It’s not quite rags to riches, but No Nation Fashion has come a long way from its beginnings in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2021, when it was launched as way for people in transit centres to improve their sewing skills.
Those involved graduated from creating reusable masks, providing protection against COVID-19, to designing unique items of clothing, and accessories. The sewing corners became fashion studios, and, by the end of the year, a No Nation Fashion show was held at Sarajevo City Hall, to mark International Migrants Day.
The beneficiaries of the project are migrants and members of the local and wider community, such as: local fashion brands and designers, artists, craftspeople, private sector, media, and volunteers.
This year, the initiative made it all the way to one of the most prestigious fashion events of the year, New York Fashion Week, for a special event involving No Nation Fashion, the International Fashion Academy, and students from Ohio’s Kent State University.
The No Nation Fashion collection was the product of the creative collaboration of migrants and the Bosnian fashion industry, under the creative direction of Aleksandra Lovrić, a renowned national designer.
The three outfits presented at the event, were designed to reflect the journey of migrants, from the earliest nomad way of life; to resilience and the ability to rebuild and adapt; and inclusion, through social and cultural integration at their destinations.
“We are very excited that No Nation Fashion brand made it all the way to New York – a city that is famous for art, fashion as well as cultural diversity,” said Laura Lungarotti, IOM Chief of Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “This reminds us that migration and inclusion of diversity can produce beauty and opportunities for all.”
The Mission of No Nation Fashion is to build a brand and a social enterprise that promotes the inclusion of migrants in host communities, and actively participates in making societies more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable.
Following its New York success, the initiatives will continue to support migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with talented individuals from different parts of the world sharing their knowledge, skills and culture to create wearable artworks.
Lviv, Ukraine – Four-year-old Teona sits in a room filled with purple beanbags and other sensory toys, patting an inflated balloon vigorously with both her hands. She seems cheerful and vivacious, occasionally crying out in joy. Speaking to her in a kindly, measured tone is a play therapist, Sofia. Her job is to help Teona improve her social skills. Watching the two interact, it’s hard to imagine that the last few months have been intensely traumatic for Teona in ways that she cannot articulate.
For now, she is safe at the Dzherelo Children’s Rehabilitation Centre, an NGO offering rehabilitation services and treatment for young people with disabilities in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The journey was not easy, though. She and her mother, Viktoria Plyush, 33, fled by train, waiting fearfully at dangerous checkpoints before arriving on July 9, just over four months after Russian forces captured their hometown of Hola Prystan in the southern region of Kherson.
Teona has non-verbal autism, and before the Russians overran Hola Prystan she had been attending a kindergarten that provided play and speech therapy. For months, her mother clung to the hope that Ukrainian forces would liberate the area. Teona had been confined to their home for several months, unable to go to school or see any of her classmates, who had all gone to Poland or Romania with their families. She grew agitated, covering her ears and screaming constantly.
“All the facilities for children with developmental disabilities shut down because they refused to cooperate with the Russian occupiers, which we think is the honourable thing to do,” Plyush says. A mild-mannered woman with a determined gaze, she sits ramrod straight in her chair as she speaks, occasionally glancing at Teona as she plays with Sofia.
The family lived in fear. “Rockets were flying everywhere and there were no air raid sirens to warn us,” she recalls. The only times she left the house were to dash out to the market to buy food. The last straw came when she heard about the Russian army kidnapping civilians or fighters with Ukrainian loyalties.
Teona wailed throughout the arduous two-day journey from Hola Prystan into Lviv.
Now, Plyush, her husband and Teona live with her sister in Lviv. Plyush is relieved that Teona can resume the therapy she needs, and not be isolated any longer.
Despite her sunny disposition and the friends she’s made at Dzherelo, Teona is still on edge following her ordeal. After months at home with Plyush in Hola Prystan, she also has separation anxiety, screaming if her mother is out of sight for more than a few minutes.
But it’s not just Teona who has needed extra care after all the stress she has endured. Yaroslava Nikashin, 35, an easy-going and warm social worker at Dzherelo, says that her work in recent months has focused on supporting parents and ramping up psychological help and counselling for caregivers. “Some of the parents like her [Plyush] seem calm, but on the inside, they’re also really scared and sad,” she says.
Despite worries that financing for NGOs like Dzherelo will dwindle as the war drags on and most financial aid is diverted to the armed services, Nikashin has made up her mind to continue her work. “We have to try and maintain both the quality and quantity of the services we offer and give as much as we can,” she says.
The Dzherelo centre, in a suburb of Lviv, offers treatment and rehabilitation services for disabled young people [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Challenges accessing support
As the Russian invasion grinds into its eighth month, Ukrainians with intellectual and physical disabilities – as well as their carers – continue to encounter huge challenges in accessing the support they need.
According to two Brussels-based NGOs, the European Disability Forum and Inclusion Europe, some 2.7 million people with disabilities are registered in Ukraine. Of these, an estimated 261,000 have intellectual disabilities. Both organisations have documented a drastic deterioration in the quality of life for Ukrainians with disabilities.
Some are unable to access medication or food, while those with developmental disabilities have seizures or become aggressive while frightened by shelling. In addition, wheelchair users or those with mobility issues are not able to access bomb shelters, so people with physical disabilities have no choice but to remain at home, leaving them at a disproportionate risk of death. Thousands more are believed to be trapped in care homes or poorly-maintained institutions, cut off from their communities and languishing in neglect.
Since the end of June, Dzherelo has been working with UNICEF and the Ukrainian government on an emergency intervention, dispatching mobile teams of medical experts to seven regions of western Ukraine, focusing on remote areas where children with physical impediments and developmental difficulties might struggle to receive the assistance they need. In total, Dzherelo has supported more than 750 families through this scheme and their Lviv facility.
Zoreslava Liulchak, the director of Dzherelo, says that in the early days of the war, the centre met people at the train station in Lviv who had carried their children for the entire journey from the east to western Ukraine, as they were not able to bring wheelchairs from home. “There’s also a big problem with leaving itself,” she adds. “The Russians often do not release people from the occupied territory.”
She cites the example of a rehabilitation specialist from Kherson who is now working at Dzherelo. Along with his two nephews who have cerebral palsy, he had to escape through Russian-controlled Crimea, as they were not permitted to leave via any other route. These stories are commonplace, Liulchak says, and such stressful journeys can “provoke complications in physical and psychological conditions” already experienced by children with disabilities.
A trampoline at the Dzherelo centre, which has helped more than 750 families through a joint emergency programme focusing on remote areas which started in late June [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Gruelling, expensive work
Some 735km (575 miles) away in Galway, Ireland, 40-year-old Ukrainian disability rights activist Yuliia Sachuk is all too familiar with the frustrations faced by people with disabilities who are trying to evacuate to safety – whether to western Ukraine or abroad. As the chair and co-founder of Fight for Right, a female-led Ukrainian NGO for disability rights, Sachuk and her team of nearly 30 have been overworked arranging the delivery of essential medications, financial support and legal advice for more than 4,100 individuals in the disabled community since the end of February.
Sachuk was studying for a master’s in disability law in Galway when she returned home in early 2022 as tensions were rising in eastern Ukraine. She fled the country in the late hours of February 24, following the invasion, with her 17-year-old son and sister after hearing about a bombing near a medical facility for people with disabilities. Their train from Kyiv kept stopping amid explosions and she frantically texted other activists in neighbouring countries for help. One of her contacts helped the family get to Romania, and eventually to Ireland. Her husband has remained in Ukraine and is volunteering with the Territorial Defence Forces.
Sachuk says her work has been non-stop, gruelling and expensive. Arranging a medical evacuation for a person with disabilities, especially from the worst-affected cities, can cost the equivalent of $5,100 to $10,300 – in part due to the equipment needed.
The group started a GoFundMe online crowdfunding campaign to help with evacuations and support those who cannot leave with food and medicine. As of late September, it has raised 481,096 euros ($464,188) of its 700,000-euro ($675,390) goal. According to Sachuk, requests for help from people with disabilities continue to stream in.
Aside from receiving initial guidance from two US-based organisations – the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies and the World Institute on Disability – on how to set up Fight For Right’s response strategy, Sachuk says they were let down by other international disability charities.
“In the first months of the war, all these organisations were not helpful at all when it comes to direct support. Nobody worked with us,” Sachuk says. “If [we’re talking about] getting a person here and now to help a disabled person to their car, or to buy some food or medicine, all of these organisations have failed.” Ukrainian disability organisations were left on their own to save people, she says.
With sadness, she recalls the first few months of the war when she received goodbye calls and messages from people with disabilities in occupied regions. “They were stuck in their houses and they didn’t have the possibility of evacuation,” she says.
Sachuk knows intimately what it means to live with a disability. Born in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk with severe congenital visual impairment, she was in and out of hospital throughout her childhood as she underwent multiple eye surgeries. Her sight is still poor today but she says she manages to get by with the aid of magnifying glasses and enlarged letters on computer screens. “When you have lived with this for all your life, you get used to it, and stop thinking of it as a problem,” she says.
She credits her parents for fighting for her to attend a state-run school, instead of one of the boarding schools for children with disabilities that are infamous for rampant abuse and mistreatment. At school, she was bullied by classmates.
She remembers hearing stories about children with disabilities who were confined to their homes as some parents were ashamed of them. “It was just not talked about so much in the past,” she says.
Sachuk is proud of how Fight for Right has brought people with disabilities safety and comfort. She recalls how, in June, her team helped organise the delivery of a prosthetic breast from Germany to a woman in the northeastern city of Kharkiv in Ukraine. The woman had had a mastectomy following a breast cancer diagnosis and was also suffering from mobility problems. “She was just so, so happy. She couldn’t believe it was possible,” Sachuk remembers.
Routine is critical
One formidable task for NGOs working with people with developmental disabilities is the pressure to provide stability amidst the turmoil of war. Routine is especially important for children with autism; disarray can jeopardise any progress that comes with therapy.
Anna Perekatiy, founder of the Start Centre in Lviv, an NGO that supports children with developmental disabilities, says 35 displaced families from regions in eastern Ukraine that were shelled intensely by the Russians, such as Kherson, Donetsk and Mykolaiv, have come to her for help since the start of the war. They have children with a range of physical, developmental and learning disabilities. Some 90 percent of them have autism.
“These children need stability, they need permanent therapy to help them develop crucial skills,” says Perekatiy, who has a 12-year-old son with autism. She stresses that children’s development deteriorates quickly when pedagogical therapy is put on pause.
Olha Chermayina, left, and her daughter Alisa, who has non-verbal autism, play at the Start Centre. When their city of Berdyansk was occupied in late February, Alisa’s speech therapy was disrupted [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Two-year-old Alisa has non-verbal autism – a diagnosis that she only formally received upon arriving in Lviv from her home in Berdyansk in southeastern Ukraine. Her mother, 37-year-old Olha Chermayina, cries as she describes how Alisa’s behaviour changed when the Russian occupation began. “She stopped making eye contact and shut down completely,” Chermayina recalls. As doctors fled the city, there was no proper medical care for children, and Alisa had no access to speech therapy.
When the family began to feel the impact of food shortages, they decided to flee. Upon arriving in Lviv, Chermayina and her husband Shota took Alisa to a children’s hospital, where a doctor confirmed she had autism. “He said we would have to start her treatment right from the beginning,” Chermayina says. “We’re taking a risk in staying here, but … we don’t know if she’ll get the care she needs if we go abroad, and there’s no guarantee that she can get used to it there.” Today, Alisa goes to the Start Centre five times a week.
Many children with disabilities were deprived of educational opportunities once the war started, as they could not partake in the online learning offered in mainstream schools. Perekatiy is also frustrated by the lack of governmental support, with the majority of rehabilitative services provided by NGOs like hers. She says the “old Soviet education system”, where the learning needs of people with disabilities were largely ignored, has meant that those who need support still feel stigmatised. Though she is optimistic that attitudes are changing, she worries that recognition of these needs won’t come quite fast enough for those most affected by the war.
Nine-year-old Milena, her hair in braids, who is from Bilytske in Donetsk, enjoys a play session at the Dzherelo centre [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Structured environment
Even for children with intellectual disabilities who may not have outwardly shown signs of trauma, a structured environment is just as important for their development. In Dzherelo’s spacious garden, with its trampoline and playground, Olena Filippova watches her daughter, nine-year-old Milena, play with other children.
At the beginning of April, Filippova travelled with Milena, who has Down’s Syndrome, westward from their home city of Bilytske in Donetsk. Unable to get on a bus to Poland, she decided to stay in Lviv and enrol Milena at Dzherelo for play therapy five days a week. For the time being, the pair lives in an overcrowded dormitory for internally displaced people where the conditions are dismal. But Filippova, 49, a secondary school teacher, hopes to secure a teaching job in the autumn.
Milena, who has limited speech and communicates predominantly with gestures, is curious and observant, having picked up new words in Ukrainian simply by listening to other people. Since she grew up speaking Russian, the linguistic switch is particularly remarkable. “But she’s very mischievous,” Filippova laughs. “Once she knows a new word, she’ll say it once but refuse to repeat it. It’s like she’s making fun of me.”
For Milena, it was only after the war started that she began receiving specialist care. In Bilytske, Milena attended a regular kindergarten where Filippova says the teachers “made sure to be very inclusive” and had similar play therapy but for only two hours a week, which her mother felt wasn’t sufficient.
“My daughter was born at a time when rehabilitation centres [for children with learning disabilities] were just starting to open,” she says. As the field opens up and improves, she hopes that “with this change of circumstances, Milena will start talking to me”.
From left to right, Volodymyr, Ivanka, and Danylo, long-term residents of the Emmaus Centre, are shown with two of the centre’s assistants, including Tetiana, standing, in the building’s lounge [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
A glimmer of hope
At the Emmaus Centre, a home for adults with intellectual disabilities on the grounds of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, residents offer fellow members of the disabled community a glimmer of hope by showing how stability and opportunities can facilitate social integration.
Emmaus provides individualised care – its four assistants live on site and support its five permanent residents – aged between 25 and 45 – with all aspects of their lives, from vocational training to employment to daily tasks such as shopping for groceries. At Emmaus’s request, the residents interviewed are referred to by their first names only.
The atmosphere in the home is relaxed and inviting, the residents chatting and laughing with each other. Sitting at the dining table in a cosy room lit by the afternoon sun, 32-year-old Ivanka speaks enthusiastically about her experiences with the 500-odd displaced people with disabilities who have over six months sought refuge at Emmaus and its surrounding dormitories for a few days at a time. Emmaus supported their subsequent evacuation to other countries in Europe.
Ivanka, who has a developmental disability, attended a boarding school for years, only coming to live in Emmaus in September 2017. “It was good when the refugees came because I was able to volunteer as a nanny for some of their children,” she says. In particular, she misses a pair of twin boys who were five months old and had mobility issues. Prior to the war, she had been regularly attending a workshop where she learned to craft origami and artwork for sale. “I stopped going because it was not safe. There was no bomb shelter near the place where the workshop was held. But I hope to go back soon,” she says with a smile.
Ivanka and Danylo are among the five permanent residents at the Emmaus Centre [Amandas Ong/Al Jazeera]
Two of her other housemates found their lives severely disrupted when the war began. One, 33-year-old Volodymyr, who has Down’s Syndrome, lost his job as a cleaner in a tech company several months ago. Having immensely enjoyed it, it was he who first suggested that other residents of the house would benefit from working.
“We are hoping to find him something else in the meantime,” says Tetiana Chul, one of the assistants at Emmaus.
“But it is still important to help out,” Volodymyr interjects. With not much on his plate at the moment, he spends his days cooking and cleaning for his roommates, and often volunteers to do chores on behalf of the staff. In his free time, he watches TV programmes from the 1990s and dreams of visiting Turkey, where one of his favourite soap operas is set.
Another resident, 25-year-old Danylo, who also has Down’s Syndrome, was taken by his family to Poland at the start of the war. “They felt I would be safer there. It was fun and I enjoyed going to school in Poland, but the language barrier was difficult for me,” he confesses. He ended up missing his friends in Lviv so much that his family agreed that he should return – and now he is back at Emmaus.
Danylo thumbs through a photo album to show Al Jazeera photos of his time in Poland. Suddenly, he recalls his mother, who died a few years ago and whom he calls his best friend. “Her lifelong dream was for me to live in a place like this, where I could be independent, and loved. I miss her very much,” he says, choking up with tears.
As Ivanka pats him on the shoulder, Chul holds out her hand to comfort him, and he kisses it. “Because of you, I am happy now,” he tells them.
Russian forces retreated from Lyman, a strategic city for its operations in the east, the Russian defense ministry said Saturday, just a day after Moscow’s annexation of the region that’s been declared illegal by the West.
“In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman to more advantageous lines,” the ministry said on Telegram, using the Russian name for the town of Lyman.
Russian state media Russia-24 reported that the reason for Russia’s withdrawal was because “the enemy used both Western-made artillery and intelligence from North Atlantic alliance countries.”
The retreat marks Ukraine’s most significant gain since its successful counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month.
Russia’s announcement comes just hours after Ukrainian forces said they had encircled Russian troops in the city, which is located in the Kramatorsk district of Donetsk.
Ukrainian forces said earlier Saturday that they had entered Stavky, a village neighboring Lyman, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, the military spokesperson for the eastern grouping of Ukrainian forces.
“The Russian group in the area of Lyman is surrounded. The settlements of Yampil, Novoselivka, Shandryholove, Drobysheve, and Stavky are liberated. Stabilization measures are ongoing there,” Cherevatyi said in a televised press conference on Saturday morning.
“[The liberation] of Lyman is important, because it is another step towards the liberation of the Ukrainian Donbas. This is an opportunity to go further to Kreminna and Severodonetsk. Therefore, in turn, it is psychologically very important,” he said.
Cherevatyi said the Ukrainian troops actions are setting the tone to “break the course of these hostilities.”
He added that there had been “many killed and wounded,” but could not provide any further details.
The head of Luhansk regional military administration Serhiy Hayday also revealed Saturday further details of the Lyman offensive, suggesting Russian forces had offered to retreat, but to no avail from the Ukrainian side.
“Occupiers asked [their command] for possibility to retreat, and they have been refused. Accordingly, they have two options. No, they actually have three options. Try to break through, surrender, or everyone there will die,” Hayday said.
“There are several thousand of them. Yes, about 5,000. There is no exact number yet. Five thousand is still a colossal grouping. There has never been such a large group in the encirclement before. All routes for the supply of ammunition or the retreat of the group are all completely blocked,” he added.
Yurii Mysiagin, Ukrainian member of Parliament and deputy head of the parliament’s committee on national security, referenced the move into Stavky on Saturday by publishing a video on Telegram showing a Ukrainian tank moving up the road with a clear sign indicating the region of Stavky. CNN could not independently verify the original source or the date.
A video posted on social media, and shared by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, shows two Ukrainian soldiers standing on a military vehicle attaching the flag with tape to a large sign with the word “Lyman.”
“We are unfurling our country’s flag and planting it on our land. On Lyman. Everything will be Ukraine,” one of the soldiers says to the camera.
Meanwhile, pressure appears to be growing on Russian President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Chechen republic, in an angry statement slamming Russian generals in the wake of the withdrawal from Lyman, said it was time for the Kremlin to make use of every weapon at his disposal.
“In my personal opinion we need to take more drastic measures, including declaring martial law in the border territories and using low-yield nuclear weapons,” Kadyrov said on his Telegram channel. “There is no need to make every decision with the Western American community in mind.”
Earlier this week, Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s President between 2008 and 2012, discussed nuclear weapons use on his Telegram channel, saying it was permitted if the existence of the Russian state was threatened by an attack even by conventional forces.
“If the threat to Russia exceeds our established threat limit, we will have to respond … this is certainly not a bluff,” he wrote.
Concerns have risen sharply that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons use after Putin’s proclamation on Friday that Russia would seize nearly a fifth of Ukraine, declaring that the millions of people living there would be Russian citizens “forever.”
The announcement was dismissed as illegal by the United States and many other countries, but the fear is the Kremlin might argue that attacks on those territories now constitute attacks on Russia.
In his speech in the Kremlin, the Russian leader made only passing reference to nuclear weapons, noting the United States was the only country to have used them on the battlefield.
“By the way, they created a precedent,” he added.
Also on Saturday, the director-general of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was detained by a Russian patrol, according to the president of state nuclear company Energoatom.
Director-General Ihor Murashov was in his vehicle on his way from the plant when he was “stopped … taken out of the car, and with his eyes blindfolded he was driven in an unknown direction. For the time being there is no information on his fate,” Energoatom’s Petro Kotin said in a statement.
“Murashov is a licensed person and bears main and exclusive responsibility for the nuclear and radiation safety of the Zaporizhzhya NPP,” Kotin said, adding, that his detention “jeopardizes the safety of operation of Ukraine and Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.”
Kotin called for Murashov’s release, and urged the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to “take all possible immediate actions to urgently free” him.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs “strongly” condemned Murashov’s “illegal detention,” calling it a “another manifestation of state terrorism from the side of Russia and a gross violation of international law.”
“We call on the international community, in particular the UN, the IAEA and the G7, to also take decisive measures to this end,” the ministry said in a statement.
Overnight, Russia hit Zaporizhzhia with four S300 missiles, according to the head of the regional administration Oleksandr Starukh.
And in Kharkiv, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office said Saturday that the bodies of 22 civilians, including 10 children, were found following Russian shelling on a convoy of cars near the eastern town of Kupiansk.
The cars were shot by the Russian army on September 25 “when civilians were trying to evacuate,” it said in a Telegram post, adding that an investigation was ongoing.
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and police had “discovered a convoy of seven cars that had been shot dead near the village of Kurylivka, Kupiansk district,” on Friday, Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office said.
The SBU confirmed on Telegram they would be investigating a “war crime” where at least 20 people died in “a brutal attack.”
CNN could not independently verify the allegations. There has been no official Russian response to the claims made.
Bosnians go to the polls on Sunday to choose the country’s new collective presidency and lawmakers at national, regional and local levels, deciding between long-entrenched nationalist parties and reformists focused on the economy.
Nearly 3.4 million people are eligible to vote amid the worst political crisis in the Balkan country since the end of its war in the 1990s, prompted by separatist policies of the Serb leadership and threats of blockades by Bosnian Croats.
The polls open at 7 a.m. local (12:00 a.m. ET) and close at 7 p.m. (12:00 p.m. ET). The first official results are expected at midnight local but political parties are expected to come out with their own results around 10 p.m.
Bosnia is comprised of two autonomous regions, the Serb-dominated Serb Republic and the Federation shared by Bosniaks and Croats, linked by a weak central government. The Federation is further split into 10 cantons. There is also the neutral Brcko district in the north.
Election campaigning by ruling ethnic parties was dominated by hate speech and nationalist rhetoric, focusing rather on themes of protection of national interests and criticism of opponents than on real-life issues such as jobs and soaring inflation.
A lack of reliable polls has made it difficult to predict the outcome, but many analysts believe nationalist parties will remain dominant and that the biggest change may come in the Bosniak camp, which is the largest and most diverse.
Bakir Izetbegovic, leader of the largest Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) Party of Democratic Action (SDA), who is running for the Bosniak presidency member, is seen in a tight race with Denis Becirovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), whose bid is supported by 11 civic-oriented opposition parties.
Observers believe that Serb and Croat nationalist parties will remain in power but some polls have suggested that separatist pro-Russian leader Milorad Dodik, who is running for the Serb Republic’s president, is facing strong competition from opposition economist Jelena Trivic.
The Croat parties have warned they may block the formation of government after the vote if moderate Zeljko Komsic wins the job of the Croat presidency member. They say his victory could only be based on votes by majority Bosniaks and that they will not regard him as the legitimate Croat representative.
Time is running out for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and he knows it.
Meanwhile his bombast continues: announcing the annexation of Ukrainian territories on Friday, Putin declared Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson will become part of Russia “forever.” He is rushing to claim a victory and cement slender gains and sue for peace, running a dangerous political tab, regardless of the fanfare in Moscow.
He called on Ukraine to “cease fire” immediately and “sit down at the negotiating table,” but added: “We will not negotiate the choice of the people. It has been made. Russia will not betray it.”
He is doing his best to hide it, but he is losing his war in Ukraine. The writing is on the wall.
Andrey Kortunov, who runs the Kremlin-backed Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow, sees it, too. “President Putin wants to end this whole thing as fast as possible,” he told CNN.
Putin’s recent heavy-handed conscription drive for 300,000 troops won’t reverse his battlefield losses any time soon, and is backfiring at home, running him up a dangerous political tab.
According to official data from the EU, Georgia and Kazakhstan, around 220,000 Russians have fled across their borders since the “partial mobilization” was announced. The EU said its numbers – nearly 66,000 – represented a more than 30% increase from the previous week.
Ex-oligarch says Putin made a dangerous move and is risking his life
Independent Russian media quoting Russia’s revamped KGB, the FSB, put the total exodus even higher. They say more military age men have fled the country since conscription – 261,000 – than have so far fought in the war – an estimated 160,000 to 190,000.
CNN is unable to verify the Russian figures, but the 40 kilometers (around 25 miles) traffic tailbacks at the border with Georgia, and the long lines at crossings into Kazakhstan and Finland, speak to the backlash and the strengthening perception that Putin is losing his fabled touch at reading Russia’s mood.
The clock ticks loudly for Putin because his back is against the wall.
Kortunov says he doesn’t know what goes on in the Kremlin but that he understands the public mood over the huge costs and loss of life in the war. “Many people would start asking questions, why did we get into this mess? Why, you know, we lost so many people.”
Putin’s logical option, Kortunov says, is to declare victory and get out on his own terms. But for this he needs a significant achievement on the ground. “Russia cannot simply get to where it was, on the 24 February of this year, say, okay, you know, that’s fine. Our mission is accomplished. So we go home… …There should be something that can be presented to the public as a victory.”
And this is the logic Putin appears to be following, rubber-stamping the sham referendums in Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and declaring them part of Russia.
He used the same playbook annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and now, like then, threatens potential nuclear strikes should Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, try to take the annexed territories back.
Western leaders are in a battle of brinksmanship with Putin. Last Sunday US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Washington would respond decisively if Russia deployed nuclear weapons against Ukraine and has made clear to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face.
Leaders have also vowed not to recognize the regions as part of Russian territory.
US President Joe Biden said Moscow’s actions have “no legitimacy,” adding that Washington will continue to “always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.” The European Union said it “will never” recognize the Kremlin’s “illegal annexation,” and described the move as a “further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Hear what worries Sen. Rubio more than a Russian nuclear attack
There is little new in what Putin does, which, if nothing else, is making his moves more predictable, and therefore more readily analyzed.
Kurt Volker, who was US ambassador to NATO and US special representative to Ukraine under former President Donald Trump, believes Putin maybe gearing up for peace. “I think what he must be striving for, is to brandish the nuclear weapons, make all kinds of threats to Europe, and then say, okay, so let’s negotiate a settlement. And let me keep what I have already taken.”
Fiona Hill, who has advised three US Presidents on national security about Russia, also thinks Putin may be attempting an end game. “He feels a sense of acute urgency that he was losing momentum, and he’s now trying to exit the war in the same way that he entered it. With him being the person in charge and him framing the whole terms of any kind of negotiation. “
Both Danish and Swedish seismologists recorded explosive shockwaves from close to the seabed: the first, at around 2 a.m. local time, hitting 2.3 magnitude, then again, at around 7 p.m., registering 2.1.
Within hours, roiling patches of sea were discovered, the Danes and the Germans sent warships to secure the area, and Norway increased security around its oil and gas facilities.
So far, at least four leaks in Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines 1 and 2 have been discovered, each at the surface resembling a boiling cauldron, the largest one kilometer across, and together spewing industrial quantities of toxic greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Sabotage suspected in Nord Stream pipeline leaks
Russian naval vessels were seen by European security officials in the area in the days prior, Western intelligence sources have said. NATO’s North Atlantic Council has described the damage as a “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible act of sabotage.”
Russia denies responsibility and says it has launched its own investigation. But former CIA chief John Brennan said Russia has the expertise to inflict this type of damage “all the signs point to some type of sabotage that these pipelines are only in about 200 feet or so of water and Russia does have an undersea capability to that will easily lay explosive devices by those pipelines.”
Brennan’s analysis is that Russia is the most likely culprit for the sabotage, and that Putin is likely trying to send a message: “It’s a signal to Europe that Russia can reach beyond Ukraine’s borders. So who knows what he might be planning next.”
Nord Stream 2 was never operational, and Nord Stream 1 had been throttled back by Putin as Europe raced to replenish gas reserves ahead of winter, while dialling back demands for Russian supplies and searching for replacement providers.
The Nord Stream pipeline sabotage could, according to Hill, be a last roll of the dice by Putin, so that “there’s no kind of turning back on the gas issues. And it’s not going to be possible for Europe to continue to build up its gas reserves for the winter. So what Putin is doing is throwing absolutely everything at this right now.”
Another factor accelerating Putin’s thinking may be the approach of winter. Napoleon and Hitler both failed to take Moscow as supply lines running through Ukraine were too long and arduous in winter. Volker says that what historically saved Russia is now pressing down on Putin: “This time, it’s Russia that has to supply lines, trying to sustain its forces in Ukraine. That’s going to be very hard this winter. So all of a sudden, for all these factors, Putin’s timeline has moved up.”
The bottom line, said Hill, is that “this is the result of Ukraine gaining momentum on the ground on the battlefield and of Putin himself losing it, so he’s trying to adapt to the circumstances and basically take charge and get every advantage.”
No one knows what’s really going on in Putin’s mind. Kortunov doubts Putin will be willing to compromise beyond his own terms for peace, “not on the terms that are offered by President Zelensky, not on the terms which are offered by the West… .[though] he should be ready to exercise a degree of flexibility. But we don’t know what these degrees [are] likely to be.”
According to Hill, Putin wants his negotiations to be with Biden and allies, not Ukraine: “He’s basically saying now you will have to negotiate with me and sue for peace. And that means recognizing what we have done on the ground in Ukraine.”
Having failed in the face of Western military unity backing Ukraine, Putin appears set to test Western resolve diplomatically, by trying to divide Western allies over terms for peace.
Volker expects Putin to pitch France and Germany first “to say, we need to end this war, we’re going to protect our territories at all costs, using any means necessary, and you need to put pressure on the Ukrainians to settle.”
If this is Putin’s plan, it could turn into his biggest strategic miscalculation yet. There is little Western appetite to see him stay in power – US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said as much in the summer – and even less to let down Ukraine after all its suffering.
Putin knows he is in a corner, but doesn’t seem to realize how small a space he has, and that of course is what’s most worrying – would he really make good on his nuclear threats?
The war in Ukraine may have entered a new phase, and Putin may have his back against the wall, but an end to the conflict could still be a very long way off.
A Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York appears to have been defaced with red paint, following a similar incident in which the Russian consulate was vandalized with red spray paint.
An eyewitness told CNN that they saw a person in a face mask splash red paint on the steps of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on New York’s Upper East Side late Friday night.
The cathedral’s spokesperson, Abbot Nicodemus, also confirmed the vandalism to CNN.
Remnants of the paint could be seen Saturday morning, after the eyewitness observed a woman working to scrub it away.
“We sincerely do not understand those individuals that allow themselves acts of vandalism in relation to our cathedral. We pray for them,” Nicodemus said n a statement to CNN. “We want them to realize that the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA carries out important spiritual and peacemaking activities here, and we are open to all people, regardless of their nationality and political beliefs.”
The New York Police Department said it was not aware of or investigating this incident.
The NYPD previously told CNN it was investigating the red graffiti on the Russian consulate building as a “possible bias incident.” There were no updates in that investigation.
The spokesperson told CNN that Friday’s incident is the third case of vandalism since the beginning of the year in which the cathedral has been marked with paint or written with “insulting” inscriptions.
In addition, “insulting” calls and emails have been received by the cathedral, Nicodemus said, adding that some include direct threats against the clergy and parishioners.
Saint Nicholas Cathedral said it is “compelled to turn such messages to the police,” said Nicodemus. “We are grateful to the law enforcement agencies of New York for their prompt response to our messages and their constant support.”
The cathedral said that since February, its parishioners have been actively involved in collecting financial and humanitarian assistance for the victims of the armed conflict in Ukraine.
Half of the parishioners of the cathedral are Ukrainian, Nicodemus said
STOCKHOLM — A right-wing populist party that received the second-most votes in Sweden’s general election last month landed the chairmanships of four parliamentary committees Saturday and with it, the ability to wield more influence in mainstream Swedish politics.
The positions to be held by lawmakers from the Sweden Democrats include chairing the Riksdag’s justice, foreign affair, business affairs and labor market committees.
“It is important for us, a milestone in the party’s history,” legislator Richard Jomshof, a Sweden Democrat who was tapped to be the next chairman of the justice committee, told Swedish public broadcaster SVT. “It is an expression of the fact that we are Sweden’s second largest party.”
In addition to the four chairperson posts, the party was allowed to name the vice-chairs of parliament’s civil affairs, traffic, defense and tax committees.
Sweden Democrats, a nationalist and anti-immigration party with roots in the neo-Nazi movement, is part of right-wing bloc that won a narrow majority in the Riksdag in the Sept. 11 election.
Decisions on the posts were announced Friday in a joint statement from the four center-right parties that are in talks to form a coalition government. Sweden Democrats, which is one of the four, announced its nominees Saturday.
Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the center-right Moderates, the party that placed third, has been tasked with forming a government that is likely to have the Sweden Democrats as part of a governing coalition or at least the party’s support in securing a majority in parliament.
Kristersson has until Oct. 12 to present results of his talks with parties to Parliament speaker Andreas Norlen.
After being encircled by Ukrainian forces, Russia pulled troops out from the strategic eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman – the latest victory for Kyiv’s counteroffensive that has humiliated and angered Moscow.
The announcement on Saturday came a day after President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – including Donetsk, where Lyman is located – and placed them under Russia’s nuclear umbrella, at a ceremony condemned by Kyiv and the West as an illegitimate farce.
“In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman to more advantageous lines,” Russia’s defence ministry said, using the Russian name of the city.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said in a video address although the Ukrainian flag was flying in the city, “fighting is still going on there”.
He also indicated Ukrainian troops had taken the village of Torske, on the main road out of Lyman to the east.
The Russian statement ended hours of official silence after Ukraine first said it surrounded thousands of Russian troops in the area and then that its forces were inside the city.
Ukraine’s defence ministry wrote on Twitter that “almost all” the Russian troops in Lyman had either been captured or killed.
‘Drastic measures’
Located 160km (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Lyman is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two regions that Russia annexed on Friday.
“The Russian grouping in the area of Lyman is surrounded,” said Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern forces.
Russia has used Lyman as a logistics and transport hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region. Its capture would be Ukraine’s biggest battlefield gain since a counterattack in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month.
The recent Ukrainian successes have infuriated Putin allies such as Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia’s southern Chechnya region, who said he felt compelled to speak out.
“In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons,” Kadyrov wrote on Telegram.
Other top Putin allies, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, have suggested Russia may need to resort to nuclear weapons, but Kadyrov’s call was the most urgent and explicit.
Putin said last week he was not bluffing when he said he was prepared to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity” with all available means, and on Friday made clear this extended to the new regions claimed by Moscow.
Washington says it would respond decisively to any use of nuclear weapons and has spelled out to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face.
‘Psychologically very important’
Two Ukrainian soldiers taped the yellow-and-blue national flag to the Lyman welcome sign at an entrance to the city, a video posted by the president’s chief of staff showed.
“October 1. We’re unfurling our state flag and establishing it on our land. Lyman will be Ukraine,” one of the soldiers said.
Ukraine said controlling Lyman would allow Kyiv to advance into the Luhansk region, whose full capture Moscow announced in early July after weeks of grinding advances.
“Lyman is important because it is the next step towards the liberation of the Ukrainian Donbas. It is an opportunity to go further to Kreminna and Severodonetsk, and it is psychologically very important,” Cherevatyi said.
Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up the wider Donbas region that has been a major focus for Russia since soon after the start of Moscow’s invasion on February 24 in what it calls a “special military operation” to demilitarise its neighbour.
Putin proclaimed the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia to be Russian land on Friday – a swath of territory equal to about 18 percent of Ukraine’s total surface land area.
Ukraine and its Western allies branded Russia’s move as illegal. Kyiv promised to continue liberating its land from Russian forces and said it would not hold peace talks with Moscow while Putin remained president.
Meanwhile, on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, the governor of the city of Sevastopol announced an emergency situation at an airfield there. Explosions and huge billows of smoke could be seen by beachgoers in the Russian-held resort. Authorities said a plane rolled off the runway at the Belbek airfield, and said ammunition on board had caught fire.
In other developments, in an apparent attempt to secure Moscow’s hold on the newly annexed territory, Russian forces seized the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Ihor Murashov.
PARIS — A giant, glowing crystal rock upon a sand-colored carpet evoked a glamorous alien planet for Hermes’ champagne-sipping VIP guests.
Earthen hues like browns, reds and yellows — colors long-associated with the heritage brand — were used at Saturday’s show to create Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski’s utilitarian, low-key yet luxuriant universe for spring.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s top fashion designers used the platform of Paris Fashion Week to promote their war-battered industry.
Here are some highlights of the day’s spring-summer 2023 collections in Paris:
HERMES’ SUBTLE STRINGS
It was a Vanhee-Cybulski minimalist take on the 80s.
The lone pulsating crystal that glowed color from the center of the runway established the collection’s key idea: Simplicity is powerful.
As the show took off, the odd utilitarian features — such as toggles and the strange, perplexing box platform shoes that stomped throughout — were used with subtlety but aplomb.
It gave a sporty and outer-space feel to the collection’s stylish, almost empty, restraint — a mood that now defines the talented 44-year-old French designer’s repertoire.
Tan suede tunic minidresses sported beautiful, braided leather hems — showcased without jewelry on a makeup-less model. While, exposed midriffs latticed with cords and toggles came on otherwise unfussy slim silhouettes.
UKRAINE’S “GOOD SIX” DESIGNERS SHOW UNITED FRONT
Last season in Paris, the Ukrainian designers trade fair event took place just two days before Russia’s invasion amid stories of some artists fleeing the country so rapidly they had only their children and their collection in hand.
This season sees no improvement back home for the industry: It’s been battered by increased financial strains as designers try hard to maintain employed staff despite little money, a decrease in demand and ravished supply chains.
A collective of these designer-survivors is showing in Paris beginning Saturday until Oct.6.
Jen Sidary, the collective’s head, said “in my 30 years of working in the fashion industry, I have never witnessed the resilience of a country and its people as they began to focus on keeping their businesses alive, days into the war, from bomb shelters to designing new collections amidst constant air raid sirens.”
The six making up the Paris Fashion Week event — Frolov, Kachorovska, Chereshnivska, Litkovska, My Sleeping Gypsy and Oliz — are showcasing unisex apparel, footwear and scarves. It’s a bid to keep their ravaged industry alive, and form of resistance against the Russian bombs decimating their homeland.
Many of their colleagues back home in Ukraine have had to repurpose their operations to help the war effort, relocating within the country, according to Sidary.
The courage of the Ukraine fashion industry has drawn international attention.
USAID Project Manager Natalia Petrova spoke of the “remarkable resilience, commitment and awareness” of Ukrainian businesses since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Disruptions on the domestic market caused by decrease in demand by population and broken supply chains, are pushing companies to explore export opportunities to diversify their sales,” she added.
ANDREAS KRONTHALER FOR VIVIENNE WESTWOOD
Kink mated with art in the typically quirky fare from Kronthaler — a staple show where a fashion surprise is all but expected.
With his usual encyclopedic flair, Kronthaler wove an aesthetic from yesteryear — medieval and renaissance nobles and peasants — into his drape-heavy silhouettes. Guests almost felt like they were at the theater.
Juliette sleeves mixed with black Renaissance tarbuds, decorated collars and even one wacky but stylish blue loose tuxedo look that could have been worn by the Bard himself. Of course, Kronthaler accessorized it anachronistically with pale blue striped rugby socks. Added to the creative cauldron were chunky Glam Rock boots and a Highlands kilt style with white trimming at the male model’s nether regions, making it look like they might have gotten a front bite.
The opening image of Irina Shayk, often voted among the most beautiful models in the world, in a shiny black bustier and silver-ring earrings riffing off S&M will surely be one picture few quickly forget.
ELIE SAAB REVISITS THE 60s
The late 1960s got a facelift on Saturday in a collection that featured babydoll dresses, miniskirts, psychedelia, crop-tops and jabot collars — but never lost that floaty, contemporary Saab touch.
The first look from Saab at his Paris fashion show fused a 1960s angelic-white crop top and a maxi skirt with an ethnic look, thanks to a construction of interlocking motifs. This fusion of different eras continued throughout the show, which sent out 68 items.
Lace detailing was a big theme and became the front of a baggy pale tracksuit top. In an anachronism that defined this Saab spring aesthetic, it was worn alongside a sheer 1990s’ tulle skirt. It had a great swag and could have very well been seen at a music festival in that decade.
Flashes of Barbie pink and citrus contrasted with psychedelic stripes on column silhouettes, sometimes making it feel like Saab was trying to put too much in the mix. The collection was ultimately hard to pin down.
Ukrainian soldiers near Lyman, Ukraine, on September 22. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times/Redux)
Ukrainian forces have entered Stavky, a village neighboring Lyman in the Kramatorsk district of Donetsk, Serhii Cherevatyi, the military spokesperson for the eastern grouping of Ukrainian forces, told local media on Saturday.
“The Russian group in the area of Lyman is surrounded. The settlements of Yampil, Novoselivka, Shandryholove, Drobysheve, and Stavky are liberated. Stabilization measures are ongoing there,” Cherevatyi said in a televised press conference.
“[The liberation] of Lyman is important, because it is another step towards the liberation of the Ukrainian Donbass. This is an opportunity to go further to Kreminna and Severodonetsk. Therefore, in turn, it is psychologically very important,” he said.
Cherevatyi said the Ukrainian troops actions are setting the tone to “break the course of these hostilities.”
“Yes, there are many killed and wounded among them. However, the operation is not yet complete. And only after its completion, the headquarters will conduct an analysis and give more significant results,” he said.
Serhiy Hayday, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, also spoke Saturday with further details on the Lyman takeover, suggesting Russian forces had offered to retreat, but to no avail from the Ukrainian side.
“Occupiers asked [their command] for possibility to retreat, and they have been refused,” Hayday said.
“There are several thousand of them. Yes, about 5,000. There is no exact number yet. Five thousand is still a colossal grouping. There has never been such a large group in the encirclement before. All routes for the supply of ammunition or the retreat of the group are all completely blocked,” he added.
A Ukrainian member of Parliament and deputy head of the parliament’s committee on national security, Yurii Mysiagin, referenced the move into Stavky on Saturday by publishing a video on social media platform Telegram showing a Ukrainian tank moving up the road with a clear sign indicating the region of Stavky. CNN could not independently verify the original source or the date.
There has been no official Russian response to the fighting in the region.
The House of Representatives voted on Friday to approve a stopgap bill to fund the government through December 16, averting a shutdown just hours ahead of a midnight deadline when funding was set to expire.
Lawmakers had expressed confidence there wouldn’t be a shutdown, but it is typical of Congress in recent years to run right up against funding deadlines.
In part, that’s because the opposing parties find it easier to reach last-minute deals to stave off a shutdown under tight time pressure.
This time around, neither party wanted to be blamed for a shutdown – especially so close to the consequential November midterm elections where control of Congress is at stake and as Democrats and Republicans are both trying to make their case to voters that they should be in the majority. Lawmakers up for reelection are also eager to finish up work on Capitol Hill so they can return to their home states to campaign.
In addition to money to keep government agencies afloat, the short-term funding measure provides around $12 billion for Ukraine as it continues to counter Russia’s invasion of the country, and requires the Pentagon to report on how US dollars have been spent there. The aid to Ukraine is a bipartisan priority.
The continuing resolution also extends an expiring FDA user fee program for five years.
The $12 billion in additional funding for Ukraine provides money for the US to continue sending weapons to replenish US stocks that have been sent to the country over the past seven months during the ongoing conflict.
In order to continue providing Ukraine with weapons to counter Russia’s offensive, the bill allocates an additional $3 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. This pot of money allows the US to procure and purchase weapons from industry and send them to the country, instead of drawing directly from US stockpiles of weapons.
The bill also authorizes an additional $3.7 billion in presidential drawdown authority funding, which allows the US to send weapons directly from US stockpiles, and $1.5 billion is included to “replenish US stocks of equipment” provided to Ukraine, a fact sheet from Senate Democrats about the bill states.
The bill designates $4.5 billion for the “economic support fund” to provide “support to maintain the operation of Ukraine’s national government,” the fact sheet states.
The US has provided Ukraine with significant economic and military support since Russia’s invasion of the country began in February, committing more than $16.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, since the Russian invasion began in February, a Department of Defense release stated on Wednesday.
This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.
HELSINKI — Polling stations opened Saturday in Latvia for a general election influenced by neighboring Russia’s attack on Ukraine, disintegration among the Baltic country’s sizable ethnic-Russian minority and the economy, particularly high energy prices.
Several polls showed the center-right New Unity party of Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins emerging as the top vote-getter with up to 20% support.
Karins, who became head of Latvia’s government in January 2019, currently leads a four-party minority coalition that along with New Unity includes the center-right National Alliance, the centrist Development/For!, and the Conservatives.
Support for parties catering to the ethnic-Russian minority that makes up over 25% of Latvia’s 1.9 million population is expected to be mixed; a share of part of loyal voters have abandoned them – for various reasons – since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
A total of 19 parties have over 1,800 candidates running in the election, but only around eight parties are expected to break through the 5% threshold required to secure a place in the 100-seat Saeima legislature.
Liz Truss’ first full week as British Prime Minister has not been an easy one. It began with the pound crashing to its lowest level in decades following her government’s mini-budget last Friday. It ended with her meeting the UK’s independent financial forecaster and having to explain herself after a week of economic chaos.
This weekend, she will travel to Birmingham to attend her Conservative party’s annual conference, a meeting that could become a defining moment in her premiership.
Her party is bitterly divided. Since becoming leader, poll ratings have sunk lower than they were even under the disgraced leadership of Boris Johnson. Conservative members of Parliament fear the combination of tax cuts along with huge public spending to help people cope with energy bills, rising inflation, rising interest rates and a falling pound are going to make winning the next general election impossible.
Even her supporters privately say that while they support her tax cuts, the communication has been appalling and fear that she might never recover from her disastrous start. Many are comparing it to Black Wednesday in 1992, when sterling crashed sufficiently that the UK had to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Then-Prime Minister John Major never recovered from the crisis and despite an economic recovery, lost the next election in 1997.
For now, no one expects the government to reverse its policy. “They are stuck with this. The thing with radical policy that shakes market confidence is that U-turning creates even more instability and won’t restore market confidence,” says one Conservative MP.
Beyond how a U-turn might look to those outside, the more important reason Truss is likely to stick to her guns is that she sincerely believes that her economic plan is the right thing for Britain. Her supporters argue that the UK has had anemic growth for years. They believe that a more competitive tax system and new regulatory system is the best way to encourage investment, create jobs and grow the economy.
In itself, this is not a controversial idea. What some fear is that the combination of tax cuts and borrowing to fund public spending is a disastrous combination of policies that have been poorly communicated at the worst possible time.
“We look like reckless gamblers who only care about the people who can afford to lose the gamble,” one former Conservative minister told CNN earlier this week. “My fear is that it’s the final role of the dice to win the next election that has already backfired.”
The idea that this is a gamble, Truss’ kitchen sink moment, to do something drastic and win the next election, is shared by other Conservatives.
However, they are concerned that these policies have been cooked up by politicians who spend too much time in Westminster talking to people who agree with them, but are alienated from what average voters are concerned about.
“Ordinary people are seeing their mortgages go up at a rate that outstrips any government support for energy bills or money saved through tax cuts,” says another former minister. “The crazy thing is that Boris [Johnson] won an 80-seat majority with an electoral coalition that still exists today. Ripping up his government’s policies and reinventing the wheel just wasn’t necessary.”
The mood going into Conservative Party conference is undeniably bleak. Not everyone thinks that the next election is already lost, but most think the current situation is a mess that needs sorting out very quickly.
“They need to explain their fiscal rules, cut spending on white elephant projects and not look like they are doing everything so hastily,” says a Conservative MP who supported Truss’ leadership campaign.
Another Truss ally says: “The problem with Liz and Kwasi [Kwarteng, the finance minister] is they are both very intelligent and think about six moves ahead of everyone else. They need to explain their actions more clearly and give people the time to understand what they are trying to do.”
And her critics also believe there are ways of turning this around without losing face. “They could keep the policies but roll them out slowly. Kick some stuff into the long grass so there isn’t so much immediate impact.”
There is also the real possibility that her plans work. Sterling could recover, the economy could grow against the odds and she might have some real wins to take into next election, which is still probably over two years away.
The question Conservatives are asking is, does Truss have the political talent, both herself and in the team around her, to win over the public?
Her team is full of young people who are undeniably skilled, but in some cases lack the experience you’d typically associate with people who work for the leader of a country, many Conservatives believe. There is also a sense that the third change in leaders in six years has burned through the talent.
There is still time for Truss to turn things around. But she is losing support from her own side, and there is already speculation that Conservative MPs are thinking about ways to get rid of her, which is incredible just weeks into her premiership.
The official opposition Labour Party held their conference earlier this week, and the mood was one of cautious optimism. Almost everyone there, from corporate PRs to party activists, felt this was a party on the verge of power.
In the coming week, Truss needs to address her own party faithful and give them something to be optimistic about. If she doesn’t, the sense of inevitability that power is slipping away from the Conservatives could become a self-fulfilling prophecy that drives the party into the wilderness after over a decade at the top of British politics.
The Pentagon is working to form a new command to coordinate arming and training Ukraine, according to two US officials, in an effort to streamline what was a largely ad hoc process rapidly created in the wake of Russia’s invasion.
The new command, to be based at Weisbaden in Germany, will fall under Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the commander of US European Command, which has led the multinational effort to train Ukrainian military forces on advanced Western weapons and deliver those weapons to the border with Ukraine, one official said. It is expected to be led by a 3-star general.
But the US has been careful in how it discusses the plan, which the officials emphasized is not a major change to the current system of organizing and administering shipments. Officials are careful not to give Putin a reason to claim the US is party to the conflict, especially given the elevated rhetoric coming from the Kremlin about the threat of nuclear weapons usage.
The New York Times was first to report about the new command.
The Biden administration has openly signaled its ongoing and long-term support for Ukraine. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in late-February, the US has committed more than $16 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. This week, the Pentagon announced another $1.1 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine, which a senior defense official called a “multiyear investment” in the country’s defenses.
Since the first weeks of the war, the US has looked for ways to quickly and effectively translate Ukrainian requests for different types of equipment into shipments of weapons, turning a process that normally takes weeks or more into a matter of days.
As Ukrainian forces proved they could stand up to the Russian invasion, and as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a quick victory turned into a bruising war, the number of countries willing to provide security assistance to Ukraine grew.
The US and its allies and partners established the Ukraine Contact Group, consisting of more than 40 countries meeting monthly, to coordinate shipments of weapons and equipment into Ukraine.
The new command will create a more formal structure within the military to manage the shipments, officials said. Its anticipated location in central Germany also places it close to many of the areas used by Western countries to train Ukrainian forces.
The command would also work closely with the International Donor Coordination Center, which has played a critical role in handling the logistics necessary to match the need for Ukrainian weapons with the available stocks of potential donor countries.
The draft resolution, circulated by the United States and Albania, was supported by ten of the fifteen members of the Council, with Russia voting against it. Four members abstained, Brazil, China, Gabon and India.
The draft described the so-called referendums held by Russia in the four regions of Ukraine which Moscow now regards as sovereign territory – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya – as illegal and an attempt to modify Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.
Withdraw now
It called on all States, international organisations, and agencies not to recognize the Russian annexation declaration, and called on Russia to “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces” from Ukrainian territory.
Due to Russia’s veto, following a new procedure adopted in the UN General Assembly in April, the Assembly must now meet automatically within ten days for the 193-member body to scrutinize and comment on the vote. Any use of the veto by any of the Council’s five permanent members triggers a meeting.
On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the annexation plan as a violation of international law, warning that it marked a “dangerous escalation” in the seven-month war that began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
“The Charter is clear”, said the UN chief. “Any annexation of a State’s territory by another State resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the Principles of the UN Charter”.
Speaking before the vote, United States Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that the referendums were a “sham”, predetermined in Moscow, “held behind the barrel of Russian guns.”
UN Photo/Laura Jarriel
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield of the United States addresses the UN Security Council meeting on Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine.
Defending sacred principles: US
“We all have an interest in defending the sacred principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, in defending peace in our modern world”, she told ambassadors.
“All of us understand the implications for our own borders, our own economies and our own countries, if these principles are tossed aside.
“It’s about our collective security, our collective responsibility to maintain international peace and security…This is what this body is here to do”, she said.
UN Photo/Laura Jarriel
Ambassador Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia of the Russian Federation addresses the UN Security Council meeting on Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine.
‘No turning back’: Russia
Responding for Russia, Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, accused the drafters of the resolution of a “low grade provocation”, to force his country to use its veto.
“Such openly hostile actions on the part of the West, are a refusal to engage and cooperate within the Council, a refusal of practices and experience gained over many years.”
He said there had been “overwhelming” support from residents in the four regions that Russia now claims. “The residents of these regions do not want to return to Ukraine. They have made an informed and free choice, in favour of our country.”
He said that the outcome of the so-called referendums had been recognized by international observers, and now, after being endorsed by the Russian Parliament, and by presidential decrees, “there will be no turning back, as today’s draft resolution would try to impose.”
‘Urgent’ need to address fallout from Nord Stream pipeline leaks
Security Council members stayed in the chamber on Friday afternoon in New York, to discuss this week’s Nord Stream pipeline explosions, which the NATO military alliance and others, believe may be an act of sabotage.
Earlier in the day, President Putin accused the West of being responsible for damaging the Russian-built undersea natural gas pipelines – a charge strongly rejected by the United States and allies.
Briefing ambassadors on the UN’s behalf, the Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), said that while the causes of the four leaks were being investigated, “it is equally urgent to address the consequences of these leaks.”
DESA’s Navid Hanif, said the UN was in no position to or confirm any of the reported details relating to the leaks detected on Monday. They Nord Steam 1 and 2 pipelines have been at the centre of the European energy supply crisis stemming from Russia’s February invasion, and neither are in operation pumping gas to European nations at this time.
Mr. Hanif said were three main impacts of the leaks, beginning with increased pressure on global energy markets.
“The incident can exacerbate the high price volatility on the energy markets in Europe and around the world”, he said, adding that the potential harm to the environment was another matter of concern.
Methane danger
The discharge of hundred of millions of cubic metres of gas, “would result in hundreds of thousands of tonnes of methane emissions”, he said, a gas which has “80 times the planet-warming potency of carbon dioxide”.
Finally, he said the pipeline explosions also made “manifestly clear” just how vulnerable critical energy infrastructure is, during such times of global crisis.
He said it showed just how important it was to move to a “clean, resilient, sustainable energy system, while ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all.”
Finally, he told the Council that any attack on civilian infrastructure is unacceptable, and the incident must not be allowed to further increase tensions amid an escalating war.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Treasury chief met with the independent Office of Budget Responsibility on Friday amid efforts to ease concerns about unfunded government tax cuts that have unleashed turmoil on financial markets.
The meeting was significant because it was the government’s failure to publish the OBR’s analysis of its tax-cutting plans that spooked investors, sending the pound to a record low against the dollar earlier this week and forcing the Bank of England to intervene in the bond market to protect pension funds.
The OBR promised an analysis by Oct. 7, far sooner than the date previously suggested — Nov. 23 — when the government releases more details on its economic plans. The oversight body promised that its forecast “will, as always, be based on our independent judgment about economic and fiscal prospects, and the impact of the government’s policies.”
The chairman of the House of Commons’ Treasury committee said the meeting was an opportunity for the government to change course. Truss and Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng were likely to have “difficult” conversations with the OBR because investors want to see independent analysis showing that their plans won’t push government borrowing to unsustainable levels, said Mel Stride, a member of Truss’ Conservative Party.
“The judgment so far of the markets, and indeed myself and many others, is that what was announced last Friday, unfortunately, doesn’t stack up fiscally and some changes are almost certainly going to need to be made,” Stride told the BBC.
Truss defended her plan Thursday and shrugged off the market chaos, saying she was willing to make “controversial and difficult decisions” to get the U.K. economy growing. She said the problems facing the economy — namely high inflation driven by soaring energy prices — were global and spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
She got a piece of good news Friday, with revised figures showing the U.K. economy grew slightly in the three months through June, indicating the country isn’t technically in a recession, with two consecutive quarters of shrinking GDP being one definition.
Her government’s economic stimulus program calls for 45 billion pounds ($48 billion) of tax cuts and no spending reductions, meaning a surge of borrowing would be used to pay for the cuts that many see as benefiting the wealthy. She also has capped energy bills for households and businesses that are driving a cost-of-living crisis, though prices are still going up Saturday as natural gas prices soar.
Treasury minister Andrew Griffith had played down the significance of the meeting between the government and OBR, but nonetheless described it as a “very good idea.”
“Just like the independent Bank of England, they have got a really important role to play,’’ Griffith said of the OBR during an interview with Sky News. “We all want the forecasts to be as quick as they can, but also as a former finance director, I also know you want them to have the right level of detail.”
The decision to meet with the OBR also was welcomed by Conservative lawmakers and senior party figures, including former Chancellor George Osborne, who oversaw the creation of the independent spending watchdog in 2010.
“Turns out the credibility of the institution we created 12 years ago to bring honesty to the public finances is more enduring than that of its critics,” Osborne said on Twitter.
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 (IPS) – The Kremlin has announced that a ceremony will take place Friday in Moscow that will launch a process of annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
In this moment of peril, I must underscore my duty as Secretary-General to uphold the Charter of the United Nations.
The UN Charter is clear.
Any annexation of a State’s territory by another State resulting from the threat or use of force is a violation of the Principles of the UN Charter and international law.
The United Nations General Assembly is equally clear.
In its landmark Friendly Relations Declaration of 24 October 1970 —repeatedly cited as stating rules of general international law by the International Court of Justice — the General Assembly declared that “the territory of a State shall not be the object of acquisition by another State resulting from the threat or use of force” and that “no territorial acquisition resulting from the threat or use of force shall be recognized as legal”.
And I must be clear.
The Russian Federation, as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, shares a particular responsibility to respect the Charter.
Any decision to proceed with the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine would have no legal value and deserves to be condemned.
It cannot be reconciled with the international legal framework.
It stands against everything the international community is meant to stand for.
It flouts the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.
It is a dangerous escalation.
It has no place in the modern world.
It must not be accepted.
The position of the United Nations is unequivocal: we are fully committed to the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions.
I want to underscore that the so-called “referenda” in the occupied regions were conducted during active armed conflict, in areas under Russian occupation, and outside Ukraine’s legal and constitutional framework.
They cannot be called a genuine expression of the popular will.
Any decision by Russia to go forward will further jeopardize the prospects for peace.
It will prolong the dramatic impacts on the global economy, especially developing countries and hinder our ability to deliver life-saving aid across Ukraine and beyond.
It is high time to step back from the brink.
Now more than ever, we must work together to end this devastating and senseless war and uphold the UN Charter and international law.
Targetted humanitarian convoy planned to travel into Russian-occupied territory to pick up relatives and take them to safety, Zaporizhzhia regional governor says.
A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least 23 people and wounded dozens of others, a Ukraine official said.
A Russian official blamed Ukrainian forces for the deadly strike.
Zaporizhzhia regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh made the announcement in an online statement on Friday. He said there were at least 28 wounded when Russian forces targeted a humanitarian convoy heading to Russian-occupied territory.
He posted images of burned out vehicles and bodies lying in the road.
“As of now we know about 23 dead and 28 injured. All civilians, local people. Burn in hell damned Russians,” Oleksandr Starukh wrote on Telegram.
Starukh said those in the convoy planned to travel into Russian-occupied territory to pick up their relatives and then take them to safety. He said rescuers were at the site of the attack.
It comes as Moscow prepares to annex four regions into Russia after an internationally criticised referendum vote as part of its invasion of Ukraine. Those regions include areas near Zaporizhzhia, but not the city itself, which remains in Ukrainian hands.
KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed at least 23 people and wounded dozens, an official said Friday, just hours before Moscow planned to annex more of Ukraine in an escalation of the seven-month war.
Zaporizhzhia Regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh made the announcement in an online statement Friday. He said there were at least 28 wounded when Russian forces targeted a humanitarian convoy heading to Russian-occupied territory.
He posted images of burned out vehicles and bodies lying in the road. Russia did not immediately acknowledge the strike.
The attack comes as Moscow prepares to annex four regions into Russia after an internationally criticized, gunpoint referendum vote as part of its invasion of Ukraine. Those regions include areas near Zaporizhzhia, but not the city itself, which remains in Ukrainian hands.
Starukh said those in the convoy planned to travel into Russian-occupied territory to pick up their relatives and then take them to safety. He said rescuers were at the site of the attack.
The annexation — and planned celebratory concerts and rallies in Moscow and the occupied territories — would come just days after voters supposedly approved Moscow-managed “referendums” that Ukrainian and Western officials have denounced as illegal, forced and rigged.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that four regions of Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — would be folded into Russia during a Kremlin ceremony attended by President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to give a major speech. Peskov said the regions’ pro-Moscow administrators would sign treaties to join Russia in the Kremlin’s ornate St. George’s Hall.
In an apparent response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting Friday of his National Security and Defense Council.
Zelenskyy also sought to capitalize on anti-war sentiment in Russia by issuing a special video directed at Russia’s ethnic minorities, especially those in Dagestan, one of the country’s poorer regions in the North Caucasus.
“You do not have to die in Ukraine,” he said, wearing a black hoodie that read in English “I’m Ukrainian,” and standing in front of a plaque in Kyiv memorializing what he called a Dagestani hero. He called on the ethnic minorities to resist mobilization.
The U.S. and its allies have promised to adopt even more sanctions than they’ve already levied against Russia and to offer millions of dollars in extra support for Ukraine as the Kremlin duplicates the annexation playbook it followed when it incorporated Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Putin early Friday issued decrees recognizing the independence of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, steps he had taken in February regarding Luhansk and Donetsk and earlier for Crimea.
Ukraine has repeated its vows to recapture the four regions, as well as Crimea. For its part, Russia pledges to defend all its territory — including newly annexed regions — by all available means, including nuclear weapons.
Heightening the tensions are Russia’s partial military mobilization and allegations of sabotage of two Russian pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor that were designed to feed natural gas to Europe. Adding to the Kremlin’s woes are Ukraine’s success in recapturing some of the very land Russia is annexing and problems with the mobilization that President Vladimir Putin acknowledged Thursday.
Ukraine’s Western supporters have described the stage-managed referendums on whether to live under Russian rule as a bald-faced land grab based on lies. They say some people were forced to vote at gunpoint in an election without independent observers on territory from which thousands of residents have fled or been forcibly deported.
In unusually strong language, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Thursday in New York that Russia’s annexation would violate the U.N. Charter and has “no legal value.” He described the move as “a dangerous escalation” and said it “must not be accepted.”
“Any decision by Russia to go forward will further jeopardize the prospects for peace,” Guterres said.
As a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia bears “a particular responsibility” to respect the U.N. Charter, the secretary-general said.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres conveyed the message to Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, on Wednesday.
In what would be a major blow to Moscow’s war effort, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian forces may soon encircle Lyman, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“The collapse of the Lyman pocket will likely be highly consequential to the Russian grouping” in the northern Donetsk and western Luhansk regions and “may allow Ukrainian troops to threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk” region, the institute said, citing Russian reports.
Joe Biden says US will ‘never, never, never’ recognise Russian claims to Ukrainian territories amid looming annexation.
The United States Senate has passed a short-term government funding bill that provides $12.3bn in aid to Ukraine, as the Biden administration promises to maintain financial support for Kyiv to battle the Russian invasion.
The legislation, passed by a 72-25 Senate vote on Thursday, is expected to be approved in the House of Representatives before making it to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The bill would fund the US government until mid-December, avoiding a looming shutdown before the fiscal year ends at midnight on Friday.
It also authorises the transfer of $3.7bn in US weapons to Ukraine — the latest in a series of substantial Congressional packages that American legislators say aim to bolster Ukraine’s defences against Russia.
In May, Congress approved $40bn in assistance to Ukraine, and earlier this year it allocated $13.6bn for Kyiv to respond to the invasion.
The Biden administration has been dispensing the money through periodic packages of humanitarian and military aid.
Russia launched the invasion of its neighbour in February after a months-long standoff that saw Putin demand an end to NATO expansion into former Soviet republics.
But Moscow’s military campaign has been mired by setbacks. In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces — backed by US weaponry — recaptured large swaths of territory in a counteroffensive in the east of the country.
This week, Russia is preparing to annex four occupied regions in eastern Ukraine after Moscow-installed officials in the territories held widely condemned votes to join Russia.
The US and its allies have denounced the so-called “referendums” and rejected Russia’s annexation plans as a violation of the United Nations charter.
“I want to be very clear about this, [the] United States will never, never, never recognise Russia’s claims on Ukraine sovereign territory,” Biden said on Thursday.
US officials also have promised to impose new sanctions on Russia if it goes through with the annexation.
On Wednesday, the White House said the annexation push has “no legal significance whatsoever”.
Washington also pledged to “impose additional economic costs on Russia and individuals and entities inside and outside of Russia that provide support to this action“.
Aid for Ukraine has so far enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, but a vocal contingency of right-wing legislators has been questioning the assistance ahead of US midterm elections in November.
“Ukraine aid is turning into a monthly subscription cost for the United States,” Republican Congressman Andy Biggs wrote on Twitter earlier this week. “There must be limits and oversight with American taxpayer dollars.”
