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Tag: War and unrest

  • IAEA head: Increased combat around Ukrainian nuclear plant

    IAEA head: Increased combat around Ukrainian nuclear plant

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    DNIPRO, Ukraine — Fighting has intensified near a nuclear power plant in Ukraine that is Europe’s largest, further increasing the possibility of a war-related nuclear accident, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday.

    “There is an increased level of combat, active combat” in the area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano, Grossi told The Associated Press in an interview. “My teams there report daily about the attacks, the sound of heavy weaponry. This is practically constant.”

    Speaking a day before he was to cross the front lines for a second time to visit the plant, Grossi said he felt it was his duty to ramp up talks aimed at safeguarding the facility. He met Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and said he would probably head to Russia in the coming days.

    Grossi has long called for a protection zone to be set up around the plant, which is very near the front line of the war. But so far, an agreement has been elusive.

    “It is a zone of extreme volatility. So the negotiations are, of course, affected by the ongoing military operations,” Grossi said. “I would not characterize the process for the last few months as one that has not led to any progress.”

    The U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog, which is based in Vienna, Austria, has a rotating team permanently based at the plant. The power station’s six reactors are in shutdown and the plant has received the electricity it needs to prevent a reactor meltdown through one remaining functioning power line.

    Plant personnel have had to switch to emergency diesel generators several times during the 13-month war to power essential cooling systems.

    Military analysts expect the fighting between invading Russian troops and Ukrainian forces will further escalate as spring progresses and the ground hardens, allowing heavy military machinery to advance on the battlefield.

    “There is talk about offensives, counter-offensives,” Grossi said. “The concentration of troops, concentration of military equipment, heavy weaponry has grown exponentially in the area near to the plant, which of course, makes us believe that the possibility of an accident, of a renewed attack … could grow.”

    While the last direct shelling of the plant occurred in November, the surrounding area was still being hit, the nuclear agency chief said. “We have far more military activity, and more is announced,” he said.

    The IAEA head said he has discussed the situation at the highest levels with both sides and was still discussing “different scenarios that could lead” to the creation of a protection zone around the plant.

    “This proposal is about preventing a nuclear accident. It Is not to create any situation which may have a military advantage or disadvantage or a legitimization of the situation,” the nuclear agency head said.

    “So I have to walk this fine line talking to both, trying to make it so that both understand very well that a radiological accident … here and also on the Russian side would be extremely serious and it’s something that we really need to avoid.”

    ___

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  • Zelenskyy, atomic agency chief discuss nuclear plant fears

    Zelenskyy, atomic agency chief discuss nuclear plant fears

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    ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — The U.N.’s atomic energy chief warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a meeting Monday that the perilous situation at Europe’s largest nuclear plant “isn’t getting any better” as relentless fighting in the area puts the facility at risk of a nuclear disaster.

    The Zaporizhzhia plant, which continues to power war-torn Ukraine, has lost several of its power transmission cables during Russia’s war, and on multiple occasions has had to switch to emergency diesel generators to power its essential cooling systems preventing a meltdown.

    International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi plans to visit the Russian-held plant this week. The Vienna-based agency has staff permanently deployed at the plant following Russia’s invasion 13 months ago.

    In the meeting, covered exclusively by The Associated Press, Grossi said the situation at the plant remains tense because of the heavy military presence around it and a blackout that recently struck the facility, something that has occurred repeatedly since Russian forces took it over last year.

    Earlier this month, fighting interrupted power supply to the plant for half a day, forcing staff to activate backup generators.

    Grossi expressed alarm at that development. “Each time we are rolling a dice,” he told his agency at the time. “And if we allow this to continue time after time, then one day our luck will run out.”

    Grossi and Zelenskyy met in the the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is in Ukrainian-held territory, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of the nuclear plant with the same name.

    The IAEA announced in January it was placing teams of experts at all four of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants to reduce the risk of accidents.

    The agency’s permanent presence at all of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities marked an unprecedented expansion for the agency. That presence includes the now-closed Chernobyl plant whose deadly nuclear accident in 1986 spread fallout over much of Europe.

    Grossi emphasized that his seventh trip to Ukraine underlined his commitment and support for “as long as it takes.”

    Also attending the meeting were other IAEA officials, the head of the presidential office Andriy Yermak and the head of nuclear state operator Energoatom, Petro Kotin.

    While in Zaporizhzhia, Zelenskyy also inspected military positions in the partially-occupied province and awarded soldiers with military honors. He also visited with wounded soldiers at city hospitals as well as an apartment building that Kyiv claims was hit by Russian forces last Wednesday, killing at least one person.

    Elsewhere, two people were killed and 29 wounded Monday when Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, local officials said.

    Video footage of the aftermath showed damaged residential buildings, debris in the streets and vehicles on fire.

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “terrorism.”

    Russia has denied targeting residential areas even though artillery and rocket strikes have hit Ukrainian apartment buildings and civilian infrastructure daily during the war.

    The Sloviansk attack followed a typical pattern of long-range shelling adopted by the Kremlin’s forces, especially in recent months as the fighting became deadlocked during the bitterly cold winter months.

    In the eastern Donetsk region, some 10 cities and villages were shelled by Russian forces over the previous 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office reported Monday.

    On Monday morning, Russian missiles hit the city of Avdiivka, damaging residential buildings, a hotel and a courthouse, it said.

    Avdiivka Mayor Vitali Barabash said utility companies are being evacuated from the frontline city, as it “resembles more and more a landscape from post-apocalyptic movies.”

    Attacks also intensified in the partially occupied southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, where 14 settlements on the front line were shelled, authorities said.

    In the partially occupied Kherson region, the Ukrainian-controlled part of the province was shelled 20 times by the Russian artillery and aviation, wounding four people, the presidential office said.

    The mayor of the occupied city of Melitopol said several explosions shook the city Monday, damaging a building where Russian security forces have been quartered.

    Mayor Ivan Fyodorov posted photos of smoke billowing over the area where the Russian barracks are located.

    The Russian-installed authorities said “artillery shelling” of Melitopol partially destroyed a vocational school building, damaged several other buildings and wounded four people.

    Meanwhile, Zelenskyy met in Kyiv with British actor Orlando Bloom, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak said Monday.

    Bloom, who is also a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, arrived in the Ukrainian capital over the weekend and visited its suburb of Irpin.

    During his meeting with Zelenskyy, Bloom said “he was struck by the courage and resilience of Ukrainians, who despite the war remain strong,” Yermak wrote.

    Bloom “will support projects to provide humanitarian assistance and restore infrastructure, focused on ensuring the interests of Ukrainian children,” the official said.

    ___

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  • Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan

    Ukraine demands emergency UN meeting over Putin nuclear plan

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s government on Sunday called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council to “counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail” after Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed plans to station tactical atomic weapons in Belarus.

    One Ukrainian official said Russia “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”

    Further heightening tensions, an explosion deep inside Russia wounded three people Sunday. Russian authorities blamed a Ukrainian drone for the blast, which damaged residential buildings in a town just 175 kilometers (110 miles) south of Moscow.

    Russia has said the plan to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus comes in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine. Putin announced the plan in a TV interview that aired Saturday, saying it was triggered by a U.K. decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.

    Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States. He noted that Washington has nuclear weapons based in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

    “We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews,” he said.

    Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned the move in a statement Sunday and demanded an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

    “Ukraine expects effective action to counter the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail by the U.K., China, the U.S. and France,” the statement read, saying these countries “have a special responsibility” regarding nuclear aggression.

    “The world must be united against someone who endangers the future of human civilization,” the statement said.

    Ukraine has not commented on Sunday’s explosion inside Russia. It left a crater about 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter and five meters deep (16 feet), according to media reports.

    Russian state-run news agency Tass reported authorities identified the drone as a Ukrainian Tu-141. The Soviet-era drone was reintroduced in Ukraine in 2014, and has a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

    The explosion took place in the town of Kireyevsk in the Tula region, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the drone crashed after an electronic jamming system disabled its navigation.

    Similar drone attacks have been common during the war, although Ukraine hardly ever acknowledges responsibility. On Monday, Russia said Ukrainian drones attacked civilian facilities in the town of Dzhankoi in Russia-annexed Crimea. Ukraine’s military said several Russian cruise missiles were destroyed, but did not specifically claim responsibility.

    In December, the Russian military reported several Ukrainian drone attacks on long-range bomber bases deep inside Russia. The Russian Defense Ministry said the drones were shot down, but acknowledged that their debris damaged some aircraft and killed several servicemen.

    Also, Russian authorities have reported attacks by small drones in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions on the border with Ukraine.

    On Saturday, Putin argued that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has long asked to have nuclear weapons in his country again to counter NATO. Belarus shares borders with three NATO members — Latvia, Lithuania and Poland — and Russia used Belarusian territory as a staging ground to send troops into neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

    Both Lukashenko’s support of the war and Putin’s plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus has been denounced by the Belarusian opposition.

    Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted Sunday that Putin’s announcement was “a step towards internal destabilization” of Belarus that maximized “the level of negative perception and public rejection” of Russia and Putin in Belarusian society. The Kremlin, Danilov added, “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage.”

    Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield and have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles. Russia plans to maintain control over the ones it sends to Belarus, and construction of storage facilities for them will be completed by July 1, Putin said.

    Russia has stored its tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory, and moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing them closer to Russian aircraft and missiles already stationed there.

    The U.S. said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement. So far, Washington hasn’t seen “any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

    In Germany, the foreign ministry called it a “further attempt at nuclear intimidation,” German news agency dpa reported late Saturday. The ministry went on to say that “the comparison drawn by President Putin to NATO’s nuclear participation is misleading and cannot be used to justify the step announced by Russia.”

    ___

    Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report from Berlin.

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  • New Russian campaign tries to entice men to fight in Ukraine

    New Russian campaign tries to entice men to fight in Ukraine

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    TALLINN, Estonia — Advertisements promise cash bonuses and enticing benefits. Recruiters are making cold calls to eligible men. Enlistment offices are working with universities and social service agencies to lure students and the unemployed.

    A new campaign is underway this spring across Russia, seeking recruits to replenish its troops for the war in Ukraine.

    As fighting grinds on in Ukrainian battlegrounds like Bakhmut and both sides prepare for counteroffensives that could cost even more lives, the Kremlin’s war machine badly needs new recruits.

    A mobilization in September of 300,000 reservists — billed as a “partial” call-up — sent panic throughout the country, since most men under 65 are formally part of the reserve. Tens of thousands fled Russia rather than report to recruiting stations.

    The Kremlin denies that another call-up is planned for what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, now more than a year old.

    But amid widespread uncertainty of whether such a move will eventually happen, the government is enticing men to volunteer, either at makeshift recruiting centers popping up in various regions, or with phone calls from enlistment officials. That way, it can “avoid declaring a formal second mobilization wave” after the first one proved so unpopular, according to a recent report by the U.S.-based think tank Institute of the Study of War.

    One Muscovite told The Associated Press that his employer, a state-funded organization, gathered up the military registration cards of all male employees of fighting age and said it would get them deferments. But he said the move still sent a wave of fear through him.

    “It makes you nervous and scared — no one wants to all of a sudden end up in a war with a rifle in their hands,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal. “The special operation is somewhat dragging on, so any surprises from the Russian authorities can be expected.”

    It’s been more than a week since he handed in his card, he said, and exemptions usually get resolved in a day or two, heightening his anxiety.

    Russian media report that men across the country are receiving summonses from enlistment offices. In most of those cases, men were simply asked to update their records; in others, they were ordered to take part in military training.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that serving summonses to update records in enlistment offices is “usual practice” and a “continued undertaking.”

    Other unconfirmed media reports say authorities have told regional governments to recruit a certain number of volunteers. Some officials announced setting up recruitment centers with the goal of getting men to sign contracts that enable them to be sent into combat as professional soldiers.

    Ads have appeared on government websites and on the social media accounts of state institutions and organizations, including libraries and high schools.

    One of them, posted by a municipal administration in the western Yaroslavl region, promised a one-time bonus of about $3,800 to sign up, and if sent to Ukraine, a monthly salary of up to $2,500, plus about $100 a day for “involvement in active offensive operations,” and $650 “for each kilometer of advancement within assault teams.”

    The ad said the soldier would also get tax and loan repayment breaks, preferential university admission status for his children, generous compensation for his family if he is wounded or killed in action, and the status of a war veteran, which carries even more perks.

    In the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, officials asked universities, colleges and vocational schools to advertise for recruits on their websites, said Sergei Chernyshov, founder of a private vocational school there.

    Chernyshov posted the ad on his social media account “so that everyone knows what our city hall is up to,” but he told the AP that he doesn’t plan to put it on the school website. “It’s weird” to target vocational school students, he said.

    Other efforts include enlistment officials meeting with college students and unemployed men, or phoning men to volunteer.

    A Muscovite who spoke on condition of anonymity for his own safety said that he received such a call and was surprised at how polite it was: “After my ‘No,’ there were no threats or (attempts to) convince me -– (just) ‘Thanks, goodbye.’”

    There have only been isolated cases of enlistment officials really pressuring men to sign up, said Grigory Sverdlin, founder of a group called Go by the Forest that helps men avoid mobilization.

    The group gets up to 100 messages a day from men seeking advice on dealing with summonses or enlistment officials, he said, compared with dozens per day in recent months. In most cases, the officials wanted to update their records with addresses and phone numbers, and they might try to recruit men during that process.

    But Sverdlin said some cases stand out.

    In the Vologda region, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Moscow, the group received messages saying that almost everyone going to the enlistment office after receiving a summons “is forced to sign a paper barring them from leaving the region,” he said.

    Lawyer Alexei Tabalov, who runs the Conscript’s School legal aid group, believes there’s nothing unusual in authorities handing out summonses now. Some of the notices are traditionally served before Russia’s spring conscription draft, scheduled to begin April 1 for those eligible for mandatory service.

    All Russian men from age 18 to 27 must serve one year in the military, but a large share avoid the draft for health reasons or get student deferments. The share of men who avoid the draft is particularly big in Moscow and other major cities, and many simply evade enlistment officials bearing conscription summonses.

    Tabalov said that men have reported going to enlistment offices to update their records but have officials there who “beat around the bush and promote the idea of signing the contract, talk about how one should love their motherland and defend it.”

    He doubted anything could make volunteering attractive after 13 months of a war that has killed and wounded tens of thousands.

    “People already understand what it means to sign a contract,” he said. “Those who got burned once are unlikely to fall into the same trap.”

    Tabalov said that his group continues to get messages from soldiers who want to terminate their contracts, but that isn’t legally possible until President Vladimir Putin ends the partial mobilization, which began in September, with a new decree.

    “Getting out of the war automatically means criminal prosecution,” Tabalov said, adding there have been a flurry of criminal cases since December, with prosecutions of soldiers who desert or go AWOL.

    The news outlet Mediazona counted 247 verdicts in 536 criminal cases on these and similar charges, adding that over a third of those convicted got suspended sentences, which allows authorities to send them back to the front line.

    The current recruitment campaign is similar to one enacted last summer, before the September call-up, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst with the Institute of the Study of War.

    Back then, authorities also used financial incentives, and various volunteer battalions were formed, but the effort clearly wasn’t successful, because Putin eventually turned to the partial mobilization.

    Whether this one will succeed or not is unclear.

    “They’ve already recruited a significant portion of people that were financially incentivized last summer. And they struggled to do so last year,” Stepanenko said.

    The current recruitment effort shows the military’s awareness of manpower needs in Ukraine.

    “What the mobilization campaign of 300,000 servicemen told us is that it’s not enough to form a sufficient strike group for Russia to push forward with its offensive operations,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report.

    ___

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

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  • New Russian campaign tries to entice men to fight in Ukraine

    New Russian campaign tries to entice men to fight in Ukraine

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    TALLINN, Estonia — Advertisements promise cash bonuses and enticing benefits. Recruiters are making cold calls to eligible men. Enlistment offices are working with universities and social service agencies to lure students and the unemployed.

    A new campaign is underway this spring across Russia, seeking recruits to replenish its troops for the war in Ukraine.

    As fighting grinds on in Ukrainian battlegrounds like Bakhmut and both sides prepare for counteroffensives that could cost even more lives, the Kremlin’s war machine badly needs new recruits.

    A mobilization in September of 300,000 reservists — billed as a “partial” call-up — sent panic throughout the country, since most men under 65 are formally part of the reserve. Tens of thousands fled Russia rather than report to recruiting stations.

    The Kremlin denies that another call-up is planned for what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, now more than a year old.

    But amid widespread uncertainty of whether such a move will eventually happen, the government is enticing men to volunteer, either at makeshift recruiting centers popping up in various regions, or with phone calls from enlistment officials. That way, it can “avoid declaring a formal second mobilization wave” after the first one proved so unpopular, according to a recent report by the U.S.-based think tank Institute of the Study of War.

    One Muscovite told The Associated Press that his employer, a state-funded organization, gathered up the military registration cards of all male employees of fighting age and said it would get them deferments. But he said the move still sent a wave of fear through him.

    “It makes you nervous and scared — no one wants to all of a sudden end up in a war with a rifle in their hands,” said the resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisal. “The special operation is somewhat dragging on, so any surprises from the Russian authorities can be expected.”

    It’s been more than a week since he handed in his card, he said, and exemptions usually get resolved in a day or two, heightening his anxiety.

    Russian media report that men across the country are receiving summonses from enlistment offices. In most of those cases, men were simply asked to update their records; in others, they were ordered to take part in military training.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that serving summonses to update records in enlistment offices is “usual practice” and a “continued undertaking.”

    Other unconfirmed media reports say authorities have told regional governments to recruit a certain number of volunteers. Some officials announced setting up recruitment centers with the goal of getting men to sign contracts that enable them to be sent into combat as professional soldiers.

    Ads have appeared on government websites and on the social media accounts of state institutions and organizations, including libraries and high schools.

    One of them, posted by a municipal administration in the western Yaroslavl region, promised a one-time bonus of about $3,800 to sign up, and if sent to Ukraine, a monthly salary of up to $2,500, plus about $100 a day for “involvement in active offensive operations,” and $650 “for each kilometer of advancement within assault teams.”

    The ad said the soldier would also get tax and loan repayment breaks, preferential university admission status for his children, generous compensation for his family if he is wounded or killed in action, and the status of a war veteran, which carries even more perks.

    In the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, officials asked universities, colleges and vocational schools to advertise for recruits on their websites, said Sergei Chernyshov, founder of a private vocational school there.

    Chernyshov posted the ad on his social media account “so that everyone knows what our city hall is up to,” but he told the AP that he doesn’t plan to put it on the school website. “It’s weird” to target vocational school students, he said.

    Other efforts include enlistment officials meeting with college students and unemployed men, or phoning men to volunteer.

    A Muscovite who spoke on condition of anonymity for his own safety said that he received such a call and was surprised at how polite it was: “After my ‘No,’ there were no threats or (attempts to) convince me -– (just) ‘Thanks, goodbye.’”

    There have only been isolated cases of enlistment officials really pressuring men to sign up, said Grigory Sverdlin, founder of a group called Go by the Forest that helps men avoid mobilization.

    The group gets up to 100 messages a day from men seeking advice on dealing with summonses or enlistment officials, he said, compared with dozens per day in recent months. In most cases, the officials wanted to update their records with addresses and phone numbers, and they might try to recruit men during that process.

    But Sverdlin said some cases stand out.

    In the Vologda region, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Moscow, the group received messages saying that almost everyone going to the enlistment office after receiving a summons “is forced to sign a paper barring them from leaving the region,” he said.

    Lawyer Alexei Tabalov, who runs the Conscript’s School legal aid group, believes there’s nothing unusual in authorities handing out summonses now. Some of the notices are traditionally served before Russia’s spring conscription draft, scheduled to begin April 1 for those eligible for mandatory service.

    All Russian men from age 18 to 27 must serve one year in the military, but a large share avoid the draft for health reasons or get student deferments. The share of men who avoid the draft is particularly big in Moscow and other major cities, and many simply evade enlistment officials bearing conscription summonses.

    Tabalov said that men have reported going to enlistment offices to update their records but have officials there who “beat around the bush and promote the idea of signing the contract, talk about how one should love their motherland and defend it.”

    He doubted anything could make volunteering attractive after 13 months of a war that has killed and wounded tens of thousands.

    “People already understand what it means to sign a contract,” he said. “Those who got burned once are unlikely to fall into the same trap.”

    Tabalov said that his group continues to get messages from soldiers who want to terminate their contracts, but that isn’t legally possible until President Vladimir Putin ends the partial mobilization, which began in September, with a new decree.

    “Getting out of the war automatically means criminal prosecution,” Tabalov said, adding there have been a flurry of criminal cases since December, with prosecutions of soldiers who desert or go AWOL.

    The news outlet Mediazona counted 247 verdicts in 536 criminal cases on these and similar charges, adding that over a third of those convicted got suspended sentences, which allows authorities to send them back to the front line.

    The current recruitment campaign is similar to one enacted last summer, before the September call-up, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst with the Institute of the Study of War.

    Back then, authorities also used financial incentives, and various volunteer battalions were formed, but the effort clearly wasn’t successful, because Putin eventually turned to the partial mobilization.

    Whether this one will succeed or not is unclear.

    “They’ve already recruited a significant portion of people that were financially incentivized last summer. And they struggled to do so last year,” Stepanenko said.

    The current recruitment effort shows the military’s awareness of manpower needs in Ukraine.

    “What the mobilization campaign of 300,000 servicemen told us is that it’s not enough to form a sufficient strike group for Russia to push forward with its offensive operations,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau contributed to this report.

    ___

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  • China’s Xi makes 1st Moscow visit as Putin wages Ukraine war

    China’s Xi makes 1st Moscow visit as Putin wages Ukraine war

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    Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow on Monday on a three-day visit that shows off Beijing’s new diplomatic swagger and offers a welcome political lift for Russian President Vladimir Putin as the fighting in Ukraine slows to a grinding war of attrition.

    China and Russia have described Xi’s trip as part of efforts to further deepen their “no-limits friendship.” China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy, and as a partner in opposing what both see as U.S. domination of global affairs.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that over dinner on Monday, Putin and Xi will touch on issues related to Ukraine, adding that Russia’s president will likely offer a “detailed explanation” of Moscow’s view on the current situation.

    Broader talks involving officials from both countries on a range of subjects are scheduled for Tuesday, according to Peskov.

    For Putin, Xi’s presence at the Kremlin is a prestige visit and a diplomatic triumph, allowing him to tell Western leaders allied with Ukraine that their efforts to isolate him have fallen short. Xi’s trip comes just days after the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced it wants to put Putin on trial for the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

    China portrays Xi’s visit as part of normal diplomatic exchanges and has offered little detail about what the trip aims to accomplish, though the nearly 13 months of war in Ukraine cast a long shadow on the talks.

    At a daily briefing in Beijing on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Xi’s trip was a “journey of friendship, cooperation and peace.”

    On the war, Wang said: “China will uphold its objective and fair position on the Ukrainian crisis and play a constructive role in promoting peace talks.”

    Beijing’s leap into Ukraine issues follows its recent success in brokering talks between Iran and its chief Middle Eastern rival, Saudi Arabia, which agreed to restore their diplomatic ties after years of tensions.

    Flushed with that success, Xi called for China to play a bigger role in managing global affairs.

    “President Xi will have an in-depth exchange of views with President Putin on bilateral relations and major international and regional issues of common concern,” Wang said.

    He added that Xi aims to “promote strategic coordination and practical cooperation between the two countries and inject new impetus into the development of bilateral relations.”

    China last month called for a cease-fire and peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cautiously welcomed Beijing’s involvement, but the overture fizzled.

    The Kremlin has welcomed China’s peace plan and said it would be discussed in talks between Putin and Xi that will begin over dinner.

    Washington strongly rejected Beijing’s call for a cease-fire as the effective ratification of the Kremlin’s battlefield gains.

    Kyiv officials say they won’t bend in their terms for a peace accord.

    “The first and main point is the capitulation or withdrawal of the Russian occupation troops from the territory of Ukraine in accordance with the norms of international law and the UN Charter,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted on Monday.

    That means restoring “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” he wrote.

    Xi’s trip to Russia comes after the International Criminal Court on Friday issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges.

    The Kremlin doesn’t recognize the authority of the the International Criminal Court and has rejected its move against Putin as “legally null and void.” China, the United States and Ukraine don’t recognize the ICC, either, but the court’s announcement tarnished Putin’s international standing.

    China’s foreign ministry on Monday called on the ICC to “respect the jurisdictional immunity” of a head of state and “avoid politicization and double standards.”

    Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said Monday that the International Criminal Court’s move to issue an arrest warrant for Putin will have “monstrous consequences” for international law.

    “A gloomy sunset of the entire system of international relations is coming, trust is exhausted,” Medvedev wrote on his messaging app channel.

    He argued that in the past the ICC has destroyed its credibility by failing to prosecute the purported U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    He also cautioned that the court in The Hague could be a target for a Russian missile strike. Medvedev has in the past made bombastic statements and claims.

    ___

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  • China’s Xi meeting Putin in boost for isolated Russia leader

    China’s Xi meeting Putin in boost for isolated Russia leader

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    BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping is due to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow in a political boost for the isolated Russian president after the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes in Ukraine.

    Xi’s government gave no details of what the Chinese leader hoped to accomplish. Xi and Putin declared they had a “no-limits friendship” before the February 2022 attack on Ukraine, but China has tried to portray itself as neutral. Beijing called for a cease-fire last month, but Washington said that would ratify the Kremlin’s battlefield gains.

    The Chinese government said Xi would visit Moscow from Monday to Wednesday but gave no indication when he departed. The Russian government said Xi was due to arrive midday and meet later with Putin.

    China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy and a as partner in opposing what both see as American domination of global affairs.

    The meeting gives Putin and Xi a chance to show they have “powerful partners” at a time of strained relations with Washington, said Joseph Torigian, an expert in Chinese-Russian relations at American University in Washington.

    “China can signal that it could even do more to help Russia, and that if relations with the United States continue to deteriorate, they could do a lot more to enable Russia and help Russia in its war against Ukraine,” Torigian said.

    Beijing’s relations with Washington, Europe and its neighbors are strained by disputes over technology, security, human rights and the ruling Communist Party’s treatment of Hong Kong and Muslim minorities.

    Some commentators have pointed to a possible parallel between Russia’s claims to Ukrainian territory and Beijing’s claim to Taiwan. The Communist Party says the self-ruled island democracy, which split with China in 1949 after a civil war, is obliged to unite with the mainland, by force if necessary. Xi’s government has been stepping up efforts to intimidate the island by flying fighter jets nearby and firing missiles into the sea.

    Taiwan voters will choose a new president next year, and in an apparent bid to sway sentiment, former president Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Nationalist Party will visit China next week.

    Ma presided over a period of warm ties with Beijing, but left office under a cloud after China’s legislature rejected a trade deal amid the country’s largest protests since the 1990s.

    China’s campaign of diplomatic isolation and military threats have prompted a backlash against Chinese companies overseas and growing support for Taiwan in the U.S. House and European parliaments.

    In the latest in a chain of delegations, Bob Stewart, chair of the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group, arrived Sunday in Taipei. Other members of the delegation include Members of Parliament Rob Butler, Sarah Atherton, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Afzal Khan, and Marie Rimmer.

    Along with India and other countries who claim neutrality in the Ukraine conflict, China has stepped up purchases of Russian oil and gas, helping to top up the Kremlin’s revenue in the face of Western sanctions.

    Beijing appears largely to have complied with U.S. warnings not to give military support.

    This week’s meeting follows the ICC announcement Friday of charges that Putin is personally responsible for the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine. Governments that recognize the court’s jurisdiction would be obligated to arrest Putin if he visits.

    Putin has yet to comment on the announcement, but the Kremlin rejected the move as “outrageous and unacceptable.”

    In a show of defiance, Putin over the weekend visited Crimea and the occupied Ukrainian port city of Mariupol to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s seizure of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Russian news reports showed him chatting with Mariupol residents and visiting an art school and a children’s center in Sevastopol in Crimea.

    Xi said in an article published Monday in the Russian newspaper Russian Gazette that China has “actively promoted peace talks” but announced no initiatives.

    “My upcoming visit to Russia will be a journey of friendship, cooperation and peace,” Xi wrote, according to text released by the official Xinhua News Agency.

    “A reasonable way to resolve the crisis” can be found if “all parties embrace the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security,” Xi wrote.

    The trip follows the surprise announcement of a diplomatic thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia following a meeting in Beijing, a diplomatic coup for Xi’s government.

    Xi wants to be seen as a global statesman who is “playing a constructive role” by talking about peace but is unlikely to press Putin to end the war, said Torigian.

    Beijing is worried about “potential Russian losses on the battlefield” but doesn’t want to be seen to “enable Russia’s aggression,” said Torigian.

    “They won’t spend political capital” on pressing Moscow to make peace, “especially if they don’t think it will get them anything,” he said.

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  • Japan, South Korea renew ties at Tokyo summit

    Japan, South Korea renew ties at Tokyo summit

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    TOKYO — Japan and South Korea agreed to resume regular visits between their leaders and took steps to resolve a trade dispute as a highly anticipated summit began Thursday, a sign that the two countries are rebuilding their nations’ security and economic ties as they try to overcome a century of difficult history.

    The summit could revise the strategic map of northeast Asia. The two U.S. allies, who have long often been at odds over their history, are seeking to form a united front, driven by shared concerns about a restive North Korea and a more powerful China.

    Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol both stressed the importance of improved ties as they opened Thursday’s summit, hours after a North Korean missile launch and encounters between Japanese and Chinese vessels in disputed waters.

    “I’m delighted that a chance has come for us to open a new chapter of Japan-South Korea relations together,” Kishida said in his opening remark. He added that their meeting will mark the resumption of regular visits between the leaders, which have been on hold for more than a decade.

    Yoon said Thursday’s meeting “has special significance as it shows the people of both countries that South Korea-Japan relations are off to a new beginning after being plagued by various issues.” He added that the two countries that share same democratic values “are partners that must cooperate on security, economic issues and global agendas.”

    Yoon said “the ever-escalating threat of North Korea’s nuclear missile program poses a huge threat to peace and stability not only in East Asia but also to the (broader) international community.” “South Korea and Japan need to work closely together and in solidarity to wisely counter the threat,” he added.

    SOUTH KOREA, JAPAN REACH DEAL TO RESTORE TRADE TIES

    Hours before the summit began, South Korean Trade Minister Lee Chang-yang said that Japan had agreed to lift export controls on South Korea following talks this week, and that South Korea will withdraw its complaint to the World Trade Organization once the curbs are removed.

    Japan and South Korea have long had disputes over the 1910-1945 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula and atrocities during World War II, which included forced prostitution of “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers, and territorial disputes over a cluster of islands. Ties reached a nadir when the South Korean Supreme Court ordered Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean victims or bereaved relatives in 2018, and Japan imposed trade sanctions on South Korea shortly after.

    Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry said Japan acknowledged improvement in South Korea export controls during the talks and that as a result of Seoul’s decision to drop the WTO case, Japan decided to drop restrictions against South Korea and restore the country to the status it had before July 2019.

    Japanese export controls had covered fluorinated polyimides, which are used in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens for TVs and smartphones, and photoresist and hydrogen fluoride, used for making semiconductors.

    Lee’s ministry said the countries will continue to discuss restoring each other to preferred trade status.

    NORTH KOREA WELCOMES SUMMIT WITH MISSILE TEST

    The summit comes as a series of dramatic events underscores how Northeast Asia is dividing into blocs.

    A North Korean missile launch early Thursday, just before Yoon departed for Tokyo, could increase momentum for he and Kishida to move their countries closer diplomatically. The intercontinental ballistic missile was launched on a steep trajectory to avoid territory and fell into open waters off Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

    The test comes after a year in which North Korea has escalated its nuclear threats, and is likely intended to send a message both about the summit and simultaneous joint military exercises including the U.S., which the isolated country views as directed against it.

    REGION IN FLUX AS WASHINGTON, BEIJING TUSSLE FOR INFLUENCE

    Washington will welcome better Japan-South Korea ties, as feuding over historical issues has undermined a U.S. push to reinforce its alliances in Asia. Washington apparently worked to bring about today’s summit, and Thursday began joint anti-submarine warfare drills with South Korea and Japan as well as Canada and India.

    China’s dispute with Japan over tiny islands in the East China Sea also heated up Thursday, as both sides accused the other of violating their maritime territory after China coast guard vessels entered waters around an uninhabited island group that Japan controls and calls the Senkakus, and which Beijing also claims and calls the Diaoyu Islands. The islands are just north of Taiwan, which also claims them as its own.

    The summit follows a series of Chinese diplomatic successes in regions traditionally seen as more influenced by the U.S. Honduras announced Wednesday that it would end diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of China, marking progress in Beijing’s efforts to isolate the autonomously governed island, while last week Saudi Arabia and Iran announced a surprise deal to renew diplomatic ties brokered by China.

    VISIT WILL CONTINUE WITH DINNER, BUSINESS TALKS

    Kishida and Yoon are to have dinner and informal talks after the summit, according to Kishida’s office. Media reports said Kishida will host a two-part dinner: “sukiyaki” beef stew at one restaurant, then “omu-rice,” or rice topped with omelet — reportedly Yoon’s favorite dish — at another.

    After his arrival Thursday, Yoon attended a reception hosted by the Korean Residents’ Union in Japan. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Korean residents of Japan, many of them descendants of those forcibly brought here during the war, called for better ties as relations affect their lives here.

    On Thursday, a powerful Japanese business lobby, Keidanren, or the Japan Business Federation, also announced that it and its South Korean counterpart have agreed to each establish private funds for bilateral projects such as youth exchanges. Keidanren said they aim to start with funding worth 100 million yen ($752,420).

    A dozen business leaders traveling with Yoon are to meet their Japanese counterparts on Friday.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

    ___

    Find more AP Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • EU lawmakers ask UEFA to ban Belarus from Euro 2024

    EU lawmakers ask UEFA to ban Belarus from Euro 2024

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    A group of more than 100 European Union lawmakers is urging European soccer’s governing body to ban Belarus from the qualifying for the 2024 European Championship

    BySAMUEL PETREQUIN AP Sports Writer

    BRUSSELS — A group of more than 100 European Union lawmakers is urging European soccer’s governing body to ban Belarus from qualifying for the 2024 European Championship.

    MEPs from across the political spectrum wrote in a letter sent to UEFA president Alexander Ceferin that the Belarusian national team should not be able to compete because of the country’s terrible human rights record.

    “These are not only UEFA values at stake, but also UEFA’s reputation and image within democratic societies and international community,” they said.

    Last week, a court in Belarus sentenced exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to 15 years in prison after a trial in absentia on charges including conspiring to overthrow the government, the latest move in a months-long effort by the government to suppress dissent.

    Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine. Russia used Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine more than a year ago at the start of the war.

    Russia — which is already excluded from UEFA and FIFA competitions — has maintained troops and weapons in Belarus and the two countries have regularly conducted joint drills as part of their military alliance.

    This stance left Lukashenko even more isolated in Europe, where his country faces sanctions from the European Union for both its role in the war and his repression of domestic opposition.

    All Belarusian teams have been banned from hosting international soccer games and play home games in neutral countries, with no fans allowed to attend. But UEFA decided last year to let Belarus enter the Euro 2024 qualifying draw despite a government request from tournament-host Germany to remove the team because the country is a military ally of Russia.

    “The very fact of participating in UEFA Championship by the Belarusian national team will be later used by Lukashenko and his propaganda team to prove he is well-received in the international community,” the MEPs wrote in their letter Wednesday.

    “This would be an offense to the victims of the Russian aggression in Ukraine and to all the Belarusians who were forced to flee from their homeland as well as those who stayed in Belarus and now must live in fear and terror,” they added.

    Belarus is set to start its qualifying campaign against Switzerland on March 25. The team was placed in a group that also includes Israel, Romania, Andorra and Kosovo.

    Most Olympic sports have excluded athletes from Russia and Belarus after Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But fencing and judo have recently reopened access to athletes from the two countries ahead of qualifying events for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

    ___

    More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Putin set to host Syrian leader Assad at the Kremlin

    Putin set to host Syrian leader Assad at the Kremlin

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host Syrian President Bashar Assad for talks in the Kremlin expected to focus on rebuilding Syria after a devastating civil war

    ByVLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press

    MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host Syrian leader Bashar Assad for talks in the Kremlin on Wednesday that are expected to focus on rebuilding Syria after a devastating civil war.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two leaders would talk about “postwar reconstruction and the continuation of the peace process in all of its aspects with an emphasis on the absolute priority of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    Wednesday’s meeting comes on the anniversary of Syria’s 12-year uprising-turned-civil war that has killed nearly 500,000 people and displaced half of the country’s prewar population.

    Russia has waged a military campaign in Syria since September 2015, teaming up with Iran to allow Assad’s government to fight back armed opposition groups and to reclaim control over most of the country. While Russia has concentrated its military resources in Ukraine, Moscow has maintained its military foothold in Syria and kept its warplanes and troops there. Moscow has also provided robust political support to Assad at the United Nations and actively mediated to help repair his government’s ties with regional powers.

    Prior to a deadly Feb. 6 earthquake that killed 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria, Russia had been mediating talks between the two quake-hit countries.

    Turkey and Syria have been on opposite sides in Syria’s civil war for more than a decade. Turkey continues to back armed opposition groups that control an enclave in northwestern Syria. In December, Moscow hosted surprise talks between the Syrian and Turkish defense ministers.

    The Syrian, Turkish and Russian deputy foreign ministers as well as a senior adviser to their Iranian counterpart are also set to hold talks Wednesday and Thursday in Moscow to discuss “counterterrorism efforts” in Syria.

    Asked if Putin’s talks with Assad could play a role in restoring Syria’s ties with Turkey, Peskov responded that “the issue of the Syrian-Turkish relations will undoubtedly be part of the talks’ agenda.”

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  • Russian advance stalls in Ukraine’s Bakhmut, think tank says

    Russian advance stalls in Ukraine’s Bakhmut, think tank says

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia’s advance seems to have stalled in Moscow’s campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a leading think tank said in an assessment of the longest ground battle of the war.

    The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said there were no confirmed advances by Russian forces in Bakhmut. Russian forces and units from the Kremlin-controlled paramilitary Wagner Group continued to launch ground attacks in the city, but there was no evidence that they were able to make any progress, the ISW said.

    The founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Sunday on the Telegram messaging app that the situation in Bakhmut was “difficult, very difficult, with the enemy fighting for each meter.”

    The ISW report issued Saturday cited the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Eastern Group, Serhii Cherevaty, who said that fighting in the Bakhmut area had been more intense this week than the previous one. According to Cherevaty, there were 23 clashes in the city over the previous 24 hours.

    The ISW’s report comes following claims of Russian progress earlier this week. The U.K. Defense Ministry said Saturday that paramilitary units from the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group had seized most of eastern Bakhmut, with a river flowing through the city now marking the front line of the fighting. The assessment highlighted that Russia’s assault will be difficult to sustain without more significant personnel losses.

    The mining city of Bakhmut is located in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, one of four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last year. Russia’s military opened the campaign to take control of Bakhmut in August, and both sides have experienced staggering casualties. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vowed not to retreat.

    In its latest report, the U.K. Defense Ministry said Sunday that the impact of heavy Russian military casualties in Ukraine varies dramatically across Russia. The British military’s intelligence update said Moscow and St. Petersburg remained “relatively unscathed,” particularly among members of Russia’s elite.

    In many of Russia’s eastern regions, however, the death rate as a percentage of the population is “30-40 times higher than in Moscow,” the U.K. ministry said. It added that ethnic minorities often take the biggest hit. In the southern Astrakhan region, for example, about “75% of casualties come from the minority Kazakh and Tartar populations.”

    Russia’s mounting casualties are reflected in a loss of government control over the country’s information sphere, the Institute for the Study of War said. The think tank said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova confirmed “infighting in the Kremlin inner circle” and that the Kremlin has effectively ceded control over the country’s information space, with Putin unable to readily regain control.

    The ISW saw Zakharova’s comments, made at a forum on the “practical and technological aspects of information and cognitive warfare in modern realities” in Moscow, as “noteworthy” and in line with the think tank’s long standing assessments about the “deteriorating Kremlin regime and information space control dynamics.”

    In a separate statement, Zakharova said Sunday that the next round of talks regarding extending the Black Sea grain deal would take place Monday in Geneva. A Russian delegation is expected to meet with top U.N. officials. The deal currently is set to expire on March 18.

    The wartime agreement that unblocked grain shipments from Ukraine and helped temper rising global food prices was last extended by four months in November.

    The deal, which Ukraine and Russia signed in separate agreements with the U.N. and Turkey on July 22, established a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address concerns that cargo vessels might carry weapons or launch attacks.

    Ukraine and Russia are key global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia where millions of impoverished people lack enough to eat. Russia was also the world’s top exporter of fertilizer before the war.

    A loss of those supplies following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had pushed up global food prices and fueled concerns of a hunger crisis in poorer countries.

    Zelenskyy said Sunday that he posthumously conferred the highest national title, Hero of Ukraine, on a soldier who is thought to have been killed by Russian-speakers. Zelenskyy identified him as Oleksandr Matsiyevsky, although the Ukrainian military previously gave a different name for the soldier pending final confirmation.

    A brief video that surfaced this month and caused a national outcry in Ukraine showed a man standing and smoking a cigarette in a wooded area and exclaiming “Glory to Ukraine” before being cut down with gunfire. Senior Ukrainian officials alleged, without providing further evidence, that the man was an unarmed prisoner of war killed by Russian soldiers.

    Matsiyevsky was “a Ukrainian warrior. A man who will be known and remembered forever,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine’s national security service, the SBU, said Matsiyevsky had served as a sniper and was shot on Dec. 30.

    Ukrainian authorities reported Sunday morning that Russian attacks over the past day killed at least five people and wounded another seven across Ukraine’s Donetsk and Kherson regions, local Ukrainian authorities reported Sunday morning.

    Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said that two people were killed in the region, one in the city of Kostyantynivka and one in the village of Tonenke. Four civilians were wounded.

    Also in the Donetsk province, Sloviansk Mayor Vadim Lyakh said the power grid and railway lines were damaged by Russian shelling on Sunday, but didn’t report any casualties.

    Local officials in the southern Kherson province confirmed that Russian forces fired 29 times on Ukrainian-controlled territory in the region on Saturday, with residential areas of the regional capital, Kherson, coming under fire three times. Three people died in the province and a further three were wounded.

    A woman was wounded in Russian shelling in the village of Bilozerka on Sunday, just outside Kherson.

    In Kharkiv province, three districts came under fire, but no civilian casualties were reported.

    The governor of the Mykolaiv region, Vitali Kim, said the town of Ochakiv at the mouth of the Dnieper River came under artillery fire early Sunday. Cars were set ablaze and private houses and high-rise buildings sustained damage. No casualties were reported.

    ___

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

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  • Iran, Saudi Arabia agree to resume ties, with China’s help

    Iran, Saudi Arabia agree to resume ties, with China’s help

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed Friday to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions between the Mideast rivals. The major diplomatic breakthrough negotiated with China lowers the chance of armed conflict between the nations — both directly and in proxy conflicts around the region.

    The deal, struck in Beijing this week amid its ceremonial National People’s Congress, represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East. It also comes as diplomats have been trying to end a yearslong war in Yemen, a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply entrenched.

    The two countries released a joint communique on the deal with China, which brokered the agreement.

    Iranian state media posted images and video it described as being taken in China of the meeting. It showed Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, with Saudi national security adviser Musaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban and Wang Yi, China’s most senior diplomat.

    “After implementing of the decision, the foreign ministers of the both nations will meet to prepare for exchange of ambassadors,” Iranian state television said. It added that the talks had been held over four days.

    The joint statement calls for the reestablishing of ties and the reopening of embassies to happen “within a maximum period of two months.”

    In the footage aired by Iranian media, Wang could be heard offering “whole-hearted congratulations” on the two countries’ “wisdom.”

    “Both sides have displayed sincerity,” he said. “China fully supports this agreement.”

    China, which last month hosted Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, is also a top purchaser of Saudi oil. President Xi Jinping, just awarded a third five-year term as president earlier on Friday, visited Riyadh in December to attend meetings with oil-rich Gulf Arab nations crucial to China’s energy supplies.

    Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted Shamkhani as calling the talks “clear, transparent, comprehensive and constructive.”

    “Removing misunderstandings and the future-oriented views in relations between Tehran and Riyadh will definitely lead to improving regional stability and security, as well as increasing cooperation among Persian Gulf nations and the world of Islam for managing current challenges,” Shamkhani was quoted as saying.

    Shortly after the Iranian announcement, Saudi state media began publishing the same statement.

    Tensions have been high between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The kingdom broke off ties with Iran in 2016 after protesters invaded Saudi diplomatic posts there. Saudi Arabia had executed a prominent Shiite cleric days earlier, triggering the demonstrations.

    The execution came as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, then a deputy, began his rise to power. The son of King Salman, Prince Mohammed at one point compared Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler, and also threatened to strike Iran.

    In the years since, tensions have risen dramatically across the Middle East since the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. Iran has been blamed for a series of attacks in the time since, including one that targeted the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry in 2019, temporarily halving the kingdom’s crude production.

    Though Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels initially claimed the attack, Western nations and experts have blamed the attack on Tehran. Iran long has denied launching the attack. It has also denied carrying out other assaults later attributed to the Islamic Republic.

    Beyond the regional politics, religion also plays a key role. Saudi Arabia, home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that Muslims pray toward five times a day, has long portrayed itself as the world’s leading Sunni nation. Iran’s theocracy meanwhile views itself as the protector of the Islam’s Shiite minority.

    The two powerhouses also have competing interests elsewhere, such as in the turmoil now tearing at Lebanon and in the rebuilding of Iraq after decades of war following the U.S.-led 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

    Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute who long has studied the region, said Saudi Arabia reaching the deal with Iran came after the United Arab Emirates reached a similar understanding with Tehran.

    “This dialing down of tensions and de-escalation has been underway for three years and this was triggered by Saudi acknowledgement in their view that without unconditional U.S. backing they were unable to project power vis-a-vis Iran and the rest of the region,” he said.

    Prince Mohammed, now focused on massive construction projects in his own country, likely wants to finally pull out of the Yemen war as well, Ulrichsen added.

    “Instability could do a lot of damage to his plans,” he said.

    The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition armed with U.S. weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in March 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting has created a humanitarian disaster and pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.

    A six-month cease-fire in Yemen’s war, the longest of the conflict, expired in October despite diplomatic efforts to renew it. That led to fears the war could again escalate. More than 150,000 people have been killed in Yemen during the fighting, including over 14,500 civilians.

    In recent months, negotiations have been ongoing, including in Oman, a longtime interlocutor between Iran and the U.S. Some have hoped for an agreement ahead of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which will begin later in March. Iran and Saudi Arabia have held off-and-on talks in recent years, but it wasn’t immediately clear if Yemen was the impetus for this new detente.

    Previous rounds of talks between Saudi and Iranian officials had been brokered by Baghdad and held in Iraq, but stalled last year. Iraq’s new government is perceived as closely linked to Iran, although Iraq has attempted to maintain relations with both sides.

    In a statement following Friday’s announcement, the Iraqi foreign ministry welcomed the deal and said previous mediation by Iraq had established a “solid base” for the later talks and agreement in China, which gave a “qualitative impetus to cooperation for the countries of the region.”

    The U.S. Navy and its allies have seized a number of weapons shipments recently they describe as coming from Iran heading to Yemen. Iran denies arming the Houthis, despite weapons seized mirroring others seen on the battlefield in the rebels’ hands. A United Nations arms embargo bars nations from sending weapons to the Houthis.

    A high-ranking Houthi official, Mohamed Abdulsalam, appeared to welcome Friday’s deal in a statement that slammed the U.S. and Israel. “The region needs the return of normal relations between its countries, through which the Islamic society can regain its lost security as a result of the foreign interventions, led by the Zionists and Americans,″ he wrote online.

    It remains unclear, however, what this means for America. Though long viewed as guaranteeing Mideast energy security, regional leaders have grown increasingly wary of Washington’s intentions after its chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the announced deal.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Jack Jeffery in Cairo, and Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.

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  • Biden budget vs. House GOP: Values on display in debt fight

    Biden budget vs. House GOP: Values on display in debt fight

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    WASHINGTON — For President Joe Biden, his federal budget is a statement of values — the dollars and cents of a governing philosophy that believes the wealthy and large corporations should pay more taxes to help stem deficits and lift Americans toward middle class stability

    In the view of his chief congressional critics led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the budget is also the arena where they intend to challenge the president with values of their own — slashing the social safety net, trimming support for Ukraine and ending the so-called “woke” policies rejected by Republicans.

    It’s the blueprint for a summer showdown as Biden confronts Republicans over the raising the debt ceiling to pay off the nation’s accrued balances, a familiar battle that will define the president and the political parties ahead of the 2024 election.

    “I’m ready to meet with the speaker any time — tomorrow, if he has his budget,” Biden said while rolling out his own $6.8 trillion spending proposal Thursday in Philadelphia.

    “Lay it down. Tell me what you want to do. I’ll show you what I want to do. See what we can agree on,” said Biden, the Democratic president egging on the Republican leader.

    But McCarthy, in his first term as House speaker, is nowhere near being ready to present a GOP proposal at the negotiating table to start talks in earnest with the White House.

    While Republicans newly empowered in the House have bold ideas about rolling back government spending to fiscal 2022 levels and putting the federal budget on a path to balance within the next decade, they have no easy ideas for how to meet those goals.

    McCarthy declined this week to say when House Republicans intend to produce their own proposal, blaming their delays on Biden’s own tardiness in rolling out his plan.

    “We want to analyze his budget based upon the question as to where can we find common ground,” McCarthy said. “So we’ll analyze his budget and then we’ll get to work.”

    Squaring off, it’s a fresh take on the budget battles of a decade ago when Biden, as vice president, confronted an earlier generation of “tea party” House Republicans eager to cut the debt load and balance budgets.

    What’s changed in the decade since the last big budget showdown in Washington is the solidifying of the GOP’s MAGA wing, inspired by the Trump-era Make American Great Again slogan, to turn the fiscal battles into cultural wars. The nation’s total debt load has almost doubled during that time to $31 trillion.

    Beyond the dollars and cents, the new era of House Republicans see the coming debt ceiling fight as a battle for their very existence — a test of their mandate in the new House majority to push back against liberals in Washington.

    “There’s going to be a whole bunch of noise, and then everybody will push up to the brink and then someone’s gonna blink — I don’t intend to,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, an influential member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus.

    As pressure mounts on McCarthy, the president is trying to steal some thunder as he rolled out a proposal this week that spotlights deficit reductions that are a centerpiece of GOP goals.

    Biden’s approach is a turn-around from the start of the year when he refused to negotiate with Republicans, demanding Congress send him a straightforward bill to raise the debt limit. At the time, the president wouldn’t entertain a conversation about spending changes McCarthy committed to as part of his campaign to become speaker.

    The White House’s budget plan would cut the deficit by $2.9 trillion over 10 years, a rebuttal to GOP criticism that Biden’s deficit spending to address the pandemic has fueled inflation and hurt the economy.

    Speaking to union members in Philadelphia, Biden said McCarthy needed to follow his lead and publicly release his own numbers so that they can negotiate “line by line.”

    With his budget, Biden showed the math of how he would lower the trajectory of the national debt. Yet his approach to fiscal responsibility is unacceptable to Republicans, since it would require $4.7 trillion in higher taxes on corporations and people making more than $400,000.

    The president also wants an additional $2.5 trillion in spending on programs such as an expanded child tax credit that would improve family finances.

    “When the middle class does well, the poor have a way up and the wealthy still do very well,” the president said as he framed the showdown as a difference of principles.

    By refusing to raise taxes, the Republicans in the House are relying almost exclusively on reductions to bring budgets into balance. It’s a painful, potentially devastating endeavor, inflicting cuts on programs Americans depend on in their communities. Republicans cannot say when their budget will be ready.

    “We’re getting close,” said Rep. Jody Arrington, R-Texas, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee.

    Because McCarthy has yet to release his budget, Biden has toured the country and talked to audiences about past Republican plans to cut Social Security and Medicare.

    McCarthy insists reductions to the Medicare and Social Security entitlement programs that millions of America’s seniors and others depend on are off the table — and Republicans howled in protest during Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress last month when the president claimed otherwise.

    But by shielding those programs from cuts and opposing any tax increases, GOP lawmakers would need crippling slashes to the rest of government spending that could offend voters going into the 2024 elections.

    The chamber’s Freedom Caucus is eyeing reductions to supplemental disability insurance, food stamps and fresh work requirements on some people receiving government aid.

    Roy, the Freedom Caucus member, outlined some $700 billion in reductions that could be banked by reversing Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, clawing back almost $100 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief and rolling back spending to fiscal 2022 levels.

    But the conservative caucus with its few dozen members is just one constituency McCarthy must balance as he tries to cobble together his ranks. The much larger Republican Study Committee is expected to roll out its ideas in April and other GOP caucuses have their own priorities.

    McCarthy believes he has won a first round in the budget battles by pushing Biden to negotiate over the debt ceiling. But now the speaker faces the daunting challenge of bringing his own GOP plan to the table.

    “The House Republican budget plan is in the witness protection program,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the chamber’s Democratic leader. “It’s in hiding.”

    __

    Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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  • The flowers of war: Ukraine smith turns guns, ammo into art

    The flowers of war: Ukraine smith turns guns, ammo into art

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    A blacksmith in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk is practically beating swords into ploughshares, and turning one man’s trash into treasures

    A blacksmith in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk is practically beating swords into ploughshares, and turning one man’s trash into treasures. Viktor Petrovich Mikhalev takes weapons and ammunition and produces what he calls the flowers of war.

    Mikhalev, who trained as a welder, lives and works in a house whose fence and door are decorated with forged flowers and grapes. In his workshop are piles of half-burnt machine guns and shells from the war’s front line. Friends and acquaintances bring them as raw material for his art.

    The smell of iron and paint permeates the workshop, also decorated from floor to ceiling with dozens of religious icons. Mikhalev makes the art as a keepsake, a souvenir of the war in eastern Ukraine.

    “Real flowers will not last long, and my roses will become a reminder for a long memory,” the blacksmith says.

    He began the project when a friend brought him broken machine guns. A month later, he exhibited his war art in a Donetsk museum. Since then, he’s constantly been making what he calls “flowers of war.” In addition, he constructs stands for writing pens from parts of a grenade launcher and a cartridge case.

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

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  • Battle for Bakhmut takes center stage in war in Ukraine

    Battle for Bakhmut takes center stage in war in Ukraine

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    The six-month battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut has been the longest and bloodiest fight of the war so far.

    Little known outside Ukraine before the Russian invasion, Bakhmut has become a symbol of the country’s fortitude and perseverance in the face of the Kremlin’s onslaught.

    The Ukrainian leadership vowed again this week to keep defending the city, but some observers have warned that holding on to it could be too dangerous and costly.

    Here is a look at Bakhmut, the battle and its possible consequences.

    WHAT KIND OF CITY IS BAKHMUT?

    Bakhmut, which had a prewar population of more than 70,000, was an important center for salt and gypsum mining in the Donetsk region of the country’s industrial heartland known as the Donbas.

    The city was also known for its sparkling wine production in historic underground caves. Its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th century buildings made it a popular tourist attraction.

    When a separatist rebellion engulfed the Donbas in April 2014, weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Russia-backed separatists won control of the city but lost it a few months later.

    HOW DID THE FIGHTING EVOLVE?

    Russian troops first attempted to recapture Bakhmut in early August but were pushed back.

    The fighting abated in the following months as the Russian military faced Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and the south, but it resumed at full pace late last year. In January, the Russians captured the salt-mining town of Soledar just a few kilometers (miles) north of Bakhmut and advanced to the city’s suburbs.

    The relentless Russian bombardment has reduced Bakhmut to a smoldering wasteland with few buildings still standing. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have fought ferocious house-to-house battles in the ruins.

    Soldiers from Russia’s private Wagner Group contractor have spearheaded the offensive, marching on “the corpses of their own troops” as Ukrainian officials put it. By the end of February, the Russians approached the only highway leading out of the city and targeted it with artillery, forcing Ukrainian defenders to rely increasingly on country roads, which are hard to use before the ground dries.

    WHAT DO UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN OFFICIALS SAY ABOUT THE BATTLE?

    Ukrainian authorities have hailed the city as the invincible “fortress Bakhmut” that has destroyed waves of Russian assailants.

    As Russian pincers were closing on the city, a presidential aide warned last week that the military could “strategically pull back” if needed. But on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his top generals decided that the army will keep defending Bakhmut and reinforce its troops there.

    For the Kremlin, capturing Bakhmut is essential for achieving its stated goal of taking control the entire Donetsk, one of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in September.

    Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the seizure of Bakhmut would allow Russia to press its offensive deeper into the region.

    Yevgeny Prigozhin, the rogue millionaire who owns the Wagner Group, charged that his forces were destroying the best Ukrainian units in Bakhmut to prevent them from launching attacks elsewhere.

    At the same time, he harshly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for failing to provide Wagner with ammunition in comments that reflected his longtime tensions with the top military brass and exposed problems that could slow down the Russian offensive.

    WHAT DO EXPERTS SAY?

    Military experts note that Ukraine has turned Bakhmut into a meat grinder for Russia’s most capable forces.

    “It has achieved its aim as effectively being the anvil on which so many Russian lives have been broken,” Lord Richard Dannatt, the former chief of the general staff of the British armed forces, said on Sky News.

    Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, said the battle for Bakhmut “confirms that the Russian army is still struggling with basic operations.”

    He noted that the Kremlin’s continuing emphasis on land grabs regardless of losses means that “Russian strategic aims are bleeding the Russian army greatly.”

    While Ukrainian and Western officials pointed out that Russian combat losses were much higher than Ukrainian, some observers argued that the defense of Bakhmut was distracting Ukrainian resources that could be used in a planned counteroffensive later in the spring.

    Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CAN, a Washington-based think-tank, observed that the Ukrainian defenders “achieved a great deal, expending Russian manpower and ammunition,” but added that it could be wise for Ukraine to save its forces for future offensive operations.

    “Strategies can reach points of diminishing returns,” and given that Ukraine “is trying to husband resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a more important operation,” he said.

    WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT?

    Ukrainian and Western officials emphasize that a Ukrainian retreat from Bakhmut will not have strategic significance or change the course of the conflict.

    The Ukrainian military has already strengthened defensive lines west of Bakhmut to block the Russian advance if Ukrainian troops finally retreat from the city. The nearby town of Chasiv Yar that sits on a hill just a few kilometers west could become the next bulwark against the Russians. Further west are Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the heavily fortified Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.

    And even as the Russian military tries to pursue its offensive in Donetsk, it needs to keep large contingents in other sections of the Donbas and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region where Ukrainian forces are widely expected to launch their next counteroffensive.

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  • At least 6 Palestinians killed during Israeli West Bank raid

    At least 6 Palestinians killed during Israeli West Bank raid

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    JENIN, West Bank — The Israeli army raided a home in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, triggering a battle that killed at least six Palestinians and wounded more than two dozen others, Palestinian health officials said.

    The military said it had killed the suspected assailant behind a fatal shooting of two Israeli brothers in the northern West Bank town of Hawara last week. An Israeli police spokesperson said three Israeli forces were in fair-to-serious condition after being shot and wounded in Tuesday’s firefight in Jenin.

    The Jenin brigade, a loosely organized armed group based in the Jenin refugee camp, said its militants shot and hurled explosive devices at Israeli soldiers. The troops had surrounded the suspect’s home on the outskirts of the densely populated camp, a hub of militant activity. Videos showed black smoke billowing in the distance after the army fired missiles at the besieged building.

    Tuesday’s raid was the latest in a string of deadly arrest operations by the Israeli military in the northern West Bank, as violence surges to its highest levels in years. The raid raised fears of further bloodshed as Israel struggles to contain growing unrest led by young Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who are increasingly taking up arms against Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year.

    The Palestinian Health Ministry said six people were shot and killed on Tuesday — men ranging in age from 22 to 49 — and 26 others were wounded. Israeli security forces identified 49-year-old Abdul Fattah Kharushah as a Hamas militant who killed the Israeli brothers in Hawara. Hamas issued a statement claiming that Kharushah was a member, without claiming responsibility for the brothers’ killings.

    The military also said that Palestinian militants had shot down two drones over Jenin. Footage widely shared online showed young men cheering and taking selfies as they held the charred aircraft aloft.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the army for killing the assailant and sent wishes for a speedy recovery to the wounded. “Whoever harms us will pay the price,” he said.

    The spokesman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, meanwhile denounced the Israeli military for waging “an all-out war” against the Palestinians and for derailing recent efforts to restore calm.

    The army said it also raided the nearby flashpoint city of Nablus and arrested two sons of the suspect, who officials accused of helping their father carry out the attack.

    More than 60 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year, about half of them militants, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Palestinian attacks against Israelis in east Jerusalem and the West Bank have killed 14 people during that same time.

    Last month, a rare daytime military raid in the Old City of Nablus targeting the Lion’s Den, a recently formed militant group, sparked an hourslong gunfight that left 10 Palestinians dead. Palestinian armed groups said that six of the casualties were militants. Others appeared to be bystanders.

    Earlier on Tuesday, Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir joined Jewish revelers in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, dancing with residents from the hard-line settler community as they celebrated the holiday of Purim.

    Ben-Gvir — dressed in a costume combining elements of various uniforms of forces under his command — danced, sang and took selfies with party-goers and soldiers at an event in an Israeli settlement in Hebron. Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist politician in Netanyahu’s new government, lives in an adjacent settlement.

    It was the latest show of force by ultranationalist settlers in the occupied West Bank, who have been bolstered by Ben-Gvir and other allies in the new Israeli government. Overnight, settlers injured a Palestinian man in the same Palestinian town where a settler mob burned cars and houses last week.

    Hebron is a contested city that is home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a site considered holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews. Hundreds of hard-line settlers live in fortified enclaves under military protection in the heart of a city of more than 200,000 Palestinians.

    Tuesday’s celebration came under heavy security and passed from a settlement to the Israeli-controlled downtown area, where Palestinians have been evicted or forced to close shops over the years.

    Ben-Gvir, who leads a small ultranationalist faction in Netanyahu’s government, has been a well-known face in Hebron for many years. Before entering office, he was arrested dozens of times and was once convicted of incitement and supporting a Jewish terrorist group.

    Until recently, he hung a photo in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a radical Jewish settler who in 1994 killed 29 Palestinians during prayers in the tomb, known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque. The shooting happened on Purim that year.

    Ben-Gvir, surrounded by bodyguards on Tuesday, is now a prominent figure in Israel’s government, which includes leading members of the settler movement. He held a child and shook hands with the crowd as he explained the significance of his costume. “We love all of you, members of the security forces,” he said.

    Tensions have been soaring across Israel and the West Bank.

    Late Monday, Jewish settlers wounded a Palestinian man in the town of Hawara, which was torched in a settler rampage last week after the killing of two Israeli brothers. Mobs of Israeli settlers had set buildings and cars on fire in revenge for the shooting in a rampage that also left one Palestinian dead.

    Stirring fears of further mayhem, settlers returned to the main Hawara thoroughfare Monday in a van, blasting music. Several of them attacked a supermarket, said Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank, injuring one man in the head.

    Security camera footage from near the shop appeared to show Israeli settlers throwing rocks, and Palestinians hurling stones back.

    Other footage appeared to show Israeli settlers dancing with soldiers on the main Hawara road, alongside a van emblazoned with the words “Happy Purim.” The army said the soldiers’ conduct was “not aligned with the behavior expected” and that the incident was under review.

    Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians seek for their future state. In the decades since, more than 500,000 Jewish settlers have moved into dozens of settlements, which the international community considers illegal and an obstacle to peace.

    ___

    DeBre reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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  • Russia steps up effort to take elusive prize of Ukraine city

    Russia steps up effort to take elusive prize of Ukraine city

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    KYIV, Ukraine — The fate of Bakhmut appeared to be hanging in the balance Monday, as Russian forces continued to encroach on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city but its defenders still denied the Kremlin the prize it has sought for six months at the cost of thousands of lives.

    Intense Russian shelling targeted the Donetsk region city and nearby villages as Moscow deployed more resources there in an apparent bid to finish off Bakhmut’s resistance, according to local officials.

    “Civilians are fleeing the region to escape Russian shelling continuing round the clock as additional Russian troops and weapons are being deployed there,” Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

    Russian forces that invaded Ukraine just over a year ago have been bearing down on Bakhmut for months, putting Kyiv’s troops on the defensive but unable to deliver a knockout blow.

    More broadly, Russia continues to experience difficulty generating battlefield momentum. Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022 soon stalled and then was pushed back by a Ukraine counteroffensive. Over the bitterly cold winter months, the fighting has largely been deadlocked.

    Bakhmut doesn’t have any major strategic value, and analysts say its possible fall is unlikely to bring a turning point in the conflict.

    Its importance has become psychological — for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a victory there will finally deliver some good news from the battlefield, while for Kyiv the display of grit and defiance reinforces a message that Ukraine was holding on after a year of brutal attacks to cement support among its Western allies.

    Even so, some analysts questioned the wisdom of the Ukrainian defenders holding out much longer, with others suggesting a tactical withdrawal may already be underway.

    Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the CAN think tank in Arlington, Virginia, said that Ukraine’s defense of Bakhmut has been effective because it has drained the Russian war effort, but that Kyiv should now look ahead.

    “I think the tenacious defense of Bakhmut achieved a great deal, expending Russian manpower and ammunition,” Kofman tweeted late Sunday. “But strategies can reach points of diminishing returns, and given Ukraine is trying to husband resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a more important operation.”

    The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, noted that urban warfare favors the defender but considered that the smartest option now for Kyiv may be to withdraw to positions that are easier to defend.

    In recent days, Ukrainian units destroyed two key bridges just outside Bakhmut, including one linking it to the nearby hilltop town of Chasiv Yar along the last remaining Ukrainian resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts. Demolishing the bridges could be part of efforts to slow down the Russian offensive if Ukrainian forces start pulling back from the city.

    “Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare,” the ISW said in an assessment published late Sunday.

    Putin’s stated ambition is to seize full control of the four provinces, including Donetsk, that Moscow illegally annexed last fall. Russia controls about half of Donetsk province, and to take the remaining half of that province its forces must go through Bakhmut.

    The city is the only approach to bigger Ukrainian-held cities since Ukrainian troops took back Izium in Kharkiv province during a counteroffensive last September.

    But taking at least six months to conquer Bakhmut, which had a prewar population of 80,000 and was once a popular vacation destination, speaks poorly of the Russian military’s offensive capabilities and may not bode well for the rest of its campaign.

    “Russian forces currently do not have the manpower and equipment necessary to sustain offensive operations at scale for a renewed offensive toward (the nearby towns of) Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, let alone for a years-long campaign to capture all of Donetsk Oblast,” the ISW said.

    Bakhmut has taken on almost mythic importance to its defenders. It has become like Mariupol — the port city in the same province that Russia captured after an 82-day siege that eventually came down to a mammoth steel mill where determined Ukrainian fighters held out along with civilians.

    Moscow looked to cement its rule in the areas it has occupied and annexed. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu traveled to Mariupol and toured some of the city’s rebuilt infrastructure, the Defense Ministry reported Monday.

    Shoigu was shown a newly built hospital, a rescue center of the Emergency Ministry and residential buildings, the ministry said. Meanwhile, Russian forces overnight attacked central and eastern regions of Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed drones, the spokesman of Ukraine’s Air Forces, Yurii Ihnat, told Ukrainian media on Monday. Out of 15 drones launched by Russia, 13 were shot down, Ihnat said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the attack caused any damage.

    Also, Russia’s Federal Security Service, or the FSB, claimed Monday that it thwarted an attempt to assassinate nationalist businessman Konstantin Malofeyev. It claimed the effort was a plot by the Ukrainian security services and the Russian Volunteer Corps, a group that claims to be part of Ukraine’s armed forces.

    According to the FSB, the Russian Volunteer Corps’ leader, Denis Kapustin, was the mastermind behind the alleged assassination attempt, and the plan was to install an explosive device under Malofeyev’s car.

    No details were given as to how exactly or at what stage the FSB intervened. Footage released by the service showed a man meddling with a car purported to be Malofeyev’s, and then a robot removing an object from under a car at a parking lot.

    Malofeyev is a media baron and the owner of the ultra-conservative Tsargrad TV who has supported Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine and has trumpeted Moscow’s invasion as a “holy war.” He has been sanctioned by the U.S.

    ___

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  • In liberated Ukraine city, civilians still pay price of war

    In liberated Ukraine city, civilians still pay price of war

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    IZIUM, Ukraine — In this war-scarred city in Ukraine‘s northeast, residents scrutinize every step for land mines. Behind closed doors, survivors wait in agony for the bodies of loved ones to be identified. The hunt for collaborators of the not-so-long ago Russian occupation poisons tightly-knit communities.

    This is life in Izium, a city on the Donets River in the Kharkiv region that was retaken by Ukrainian forces in September, but still suffers the legacy of six months of Russian occupation.`

    The brutality of the Russian invasion in this one-time strategic supply hub for Russian troops counts among the most horrific of the war, which entered its second year last month.

    Ukrainian civilians were tortured, disappeared and were arbitrarily detained. Mass graves with hundreds of bodies have been discovered and entire neighborhoods were destroyed in the fighting.

    Izium is a gruesome reminder of the human cost of the war. Six months after it was liberated, residents say they continue to pay the price.

    Large red signs warning “MINES” rest against a tree between a church and the city’s main hospital, which is still functioning despite heavy Russian bombardment.

    In this city, everyone has a mine story: Either they stepped on one and lost a limb or know someone who did. The mines are discovered daily, concealed along riverbanks, on roads, in fields, on the tops of roofs, in trees.

    Of particular concern are anti-infantry high-explosive mines, known as petal mines. Small and inconspicuous, they are widespread in the city. Human Rights Watch has documented that Moscow has used at least eight types of anti-personnel mines, prohibited by the Geneva Conventions, throughout eastern Ukraine.

    In a January report, the rights monitor also called on Kyiv to investigate the Ukrainian military’s apparent use of thousands of banned petal mines in Izium.

    “No one can say now the total percentage of territory in Kharkiv that is mined,” said Oleksandr Filchakov, the region’s chief prosecutor. “We are finding them everywhere.”

    Most residents are careful, keeping to known paths. But even then, they are not safe.

    “We have an average of one person a week with wounds” from mines, Dr. Yurii Kuzentsov said. “I don’t know when I will ever go to the river or the forest again, even if our lives are restored, because, as a medical professional, I have seen the consequences.”

    One patient stepped on mines twice: First in June when he lost part of his heel and the second time in October when he lost the entire foot.

    Most of Kuzentsov’s patients said they had been cautious.

    “They were sure this would never happen to them,” he said.

    Oleksandr Rabenko, 66, stepped on a petal mine 200 meters from his house while walking down a familiar path to the river to fetch water.

    His son, Eduard, had de-mined a narrow path with a shovel. Rabenko had walked down it several times, up until Dec. 4, when he lost his right foot while clearing some sticks.

    “I still don’t know how it got there, maybe it was the snow melting, or the river carried it,” he said. “I thought it was safe.”

    Rabenko still feels excruciating pain from the foot that is no longer there.

    “The doctor said it will take months for my brain to grasp what happened,” he said.

    Halyna Zhyharova, 71, knows exactly what happened to her family of eight.

    A bomb struck her son Oleksandr’s home last March, killing 52 people sheltering inside the basement. They included eight of Zhyharova’s relatives — her son and his entire family, including two daughters.

    Seven relatives’ bodies were exhumed in September in a severe state of decay. It took months to identify them, she said. Now she is waiting for just one more identification — of her granddaughter.

    Of the 451 bodies exhumed in Izium, including nearly 440 found in mass graves, 125 have still not been identified, said Serhii Bolvinov, the head of the Investigations Department of Kharkiv’s National Police.

    Some are so decomposed it’s difficult to extract a DNA sample, he said. Other times, authorities are unable to find a DNA match among relatives. The painstaking work can take months.

    Zhyharova hopes her granddaughter’s remains will be identified soon so she can finally lay her family to rest.

    “I’ll bury them, put gravestones,” she said. “After that, what to do? Live on.”

    The scale of destruction in Izium, with a prewar population of 50,000, is breathtaking. Ukrainian officials estimate 70% to 80% of residential buildings were destroyed. Many bear black scorch marks, punctured roofs and have boarded-up windows.

    Slowly, residents are returning, horrified to discover their homes uninhabitable or their possessions stolen. They seethe with anger, knowing the Russian advance into Izium was made possible by the help of local collaborators who supported Moscow.

    “There were cases in the beginning of the war when collaborators led Russian armed forces units through secret routes and led them to the flanks and rears of our units,” said Brig. Gen. Dmytro Krasylnykov, commander of the joint forces in the Kharkiv region. “This happened in Izium.”

    “Many of our soldiers died because of this, and we were forced to leave Izium for a while, and now we see what the city has turned into,” he said.

    In the village of Kamyanka near Izium, every house bears the scars of war. Twenty families have returned and many have directed their venom at Vasily Hrushka, the one who remained. He has become the village pariah.

    “They say I was a collaborator, a traitor,” the 65-year-old said. “I did nothing wrong.”

    Hrushka says he stayed in the village while Russians overtook it, because he didn’t want to abandon his cows and three calves, fearing they would die in his absence. He sent his family away and took refuge in the cellar.

    Russian soldiers knocked on the door, asked him if any Ukrainian servicemen lived in the house. When he replied no, they sprayed the place with bullets just to make sure.

    Later, they came by with an offering of canned food. He gave them milk. Once they asked him if he had any alcohol.

    Residents saw this as a sign of treason. They asked why he didn’t do more to help Ukrainian forces by finding a way to give away Russian positions. But Hrushka said there was no way to do that — the Russian soldiers destroyed his phone lines.

    “I was living in madness,” he said, “I did what I did to survive.”

    He was called in for questioning by the SBU, Ukraine’s security service. They said they heard rumors he was living the life of a chief in Kamyanka.

    “I was the chief only of my own home,” he told them. They let him go.

    In November, his fortunes took another turn.

    Foraging for firewood as temperatures dropped, he stepped on a petal mine and lost his left foot.

    ___

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  • Ukraine ally Kallas fights for reelection in Estonia vote

    Ukraine ally Kallas fights for reelection in Estonia vote

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    TALLINN, Estonia — Estonia, which is providing Ukraine with more weapons than any other country relative to its economic might, is preparing to hold a general election Sunday that will determine whether it can sustain that high level of support.

    Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, 45, has emerged in the past year of war as one of Europe’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine. She’s seeking a second term, with her standing enhanced by her international appeals to impose sanctions on Moscow.

    A Baltic nation of 1.3 million people that borders Russia to the east, Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has taken a clear Western course, joining NATO and the European Union.

    Polls indicate Kallas’ center-right Reform Party is likely to win more votes than any other party. Her main challenger is Martin Helme, head of the nationalist EKRE party, which faults Kallas for the country’s inflation rate of 18.6% — one of the EU’s highest — and accuses her of undermining Estonia’s defenses by giving weapons to Ukraine.

    Kallas argues it’s in her country’s interests to help Kyiv.

    The full-scale invasion of Ukraine sparked fears in Tallinn that a Russian victory could embolden Moscow to switch its attentions to other countries it controlled in Soviet times, including Baltic nations Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — now all NATO members.

    “We face (Parliament) elections at a very difficult time,” Kallas told party officials in a recent speech. “The war (in Ukraine) continues and it leaves its mark on the whole of Europe, indeed the whole world. I don’t know when the war will end … but I know it won’t end with a victory for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”

    She said Russia was unlikely to “ever again” become a reliable partner, adding that Estonians “have to get used to the idea that we live in the neighborhood of a terrorist pariah state and that we must not lose our vigilance for a moment.”

    Kallas argues that Estonia’s defenses remain strong as the United States and other NATO allies have supplied top-notch weapons like the HIMARS rocket system to Ukraine and also to Estonia. She has called for EU member nations to jointly procure weapons for Ukraine, similarly to how the 27-member bloc acquired COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

    Estonia’s foreign minister, Urmas Reinsalu, said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday that Estonia is proposing EU countries to provide Ukraine with 1 million artillery shells through a joint tender.

    As well as weapons, Estonia is providing Kyiv with substantial humanitarian assistance and has welcomed more than 60,000 Ukrainian refugees.

    The populist EKRE, which runs largely on an anti-EU and anti-immigration platform, has called for a cap on the number of refugees from Ukraine, saying Estonia can’t cope with so many people.

    Kallas, in office since 2021, is part of a generation of young women who rose to the top of international politics in recent years and became strong voices for Ukraine.

    Along with Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Kallas has strongly condemned Russian atrocities in Ukraine and called on the Western world not to succumb to the Kremlin’s nuclear threats.

    Five parties are currently represented in Estonia’s 101-seat legislature. Many Estonians have already voted electronically, casting votes from their computers.

    Kallas’ Reform Party heads the current three-party coalition government with the small conservative Fatherland party and the Social Democrats. Polls indicate EKRE — which is strong in rural areas — would likely take second place on Sunday, followed by the Center Party that’s traditionally favored by Estonia’s sizable ethnic Russian minority.

    Nevertheless, if Kallas’ coalition partners do poorly Sunday, her opponents could still end up in a stronger position to form a government.

    Political analyst Tonis Saarts says Kallas got off to a rocky start as prime minister due to bickering with other parties, but believes her image has been boosted domestically by her strong statements on the international stage in support of Ukraine.

    “It has made Kallas much stronger and increased her authority in domestic politics as well,” said Saarts, an associate professor in comparative politics at Tallinn University.

    ___

    This version has been corrected to show that Urmas Reinsalu is Estonia’s foreign minister, not defense minister.

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  • Pentagon Papers leaker Ellsberg says he has terminal cancer

    Pentagon Papers leaker Ellsberg says he has terminal cancer

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    WASHINGTON — Daniel Ellsberg, who copied and leaked documents that revealed secret details of U.S. strategy in the Vietnam War and became known as the Pentagon Papers, said he has terminal cancer and months to live.

    Ellsberg posted on his Facebook page Thursday that doctors diagnosed the 91-year-old with inoperable pancreatic cancer on Feb. 17 following medical scans.

    Doctors have given him between three and six months to live, he said.

    Ellsberg said he has opted not to undergo chemotherapy and plans to accept hospice care when needed.

    The documents in the Pentagon Papers looked in excruciating detail at the decisions and strategies of the Vietnam War. They told how U.S. involvement was built up steadily by political leaders and top military brass who were overconfident about U.S. prospects and deceptive about the accomplishments against the North Vietnamese.

    Ellsberg, a former consultant to the Defense Department, provided the Pentagon Papers to Neil Sheehan, a reporter who broke the story for The New York Times in June 1971. Sheehan died in 2021.

    Sheehan smuggled the documents out of the Massachusetts apartment where Ellsberg had stashed them, and illicitly copied thousands of pages and took them to the Times.

    The administration of President Richard Nixon got a court injunction arguing national security was at stake and publication was stopped. The action started a heated debate about the First Amendment that quickly moved up to the Supreme Court. On June 30, 1971, the court ruled 6-3 in favor of allowing publication, and the Times and The Washington Post resumed publishing stories. The coverage won the Times the Pulitzer Prize for public service.

    The Nixon administration tried to discredit Ellsberg after the documents’ release. Some of Nixon’s aides orchestrated a break-in at the Beverly Hills office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to find information to discredit him.

    Ellsberg was charged with theft, conspiracy and violations of the Espionage Act, but his case ended in a mistrial when evidence surfaced about government-ordered wiretappings and break-ins.

    Ellsberg said in his Facebook post that he feels “lucky and grateful” for his life.

    “When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed (and was),” he wrote.

    “Yet in the end that action — in ways I could not have foreseen, due to Nixon’s illegal responses — did have an impact on shortening the war,” he wrote.

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