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WARSAW — Poland needs to prepare its soldiers for all-out conflict, its armed forces chief of staff said on Wednesday, as the country boosts the number of troops on its border with Russia and Belarus. 

Poland’s relations with Russia and its ally Belarus have deteriorated sharply since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, starting a war that is still being fought. 

“Today, we need to prepare our forces for full-scale conflict, not an asymmetric-type conflict,” army chief of staff General Wieslaw Kukula told a press conference. 

“This forces us to find a good balance between the border mission and maintaining the intensity of training in the army,” he said. 

Speaking at the same event, deputy defense minister Pawel Bejda said that as of August, the number of troops guarding Poland’s eastern border would be increased to 8,000 from the current 6,000, with an additional rearguard of 9,000 able to step up within 48 hours notice. 

In May, Poland announced details of “East Shield”, a 10 billion zloty ($2.5 billion) program to beef up defenses along its border with Belarus and Russia, which it plans to complete the plans by 2028. 

The border with Belarus has been a flashpoint since migrants started flocking there in 2021 after Belarus opened travel agencies in the Middle East offering a new unofficial route into Europe — a move the European Union said was designed to create a crisis. 

Warsaw has ramped up defense spending to more that 4% of its economic output this year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Kukula also said the current high interest from candidates to join the army posed a dilemma over whether to take in more recruits than budgeted for at the expense of military equipment procurement, especially as he said interest was expected to start declining sharply from 2027. 

The size of the armed forces stood at about 190,000 personnel at the end of last year, including ground, air, naval, special forces and territorial defense forces. Poland plans to increase this to 300,000 troops within a few years. 
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American soldier Jericho Magallon went to fight in Ukraine in March 2022. He was killed in September near Bakhmut. In late June, his body was brought back home to California for a funeral. VOA Russian Service spoke with his mother and siblings about his life in this story narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian.
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican said Tuesday that its doctrine office will prepare a document on women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church, a new initiative to respond to longstanding demands by women to have a greater say in the church’s life.

The document will be written by the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith as its contribution to Pope Francis’ big church reform process, now entering its second main phase with a meeting of bishops in October, known as a synod.

The Vatican announced the details of the doctrinal document shortly after its news conference — led by four men — on the preparatory work for the October meeting, leaving journalists no chance to ask for more details about it.

A group pressing for women’s ordination promptly dismissed the significance of it as “crumbs,” noting that ordained men would once again be making decisions about women’s roles in the church.

The forthcoming document was announced in a list of the members of 10 “study groups” that are looking into some of the thorniest and legally complicated issues that have arisen in the reform process to date, including the role of women and LGBTQ+ Catholics in the life of the church.

Pope Francis called the synod over three years ago as part of his overall efforts to make the church a more welcoming place for marginalized groups, and one where ordinary people would have a greater say. The process, and the two-year canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics that preceded it, sparked both hopes and fears that real change was afoot.

Catholic women do the lion’s share of the church’s work in schools and hospitals, and tend to take the lead in passing down the faith to future generations. But they have long complained of a second-class status in an institution that reserves the priesthood for men.

Francis has reaffirmed the ban on women priests, but has named several women to high-ranking jobs in the Vatican and encouraged debate on other ways women’s voices can be heard. That has included the synod process in which women have had the right to vote on specific proposals — a right previously given only to men.

Additionally, during his 11-year pontificate, he responded to demands for ministerial jobs for women by appointing two commissions to study whether women could be ordained deacons. Deacons are ordained ministers but are not priests, though they can perform many of the same functions as priests: preside at weddings, baptisms and funerals, and preach. They cannot, however, celebrate Mass.

The results of the two commissions have never been released and in a recent interview with CBS “60 Minutes,” Francis said “no” when asked if women could one day be ordained deacons.

Women’s Ordination Conference, which advocates for ordaining women priests, said the relegation of the issue of women deacons to the doctrine office was hardly the mark of a church looking to involve women more.

“The urgency to affirm women’s full and equal place in the church cannot be swept away, relegated to a shadowy commission, or entrusted into the hands of ordained men at the Vatican,” the group said in a statement.
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Pentagon — Ukraine is receiving five additional air defense systems to protect its sovereign territory, including three additional Patriot batteries from the United States, Germany and Romania.

U.S. President Joe Biden announced the five systems as NATO members commemorated the 75th anniversary of the alliance during a summit in Washington.

Allies marked the anniversary at Mellon Auditorium, the site of the original signing of the North Atlantic treaty that established the defensive bloc in 1949.

Topping the summit agenda is support for Ukraine’s battle against Russia’s illegal invasion.

The Netherlands and other partners are donating Patriot components to build a fourth Patriot battery, while Italy is donating an additional SAMP-T system, according to a joint statement Tuesday by the leaders of the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NATO members in April that Ukraine needed a minimum of seven Patriot or other high-end air defense systems to counter Russian air strikes.

NATO allies say they are coordinating closely with Kyiv to make these systems available as soon as possible. They also said they are working to make another announcement about additional strategic air defense systems for Ukraine later this year.

“Not even our support for Ukraine has been a given,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday. “The reality is there are no cost-free options with an aggressive Russia as a neighbor. There are no risk-free options in a war, and remember, the biggest cost and the greatest risk will be if Russia wins in Ukraine.”

Since the U.S. Congress approved new aid for Ukraine following months of delays, the United States has provided Ukraine with hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment pulled from U.S. stockpiles, including the additional Patriot battery announced Tuesday and multiple rounds of long-range missiles known as ATACMS, two U.S. officials told VOA.

The ATACMS have a range of up to 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) and nearly double the striking distance of Ukraine’s missiles.

In addition, the U.S. has provided billions of dollars of funding for Kyiv’s long-term defense needs, including last week’s $2.2 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative package that is being used to purchase interceptors for NASAMS (medium-range ground-based air defense system) and Patriot air defense systems for Ukraine. 
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Romny, Ukraine — Maksym Halinichev won silver at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in a match described at the time as “two of the best young fighters going for glory.” He considered the bout a loss – it wasn’t gold, after all – but it gave him a map for the future.

So Halinichev made plans: He would defeat that boxer the next time around. He would teach his daughter the basics of his sport so she could defend herself. And he would win a medal for Ukraine at the Paris Olympics.

Halinchev outlined those ambitions as an athlete in an interview for the Ukraine Boxing Federation website in December 2021, as Russian troops were already massing at Ukraine’s borders.

Asked if he was afraid before a fight, he described his thinking.

“Fear can influence people in various ways. Some people are paralyzed by it. Some react by becoming more liberated,” he said then. “If you can control yourself and your body and if you can set yourself the right way, then the fear will retreat.”

He’ll not get to prove that philosophy in the Olympic ring in Paris.

Halinichev signed up as a soldier and was killed at the front in March 2023 at age 22, one of more than 400 athletes killed since the outbreak of the war. His body has yet to be recovered.

As one of Ukraine’s most promising boxing prospects, Halinichev could have been shielded from the war. Ukraine has sent many of its Olympic hopefuls to train abroad ahead of the Summer Games. But not everyone wants to be saved. Some choose to defend their country’s honor on the battlefield instead of the sports arena.

Halinichev’s attitude toward fear remained intact after the full-scale Russian invasion, but his priorities changed.

It happened during a drive in April 2022 from his home region of Sumy to Kyiv, where he had planned to train for the next European championship. Russia had just retreated from the region, and all along the highway, he saw towns and villages ripped apart by Russian troops during their brief occupation, said his coach Bohdan Dmytrenko.

“I have a little child. I don’t want her to live in occupation among the aggressor, among the Russians,” Halinichev told another of his coaches, Volodymyr Vinnikov.

“I said, Maksym, please listen to me, you are still a representative of Ukrainian boxing, you also defend the honor of Ukraine. The flag, the anthem — it’s also very important,” Vinnikov recounted.

“You won’t convince me. I’ve made this decision. I will learn to shoot,” Halinichev told him.

Boxing was still important to him, but he wanted more, said his life partner, Polina Ihrak. Sumy, a border region, was still under attack despite the Russian withdrawal. Kherson, where he trained, was under Russian occupation and reports of the suffering of Ukrainians there were trickling back.

“He couldn’t understand how his friends, coaches who were in Kherson, were left without the ability to live, let alone train, and he would go somewhere in Europe,” Ihrak said. “He couldn’t let himself do it. It mattered to him.”

In May 2022, at 21 years old, Halinichev joined the airborne assault troops, according to Ukraine’s Boxing Federation. He was wounded before the year ended near Bakhmut, with an injury to his foot and shrapnel embedded so deeply in his leg that doctors couldn’t remove it.

While recovering, Halinichev spent time with his coach but avoided discussing what he saw in the war. Everyone hoped he would quit the army, but Halinichev returned to the battlefield with his wounds unhealed.

“He believed he had to return to his brothers in arms because he was needed,” said Ihrak, the mother of their daughter, Vasilisa.

Halinichev and Ihrak last spoke by video call on March 9, 2023. Days without contact became weeks. She tried calling Halinichev and his commander. Neither answered.

She took to scrolling through Russian Telegram channels, looking for his face among battlefield photos of the dead and injured. One photo stood out, of a body in the forest.

“His mom recognized him immediately, but I didn’t because I guess I refused to acknowledge it,” Ihrak said. He was killed on March 10, 2023, in Luhansk, a region now almost entirely under Russian control.

At a recent commemoration for her father in the gym where he used to train, the 4-year-old Vasilisa bounced joyfully around the boxing ring, wearing oversized gloves that dwarfed her small hands.

It will not be her father who teaches her how to fight, but Ihrak couldn’t imagine Halinichev would do anything differently.

“People go there (to the front) not to regret but to change something,” Ihrak said. “He went back without any doubt.”

Among others who died fighting for Ukraine: pistol shooters Ivan Bidnyak, who won silver at the European Championships, and Yehor Kihitov, a member of Ukraine’s national team; Stanislav Hulenkov, a 22-year-old judoka whose body was identified 10 months after he was killed; and weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko, who represented Ukraine at the Rio Olympics in 2016. A Russian missile strike on Dnipro killed acrobatics coach Anastasia Ihnatenko, her husband and their 18-month-old son.

Vinnikov, who coached Halinichev in 2017, has no doubt that the young man would be representing his country at the Paris Games that open July 26 had the invasion not derailed his plans. “He would have won a medal for his country,” the coach said emphatically.

He had huge potential: gold medal at the 2017 European Youth Championships, silver medal at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, silver medal at the 2021 European Under-22 Championships.

In his empty apartment in the town of Shostka, his parents have filled a room with proof of what he’d already achieved: trophies and medals from 2010 to 2021, neatly arranged on a shelf.

His photograph stands in the corner along with a candle, his childhood pictures, a religious icon and flowers. His boxing gloves rest nearby.

But Halinichev’s parents don’t live there anymore. Since the war, they’ve remade their lives in the Czech Republic. Ihrak is contemplating a move to Germany.

Dmytrenko, his coach, keeps his photos of Halinichev neatly arranged in folders and still has the archive of their messages to each other. He recalled a moment just before the war where he was praising Halinichev’s achievements.

Halinichev simply replied: “Everything is still ahead.”
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Paris — French parties sought to project strength and gather allies on Tuesday, with the government adrift following an election in which no one political force claimed a clear majority.

Having defied expectations to top the polls, new MPs from the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance began showing up to visit their new workplaces in parliament ahead of a first session on July 18.

But the coalition of Greens, Socialists, Communists and the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) is still debating over who to put forward as a potential prime minister and whether it could be open to working in a broader coalition.

Combined, the left-leaning parties’ hold 193 of 577 seats in the National Assembly and are well short of the 289-seat threshold for a majority.

Nevertheless, members plan to name a potential prime minister “by the end of the week,” leading LFI figure Mathilde Panot said.

In the French system, the president nominates the prime minister, who must be able to survive a confidence vote in parliament — a tricky proposition with three closely-balanced political forces in play.

Any left-leaning government would need “broader support in the National Assembly,” influential Socialist MP Boris Vallaud acknowledged in an interview with broadcaster France Inter.

Macron’s camp came second in Sunday’s vote, taking 164 seats after voters came together to block the far-right National Rally (RN) from power.

This left the anti-immigration, anti-Brussels outfit in third place with 143 MPs.

The president has kept Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government in place for now, hoping horse-trading in the coming days and weeks could leave an opening for him to reclaim the initiative.

However, “there has been an institutional shift. Everyone thinks it’s up to the newly-elected National Assembly to bring forth a solution, which (Macron) would simply have to accept,” wrote commentator Guillaume Tabard in conservative daily Le Figaro.

‘None can govern alone’

In a sign that some divisions remain, the left parties’ MPs planned to enter the parliament at different times throughout the day.

The Socialists are still hoping to glean a few more members for their group to outweigh LFI and have a greater say over the alliance’s direction.

Meanwhile, members of Macron’s camp were eyeing both the centre-left Socialists and conservative Republicans as possible allies of convenience for a new centrist-dominated coalition.

“None of the three leading blocs can govern alone,” Stephane Sejourne, head of Macron’s Renaissance party, wrote in daily Le Monde.

“The centrist bloc is ready to talk to all the members of the republican spectrum,” he added — while naming red lines including that coalition members must support the EU and Ukraine and maintain business-friendly policies.

These requirements, he warned, “necessarily exclude LFI” and its caustic founder Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Markets are paying close attention to the EU’s second-largest economy.

Ratings agency Moody’s warned it could downgrade its credit score for France’s more than three-trillion-euro debt pile if a future government reverses Macron’s widely-loathed 2023 pension reform, echoing a Monday warning from S&P on the deficit.

What next?

Even as politicians struggle to define the immediate path ahead, eyes are also already turning to the next time French voters will be called to the polls.

Macron’s term expires in 2027 and he cannot run a third time — potentially leaving the way open for his twice-defeated opponent, RN figurehead Marine Le Pen, to finally capture the presidency.

The far-right outfit has been digesting a disappointing result after polls suggested it could take an absolute majority in parliament.

On Tuesday, party sources told AFP its director-general Gilles Penelle had resigned.

Penelle, elected last month to the European Parliament, was the architect of a “push-button” plan supposed to prepare the RN for snap elections, which ultimately failed to produce a full roster of credible candidates.

The far right outfit’s progress is undeniable, having advanced from just eight MPs soon after Macron’s first presidential win in 2017 to 143 today.

Greens and LFI leaders nevertheless called Tuesday for the RN to be shut out of key parliamentary posts.

“Every time we give them jobs, we increase their competence. It’s important not to give them jobs with responsibilities,” leading LFI lawmaker Mathilde Panot said.

“Today we represent 10 million French people with 143 MPs,” retorted RN representative Thomas Menage, calling the appeal “anti-democratic”.

As for Macron, he has sought to stay above the fray, planning for a trip to Washington for a NATO summit starting on Wednesday where allies may be in need of reassurance of France’s stability.
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PARIS — The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on Tuesday unveiled a nine-member refugee team for the upcoming Games in Paris.

The team is made up of eight competitors and one guide runner. They will take part in taekwondo, athletics, triathlon, power lifting, table tennis and wheelchair fencing.

“The world has more than 120 million forcibly displaced people worldwide,” said Andrew Parsons, the IPC president.

“Many live in dire conditions. These athletes have persevered and shown incredible determination to get to Paris 2024 and give every refugee around the world hope.”

Ibrahim Al Hussein will be competing in a third Paralympics for the refugee team but is switching from swimming to triathlon, even though he faced the challenge of putting together “all the necessary equipment to compete in triathlon which can be expensive.”

Al Hussein arrived in Greece from Syria 10 years ago.

“Sport has helped me integrate into society,” he said.

Zakia Khudadadi, who represented Afghanistan at the COVID-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 shortly after being evacuated from the country following the Taliban takeover, and Hadi Hassanzada will compete in parataekwondo.

Hassanzada was born in Afghanistan and grew up in Iran.

“Then I returned to Afghanistan thinking that the country had become peaceful. I was wrong.”

He fled.

“Living in the forests of Turkey with my friends in the cold of winter, there were times when I was close to death,” he said in interview with the IPC.

His journey to the Paralympics showed “refugees can succeed despite all the problems they face,” he said.

Guillaume Junior Atangana sprinted for Cameroon in Tokyo before leaving for Britain. He said his training for the 100m and 400m T11 events in Paris was hampered when his guide, and fellow refugee, Donard Ndim Nyamjua was injured.

“Many people wanted to be on the team. So, I have had to pull out all the stops to be the best,” Atanganga said.

Shot putter Salman Abbariki will compete in track and field at a second Paralympics.

Once Hadi Darvish, a refugee from Iran, found a gym that would take an athlete in a wheelchair and without a bank account, he thrived in power lifting, winning a German title in 2022 in a championship for able-bodied athletes. 

The team is completed by Sayed Amir Hossein Pour, who won Asian junior table tennis titles representing Iran, and wheelchair fencer Amelio Castro Grueso.

“No matter how difficult their circumstances, these athletes have found a way to compete at the very highest level of Paralympic sport,” said the team’s chef de mission Nyasha Mharakurwa, who represented Zimbabwe in wheelchair tennis at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.

“They are not just representing the forcibly displaced people worldwide but the world’s 1.2 billion persons with disabilities.”

The Opening Ceremony for the Paralympics will be held on Aug. 28 along the Champs-Elysees and in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
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Italy is trying a new development-focused approach to preventing migrants from trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa. For VOA, Henry Wilkins reports from the Italian island of Lampedusa, where residents are welcoming the measure after thousands arrived there in a single week last year.
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Paris — French President Emmanuel Macron refused the resignation of the country’s prime minister, asking him on Monday to remain temporarily as the head of the government after chaotic election results left the government in limbo.

French voters split the legislature on the left, center and far right, leaving no faction even close to the majority needed to form a government. The results from Sunday’s vote raised the risk of paralysis for the European Union’s second-largest economy.

Macron gambled that his decision to call snap elections would give France a “moment of clarification,” but the outcome showed the opposite, less than three weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics, when the country will be under an international spotlight.

The French stock market fell on opening but quickly recovered, possibly because markets had feared an outright victory for the far right or the leftist coalition.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal had said he would remain in office if needed but offered his resignation Monday morning. Macron, who named him just seven months ago, immediately asked him to stay on “to ensure the stability of the country.” Macron’s top political allies joined the meeting with Attal at the presidential palace, which ended after about 90 minutes.

Attal on Sunday made clear that he disagreed with Macron’s decision to call the surprise elections. The results of two rounds of voting left no obvious path to form a government for either the leftist coalition that came in first, Macron’s centrist alliance, or the far right.

Newly elected and returning lawmakers were expected to gather at the National Assembly to begin negotiations in earnest.

Macron himself will leave midweek for a NATO summit in Washington.

Political deadlock could have far-ranging implications for the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability. Still, at least one leader said the results were a relief.

“In Paris enthusiasm, in Moscow disappointment, in Kyiv relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Union Council head, wrote late Sunday on X.

According to official results released early Monday, all three main blocs fell far short of the 289 seats needed to control the 577-seat National Assembly, the more powerful of France’s two legislative chambers.

The results showed just over 180 seats for the New Popular Front leftist coalition, which placed first, ahead of Macron’s centrist alliance, with more than 160 seats. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its allies were restricted to third place, although their more than 140 seats were still way ahead of the party’s previous best showing of 89 seats in 2022.

Macron has three years remaining on his presidential term.

Rather than rallying behind Macron as he’d hoped, millions took the vote as an opportunity to vent anger about inflation, crime, immigration and other grievances — including his style of government.

The New Popular Front’s leaders immediately pushed Macron to give them the first chance to form a government and propose a prime minister. The faction pledges to roll back many of Macron’s headline reforms, embark on a costly program of public spending, and take a tougher line against Israel because of its war with Hamas. But it’s not clear, even among the left, who could lead the government without alienating crucial allies.

“We need someone who offers consensus,” said Olivier Faure, head of the Socialist Party, which joined the leftist coalition and was still sorting out how many seats it won on Monday.

Macron warns that the left’s economic program of many tens of billions of euros in public spending, partly financed by taxes on wealth and hikes for high earners, could be ruinous for France, already criticized by EU watchdogs for its debt.

A hung parliament is unknown territory for modern France and many people reacted with a mix of relief and apprehension.

“What pollsters and the press were telling us made me very nervous so it’s a huge relief. Big expectations as well,” said Nadine Dupuis, a 60-year-old legal secretary in Paris. “What’s going to happen? How are they going to govern this country?”

The political agreement between the left and center to block the National Rally was largely successful. Many voters decided that keeping the far right from power was more important than anything else, backing its opponents in the runoff, even if they weren’t from the political camp they usually support.

“Disappointed, disappointed,” said far-right supporter Luc Doumont, 66. “Well, happy to see our progression, because for the past few years we’ve been doing better.”

National Rally leader Le Pen, who was expected to make a fourth run for the French presidency in 2027, said the elections laid the groundwork for “the victory of tomorrow.”

Racism and antisemitism marred the electoral campaign, along with Russian disinformation campaigns, and more than 50 candidates reported being physically attacked — highly unusual for France.

Unlike other countries in Europe that are more accustomed to coalition governments, France doesn’t have a tradition of lawmakers from rival political camps coming together to form a majority. France is also more centralized than many other European countries, with many more decisions made in Paris.
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Belfast — Britain’s new Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised on Monday to secure an improved agreement with the European Union on post-Brexit trading rules and revamp the “botched deal” signed by former premier Boris Johnson.

Speaking in Belfast after talks with the leaders of Northern Ireland, where post-Brexit trade rules have dominated politics for years, Starmer said his new government would first need to implement changes under the current agreement to build trust with the European Union.  

“We think we can get a better deal than the botched deal that Boris Johnson brought home and we will work on that,” Starmer, who won a landslide victory last week, told reporters.

“We’re not going to be able to get a better relationship unless we’ve demonstrated commitment to the relationship and the agreements that have already been put in place,” he added.

Labour has ruled out rejoining the EU single market or customs union but has said it is possible to remove some trade barriers with the 27-nation bloc, which Britain left in 2020.

The largest pro-British party in Northern Ireland ended a boycott of the devolved assembly after tweaks to trading rules secured by former prime minister Rishi Sunak in February, but it has since called for more changes.

Asked about the prospect of a referendum on a United Ireland after Irish nationalists Sinn Fein became the province’s largest party in parliament, Starmer said he would “act in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement,” the 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of sectarian violence.

Under the deal, a referendum is at the discretion of the British government if “it appears likely” to the minister for Northern Ireland that a majority would favor cutting ties with London.

Starmer, who visited Edinburgh on Sunday, is to continue on a post-election tour of the four nations of the United Kingdom with a visit to Cardiff later on Monday. 
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LONDON/BRUSSELS — Many of France’s allies breathed a sigh of relief on Monday after Marine Le Pen’s far-right failed to win a snap election, but they noted that a messy coalition from a hung parliament could also pose headaches for Europe.

Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) had been favorite to top the polls, raising the risk of France’s first far-right government since World War II and threatening to upend economic and foreign policy in the euro zone’s second-largest economy.

In particular, Ukraine’s allies feared a Le Pen-led government could be soft on Moscow and pare back military aid that Kyiv has relied on since the Russian invasion in 2022, though her party has latterly said Russia was a threat.

The National Rally’s defeat signals at least a temporary pushback against a far-right surge in Europe, but could herald a period of instability with a new government in an uneasy “cohabitation” with President Emmanuel Macron.

“First of all I am quite relieved there was no right-wing landslide,” said Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, lauding efforts to prevent a “drifting towards nationalism and thereby moving Europe into even more difficult waters.”

“But nevertheless the election result will now represent an enormous challenge, especially for France itself, but of course also for Europe, which is currently in the phase of reorganization after the European elections, and also for the German-French relationship,” he added.

Habeck’s government was using contacts with various parties to clarify the challenges ahead, he told reporters in Stuttgart.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk struck a positive tone.

“In Paris enthusiasm, in Moscow disappointment, in Kyiv relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw,” Tusk said on X.

Le Pen’s party meanwhile was set to join a newly minted alliance in the European Parliament led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with the stated aims of fighting illegal immigration and taking powers back from Brussels.

Macron’s gamble

Macron had called the snap poll in an attempt to wrest the initiative back from Le Pen but his own party was left trailing behind an alliance of leftist parties that performed far better than expected to take first place.

A fragmented parliament is set to weaken France’s role in the European Union and further afield, and make it hard for anyone to push through a domestic agenda.

Several early reactions from overseas rejoiced that the immediate threat of a far-right government had been averted.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told the radio station RNE he was happy to see a defeat for the far right, which he described as “completely contrary to European values.”

Nikos Androulakis, the head of Greece’s Socialist PASOK party, said the French people had “raised a wall against the far right, racism and intolerance and guarded the timeless principles of the French Republic: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”

An EU official called it a “huge relief” but added: “what it means for Europe on a day to day basis remains to be seen though.” A senior EU diplomat also expressed relief that a lurch towards what they called the extreme right was not seen everywhere.

Le Pen has in the past expressed her admiration for President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was watching the formation of a new French government with great interest, but added:

“The victory of political forces that would be supporters of efforts to restore our bilateral relations is definitely better for Russia, but so far we do not see such bright political will in anyone, so we do not harbor any special hopes or illusions in this regard.”

Deep divisions

The election left the French parliament split between three large groups – the left, the centrists, and the far right – with different platforms and no tradition of working together.

The left wants to cap prices of essential goods like fuel and food, raise the minimum wage and the salaries of public sector workers, at a time when France’s budget deficit is already at 5.5% of output, higher than EU rules permit.

“Bye-bye European deficit limits! (The government) will crash in no time. Poor France. It can console itself with (Kylian) Mbappé,” said Claudio Borghi, senator from Italy’s right-wing League party, referring to the French soccer star.

Other hard-right politicians expressed frustration.

Andre Ventura, leader of Portugal’s far-right party Chega, called the result a “disaster for the economy, tragedy for immigration and bad for the fight against corruption.”

A note by Capital Economics said France may have avoided the “worst possible outcomes” for investors, of an outright majority for either Le Pen or the leftists.

A fractious parliament means however it will be difficult for any government to pass the budget cuts that are necessary for France to comply with the EU’s budget rules, it said.

“Meanwhile, the chance of France’s government [and the governments of other countries] clashing with the EU over fiscal policy has increased now that the bloc’s budget rules have been re-introduced,” it said.
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Beijing Monday for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Orban’s press chief told state news agency MTI.

“Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s peace mission continues,” Bertalan Havasi was quoted as saying.

This is Orban’s third surprise overseas trip since Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency at the beginning of July, after he traveled to Ukraine and Russia last week on what he called a “peace mission.”

His trip to Moscow drew strong rebukes from his allies.

Hungary, under right-leaning Orban, has become an important trade and investment partner for China, in contrast with some other European Union nations seeking to become less dependent on the world’s second-largest economy.

Orban’s visit also came days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine against what the Western defense alliance has called Russia’s “unprovoked war of aggression.”

Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, was accompanying Orban on the China trip, according to photographs on Szijjarto’s Facebook page.

The foreign ministry canceled late last week a meeting for Monday in Budapest with Germany’s foreign minister and Szijjarto, a German foreign ministry official said Friday.

Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said last week he recognized he had no EU mandate for the trip to Moscow, but that peace could not be made “from a comfortable armchair in Brussels.”
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Beijing — Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday congratulated new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his election, state media reported, the first senior leader in Beijing to do so publicly.

China is “willing to work with the new U.K. government to consolidate mutual political trust and expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Li told Starmer, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Their call came after days of silence from top officials in Beijing, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying only that it noted the results of the U.K. election. 

By comparison, Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Iran’s incoming President Masoud Pezeshkian just hours after his election Saturday.

China was Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner as of 2023, according to the U.K. Department for Business and Trade.

But diplomatic relations between the two countries have been icy in recent years, with Beijing and London sparring over tightening communist control in former British colony Hong Kong.

The two sides have also traded accusations of espionage, with Beijing saying last month that MI6 had recruited Chinese state employees to spy for the U.K.

Xinhua reported Sunday that Li told Starmer that the “strengthening of bilateral coordination and cooperation was in the interests of both sides.”
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Kyiv — A village in western Russia’s border region was evacuated Sunday following a series of explosions after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone set fire to a nearby warehouse, local officials said.

Social media footage appeared to show rising clouds of black smoke in the Voronezh region while loud explosions could be heard in succession.

Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said that falling wreckage triggered the “detonation of explosive objects.” No casualties were reported, but residents of a nearby village in the Podgorensky district were evacuated, he said. Roads were also closed with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not address the strike in their morning briefing, but said that air defense systems had destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region.

Authorities in Russia’s Krasnodar province on Saturday said a fire at an oil depot had also been caused by falling drone debris. Russia’s emergency services said the blaze was extinguished Sunday morning. 

The strikes come after a Ukrainian military spokesperson told The Associated Press Thursday that Kyiv’s troops had retreated from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a monthlong Russian assault.

Russian forces have for months tried to grind out gains in Ukraine’s industrial east, in an apparent attempt to lock its defenders into a war of attrition. In a joint investigation published Friday, independent Russian news outlets Meduza and Mediazona reported that Moscow’s forces were losing between 200 and 250 soldiers in Ukraine each day.

Military analysts say Chasiv Yar’s fall could also compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and put nearby cities in jeopardy, bringing Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region. 

Russia sent overnight into Sunday two ballistic missiles and 13 Shahed drones, Ukrainian air force officials said. All were shot down but the officials did not elaborate on the impact of the missiles.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, 14 people died after a bus collided with a cargo vehicle, leaving a single survivor, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Saturday evening. The victims included a 6-year-old child.
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Vatican City — Pope Francis decried the state of democracy and warned against “populists” during a short visit to Trieste in Italy’s northeast on Sunday ahead of a 12-day trip to Asia — the longest of his papacy.

“Democracy is not in good health in the world today,” Francis said during a speech at the city’s convention center to close a national Catholic event.

Without naming any countries, the pope warned against “ideological temptations and populists” on the day that France holds the second round of a snap parliamentary vote that looks set to see the far-right National Rally party take the largest share of the vote.

“Ideologies are seductive. Some people compare them to the Pied Piper of Hamelin: they seduce but lead you to deny yourself,” he said in reference to the German fairytale.

Ahead of last month’s European parliament elections, bishops in several countries also warned about the rise of populism and nationalism, with far-right parties already holding the reins to power in Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Francis also urged people to “move away from polarizations that impoverish” and hit out at “self-referential power.”

After Venice in April and Verona in May, the half-day trip to Trieste, a city of 200,000 inhabitants on the Adriatic Sea that borders Slovenia, marked the third one within Italy this year for the 87-year-old pontiff, who has suffered increasing health problems in recent years.

Since travelling to the French city of Marseille in September 2023, the Argentine Jesuit has limited himself to domestic travel.

But he plans to spend nearly two weeks in Asia in September visiting Indonesia, Singapore and the islands of Papua New Guinea and East Timor.

He arrived in Trieste shortly before 9 a.m. and was due to meet with various groups from the religious and academic spheres, along with migrants and the disabled.

The papal visit is due to conclude with a Mass in the city’s main public square before he departs for the Vatican in the early afternoon. 
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