Deadly Russian drone attack blasts buildings in Odesa after Australia gifts tanks to Ukraine
A Russian drone attack has killed at least one person, after Australia has given more weaponry to Ukraine.
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A Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed at least one person, while Moscow said it intercepted dozens of Ukrainian drones.
“Odesa was attacked by enemy strike drones -- more than 20 UAVs approached the city from different directions,” Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov wrote on Telegram on Saturday.
“Civilian infrastructure was damaged as a result of the attack. A residential high-rise building is on fire,” and rescuers were pulling people out, he said.
“As of now, it has been confirmed that one person died,” he added. The Odesa region’s emergency service said later that five people were rescued from burning apartments but “one rescued woman died”.
The Black Sea port, known for its picturesque streets of 19th-century buildings, has been regularly targeted by Russian strikes in the more than three-year war. The southern city’s historic centre is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The Russian defence ministry, meanwhile, said its air defence systems destroyed 87 Ukrainian drones in a five-hour period Friday evening, including 48 over the Bryansk region bordering northern Ukraine, and five over the Moscow region.
Russia has escalated long-range aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities as well as frontline assaults and shelling over recent weeks, defying US President Donald Trump’s warning that Moscow could face massive new sanctions if no peace deal is struck.
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AUSTRALIA GIVES UKRAINE MORE TANKS
Australia is providing 49 M1A1 Abrams tanks – valued at $245m – to Ukraine to help bolster its war against Russia’s illegal invasion.
The first tranche of the retired tanks are now in the possession of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after they were shipped from the Port of Geelong.
Australia first purchased the fleet of 59 Abrams tanks – which were never deployed into a combat zone – in 2007.
The Australian Army has since replaced the fleet with newer M1A2 tanks.
Last year, Ukraine expressed interest in taking the M1A1 fleet after Australia refused to donate its retired fleet of Taipan helicopters – which have since been dismantled and buried – due to concerns they would be too complicated to maintain and operate.
The current $245m support package involving the M1A1 Abrams fleet is part of the $1.5bn in assistance Australia has provided to the war-torn nation since the start of Russia’s conflict in 2022.
“The M1A1 Abrams tanks will make a significant contribution to Ukraine’s ongoing fight against Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion,” Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles, who met the army personnel who helped deliver the tanks, said.
“Australia remains steadfast in our support for Ukraine and seeing a just and lasting peace.”
Ukraine has now taken possession of the majority of these tanks, with delivery of the final tranche to occur in the coming months.
Australia is also due to deploy a Royal Australian Air Force E-7A Wedgetail to Europe to help protect a vital international gateway for assistance to Ukraine.
Since 2003, the Australian Defence Force has helped train hundreds of Ukrainian troops as part of the UK-led and based multinational training mission Operation Kudu, which continues today.
EU, UK target Russian oil in new sanctions
The European Union and Britain on Friday sought to ramp up economic pressure on Russia to halt the war in Ukraine by slashing a price cap meant to choke off revenues from key oil exports.
The move from the EU was part of a sweeping new package of sanctions — the bloc’s 18th since the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion — that also took aim at Moscow’s banking sector and military capabilities.
The measures come as allies closely watch whether US President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to punish Moscow over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s failure to move forward on a truce.
“The message is clear: Europe will not back down in its support for Ukraine. The EU will keep raising the pressure until Russia ends its war,” said EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
British foreign minister David Lammy announced the UK was joining the EU price cap sanction, saying they were “striking at the heart of the Russian energy sector”.
“As Putin continues to stall on serious peace talks, we will not stand by,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the EU’s new sanctions as “essential and timely”.
The bloc’s new measures were approved after Slovakia dropped a weeks-long block following talks with Brussels over separate plans to phase out Russian gas imports.
But the Kremlin said it would seek to “minimise” the impact, and warned the measures would backfire.
The price cap is originally a G7 initiative aimed at limiting the amount of money Russia makes by exporting oil to countries such as China and India.
The EU and Britain said they would lower the cap on Russian oil exported to third countries around the world to 15 per cent below market value.
PUTIN ‘LIES’ TO TRUMP: ZELENSKY
Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not ready for compromises” to end his brutal war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Post in an exclusive interview — but President Trump has the power to bring him to his knees by speeding up tough sanctions that could cause a “social explosion” in Russia.
“He needs to feel this,” Mr Zelensky said.
The leader said he was “very grateful” that President Trump supports sanctions, referring to the president’s announcement that he would levy 100 per cent tariffs on countries that purchase Russian oil if Moscow does not agree to a peace deal.
However, the 50-day deadline, he said, only means more death and destruction for another almost two months.
“Fifty days, for us, is just — every day is scary,” Mr Zelensky said.
Mr Zelensky said the solution to the more than three years of bloodshed is to force President Putin to want to end his war.
“Putin does not want a conclusion … so he’s just not ready to compromise,” Mr Zelensky said.
“If Ukraine has to do this on its own, we have a very long way to go with a lot of deaths to convince him that it’s important [to end the conflict] because it’s not just words — they need serious leverage.”
It comes as Vladimir Putin’s war machine has become increasingly savage, intentionally targeting civilians — including babies — with explosive drones, which his forces are launching into Ukraine at record numbers.
“They hit civilian infrastructure, a house, and they know that an ambulance is coming,” the president said.
“And at that moment, after the first blow, they pause. Then the cars come, the people who provide the opportunity to save lives come, the ambulance, the doctors, the nurses, the SES, and they come, and at that moment, when they are there, they strike again,” he continued.
“They know the details, when people will arrive, after what pause they will be able to arrive … They are hunting firefighters when they are putting out a fire.”
Russia has “played with Mr Trump” through months of delayed and unfruitful peace negotiations with Moscow, Mr Zelensky said.
“Putin has wasted President Trump’s time,” he said. “I would very much like to see the United States, the Congress and the president put some pressure on this situation with sanctions and so the sooner, the faster it can be done, the better.”
Mr Trump has been vocal about his frustration with Mr Putin for “tapping [him] along” with talks while launching a massive assault on Ukraine.
“A lot of people are dying and it should end,” he said on July 8. “We get a lot of bulls – t thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth.”
Mr Zelensky said he understood the president’s feelings, saying Mr Trump believed that the Russians were “capable of ending” the war — but in reality, they had no appetite for it.
“Frankly, Putin was just lying to him that he wanted to end the war and Zelensky was not ready — and then President Trump saw that it was the exact opposite,” he said.
“Today, President Trump is disappointed that all of this turned out to be a lie, that Putin was just playing him.”
The Ukrainian president also said it is clear Mr Trump is frustrated with Moscow’s lack of respect for human life — even when it comes to their own people.
“I think that President Trump believed that the Russians were really ready to end the war because they felt sorry for the people who are dying, and I think he’s disappointed that these Russians don’t care about people’s lives that much,” he said.
“Trump takes the death of people more seriously than Putin. It hurts him more — he talks about it — than Putin, who doesn’t feel sorry for his people at all, and they are his citizens.”
TRUMP, ZELENSKY DISCUSSING MEGA DEAL
President Trump and President Zelensky are considering a “mega deal” that would see the US buy battlefield-tested Ukrainian drones in exchange for Kyiv agreeing to buy a swath of weapons from America, the Ukrainian leader said.
Speaking exclusively with The Post, Mr Zelensky revealed that his latest talks with Mr Trump focused on a breakthrough deal that would see the US and Ukraine prop up each other’s aerial technology — with Kyiv offering to share everything it’s learned about modern warfare in the three-year conflict with Russia.
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