Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Russian and Ukrainian officials on Tuesday gave conflicting accounts of what appeared to be a brazen attack on Russian cruise missiles being transported by train in the occupied Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson indicated that Kyiv was behind the explosion late Monday that reportedly destroyed multiple Kalibr cruise missiles near the town of Dzhankoi in northern Crimea, while stopping short of directly claiming responsibility.
Natalia Humeniuk, the spokeswoman for Ukraine's southern operational command, described the strike as a signal to Russia that it should leave the Black Sea peninsula it illegally took from Ukraine in 2014.
Speaking on Ukrainian TV, Humeniuk pointed out Dzhankoi's importance as a railway junction and said that "right now, the way ahead (for Russian forces in Crimea) is clear -- they need to make their way out by rail already."
A vague statement by Ukraine's military intelligence agency on Monday said that multiple missiles carried by rail and destined for submarine launch had been destroyed, without saying outright that Ukraine was responsible or what weapon had been used. However, the agency implied that Kyiv was behind the blast, saying it furthers "the process of Russia's demilitarization, and prepares the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea for de-occupation."
Moscow-installed authorities in Crimea on Tuesday offered a different version of events, saying that Ukrainian drones attacked civilian facilities in Dzhankoi.
Sergei Aksenov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, said that the attack left one civilian wounded, but caused "no serious damage."
Aksenov's adviser, Oleg Kryuchkov, rejected Ukraine's claims and said that Ukrainian drones had targeted residential areas rather than the railway. Igor Ivin, head of the local administration in Dzhankoi, said that the attack damaged power lines, a private house, a store and a college building.
Unconfirmed social media reports late Monday claimed that Russia's anti-aircraft defences shot down multiple drones over Crimea. None of the statements could be independently verified.
Throughout the current war, reports have surfaced of attacks on Russian military bases and other infrastructure in Crimea, with Ukraine rarely explicitly claiming responsibility but greeting the incidents with jubilation.
In August, powerful explosions rocked a Russian air base in western Crimea, with Ukraine later saying nine warplanes were destroyed. Satellite photos showed at least seven fighter planes had been blown up and others probably damaged. Ukrainian officials initially steered clear of taking credit, while mocking Russia's explanation that a careless smoker might have caused ammunition at the Saki base to catch fire and blow up. Unusually, Ukraine's top military officer weeks later announced that he had ordered the strikes.
Russian-appointed authorities have also previously reported repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on Crimea, most of which targeted the port of Sevastopol that hosts the main Russian naval base there.
These incidents in Crimea, as well as reported drone attacks on Russian territory far from the war's front lines, have exposed major weaknesses in Moscow's defences and embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin, who reportedly believed the invasion of Ukraine would be quick and easy.
-- Ukraine's human rights chief on Tuesday said that Kyiv has brought back 15 more Ukrainian children deported by Russian forces from the country's south and northeast, where Moscow held large swaths of territory earlier in the war.
Dmytro Lubinets spoke just days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of bearing personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. According to Ukrainian government figures, over 16,000 minors were forcibly taken to Russia and Russian-occupied areas, with some being put up for adoption by Russian families and just 308 repatriated so far.
-- Civilians were killed and wounded after Russia pounded an eastern Ukrainian town with missiles on Tuesday, damaging more than a dozen buildings, Ukraine's national broadcaster Suspilne reported. A spokeswoman for the regional prosecutor's office, Anastasia Medvedeva, told Suspilne that a couple had died after an anti-aircraft missile slammed into their house in Chasiv Yar, just over 10 kilometres (six miles) west of the embattled city of Bakhmut, while another resident had been hospitalized. Earlier on Tuesday, top Ukraine presidential aide Andriy Yermak posted photos on Telegram of what he said was the aftermath of the attack, showing major damage to an apartment building.
-- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday chaired a meeting of top defence and security officials, focusing on coordinating arms and ammunition supplies for the Ukrainian army as well as information security, Zelenskyy's press office said in an online statement. The meeting came a day after European Union countries endorsed a fast-track procedure aimed at providing Kyiv with sorely needed artillery shells to repel Russia's invasion forces, and hours after U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the Pentagon is set to speed up its delivery of Abrams tanks by opting to send a refurbished model that can be ready faster.
-- Ukraine's presidential office reported that at least three civilians were killed and 10 others were wounded by Russian shelling in the previous 24 hours. It said that Russia fired on the southern city of Kherson and its suburbs more than 60 times over that period, killing one person and injuring seven others across the Kherson province.
Fierce battles continued in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is straining to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the face of dogged Ukrainian defence. Local Gov. Petro Kyrylenko on Tuesday said on Ukrainian television that Russian shelling there over the previous day killed one civilian and wounded another. Kyrylenko added that a further civilian died and two more suffered wounds in Avdiivka, another place that routinely comes under heavy fire.
Ukrainian authorities have reported on civilian deaths in Bakhmut on a near-daily basis since Moscow's grinding push to take the city began months ago. Out of Bakhmut's prewar population of around 70,000, only several thousand remain as much of the once-proud mining hub has been pounded to rubble.
Ukraine's ground forces chief on Tuesday said that Bakhmut's Ukrainian defenders continue to thwart Russian attempts to push on to the city center.
"The defence of Bakhmut continues," Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi tweeted.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.