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UN expert Francesca Albanese calls for ‘true paradigm shift’ as Miliband resets policy on Israel

The UK’s planned ban on trade with unlawful Israeli settlements is a welcome, if overdue, first step and must be judged according to its practical impact, a UN expert has told the Guardian. The UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, has vowed to act more decisively against Israeli settlements, as well as continued restrictions of aid into Gaza, prompting the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to claim on Saturday that Downing Street was motivated by “Jew hatred”. Miliband said what he had been told about restriction on aid into Gaza had reinforced the need for more decisive action. But Huckabee, writing on X in support of the Israeli foreign ministry’s own criticisms, said: “The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts.” Huckabee did not mention in his statement that Miliband is himself Jewish. The Israeli foreign ministry had said: “Had the foreign secretary been interested in facts rather than stories, he would have known that there are no restrictions whatsoever on bringing medicines into the Gaza Strip, and that no medicine is being blocked.” Palestinian groups in the UK are holding judgment until they see the fine detail of Miliband’s policy, due to be announced on Tuesday, but are expecting the most significant shift since a previous foreign secretary, David Lammy, withdrew most arms export licences in September 2024. Speaking to the Guardian, Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied territories, said a “ban on settlement goods was a change in UK government stance and absolutely important”. She added she would “not join those dismissing it as theatre before the details had been announced”. She said a settlement trade ban would have to be part of “a true paradigm shift to Israel-Palestine that ultimately seeks to implement the international court of justice advisory opinion in 2024”, which stated that Israel’s presence in the occupied territories was “unlawful in its entirety”. The opinion, she added, said that “all states carry an obligation – not a preference of an obligation – not to recognise the situation as legal, and not render aid and assistance in maintaining it”. Albanese also said the trade ban could not be narrowly confined to goods – such as agricultural products and cosmetics – since “they are a fraction of what sustains the occupation, and a fraction that Israel can absorb without difficulty”. The package should also aim to include trade in services, she said, progressively suspending British intelligence cooperation, all arms licensing and the unexamined flights out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Albanese warned that if the steps were not taken or were “completely off the table”, the changes would “over time come to be seen as not amounting to a reckoning, but a press release”. She said that a state banning “dates from Ma’ale Adumim [a city in the West Bank]” while “continuing to licence the equipment used to enforce the checkpoints around it” had not “changed its relationship with the occupation … It has rearranged its communication strategy.” Albanese added that, “because the 2024 ICJ advisory opinion declares the entire Israeli presence in the occupied territories as unlawful, third states’ obligations ‘not to render aid or assistance’ extends to everything that sustains that unlawful presence as a whole.” Albanese said the UK needed to end any ambiguity around the tender for the E1 settlement that will sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and cut the territory in two, adding: “Since bids close a week before Israel’s elections on 27 October, there is nothing that London can realistically do in September that can change that calendar.” But she warned the government could not let the tenders simply pass, pointing out that Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, had already said E1 was designed to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”. “There is a difference between the tenders closing and the settlement getting built and financed,” she added. “Construction on this scale needs finance, insurance and construction firms, and since E1 amounts to annexation and not just settlement expansion, sanctions or similar have to be threatened against those firms that seek to cooperate with the building of E1.” Albanese also called on the UK government to join South Africa before the ICJ, and also support Nicaragua on Monday when the ICJ hears preliminary oral objections from Germany over claims filed by the Central American country that Berlin’s continued arms sales to Israel makes it complicit in genocide. She said: “Britain is not a party to that case. It can still choose which side of the argument it stands on: whether it treats participation in international accountability mechanisms as a threat to an alliance, or recognises that an alliance built on anything other than principle and the rule of law is not an alliance at all. It is an arrangement of convenience, honoured only until convenience changes.” Finally she urged the UK to issue guidance to UK-based firms not to overcomply with sanctions imposed by the US on the international criminal court prosecutor, the deputy prosecutors, eight judges and an increasing number of others, including herself and Palestinian human rights groups that have cooperated with the court. “This has frozen bank accounts, everywhere, for people doing nothing other than their judicial function or providing evidence lawfully requested by an international court,” she said.

Ukraine seeks to seize water company owned by billionaire family of British theatre mogul

A British theatre impresario and her billionaire family are embroiled in a bitter dispute with Ukrainian authorities seeking to seize a water company they jointly own with a Russian oligarch. The row centres on a 34% stake held in the producer of Ukraine’s biggest bottled water brands by the Patarkatsishvili family, including Liana Patarkatsishvili, who recently worked on an immersive show with Toby Jones and Meera Syal. The corporate holdings of IDS Ukraine were frozen by the Ukrainain authorities in 2022 owing to the 49% stake that is also held in the company by Russian investors, including Mikhail Fridman, the founder of the Russian Alfa Group conglomerate. He is under western sanctions for his support for Vladimir Putin’s regime. Ukraine’s asset recovery and management agency (Arma) has been tasked with instructing independent management to take over the running of the company whose other minority shareholders include the Georgian government. The Ukrainian agency’s head, Yaroslava Maksymenko, said they had repeatedly run into legal and bureaucratic obstacles owing, in part, to the shareholders’ resistance to give up control of their assets. The agency further claims to have been the subject of a cyber-attack during one attempt to find an independent manager for the company although there is no evidence as to who was responsible and the Patarkatsishvili family is not suspected. However, Maksymenko claimed New World Value Fund Limited, the vehicle for the Patarkatsishvili’s investment in IDS Ukraine, had pursued an unfounded claim of unlawful conduct by Arma’s officials which she said was “misinformation”. An investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine into the claims of unlawful conduct continues. Maksymenko said her agency had concerns over potential money laundering and value extraction from IDS Ukraine if it remained under the current management although there have not been any official findings of such criminality. There are separate proceedings in the Ukrainian anti-corruption high court in which the shareholders are fighting attempts to nationalise part or all of the ownership of IDS Ukraine, which is seen by some in government as a key strategic asset at a time of war. A spokesperson for the Patarkatsishvili family said they had been committed supporters of Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, adding that the family were being unfairly targeted and would seek justice in the international courts if necessary. They said: “The Patarkatsishvili family strongly believes that an asset should not be taken away from non-sanctioned shareholders against whom there are no allegations or concerns, and is defending this position through all relevant proceedings before the Ukrainian courts and authorities. “If the Patarkatsishvili family is unable to obtain justice through the Ukrainian courts, and the asset is ultimately taken away through the Arma process, it will, of course, have no choice but to seek justice before the international courts, as it has consistently done in the past.” The family’s shareholding in IDS Ukraine was inherited in 2008 by Liana, her sister, Iya, and mother, Inna, after the death of Badri Patarkatsishvili, a businessman who made his fortune during the breakup of the Soviet Union. Patarkatsishvili fled to the UK in 2007 but died in 2008 of a heart attack at the age of 52 with an estimated fortune of £6bn. Iya Patarkatsishvili and her husband made headlines last year for being granted a refund after buying a £32m London mansion that was said to be infested with moths. Last summer, Liana Patarkatsishvili staged a large-scale immersive theatre production called Storehouse about “misinformation” through her production company Sage & Jester, starring the actors Toby Jones and Meera Syal. A spokesperson for IDS Ukraine said: “Throughout its operations, the IDS Ukraine Group of companies has operated and continues to operate in accordance with the requirements of Ukrainian law, including tax and financial legislation. “No competent state authority of Ukraine, including the state tax service of Ukraine, has established any facts of money laundering, unlawful withdrawal of funds or any other financial activity of this nature on the part of IDS Ukraine. “We are not aware of any investigations or other current inquires of Ukrainian authorities into the operations of IDS Ukraine with respect to any such allegations. “IDS Ukraine has also not ceased operations for a single day since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The group continued production and supplied Ukrainian consumers with drinking water even amid continuous missile and drone attacks.” The spokesperson added: “We are aware of statements by the asset recovery and management agency implying but not saying it directly that [a cyber-attack] is somehow connected with the IDS Ukraine Group of companies. However, this information is simply false and in reality completely irrelevant.”

Reindeer and rare-earth minerals: Swedish politicians take aim at Indigenous Sami in mining dispute

For the Swedish-Sami politician Åsa Larsson Blind, it was something of a watershed moment in the national conversation around Indigenous rights. In late April and May, as the country geared up for this month’s elections, the deputy prime minister and energy minister, Ebba Busch, gave a series of speeches and articles publicly attacking the Sami’s rights to graze reindeer herds on their ancestral lands. Reindeer husbandry, Busch said at one press conference, “is an industry that affects very large areas, but has limited economic significance”. Her Christian Democrats party, a junior partner in Sweden’s three-party centre-right coalition government, called for reindeer numbers to be cut, for reindeer husbandry to no longer be considered a “national interest” and for the state to “reclaim responsibility” for land used by herders. The government’s goal is to open up the country’s sparsely populated north for mineral resource exploitation – as Sweden and the EU more generally seek to reduce dependence on Chinese imports – and to expand its nuclear power capabilities. Larsson Blind said that anti-Sami sentiment in the run-up to elections – especially at the local level – was not new, but that the scope of the recent rhetoric was “quite astonishing”. “If you look at it from afar, it means that the deputy prime minister is highlighting one group of people … as being the enemy of development in Sweden,” the board member of the Sami parliament, which exists to safeguard Sami interests, said in an interview. “She is really clearly not feeling the need to have the support of the Sami.” Issues of Sami land rights have moved from local to national prominence in the run-up to the 13 September vote. In its manifesto, the Christian Democrats pledged to “resolve the conflicts between reindeer husbandry and industrial development” and to protect “everyone’s right to hunt on state-owned land”. The far-right Sweden Democrats – who could enter government for the first time after the vote – have also singled out reindeer herders in their manifesto, pitting them against industrial development, tourism and the wider Swedish public and questioning their land rights. The row has centred on the state-owned mining company LKAB’s plan to expand a vast iron ore mine next to the town of Kiruna to encompass the Per Geijer deposit, which holds Europe’s largest known reserve of rare-earth elements. The plan involves relocating subsidence-hit Kiruna itself to a new and more stable site. Last summer, the town drew global attention when its striking red wooden church, designed to resemble a lávvu (a Sami hut), was rolled 5km to its new home. Many among the Sami population near Kiruna – Sweden’s most northerly town – fear the pitting of mineral resources against land rights heralds a larger threat to their livelihoods and culture. The traditional herding routes of the Gabna Sami people have already been significantly affected by the Kiruna mine. Anna-Karin Niia, a Gabna herder, said she felt ignored by Stockholm. The Sami people are Indigenous “constitutional protectors”, she said. “It’s not just a simple matter of quietly reducing reindeer herds and making these kinds of statements so that you win the 2026 election.” “Even if the state or the government or the EU says it is important to have minerals, at the same time, Indigenous rights, Sami rights, the local[s] are just as important. We also need nature.” For Larsson Blind, the government’s positioning has shattered hopes that Swedish politicians might take their responsibilities seriously when it comes to Sami people. “It is very harsh but I think it has also opened eyes in our own ranks. It has really opened up a divide that is very hard to overcome,” she said. “Even if we have known that previous governments haven’t prioritised Sami rights issues, it hasn’t been politically correct to say it so abruptly and out loud. But now it is possible to do that, so the boundaries have been pushed.” Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen, the head of the Gabna community, said LKAB’s plans for Per Geijer would “put an end to everything” for the Sami, because it would cut off the connection between the calving grounds and the mountain area and forest region. He also believes it would act as a “starting gun” for increased industrialisation across Sweden. “It will affect all Sami villages,” he said. “We feel like we have a lot resting on our shoulders.” Over coffee at his home in Kiruna, Nils-Johan Labba, a master craftsman and politician in the Sami parliament, said the relocation of Kiruna had left the town “bleeding”, affecting everything from transport to education. He said he wished the government had focused on resolving the town’s problems instead of “hating on minorities”. Peter Kullgren, a member of the board of the Christian Democrats, said: “Sweden has a responsibility to protect Sami rights, but the government must also be able to weigh up Sami rights with other very strong public interests. Our mineral resources are strategically important for Sweden and Europe and we already have high standards of consideration, dialogue and influence but the state must also be able to make decisions about when important public interests are working against each other.” In a statement, LKAB said the process of expanding the Kiruna mine was still at an early stage. “Our intention is to continue evaluating the potential of the mineral deposit,” it said. “The application is currently being reviewed by the mining inspectorate of Sweden, and the consultation process is ongoing. “We understand that our plans for the new deposit would have an impact … We have submitted a reindeer herding impact assessment that includes proposed measures intended to support the conditions for continued reindeer herding in the area. “Our starting point is not to dismiss the concerns that have been raised, but to work toward solutions that can reduce impacts and create the conditions for safeguarding both interests over the long term.”

Far-right AfD wins key German state election but falls just short of majority

The populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has surged to a resounding victory in a crucial state election in Germany, but fell just short of winning a majority in its quest to form the country’s first far-right state government since the second world war. The party of Germany’s unpopular chancellor Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democrats (CDU), slumped to a disastrous result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. AfD’s candidate for governor, Ulrich Siegmund, said “we have written history” and the party had a clear mandate to govern. He told public broadcaster ARD that voters had sent a signal that “things cannot carry on like this”. “A very good campaigner for us in this election campaign was Friedrich Merz,” Siegmund said. AfD was seeking an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called firewall of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with the party. AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has been classed as “rightwing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. Final results showed AfD falling three seats short, with 39 lawmakers in an 83-member parliament. Siegmund, 35, said it would not engage in “games” such as a minority government. But it was not evident how its divided opponents could assemble any stable government without it. AfD won 43.8% of the vote, more than double its showing five years ago in the region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin. That was far ahead of Merz’s CDU , which polled 17.2% – losing about half its support – and won 15 seats. The centre-left Social Democrats polled 9.3%, the Greens 8.9% and the Left party 8.6%, winning eight seats apiece. The BSW party, which has said it would not elect either Siegmund or incumbent Sven Schulze as governor but criticises the “firewall” against AfD, took 5.3% and five seats. Participation in the election was at a record high of 76.5%. Addressing jubilant supporters after ⁠exit polls had been published, Siegmund said his party was ready to ⁠reach out to ‌all powers ‌that ‌strove for political change. “We extend a hand to all ‌democratic forces that wish to pursue better policies,” he said, adding that themes such as migration and domestic security were not up for debate. The CDU described its result as “bitter” but said it would not back down from its refusal to rule together with the AfD, which the far-right party has also ruled out. Franziska Hoppermann, general secretary of the CDU, called it a “defeat overall” for the Christian Democrats. “And it is also a defeat for all those who have borne responsibility in the democracy in Saxony-Anhalt over the past 35 years,” she added, in reference to the difficult post-communist era. She ruled out any discussion over Merz’s future, which analysts have suggested will increasingly become a topic of debate after his party’s defeat. In one recent poll, only 9% of voters in Saxony-Anhalt said they were satisfied with Merz’s politics. Alice Weidel, the AfD’s co-leader, said the result gave her party a “clear government mandate” and that it would “talk to all the parties” to work out a strategy as to how the AfD could rule. About 1.7 million people were eligible to vote in the east-central state. Final polls had shown the AfD to have around 40-41% of support, and the party appears to have almost doubled its 2021 result of 23.7%. The number of undecided voters in advance of the vote was much lower than at previous elections, polling showed. The small state has been governed since 2002 by Merz’s conservative CDU, together with two smaller parties. The Saxony-Anhalt election had been seen as the biggest test yet for Merz, who is very unpopular, along with his government, a coalition with the SPD. Merz has thus far failed in his promises to reset Germany’s struggling economy or stop the rise of the AfD, which has been making regular and steady gains since it entered parliament in 2017 and is now the Bundestag’s leading opposition party. Irregular immigration has reduced since Merz has been in office, but not to an extent that has appeased the average voter. In national polls, the CDU has also been overtaken by the AfD, which has its eyes on victory at the next federal elections in 2029 or 2033. If the AfD manages to form a government in Saxony-Anhalt, Siegmund has promised to immediately start a remigration and deportation offensive, ban rainbow flags in schools and halt the building of new windfarms. He wants to change the slogan of the state from “Think Modern” to “Think German”, and to reintroduce the singing of the German national anthem in schools. Siegmund also sought in the campaign to capitalise on a mood of “ostalgie”, or nostalgia for communist East Germany, and to tap into discontent among east Germans. He has made repeated references to a rise in foreigner-related crime, even as the crime rate has fallen dramatically. AfD is pro-Kremlin, urging a stop to support for Ukraine and pushing for Ukrainians to no longer receive refugee status. Siegmund turned up to vote on Sunday morning with his wife, riding an East German-era moped in the party colours, which was also a prominent prop during the election campaign in rallies across the state. In a statement in front of the polling station, he voiced his optimism that the party would achieve “45%, and some”, and saying he wanted to “build bridges”. Tensions before the election were high, with a considerable police presence and a number of demonstrations taking place across the state. Thousands of opponents of the AfD gathered in the state capital, Magdeburg, on Saturday, for a “festival of democracy”. On Saturday evening, a message beamed on to the facade of Magdeburg Cathedral read: “We do not abandon what we love. True love of the homeland is not the AfD.” The bishop of Magdeburg, Gerhard Feige, in an address to a gathering of churchgoers, warned against forces “that want to sow discord, stoke mistrust and fear”. He drew parallels with history, warning that a democracy has the potential to abolish itself. “Not everyone who votes or is elected democratically is a democrat,” he said. The German Economic Institute has warned of the far-reaching consequences for the German economy, in Saxony-Anhalt and beyond. It said the AfD’s immigration policy would be “calamitous” for the state, which has an ageing, dwindling population and is heavily dependent on foreign workers. Critics have also warned that an AfD-run state, due to the Kremlin-friendly stance of the party, could leak sensitive information to Russia. The AfD has dismissed such claims. It has said it would seek to reform the domestic intelligence service, calling it biased.

Ukraine war briefing: US envoys leave Kyiv without breakthrough on ending war

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have held “encouraging” talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv in their first official visit to Ukraine but made no breakthrough towards ending the war with Russia. The envoys’ trip followed talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday which a Kremlin aide said were “highly useful” while also giving no indication of a breakthrough. Zelenskyy said at a news conference that his talks with the envoys on Sunday covered air defence needs – including Patriot systems – and a “winter package” of support covering both air defence and energy infrastructure before the colder months. He said Kyiv was seeking “serious volumes” of American support on that front, with backing from European partners as well. It appeared the war would continue into winter, he also said. Zelenskyy said Russia had intensified strikes on Ukrainian cities before Russia’s State Duma election later this month, calling the attacks deliberate “terror” against civilians. Ukraine was working with 67 domestic companies developing systems to shoot down Russia’s jet-powered drones at scale. He said the sides agreed to hold a follow-up meeting involving Ukraine, the US and Europe, with a location still to be set. The US envoys brought new and “more effective” proposals to Ukraine on ending the war with Russia, according to one senior Ukrainian presidential official. “It’s not the same as it was before. This one now is more effective,” the unnamed offical told Agence France-Presse after the talks with Zelenskyy. “They’re still talking. This is actually the most important part. There are three of them now.” Ukraine’s rail operator announced the envoys’ departure from Kyiv early on Monday. Witkoff said earlier that both sides would need to compromise, adding: “We think we have the ingredients to get to that place … and we look forward to continuing this as long as it takes.” Kushner said: “Hopefully this trip has come out with some new ways to advance forward. I think we’ve learned a lot from the trip.” In Moscow the US envoys had “discussed substantive plans which will be announced in the coming weeks”, a White House official said. The Kremlin said the Americans had “put forward a number of ideas on possible routes to a settlement”, without elaborating. Witkoff said he was hopeful a new round of US-mediated Ukraine-Russia talks would be announced “in short order”. Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine while Zelenskyy insists Russia should not be rewarded for its aggression. A girl ⁠was killed and three ⁠other people ⁠were wounded in a Ukraine ⁠drone attack on the Russia-held Black ⁠Sea port city ‌of Sevastopol ‌late on ‌Sunday, the city’s Moscow-appointed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Telegram. Russian forces ⁠struck a ‌Ukrainian ‌cargo vessel in ‌the Black Sea which was carrying military equipment supplied to ⁠the Ukrainian army by western countries, Russian news ‌agencies reported the defence ministry as saying on Sunday. Kyiv’s forces struck the Ryazan oil refinery – about 480km (300 miles) inside Russia – causing a fire, Ukraine said on Sunday. Russia’s foreign minister said Germany’s accusation that Moscow was involved in a ⁠drone incident near a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport were, “by and large, the ⁠start of a real war”, state news agency Tass ‌reported. “He is, in effect, declaring war on us,” Sergei Lavrov said of the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. Berlin has ordered a series of measures in response to the attack attempt.

Germany’s far-right AfD thanks Elon Musk as France warns state election win a ‘serious moment’

The candidate who led the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party to a historic state election victory in Germany has thanked Elon Musk for his support, as one French minister warned that this was a “serious moment” for Europe. The AfD more than doubled its support in the Saxony-Anhalt region and appears to be on the brink of becoming the first far-right party to gain power in Germany at state level since the second world war. On Sunday night, Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD’s lead candidate, thanked Musk on X “for your support and for your clear and highly important perspective on the political developments of our time”, adding: “I would very much welcome the opportunity for strong and constructive cooperation”. Siegmund wrote his comments after Musk said “Well done!” in German to AfD co-founder Alice Weidel, when she posted about the projected win. Earlier, US president Donald Trump posted a screenshot of the election projection without comment on his Truth Social site. Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev took a screengrab of Trump’s post and praised a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD”. AfD is pro-Kremlin, urging a stop to support for Ukraine and pushing for Ukrainians to no longer receive refugee status. Despite its resounding victory, AfD fell just short of winning a majority. The party was seeking an absolute majority in the state legislature to govern alone and overcome the so-called firewall of mainstream parties’ refusal to work with AfD. Final results showed AfD falling three seats short, with 39 lawmakers in an 83-member parliament. However, it still remains unclear as to how and whether the AfD will be able to form a government, having ruled out entering a coalition and being refused any form of cooperation by the mainstream parties. AfD won 43.8% of the vote, more than double its showing five years ago in the region of 2.1 million people west of Berlin. That was far ahead of Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, which polled 17.2% – losing about half its support – and won 15 seats. The centre-left Social Democrats polled 9.3%, the Greens 8.9% and the Left party 8.6%, winning eight seats apiece. The BSW party, which has said it wouldn’t elect either Siegmund or incumbent Sven Schulze as governor but criticises the “firewall” against AfD, took 5.3% and fives seats. France’s Europe minister, Benjamin Haddad, described the win as “a serious moment in Europe”, warning that “nationalism and xenophobia will never be a solution”. “We must listen with humility to the anger, the concerns, the fears, and respond to them,” he added. “We cannot forget our history. That is the meaning behind the choices made by France and Germany.” Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, said: “In Poland, only idiots or traitors can rejoice at the triumph of the AfD in Germany.” The German Economic Institute has warned of the far-reaching consequences for the German economy, in Saxony-Anhalt and beyond. It said the AfD’s immigration policy would be “calamitous” for the state, which has an ageing, dwindling population and is heavily dependent on foreign workers. Critics have also warned that an AfD-run state, due to the Kremlin-friendly stance of the party, could leak sensitive information to Russia. The AfD has dismissed such claims. It has said it would seek to reform the domestic intelligence service, calling it biased.

US envoys Kushner and Witkoff visit Kyiv for first time after Putin talks

The US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travelled to Ukraine for the first time on Sunday for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an attempt to end the war with Russia. The Ukrainian president announced plans to widen peace discussions to include European countries in the near future, saying he wanted to do “everything to ensure that trilateral meetings take place” with Ukraine, the US and Europe. Witkoff said he was hopeful such meetings would be announced “in short order”. The British, French and German national security advisers briefly joined Sunday’s talks. Witkoff said the talks with Zelenskyy had been “very constructive and substantive”. Kushner said the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was “a long, hard and emotional war”. There were otherwise few details from the highly anticipated talks between Washington and Kyiv, which came a day after the US envoys met Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow. Kushner and Witkoff were forced to arrive in Kyiv by train after Russia bombed the city’s two main airports on Friday. Both countries pledged to refrain from attacking each other’s capitals over the weekend to ensure the US envoys’ safe passage. Zelenskyy joked that the delegation should come more often to “protect our citizens who are in the capital”. But the president’s mood was generally sombre. He said Ukraine was “really counting on a winter package” from the US and Europe to enable it to withstand another war-torn winter. “We specifically discussed this with Steve and Jared, as well as with our European partners: air defence, energy support, and as you know we are counting on the serious use of LNG, American LNG,” he said, referring to liquefied natural gas. Zelenskyy greeted the US envoys earlier in the day in Sophia Square, in front of Kyiv’s historic cathedral. The cathedral is a few hundred metres away from the headquarters of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency, which was hit by a Russian drone on Friday afternoon, marking an escalation in a conflict that has dragged on for more than four and a half years. Kushner said his team was in almost daily contact with Ukrainian officials. “Just because we haven’t travelled out, it doesn’t mean we haven’t … been communicating,” he said. Expectations going into the talks were low. US-backed mediation has stalled over the past few months as Washington has been focused on the war with Iran. Many Ukrainians are also sceptical that Trump is committed to a peace agreement that is acceptable to Kyiv. “People don’t trust the Russians and people don’t trust Trump personally,” said Artem Bronzhukov, a political analyst. Talks between Russia and Ukraine on ending the war have focused on a 20-point peace plan put forward by Washington and Kyiv in December. But the two sides have failed to reach common ground on several sticking points, including control of territory in east Ukraine. “People mostly understand that if you step back from the Donbas, the next day or the next week, Putin will push for another condition,” Bronzhukov said. A White House official said on Saturday that the talks with Moscow “discussed substantive plans for next steps” for ending the war and that an announcement would follow in the coming weeks. The senior Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described the talks as “extremely frank” and said there was an acknowledgement of the need to address “the root causes of the conflict”. Kyiv and the surrounding areas have been hit by a barrage of daily drone strikes for more than a week, the most sustained attack on Ukraine’s capital in months. The capital is now enjoying a reprieve from strikes and air raid alerts that had become a daily occurrence, but other parts of the country are still being hit. Ukrainian authorities reported on Sunday that at least eight people were killed and 69 injured across Ukraine in the past day. Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of US-made Patriot interceptor missiles that can shoot down incoming threats. Many of the recent Russian strikes have been by new-model jet-powered drones that can reach speeds of 250mph, making them hard to intercept. Many Ukrainians are worried about the war dragging on into a fifth year and are anxious about the winter ahead. This week, Zelenskyy’s defence technology adviser, Serhii Beskrestnov, told the Guardian that the government should consider evacuating elderly people from Kyiv as Putin had ordered the Russian military to “prepare and carry out mass strikes” on Ukraine’s energy facilities. Russia and Ukraine have increased their use of long-range missiles in recent weeks in an effort to sap morale in each other’s countries. Additional reporting by Illia Dyadik

Energy secretary says US might not reach nuclear agreement with Iran

US energy secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday morning that the US may not be able to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran that would prevent the country from having nuclear weapons. Asked on ABC on Sunday morning about any sign of such a deal, as negotiations appear stalled and the US-Israel war on Iran continues, Wright said: “There may not be a nuclear agreement.” He talked about options for ending the “existential threat” of a nuclear armed Iran coming about by further US military action to knock out the country’s capacity to manufacture and deploy such missiles, saying: “It may be simply [a case of] destroying their capabilities to do it” or else “an agreement may await the next administration in Iran”. He later said on CBS that the US was not shutting down diplomatic outreach and was “always open for a deal”. Wright told that network’s Face the Nation show that the “biggest role” of the US military in the Gulf region currently was to stop Iranian energy exports. “We are strangling their economy to try to bring either a change in policy from the existing regime or a new regime,” he said. In an earlier interview with CNN on Sunday, Wright declined to declare the strait of Hormuz safe for oil tankers – unless they are being escorted by the US navy – and stopped short of saying whether the navy would need to remain in the Gulf region “indefinitely” in order to keep the vital energy passageway operating, as the conflict drags on. This came despite Donald Trump’s repeated claims that ships can safely navigate the narrow marine waterway, and the US president’s insistence last week that the US controls the strait, while floating the idea that it be named after him – statements that were followed by further strikes from both sides in the area. Wright, appearing for an interview on CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday as well as ABC and CBS, was asked whether he could “unequivocally” assure safety to merchant ships transiting the strait. The question came after a New York Times report found that August was the deadliest month for merchant vessels in the area since March. “We’re working cooperatively with fleets that do want to transit. Some ships aren’t transiting, and, of course, that’s their choice. But the United States is working with teams from all the nations in the Gulf to get transits and to continue to ramp them up,” Wright said. “But you’re not saying that it’s currently safe?” host CNN Dana Bash asked, to which Wright replied: “We’re getting a lot of ships through, but, of course, it requires the US military to do that. We are not [at] pre-conflict levels, if that’s what you’re asking.” Bash then asked: “If a country or a company wants to send its tanker through the strait of Hormuz, can they do so safely?” “Well, if they want to work with the United States navy, I think they can,” Wright said. Bash then asked whether the US navy would remain in the region “indefinitely” and whether its presence in the strait was becoming “the new normal”. Wright responded: “Well, it is today, but I think, as you look forward, other nations will come and work with us in this endeavor. Certainly, trade for the world is important. It shouldn’t be just the United States’s responsibility.” “But until Iran changes their position or changes their government, we’ll have to deal with them. But, slowly, their capabilities are being degraded and ours are being enhanced,” he added. Nuclear and diplomatic talks between the United States and Iran appear to have stalled after a June interim agreement to end military operations collapsed without producing a lasting settlement on peace or the future of what remains of Iran’s nuclear program after US strikes last summer caused huge damage. Wright was also asked by CNN if he would say the US is still at war. “We’re still in a conflict, for sure,” he said. On Thursday, the US vice-president JD Vance said at a White House press briefing: “I wouldn’t call it a war,” instead referring to a military conflict. Trump then defended Vance, saying: “A lot of people do not call it a war, I would call it a military conflict, because it’s small potatoes for us … it’s not a big thing.” The Republican US senator John Kennedy of Louisiana was asked on Sunday by NBC if the war would be over by November. “Probably not,” he said. The conflict passed the six-month mark in late August. The former defense secretary Leon Panetta warned in an interview with the Guardian this weekend that it could last a lot longer.