AFP

Missile strikes hit cities across Ukraine on Tuesday and prompted mass power outages, a few days after a humiliating Russian retreat in the nation’s south and in the middle of the G20 summit.

The fresh bombardment, which officials said struck residential buildings in Kyiv, trespassed on days of Ukrainian jubilation over the recapture of the key city of Kherson.

Lviv in the west and Kharkiv in the east were also attacked on Tuesday, authorities said, but there were no immediate information on possible casualties.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced the attack following reports that air raid sirens were sounding across all Ukraine’s regions, saying at least half of Kyiv’s residents were without power.

“According to preliminary information, two residential buildings were hit in the Pechersk district,” he said adding “several missiles were shot down… by air defence systems.

The deputy head of the president’s office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said the missiles had been fired by Russian forces.

He distributed footage of the apparent scene of the attacks, showing a blaze at a Soviet-era, five-storey residential building.

“The danger has not passed. Stay in shelters,” he added in the statement online.

The atttacks came after Russian appointed officials in Nova Kakhovka said they were exiting the important southern city, blaming artillery fire from Kyiv forces, which have been reclaiming swathes of the south after a Russian retreat.

Their announcement comes one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the recently liberated regional capital of the Kherson region and announced “the beginning of the end of the war”.

Zelensky told the G20 summit in Bali on Tuesday “now is the time” to end the war.

“I am convinced now is the time when the Russian destructive war must and can be stopped,” he said via video link, according to a speech obtained by AFP. “It will save thousands of lives.”

Ukraine forces since September have been pushing deeper into the south and Russia announced last week a full withdrawal from the regional capital of the southern Kherson region, allowing Ukraine to enter.

“Employees of the state administration of Nova Kakhovka, as well as state and municipal institutions have left the city and were relocated to safe locations in the region,” the Moscow-installed authorities said on Telegram.

The Russian-backed officials said after Moscow’s pull-out from Kherson city, Nova Kakhovka came under “indiscriminate fire” and “life in the city is unsafe.”

They also claimed “thousands of residents” had followed their recommendation to leave to “save themselves”, saying Kyiv’s forces will seek “revenge on collaborators.”

The authorities claimed that this did not mean that the city was “abandoned” and that “crews of municipal workers” were working to ensure the “functioning of energy and water supply systems.”

– Key dam in ‘dangerous’ state –

Nova Kakhovka sits on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, now a natural dividing line between Ukraine’s forces that retook Kherson city on the west side and Russia’s forces on the opposing bank.

It is also home to the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam which was captured in the beginning of the invasion because of its strategic importance supplying the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula.

The Russian-controlled dam is a particular focus now after Zelensky accused Russian troops of planning to blow it up to trigger a devastating flood.

Any problem with the dam would cause water supply problems for Crimea, which has been under Russian control since 2014 and which Ukraine hopes to recapture.

Russia forces said last week that a Ukrainian strike had damaged the dam.

The Russian-appointed head of the occupied part of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said Tuesday the dam was no longer operating.

“Today, the turbines do not produce electricity, and there is no need for this,” he said on state-run television channel Rossiya-24, according to Russian agencies.

“The situation is more dangerous — not with electricity generation — but with the dam itself, which, in the event of an explosion, would flood a fairly large area.”

The loss of Kherson was the latest in a string of setbacks for the Kremlin, which invaded Ukraine on February 24 hoping for a lightning takeover that would topple the government in days.

NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg nonetheless cautioned that Ukraine was facing difficult months ahead and said that Russia’s military capability should not be underestimated.

Former US president Donald Trump is expected to launch another White House bid Tuesday, even as another one of his fellow election deniers lost a key race in last week’s midterms.

The 76-year-old billionaire, whose 2016 win shocked America and the world, has summoned the press to his Florida mansion for a “very big announcement” at 9:00 pm Tuesday (0200 GMT Wednesday).

Known for his unpredictability, Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, but for months he has barely hidden his desire to vie for the presidency again in 2024.

And delaying the announcement now, as some of his advisers have reportedly suggested to him, would be awkward considering Trump’s repeated boast about the momentousness of his Tuesday address.

“Hopefully TODAY will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of our Country!” Trump posted overnight on his Truth Social platform.

– ‘Red wave’ crashes –

But in a new sign that Trump and his hardcore followers do not lead the electoral juggernaut they once did, one of Trump’s  staunchest supporters, the election denier and establishment skeptic Kari Lake, was projected to lose her race to be governor of Arizona.

The results have emboldened Trump’s Republican detractors and sapped most of his political momentum heading into the expected Tuesday campaign launch.

In 2016, Trump and the Republicans swept into power, taking control of the White House and maintaining their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

But Democrats won back the House of Representatives in a 2018 landslide after campaigning largely against Trump’s caustic style.

They completed their trifecta of US political power by taking the Senate and the White House in 2020.

President Joe Biden, whose victory Trump has refused to acknowledge, recently revealed he is planning to run for a second term, although he said he will make a final decision next year.

Trump departed Washington in chaos two weeks after his partisans stormed the US Capitol, but he chose to remain in the political arena, continuing to fundraise and hold rallies around the country.

Leading up to last week’s midterm vote, in which Biden’s Democrats had been expected to lose handily, Trump made denial of the 2020 election results a key litmus test for candidates to win his influential political endorsement.

But the predicted Republican “red wave” failed to materialize, and Democrats will maintain their control of the Senate. 

In the still-undecided House, Republicans seem likely to eke out only a razor-thin majority.

Trump’s once-loyal wingman, former vice president Mike Pence, offered potent criticism late Monday, telling ABC News that Trump was “reckless” on the day of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol and that he had told the president they had no authority to unilaterally block certification of the election, as Trump sought.

But Pence declined to say directly whether Trump should be president again. “That’s up to the American people, but I think we’ll have better choices in the future,” he said in the interview.

– Florida showdown –

Part of the conservative world has already turned to another possible White House contender who, like Trump, is a resident of Florida: Governor Ron DeSantis.

The 44-year-old rising star of the hard right has emerged in strong form after his resounding re-election victory in the southeastern state and appears poised to challenge the former president.

Tuesday’s announcement is widely seen as a way for Trump to take the wind out of the sails of potential rivals, including DeSantis and Pence, who is publishing his memoir on the same day.

For the moment, Trump retains an undeniable popularity with his base, a tide of die-hard fans in red baseball caps who continue to flock to his rallies.

Most polls likewise give him the lead in a hypothetical Republican primary — despite being impeached twice by the House of Representatives and facing discontent from corners of the Republican Party.

His White House pursuit will be hampered too by multiple investigations into his conduct before, during and after his first term as president — which could ultimately result in his disqualification.

Those include allegations of fraud by his family business, his role in last year’s US Capitol attack and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his private Florida mansion, which was searched by the FBI in August.

Russia faced mounting diplomatic pressure Tuesday to end its war in Ukraine, as G20 allies and critics alike rued the painful global impact of nearly nine months of conflict.

A draft communique obtained by AFP showed the world’s 20 leading economies coming together to condemn the war’s effects, but still divided on apportioning blame.

The summit has shown that even Russia’s allies have limited patience with a conflict that has inflated food and energy prices worldwide and raised the spectre of nuclear war.

Risking diplomatic isolation, Russia was forced to agree that the “war in Ukraine” — which Moscow refuses to call a war — has “adversely impacted the global economy”.

It also agreed that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” is “inadmissible”, after months of President Vladimir Putin making such threats.

The embattled Russian leader has skipped the summit, staying at home to reckon with a string of embarrassing battlefield defeats and a grinding campaign that threatens the future of his regime.

Rubbing salt in Russia’s wounds, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky — fresh from a visit to liberated Kherson — delivered an impassioned video appeal to G20 leaders.

Zelensky told leaders from China’s Xi Jinping to America’s Joe Biden that they could “save thousands of lives” by pressing for a Russian withdrawal.

“I am convinced now is the time when the Russian destructive war must and can be stopped,” he said, sporting his now-trademark army-green T-shirt.

Putin’s delegate, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose summit preparation was disrupted by two hospital health checks for an undiagnosed ailment, remained in the room throughout Zelensky’s address, diplomatic sources said.

His most notable diplomatic victory was an acknowledgement in the communique that while “most members” of the G20 condemned Putin’s invasion, “there were other views and different assessments”.

Leaders must now sign off on the final text before the summit ends on Wednesday. 

“All problems are with the Ukrainian side, which is categorically refusing negotiations and putting forward conditions that are obviously unrealistic,” Lavrov told reporters.

The foreign minister had a dinner with leaders before departing on Tuesday.

– ‘Immense’ suffering –

The United States and its allies used the summit to broaden the coalition against Russia’s invasion and scotch Moscow’s claims of a war of East versus West.

Many “see Russia’s war in Ukraine as the root source of immense economic and humanitarian suffering in the world”, said a senior US official.

Russia’s G20 allies China, India and South Africa refrain from publicly criticising Putin’s war, and the draft joint statement is replete with diplomatic fudges and linguistic gymnastics.

But it gives a growing sense of the worldwide impact of the war.

G20 members Argentina and Turkey are among the nations worst hit by food inflation worldwide, but there was scarcely a country around the table unaffected.

“The war is affecting everyone,” said Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero. 

“In the northern hemisphere the merchants of death broker lethal arms sales, but in the southern hemisphere food is costly or scarce — what kills are not bullets or missiles, but poverty and hunger.”

There was also a hint at growing Chinese unease with Russia’s prosecution of the war when presidents Xi and Biden met late Monday.

“It’s clear that the Russians are very isolated,” said one Western official. “I think some countries engaged with Russia but… I did not see any gestures of great solidarity.”

– Grain corridor –

A deal expiring Saturday that allows Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea is a focus of summit conversations, with leaders expected to urge its “full, timely and continued implementation”.

Ukraine is one of the world’s top grain producers, and the Russian invasion blocked 20 million tonnes of grain in its ports before the United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal in July.

The summit build-up focused heavily on Xi, who is making only his second overseas trip since the pandemic began and has stolen the spotlight as leaders line up to speak with him.

Xi and Biden cooled Cold War rhetoric during three hours of talks on Monday, taking some of the heat out of their simmering rivalry.

“The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship,” Xi told Biden.

Former US diplomat Danny Russel described the meeting as broadly positive. 

“We should beware of prematurely declaring the strategic rivalry over. However, we saw a deliberate effort to stabilise a dangerously overheated relationship.”

The family of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was likely killed by an Israeli soldier, on Tuesday praised a US decision to open a probe into her death.

“This is an important step,” a statement from the Palestinian-American family said, voicing hope for a “truly independent, credible and thorough probe”.

Abu Akleh was killed while covering an Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank on May 11.

The veteran reporter, who was a Christian, was wearing a bulletproof vest marked “Press” and a helmet when she was shot in the head in the Jenin refugee camp, a historic flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  

The Israeli army conceded on September 5 that one of its soldiers had likely shot Abu Akleh after mistaking her for a militant. 

The Abu Akleh family noted that it had been asking for a US probe “since the beginning”.

“It is what the United States should do when a US citizen is killed abroad, especially when they were killed, like Shireen, by a foreign military.”

Defence Minister Benny Gantz said Israel “will not cooperate with an external investigation”.

“The decision taken by the US Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the tragic passing of Shireen Abu Akleh, is a mistake. The IDF (Israeli army) has conducted a professional, independent investigation, which was presented to American officials with whom the case details were shared,” Gantz said in a statement. 

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which works to end the occupation, said it always believed “some form of international intervention” would be required to secure justice for Abu Akleh’s death. 

“We never thought Israel could, or was willing to, investigate itself,” spokeswoman Dror Sadot told AFP. 

But she noted that US experts had collaborated in previous investigations which had not led to Israel taking steps towards accountability. 

“So, let’s say, for the FBI, we’ll believe it when we see it,” Sadot said. 

– No prosecution –

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has refused to confirm or deny the investigation.

But Politico reported that the FBI was probing the May 11 shooting. 

Just days after her death, dozens of Democratic party lawmakers wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding an inquiry, saying the US government had a “duty to protect Americans reporting abroad”. 

The Israeli army’s top lawyer has said that criminal charges against the soldier likely involved in the shooting were not merited, as the individual was acting in what Israel considered to be an active combat zone. 

Prime Minister Yair Lapid has also rejected suggestions the soldier should be prosecuted.

“I will not allow an IDF soldier that was protecting himself from terrorist fire to be prosecuted just to receive applause from abroad,” Lapid told a military ceremony.

Last week, Abu Akleh’s family and colleagues told UN investigators that she had been deliberately targeted as part of Israel’s “wide-scale war” on Palestinian media workers, and called for accountability and justice.

Doha-based Al Jazeera and the Qatari state have also alleged the Abu Akleh was deliberately targeted by Israeli soldiers.