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Marco Rubio said a ceasefire would not solve the war, but would solve a ‘unique aspect of it’
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The US has warned grain and energy shortages are “threatening the world” as it said there is growing international interest in facilitating a temporary ceasefire in the Black Sea.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration is reviewing proposals by Turkey and India to get grain shipments moving.
“This is threatening the world for food security and some energy security as well,” he said. “We’d like to achieve it. It doesn’t solve the war, but at least it solves a unique aspect of it.”
It comes as hundreds of Ukrainians have begun returning home from the Russian-controlled Ukrainian town of Oleshky, under a temporary ceasefire arrangement.
Starving and exhausted residents have been leaving the area as part of a joint relief operation agreed by the opposing sides in the war, the first of its kind in four years and eight months of conflict.
Evacuees travelled by bus via the Crimean peninsula to the Russian town of Anapa before flying to Belarus and proceeding to Ukraine via a border crossing,.
In a post on the Telegram app, Ukraine’s president Volodmyr Zelensky thanked the United States and US first lady Melania Trump for their mediation.
Explosions, missile launches, and military sonar systems used during the Ukraine war are confusing dolphins in the Black Sea and leaving them unable to hunt, experts have said.
Trawlers are finding the animals suffocated and entangled in their nets and cutting off their fins to release them, leaving them to wash ashore with the net marks still visible.
Ivan Rusev, head researcher at the Tuzly Lagoons national park in southern Ukraine, told Al Jazeera more than 120,000 dolphins have died this way since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
More here.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could be invited to attend the December G20 summit in Miami if US President Donald Trump thinks “something positive” could result from his attendance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday.
It comes after Rubio, speaking at a reception at the Georgia Aquarium on Friday evening, repeated his call for G20 members to cooperate where possible given today’s complex economic and geopolitical challenges, including many with serious global consequences.
“Because we all face these challenges, we must all work together to address them,” he said. “The future of our nations depend on our willingness to understand that while our interests may not always align, we should always seek to work together to advance them when and where they do align.”
Friday’s meeting revealed deep rifts in the G20 over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, with organizers nixing a traditional family photo after some European members refused to be photographed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The evacuation of Oleshky in eastern Ukraine is a cynical move by Putin to rearm and reset in his endless war, explains world affairs editor Sam Kiley.
The group photocall at Friday’s G20 meeting was cancelled after foreign secretary Ed Miliband and his European counterparts refused to be photographed with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio was forced to pull the plug on the photograph at the start of the meeting of the world’s largest economies in Atlanta, Georgia, after several European officials said they intended to boycott or walk out of the photograph that often kicks off the gatherings.
Rubio decided to scrap the picture because he thought the controversy would be a distraction, according to two US officials, who spoke to the Associated Press.
You can read more below:
Volodymyr Zelensky has said around 800 religious sites have been destroyed or damaged by Russia in their ongoing war in Ukraine.
In a post on X, the Ukrainian president said: “Around 120 representatives of the clergy have been killed by the Russians. On purpose, not accidentally, in deliberate attacks on these people, on our churches, and on other religious institutions.
“Around 800 religious sites were destroyed or damaged. Some of them were one thousand years old, subjected to massive drone and missile attacks – both cruise and ballistic. It’s awful and crazy. And this is not about money. This is about our heritage, history, art, and architecture. You can’t just renovate them. It is very painful for all of us, and of course for our clergy in the first place.”
Explosions, missile launches, and military sonar systems used during the Ukraine war are confusing dolphins in the Black Sea and leaving them unable to hunt, experts have said.
Trawlers are finding the animals suffocated and entangled in their nets and cutting off their fins to release them, leaving them to wash ashore with the net marks still visible.
Ivan Rusev, head researcher at the Tuzly Lagoons national park in southern Ukraine, told Al Jazeera more than 120,000 dolphins have died this way since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
You can read more below:
There were emotional scenes as families were reunited after long separations after Oleshky residents returned to Ukraine on Saturday.
Among those scanning arriving buses was 19-year-old Liza Paliy, who had not seen her father in more than two and a half years. She fled the occupied Kherson region with her mother and sister early in the war while he stayed behind to guard their home.
“We thought at that time that it would be a month, two maximum, and we would return, but unfortunately, two years have already passed,” Ms Paliy said.
Nearby, Daria Pavlyn waited for news of her father, Mykhailo, with whom she lost contact roughly a month ago.
Her family had initially planned to escape together after an artillery strike killed two neighbours, but her father stayed behind when plans to look after their property and animals collapsed.
The local ceasefire in Oleshky has shown that de-escalation efforts “are possible,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
In a post on X, he said Ukraine is now preparing for trilateral talks with the US and Russia in November.
“Strong decisions are needed to bring peace,” he wrote. “At every level, Russia must be sent signals that there is no alternative to peace and that support for Ukraine will not diminish.
“This is all the more important given that a humanitarian operation took place in Oleshky, in the Kherson region, over the past few days. And it clearly demonstrates that de-escalation steps are possible when Russia is the one put in a position where it has to take steps toward de-escalation.”
Despite the ceasefire on the southern Kherson front, fighting raged on in other parts of the front. Both Russia and Ukraine also kept up their drone attacks on each other.
Zelensky said that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure, hitting electricity substations, thermal power plants and gas infrastructure.
Ukraine’s military said it had hit a major Russian producer of missile fuel in the Rostov region.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukrainian and Russian ombudsmen had a good dialogue and had gradually begun to trust each other as they worked together during the Oleshky ceasefire, Russia’s Vedomosti reported.
But the Kremlin said on Friday that it was an isolated situation, which was difficult to extrapolate to the broader peace process.
Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are due to resume talks in Abu Dhabi in early November after discussions were suspended in February following the outbreak of the war in Iran.
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