There is a certain bravura among war-wounded amputees at the St. Panteleimon Hospital in Lviv, Ukraine.

We meet two men on their lunch break from demining roads and neighborhoods. Both are missing the lower half of one leg from mine explosions on the job, and six of their teammates have also recently lost limbs. 

“We are too busy to be psychologically damaged from this,” says Taras, 40, a soldier and father of two. 

“This guy works and has four kids,” he adds, gesturing to his colleague who wraps and re-wraps his stump before trying on a slightly smaller temporary prosthetic. A few minutes later the pair head back out to search for more of the mines that litter large swaths of Ukraine.

The prosthetist, Nazar Bahniuk, explains their quick visit to the hospital, saying man-made limbs need to be replaced or adjusted from time to time, because a person’s thigh is not accustomed to carrying their weight.

“You stand on your heels and feet since you are maybe one year old,” he explains. 

Most of Bahniuk’s patients come from battle zones in eastern Ukraine, the heart of the nearly yearlong war with Russia, but there is no region of the country that has been completely spared, he says. About 75% are soldiers and the rest are civilians, including a 70-year-old woman who recently stepped on a landmine.

The waiting list for prosthetics at his hospital is in the hundreds, adds Bahniuk.

Upstairs in a rehabilitation room, patients use treadmills and a stationary bike to gather their strength. Andriy, 44, lost his leg in September on a mission in Kherson, a city that was occupied by Russia for nine months before being freed by Ukraine and is now under constant attack.

We asked how he feels about losing his left leg.

“I’m sad I lost my time,” Andriy replies. “I’ve been in the hospital for months when I could have been fighting in the war.”

Children prepare

In the Lviv city center, where markets are packed by day with a population long swelled by displaced families, the local tourism office now serves as a press center. They offer emergency first aid kits, body armor and helmets to freelance journalists.

Olga Letnianchyk, a press center official, is also the mother of an eight-year-old girl. The school is open, she says, and children regularly go down into the basement when the air raid sirens go off or bombs hit the region, usually aiming at infrastructure outside of the city. Her daughter has a bag prepared in case of long stays in the shelter, she says, which holds water, a snack and a teddy bear.

But Lviv is comparatively safe, and more than a thousand kilometers from the ground war, Letnianchyk adds, which is why she stayed home when millions of other people fled Ukraine.

“It would be harder,” she adds, “to be outside and not be able to do anything.”

Like many people here, she jokes about the dangers of the war, saying after almost a year, the new ways of life in Ukraine have become ‘almost’ normal.

But only almost, she emphasizes, saying one never really gets used to bombs sailing in from the sky from more than a thousand kilometers away.

“It is mostly OK,” she says. “But don’t look up.”
…

Italian film star Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved international film stardom during the 1950s and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one her movies, died in Rome on Monday, her agent said. She was 95.

The agent, Paola Comin, didn’t provide details. But Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a thigh bone broken in a fall. She returned home and said she had quickly resumed walking.

A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cover of Time magazine, which in an article about Italian movie-making likened her to a “goddess.” More than a half-century later, Lollobrigida still turned heads with a head full of auburn curly hair and her statuesque figure.

“Lollo,” as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, began making movies in Italy just after the end of World War II, as the country began to promote on the big screen a stereotypical concept of Mediterranean beauty as buxom and brunette.

Besides “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman” in 1955, career highlights included Golden Globe-winner “Come September,” with Rock Hudson; “Trapeze;” “Beat the Devil,” a 1953 John Huston film starring Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones; and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” which won Lollobrigida Italy’s top movie award, a David di Donatello, as best actress in 1969.

In Italy, she worked with some of the country’s top directors following the war, including Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comencini, Pietro Germi and Vittorio De Sica.

Two of her more popular films at home were Comencini’s “Pane Amore Fantasia” (Bread Love Fantasy) in 1953, and the sequel a year later, “Pane Amore Gelosia” (Bread Love Jealousy). In each of them, her male foil was Vittorio Gassman, one of Italy’s most leading men on the screen.

Lollobrigida began her career in beauty contests, posing for the covers of magazines and brief appearances in minor films. But her sexy image quickly propelled her to roles in major Italian and international movies.

While Lollobrigida played some dramatic roles, her characters were most popular in lighthearted comedies, like the “Bread Love” movies.

Lollobrigida also was an accomplished sculptor, painter and photographer, and eventually essentially dropped film for the fine arts. With her camera, she roamed the world from what was then the Soviet Union to Australia.

In 1974, Fidel Castro hosted her as a guest in Cuba for 12 days as she worked on a photo reportage.

She was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, a picturesque hill town near Rome, where her father was a furniture maker.
…

European royalty from Britain to Spain have gathered in Athens for the funeral of Greece’s last monarch, Constantine the Second.

Among the royals in attendance are Britain’s Princess Anne, the daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth the Second and a cousin of Constantine through her father, the late Prince Philip. King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, as well as members of the royal houses of Denmark, Luxembourg, Monaco and Sweden were among the 200 guests at the Metropolitan Cathedral.

Constantine died last week at the age of 82 in a local hospital. He was only 27 years old when the military took power in a coup in 1967. After initially cooperating with the junta, he and his family fled into exile in Europe eight months later after he led an unsuccessful counter-coup.

The junta abolished the monarchy in 1973, a year before democracy was restored in Greece. But the country rejected restoring the royal family in a referendum that same year, ending the monarchy’s rule that began in 1863.

Constantine, who won a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics for sailing, was stripped of his Greek citizenship in 1994 after a contentious battle with the government over the royal family’s former property. Despite the lingering acrimony, Constantine and his family returned to Greece permanently in 2013.

After the funeral, his body will be taken to the town of Tatoi, just outside Athens, where other members of the former royal family are buried. The government has refused to hold a state funeral for Constantine.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
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One of Italy’s most wanted men, Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, has been arrested.  

ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported Monday that the alleged boss of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia, who had been on the run for 30 years, was arrested by police at a private clinic in Palermo.  

Italian state television said Denaro was taken to a secret location immediately after his arrest.  

Tried in absentia on dozens of murders, including the 1992 deaths of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the 60-year-old Denaro is facing multiple life sentences.  

Denaro had once claimed he could “fill a cemetery” with his victims.  

Last September, police said that even though Denaro had been on the run for 30 years, he was still able to issue orders for the Mafia around the western Sicilian city of Trapani.  

“In 2015, police discovered he was communicating with his closest collaborators via the pizzini system, where tiny, folded paper notes were left under a rock at a farm in Sicily,” according to an Agence France-Presse report. 

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement that Denaro’s arrest is a “great victory” for Italy’s fight against organized crime.  

Information for this report was taken from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
…

Ukrainian officials said Monday the death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in Dnipro had risen to 35, with rescue crews still searching the rubble for any survivors.    

Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said on social media said the attack had injured 75 people and that the fate of 35 others was unknown.    

The missile strike took place Saturday with what Ukraine’s air force command said was a Kh-22 missile launched from Russia’s Kursk region. Military officials said Ukrainian forces shot down 21 of 33 total missiles Russia fired that day, but that Ukraine does not have a system capable of intercepting the Kh-22.    

Russian forces have repeatedly hit civilian targets since invading Ukraine in February. 

Russian officials have repeatedly denied doing so, including again Monday as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian forces “do not strike residential buildings or social infrastructure, they strike military targets.”  Peskov said what happened in Dnipro was caused by Ukrainian air defenses.   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday that he was thankful for words of support from around the world after the attack, adding that it is “very important that normal people unite in response to terror.”    

He faulted those in Russia “who even now could not utter even a few words of condemnation.”    

“Evil is very sensitive to cowardice,” Zelenskyy said. “Evil always remembers those who fear it or try to bargain with it. And when it comes after you, there will be no one to protect you.”  

Belarus-Russian drills     

Ukraine’s neighbor to the north, Belarus, began joint military exercises with Russia on Monday.    

The Belarusian defense ministry said the drills would run until February 1 and utilize all of the country’s military airfields.    

Areas of training include aerial reconnaissance, border patrols, tactical air assault landing and evacuation of the wounded, the ministry said.    

Belarus has participated in numerous military exercises with Russia since the conflict began, increasing fears in Ukraine and among its allies that Russia is hoping Belarus will enter the war on its side, despite assurances from Minsk it won’t join the fight.  

Pavel Muraveyko, first deputy state secretary of Belarusian Security Council, said in a post on the social media platform Telegram that “the exercise is purely defensive in nature.”   

Russia held military exercises in Belarus just before sending tens of thousands of those troops across the border into Ukraine at the start of its invasion.  

British tanks 

The Kremlin responded to the latest round of Western aid pledged to Ukraine by saying tanks Britain planned to send “will burn just like the rest.” 

Britain announced Saturday it will send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help repel Russia’s invasion.  

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said the tanks would be sent in the coming weeks, with about 30 self-propelled AS-90 guns to follow. He said training for Ukrainian troops on how to use the guns and the tanks will begin soon.  

The Challenger 2 is Britain’s main battle tank. It is designed to attack other tanks and has been in service since 1994, according to the army.  

Russia has threatened previous Western military aid to Ukraine, including saying U.S.-provided air defense systems and any accompanying personnel would be legitimate targets for Russian forces.   

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

The U.S. military’s new, expanded combat training of Ukrainian forces began in Germany on Sunday, with a goal of getting a battalion of about 500 troops back on the battlefield to fight the Russians in the next five to eight weeks, said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Milley, who plans to visit the Grafenwoehr training area on Monday to get a first-hand look at the program, said the troops being trained left Ukraine a few days ago. In Germany is a full set of weapons and equipment for them to use.

Until now the Pentagon had declined to say exactly when the training would start.

The so-called combined arms training is aimed at honing the skills of the Ukrainian forces so they will be better prepared to launch an offensive or counter any surge in Russian attacks. They will learn how to better move and coordinate their company- and battalion-size units in battle, using combined artillery, armor and ground forces.

Speaking to two reporters traveling with him to Europe on Sunday, Milley said the complex training — combined with an array of new weapons, artillery, tanks and other vehicles heading to Ukraine — will be key to helping the country’s forces take back territory that has been captured by Russia in the nearly 11-month-old war.

“This support is really important for Ukraine to be able to defend itself,” Milley said. “And we’re hoping to be able to pull this together here in short order.”

The goal, he said, is for all the incoming weapons and equipment to be delivered to Ukraine so that the newly trained forces will be able to use it “sometime before the spring rains show up. That would be ideal.”

The new instruction comes as Ukrainian forces face fierce fighting in the eastern Donetsk province, where the Russian military has claimed it has control of the small salt-mining town of Soledar. Ukraine asserts that its troops are still fighting, but if Moscow’s troops take control of Soledar it would allow them to inch closer to the bigger city of Bakhmut, where fighting has raged for months.

Russia also launched a widespread barrage of missile strikes, including in Kyiv, the northeastern city of Kharkiv and the southeastern city of Dnipro, where the death toll in one apartment building rose to 30.

Milley said he wants to make sure the training is on track and whether anything else is needed, and also ensure that it will line up well with the equipment deliveries.

The program will include classroom instruction and field work that will begin with small squads and gradually grow to involve larger units. It would culminate with a more complex combat exercise bringing an entire battalion and a headquarters unit together.

Until now, the U.S. focus has been on providing Ukrainian forces with more immediate battlefield needs, particularly on how to use the wide array of Western weapons systems pouring into the country.

The U.S. has already trained more than 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to use and maintain certain weapons and other equipment, including howitzers, armored vehicles and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS. Other nations are also conducting training on the weapons they provide.

In announcing the new program last month, Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the idea “is to be able to give them this advanced level of collective training that enables them to conduct effective combined arms operations and maneuver on the battlefield.”

Milley said the U.S. was doing this type of training prior to the Russian invasion last February. But once the war began, U.S. National Guard and special operations forces that were doing training inside Ukraine all left the country. This new effort, which is being done by U.S. Army Europe Africa’s 7th Army Training Command, will be a continuation of what they had been doing prior to the invasion. Other European allies are also providing training.
…

A village in western Germany that is due to be demolished to make way for a coal mine expansion has been cleared of activists, apart from a pair who remained holed up in a tunnel, police said Sunday.

The operation to evict climate activists who flocked to the site in the hamlet of Luetzerath kicked off Wednesday morning and progressed steadily over the following days. Police cleared people out of farm buildings, the few remaining houses and a few dozen makeshift constructions such as tree houses.

On Saturday, thousands of people demonstrated nearby against the eviction and the planned expansion of the Garzweiler coal mine. There were standoffs with police as some protesters tried to reach the village, which is now fenced off, and the mine.

Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the Garzweiler mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.

The regional and national governments, both of which include the environmentalist Green party, reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the abandoned village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

The Greens’ leaders argue that the deal fulfills many of the environmentalists’ demands and saved five other villages from demolition, and that Luetzerath is the wrong symbol for protests. Activists reject that stance.

Police said in a statement Sunday that nearly 300 people have been removed so far from Luetzerath. They added that “the rescue by RWE Power of the two people in underground structures continues; beyond that, the clearance by police is complete.”

They said that 12 people were detained in connection with Saturday’s incidents. Demolition of the buildings in Luetzerath is already underway.

Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, who joined Saturday’s big protest, took part in a smaller demonstration Sunday, singing and dancing with other activists near the edge of the mine, German news agency dpa reported.

Police said Thunberg briefly sat on an embankment at the edge of the mine and officers carried her a few steps away after she didn’t comply with calls to move for her own safety, dpa reported, adding that she then went on her way.
…

While there’s no knowing when the war in Ukraine will be over, one volunteer organization in western Ukraine – called Lviv Knights – has been working since 2014 trying to help restore old historical buildings while at the same time helping Ukrainian soldiers by collecting whatever equipment they can. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story from Lviv, in western Ukraine. VOA footage and video editing by Yuriy Dankevych.
…

More than 2700 world leaders will seek solutions for multiple global crises when they convene at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the posh Swiss Alpine village of Davos this week.

This auspicious gathering includes 52 heads of state, leaders in business, finance, and culture as well as humanitarians and members of civil society from 130 countries. More than 5,000 Swiss army soldiers will be on hand to guarantee security and ensure any protests do not get out of hand.

The theme of this year’s meeting is cooperation in a fragmented world. After emerging from three years of pandemic isolation, delegates once again will be meeting in person. During the week, they will address critical political, economic, and social issues that demand urgent attention.

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, says this personal interaction will create the necessary level of trust to bring people together.

“One of the root causes of this fragmentation is actually a lack of cooperation. This in turn increases fragmentation in society and leads even more to short-term and self-serving policy making. It is a truly vicious circle,” he said.

Schwab says the erosion of trust between the government and business sectors must be stopped. He says cooperation must be reinforced and conditions for a strong and durable recovery created.

Managing director of the forum, Mirak Dusek, says world leaders will be encouraged to work together on such interconnected issues as energy, climate, and nature. He says discussion on the economy and society will take center stage.

“On the economy, we are going to be putting a lot of emphasis on infrastructure. Particularly on how we make sure that the investments around infrastructure, particularly clean infrastructure — how do we make sure that this leads to new growth, growth that is more inclusive and makes us more resilient in the future…Of course, we will also be looking at social vulnerability that are stemming from these crises,” he said.

Dignitaries attending the meeting include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, and U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. U.S. President Joe Biden will not be coming to Davos. However, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, will be present.

A high-level delegation from Ukraine is expected to come to Davos. Forum officials say their names are not being disclosed for security reasons. They say several sessions related to the war in Ukraine will be held. They add Russia is not expected to attend.
…

Greece says it will press ahead with plans to seal off its land frontiers with neighbor Turkey, tripling the size of a soaring fence already erected in the region. The effort comes as Greece faced a surge in refugee flows in 2022, and as threats of war sound from Turkey, which have aggravated already troubled relations between the two NATO allies.

It’s rhetoric like this that has Greece concerned.   

Speaking during the weekend Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Greece of constantly creating border crises with Turkey. What’s more, Erdogan also warned, that Turkey, as he put it “can and will plough into Greece one night and take it over.”   

On the other side of the divide and at a separate event, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was quick to respond.    

“Greece does not need anyone telling it how to exercise its own sovereign rights. It will continue to bolster its defenses as it sees fit,” he said.  

Among the most ambitious plans include a soaring steel seal fence stretching some 160 kilometers…sealing Greece’s land frontiers with Turkey. A quarter of that project is already in place, but over the weekend Mistotakis went to the border region of Alexandroupolis to oversee a 56-kilometer extension the Greek government says will cost over 100 million dollars.   

The first leg of that fence was built to stem the rising tide of illegal migration. And while the fence has helped block some 250,000 illegal migrants from entering Greece from Turkey in 2022 alone, according to police date, authorities here fear more will try to make the crossing as elections near in Turkey.   

U.N. data for 2022 show illegal entries to Greece tripled in 2022 compared to the year prior.   

Such a forecast, officials say adds to growing tension between NATO allies Greece and Turkey as both sides remain locked in a heated arms race, mainly over U.S. weapons systems.   

This week President Biden is set to ask Congress to approve a $20 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. And while the potential sale will not hamper Greece’s purchase of U.S. F-35 fighters, Mitsotakis is advising Capitol Hill to show great scrutiny.     

“How the U.S. Congress will handle an arms sale to Turkey is its own affair,” Mitsotakis told reporters. “But it should not disregard Turkey’s provocative behavior, referring to Turkey’s recurring threats of war and airspace violations — both serious breaches of NATO alliance rules.”  

Relations between Ankara and Washington have been frustrated by Turkey’s refusal to back Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. But in recent months, those relations have thawed somewhat as Erdogan helped broker an arrangement permitting Ukrainian grain shipments from the Black Sea.   

Several U.S. lawmakers, including Robert Menendez who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee remain skeptical. They vow to block the purported F-16 sale this week unless Erdogan takes several steps to show he can uphold Turkey’s NATO priorities.   

Anything less, officials in Athens say, will only aggravate tensions with Turkey and amplify Greece’s needs to further bolster its defenses. 
…

At least 20 people were killed and 73 wounded Saturday, including children, in the southeastern Ukraine city of Dnipro where a Russian missile strike destroyed a section of a nine-story apartment building, regional Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

Infrastructure was also damaged in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Odesa regions, as well as in Kharkiv and Kyiv by the wave of Russian missiles.

“Debris clearance is still ongoing. . . It’s not yet known how many people are under the rubble. Unfortunately, the death toll is growing every hour,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Local authorities reported that Ukraine’s air defense downed Russian missiles in Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, and Ivano-Frankivsk. Ukraine’s top military commander said his forces shot down 21 of the 33 cruise missiles Russia fired.

The strikes caused emergency blackouts in multiple regions, such as the Kharkiv region and the city of Kharkiv in the northeast — Ukraine’s second-largest city. In the western Lviv Oblast, the governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, said there might be interruptions in the power and water supply because of missile damage.

Another energy facility was hit in the western Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, according to Governor Svitlana Onyschuk.

A few hours after Saturday’s missile strikes, Britain promised to send Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help repel Russia’s invasion.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office said the tanks would be sent in the coming weeks, with about 30 self-propelled AS90 guns to follow. He said training for Ukrainian troops will begin soon on how to use the guns and the tanks.

The Challenger 2 is Britain’s main battle tank. It is designed to attack other tanks and has been in service since 1994, according to the army.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said Sunday there is a possibility that Russia will extend the age limit for military conscription from 27 to 30 in time for the Spring 2023 draft, a move that would enable Russian forced to increase its enrollment by at least 30%.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he supports the move, according to the British ministry, which added that “Russian officials are likely sounding out public reactions.”

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

After COVID-19 restrictions had wiped out Vienna’s glamorous winter ball season for two years in a row, 50-year-old Wahyuni couldn’t wait any longer to get dolled up and put on her dazzling floral-patterned ballgown to once again waltz the night away.

“We love to come here, because the very nice decorations are made out of real flowers and it’s very lovely,” Wahyuni said, alongside her friend Deasy, who declined to give their full names, as both were attending the legendary Flower Ball in Vienna’s neo-Gothic city hall.

Admiring the riot of colors, 46-year-old Deasy, who originally hails from Indonesia, said she had been here a few years ago and “had to come back.”

Known for being one of the most beautifully decorated winter balls among about 450 hosted in the Austrian capital each season, the Flower Ball showcases mesmerizing floral arrangements skillfully crafted out of 100,000 blossoms.

Donning snow-white dresses and classy black evening suits, four first-time debutants said they were “quite nervous” about opening the ball.

“I think it is so beautifully decorated, and that makes me super happy,” 18-year-old Eduard Wernisch said.

The self-described rookies said they had attended dance classes for a couple of hours every week since September to be prepared.

The rhythm of the waltz can be tricky, and 17-year-old classmate Emma said she was particularly afraid of dropping her flower bouquet.

“People come here with the expectation of experiencing spring” as opposed to the gray, foggy winters so prevalent in Vienna, Peter Hucik, art director of the Flower Ball told Agence France-Presse.

Even though the ball is not sold out, Hucik said he is pleased that 2,400 visitors are attending Friday’s ball, kicking off the season as one of Vienna’s first big balls.

Most successful season

The COVID-related shutdown of Vienna’s famous ball season caused the city to lose at least $164 million in revenue per year.

This season, however, appeared to be on track to become one of Vienna’s most successful on record.

“The season is making a roaring comeback,” said Markus Griessler, chairman of the tourism and leisure division of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce.

Griessler said he expects the city to rake in 170 million euros this season.

“Every third Viennese aged 15 and older is planning to attend a ball this year,” compared with 1 in 4 in 2019, he added, noting that nearly 550,000 tickets have been sold.

About one-tenth of the ball-goers each year come from abroad. On average, every ball-goer spends around 320 euros per ball.

Too close for comfort

There are parallels between Vienna’s ball season and traveling in general, Norbert Kettner, director of the city’s tourist office told AFP, when asked about why balls remained a top priority.

“Clearly, people insist on traveling and dancing,” said Kettner while emphasizing the city’s age-old tradition of hosting such events.

The tradition dates to the 18th century, when the balls of the Habsburg royal court ceased to be reserved for the aristocracy alone.

The Viennese began adopting court customs for their own soirees, soon launching balls dedicated to hunters, cafe owners and florists.

The Viennese used the opportunity to approach the opposite sex, lavishly wine, dine, spy and dance.

“The Viennese ball season and the waltz had always been a thorn in the side of the Catholic Church,” Kettner said, because “waltzing was too close for comfort.”

Therefore the famous ball season “loosely follows the Christian calendar and wraps up before Ash Wednesday,” he added.

Thousands will earn their living in the flourishing sector, from hotels and restaurants to fashioning evening wear and hairdressing.

All businesses were as excited as the revelers to gear up and make this season a success.
…

With nearly all the votes counted in the first round of the Czech Republic’s presidential election, retired army General Petr Pavel eked out a narrow victory over billionaire populist and former Prime Minister Andrej Babis.

Pavel won 35.39% of the votes Saturday versus 35% for Babis in the eight-candidate field.  The two will face off against each other in another round of voting in two weeks.

Economics professor Danuse Nerudova finished third with 13.9% of the vote.  No other candidate received more than 7%.

Political analysts had predicted a close contest between the 68-year-Babis and the 61-year-old Pavel.

Babis was the leading opposition candidate, and Czech political analyst and writer Jiří Pehe described him as an “oligarch populist” who, he said, “flirts with the political orientation” of Hungarian President Viktor Orban.

Orban, an admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, comes under frequent criticism from the European Union, which has accused him of stifling democratic institutions.

Pavel, a former chair of NATO’s military committee, received the endorsement of the government. He and Nerudova, were seen as the most pro-Western, pro-democratic candidates.

Nerudova would have been the first woman to hold the office of president.

Political analyst Pehe, who leads New York University’s academic center in Prague, told VOA the war in Ukraine is likely to play a significant role in the elections, as it has raised security and foreign policy concerns to a higher level than they otherwise would be in the election.

That was likely to favor Pavel, Pehe said, because of his extensive military and international experience. The political analyst said Pavel has been an enthusiastic supporter of Ukraine as the country defends itself from Russian attacks, while Babis has been more ambiguous.

Pehe said polls indicated the economy was a major issue for Czech voters, which could help Babis, as he has stressed domestic issues over aid to Ukraine. But Pehe added that the voters want to see the Czech Republic maintain strong ties with the West and NATO, likely helped Pavel.

Recent Gallup polling shared with VOA shows that approval of EU leadership has risen to 49% in the country, the highest level recorded in 13 years. Approval of Russian leadership, meanwhile, is at a 13-year low of 5%.

Corruption is also a major concern of Czech voters, according to the 2022 Gallup polling. It showed that 74% of the public believe that corruption is widespread in the government, a belief that has been fairly consistent since 2006.

On the positive side, 65% of respondents told Gallup they are confident in the honesty of elections.

The winner of the election will take over from current President Milos Zeman, who is completing his second term. Pehe said Zeman became a divisive figure — who was quite pro-Russia and China — when he attempted to over-step his presidential powers as designated by the nation’s constitution.

In the Czech government, the president is elected by the popular vote and appoints the prime minister, but the job is otherwise a largely ceremonial post.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Myroslava Gongadze reported from Warsaw.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for heavy weapons, primarily tanks, was officially answered late Saturday by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose office said Britain would send 14 tanks along with artillery support to Ukraine.

“As the people of Ukraine approach their second year living under relentless Russian bombardment, the prime minister is dedicated to ensuring Ukraine wins this war,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said in a statement.

The Russian embassy said in its own statement that the tanks “are unlikely to help the Armed Forces of Ukraine turn the tide on the battlefield,” and would instead drag out the war.

Earlier Saturday, Russia launched another massive missile attack on Ukrainian cities.

“Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Ladyzhyn, Burshtyn, Lviv region, Khmelnytsky and other cities were targets of terrorists. Civilian objects are everywhere!” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

At least 14 people were killed and 64 wounded, among them children, in the southeastern city of Dnipro. A Russian missile strike there destroyed a section of a nine-story apartment building, regional Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. Infrastructure was also damaged in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Odesa regions, as well as in Kharkiv and Kyiv.

Targeting civilians and critical infrastructure across Ukraine has been a consistent tactic by Russia. According to the Geneva Conventions, targeting vital public infrastructure constitutes a war crime.

Zelenskyy said the death toll in Dnipro is expected to increase.

“Debris clearance is still ongoing and will continue throughout the night. It’s not yet known how many people are under the rubble. Unfortunately, the death toll is growing every hour,” he said. “My condolences to relatives and friends.”

Local authorities reported that Ukraine’s air defense downed Russian missiles in Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, and Ivano-Frankivsk. Ukraine’s top military commander said his forces shot down 21 of the 33 cruise missiles Russia fired.

The strikes caused emergency blackouts in multiple regions, such as the Kharkiv region and the city of Kharkiv in the northeast — Ukraine’s second-largest city. In the western Lviv Oblast, the governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, said there might be interruptions in the power and water supply because of missile damage.

Another energy facility was hit in the western Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, according to Governor Svitlana Onyschuk. A fire broke out at the site following the attack, Onyschuk said, adding there were no casualties.

Earlier, Odesa authorities said the missiles were launched “from air and sea,” while Southern Operational Command reported that five Russian missile carriers with a total of 36 Kalibr cruise missiles were detected in the Black Sea.

During the attack, a defiant Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said, “We will fight back.”

In the country’s Donbas, fighting continues to rage around Soledar, with Russia claiming to have captured the town and Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, saying: “fierce battles for Soledar are continuing.”

Zelenskyy reiterated his pleas for more weapons from the West.

“What is needed for this? Those weapons that are in the warehouses of our partners and that our troops are so waiting for,” he said.

“No amount of persuasion or just passing the time will stop the terrorists, who are methodically killing our people with missiles, drones bought in Iran, their own artillery, tanks and mortars. The whole world knows what can stop and how it’s possible to stop those who sow death,” he said.

A few hours after Saturday’s missile strikes, Britain promised to send the Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine to help the country repel Russia’s invasion.

Sunak’s office said the tanks would be sent into the country in the coming weeks along with about 30 self-propelled AS90 guns to follow. Training for Ukrainian troops will begin soon on how to use the guns and the tanks.

The Challenger 2 is Britain’s main battle tank. It is designed to attack other tanks and has been in service since 1994, according to the army.

Sunak and Zelenskyy spoke by phone Saturday, after which Zelenskyy turned to Twitter to thank the prime minister “for the decisions that will not only strengthen us on the battlefield, but also send the right signal to other partners.”

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

Thousands of people demonstrated in the rain Saturday to protest the clearance and demolition of a village in western Germany to make way for the expansion of a coal mine. There were standoffs with police as some protesters tried to reach the edge of the mine and the village itself.

Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg joined the demonstrators as they protested the clearance of Luetzerath, walking through the nearby village of Keyenberg and past muddy fields. Protesters chanted “Every village stays” and “You are not alone.”

Organizers said about 35,000 people took part, while the police put the figure at 15,000. On the sidelines of the protest, police said people broke through barriers and some got into the Garzweiler coal mine.

Some who tried to get to the edge of the mine were pushed back. And German news agency dpa reported that police used water cannons and batons just outside Luetzerath, which is now fenced off, against hundreds of people who got that far. The situation calmed after dark.

Some protesters complained about the size of the police response and what they say was undue force by police this week. Police, meanwhile, said some demonstrators had thrown fireworks at officers and damaged patrol cars.

‘What everyone does matters’

Thunberg said the fate of Luetzerath and the expansion of the mine matters far beyond Germany.

In the global fight against climate change, “what everyone does matters,” she told The Associated Press shortly before the protest. “And if one of the largest polluters, like Germany, and one of the biggest historical emitters of CO2 is doing something like this, then of course it affects more or less everyone — especially those most bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”

As the demonstration took place, the clearance of Luetzerath was well advanced.

The operation to evict climate activists holed up in the village kicked off Wednesday. In the first three days of the operation, police said about 470 people left the site, 320 of them voluntarily.

They said Friday afternoon there were no longer any activists in the remaining buildings or on their roofs. They said Saturday they still had to tackle 15 “structures”— such as tree houses — and were trying to get into a tunnel that two people were believed to be holed up, dpa reported. Work to demolish buildings was already underway.

Cause celebre

Luetzerath has become a cause celebre for critics of Germany’s climate efforts.

Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the Garzweiler mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.

The regional and national governments, both of which include the environmentalist Green party, reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the abandoned village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

Some speakers at Saturday’s demonstration assailed the Greens, whose leaders argue that the deal fulfills many of the environmentalists’ demands and saved five other villages from demolition.

“It’s very weird to see the German government, including the Green party, make deals and compromise with companies like RWE, with fossil fuel companies, when they should rather be held accountable for all the damage and destruction they have caused,” Thunberg said. “My message to the German government is that they should stop what’s happening here immediately, stop the destruction, and ensure climate justice for everyone.”
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Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced new contingency plans Saturday for the three-member crew of a damaged capsule docked to the International Space Station, saying the U.S. member of the trio would return to Earth in a separate SpaceX vessel if they needed to evacuate in the next few weeks. 

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule, which serves as a lifeboat for the crew, sprang a coolant leak last month after it was struck by a micrometeoroid — a small particle of space rock — which made a tiny puncture and caused the temperature inside to rise.  

Roscosmos and NASA said this week that a new spacecraft, Soyuz MS-23, would be launched next month to bring back cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio. But it will not dock with the space station until February 22. 

Given there could be an earlier emergency, Rubio’s seat was being moved from the MS-22 to a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, also docked to the space station, Roscosmos said Saturday. 

If an emergency evacuation is necessary, Rubio will return to Earth on the Crew Dragon, and the Roscosmos cosmonauts will return on the Soyuz MS-22, it said. 

“The descent of two cosmonauts instead of three will be safer, as it will help reduce the temperature and humidity in the Soyuz MS-22.”  

The mission was due to end in March, but the plan now is to extend it by several months and bring the three men home on the MS-23. The latter had been due to take up three new crew in March, but instead will be launched empty next month to dock with the space station.

Four other crew members are currently on the orbital station — two more from NASA, a third Russian, and a Japanese astronaut. All arrived in October on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. 

Relations between Russia and the U.S. have been poisoned by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but the two countries continue to work closely together on the space station, an orbital laboratory about 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth that has been occupied continuously for two decades. 

Russia has said it plans to quit the project after 2024 and launch its own station. 
…

Alou Diallo says he was drinking tea with his family one morning last month when groups of “white soldiers” invaded his village in central Mali, setting fire to houses and gunning down people suspected of being Islamic extremists. He scrambled to safety in the bush, but his son was shot and wounded while fleeing, then was finished off as he lay on the ground.

“I watched my 16-year-old son die,” Diallo told The Associated Press in Mali’s capital, Bamako, where he lives in a makeshift camp for displaced people. As he recounted that awful Saturday in his village of Bamguel, the 47-year-old former cattle breeder made no attempt to hide the anger toward the troops, which he believed to be Russian mercenaries, who turned his world upside down.

“I really want peace to return and things to go back to normal,” he said. “Here in Bamako, I live a life I didn’t choose.”

It’s been more than a year since hundreds of fighters from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military contractor, began working alongside Mali’s armed forces to try to stem a decadelong insurgency by Islamic extremists in the West African country, Western officials say.

But since the mercenaries arrived, diplomats, analysts and human rights groups say indiscriminate violence against civilians has grown, the extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have only gotten stronger, and there’s concern the Russian presence will further destabilize the already-troubled region.

More than 2,000 civilians have been killed since December 2021, compared with about 500 in the previous 12 months, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a nongovernmental organization. At least a third of those deaths recorded last year were from attacks involving the Wagner Group, according to the data compiled by ACLED.

“They are killing civilians, and by their very presence, giving Malian security forces a green light to act on their worst inclinations,” said Michael Shurkin, senior fellow at Atlantic Council and director of global programs at the consultancy group 14 North Strategies.

Military contractors from Wagner, which was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, have been bolstering Moscow’s forces during its invasion of Ukraine. But experts say they also operate in a handful of African countries.

Ever since Mali’s military seized power in two coups starting in 2020, a junta led by Col. Assimi Goita has had tense relations with the international community.

France sent troops to Mali in 2013 to help its former colony drive Islamic militants from northern areas of the country but withdrew them in August as relations frayed and anti-French sentiment grew in the population. The West says Mali is increasingly looking to Moscow for security, although the junta says it has only invited in military trainers.

Alassane Maiga, head of communications for the junta, insisted that Wagner was not operating in the country. Asked about the attacks on civilians, Maiga said Mali’s government protects its citizens and their property.

“The army’s protection and security missions are carried out with respect for human rights and international humanitarian law,” he said.

The Wagner Group did not respond to requests for comment. At a U.N. Security Council debate Tuesday, Russia’s deputy ambassador Anna Evstigneeva rejected attempts from abroad “to besmirch Russian assistance to Mali,” where Moscow has a bilateral agreement to assist the transitional government. She did not mention the Wagner Group.

Up to 1,000 mercenaries have been deployed and the Wagner Group is being paid nearly $11 million a month to provide security and training, according to a report by the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, which studies extremist violence.

The report said Wagner’s forces are struggling to make significant gains, with jihadi violence increasing. During the rainy season between June and September when fighting usually subsides, there were over 90 attacks against civilians and the military by an al-Qaida linked extremist group, compared with six in the same period a year earlier, it said, and an August assault on a barracks by an Islamic State-linked group killed at least 42 Malian soldiers.

In the bloodiest attack, Human Rights Watch said Mali’s army and foreign troops suspected to be Russian rounded up and killed an estimated 300 men in the town of Moura in March. Some were believed to be Islamic extremists, but most were civilians. The investigation cited 27 people, including witnesses, traders, community leaders, diplomats and security analysts.

Mali’s Defense Ministry reported a similar incident at the time but said it had killed 203 “terrorists” and arrested 51 others.

“There are broad reports of human rights abuses across the region where they are working,” U.S. Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said of the Wagner mercenaries. “And we worry that these forces are not interested in the safety and security of the people of Mali but, instead, are interested in enriching themselves and strip-mining the country and are making the terrorism situation worse.”

Samuel Ramani, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank, said Russia is not very credible at counterterrorism in Africa.

“What we’ve seen repeatedly is that Russia and the Wagner Group forces are much better at strengthening the hold of authoritarian regimes in power than actually combating rebels and terrorist groups,” Ramani said, citing their limited knowledge of the terrain, strained relationships with low-ranking officers and a rigid command and control structure.

Many Malians accuse the military and the white soldiers working with them of arbitrary arrests of civilians herding cattle, farming or going to market. Most of them are ethnic Fulani who are increasingly targeted by security forces suspecting them of supporting the Islamic militants.

Rights groups say these alleged abuses aid the extremists, who capitalize on public grievances for use as a recruiting tool.

A 29-year-old cattle herder named Hamidou said he was arrested at his home in Douentza village in central Mali with two other people in November and accused of being an Islamic militant. He was locked in a room where he was bound, beaten and interrogated by “white soldiers.”

“We were severely beaten daily. We didn’t think we’d survive,” said Hamidou, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisal, adding that most of those detained were ethnic Fulani, like him. “From the day Wagner came to Mali until today, arbitrary arrests and killings of Fulani civilians have been increasing tremendously.”

The AP was unable to verify his account independently but a human rights researcher who also asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal said he saw the scars on Hamidou’s back and forehead after his release.

Thousands of United Nations peacekeeping troops have been in Mali for nearly a decade to protect civilians from violence, but Mali’s government has constrained their ability to operate, and countries such as Benin, Germany, Sweden, Ivory Coast and the United Kingdom have announced troop withdrawals, according to the International Crisis Group.

Nuland, the U.S. diplomat, said the Wagner Group has encouraged the junta to deny the peacekeepers access to areas where it has a mandate to investigate abuses.
…

Retired general Petr Pavel scored a narrow win over billionaire former premier Andrej Babis in the first round of the Czech presidential election Saturday, securing a solid base for a runoff in two weeks, nearly complete results showed.

The post does not carry executive authority but has significant powers in appointing prime ministers, central bank chiefs and nominating judges for the constitutional court.

Presidents also have a limited say in foreign affairs and are chief army commanders.

Results from 99.7% of the voting districts showed Pavel won with 35.4%, ahead of Babis with 35.0%.

Both Pavel, a former general staff chief and NATO military committee chairman, and opposition leader Babis who was prime minister in 2017-2021, would likely be more pro-Western than the retiring incumbent Milos Zeman, who promoted tighter ties with China, and until the invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia.

Pavel, 61, is strongly pro-Western and supports further military aid for Ukraine, as well as adoption of the euro.

Babis, who built a chemicals, farming and media empire now registered in trust funds, would be a smaller change as he shares Zeman’s warm relations with Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who has been at odds with European Union partners over the rule of law.

Babis also has spoken against more Czech military aid for Ukraine. The current center-right government, which decides on that policy, is among Kyiv’s staunchest supporters in the West.

TOUGH SECOND ROUND FOR BABIS

Pavel took aim at Babis, calling him populist and a threat. “The danger is that we would start sliding not only toward populism but also start veering off the course we followed the past 230 years, clearly pro-democratic, pro-Western, pro-European,” he said after the partial results were known.

Pollsters have given Pavel an edge over Babis in a second round as he is likely to attract more of the people voting for the six other candidates who did not make it past the first round.

In third place was economics professor Danuse Nerudova, with 13.9%. She conceded defeat and congratulated Pavel, saying she would meet him to offer support.

“There is still a great evil here, and it is called Andrej Babis,” she told supporters and reporters.  

Pavel has been endorsed by the center-right Cabinet, while Babis has framed the vote as a show of dissatisfaction with the government’s response to high inflation and energy prices.  

Running with Zeman’s backing, Babis has pledged to put pressure on the Cabinet to provide more aid to households, and to bring checks on the coalition which has a majority in both houses in parliament.

For some voters, there has been frustration that three decades after the end of Communist Party rule, the first-round winners were members of that ruling party prior to the end of its rule in 1989.

Pavel started his military career in the 1980s, and he went through military intelligence training. Babis worked in foreign trade and was registered as a secret police informant, which he denies.

While prime minister, Babis was found in conflict of interest by the European Commission because of subsidies paid to his Agrofert business empire, which is in a trust. He was cleared this week in an EU subsidy fraud case.
…

In Siversk, a town north of Soledar that could be next in line for the Russian advance, Oleksandr Kuzenko and his neighbors took solace in an old tradition Friday as they hunkered down in their basement shelter.

Malanka, New Year Eve’s in the Julian calendar, is best known for famed mid-January celebrations in western Ukraine featuring colorful costumes, masks and gatherings.

But for 64-year-old Kuzenko and his neighbors of 30 years, three elderly women he helps care for, the holiday celebration was sparse.

A few garlands of tinsel decorated the thick blanket hung over the entrance to the only room housing a stove in the basement where they have taken shelter since their town was ravaged by shelling.

The eastern Ukrainian town of Siversk faced fierce strikes over the summer, as Moscow’s troops tried and failed several times to capture it.

A sign pinned to the blanket read: “Happy New Year 2023, year of the rabbit, year of victory!” It was illuminated by one of the three candles they have left, already half-burned down.

‘Let them shoot’

“We are staying strong, trying to survive, waiting for the war to end,” Kuzenko told AFP, seated at a table bearing a couple of small plates of food they were sharing.

Nearby, one of his neighbors, 69-year-old Lyubov, stirred a pot of scraps for the many abandoned pets they now look after.

But the war may be far from over for Siversk.

It risks becoming a frontline town again, as the Russian defense ministry declares victory, a claim denied by Ukraine, in Soledar, about 30 minutes’ drive south.

But with no gas, electricity or water, let alone internet, many of the 1,700 people local officials say still live in Siversk and the surrounding settlements hear little of the news at the front.

“We don’t have a radio,” said Kuzenko, just “word of mouth.”

“Some say that Soledar is surrounded, others say that it is not surrounded. Let the military decide what will happen next,” he said.

Near the steep steps leading into Kuzenko’s shelter, 55-year-old Oleksandr Sirenko said he hoped Ukraine’s troops would hold fast, as he chopped window frames and bits of floor into smaller pieces to burn for firewood.

“We only hope they don’t retreat,” he said. “We are afraid, but where should we go?”

‘We are not afraid’

Scratching a dog’s ear outside the basement where she has lived since March, first with 17 people, now only six, Valentyna Kuteyko, 61, said: “Siversk has been surrounded more than once.

“What else is there to hit?” she asked.

As the sound of artillery rumbled along the street, she said she would, nonetheless, “stay here, try to live and to survive.”

“We are not afraid, let them shoot,” she added.

Dmytro Afanasiev, 34, said he knew little of the news from the front, just wanted the killing to stop.

“We aren’t worried about what could happen because of Soledar; we are worried that many people are dying,” he said.

Even as intense fighting grinds on mere kilometers away, authorities and volunteers are trying to maintain basic services, said Oleksiy Vorobyov, the head of the Siversk civil-military administration.

They hand out basic goods and even make minor repairs to buildings or restore some garbage collection.

The aid deliveries provide stoves, firewood, food and generators, he said. But the remaining residents “all lack one thing: Peace.” 
…

Polish scientist Maciej Walczak has been released from prison in Iran and has returned to Poland, the Polish foreign ministry said Saturday.

“Achieving this goal was one of the priorities of Poland’s diplomatic and consular services last year,” the ministry said in a statement.

In July, Iranian state television reported that the Revolutionary Guards had arrested several foreigners for acts that included taking soil samples in restricted areas. The report identified one of those as Walczak. He had been held in Iran since September 2021.
…

Ukraine’s capital was hit with a series of explosions Saturday. Officials said critical infrastructure was hit in Kyiv but did not reveal what was damaged. Explosions were heard in the city’s Dniprovskyi district, and fragments of a missile are reported to have fallen on a nonresidential area in the Holosiivskyi district.

Also Saturday, the British Defense Ministry posted an analysis of a deployment Wednesday of at least 10 vessels of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet (BSF) from the Novorossiysk Naval Facility. The ministry posted on Twitter, “Given the type and number of vessels putting to sea at the same time, the activity is likely a fleet dispersal in response to a specific threat to Novorossiysk that Russia believes it has identified.”

“It is unlikely that the deployment signifies preparation of unusual maritime-launched cruise-missile strikes,” the post said. “It is highly unlikely that the fleet is preparing for amphibious assault operations. The BSF largely remains fixed by perceived threats from Ukraine, and continues to prioritize force protection over offensive or patrol operations.”

The fate of Soledar in Ukraine’s Donbas region is hanging in the balance as Russia claimed Friday that its forces had seized the salt-mining town in eastern Ukraine and Ukraine saying the fighting continues.

If Moscow’s claims bear out, it would be Russia’s first big battlefield gain after multiple military setbacks.

Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command, told Reuters that Soledar had not yet been captured.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the situation in the town, which has become one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the entire war, now in its 11th month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Friday that fighting continued in the town as well as in other parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

“The tough battle for Donetsk continues. The battle for Bakhmut and Soledar, for Kreminna, for other towns and villages in the east of our state continues,” he said.

CNN was also reporting Friday that units of the Ukrainian military insisted the battle is ongoing.

“Local battles continue in the city,” the 46th Airmobile Brigade said Friday on Telegram. “Orcs [Russians] are pressing from the outskirts to the center. Apparently, they are trying to bring down to the center those of our units who did not have time to leave the city. You will not succeed, Russians.”

Ukrainian officials said Thursday more than 500 civilians were trapped inside Soledar, including 15 children.

If Soledar’s capture is achieved, military experts say it would allow Russian forces, and the mercenary Wagner Group helming the operation, to more readily target nearby Bakhmut.

The fighting in the area reportedly also has spurred infighting between Russia’s defense establishment and the Wagner’s multimillionaire leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin. According to Reuters, he has criticized the failings of the regular Russian army, and he issued a premature claim earlier this week that Soledar had already fallen.

Prigozhin has also complained that Russia’s Defense Ministry has not given the Wagner Group credit for its fight in Soledar. On Friday evening, the ministry changed course and issued a statement acknowledging the group’s role.

“As for the direct storming of Soledar’s city quarters occupied by the armed forces of Ukraine, this combat task was successfully accomplished by the courageous and selfless actions of volunteers from the Wagner assault detachments,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

The cracks within the Russian military command have widened after a reshuffle in military leadership earlier this week, when Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov was placed in direct charge of Russia’s forces in Ukraine. Some analysts said the move was a slapping down of Prigozhin, while also lining up Gerasimov as the fall guy if the war continues to go badly for Russia.

Within Russia, victory in Soledar could boost the power of ultra-nationalist Prigozhin, whose Wagner Group of fighters-for-hire, including convicts recruited from prison with promises of pardons, has focused on the fight in that region.

Zelenskyy remarked Friday during his nightly address on how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now on its 324th day, reportedly is eroding the Russian military establishment.

“They are already gnawing among themselves over who should be credited with some tactical advance. It’s a clear signal of failure for the enemy. And it’s another incentive for all of us to put more pressure on the occupier and to inflict heavier losses on the enemy,” he said.

A phone conversation Friday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba centered on continuing robust security and economic assistance before the February anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine and beyond.

The top U.S. diplomat emphasized the United States’ enduring and unflinching support for Ukraine, as underscored by recent provisions of advanced air defense equipment and armored vehicles from U.S. inventories.

Finland has joined Poland in saying it could send German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine as part of a Western coalition apparently being assembled to supply them.

France also is hoping to deliver AMX 10-RC light-combat tanks to Ukraine in two months’ time, French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said.

A Russian foreign ministry official said Belarus may enter the conflict in Ukraine on the side of Russia. Russia used Belarus as a springboard to invade Ukraine in February 2022, but the border area is now heavily flooded making an imminent attack from there unlikely.

Ukraine’s central security agency announced Friday that it is holding counter-sabotage exercises along a section of the Ukrainian border with Belarus.

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

A Swiss company says it has certifiably extracted CO2 from the air and permanently stored it in the ground — for the first time on behalf of paying customers, including Microsoft.

Climeworks, a startup created in 2009 by two Swiss engineers, said its facility in Iceland had successfully removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and injected it into the ground, where it would very gradually be transformed into rock.

The potential for scaling up remains to be proved.

In its announcement on Thursday, Climeworks said its process had been certified in September by DNV, a Norwegian independent auditor, marking the first time carbon had been permanently captured on behalf of paying corporate clients.

Climeworks counts companies including Microsoft, Stripe and Shopify among the clients who have bought into its future carbon removal services, to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions.

The startup said it hoped “to lead as an example for peers, customers and policy makers alike that are committed to climate action.”

The Paris Agreement, adopted by nearly all the world’s nations in 2015, called for the rise in the Earth’s average temperature to be limited at 1.5 degrees Celsius, which scientists say would keep the impact of climate change at manageable levels.

Many businesses, including fossil fuel companies, rely heavily on carbon offset schemes based on afforestation to compensate for continuing carbon emissions.

But there has been growing interest in the newest carbon dioxide removal method, of which Climeworks is the industry leader: a chemical process known as direct air carbon capture and storage.

In its report last year, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that regardless of how quickly the world slashes greenhouse gas emissions, it will still need to suck CO2 from the atmosphere to avoid climate catastrophe.

But it remains to be seen whether this can be done at scale.

So far, Climeworks’ direct air capture facility in Iceland, the largest in the world, removes in a year what humanity emits in 3 to 4 seconds.

The company has not divulged how much its clients are paying for the service, and how much CO2 each client wants extracted.
…