Vladimir Putin visits occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Russian state media reports
Vladimir Putin has visited the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to Russian media reports.
The president made what state media described as a “working trip” to the port city, which he annexed in September last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Putin, who arrived in a helicopter, travelled around several districts of the city, making stops and talking to residents, according to Russia’s TASS state-owned news agency, citing the Kremlin.
It is believed to be his first trip to Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia since its invasion last year.
The visit follows the widely-condemned annexation of the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia in September.
The visit also comes as Mr Putin visited Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine in 2014.
Mr Putin, right, and Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev, during his visit to Crimea on Saturday
Most of the world considers Russia’s annexations to be illegal, while Ukraine has said it will fight to get the regions back.
Mariupol, a strategically important port city located in the Donetsk Oblast and beside the Sea of Azov, was the site of some of the fiercest fighting in the early part of the war.
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Ukrainian forces holed up in the city’s Azovstal steelworks for a last-stand defensive, which ended in surrender in May after a three-month siege of the facility by Russia.
The Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol
More than 2,500 buildings sustained damage in the siege of Mariupol – nearly half of everything that stood in the city.
Sky News reported in February how Russia had been remodelling the city in its own image since its capture, including turning the ruined steelworks, once one of the biggest metallurgical plants in Europe, into a “tech and eco park”.
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Mariupol: Russia’s new model city
Read our report from April 2022: How the Azovstal steelworks turned into the final outpost in the brutal battle for Mariupol
Alongside the visit, Russian media reported that Mr Putin met with the top command of his military operation in Ukraine, including Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov.
The meeting is said to have taken place at the Rostov-on-Don command post, in southern Russia, near to the Ukrainian border, according to TASS.
On Saturday, the Russian president made a 1,132-mile plane journey from Moscow to Sevastopol – Crimea’s largest city – a day after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him.
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Vladimir Putin visits Crimea
The court says he is responsible for the abduction of hundreds of Ukrainian children since Russia’s full invasion of the country began in February last year.
In Crimea, he was greeted by Mikhail Razvozhayev – the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol – before visiting an art school and a children’s centre.
Mr Putin’s remarks were not broadcast by state media but as recently as Friday, he was talking about the importance of holding on to Crimea.
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“Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,” he said.
“We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.”
Mr Putin has not commented publicly on the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant, but his spokesman called it “null and void” on Friday.
Russia does not recognise the jurisdiction of the court, which is based in The Hague.
It also does not extradite its citizens to face the court’s justice, meaning Mr Putin is unlikely to ever face trial there.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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