Latest developments:

Pope Francis appealed Sunday to Russia to revive the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal allowing Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports. The deal expired July 17. Addressing crowds in St. Peter's Square, the pope urged the faithful to continue praying "for martyred Ukraine, where war is destroying everything, even grain," calling this "a grave insult to God."





Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday he expects Russia to resume its attacks on Ukraine's power grid next winter and pledged to do everything possible to protect his nation's power infrastructure.

Saudi Arabia will soon host a summit to discuss implementation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace plan to end the war Russia launched last year.

The head of Zelenskyy’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said the summit would bring together national security advisers for talks that follow an initial round held in Copenhagen in June. Yermak said Ukraine is “working hard to involve as many partners as possible from both the West and the Global South.”

Yermak did not confirm a date for the summit, but The Wall Street Journal reported it would take place August 5-6 and involve 30 countries. The Associated Press cited officials saying the United States, Brazil, India and South Africa would participate.

“The Ukrainian Peace Formula contains 10 fundamental points, the implementation of which will not only ensure peace for Ukraine, but also create mechanisms to counter future conflicts in the world,” Yermak said in a statement. “We are deeply convinced that the Ukrainian peace plan should be taken as a basis, because the war is taking place on our land.”

African leaders to get grain

African leaders left Russia after a two-day Russia-Africa summit with no resolution on the resumption of the deal that allowed for the safe export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea corridor.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that higher grain prices, which have risen since Moscow’s exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, will benefit Russian companies as well as the world’s poorest countries.

In his effort to woo African leaders, Putin said during a news conference Saturday in St. Petersburg that Russia will share its profits from rising grain prices with African nations and poor countries. Russia, like Ukraine, is a major grain exporter.

That commitment, with no details, follows Putin’s promise to start shipping 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain for free to each of six African nations in the next three to four months — an amount dwarfed by the 725,000 tons shipped by the United Nations World Food Program to several hungry countries, African and otherwise, under the grain deal. Russia plans to send the free grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and the Central African Republic.

Fewer than 20 of Africa’s 54 heads of state or government attended the Russia summit compared to 43 who attended the previous gathering in 2019.

Russian attacks

A Russian missile attack killed at least one person and injured five in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, National Police said Sunday.

The strike by Russian forces hit “an educational facility,” spokesperson Maryna Polosina said.

A video released by Ukrainian police showed injured people being carried away from the scene as smoke rose from a damaged building nearby.

Moscow said Sunday that Russian forces thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to attack Crimea with 25 drones overnight.

“Sixteen Ukrainian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were destroyed by air defense fire,” the Russian defense ministry said. “There were no victims.”

Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow early Sunday, but there were no casualties, the Tass news agency reported, citing city Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

“Tonight, there was a Ukrainian drone attack. The facades of two office buildings in Moscow City (business district) were slightly damaged. There are no casualties,” Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel.

The Russian defense ministry said it downed three drones targeting the city and described the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime.”

A security guard was injured, Tass reported, citing emergency officials.

The Vnukovo airport on the outskirts of the city suspended flights for about an hour, according to Tass, and the airspace over and around Moscow was temporarily closed.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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Denmark’s foreign minister said Sunday the government will seek to make it illegal to desecrate the Quran or other religious holy books in front of foreign embassies in the Nordic country.

Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in an interview with the Danish public broadcaster DR that the burning of holy scriptures “only serves the purpose of creating division in a world that actually needs unity.”

“That is why we have decided in the government that we will look at how, in very special situations, we can put an end to mockery of other countries, which is in direct conflict with Danish interests and the safety of the Danes,” he said.

A recent string of public Quran desecrations by a handful of anti-Islam activists in Denmark and neighboring Sweden have sparked angry demonstrations in Muslim countries.

Lokke Rasmussen said the Cabinet of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is determined to find “a legal tool” to prohibit such acts without compromising freedom of expression, but he acknowledged that would not be easy.

“There must be room for religious criticism, and we have no thoughts of reintroducing a blasphemy clause,” he told DR. “But when you stand up in front of a foreign embassy and burn a Quran or burn the Torah scroll in front of the Israeli embassy, it serves no other purpose than to mock.”

His comments followed a statement issued late Sunday by the Danish government saying freedom of expression is one of the most important values in Danish society.

But, it added, the desecration of the Muslim holy book in Denmark has resulted in the nation being viewed in many places around the world “as a country that facilitates insult and denigration of the cultures, religions, and traditions of other countries.”

The government repeated its condemnation of such desecrations, say they are “deeply offensive and reckless acts committed by few individuals” and “do not represent the values the Danish society is built on.”

In Sweden, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sunday on Instagram that his government is analyzing the legal situation regarding desecration of the Quran and other holy books, given the animosity such acts are stirring up against Sweden.

“We are in the most serious security policy situation since the Second World War,” Kristersson said.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has called an emergency remote meeting Monday to discuss the Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark.
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Wildlife enthusiasts across Britain are being encouraged to log sightings of butterflies and some moths, as the world’s largest annual survey of the increasingly endangered pollinating insects returns.

The U.K.-wide “Big Butterfly Count” — which this year runs from July 14 to August 6 — helps conservationists assess the health of the country’s natural environment, amid mounting evidence it is increasingly imperiled. 

Volunteers download a chart helping them to identify different butterfly species and then record their sightings in gardens, parks and elsewhere using a smartphone app and other online tools.

It comes as experts warn the often brightly colored winged insects are in rapid decline in Britain as they fail to cope with unprecedented environmental change. 

“It’s a pretty worrying picture,” Richard Fox, head of science at the Butterfly Conservation charity, which runs the nationwide citizen-led survey, told AFP at Orley Common, a vast park in Devon, southwest England.

“The major causes of the decline are what we humans have done to the landscape in the U.K. over the past 50, 60, 70 years,” he added from the site, which is seeing fewer butterflies despite offering an ideal habitat for them. 

A report published this year that Fox co-authored, based on 23 million items of data, revealed that four in every five U.K. butterfly species have decreased since the 1970s. 

Half of the country’s 58 species are listed as threatened, according to a conservation “red list.” 

‘Citizen scientists’

The UK, one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries, has lost almost half of its biodiversity over recent decades, according to a 2021 U.K. parliament report.

Agriculture, and its use of fertilizers and pesticides, alongside changes to landscapes including the removal of hedge rows to maximize space for growing crops, is partly blamed.

Counting butterflies, which are among the most monitored insects globally, has helped track the grim trend. 

Volunteers have been contributing to the effort since the 1970s, but recording is more popular than ever, in part thanks to evolving technology.

The Big Butterfly Count launched in 2010 and claims to have become the world’s biggest such survey. 

Over 64,000 “citizen scientists” participated last year, submitting 96,257 counts of butterflies and day-flying moths from across Britain.

Butterfly Conservation and the U.K. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have developed an iRecord Butterflies app to help identify and geo-locate different butterfly species sightings.

It has logged nearly 1 million submissions since launching in 2014.

Butterflies help identify the health of an ecosystem because they react quickly to environmental changes and are seen as an early warning system for other wildlife losses, conservationists note.

“One of the great things about butterflies and of this fantastic data that we have about butterflies is that they act as indicators about all the other groups,” Fox explained. 

“So we know a bit about how our bees are doing, we know a little about how bugs, and beetles, and flies, and wasps, and other important insects are doing.”

‘We’ll starve’

Amy Walkden, Butterfly Conservation’s branch secretary in Devon, is one of many enthusiasts monitoring the insects year-round with the help of her 8-year-old daughter, Robin.

“Having a yearly record of what is around and what is not around I think is really good scientific data to indicate changes such as global warming, habitat destruction,” she said. 

Her daughter Robin appears equally aware of their value.

“If we don’t have any butterflies and all the buzzy things, then the things that eat butterflies won’t have any food,” she noted.

“The food chain is basically what we eat and if there is none of them, we’ll starve and we won’t really be able to survive, will we?”

Fox hopes that the latest annual count will help prompt policy makers to take more action, although he concedes the scale of the task is “enormous.”

The U.K. government has said it wants to reverse biodiversity loss and climate change, partly by planting tens of millions of trees in the next three years.

Fox called the plan “fantastic” but said other areas such as low intensity agri-environment schemes are also needed, “so that the public money paid to farmers will benefit the environment and support biodiversity.”

“There’s a lot more we can do there to make sure that the margins around fields are being managed in a way to turn around the fortunes of our more common and widespread butterflies,” he added.
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African leaders are leaving two days of meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin with little to show for their requests to resume a deal that kept grain flowing from Ukraine and to find a path to end the war there.

Putin in a press conference late Saturday following the Russia-Africa summit said Russia’s termination of the grain deal earlier this month caused a rise in grain prices that benefits Russian companies. He added that Moscow would share some of those revenues with the “poorest nations.”

That commitment, with no details, follows Putin’s promise to start shipping 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain for free to each of six African nations in the next three to four months — an amount dwarfed by the 725,000 tons shipped by the U.N. World Food Program to several hungry countries, African and otherwise, under the grain deal. Russia plans to send the free grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Central African Republic.

Fewer than 20 of Africa’s 54 heads of state or government attended the Russia summit, while 43 attended the previous gathering in 2019, reflecting concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine even as Moscow seeks more allies on the African continent of 1.3 billion people. Putin praised Africa as a rising center of power in the world, while the Kremlin blamed “outrageous” Western pressure for discouraging some African countries from showing up.

The presidents of Egypt and South Africa were among the most outspoken on the need to resume the grain deal.

“We would like the Black Sea initiative to be implemented and that the Black Sea should be open,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said. “We are not here to plead for donations for the African continent.”

Putin also said Russia would analyze African leaders’ peace proposal for Ukraine, whose details have not been publicly shared. But the Russian leader asked: “Why do you ask us to pause fire? We can’t pause fire while we’re being attacked.”

The next significant step in peace efforts instead appears to be a Ukrainian-organized peace summit hosted by Saudi Arabia in August. Russia is not invited.

Africa’s nations make up the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and have been more divided than any other region on General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Delegations at the summit in St. Petersburg roamed exhibits of weapons, a reminder of Russia’s role as the top arms supplier to the African continent.

Putin in his remarks on Saturday also downplayed his absence from the BRICS economic summit in South Africa next month amid a controversy over an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court. His presence there, Putin said, is not “more important than my presence here, in Russia.”
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Ten people — including three children — died after high winds tore through central Russia, emergency services and a local official reported Sunday.

Eight of the dead were part of a group of tourists camping close to Lake Yalchik in the Mari-El region when the storm hit Saturday, Russia’s emergencies ministry said.

The strong winds caused a large number of trees to fall in the area, including where the group’s tents had been pitched on a stretch of wild beach inside the Mariy Chodra National Park, regional leader Yuri Zaitsev wrote on social media. He said that three children were among the dead. Russia’s investigative committee has opened a criminal case to determine whether unsafe or sub-standard services provided by the park’s management company contributed to the deaths.

Across the wider Volga Federal District, 76 people were injured in the storm, with thousands of households losing power, emergency services said.
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Manuela Vanegas scored in the seventh minute of stoppage time as Colombia upset Germany 2-1 at the Women’s World Cup on Sunday.

The defender headed in to settle a thrilling game and put her country on the brink of advancing to the knockout stage.

Alexandra Popp had scored an 89th-minute penalty and seemed to have earned two-time champion Germany a 1-1 draw after 18-year-old Linda Caicedo had struck a stunning opener for Colombia.

But Vanegas came up with a late twist to huge celebrations from Colombia fans who dominated the Sydney Football Stadium crowd.

The Germans thought they’d secured a point after Colombia goalkeeper Catalina Perez was penalized for bringing down Lena Oberdorf in the box.

Popp, who scored twice in her country’s 6-0 rout of Morocco in its opening game of the tournament, fired straight down the middle to level the game.

That had disappointed the crowd, which passionately cheered Colombia on throughout and erupted after Caicedo’s goal in the 52nd.

The Real Madrid teenager had suffered a health scare earlier in the week but produced a moment of magic to score her second of the tournament.

It was all the more special coming after she’d dropped to the ground holding her chest in training during the week.

Caicedo scored from distance in the 2-0 win against South Korea on Tuesday. But while that goal involved an error from goalkeeper Yoon Young-geul, on this occasion it was all about individual brilliance.

Collecting the ball from just inside the area after a corner, she worked her way into space by bewildering two German defenders in a fast-stepping move before lashing a shot into the top corner.

Caicedo, followed by her teammates, charged toward the corner to get closer to the crowd as it went wild.

Germany has never failed to advance from the group stage of the World Cup. It is still expected to beat South Korea in its last game of Group H, but will likely have to settle for second place.

The runners up at last year’s Euros should have been ahead in the first half when Popp was guilty of missing the target with a volley from close range —shortly before the break.

Earlier Lina Magull had the chance to test Perez from close range, but mis-kicked and the opportunity was wasted.

What’s next

In the last games in Group H, Germany faces South Korea and Colombia plays Morocco, with three teams still able to advance to the knockout stage.
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The arrest and disappearance of dissidents and anti-war activists has become a common occurrence in Russia. But the detention in July of former Federal Security Service officer Igor Girkin has marked a turning point in how the government of President Vladimir Putin treats even those who support its military goals.

Known by the nickname Strelkov, meaning “shooter,” Girkin’s journey from key operative to political threat sheds light on the Kremlin’s complex history with ideological extremists.

Long before he became a wanted war criminal in the West, Girkin was a student at the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives, where he began his hobby of reenacting military history, especially that of the czarist White Army.

An avowed monarchist, Girkin fell in with far-right circles that were arising amid the Soviet collapse, writing for the newspaper Zavtra, which combined the idolization of Soviet militarism with antisemitic Russian nationalism and opposition to Western democracy.

However, his interest in war went beyond historical costume. He would fight in Russia’s brutal campaign against Chechen independence, as well as the 1992 intervention in Moldova that left the region of Transnistria as Russian-occupied territory.

Girkin also volunteered alongside ethnic Serb forces in the Bosnian War and was present at the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslim civilians in Visegrad. Afterward, he is believed to have served in the FSB, where he reportedly rose to the rank of colonel before retiring in 2013.

But this would not be the end of Girkin’s military career.

Following the 2014 Euromaidan protests that toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Girkin appeared in Crimea among the so-called Russian volunteers — later revealed to be active-duty soldiers — who brought the peninsula under Russian control.

Next, he would surface in Ukraine’s Donbas region as the head of militants who seized government offices in Sloviansk to establish the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic.

Despite claiming to be a local uprising with no Kremlin involvement, much of the militants’ leadership was composed of Russian citizens with close ties to the security services, such as Girkin’s old newspaper colleague Alexander Borodai. Girkin himself would later admit that the war in the Donbas would not have occurred without direct Russian support.

As defense minister of the small, breakaway state, Girkin imposed harsh discipline on enemies and allies alike, torturing and executing supporters of Ukraine, as well as petty criminals and even fellow separatist fighters, for infractions such as looting or abandoning their post.

His biggest war crime was yet to come.

On July 17, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 298 people was shot down over the Donetsk region, killing everyone on board. Evidence showed that the plane had been hit by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile fired from rebel-controlled territory.

Deleted social media posts suggested Girkin had knowledge of the deliberate attack. He was found guilty in November 2022 by a Dutch court in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Publicly, Girkin denied any responsibility for the shooting and claimed it had been a false flag operation — a military action meant to blame an opponent or rival — mirroring Russian media’s own shifting explanations and conspiracy theories about the crash.

But this high-profile international attention made him a liability for Russia, which still denied involvement in the conflict. To make their denial more plausible, Girkin and other Russian citizens were removed from power and replaced with local separatist leaders.

Upon his return to Russia in late 2014, Girkin criticized Russian leadership. As a true believer, he viewed the Donbas as historic Russian land and had expected the Kremlin to fully commit to annexing the region, as they had with Crimea.

But for Putin, an ongoing stalemate in the Donbas provided a low-cost way to impede Ukraine’s integration into Western institutions while maintaining enough plausible deniability to avoid the full weight of international sanctions.

Dismayed by what he viewed as a betrayal of the cause, Girkin became an increasingly vocal critic of Putin. His media statements and interviews often undercut the official Kremlin line by revealing the extent of Russia’s involvement in the conflict.

With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Girkin gained renewed prominence as one of the country’s top military bloggers.

While ordinary citizens and liberal activists were jailed for even referring to the “special military operation” as a war, Girkin and other far-right nationalists openly offered frank condemnation of the military strategy, as well as the top leadership, accusing them of incompetence and insufficient preparation.

The bloggers’ criticisms, which did not oppose the invasion but called for a more aggressive campaign, allowed for the venting of discontent without disrupting Kremlin narratives, while also positioning Putin as a relative moderate.

That calculus appears to have changed, however, with Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in late June. In the face of such a public challenge to his authority, experts believe Putin can no longer afford to tolerate criticism, even from so-called patriots.

Jailed liberal opposition figure Alexei Navalny has also weighed in, noting that despite his other crimes, Girkin should nevertheless be considered a political prisoner.

It remains to be seen what will become of other ultranationalist Putin critics, some of whom have already rushed to distance themselves from Girkin. His arrest, coming on the heels of the Wagner mutiny, underscores the Kremlin’s struggle to control the very forces it has unleashed.
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PARIS – Arsenal defender Oleksandr Zinchenko says he only had to look into the eyes of Ukrainian children who lived under Russian occupation in a village to find the motivation to raise money to rebuild their school.

“You realize the mental injuries they will carry for the rest of their lives,” he told AFP.

The 26-year-old Ukraine international went home in May for his first trip since Russia invaded in February 2022 — “even the air smelt different,” he said — and visited the village and the school, the Mykhailo-Kotsiubynsky Lyceum in Chernihiv oblast, northern Ukraine.

It was heavily damaged in a rocket attack on March 4 last year killing a 62-year-old female cleaner — the death toll could have been a lot worse as there were around 100 civilians, the youngest aged 2 months, living in the basement.

“I was really upset, it was very hard for me morally to understand it,” the school’s headmaster Mykola Shpak told AFP.

“When I saw the level of destruction, I understood how much work will be needed to renovate it and restart education.”

The estimated cost of the rebuilding work is $1.7 million (1.54 million euros).

Zinchenko and Ukrainian football great Andriy Shevchenko, who accompanied him on the visit, played with some of the 412 pupils and chatted to them about their experiences when the Russians occupied the village from Feb. 28-March 31 last year.

As a result of the visit, the star pair decided with the charity United24 to organize an all-star match, Game4Ukraine, at the Stamford Bridge home of one of Shevchenko’s former clubs, Chelsea, on Aug. 5 to raise funds for the school.

The charity was launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to collect donations to cover Ukraine’s most pressing needs, among them rebuilding the country which has been devastated since Vladimir Putin launched the invasion.

“Around 800 schools have been damaged by the Russians, more than 200 of them we are not able to rebuild,” Zinchenko told AFP earlier this month.

“This school was important because 10 villages are using it.”

It was, though, not just that which left such a mark on Zinchenko but listening to the children and their accounts of life under Russian occupation.

“A few were telling us about the Russian army in their houses, you look in their eyes and you realize the mental injuries they will suffer from for the rest of their lives.

“That is a scary thing.”

‘Never understand’

Neither Zinchenko nor Shevchenko have a personal connection with the school — “I changed schools three times” explains Zinchenko with a wry smile — which makes it even more touching for Shpak, the headmaster.

“I feel what a person can feel when he receives hope,” he said.

“And of course this hope is great when it is initiated by such people as those two.

“I was filled with even more hope when they played football with our boys and girls on the field which was destroyed by missiles.”

Shpak speaks with the emotion of someone with deep ties to the school — his parents were both teachers there and after studying he returned as a geography teacher in 1993 and became head in 2015.

Although he would go home at night, he ensured the 100 or so people housed in the basement were fed — visits from the Russians were for him mercifully few.

“They only entered the school after the shelling of our district, I cannot say why they came to the school. I think they wanted to see the results of what they did,” he said.

“We had prepared food for our children, about 30 pieces of bread. But after their visit we could not find it as they had taken it.”

Shpak — who has two grown-up sons — feels enormous loss at the former pupils who have died in the war.

“There are a lot of children who graduated from this school who I will never see again and that is terrible,” he said.

Zinchenko has not lost any close friends but says he “will never understand” the invasion.

“When one has been born and raised on land where you know every single stone and tree and then one day someone comes from another place and they can do what they want, they can kill women, men and children and destroy everything around, in the 2020s, it is absolutely incredible.”

Zinchenko — whose wife, Vlada, is expecting their second child — is pleased he did not take up arms but is doing his bit for his country in a field he knows better.

“I hope if my children ask me ‘Daddy what did you do in that time, how did you help?’ I will be able to look them in their eyes and reply I was doing my best.”
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Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure for traffic of one of four airports around the Russian capital.

It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fueling concerns about Moscow’s vulnerability to attacks as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.

The Russian Defense Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defense systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district in the capital.

Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.

No flights went into or out of the Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the air space over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed for any aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.

Moscow authorities have also closed a street for traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who rarely if ever take responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside Moscow on Friday. Two more drones struck the Russian capital on Monday, one of them falling in the center of the city near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters along the Moscow River about 3 kilometers  from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.

In another attack on July 4, the Russian military said four drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and a fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down. 
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WARSAW – About 100 soldiers from the Russian Wagner group have moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Saturday.

Poland, a former Warsaw Pact member that has been a full member of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance since 1999, has been concerned about the possibility that the war could spill over onto its territory since Russian invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Earlier this month, Poland began moving more than 1,000 troops to the east of the country amid rising concerns that the presence of Wagner fighters in Belarus could lead to increased tension on its border.

“The situation is getting increasingly dangerous. … Most likely they (the Wagner personnel) will be disguised as the Belarusian border guard and help illegal migrants get to the Polish territory (and) destabilize Poland,” Morawiecki said at a press conference in Gliwice, western Poland.

“They will most likely try to enter Poland pretending to be illegal migrants and this poses additional threats,” Morawiecki said.

However, he did not disclose the source of his information on the Wagner movements, and Anton Motolko, founder of the Belarusian opposition Hajun project, which monitors military activity in the country, told Reuters his group had not seen any evidence of the Wagner group moving closer to Grodno.

The city has a potentially significant position because it is near the Suwalki Gap, a strategic strip of land along the Polish-Lithuanian border that divides Belarus, Russia’s ally, from the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

Earlier in July, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was shown in a video welcoming his fighters to Belarus, telling them they would take no further part in the Ukraine war for now but ordering them to gather their strength for Africa, where they are involved in a number of conflicts, while they train the Belarusian army.

The following day, some Wagner fighters arrived at the training ground of the 38th airborne assault brigade outside the city of Brest, just a few miles from the Polish border.

Wagner’s move to Belarus was part of a deal that ended the group’s mutiny attempt in June, when they took control of a Russian military headquarters, marched on Moscow and threatened to tip Russia into civil war, President Vladimir Putin has said. 
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After leaving it to the last minute against South Africa, Sweden left nothing to chance Saturday in a 5-0 win over Italy which sealed its place in the knockout rounds of the Women’s World Cup. 

Sweden relied on Amanda Ilestedt’s 90th-minute winner to salvage a 2-1 win from a sub-par performance in its opener against South Africa. 

Ilestedt was Sweden’s first scorer Saturday, this time in the 39th, and her glancing header from a corner sparked a flood of four Swedish goals in 11 minutes on either side of halftime. Her second goal came in the 50th and was a mirror image of the first. 

Rebecka Blomqvist finished it off in stoppage time with Sweden’s fifth goal. 

The Swedish attack again looked hesitant in the first 20 minutes. Italy appeared more composed over the ball in that period and more threatening with Sofia Cantore particularly dangerous on the right.  

But as the first half progressed, Sweden began to look more composed, more organized and then more ruthless. The crowd of just over 29,000 appeared to sense the change. 

Joanna Andersson curled the ball in from the right in the 39th, and Ilestedt rose highest at the near post to glance the ball on a narrow angle into the net. 

Fridolina Rolfo looked certain to score in the 43rd, one-on-one with Francesca Durante, but the goalkeeper threw herself toward Rolfo’s feet and snuffed out the threat. 

Rolfo had to wait only moments for her second goal of the tournament. Another corner and this time the delivery eluded Durante and found Rolfo on the far post who headed home. 

Rolfo turned deliverer in the first minute of stoppage time. Sent clear by a neat back-heel she passed low and beyond Durante, finding Stina Blackstenius, who tapped in; her goal was her 29th for the national team. 

Sweden led 3-0 at halftime, and the scoring continued after the break. On a corner in the 50th, Ilestedt was on station at the near post to head home. 

The clinical nature of Sweden’s attack was highlighted by the fact possession was almost evenly shared. But Sweden had 14 shots on target, Italy four and the Italians will be haunted by Sweden’s seven corners, all of which represented an immediate danger. 

Ilestedt was player of the match and in every sense a towering figure in attack. Blackstenius, Rolfo and Asllani also were back in form and there was every sign Saturday the third-ranked Swedes are peaking at the right time. 

Italy heads back to the drawing board with the first order of business to address its defense from set pieces. 
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday urged Denmark to take urgent action to prevent burnings of the Quran, a Turkish foreign ministry source said.

In a phone call with his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Fidan condemned the “continuous vile attacks against the Quran.” He told Rasmussen it was unacceptable to allow such actions under the guise of freedom of expression, the source said.

Rasmussen on Saturday wrote on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter: “Turkey and Denmark are close allies. Important to not let these acts succeed in creating division.”

He also reiterated Denmark’s “strong condemnation of these provocative acts by few individuals.”

The comments came after a small group of anti-Islam activists set fire to Qurans in front of the Egyptian and Turkish embassies in Copenhagen on Tuesday, after similar protests in Denmark and Sweden over recent weeks.

Denmark and Sweden have deplored the burning of Islam’s holy book but say they cannot prevent it under rules protecting free speech.
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COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — French President Emmanuel Macron held discussions with his Sri Lankan counterpart Saturday on an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region in the first-ever visit by a French leader to the Indian Ocean island nation.

As the fourth-largest creditor to Sri Lanka, France had pledged cooperation in debt restructuring to help the island nation recover from its economic crisis.

Macron arrived in Sri Lanka on Friday night, following his trip to the South Pacific region, to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations, Sri Lanka’s president’s office said.

Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe praised France’s significant role in global affairs, particularly in areas such as climate mitigation, global debt restructuring, and matters related to the Indo-Pacific region, the statement said.

“Sri Lanka and France are two Indian Ocean nations that share the same goal: an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific. In Colombo we confirmed it: strengthened by 75 years of diplomatic relations, we can open a new era of our partnership,” Macron said in a Twitter message after the meeting.
…

African leaders pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to move ahead with their plan to end the Ukraine conflict and to renew a deal crucial to Africa on the safe wartime export of Ukrainian grain, which Moscow tore up last week.

While not directly critical of Russia, their interventions on the second day of a summit were more concerted and forceful than those that African countries have voiced previously.

They served as reminders of the depth of African concern at the consequences of the war, especially rising food prices.

“This war must end. And it can only end on the basis of justice and reason,” African Union (AU) Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told Putin and African leaders in St. Petersburg.

“The disruptions of energy and grain supplies must end immediately. The grain deal must be extended for the benefit of all the peoples of the world, Africans in particular.”

Reuters reported in June that the African plan floats a series of possible steps to defuse the conflict, including a Russian troop pullback, removal of Russian tactical nuclear weapons from Belarus, suspension of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Putin and sanctions relief.

Putin gave it a cool reception when African leaders presented it to him last month. In public remarks on Friday, he restated in similar terms his argument that Ukraine and the West, not Russia, were responsible for the conflict.

Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso said the initiative “deserves the closest attention,” calling “urgently” for peace.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told Putin: “We feel that we have a right to call for peace — the ongoing conflict also negatively affects us.”

The stream of calls prompted Putin repeatedly to defend Russia’s position and finally to make an eight-minute statement, later issued by the Kremlin in a video, at the start of evening talks with the African leaders behind the peace plan.

He again accused the West of backing a “coup” in Kyiv in 2014 — when a wave of street protests forced Ukraine’s pro-Russian president to flee — and of trying to draw Ukraine into the U.S.-led NATO military alliance and undermine Russian statehood.

He said it was Kyiv that was refusing to negotiate under a decree passed shortly after he claimed last September to have annexed four Ukrainian regions that Russia partly controls, adding: “The ball is entirely in their court.”

‘New realities’

Russia has long said it is open to talks but that these must take account of the “new realities” on the ground.

AU chair Azali Assoumani said Putin had shown his readiness to talk, and “now we have to convince the other side.”

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected the idea of a ceasefire now that would leave Russia in control of nearly a fifth of his country and give its forces time to regroup after 17 grinding months of war.

At the summit, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi urged Russia to revive the Black Sea grain deal which, until Moscow refused to renew it last week, had granted Ukraine a “safe corridor” to export grain from its seaports despite the conflict.

Egypt is a big buyer of grain via the Black Sea route, and Sissi told the summit it was “essential to reach agreement” on reviving the deal.

Putin responded by arguing, as he has in the past, that rising world food prices were a consequence of Western policy mistakes long predating the Ukraine war.

He has repeatedly said Russia quit the agreement because the deal was not getting grain to the poorest countries and the West was not keeping its side of the bargain.

Russia’s withdrawal and its bombardment of Ukrainian ports and grain depots have prompted accusations from Ukraine and the West that Russia is using food as a weapon of war and driving the global wheat price up by some 9%.

On Thursday, Putin promised to deliver up to 300,000 tons of free Russian grain — which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called a “handful of donations” — among six of the countries attending the summit.

Assoumani said this might not be enough, and what was needed was a cease-fire.

Putin wanted the summit to energize Russia’s ties with Africa and enlist its support in countering what he describes as U.S. hegemony and Western neo-colonialism.

Many of the leaders praised Moscow’s support for their countries in their 20th-century liberation struggles, and the final declaration promised Russia would help them seek compensation for the damage done by colonial rule.

The leaders of Mali and Central African Republic, whose governments have relied heavily on the services of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, both expressed gratitude to Putin.
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A declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released Thursday says that support from China is “critical” to Russia’s ability to continue waging its war against Ukraine.

The report, which was requested by Congress, assesses how a range of actors, including the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, state-owned Chinese companies and other Chinese entities, are supporting Russia’s economy and its military, nearly 18 months after the Kremlin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

“Beijing is pursuing a variety of economic support mechanisms for Russia that mitigate both the impact of Western sanctions and export controls,” the report finds.

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] has increased its importation of Russian energy exports, including oil and gas supplies rerouted from Europe. Beijing has also significantly increased the use of its currency, the yuan, and its financial infrastructure in commercial interactions with Russia, allowing Russian entities to conduct financial transactions unfettered of Western interdiction.”

The report also finds that China has been directly supporting the Russian war effort by selling technology and “dual use” equipment — meaning items that may have both civilian and military uses — to Moscow.

Enabling a ‘brutal invasion’

The report was released by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Representative Jim Himes, the most senior Democrat on the committee, said, “This unclassified assessment, mandated by last year’s Intelligence Authorization Act, details the extent of China’s support for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s ongoing invasion.

“Russia’s war against Ukraine has been enabled in no small part by China’s willingness to support them, in direct and indirect ways. I hope this report makes clear to Beijing that the United States, and the world, will know if they take further actions to enable Putin’s brutal invasion.”

Representative Mike Turner, the committee’s Republican chairman, had not issued a statement about the report as of Friday afternoon.

China responds

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning commented on the report in her daily news briefing Friday, saying there was nothing out of the ordinary involved in her country’s trade with Russia, while decrying Western sanctions on Moscow.

“China is engaged in normal economic and trade cooperation with Russia and other countries on the basis of equality and mutual benefit,” Mao said. “We oppose unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law or mandate from the Security Council. China-Russia cooperation does not target any third party and shall be free from disruption or coercion by any third party.”

China and Russia have significantly deepened their relationship in recent years. In the days prior to the launch of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin announced that their countries’ partnership had “no limits.”

Oil and gas

In the wake of the invasion, a united front of nations led by the United States applied an extraordinary web of sanctions, severing the flow of goods and services between Russia and most major Western markets.

The report finds that since the invasion, trade with China has replaced much of that lost commerce. In 2022, bilateral trade between Russia and China hit a record high, with Russian imports from China rising by 14% and exports to China jumping by 43%.

Much of Russia’s exports to China came in the form of oil and gas products that Moscow previously sold to the West. China’s purchase of the petroleum products has been a valuable source of income for the Kremlin, and steep discounts on Russian fuel have been a boon to China.

China is providing supertankers to move Russian oil to market as well as the insurance coverage that shipping companies demand, after sanctions cut Russia off from the global maritime insurance market.

Semiconductor trade

One of the West’s major efforts against Russia has involved cutting the country off from a reliable supply of semiconductors needed for many modern devices, including military vehicles and weapons systems.

The report notes the appearance of a web of newly formed businesses in Hong Kong, which it characterizes as “shell companies” that are being used to purchase semiconductors on the open market and then resell them to Russia in violation of U.S. export control rules.

China is supplying both dual use goods and some explicitly military material to Russia, the report says.

“[C]ustoms records show PRC state-owned defense companies shipping navigation equipment, jamming technology and fighter-jet parts to sanctioned Russian government-owned defense companies,” the report reads. “Russia has continued to acquire chips through circuitous routes, with a large portion flowing through small traders in Hong Kong and mainland PRC, according to foreign press.”

After Russian banks were largely cut off from systems that allow cross-border payments, many began to rely on Chinese banks to facilitate trade between the two countries and between Russian companies and firms in third countries that are not participating in Western sanctions.

Russia has also been accepting payments and purchasing goods using China’s currency, the yuan. By August 2022, six months after the beginning of the invasion, Russia’s use of the yuan in offshore payments had increased by a factor of 10.

Open source

Ian Johnson, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA that even though much of the material in the report was drawn from sources that were already public, its assembly in one place makes the scope of Beijing’s support for Moscow clearer.

“I don’t think it’s new, but it reinforces and systematically explains what many people have felt: that China is trying to help Russia as much as possible without getting in big trouble regarding sanctions,” Johnson said.

“They’re trying to push the envelope as much as possible, and anything they can do — by sopping up extra energy that Russia hasn’t been able to unload, letting them use the yuan — makes it a little bit easier for Russia,” he said. “All these things are also in China’s interest. It’s not entirely altruistic. They have many reasons for wanting to keep Russia afloat.”
…

Pope Francis urged governments to do more to fight climate change and protect “our common home” as improving weather conditions Friday helped firefighters contain wildfires in Greece, Italy and other countries in southern Europe.

Francis, who has been outspoken on environmental issues, sent a telegram of condolences to Greece, where wildfires killed five people over the past week, including the pilots of a water-dropping aircraft.

The pope noted that successive heat waves have exacerbated the dangers of the summer fire season. He offered his prayers for firefighters and emergency personnel in particular.

“[I hope] that the risks to our common home, exacerbated by the present climate crisis, will spur all people to renew their efforts to care for the gift of creation, for the sake of future generations,” Francis said.

Fueled by the heat waves and strong gusts of wind, wildfires in Europe’s Mediterranean region have kept travelers and residents on alert. In Greece, fires scorched hundreds of square kilometers of land outside Athens, on the island of Rhodes and elsewhere this month.

As the situation improved considerably on Friday, Greece’s minister for the police unexpectedly stepped down, citing “personal grounds.” Greek media said Notis Mitarachi’s resignation was requested after it emerged that he had been on a family holiday during the wildfire crisis.

The main opposition Syriza party issued a statement accusing the center-right government of using “personal grounds” as a euphemism for “[Mitarachi’s] holidays while the country was burning from end to end.”

In central Greece, authorities maintained an exclusion zone around one of the country’s largest air force bases after a wildfire triggered powerful explosions at a nearby ammunition depot Thursday. Fighter jets stationed at the 111th Combat Wing base were moved to other facilities.

The depot blasts near the central city of Volos shattered windows in nearby towns and prompted the evacuation of more than 2,000 people. Local news broadcasts showed a ground-shaking fireball erupting.

Residents were rushed onto private boats mobilized by the coast guard and taken to a conference center in Volos, some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the weapons storage site. A civilian traffic ban and evacuation order remained in effect Friday within a 3-kilometer radius of the depot.

The explosions did not affect flights at Volos international airport, officials told The Associated Press.

A drop in temperatures and calmer winds helped firefighters get a handle on the blazes in Greece and all major fires were contained by midday Friday, Greek Fire Service officials said.

Conditions also improved elsewhere in Europe’s Mediterranean regions thanks to cooler temperatures, allowing firefighters to contain wildfires along the Croatian coast and in Sicily.

Firefighting teams in Turkey also brought a wildfire burning close to the southern Mediterranean resort of Kemer under control, four days after it erupted, Ibrahim Yumakli, the country’s forestry minister, said.

The governments of the countries hit by heat waves and fires have steered public debate away from the potential impact on tourism. Rhodes, where a fire last weekend required about 19,000 people to be evacuated from several locations on the island, was promised state support Friday for its international advertising campaign.

In Germany, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach sought Friday to address Italian irritation over a mid-July social media post in which he described the heat wave he encountered on a visit to Italy as “spectacular” and added that “if it goes on like this, these vacation destinations will have no future in the long term.”

Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin that he wasn’t warning against vacations in southern Europe and plans to visit Italy again himself.

“Of course, it is more difficult now for the southern countries to organize heat protection in such a way that it is also accessible for every tourist, but I think those countries will know exactly what they have to do,” he said.

Vassilis Kikilias, the Greek minister for climate change and civil protection, said fires had burned 400 square kilometers of land in the country in July alone, while the recent average is 500 square kilometers (nearly 200 square miles) in a year.

“Is the situation any better in other countries bordering the Mediterranean? It’s a fair question … but the answer is no,” Kikilias said.

“The climate crisis that brought us this unprecedented heat wave is here. It’s not a theory. It is our actual experience,” he said. “This is not something that will just occur this year. It will last and we have to face the consequences of what that means.” 
…

A Pakistani journalist forced to flee for his own safety now runs a club for fellow exiles in France. They meet to exchange ideas and share their stories with locals. For VOA, Henry Ridgwell has the story of Taha Siddiqui. Video: Vahid Karami
…

Latest developments:

Ukrainian soldiers recaptured the southeastern village of Staromaiorske in Donetsk region. the recapture is part of Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive push through the Russian-occupied southeast.
U.S. Abrams tanks are now likely to arrive in Ukraine in September.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a historic Odesa cathedral that was damaged by a recent Russian airstrike.

On Thursday, less than two weeks after Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the Russia-Africa Conference opened in Saint Petersburg. 

The British Defense Ministry reported Friday that only 17 African heads of state attended the gathering.  Forty-three African leaders attended the last conference.  

Before Russia’s withdrawal from the initiative, 30 million tons of Ukrainian grain were exported to Africa, the ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Now, however, according to the ministry, Moscow’s blockade of Ukrainian grain is not only resulting in higher grain prices but will also be responsible for food insecurity across the African continent “for at least the next two years.”

A photograph of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, who staged a failed mutiny in Russia in June, has emerged. The BBC reports after extensive scrutiny and the use of facial recognition software, that the photo is of Prigozhin and Freddy Mapoul, a senior Central African Republic official, who is attending the Russia-Africa Conference.  

The photo marks the first sighting of Prigozhin in Russia since his failed mutiny in June. The photo, according to the BBC, was taken in the Trezzini Palace hotel in St. Petersburg, which is reported to be owned by Prigozhin. 

Ukrainian soldiers have recaptured the southeastern village of Staromaiorske from Russian forces, a video published Thursday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed, as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive push through the Russian-occupied southeast.

“The 35th brigade and the ‘Ariy’ territorial defense unit have fulfilled their task and liberated the village of Staromaiorske. Glory to Ukraine!” a soldier said in a video that was not immediately geolocated, according to Reuters.   

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar declared Staromaiorske liberated, saying, “Our defenders are now continuing to clear the settlement.”

Staromaiorske is located in the region of Donetsk, south of a group of small settlements that Ukraine recaptured during a counteroffensive it began in June. 

Zelenskyy has recognized that the counteroffensive against Russian forces, who hold parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, has been slower than he wanted. But Wednesday, he lauded “very good results” from the front.  

Russian forces have established an expansive network of minefields and trenches in the south to deter the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukrainian attacks in the strategically significant south had escalated, but he told Russian television that the Ukrainians had made no progress.  

The recapture of Staromaiorske is part of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive push through the Russian-occupied southeast. The strategy has focused on retaking villages as Ukrainian forces move southward.  

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst, said the new focus on the southward push was Staromlynivka, a village less than three miles away. 

“It really serves as a stronghold for the Russian occupiers, the peak of the second defensive line in this location,” he said in an interview with the RBC UA media outlet. 

For months, Ukraine has been running low on ammunition it needs in its lengthy fight against Russia.  

But now, U.S. Abrams tanks are likely to arrive in Ukraine in September, Politico reported Thursday, citing six officials familiar with the plan.

Previously, Pentagon officials said the tanks would arrive on Ukrainian battlefields sometime in the fall. The United States is planning on sending 31 tanks in total.  

A batch of tanks will go to Germany in August, where they will undergo final refurbishments before getting shipped to Ukraine. In June, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he hoped the tanks would arrive in time for the ongoing counteroffensive.  

This development comes a couple of weeks after the United States announced it would send controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine.   

In a joint statement Thursday evening, U.S. President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni affirmed their commitment to continue providing political, military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

Also on Thursday, Zelenskyy visited the historic Transfiguration Cathedral, which was damaged by a recent Russian airstrike on the southern port city of Odesa. The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  

Ukrainian culture has been a target since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Since the war began, at least 274 Ukrainian cultural sites have been damaged, including 117 religious sites, according to UNESCO. 

Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

Latest developments:

Ukrainian soldiers recaptured the southeastern village of Staromaiorske in Donetsk region. the recapture is part of Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive push through the Russian-occupied southeast.
U.S. Abrams tanks are now likely to arrive in Ukraine in September.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a historic Odesa cathedral that was damaged by a recent Russian airstrike.

 

Ukrainian soldiers have recaptured the southeastern village of Staromaiorske from Russian forces, a video published Thursday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed, as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive push through the Russian-occupied southeast.

“The 35th brigade and the ‘Ariy’ territorial defense unit have fulfilled their task and liberated the village of Staromaiorske. Glory to Ukraine!” a soldier said in a video that was not immediately geolocated, according to Reuters.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar declared Staromaiorske liberated, saying, “Our defenders are now continuing to clear the settlement.”

Staromaiorske is located in the region of Donetsk, south of a group of small settlements that Ukraine recaptured during a counteroffensive it began in June.

Zelenskyy has recognized that the counteroffensive against Russian forces, who hold parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, has been slower than he wanted. But Wednesday, he lauded “very good results” from the front.

Russian forces have established an expansive network of minefields and trenches in the south to deter the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukrainian attacks in the strategically significant south had escalated, but he told Russian television that the Ukrainians had made no progress.

The recapture of Staromaiorske is part of Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive push through the Russian-occupied southeast. The strategy has focused on retaking villages as Ukrainian forces move southward.

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst, said the new focus on the southward push was Staromlynivka, a village less than three miles away.

“It really serves as a stronghold for the Russian occupiers, the peak of the second defensive line in this location,” he said in an interview with the RBC UA media outlet.

For months, Ukraine has been running low on ammunition it needs in its lengthy fight against Russia.

But now, U.S. Abrams tanks are likely to arrive in Ukraine in September, Politico reported Thursday, citing six officials familiar with the plan.

Previously, Pentagon officials said the tanks would arrive on Ukrainian battlefields sometime in the fall. The United States is planning on sending 31 tanks in total.

A batch of tanks will go to Germany in August, where they will undergo final refurbishments before getting shipped to Ukraine. In June, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he hoped the tanks would arrive in time for the ongoing counteroffensive.

This development comes a couple of weeks after the United States announced it would send controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine.

In a joint statement Thursday evening, U.S. President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni affirmed their commitment to continue providing political, military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

Also on Thursday, Zelenskyy visited the historic Transfiguration Cathedral, which was damaged by a recent Russian airstrike on the southern port city of Odesa. The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Ukrainian culture has been a target since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Since the war began, at least 274 Ukrainian cultural sites have been damaged, including 117 religious sites, according to UNESCO.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…