ReportWire

Tag: Drone aircraft

  • U.S. retaliates in Iraq after three U.S. troops wounded in attack

    U.S. retaliates in Iraq after three U.S. troops wounded in attack

    U.S. Army soldiers watch as fellow Coalition soldiers pass by near the entrance to the International Zone on May 30, 2021 in Baghdad, Iraq.

    John Moore | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    The U.S. military carried out retaliatory air strikes on Monday in Iraq after a one-way drone attack earlier in the day by Iran-aligned militants that left one U.S. service member in critical condition and wounded two other U.S. personnel, officials said.

    The back-and-forth clash was the latest demonstration of how the Israel-Hamas war is rippling across the Middle East, creating turmoil that has turned U.S. troops at bases in Iraq and Syria into targets.

    Iran-aligned groups in Iraq and Syria oppose Israel’s campaign in Gaza and hold the United States partly responsible.

    At President Joe Biden’s direction, the U.S. military carried out the strikes in Iraq at 1:45 GMT, likely killing “a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants” and destroying multiple facilities used by the group, the U.S. military said.

    “These strikes are intended to hold accountable those elements directly responsible for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq and Syria and degrade their ability to continue attacks. We will always protect our forces,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, in a statement.

    A U.S. base in Iraq’s Erbil that houses U.S. forces came under attack from a one-way drone earlier on Monday, leading to the latest U.S. casualties.

    The base has been repeatedly targeted. Reuters reported on another significant drone attack in October on the barracks at the Erbil base on Oct. 26, which penetrated U.S. air defenses but failed to detonate.

    The Pentagon did not disclose details about the identity of the service member who was critically wounded or offer more details on the injuries sustained in the attack. It also did not offer details on how this drone appeared to penetrate the base’s air defenses.

    “My prayers are with the brave Americans who were injured,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

    The White House National Security Council said Biden was briefed on the attack on Monday and ordered the Pentagon to prepare response options against those responsible.

    “The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way. The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

    Still, it is unclear if the latest U.S. retaliation will deter future action against U.S. forces, who are deployed in Iraq and Syria to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State militants.

    The U.S. military has already come under attack at least 100 times in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, usually with a mix of rockets and one-way attack drones.

    The U.S. embassy compound in Baghdad also came under mortar fire earlier in December, the first time it had been attacked in more than a year, in a major escalation.

    The latest unrest came less than a week after Austin returned from a trip to the Middle East focused on containing efforts by Iran-aligned groups to broaden of the Israel-Hamas war.

    That includes setting up a U.S.-led maritime coalition to safeguard Red Sea commerce following a series of drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen.

    The Pentagon said on Thursday that more than 20 countries have agreed to participate in the new U.S.-led coalition, known as Operation Prosperity Guardian.

    Source link

  • One of the biggest autonomous transportation tests is operating deep underwater

    One of the biggest autonomous transportation tests is operating deep underwater

    Boeing’s lineup of unmanned, undersea vehicles (UUV) can operate autonomously for months at a time on a hybrid rechargeable propulsion power system. Pictured above is the 18-foot Echo Ranger. The aerospace and defense contractor also makes the 32-foot Echo Seeker, and its latest innovation, and the largest autonomous sub, is the Voyager at 51-feet.

    Boeing

    More than 80% of the ocean remains unexplored by humans but could soon be mapped by autonomous underwater robots. But is that all unmanned submarines will be used for?

    Autonomous robot submarines — also referred to as autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs — are able to explore high-pressure areas of the ocean floor that are unreachable by humans through preprogrammed missions, allowing them to function without humans aboard, or controlling them. They’re often used by scientists for underwater research as well as oil and gas companies for deep water surveys, but as defensive security threats continue to grow, the largest sector in the AUV market has become the military.

    AUVs can be helpful tools in military ocean exploration, obtaining critical information such as mapping the seafloor, looking for mines — a current use case in the Russia-Ukraine war — and supplying underwater surveillance. Navies worldwide are investing in unmanned underwater vehicles to elevate their fleet of below-water defense tools. 

    Defense company Anduril Industries kickstarted its expansion from land to sea when it acquired AUV manufacturer Dive Technologies in February. The acquisition gave them a customizable AUV of their own called the Dive-LD.

    “There are more and more threats that are on top of the water and under the water that can really only be addressed by robotic systems that can hide from enemy surveillance, that can hide from what you can see in the air and can do things that are only possible to do underwater,” Palmer Luckey, Anduril Industries co-founder, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” at the time of the acquisition. 

    In addition to the Dive Technologies acquisition, Anduril Industries expanded to Australia in March, then in May partnered with the Australian Defense Force to work on a $100 million project to design and create three extra large AUVs for the Royal Australian Navy.

    In the U.K., the Royal Navy recently ordered its first AUV named Cetus XLUUV from MSubs, which is expected to be completed in about two years. The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence also announced in August the donation of six autonomous underwater drones to Ukraine to aid in their fight against Russia by locating and identifying Russian mines. 

    China recently completed construction on the Zhu Hai Yun, an unmanned ship made to launch drones and that utilizes artificial intelligence to navigate the seas with no crew required. The ship is described by officials in Beijing as a research tool, but many experts expect it to also be used for military purposes.

    Boeing has been working on AUVs since the 1970s and has collaborated with the United States Navy and DARPA on a number of underwater vehicle projects in recent years. The Echo Voyager, Boeing’s first extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle, first began operating in 2017 after about five years of design and development. It’s 51-feet long with a 34-foot payload that is approximately the size of a school bus and can be used for oil and gas exploration, long-duration surveying and analyzing infrastructure for oil and gas companies.

    Boeing’s latest unmanned, undersea vehicle (UUV), the 51-foot Echo Voyager.

    Boeing

    The AUV has spent almost 10,000 hours operating at sea and has transited hundreds of nautical miles autonomously. It’s versatile and modular, Ann Stevens, the senior director of Maritime Undersea at Boeing, said in an interview.

    “There is no other vehicle of that size and capability in the world, Echo Voyager is the only one,” Stevens said.

    Boeing has been in the process of developing the Orca XLUUV with funding from the United States Navy. The company won a $43 million contract to build four of the AUVs, which are based off of the design of Boeing’s Echo Voyager, in February 2019. The project has experienced some production delays – the Orca XLUUVs that were originally scheduled to be delivered in December 2020 are now planned to be finished in 2024. The company cited cost concerns as well as supply chain issues due to the pandemic as reasons for the change.

    “It’s a development program, and we’re developing groundbreaking technology that’s never been built before,” Stevens said. “We’ve been in lock step with the Navy the whole way. We’re going to have a great vehicle that comes out the other end.”

    Robotics and automation in general is a young field, according to Maani Ghaffari, an assistant professor in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering department at the University of Michigan. Researchers began developing AUVs around 50-60 years ago, though the quality and variety of sensors that were necessary to build the systems were limited. Today, sensors are smaller, cheaper and higher quality.

    “We are at the stage where we can build much better and more efficient hardware and sensors for the robots to the extent that we’re hoping to deploy some of them in everyday life at some point,” Ghaffari said.

    AUVs still have some challenges to overcome before they’re a feasible mechanism for everyday use, for one, the robots have to function in an arguably harsher environment than air, where the water’s higher density creates hydraulic drag that slows down the robot and drains its battery faster. 

    However, some AUVs in development have impressive speeds and endurance. When it is completed, Boeing said it expects the Orca XLUUV to sail 6,500 nautical miles without being connected to another ship. Anduril reports that the Dive-LD can be sent on missions autonomously for up to 10 days and is made to last for weeks-long missions.

    Environmental challenges are the main problem spots for AUVs. Underwater communication from the unmanned submarines is limited as signals used to transfer messages in air get absorbed quickly in water, and cameras on the vehicles are not as clear underwater. 

    Whether AUVs will eventually be used as more than a surveillance tool and engage in underwater warfare is more of a question of ethics within artificial intelligence and robotics, Ghaffari said. While the vehicles may be sophisticated enough to make autonomous decisions, concerns arise when the decisions may impact human lives.

    “The one idea is that you basically pass the battle to these robots instead of soldiers – less people might die, but on the other hand, when the artificial intelligence can make decisions faster than humans and act faster than humans, that might increase the amount of damage that they can cause,” Ghaffari said. “That’s the frontier that hasn’t been explored, and we have to talk about it as we make progress in the future.”

    Source link

  • Ukraine leader defiant as drone strikes hit Russia again

    Ukraine leader defiant as drone strikes hit Russia again

    KYIV, Ukraine — Drones struck inside Russia’s border with Ukraine on Tuesday in the second day of attacks exposing the vulnerability of some of Moscow’s most important military sites, experts said.

    Ukrainian officials did not formally confirm carrying out drone strikes inside Russia, and they have maintained ambiguity over previous high-profile attacks.

    But Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia was likely to consider the attacks on Russian bases more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the border with Ukraine as “some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine.”

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian authorities will “take the necessary measures” to enhance protection of key facilities. Russian bloggers who generally maintain contacts with officials in their country’s military criticized the lack of defensive measures.

    A fire broke out at an airport in Russia’s southern Kursk region that borders Ukraine after a drone hit the facility, the region’s governor said Tuesday. In a second incident, an industrial plant 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Ukrainian border was also targeted by drones, which missed a fuel depot at the site, Russian independent media reported.

    “They will have less aviation equipment after being damaged due to these mysterious explosions,” said Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “This is undoubtedly excellent news because if one or two aircraft fail, then in the future, some more aircraft may fail in some way. This reduces their capabilities.”

    Moscow blamed Kyiv for unprecedented attacks on two air bases deep inside Russia a day earlier. The attacks on the Engels base in the Saratov region on the Volga River and the Dyagilevo base in the Ryazan region in western Russia were some of the most brazen inside Russia during the war.

    In the aftermath, Russian troops carried out another wave of missile strikes on Ukrainian territory that struck homes and buildings and killed civilians, compounding damage done to power and other infrastructure over weeks of missile attacks.

    Approximately half of households in the Kyiv region remain without electricity, the regional governor said Tuesday, while authorities in southern Odesa — which was hard hit Monday — say they have managed to restore power to hospitals and some vital services.

    In a new display of defiance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled near the front line in the eastern Donetsk region. Marking Ukraine’s Armed Forces Day, he vowed to push Russian forces out of all of Ukraine’s territory.

    “Everyone sees your strength and your skill. … I’m grateful to your parents. They raised real heroes,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to Ukrainian forces from the city of Sloviansk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in the east.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a news conference in Washington, said the United States has “neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia.” But he said the U.S. is determined — along with many other countries that back Kyiv — to make sure that the Ukrainians have “the equipment that they need to defend themselves, to defend their territory, to defend their freedom.”

    Russia’s Defense Ministry’s charged that the attack was launched with Soviet-made drones. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which split Russia and Ukraine into separate countries, Ukraine inherited some Soviet-designed Tu-141 Strizh drones, which entered service in the 1970s and have a range of 1,000 kilometers (over 600 miles.)

    They were designed for reconnaissance duties, but can be fitted with a warhead that effectively turns them into a cruise missile. Unlike modern drones, the Strizh, or Swift, drones can stay in the air only for a limited amount of time and fly straight to a designated target. Their outdated technology makes the drones easily detectable by modern air defense systems — and easy to shoot down.

    A Russian pro-war blogger posting on the Telegram channel “Milinfolive” on Monday hit out at Russian military leadership, alleging that incompetence and lack of proper fortifications at the airbases made Ukrainian drone strikes possible.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said three Russian servicemen were killed and four others wounded by debris, and that two aircraft were slightly damaged in the strikes Monday.

    After Ukrainian forces took control in November of the major Russian-occupied city of Kherson, neither side has made significant advances.

    But Ukrainian officials have indicated that the country plans to pursue counteroffensives during the winter when frozen ground is conducive to moving heavy equipment. Kherson city is still being hit by Russian rocket attacks but if Ukrainian forces establish firm control there it could be a bridgehead for advancing toward Crimea.

    Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov said the latest strikes by Ukraine “have raised questions about security of Russian military air bases.”

    The Engels base hosts Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in strikes on Ukraine. Dyagilevo houses tanker aircraft used for mid-air refueling.

    In a daily intelligence update on the war in Ukraine, Britain’s Defense Ministry said the bombers would likely be dispersed to other airfields.

    Speaking in a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Peskov said that “the Ukrainian regime’s course for continuation of such terror attacks poses a threat.”

    Peskov reaffirmed that Russia sees no prospects for peace talks now, adding that “the Russian Federation must achieve its stated goals.”

    Ukrainian rocket attacks killed six people in the separatist-held city of Donetsk, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of where Zelenskyy spoke, said Denis Pushilin, head of the Russia-backed Donetsk People’s Republic. He said one of those killed was a 29-year-old member of the DPR parliament.

    Russia, meanwhile, maintained intense attacks on Ukrainian territory, shelling towns overnight near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that left more than 9,000 homes without running water, local Ukrainian officials said.

    The towns lie across the Dnieper River from the nuclear plant, which was seized by Russian forces in the early stages of the war. Russia and Ukraine have for months accused each other of shelling at and around the plant.

    The head of Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, which borders Russia, said that Moscow launched over 80 missile and heavy artillery attacks on its territory. Governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky said the strikes damaged a monastery near the border town of Shalyhyne.

    Ihnat, the Ukrainian air force spokesman, said the country’s ability to shoot down incoming missiles is improving, noting there had been no recent reports of Iranian-made attack drones being used on Ukrainian territory.

    ———

    Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • India, US armies hold exercises close to China border

    India, US armies hold exercises close to China border

    AULI, India — Indian and U.S. troops on Tuesday participated in a high-altitude training exercise in a cold, mountainous terrain near India’s disputed border with China, at a time both countries are trying to manage rising tensions with Beijing.

    During the exercise, Indian soldiers were dropped from helicopters to flush out gunmen from a house in a demonstration of unarmed combat skills. Other drills involved sniffer dogs and unmanned bomb-disposing vehicles, and trained kites were deployed to destroy small enemy drones.

    “Overall, it has been a great learning experience. There has been sharing of best practices between both the armies,” said Brig. Pankaj Verma of the Indian Army.

    The annual drills took part around Auli, a hill station in the northern state of Uttarakhand. The U.S. troops came from the 2nd Brigade of the 11th Airborne Division, and their Indian counterparts were members of the army’s Assam Regiment.

    India’s Defence Ministry has said the exercise will focus on surveillance, mountain-warfare skills, casualty evacuation and combat medical aid in adverse terrain and climatic conditions. It will also include humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and operations related to peacekeeping, it said.

    The “Yudh Abhyas” exercise has alternated between the U.S. and India since it began in the early 2000s. It was held in Alaska last year.

    Earlier editions had taken place elsewhere in northern India, but this year’s exercise is being held only about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Line of Actual Control, a disputed border that separates Chinese and Indian-held territories.

    India and China fought a war along the border in 1962. The latest dispute flared in June 2020, when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in a brawl in the Ladakh region. It led to the two countries stationing tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along the Line of Actual Control.

    Some Indian and Chinese soldiers have pulled back from a key friction point but tensions between the two countries have persisted.

    The exercise also reflects the strengthening defense ties between India and the U.S. They have steadily ramped up their military relationship and signed a string of defense deals and deepened military cooperation. In recent years, relations have been driven by a convergence of interests to counter China.

    Source link

  • Report: Norway sentences Russian for flying drone

    Report: Norway sentences Russian for flying drone

    COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A 34-year-old Russian was sentenced to 90 days in prison on Wednesday for flying a drone and thereby breaching sanctions which came into force after Russia went to war against Ukraine.

    The man, who was not identified, was not suspected of espionage, the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende reported.

    He admitted to flying the drone in southern Norway to photograph nature, the daily said, adding he claimed to be unaware that this was banned.

    Under Norwegian law, it is prohibited for aircraft operated by Russian companies or citizens “to land on, take off from or fly over Norwegian territory.” Norway is not a member of the European Union but mirrors its moves and decided on the ban earlier this year after the invasion.

    The prosecution had asked for a 120-day sentence. Prosecutor Marit Formo said she was “very satisfied with the verdict” of the Hordaland District Court.

    Numerous drone sightings have been reported near offshore oil and gas platforms belonging to NATO member Norway, a major oil and gas producer, in recent weeks. Several Russian citizens have been detained over the past few weeks for flying drones or taking photographs of sensitive sites in Norway.

    Source link

  • Kurdish exile group says Iran hits its bases in north Iraq

    Kurdish exile group says Iran hits its bases in north Iraq

    ERBIL, Iraq — Iranian missiles and drones struck an Iranian Kurdish opposition group’s bases in northern Iraq late Sunday night.

    The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a Kurdish Iranian group exiled in Iraq, said in a statement that Iranian surface-to-surface missiles and drones hit its bases and adjacent refugee camps in Koya and Jejnikan. The group also asserted that the strikes had hit a hospital in Koya.

    There were no immediate reports of casualties.

    The website of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Monday confirmed a “new round” of missile and drone attacks on “separatist and terrorist” groups in north of Iraq.

    Some Kurdish groups have been engaged in a low-intensity conflict with Tehran since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, with many members seeking political exile in neighboring Iraq where they have established bases.

    Iran alleges that these groups are inciting anti-government protests in Iran and smuggling weapons into the country, which Kurdish groups have denied.

    Tehran has periodically launched airstrikes against the Kurdish groups’ bases in Iraq. During a visit to Baghdad last week, Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani threatened Iraq with a ground military operation in the country’s north if the Iraqi army does not fortify the countries’ shared border against Kurdish opposition groups, Iraqi and Kurdish officials said.

    The U.S. condemned the latest Iranian strikes. Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, who heads U.S. Central Command, said in a statement: “Such indiscriminate and illegal attacks place civilians at risk, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and jeopardize the hard-fought security and stability of Iraq and the Middle East.”

    Sunday’s Iranian strikes in northern Iraq come a day after Turkey launched deadly airstrikes over northern regions of Syria and Iraq, targeting Kurdish groups that Ankara holds responsible for last week’s bomb attack in Istanbul.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Al Khor, Qatar and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report

    Source link

  • Official says oil tanker hit by bomb-carrying drone off Oman

    Official says oil tanker hit by bomb-carrying drone off Oman

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An oil tanker associated with an Israeli billionaire has been struck by a bomb-carrying drone off the coast of Oman amid heightened tensions with Iran, an official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

    The attack happened Tuesday night off the coast of Oman, the Mideast-based defense official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they did not have authorization to discuss the attack publicly.

    The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British military organization in the region monitoring shipping, told the AP: “We are aware of an incident and it’s being investigated at this time.”

    The official identified the vessel attacked as the Liberian-flagged oil tanker Pacific Zircon. That tanker is operated by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, which is a company ultimately owned by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer.

    A phone number for Eastern Pacific rang unanswered Wednesday.

    While no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, suspicion immediately fell on Iran. Tehran and Israel have been engaged in a yearslong shadow war in the wider Middle East, with some drone attacks targeting Israeli-associated vessels traveling around the region.

    The U.S. also blamed Iran for a series of attacks occurring off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in 2019. Tehran then had begun escalating its nuclear program following the U.S.’ unilateral withdraw from its atomic deal with world powers.

    Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the attack on the Pacific Zircon.

    Source link

  • Iran acknowledges sending drones to Russia for first time

    Iran acknowledges sending drones to Russia for first time

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday acknowledged for the first time that his country has supplied Russia with drones, insisting the transfer came before Moscow’s war on Ukraine that has seen the Iranian-made drones divebombing Kyiv.

    The comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian come after months of confusing messaging from Iran about the weapons shipment, as Russia sends the drones slamming into Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian targets.

    “We gave a limited number of drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war,” Amirabdollahian told reporters after a meeting in Tehran.

    Previously, Iranian officials had denied arming Russia in its war on Ukraine. Just earlier this week, Iran’s Ambassador to the U.N. Amir Saeid Iravani called the allegations “totally unfounded” and reiterated Iran’s position of neutrality in the war. The U.S. and its Western allies on the Security Council have called on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to investigate if Russia has used Iranian drones to attack civilians in Ukraine.

    Even so, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has vaguely boasted of providing drones to the world’s top powers. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has extolled the efficacy of the drones and mocked Western hand-wringing over their danger. During state-backed demonstrations to mark the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover on Friday, crowds waved placards of the triangle-shaped drones as a point of national pride.

    As he acknowledged the shipment, Amirabdollahian claimed on Saturday that Iran was oblivious to the use of its drones in Ukraine. He said Iran remained committed to stopping the conflict.

    “If (Ukraine) has any documents in their possession that Russia used Iranian drones in Ukraine, they should provide them to us,” he said. “If it is proven to us that Russia used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine, we will not be indifferent to this issue.”

    Source link

  • Ukraine: Barrage of Russian strikes on key infrastructure

    Ukraine: Barrage of Russian strikes on key infrastructure

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials on Monday morning reported a massive barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities.

    Part of the Ukrainian capital was cut off from power and water supplies as a result, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Officials reported possible power outages in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes.

    Critical infrastructure objects were also hit in the Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv, and explosions were reported in other regions of Ukraine.

    In Kharkiv, the subway ceased operating. Some parts of Ukrainian railways were also cut off from power, the Ukrainian Railways reported.

    The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons, but Moscow still announced halting its participation in a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.

    Commenting on Monday’s attacks, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak said that Russian forces “continue to fight with civilian facilities.”

    “We will persevere, and generations of Russians will pay a high price for their disgrace,” Yermak said.

    It’s the second time this month that Russia unleashed a massive barrage of strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Oct. 10, a similar attack rocked the war-torn country following an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking annexed Crimea to mainland Russia — an incident Moscow blamed on Kyiv.

    ———

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • Ukraine: Barrage of Russian strikes on key infrastructure

    Ukraine: Barrage of Russian strikes on key infrastructure

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials on Monday morning reported a massive barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities.

    Part of the Ukrainian capital was cut off from power and water supplies as a result, its mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Officials also reported possible power outages in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes.

    The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean peninsula. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons, but Moscow still announced halting its particiaption in a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.

    Source link

  • Concerns rise as Russia resumes grain blockade of Ukraine

    Concerns rise as Russia resumes grain blockade of Ukraine

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia resumed its blockade of Ukrainian ports on Sunday, cutting off urgently needed grain exports to hungry parts of the world in what U.S. President Joe Biden called a “really outrageous” act.

    Biden warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s breadbaskets.

    “It’s really outrageous,” Biden said Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.”

    Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the grain deal, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons.

    Ukraine’s Infrastructure Ministry reported Sunday that 218 ships involved in grain exports have been blocked — 22 loaded and stuck at ports, 95 loaded and departed from ports, and 101 awaiting inspections.

    One of the blocked ships, carrying 40,000 tons of wheat for Ethiopia under a U.N. aid program, could not leave Ukraine on Sunday as a result of Russia’s “blockage of the grain corridor,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, said on Twitter. The ship, Ikaria Angel, was stuck in the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk.

    The Istanbul-based UN center coordinating the ship passages later said the Ikaria Angel was among six vessels that began moving out but hadn’t yet entered a humanitarian corridor. The center reported on plans to move and inspect other ships on Monday but it wasn’t clear whether Russia would agree.

    The grain initiative — an example of rare wartime cooperation between Ukraine and Russia — has allowed more than 9 million tons of grain in 397 ships to safely leave Ukrainian ports since it was signed in July. U.N. chief António Guterres had urged Russia and Ukraine on Friday to renew the deal when it expires Nov. 19. The grain agreement has brought down global food prices about 15% from their peak in March, according to the U.N.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskky expressed outrage at Russia’s decision. Referring to the Ikaria Angel, he said in his nightly video address Sunday, “This bulk ship with wheat for the U.N. food program and other vessels with agricultural products are forced to wait, because Russia is blackmailing the world with hunger.”

    Two initiatives to revive the grain deal were reported Sunday.

    Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar was in talks with his counterparts to “solve the problem and to continue the grain initiative,” his agency said, adding that no more grain ships would leave Ukraine but those already waiting near Istanbul would be inspected on Sunday or Monday.

    At the United Nations in New York, Guterres delayed a trip by a day to engage in talks aimed at ending Russia’s suspension of the grain export deal. Russia also requested a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the topic.

    Analysts say Russia’s withdrawal shows that it sees the grain deal as another way to pressure Ukraine.

    “By leaving the deal now and putting the blame on Ukraine, it aims to slow Ukrainian attacks around the Black Sea,” said Mario Bikarski, a Economist Intelligence Unit analyst. Russia could be hoping that Ukraine’s Western allies might ask it to focus its forces elsewhere to save the grain deal, he said.

    More conflicting details emerged Sunday about the alleged attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    The city council of Mariupol, a Ukrainian port now controlled by Russia, claimed on Telegram that Ukrainian special services had destroyed at least three Russian warships near the city of Sevastopol on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

    But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that the Russians’ “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four Russian warships. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles.

    Reports have surfaced for months of Ukrainian sabotage of Russian warplanes and ammunition depots on Crimea and Zelenskky has vowed repeatedly to recapture the strategic Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Sunday that one Ukrainian drone that reportedly attacked Sevastopol appeared to emanate from a civilian ship carrying agricultural products from Ukraine. The ministry claimed an inspection of the wreckage showed the drones used Canadian-made navigation and their launch point was the Ukrainian coast near the port of Odesa.

    Independent verification of each side’s claims was not possible.

    Ukraine appears to have targeted the Black Sea Fleet and other Russian military infrastructure on Crimea — far from the front lines but a critical launching pad for attacks against Ukraine — since the spring, although it often doesn’t confirm its responsibility.

    On the battlefront, Russian missile attacks kept pounding key front-line hot spots in Ukraine. The Russians shelled seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours, killing at least five civilians and wounding nine more, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

    In the eastern Donetsk region, where the fighting is ongoing near the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, eight cities and villages were shelled.

    In areas that Ukraine has recaptured, residents are still recovering bodies of killed civilians, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

    “Over the past 24 hours alone, in three de-occupied towns and villages, we found abandoned bodies of Ukrainian civilians,” Kyrylenko said.

    Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said Sunday that Russian forces were mining territories they leave behind twice as densely as during the first months of the war.

    Power outages were reported Sunday in the occupied Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, home to the closed Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest. Ukrainian and Russian officials traded blame for the shelling that caused the blackout.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • Concerns rise as Russia resumes grain blockade of Ukraine

    Concerns rise as Russia resumes grain blockade of Ukraine

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia resumed its blockade of Ukrainian ports on Sunday, cutting off urgently needed grain exports to hungry parts of the world in what U.S. President Joe Biden called a “really outrageous” act.

    Biden — speaking in Wilmington, Delaware — warned that global hunger could increase because of Russia’s suspension of a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s breadbaskets.

    “It’s really outrageous,” Biden said Saturday. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it.”

    Biden spoke hours after Russia announced it would immediately halt participation in the grain deal, alleging that Ukraine staged a drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons.

    A ship carrying 40,000 tons of grain bound for Ethiopia under the United Nations aid program could not leave Ukraine on Sunday as a result of Russia’s “blockage of the grain corridor,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, said on Twitter. He didn’t specify from which Ukrainian port the ship, the Ikraia Angel, had been scheduled to depart.

    The grain initiative has allowed more than 9 million tons of grain in 397 ships to safely leave Ukrainian ports since it was signed in July. U.N. chief António Guterres had urged Russia and Ukraine on Friday to renew the deal when it expires Nov. 19. The grain agreement has succeeded in bringing down global food prices about 15% from their peak in March, according to the U.N., which has listed Ethiopia as one of the countries most at risk for food shortages.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 176 ships loaded with grain for more than 7 million consumers are being blocked.

    “Why is it that a handful of people somewhere in the Kremlin can decide whether there will be food on the tables of people in Egypt or Bangladesh?” he said Saturday in his nightly video address.

    Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that no more ships would depart from Ukraine but those already waiting near Istanbul would be inspected on Sunday or Monday. The statement said Defense Minister Hulusi Akar was in talks with his counterparts to “solve the problem and to continue the grain initiative.”

    Russia requested a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the alleged attack and the security of the Black Sea grain corridor. Guterres delayed a trip to Algiers by a day to engage in talks aimed at ending Russia’s suspension of the grain export deal.

    Analysts say Russia pulling out of the deal signals that it sees the agreement as a way to exert pressure on Ukraine.

    “By leaving the deal now and putting the blame on Ukraine, it aims to slow Ukrainian attacks around the Black Sea,” said Mario Bikarski, Europe’s analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Russia could be hoping that Ukraine’s Western allies might ask it to focus its forces elsewhere in order to preserve the grain deal, he said.

    More conflicting details emerged Sunday about the alleged attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    The city council of Mariupol, a Ukrainian port captured by Russia on the Azov Sea, said on Telegram that Ukrainian special services had destroyed at least three Russian warships near the city of Sevastopol on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

    An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that the Russians’ “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four Russian warships. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Sunday that one of the drones that attacked Sevastopol could have been launched from a civilian ship carrying agricultural products from Ukraine. The ministry claimed an inspection of the wreckage showed the drones used Canadian-made navigation technology and that the launch point was the Ukrainian coast near the port of Odesa. The ministry claimed the ships that were attacked had helped secure the safety of the Black Sea grain corridor.

    Independent verification of each side’s claims was not possible.

    Russia’s action is facing international condemnation over the grain deal suspension. In a tweet Sunday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged Russia to reverse its decision.

    Russia had been angling to withdraw from the deal for some time, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

    On the diplomatic front, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said any peace talks between Russia and Ukraine should be held with Washington, which Russia views as Kyiv’s “mastermind.”

    “Obviously, the deciding vote belongs to Washington … It is impossible to talk about something, for example, with Kyiv,” Peskov said on Russian state television.

    Ukraine and the United States are unlikely to agree to such a demand.

    On the battlefront, Russian missile attacks kept pounding key front-line hot spots in Ukraine. The Russians shelled seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours, killing at least five civilians and wounding nine more, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

    In the eastern Donetsk region, where the fighting is ongoing near the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, eight cities and villages were shelled.

    Earlier this month, Moscow intensified its missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s power stations, waterworks and other key infrastructure, damaging 40% of Ukraine’s electric system and forcing the government to implement rolling blackouts. Kyiv’s mayor said the Ukrainian capital’s power system was operating in “emergency mode.”

    In addition, in areas that Ukraine has recaptured, residents are still recovering bodies of killed civilians, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

    “Over the past 24 hours alone, in three de-occupied towns and villages, we found abandoned bodies of Ukrainian civilians,” Kyrylenko said. “The Russians are ignoring all principles of war. Every week we discover either individual or mass graves of civilians.”

    Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said Sunday that Russian forces were mining territories they leave behind twice as densely as during the first months of the war.

    “Virtually everything in the recently de-occupied territories has been mined,” Monastyrskiy told Ukrainian television.

    Power outages were reported Sunday in the occupied Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, home to the closed Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest. Ukrainian and Russian officials traded blame for the shelling that caused the blackout.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • Russia says it will suspend UN-brokered Ukraine export deal

    Russia says it will suspend UN-brokered Ukraine export deal

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia announced Saturday that it will move to suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices.

    The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea, which Russia says took place early Saturday, as the reason for the move. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that the Russians mishandled their own weapons.

    The Russian declaration came one day after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

    The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July and which expires on Nov. 19 — helps “to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesman said.

    A Guterres spokesman said U.N. officials were in touch with Russian authorities over the announced suspension.

    “It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” said the spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

    Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused British specialists of being involved in the alleged attack by drones on Russian ships in Crimea.

    “In connection with the actions of Ukrainian armed forces, led by British specialists, directed, among other things, against Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the humanitarian corridor in question (which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack), the Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo ships participating in the Black Sea initiative, and suspends its implementation from today for an indefinite period,” the Russian statement said.

    Britain’s Defense Ministry had no immediate comment.

    Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of playing “hunger games” by imperiling global food shipments.

    “We warned about Russia’s plans to destroy the (grain agreement). Now, under false pretenses, Moscow is blocking the grain corridor that ensures food security for millions of people,” he tweeted Saturday.

    The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, denounced the suspension as “primitive blackmail.”

    Turkish officials said they haven’t received any official notice of the deal’s suspension.

    Russia’s agriculture minister said Moscow stands ready to “fully replace Ukrainian grain and deliver supplies at affordable prices to all interested countries.” In remarks carried by the state Rossiya 24 TV channel, Dmitry Patrushev said Moscow was prepared to “supply up to 500,000 tons of grain to the poorest countries free of charge in the next four months,” with the help of Turkey.

    Patrushev also reiterated the Kremlin’s earlier allegations that a disproportionate volume of grain exported from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was bound for European destinations.

    Earlier Saturday, Ukraine and Russia offered differing versions on the Crimea drone attack in which at least one Russian ship suffered damage in the port on the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said a minesweeper had “minor damage” during an alleged pre-dawn Ukrainian attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The ministry claimed Russian forces had “repelled” 16 attacking drones.

    The governor of the Sevastopol region, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said the port saw “probably the most massive attack” by air and sea drones. He provided no evidence, saying all video from the area would be held back for security reasons.

    But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.

    In other developments on Saturday, Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian officials said as their forces fought to retake the province.

    Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region had previously urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital — and reportedly joined the tens of thousands who fled to other Russia-held areas.

    “The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.

    “The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything,” Zelenskyy said.

    Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

    As Kyiv’s forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up its shelling and missile attacks in the country’s east, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday. Three more civilians died and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, which has again become a front-line hotspot as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut, an important target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive.

    Russian shelling also an industrial building in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region. Around a quarter of the region — including its capital, also called Zaporizhzhia — remains under Ukrainian military control.

    In the latest prisoner exchange, 52 Ukrainians, including two former defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, were released Saturday as part of a swap with Russia, according to Yermak. The steelworks in that bombed-out port city now symbolize Ukrainian resistance.

    Also released, he said, was a sailor who defended Ukraine’s Snake Island, a strategic Black Sea outpost seized by Russia in the opening hours of the war. Others coming home were Ukrainian soldiers captured by Moscow near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant — the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 — which Russian forces briefly occupied from February to March.

    ———

    This version has been corrected to show the Russian Defense Ministry said one ship, not two, was slightly damaged in Crimea port.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • Russians said to be clearing Ukrainian region’s hospitals

    Russians said to be clearing Ukrainian region’s hospitals

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in southern Ukraine‘s Kherson region, Ukrainian military officials reported Saturday as their forces fought to retake a province overrun by invading soldiers early in the war.

    Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region previously urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital. The Moscow-appointed authorities in Kherson also were reported this week to have joined tens of thousands of residents who fled to other Russia-held areas ahead of an expected Ukrainian advance.

    “The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a morning update. “All equipment and medicines are being removed from Kherson hospitals.”

    The military’s claims could not be independently verified. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address Friday that the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.

    “The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything,” Zelenskyy said. “They put pressure on the doctors who still remained in the occupied areas for them to move to the territory of Russia.”

    Kherson is one of four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

    Elsewhere on Saturday, at least two Russian ships suffered damage in a major port in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. Ukraine and Russia offered different versions of what happened and who was to blame.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said two ships received “minor damage” during an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol at 4:20 a.m. The city, Crimea’s largest, hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

    The ministry said 16 drones were used in the attack and that Russian forces had “repelled” them. Earlier Saturday, the Kremlin-installed governor of Sevastopol reported an “ongoing” drone attack.

    An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry gave a conflicting account, claiming that that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.

    Neither side’s claim could be immediately verified.

    As Kyiv’s forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up shelling and missile attacks in the country’s east, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday. Three civilians died in the last day and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, which has again become a front-line hotspot as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut.

    Western analysts have long identified Bakhmut as an important target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive. Capturing Bakhmut would pave the way for Moscow’s forces to threaten Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest Ukrainian-held cities remaining in the long-embattled Donbas region.

    Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province make up the Donbas. Pro-Russia separatists have controlled parts of both provinces since 2014.

    In the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russia’s troops retreated last month and Ukrainian troops clawed back broad swaths of territory, Russian shelling overnight wounded three civilians, according to the region’s Ukrainian governor.

    Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram said that two women in their 40s and a 60-year-old man were wounded near Kupiansk, a town that served as a resupply hub for Russian forces in the region before Ukrainian troops regained control.

    In neighboring Luhansk province, Gov. Serhii Haidai said late Friday that Ukrainian forces have shelled the entire length of the Kreminna-Svatove highway, where the Russians set up their main line of defense after their withdrawal from the Kharkiv region.

    A Russian shelling attack Saturday also hit “critical infrastructure” in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, the Ukrainian governor of the illegally annexed province said. Around a quarter of the region, including the local capital, also called Zaporizhzhia, remains under Ukrainian military control.

    Writing on Telegram, Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said the damage was being assessed. He did not specify what was struck and did not mention any casualties.

    Political pressure for efforts to negotiate an end to the war are building in parts of western Europe. Zelenskyy had said his country won’t negotiate with Russia as long as Moscow insists the annexed regions are Russian territory.

    In remarks to Yale University students on Friday, the Ukrainian leader reiterated his unwillingness to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government because of its “disrespect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

    In his nightly remarks, the Ukrainian leader noted that about 4 million Ukrainians live in areas subject to rolling blackouts following weeks of Russia targeting power plants and other infrastructure. He warned the emergency blackouts were possible elsewhere in Ukraine.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • India to contribute $500,000 to UN to counter terrorism

    India to contribute $500,000 to UN to counter terrorism

    NEW DELHI — India will contribute half a million dollars to the United Nations’ efforts to counter global terrorism as new and emerging technologies used by terror groups pose fresh threats to governments around the world, the foreign minister said Saturday.

    The money will go toward the U.N. Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism and will further strengthen the organization’s fight against terrorism, S. Jaishankar said as he addressed a special meeting of the U.N. Counter Terrorism Committee in New Delhi.

    It was the first such conference — focused on challenging threats posed by terror groups in the face of new technologies — to be held outside the U.N.’s headquarters in New York.

    Jaishankar said new technologies, like encrypted messaging services and blockchain, are increasingly misused by terror groups and malicious actors, sparking an urgent need for the international community to adopt measures to combat the threats.

    “ Internet and social media platforms have turned into potent instruments in the toolkit of terrorist and militant groups for spreading propaganda, radicalization and conspiracy theories aimed at destabilizing societies,” he said in his keynote address.

    Jaishankar also highlighted the growing threat from the use of unmanned aerial systems such as drones by terror groups and criminal organizations, calling them a challenge for security agencies worldwide.

    “In Africa, drones have been used by the terrorist groups to monitor movements of security forces and even of U.N. peacekeepers, making them vulnerable to terrorist attacks,” he added.

    British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly reiterated the dangers of unmanned aerial platforms, saying that such systems were being used to inflict terror, death and destruction.

    “Drones are being used currently to target critical national infrastructure and civilian targets in Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine,” he said. “This is why we have sanctioned three Iranian military commanders and one Iranian company involved in the supply of drones.”

    The special conference kicked off on Friday in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital, which witnessed a massive terror attack in 2008 that left 140 Indian nationals and 26 citizens of 23 other countries dead by terrorists who had entered India from Pakistan.

    Jaishankar on Friday said India regretted the U.N. Security Council’s inability to act in some cases when it came to proscribing terrorists because of political considerations, undermining its collective credibility and interests. He did not name China but referred to its decision to block U.N. sanctions against leaders of Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistan-based extremist group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.N.

    India and the United States sought the sanctions earlier this year. China put the proposed listing of the two terrorists for sanctions on hold on technical grounds, saying it needed more time to study their cases.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

    Source link

  • Putin scrambles to boost weapons production for Ukraine war

    Putin scrambles to boost weapons production for Ukraine war

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin, facing military production delays and mounting losses, urged his government Tuesday to cut through bureaucracy to crank out enough weapons and supplies to feed the war in Ukraine, where a Western-armed Ukrainian counteroffensive has set back Russia’s forces.

    In other developments, Ukrainian authorities asked citizens not to return home and further tax the country’s battered energy infrastructure, and Western countries mulled how to rebuild Ukraine when the war ends.

    The Russian military’s shortfalls in the eight-month war have been so pronounced that Putin had to create a structure to try to address them. On Tuesday, he chaired a new committee designed to accelerate the production and delivery of weapons and supplies for Russian troops, stressing the need to “gain higher tempo in all areas.”

    Russian news reports have acknowledged that many of those called up under a mobilization of 300,000 reservists Putin ordered haven’t been provided with basic equipment such as medical kits and flak jackets, and had to find their own. Other reports have suggested that Russian troops are increasingly forced to use old and sometimes unreliable equipment and that some of the newly mobilized troops are rushed to the war front with little training. Last week, Putin tried to show all is well by visiting a training site in Russia where he was shown well equipped soldiers.

    To substitute for increasingly scarce Russian-made long-range precision weapons, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was likely to use a large number of drones to try to penetrate Ukrainian air defenses. Russia’s “artillery ammunition is running low,” the British report said Tuesday.

    The Institute for the Study of War, in Washington, added that “the slower tempo of Russian air, missile, and drone strikes possibly reflects decreasing missile and drone stockpiles and the strikes’ limited effectiveness of accomplishing Russian strategic military goals.”

    The Russian military has still managed to inflict heavy damage and casualties, ruining homes, public buildings and Ukraine’s power grid. The World Bank estimates the damage to Ukraine so far at 350 billion euros ($345 billion).

    Recent Russian attacks have focused largely on Ukraine’s energy facilities, especially electricity generation and transmission. Electricity shortfalls are so severe that Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk on Tuesday asked citizens living abroad not to return this winter to avoid placing further strain on the power supply.

    “We need to survive the winter but, unfortunately, the (electricity) networks will not survive,” Vereshchuk said on Ukrainian television. “We understand that the situation will only get worse, and this winter we need to survive.”

    In Berlin, European Union leaders brought together experts to work on a “new Marshall Plan” for rebuilding Ukraine — a reference to the U.S.-sponsored plan that helped revive Western European economies after World War II.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the meeting is addressing “how to ensure and how to sustain the financing of the recovery, reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine for years and decades to come.”

    Scholz, who co-hosted the meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said he’s looking for “nothing less than creating a new Marshall Plan for the 21st century — a generational task that must begin now.”

    On the diplomatic front, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Kyiv after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday that his country will continue to stand by Ukraine’s side in this war and support its people as long as it takes — by helping to rebuild the destroyed country and sending more weapons.

    “Reconstruction is not waiting for the war to end. It must begin now,” the German president said, adding that “not only is Germany helping with the reconstruction, but we’re also helping Ukraine to prevent the brutal destruction, to make sure that the population is protected in the best possible way.”

    He promised that Germany would help rebuild destroyed towns immediately and send two more MARS Medium Artillery Missile Systems and four type 2000 self-propelled howitzers.

    On the battlefront, Russian missiles set a gas station on fire late Tuesday in the south-central city of Dnipro, killing at least two people and wounding at least three, Ukrainian news agencies reported.

    In the southern city of Mykolaiv, residents lined up for water and essential supplies Tuesday as Ukrainian forces advanced on the nearby Russian-occupied city of Kherson.

    One of Moscow’s allies on Tuesday urged Russia to step up the pace and scale of Ukraine’s destruction.

    Ramzan Kadyrov, the regional leader of Chechnya who has sent troops to fight in Ukraine, urged Moscow to wipe off the map entire cities in retaliation for Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s territory. Authorities in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine have repeatedly reported Ukrainian shelling that has damaged infrastructure and residential buildings.

    “Our response has been too weak,” Kadyrov said on his messaging app channel. “If a shell flies into our region, entire cities must be wiped off the face of the Earth so that they don’t ever think that they can fire in our direction.”

    Kyiv wants to step up the fight, but says it needs more war materiel.

    “We need more weaponry, we need more ammunition to win this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters in Berlin. He added: “We need tanks from our partners, from all of our partners; we need heavy armored vehicles, we need additional artillery units, howitzers.”

    ————

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • Russian authorities advise civilians to leave Ukraine region

    Russian authorities advise civilians to leave Ukraine region

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country.

    In a post on the Telegram messaging service, the pro-Kremlin regional administration strongly urged civilians to use boat crossings over a major river to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation on the front and the threat of shelling and alleged plans for “terror attacks” by Kyiv.

    Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the nearly 8-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.

    On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces’ resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city. Ukraine has retaken some villages in the region’s north since launching its counteroffensive in late August.

    Russian-installed officials were reported as trying desperately to turn Kherson city — a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and ports — into a fortress while attempting to relocate tens of thousands of residents.

    The Kremlin poured as many as 2,000 draftees into the surrounding region to replenish losses and strengthen front-line units, according to the Ukrainian army’s general staff.

    The wide Dnieper River figures as a major factor in the fighting, making it hard for Russia to supply its troops defending the city of Kherson and nearby areas on the west bank after relentless Ukrainian strikes rendered the main crossings unusable.

    Taking control of Kherson has allowed Russia to resume fresh water supplies from the Dnieper to Crimea, which were cut by Ukraine after Moscow’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. A big hydroelectric power plant upstream from Kherson city is a key source of energy for the southern region. Ukraine and Russia accused each other of trying to blow it up to flood the mostly flat region.

    Kherson’s Kremlin-backed authorities previously announced plans to evacuate all Russia-appointed officials and as many as 60,000 civilians across the river, in what local leader Vladimir Saldo said would be an “organized, gradual displacement.”

    Another Russia-installed official estimated Saturday that around 25,000 people from across the region had made their way over the Dnieper. In a Telegram post, Kirill Stremousov claimed that civilians were relocating willingly.

    “People are actively moving because today the priority is life. We do not drag anyone anywhere,” he said, adding that some residents could be waiting for the Ukrainian army to reclaim the city.

    Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern about potential forced transfers of residents to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.

    Ukrainian officials urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.

    Elsewhere in the invaded country, hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire. In its latest war tactic, Russia has intensified strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country.

    Ukraine’s air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack” targeting “critical infrastructure,” adding that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from the air and sea.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russian launched 36 missiles, most of which were shot down.

    “Those treacherous blows on critically important facilities are characteristic tactics of terrorists,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can and must stop this terror.”

    Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine twice by early afternoon, sending residents scurrying into shelters as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down explosive drones and incoming missiles.

    “Several rockets” targeting Ukraine’s capital were shot down Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.

    The president’s office said in its morning update that five suicide drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv. Similar reports came from the governors of six western and central provinces, as well as of the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea.

    Ukraine’s top diplomat said the day’s attacks proved Ukraine needed new Western-reinforced air defense systems “without a minute of delay.”

    “Air defense saves lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

    Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that almost 1.4 million households lost power as a result of the strikes. He said some 672,000 homes in the western Khmelnytskyi region were affected and another 242,000 suffered outages in the Cherkasy region.

    Most of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug River and had a pre-war population of 275,000, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.

    In a social media post on Saturday, the city council urged local residents to store water “in case it’s also gone within an hour.”

    The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in far western Ukraine, made a similar appeal, saying that power in the city was partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities and damaged one power plant beyond repair.

    The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews with about 100,000 residents before the war, also was plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power plant.

    Ukraine’s state energy company, Ukrenergo, responded to the strikes by announcing that rolling blackouts would be imposed in Kyiv and 10 Ukrainian regions to stabilize the situation.

    In a Facebook post on Saturday, the company accused Russia of attacking “energy facilities within the principal networks of the western regions of Ukraine.” It claimed the scale of destruction was comparable to the fallout earlier this month from Moscow’s first coordinated attack on the Ukrainian energy grid.

    Both Ukrenergo and officials in Kyiv have urged Ukrainians to conserve energy. Earlier this week, Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and to avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.

    Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on Oct. 10.

    In a separate development, Russian officials said two people were killed and 12 others were wounded by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region near the border.

    ———

    Kozlowska reported from London.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link

  • West and Russia clash over probe of drones in Ukraine

    West and Russia clash over probe of drones in Ukraine

    UNITED NATIONS — The United States and key Western allies accused Russia on Friday of using Iranian drones to attack civilians and power plants in Ukraine in violation of a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution and international humanitarian law.

    Russia countered by accusing Ukraine of attacking infrastructure and civilians for eight years in the eastern separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed earlier this year.

    The U.S., France, Germany and Britain supported Ukraine’s call for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to send a team to investigate the origin of the drones.

    Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the drones are Russian and warned that an investigation would violate the U.N. Charter and seriously affect relations between Russia and the United Nations.

    U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis said that “the U.N. must investigate any violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions — and we must not allow Russia or others to impede or threaten the U.N. from carrying out its mandated responsibilities.”

    The Western clash with Russia over attacks on civilians and infrastructure and the use of Iranian drones came at an open council meeting that also focused on the dire humanitarian situation in Ukraine as winter approaches. Almost 18 million people, more than 40% of Ukraine’s population, need humanitarian assistance, U.N. humanitarian coordinator Denise Brown says.

    U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo expressed grave concern to the council that Russian missile and drone attacks between Oct. 10 and Oct. 18 in cities and towns across Ukraine killed at least 38 Ukrainian civilians, injured at least 117 and destroyed critical energy infrastructure, including power plants.

    She cited the Ukrainian government’s announcement that 30% of the country’s energy facilities have been hit, most notably in the capital Kyiv and in the Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, Kharkiv and Sumy regions.

    “Combined with soaring gas and coal prices, the deprivation caused by these attacks threatens to expose millions of civilians to extreme hardship and even life-endangering conditions this winter,” she said.

    DiCarlo, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, said that “under international humanitarian law, attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited.” So are “attacks against military objectives that may be expected to cause harm to civilians that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” she said.

    Nebenzia claimed that high-precision missile strikes and Russian drones — not Iranian drones — hit a large number of military targets that included infrastructure in an effort to degrade Ukrainian military activities.

    “Of course, this did not sit well with the West and they became hysterical, and this is what we’re witnessing loudly and clearly today at the meeting,” the Russian ambassador said.

    He said the West doesn’t want “to face facts” and acknowledge that civilian infrastructure was hit only in cases where drones had to change course because of Ukrainian defense actions. He said Ukrainian air defenses also hit civilian sites because they missed incoming attacks.

    In a letter to the Security Council on Wednesday, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya accused Iran of violating a Security Council ban on the transfer of drones capable of flying 300 kilometers (about 185 miles).

    That provision was part of Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six key nations — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities and preventing the country from developing a nuclear weapon.

    U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear agreement in 2018 and negotiations between the Biden administration and Iran for the United States to rejoin the deal have stalled.

    Under the resolution, a conventional arms embargo on Iran was in place until October 2020. But restrictions on missiles and related technologies run until October 2023, and Western diplomats say that includes the export and purchase of advanced military systems such as drones, which are also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

    Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Wednesday that he “categorically rejected unfounded and unsubstantiated claims that Iran has transferred UAVs for the use (in) the conflict in Ukraine.” He accused unnamed countries of trying to launch a disinformation campaign to “wrongly establish a link” with the U.N. resolution.

    “Moreover, Iran is of the firm belief that none of its arms exports, including UAVs, to any country” violate Resolution 2231, he added.

    France, Germany and Britain on Friday supported Ukraine’s accusation that Iranian has supplies drones to Russia in violation of the 2015 resolution and they are being used in attacks on civilians and power plants in Ukraine. They backed Kyiv’s call for a U.N. investigation.

    The three European countries said in a joint letter to the 15 council members that reports in open sources suggest Iran intends to transfer more drones to Russia along with ballistic missiles.

    Neither Iran nor Russia sought advance approval from the council for the transfer of Mohajer and Shahed UAVs and therefore “have violated resolution 2231,” the letter said.

    The U.S. sent a similar letter, saying Iranian drones were transferred to Russia in late August and requesting the U.N. Secretariat team responsible for monitoring the resolution’s implementation to “conduct a technical and impartial investigation that assesses the type of UAV’s involved in these transfers.”

    Nebenzia also sent a letter contending that DiCarlo is siding with the West on carrying out an investigation. His letter insists that “the U.N. Secretariat has no authority to conduct, or in any other form engage, in any `investigation’” related to Resolution 2231.

    Source link

  • US: Iranian troops in Crimea backing Russian drone strikes

    US: Iranian troops in Crimea backing Russian drone strikes

    WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that Iranian troops are “directly engaged on the ground” in Crimea supporting Russian drone attacks on Ukraine‘s power stations and other key infrastructure, claiming it has troubling evidence of Tehran’s deepening role assisting Russia as it exacts suffering on Ukrainian civilians just as the cold weather sets in.

    National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that Iran has sent a “relatively small number” of personnel to Crimea, a part of Ukraine unilaterally annexed by Russia in contravention of international law in 2014, to assist Russian troops in launching Iranian-made drones against Ukraine. Members of a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were dispatched to assist Russian forces in using the drones, according to the British government.

    The revelation of the U.S. intelligence finding comes as the Biden administration seeks to mount international pressure on Tehran to pull back from helping Russia as it bombards soft Ukrainian civilian targets with the help of Iranian-made drones.

    The Russians in recent days have increasingly turned to the Iranian-supplied drones, as well as Kalibr and Iskander cruise missiles, to carry out a barrage of attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure and non-military targets. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that Russian forces have destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s power stations since Oct. 10.

    “The information we have is that the Iranians have put trainers and tech support in Crimea, but it’s the Russians who are doing the piloting,” Kirby said.

    He added that the Biden administration was looking at imposing new sanctions on Tehran and would look for ways to make it harder for Iran to sell such weapons to Russia.

    The U.S. first revealed this summer that Russia was purchasing Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles to launch against Ukraine. Iran has denied selling its munitions to Russia.

    White House officials say that international sanctions, including export controls, have left the Russians in a bind as they try to restock ammunition and precision-guided munition stocks that have been depleted during the nearly eight-month-old war. As a result, Russia has been forced to turn to Iran as well as North Korea for weaponry.

    Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters that military officials “wouldn’t be surprised” if the Russians sought more drones from Iran “given their situation.”

    Zelenskyy said last week that Russia had ordered 2,400 from Iran.

    U.S. officials believe that Iran may have deployed military personnel to assist the Russians in part because of the Russians’ lack of familiarity with the Iranian-made drones. Declassified U.S. intelligence findings showed that Russians faced technical problems with the drones soon after taking delivery of them in August.

    “The systems themselves were suffering failures and not performing to the standards that apparently the customers expected,” Kirby said. “So the Iranians decided to move in some trainers and some technical support to help the Russians use them with better lethality.”

    The Biden administration released further details about Iran’s involvement in assisting Russia’s war at a sensitive moment. The administration has levied new sanctions against Iran over the brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests spurred by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in Iranian security custody.

    Morality police had detained Amini last month for not properly covering her hair with the Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, which is mandatory for Iranian women. Amini collapsed at a police station and died three days later.

    Her death and the subsequent unrest have come as the administration tries to bring Iran back into compliance with the nuclear deal that was brokered by the Obama administration and scrapped by the Trump administration.

    At the United Nations this week, Ukraine accused Iran of violating a Security Council ban on the transfer of drones capable of flying 300 kilometers (180 miles). Britain, France and the U.S. strongly back Ukraine’s contention that the drones were transferred to Russia and violate a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal between Iran and six nations — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities and preventing the country from developing a nuclear weapon.

    Kirby said the administration has little hope for reviving the Iran nuclear deal soon.

    “We’re not focused on the on the diplomacy at this point,” Kirby said. “What we are focused on is making sure that we’re holding the regime accountable for the way they’re treating peaceful protesters in their country and supporting those protesters.”

    The White House spoke out about Iranian assistance to Russia as Britain on Thursday announced new sanctions on Iranian officials and businesses accused of supplying the drones.

    “These cowardly drone strikes are an act of desperation,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. “By enabling these strikes, these individuals and a manufacturer have caused the people of Ukraine untold suffering. We will ensure that they are held to account for their actions.”

    Among the individuals hit with asset freezes and travel bans by the British were Maj. Gen. Mohammad Hossein Bagheri, chairman of the armed forces general staff overseeing the army branches supplying Russia with drones; Brig. Gen. Seyed Hojjatollah Qureishi, a key Iranian negotiator in the deal; and Brig. Gen. Saeed Aghajani, the head the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force UAV Command.

    Shahed Aviation Industries, the Iranian manufacturer of the drones being used by Russia, was also hit by an asset freeze.

    —

    Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed reporting.

    Source link

  • Ukraine: Rockets strike mayor’s office in separatist Donetsk

    Ukraine: Rockets strike mayor’s office in separatist Donetsk

    KYIV, Ukraine — Pro-Kremlin officials on Sunday blamed Ukraine for a rocket attack that struck the mayor’s office in a key Ukrainian city controlled by the separatists as Russia’s war nears the eight-month mark.

    Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Russian rockets struck a city across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, wounding six people.

    The attacks on both sides came as Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukraine’s armed forces opened their southern counteroffensive.

    Last week, in retaliation, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids on Ukraine’s key infrastructure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

    The municipal mayor’s building in separatist-controlled Donetsk was seriously damaged by the rocket attack. Plumes of smoke swirled around the building, which had rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. Cars nearby were burned out.

    There were no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv didn’t immediately claim responsibility or comment on the attack.

    Kremlin-backed separatist authorities have previously accused Ukraine of numerous strikes on infrastructure and residential targets in the occupied regions, often employing the U.S.-supplied long-range HIMARS rockets, without providing corroborating information.

    Separately, Ukrainian authorities on Sunday reported that at least six people were wounded as a result of Russian rocket attacks across from Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, where Russia has stationed its troops.

    Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said two residents of Nikopol had been hospitalized following the strikes, which also damaged five power lines, gas pipelines, and a raft of civilian businesses and residential buildings.

    Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of firing at and around the plant, which continues to be run by its pre-occupation Ukrainian staff under Russian oversight.

    Ukrainian officials have also regularly reported attacks on civilian communities across the Dnieper river from the plant, including in Nikopol and nearby Marhanets.

    The presidential office and regional authorities said Russian rockets destroyed two schools, a park and private houses in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, which has seen sustained Russian shelling since Moscow illegally annexed it along with three other Ukrainian provinces last month.

    The annexation announcement came despite the fact that some 20% of Zaporizhzhia remains under Ukrainian military control, with some analysts painting the recent large-scale strikes as part of the Kremlin’s strategy to subdue the region.

    The Ukraine presidential office also said that Moscow continued to shell civilian settlements along the front line in the eastern Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, where Kyiv has also been pressing a counteroffensive. It added that “active hostilities” continued in the southern Kherson region, another key focus of the ongoing Ukrainian advance, with repeated Russian strikes on a series of villages recently retaken by Kyiv.

    Russian officials, meanwhile, said their air defenses in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine shot down “a minimum” of 16 Ukrainian missiles, Ria Novosti reported.

    The regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on Telegram that three members of the same family were wounded as a result of shelling.

    He later added that an older local resident was a fourth victim.

    “The old man is in shell shock. All necessary medical assistance is being provided to him,” Gladkov said. He said two other men with shrapnel wounds had been hospitalized. He presented no evidence for his report.

    Russian authorities in border regions have repeatedly accused Kyiv of firing at their territory, and claimed that civilians were being wounded in the attacks. Ukraine hasn’t claimed responsibility for or commented on the alleged attacks.

    Russia has long used Belgorod as a staging ground for shelling and missile attacks on Ukrainian territory.

    On Saturday, two men from a former Soviet republic who were training at a Russian military firing range in Belgorod fired at volunteer soldiers during target practice, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being slain themselves. The Russian Defense Ministry, which reported the killings, called the incident a terrorist attack.

    This week’s wide-ranging retaliatory attacks by Russia, which included the use of self-destructing explosive drones from Iran, killed dozens of people.

    On Sunday, the French government confirmed it’s pledging air defense missiles to protect Ukrainian cities against drone strikes and stepped-up training for Ukrainian soldiers as it seeks to puncture perceptions that France has lagged in supporting Ukraine.

    Up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be embedded with military units in France, rotating through for several weeks of combat training, more specialized training in logistics and other needs, and training on equipment being supplied by France, the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in an interview published Sunday in Le Parisien.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow didn’t see a need for additional widespread strikes, but that his military would continue selective ones. He said that of 29 targets the Russian military planned to knock out in this week’s attacks, seven weren’t damaged and would be taken out gradually.

    The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, interpreted Putin’s remarks as intended to counter criticism from pro-war Russian bloggers who “largely praised the resumption of strikes against Ukrainian cities, but warned that a short campaign would be ineffective.”

    ISW, in an online update late Saturday, accused Moscow of conducting “massive, forced deportations of Ukrainians,” which it said likely amount to ethnic cleansing.

    The update referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities, which claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps in Russia amid an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by RIA Novosti agency on Friday.

    Russian authorities have previously openly admitted to placing children from Russian-held areas of Ukraine, who they said were orphans, for adoption with Russian families, in a potential breach of a key international treaty on genocide prevention.

    Elsewhere, the Ukrainian military on Sunday morning accused pro-Kremlin fighters of evicting civilians in occupied territories in order to accommodate officers in their homes, an act it also described as a violation of international humanitarian law.

    The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its regular Facebook update that the evictions were happening in the Russian-held city of Rubizhne, in the eastern Luhansk region where Kyiv has been pressing a counteroffensive. It didn’t provide corroborating evidence for its claim.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    Source link