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Ukraine says it has conducted a long-range drone attack on a supply ship that it claims was carrying drone components from Iran, striking it at a port north of the Caspian Sea, in a show of force hours before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet for a summit in Alaska.

Photographs showed a partially sunken cargo vessel at Olya, near Astrakhan, more than 500 miles from the frontline. Ukraine’s military claimed credit for the attack and the overnight bombing of an oil refinery at Samara on the Volga River, deep inside Russia.

Ukraine’s general staff said the ship hit, the Port Olya-4, was “loaded with components” for Shahed-type drones “and ammunition from Iran”. The port, it added, was an “important logistics hub for the supply of military goods”.

Kyiv’s forces have repeatedly shown they can strike military logistics and energy targets hundreds of miles inside Russia, although the attacks only appear to have a dampening impact on the Kremlin’s long-term war effort.

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Donald Trump left more questions than answers on Friday as he claimed “great progress” in his high-stakes summit with Vladimir Putin but said that no deal had been reached to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“I believe we had a very productive meeting,” the US president said at a joint press conference in Anchorage, Alaska. “There were many, many points that we agreed on.”

But, Trump cautioned: “There’s no deal until there’s a deal. I will call up Nato ... I’ll of course call up [Ukraine’s] President Zelenskyy and tell him about today’s meeting.”

The two leaders lavished praise on each other but offered no details of the nearly three-hour meeting and took no questions from reporters.

Putin, speaking through an interpreter, described Trump’s efforts on Ukraine as “precious” and, suggested the two leaders had hammered out “an understanding”. He urged Europe to “not throw a wrench in the works” and “not use backroom dealings” to torpedo it.

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More than 100 organisations have signed a joint letter calling on Israel to stop the "weaponisation of aid" into Gaza, as "starvation deepens".

Humanitarian groups, including Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), say they are increasingly being told they are "not authorised" to deliver aid, unless they comply with the stricter Israeli regulations.

Groups risk being banned if they "delegitimise" the state of Israel or do not provide detailed information about Palestinian staff, the letter says.

Israel denies there are restrictions on aid and says the rules, introduced in March, ensure that aid "reaches the population directly and not Hamas".

According to the joint letter, most major international non-governmental organisations (NGO) have been unable to deliver a single truck of lifesaving supplies since 2 March.

They say Israeli authorities "have rejected requests from dozens of non-governmental organisations to bring in lifesaving goods", citing the new rules. More than 60 requests were denied in July alone.

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Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets every week to protest the ongoing war in Gaza and the government's failure to bring home Israeli hostages.

But on Tuesday, a different kind of demonstration took place: hundreds of retired Israeli Air Force pilots rallied against the war outside the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv.

It was the first time the group, which calls itself "555," had gathered in person to oppose the Israeli cabinet's latest decision — to launch an operation to capture Gaza City and expand the nearly two-year war. The crowd, most over 60 years of age, stood under a banner reading "Don't kill hostages and soldiers" — a message that echoed throughout the speeches.

Many also stressed that their call to end the war wasn't only about Israeli lives, but about the deaths of Palestinian civilians as well.

Among them was Dan Halutz, a former chief of staff of the Israeli military and ex-Air Force commander. Challenging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Hamas still poses a significant threat, Halutz told the crowd, "Who among the senior commanders in the IDF believes Hamas is a strategic threat we can't defend against? I don't believe there's such a person."

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U.S. President Donald Trump said he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is ready to end his war in Ukraine, speaking on the eve of Friday's summit between the men, but that peace would likely require at least a second meeting involving Ukraine's leader.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his European allies have intensified their efforts this week to prevent any deal between the U.S. and Russia emerging from Friday's summit in Alaska that leaves Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.

"I think President Putin will make peace, I think President Zelenskiy will make peace," Trump told reporters at the White House. "We'll see if they get along."

Trump has downplayed talk of a ceasefire emerging from the summit and speculated about a possible second meeting to come, involving more leaders.

"I think it's going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelenskiy, myself, and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders along. Maybe not. I don't know that."

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Donald Trump cold-called Norway’s finance minister last month to ask about a nomination for the Nobel peace prize, Norwegian press reported on Thursday.

The Norwegian outlet Dagens Næringsliv, citing unnamed sources, reported: “Out of the blue, while finance minister Jens Stoltenberg was walking down the street in Oslo, Donald Trump called … He wanted the Nobel prize – and to discuss tariffs.”

The outlet added that it was not the first time that Trump had raised the question of a Nobel peace prize nomination to Stoltenberg.

n a statement to Reuters, Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary-general, said the call focused on tariffs and economic cooperation ahead of Trump’s call with Jonas Støre, the Norwegian prime minister.

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