Britain’s health minister, Steve Barclay, said on Sunday that the government would not negotiate on pay with the nurses’ union, as the threat of further strikes looms.

The government’s offer, which includes a one-off payment equivalent to 2% of salaries in the 2022/23 financial year and a 5% pay raise for 2023/24, was rejected by the members of the Royal College of Nursing in April.

When asked by Sky News whether the government would resume talks with the union, Barclay said, “Not on the amount of pay.”

The union is already balloting its 300,000 members on further strike action over the next six months.

The union did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for a comment on Barclay’s remarks on Sunday. It has said that the government must pay National Health Service staff “fairly.”

The relationship between the union, which has staged multiple strikes that have disrupted patient care, and the government became strained in late April when the health department limited the length of a strike after legal action against the RCN.
…

Good relations with China are possible even without being part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview published Sunday, as her government weighs abandoning the project.

Italy is the only major Western country to have joined China’s BRI scheme, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending.

In an interview with Il Messaggero daily, Meloni said it was too early to anticipate the outcome of Italy’s decision on whether to remain part of the project, which it signed up for in 2019, drawing criticism from Washington and Brussels.

“Our assessment is very delicate and touches upon many interests,” said Meloni. The pact expires in March 2024 and will be automatically renewed unless either side informs the other that they are pulling out, giving at least three months’ notice.

In an interview with Reuters last year, before she won power in a September election, Meloni made clear she disapproved of the 2019 move, saying she had “no political will … to favor Chinese expansion into Italy or Europe.”

Meloni noted that while Italy was the only one of the Group of Seven (G7) rich democracies to have signed the Belt and Road memorandum, it was not the European and Western country with the strongest economic and trade ties with China.

“This means it is possible to have good relations, also in important areas, with Beijing, without necessarily these being part of an overall strategic design,” she said.

Earlier this month a senior Italian government official told Reuters Italy was highly unlikely to renew the Belt and Road deal.

A first test of the right-wing government’s attitude toward China looms as Rome vets a shareholder pact at tire maker Pirelli’s, whose top investor is China’s Sinochem.

China is among the biggest markets for most countries in the G7 group, particularly for export-reliant economies such as Japan and Germany.

At a summit last weekend, G7 leaders pledged to “de-risk” without “decoupling” from China, an approach that reflected European and Japanese concerns about pushing Beijing too hard, officials and experts said.
…

Police in Venice are investigating the source of a phosphorescent green liquid patch that appeared Sunday in the city’s famed Grand Canal. 

The governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, posted a photo of the green liquid that spread through the water near the arched Rialto Bridge. The patch was reported by residents. 

Images on social media show a bright patch of green in the canal along an embankment lined with restaurants. 

Zaia said that officials had requested that the police investigate to determine who was responsible. Environmental authorities were also testing the water.
…

Russia hit Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, overnight with the largest drone attack on the city since the start of the war. The attack came as Kyiv prepared to celebrate the anniversary of its founding on Sunday. Mayor Vitali Klitscho said one person was killed.  

Ukraine’s air force said it downed more than 50 drones, but it was not immediately clear whether all the drones were over Kyiv or around the country.   

“The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians,” Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said. 

“Today is another sanction day,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday. He said 220 companies and 51 individuals are being sanctioned, “most of them are Russian — who work for terror.”  

“When Russia started this aggression, they looked at the world as if they were looking at themselves in a mirror,” he said. “They thought that supposedly everyone in the world was as cynical and despised people in the same way as the masters of Russia do. But the world is different — the world helps us protect life.” 

Meanwhile, the British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update that Russian-state backed media and business groups want the Economic Ministry to authorize a six-day workweek “in the face of the economic demands of the war, apparently without additional pay.”  

The groups already have petitioned the Russian ministry for the longer work week, the British ministry posted on Twitter. 

The update said Margarita Simonyan, described as a “leading Russian propagandist,” recently called for citizens to work for two extra hours in munitions factories every day, after their regular jobs.  

These calls for a longer work week without additional pay “echoes a Soviet-style sense of societal compulsion,” the British update said, adding that the Russian “leadership highly likely identifies economic performance as a decisive factor in winning the war.”  
…

Voters in Turkey are going to the polls Sunday to decide who will be the country’s president.

Sunday’s vote is the second runoff vote for the presidency. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led Turkey for 20 years, fell just a few points short of winning the election in a first runoff poll earlier this month.

The president’s challenger is 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of a six-party alliance and leader of Turkey’s center-left main opposition party.

Kilicdaroglu is facing a formidable candidate in the 69-year-old Erdogan, who was able to survive the presidential election for the runoff despite Turkey’s crippling inflation and the aftermath of a destructive earthquake three months ago.

A victory Sunday for Erdogan would mean the beginning of his third decade as Turkey’s leader. Under his watch, Turkey’s government has become increasingly authoritarian.

Polls indicate Erdogan remains just a few points ahead of his opponent.

Voting ends at 5 p.m. and results are expected within hours.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Turks vote Sunday in a presidential runoff that could see Tayyip Erdogan extend his rule into a third decade and intensify Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian path, muscular foreign policy and unorthodox economic governance.

Erdogan, 69, defied opinion polls and came out comfortably ahead with an almost five-point lead over his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the first round May 14. But he fell just short of the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, in a race with profound consequences for Turkey itself and global geopolitics.

His unexpectedly strong showing amid a deep cost-of-living crisis, and a win in parliamentary elections for a coalition of his conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP), the nationalist MHP and others, buoyed the veteran campaigner who says a vote for him is a vote for stability.

Kilicdaroglu, 74, is the candidate of a six-party opposition alliance — and leads the Republican People’s Party (CHP) created by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. His camp has struggled to regain momentum after the shock of trailing Erdogan in the first round.

The election will decide not only who leads Turkey, a NATO-member country of 85 million, but also how it is governed, where its economy is headed after its currency plunged to one tenth of its value against the dollar in a decade, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has seen Turkey irk the West by cultivating ties with Russia and Gulf states.

The initial election showed larger-than-expected support for nationalism — a powerful force in Turkish politics which has been hardened by years of hostilities with Kurdish militants, an attempted coup in 2016 and the influx of millions of refugees from Syria since war began there in 2011.

Turkey is the world’s largest host of refugees, with some 5 million migrants, of whom 3.3 million are Syrians, according to Interior Ministry data.

Third-place presidential candidate and hardline nationalist Sinan Ogan said he endorsed Erdogan based on a principle of “nonstop struggle (against) terrorism,” referring to pro-Kurdish groups. He achieved 5.17% of the vote.

Another nationalist, Umit Ozdag, leader of the anti-immigrant Victory Party (ZP), announced a deal declaring ZP’s support for Kilicdaroglu, after he said he would repatriate immigrants. The ZP won 2.2% of votes in this month’s parliamentary election.

A closely watched survey by pollster Konda for the runoff put support for Erdogan at 52.7% and Kilicdaroglu at 47.3% after distributing undecided voters. The survey was carried out May 20-21, before Ogan and Ozdag revealed their endorsements.

Another key is how Turkey’s Kurds, at about a fifth of the population, will vote.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) party endorsed Kilicdaroglu in the first round but, after his lurch to the right to win nationalist votes, it did not explicitly name him and urged voters rather to reject Erdogan’s “one-man regime” in the runoff.

More Erdogan

Polls will open at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). By late Sunday there should be a clear indication of the winner.

“Turkey has a longstanding democratic tradition and a longstanding nationalist tradition, and right now it’s clearly the nationalist one that’s winning out. Erdogan has fused religious and national pride, offering voters an aggressive anti-elitism,” said Nicholas Danforth, Turkey historian and non-resident fellow at think tank ELIAMEP.

“More Erdogan means more Erdogan. People know who he is and what his vision for the country is, and it seems a lot of them approve.”

Turkey’s president has pulled out all the stops on the campaign trail as he battles to survive his toughest political test. He commands fierce loyalty from pious Turks who once felt disenfranchised in secular Turkey and his political career has survived the failed coup and corruption scandals.

Erdogan has taken tight control of most of Turkey’s institutions and sidelined liberals and critics. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2022, said Erdogan’s government has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades.

However, if Turks do oust Erdogan, it will be largely because they saw their prosperity, equality and ability to meet basic needs decline, with inflation that topped 85% in October 2022.

Kilicdaroglu, a former civil servant, has pledged to roll back much of Erdogan’s sweeping changes to Turkish domestic, foreign and economic policies.

He would also revert to the parliamentary system of governance, from Erdogan’s executive presidential system, narrowly passed in a referendum in 2017.
…

President Vladimir Putin on Sunday ordered stronger border security to ensure fast Russian military and civilian movement into Ukrainian regions now under Moscow control.

Speaking in a congratulatory message to the border service, a branch of Russia’s Federal Security Service, on their Border Guard Day holiday, Putin said their task was to “reliably cover” the lines in the vicinity of the combat zone.

Attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, chiefly with drone strikes on regions along the border but increasingly also deep into the country, including on an oil pipeline northwest of Moscow on Saturday.  

“It is necessary to ensure the fast movement of both military and civilian vehicles and cargo, including food, humanitarian aid, building materials sent to the new subjects of the (Russian) Federation,” Putin said in a message posted on the Kremlin’s Telegram messaging channel.  

Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are the four regions in Ukraine that Putin proclaimed annexed last September following what Kyiv said were sham referendums. Russian forces only partly control the four regions.

On Saturday, officials said three people were injured in Ukrainian shelling in Belgorod, a region that was the target of pro-Ukrainian fighters this week that sparked doubts about Russia’s defense and military capabilities.

The Kursk and Belgorod Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been the most frequent target of attacks that have damaged power, rail and military infrastructure, with local officials blaming Ukraine.  

Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine but said that destroying infrastructure is preparation for its planned ground assault.

Ukraine indicated on Saturday that it was ready to launch a long-promised counteroffensive to recapture territory taken by Russia in the 15-month war, a conflict that has claimed the lives of thousands and turned Ukrainian cities into rubble.
…

Iran struck back at Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday, saying his accusation the Islamic republic is arming Russia was an attempt to gain the West’s military and financial support.

The United States and the European Union have sanctioned Iran over its drone program, alleging it had supplied Moscow with unmanned aerial vehicles during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a charge Tehran denies.

On Wednesday, during his daily speech, Zelenskyy said Tehran’s “support for evil cannot be denied” and appealed directly to Iranians, asking: “Why do you want to be accomplices in Russian terror?”

In response, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Zelenskyy’s “repetition of false claims” against the Islamic republic was “in harmony with the propaganda and media war of the anti-Iranian axis.”

“It is done with the aim of attracting as much military and financial aid from Western countries as possible,” Kanani said.

Ukraine, he added, had “specific political goals and motives behind such accusations” and was “avoiding expert negotiations with the Iranian side to investigate the claims.”

Russia has reportedly used 1,160 Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones in attacks against Ukraine.

“Even though we have learnt to shoot down most of your kamikaze drones… there are still hits,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

“When an Iranian drone kills a pregnant Ukrainian girl and her husband in their home, why do you, mothers and fathers in Iran, need this?” he added.

“When your Shahed hits a dormitory with our students, people die, a fire starts, rescuers arrive, and in a few minutes a second Shahed hits.”

Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022, sparking the biggest conflict on European soil since World War II.
…

Police in Berlin said Friday that they have opened an investigation of Roger Waters on suspicion of incitement over a costume the Pink Floyd co-founder wore when he performed in the German capital last week.

Images on social media showed Waters firing an imitation machine gun while dressed in a long black coat with a red armband. Police confirmed that an investigation was opened over suspicions that the context of the costume could constitute a glorification, justification or approval of Nazi rule and therefore a disturbance of the public peace.

Once the police investigation is concluded, the case will be handed to Berlin prosecutors, who would decide whether to pursue any charges.

Waters rejected the accusations in a statement early Saturday on Facebook and Instagram, saying that “the elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms.”

He claimed that “attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated.”

Waters has drawn ire for his support of the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. He has rejected accusations of antisemitism.

Authorities in Frankfurt tried to prevent a concert there scheduled for Sunday, but Waters challenged that move successfully in a local court. In Munich, the city council said it had explored possibilities of banning a concert but concluded that it wasn’t legally possible to cancel a contract with the organizer. His appearance there last Sunday was accompanied by a protest attended by the local Jewish community’s leader.

Last year, the Polish city of Krakow canceled gigs by Waters because of his sympathetic stance toward Russia in its war against Ukraine.
…

Serbian troops near Kosovo’s border were placed on high alert Friday, after clashes between police and Kosovo’s Serbian population injured at least 10 people.

Serbs in Kosovo had taken to the streets to prevent newly-elected Albanian mayors from entering their offices.

Clashes erupted when Kosovan police attempted to move the protesters to allow the politicians to enter their offices.

Authorities say at least five police were injured in the skirmishes Friday and several cars were set on fire.

Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the United States have issued a joint statement urging Kosovo “to de-escalate.”

The Western powers said they are “concerned by Serbia’s decision to raise the level of readiness of its armed forces at the border with Kosovo.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Friday, “We will preserve peace — but I am telling you that Serbia won’t sit idle the moment Serbs in northern Kosovo are attacked.”

Last month’s municipal elections were generally ignored by Kosovo’s Serbs. That move allowed Albanians to win offices.

Serbian politicians in several Serbian-majority municipalities left their offices last year after Kosovan officials prevented them from establishing an organization to coordinate their approaches to social and economic concerns.
…

Ahead of Turkey’s presidential runoff election on Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his main contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu are both eyeing voters who back the country’s various nationalist parties.

Nationalist parties like Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Good Party (IYIP), Victory Party (ZP) and Great Unity Party (BBP) received more than 23% of the votes in the parliamentary election on May 14, which made Turkish nationalists “the winner of the election,” according to some experts.

“Political parties and candidates that define themselves [as] nationalist achieved an outstanding number of votes that no one could foresee,” Ismet Akca, a political scientist formerly with Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University, told VOA.

Kemal Can, a veteran journalist and commentator at digital media outlet Medyascope, does not find the increase in the nationalist votes significant, but thinks that the nationalist parties gained bargaining power.

“As a result of these elections, we can say that both the visibility and bargaining ability of nationalism increased rather than the numerical increase,” Can told VOA.

Endorsements

On Monday, the nationalist ATA alliance’s presidential candidate Sinan Ogan, who placed third in the first round of the presidential election May 14, announced his endorsement of Erdogan, who got 49.52% of the votes in the first round.

Ogan also highlighted that his candidacy made Turkish nationalists the key players in the election and explained why he is backing Erdogan as his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People’s Alliance hold the majority in the parliament.

Even though Ogan received 5.2% of the votes in the first round, Kemal Can thinks that Ogan will not be able to carry his support in its entirety to Erdogan.

“Ogan was presented as a candidate in front of a group of voters and [received] a reaction,” Can told VOA.

“He did not collect these votes; they are not his own votes. They are the votes of an alliance and reactionary votes,” Can added.

On Wednesday, Umit Ozdag, the head of the far-right Victory Party, the leading party in the ATA alliance, endorsed Erdogan’s rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who received 44.88% of votes in the first round.

Kilicdaroglu has toughened his tone before the second round of the election as he pledged to send Syrian refugees back and to end terrorism in his campaign posters. At the same time, Erdogan has repeatedly suggested links between him and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Kilicdaroglu has denied this allegation.

Kurdish support

Ozdag and Kilicdaroglu also signed a seven-point protocol Wednesday on the principles of their cooperation. The protocol promises to deport all the refugees, including 3.6 million Syrians in Turkey, within a year and to replace elected mayors with state-appointed trustees with court rulings in case of legal proof that shows their links with terrorism.

Akca thinks the protocol is a success for Ozdag, but it puts Kilicdaroglu at risk of not receiving the Kurdish votes as he got in the first round because of the trustees.

Since the 2019 local elections, at least 48 out of 65 municipalities won by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party have been run by government-appointed trustees over terrorism allegations.

Following Ogan and Ozdag’s endorsements, the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP) on Thursday reiterated its support for opposition against Erdogan in the runoff without naming Kilicdaroglu. YSP endorsed Kilicdaroglu by name in the first round.

“Even though the party has declared its support for Kilicdaroglu, it remains a question how far it can mobilize its voters to go to the ballot box amid this radical nationalist frenzy,” Akca told VOA.

Key party

Kemal Can said that during this year’s campaign, the opposition asked the public if they wanted to see a change from the country’s current direction. The government instead framed the question as who should decide if there will be change: the Kurds or the nationalists?

“We see that nationalists entered into a power play demanding the decision-making power in a reactionary way,” Can said.

According to political scientist Akca, nationalists in Turkey see refugees and the Kurds as their main problems.

“Existing nationalism [in Turkey] has two main problems, and one is refugees because the nationalist movement has caught a streak over the refugee problem among the public. We see a nationalism based on xenophobia,” Akca told VOA.

“The second is the Kurds. ‘Let’s not allow the Kurds and the political movement representing them to become the key party.’ Sinan Ogan and the Victory Party voiced this as they were saying, ‘Everyone will see who the key is,’” Akca added.

Akca views the two different endorsements by Ogan and Ozdag, the two main actors of the nationalist ATA alliance, as “a gamble on their political futures.”

“Here, I find Umit Ozdağ, who has an organization like the Victory Party behind him, more advantageous than lone-wolf Sinan Ogan,” Akca said.
…

Somali diplomats said Friday that Russia had offered to help support Somalia’s armed forces in their battle against the al-Shabab terrorist group.

The diplomats, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had made the offer during talks with his Somali counterpart, Abshir Omar Jama, in Moscow.

One diplomat said, “Russia was ready to provide Somalia’s army with military supplies, to strengthen the government fight against al-Shabab.”

The diplomats did not specify the kinds of materiel Russia was offering to Somalia, which is under a long-standing U.N. arms embargo.

The U.N. Security Council imposed the embargo in 1992 after the outbreak of civil war and factional violence. The embargo was partially lifted in 2013 to help Somalia’s security forces fight the Islamist militants.

Russia’s offer came hours after al-Shabab militants stormed a military base manned by African Union forces from Uganda in Bulo Marer, an agricultural town in the Lower Shabelle region, about 110 kilometers south of Mogadishu.

Earlier, at the opening of the talks between the two foreign ministers, Lavrov emphasized the long relationship between the two countries, which goes back to quick Soviet recognition of Somalia after it gained independence in 1960.

He also said he and Jama would discuss preparations for the Russia-Africa summit scheduled for late July in St. Petersburg.

Diplomatic relations

In modern times, Russia and Somalia have had fairly routine diplomatic relations, with Russia sending humanitarian aid to Somalia several times.

In May 2010, Somalia reacted angrily to the way Russian marines handled their rescue of a tanker, the MV Moscow University, that had been hijacked 560 kilometers off the coast of Yemen.

Russian media reported at the time that 10 Somali pirates, who had taken the tanker and its crew hostage, were released on the open sea because there were no grounds to prosecute them in Russia.

Somali authorities said the pirates never made it ashore and likely died at sea.

Somalia’s Foreign Ministry statement at the time warned that relations with Russia might be harmed over the incident and demanded an apology from the Russian government.

Since then, two Somali prime ministers, Omar Sharmarke and Hassan Ali Khaire, have met with top Russian officials requesting assistance to strengthen the Somali National Army.

In recent years, Somali diplomats, who asked for anonymity, told VOA Somali that the Russian military has been eyeing Berbera port, located in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, as a potential base on the Red Sea.

Last November, Russia, China, Gabon and Ghana abstained from a Security Council vote to maintain an arms embargo on Somalia, in support of Mogadishu’s strong objections. The United States and Britain supported maintaining the ban, although the measure did loosen restrictions on some weapons like portable surface-to-air missiles in recognition of the government’s improved oversight of weapons and munitions.
…

Tens of thousands of people converged on the Serbian capital on Friday for a major rally in support of President Aleksandar Vucic, who is facing an unprecedented revolt against his autocratic rule amid the crisis triggered by two mass shootings that stunned the nation. 

The event was somewhat overshadowed by a new crisis in Serbia’s former province of Kosovo, where ethnic Serbs clashed with Kosovo police on Friday and Vucic ordered Serbian troops to be put on a “higher state of alert.” Vucic also said he ordered an “urgent” movement of Serbian troops to the border with Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008. 

Answering Vucic’s call for what he called “the largest rally in the history of Serbia,” his supporters, many wearing identical T-shirts with his portrait, were bused to Belgrade from all over the Balkan country as well as neighboring Kosovo and Bosnia. 

Those working in state firms and institutions were told to take a day off from work to attend the rally in front of the parliament building. Some said that they were warned that they could lose their jobs if they didn’t show up on the buses, which started arriving hours before the gathering was to start. 

Serbian officials said the rally promotes “unity and hope” for Serbia. 

At three large anti-government protests held earlier this month in the capital, demonstrators demanded Vucic’s ouster and the resignation of two senior security officials. They also demanded the withdrawal of broadcasting licenses for two pro-Vucic television stations that they say promote violence and often host convicted war criminals and other crime figures. 

Opposition protesters blame Vucic for creating an atmosphere of hopelessness and division in the country that they say indirectly led to the May 3 and May 4 mass shootings that left 18 people dead and 20 wounded, many of them schoolchildren who were gunned down by a 13-year-old schoolmate. 

Vucic has vehemently denied any responsibility for the shootings, calling organizers of the opposition protests “vultures” and “hyenas” who want to use the tragedies to try to come to power by force and without an election. 

“They are not against violence, they want my head,” he said. 

Analysts believe that by staging the mass rally, Vucic, who has ruled the country for more than a decade with a firm grip on power, is trying to overshadow the opposition protests with the sheer number of participants. 

“For the first time, Vucic has a problem,” said political analyst Zoran Gavrilovic. “His problem is not so much the opposition, but Serbian society that has woken up.” 

During the rally, Vucic is expected to announce he is stepping down from the helm of his Serbian Progressive Party and forming “a movement” that will unite all “patriotic forces” in the country. He also could call for a new parliamentary election for September — something unlikely to be accepted by the opposition under the current conditions where he has full control over all pillars of power, including the mainstream media. 

Vucic, a former pro-Russia ultranationalist who now says that he wants to take the country into the European Union, has alleged that “foreign intelligence services” are behind the opposition protests. He said that he received the tip from “sisterly” spy agencies “from the east” — thought to mean Russia. 

There are widespread fears that violence could erupt during the rally on Friday that could then be used as a pretext for a crackdown on future opposition protests, including one that is scheduled in Belgrade on Saturday. 

Similar big rallies were held in Serbia in the early 1990s when strongman Slobodan Milosevic delivered fiery speeches that heralded the violent breakup of Yugoslavia and rallied the masses for the wars that followed. 
…

Pope Francis skipped meetings Friday because he was running a fever, the Vatican said.

There were no details about how sick Francis was. The last time he spiked a serious fever, in March, the 86-year-old pontiff was rushed to the hospital where he was diagnosed with acute bronchitis. He received intravenous antibiotics and was released three days later.

A Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak about the pope’s health, said Francis didn’t receive anyone in audience Friday “because of a feverish state.”

There were no formal audiences scheduled Friday, but Francis keeps a separate, private and unofficial agenda of meetings with people he receives at his residence.

Francis has had a busy week, presiding over a meeting of the Italian bishops conference, participating in an afternoon encounter Thursday with his school foundation Scholas Occurentes, as well as meeting with several other prelates and visiting dignitaries.

He is due to preside over Pentecost Mass on Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica, and in a sign that he was expected to recover quickly, the Vatican on Friday announced a new official audience with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, scheduled for Monday.
…

New developments:

Russia accused Ukrainian militia of using U.S.-made armored vehicles in a cross-border incursion on Monday
In response, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin emphasized Thursday that U.S. is not at war with Russia
JCS Chief Mark Milley said Washington asked Kyiv not to use U.S.-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia

The British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that for at least 20 years, Russia has experienced a “proliferation of paramilitary groups” from Russia’s military.

The “paramilitarization” has increased dramatically, the ministry said, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially in the Crimean Peninsula, where many units have been given “some semi-official status as reserve units of the regular army.”

Sergei Aksyonov, the leader of Russian-occupied Crimea, is described as having been “instrumental” in creating these paramilitary groups in the region.

Now, however, Aksyonov is likely eager to distinguish himself by recruiting fighters, but the ministry said he is “likely concerned” about the military’s capacity to defend the peninsula.

“The main element of the Russian garrison, 22nd Army Corps,” the ministry said, “is currently mostly deployed outside the peninsula and has taken heavy casualties.”

‘This is Ukraine’s fight’

On Thursday, U.S. defense leaders were careful to draw the distinction that despite Washington’s continued support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, the United States itself is not at war with Russia.

At a news conference following a virtual meeting of dozens of countries supporting Ukraine militarily, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin responded to concerns that U.S. military vehicles, reportedly used by a militia in its incursion into Russia on Monday, could be used as a pretext by Moscow to bring the United States directly into the war.

“We are not at war with Russia. This is Ukraine’s fight. Our goal is to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to make sure Ukraine is successful,” Austin said.

The United States has long asked Ukraine not to use U.S. weaponry inside Russian territory, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley, said Thursday.

“I can say that we have asked the Ukrainians not to use U.S.-supplied equipment for direct attacks into Russia,” Milley said. “This is a Ukrainian war. It is not a war between the United States and Russia. It’s not a war between NATO and Russia.”

Earlier Thursday, Ukraine said its forces shot down 36 Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia used to attack areas in western Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces “presumably aimed to attack critical infrastructure and military facilities.”

Russia has repeatedly used aerial attacks, including attacks involving crashing drones into targets to damage infrastructure sites in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram that it had been an “uneasy night.”

“Continuing to terrorize Ukraine, the enemy used 36 Shaheds. None of them reached their target. Thanks to our air defense forces for the 100% result,” Zelenskyy said.

In Crimea, Aksyonov said Thursday that air defenses had shot down six drones overnight.

He said on Telegram no one had been killed or injured.

Bakhmut fight

The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said in a video published Thursday that his forces had begun withdrawing from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

Prigozhin said the Russian military was coming in to replace the Wagner forces and that his units would complete their withdrawal by June 1.

The announcement came a day after Prigozhin said the lengthy battle for Bakhmut left 20,000 of his fighters dead.

Prigozhin said about half of those killed were Russian convicts who were promised their freedom from sentences for criminal offenses if they fought in Ukraine for six months. But the mercenaries were often sent to the battle front with scant training and often were killed soon after in fierce combat with better-trained Ukrainian troops.

White House officials said Prigozhin’s casualty estimate was in line with their own and that Russian losses have accelerated. Russia claimed in recent days it has captured Bakhmut, while Ukrainian officials say they have not given up the fight for the city and are trying to surround it.

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

More than 1 million people have started learning Ukrainian since February of last year, according to data from language learning app Duolingo. They say interest in Ukrainian remains high, and the top three countries with the most learners of the language are the United States, Britain and Poland. Correspondent Lesia Bakalets reports from Warsaw
…

A prominent humanitarian group on Thursday blasted Greece over its treatment of asylum-seekers on the island of Lesbos, repeating allegations of illegal deportations back to Turkey and claiming authorities are using hunger as a weapon against some migrants. 

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, said in a statement that the situation for asylum-seekers on the eastern Aegean Sea island is “continuously deteriorating.” 

“Many people there have been exposed to violence and have alleged abductions by unidentified masked people, pushbacks that forced them out of Greece, arbitrary detentions, and deprivation of food and shelter,” it said. 

The Greek government has ordered an investigation into claims that a group of migrants was illegally deported from Lesbos back to Turkey. Last week, a New York Times report claimed that the migrants were taken onto a Greek coast guard boat that left them in a raft at sea to be picked up by the Turkish coast guard, which returned them to Turkey. 

Athens has denied persistent allegations that it engages in such deportations, known as pushbacks. Lesbos is a major landing point for thousands of people seeking a better life in Europe, who cross illegally from Turkey in small boats provided by smuggling gangs. 

MSF said Thursday that fear of pushbacks was preventing many newly arrived migrants from accessing its health services, while others who could not be found may have been secretly deported. 

“When we are alerted of newly arrived people in urgent need of medical assistance, we spend hours — sometimes days — looking for them as they are often hiding in forests,” Nihal Osman, MSF’s Lesbos coordinator, said. Osman added that since June 2022, MSF had been unable to find 940 people at their reported locations. 

The group also claimed that Greek authorities stopped giving food on May 17 to people who had completed the registration process in a Lesbos center for asylum-seekers to stay pending examination of their bids. 

“The government is using food as leverage to force people to leave the facility,” Osman said. He also described as dire the conditions at another center where newly arrived asylum-seekers are sent for days, saying it’s overcrowded and too remotely located. 

There was no immediate comment from the Greek government. 

Nearly a million people reached Greece from Turkey in 2015, most landing on Lesbos. Numbers later dropped, and since 2019 Athens has stepped up patrols at sea to further reduce arrivals.
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A car crashed Thursday into the gates of Downing Street in central London, where the British prime minister’s home and offices are located, setting off a rapid, intense security response at one of London’s most-fortified sites. 

No one was injured, and police said they were not treating the incident as terror related. Police arrested a man on suspicion of criminal damage and dangerous driving, and local officers, rather than counterterrorism detectives, were handling the investigation. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was in his office at the time of the crash. 

It was not immediately clear whether the crash was deliberate. Video footage posted on social media showed a silver hatchback car heading straight for the gates at low speed across Whitehall, the main thoroughfare in London’s government district. 

“I heard a bang and looked up and saw loads of police with Taser guns shouting at the man,” said witness Simon Parry, 44. “A lot of police vehicles came very quickly and were very quick to evacuate the area.” 

The BBC showed a photo of officers leading away a man with handcuffed hands behind his back. 

Footage shot soon after showed a car with its trunk open up against the tall metal gates. Several police officers minutely inspected the vehicle, removing items from the trunk and inside the car and placing them in evidence bags.  

About two hours after the crash, a car transporter arrived to take the vehicle away. 

Officers cordoned off a wide area of London’s government district, but lifted the barriers less than two hours after the incident took place, allowing people back into Whitehall. The street normally teems with civil servants and tourists keen to see the nearby Houses of Parliament and other historical buildings. 

“A small cordon remains in place outside Downing Street after a car collided with the gates earlier this afternoon,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. “The incident is being dealt with by local officers in Westminster and isn’t currently being treated as terror-related.” 

Downing Street is a narrow street with a row of Georgian houses that includes the prime minister’s official residence at No. 10. 

Public access to the street is restricted and the heavy steel gates are protected at all times by armed police officers. Bollards and metal crowd barriers also help keep threats at bay. 

Seats of power around the world are often magnets for protest and sometimes violent attack. The incident came three days after a man crashed a rented truck into a security barrier outside the White House in Washington, got out and began waving around a Nazi flag. Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, has been charged with damaging U.S. property. 
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Russia and Belarus signed a pact Thursday allowing Moscow to relocate an undisclosed number of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus as Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine enters its 16th month.

The Kremlin says it will maintain control of the shorter-range warheads to be transferred to its ally. It was not announced when the weapons would be sent there but Russian President Vladimir Putin has said storage facilities in Belarus would be completed by July 1.

The U.S. and Western allies have often warned Russia against the use of tactical nuclear warheads in the Ukraine conflict but also said at times they do not believe Moscow was on the verge of doing so.

Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use in killing enemy troops and destroying armaments on the battlefield. They can be deployed for relatively short-range attacks and have a much lower yield than nuclear warheads fitted to long-range strategic missiles that can wipe out whole cities.

Both Belarusian and Russian officials characterized the transfer of the tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus as a response to Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive to try to retake Russian-controlled territory in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin, in Minsk at a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, said, “Deployment of nonstrategic nuclear weapons is an effective response to the aggressive policy of countries unfriendly to us.”

Shoigu said, “In the context of an extremely sharp escalation of threats on the western borders of Russia and Belarus, a decision was made to take countermeasures in the military-nuclear sphere.”

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya blasted the new agreement.

“We must do everything to prevent Putin’s plan to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus, as this will ensure Russia’s control over Belarus for years to come,” Tsikhanouskaya told The Associated Press. “This will further jeopardize the security of Ukraine and all of Europe.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.
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The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia argued openly in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in exchanges that underlined the extent of their differences over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

At a meeting in Moscow, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan raised the issue of the Lachin corridor, the road which links Armenia to the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani activists in mid-December began obstructing the road, which Pashinyan noted should be under the control of Russian peacekeepers, and Baku subsequently erected a checkpoint along it.

“Azerbaijan, unfortunately, has blocked this corridor,” Pashinyan said at a round-table meeting of the Eurasian Economic Council in Moscow.

Azberbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev responded: “Azerbaijan did not block any corridor… There is no need to use this platform for unfounded accusations.”

The two leaders continued arguing for several minutes before Putin closed off the conversation, noting that the topic was sensitive. He was due to host three-way talks with Aliyev and Pashinyan later.

“We will now have the opportunity, as we agreed, to talk about everything calmly in a businesslike manner in a trilateral format, and I hope to reach some agreements that will put the situation not only between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also in the region, on the path of constructive development,” Putin said. “I can assure you that everyone here has an interest in this, absolutely everyone.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads for three decades, fighting two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh. In recent months, both sides have expressed increasing willingness to sign a permanent peace agreement, even as regular skirmishes have continued.

Minutes before the testy exchanges with Pashinyan, Aliyev had said there were “serious grounds for the normalisation of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the basis of mutual recognition of territorial integrity and sovereignty”.
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