THE HAGUE: Ukraine and Russia pressed their wartime rhetoric Thursday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressing confidence that Vladimir Putin would be convicted of war crimes and the Kremlin alleging that the US was behind an assassination attempt against the Russian president.
The country’s leaders have personally attacked each other multiple times during the war Russia started by invading Ukraine in February 2022. The latest flareup came Wednesday, with Russia’s claim that Ukraine had attacked the Kremlin in Moscow with drones meant to assassinate Putin.
Zelensky denied that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the purported drone attack. The Kremlin promised unspecified retaliation for what it termed a “terrorist” act, and pro-Kremlin figures called for the assassinations of senior Ukraine leaders.
Uncertainty still surrounds exactly what happened in the purported attack.
Putin’s spokesman on Thursday accused the United States of involvement. To generate domestic support for the war, Moscow has often tried to blame Washington for trying to destroy Russia through its help for Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a daily conference call that the Kremlin was “well aware that the decision on such actions and terrorist attacks is not made in Kyiv, but in Washington.”
“And then Kyiv does what it’s told to do,” Peskov said, without offering evidence for his claim.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the US National Security Council at the White House, described the claim as “ludicrous.” Zelensky, in the Netherlands, said he was “not interested” in the Kremlin’s opinion.
Zelensky’s top adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, claimed Thursday that Russia had “staged” the alleged drone attack. He cited the delay in Russian state media reporting it and “simultaneous video from different angles” that appeared to show the aftermath of the alleged 2:30 a.m. attack.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War also saw evidence of staging.
“Russia likely staged this attack in an attempt to bring the war home to a Russian domestic audience and set conditions for a wider societal mobilization,” the think tank said.
Given recent Russian moves to bolster security, it’s “extremely unlikely that two drones could have penetrated multiple layers of air defense and detonated or been shot down just over the heart of the Kremlin in a way that provided spectacular imagery caught nicely on camera,” the ISW stated.
In The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is based, Zelensky urged the global community to hold Putin accountable and told the ICC judges that Russia’s leader “deserves to be sentenced for (his) criminal actions right here in the capital of the international law.”
In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. It was the first time the global court circulated a warrant for a leader of one of the five permanent UN Security Council members.
Zelensky’s visit to the Netherlands came a day after he went to Finland, which doubled the size of NATO’s border with Russia when it joined the military alliance last month, largely out of its concerns about Moscow’s long-term ambitions.
The Ukrainian president also used his trip to press the prime ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands to send advanced warplanes so his country can achieve “justice on the battlefield.” Zelensky has successfully assembled significant Western military and political support for Ukraine’s defense since the war began in February 2022.
Zelensky traveled in a Dutch-supplied plane and an armored car, with security kept tight at his appearances. Next week, he is expected to go to Berlin, the capital of European Union economic powerhouse Germany, in the latest display of the Western might marshaled against Putin.
Zelensky’s trips have paid dividends. After traveling to Washington last December and then London, Paris and Brussels in February, Ukraine received heavy artillery and tanks.
But the chances of Putin standing trial in The Hague are remote. The court, which puts individuals on trial for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression, does not have a police force to execute its warrants. The Russian leader is unlikely to travel to any of the ICC’s 123 member nations, which are under obligation to arrest him, if they can.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s military claimed three Russian drones that hit the southern city of Odesa early Thursday had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” written on them, seemingly implying they were sent in retaliation for the reported strike on the Kremlin.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv was the target of an air attack for the third time in four days. In total, Ukraine’s air forces intercepted 18 out of 24 Iranian-made drones launched by Russian forces in various regions. No casualties were reported.
In Russia, drones hit two oil facilities in southern regions of the country near Ukraine in what appeared to be a series of attacks on fuel depots behind enemy lines, Russian media reported Thursday.
Four drones struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, which borders Russia-annexed Crimea, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing law enforcement sources. Another facility was reportedly hit in the Rostov region.
The Netherlands has been a strong supporter of the Ukrainian war effort. Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government has promised 14 modern Leopard 2 tanks it is buying together with Denmark. They are expected to be delivered next year.
The Netherlands also joined forces with Germany and Denmark to buy at least 100 older Leopard 1 tanks for Ukraine.
In addition, the Dutch government sent two Patriot air defense missile systems, promised two naval minehunter ships and sent military forensic experts to Ukraine to assist with war crime investigations.
Zelensky wants Putin trial, Russia accuses US of drone attack
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Zelensky wants Putin trial, Russia accuses US of drone attack
- Russia claims Ukraine attacked the Kremlin in Moscow with drones meant to assassinate Putin
- Kyiv was target of air attack for third time in four days
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
