Category: 2. Editor’s Choice

Photo: X/@MartinHarrisOBE

 A Russian missile struck a warehouse of an Indian pharmaceutical company in Ukraine on Saturday (April 12, 2025), the Ukrainian Embassy in India said.

In a social media post, the mission alleged that though Russia claimed “special friendship” with India, it was deliberately targeting Indian businesses in Ukraine.

“Today, a Russian missile struck the warehouse of Indian pharmaceutical company Kusum in Ukraine,” the Ukrainian Embassy said.

“While claiming ‘special friendship’ with India, Moscow deliberately targets Indian businesses — destroying medicines meant for children and the elderly,” it said in a post on X.

No further details on the strike were immediately available.

Earlier, the U.K.’s ambassador to Ukraine Martin Harris said Russian strikes destroyed a major pharmaceuticals warehouse in Kyiv.

He said the attack was carried out by Russian drones.

“This morning Russian drones completely destroyed a major pharmaceuticals warehouse in Kyiv, incinerating stocks of medicines needed by the elderly and children. Russia’s campaign of terror against Ukrainian civilians continues,” Mr. Harris said on X.

On its website, Kusum Healthcare said it had a presence in 29 countries, including Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan Kenya, Ivory Coast, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Niger, Cameroon, Mali and Tanzania.

In the last few days, Russia pounded several targets in Ukraine even as the U.S. has been pushing for a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg on Friday to discuss the ceasefire in Ukraine.

Saturday marks exactly a month since Russia refused to accept a full interim ceasefire proposed by the U.S.

As Russia maintained its offensive against Ukraine, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha alleged that Russia was the “only obstacle to peace”.

Mr. Sybiha, referring to US-brokered talks for peace in Jeddah, said Ukraine agreed to the proposal on ceasefire.

“Russia refused to agree, instead putting forward conditions and demands,” he said.

From March 11 to April 11, Russia fired at Ukraine almost 70 missiles of various types, over 2,200 Shahed drones, and more than 6,000 guided aerial bombs, he said.

“These were Russian responses to peace proposals,” Mr. Sybiha said.

Donald Trump. Stock photo: Getty Images

US President Donald Trump has extended the sanctions imposed by Biden against Russia in 2021.

Source: a document of the US Federal Register.

Details: Trump has extended Biden’s executive orders, which imposed a state of emergency on Russia and allowed sanctions against Russia for another year.

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“Specified harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation… continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. For this reason, the national emergency… must continue in effect beyond 15 April 2025,” the notice says.

The document mentions that Russia continues to pose a threat to free elections and democratic institutions in the United States and its allies.

It also mentions participation in and assistance with cyberattacks against the United States, the promotion and use of transnational corruption to influence foreign governments, activities against dissidents or journalists, undermining security in countries and regions critical to US national security, and violations of established international law principles, such as respect for state territorial integrity.

Background:

• On 15 April 2021, Biden declared a state of emergency under Executive Order 14024 to address the threat posed by the Russian government’s malicious activities.
• On 8 March 2022, Biden issued Executive Order 14066, which expanded the scope of the state of emergency, followed by several more executive orders expanding sanctions against Russia.

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The US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown.

US and Ukrainian officials met on Friday to discuss White House proposals for a minerals deal. Donald Trump wants Kyiv to hand over its natural resources as “payback” in return for weapons delivered by the previous Biden administration.

Talks have become increasingly acrimonious, Reuters said. The latest US draft is more “maximalist” than the original version from February, which proposed giving Washington $500bn worth of rare metals, as well as oil and gas.

Citing a source close to the talks, the news agency said the most recent document includes a demand that the US government’s International Development Finance Corporation take control of the natural gas pipeline.

It runs from the town of Sudzha in western Russia to the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod, about 750 miles (1,200km) away, on the border with the EU and Slovakia. Built in Soviet times, the pipeline is a key piece of national infrastructure and a major energy route.

On 1 January, Ukraine cut off the supply of gas when its five-year contract with the Russian state energy company Gazprom expired. Both countries had previously earned hundreds of millions of euros in transit fees, including during the first three years of full-scale war.

Volodymyr Landa, a senior economist with the Centre for Economic Strategy, a Kyiv thinktank, said the Americans were out for “all they can get”. Their bullying “colonial-type” demands had little chance of being accepted by Kyiv, he predicted.

Last autumn, Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed giving the US access to Ukraine’s underdeveloped mineral sector. He envisaged a deal that would see the incoming Trump administration supply Ukraine with weapons, in return for future profits from joint investments.

Instead, Trump has refused to give security commitments or military support but wants the minerals anyway. Last week he complained Zelenskyy was trying to “back out of an agreement” and said Ukraine’s president would have “big problems” if he failed to sign.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Zelenskyy said he was ready to do a deal to modernise his country but that Ukraine could only agree if there was “parity” between the two sides, with revenues split “50-50”.

“I am just defending what belongs to Ukraine. It should be beneficial for both the United States and Ukraine. This is the right thing to do,” Zelenskyy said. The US Treasury confirmed “technical” talks were ongoing.

Meanwhile, the US special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said his remarks over a possible partition of Ukraine had been misinterpreted. In an interview with the Times, Kellogg said the country could be divided “almost like the Berlin after world war two” as part of a peace deal.

Writing on X, Kellogg said he was referring to “a post-cease fire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty”. Under this plan, Russian troops would remain in territory already seized by Moscow, with British and French forces stationed in Kyiv and in other parts of the country.

On Friday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg. Witkoff’s reported solution to the conflict was to give Russia the four Ukrainian provinces it is demanding – including territory that Ukraine controls, and which is home to 1 million people.

Meanwhile, at a meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group on Friday, Kyiv’s allies announced a record €21bn (£18.2bn) in additional military help. They accused Putin of dragging his feet over a 30-day ceasefire deal which Ukraine has accepted.

Early on Saturday, Russia carried out further air attacks against Ukrainian civilian targets. Three warehouses were destroyed in Kyiv, with two people injured. The Kremlin has fired 70 missiles and 2,200 drones at Ukraine since the 11 March US ceasefire proposal, Ukrainian officials said.

Zelenskyy paid tribute on Saturday to a 26-year-old pilot, captain Pavlo Ivanov, who was killed during an F-16 combat mission. Ukraine’s small air force “heroically” defends the country from Russian missiles and drones, and supported ground operations, he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had however warned ahead of that meeting not to expect any breakthroughs, though the process of normalising relations was ongoing. On Friday, European nations agreed to US$24 billion in military aid for Kyiv.

On Saturday in Turkey, Sybiha said the Ukraine war signalled how the international institutional system under the UN had become “dysfunctional”. “We need additional tools of enforcement. We need reforms,” he argued, adding that amendments were needed to implement humanitarian laws.

“It is important that international laws should be laws, not simply declarations,” he said, adding that if the conflict did not end in a “fair way”, then “the price for everybody will be high”.

Sybiha was among speakers at multiple panels at the three-day Antalya Diplomacy Forum, where leaders and diplomats, especially from the Global South, urged more inclusion for their region in international decision-making. They warned that deepening geopolitical fractures and economic rivalries were weakening international cooperation.

The fighting between the Russian Federation and Ukraine drags on, taking a terrible toll on both countries. It has already wreaked havoc for over a thousand days. Though hopes for peace rose after Trump took office, recent diplomatic gaffes have…

Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine, injuring four people and damaging residential and commercial buildings in Kyiv and other parts of the country, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.

Overnight attacks

According to the Ukrainian air force, 56 of 88 Russian drones were shot down and 24 disoriented by means of electronic warfare.

Drones have played a big part in the conflict in Ukraine, with both sides employing them to carry out sometimes very long-range attacks on each other.

US envoy denies Ukraine partitioning claims

Meanwhile, Keith Kellogg, the US special envoy to Ukraine, found himself in the middle of a controversy over appearing to suggest that Ukraine could be divided like Berlin after World War II.

Kellogg posted on X, formerly Twitter, to clarify remarks he made in an interview with The Times newspaper published on Saturday.

In the interview, he was quoted as saying: “You could almost make it look like what happened with Berlin after World War II, when you had a Russian zone, a French zone, and a British zone, a US zone.”

His remarks were interpreted by some media outlets as suggestions that Ukraine could be partitioned in a manner similar to postwar Berlin, but Kellogg denied this.

“I was speaking of a post-ceasefire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty. In discussions of partitioning, I was referencing areas or zones of responsibility for an allied force (without US troops). I was NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine,” he said.

According to the Times, Kellogg said a demilitarized zone could be established along the existing lines of control in eastern Ukraine as a buffer between Ukrainian and allied troops, and Russian forces.

“You look at a map and you create, for lack of a better term, a demilitarized zone (DMZ),” he was quoted as saying.

Kellogg suggested that the presence of international troops in Ukraine would “not be provocative at all” to Russia, as they would be “west of the (Dnipro), which is a major obstacle.”

He did admit that Russian President Vladimir Putin “might not accept” the proposal.

Fears of concessions to Moscow

Russian troops currently occupy all or most of four regions in eastern Ukraine that it claims as its own, which together make up some 20% of Ukrainian territory.

As the US continues to push for peace talks and a deal with Moscow, US envoy Steve Witkoff held a third set of talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Friday. 

Moscow is facing accusations from the US and others of dragging its feet on a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Kyiv has agreed to.  

Trump tells Russia to ‘get moving’ on Ukraine

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Edited by: Roshni Majumdar 

NATO is concerned that Russia may be considering placing nuclear weapons in outer space to target satellites. Secretary General Mark Rutte warned of the possibility in an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

He said Moscow’s capabilities in space are outdated in comparison with the West. “Therefore, the development of nuclear weapons in space is a way for Russia to improve its capabilities. This is very worrying.”

Although the weapons would not target Earth, shooting down satellites could have serious consequences, as many systems we use rely on satellites, including navigation and communication systems, as well as environmental monitoring.

Rutte added that such a move by Russia would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, signed by the United States and the Soviet Union at the time. It still provides the framework of international space law and prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space.

According to Rutte, NATO allies are adapting to the new challenges, exchanging intelligence and developing better protected satellites.

“In recent years, space has become increasingly crowded, dangerous, and unpredictable. We know that competition in space is fierce and becoming increasingly bitter. And not just in commercial terms. This affects our entire security,” he said.