Blog
-
U.S. and Iran hold separate meetings in Qatar and agree to continue discussions
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. and Iranian negotiators met separately on Wednesday with Qatari and Pakistani mediators, with “positive progress made,” and they agreed to continue discussions, host Qatar said.
The next meeting will be scheduled “at the earliest possible time” after the funeral of Iran’s previous supreme leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Majed al-Ansari, a spokesman for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, said on X. The funeral is set to start Saturday in Tehran.
U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, were in Qatar for talks seeking a permanent end to the war, along with Iran’s top negotiator, Kazem Gharibabadi.
Negotiators aim to nail down specifics to pave the way for top leaders to seal an agreement, though differences over the Strait of Hormuz and Lebanon loom large.
A ship ran aground in the strait while using a route not approved by Iran, state television in Tehran reported Wednesday. The vessel was identified as a foreign container ship, with no other details.
The report appeared aimed at underlining Tehran’s claims to control the strait, which the world has long considered an international waterway. A fifth of all oil and natural gas passed through it in peacetime.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, Iran has used its ability to choke off the waterway as a key source of leverage, disrupting global markets for energy and other critical goods.
The Strait of Hormuz is a key sticking point in talks
Iran and the United States agreed as part of an interim deal to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. But Tehran insisted it must control the routes of the vessels and later charge fees for passage, upending decades of practice in the waterway.
The U.S. and many Gulf Arab states say they won’t agree to the charges. An effort by Oman and a U.N. agency to launch a new route near Oman’s shore sparked attacks across the Mideast last weekend, highlighting the tensions.
Iranian state TV on Wednesday said the ship “ran aground with its cargo because of shallow waters along the route it had chosen and was unable to continue sailing.” It said shippers needed to follow the instructions of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in the strait.
The Guard’s navy has repeatedly warned that “any entry or exit through routes other than the ‘Route of Authority’ in the Persian Gulf could lead to irreparable incidents.”
The report did not mention the two ships Iran attacked in recent days for daring to head out through the strait without Tehran’s permission, including one carrying crude oil from Qatar.
Qatar meets with both sides
Witkoff and Kushner met Wednesday with Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and its foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, according to a statement by the Qatari government.
Discussions included details related to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters in the United States.
“Obviously, we’re worried about the nuclear issue,” Vance said. “We’re going to start talking about that.”
Sheikh Mohammed also met with Gharibabadi and other Iranian officials, with Pakistani mediators also on hand. Gharibabadi said the Iranian delegation had no direct talks with the American side, and its talks with mediators dealt with Lebanon and plans to return some of Iran’s frozen assets, Iranian state media reported.
Lebanon remains a thorny issue in the negotiations. Iran has insisted that all fighting end between the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah and Israeli military forces there.
Iran also has called for Israel to give up the land it now occupies in southern Lebanon. Israel insists it must hold the territory and have a free hand to attack Hezbollah, which has been launching attacks into northern Israel.
More ships get out of Strait of Hormuz
While ship traffic in the strait dropped after the weekend attacks, more countries say their vessels have gotten out.
The Thai Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that 10 out of 11 Thai-flagged vessels or vessels chartered by Thai operators have departed the strait safely. South Korean officials say all but two of the country’s 26 vessels that were stranded have left safely.
U.S. Navy searches for helicopter crew member in the Arabian Sea
In other developments Wednesday, a U.S. Navy helicopter made an emergency water landing into the Arabian Sea, leaving one crew member missing, the Navy’s 5th fleet said in a statement.
The Navy said there was “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.” It said the MH-60S Sea Hawk went into the water at 3:30 a.m.
Three of the helicopter’s four crew members were rescued, the statement said. The Navy was searching for the missing crew member.
The Navy statement did not say whether the aircraft sank or was recovered. The helicopter was assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush, one of two aircraft carriers deployed in the waters off Iran.
-
A major Russian attack kills 17 in Kyiv as Ukraine keeps striking Moscow’s oil sector
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia hammered Kyiv in a major drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 17 civilians and injuring scores more in what Moscow described as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities that have caused fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital for hours during the night, with many people sheltering at subway stations after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other authorities issued the first warnings of an incoming attack. Emergency crews were still digging through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings in search of victims as dawn broke.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the deadly bombardment was in response to Ukraine’s long-range strikes on its civilian infrastructure. Ukraine’s increasingly frequent and large-scale attacks — described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz — have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians, more than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
The attack killed 17 people in Kyiv and injured more than 90 others, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a “night of horror” in the capital.
Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Some 20 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district of the city. “We were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking — the ceiling and floor, everything,” the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.
In Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-story residential building and rescuers were at the scene, Klitschko said. In the Darnytskyi district, six levels of a nine-story building collapsed.
In the Holosiivskyi district, a fire broke out on the roof of a 16-story building, according to the Emergency Service, which said it deployed nearly 500 personnel and 100 specialized vehicles.
Top Ukrainian diplomat urges countries to provide more air defenses
The attack used “high-precision long-range weapons” and drones on “military industry facilities and fuel and energy complexes in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in four other regions of Ukraine,” the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement said.
It published a list of targets it said the barrage hit, mostly plants manufacturing and assembling Ukrainian drones, missiles and components.
Russia fired 74 missiles, 24 of them ballistic, and 496 drones of various types in the attack, Ukraine’s air force said.
Ukraine’s air defenses have improved throughout the war, especially in countering Russian drones. But ballistic missiles are harder to stop, and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pleaded with partner countries to supply more Patriot missile systems that offer the best protection.
A woman walks past a burning apartment building after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (Danylo Antoniuk | AP) Sybiha urged countries not to delay decisions on supplying air defense systems and missiles.
He rejected any Russian attempts to justify the strikes as retaliation for Ukraine’s long-range attacks, saying Ukraine was exercising its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter while Russia remained the aggressor.
Sybiha said on X that the death toll may rise as rescue teams continue their work.
Ukraine attacks another Russian oil refinery
Ukrainian forces struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries overnight in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, starting a fire, Ukraine’s General Staff said.
Also, Ukrainian forces struck a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, it said. The bridge was used by Russian forces to transport personnel, weapons and military supplies, according to the General Staff.
Ukraine’s recent success with drone strikes that keep Russian troops pinned down on the front line, disrupt Russian supply lines in the rear and damage oil facilities have brought a significant change in the war, Western analysts say.
“Russia’s spring-summer 2026 offensive has failed to achieve operationally significant gains thus far, and Russian forces’ rate of advance in June 2026 (was) a fraction of the rate of advance that Russian forces achieved in June 2025,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an assessment late Wednesday.
