Ukraine: As Donald Trump attended a Group of Seven summit in Canada this week and criticised the group for expelling Russia, Moscow launched one of its heaviest attacks on Kyiv since its invasion in 2022.
Despite leaving the summit a day early to deal with the Israel–Iran war, Trump’s mood among the leaders of the world’s advanced economies was relatively cordial. He finalised a free trade deal with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and signed a joint statement on the Israel–Iran war.
Trump openly sparred with the group over the war in Ukraine, however, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded if Russia had not been expelled from the Group of Eight after annexing Crimea in 2014.
“Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anybody else because he was insulted when he got thrown out of the G8,” he said.
Trump’s early departure meant that he missed planned meetings with several leaders, including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Australia later joined the European Union, the United Kingdom and other allies in imposing penalties on a “shadow fleet” of 60 ships used by Russia to evade trade sanctions.
On Tuesday, Russia launched more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at cities across Ukraine, including Kyiv and Odessa, killing at least 28 people. Zelensky described the attack on Kyiv as “one of the most horrific” on the capital since the war began.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha posted on X that Putin timed the attack to make the G7 look weak. “Putin does this on purpose … He sends a signal of total disrespect to the United States and other partners who have called for an end to the killing.”
Sergei Shoigu, Putin’s security council chief, visited Pyongyang this week and announced that North Korea will send 6000 military builders and deminers to assist with reconstruction in Russia’s Kursk region. North Korea has sent about 11,000 soldiers to fight for Russia; about 6000 are believed to have been wounded or killed.
The neighbourhood
Indonesia: Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia’s president, cancelled four out of five mining operations in Raja Ampat, a coral-rich archipelago said to be “the last paradise on Earth”, due to concerns about the destruction of forests and the threat to marine life.
The announcement followed protests by environmental campaigners who called for all five mines to be shut. Greenpeace said mining had destroyed 500 hectares of forest and damaged reefs and marine ecosystems.
“Raja Ampat is Indonesia’s last paradise,” Kiki Taufik, of Greenpeace, said in a statement. “Instead of protecting it for Indigenous and local communities and the diving and tourism that have helped make this archipelago famous around the world, the government has left the door open to polluting nickel mining.”
Indonesia has the world’s largest reserves of nickel and has expanded the sector as demand has grown due to the metal’s use in electric vehicle batteries.
Bahlil Lahadalia, Indonesia’s energy minister, said four licences had been revoked, but the fifth would remain as it applied to an area outside a 36,660 square-kilometre region designated by UNESCO as a Global Geopark, a protected site of geological significance. “Raja Ampat’s biodiversity is a world heritage that must be protected,” he said. “We pay great attention to mining activities that occur in the area.”
But environmental groups said their campaign would continue, noting that mining licences that have been revoked have sometimes been reinstated.
Imam Shofwan, from the Jakarta-based environmental organisation Jatam, told BBC News this week: “They say nickel is a solution to the climate crisis. But it’s causing deforestation and destroying farmland.”
War zone
Gaza: Israeli tanks fired at people gathering near a broken-down aid truck in Gaza on Tuesday, in what was one of the deadliest in a series of attacks on crowds close to aid sites.
Witnesses said Israeli drones fired two missiles before tanks fired shells at a crowd in Khan Younis that was waiting for food rations. According to Associated Press, the aid was being supplied by a United Nations convoy. Medics in Gaza said at least 59 people were killed.
Saleem Abdul Kareem, a 32-year-old in Gaza, told The New York Times he had approached the site to seek aid but ran away after he “saw so many dead and injured”.
“This was my second attempt to get aid,” he said. “I got nothing either time, and after what I saw, I’ll never try again.”
The Israeli military (IDF) said in a statement that troops opened fire after a crowd gathered near an aid truck that became stuck close to soldiers operating in the area.
“The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimise harm as much as possible,” it said.
In May, Israel ended an 11-week blockade on aid entering Gaza and allowed supplies to be distributed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – an organisation backed by Israel and the US. Israel says this method of distribution prevents Hamas stealing supplies. The UN and aid groups are allowed to distribute limited supplies.
But the system has resulted in multiple incidents in which Israeli troops have fired at crowds, often at chokepoints outside distribution sites.
More than 300 people have died near the sites since late May, according to local officials.
Olga Cherevko, from the UN humanitarian office, called on Israel to allow more aid into the enclave. “A trickle of aid here, a trickle of aid there is not going to make a difference,” she said.
Spotlight: Syrian torturer jailed in Germany
In 2015, Alaa Mousa, a Syrian doctor, arrived in Germany as part of a wave of migrants escaping Syria’s civil war.
Five years later, he was working as an orthopaedic surgeon in Bad Wildungen, a town in western Germany, when he appeared in a documentary aired by Al Jazeera about aides of Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad who had escaped to Europe.
Some Syrians who had been tortured by him at a military prison and hospitals in Homs and Damascus recognised him, leading to his arrest by German authorities.
On Monday, Mousa was sentenced to life in prison for crimes including torture, murder and war crimes following a three-and-a-half year trial that included graphic accounts.
Witnesses described how he had poured flammable liquid on wounds and body parts – including genitals – and then set them alight, and gave a man a pill that caused him to die in front of his brother.
The presiding judge, Christoph Koller, said Mousa, 40, had “sadistic tendencies” and “enjoyed harming people that he considered inferior and of lower value to himself”.
Mousa pleaded not guilty and claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy. Prosecutors said witnesses and their relatives in Syria had faced threats and that some were probably abducted, though there was no evidence they had colluded or wanted to incriminate Mousa without reason.
Mousa was tried in Germany according to the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows perpetrators of crimes against humanity to be prosecuted anywhere.
Koller said, “No torturer, regardless of where they commit their crimes, can expect to escape justice.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
June 21, 2025 as “Trump blocks G7 statement on Ukraine as Russia attacks “.
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