The Pentagon under Pete Hegseth stopped arms shipments to Ukraine in February without being ordered to do so by Donald Trump, the then newly inaugurated president, Reuters reports. The order – which the news agency said blindsided top US national security officials, and the Ukrainians – was reversed within a week, but it cost up to $2.2m to cancel the 11 flights involved, according to records. Reuters said records showed Hegseth gave a verbal order for the stoppage after a 30 January Oval Office meeting where only the idea of stopping military assistance was discussed.
Russian drones attacked Kyiv on Tuesday night sparking fires in apartments and other buildings. Ukrainian authorities reported falling debris caused damage and injuries as air defences shot down drones. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said six people were injured. For a third consecutive night, Moscow came under attack from Ukrainian UAVs, putting its key airports as well as some regional airports out of commission for most of the night. On Monday night and Tuesday morning, a Ukrainian drone barrage forced Russia to close a dozen airports deep behind the frontline as foreign leaders began gathering in Moscow for a second world war “Victory Day” parade.
A Russian ballistic missile attack killed three people including a child at Sumy in Ukraine and wounded 10 other people – most of them children, one of whom was in a severe condition, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked his government to seek help from Ukraine’s western allies to finance and develop interceptor drones to knock down attack drones such as Russia’s Iranian-designed Shaheds. “We will develop this direction as much as possible and each region will have its own responsibility specifically for this task,” said the Ukrainian president. Ukraine already has some capability, with videos regularly posted online showing Ukrainian UAVs pursuing and ramming Russian attack drones out of the air, while other interceptors can fire shotgun cartridges to shoot down enemy UAVs.
Catholic cardinals gathered in Rome ahead of the conclave to elect a new pope called on Tuesday for a ceasefire and negotiations without preconditions. Their statement “noted with regret that there has not been progress in promoting peace in Ukraine, the Middle East and many other parts of the world”, while offering their “heartfelt appeal to all parties involved to reach as soon as possible a permanent ceasefire and to negotiate, without pre-conditions” a longer-term peace.
Ukraine and Russia handed over 205 prisoners of war each in an exchange on Tuesday, both sides announced.
