Tag: europe

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 826 | Russia-Ukraine war News

As the war enters its 826th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, May 31, 2024.

Fighting

  • At least three people were killed and 16 injured after Russia struck three sites, including a five-storey apartment building, in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, at about midnight local time (21:00 GMT). Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said at least two children were among the injured. Earlier in the day, at least four people were injured in Russian shelling of the city.
  • Ukraine’s top military commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskii said Russia was continuing to send additional regiments and brigades from other areas and training grounds to boost its forces along two main lines of attack in the north of the Kharkiv region, where Moscow launched an offensive earlier this month.
  • United States officials, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issues, told multiple media outlets that President Joe Biden had decided to allow Kyiv to use US-supplied weapons at targets inside Russia but only on the border with the northeastern Kharkiv region.
  • Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence service said its forces destroyed two Russian patrol boats using naval drones off Crimea, which Russia occupied and annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Moscow said earlier it had destroyed two naval drones “heading for Crimea”.
  • Russia fired a total of 51 missiles and drones at “military facilities and critical infrastructure”, across Ukraine, the air force said. Air defences destroyed seven missiles and 32 drones, it added.

Politics and diplomacy

  • The 27 members of the European Union agreed to impose “prohibitive” tariffs on grain imports from Russia and Belarus in a bid to cut off Moscow’s funding for its war on Ukraine. Grain in transit to other parts of the world through Europe will not be affected by the tariffs.
  • Ukrainian lawmakers and journalists called for an investigation into political pressure on the country’s state news agency Ukrinform. Oleksiy Matsuka, the agency’s head, stepped down this week after being accused of leading an editorial policy exclusively backing the presidential administration. He was replaced by a former army spokesman, Serhiy Cherevaty, deepening concerns about official censorship.
  • Tharaka Balasuriya, Sri Lanka’s junior foreign minister, said Colombo would start talks with Moscow to secure the release of hundreds of citizens, mostly former soldiers, who it believes were duped into joining Russian forces in Ukraine. It is also seeking the release of about a dozen men being held as prisoners of war in Ukraine. At least 16 men have been killed in the fighting.
  • Russia’s FSB security service said it detained four people in Crimea who were allegedly involved in a series of sabotage attacks planned by Ukrainian special services to destroy railway lines in the occupied peninsula. A fifth man, reported to be the group’s leader by Russian news agencies, was killed when the FSB tried to capture him.

Weapons

  • German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius made an unannounced visit to Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa where he held talks with Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov and promised Ukraine a new package of military aid worth 500 million euros ($540m), a spokesperson for the ministry told the AFP news agency. The package includes “artillery, air defence [and] drones”, he added.
  • A Czech official said Ukraine would receive between 50,000 and 100,000 shells in June under a Czech-led ammunition supply initiative.

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US sanctions two Wagner-linked firms in Central African Republic | Politics News

Sanctions aim to ‘counter Russia’s destabilizing activities in Africa’, US Treasury Department says.

The United States has sanctioned two firms in the Central African Republic (CAR) it says are linked to the Russian Wagner Group, as part of what the US government says is a push to “counter Russia’s destabilizing activities in Africa”.

In a statement on Thursday, the US Treasury Department accused Mining Industries and Logistique Economique Etrangere of enabling Wagner security operations and “illicit mining endeavors” linked to the mercenary force.

The department said Mining Industries was sanctioned for leasing aircraft from another sanctioned Emirati firm that Wagner used to transport personnel and equipment across Africa.

Logistique Economique Etrangere was sanctioned for receiving “hundreds” of shipments of heavy materials from another CAR-based company – which was sanctioned in March this year – that were also likely intended for Wagner-linked illicit mining activities, it said.

“The Russia-backed Wagner Group and its network of businesses have exploited the people and natural resources of the Central African Republic to advance the group’s agenda,” Treasury official Brian Nelson said in the statement.

“The United States will continue to use its sanctions authorities to disrupt those supporting Russia’s destabilizing activities in Africa.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration in 2023 formally labelled the Wagner Group a “transnational criminal organization”, unveiling a wave of sanctions against the mercenary force.

In 2022, Human Rights Watch also accused Wagner mercenaries of having “summarily executed, tortured, and beaten civilians” in CAR between 2019 and 2021.

The group was previously controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin until his death in a plane crash last August.

The US sanctions imposed on Thursday freeze the targeted entities’ assets in the country and prevent any US citizens or entities from doing business with them.

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Spain passes bill granting amnesty to Catalan secessionists | Politics News

Act of pardon draws a line under political turmoil set off by secessionist drive, but could face further legal hurdles.

Spain’s parliament has green-lighted a bill granting amnesty to hundreds of Catalan secessionists involved in a botched breakaway bid seven years ago.

The controversial bill, passed 177-172 on Thursday, will see courts annul the legal records of hundreds of officials and activists involved in crimes related to Catalonia‘s secessionists push from 2011, paving the way for a return of the movement’s exiled leader, Carles Puigdemont.

The act of pardon draws a line under Spain’s worst political crisis in decades, which saw Catalan pro-independence leaders, who had won the 2015 regional election in Catalonia, hold a full referendum in 2017 that was declared illegal by Spain’s constitutional court.

The bill, opposed by the conservative Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox, has had a rocky ride through parliament.

Initially approved by the lower house in March, it was vetoed in the upper house, where right-wing parties hold a majority, earlier this month. But the lower house pushed it through regardless.

Even though it has now been passed, it is likely to face legal challenges.

Earlier this week, a PP spokesman said that the party would do everything to “overturn” the law, whether through appeals to the Constitutional Court or “social pressure” on the street.

The law must also be applied by courts on a case-by-case basis, with individual judges deciding whether the amnesty applies.

They have two months to raise issues with the Constitutional Court or the European justice system which could delay its implementation for some time.

‘Forgiveness’

“Forgiveness is stronger than resentment,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez after the bill was passed.

Sanchez had put forward the amnesty proposal in exchange for support in parliament from Catalan secessionist parties enabling him to stay on as prime minister after an inconclusive election last year.

The new law paves the way for the return of independence figurehead Puigdemont, leader of Together for Catalonia (JxCat), one of the parties that had backed Sanchez’s coalition government.

Puigdemont led the 2017 secession drive before fleeing the country and going into self-exile in Belgium, where he has resided ever since while evading extradition. Other pro-independence leaders are also exiled.

Spaniards are divided over the amnesty, the bill having caused large protests over the past few months.

In a survey by the El Mundo newspaper in March, 62 percent of respondents across Spain rejected the amnesty, but in the Catalonia region alone most voters – 48 percent – supported it.

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Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 825 | Russia-Ukraine war News

As the war enters its 825th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Thursday, May 30, 2024.

Fighting

  • Ukraine reported that nine people were killed in Russian attacks in five regions of the country, including two in Nikopol in southern Ukraine. One of the dead was an ambulance driver whose vehicle was hit by a Russian drone. The man’s wife, who was travelling with him, was injured. Nikopol is located just across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
  • Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said search and recovery efforts at a Kharkiv hardware superstore hit by Russian bombs last weekend had ended. The death toll rose to 19 after a man who was severely burned in the attack died in hospital.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that weapons provided by the United States were helping Ukraine stabilise the front line amid intensifying Russian attacks and that Washington would “adapt and adjust” its approach to military support in line with battlefield developments.

Politics and diplomacy

  • US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell accused China of supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine. Campbell said Chinese assistance was helping Moscow reconstitute elements of its military, including long-range missile, artillery and drone capabilities, and its ability to track battlefield movements. European and NATO countries needed “to send a collective message of concern to China about its actions, which we view are destabilising in the heart of Europe”, he said. Beijing says it is neutral in the war but has deepened its relationship with Russia since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
  • Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the US Treasury, met Ukrainian officials in Kyiv to discuss US financial support, enforcing sanctions on Russia and using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s benefit in its war against Moscow.
  • Dmitry Suslov, a senior researcher at the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, a Russian think tank that is close to the Kremlin, said Moscow should consider a “demonstrative” nuclear explosion to cow the West into refusing to allow Ukraine to use its arms against targets inside Russia.
  • Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko joined Moscow in suspending the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) that limits the number of tanks, combat aircraft and other military equipment that can be deployed in Europe. Belarus borders Ukraine and Russia and hosted Russian soldiers before Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
  • Polish security services arrested a man suspected of trying to obtain photos of military vehicles crossing the border into Ukraine, as well as three men, two of them Belarusian citizens, accused of committing arson on the orders of Russian intelligence.
  • Prominent Russian nationalist and former militia commander Igor Girkin lost his appeal against a four-year jail term over his criticism of the conduct of the war in Ukraine, the RIA Novosti state news agency reported.

Weapons

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Does a peace summit launched by Ukraine have any chance of success? | Russia-Ukraine war News

US President Joe Biden is planning to skip the June gathering in Switzerland.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants global powers to refocus on his country’s war against invading Russian forces.

But United States President Joe Biden is planning to skip a June peace summit in Switzerland.

Russia has not been invited, and it is not clear if China, India and Brazil will turn up.

European Union ministers are now scrambling to find a solution.

With Israel’s war raging in Gaza, Kyiv is desperate to keep world attention on the conflict at home.

But what can Ukraine hope to achieve if Russia isn’t there? And why hold a summit if some of the world’s most influential players are not on board?

Presenter: Sami Zeidan

Guests:

Andrei Fedorov – chairman of the Fund for Political Research and Consulting in Russia

Domitilla Sagramoso – senior lecturer at King’s College London

Peter Zalmayev – executive director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative

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Israel cannot win Gaza war without ‘day-after’ plan, Blinken warns | Israel-Palestine conflict News

The United States has once again issued a strong warning to Israel over its lack of a post-war strategy for Gaza, leaving open questions about how the territory will be governed and stablised.

Speaking at a news conference in the Moldovan capital Chisinau on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was “imperative” for Israel to have a plan to ensure the defeat of Hamas and restore security and governance in Gaza.

“In the absence of a plan for the day after, there won’t be a day after,” Blinken told reporters.

He added that the Israeli military has achieved “real success” in its effort to destroy Hamas’s military capacity, but he warned that Israel should not be directly responsible for the future of Gaza.

“If it is, it will simply have an enduring insurgency on its hands for as far as we can see into the future,” Blinken said.

In the absence of a post-war plan, Blinken added, “Hamas will be left in charge, which is unacceptable. Or if not, we’ll have chaos, lawlessness and a vacuum that eventually will be filled again by Hamas or maybe something — if it’s possible to imagine — even worse.”

US officials have been publicly pressing Israel for a so-called “day-after plan”, saying that Gaza should be governed by a “reformed” Palestinian Authority (PA) after the war.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the notion of handing the enclave to the PA, stressing that Israel will maintain security control over the occupied Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli leaders also say they are pursuing a “total defeat” of Hamas.

While the administration of US President Joe Biden has placed significant emphasis on what will happen to Gaza after the war, it remains unclear when or how the violence will end.

On Wednesday, Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the war will not conclude before the end of the year.

“The fighting in Gaza will continue for at least another seven months,” he told Israel’s public radio, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

The war began on October 7, 2023, and after nearly eight months of fighting, Hamas remains active throughout Gaza. Israel is in the process of invading Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, which it describes as the last Hamas stronghold in the territory.

The international community, however, has warned Israel against a military offensive in Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million civilians previously fled to avoid bombing elsewhere in the enclave.

This month’s fighting has nevertheless displaced more than one million people from the city, according to United Nations estimates.

Despite portraying Rafah as the final front, Israeli forces have also been engaging in fierce battles with Palestinian fighters in Jabalia and Gaza City in northern Gaza, where the Israeli army said in January that it had dismantled Hamas’s military infrastructure.

On Tuesday, Israeli officials said three of its soldiers were killed in fighting Rafah, and Hamas claimed credit for an attack on an Israeli infantry unit in the city that it said killed and injured 15 troops with explosives.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have been levelling entire neighbourhoods in northern and southern Gaza in what critics say is a systemic push to make the territory uninhabitable. Israel has also put most hospitals in Gaza out of commission and destroyed dozens of schools and universities in the enclave.

Moreover, the US ally is imposing a strict blockade on Gaza, bringing it to the verge of famine. Rights experts have accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon of war.

On Sunday, an Israeli attack against a camp for displaced people in Rafah killed 45 people, including children. A similar Israeli bombing in southern Gaza claimed the lives of at least 21 Palestinians on Tuesday.

Blinken said on Wednesday that the images of carnage from Sunday’s attack hurt on a “basic human level”.

“We have been very clear with Israel [that] the imperative in this instance, as in other instances, [is] to immediately investigate and determine exactly what happened and why it happened — and if accountability is necessary, to make sure that there is accountability,” the US top diplomat said.

Blinken’s US Department of State has approved the transfer of billions of dollars in weapons to Israel during the war, which has killed more than 36,000 Palestinians.

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Now or Never | Climate Crisis

As the planet tips towards a point of no return, we look at how youth across the world are demanding climate action now.

Protests and activism have the potential to bring about transformative, rapid change. But with big corporations making hefty profits while simultaneously polluting the planet, the appetite for climate action is limited and for many an inconvenience. Despite this, climate protesters have taken to the streets by the thousands to demand action now.

The film Now or Never follows climate activists who have a stark warning for those in power: humans will not survive if nothing is done about climate change. While many see their methods as unconventional and often inconvenient, they are now a necessary means to bring the reality of the climate crisis to the attention of the world. What will happen if we continue to ignore our dying Earth?

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Sweden announces $1.23bn military aid for Ukraine as Blinken visits Moldova | European Union News

Stockholm makes pledge as Washington and Brussels push to raise support in the third year of Russia-Ukraine war.

The Swedish government says it will donate 13 billion kronor ($1.23bn) in military assistance to Ukraine as Kyiv struggles with multiple delays of vital Western military aid in the third year of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch said on Wednesday that the assistance package “consists of equipment that is at the top of Ukraine’s priority list” like air defence, artillery ammunition and armoured vehicles.

Defence Minister Pal Jonsson reiterated that Sweden for now has ruled out sending any Swedish-built JAS 39 Gripen jets to Ukraine, saying the focus on the Ukrainian side is on implementing an F-16 fighter jet programme.

The donation also includes two Swedish-made SAAB ASCC airborne early warning and control planes, which Jonsson said would have the “greatest effect on the Ukrainian air defence” because it would complement and reinforce the promised donations of American F-16s.

EU push

On Tuesday, European Union defence ministers met in Brussels to try again to raise military support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already secured several pledges during his two-day tour of Spain, Belgium and Portugal this week.

Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said her country would equip Ukraine with 30 F-16 fighter jets and the first deliveries are planned for this year.

Zelenskyy signed a similar deal with Spain, securing a pledge for additional air defence missiles.

Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren announced on Tuesday that the Netherlands would deliver parts for a Patriot air defence system to Ukraine.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala confirmed that the first deliveries of a Czech-led initiative to provide ammunition to Kyiv, which sources supplies from outside the EU, would reach Ukraine in June.

However, an estimated 6.5 billion euros ($7bn) in EU military aid remains stalled by the Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, considered Russia’s staunchest ally in the EU.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, the first stop on a brief Europe tour aimed at solidifying Western support for Ukraine among NATO allies and neighbouring countries.

Blinken will meet pro-European President Maia Sandu and other senior officials at a time when US officials say the former Soviet republic of 2.5 million people, which has a long border with Ukraine, faces Russian “influence operations”.

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Frontrunner Labour bars race row MP from UK election run | Politics News

Diane Abbott says Labour will not allow her to run in July election despite party reinstatement.

Diane Abbot said she has been barred from standing as a candidate for the Labour Party in Britain’s upcoming general election.

Britain’s first Black female lawmaker told the BBC on Wednesday that the party will not allow her to stand in the July 4 election, despite lifting her suspension, which was enacted last year due to her comments on racism.

Labour leader Keir Starmer later denied that the party had barred Abbott.  no final decision on the issue has been reached. Asked about the matter while campaigning in western England, Starmer insisted “that’s not true”.

“No decision has been taken to bar Diane Abbott,” he said.

Abbott, who was first elected to parliament for Labour in 1987, had informed Britain’s public broadcaster by text message that she would not be allowed to stand. “Although the whip has been restored, I am banned from standing as a Labour candidate,” she said.

However, it was unclear whether there had been direct communication on the matter with Labour, as she later posted on X that she was “very dismayed that numerous reports suggest I have been barred as a candidate”.

Abbott was reinstated as a Labour MP on Tuesday after the completion of a party investigation into comments she had made in a letter to The Observer newspaper, stating that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people “undoubtedly experience prejudice”, but do not face racism “all their lives”.

Abbott was suspended despite having apologised “unreservedly” for the comments.

A longtime campaigner on issues such as racism, poverty and international affairs in her London constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Abbott was a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn who led the party from 2015 to 2020.

Under Corbyn’s leadership, the left-leaning party was investigated by the equalities watchdog, which found serious failings in the way the party had tackled anti-Semitism.

Corbyn was replaced as party leader by Keir Starmer, who has sought to crack down on the claimed anti-Semitism.

Corbyn is also barred from running as a Labour candidate after he said anti-Semitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated” for political reasons. Last week he announced that he would run as an independent candidate.

‘Trailblazer’

Opposition lawmakers on the left of the Labour Party have been angered by Abbot’s treatment, noting the racism and sexism that she has faced in her decades in politics.

Jacqueline McKenzie, a human rights lawyer and a friend of Abbott, told BBC Radio she should have been given “greater respect and greater dignity than to have these leaks”.

In March, it was revealed by The Guardian newspaper that Frank Hester, the ruling Conservative Party’s biggest donor, had made racist remarks about Abbott, saying that looking at her made him want to hate all Black women and that she “should be shot”.

At the time, Starmer defended the lawmaker as a “trailblazer”. “She has probably faced more abuse than any other politician over the years on a sustained basis,” he said.

However, the Labour leader, who has shifted the party towards the centre, will be wary of allowing the issue around the 70-year-old lawmaker from becoming a distraction ahead of the election, in which Labour looks likely to reclaim power for the first time in 14 years in the July contest.

Some hours after Abbot said she has been barred, Starmer said no final decision had been taken on whether she could be an election candidate.

Last week, UK political leaders kicked off six weeks of campaigning before the country votes for a new government. A poll of voting intentions this week gave Labour a 23-point lead over the governing Conservatives.

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Netherlands feared ‘great suffering’ in Gaza after UNRWA snub, memo reveals | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Days after the Netherlands suspended funding to the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, Dutch officials expressed fears that pausing support for too long could lead to “great human suffering” and regional destabilisation, newly released documents reveal.

In a memo written after the Netherlands joined more than a dozen countries in pausing funding to UNRWA following Israeli claims of links to Hamas, foreign ministry officials stressed the need for the UN agency to continue its work.

“Humanitarian assistance and basic services provided by UNRWA to Gaza and the wider region must be maintained at this stage of the conflict. Other organisations are not adequately equipped for this purpose, including logistical capacities. Further regional destabilisation due to loss of UNRWA capacities must be prevented,” officials in the ministry’s human rights department wrote in the memo to Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot on February 2.

Bruins Slot, a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal party, expressed agreement with her colleagues in a hand-written note.

“Agreed! Touches whole region that is already unstable,” she wrote on the memo.

Describing myriad competing priorities, officials warned that Amsterdam faced a “precarious” balance in deciding whether to fund UNRWA.

“The balance between the desired political signal, the rapidity of the UN investigations, humanitarian needs, no further destabilisation in the region, the continuation of balanced contacts with both Israel and the Palestinians and the reallocation of funds is very precarious,” the memo said.

“Too long a delay or suspension of already committed support could lead to serious disruptions in UNWRA’s operational capacities resulting in considerably great human suffering,” the memo continued, to which Bruins Slot added a hand-written note expressing her agreement.

“In addition, high humanitarian needs could lead to social disruption and regional escalation, which also poses a risk to Israel’s security. It is also politically relevant to take into account the ruling of the International Court of Justice on adequate humanitarian aid.”

Al Jazeera obtained the memo, which has not been published previously, via a freedom of information request with the Dutch foreign ministry.

Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot expressed concern about the effects of a prolonged pause in funding to UNRWA, documents show [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

Despite the concerns raised within the upper levels of the Dutch government, the Netherlands has yet to resume funding to the UNRWA five months after announcing a pause in response to Israeli claims that some agency staff participated in Hamas’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel.

An investigation led by French former foreign minister Catherine Colonna concluded last month that Israel had not provided evidence to support its allegations of UNRWA involvement in the assault.

At least half of the 16 countries that suspended funding in response to Israel’s claims, including Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Sweden, have since reinstated their support.

When contacted for comment, the Netherlands’ foreign ministry referred Al Jazeera to a letter it sent to parliament last month detailing its position on funding UNRWA.

In the letter, the ministry said it had already provided its annual funding to UNRWA in January, but future requests would be considered based on the agency’s implementation of Colonna’s recommendations to strengthen its neutrality and the outcome of an upcoming report by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

OIOS said in an update to its investigation last month that it was probing 14 UNRWA staff members over their alleged links to the October 7 attacks, after dropping inquires into five others due to lack of evidence.

In the February memo, officials recommended that funding be “reconsidered in due course” based on the outcome of the OIOS report, the establishment of terms of reference to investigate risk management at UNRWA, and a “plan of action, including commitment from UNRWA to (re)examine staff”.

Established in 1949, the UNRWA employs about 30,000 people in the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to provide essential services including food, education and healthcare.

The UN agency last week announced it would have to suspend food distribution in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, where Israel’s military is conducting a ground offensive and air strikes, due to a lack of supplies and security risks.

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