Missiles Hit Near Odesa in Ukraine as New Mariupol Evacuation Bid Planned

Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP
Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP
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Missiles Hit Near Odesa in Ukraine as New Mariupol Evacuation Bid Planned

Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP
Ukraine estimates 20,000 people have been killed in the war so far. Genya SAVILOV AFP

Missiles struck near Ukraine's southern port of Odesa on Sunday with Russia saying it had destroyed an oil refinery used by the Ukrainian military, while attempts to evacuate people from the devastated city of Mariupol were due to continue.

There was little sign of a breakthrough in efforts to negotiate an end to the five-week war, although Russia's chief negotiator said talks were due to resume on Monday.

In Odesa, the city council said "critical infrastructure facilities" were hit by missiles. No casualties were reported.

Russia's defense ministry said strikes by its military destroyed an oil refinery and three fuel storage facilities near Odesa. It said the facilities were used to supply Ukrainian troops near the city of Mykolaiv.

Odesa, on the Black Sea, is the main base for Ukraine's navy. It has been targeted by Russian forces seeking a land corridor to Transdniestria, a Russian-speaking breakaway province of Moldova which hosts Russian troops.

"Smoke is visible in some areas of the city. All relevant systems and structures are working ... No casualties reported," Vladyslav Nazarov, an officer of Ukraine's South Operational Command, said on Telegram.

Dmytro Lunin, governor of the central Poltava region, said the Kremenchug oil refinery, 350 kilometers (220 miles) northeast of Odesa, had been destroyed in a separate rocket attack on Saturday.

Evacuation efforts in Mariupol and nearby Berdyansk, both also on Ukraine's southern shores, were due to continue with a convoy of buses being prepared for the operation with help from the Red Cross.

"Seven buses will try to get closer to Mariupol, accompanied by the International Committee of the Red Cross," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in an online video posting.

The ICRC abandoned earlier attempts due to security concerns. Russia blamed the ICRC for the delays.

Mariupol is Russia's main target in Ukraine's southeastern region of Donbas, and tens of thousands of civilians there are trapped with scant access to food and water.

Peace talks

Russia's chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said a draft deal was not ready for any meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

On Saturday, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia raised hope for negotiations with Russia, saying enough progress had been made for direct talks between the two.

Medinsky said that while Ukraine was showing more realism by agreeing to be neutral, renouncing nuclear weapons, not joining a military bloc and refusing to host military bases, there had been no progress on other key Russia demands.

"I repeat again and again: Russia's position on Crimea and Donbas remains UNCHANGED," he said on Telegram, adding talks via video-conference would continue on Monday.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has recognized declarations of independence by the self-proclaimed republics of Luhansk and Donetsk in the Donbas area of eastern Ukraine which rose up against Kyiv's rule.

Bucha Destruction

Ukraine said on Saturday its forces had retaken all areas around Kyiv, claiming complete control of the capital region for the first time since Russia launched its invasion on Feb 24.

Russia has pulled back forces that had threatened Kyiv from the north to regroup for battles in eastern Ukraine.

There was no Russian comment on the claim that the Kyiv region was entirely in Ukrainian hands, which Reuters could not immediately verify.

The mayor of Bucha, a liberated town 37 km (23 miles) northwest of the capital, said 300 residents had been killed during a month-long occupation by the Russian army, and victims were seen in a mass grave and still lying on the streets.

"The bastards!" Vasily, a 66-year-old man said, weeping with rage as he looked at more than a dozen bodies in the road outside his house. "I'm sorry. The tank behind me was shooting. Dogs!"

The Kremlin and the Russian defense ministry in Moscow did not immediately reply to requests for comment when asked on Saturday about the bodies found in Bucha.

Moscow denies targeting civilians and rejects war crimes allegations.

Among those killed near Kyiv was Maksim Levin, a Ukrainian photographer and videographer who was working for a news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she was appalled by atrocities in Bucha and voiced support for the International Criminal Court's inquiry into potential war crimes.

Ukraine's emergencies service said more than 1,500 explosives had been found in one day during a search of the village of Dmytrivka, west of the capital.

Zelenskiy warned in a video address: "They are mining all this territory. Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people." He did not cite evidence.

Russia's defense ministry did not reply to a request for comment on the allegations about mines. Reuters could not independently verify them.

Since the launch of what Putin called a "special military operation" to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine, Russia has failed to capture a single major city and has instead laid siege to urban areas, uprooting a quarter of the country's population.

British military intelligence said Russian naval forces were maintaining a blockade along the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, but the option of amphibious landings were becoming increasingly high-risk for Russia.

It said reported mines, the origin of which remained unclear and disputed, posed a serious risk to shipping in the Black Sea.



France Records 1,000 Excess Deaths During Record-breaking Heatwave

Tourists with umbrellas walk in Paris during a heat wave, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Tourists with umbrellas walk in Paris during a heat wave, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
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France Records 1,000 Excess Deaths During Record-breaking Heatwave

Tourists with umbrellas walk in Paris during a heat wave, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
Tourists with umbrellas walk in Paris during a heat wave, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

France has recorded 1,000 excess deaths during the blistering heatwave sweeping Europe, the public health agency said on Sunday, warning that the true figure was likely to be higher.

Detailing its preliminary count of excess deaths, Sante Publique said most of the fatalities involved older people and that it expected the mortality rate to rise as more information became available about ⁠deaths in residential ⁠care and homes.

Europeans have been enduring blistering conditions during a heatwave that has been linked to dozens of deaths - shattering records, disrupting power generation and damaging infrastructure.

Scientists have said the heatwave, which ⁠began on June 20, was the worst recorded in Europe, where the climate is changing faster than the global average.

The heatwave has been moving east. But while France's weather agency said the extreme heat had diminished in most parts of the country, some areas in the northeast were still under a ⁠heatwave ⁠advisory, Reuters reported.

Rooftops are seen during a heat wave in Lyon, central France, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Health Minister Stephanie Rist told La Tribune newspaper that the impact of the heatwave could linger for as long as 10 days after the weather had ebbed.

"The episode is not finished," she told broadcaster BFM.

Most of the deaths involved people aged 65 and older, though the health effects of the extreme heat affected all categories of the population, Sante Publique said.


Trump's Iran Deal Faces Wide Criticism and Some Fear it Could Cost Republicans the Midterm

A sign protesting the Iran war and its impact on gas prices is seen during a protest outside of the US Capitol (AFP)
A sign protesting the Iran war and its impact on gas prices is seen during a protest outside of the US Capitol (AFP)
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Trump's Iran Deal Faces Wide Criticism and Some Fear it Could Cost Republicans the Midterm

A sign protesting the Iran war and its impact on gas prices is seen during a protest outside of the US Capitol (AFP)
A sign protesting the Iran war and its impact on gas prices is seen during a protest outside of the US Capitol (AFP)

US President Donald Trump’s interim agreement to end the war with Iran has dragged down his approval rating and garnered criticism across the political spectrum — even from his own supporters.

Recent interviews with 18 Americans who voted for Trump in 2024, a group that Reuters has interviewed monthly since he returned to office, show that most have doubts about the deal, which has reopened the Strait of Hormuz while temporarily lifting US oil sanctions on Iran and authorizing a $300 billion fund for its reconstruction.

“We need to truly weaken the Iranian regime instead of this, ‘beat them up a little bit and then step back and let them rebuild’,” said Terry Alberta, 65, a pilot in Michigan.

Overall, only a quarter of Americans believe the war with Iran was worth the costs, and a majority worry that the truce with Tehran is unlikely to last, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Many of the Trump voters feared his unpopular concessions to Iran would make it harder for Republicans to retain control of Congress in November's midterm elections, although those most critical of the deal had already begun to lose faith in the president before the war.

Six in the group believed he still had plans to bring down the Iranian government.

The group largely supported the war during its early days, believing US strikes were necessary to deplete Iran's stockpile of long-range missiles and cripple its nuclear program.

Lack of Trust in Tehran

Nearly four months later, with Iran politically emboldened and many of its military capabilities still intact, 14 of the voters criticized some aspects of the memorandum of understanding announced on June 14.

Most were skeptical that Tehran could be trusted to honor any agreement and dismayed by the prospect of granting it billions of dollars to rebuild.

The $300 billion fund will be a private investment vehicle rather than a government-funded plan, though exact details have not been released.

Juan Rivera, 26, said Trump “criticized his predecessors about negotiating with terrorists, and he’s basically done the same exact thing.”

Trump’s Midterm Endorsement now ‘Kiss of Death?’

Rivera still plans to support mostly Republican candidates in the midterms. But he said that when he volunteered recently to canvass Latino voters in his community near San Diego, many fellow Trump supporters were so disappointed by the president's handling of the war, among other issues, that they felt unmotivated to back his party in November.

“A lot of people say: ‘Why should I vote when the president's not doing what he promised?’” Rivera recalled.

Asked for comment, a White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump's achievement “on the battlefield and at the negotiating table is nothing short of remarkable and will strengthen American security for many years.”

Steve Egan, 65, a promotional product distributor in Tampa, soured on Trump in early 2025 after tariff-triggered price hikes hurt his business. From the outset, Egan was skeptical of the president's rationale for the war and upset that it further jacked up the price of gas and other goods.

“Right now it doesn't seem like it's been worth it to go through all that,” he said, noting that the stated goal of regime change “didn't happen.”

His opinion of the president is now so low, Egan said, that Trump's endorsement would be “the kiss of death” for him when deciding which candidates to vote for in the midterms.

Brandon Neumeister, 37, a Pennsylvania state corrections worker and former National Guardsman, said the conflict seemed only to have benefited oil companies. Even before the war, though, Neumeister said he was unlikely to vote in November because he was disgusted with politics.

Robert Billups, 35, of ⁠Washington state, was cautiously optimistic the peace deal would hold. But he believed the war had spawned more hostility toward the United States rather than making the country safer.

Vice President JD Vance, tasked with leading US negotiations with Iran, has fallen in his esteem, and Billups said he no longer feels preferential toward Republican candidates. Come November, “whoever has a better strategy this time, I'm gonna vote for them regardless of their party,” he said.

‘A Bigger Plan’

Though Trump has been adamant about wanting to end the war, six ⁠of his more loyal voters expressed hope that he still had secret plans to bring Iran to heel.

Kate Mottl, 63, a secretary at a municipal office in the Chicago suburbs, said that “destroying” the regime in Tehran seemed like the only way to avert future conflict.

It would be “very disappointing” if Trump refrained from further military intervention, Mottl said, adding that she believed “there’s a bigger plan here.”

Rich Somora, 62, an engineer in North Carolina, agreed that Trump probably had more aggressive ⁠plans up his sleeve. “I can't imagine that he would have gone through all this and not found out a way to get rid of those mullahs,” he said.

According to diplomats and analysts, however, the war has only strengthened the grip of Iran’s clerical rulers. If they remain in power for another month, Somora said, he'll start to worry.

In Prescott, Arizona, 74-year-old retiree Joyce Kenney said she supported lifting sanctions and believed restoring Iran's ability to trade with other countries would ensure its leaders honored the truce.

But the reconstruction fund was a bridge too far: “That's not our responsibility,” she said.


Iran, US Continue Escalating Attacks

This aerial photograph shows boats anchored off Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula near the Strait of Hormuz on June 27, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
This aerial photograph shows boats anchored off Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula near the Strait of Hormuz on June 27, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
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Iran, US Continue Escalating Attacks

This aerial photograph shows boats anchored off Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula near the Strait of Hormuz on June 27, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
This aerial photograph shows boats anchored off Oman's northern Musandam Peninsula near the Strait of Hormuz on June 27, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

Iran and the US continued their attacks in the Gulf as ​each accused the other of violating an interim deal signed less than two weeks ago to end their four-month-old war.

Shortly after President Donald Trump warned the US might "militarily complete the job", Iran early on Sunday launched missiles and drones on US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, continuing a series of escalating attacks.

The US military said earlier it had struck Iran again, hours after a tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important energy shipping route, which Iran had largely cut off for most of the conflict.

The 14-point US-Iran interim agreement was meant to halt the fighting, which the US and Israel started on February 28, and reopen the strait to shipping while talks began on more deep-seated issues, such as Iran's nuclear program.

One round of mediated talks, led by ‌Vice President JD Vance ‌and Iran's Parliamentary Speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, was held in Switzerland a week ago and Washington ​then ‌waived ⁠sanctions on Tehran, ​but ⁠the fighting and recriminations have since resumed and intensified.

"There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started," Trump posted on social media. "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"

About an hour after Trump's post, the Kuwaiti army said its air defenses were responding to "hostile" missile and drone attacks, while sirens sounded in Bahrain, according to that country's interior ministry.

US Central Command said earlier that its forces had carried out fresh strikes after a Panama-flagged tanker was attacked by ‌an Iranian drone on Saturday.

"Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to," Central Command said in a statement, adding the strikes were "in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping" and targeted Iranian military surveillance, communications, air defense, drone storage and mine-laying facilities.

Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said explosions were heard in Sirik in southern Iran, without providing further details.

The Guards said "America's blind shots at Sirik will not resolve our dominance over the Strait ‌of Hormuz. But our shots at violators will remind the rest of the vessels of the clear passage route."