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Ukraine war briefing: Trump and Zelenskyy’s public tussle over Russian fuel deal worsens

Ukraine’s foreign minister says Volodymyr Zelenskyy has the backing of the Ukrainian people and deserves support, after Donald Trump called for Zelenskyy to be replaced as president. “He has the support of the Ukrainian people, and they have the right to decide,” Andriy Sybiga said on Saturday. “Statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well. He deserves support.” Earlier, Trump said Ukraine needed “a new leader” a day after the US president struck a deal allowing Russia to supply diesel to global markets, and as Moscow launched strikes on Ukrainian civilians, killing 20 people including three children. Trump on Saturday also called ⁠on Zelenskyy ⁠to stop hitting Russian ‌oil ‌refineries, saying: “He better damn ‌well stop.” Trump made the comments to reporters at the White House. Zelenskyy on Friday had reacted furiously to Trump’s deal with Putin, calling it “terrible” and “not fair and not honest”. Further ratcheting up the tension, Trump said Vladimir Putin would like to reach a deal on the war with Ukraine, and without evidence accused Zelenskyy of resisting a compromise. “Russia would like to make a deal … but for whatever reason, Zelenskyy does not want to make a deal,” Trump told reporters. “President Putin would like to see a settlement, strongly,” Trump said of a phone conversation he had with the Russian leader on Friday. The British prime minister, Andy Burnham, has moved to quickly back Zelenskyy, telling his Ukrainian counterpart they were in “complete solidarity”. In a call between the two leaders, Burnham told Zelenskyy he recognised that “the past 24 hours had been difficult for Ukraine and reiterated his complete solidarity”, according to a Downing Street readout. The leaders discussed “the importance of maintaining pressure on Russia”, with Burnham making it clear the UK “would continue to strengthen its sanctions on Russia and to take further action to constrain the Russian war machine”. They agreed to meet in person in the coming days, the readout added. US ⁠negotiators Steve ⁠Witkoff ⁠and Jared Kushner, who have ⁠spearheaded efforts to ⁠broker a ‌Ukraine peace ‌agreement, ‌may visit Moscow within the next ‌two weeks, Russian state news ⁠reported on Saturday, citing a source. A delegation of Ukrainian officials who visited Miami for talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine was on Saturday heading home, an aide to Zelenskyy said. “The groups are already on their way home,” Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to the president, told reporters. Vladimir Putin’s top economic negotiator on Saturday welcomed Trump’s call to replace Zelenskyy, describing his remarks as “historic”. “President Trump joins the many who believe that Ukraine needs leadership actually focused on peace,” Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s special envoy on economic cooperation, said in a post on X. Germany said Saturday it would continue to push for new EU sanctions against Russia despite Moscow’s agreement with Washington to release diesel to ease a fuel crunch. “The German government sticks to its measures sanctioning Russia and is working jointly with its European partners on new sanctions,” the government spokesperson, Stefan Kornelius, said in a statement. Germany’s “support for Ukraine in its struggle to defend itself remains unfailing,” he said. “Diplomatic efforts for a peaceful solution continue.” Russia’s defence ⁠ministry said its drones ⁠had ⁠struck a data-processing centre in ⁠Kyiv earlier on Saturday and a ⁠cargo ship ‌carrying military ‌supplies to ‌the Ukrainian port of Odesa. In a statement, the ministry said ‌the Kyiv facility was used by Ukraine’s armed forces to ⁠collect, process and store intelligence. The ⁠ministry ⁠also said ⁠its forces ⁠had captured ‌the ‌settlements of Lukashove ‌and Lobanivka in Ukraine’s ‌Kharkiv region, Russia’s Interfax news agency ⁠reported. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Twelve killed and hundreds injured in Houthi attack at Riyadh airport

Yemen’s Houthis have launched a missile attack on Riyadh’s international airport in Saudi Arabia, killing at least 12 people and leaving hundreds wounded, the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority has said. Operations at King Khalid international airport in Riyadh were suspended as ambulances rushed to the airport. More than 300 people were reported injured in the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the Iran war. Donald Trump said he was evaluating whether the US should join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen. “We may. We’re going to look at it,” Trump said. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.” The US secretary of ⁠state, Marco ⁠Rubio, called the attacks “reprehensible” and said “they must stop ‌now”. A Saudi government statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens, as well as two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a US citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese. One witness at the Riyadh airport reported hearing an explosion while waiting to board a flight, and another said they saw a strike that left people wounded. “I was on gate 403,” at the domestic terminal, the witness told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “I saw [gate] 401 hit, I saw injured [people] in front of my eyes. Everyone was running.” The relative of one injured person said they had been wounded in the shoulders and arms by shattered glass and taken to hospital. A missile struck an airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to speak to the media. A projectile also fell near the King Fahd international airport in Dammam, according to the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis. The Dammam airport has become an important alternative to Riyadh amid the recent spate of attacks. Saturday’s incident comes amid an escalation of missile strikes by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis ⁠on the kingdom. The airport has already been attacked twice this week, leaving four people dead and ‌others wounded, and ‌badly damaging an aircraft. The Houthis have repeatedly attacked Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers after a truce in their long-running war with Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government unravelled in July. The attack came as forces allied to the UN-recognised government in Yemen claim to have mounted a successful offensive to retake the Bab al-Mandab strait from Houthi rebels, but accounts vary as to whether the push has been repelled. A Houthi spokesperson said forces from the Saudi-backed government based in Aden “were targeted with a large number of ballistic missiles, artillery support and heavy weapons, resulting in the destruction of more than 22 armoured vehicles and the killing and wounding of dozens, including a number of commanders. “More than 30 ambulances arrived in Aden to transport the dead and wounded from the Saudi enemy’s mobilisations.” By contrast, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed al-Jaber, said: “Blessed Friday and victory for every Yemeni and Arab. Bab al-Mandab has been cleared of the remnants of the Houthi terrorist militia.” The exposed 5 sq mile (13 sq km) Perim Island straddles the strait, acting as a lookout point for all traffic from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden and towards the Indian Ocean. Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the president of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), one of the main political forces in the south of Yemen, claimed the island and coastal area had been recaptured from Houthi hands. An official military spokesperson for the UN-recognised government forces qualified the claim, saying only half the area had been recaptured so far. Waddah al-Dabish said newly established Houthi defensive lines had been broken on the land next to the strait, leading to the death of thousands of Houthi fighters. It is thought that as many as 500 Houthi fighters are stationed on the island, and Saudi Arabia is desperate to be able to report that the strait has been reclaimed to show that the land counteroffensive it launched at the beginning of the week is advancing. The report came as the United Nations’ special envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, admitted to the UN security council in New York that Yemen – one of the poorest countries in the world – had lapsed back into full-scale war and said the first victims would be women and children. The Houthis seized control of the strait two weeks ago and said no Saudi-linked commercial traffic would be permitted to go through the narrow waterway. The Houthis are waging a war to remove Saudi influence from Yemen, and have been mounting missile attacks on Riyadh in support of this objective. There have been previous premature reports of military breakthroughs by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government since it launched its counteroffensive at the start of the week, but the recapture of the land by the strait and Perim Island (also known as Mayyun Island) is a military prize western governments desperately need.

Four dead as Isaias weakens to post-tropical cyclone after striking Florida panhandle

At least four people were reported dead on Saturday amid Isaias after it made landfall late on Friday on Florida’s panhandle as a category 2 hurricane, according to authorities. The storm also took down trees, knocked out electricity for hundreds of thousands and flooded highways – but as Saturday evening approached, the region was reopening. Despite warnings of storm surges ahead of the storm, several major routes along the coast were open by daybreak on Saturday and free of downed trees and power lines typically seen after major hurricanes. Two of the deaths reported during Isaias occurred in Escambia county, Florida, and two others were reported in Alabama, as the storm moved inland, local officials said. Of those deaths, one each occurred in Escambia and Birmingham, Alabama, when trees fell on homes. Another person whose death was linked to Isaias was found in a closed garage with a running generator in Escambia county. Four members of that person’s family have been transported to the hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning, the Escambia sheriff’s office said. “Don’t run any generators inside your home, it can be very, very hazardous,” Florida governor Ron DeSantis said in a press conference. In Alabama, governor Kay Ivey said Isaias – predicted to dissipate on Sunday – “cannot clear fast enough”. Meanwhile, though it had weakened on Saturday to a post-tropical cyclone as it passed through central Alabama, Isaias still posed flooding and tornado threats as it moved inland, forecasters and officials warned. Hurricane-force winds in the Florida panhandle blew the roof off a Pensacola hotel, and the city’s mayor said the airport “took some damage”. The storm flattened a boathouse in Destin and ripped away part of the facade of a high-rise in Panama City Beach. A worker in a condominium parking lot swept piles of the building’s insulation while others put back beach chairs that had been tossed about. “Remember, there can still be flooding from rising rivers,” Jared W Perdue, the secretary of Florida’s state transportation department, said at a news conference. “I’m just going to remind all of you – please, if there’s standing water or flowing water on top of a road, please do not drive through it. “It does not have to be that deep, and it can wash away your car, it can wash away a human, it can become very dangerous very quickly.” Nearly 550,000 customers were still without power across Florida, Alabama and Georgia on Saturday afternoon as those in the path of the storm began the cleanup process, according to PowerOutage.us. Though still high, the number of outages was down from more than 900,000 earlier on Saturday. Storm surge and tropical storm warnings associated with Isaias by then had been discontinued, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned there would still likely be “considerable impacts” associated with Isaias across much of southern Alabama, Florida’s panhandle and south-western Georgia. “Flash, urban and river flooding is possible across the region,” the NHC said in a Saturday-morning advisory, adding that there was a considerable potential for flash flooding and landslides across the southern Appalachians. “A risk for tornadoes will persist … through [Saturday] afternoon across parts of the eastern Florida panhandle, Georgia and the Carolinas.” Isaias through Sunday is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 4-8in across southern Alabama, Florida’s panhandle and Big Bend regions, and south-west Georgia. Localized totals up to 15in are possible, particularly within rain bands across the Florida panhandle and Big Bend. Across much of the remainder of the south-east US, rainfall amounts of 2-5in are expected, and localized higher amounts up to 10in are possible, especially across the southern Appalachians and coastal Carolinas. The hurricane’s maximum sustained winds were 105mph (169km/h). That was intense enough to sound like “a train whistle”, Tim Mowry told the Associated Press after enduring the storm as his home in Pensacola, Florida. Mowry described losing power on Friday afternoon but said could rely on a generator. He said his son tried to drive to his home after his place about 15 minutes away lost power but had to turn around because downed trees and power lines blocked the road. All things considered, Mowry said he was “really fortunate” with respect to how he fared during Isaias. Along Alabama’s Gulf coast, authorities in Mobile reported numerous downed trees and power lines. Maranie Adams, who rode out the storm with her family and their chickens in Gulf Shores, Alabama, said the winds rocked their home, but it was nothing like Hurricane Sally, which left water under their elevated house. “I feel very much more relieved today,” she said. Donald Trump has allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to provide resources to Georgia to help grapple with the ongoing storm, including possible tornadoes, the agency said on Saturday. Several roads have already been blocked by fallen trees around Atlanta, local outlets have reported. Trump previously approved emergency declarations for Florida and Alabama ahead of the landfall of Hurricane Isaias. While the stronger El Niño seemed to limit the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic for the year so far, Isaias forming in October with maximum sustained winds of 105mph marked a stark contrast from historical trends. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) predicted a quiet year in terms of hurricanes at the beginning of a season that officially begins annually on 1 June. Noaa anticipated between three and six hurricanes, well below the average of seven. An August forecast from Noaa cut the expected number to between two and six. Isais is one of the two latest-forming Atlantic hurricanes on record, tying a record set on 8 October 1905. Otherwise, the second-latest date for the first Atlantic hurricane was 11 September – in 2002 and 2013. None of the eight previous named storms of the 2026 Atlantic season intensified above tropical storm status. The Associated Press contributed reporting

Trump says Ukraine needs a new leader after diesel deal with Russia

Donald Trump has said Ukraine needs “a new leader”, a day after making a deal with Vladimir Putin to buy large quantities of Russian diesel. The US president suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war with Russia and blamed him for high diesel prices in the US. “I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does,” Trump said. Trump made the comments as Russia launched deadly strikes on civilians in Ukraine, which Zelenskyy said were a “thanks” to Trump for the diesel deal. The Ukrainian president has expressed outrage at the agreement announced by Trump on Friday, which the US president said was needed to reduce diesel prices, and comes ahead of November’s midterm elections in which fuel costs are a key voter issue. The deal, which appeared to blindside Kyiv as it was announced while Ukrainian negotiators were in Miami for peace talks, was described by Zelenskyy as a “gift” to Russia’s president. He said Russia would use the money it raised from the fuel sales to invest in its war and that “any easing of sanctions” would play into Russia’s hands, “allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer”. That prediction was realised hours later, when Ukrainian officials announced that a barrage of Russian strikes on the country’s south-east early on Saturday had killed 20 people, including three children. “Today, Russia expressed its thanks for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by dropping five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia,” Zelenskyy said on social media on Saturday. “Last night confirmed once again that in Russia, they take any easing of pressure to mean they can keep fighting, to mean they can keep dropping bombs on cities. Different signals are needed,” he said. There were also “large-scale power outages” in the capital, Kyiv, the country’s largest private energy provider said. Andy Burnham reiterated his “complete solidarity” in a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders agreed to meet in person in the coming days to continue talks. The prime minister said he recognised the past day had been “difficult for Ukraine” and the two talked about the importance of keeping up pressure on Russia, No 10 said. In stark contrast to Zelenskyy’s open frustration with Trump, a Kremlin readout of Friday’s call between the US president and Putin was glowing, with the Russian ⁠news agency Interfax ⁠quoting an aide as saying it was “very substantive and friendly”. “Neither wanted to be the first to hang up,” the Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said of the two leaders. “They hung up simultaneously, literally at the same time.” Zelenskyy has previously said Putin is playing games with Trump. The diesel deal disrupts four years of western financial pressure on Moscow and leaves Kyiv’s allies in Europe and Nato scrambling to adapt their sanctions plan. The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said the diesel deal “provides Moscow with more revenues to wage war”. “This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t,” she said on Saturday. “On Monday, EU foreign ministers intend to approve the biggest set of sanctions listings targeting Russia’s war machine since the start of the war.” She was referring to plans to formally add 1,600 new individuals and entities to the EU’s sanctions blacklist. Major European governments have attempted to balance their diplomatic and trade relationships with a mercurial Trump and their support for Ukraine. The German government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Berlin “remains committed to the sanctions imposed on Russia and is working with its European partners on further sanctions”, adding that support for Ukraine “remains unwavering”. Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister, expressed “regret” at the US agreement, saying energy revenues were “a vital source of funding Russia’s war of aggression”. Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Russia “must feel its losses” and has promised to respond. In the Russian-occupied ‌Luhansk ‌region, Ukrainian attacks in the past 24 hours had killed four ⁠civilians and wounded ⁠five, the region’s ‌Russian-installed governor, Leonid Pasechnik, said on Saturday. Zelenskyy said that Ukraine was ready to take “de-escalatory steps” in the war but only if Russia did the same. Russia’s fuel production has become a key point of contention between Zelenskyy and Trump, who has attempted to stop Ukraine from bombing Russian refineries, which he says exacerbates a global diesel shortage. The Ukrainian leader has rejected such requests unless Russia stops attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The Financial Times reported that during the talks in Miami, Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner raised the possibility that US intelligence sharing could be cut off if Kyiv did not halt the strikes.

Out of the rubble and on to the beach: Gaza’s junior surf lifesavers return to the waves after three years of war

As a group of smiling children in yellow and black rash vests bundled towards the beach near the Al-Shati refugee camp through concrete alleys lined with rubbish, rubble and the occasional bullet hole, Hassan Al-Habeel felt joy again. The Palestinian man, in his 40s, oversaw the return of Gaza Nippers, Palestine’s chapter of the popular Australian junior surf life saving program, last month after three years. The group of Gazan boys and girls spent the day catching waves, dancing and playing in the sand and sun, footage seen by Guardian Australia showed. But the return of Gaza’s Nippers program was a moment tinged with sadness for Al-Habeel, who trained at North Steyne Royal Surf Lifesaving Club in Sydney’s northern beaches over the 2019-20 summer. Of the 45 children involved in the original program, 15 have been found alive. The rest remain missing, uncontactable or have died as a result of the conflict. One of them was Ali, Al-Habeel’s 15-year-old son. Unable to access food and medicine due to blockades and bombings, Ali died in his father’s arms before he was able to reach the closest hospital. “I wanted to prepare [Ali] to be a lifeguard, so when he gets older, he would teach children how to swim on the shores of Gaza,” Al-Habeel said in the footage. “But unfortunately, the war took Ali from us as it took many children in Gaza. “And now I see children play without Ali, which is difficult for me, but what can we do? That’s the decree of God.” No safe place for children Devised on the shores of Sydney in 2017, the Gaza program was able to run its first summer season in mid-2023 after the pandemic set it back. But by October, it was indefinitely suspended as Israel began its invasion into Gaza after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Since then, Israel’s relentless military offensive has killed 73,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, wounding many more and reducing swathes of Gaza to rubble. During the conflict, Al-Habeel and others coordinating the program tried to track down the children but some had fled south toward the Egyptian border, or couldn’t be reached. Shamikh Badra, the program’s co-founder who lives in Australia, says he worked tirelessly with Al-Habeel and others still in Gaza to confirm whether the children were still alive. Word of mouth from friends and family still in Gaza gave Badra clues as to their whereabouts – or worse. “We waited to make sure, if we found some of them were killed, we would confirm,” Badra tells Guardian Australia. “I can’t confirm anything without evidence because it’s not easy to declare something like that.” In the end, 15 were able to be contacted and were invited to again take to the waves. The original program targeted particularly disadvantaged kids who had been injured or lost family members in previous conflicts, but Badra says making the selection in the midst of the current war was even harder. “We said, ‘Let’s invite some children who have difficult circumstances like [before],’” he says. “Some of my friends told me all the children are suffering now, not like before … it’s no safe place.” There were other logistical challenges. Many of the rash vests, flags and flotation devices donated to them by the North Steyne RSLC had been lost, stolen or destroyed. The Northern Beaches Committee for Palestine raised funds to send to Al-Habeel so he could buy body boards, gold and black rash vests and other equipment. The final hurdle was safety. Badra says he and Al-Habeel spent months trying to find the right time to return without endangering the children. Even after the ceasefire was agreed to last October, intermittent bombings and increased tensions repeatedly forced the launch date back. Eventually, 25 September 2026 was marked in the calendar. As exciting as the moment was, thousands of miles away, Badra waited nervously to hear news of its success. “I was worried all this day. I was waiting, calling the team. I wanted to know, how are they? I wanted this day to be finished and people and children to return and come back to their home safe.” A ‘ray of hope’ in Gaza Christine Stewart Gibbs, the former North Steyne RSLC president and now a member of the Northern Beaches Committee for Palestine, says seeing the footage of happy children in Gaza was a “miracle”. “Here in the middle of war-torn Gaza – with buildings bombed out and a lot of rubble, and difficulty moving around, and still a lack of food and lack of healthcare – for Hassan to pull together the program with his helpers and bring the kids together was fantastic,” she says. “There’s no good news coming out of Gaza, and this felt like a ray of hope.” The plan is for the Gaza Nippers program to return again next summer. “To enjoy, to laugh, to swim … [is] something simple … but in Gaza, it’s so hard and difficult and dangerous,” Badra says. “If we surrender to the sadness and we be negative, we can’t help the people in Gaza. “This message is for the United Nations and all the world: these children need to live as all the children around the world. They need to live in peace. We should not leave them isolated under the pressure of occupation and siege and blockade.”

Man dies after jumping into tiger enclosure at Yorkshire zoo

A man has died after being attacked by a tiger after jumping into its enclosure at a zoo in Yorkshire, police have said. Emergency services were contacted shortly after 1.30pm on Saturday when the man entered the enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, near Doncaster, and was set upon by the tiger. He was pronounced dead at the scene, South Yorkshire police said, adding his family had been informed. Videos circulating online appear to show a man being pawed at and grappled by a tiger in an enclosure. A police spokesperson said the tiger attacked the man and inflicted “serious injury”. “Emergency services attended and sadly, despite the best efforts of medical personnel, the man was pronounced dead at the scene,” they added. “Regarding rumours surrounding the condition of the tiger, the animal was uninjured and remained in the enclosure following the incident and there is no wider risk to the public.” The force urged people not to share “distressing” video footage of the attack, circulating on social media. Yorkshire Wildlife Park said a “serious incident” occurred inside the enclosure. It said in a statement: “Our emergency response procedures were immediately activated, and emergency services are currently attending the scene. “We are working closely with the authorities to ascertain exactly what happened.” It added that the “safety and wellbeing of visitors, staff and animals remain our highest priority”. Yorkshire Wildlife Park opened in 2009, with the Land of the Tigers attraction opening in 2011. The attraction is on a purpose-built two-acre reserve for Amur tigers, an endangered subspecies with about 500 left in the wild. Photos of the enclosure on the park’s website shows a high walkway for visitors and fencing above the section where the tigers can roam. A Yorkshire ambulance service spokesperson said it sent a number of resources to the scene including two ambulances, Yorkshire air ambulance and a doctor.