in the city of Krasnodar, posts on social media said, as the local governor blamed a heatwave for causing the blackouts.

The south of Russia has been affected by unusually hot weather that has caused mass power outages in several regions and led to the shutdown earlier this week of one of four power units at the Rostov nuclear power plant, the region’s largest.

The unit has been put back into operation since then.

“There has been abnormal heat in the Krasnodar region for a week now. The load on the energy system is colossal. I know and understand all the indignation of residents due to power outages,” Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Krasnodar region, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He said power capacities were not currently sufficient to meet peak demand during the hot summer months.

One video posted on the Baza Telegram channel appeared to show police making at least two arrests during Saturday’s protest.

Russian authorities have clamped down on any protest activity, especially politically laced dissent, since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022, and public protests are very rare given the risk of arrest.

Ukraine is on its way to being able to “stand on its own feet” militarily, the US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said, noting that more than 20 other countries have pledged to maintain their own military and financial aid to the country even if the U.S. were to withdraw its support under a different president.

Mr Blinken for the first time directly addressed the possibility that former President Donald Trump could win the November election and back away from commitments to Ukraine during his remarks on Friday. The US, under President Joe Biden, has been the most important supporter of Ukraine’s more than two-year battle against invading Russian forces.

Residents angry over recent power cuts in southern Russia staged a rare public protest on Saturday in the city of Krasnodar, posts on social media said, as the local governor blamed a heatwave for causing the blackouts.

The south of Russia has been affected by unusually hot weather that has caused mass power outages in several regions and led to the shutdown earlier this week of one of four power units at the Rostov nuclear power plant, the region’s largest.

The unit has been put back into operation since then.

“There has been abnormal heat in the Krasnodar region for a week now. The load on the energy system is colossal. I know and understand all the indignation of residents due to power outages,” Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Krasnodar region, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He said power capacities were not currently sufficient to meet peak demand during the hot summer months.

One video posted on the Baza Telegram channel appeared to show police making at least two arrests during Saturday’s protest.

Russian authorities have clamped down on any protest activity, especially politically laced dissent, since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022, and public protests are very rare given the risk of arrest.

Three pro-Russian hackers have been arrested for alleged cyberattacks against Spain and other NATO countries for terrorist purposes, Spanish police said on Saturday.

The suspects were detained for their alleged participation in distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber attacks against public institutions and strategic sectors, the Civil Guard said.

It did not say if the three suspects, who have not been named, have been charged or detained

The cyberattacks were allegedly carried out against web pages of public and private organizations in the government sectors, critical infrastructures and essential services in countries which support Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, it said.

Police released a video on social media platform X of a raid at the home of one of the suspects in which a Soviet-era hammer and sickle flag was mounted on a wall.

A Ukrainian former MP best known for her crusade to promote the Ukrainian language has died after being shot in the street by an unknown assailant.

Iryna Farion, 60, initially survived the assault in the western city of Lviv on Friday, but later died from her wounds in a hospital. A manhunt is currently underway for her attacker, who fled from the scene. Ukrainian officials said an investigation is being carried out and that the attack is being treated as an assassination.

“All available surveillance cameras are being worked on, witness interviews are ongoing and several districts are being surveyed. All leads are being investigated, including the one that leads to Russia,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel Saturday.

“All necessary forces from the National Police of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Security Service have been deployed to search for the criminal.”

Farion served as a member of the Ukrainian parliament between 2012 and 2014, and was best known for her campaigns to promote the use of the Ukrainian language by Ukrainian officials who spoke Russian. She controversially criticised Russian-speaking members of Ukraine’s Azov regiment who defended the port city of Mariupol in the first days of the full-scale invasion.

Police are considering “personal animosity” toward the former MP due to her social and political activities as a likely motive behind the attack, said Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, who will oversee the investigation in Lviv.

At least two people were killed and three more injured after a Russian missile strike on infrastructure in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the local governor, Oleh Syniehubov, has said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials confirmed that the death toll following a Russian strike Friday on the city of Mykolaiv, had risen to four. A child was among the victims, said the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych.

Writing about the Mykolaiv strike on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a projectile had hit a playground next to an apartment block.

“Russia proves every day with its terror that ‘pressure’ is not enough,” he said. “This destruction of life must be stopped. We need new solutions to support our defenses. Russia must feel the power of the world.”

Keir Starmer’s decision to invite Volodymyr Zelensky to become only the second foreign dignitary after Bill Clinton to address the UK Cabinet can be seen as an attempt by the latest prime minister of the UK to reassure Ukraine of this country’s continuing support, and to rekindle something of the trust that surely existed between former PM Boris Johnson and Zelensky.

Yet however distinguished the setting, and however warm the words on either side, there was inevitably more appearance than substance to the proceedings.

The Ukrainian president on Friday became the first foreign leader to address the cabinet in person since Bill Clinton in 1997, calling for support for his country’s “long-range capability”.

In his address to the cabinet, Mr Zelensky said that “if the restriction on Western weapons is lifted” it would help Kyiv to strengthen its defences and secure its frontline positions.

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This weekend 25,000 music lovers are gathering for Ukraine’s biggest music festival, an annual event that hasn’t been held since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Journalist Paul Niland shared a video on X of a large crowd watching the Ukrainian rock band BoomBox on stage. The billing this year will understandably mostly be made up of domestic talent, though the event has previously had headline acts from global stars like Kasabian, The Chemical Brothers and Liam Gallagher.

Speaking to the BBC, event organiser Vlad Yaremchuk explained how the festival is being conducted in a car park outside one of Kyiv’s biggest shopping malls – so if a Russian air attack does take place, “there will be more than enough space to get everyone evacuated quickly — and we’re talking minutes”. The mall has a capacity of 100,000, he says.

So far the festival, running from Friday to Sunday, is going smoothly. It already had to be pushed back one week after the major aerial assault on Kyiv that hit a children’s hospital.

“We didn’t even expect to have a chance to do a festival while the war is still happening.” Yaremchuk says.

“The reality showed us that cultural events are still possible in wartime.”