A landmark new Spanish law on sexual violence is the target of protests after at least 15 convicted offenders used the legislation to secure reductions to their jail terms while others were released.

Known as the “only yes means yes” law in Spain, it reformed the criminal code to define all non-consensual sex as rape.

Before this, rape convictions could only be secured if prosecutors could prove that violence or intimidation had been used. Often, a lesser charge of sexual abuse was alleged if these factors could not be proved.

The new law, enacted in October, also made wolf-whistling at women an offense and ordered sex offenders to take re-education courses.

Ana I. Bernal, a journalist who specializes in writing about feminism, told VOA: “This law has left a legal loophole. There are many victims who are scared about what could happen because the people who abused them could be let out of prison earlier. They are worried about their safety.”  

The law raises the sentences for gang rape or chemical submission, but it reduces both the maximum and minimum sentences in cases where there are no aggravating circumstances like violence or intimidation.

In Spain, a jail term can be retroactively modified if changes to the penal code benefits the convicted offender.

Hundreds of convicted offenders have applied to have their sentences revised since the law came into effect.

The legislation was brought in after a group of five men, known as the Wolf Pack, raped an 18-year-old woman at Pamplona at the world-famous bull running festival in 2016.

In a politically embarrassing reverse for Spain’s leftist government, which has made feminism a central part of its policies, the offenders whose crimes inspired the new rape law could benefit from the legislation.

Augustín Martínez, a lawyer for one member of the Wolf Pack, whose name came from the WhatsApp social media group which the attackers used, said he intends to use the law to try to reduce the offender’s sentence.

The ‘Wolf Pack’ are not the only ones who could benefit.

One man who sexually assaulted his 13-year-old stepdaughter had his sentence reduced from eight years to six years.

In another case, a teacher who paid for sex with his pupils was released after his sentence was reduced.

Victims have gone public to express their anger that they may come face to face with the men who abused them sooner than they believed.

Antonia’s former partner was jailed for 13 years for raping her, but he has had his sentence cut to 11 years.

“It is like a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. This makes me very scared and angry,” she told RTVE, the Spanish state television network. She consented to appear on television but did not give her full name.

With the lesser charge of ‘sexual abuse’ dropped from the criminal code and wider range of offences grouped under ‘sexual assault’, a broader range of penalties was required to ensure proportionality.

This means anyone who was previously convicted of sexual assault who was jailed for the minimum sentence of eight years, can now benefit from the minimum being reduced to six.

Accusations of chauvinism

Spain’s Equality Minister, Irene Montero of the far-left Unidas Podemos party, which is the junior partner in Spain’s coalition government, accused judges who have cut sentences of “breaking the law” on the grounds of “male chauvinism” – remarks which angered the judges’ organizations.

The General Council of the Judiciary, the body responsible for ensuring the judiciary’s independence, hit back in a statement, saying these were “intolerable attacks.”

A female judge, who did not want to disclose her name, told VOA: “Clearly, we are not all machos! This is nonsense.”

Carlos Flores, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Valencia, told VOA that the minister’s claims about judges ‘male chauvinism’ did not make sense.

“At least 55% of Spanish judges are women so you cannot accuse them of machismo. Also, all the judges sitting today trained in the period after the death of (the dictator) General Franco (in 1975) and most receive education in gender politics,” he said.

Flores said that the row over the law which was designed to give more protection to victims has proved embarrassing for the Spanish government.

“All this is happening in an area which this government has made one of its dearest concerns – feminism. This is the most feminist government in Spanish history with the largest number of women ministers. It is a major failure in a major area of interest for this government,” he noted.

Amid calls for Montero to resign, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has come under pressure to act.

Political Cornerstone

“It is unlikely that Sanchez will sack Montero over this. It would be the end of the coalition,” Pablo Simón, a political expert from the University Carlos III in Madrid, told VOA.

This week, the Supreme Court will review a number of cases.

“Let’s wait to see what the courts and prosecutors say about this,” Sanchez said last week.

Opposition parties have exploited the political crisis.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the opposition conservative People’s Party, said: “The effect is that there are rapists who have committed sexual abuse who, thanks to this law, are now more protected because of the president of the government.”

Flores said it was unlikely that the new law would be modified.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency said it planned to carry out inspections Monday at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after two days of shelling in the area renewed concerns about the potential disaster at the site.

The latest round of attacks near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant included what the IAEA said were more than a dozen blasts Sunday.

“Even though there was no direct impact on key nuclear safety and security systems at the plant, the shelling came dangerously close to them. We are talking meters, not kilometers,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said. “Whoever is shelling at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is taking huge risks and gambling with many people’s lives.”

Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly blamed each other for shelling near the power plant amid the war Russia launched in late February with its invasion of Ukraine.

A Kremlin spokesman told reporters Monday other countries need to use their influence to help end attacks at the site.

As bitter winter weather hits Ukraine, Russia has been attacking the Ukrainian power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians. In the Zaporizhzhia region alone, the Ukrainian presidency said, Russian forces shelled civilian infrastructure in about a dozen communities, destroying 30 homes.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Russian tanks lumbered into Kherson on the first day of the war last February. Its liberation this week was a significant victory for Ukrainian forces. But nearly nine months of war have had a devastating effect on this region. Yelyzaveta Krotyk has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice.
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The British government Sunday denied a report that it is seeking a “Swiss-style” relationship with the European Union that would remove many of the economic barriers erected by Brexit — even as it tries to improve ties with the bloc after years of acrimony.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay told Sky News “I don’t recognize” the Sunday Times report, insisting the U.K. was still determined to “use the Brexit freedoms we have” by diverging from the EU’s rules in key areas.

Switzerland has a close economic relationship with the 27-nation EU in return for accepting the bloc’s rules and paying into its coffers.

The U.K. government said, “Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardize the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.”

But despite the denials, the new Conservative government led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to restore relations with the EU, acknowledging that Brexit has brought an economic cost for Britain. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt last week expressed optimism that trade barriers between the U.K. and the EU would be removed in the coming years.

The shift comes as public opposition grows to the hard form of Brexit pursued by successive Conservative governments since British voters opted by a 52%-48% margin to leave the bloc in a 2016 referendum.

Now, according to polling expert John Curtice, 57% of people would vote to rejoin the bloc and 43% to stay out.

When the U.K. was negotiating its divorce from the EU, Conservative governments under Prime Ministers Theresa May and her successor Boris Johnson ruled out remaining inside the EU’s borderless single market or its tariff-free customs union. Politicians who wanted closer ties were ignored or pushed aside.

The divorce deal struck by the two sides in 2020 has brought customs checks and other border hurdles for goods, and passport checks and other annoyances for travelers. Britons can no longer live and work freely across Europe, and EU citizens can’t move to the U.K. at will.

The British government’s fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, said last week that leaving the EU has had “a significant adverse effect on U.K. trade.”

Yet only recently have members of the government begun acknowledging Brexit’s downsides. Hunt, who last week announced a 55 billion-pound ($65 billion) package of tax increases and spending cuts to shore up an economy battered by soaring inflation, acknowledged Brexit had caused “trade barriers” with the U.K.’s nearest neighbors.

“Unfettered trade with our neighbors is very beneficial to growth,” he told the BBC, and predicted that the “vast majority” of barriers would be removed – although it would take years.

Any move to rebuild ties with the EU will face opposition from the powerful euroskeptic wing of the Conservative Party. Even the opposition Labour Party — reluctant to reopen a debate that split the country in half and poisoned politics — says it won’t seek to rejoin the bloc, or even the EU’s single market, if it takes power after the next election.

Sunak, who took office last month, is a longtime Brexit supporter, but also a pragmatist who has made repairing the economy his top priority. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has rocked European security and sent energy prices soaring, has put Brexit squabbles into perspective for politicians on both sides of the English Channel.

Sunak wants to solve a festering feud with the EU over trade rules that have caused a political crisis in Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member nation. When Britain left the bloc, the two sides agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of the peace process that ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.

Instead, there are checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That angered pro-British unionist politicians, who say the new checks undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. They are boycotting Belfast’s power-sharing government, leaving Northern Ireland without a functioning administration.

The U.K. government is pinning its hopes on striking a deal with the EU that would ease the checks and coax Northern Ireland’s unionists back into the government.

Months of talks when Johnson was in office proved fruitless, but the mood has improved since Sunak took over, though as yet there has been no breakthrough. 
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Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that it has launched airstrikes over the northern regions of Syria and Iraq where the ministry is targeting Kurdish groups that it believes are responsible for an attack last week in Istanbul.

The ministry said the strikes hit the bases of the Kurdistan Wokers’ Party, or PKK, and the Syrian People’s Protection Units or YPG.

A bomb hit central Istanbul last week, killing six people and wounding over 80.

Turkey blames the PKK and the YPG for the attack, but both groups have denied the charges.

Washington backs the YPG in its war against the Islamic State terrorist group.
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Powerful explosions shook the area around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Saturday evening and again Sunday morning, the U.N. said, abruptly ending a period of relative calm at the facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency team at Zaporizhzhia said there was damage to some buildings, systems and equipment at the plant, but none threatened nuclear safety and security. There have been no casualty reports.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement Sunday that the explosions further underlined the urgent need for measures to help prevent a nuclear accident there.

“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely disturbing,” Grossi said. “Explosions occurred at the site of this major nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” he added.

The director-general renewed his urgent appeal to both sides in the conflict to agree and implement a nuclear safety and security zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible. In recent months, he has engaged in intense consultations with Ukraine and Russia about establishing such a zone, but so far without an agreement.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Sunday that Russia’s recent withdrawal from Kherson “was conducted in relatively good order” and its success “is likely partially due to a more effective, single operational command under General Sergei Surovikin.”

The ministry said Russian vehicle losses were likely in the tens rather than the hundreds, while any left behind equipment was “successfully destroyed by Russian forces to deny it to Ukraine.”

The report warned, however, the Russian force “remains riven by poor junior and mid-level leadership and cover-up culture.”

Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine’s defense has global implications. At the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, he warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations.

“Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching,” Austin said. “And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation,” he added.

Austin also said Moscow’s efforts to gain support from countries such as Iran and North Korea create new security challenges for the United States and its allies.

Earlier, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, Colin Kahl, said Russia is trying to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses and achieve dominance over Ukrainian skies.

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with missile strikes throughout the past week, the heaviest wave since Moscow invaded nine months ago.

In Kyiv people woke up Saturday to several inches of snow. Ukrainian authorities in the capital are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“They are determined to destroy our power grids,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in a speech at the Halifax forum.

“The calculation is simple: a humanitarian catastrophe. Moscow always considers frost and darkness as its allies. It always uses the deprivation of basic life needs as a war tool. It always despises humanitarian law. Russia is a terrorist state,” Yermak said.

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist throughout Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, in his nightly video address.

“Energy workers are doing everything possible to give people a normal life,” he said.

He added transport connections are being restored in Kherson.

“There is the first train from Kyiv. We create new opportunities for people every day,” Zelenskyy said.

In message earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax meeting.

“The end of the war doesn’t guarantee peace. Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength… such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.

 
…

Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Sunday that Russia’s recent withdrawal from Kherson “was conducted in relatively good order” and its success “is likely partially due to a more effective, single operational command under General Sergei Surovikin.”

The ministry said Russian vehicle losses were likely in the tens rather than the hundreds, while any left behind equipment was “successfully destroyed by Russian forces to deny it to Ukraine.”

The report warned, however, the Russian force “remains riven by poor junior and mid-level leadership and cover-up culture.”

Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine’s defense has global implications. At the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, he warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations.

“Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching,” Austin said. “And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation,” he added.

Austin also said Moscow’s efforts to gain support from countries such as Iran and North Korea create new security challenges for the United States and its allies.

Earlier, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, Colin Kahl, said Russia is trying to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses and achieve dominance over Ukrainian skies.

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with missile strikes throughout the past week, the heaviest wave since Moscow invaded nine months ago.

“They’re really trying to overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems,” Kahl, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters Saturday during a trip to the Middle East.

Kahl said that, so far, Russia has not succeeded in breaking the Ukrainian air force and air defenses.

“I think one of the things that probably surprised the Russians the most is how resilient Ukraine’s air defenses have been since the beginning of this conflict,” he said.

He attributed Ukraine’s resilience to the “ingenuity and cleverness of the Ukrainians themselves in keeping their air defense systems viable,” but he noted that “the United States and other allies and partners have provided a tremendous amount of support.”

Britain pledged a $59.4 million air defense package Saturday for Ukraine, including anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones to Russia. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the announcement on his first trip to Kyiv, posting a video of his visit on Twitter and pledging “We are with you all the way.”

In Kyiv people woke up Saturday to several inches of snow. Ukrainian authorities in the capital are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“They are determined to destroy our power grids,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in a speech at the Halifax forum.

“The calculation is simple: a humanitarian catastrophe. Moscow always considers frost and darkness as its allies. It always uses the deprivation of basic life needs as a war tool. It always despises humanitarian law. Russia is a terrorist state,” Yermak said.

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist throughout Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, in his nightly video address.

“Energy workers are doing everything possible to give people a normal life,” he said.

He added transport connections are being restored in Kherson.

“There is the first train from Kyiv. We create new opportunities for people every day,” Zelenskyy said.

In message earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax meeting.

“The end of the war doesn’t guarantee peace. Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength … such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Hundreds detained, missing in Kherson

A Yale University report backed by the U.S. State Department reveals that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October, during Russia’s occupation of Kherson.

The Conflict Observatory, a Yale university research program supported by the department, released its independent report Friday. It describes numerous instances of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson.

“Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end a needless war that it cannot and will not win — no matter how despicable and desperate its tactics,” a State Department statement said Friday.

Investigators in liberated areas of the Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies bearing marks of what appeared to have been torture, Ukraine Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying.

VOA has not been able to independently verify those claims.

Russia denies its troops have targeted civilians or have committed atrocities during the war in Ukraine.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Bulgarian prosecutors have charged five people for supporting terrorist acts in connection with an explosion in central Istanbul that killed six people on Nov. 13, chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev said Saturday.

Bulgarian special police forces detained three men of Moldovan origin and a man and woman of Syrian Kurdish descent this week following investigations and close cooperation with prosecutors in neighboring Turkey, Geshev told Reuters.

“Five people have been charged. The charges are in two groups — for supporting terrorist acts in another country, namely the attack in Istanbul and for human trafficking,” Geshev said, adding they were mainly involved in human trafficking through Turkey and smuggling.

A Bulgarian court ruled in a closed hearing Saturday that the four men could be kept in pre-trial detention on the human trafficking charges, saying it lacked enough evidence to keep them behind bars on the charges of supporting terrorist activities.

The prosecutors did not ask the court to keep the woman in custody because of a health condition.

In Chisinau, the Moldovan foreign ministry confirmed three citizens had been detained.

“Our country strongly condemns any terrorist acts, including those in Istanbul,” said ministry representative Daniel Voda.

Turkish prosecutors have already asked for some of the suspected accomplices in the blast to be extradited, Geshev added.

On Friday, a Turkish court ordered the pre-trial detention of 17 people suspected of being involved in the explosion, including the suspected bomber, who police identified as Syrian national Ahlam Albashir.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, which also injured more than 80 people on Istiklal Avenue, a busy and historic pedestrian strip.

The Turkish government swiftly blamed Kurdish militants for the blast and police have said the suspected bomber was trained by Kurdish militants in Syria. 
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Saturday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations and said Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where “might makes right.” 

Austin made the remarks at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies. 

“Russia’s invasion offers a preview of a possible world of tyranny and turmoil that none of us would want to live in. And it’s an invitation to an increasingly insecure world haunted by the shadow of nuclear proliferation,” Austin said in a speech. 

“Because Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching. And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation.” 

Austin dismissed Putin’s claims that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia,” calling it a vision of “a world in which autocrats decide which countries are real and which countries can be snuffed out.” 

He added that the war “shows the whole world the dangers of disorder. That’s the security challenge that we face. It’s urgent, and it’s historic,” he said. 

Basic principles of democracy are under siege around the world, he added. 

U.S. President Joe Biden last month declared that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis; Russian officials have raised using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in their nearly nine-month invasion of Ukraine. 

While U.S. officials for months have warned of the prospect that Russia could use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine in the face of battlefield setbacks, Biden administration officials have repeatedly said nothing has changed in U.S. intelligence assessments to suggest Putin has imminent plans to deploy nuclear weapons. 

CIA Director Bill Burns recently met with his Russian intelligence counterpart to warn of consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. 

Austin said nuclear weapons need to be responsibly controlled and not used to threaten the world. 

“Ukraine faces a harsh winter. And as Russia’s position on the battlefield erodes, Putin may resort again to profoundly irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling,” he said.

Compares Moscow to China

Austin also compared Russia to China, saying Beijing is trying to refashion both the region and the international system to suit its authoritarian preferences. He noted China’s increasing military activities in the Taiwan Strait. 

“Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right, where disputes are resolved by force, and where autocrats can stamp out the flame of freedom,” he said. 

Austin called Putin’s invasion the worst crisis in security since the end of World War II and said the outcome “will help determine the course of global security in this young century.” 

Austin said the deadly missile explosion in Poland this week is a consequence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war of choice” against Ukraine. 

“The tragic and troubling explosion in Poland this week reminded the whole world of the recklessness of Putin’s war of choice,” Austin said. 

Russia blamed for deaths in Poland

On Tuesday, two workers were killed when a projectile hit a grain-drying facility close to Poland’s border with Ukraine. While the source of the missile is under investigation, NATO officials have said they suspect it was fired from a Ukrainian missile battery in self-defense. 

Officials from Poland, NATO and the United States have blamed Russia for the deaths in any case, saying a Ukrainian missile would not have misfired had the country not been forced to defend itself against heavy Russian attacks that day. 

Russian officials have cast the conflict as a struggle against NATO — though Ukraine is not a NATO member even if it has been receiving aid from NATO member states. 

Austin said NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia. 

“Make no mistake: We will not be dragged into Putin’s war of choice. But we will stand by Ukraine as it fights to defend itself. And we will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Austin said. 

A Polish investigation to determine the source of the missile and the circumstances of the explosion was launched with support from the U.S. and Ukrainian investigators joined the probe on Friday. 

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in an interview broadcast live at the forum that “It’s not right to say it’s a Ukrainian rocket, or a Russian rocket, before the investigation is over.” 

In its 14th year, about 300 people gather each year at Halifax International Security Forum held at Halifax’s Westin hotel, where about 13 Ukrainian refugees now work. 
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Russia is trying to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses and achieve dominance over Ukrainian skies, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser has warned.

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with missile strikes throughout the past week, the heaviest wave since Moscow invaded nine months ago.

“They’re really trying to overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems,” Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters Saturday during a trip to the Middle East. He said that so far, Russia has not succeeded in breaking Ukrainian air force and air defenses.

“I think one of the things that probably surprised the Russians the most is how resilient Ukraine’s air defenses have been since the beginning of this conflict,” Kahl said.

He attributed Ukraine’s resilience to the “ingenuity and cleverness of the Ukrainians themselves in keeping their air defense systems viable,” but he noted that “it’s also the United States and other allies and partners have provided a tremendous amount of support.”

Britain pledged a $59.4 million air defense package Saturday for Ukraine, including anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones to Russia. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the announcement on his first trip to Kyiv, posting a video of his visit on Twitter and pledging “We are with you all the way.”

In its intelligence update Saturday, Britain’s Defense Ministry said that on Wednesday, Russia held its “largest ever debt issuance in a single day.”

The issuance, the ministry said, “is a key mechanism to sustain defense spending, which has increased significantly since the invasion of Ukraine.”

The issuance raised $13.6 billion, according to the update posted on Twitter.

Russia has announced a 2023 defense budget of approximately $84 billion, more than 40% higher than its initial 2023 budget announced in 2021.

“The size of this auction,” the Defense Ministry said, “highly likely indicates the Russian Ministry of Finance perceives current conditions as relatively favorable but is anticipating an increasingly uncertain fiscal environment over the next year.”

Ukraine bracing for cold

In Kyiv people woke up Saturday to several inches of snow. Authorities in the capital are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist in 17 regions of Ukraine as well as the capital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in his nightly video address.

He said energy companies worked throughout the day Friday to restore the electricity supply and said there were already significantly fewer emergency shutdowns. In the areas where outages continue, he said, “stabilization hourly schedules were in effect.”

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna, said Friday that Russia’s tactics of cutting electricity, water and gas supplies “massively demoralize civilian population.”

The chief executive of state utility operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian state television, “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

On Friday, Zelenskyy also met with Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis in Kyiv and thanked him for the EU’s planned financial assistance program of more than $18.5 billion in 2023.

Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together defense and security officials from Western democracies, in a recorded message Friday.

“Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength … such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Hundreds detained, missing in Kherson

A Yale University report backed by the U.S. State Department reveals that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October, during Russia’s occupation of Kherson.

The Conflict Observatory, a Yale university research program supported by the U.S. State Department, released its independent report Friday. It describes numerous instances of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson. “Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end a needless war that it cannot and will not win — no matter how despicable and desperate its tactics,” a State Department statement announced Friday.

Investigators in liberated areas of the Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies bearing marks of what appeared to have been torture, Ukraine Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying.

The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, released a video of what he said was a torture chamber used by Russian forces in the Kherson region.

Lubinets said Russians tortured Ukrainians with electric current, broke their bones, beat them with metal pipes and killed them. He noted the invaders recorded all their crimes on video.

Reuters was unable to verify the allegations made by Lubinets and others in the video. Russia denies its troops deliberately attack civilians or have committed atrocities.

Meanwhile, Russia claimed Friday that Ukrainian soldiers executed more than 10 Russian prisoners of war, accusing Kyiv of war crimes and the West of ignoring them.

The Russian defense ministry cited a video circulating on Russian social media that it alleged showed the execution of Russian prisoners of war. Reuters was unable to immediately verify either the video or the defense ministry’s assertions.

Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Pope Francis returned to his father’s birthplace in northern Italy Saturday for the first time since ascending the papacy to celebrate the 90th birthday of a second cousin who long knew him as simply “Giorgio.”

The two-day visit to Francis’ ancestral homeland to renew family ties touched on keystones of his papacy, including the importance of honoring the elderly and the human toll of migration. Francis’ private visit Saturday will be followed by a public one Sunday to celebrate Mass for the local faithful, where he could well reflect on his family’s experience migrating to Argentina.

The pope’s father, Mario Jose Francisco Bergoglio, and his paternal grandparents arrived in Buenos Aires on Jan. 25, 1929, to reach other relatives at the tail end of a mass decadeslong emigration from Italy that the pope has honored with two recent saints: St. Giovanni Batista Scalabrini and St. Artemide Zatti.

The future pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was born nearly eight years later in Buenos Aires, after the elder Bergoglio met and married Regina Maria Sivori, whose family was also of Italian immigrant stock, hailing from the Liguria region. Francis grew up speaking the Piedmont dialect of his paternal grandmother Rosa, who cared for him most days.

The elder Bergoglio was born in the town of Portacomaro, 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Asti, an agricultural town that lost population not only to emigration abroad but also to nearby Turin as it became an industrial center.

Today, the town has 2,000 residents, but it numbered more than 2,700 a century ago, and dropped as low as 1,680 in the 1980s.

The pope’s family emigrated after the peak, which saw 14 million Italians leave from 1876 to 1915 — a movement that made Italy the biggest voluntary diaspora in the world, according to Lauren Braun-Strumfels, an associate professor of history at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Often citing his own family story, Francis, now 85, has made the welcoming and integration of migrants a hallmark of his papacy, often facing criticism as Europe in general, and Italy in particular, are consumed with the debate over how to manage mass migration.

The pope has recognized the historic significance of the emigrant experience with the recent canonizations of St. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who founded an order to help Italian emigrants at the end of the 19th century, and Artemide Zatti, an Italian who emigrated to Argentina in the same period and dedicated his work to helping the sick.

He used the occasion to again denounce Europe’s indifference toward migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea and what they hope will be better futures.

Francis began his visit to Portacomaro Saturday with lunch at the home of a cousin, Carla Rabezzana. Photographs released by the Vatican showed Francis clearly enjoying himself, hugging Rabezzana and sitting at the head of the table.

“We have known each other forever,” Rabezzana told the Corriere della Sera newspaper in the run-up to the visit. “When I lived in Turin, Giorgio — I always called him that — came to stay because I had an extra room. That is how we maintained our relationship.

“We always would joke. When he told me he would come to celebrate my 90th birthday, I said it made my heart race. And in response I was told: ‘Try not to die.’ We burst out laughing.’’

The pope has many more third and fourth cousins still in the area.

“It was a large family, and in the area, there are still many distant cousins,” said Carlo Cerrato a former mayor of Portacomaro. He said it was a “big surprise” for everyone in the town when Francis was elected pope nearly a decade ago.

“Everyone knew there was a prelate who had become the cardinal of Buenos Aires, but it was something that the relatives knew, not everyone in town,” Cerrato said.

After nearly 10 years as pope, Francis has yet to return to his own birthplace in Argentina. He hasn’t really explained his reasons for staying away. He recently confirmed that if he were to resign as pope, he wouldn’t go back to Buenos Aires to live but would remain in Rome.
…

An explosion at a five-story apartment building in eastern Russia has killed at least nine people, four of them children, officials said Saturday.

The blast on the Russian Pacific island of Sakhalin was apparently caused by a gas cylinder hooked up to a cooking stove, according to Russian news agencies.

Emergency workers are continuing to look for survivors under the rubble, officials said.
…

In its intelligence update Saturday, Britain’s defense ministry said that on Wednesday, Russia held its “largest ever debt issuance in a single day.”

The issuance, the ministry said, “is a key mechanism to sustain defense spending, which has increased significantly since the invasion of Ukraine.”

The issuance raised $13.6 billion, according to the update posted on Twitter.

Russia has announced a 2023 defense budget of approximately $84 billion, more than 40% higher than its initial 2023 budget announced in 2021.

“The size of this auction,” the defense ministry said, “highly likely indicates the Russian Ministry of Finance perceives current conditions as relatively favorable but is anticipating an increasingly uncertain fiscal environment over the next year.”

Ukrainian authorities in the capital, Kyiv, are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said authorities are attempting to restore the city’s power grid.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“Unfortunately, Russia continues missile strikes against the civilian critical infrastructure of Ukraine, fighting against the civilian population and depriving them of light, water supply, heat and communications during the winter.” His comments came during talks with European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian prime minister added, “On November 15, Russia fired about 100 missiles at Ukrainian cities. Almost half of our energy systems have been disabled.”

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist in 17 regions of Ukraine as well as the capital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in his nightly video address.

He said energy companies worked throughout the day Friday to restore the electricity supply and said there were already significantly fewer emergency shutdowns. In the areas where outages continue, he said, “stabilization hourly schedules were in effect.”

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna, said Friday that Russia’s tactics of cutting electricity, water and gas supplies “massively demoralize civilian population.”

The chief executive of state utility operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian state television, “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

On Friday, Zelenskyy also met with Dombrovskis in Kyiv and thanked him for the EU’s planned financial assistance program of more than $18.5 billion in 2023.

Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together defense and security officials from Western democracies, in a recorded message Friday.

“Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength … such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Zelenskyy added, “A truly real and long-lasting peace can only be the result of complete demolition of Russian aggression.”

Hundreds detained, missing in Kherson

A Yale University report backed by the U.S. State Department reveals that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October, during Russia’s occupation of Kherson.

The Conflict Observatory, a Yale university research program supported by the U.S. State Department, released its independent report Friday. It describes numerous instances of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson. “Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end a needless war that it cannot and will not win — no matter how despicable and desperate its tactics,” a State Department statement announced Friday.

Investigators in liberated areas of the Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies bearing marks of what appeared to have been torture, Ukraine Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying.

The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, released a video of what he said was a torture chamber used by Russian forces in the Kherson region.

Lubinets said Russians tortured Ukrainians with electric current, broke their bones, beat them with metal pipes and killed them. He noted the invaders recorded all their crimes on video.

Reuters was unable to verify the allegations made by Lubinets and others in the video. Russia denies its troops deliberately attack civilians or have committed atrocities.

Meanwhile, Russia claimed Friday that Ukrainian soldiers executed more than 10 Russian prisoners of war, accusing Kyiv of war crimes and the West of ignoring them.

The Russian defense ministry cited a video circulating on Russian social media that it alleged showed the execution of Russian prisoners of war. Reuters was unable to immediately verify either the video or the defense ministry’s assertions.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.
…

The founder of one of Russia’s leading independent news websites has been recognized for her “extraordinary and sustained” efforts to protect press freedom.

Galina Timchenko, co-founder of independent media outlet Meduza, was presented with the Gwen Ifill award at an event in New York City on Thursday.

The award is presented by the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists in honor of American broadcaster Ifill, who was an adviser to the media freedom nonprofit.

Timchenko and her team have run Meduza from exile for several years. After the invasion in Ukraine, authorities blocked access to the website inside Russia.

Despite that, Timchenko said, her team has still been able to reach millions in Russia “who need the truth more than ever.”

“Our duty, our mission, stays the same,” she said in her acceptance speech. “To provide independent, objective information to our readers and not to leave them alone at the darkest hour.”

In an interview with VOA Russian, Timchenko said she was shocked to receive the recognition, saying that when CPJ first contacted her, she “thought it was a prank.”

Receiving an award in Ifill’s name is an honor, Timchenko said, as she discussed the challenges for media in wartime.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: Some people are talking about weariness of news about the war in Ukraine. What can journalists do to let the world know they should continue to help Ukraine?

GT: At such times, journalists should remember that they are the fourth power. We are not service staff. We have to say, “Come and see. This is how the war looks.”

True information now saves lives, including lives of those people who are being mobilized in Russia, including lives of those people who’ve been trying to leave the country because of military call-up. I’m talking now about the Russian people who are in Europe or in America now, who think that the war is somewhere far away.

And we should remember that our readers must receive all this information. They should not be left out.

In recent years, it has been considered good practice not to hurt the readers. And I understand and respect the right of readers not to be traumatized. And of course, we can warn prior [to that] there are scenes of violence. But it seems that at such moments, you need to honestly say, “Come and see. Your future and the future of your children depends on it.”

VOA: Journalism should be unbiased. How is it for Russian journalists to be open-minded when Russia started the war?

GT: There is nothing complicated about it. Do not hide the facts. Get to the bottom of the facts, expose the lies.

First of all, do not forget that journalism gives a voice to those who are deprived of it, who are now the victim. We must be on the side of the weak, on the side of those who are offended.

VOA: As you have already said, some people do not want heavy information, they want information that is easier to understand. How can media work in a situation where disinformation or fake news is spreading?

GT: It doesn’t seem to me that there is a request for fakes. There is, of course, a request to stay in the comfort zone. Because as soon as you release this information into your life, you have to decide something, and it is always quite difficult to decide.

This is a situation of choice. You must make a choice and be responsible for the consequences of that choice.

Therefore, it seems to me that the most obvious thing that journalism can do is not to shout. Talk the way you talk to a person close to you, dear to you, whom you are afraid of losing.

It seems to me that now there is a shortage of this calm tone, explanatory, explaining … step by step, bring them closer to the realization that, in general, you need to interact with reality.

VOA: The war has changed everything. Journalism is also transforming. What future do you see for the media?

GT: It’s too early to talk about a distant future. Now all independent journalists in Russia are on the brink of survival. They are fighting for their lives and for their audience.

The most important thing is not to lose the audience. There are many millions of people inside Russia, and we show them that they are not alone, and that we are still with them, we are in touch. The internet is big, the world is small, we are all together.

And when the media survive, they can keep their audience, then everything will flourish.

Russian journalism is like the dandelion that sprouts through three layers of asphalt. Everything will bloom. No one has given up the profession. People who are now engaged in journalism are aware of the risks. So, everything will be in blossom. But let’s survive first.
…

Sweden is committed to NATO’s globe-spanning 360-degree approach to confronting both today’s and tomorrow’s challenges, and that includes both Russia and China, the top Swedish military official told an audience in Washington this week.

“As of today, we see no alarming Russian movements along our borders,” Micael Byden, the supreme commander of Swedish armed forces, said Thursday during an event at the Swedish Embassy in Washington. “Not the least in the ground domain, [Russian] capabilities have diminished considerably due to the war in Ukraine.”

However, Russia still possesses significant capabilities, and Sweden does not “exclude anything, we stay alert,” Byden said, noting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a “completely new security order in Europe.”

Byden named the joint applications to join NATO by Sweden and Finland last spring among the most notable features of that new order.

Since then, support for NATO membership in his country has grown “even stronger in the summer and autumn,” Byden said.

“We have been warmly welcomed” by countries that joined the alliance earlier, he said. “Warmer than I could have imagined.”

Byden said he initially thought to himself: “When you enter a new organization, a new family, you need to prove yourself. That has not been the case.”

But he pledged that “Sweden will be a net contributor from day one” and “will contribute in strategic depth, increased situational awareness and strong interoperable capabilities.”

Maintaining ‘situational awareness’

Byden said he has submitted recommendations to his government to strengthen the country’s military with additional standing units, new equipment and platforms, and a greater number of conscript soldiers.

“Maintaining a high-degree of situational awareness has been a key priority,” he said, emphasizing that “we fully embrace [NATO’s] 360-degree perspective.”

NATO documents describe that 360-degree approach as applying to defense in “the land, air, maritime, cyber and space domains, and against all threats and challenges.”

“We have always kept our eyes and ears towards Russia. We know Russia as our opponent,” Byden said. “We realize now that there are other countries we also need to know more about, because of [their] ambitions, and that would be China.”

Speaking to VOA after the embassy event, Byden said that as his country enters NATO, “we need to understand that things are happening — we need to be able to support other countries within the alliance, and that means that what would be a challenge for them would [also] be a challenge for us.”

He also said Sweden needs to expand its knowledge about some of those challenges facing the alliance.

“First of all, we still need to learn about China and what China is doing, that’s where we are. By ‘we,’ I mean Sweden,” he said.

Eager to participate in NATO

The Nordic region appears to be going through a major shift in its relations with Beijing, as are other regions of the world.

In 2013, Chinese official media reported that “Nordic countries have joined an international race to team up with China in exploring science and technology opportunities.”

But earlier this year, an analyst at the Danish Institute for International Studies wrote in the publication The Diplomat that Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland “are looking instead to limit China’s presence and influence.”

In the same article, its author, Andreas Forsby, wrote, “In the past few years … perceptions of the People’s Republic of China have fundamentally changed in the Nordic countries as security-related concerns and sensitive political issues have come to the fore.”

Forsby noted that both Denmark and Finland have officially adopted the term “systemic rival,” first used by the EU Commission in March 2019, to describe their view of Beijing.

Byden, a trained fighter pilot whose career has included an assignment as defense attache at the Swedish Embassy in Washington and chief of staff of the Swedish Air Force, said Sweden is eager to participate in NATO joint activities, including air policing and participating in an enhanced forward presence along NATO’s eastern border as soon as it becomes a full member.
…

The U.N. top trade official said Friday a shipment of Russian fertilizer is scheduled to leave a Norwegian port Monday bound for Malawi, helping to ease a backlog of 300,000 tons of the agricultural products currently in European ports.

Speaking at a news briefing in Geneva, U.N. Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan said the shipment is good news as it will help address global food shortages and comes a day after it was announced the Black Sea Grain deal would be extended.

The original deal, agreed to on July 22, unblocked shipments of 11 million tons of grain and foodstuffs from Ukraine and helped ease rising global food prices. The initiative set up a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address concerns that cargo vessels might carry weapons or launch attacks.

The deal was set to expire Saturday but now will be extended by four months.

Grynspan said as part of the grain deal, the United Nations made an agreement with Russia to free up its shipments of food and fertilizer stuck in European ports. She said the backlog has created shortages and driven up the global price of fertilizer.

She explained that while those shipments were not directly targeted by Western sanctions, many countries have been reluctant to deal with Russia, leaving the shipments stranded.

Grynspan said as part of that deal the Russian company Uralchem-Uralkali donated the backlogged fertilizer to U.N. humanitarian efforts. She said, “A lot needed to be done for this to be possible, but now we have a model that is working. It’s a humanitarian activity.”

Grynspan said the U.N. World Food Program is taking charge of getting the fertilizer from the European ports to the countries that need it. She said she hopes the next shipment goes to West Africa, which, she said, “has been very affected by the affordability crisis of fertilizers.”

Grynspan also said the U.N. would be aiming for a longer renewal period of the Black Sea Grain deal beyond the 120 days agreed to Thursday.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

Russian forces continue to barrage Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from the capital city Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — and target the country’s energy facilities.

Amid freezing temperatures, about 10 million people have been left without power and heat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday in his nightly video address.

The Ukrainian president said people are experiencing blackouts and outages in 18 regions, as well as in Kyiv, and he added that utility workers are doing “everything to restore electricity.”

The chief executive of state utility operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian state television, “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”

The capital also is facing “a huge deficit in electricity” according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who told The Associated Press that about 2 million people, half the city’s population, are plunged into darkness periodically as authorities try to restore the city’s power grid.

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

Russia’s defense ministry said its strikes in Ukraine on Thursday were aimed at military and energy infrastructure, Russian news agencies reported.

Reuters reports that in its daily briefing, the defense ministry said that it used long-range weapons to hit defense and industrial targets, including “missile manufacturing facilities.”

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy met in Kyiv with the executive vice president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis. The president thanked him for the EU’s planned financial assistance program of 18 billion euros in 2023. He expressed hope Ukraine will be able to receive the first tranche as early as January.

“Ukraine’s ability to continue to withstand Russia’s aggression, the ability of our budget to withstand financial challenges, the energy crisis caused by the war is extremely important,” said Zelenskyy.

Ukraine reports shelling, missiles nationwide

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, overnight shelling and missile strikes targeted “critical infrastructure” and damaged energy equipment, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov. Eight people, including energy company crews and police officers, were injured while trying to clear some of the debris, he said.

Russian forces employed drones, rockets, heavy artillery and warplanes in Ukraine’s southeast, resulting in the death of at least six civilians and wounding an equal number in the past 24 hours, the office of the president reported.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, part of which remains under Russian control, heavy fire targeted 10 towns and villages. The death toll from a rocket attack Thursday on a residential building in the city of Vilniansk climbed to nine people, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, posted on Telegram.

In Nikopol, located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, 40 Russian missiles damaged several high-rise buildings, private houses, and a power line.

In the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Russia was using troops pulled from Kherson to unleash heavy attacks. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired artillery on the towns of Bakhmut and nearby Soledar, among others. 

They were also shelling Balakliya in the Kharkiv region and Nikopol, a city on the opposite bank of the Kakhovka reservoir from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the statement said. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports. 

In Luch, a village that sits on the border between the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, months of Russian shelling have turned the locality into a virtual ghost town. Before February 24, about 1,000 people lived in the village. Now, there are only 38 who remain.

Luch has been shelled from the side of the Russian-occupied Kherson region almost every day since the start of the war. No buildings remain intact in the village at present.   

“It’s tough. We are constantly hiding; we can’t figure out what side the missiles are coming from,” said Galyna, a resident of the village. “We had such a lovely village, and now there’s nothing left. Everything is in ruins.”

Yelyzaveta Krotyk contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press. 
…

Russia said on Friday it hoped to clinch a prisoner swap with the United States to return convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death,” in an exchange that would likely include U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner.

Amid the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two, Russia and the United States are exploring a deal that could see imprisoned Americans including Griner return to the United States in exchange for Bout.

“I want to hope that the prospect not only remains but is being strengthened, and that the moment will come when we will get a concrete agreement,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

“The Americans are showing some external activity, we are working professionally through a special channel designed for this,” Ryabkov said. “Viktor Bout is among those who are being discussed, and we certainly count on a positive result.”

For the two former Cold War foes, now grappling with the gravest confrontation since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the exchange would mark one of the more extraordinary prisoner swaps in their history.

The distinctly upbeat remarks from Ryabkov, the foreign ministry’s point man for the Americas and arms control, contrast with previous statements from Moscow which have cautioned Washington against trying to engage in megaphone diplomacy over the prisoner swap.

The possible swap includes Griner, facing nine years behind bars in Russia after being convicted on drug charges, and Paul Whelan who is serving a 16-year sentence in Russia after being convicted of espionage charges that he denies.

Bout for Griner

Variously dubbed “the merchant of death” and “the sanctions buster” for his ability to get around arms embargoes, Bout was one of the world’s most wanted men prior to his 2008 arrest on multiple charges related to arms trafficking.

For almost two decades, Bout was one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, selling weaponry to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America.

But in 2008, Bout was snared in an elaborate U.S. sting.

Bout was caught on camera agreeing to sell undercover U.S. agents posing as representatives of Colombia’s leftist FARC guerrillas 100 surface-to-air missiles, which they would use to kill U.S. troops. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested by Thai police.

Bout was tried on the charges related to FARC, which he denied, and in 2012 was convicted and sentenced by a court in Manhattan to 25 years in prison, the minimum sentence possible.

Ever since, the Russian state has been keen to get him back.

Griner has been transferred to a penal colony in the Mordovia region, southeast of Moscow, her lawyers said on Thursday, confirming a Reuters report.

At her trial, Griner – who played basketball for a Russian team in the U.S. off-season – said she had used cannabis for relief from sports injuries but had not meant to break the law. She told the court she made an honest mistake by packing the cartridges in her luggage.
…

Ukrainian officials reported fresh missile strikes Thursday in multiple parts of the country, with targets including gas facilities.

The focus of the strikes, by drones as well as missiles, continues to be energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian military said in statement, adding that the attacks stretched from Kyiv to Odesa in the south.

Ukraine says it has shot down two cruise missiles, five air-launched missiles and five Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones, according to Reuters, which said it could not independently verify battlefield reports.

As the first snow fell in Kyiv, officials said utility workers were trying to restore power nationwide after a barrage of Russian airstrikes earlier this week.

About 10 million people were without power, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday evening in his nightly video report.

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Thursday morning that he was speaking by phone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Russia carried out “another massive missile attack on Ukraine.”

Kuleba said he thanked the United States for providing military aid, and he stressed the need for speeding up deliveries of air defense systems.

He cited the success of the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System that Ukrainian forces began using earlier this month. Kuleba also said he is convinced the time has come for Ukraine to receive the more advanced U.S. Patriot air defense system.

In the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Russia was using troops pulled from Kherson to unleash heavy fighting. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired artillery on the towns of Bakhmut and nearby Soledar, among others.

They were also shelling Balakliya in the Kharkiv region and Nikopol, a city on the opposite bank of the Kakhovka reservoir from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the statement said. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports.

Also in the Zaporizhzhia area, a Russian strike hit a residential building, killing at least seven people overnight. Rescuers combed the rubble Thursday, searching for any other victims, according to The Associated Press.

In Luch, a village that sits on the border between the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the effects of Russian shelling foretell the damage other cities, towns and villages are suffering.

Before Feb. 24, about 1,000 people lived in the village. Now there are only 38.

Luch has been shelled from the side of the Russian-occupied Kherson region almost every day since the start of the war. Today, no buildings remain intact in the village.

“It’s tough. We are constantly hiding; we can’t figure out what side the missiles are coming from,” said Galyna, a resident of the village. “We had such a lovely village, and now there’s nothing left. Everything is in ruins.”

Yelyzaveta Krotyk contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.
…

Under rainy skies on Thursday afternoon, Ukrainian-controlled Kherson’s central square was bustling with humanitarian aid distribution and displays of patriotic celebration tinged with uncertainty about the future.

Last week, Russia pulled its troops out of a pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Ukraine, which included Kherson, the only regional capital it had captured since the February invasion.

Ukrainian officials say Russians destroyed the city’s critical infrastructure before leaving. There is no running water, electricity or central heating.

Hundreds of people stood in line for humanitarian assistance but said they had no idea what they might receive. A few people said they had been waiting for hours.

“It’s not that we’re hungry. We lost our jobs because of the occupation,” said Olga Meshcherikova, who was queuing with her husband Ihor, 48, now an unemployed builder.

Ihor, indicating the east bank of the Dnipro, said nothing was over yet.

“On that bank of the river, the forces are gathering; on this side, they are gathering. We’re in the middle — I’m afraid we’ll end up like Mariupol,” he said.

The port city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, suffered major damage before falling to Russian forces in May.

At one end of the damp central square, a man played the Ukrainian anthem on the accordion as bystanders sang along. At the other end, a man strummed popular Ukrainian rock songs.

Children and teenagers gathered around a kneeling soldier as he signed flags draped around their shoulders.

Moscow illegally declared Kherson to be Russian after a September referendum denounced by Ukraine and its allies as a sham. A billboard advertising the vote was still standing, but someone had scrubbed out the word “Russia.”

Women, children and soldiers posed for photographs on a central marble plinth.

Anya Vostoboinik, 62, a one-legged woman in a wheelchair, clutched a pack of disposable diapers she had been given.

She said the Russian occupiers had arrested her son, a former soldier named Oleksii, 28, three months ago and never released him.

“Where is he now? I don’t know. I would go to the end of the world to find out. If I could just find out where he is. He’s my only son. He was always nearby. Now … ,” she said, before tearing up, unable to go on.

Svetlana Libus, 61, who was wrapped up warm with her tiny dog poking its head out of her coat, said she needed her hormonal medicine as she was recovering from thyroid cancer but could not find it anywhere in Kherson.

She said humanitarian aid included only basic medicines and insulin, but not what she needed.
…

Strikes have been held in France and Spain for higher wages and better working conditions, while discontent in Belgium and Greece over soaring energy prices has drawn thousands into the streets. And that’s only over the past week.

As fallout from the war in Ukraine hits European energy supplies, jobs and pocketbooks, public discontent grows. Europeans have vented their frustration over rising prices and shrinking purchasing power. Analysts say that hasn’t dented European public support for Ukraine or European anger against Russia, although that could change.

“People are pretty angry right now across Europe,” said John Springford, deputy director of the London-based Center for European Reform, a policy institute. “There’s a general understanding I think that the high inflation we have been seeing is down to the war in Ukraine.”

Springford said many are pointing a finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There is a fair amount of blame placed upon Putin for that — at least according to opinion polls,” he said.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Today, Europe is reeling from soaring prices driven by the conflict, but started during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation in October rose to nearly 11 percent across the 19 countries using eurocurrency. Experts predict the European Union will likely fall into at least a short-term recession by year’s end.

“People blame their governments for not protecting them against inflation,” said Director Sebastien Maillard of the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute, a research organization.

Maillard said Europeans don’t want to pay the price for backing Ukraine and sanctioning Russia. He said their governments can’t keep cushioning the shock with more spending — for example on energy subsidies — as France has been doing.

“If there is recession, if there is inflation, your public debt cannot grow forever,” Maillard said. “We saw it’s a problem for Italy, also for the UK. There’s a threshold over which you cannot go — (otherwise) the financial markets will get overuse.”

Philipp Lausberg, an analyst with the European Policy Center, said whether Europe’s autumn of discontent deepens into a winter of rage depends on many factors — including the weather and energy supplies that have shrunk under Russian cutoffs and European Union sanctions on Moscow.

“If we have an unexpected disruption of gas for Europe this winter, we’ll probably see an even further increase in civil unrest and government instability,” said Lausberg.

With EU gas supplies in good shape for now, he said, that bleak scenario is not likely in the immediate future. But if the current warm temperatures turn frosty, and energy supplies grow tight, European solidarity for Ukraine may fade — and European governments may be the first to feel the fallout.
…

Dutch judges on Thursday convicted three men of murder for their role in the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, and sentenced them to life in prison.

A fourth man was acquitted.

MH17 was a passenger flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

“Only the most severe punishment is fitting to retaliate for what the suspects have done, which has caused so much suffering to so many victims and so many surviving relatives,” Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said, reading a summary of the ruling.

Families of victims stood weeping and wiping away tears in the courtroom as Steenhuis read the verdict.

The three men convicted were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.

A fourth, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges.

At the time, the area was the scene of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of this year’s conflict.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed the Donetsk province where the plane’s wreckage and victims’ remains were once scattered across cornfields.

Steenhuis said the men did not enjoy any immunity from prosecution as they were not members of the Russian armed services.

“There is no reasonable doubt” that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system, Steenhuis said.

Victims’ representatives said the ruling is an important milestone, though the suspects remain fugitives. They are all believed to be in Russia, which will not extradite them.

Ukraine’s president welcomed Thursday’s ruling by a Dutch court that said Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down with a Russian-made missile over eastern Ukraine in 2014, but said that “those who ordered” the attack must now face trial.

“Punishment for all Russian atrocities – both present and past – will be unavoidable,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter.

Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine.

In a briefing in Moscow on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ivan Nechaev told reporters the government would examine the court’s findings.

“We will study this decision because in all these issues, every nuance matters,” he said.

The four men were charged with shooting down an airplane and with murder in a trial that was held under Dutch law.

Phone call intercepts that formed a key part of the evidence against the men suggested they believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet.

Of the suspects, only Pulatov had pleaded not guilty via lawyers he hired to represent him. The others were tried in absentia and none attended the trial.

Victims of MH17, which had been en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came from 10 different countries. More than half were Dutch.

The investigation was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.
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As the Kremlin escalates its war on Ukraine and tightens its clampdown on any domestic opposition to the invasion, the world of Russian arts and culture, historically opposed to violence and war, descends into pessimism. Marcus Harton narrates this report from VOA’s Moscow bureau.
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Qatar’s Supreme Committee said it has apologized after a Danish film crew was threatened by security staff live on air as they broadcast in the capital Doha ahead of the World Cup.

TV2 reporter Rasmus Tantholdt was speaking as part of a live broadcast when he was approached by security staff that had appeared on a golf buggy next to the newly-opened Chedi Hotel at Katara Cultural Village.

In the footage, which went viral on social media, Tantholdt is seen remonstrating with the security officials, displaying his accreditation before accusing them of declaring they want to break the camera equipment.

A statement from the Supreme Committee said the Danish broadcast crew were “mistakenly interrupted” during a live broadcast.

“Upon inspection of the crew’s valid tournament accreditation and filming permit, an apology was made to the broadcaster by on-site security before the crew resumed their activity.

“Tournament organizers have since spoken to the journalist and issued an advisory to all entities to respect the filming permits in place for the tournament.”

Tantholdt was also caught on camera asking: “You invited the whole world here. Why can’t we film?”

The decision to award Qatar hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup has been marred by controversy — including allegations of corruption and human rights violations — since it was first announced 12 years ago. How the host country treats visitors is being heavily scrutinized.

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The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy was set up by the Qatar government to plan and prepare for the World Cup.

The tournament gets under way on Sunday as Qatar take on Ecuador in the tournament opener.
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