Russia attacked Ukraine with a barrage of missiles Thursday, including ones that targeted the capital, Kyiv, as well as the city of Kharkiv. Ukrainian presidential aide Miykhailo Podolyak tweeted that Russia launched at least 120 missiles “to destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse.” The attack prompted air raid sirens across the country, and …
The Biden administration is marking the four-year anniversary of the detention in Russia of American businessman Paul Whelan, whose continued imprisonment is one of several major irritants in tattered relations between Washington and Moscow. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday that securing Whelan’s release remains a top administration priority. U.S. officials …
Read more “US Marks 4 Years Since Paul Whelan’s Detention in Russia”
Ukraine has bought some 1,400 drones, mostly for reconnaissance, and plans to develop combat models that can attack the exploding drones Russia has used during its invasion of the country, according to the Ukrainian government minister in charge of technology. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Mykhailo Fedorov, the minister of digital transformation, …
Read more “Minister: Ukraine Aims to Develop Air-to-Air Combat Drones”
Recent Russian-Belarusian military exercises have raised fears of a second invasion of Ukraine from the north. While Ukrainians see Belarus as an aggressor, some observers and members of the Belarusian opposition say that not all Belarusians side with Russia. In fact, some Belarusians decided to prove their allegiance to Ukraine by joining its army. Myroslava …
Read more “Belarusian Regiment Fights Against Russia in Ukraine”
Bernard Phelan, a French Irish tour operator who has been detained in Iran for the past three months, was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” his sister said Wednesday. Phelan’s family spoke with The Irish Times about the diplomatic dispute he is involved in. According to the Times, Phelan, 64, was arrested by …
Read more “Father of Tourist Detained in Iran: ‘I Am Afraid I Will Never See Him Again’”
A Turkish appellate court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of a leading critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose jailing has added to tensions in Ankara’s uneasy ties with the West. Paris-born activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala was sentenced to life in jail without the possibility of parole in April on the charge of trying …
Read more “Turkish Court Upholds Rights Leader’s Life Sentence”
A group of ethnic Chechens fleeing Russia arrived in Bosnia this week, hoping to use the Balkan country as a launchpad to reach the European Union and avoid getting sent to fight in Ukraine. The group of some 50 people, predominantly from Russia’s Chechnya region, congregated near Bosnia’s northwestern border with EU-member Croatia, the Bosnian …
Read more “Chechens Travel to Bosnia to Dodge Russian Draft, Set Eyes on EU”
Iran must stop executing and persecuting protesters and should open a dialogue with them, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday after summoning the Iranian ambassador. Tajani said death sentences against people who take part in demonstrations or women who refuse to wear headscarves were a grossly disproportionate and unacceptable form of punishment. “Taking off …
Read more “Italy Urges Iran to Stop Executions, Start Open Dialogue With Protesters”
The United States, NATO and European Union urged maximum restraint in the north of Kosovo, as authorities closed a third border crossing on Wednesday as tensions escalated with local Serbs over its 2008 independence. For more than 20 years, Kosovo has been a source of tension between the West, which backed its independence, and Russia, …
Read more “US, EU, NATO Urge Restraint as Serbia-Kosovo Border Crossings Close”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby announced late December that Russia’s Wagner mercenary group is expanding its influence, recruiting convicts and receiving arms from North Korea. Garri Knyagnitsky has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. …
NASA is exploring whether SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft can potentially offer an alternative ride home for some crew members of the International Space Station after a Russian capsule sprang a coolant leak while docked to the orbital lab. NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, are investigating the cause of a punctured coolant line on an …
Read more “NASA Mulls SpaceX Backup Plan for Crew of Russia’s Leaky Soyuz Ship”
Italy is making coronavirus tests for visitors from China mandatory following an explosion in cases in China, the health minister said Wednesday. “I have ordered mandatory COVID-19 antigenic swabs, and related virus sequencing, for all passengers coming from China and transiting through Italy,” minister Orazio Schillaci said. The measure was “essential to ensure the surveillance …
Ukraine said Russia attacks Wednesday included missiles fired at civilian targets in the southern city of Kherson. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported 33 missiles fired at Kherson, which Ukraine recaptured after Russian forces withdrew last month. Russia has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine. The Ukrainian military also reported fighting Wednesday around the …
Pope Francis said Wednesday that former Pope Benedict is “very sick.” Speaking during his general audience, the pope asked for special prayers for Benedict. He did not elaborate on Benedict’s condition and there has been no comment from the Vatican on the state of his health. The 95-year-old Benedict resigned in 2013, citing among other …
Read more “Pope Francis Says Former Pope Benedict ‘Very Sick’”
French authorities were Tuesday investigating as suicide the drowning of an Iranian man in the southeastern city of Lyon; he had said on social media he was going to kill himself to draw attention to the protest crackdown in Iran. Mohammad Moradi, 38, was found in the Rhone, which flows through the center of Lyon, …
Read more “Investigation Opens After Iranian Found Dead in French River”
Britain’s National Trust on Wednesday said nature and wildlife at the charity’s sites had been harmed by extreme weather in the past year and warned it could become the “new normal.” The heritage conservation charity’s climate change adviser Keith Jones said it was a “stark illustration of the sort of difficulties many of our species …
Read more “Weather Extremes Becoming ‘New Normal,’ Warns UK’s National Trust”
Hundreds of laptop-toting professionals and students line up outside the public library in the Ukrainian town of Irpin, desperate to get plugged in and online amid the latest energy blackout. The library, on the ground floor of a nine-story apartment block in the town center of the Kyiv suburb, has become the locus and a …
Read more “Library Offers Refuge, Recovery in War-scarred Ukraine Town”
Russia on Monday placed a senior journalist with the Bellingcat investigative website on a wanted list, following his extensive reporting on Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine. Bulgarian journalist Christo Grozev’s name was added to a list of wanted people on Russia’s interior ministry website. The ministry did not specify the crime for which he is wanted. …
Read more “Russia Places Bellingcat Journalist on Wanted List”
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II died in September after seven decades on the throne. Her passing was mourned around the world – and the funeral watched by millions. Henry Ridgwell looks back at an extraordinary period in Britain’s history …
Protesting Serbs in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo erected new barricades on Tuesday, hours after Serbia said it had put its army on the highest combat alert following weeks of escalating tensions between Belgrade and Pristina. Serbia’s defense ministry said in a statement late on Monday that in response to the …
Read more “Tensions Rise in Northern Kosovo as Local Serbs Block Roads; Serbia Puts Army on Alert”
Iran on Monday blasted Britain’s “non-constructive role” a day after the Islamic republic announced the arrest of a U.K.-linked “network” involved in the three months of protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death. Protests have gripped Iran since the September 16 death of Iranian Kurdish Amini, 22, after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach …
Read more “Iran Slams Britain After Protest ‘Network’ Arrested”
Members of France’s Kurdish community and others held a silent march Monday to honor three people killed in a shooting at a Kurdish cultural center in Paris that prosecutors say was motivated by racism. Turkey summoned France’s ambassador Monday over what it called “black propaganda” by Kurdish activists after the shooting. Some have marched in …
Read more “Kurds Hold March of Mourning After Paris Shooting Kills 3”
Ukraine’s foreign minister said Monday that his government is aiming to have a peace summit by the end of February, preferably at the United Nations with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as a possible mediator, around the anniversary of Russia’s war. But Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Associated Press that Russia could only be invited to …
NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo said Monday they were investigating a shooting incident in a tense northern region, urging calm as Serbia’s top military officials inspected their troops on the border with Kosovo in a show of combat readiness. The incident on Sunday evening took place in Zubin Potok, a town in northern Kosovo where local …
Read more “NATO Probing Shooting Incident in Tense Northern Kosovo”