عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Russia Accuses Ukraine of Violating US-Brokered Three-Day Truce

A drone engine lies near as Ukrainian rescuers and local people inspect the site of a Russian strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 07 May 2026, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. (EPA)
A drone engine lies near as Ukrainian rescuers and local people inspect the site of a Russian strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 07 May 2026, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. (EPA)
TT
TT

Russia Accuses Ukraine of Violating US-Brokered Three-Day Truce

A drone engine lies near as Ukrainian rescuers and local people inspect the site of a Russian strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 07 May 2026, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. (EPA)
A drone engine lies near as Ukrainian rescuers and local people inspect the site of a Russian strike on a residential area in Kharkiv, Ukraine, 07 May 2026, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. (EPA)

Russia accused Kyiv of breaking a US-brokered ceasefire on Sunday, while Ukrainian officials said that one person had been killed and more injured by Russian drone and artillery strikes in the past 24 hours.

Two people were injured by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson region, the area's Moscow-installed leader Vladimir Saldo said.

Separately, Russia's Ministry of Defense accused Kyiv of committing more than 1,000 ceasefire violations, state media reported, citing a daily briefing on Sunday. The ministry said Ukrainian forces had attacked civilian targets in several Russian regions and carried out strikes against Russian military positions on the front line.

Russia's military “responded in kind” to the ceasefire violations,” the ministry said.

Ukrainian officials said Russia had launched attacks, although they stopped short of accusing Moscow of violating the US-brokered truce that came into force on Saturday.

Ivan Fedorov, head of Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, said one person had been killed and three more injured by artillery and drone attacks in the past 24 hours.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of Ukraine's Kherson, said that seven people had been wounded over the same period.

Five people were also injured when a Russian drone attack damaged a nine-storey apartment block in the industrial district of Ukraine’s second-largest city, Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional administration, said late Saturday.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Russia and Ukraine had bowed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday to mark Victory Day, the Russian celebration marking the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Trump said there would also be an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had said Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” during the May 9 parade in Moscow, followed up on Trump’s statement by mockingly declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes to allow the Russian parade to go ahead. The Kremlin shrugged off the comment as a “silly joke.”

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Sunday he expects US envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who have both taken a leading role in negotiations to end the war, to visit Moscow “soon enough.”

However, he stressed that Moscow would not move from its demand that Kyiv's troops withdraw from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

“Until (Ukraine) takes that step, we can hold several more rounds, dozens of rounds (of negotiations), but we’ll be stuck in the same place,” Ushakov was cited by the state news agency Tass as saying.

Most Viewed

 
 
World

Reports: 10 Dead in Crash Between 2 Spanish Trains in Toledo Province

Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)
TT
TT

Reports: 10 Dead in Crash Between 2 Spanish Trains in Toledo Province

Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)
Two people sit below an information screen with a message stating that the high-speed train line between Madrid and Andalucia has been interrupted following the collision of two high-speed trains between the towns of Mora and Orgaz, at the Atocha train station in Madrid, Spain, October 28, 2026. (Reuters)

Spain’s state-owned news agency and other local media say at least 10 people have died in a crash between two trains in central Spain.

Spain’s rail system operator ADIF said the crash occurred Wednesday morning in the province of Toledo. Rail service is suspended between Madrid, Ciudad Real and Andalusia.

TVE is reporting that the accident was between two high-speed trains heading in the same direction and that one ran into the tail of the other, knocking two of its cars off the track.

The mayor of the nearby town of Urda, Manuel Galán, told Spanish state broadcaster TVE that passengers had been injured and that civil protection authorities had asked his town hall to prepare a sports pavilion to attend to passengers.

The mayor of another nearby village, Jesús Pérez of Los Yébenes, told TVE that it appeared that the accident was "serious.”

The regional president of Castilla La Mancha, Emiliano García-Page, wrote on X that he is on his way to the crash site.

In January, 45 people died in southern Spain when a train jumped the track and hit an oncoming train. The crash was the deadliest in Spain since a 2013 crash that killed 80 people. The January incident shook the confidence the European country has in its extensive high-speed rail network.

World

Palestinian Activist Khalil Returns to Columbia After US Detention

Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)
Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)
TT
TT

Palestinian Activist Khalil Returns to Columbia After US Detention

Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)
Algerian-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pictured during an interview with AFP in New York on October 26, 2026. (AFP)

Mahmoud Khalil, a figurehead of Gaza war protests in the United States, returned Tuesday to Columbia University for the first time since his 2025 arrest under President Donald Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists.

The 31-year-old told AFP his presence for an event on his new memoir, attended by around 100 people, was a "victory," as he accused Columbia of seeking "to erase me, to erase any Palestinian voices on campus."

He has slammed the Ivy League institution for its response to the 2024 student demonstrations, which included allowing New York police to clear protesters from its Manhattan campus in a heavy-handed operation.

Columbia said at the time the protests were a safety threat.

Khalil has also accused the university of failing to protect him from harassment ahead of his arrest by US immigration authorities and three-month detention without criminal charge, before his release in June 2025.

"Columbia could have been an example for how to have difficult conversations on campus, how to respond to such a protest, how to be aligned with human rights and with international law," Khalil told AFP in an interview.

"They chose the total opposite. They chose brutality. They chose repression," he said.

Some Jewish groups on social media had opposed Khalil's return. A spokesperson for Columbia said the college is "committed to rigorous debate, inquiry, and respectful dialogue across differing perspectives."

"Columbia supports the right of faculty members to organize academic events. An invitation to speak does not signify university endorsement of a speaker's views," they said in a statement carried by US media.

World

Local Ukraine Ceasefire Holds for Second Day

A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
TT
TT

Local Ukraine Ceasefire Holds for Second Day

A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)
A woman walks on a sidewalk beneath anti-drone nets stretched over a street during a local ceasefire related to evacuation efforts in Oleshky, in Kherson, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP)

A US-brokered local ceasefire in southern Ukraine was holding for a second day, both sides said on Wednesday, as hopes grew that vital food and medicine would be able to reach stranded residents.

Locals in the city of Oleshky, under Russian occupation in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, have faced food, water and medicine shortages for months, caught in the crossfire between both sides.

Some of the estimated 2,000 still there had resorted to hunting and eating pigeons, former residents who are still in touch with those in the city told AFP.

The human rights ombudsmen of both Russia and Ukraine said Wednesday that the truce, which came into effect early Tuesday morning, was still holding.

"30 hours of the ceasefire in Oleshky have passed without a single incident," said Ukraine's Dmytro Lubinets.

"No incidents have been recorded in the 30 hours of the ceasefire in Oleshky," Russia's Yana Lantratova said in a similarly worded statement.

The planned truce was announced by US First Lady Melania Trump after months of mounting international concern over the fate of residents in the city.

It remains unclear how many citizens will choose to leave, or what route they will have to take.

Crossing the frontline -- marked by the Dnipro river -- is all but impossible, and Russian-installed officials have indicated they could have to travel through Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russian officials said most of those who wanted to flee had already done so.

A senior Ukrainian official also told AFP that many people in the city wanted to stay, so the ceasefire operation was designed to allow humanitarian supplies into the city.

Oleshky was captured by Russian forces as the start of their 2022 invasion.

David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian lawmaker who took part in peace negotiations with Russia in 2022, described the ceasefire as the "biggest de-escalation since 2022".

Previous short-lived truces in the war -- such as to mark Orthodox Easter -- have seen drop-offs in aerial attacks but been marred by accusations of widespread violations by both sides.