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Russia claims West plans to sacrifice Zelensky

Zelensky

“Washington considers V. Zaluzhny, a former Ukrainian commander-in-chief, to be the most suitable candidate,” the intelligence agency said in a statement.

SVR suggested that Zelensky had “run out of usefulness” for the United States, which was looking for someone in Ukraine to conduct negotiations with Russia.

Zelensky sacked Zaluzhny in February after US media reported about a deepening rift between the two. Zaluzhny reportedly ruffled feathers in Kiev with his unvarnished assessment of Ukraine’s standing in the conflict with Russia. Zaluzhny is currently serving as ambassador to the United Kingdom.

SVR argued that Washington was about to terminate what it described as “Project Zelensky,” adding that Zelensky’s promise “to bring Russia to its knees” sounded comical under such circumstances.

“Wandering around Western capitals, the self-proclaimed ‘president’ is trying to create an impression of turbulent activity and at least somehow justify the usurpation of power. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the White House is about to shut down ‘Project Zelensky,'” SVR added.

Zelensky’s presidential term technically expired on May 20. Ukraine was due to hold a presidential election on March 31, but the president delayed it indefinitely citing martial law in the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has explained that the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) remains the only legitimate authority in the country, while the executive branch of power lost its legitimacy.

Iran interim FM: Israel will sink in quagmire of its crimes

Gaza War

Ali Bagheri made the remarks on Thursday in an interview with Al Jazeera, saying “The Zionists need to know that their crimes will not bring them any achievements, but will lead to the activation of new energies against them.”

The Iranian diplomat also questioned the US honesty in its mediation efforts for establishing a ceasefire in Gaza. He said, “If Washington is sincere about establishing truce in Gaza, it should not support the side that started the war.”

Warning of the repercussions of the aggression on Gaza, Bahgeri said regional peace and stability are a ‘mirage’ amid the ongoing Israeli occupation and aggression.

The Iranian caretaker foreign minister arrived on Wednesday in Doha to meet with Qatari officials and Palestinian resistance movements leaders.

He reiterated Iran’s support for Palestinians while the Israeli regime has been on a campaign of genocide since Oct 7 last year which has so far left over 37,400 Palestinians dead, in addition to hundreds of thousands more injured and displaced in Gaza.

Acting Iran FM: Canada will be held responsible for consequences of blacklisting IRGC

Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani

“Canada’s illegal move to declare an integral part of the official military force of the I.R. Iran, which has played an irreplaceable role in defending the national security and territorial integrity of dear Iran, and protecting the security and stability of the region and confronting the terrorism by Daesh, was malicious and violates the principles and rules of international law, and a worthless gift to the genocidal regime, terrorists and other enemies of peace and stability in the region,” he wrote on X on Thursday.

He added that the Canadian government will be held accountable for the consequences of the hostile action.

Canada’s Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc Ottawa on Wednesday listed the IRGC as a “terrorist entity” under the Criminal Code and called on Canadians in Iran to leave. The move makes Canada the second country in North America after the United States to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

Iran condemns Canada’s blacklisting of IRGC as “unwise and unconventional step”

Nasser Kanaani

Kanaani described the uncalculated decision of the Canadian government as a hostile act that is contrary to the accepted norms and principles of international law, including the principle of sovereign equality and non-interference in the internal affairs of states, and a clear example of a violation of Iran’s national sovereignty.

He added this irresponsible and provocative move is a continuation of the wrong path that the Canadian government has taken over the past decade under the influence of warmongers, real violators of human rights, and the main perpetrators of terrorism.

The spokesperson for the diplomatic apparatus pointed out the IRGC is a sovereign institution born from the Iranian nation and has an official and legal identity derived from the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Alongside other branches of the armed forces, it is responsible for safeguarding Iran’s national security and the country’s borders, as well as assisting in regional security and stability through combating the ominous phenomenon of terrorism.

He emphasized the disgusting act of the Canadian government against the IRGC will have no impact on the production of legitimate and deterrent power and the increase in the level and scope of the grandeur of this honorable force born from the Iranian nation.

The spokesman declared the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its right to a proportionate and reciprocal response to this action that contravenes international law and is against the Iranian nation and government.

UN report accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza

Gaza War

In a report that assessed six Israeli attacks that caused a high number of casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the OHCHR announced that Israeli forces “may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack”.

“The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign,” stated UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

A new report by a United Nations-backed independent commission has also found the Israeli military’s “deliberate” use of heavy weapons in the Gaza Strip has been an “intentional and direct attack on the civilian population”.

Navi Pillay, chairperson of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said on Wednesday that Israel has committed crimes against humanity, forced starvation, extermination, murder, and inhuman and cruel treatment of Palestinians. She also accused Palestinian groups of war crimes.

As she presented the report to the UN Human Rights Council, Pillay said the Israeli military operating in Gaza “forcibly transferred almost the entire population into a small enclosure that is unsafe and uninhabitable” and used heavy weapons in densely populated areas in “an intentional and direct attack on the civilian population”.

Pillay stated the commission concluded that specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence constituted part of the Israeli forces’ operating procedures.

“Although Israeli officials have repeatedly stated their operations in Gaza are intended to destroy Hamas and release hostages, yet neither of these aims has been largely achieved at the expense of thousands of lives,” she added.

“We found that Israeli forces committed sexual and gender-based violence with the intent to humiliate and further subordinate the Palestinian community. Palestinian women were targeted and subjected to sexual violence and harassment online and in person.”

“Men and boys experienced specific persecutory acts, including sexual and gender-based violence amounting to torture and inhuman and cruel treatment,” she continued.

Pillay also noted that the daily onslaught in Gaza must not sideline attention to a parallel wave of violence in the occupied West Bank.

The strikes come as the US confirms it has continued to send weapons to Israel, save for the one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs it is currently reviewing.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

Nearly 37,400 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and more than 85,500 others injured, according to local health authorities.

More than eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Hamas can’t be destroyed: Israeli army spokesperson

Hamas Group

In an interview aired on Israeli Channel 13, Hagari said that anyone who promises to eradicate Hamas is “misleading the public”.

He added that if the Israeli government doesn’t find an alternative, it will remain in Gaza.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement stressing that the security cabinet “has defined as one of the war goals the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capabilities”.

Israeli security officials have also expressed their dissatisfaction towards the Netanyahu-led government’s lack of political strategy to bring the war on Gaza to a halt, Haaretz reported.

The Israeli news outlet stated that officials have slammed, in closed meetings, Netanyahu’s demand to eradicate Hamas, without presenting a clear outline for his goals.

According to Haaretz, security and military officials said that Netanyahu’s unclear path would push the Israeli army to advance dangerously in Gaza.

Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip since October 7 have killed more than 37,000 people, 40 percent of them children, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Recently, Netanyahu dissolved his war cabinet after opposition leader Benny Gantz withdrew from it.

Gantz stated Netanyahu is putting his own personal political considerations ahead of a post-war strategy. He also complained that “fateful strategic decisions are met with hesitancy and procrastination”, calling on the Israeli prime minister to hold an election in the coming months.

US says killed senior Daesh element in Syria strike

Daesh

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the airstrike killed Usamah Jamal Muhammad Ibrahim al-Janabi.

“His death will disrupt ISIS’s ability to resource and conduct terror attacks,” CENTCOM said in a statement on the social platform X.

“CENTCOM, alongside allies and partners in the region, will continue to execute operations to degrade ISIS operational capabilities and ensure its enduring defeat,” it added.

CENTCOM noted there was no indication that any civilians were harmed in the strike.

The U.S. has continued to target leaders of Daesh, the terrorist group that has recently resurged and bombed Iran and Russia this year, killing dozens of people.

At the end of May, U.S. African Command announced an airstrike in Somalia targeted Daesh militants, killing at least three fighters.

Israel should be ‘scared’ of all-out war against Lebanon: Hezbollah chief

Hezbollah

Nasrallah’s remarks on Wednesday come amid soaring tensions at the Lebanon-Israel border after Israeli officials reiterated that Tel Aviv is ready for an all-out war against the armed group.

“All what the enemy says and the threats and warnings the mediators bring – and what is being said in the Israeli media – about a war in Lebanon does not scare us,” Nasrallah said in a speech via video feed.

He added that Israel is the party that should be “scared”.

Israeli Foreign Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday raised the prospect of a major conflict with the Lebanese group after Hezbollah released surveillance drone footage showing major infrastructure and military sites in northern Israel.

“We are very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be severely hit,” Katz wrote in a social media post.

“The State of Israel will pay a price on the front and home fronts, but with a strong and united nation, and the full power of the [Israeli military], we will restore security to the residents of the north.”

On Wednesday, Nasrallah stressed Hezbollah’s military capabilities, saying that the group has acquired new weapons and has an abundance of drones that it manufactures locally.

“The enemy knows well that we have prepared ourselves for the most difficult days,” he continued, adding, “The enemy knows well what awaits it, and that’s why it has been deterred so far. And it knows that there will be no place in the [country] that would be spared our rockets and drones. And it won’t be indiscriminate bombing: every rocket – a target.”

Nasrallah also suggested that Hezbollah may send ground forces into Israeli-occupied territories.

“There is a lot of fear from the enemy that the resistance would invade northern Israel, and this is a standing possibility that remains present in the context of any war imposed on Lebanon,” he stated.

The Iran-aligned Lebanese organisation started attacking military bases in northern Israel on the day after the outbreak of the war on Gaza on October 7 in what it says is a “support front” to back Palestinian armed groups.

Nasrallah stressed that the Lebanese front is making a difference in the broader confrontation against Israel and drawing Israeli military resources away from Gaza.

Nasrallah also issued a warning to Cyprus, a European Union member that sits in the eastern Mediterranean west of the Lebanese and Israeli coasts.

He said the group has information that Israel is conducting military exercises in Cyprus in similar terrains to south Lebanon.

Nasrallah added that Israel plans to use airports and bases in Cyprus for military purposes if its military infrastructure is attacked during a major war.

“Opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means the Cypriot government has become part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” he stated without elaborating.

Nasrallah also warned that the group would open a naval front against Israel in the Mediterranean.

He added that Hezbollah will continue its continuing attacks against Israeli targets, saying that the solution to the crisis is “clear”: ending the Israeli war on Gaza.

More than 37,000 people have been killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza since October, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel launched the war on October 7 after Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, led an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people and seizing about 250 others as captives.

Nasrallah defended Hamas for making its own demands on a multiphased United States-led proposal that Washington says would lead to an “enduring ceasefire”.

He said the US plan has an “obvious” gap that would allow Israel to resume the war after the first stage of the proposal, which would see the release of some Israeli captives held by Hamas.

Hundreds of Hajj pilgrims die of extreme heat

Hajj

At least 550 people have died on haj, diplomats told French outlet Agence France Presse (AFP). Three hundred and twenty-three of the dead were Egyptians, most of whom perished due to heat-related illness, AFP reported, citing two Arab diplomats.

Stampedes, tent fires and other accidents have caused hundreds of deaths during haj to Saudi Arabia in the past 30 years.

Saudi state TV said temperatures rose on Monday as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 Fahrenheit) in the shade at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

A 2024 study by the Journal of Travel and Medicine found that rising global temperatures may outpace strategies to deal with the heat. A 2019 study by Geophysical Research Letters said that as temperatures rise in arid Saudi Arabia due to climate change, pilgrims performing haj will face “extreme danger”.

Thirty-five Tunisian citizens have died during the haj, Tunisian news agency Tunis Afrique Presse said on Tuesday.

Many of those deaths were due to extreme heat, family members said on social media, as other families continued to search for missing relatives in Saudi hospitals.

The Jordanian foreign ministry announced it had issued 41 burial permits for Jordanian pilgrims on Tuesday. Earlier, the ministry said at least six Jordanian citizens died of heat stroke during the haj.

Eleven Iranians have died and 24 were hospitalized during the pilgrimage, Iranian state news outlet IRINN reported without giving the causes of death.

Three Senegalese citizens also died during haj, Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, said on Monday.

One hundred and forty-four Indonesian citizens died during the pilgrimage, Indonesian health ministry data showed on Tuesday. The data did not specify if any of the deaths were due to heat stroke.

Iran and Russia hold security consultations in Tehran

Iran and Russia Flags

ISNA news agency reported that Deputy Secretary of Russia’s National Security Council Aleksander Vendiktov arrived in Tehran to participate in a meeting with his Iranian counterpart at the head of a delegation.

Tehran and Moscow have expanded their security cooperation in recent years.