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Tag: Russia-Ukraine war

  • Russia’s Putin to visit ICC member Mongolia despite arrest warrant

    Russia’s Putin to visit ICC member Mongolia despite arrest warrant

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    Trip would be Russian president’s first to a member of International Criminal Court since warrant  over ‘war crimes’.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Mongolia next week despite the country being a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued a warrant for his arrest last year.

    The visit, scheduled for September 3, will be Putin’s first trip to an ICC member state since The Hague-based court issued the arrest warrant in March 2023 accusing the president of the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-controlled territory.

    On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were “no worries” over the visit, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

    The visit is taking place on the invitation of Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh. “We have a wonderful dialogue with our friends from Mongolia,” Peskov said.

    Under the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty, ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom an arrest warrant has been issued if they set foot on their soil. However, the court does not have any enforcement mechanism.

    The ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin was its first against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

    Putin has avoided travel to ICC member states ever since the warrant, which he deems “null and void”, was issued. Last year, he skipped a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in Johannesburg.

    ICC member South Africa lobbied Moscow for months for Putin not to attend to avoid the diplomatic fallout, announcing that the countries had reached a “mutual agreement” that the BRICS regular not attend the meeting.

    Putin took part by videolink, during which he launched a tirade against the West.

    Armenia vexed Russia last year over its decision to join the ICC, adding to growing tensions between the old allies.

    Armenian officials, however, quickly sought to assure Russia that Putin would not be arrested if he entered the country.

    Mongolia signed the Rome Statute in 2000 and ratified it in 2002.

    The Kremlin said Putin will hold talks with Khurelsukh and other top Mongolian officials, participating in “ceremonial events dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of the Soviet and Mongolian armed forces over the Japanese militarists on the Khalkhin Gol River”.

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  • Russia launches a heavy bombardment of Ukraine for the third time in 4 days

    Russia launches a heavy bombardment of Ukraine for the third time in 4 days

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    KYIV, Ukraine — One of the handful of F-16 warplanes that Ukraine has received from its Western partners to help fight Russia’s invasion has crashed, Ukraine’s Army General Staff said Thursday. The pilot died.

    The fighter jet went down on Monday, when Russia launched a major missile and drone barrage at Ukraine, a military statement posted on Facebook said. Four of those Russian missiles were shot down by F-16s, the statement said.

    The crash was the first reported loss of an F-16 in Ukraine, where they arrived at the end of last month. At least six of the warplanes are believed to have been delivered.

    The Defense Ministry has opened an investigation into the crash.

    Earlier Thursday, Russia conducted a heavy aerial attack on Ukraine for the third time in four days, again launching missiles and scores of drones that mostly were intercepted, Ukraine’s air force said.

    Russian forces fired five missiles and 74 Shahed drones at Ukrainian targets, an air force statement said. Air defenses stopped two missiles and 60 drones, and 14 other drones presumably fell before reaching their target, it said.

    Authorities in the capital, Kyiv, said debris of destroyed drones fell in three districts of the city, causing minor damage to civilian infrastructure but no injuries.

    Russia’s relentless and unnerving long-range strikes on civilian areas have been a feature of the war since it invaded its neighbor in February 2022.

    Belgium, Denmark the Netherlands and Norway — all NATO members — have committed to providing Ukraine with more than 60 of the planes. That number is dwarfed by the Russian jet fighter fleet, which is around 10 times larger.

    Ukraine needs at least 130 F-16 fighter jets to neutralize Russian air power, Kyiv officials say.

    U.S. officials told The Associated Press at the end of last month that the first of a batch of F-16s promised by European countries had arrived in Ukraine.

    Military analysts have said their arrival won’t be a game-changer in the war, given Russia’s massive air force and sophisticated air defense systems. But Ukrainian officials welcomed them as offering an opportunity to hit back at Russia’s air superiority.

    Ukraine has until now been using Soviet-era warplanes, and its pilots underwent intense training on the F-16s in the West for months. The usual training period is three years.

    U.S. President Joe Biden granted authorization in August 2023 for the U.S.-built warplanes to be sent to Ukraine. That came after months of pressure from Kyiv and internal debate in the U.S. administration where officials feared the move could escalate tensions with the Kremlin.

    The F-16s can fly up to twice the speed of sound and have a maximum range of more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers). They can also fire modern weapons used by NATO countries.

    Ukrainian officials have recently become more vocal in their long-standing insistence that Western countries supporting their war effort should scrap restrictions on what Ukraine is allowed to target inside Russia with long-range weapons they have provided.

    Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his pleas for Western allies to untie his hands in deciding what to strike on Russian soil.

    “All our partners should be more active — much more active — in countering Russian terror,” Zelenskyy said late Wednesday. “We continue to insist that their determination now — lifting the restrictions on long-range strikes for Ukraine now — will help us to end the war as soon as possible in a fair way for Ukraine and the world as a whole.”

    The European Union’s top diplomat on Thursday backed Zelenskyy’s push for international backers to end their limits.

    Ukraine has deployed domestically produced drones to strike Russia.

    The Russian military said Thursday it had thwarted an overnight attack on Crimea. The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces destroyed three Ukrainian sea drones aimed at the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

    The Russia-installed governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev added that four Ukrainian aerial drones and three sea drones were destroyed “at a significant distance” from the peninsula’s shore.

    In the meantime, Ukraine’s Army General Staff acknowledged Thursday Ukraine’s involvement in strikes this week on oil depots deep inside Russia, where blazes broke out.

    The attacks in the Rostov and Kirov regions were part of Ukraine’s effort to disrupt logistical infrastructure supporting Russia’s war machine.

    ___

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

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  • 5 dead in Ukrainian shelling at border region; Russian fire hits hotel with reporters

    5 dead in Ukrainian shelling at border region; Russian fire hits hotel with reporters

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Five people died in Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s border region of Belgorod, officials said Sunday, while Russian forces struck a hotel in eastern Ukraine, leaving one journalist missing and two others injured.

    Twelve other people were wounded in the Russian village of Rakitone, 38 kilometers (23 miles) from the Ukrainian border, including a 16-year-old girl reported to be in critical condition, said regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. Another man also died in a separate drone attack on the border village of Solovevka, he wrote later on social media.

    Russian forces struck a hotel overnight in the city of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, injuring two people and leaving one trapped under the rubble, regional Gov. Vadym Filashkin said. They were reported to be journalists from Ukraine, the U.S. and the U.K.

    Reuters news agency said Sunday that its journalist covering the war in Ukraine was missing and two other team members were hospitalized after Hotel Sapphire, where a six-person crew was staying, was hit “by an apparent missile strike” on Saturday. “One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment,” the agency said.

    The rest of the team has been accounted for, the news agency said.

    Local officials said that the hotel had been struck with an Iskander-M Russian ballistic missile, leaving the reporters with blast injuries, concussions, and cuts on the body.

    Associated Press reporters at the scene described the former hotel as “rubble,” with excavators still being used to clear debris hours after the attack.

    In addition to the hotel, a nearby multistory building was also destroyed, Filashkin said, and rescuers were busy clearing the debris at the site.

    Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region also came under Russian fire, resulting in multiple civilian injuries, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

    In Kharkiv’s Chuhuiv region, five people were injured, including a 4-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl, after two houses were struck by Russian fire. In Kharkiv city, eight people were wounded when a two-story house was set on fire by a Russian attack.

    In Balakliia, a Russian strike destroyed six houses and damaged others. A 55-year-old man was injured. In the Kupiansk area, a house was set on fire by a Russian attack, wounding four women.

    ___

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

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  • China opposes US sanctions on firms over alleged ties to Russia’s war efforts

    China opposes US sanctions on firms over alleged ties to Russia’s war efforts

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    China has expressed its opposition to the latest U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies over their alleged ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying it would adopt necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the country’s businesses

    BEIJING — China on Sunday expressed its opposition to the latest U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies over their alleged ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying it will adopt necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the country’s businesses.

    The U.S. on Friday announced sweeping sanctions on hundreds of firms in Russia and across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, accusing them of providing products and services that enable Russia’s war effort and aiding its ability to evade sanctions. The U.S. Department of State said it was concerned by “the magnitude of dual-use goods exports” from China to Russia.

    The Ministry of Commerce in China in its statement firmly opposed the U.S. putting multiple Chinese companies on its export control list. The move bars such companies from trading with U.S. firms without gaining a nearly unobtainable special license.

    The ministry said the U.S. action was “typical unilateral sanctions,” saying they would disrupt global trade orders and rules, as well as affect the stability of the global industrial and supply chains.

    “China urges the U.S. to immediately stop its wrong practices and will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interest of Chinese companies,” it said.

    The U.S. action is the latest in a series of thousands of U.S. sanctions that have been imposed on Russian firms and their suppliers in other nations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The effectiveness of the sanctions has been questioned, especially as Russia has continued to support its economy by selling oil and gas on international markets.

    According to the U.S. State Department, some China-based companies supplied machine tools and components to Russia companies.

    China has tried to position itself as neutral in the Ukraine conflict, but it shares with Russia high animosity toward the West.

    After Western countries imposed heavy sanctions on Russian oil in response to Russia sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, China strongly stepped up its purchase of Russian oil, increasing its influence in Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin also underlined the importance of China by meeting in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon after being inaugurated for a fifth term in the Kremlin.

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  • China opposes US sanctions on firms over alleged ties to Russia’s war efforts

    China opposes US sanctions on firms over alleged ties to Russia’s war efforts

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    China has expressed its opposition to the latest U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies over their alleged ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying it would adopt necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the country’s businesses

    BEIJING — China on Sunday expressed its opposition to the latest U.S. sanctions on Chinese companies over their alleged ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying it will adopt necessary measures to safeguard the rights and interests of the country’s businesses.

    The U.S. on Friday announced sweeping sanctions on hundreds of firms in Russia and across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, accusing them of providing products and services that enable Russia’s war effort and aiding its ability to evade sanctions. The U.S. Department of State said it was concerned by “the magnitude of dual-use goods exports” from China to Russia.

    The Ministry of Commerce in China in its statement firmly opposed the U.S. putting multiple Chinese companies on its export control list. The move bars such companies from trading with U.S. firms without gaining a nearly unobtainable special license.

    The ministry said the U.S. action was “typical unilateral sanctions,” saying they would disrupt global trade orders and rules, as well as affect the stability of the global industrial and supply chains.

    “China urges the U.S. to immediately stop its wrong practices and will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interest of Chinese companies,” it said.

    The U.S. action is the latest in a series of thousands of U.S. sanctions that have been imposed on Russian firms and their suppliers in other nations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The effectiveness of the sanctions has been questioned, especially as Russia has continued to support its economy by selling oil and gas on international markets.

    According to the U.S. State Department, some China-based companies supplied machine tools and components to Russia companies.

    China has tried to position itself as neutral in the Ukraine conflict, but it shares with Russia high animosity toward the West.

    After Western countries imposed heavy sanctions on Russian oil in response to Russia sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, China strongly stepped up its purchase of Russian oil, increasing its influence in Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin also underlined the importance of China by meeting in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon after being inaugurated for a fifth term in the Kremlin.

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  • Moscow and Kyiv exchange attacks, swap prisoners as Ukraine marks 33rd independence anniversary

    Moscow and Kyiv exchange attacks, swap prisoners as Ukraine marks 33rd independence anniversary

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    Russia and Ukraine exchanged over 100 prisoners of war on Saturday as Kyiv marked its third Independence Day since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.Related video above: Ukrainian authorities order evacuation of eastern city of Pokrovsk amid Russian advance Ukraine said the 115 servicemen who were freed were conscripts, many of whom were taken prisoner in the first months of Russia’s invasion. Among them are nearly 50 soldiers captured by Russian forces from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.The Russian Defense Ministry said the 115 Russian soldiers had been captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia two weeks ago. The ministry said the soldiers were currently in Belarus, but would be taken to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that the United Arab Emirates had again brokered the exchange, the 55th since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.Photos attached to Zelenskyy’s post show gaunt servicemen with shaven heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.”We remember each and every one. We are searching and doing our best to get everyone back,” Zelenskyy said in the post.Officials from the two sides meet only when they swap their dead and POWs, after lengthy preparation and diplomacy. Neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses how many POWs there are in total.According to the U.N., most Ukrainian POWs suffer routine medical neglect, severe and systematic mistreatment, and even torture while in detention. There have also been isolated reports of abuse of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transit to internment sites.Last January, Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release.Drone and artillery attacks continueFive people were killed and five others wounded in Russian shelling of the center of the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, local officials said.In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed two people and wounded four, including a baby, officials said.Ukraine’s air force said it had intercepted and destroyed seven drones over the country’s south. Russian long-range bombers also attacked the area of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island with four cruise missiles, while the wider Kherson region was also struck by aerial bombs.In Russia, the Defense Ministry said Saturday that air defenses had shot down seven drones overnight.Five drones were downed over the southwestern Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, wounding two people, regional Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said. Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate claimed to have blown up a warehouse storing 5,000 tonnes of ammunition in the region’s Ostrogozhsky district. News outlet Astra published videos appearing to show explosions at the ammunition depot after being hit by a drone. The videos could not be independently verified.Two people were wounded in a drone attack in the Belgorod region, also bordering Ukraine, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Local authorities did not report any casualties in the Bryansk region, where the fifth drone was intercepted.In the Kursk region, regional Gov. Alexei Smirnov said Saturday that three missiles were shot down overnight and another four on Saturday morning.Russian air defenses shot down two more drones on Saturday morning, Russia’s Defense Ministry said — one over the Kursk region and one over the Bryansk region.Independence Day commemorationsUkraine marked its 33rd Independence Day Saturday as its war against Russia’s aggression reaches a 30-month milestone. No festivities are planned, and instead, Ukrainians will mark the day with commemorations for civilians and soldiers killed in the war.Poland’s President Andrzej Duda arrived by train early Saturday to Kyiv in a symbolic show of support from one of Ukraine’s key allies.Videos posted by his office show him being greeted by Ukrainian officials and later paying his respects in a ceremony at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine.Duda’s visit to Kyiv, his fifth since February 2022, sends a message that Warsaw’s support for Ukraine remains strong as the war drags on for the third year.Poland, located to Ukraine’s west, has donated arms and become a hub for Western weapons destined for Ukraine. It has also welcomed tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled the war. It hosts the most Ukrainian refugees outside of the country after Germany.A trade dispute over Ukrainian grain that dragged down ties last year, and historical grievances between the two countries, sometime provoke bad feelings, particularly among Poles who remember a World War II-era massacre by Ukrainian nationalists.___Morton reported from London.

    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) —

    Russia and Ukraine exchanged over 100 prisoners of war on Saturday as Kyiv marked its third Independence Day since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

    Related video above: Ukrainian authorities order evacuation of eastern city of Pokrovsk amid Russian advance

    Ukraine said the 115 servicemen who were freed were conscripts, many of whom were taken prisoner in the first months of Russia’s invasion. Among them are nearly 50 soldiers captured by Russian forces from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said the 115 Russian soldiers had been captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia two weeks ago. The ministry said the soldiers were currently in Belarus, but would be taken to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that the United Arab Emirates had again brokered the exchange, the 55th since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

    Photos attached to Zelenskyy’s post show gaunt servicemen with shaven heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.

    “We remember each and every one. We are searching and doing our best to get everyone back,” Zelenskyy said in the post.

    Officials from the two sides meet only when they swap their dead and POWs, after lengthy preparation and diplomacy. Neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses how many POWs there are in total.

    According to the U.N., most Ukrainian POWs suffer routine medical neglect, severe and systematic mistreatment, and even torture while in detention. There have also been isolated reports of abuse of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transit to internment sites.

    Last January, Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release.

    Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

    In this photo taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, a Russian soldier fires from D-30 howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

    Drone and artillery attacks continue

    Five people were killed and five others wounded in Russian shelling of the center of the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, local officials said.

    In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Russian shelling killed two people and wounded four, including a baby, officials said.

    Ukraine’s air force said it had intercepted and destroyed seven drones over the country’s south. Russian long-range bombers also attacked the area of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island with four cruise missiles, while the wider Kherson region was also struck by aerial bombs.

    In Russia, the Defense Ministry said Saturday that air defenses had shot down seven drones overnight.

    Five drones were downed over the southwestern Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, wounding two people, regional Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said. Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate claimed to have blown up a warehouse storing 5,000 tonnes of ammunition in the region’s Ostrogozhsky district. News outlet Astra published videos appearing to show explosions at the ammunition depot after being hit by a drone. The videos could not be independently verified.

    Two people were wounded in a drone attack in the Belgorod region, also bordering Ukraine, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Local authorities did not report any casualties in the Bryansk region, where the fifth drone was intercepted.

    In the Kursk region, regional Gov. Alexei Smirnov said Saturday that three missiles were shot down overnight and another four on Saturday morning.

    Russian air defenses shot down two more drones on Saturday morning, Russia’s Defense Ministry said — one over the Kursk region and one over the Bryansk region.

    A veteran pays his respect at a makeshift memorial for fallen Ukrainian soldiers during the Ukrainian Independence Day on Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

    Efrem Lukatsky

    A veteran pays his respect at a makeshift memorial for fallen Ukrainian soldiers during the Ukrainian Independence Day on Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

    Independence Day commemorations

    Ukraine marked its 33rd Independence Day Saturday as its war against Russia’s aggression reaches a 30-month milestone. No festivities are planned, and instead, Ukrainians will mark the day with commemorations for civilians and soldiers killed in the war.

    Poland’s President Andrzej Duda arrived by train early Saturday to Kyiv in a symbolic show of support from one of Ukraine’s key allies.

    Videos posted by his office show him being greeted by Ukrainian officials and later paying his respects in a ceremony at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine.

    Duda’s visit to Kyiv, his fifth since February 2022, sends a message that Warsaw’s support for Ukraine remains strong as the war drags on for the third year.

    Poland, located to Ukraine’s west, has donated arms and become a hub for Western weapons destined for Ukraine. It has also welcomed tens of thousands of Ukrainians who fled the war. It hosts the most Ukrainian refugees outside of the country after Germany.

    A trade dispute over Ukrainian grain that dragged down ties last year, and historical grievances between the two countries, sometime provoke bad feelings, particularly among Poles who remember a World War II-era massacre by Ukrainian nationalists.

    ___

    Morton reported from London.


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  • Ukraine marks 33rd Independence Day as war against Russia rages

    Ukraine marks 33rd Independence Day as war against Russia rages

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    KYIV, Ukraine — A somber atmosphere pervades Ukraine’s 33rd Independence Day Saturday, as the nation’s war against Russia’s aggression reaches a 30-month milestone. No fireworks, parades or concerts are planned and instead Ukrainians will mark the day with commemorations for civilians and soldiers killed in the war.

    Ukrainians have flooded social media with messages of gratitude and support, greeting each other and thanking the soldiers on the front lines. In the outpouring of unity, there’s a shared acknowledgment that the two-and-a-half years have been tough, with fatigue increasingly setting in.

    “Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said to the nation. “Independence descends into the shelter during an air raid, only to endure and rise again and again to tell the enemy: You will achieve nothing.”

    Zelenskyy pointed out that the war started by Russia has now spread to its own territory. “Those who seek to sow evil on our land will reap its fruits on their own soil,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s incursion earlier this month into Russia’s Kursk region.

    The president symbolically chose to record his address in the northeastern town of Sumy, just a few kilometers (miles) from the Russian border, where Ukrainian forces crossed into Russia on August 6.

    “913 days ago, Russia launched its war against us, partly through Sumy region,” Zelenskyy said. “They violated not only sovereign borders but also the boundaries of cruelty and common sense, driven by an insatiable desire to destroy us.”

    Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, gave the war a startling turn, adding a new front to the conflict to counter Russia’s grinding advances in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Ukraine quickly seized considerable Russian territory, including scores of small towns, and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, moves that may influence the war’s trajectory.

    “And those who sought to turn our lands into a buffer zone should now worry that their own country doesn’t become a buffer federation,” he said. “This is how independence responds.”

    Ukraine’s military claims to hold 1,200 square kilometers (480 square miles) of Russian territory in Kursk, and in the past week it has also launched drone attacks that have struck strategic bridges and Russian airfields and drone bases.

    Even as Ukraine presses its offensive into Russia, however, it is also evacuating residents from Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, as Russian forces are now 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the strategic city.

    Residents of Pokrovsk, once a city of 60,000, on Friday registered for evacuation at a central school and then, carrying bundles of belongings, boarded trains to take them to areas further from the conflict.

    Also on Friday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the capital, Kyiv. After hugging Zelenskyy, Modi offered “as a friend” to help bring peace to Ukraine. The Indian leader’s visit, although brief, raised hopes among many in the war-battered country that he will help pave the way for an Indian role in peace mediation.

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  • Zelenskyy visits border area for first time since Ukrainian offensive into Russia

    Zelenskyy visits border area for first time since Ukrainian offensive into Russia

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    KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy toured the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy on Thursday in his first visit to the border area since his forces launched their surprise cross-border offensive more than two weeks ago, seizing dozens of Russian villages and the town of Sudhza.

    Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces have claimed control of another settlement in the Russian region of Kursk and taken more Russian prisoners of war whom he hopes to swap for captured Ukrainians, adding to what he calls an “exchange fund.”

    “Another settlement in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control, and we have replenished the exchange fund,” Zelenskyy wrote on the social media platform X after hearing a report from the military commander, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

    While he traveled to an area close to the area of the Ukrainian incursion into Russia, he did not go into Russia itself — a move that would have been regarded by Moscow as a provocation. He has previously said that Ukraine has no plan to occupy the area long term but wants to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from that area into Ukraine.

    After his meeting with local military authorities, Zelenskyy said the Kursk operation launched Aug. 6 has led to a decrease in Russian shelling and a reduction in civilian casualties in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.

    The daring Ukrainian foray into the Kursk region has rattled the Kremlin, showing Russia’s vulnerability and shattered President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to pretend that the country has been largely unaffected by the 2 1/2 year war.

    Authorities in Kursk began to put up concrete shelters at bus stops and other locations around the city to protect it from shelling and plan similar work in Zheleznogorsk and Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, the region’s acting Gov. Alexei Smirnov said on his Telegram channel.

    Putin said in a video call with officials that he has ordered the creation of self-defense units in Russian regions bordering Ukraine.

    Smirnov reported to Putin that over 133,000 people have left areas affected by the fighting in the Kursk region, while more than 19,000 have stayed.

    The governor of Bryansk, another Russian region bordering Ukraine, said authorities in the region have conducted training for emergency evacuation from border areas in case it is needed.

    Separately, the Defense Ministry reported repelling Ukrainian attacks near the villages of Komarovka, Malaya Loknya, Korenevka and several other settlements in the Kursk region.

    Ukraine’s capture of Russian territory comes as Ukraine continues to lose ground in eastern Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that its military has claimed control of the village of Mezhove in Donetsk, part of the industrial Donbas region which Moscow seeks to take entirely.

    Ukraine’s push into Russia marks the first capture of Russian territory since World War II.

    It comes as both sides in the war use drones to attack far within enemy lines.

    Ukraine attacked Russia overnight with 28 drones, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said. Thirteen were shot down over the Volgograd region, seven over the Rostov region, four over the Belgorod region, two over the Voronezh region, and one each over the Bryansk and Kursk regions, the ministry said.

    Andrei Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said Thursday that a military facility caught fire after being attacked by drones in the area of Marinovka where a Russian military air base is located. He did not specify what was damaged.

    Videos shared on Russian social media showed an explosion in the night sky, reportedly near the base. Marinovka is about 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of the Ukrainian border.

    Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack.

    Ukraine’s Security Service and the Special Operation Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted the drone attack Wednesday night, striking the Marinovka airfield, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

    The Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russian law enforcement, said one drone was taken down several kilometers (miles) from the airfield near Marinovka and that wreckage from another fell on a trailer near the air base, causing it to catch fire.

    Data from NASA fire satellites, which monitor Earth for forest blazes, showed fires breaking out around the air base’s apron, where fighter jets were previously seen parked.

    Another fire burned Thursday in Russia’s Rostov region, where firefighters struggled for the fifth day to put out a fire at an oil depot in the town of Proletarsk. State news agency Tass said 47 firefighters have been injured while putting out the blaze.

    Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press showed the fire at the oil depot still intensely burning as of Wednesday. Storage tanks at the facility appeared engulfed in flames. Visible flames could be seen in the images, with a thick black smoke cloud drifting west over the city of Proletarsk.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Emma Burrows in London and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.

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  • Ukraine votes to join ICC as it seeks to bring Russia to justice

    Ukraine votes to join ICC as it seeks to bring Russia to justice

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    Membership of the court, which prosecutes crimes against humanity, also advances Ukraine’s EU aspirations.

    Ukraine’s parliament has voted to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), with politicians billing the move as a means of enabling the country to “punish” suspected Russian war criminals.

    Parliament voted on Wednesday to ratify the Rome Statute, which paves the way for full membership of the ICC, with 281 in favour of the measure, according to lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak, posting on Telegram.

    One politician in the 450-member body voted against ratification, The Kyiv Independent reported.

    The ICC prosecutes grave offences like genocide and crimes against humanity, and has the power to issue arrest warrants that its 124 members are obliged to execute.

    Last year, the court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and Russian-controlled territory.

    The Hague-based court issued warrants in June for former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    “Ukraine has already worked effectively with the ICC to ensure comprehensive accountability for all Russian atrocities committed in the course of Russian aggression,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on X.

    “This work will now be even more effective.”

    EU aspirations

    Full membership of the ICC also advances Ukraine’s aspiration to eventually join the European Union. All EU member states are signatories and the bloc has been one of the court’s strongest supporters.

    Ukraine signed the Rome Statute that founded the court in 2000, but had not ratified it, as some political and military figures expressed fears that Ukrainian soldiers could face prosecution.

    In June, senior presidential adviser Iryna Mudra described attempts to hold up the ratification process as a “disinformation campaign” falsely suggesting Ukrainian troops would be more vulnerable to prosecution.

    In an interview, she described Kyiv’s bid for ICC membership as “a long journey full of challenges, myths and fears. None of them have been true”.

    Zhelezniak said deputies had been presented with letters of support from Ukraine’s General Staff and the head of Kyiv’s military intelligence before voting.

    The ratification controversially included a reference to Article 124 of the Rome Statute, which would exempt Ukrainian citizens from being prosecuted for war crimes for seven years, ruling party politician Yevheniia Kravchuk said on Facebook.

    “The ratification of the Rome Statute will simultaneously facilitate greater opportunities for punishing Russians and increase the isolation of Russia,” she said.

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  • Russia tightens security in Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an incursion as fighting persists

    Russia tightens security in Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an incursion as fighting persists

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Saturday announced what it called a counterterrorism operation to increase security in the border region of Kursk, where an incursion this week by Ukrainian forces caught Russian troops off-guard and exposed its military vulnerabilities in the nearly 2½-year-old war.

    The Russian Defense Ministry said that fighting was continuing in the Kursk region and that the army has conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian forces, including using a thermobaric bomb that both causes a blast wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates its targets.

    The measures announced for Kursk, and for the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine, allow the government to relocate residents, control phone communications and requisition vehicles.

    The raid that began on Tuesday is the largest cross-border foray of the war and raises concerns about fighting spreading well beyond Ukraine.

    In neighboring Belarus, where Russian troops are deployed but which hasn’t sent its own army into Ukraine, President Alexander Lukashenko said Saturday that its air defenses shot down unspecified objects launched from Ukraine that were flying over Belarusian territory.

    “I do not understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to figure it out. As I said before, we made it clear to them that any provocations will not go unanswered,” Lukashenko said, according to state news agency Belta.

    Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin later identified the objects as drones and said that Lukashenko has ordered troop reinforcements sent to border areas.

    A Russian plane-launched missile slammed into a Ukrainian shopping mall on Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 44 others, authorities said.

    The mall in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, is located in the town’s residential area. Thick black smoke rose above it after the strike.

    “This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post.

    It was the second major strike on the town in almost a year. Last September, a Russian missile hit an outdoor market there, killing 17.

    July saw the heaviest civilian casualties in Ukraine since October 2022, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said Friday. Conflict-related violence killed at least 219 civilians and injured 1,018 over the month, the mission said.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said that reinforcements are being sent to Kursk to counter Ukraine’s raid, with Russia deploying multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, tanks transported on trailers and heavy tracked vehicles.

    The ministry reported fighting on the outskirts of Sudzha, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border. The town has an important pipeline transit hub for Russian natural gas exports to Europe.

    A Russian Emergencies Ministry spokesman said Saturday that about 76,000 residents of the area have been evacuated.

    There has been little reliable information on the daring Ukrainian operation, and its strategic aims are unclear. Ukrainian officials have refused to comment on the incursion, which is taking place about 500 kilometers (320 miles) southwest of Moscow.

    Five days since it was launched, Ukrainian officials still haven’t commented on the operation, but some Ukrainian soldiers appeared to break with that policy of silence by posting videos and photos on social media.

    In one video posted late Friday, soldiers purported to be from the 61st Brigade hold a Ukrainian flag appear to be standing outside a local Gazprom facility in Sudzha based on sign in the background.

    “Everything is calm in the town,” they say, adding, “All the buildings are safe, strategic object of Gazprom in Sudzha is under the control of the 99th Mechanized Battalion.”

    A press officer for the brigade said they couldn’t comment on the authenticity of the video. The Associated Press has established that there is a Gazprom facility about 2 kilometers (1¼ miles) from the center of Sudzha, in a neighboring village on the outskirts of the town about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the border.

    In another video, Ukrainian soldiers from the 252 Battalion claim to be standing in the village of Poroz in Russia’s Belgorod region, about 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) from the border. The video marks the first time any incursion into that area has been reported. The AP geolocated the building where the soldiers stood, but couldn’t determine when the videos were shot.

    Asked about Ukraine’s incursion, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday the United States was “in touch with our Ukrainian counterparts,” but that he wouldn’t comment until “those conversations are complete.”

    “There’s been no changes in our policy approaches,” Kirby said when asked about U.S. policy on use of weapons. “They’re using it in an area where we had said before that they could use U.S. weapons for cross-border strikes. The end goal here is to help Ukraine defend itself.”

    Mathieu Boulegue, a defense analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, said that the Ukrainians appear to have a clear goal, even if they’re not saying what it is.

    “Such a coordinated ground force movement responds to a clear military objective,” Boulegue told the AP. Also, the raid has spooked the Russian public and delivered a slap in the face to Russian President Vladimir Putin, offering Ukraine “a great PR coup,” he said.

    The attack “is a massive symbol, a massive display of force (showing) that the war is not frozen,” he said.

    ___

    Jim Heintz reported from Tallinn, Estonia.

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  • Czech power company CEZ says its net profit in the first half of 2024 totaled $912 million, down 5%

    Czech power company CEZ says its net profit in the first half of 2024 totaled $912 million, down 5%

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    PRAGUE (AP) — The dominant Czech power company CEZ said on Thursday its net profit totaled 21.1 billion Czech crowns ($912 million) in the first half of the year, down 5% from the same period a year earlier.

    CEZ attributed the result to lower profits from commodity trading and the impact of maintenance of its two nuclear power plants.

    It said it expects net profit for the entire year to total 25 billion to 30 billion Czech crowns.

    The Czech state has an almost 70% stake in the company.

    CEZ’s 2023 net profit was 29.6 billion Czech crowns, down more than 63% from the previous year, which saw record profits.

    The country’s main electricity producer attributed the decline to a windfall tax on profits introduced as energy prices rose.

    In 2022, the company’s profit soared on an enormous rise in prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, higher profits from commodity trading on foreign markets and high operational reliability of its power plants.

    That resulted in record dividends of 145 Czech crowns per share.

    CEZ previously said it expected dividends between 39 and 52 crowns per share.

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  • Ukraine intensifies long-range strikes, sinking Russian submarine, striking airfield

    Ukraine intensifies long-range strikes, sinking Russian submarine, striking airfield

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine has sunk a Russian submarine and hit a Russian airfield in the past 24 hours, in line with a surge of long-range attacks against Russian targets, officials said. Russia said Ukrainian drones also hit an apartment building, killing one person.

    The uptick in attacks since July come as Ukraine mounts pressure on allies to allow it to use long-range missiles to strike targets in Russia. Western allies, in particular the U.S., have so far resisted, fearing escalation from Moscow.

    Ukraine struck a Russian Kilo-class submarine and an S-400 anti aircraft missile complex in the Moscow-occupied Crimean peninsula, according to a statement from the General Staff on Saturday. The air defense system was established to protect the Kerch Strait Bridge, an important logistics and transport hub supplying Russian forces.

    Units of the missile forces, as well as the Navy damaged four launchers of the Triumph air defense system, while in the port of Sevastopol, the “Rostov-on-Don” — a submarine of Russia’s Black Sea fleet — was attacked and sank, the statement said.

    The General Staff also confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region after launching a massive drone barrage on Russia. Hits were recorded in warehouses with ammunition, where guided aerial bombs were stored. The operation was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine, the Main Directorate of Intelligence and the Defense Ministry, the statement said.

    Meanwhile, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said that a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on an apartment building in the town of Shebekino early Sunday. Ukrainian drones also damaged several other buildings in the town, he said.

    Gladkov said eight civilians have been wounded in the region by Ukrainian shelling and dozens of drone strikes since the previous day.

    In the span of a month, Russia has experienced a surge in the tempo of Ukrainian drone barrages and long-range attacks, targeting Russian military infrastructure, including airfields and oil depots. Analysts say such an intensification is needed if Ukraine is to degrade Russian capabilities.

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  • US and Russia complete biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, freeing Gershkovich and Whelan

    US and Russia complete biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, freeing Gershkovich and Whelan

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    WASHINGTON — The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan in a multinational deal that set some two dozen people free, according to officials in Turkey, where the exchange took place.

    The trade followed years of secretive back-channel negotiations despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    The sprawling deal is the latest in a series of prisoner swaps negotiated between Russia and the U.S. in the last two years but the first to require significant concessions from other countries. But the release of Americans has come at a price: Russia has secured the freedom of its own nationals convicted of serious crimes in the West by trading them for journalists, dissidents and other Westerners convicted and sentenced in a highly politicized legal system on charges the U.S. considers bogus.

    The White House did not immediately release any details on the deal.

    In a statement posted online, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President and CEO Stephen Capus acknowledged media reports that a journalist working for the broadcaster, Alsu Kurmasheva, would be released as part of the deal.

    Capus said the broadcaster welcomed ’’news of Alsu’s imminent release and are grateful to the American government and all who worked tirelessly to end her unjust treatment by Russia.” Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, was convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected.

    The deal would be the latest exchange in the last two years between Washington and Moscow, including a December 2022 trade that brought WNBA star Brittney Griner back to the U.S. in exchange for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout and a swap earlier that year of Marine veteran Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

    President Joe Biden placed securing the release of Americans held wrongfully overseas at the top of his foreign policy agenda for the six months before he leaves office. In his Oval Office address to the American people discussing his recent decision to drop his bid for a second term, the Democrat said, “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”

    Russia also got back Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services, according to a statement from the Turkish government.

    Speculation had mounted for weeks that a swap was near because of a confluence of unusual developments, including a startingly quick trial and conviction for Gershkovich that Washington regarded as a sham. He was sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.

    Also in recent days, several other figures imprisoned in Russia for speaking out against the war in Ukraine or over their work with the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny were moved from prison to unknown locations.

    Gershkovich was arrested March 29, 2023, while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg. Authorities claimed, without offering any evidence, that he was gathering secret information for the U.S. The son of Soviet emigres who settled in New Jersey, he moved to the country in 2017 to work for The Moscow Times newspaper before being hired by the Journal in 2022.

    He had more than a dozen closed hearings over the extension of his pretrial detention or appeals for his release. He was taken to the courthouse in handcuffs and appeared in the defendants’ cage, often smiling for the many cameras.

    U.S. officials last year made an offer to swap Gershkovich that was rejected by Russia, and Biden’s Democratic administration had not made public any possible deals since then.

    Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained, as was Whelan, who was detained in December 2018 after traveling to Russia for a wedding. Whelan was convicted of espionage charges, which he and the U.S. have also said were false and trumped up, and he is serving a 16-year prison sentence.

    Whelan had been excluded from prior high-profile deals involving Russia, including those involving Reed and Griner.

    ____

    Litvinova reported from Tallinn, Estonia, and Lee from Mongolia. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Russian media throw shade at Paris Olympics, which TV won’t show

    Russian media throw shade at Paris Olympics, which TV won’t show

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    TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Watching the Paris Olympics will be difficult for most people in Russia — and in the view of its media, it’s not really worth the effort.

    Only 15 Russian citizens will be competing in the Games and, in principle, they won’t be representing Russia. Because Russia and neighboring Belarus were banned from fielding national teams because of the war in Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian athletes approved to compete will be doing so as neutrals.

    Russians have been intense Olympics fans since the days when the Soviet Union’s sports prowess was nicknamed “The Big Red Machine.” But with so few of their countrymen competing, Russia’s state TV channels aren’t broadcasting any of the events. Russians may find feeds online, but could need a virtual private network to circumvent the country’s block of some channels.

    The last time the Olympics weren’t on TV in Russia — which has won the second-largest number of medals, counting the Soviet era — was in 1984, when the Soviet Union boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

    State news channel Rossiya 24 did broadcast a report from Paris on the opening ceremony Friday night, showing dancing and plumes of colored smoke rising over the Seine River. News agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti gave it glancing attention, with terse stories saying the opening ceremony had begun, but little detail other than noting the rain drove many spectators away.

    Newspapers aren’t ignoring the Olympics entirely, but their main approach has been to accentuate the negative, writing at length about crime in Paris, the inconvenience of barricades placed throughout the city and reported food shortages for athletes.

    “The Paris Olympics is an amazing event, if not to say a phenomenon: Competitions in individual disciplines have just just started, the opening ceremony has not even taken place, and so many scandals have already accumulated that they will be enough for several Games,” Sovietsky Sport newspaper reporter Alexander Shulgin wrote Thursday.

    “I think that this Olympics will go down in history with a completely negative result,” the newspaper Sport-Ekspress quoted Irina Rodnina, a three-time figure skating gold winner and now a member of the Russian parliament, as saying.

    A whiff of schadenfreude floats through many of the stories. Writing about the fences and barriers erected in Paris, Sovietsky Sport’s Andrei Tupikov said: “Once upon a time, everyone pointed their finger at the structure of sports competitions in Russia. Many did not like the fact that before any mass events there were too many different fences and barriers around the arenas and stadiums. … In our reality the practice is slowly fading away, but in Europe it is being actively adopted.”

    Shulgin, seemingly smarting from criticism about the facilities at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, suggested Paris may face an opening ceremony embarrassment similar to Sochi’s, when a display of the Olympic rings malfunctioned.

    “If the ring did not open in Sochi, it’s scary to imagine what could happen in Paris,” he wrote, but did not follow up after the ceremony.

    No such disaster occurred, but Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Saturday compared Paris unfavorably to Sochi.

    “The Western media did not like (stray) dogs at the Sochi Games. In Paris, they were smiled at by the rats that flooded the city streets,” she said in a statement. She also called the opening ceremony “ridiculous.”

    Commentary on the Paris Games also verged into ethical and philosophical questions, such as whether one should root for the few Russians participating despite the national team’s exclusion. To receive approval from the International Olympic Committee, the athletes cannot have demonstrated support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other stipulations.

    Sport-Ekspress commentator Oleg Shamonaev analyzed the connotations of each word in the Individual Neutral Athlete designation and concluded: “The 15 ‘neutrals’ with a Russian passport who did not change their flag, despite 2 1/2 years of sanctions … are worthy not of condemnation but of respect.”

    “It’s stupid to pretend we don’t care about what happens to them at the 2024 Games,” he said.

    ___

    For more coverage of the Paris Olympics, visit https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games.

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  • Five killed, dozens wounded Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as Russia claims new gains

    Five killed, dozens wounded Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as Russia claims new gains

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine on Sunday said it struck an oil depot in southern Russia that supplies the Kremlin’s troops as Russian strikes in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where Moscow claimed further gains, left five civilians dead and 15 others wounded.

    Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Kyiv’s security services were responsible for a drone strike in Russia’s southern Kursk region that morning on an oil depot used to meet the needs of the Russian military, and contains 11 tanks with a total volume of 7,000 cubic meters (about 247,202 cubic feet), adding the attack prompted “powerful explosions and a fire … probably involving containers with oil products.”

    “The defense forces continue to take all measures to undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian occupiers and force the Russian Federation to stop its armed aggression against Ukraine,” the statement said.

    Earlier Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said seven Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian territory, while a regional official said a drone strike set fire to the oil depot in the Kursk province. Firefighters were battling the blaze on Sunday morning after three fuel tanks went up in flames, according to acting regional Gov. Alexey Smirnov. Smirnov said nobody was hurt.

    The Kursk region lies on the border with Ukraine’s Sumy province where Ukraine has in recent months repeatedly targeted various sites, including oil depots and other military infrastructure, inside Russian territory, with drones and other weapons. Ukrainian officials have been pressuring Western allies to be able to use their modern and more sophisticated weapons to strike more valuable targets inside Russian territory.

    Also on Sunday, Russian troops continued to eke out gains in Ukraine’s war-torn eastern Donetsk province as they pushed westward toward the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. Russia’s Defense Ministry on Sunday said that its forces had taken control of two neighboring villages some 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Pokrovsk, Prohres and Yevhenivka. The day before, Moscow claimed the nearby village of Lozuvatske, one of nearly a dozen it says it has captured in the province this month.

    Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, sending millions of people fleeing to neighboring countries. Taking control of all of Donetsk, part of the country’s industrial heartland that now bears the scars of years of fighting, is one of the Kremlin’s main war goals.

    Five civilians died and 15 more suffered wounds following Russian strikes in the Donetsk region on Saturday and overnight, local Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on Telegram Sunday. Shortly later, other Ukrainian officials said Russian shelling wounded more civilians, including children, in the east and south.

    At least eight people suffered wounds after Moscow’s forces on Sunday struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Nikopol, local Gov. Serhii Lysak reported that same day. Lysak said a toddler and a 10-year-old girl were among the victims, six of whom had to be hospitalized.

    Russian shelling on Sunday also wounded eight further civilians, including a 10-year-old and two teenagers, in a village in Ukraine’s southern Kherson province, local official Roman Mrochko reported.

    ___

    Find more AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 885

    Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 885

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    As the war enters its 885th day, these are the main developments.

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  • The US and China air global differences as their top diplomats meet for sixth time since last year

    The US and China air global differences as their top diplomats meet for sixth time since last year

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    VIENTIANE, Laos — The United States and China on Saturday renewed their mutual grievances as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart held their sixth meeting since last year amid an uncertain political situation in the U.S. and growing concerns about China’s increasing assertiveness in Asia and elsewhere.

    Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met for roughly an hour and 20 minutes on the sidelines of an annual Southeast Asian regional security forum in Vientiane, Laos, at which tensions between China and U.S. ally Philippines over disputes in the South China Sea were a prime focus of discussion.

    U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken and Wang had had “an open and productive” discussion but had not reached any significant agreements on the issues that divide them most in the Indo-Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

    “The United States will continue to take necessary actions to safeguard our interests and values, and those of our allies and partners, including on human rights,” Blinken told Wang, according to Miller.

    Blinken “made clear that the United States, together with our allies and partners, will advance our vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said, highlighting recently aggressive Chinese actions toward Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of the mainland and has vowed to reunify by force if necessary.

    The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that despite regular contacts, “the U.S. has not stopped its containment and suppression of China and has even further intensified it.” The statement said the risks to China-U.S. ties “are still accumulating and the challenges are also rising” and that “it is necessary to constantly calibrate the direction, manage risks, properly handle differences, eliminate disturbance and promote cooperation.”

    Blinken scolded China for “destabilizing actions in the South China Sea” and “affirmed the United States’ support for freedom of navigation and overflight and the peaceful resolution of disputes, consistent with international law,” Miller said.

    America’s top diplomat did praise China and the Philippines for concluding an agreement earlier this week that allowed the Philippines on Saturday to make a supply trip to the disputed area without having to confront Beijing’s forces, the first such trip since the deal was concluded.

    “We are pleased to take note of the successful resupply today at the Second Thomas Shoal,” Blinken told Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers before his meeting with Wang. “We applaud that and hope and expect to see that it continues going forward.”

    Prior to the deal, tensions between the Philippines and China escalated for months, with China’s coast guard and other forces using powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel.

    Still, Blinken, who will be in Manila next week as part of his current six-country tour of Asia, also deplored China’s “escalatory and unlawful actions taken against the Philippines in the South China Sea over the last few months.”

    In his meeting with Wang, Blinken also re-raised deep U.S. and European concerns about China’s support of Russia’s defense industrial sector that Washington and capitals in Europe believe Russia is using to ramp up the production of weapons for use in its war against Ukraine.

    Blinken “made clear that if (China) does not act to address this threat to European security, the United States will continue to take appropriate measures to do so,” Miller said. Since that warning was first issued more than a year ago, the U.S. and others have imposed sanctions on more than 300 Russian and Chinese firms engaged in the trade.

    Asked whether the Chinese had responded to those sanctions in the way the U.S. and its allies would like, a senior State Department official said “not enough that our concerns have been put to rest.” The official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss the private diplomatic meeting.

    Blinken’s Asia trip was announced just hours after President Joe Biden said he would step down as a candidate in November’s election in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris. Although the senior official said that decision had not come up in Saturday’s meetings, he said Blinken had pointed out to Wang that Harris had experience with China and had met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok in 2022.

    Also present at the ASEAN meeting in Laos was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, but the senior official said Blinken had no interactions with him.

    From Laos, Blinken flew to Hanoi for a brief stop to offer condolences for the passing last week of Vietnam’s powerful Communist Party chief and was to travel on to Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia.

    In Tokyo and Manila on Sunday and Monday, Blinken will be joined by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin where they will meet with their Japanese and Filipino counterparts to shore up defense cooperation. Blinken will also meet in Tokyo with the Indian and South Korean foreign ministers.

    For the past six decades, there have been large U.S. troop deployments in Japan and South Korea and a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines has been a constant of American policy in Asia.

    Former President Donald Trump, now the Republican candidate for president, cast doubt on the usefulness of U.S. alliances around the world during his first term in office and suggested that the American military presence in Japan and South Korea could be reduced or eliminated.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

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  • NATO member Romania says more Russian drone debris from the Ukraine war has landed on its territory

    NATO member Romania says more Russian drone debris from the Ukraine war has landed on its territory

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    BUCHAREST, Romania — Debris from what is believed to be a Russian drone landed in a rural area of Romania, the country’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, in the latest apparent incident of drone wreckage from the war in neighboring Ukraine falling onto the NATO member’s soil.

    In Ukraine, meanwhile, the country’s president announced that authorities have detained an 18-year-old suspect in connection with the shooting death of a former lawmaker who was an advocate for the use of the Ukrainian language instead of Russian.

    Since the war started in February 2022, Romania has confirmed drone fragments on its territory on several occasions.

    The debris of what the Defense Ministry called a drone of Russian origin was found following Russian attacks on Ukraine’s port infrastructure near the border.

    A statement said the fragments were discovered by a team of specialists in an uninhabited area near the village of Plauru in Tulcea county, which is across the Danube River from the Ukrainian port of Izmail.

    The discovery came after Russia carried out overnight attacks on “civilian targets and port infrastructure” in Ukraine over the past two nights, the ministry said. Those assaults prompted Romania to deploy warplanes to monitor its airspace.

    The ministry strongly condemned the Russian attacks, calling them “unjustified and in serious contradiction with the norms of international law.”

    Romania’s emergency authorities issued text alerts both nights to residents living in Tulcea, and NATO allies were kept informed, the ministry said.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday on his Telegram channel that the suspect in the slaying of Iryna Farion, 60, was detained in Dnipro, hundreds of kilometers (miles) to the east.

    Farion was gunned down in the street in broad daylight last Friday in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Police said the incident was being treated as an assassination.

    “The detention operation was very difficult,” Zelenskyy said. “Over recent days, hundreds of specialists of the National Police of Ukraine, SBU (security service) and other services worked on solving the murder.”

    Farion’s death shocked Ukraine, and several thousand mourners attended her funeral in Lviv.

    Farion was a member of the Ukrainian parliament between 2012 and 2014. She was best known for her campaigns to promote the use of the Ukrainian language by Ukrainian officials who spoke Russian.

    Russian speakers are common in eastern parts of Ukraine, by the border with Russia, and some long-serving officials speak Russian after years of Soviet rule.

    ___

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

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  • Baltic countries notify Russia and Belarus they will exit the Moscow-controlled electricity grid

    Baltic countries notify Russia and Belarus they will exit the Moscow-controlled electricity grid

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    VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — The electricity grid operators of the three Baltic countries on Tuesday officially notified Russia and Belarus that they will exit a 2001 agreement that has kept Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania connected to an electricity transmission system controlled by Moscow.

    The Baltic countries have already stopped buying electricity from Russia. And in a plan announced last year as part of moves to sever ties with Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine, they will shift their grid connections next February to the main continental European energy network in a move to end reliance.

    Utility operators Elering of Estonia, AST of Latvia and Litgrid of Lithuania said that the exit notice was signed in the Latvian capital of Riga on Tuesday. The joint agreement with Moscow and Minsk will end Feb. 7, and the Baltic systems will be disconnected from the grid the next day.

    “We will disconnect and dismantle the last physical connections with Russian and Belarusian grids,” Litgrid CEO Rokas Masiulis said, calling the move an “ambitious energy independence project.”

    The three former Soviet republics do not currently buy electricity from Russia, but remain physically connected to a grid in which the electricity frequency is controlled by Moscow under the 2001 BRELL agreement. The Baltic systems plan to synchronize with the continental European system on Feb. 9, 2025. Both systems use 50 Hz alternating current.

    “Synchronization with Continental Europe Synchronous Area will allow for independent, stable and reliable frequency control of the Baltic states electricity grids and will increase energy security in the region,” Estonia’s grid operator Elering said.

    Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland agreed with the European Union’s executive commission in 2019 to coordinate on connecting the Baltic nations to the EU’s power network by the end of 2025. However, Russia’s war in Ukraine led the Baltic countries to speed up the project.

    The February 2025 date for the transition was a compromise. Lithuania wanted an energy exit as early as this year, citing Moscow’s unreliability and its aggression in Ukraine. Estonia resisted a quicker cutoff, saying it might experience blackouts if the transition happened too soon.

    “The Baltic electricity market has adapted and operates without electricity import from Russia,” said chairman Rolands Irklis from Latvia’s AST.

    “Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Latvia has completely stopped electricity import and export from Russia and Belarus, and synchronization with continental Europe is the last step to achieve country’s independence in the field of electricity supply,” Irklis said.

    There was no immediate response from Russia’s Energy Ministry to a request by The Associated Press for comment.

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    Jari Tanner reported from Helsinki.

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  • China, Russia start joint naval drills

    China, Russia start joint naval drills

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    China and Russia’s naval forces have kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine

    BEIJING — China and Russia’s naval forces on Sunday kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine.

    The Chinese defense ministry said in a brief statement forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.

    The exercise, which began in Guangdong province on Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally, state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, adding it would include anti-missile exercises, sea strikes and air defense.

    Xinhua News Agency reported the Chinese and Russian naval forces carried out on-map military simulation and tactical coordination exercises after the opening ceremony in the city of Zhanjiang.

    The joint drills came on the heels of China’s latest tensions with NATO allies last week.

    The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, made clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance, calling Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.

    In response, China accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Its foreign ministry maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the war in Ukraine.

    Last week, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea also came across several Chinese military ships in international waters but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone, American officials said. Its crew detected three vessels approximately 124 miles (200 kilometers) north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, which mark a separation and linkage between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea.

    Later, a fourth ship was spotted approximately 84 miles (135 kilometers) north of the Amukta Pass.

    The U.S. side said the Chinese naval vessels operated within international rules and norms.

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