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Former Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev warned Sweden and Finland could be targeted in Russian nuclear strike
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Russia could strike Nato with nuclear weapons, a key Putin ally warned, as he hit out at Sweden and Finland joining the bloc.
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian prime minister and security council deputy, said the two Scandinavian countries have “automatically become targets for our armed forces.”
Mr Medvedev is an anti-Western hawk and has made repeated nuclear threats since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“They are part of a bloc hostile to us which means they automatically became a target for our armed forces, including retaliatory strikes and even the nuclear component or preventive measures,” he said.
It comes after a major Russian drone attack on Ukraine killed a 12-year-old child this morning and wounded three others just hours after Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a fresh 72-hour ceasefire next weekend.
The girl was killed after one of 100 drones fired by Russia overnight hit a residential building in Samarivskyi district in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s emergency service said.
Shortly before the attack, Volodymyr Zelensky accused Mr Putin of “another attempt at manipulation” with his latest offer of a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine.
Russian troops are trying to carve out a “buffer zone” in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region but without substantial success, the regional governor said.
Four border villages were in “the grey zone” due to continuing fighting, Oleh Hryhorov said on the Telegram app, denying that those settlements were under Russian control.
US president Donald Trump is likely preparing to walk away from Ukraine talks and might use minor excuses to shelve his plans to end the war, European sources have said.
Mr Trump was “setting up a situation where he gives himself excuses to walk away and leave it to Ukraine and us [Europe] to fix,” a European official told the Financial Times.
The report, citing four FT sources, said that there is a belief in Europe and Ukraine that the US president is ready to lock any “breakthrough” in peace talks in Ukraine this week as he marks 100 days of his presidency.
There are fears in Kyiv as well that Mr Trump will pull out from peace talks, some Ukrainian officials told the FT.
There have been intense efforts from Mr Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio who urged Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday to end the war in Ukraine “now”.
Ukrainians living on seams of iron beneath their feet have a message for Donald Trump: don’t take advantage of us, these resources are ours.
The US president has put pressure on Kyiv by threatening to stop the flow of military supplies to help it fight Russia’s invasion unless the US gets some payback for the billions of dollars the aid is costing.
In the city of Kryvyi Rih, on whose outskirts open-cast iron ore mines have gouged huge craters in the landscape, 71-year-old pensioner Oleksandr had little time for Mr Trump: “You can’t trust that ginger guy, he’s not that kind of person.”
The minerals deal has been a sensitive topic for Ukraine, which has a proud history of mining coal and iron ore and hopes to exploit seams of increasingly sought-after rare earths.
Mineral revenues are a crucial pillar of the state budget.
“From what I can see, they only want to take, not to give,” the old pensioner told Reuters as he shopped near the UGOK iron ore mining and processing plant.
About 60km (40 miles) north of Kryvyi Rih is the town of Zhovti Vody – or “yellow waters” – where uranium and iron ore were mined for decades.
“I hope that the people who are involved in this think about Ukraine and its people, because our mineral riches belong to the people,” said 71-year-old resident Nina Fesenko.
The US has called for an end to North Korea’s military deployment to support Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine as Kim Jong Un confirmed he sent his troops to fight in Europe.
North Korea’s supreme leader said he ordered deployment of combat troops to Russia under a mutual defence treaty he signed with Mr Putin in June 2024, which called on both nations to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked.
“We continue to be concerned by (North Korea’s) direct involvement in the war. (North Korea’s) military deployment to Russia and any support provided by the Russian Federation to (North Korea) in return must end,” a US State Department spokesperson said in an email on Monday.
Vladimir Putin has announced a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine next weekend to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in WW2, the Kremlin has said.
The 72-hour ceasefire is the second announced by Moscow in recent weeks, after it declared a 30-hour Easter Sunday truce – which Kyiv and its European allies accused it of breaching.
The Kremlin said the truce will last from the beginning of 8 May and last until the close of 10 May, adding that Russia give an “adequate and effective response” to any Ukrainian violations. Moscow remains ready for peace talks without any preconditions, the statement added.
Donald Trump has upped his criticism of Mr Putin after meeting Mr Zelensky at the Vatican. The US president said he was “very disappointed” in Russia’s continued bombardment of civilian areas in Ukraine.
Mr Trump also said he believes Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea in order to strike a peace deal with Russia.
Crimea is footnoted in British history for the Earl of Cardigan and his disastrous leading of the Charge of the Light Brigade. To Vladimir Putin it’s where history itself must turn.
Donald Trump, taking an 18th-century might-is-right approach, has said that the peninsula was captured without a fight by Russia from Ukraine in 2014 and therefore should stay in Putin’s fist.
Of all the 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory taken after Russia invaded Crimea 11 years ago and launched its wider Anschluss in 2022, Crimea is the greatest Russian prize.
Whoever controls Sevastopol is likely to dominate the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Outside of Tartus, in Syria, which Russia lost recently, it is – or was – Russia’s only warm-weather port.
Moscow’s claim to Crimea has been undermined by the fact that it was ceded to Ukraine under the Soviet Union in 1954.
A 12-year-old girl has died in a Russian drone attack in central Ukraine, according to officials in the war-torn country.
The drone hit a residential building in Samarivskyi district in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s emergency service said.
Locals pulled the girl from the rubble of the building, but she died en route to hospital, the service said.
It posted photos of emergency workers sifting through the wreckage of the building.
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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin ally threatens Nato with nuclear strikes in wild speech – The Independent
