International
Battle for Donbas region has begun, says Volodymyr Zelensky
Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky has said the “Battle for the Donbas” region has begun as Russian forces launched a fresh offensive in the east of the country.
In a video address on Monday evening, Mr Zelensky warned that Vladimir Putin’s troops had “long prepared” to attack the region after failing to take Kyiv.
“No matter how many Russian troops are driven there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves. We will do it every day,” he said, adding that a “significant part” of Mr Putin’s army was now concentrated on the new offensive.
Earlier this month, Moscow claimed it would refocus its military efforts in the eastern region after fierce Ukrainian resistance thwarted the Russian army’s advance. However, Mr Putin’s forces launched fresh strikes on the western city of Lviv and Kyiv over the weekend despite the pledge.
“This morning, along almost the entire front line of the (eastern) Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, the occupiers attempted to break through our defences,” Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in televised comments on Monday.
In a post on Facebook, the Ukrainian armed forces command said that Russia’s main military force was concentrating on taking control of the entirety of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the swathe of land known as the Donbas.
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“The second phase of the war has begun… Believe in our army, it is very strong,” the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia has been bulking up its army in the east of Ukraine with troops withdrawn from Ukraine’s north and neighbouring ally Belarus, a close ally of the Kremlin.
Elsewhere, at least seven people were reported dead after Russian missiles struck Lviv on Monday, which lies close to the Polish border.
A three-year-old boy was among those injured, according to regional officials.
Regional governor Maksym Kozytskyy said the Russian attack had hit three military infrastructure facilities and an auto shop. A hotel sheltering refugees fleeing the conflict was also badly damaged, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.
A few thousand Ukrainian troops continued to fight Mr Putin’s forces in the besieged southern city of Mariupol as of Tuesday evening – defying a Russian warning to surrender or face “elimination”. Ukrainian officials say that 21,000 people have been killed in the city after weeks of intense Russian shelling.
In other developments, two British fighters who were captured by Russian forces were seen on state TV demanding an exchange for Putin ally Viktor Medvedchuk.
Shaun Pinner, 48, and Aiden Aslin were taken captive by Russian troops last week while defending Mariupol. It was unclear how freely the two men were able to talk and they spoke after being prompted by an unidentified man.
Evening Standard
International
Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats
Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats
Officials from Canada, Mexico and China have warned US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners could upend the economies of all four countries.
“To one tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said.
Trump vowed on Monday night to introduce 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on goods coming from China. He said the duties were a bid to clamp down on drugs and illegal immigration.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke to Trump in the hours after the announcement and planned to hold a meeting with Canada’s provincial leaders on Wednesday to discuss a response.
A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington DC told the BBC: “No-one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”
The international pushback came a day after Trump announced his plans for his first day in office, on 20 January, in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.
Trudeau said his country was prepared to work with the US in “constructive ways”.
“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters.
In a phone call with Trump, Trudeau said the pair discussed trade and border security, with the prime minister pointing out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border.
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Trump’s team declined to confirm the phone call.
But Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that world leaders had sought to “develop stronger relationships” with Trump “because he represents global peace and stability”.
Mexico’s President Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday that neither threats nor tariffs would solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US.
Reading from a letter that she said she would send to Trump, Sheinbaum also warned that Mexico would retaliate by imposing its own taxes on US imports, which would “put common enterprises at risk”.
She said Mexico had taken steps to tackle illegal migration into the US and that “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border”.
The issue of drugs, she added, “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society”.
Sheinbaum, who took office last month, noted that US car manufacturers produce some of their parts in Mexico and Canada.
“If tariffs go up, who will it hurt? General Motors,” she said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the BBC that “China-US economic and trade co-operation is mutually beneficial in nature”.
He denied that China allows chemicals used in the manufacture of illegal drugs – including fentanyl – to be smuggled to the US.
“China has responded to US request for verifying clues on certain cases and taken action,” Liu said.
“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”
President Joe Biden has left in place the tariffs on China that Trump introduced in his first term, and added a few more of his own.
Currently, a majority of what the two countries sell to each other is subject to tariffs – 66.4% of US imports from China and 58.3% of Chinese imports from the US.
Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Trudeau told lawmakers that “the idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants”.
He called on them to not “panic”, and to work together.
“That is the work we will do seriously, methodically. But without freaking out,” he said.
The leaders of Canadian provinces suggested that they would impose their own tariffs on the US.
“The things we sell to the United States are the things they really need,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday. “We sell them oil, we sell them electricity, we sell them critical minerals and metals.”
America’s northern neighbour accounted for some $437bn (£347bn) of US imports in 2022, and was the largest market for US exports in the same year, according to US data.
Canada sends about 75% of its total exports to the US.
Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said on Monday the proposed tariff would be “devastating to workers and jobs in both Canada and the US”.
“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” said Ford.
Ford was echoed by the premiers of Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, while a post on the X account of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledged that Trump had “valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border”.
The Canadian dollar, the Loonie, has plunged in value since Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Canadian imports come January.
The Canadian dollar dipped below 71 US cents, the lowest level the Loonie has fallen to since May 2020, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods during his first stint as US president. The Mexican peso fell to its lowest value this year, around 4.8 cents.
Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats
BBC
International
Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon
Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will bring a US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon to his government for approval as soon as Tuesday evening.
He said in a televised address that he would put “a ceasefire outline” to ministers “this evening”.
He however did not say how long the truce would last, noting “the length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon”.
But it later learnt that the ceasefire would is for 60 days.
During the period, Hezbollah fighters are expected to retreat 40 kilometres from Israel’s border, with Israeli ground forces withdrawing from Lebanese territory.
“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will strike,” Netanyahu warned.
Key Israel backer the United States has led ceasefire efforts for Lebanon alongside France.
US President Joe Biden is optimistic the deal will lead to a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.
Biden added that the US would lead another push for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“In full coordination with the United States, we are maintaining full military freedom of action,” Netanyahu said, outlining the seven-front war Israel says it faces in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
Even as Netanyahu spoke about the ceasefire, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes on heart of Beirut while the army said some 15 projectiles had entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon.
Demonstrators raise placards and Israeli flags during a protest in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in the coastal city Tel Aviv on November 26, 2024, against a possible ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. – Israel’s security cabinet has started discussing a proposed ceasefire deal in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Israeli official confirmed to AFP on November 26. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)
The war in Lebanon escalated after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah, which said it was acting in support of Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
The war has killed at least 3,823 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.
On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.
Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow Israel to focus on “the Iranian threat” and ramp up its fight against Hamas in Gaza.
“With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” he said.
“We will increase our pressure on Hamas and that will help us in our sacred mission of releasing our hostages.”
During last year’s Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, of whom 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the army has declared dead.
International
Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs
Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs
BEIRUT: Israeli strikes pounded a densely-populated part of the Lebanese capital and its southern suburbs on Tuesday, hours ahead of an anticipated announcement of a ceasefire ending hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
A strike on Beirut hit the Noueiri district with no evacuation warning and killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a preliminary toll.
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Minutes later, at least 10 Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs. They began approximately 30 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for 20 locations in the area, the largest such warning yet.
As the strikes were under way, Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the air force was conducting a “widespread attack” on Hezbollah targets across the city.
Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs
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