The US and Israeli attacks on Iran dominated the front pages of papers around the world on Sunday, alongside Donald Trump’s claim that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed, a claim that was later confirmed by state media.
From Ankara to Zurich, the US president’s extraordinary daytime attack on Iran was reported with a mixture of fear, anger and elation, with the questions of what comes next a recurring theme across the global media.
Ukrainian president voices support for US and Israel strikes on Iran, calling Tehran ‘an accomplice of Putin’. What we know on day 1,467
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the time and place of the next round of peace talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine would depend on the security situation in the Middle East and the level of “real diplomatic possibilities”. The Ukrainian president on Saturday said he would issue new directives to Ukraine’s negotiating team at the talks, without detailing what they were. He had said the next round of talks would probably take place in Abu Dhabi in early March. But the United Arab Emirates has since been caught up in hostilities after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran.
Zelenskyy voiced his support for the US-led strikes, calling Iran “an accomplice of Putin” for supplying Shahed drones and the technology for Russia to produce them and other weapons in its war against Ukraine. He said it was important that Washington acted decisively, but also that hostilities did not escalate into a wider war.
“It is only fair to give the Iranian people a chance to get rid of the terrorist regime, to get rid of it and guarantee the safety of all nations that have suffered from terror originating in Iran,” Zelenskyy said in a video address on social media. “It is important that the United States is determined. And whenever America is determined, global criminals weaken.”
Zelenskyy said that Russia has used “more than 57,000 Shahed-type strike drones against Ukraine – against our people, against our cities, against our energy sector”. “Although Ukrainians have never threatened Iran, the Iranian regime chose to be Putin’s accomplice,” Zelensky said.
Donald Trump is urging Moscow and Kyiv to strike an agreement to end Europe’s biggest war since 1945, though Zelenskyy has complained that his country is facing more pressure to make concessions. Ukraine is seeking iron-clad security guarantees which commit the US and its European allies to action if Russia attacks again after a peace deal is reached. The last round of peace talks, which took place in Geneva last week, did not achieve a breakthrough and was described as difficult by Kyiv and Moscow, although Washington said it saw “meaningful progress”.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff on Saturday said that Russia said at recent talks in Geneva that it would accept the US proposal for Ukraine’s postwar security guarantees. “At the last talks, the Russian side said for example that they would accept the security guarantees offered to Ukraine by the United States,” said Kyrylo Budanov in an interview aired on Ukrainian television. Budanov also said that at present Russia had not agreed to a summit between Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin, which had been floated earlier as a possibility by US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Russia on Saturday condemned the US-Israeli strikes on Iran as “a preplanned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN member state”, demanding an immediate halt to the military campaign and a return to diplomacy.
Russia has maintained a delicate balancing act in the Middle East for decades, trying to navigate its warm relations with Israel even as it has developed strong economic and military ties with Iran. Iranian forces and Russian sailors conducted annual drills in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean last week aimed at “upgrading operational coordination as well as exchange of military experiences,” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported. Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, signed a broad cooperation pact in January last year as their countries deepened their partnership in the face of stinging western sanctions.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday its forces had taken control of the settlements of Neskuchne and Girkein Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Zaporizhizhia regions. And Ukraine’s Naftogaz said Russia struck a gas extraction facility in the Kharkiv region overnight, causing serious damage.
America and Israel’s attack on Iran disrupted flights across the Middle East and beyond as countries around the region closed their airspace and three of the key airports that connect Europe, Africa and the west to Asia halted operations.
Hundreds of thousands of travellers were either stranded or diverted to other airports after Israel, Qatar, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain closed their airspace. There also was no flight activity over the United Arab Emirates, flight tracking website FlightRadar24 said, after the government there announced a “temporary and partial closure” of its airspace.
As Olivia Dean swept the board, there were eye-catching performances from Sombr, Raye, Rosalía and more, while Jeff Goldblum and Maya Jama lit up the red carpet
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