UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer made it clear he backed Zelensky in a phone call to the Ukrainian president.  A Downing Street spokesperson said Sir Keir “expressed his support for President Zelensky as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader”.  It was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War Two,” the spokesperson added.

Zelensky’s five-year term of office was due to come to an end in May 2024. However, Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and elections are suspended.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson also criticised Trump’s use of the word “dictator” while German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the comments “absurd”.  “If you look at the real world instead of just firing off a tweet, then you know who in Europe has to live in the conditions of a dictatorship: people in Russia, people in Belarus,” she told broadcaster ZDF.

A White House official said Trump’s latest post was in direct response to Zelensky’s “disinformation” comments.

“I love Ukraine,” Trump continued, “but Zelensky has done a terrible job, his country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died.” In the meantime, the US was “successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia,” he said.

On Tuesday US and Russian officials held their first high-level, face-to-face talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The former prime minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, told the BBC that Russia was “popping champagne right now” in response to Trump’s comments.

“Volodymyr Zelensky is a completely legitimate president,” he said. “We cannot hold elections under martial law.”

The war of words began with comments made by Trump on Tuesday at a news conference at Mar-A-Lago in Florida, when he blamed Ukraine for the war.

Trump was asked by BBC News what his message was to Ukrainians who might feel betrayed, to which he replied: “I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat, well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily.”

“You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” Trump added.

Trump did not mention that President Vladimir Putin took the decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

Then on Wednesday, Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv: “We are seeing a lot of disinformation and it’s coming from Russia. With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader… he is living in this disinformation space.”

He added that he believed “the United States helped Putin to break out of years of isolation”.

Later in the day, the Ukrainian leader said the world faced the choice to be “with Putin or with peace” and announced he would be meeting Washington’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, on Thursday.

[BBC]

False killer whales are technically one of world’s largest dolphin species, like their orca namesakes. They can grow up to 6m (19ft) and weigh 1.5 tonnes.

Authorities on Wednesday said the pod had been stranded at the site for 24 to 48 hours, and the surviving animals were already under extreme stress.

Local resident Jocelyn Flint told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she had travelled to the site on Wednesday morning after her son noticed the pod while out shark fishing overnight.

“There are babies… There’s just families of them. Their eyes are open, they’re looking at me, like ‘help’.”

“It’s just absolutely horrific.”

The site – about 300km (186 miles) from the city of Launceston – is extremely difficult to access and transport any rescue equipment to, marine biologist Kris Carlyon told media.

“This is possibly the trickiest location I’ve seen in 16 years of doing this role in Tasmania,” he said.

“We’re talking a very rough, steep, single lane road into the site. We can get four-wheel drives in there, but not a lot else.”

Rough conditions meant returning the animals to the sea at the location they stranded was impossible, so an expert team tried to relocate two and refloat them, but were unsuccessful.

“The animals just can’t get past the break to get out. They just keep turning around and coming back towards the beach,” said Shelley Graham, from Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife Service.

With conditions for the next two days forecast to be similar, expert wildlife veterinarians made the “tough” and “confronting” decision to euthanise the remaining whales.

“The longer these animals are out stranded, the longer they are suffering. All alternative options have been unsuccessful, euthanasia is always a last resort,” Dr Carlyon said.

That grim task – which involves shooting the animals – is expected to begin on Wednesday but continue on Thursday.

Authorities are still working out how to dispose of the carcasses. The site has important cultural heritage for Aboriginal people so a department spokesperson earlier suggested “it may be a case of… letting nature run its course”.

Authorities have asked members of the public to avoid the site, with bushfires burning nearby and limited road access.

More than 80% of Australian whale strandings take place in Tasmania – often on its west coast.

Around 40 pilot whales were stranded further south at Macquarie Harbour in 2020 and about 350 of them died despite rescue efforts. Another 200 became standed in the same harbour in 2022.

Whales are highly social mammals and are well known for stranding in groups because they travel in large, close-knit communities which rely on constant communication.

There are a range of theories for why beachings occur. Some experts say the animals can become disoriented after following fish they hunt to the shore.

Others believe that one individual can mistakenly lead whole groups to shore.

[BBC]