Russia-Ukraine war update: Putin says Zelensky has lost legitimacy as term expires

The United Nations' highest court on Friday ruled on an emergency petition by South Africa seeking to order Israel to halt its military operations in the Gaza Strip and withdraw from the area.

Israel is unlikely to comply with such an order. Still, a ceasefire order by ICJ judges would put increasing pressure on Israel to become increasingly isolated as it continues its military offensive into Gaza following a deadly Oct. 7 attack by Hamas-led militants.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the northeastern Kharkiv region amid new Russian attacks in the region.

The Ukrainian leader said they discussed the situation on the front line, particularly in the town of Vovchansk, a key defensive stronghold near the border with Russia.

The event was attended by both the region's governor, Oleh Shniekhbov, and Igor Terekhov, mayor of the region's capital, after which the region is named.

Ukraine attacked Russian military facilities in Crimea with U.S.-supplied long-range missiles on Thursday night. The Wall Street Journal report.

A Ukrainian defense official told the paper that the missile hit a Russian air defence communications centre in the city of Alushta.

Crimean social media channels reported multiple explosions in the coastal city, with one video showing a large blast, but the scale of damage was not yet known.

The attack is the latest to target Russian military infrastructure in the region.

The United States tried to rally support to squeeze more funds out of it. Ukraine Finance ministers from the Group of Seven advanced democracies opened a two-day meeting on the shores of northern Italy's picturesque Lake Maggiore on Friday, urging unity in releasing frozen Russian assets and confronting Chinese trade practices.

Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen At the Stresa meeting, Russia is pushing for “more ambitious options” to release around $260 billion in Russian central bank reserves frozen in Europe and the United States after the Feb. 24 invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lost legitimacy after five years in office and that this would pose a legal obstacle to any peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

With Ukraine under martial law and three years into the second half of a full-scale Russian invasion, President Zelensky is not facing elections even though his five-year term ends this week, something he and his Ukrainian allies see as the right wartime decision.

Putin said he was ready to end the war in Ukraine with ceasefire talks that recognized current battle lines, Reuters reported on Friday, citing four Russian intelligence sources, but was prepared to continue fighting if Kiev and the West did not comply.

Speaking at a televised press conference during his visit to Belarus, Putin said Zelensky's position was problematic.

“But with whom will we negotiate? It's not an irrelevant question… Of course, we recognize that the legitimacy of the current head of state has ended,” he said.

Ukrainian officials reject the idea that President Zelenskiy has no legitimacy during the war, and Ukrainian parliament speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said this week that anyone questioning the president's legitimacy is an “enemy of Ukraine” and spreading disinformation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had secured “combat control” of areas north of Kharkiv Oblast that Russian forces moved into this month.

“We have succeeded in militarily taking control of the border areas where Russian forces had invaded,” Zelensky said in a video address late at night.

His comments, delivered after a meeting with military and regional officials in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, appeared to be at odds with those of Russian officials.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine's Kharkiv region border this month, with the Russian Defense Ministry saying they had seized about a dozen settlements.

It began last month with the arrest of Russia's deputy defense minister, followed by the defence ministry's head of personnel affairs being summoned to court.

Two more senior military officials were detained this week, all on corruption charges which they deny.

The arrest was made by the president Vladimir Putin He is starting his fifth term and has installed his longtime ally, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in his new post.

The arrest of Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin marks the fourth detention of a senior defense official in less than a month, since Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was placed in pretrial detention on April 23 on suspicion of accepting bribes.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin Arrived Thursday Belarus The two-day visit was part of several foreign trips at the start of his fifth term in office that underscore Russia's close ties with a neighbouring country that has played a key role in Russia's war effort. Ukraine.

Putin visited China earlier this month and is due to visit Uzbekistan on Sunday. On Thursday, the Russian president welcomed Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to Uzbekistan. The Kremlin.

Russia has carried out a second major airstrike in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine within days, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 20.

The attack came after a Russian glide bomb burned down a cafe and injured 10 people at noon on Wednesday, in what pro-Kremlin bloggers have called a “building-destroying bomb.”