For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:

2:00 a.m.: Russian citizens may express their discontent with the way the war against Ukraine is going, the British defense ministry predicted Monday, based on the number of casualties Russian forces have suffered.  

“Russia has likely suffered a similar death toll to that experienced by the Soviet Union during its nine year war in Afghanistan,” The ministry said in its daily update posted on Twitter.

1:30 a.m.: The U.N.’s refugee agency said conflict, violence, human rights violations and persecution around the world, including the war in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, have driven more than 100 million people from their homes in total.  

“100 million refugees and displaced people are a terrible indicator of the state of our world,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi said Monday in a Twitter post. 

1:00 a.m.: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country is interested in a major gas exploitation project in Senegal as he began a three-nation visit to Africa on Sunday that also is focused on the geopolitical consequences of the war in Ukraine. The Associated Press has the story.

12:30 a.m.: During U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Japan this week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told Biden Monday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “undermines the foundation of global order,” The New York Times reported.

“We can in no way allow whatsoever such attempts to change the status quo by force wherever it may be in the world,” Kishida said.
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One of Eastern Europe’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Romania’s Cristian Mungiu, is back at the Cannes Film Festival with a dark tale about how little it takes for people to turn on their neighbors.

His wrenching Ceausescu-era drama about illegal abortion “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” clinched the top prize at the world’s top cinema showcase in 2007.

Mungiu also won best screenplay for 2012’s “Beyond the Hills” and best director for “Graduation” in 2016. 

His new film, “RMN,” again sees him in the race for the Palme d’Or, and the 54-year-old told AFP it explores the collapse of hopes for a new era of peace following the end of the Cold War.

“I try to speak about human nature and about the state of the world today and about this feeling that we have today that things are not going in the right direction,” he said.

“Things are coming to some sort of an end and everybody feels this anxiety,” not least over the war raging in Ukraine, he said.

RMN is the Romanian abbreviation for an MRI, which, when scanning the brain, can reveal fascinating secrets of how human beings are wired, Mungiu said.

The film explores the anxieties of a multiethnic community in Transylvania, a historical crossroads of migration and competing empires that has left Romanian, Hungarian and German speakers living side-by-side to this day.

It is inspired by a story widely covered by Romanian media in 2020, when a village in Transylvania rose up against the local bakery for hiring two Sri Lankans.

In the film, the foreign men are recruited to a bread factory reliant on EU grants and offering minimum-wage jobs that long went unfilled because the salary was too low for locals.

A manager tries to look after the dislocated Sri Lankans, who don’t speak any of the local languages and are struggling to integrate.

A violent attack leads to confrontations with the police, the village priest and finally a town meeting in which hysterical fears about the outsiders are aired.

Mungiu said he aimed to hold up a mirror to the “instincts and cruelty which is deep inside us as human animals and to see that people who are neighbors today are capable of anything tomorrow — raping, killing and torturing somebody else simply because somebody told me this is the enemy.”

The film won warm reviews, with The Guardian saying it was “seriously engaged with the dysfunction and unhappiness in Europe that goes unreported and unacknowledged.”

U.S. movie website IndieWire called it another “moral thriller” from Mungiu that pulls “harder and harder at the tension between complex socioeconomic forces and the simple human emotions they inspire.” 

Mungiu is part of Romania’s New Wave of filmmakers tracking the realities of the post-communist transition who have scooped up prizes at international festivals for the past two decades.

He admitted at Cannes that those acclaimed movies have been far less popular at home.

“(Romanians) don’t really like what we do — they don’t really understand why somebody likes it somewhere else,” he said. “But for us, it’s really important that we managed to create some sort of a movement which is now complex enough — there are quite diverse filmmakers expressing themselves. 

“At some point I think it will be acknowledged as something good that we did also for the culture of Romania,” he said.

The Palme d’Or will be awarded May 28.
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The usual trophies and prize money will be on the line for Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek and other top players at Wimbledon, but there is a significant change there this year: No one will earn ranking points, a valuable currency in tennis, when play begins June 27.

The women’s and men’s professional tours announced Friday they will not award those points at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament because of the All England Club’s decision to bar players from Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine.

Both the WTA and ATP said they were reacting to what they called “discrimination.”

Here is a look at how this unprecedented move came about and what it means:

What is happening in Ukraine?

Russia, with help from Belarus, launched an invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24. Russia’s bombardment and siege of the southern port city of Mariupol killed over 20,000 civilians, according to Ukraine, including strikes on a maternity hospital and a theater where civilians had taken shelter.

Why did Wimbledon bar Russians and Belarusians?

The All England Club, which runs the oldest Grand Slam tournament (Wimbledon was first held in 1877), announced in April it would not allow players from Russia or Belarus to enter the event in 2022. Chief Executive Sally Bolton defended the club’s move as following a directive from the British government, and she cited a “responsibility to play our part in limiting the possibility of Wimbledon being used to justify the harm being done to others by the Russian regime.”

Have other sports banned Russian athletes?

Yes, including in soccer, where the Russian men’s team was kicked out of qualifying matches for this year’s World Cup. Figure skating and track and field are among the other sports to have taken action against Russian and Belarusian athletes. In tennis, players from those countries have been allowed to compete — including at the French Open, the year’s second Grand Slam tournament, which begins Sunday in Paris — but as “neutral” athletes who are not being identified by their nationalities.

Who can’t play at Wimbledon?

The most prominent Russian tennis player at the moment is Daniil Medvedev, who won the U.S. Open in September and briefly reached No. 1 in the men’s rankings this year. Andrey Rublev, who is ranked No. 7 in the ATP, is another top male player. The WTA’s No. 7, Aryna Sabalenka, who was a semifinalist at Wimbledon a year ago, and former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, are from Belarus.

Why cancel ranking points?

The WTA and ATP condemned the invasion of Ukraine, but said it was not fair for the All England Club to prevent certain players from playing because of the actions of their countries’ governments.

“Our rules and agreements exist in order to protect the rights of players as a whole,” the ATP said. “Unilateral decisions of this nature, if unaddressed, set a damaging precedent for the rest of the tour.”

The International Tennis Federation also withdrew its ranking points from the junior and wheelchair events at Wimbledon.

Taylor Fritz, the highest-ranked American man and seeded No. 13 at the French Open, said he thinks “most players agree” that athletes from Russia and Belarus should be allowed to play at Wimbledon. The ban, he said, “is a sign to show support for Ukraine, but you’re just kind of punishing people based off of where they were born … and they can’t really change that.”

How do ranking points work? Why do they matter?

The WTA and ATP official rankings date to the early 1970s and currently are based on each player’s best results over the preceding 52 weeks (women count their top 16 tournaments, men their top 19). Swiatek is the 28th woman to sit atop the WTA; Djokovic is one of 27 men to lead the ATP and has spent more weeks in that spot than anyone else. Wimbledon and the three other Grand Slam tournaments award 2,000 points apiece to the women’s and men’s singles champions, more than any other events. In addition to other measures such as trophies or prize money, rankings are a way for fans, sponsors and others — including the players themselves — to understand where athletes stand in the sport’s hierarchy. Technically, any tennis event that does not award ranking points is considered an exhibition.

Has this happened before?

Representatives of the ATP, WTA and ITF said they were unaware of any previous instances of ranking points being withheld from a tournament.

Will any players skip Wimbledon because there aren’t ranking points?

It’s too soon to know, but even without ranking points, Wimbledon still offers plenty of prestige and millions of dollars in payouts. “If you win it, I think you’d still be pretty happy,” said Jessica Pegula, an American seeded 11th at Roland Garros. “But I think it’s just up to each individual person — how they’re feeling, their motivation.”

What will happen at the US Open?

It is not yet known whether players from Russia or Belarus will be able to enter the U.S. Open, the year’s last Grand Slam tournament, which begins in New York Aug. 29. “We continue to monitor events,” U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Chris Widmaier wrote in an email, “and are in active dialogue with the Ukraine and Russian/Belarusian players, the tours, the other Grand Slams, and other relevant parties.”
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As Russia lays claim on the southeastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Poland’s president makes an unannounced visit to Ukraine’s capital and addresses parliament in a show of support for the embattled nation. U.S. President Joe Biden signs a hefty aid package to Ukraine while Russia continues pressing its offensive in the eastern Donbas region. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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A sea of Ukrainian flags marks the graves of the fallen at Kharkiv’s cemetery N°18.

The cemetery, at Bezliudivka, on the outskirts of Ukraine’s second city, has had a military section for several years.

It has been burying Ukrainian soldiers since the Russian invasion three months ago. And on Saturday, more soldiers were laid to rest beside their comrades.

Two coffins placed on trestles belonged to Sergiy Profotilov, born in 1976, and Igor Malenkov, born in 1985. Both were killed at Vilkhivka, to the east of Kharkiv.

The official date of their deaths marked on their graves was May 11. But that was probably when their bodies were recovered from the village, the scene of fierce fighting before its liberation over a month ago.

“They were found with five other bodies that we couldn’t identify,” said one soldier, who spoke on condition he is not identified.

“We suspect they were executed,” he added. “They were killed by bullets to the back of the head.”

Only half a dozen soldiers and the brother of one of the dead were present for the ceremony, which lasted about an hour.

The military chaplain recited the prayers and sprinkled incense on the coffins under the grey sky, against a background of Russian and Ukrainian artillery fire just a few kilometers away.

The mourners laid red carnations on the graves. Then, after a brief exchange of greetings and embraces, they went their separate ways.

The brother walked alone down a line of dozens of graves, the death certificate in his hand.

Two pickup trucks arrived carrying soldiers from Ukraine’s foreign legion. About a dozen of them have come to pay a final homage to one of their comrades, a Dutch soldier killed by artillery fire.

It was forbidden to film the ceremony or to identify the fallen fighter.

Here, there was no religious ceremony, but a brief speech in English given by an officer. One soldier, with a British flag on his vest, gave a military salute. Another touched the cross before leaving.

At a fifth ceremony, the family of 47-year-old Olexandr Gaponchev was mourning his death at Tsyrkuny, north of Kharkiv. Many of those present in tears. 

And a few minutes later, the fifth funeral of the day started.

The mother of the fallen soldier wept inconsolably over her son’s coffin, held up by members of her family, as rain began to fall.

Then as the coffin was lowered into the ground, each mourner threw a fistful of earth into the grave before the cemetery workers filled it in and planted a wooden cross with the name of the dead soldiers.

Behind that grave, a line of Ukrainian flags flapped in the wind, one for each grave.
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Britain has insisted it is up to the European Union to unblock political paralysis in Northern Ireland, after assuring a delegation from the U.S. Congress of its “cast-iron” commitment to peace in the province.

The UK government has provoked anger on both sides of the Atlantic with a plan to overhaul the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, a trading arrangement that was agreed as part of its Brexit divorce deal with the EU.

London is bidding to placate pro-UK unionists who are refusing to join a new power-sharing government in Belfast — led for the first time by pro-Irish nationalists — until the protocol is reformed.

Interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis demanded that Brussels adopt a new negotiating mandate to address the fierce objections of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

“I made this point to the EU myself before the (May 5) elections. My view was, it was much easier to get a deal before the elections than afterwards,” Lewis said.

“The idea that it was going to be easier after the elections was a crazy one from the EU.”

The protocol recognized Northern Ireland’s status as a fragile, post-conflict territory that shares the UK’s new land border with the EU.

Keeping the border open with neighboring Ireland, an EU member, was mandated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, given that the frontier was a frequent flashpoint during three decades of violence.

‘Frank’ discussion

But the protocol’s requirement for checks on goods arriving from England, Scotland and Wales has infuriated the DUP and other unionists, who say it drives a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Lewis stressed that the DUP, as the biggest unionist party, had a democratic mandate to back its position.

“And at the moment, the protocol, which the EU claims is about protecting the Good Friday Agreement, is the very document putting the Good Friday Agreement most at risk,” he said.

But the EU insists the protocol is not up for renegotiation.

And last week Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, warned that the UK could forget about a post-Brexit trade deal if it rewrites the agreement.

On Saturday, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss met in England with a congressional delegation led by Richard Neal, a senior member of Pelosi’s Democratic party in the House.

“We discussed our cast-iron commitment to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, the importance of free trade and our condemnation of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Truss tweeted.

The foreign ministry declined to comment further.

But according to Britain’s Observer newspaper on Sunday, Truss told Neal’s delegation that London could not let the “situation drag on” if the EU did not respond favorably.

Neal, however, stressed Washington’s “unity” with the EU after the members of Congress visited Brussels on Friday.

And after what he called the “frank” meeting with Truss, the Democrat tweeted on Sunday: “I urge good faith negotiations with the EU to find durable solutions for post-Brexit trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
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The first Grand Slam tournament without any COVID-19 restrictions since the pandemic started in early 2020 kicked off under menacing skies at Roland Garros Sunday.

The French Open was the first major to be hit by the pandemic when it was postponed two years ago but all safety measures were lifted for this tournament, giving the fortnight a welcome sense of normality again.

Thousands of mask-free spectators flocked into the stadium before play started at 11:00 local time (0900GMT) as Roland Garros opened its gates for the start of the main tournament.

Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, one of the favorites to win the women’s singles, opened proceedings on the main Philippe Chatrier court against Pole Magda Linette who levelled the match at one-set all by winning the second set tiebreak.

The highlight of the day will be teenage sensation Carlos Alcaraz starting his campaign against Argentine Juan Ignacio Londero in the last match on Chatrier.

The French Open is the only one of the four majors to start on a Sunday.

World number one and defending champion Novak Djokovic is due to make his return to Grand Slam action on Monday after he was not allowed to take part in the Australian Open because of his refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The Serbian is bidding to match 13-times French Open champion Rafael Nadal’s men’s record of 21 Grand Slam titles and the two are on a quarter-final collision course.

Iga Swiatek, the hot favorite in the women’s draw, is scheduled to play her first match on Monday or Tuesday.
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For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:

1:07 a.m.: International sanctions have “practically broken” logistics in Russia, Al Jazeera reports.

“The sanctions imposed on Russia… have practically broken all logistics in our country. And we have to look for new logistics corridors,” said Vitaly Savelyev, Russia’s transport minister.

12:02 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that Russia has again accused Ukraine of attacking its settlements. Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region, said there were no casualties or damage to infrastructure.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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There will be no cease-fire or concessions to Russia, Ukraine’s lead negotiator said Saturday as Russia upped its assault on Luhansk, one of the two provinces that make up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.

“The war will not stop (after concessions). It will just be put on pause for some time,” Mykhailo Podolyak, who is also an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said, explaining Ukraine’s position in light of recent calls for a cease-fire from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. “They’ll start a new offensive, even more bloody and large-scale,” Podolyak added.

Pro-Russian separatists have fought Ukraine for control of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces – which together make up the Donbas – since 2014, when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula.

Ukrainian forces in the two provinces said via Facebook that at least seven people had been killed in Donetsk in the previous 24 hours when Russians, using aircraft, artillery, tanks, rockets, mortars and missiles, pummeled civilian structures and residential areas, Reuters reported.

The Ukrainians said they had turned back nine attacks, destroying five tanks and 10 armored vehicles, according to the Facebook post.

“The situation in Donbas is extremely difficult,” Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address. He said Ukrainian forces were holding off the Russian army as it was trying to attack the cities of Sloviansk and Sievierodonetsk.

On Friday night Zelenskyy said that victory against Russia will ultimately come through a diplomatic settlement.

“The victory will be difficult, it will be bloody and in battle, but its end will be in diplomacy. I am very convinced of this,” Zelenskyy said in a Ukrainian television interview late Friday. “There are things that we can’t bring to an end without sitting at the negotiation table.”

The Ukrainian leader also said his country is attempting to recover fighters who surrendered to Russian forces after weeks of fighting at the Azovstal steel plant in the southern port city of Mariupol.

“Everything will depend on (the responsibilities) the U.N., the Red Cross and the Russian Federation took on themselves, that they (the fighters) all will be in safety, waiting for one or the other exchange format,” he said. He said Ukraine’s intelligence service is making preparations “for a dialogue and an exchange.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three months ago, on Feb. 24.

Concern for the treatment of those fighters increased Saturday when Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin head of an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, said they would face tribunals.

Pushilin said there were 2,439 people in custody, including some foreign nationals among the fighters.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday that Ukraine would fight for the return of every soldier.

There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine that Mariupol was fully under Russian control.

The port city is the scene of the war’s bloodiest siege, with Russian forces bombarding it for nearly three months. Much of Mariupol has been reduced to rubble, and more than 20,000 civilians are feared dead.

But its capture adds to Moscow’s goal of a land route from Russia to the Crimea and perhaps beyond.

Russia destroyed a Ukrainian special operations base near Odesa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port on Saturday, as well as a significant cache of Western-supplied weapons in northern Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, The Associated Press reported, quoting Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

The end of the fighting in Mariupol not only gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory, but it allows him to shift fighters east to the Donbas.

Among the developments there:

The only functioning hospital in Sievierodonetsk, the main city under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region, has three doctors left and enough supplies for 10 days, Gov. Serhii Haidai said.

Haidai also said Russian troops destroyed a bridge on the Siverskiy Donets River between Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. There was fighting on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk from morning through the night, Haidai said on the Telegram messaging app.

A monastery in the village of Bohorodichne in the Donetsk region was evacuated after it was hit by a Russian airstrike, the regional police said Saturday, the AP reported.

About 100 monks, nuns and children had been sheltering in the basement of the church and no one was hurt, the police said in a Facebook post, which included a video of the damage to the monastery as well as nuns, monks and children boarding vans on Friday for the evacuation.

Zelenskyy on Saturday emphasized that the Donbas remains part of Ukraine and his forces were fighting to liberate it.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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North Macedonia’s fugitive former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been handed a nine-year prison sentence for illegally ordering the 2011 demolition of a multimillion-dollar residential and business complex owned by a former political ally turned opponent. 

The Criminal Court in the capital, Skopje, found that the demolition was an “act of political revenge” against Fijat Canoski, then the leader of the small Party for European Future (PEI), who had left Gruevski’s conservative government coalition and joined the opposition. 

Three other former officials at the time of the demolition were also sentenced late Friday. Toni Trajkovski, the former mayor of the Gazi Baba municipality, one of the 10 neighborhoods that make up Skopje, and a former municipal official were sentenced to four years each in prison while former Transport Minister Mile Janakieski got three years in prison. The three were also sentenced to pay a total of 11 million euros ($11.6 million) in damages. 

Three other officials were acquitted. 

This is Gruevski’s fourth conviction since he left office in 2016 after nearly 10 years in power. 

In 2018, he was sentenced to two years for unlawfully influencing interior ministry officials over the purchase of a luxury armored car. In 2020, he received 1½ years in prison for orchestrating violence against his political opponents in 2013. In April 2022, he was sentenced to seven years for using his party’s funds to enrich himself. 

Gruevski fled to Hungary in 2018 before his first sentence could be carried out. He has compared himself in social media postings to Joseph K., the main character of Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial” who is convicted and executed without ever learning of what he is accused. 

There are two more cases pending against Gruevski for corruption, election irregularities and abuse of office. The charges stem from a wiretapping scandal that broke in 2015, when it emerged that the phone conversations of more than 20,000 people had been illegally recorded, including those of politicians, judges, police, journalists and foreign diplomats. 

The scandal brought down Gruevski’s government and he lost the subsequent 2016 election to Social Democrat Zoran Zaev. 
…

A storm that swept across parts of Germany generated three tornadoes, the country’s weather service said Saturday. One of them left a trail of destruction and more than 40 people injured in a western city.

Meteorologists had warned of heavy rainfall, hail and strong gusts of wind in western and central Germany on Friday, and people in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia were advised to stay home. Storms on Thursday had already disrupted traffic, uprooted trees that toppled onto rail tracks and roads, and flooded hundreds of basements in western Germany.

The German Weather Service confirmed three tornadoes in North Rhine-Westphalia — in Paderborn, in nearby Lippstadt, and on the edge of the town of Hoexter, news agency DPA reported.

Forty-three people were injured in Paderborn as the tornado tore across the city’s downtown area on Friday afternoon, 13 of them seriously, Mayor Michael Dreier said.

Trees in a park and stop lights “snapped like matches,” roofs were ripped off buildings and windows smashed, he told reporters on Saturday, and the storm left a roughly 300-meter-wide trail of destruction. A tree hit the windshield of a fire truck, but the occupants weren’t hurt.

Police urged people to stay home or stay out of the city on Saturday so as not to get in the way of recovery work. They said they still expected possible risks from high wind.

Further south, authorities in Bavaria said 14 people were injured Friday when the wooden hut they were trying to shelter in collapsed during a storm at Lake Brombach, south of Nuremberg.

Elsewhere in Europe, Spain was sweltering Saturday under unusually high temperatures for late spring, with a mass of hot, dry air carrying dust from North Africa.

The mercury rose to 42.3 degrees Celsius (108 Fahrenheit) on Friday afternoon in Andujar, in the southern Andalucia region, after reaching 39.5 degrees Thursday. Two of the region’s provincial capitals, Cordoba and Sevilla, also saw similar temperatures.

At least 13 regions were on alert Saturday due to heat, Spain’s State Meteorological Agency AEMET said, and the temperatures could provoke storms in five of them. The “unusual and extreme” temperatures are expected to peak Saturday.
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Representatives of the United States and several other nations walked out of an Asia-Pacific trade ministers meeting in Bangkok on Saturday to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, officials said.

Representatives from Canada, New Zealand, Japan and Australia joined the Americans in walking out of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, two Thai officials and two international diplomats told Reuters.

The walkout took place while the Russian representative was delivering remarks at the opening of the two-day meeting of the group of 21 economies.
…

Russia on Saturday halted providing natural gas to neighboring Finland, which has angered Moscow by applying for NATO membership, after the Nordic country refused to pay supplier Gazprom in rubles.

Natural gas accounts for about 8% of Finland’s energy consumption and most of it comes from Russia.

Following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has asked clients from “unfriendly countries” — including EU member states — pay for gas in rubles, a way to sidestep Western financial sanctions against its central bank.

Finnish state-owned energy company Gasum said it would make up for the shortfall from other sources through the Balticconnector pipeline, which connects Finland to Estonia, and assured that filling stations would run normally.

“Natural gas supplies to Finland under Gasum’s supply contract have been cut off,” the company said in a statement.

Gasum said Friday that it had been informed by Gazprom Export, the exporting arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom, that the supply would stop on Saturday morning.

In April, Gazprom Export demanded that future payments in the supply contract be made in rubles instead of euros.

Gasum rejected the demand and announced on Tuesday it was taking the issue to arbitration.

Gazprom Export said it would defend its interests in court by any “means available.”

Gasum said it would be able to secure gas from other sources and that gas filling stations in the network area would continue “normal operation.”

In efforts to mitigate the risks of relying on Russian energy exports, the Finnish government on Friday also announced that the country had signed a 10-year lease agreement for an LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal ship with US-based Excelerate Energy.

On Sunday, Russia suspended electricity supplies to Finland overnight after its energy firm RAO Nordic claimed payment arrears, although the shortfall was quickly replaced.

Finland, along with neighboring Sweden, this week broke its historical military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership, after public and political support for the alliance soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow has warned Finland that any NATO membership application would be “a grave mistake with far-reaching consequences. 
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For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:

1:03 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that Russia has removed the last bodies from the Mariupol theater it bombed in March. Ukrainian officials said that more than 1,300 people were hiding in the theater when it was hit and that some 300 died.

12:02 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to Telegram to criticize Russia’s destruction of a cultural center in the city of Lazova, CNN reports.

The airstrike injured at least seven people, including a child, when it hit the “newly renovated House of Culture,” he wrote.

“The occupiers identified culture, education and humanity as their enemies,” he wrote. “They do not spare missiles or bombs for them. What is in the minds of people who choose such targets? Absolute evil, absolute stupidity.”

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again said his country will oppose applications by Finland and Sweden to join NATO unless his security conditions are met. Analysts say Erdogan may be looking for more attention to his concerns from U.S. President Joe Biden. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron named new foreign and defense ministers on Friday as part of a government re-shuffle intended to create fresh momentum ahead of parliamentary elections next month.  

France’s ambassador to London, Catherine Colonna, was picked as foreign minister, making her only the second woman to hold the prestigious job.  

Sebastien Lecornu, former minister for overseas territories, was promoted to the defense ministry, Macron’s chief of staff Alexis Kohler announced at the presidential palace. 

Macron decided to shuffle the portfolios despite the conflict in Ukraine, Europe’s biggest since World War II.  

“It’s a government that is equal (in terms of gender) and balanced in terms of people who were already ministers and new figures,” Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne told reporters. 

Macron needs a parliamentary majority in polls next month in order to push through his domestic reform agenda which includes welfare and pension changes, as well as tax cuts. 

The biggest surprise came in the education ministry where renowned left-wing academic Pap Ndiaye, an expert on colonialism and race relations, will take over from right-winger Jean-Michel Blanquer. 

Ndiaye first gained national prominence with his 2008 work “The Black Condition, an essay on a French minority” and is an outspoken critic of racism and discrimination. 

In his first public comments, he acknowledged that he was “perhaps a symbol, one of meritocracy, but also perhaps of diversity.” 

“I don’t take pride in it, but rather a sense of the duty and responsibilities which are now mine,” he said. 

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen called his elevation “the last step in the deconstruction of our country, its values and its future.” 

Delays  

On Monday, Macron named Borne to the post of prime minister, the first time a woman has held France’s top cabinet job in more than 30 years and only the second time in history.  

Opposition figures had accused the president of deliberately delaying naming a new cabinet, almost four weeks since his reelection April 24, when he defeated far-right leader Le Pen.  

The issue has been the subject of feverish media speculation in recent days, overshadowing the parliamentary campaign and drowning out opposition parties. 

Macron’s centrist LREM party, allied with the centrist MoDem and center-right Horizons among others, is expected to face its biggest challenge from a rejuvenated left-wing next month. 

Head of the France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, is eyeing a comeback in the parliamentary elections June 12 and 19 after finishing third in the presidential polls. 

Melenchon persuaded the Socialist, Communist and Green parties to enter an alliance under his leadership that unites the left around a common platform for the first time in decades. 

He said the new government represented “neither audacity nor renewal. All dull and gray.” 

“In one month, everything will change,” he added. 

Recruits 

As with previous Macron governments, the cabinet is evenly split between men and women, but has a new emphasis on environmental protection which has been named as a policy priority. 

The cabinet features separate ministers for “ecological transition” as well “energy transition,” with campaign groups such as Greenpeace urging Macron to match his rhetoric with actions. 

The president has also continued his habit of attracting talent from opposition parties, with senior Republicans party MP Damien Abad named as minister for solidarity, autonomy and handicapped people.  

Abad, 42, is the son of a miner from Nimes in southern France and became the first handicapped MP to be elected in 2012. 

He has arthrogryposis, a rare condition that affects the joints.  

Elsewhere in the government, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire and hard-line Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin both remain in their positions. 

Veteran ambassador 

New foreign minister Colonna is a veteran ambassador, former government spokeswoman under late president Jacques Chirac and one-time minister of European affairs. 

She has served as a French envoy in London at a particularly rocky time for Franco-British relations due to tensions over Brexit, fishing rights and immigration. 

In a highly unusual step, she was summoned by the British government in October 2021 as Paris and London clashed over fishing rights in the English Channel. 

“I wanted to thank everyone who understood we are friends of this country and will keep working for a better future,” she wrote on Twitter in a valedictory message Friday.  

She will replace veteran Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, while Lecornu takes over defense from Florence Parly. 

France has promised to step up its weapons supplies to Ukraine which include Milan anti-tank missiles as well as Caesar howitzers.  

 
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Before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian journalist Dmitry Replyanchuk spent his days unearthing corruption, often among judges and law enforcement.

Now the Kyiv-based journalist who works for the independent media website Slidstvo.Info uses his investigative reporting skills to expose war crimes and atrocities.

Every crime has a face, Replyanchuk told VOA.

“War criminals who executed civilians in Bucha, pilots who dropped bombs on Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities, artillerymen who shelled Kharkiv: those are specific people,” he said. “And my job is to reveal these people.”

With the first Russian soldier standing trial for war crimes this week, and journalists interviewing residents of cities besieged or occupied for weeks, Ukraine’s media has played an important role in documenting and collecting evidence.

In recognition of their efforts, the U.S. Pulitzer board awarded a special citation in May to Ukrainian journalists for their “courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting” in covering the war.

For the country’s journalists, they have one objective: Ensuring the world knows the names of all those involved in atrocities in Ukraine.

Using open source intelligence or OSINT methods, searching satellite images and social media, and interviewing witnesses, journalists have been able to identify specific soldiers who killed and tortured civilians in Bucha, and shed light on what is happening in Mariupol.

Replyanchuk, whose outlet is part of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Network uses open data to investigate.

Together with his colleagues, the journalist analyzes lists of Russian units published by Ukrainian intelligence and searches Russian social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki for military profiles.

Some of the soldiers, especially those who are younger, are also active on TikTok. In some cases, said Replyanchuk, soldiers brag of torturing civilians.

“There’s no need of interrogating anyone. They publish those things themselves. They boast of this in their social media,” said Replyanchuk.

After analyzing hundreds of such profiles, he came to another conclusion.

“Based on what I see, the vast majority of Russians support the war against Ukraine and call to continue it. This is definitely not only Putin’s war against Ukraine, this is the war of Russia and the Russian people,” he said.

Polls by the independent Russia-based Leveda Center show backing among Russians for their troops in Ukraine, but that support is dropping. Most of those polled believe the U.S and NATO are to blame for civilian casualties.

Valeria Yehoshyna, a journalist at Skhemy—or Schemes, an investigative news project run by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)—says that since the beginning of the invasion, she has mastered new skills for working with data.

RFE/RL and VOA are both independent networks under the Congress-funded U.S. Agency for Global Media.

“We got access to services that help with satellite imagery. This is a fairly new field for us, but I believe that we are working quite successfully,” Yehoshyna said. “For instance, we are able to show the redeployment of Russian equipment.”

The imagery also helped her team find mass graves in the villages of Mangush and Vynohradne near Mariupol.

The grave in Mangush was 300 meters (over 980 feet) long, says Yegoshyna. The one in Bucha was 14 meters (almost 46 feet) long and contained 70 bodies.

But the most startling discovery was an intercepted telephone conversation between two Russians. The recording, a call between a woman and a man, was released by the Security Service of Ukraine.

In it, a woman is heard telling her partner in Russian that he can rape Ukrainian women as long as he doesn’t tell her the details and uses contraceptives.

The recording shocked Yehoshyna.

“The woman on that audio not only allowed her husband to rape Ukrainian women, but she also seemed to encourage him to do so,” she said.

Together with her colleagues, Yehoshyna traced the people on the call.

“From our sources in law enforcement, we were able to obtain two Russian telephone numbers who participated in that conversation,” Yehoshyna said. “Then with the help of our colleagues from the Russian service of Radio Free Europe, we found the accounts on the Russian social network Vkontakte to which those numbers were linked. So we found their pages, their relatives, their friends. Plus, we called them, and the voices on the audio also matched completely.”

Identifying members of the Russian military also helps official investigations, said Yehoshyna. Before the war, Ukrainian law enforcement were sometimes a subject of journalists’ investigations. Today, they find ways to collaborate.

The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has named suspects believed to have committed crimes in Bucha. Information collected by the Slidstvo.Info team was used to identify one of them.

“We find victims and witnesses, and we work with them to establish the identity and details of specific Russian occupiers who either killed or were involved in torturing or in taking civilians hostage,” said Replyanchuk.

Together with his colleagues, he managed to identify a number of Russian servicemen, collecting evidence like a puzzle, based on testimonies of witnesses.

“Someone remembers the name. Someone remembers the military rank, someone remembers something else,” Replyanchuk said.

From there the team goes to work, recording the evidence and searching open data and social media to identify the people.

For Yehoshyna and many journalists in Ukraine, this war is different from others.

“In this war, we can capture almost everything that happens,” Yehoshyna said.

“Satellite imagery, social media, intercepted calls, all of this helps us. Even people in the temporarily occupied cities take videos and photos and then publish them. There has never been a war with so much [digital] evidence, I’m sure.”

Investigative journalists hope that the testimonies and work will serve two purposes: Evidence for an international tribunal and to act as a record, so that no one can falsify history.

 
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Theater director Mikhail Durnenkov and actor Aleksey Yudnikov are both longstanding enemies of the Kremlin.

For decades, their performances have parodied the Russian government and its leader, President Vladimir Putin, testing the boundaries of expressive freedom under constant state surveillance.

Durnenkov’s 2015 production, The War Has Not Yet Started, has proven eerily prescient: a tense play of 12 intertwined stories about life in modern Russia amid the undeclared war with Ukraine and endless state propaganda.

Despite regular run-ins with the police and authorities, the Moscow-based Teatr.doc company managed to keep going. But, following a severe clampdown on political opposition and civil society in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Durnenkov and Yudnikov are among many artists who have fled the country.

They have found temporary shelter at a haven run by the organization Artists at Risk in Finland’s capital, Helsinki.

“We left the country simply so as not to be on the side that is waging war, so as not to cast our votes in this way. If I’m here [in Finland] that means I can speak, I must speak and I must help the protest voices from Russia to be heard, because in Russia it is impossible,” Durnenkov told VOA.

Anti-war protests in Russia have been forcefully suppressed, with thousands of demonstrators arrested. A new law imposes jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading what the Kremlin calls ‘fake’ news about the invasion or the Russian military.

Durnenkov said the space for freedom of expression has all but disappeared.

“Any statement now in this space is regarded as a betrayal in the war. That is to say, it is literally breaking the law. Then there is an unspoken law that exists now in Russian society, whereby if you are a country at war and if you say something [against it], you are selling out your country at the frontline, and this will be punished instantly, severely, that very second,” he said.

Durnenkov said he will return as soon as it is safe to do so.

“Of course, being a playwright who writes in Russian means being a part of that country. And if I feel that there is an opportunity to influence something, to change something, then I would like to return,” he said.

His friend and colleague, Kyiv-born actor Aleksey Yudnikov, also fled Moscow following the invasion, leaving his family behind.

“I am in a situation where I can’t communicate with my friends and I can’t see my children because I left Russia,” Yudnikov told VOA.

“Some I can’t see because they’re far away, and some I can’t see or hear because they are in another sense far away from me, in their acceptance of [Russia’s] aggression,” he said.

“I feel pain and personal guilt. What could I alone change? I couldn’t find any better option than just leaving. It was spontaneous, an instinctive gesture to leave – but also to try again here [in Finland]. Simply because here, outside of Russia, you can tell the truth,” Yudnikov told VOA.

In April, Yudnikov staged a protest outside the closed Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale art festival in Italy. He was arrested but released without charge.

The 48-year-old actor said the invasion of Ukraine has unleashed a parallel war within Russia.

“The henchmen of this regime are absolutely shamelessly trying to impose this formula – that Putin is Russia, and that these things that do not exist without each other,” he said.

He added: “This is a war between reality and escape, a total escape from this reality. If you like, it is a war between something real and something fake.”
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People suffering from eco-anxiety — the fear of environmental catastrophe — may get a boost from a green forum in Paris this week. Gathering hundreds of eco-entrepreneurs, companies and activists, ChangeNOW aims to trace a sustainable blueprint for the future.

From food to fashion, technology to transport, a raft of green solutions for our resource-sucking society is parked through Saturday inside a massive events venue — made of sustainable materials — in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

“It’s 35 days to reach Madagascar from Marseille. Going through the Suez Canal. And we are using the wind. It helps us to save up to 60 percent energy,” says Louis Chopinet who heads a Brittany-based shipping startup called Windcoop. Its wind-powered sailing vessels carry about 14,000 tons of cargo per trip. For now, that means spices from Madagascar farmers. With the shipping industry challenged to become carbon neutral by 2050, sailing is taking off.

“It’s really a growing interest now. Everyone is getting into sails and wind,” she noted.

Berlin-based Noa Climate also works in Africa. It sells systems that recycle organic waste into energy in places far from power grids. Noa’s Janin Gadke says the company works with financial partners so poor communities can buy products on credit.

“In Kenya, we have a project in an orphanage, they have a system on location … they can get electricity and everything. And they feed the system with kitchen waste,” Gadke expressed.

ChangeNOW is considered one of the biggest global green events of the year. This 5th edition includes CEOs and celebrity activists, like British primatologist Jane Goodall.

Being Paris, representatives of a greening fashion industry are also here, like luxury group LVMH. Also companies pitching natural textiles like silk, cotton, hemp and mohair.

“We can feel a boom in terms of demand,” says Eva Pujol who works for British textile nonprofit The Sustainable Angle; adding that “more and more people are coming and we have brands asking more and more about sustainable material … I think the pressure mostly comes from customers to buy better.”

The forum offers a bicycle parking lot, recyclable waste containers, and a stand cooking up veggie burgers. Those who couldn’t find climate-friendly transport to get here can make a contribution to offset their carbon emissions.
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France’s new government lineup will be announced later on Friday, the presidency said, with the new Cabinet set to meet on Monday.

The announcement came four days after Elisabeth Borne, the outgoing labor minister, was named premier, becoming the first woman to head the French government in more than 30 years.

The government reshuffle was widely expected following the reelection of President Emmanuel Macron in April and ahead of legislative elections next month.

The centrist Macron will need a legislative majority to push through his domestic agenda following his reelection, with a new left-wing alliance and the far right threatening to block his program.

The last woman premier, Edith Cresson, briefly headed the cabinet from May 1991 to April 1992 under President Francois Mitterrand.

Borne, 61, is seen as an able technocrat who can negotiate prudently with unions, as the president embarks on a new package of social reforms that include a rise in the retirement age which risks sparking protests. 
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