Spain must do more to prepare for increasingly virulent wildfires stoked by climate change, a large group of the country’s leading wildfire prevention experts said Thursday. 

A declaration backed by 60 experts and institutions said the “increasingly intense fires … are producing unprecedented ecological and social consequences.” 

The experts concluded that Spanish society must come to terms with the emergencies that it will likely face, given that wildfires in increasingly hot and dry conditions in the Iberian Peninsula are often “beyond the capability [of firefighters] to extinguish” with their own means. 

The declaration was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Madrid in March organized by the Pau Costa Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Barcelona that works for fire prevention awareness. That meeting included wildlife and forestry experts drawn from government, academia, NGOs such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, and firefighting services. 

They urged Spain to increase its management of wooded areas to compensate for the abandonment of traditional forest industries and to quadruple its budget for prevention. 

Only about 78,000 hectares, or 0.3% of Spain’s woods, are currently managed, the foundation estimates. The declaration calls for that to be increased to 1%, or 260,000 hectares, and for Spanish authorities to dedicate the necessary resources. 

The report sets a recommended figure of $1.09 billion that Spain should be spending on forest management, to help compensate for the abandonment of traditional uses of wooded areas by local communities, such as taking timber or firewood. 

The declaration was presented Thursday simultaneously in Barcelona and Madrid. 

“This declaration is born from the need to create a consensus and bring together voices from different regions to send a powerful message and increase awareness so we can act and prepare for the wildfires of the future,” Miriam Pique, head of the Sustainable Forest Management Unit in the Forest Science Center of Catalonia, said in a wooded area near Barcelona. 

In Spain, each region is charged with managing its forests and fighting wildfires. That has led to considerable differences in the firefighting muscle of poorer and less populated regions like Castilla y Leon, where one firefighter died last year in massive blazes, compared with wealthier ones like Madrid’s central region or northeast Catalonia. 

The emergency firefighting brigades of Spain’s army are often deployed to help put out the worst fires. 

Some 267,000 hectares burned last year in Spain, making 2022 its worst year of fire destruction since 1994, government statistics said. The national average for the past decade was 94,000 hectares. According to the European Union’s Copernicus satellite observation service, Spain accounted for 35% of all burned land in European wildfires last year. 

After a record-hot 2022, Spain saw the arrival of forest fires earlier than usual this year. Recent rains have provided some relief despite a record-hot spring, but summer is typically dry, and authorities are on guard for another difficult season.
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Chinese manufacturers of electric vehicles are stepping up their push to dominate the European market. As Amy Guttman reports from London, they are making progress in Britain, where car shoppers are eager to buy the lower-cost electric cars that Chinese automakers are offering.
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A nonprofit in Washington is helping refugees from around the world learn English. Ksenia Turkova met with some Ukrainians who wound up in the U.S. capital and are learning English. Camera: Bogdan Osyka.
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Latest developments:

Speaking ahead of next week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country "will rebuild everything, restore everything."
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi postponed a planned trip to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Wednesday due to security reasons.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the war in Ukraine demonstrates the need to stand with Ukraine and continue to provide support.

Stoltenberg told reporters as he arrived at NATO headquarters that after launching its long-expected counteroffensive, Ukraine has made gains and liberated occupied land from Russian forces during fierce fighting.

“This is due to the courage, the bravery, the skills of the Ukrainian soldiers, but it also highlights and demonstrates that the support NATO allies have been giving to Ukraine for many, many months actually makes a difference on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg said.

He added that the more successful Ukraine is at this stage, the more pressure it will put on Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table and give Ukraine a stronger hand in peace talks.

Stoltenberg said if allies want enduring peace in Ukraine, they have to continue providing Ukrainian forces with military support.

Ahead of the meeting of NATO defense chiefs, the U.S.-led Ukraine Contact Group held its latest session Thursday in Brussels to discuss military assistance for Ukraine.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the opening of the meeting that the fight in Ukraine “is a marathon, and not a sprint.”

“We will continue to provide Ukraine with the urgent capabilities that it needs to meet this moment as well as what it needs to keep itself secure for the long term from Russian aggression,” Austin said.

He highlighted the need to provide Ukrainian forces with air defense systems that are critical in protecting Ukrainian civilians from Russia’s aerial attacks.

“The Kremlin’s imperial ambitions have inflicted unimaginable suffering on the Ukrainian people, yet the Ukrainians continue to inspire us with their resilience, their bravery, and their unwavering commitment to keep their country free and secure,” Austin said.

Norway and Denmark announced a joint effort to provide thousands of artillery rounds to Ukraine.

“Ukraine has an urgent need for artillery ammunition. We have therefore decided to join forces with Denmark for a new donation, so that Ukraine receives the ammunition as quickly as possible,” Norway’s defense minister, Bjørn Arild Gram, said in a statement.

Ukraine’s military said Thursday it intercepted a Russian cruise missile as well as 20 explosive drones launched by Russia.

In Russian-controlled Crimea, Russian officials said their side downed nine Ukrainian drones.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Ukraine’s security needs, both immediate and long-term, are expected to dominate the discussion when NATO defense ministers meet Thursday and Friday in Brussels, where Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov will brief the participants on the progress of the war.

The most urgent of those needs, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told VOA in an interview Wednesday, is ammunition for her country to defend its skies against Russian aerial attacks and to sustain its long-awaited bid to recapture some Russian-held Ukrainian territory that began last week.

Kyiv’s longer-term appeal is for early admission to the 30-nation defensive alliance, a request that is likely to get a more serious hearing when the NATO heads of state meet next month in Vilnius, Lithuania.

This week, the ministers are expected to reassess Ukraine’s military needs, coordinate partnerships and review the alliance’s defense capability. The member states are also discussing some measures short of full NATO membership that may be finalized in Brussels.

In her interview, Maliar said Ukrainian forces are moving forward “step by step” in the east and south of the country and have recaptured about 90 square kilometers of territory since the start of the counteroffensive.

But, she said, Russian forces have “increased artillery and mortar shelling, using aviation, making it challenging to advance; there are some difficult weather conditions as well.”

She added that the Russian army is conducting its own offensive operations in some locations, and that Ukrainian forces “are currently in the offensive and defensive stages.”

Maliar confirmed a warning from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said in February that Kyiv is burning through shells much more quickly than Western countries can replenish them — a pattern that has accelerated since the start of the counteroffensive.

“Our military is fighting when the enemy has an advantage in weapons. Russia was preparing for this for 30 years; we were fulfilling our international obligation and did disarmament,” she said. “And we need shells. Some days Russians use 70,000 shells per day. The list of our needs we are sharing with our partners regularly.”

Stoltenberg, who visited Washington this week ahead of the Brussels discussions, announced Wednesday a Defense Production Action Plan designed to “rapidly address shortfalls in our stocks.”

Reuters has reported that the Brussels meeting will, for the first time, include talks with the heads of some 20 of the world’s leading defense companies to find a way to boost the production of what NATO calls “battle-decisive” munitions.

Reznikov told VOA in an exchange of emails that he also expects to discuss plans for the introduction of U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters into the war.

“During the meeting, we will discuss the details of the ‘aircraft coalition’ such as the training of pilots, technicians and engineers who will be engaged in aircraft maintenance because it is a very complex system,” he wrote.

“Subject matters will be discussed with the teams of the defense ministries of the Netherlands, Denmark, the USA, and other countries that have joined this coalition. I included representatives of our Air Force in the Ukrainian delegation. Also, everything related to air defense, ammunition shells, and artillery remains relevant. Our priorities have not changed.”

The longer-term issue of Ukraine’s relationship with NATO figured prominently in Stoltenberg’s meetings in Washington with President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to Ambassador Julianne Smith, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO.

Smith said during a call with journalists on Wednesday that all of the alliance members are “excited about the prospect” of welcoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the summit in Vilnius and that Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership will be an essential agenda item at the Brussels meeting.

While there is little prospect of a membership invitation while the war continues, Smith said the NATO members are working in real-time on a more limited support package that will “signal new deliverables in the category of enhancing our political relationship with Ukraine.”

“Not just practical support to assist them in their current efforts to defend their territorial integrity, but practical support tied to the longer-term questions, longer term modernization issues they will be grappling with, questions of standardization, and thinking what type of force they will have in the future,” she said.

Smith added that the NATO countries will not be swayed by Russia’s objections to NATO membership for Ukraine.

“Our positions are clear,” she said. “Russia does not have a voice or a veto on NATO’s open-door policy; we support Ukraine’s aspirations to join the Euro Atlantic community.”
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country has begun taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The deployment is Moscow’s first move of such warheads — shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield — outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia,” Lukashenko said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 Russian state TV channel, which was posted on the Belarusian Belta state news agency’s Telegram channel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia, which will retain control of the tactical nuclear weapons, would start deploying them in Belarus after special storage facilities to house them were made ready.

The Russian leader announced in March he had agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, pointing to the U.S deployment of such weapons in a host of European countries over many decades.

The United States has criticized Putin’s decision but has said it has no intention of altering its own stance on strategic nuclear weapons and has not seen any signs that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

The Russian step is nonetheless being watched closely by the United States and its allies as well as by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, told Russian state TV in the interview, which was released late on Tuesday, that his country had numerous nuclear storage facilities left over from the Soviet-era and had restored five or six of them.

He played down the idea that Russian control of the weapons was an impediment to using them quickly if he felt such a move was necessary, saying he and Putin could pick up the phone to each other “at any moment.”

Lukashenko, who has allowed his country to be used by Russian forces attacking Ukraine as part of what Moscow calls its “special military operation,” says the nuclear deployment will act as a deterrent against potential aggressors.

Belarus borders three NATO member countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.

The 68-year-old former Soviet collective farm boss, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, making him Europe’s longest-serving leader, said he didn’t ask Putin for the weapons, but demanded them.

“We have always been a target,” Lukashenko said. “They [the West] have wanted to tear us to pieces since 2020. No one has so far fought against a nuclear country, a country that has nuclear weapons.”

Lukashenko has repeatedly accused the West of trying to topple him after mass protests against his rule erupted in 2020 in the wake of a presidential election the opposition said he fraudulently won.

Lukashenko said he had won fairly, while conducting a sweeping crackdown on his opponents.
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Three Kosovo police officers were detained by Serbian forces on Wednesday but officials from Kosovo and Serbia gave different locations for the arrest, accusing each other of crossing the border illegally.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti demanded the release of the three officers. He said they had been arrested 300 meters inside Kosovan territory, near the border with Serbia.

“The entry of Serbian forces into the territory of Kosovo is aggression and aimed at escalation and destabilization,” Kurti wrote on his Facebook page.

In response to the detentions, Kosovo’s interior minister, Xhelal Svecla, told reporters he had ordered officers at border crossings to stop all trucks with Serbian plates and trucks carrying Serbian goods.

But Petar Petkovic, the head of the Serbian government office for Kosovo, said the three were arrested “deep inside” Serbian territory.

He told a news conference in Belgrade that the arrest took place in the village named Gnjilica, a few kilometers from the border, and that Serbia was willing to accept an international investigation into the arrest.

The detentions may further fuel tensions in the predominantly Serb northern part in Kosovo which borders Serbia and which has seen violence in recent weeks.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after an uprising by the 90% ethnic Albanian majority against repressive Serbian rule.

In 1999, a NATO bombing campaign drove Serbian security forces out of Kosovo but Belgrade continues to regard it as a southern province.

Violence flared last month when 30 peacekeepers and 52 Serbs were injured in clashes in four predominantly Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo just outside Serbia.

It erupted after Serbs rallied against ethnic Albanian mayors who moved into their offices following a local vote in which turnout was just 3.5%. Serbs in the area boycotted the election.

The arrest on Tuesday of a Serb identified by the Kosovo Albanian interior minister as an organizer of assaults on NATO peacekeepers during unrest last month stirred more anger in the region and triggered protests on Wednesday. 
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EU lawmakers on Wednesday voted for tougher landmark draft artificial intelligence rules that include a ban on the use of the technology in biometric surveillance and for generative AI systems like ChatGPT to disclose AI-generated content.

The lawmakers agreed to the amendments to the draft legislation proposed by the European Commission which is seeking to set a global standard for the technology used in everything from automated factories to bots and self-driving cars.

Rapid adoption of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other bots has led top AI scientists and company executives including Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to raise the potential risks posed to society.

“While Big Tech companies are sounding the alarm over their own creations, Europe has gone ahead and proposed a concrete response to the risks AI is starting to pose,” said Brando Benifei, co-rapporteur of the draft act.

Among other changes, European Union lawmakers want any company using generative tools to disclose copyrighted material used to train its systems and for companies working on “high-risk application” to do a fundamental rights impact assessment and evaluate environmental impact.

Microsoft, which has called for AI rules, welcomed the lawmakers’ agreement.

“We believe that AI requires legislative guardrails, alignment efforts at an international level, and meaningful voluntary actions by companies that develop and deploy AI,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

However, the Computer and Communications Industry Association said the amendments on high-risk AIs were likely to overburden European AI developers with “excessively prescriptive rules” and slow down innovation.

“AI raises a lot of questions – socially, ethically, economically. But now is not the time to hit any ‘pause button’. On the contrary, it is about acting fast and taking responsibility,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton said.

The Commission announced its draft rules two years ago aimed at setting a global standard for a technology key to almost every industry and business and in a bid to catch up with AI leaders the United States and China.

The lawmakers will now have to thrash out details with European Union countries before the draft rules become legislation. 
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Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was honored Wednesday with a state funeral in Milan’s Duomo cathedral and a day of national mourning, as his legacy — positive or negative — was being hotly debated among Italians. 

Thousands of people outside the Duomo and within erupted in applause as a sign of respect as Berlusconi’s flower-draped casket was hoisted out of the hearse and into the cathedral. His children and companion teared up as the casket was placed in front of the altar. 

Most Italians identify Berlusconi, a media mogul, soccer entrepreneur and three-time former premier, as the most influential figure in Italy over recent decades. But they remain sharply divided on whether his influence was for the better or worse, extending to whether the three-time former premier merits all the fuss and ceremony. 

Berlusconi died at the age of 86 on Monday in a Milan hospital where he was being treated for chronic leukemia. His family held a private wake Tuesday at one of Berlusconi’s villas near Milan, the city where he made his billions as the head of a media empire before entering politics in 1994. 

Political opponents are questioning not only the decisions of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government to hold a state funeral — an honor that can be afforded all former premiers — but to also declare a national day of mourning, which is more rarely invoked. In the case of the latter, flags were flown at half-staff and all political events not involving charity were put on hold, but it is otherwise business as usual. 

“Berlusconi split Italy, he insulted adversaries for 30 years, he criminalized the magistrates and he didn’t recognize laws. What are we talking about?” journalist Marco Travaglio, a long-time Berlusconi critic and co-founder of the il Fatto Quotidiano daily, told private La7 TV on Tuesday. 

Nevertheless, thousands of Italians filled the piazza outside Milan’s Duomo to follow the funeral on two giant video screens while carabinieri in full ceremonial regalia stood guard, surrounded by floral wreaths. Family members, political allies and opponents took up the pews inside. 

Hungarian President Viktor Orban and Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, were among the highest-ranking foreign dignitaries attending. 

Meloni, who got her first government experience as a minister in a Berlusconi coalition, also attended, along with League leader Matteo Salvini, whose party has long been allied with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Opposition politicians were also on hand in a show of respect for a political figure with whom many had sparred. 

Barbara Cacellari, a Forza Italia councilwoman and one-time candidate for the European Parliament, said protests over how to officially mark Berlusconi’s death showed a lack of respect. 

“The person must be respected per se. He is a person who represents the history of this country,” she said outside the cathedral, adding: “No one is without stains, I think.” 

Berlusconi is widely recognized as a precursor to the type of populist politics that later would bring Donald Trump to power in the United States, both using their high profile as businessmen to springboard into the political arena, upending politics as usual along the way. 

Supporters of Berlusconi’s legacy cite his success in unifying the Italian center-right after the collapse of the post-war political landscape with the 1990s “Clean Hands” corruption scandal. They also see his years as leader as periods of stabilization, after years of quickly rotating governments, while admiring his bold rule-breaking and irreverence, perhaps especially in the face of other global leaders. 

Berlusconi’s detractors’ list of political damage is long, including conflicts of interest relating to his media empire, dozens of trials mostly for business dealings, revelations of sex-fueled bunga-bunga parties at his villa near Milan and questionable associations, including his enduring friendship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. 

“He is not a leader who helped us grow,” said Beppe Severgnini, a long-time foreign correspondent and writer for Corriere della Sera. “He tapped all of our weaknesses: moral, fiscal, sexual, everything.” 
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 British police were questioning a man on suspicion of murder Wednesday as they sought the motive for a stabbing and van attack in the central English city of Nottingham which had left three people dead and another critical.

Two 19-year-olds, a man and a woman who were university students, were found dead on a city center street with stab wounds after police were alerted at about 4 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Tuesday. Another 50-year-old man then also found dead with knife wounds on a road about two miles away.

A van, stolen from the 50-year-old victim, was then driven at three people, leaving one critically injured in hospital.

After the vehicle was stopped, police used a stun gun to arrest a 31-year-old man, and say they are not looking for any other suspects.

Counter-terrorism officers are helping with the investigation, but Nottinghamshire Police’s Chief Constable Kate Meynell said they were keeping an open mind as to what happened.

The BBC reported that the suspect was believed to be a migrant of West African origin with a history of mental health issues.

“We are still in the early stages of the investigation and need to determine the motives behind these attacks,” Meynell said.

The incident has shocked the city, particularly the student community, with Nottingham home to two universities with more than 50,000 students.

British media said one of the two teenage victims, named as Grace Kumar, had played hockey for England’s Under 18 team. The other, Barnaby Webber, was said to be a keen cricket player.

The University of Nottingham students were attacked as they returned home from a post-exam party, the Times reported.

“Barnaby’s parents are in bits as you can imagine,” his grandfather Phil Robson was quoted by newspapers as saying.
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says his country has received some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year he would deploy some of the short-range nuclear weapons to its neighbor and ally.
France accuses Russia of disinformation campaign that included making fake versions of websites from the French Foreign Ministry and French media outlets to spread false information about Ukraine’s military and sanctions against Russia.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says there will be massive needs in the coming weeks in the Kherson area following last week’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam.

A Russian missile struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa early Wednesday, killing at least three people and injuring 13 others. 

Ukraine’s military said the attack involved four Kalibr cruise missiles. 

Regional authorities said a missile struck a warehouse where the three people were killed and that the Russian attack also damaged homes and shops in downtown Odesa. 

Officials said rescuers were searching to find anyone who may have been buried in the rubble. 

The U.N.’s humanitarian agency condemned the attack. 

“People in Odesa woke up, once again, to see their loved ones killed or injured by an airstrike.  This is not an isolated case,” U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown said in a statement.  “Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, indiscriminate attacks and the use of explosive weapons with wide impact in populated areas have left thousands of civilians, including children, killed and injured.  This must stop.” 

In Donetsk province, in eastern Ukraine, officials said missile strikes killed at least three people in the cities of Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka.

The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said shelling Wednesday in the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine hit a car near the Russian border, killing six people.

NATO support for Ukraine 

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that the Western military alliance’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia “is now making a difference on the battlefield” with the start of Ukraine’s counteroffensive.  

“The offensive is launched, and the Ukrainians are making progress, making advances,” Stoltenberg said as he met with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House.     

“It’s still early days, but what we do know is that the more land the Ukrainians are able to liberate, the stronger hand they will have at the negotiating table,” Stoltenberg said, “and also the more likely it will be that [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin at some stage will understand that he will never win this war of aggression on the battlefield.”  

Biden agreed that NATO’s continuing support for Ukraine is making a difference, saying, “NATO allies have never been more united, and we both worked like hell to make sure that happened, and so far, so good. Putin is making a mistake.”  

Stoltenberg offered his assessment of the now nearly 16-month Russian assault on Ukraine.  

“I think you also have to realize that Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is not only an attack on Ukraine, but also on our core values, and on free people everywhere,” he said. “And therefore, President Putin must not win this war, because that will not only be a tragedy for Ukrainians, but also make the world more dangerous.”  

“It will send a message to authoritarian leaders all over the world, also in China, that when they use military force, they get what they want,” the NATO chief said. “And we will then become more vulnerable. So, it’s [in] our security interest to support Ukraine.”  

Black Sea grain deal   

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia is thinking about withdrawing from the Black Sea grain deal under which tons of Ukrainian grain have been shipped to other European countries and impoverished nations in Africa.   

Putin said that Moscow had been “cheated” over implementation of the parts of the deal that concerned its own exports.   

Putin told pro-Kremlin war correspondents that the accord was intended to help “friendly” countries in Africa and Latin America. But he said Europe has turned out to be the largest importer of Ukrainian grain and that this was providing a key source of foreign currency to Kyiv.   

Putin said he plans to discuss the future of the grain deal with some African leaders who were expected to visit Russia. Putin said Moscow is ready to supply grain for free to the world’s poorest countries.   

The deal was brokered last July by the United Nations and Turkey and extended since then, allowing for the safe export of grain from several Ukrainian ports past Russian warships on the Black Sea.   

Meanwhile, Putin suggested that he could order his troops to try to seize more land in Ukraine to protect Russian territory on the border with Ukraine, where villages have come under attack.   

Putin said Ukrainian forces had suffered “catastrophic” losses in their new counteroffensive. He said that Ukraine lost 160 tanks and more than 360 other armored vehicles, while Russia lost only 54 tanks since Kyiv began the new assault in recent days. His claims could not be immediately verified.  

Putin said he wasn’t contemplating a new mobilization of troops but didn’t rule it out.   

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday underscored U.S. commitment to supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and announcing $325 million more in military aid ahead of an annual summit of NATO members in Lithuania’s capital in July. White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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The largest nuclear power plant in Europe faces “a relatively dangerous situation” after a dam burst in Ukraine and as Ukraine’s military launches a counteroffensive to retake ground occupied by Russia, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said Tuesday. 

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), spoke to journalists in Kyiv just before leaving on a trip to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The plant has been in the crossfire repeatedly since Russia launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022 and seized the facility shortly after. 

Grossi said he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the perils facing the nuclear plant, which grew more serious after the Kakhovka Dam burst last week. The dam, further down the Dnipro River, helped keep water in a reservoir that cools the plant’s reactors. Ukraine has said Russia blew up the dam, something denied by Moscow, though analysts say the flood likely disrupted Kyiv’s counteroffensive plans. 

Grossi said the level of the reservoir that feeds the plant is dropping “quite steadily” but that it didn’t represent an “immediate danger.” 

“It is a serious situation because you are limited to the water you have there,” Grossi said. “If there was a break in the gates that contain this water or anything like this, you would really lose all your cooling capacity.” 

Most reactors in ‘cold shutdown’

Ukraine recently said it hoped to put the last functioning reactor into a cold shutdown. That’s a process in which all control rods are inserted into the reactor core to stop the nuclear fission reaction and generation of heat and pressure. Already, five of the plant’s six reactors are in a cold shutdown. 

When asked about Ukraine’s plans, Grossi noted that Russia controlled the plant and that it represented “yet again, another unwanted situation deriving from this anomalous situation.” Ukrainian workers still run the plant, though under an armed Russian military presence. The IAEA has a team at the plant, and Grossi said its members would be swapped out during his trip. 

Asked about the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Grossi said he was “very concerned” about the plant potentially getting caught again in open warfare. 

“There is active combat. So we are worrying that there could be, I mean, obviously mathematically, the possibilities of a hit,” he said. 

Grossi stressed the IAEA hadn’t yet “seen any heavy military equipment” from the Russians at the plant when asked about Ukrainian fears the plant could be wired with explosives. 

“There shouldn’t be any military equipment or artillery or amounts of ammunition, an amount that could compromise the security of the plant,” Grossi said. “We do not have any indication at this point. But it could not be excluded.” 

“There is active combat. So we are worrying that there could be, I mean, obviously mathematically, the possibilities of a hit,” he said. 
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The World Food Program said Tuesday it will be forced to end food assistance to 2.5 million Syrians next month if it does not receive at least $180 million in donations to fund programs through the end of this year.

“Further reductions in ration size are impossible; our only solution is to reduce the number of recipients,” said WFP Syria Director Ken Crossley in a statement. “The people we serve have endured the ravages of conflict, fleeing their homes, losing family members and their livelihoods. Without our assistance, their hardships will only intensify.”

The WFP currently assists 5.5 million people in Syria. Without the drastic cuts, the agency says it would run out of food completely by October.

After more than a decade of conflict, a spiraling economic crisis and a series of deadly earthquakes in February, many Syrians are barely getting by. The WFP says even those who receive regular food assistance are struggling to cope.

Overall, the United Nations says 15.3 million people – or 70% of the population – need some form of humanitarian assistance. More than half the population are food insecure, and malnutrition and childhood stunting are reaching unprecedented levels.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the European Union will host a ministerial conference in Brussels focusing on “Supporting the future of Syria and the region.” The conference aims to revitalize international political and financial support for Syrians in their country and in host countries.
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The World Health Organization warns the catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine June 6 risks unleashing an epidemic of physical and mental health problems.

“So far there have been no reports of disease outbreaks, but we remain prepared to scale up our support as needed,” said Jarno Habicht, WHO representative in Ukraine.

In view of the looming disaster, Habicht left his base in Kyiv for Istanbul, where he arrived early Tuesday morning to meet with donors to drum up support for an anticipated large-scale, life-saving operation in Kherson and surrounding communities.

According to Ukrainian authorities, the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam has flooded large swathes of agricultural land, fully or partially submerged at least 80 towns and villages in the Kherson region and uprooted an estimated 17,000 people in the government-controlled areas.

“The situation continues to evolve,” said Habicht, but “the collapse of the Kakhovka Dam has resulted in severe flooding, displacing communities, and posing significant risks to public health.”

“Our primary concern at this moment is the potential outbreak of waterborne diseases, including cholera and typhoid, as well as rodent-borne diseases.”

He said a WHO team, which has been on the ground since day one, was closely monitoring the health situation in coordination with local authorities and providing support where needed.

He noted that cholera kits, which the WHO provided to Kherson and neighboring oblasts as preventive measures last year, now “can be deployed to control isolated cases of disease if they occur” in the hopes of preventing this deadly disease from escalating.

He said urgent measures were being taken to address critical public health issues. These include efforts to raise community awareness about water-borne diseases, the issuance of water safety messages, and providing informational material on acute intestinal infections and preventive measures.

Habicht said there was particular concern about the toll on the mental health of the population resulting from this latest incident, as well as cumulative previous disasters experienced by Ukrainians since Russia invaded the country February 24, 2022.

“We have had attacks to civilian infrastructure in October. We went through a dark and cold winter. We have lost one of the symbolic dams on the river. That means that the stress that the population goes through is growing,” he said.

“What we are talking about is millions of people who need mental health support,” he said.

“So that is why we are in the field. We have trained tens of thousands of health workers to provide mental health care to people at the primary health level.”

He said other priority matters of concern include the potential release of hazardous chemicals into the water, “which could have severe impacts for years to come.”

He said the risks posed by thousands of landmines planted in the area cannot be underestimated. He warned those lethal weapons would become particularly dangerous when water levels go down in the next seven to 10 days and become dislodged.

He noted that “the mine maps will not be available to ensure that the coast of the river is clean” making it more likely that more civilians will be killed and maimed by the weapons.

While efforts are underway to provide people in the fragile region with the support they need, Habicht said humanitarian workers are unable to access the territories temporarily occupied by the Russians.

“We are asking for security guarantees to go to the occupied territories to do the needs assessment and to save lives.

“We have asked constantly for access to the occupied territories by the Russian Federation,” he said. “Until now, we have not received the security guarantees to ensure that we can go to the occupied territories and support millions of civilians and Ukrainians living there.”
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Kosovo’s prime minister on Tuesday presented a plan to defuse tensions in its Serb-majority north that would include fresh local elections and cuts in special police, bowing to pressure from key Western supporters of its independence.

Kosovo police meanwhile said they arrested a Serb identified by Pristina as an organizer of attacks on NATO peacekeepers who deployed in the north last month amid violent Serb unrest over the installation of ethnic Albanian mayors in their area.

During the operation to arrest Milun Milenkovic, three Kosovo Albanian policemen were slightly injured, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on his Facebook page.

Some 30 peacekeepers and 52 Serbs were injured in the clashes late last month after ethnic Albanian mayors took office following a local election in which turnout was just 3.5% after Serbs who form a majority in the region boycotted the vote.

The United States and European Union have called on Prime Minister Albin Kurti to withdraw the mayors, remove special police used to install them and uphold a 2013 deal for an association of autonomous Serb municipalities in the region.

Kurti said that “violent (Serb) groups have been withdrawn from Kosovo territory (and therefore) the presence of Kosovo police troops in three municipal buildings will be downsized.”

“The government of the Republic of Kosovo will coordinate with all the actors and announce early elections in four municipalities in the north,” Kurti told a press conference after meeting ambassadors of the United States, Italy, France, Germany and Britain, known as the Quint group.

He said he had presented his plan to EU and U.S. envoys and called for a follow-up meeting between Serbian and Kosovo officials in Brussels, where the EU is based.

Kurti said nothing about setting up the association of Serb municipalities which would ensure greater autonomy for the Serb majority area. He has been loath to implement the accord, citing fears that it would spur the region to seek to rejoin Serbia.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic urged Kosovo last week to grant more autonomy to Serbs before organizing a new vote.

Kosovo declared internationally recognized independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after an uprising by the 90% ethnic Albanian majority against repressive Serbian rule. NATO bombing drove out Serbian security forces but Belgrade continues to regard Kosovo only as its southern province.
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Latest developments:

French President Emmanuel Macron pledges continued deliveries of ammunition, weapons and armed vehicles in the coming weeks, saying France wants Ukraine’s counteroffensive “to be as successful as possible.”   
U.S. President Joe Biden to host NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House after talks delayed by a day for Biden dental procedure   

Ukrainian officials said Tuesday a Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine killed at least six people and injured 25 others.      

Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said Russia destroyed a five-story residential building in the attack and that rescuers were searching through the rubble.   

Kryvyi Rih is the birthplace of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who posted on Telegram, “Russian killers continue their war against residential buildings, ordinary cities and people.”      

“Terrorists will never be forgiven, and they will be held accountable for every missile they launch,” Zelenskyy said.   

The attack on Kryvyi Rih was part of a wider aerial assault by Russia that also targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the city of Kharkiv.      

Ukraine’s military said it shot down 10 of 14 cruise missiles launched by Russia, as well as one of four Iranian-made drones used by Russian forces.      

Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday its forces captured several German-made Leopard tanks and U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles during fighting in southern Ukraine.  Russia called the hardware “our trophies” and said they were captured in the Zaporizhzhia area after Ukrainian crews fled. 

Ukrainian counteroffensive 

Ukraine said Monday it had recaptured seven villages since launching the counteroffensive last week with the aim of reclaiming areas occupied by Russian forces.      

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed confidence Monday that Ukraine will “continue to have success in what they’re trying to achieve, which is to take back the land that’s been seized from them by Russia.”   

Blinken told reporters the United States will “continue to maximize our support to Ukraine now” and also provide enduring support to help Ukraine deter Russia from invading again in the future.   

“It’s very important to note that, in terms of what President Putin was trying to achieve in Ukraine, it’s already been a strategic failure, because the objective that Putin had — that he stated himself — was to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate its independence, and to absorb Ukraine, in one fashion or another, into Russia.  That has failed and it cannot succeed,” Blinken said.        

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power     

The United Nations atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant this week to assess risks from the decrease of water levels at the Kakhovka reservoir. 

Grossi tweeted Monday that he was on his way to Ukraine to meet with Zelenskyy and discuss assistance following what he called the “catastrophic” flooding that followed the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine last week.   

The Kakhovka reservoir has lost nearly three-quarters of its volume of water, but it has not impacted the plant’s cooling ponds, Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets said Monday.          

Ukrainian nuclear authorities said the water at the plant’s cooling ponds remains stable and high enough because the ponds are separate from the reservoir and can be refilled by wells in the area. The water in the pond evaporates slowly, they said, because the reactors are not producing power.          

In Kherson, the United Nations is coordinating relief efforts for the Kakhovka disaster by delivering water, food and hygiene items to almost 180,000 people. Since the day of the disaster, the U.N. has distributed more than 800,000 liters of bottled water and 70,000 monthly rations of ready-to-eat food, U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Dujarric told reporters Monday, adding that the U.N. has also provided information to 100,000 people in the area about risks regarding mine contamination.   

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to meet outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on Tuesday as jockeying to secure Stoltenberg’s successor intensifies.

The meeting was originally set for Monday but was postponed after Biden underwent a root canal procedure.

While the White House says the official agenda for the meeting is to discuss the alliance’s upcoming July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the issue of who will be next at NATO’s helm during this difficult period in its 74-year history will no doubt be front and center, as the alliance faces Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, is the longest running NATO chief in a generation and has had his tenure extended three times since taking the job in 2014. In February, his spokesperson said he will leave office when his current term ends in October.

Stoltenberg is widely credited for managing rocky transatlantic relations between former U.S. President Donald Trump and European allies over defense spending; the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in August 2021; and overseeing the alliance’s response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. His preference about his successor carries weight and Biden is expected to consult with him.

“A lot of people will look to him to say, ‘Who do you think is the best to follow up your leadership?” said Andrew Hyde, senior fellow at the Stimson Center, to VOA.

Whoever succeeds Stoltenberg will face the daunting challenge of shepherding the security of 1 billion people in 31 countries and growing. He or she must manage the tough balancing act of supporting Ukraine militarily while preventing the conflict from bleeding into the territory of a NATO member, which would trigger the alliance’s Article 5 principle of collective defense and potentially lead to World War III.

Selections done through consensus

A U.S. general is traditionally the Supreme Allied Commander Europe but the post of NATO chief has always been assumed by a European, even though there’s nothing in the organization’s charter that requires it.

There’s no formal process to pick a new leader, and candidates don’t announce that they’re running for the post. Selection is done through consensus, achieved mostly through quiet and informal diplomatic channels.

As the biggest donor, the U.S. plays a key role — the reason why two contenders have paid a visit to the Oval Office recently.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen met with Biden at the White House last Monday. She is seen as a front-runner; however, her candidacy would mean a third successive secretary-general from a Nordic country.

Another potential hurdle is that Denmark has long failed to meet the 2% minimum requirement in defense spending for member states. In December, her government launched a plan to meet NATO’s target by 2030, and recently ramped up military aid to Ukraine.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Washington days after Frederiksen, with a broad agenda that includes lobbying for his defense secretary, Ben Wallace. Britain, supplier of more military assistance to Ukraine than any country after the United States, has clout. And as one of the first defense ministers to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, Wallace is well-known among the alliance.

However, out of 13 chiefs in NATO’s history, three were British.

Biden was non-committal when asked whether it was time for another one. “Maybe. That remains to be seen,” he said during a joint news conference with Sunak Thursday.

All who have filled the post since 1952 were male.

Several women likely candidates

There is a sense that it’s time the alliance selects a female leader, Hyde said. With the Russian war raging, “there’s also a feeling it should be somebody from Eastern Europe,” he added.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her Lithuanian counterpart Ingrida Simonyte meet both requirements. However, some observers argue that a leader from one of the Baltic countries, which are usually hawkish on Russia, could be perceived as a provocation by Moscow.

Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of Germany have been floated as potential candidates. So has Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, although her Ukrainian heritage may prove to be a complication.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also has been mentioned as a contender. And there’s always the possibility that the allies might prevail on Stoltenberg to extend his tenure yet again.

The issue of who is the next NATO secretary-general is expected to be settled by July, when the group’s leaders meet in Vilnius.
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Across the United States this past weekend, demonstrators protested the transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children to territories occupied by Russia. VOA Correspondent Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Seattle.
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A 44-year-old mother of three was sentenced Monday to more than two years in an English prison for medically inducing an abortion about eight months into her pregnancy.

Justice Edward Pepperall in Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court said the “tragic” case required him to balance the woman’s reproductive rights with the rights of the fetus and said the sentence might deter others from exceeding the 24-week limit on abortions.

Pepperall said the mother could have avoided prison if she had pleaded guilty sooner and that he was sentencing her despite her “deep and genuine remorse” and the fact that her children, including one with special needs, would suffer without her.

“You are wracked by guilt and have suffered depression,” Pepperall said. “I also accept that you had a very deep emotional attachment to your unborn child and that you are plagued by nightmares and flashbacks to seeing your dead child’s face.”

The woman was 32 to 34 weeks along when she induced a miscarriage in May 2020 using medication intended for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, the judge said.

The woman obtained the pills during the COVID-19 pandemic when the restrictions were loosened to allow abortion drugs to be delivered by mail. The woman lied when she told a pregnancy advisory service she was seven weeks pregnant and she continued to lie to others, including police, the judge said.

Evidence found the woman had conducted several internet searches for ending her pregnancy, including one that said, “I need to have an abortion but I’m past 24 weeks,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

“While the baby was not full term, she was approaching that stage of development,” prosecutor Robert Price said. “Multiple and prolonged internet searches showed a level of planning.”

Supporters of abortion rights criticized the sentence as unnecessarily harsh and called for an end to criminalizing abortion.

“This case is a damning indictment of abortion law in England,” said Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party. “Nothing about this conviction serves the public interest, or the interests of her and her children. It also reveals the indefensible, ugly truth about the criminalization of abortion. Opposition to abortion has never been about what’s best for children or women.”

Executives from professional organizations representing obstetricians, gynecologists and midwives had urged the judge in writing not to imprison the woman.

Pepperall said they shouldn’t have sent the letter, saying it was as inappropriate as abortion opponents lobbying the court.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said criminalizing abortion was proper in the right circumstances.

“Our laws as they stand balance a woman’s right to access safe and legal abortions with the rights of an unborn child,” spokesperson Max Blain said. “I’m not aware of any plans to address that approach.”

The woman was sentenced to 28 months in prison, but Pepperall said she’d serve up to half that term in custody.

Pepperall said he arrived at the sentence by consulting the 2012 case of a mother originally sentenced to eight years in prison for using medication to terminate her pregnancy a week before she was due to give birth. The Court of Appeal later reduced her prison term to 3½ years.
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The United States is providing up to $325 million in additional military aid for Ukraine, a U.S. defense official tells VOA.

The package is expected to include Stryker and Bradley armored vehicles that can replace those damaged and destroyed in the Ukrainian counteroffensive currently underway, according to two Defense officials, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity ahead of the package’s expected release Tuesday.

The officials said the latest aid also includes munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), along with more rockets for Ukraine’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

The aid announcement comes amid reports that Ukraine has lost more than a dozen Bradley infantry fighting vehicles in recent days, highlighting the military costs of the current counteroffensive.

“These top systems, as good as they are, are vulnerable and will need to be replaced, and so it’s a reminder that this security provision is not a one-off. This is going to have to continue for the long term,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Once released, the latest aid package will mark the 40th authorized presidential drawdown of military equipment from Defense Department inventories since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin travels to Brussels this week for a meeting of NATO defense ministers, where support for Ukraine will be a top priority.

During his time in Brussels, Austin will host another meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group to discuss how Western allies can better support Ukraine’s military now that its new counteroffensive has begun, according to officials.

Defense leaders also will continue to iron out plans for Ukrainian pilots to train on F-16 fighter jets, the officials added.

The U.S. has pledged more than $39 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, although the Pentagon continues to work through an accounting error that overstated the amount of value going to Kyiv. 

When calculating its aid package estimates, the Defense Department was counting the cost incurred to replace the weapons given to Ukraine, while it should have been totaling the cost of the systems actually sent, officials told VOA.  

The error is expected to translate into billions of additional dollars that will be available for more aid to Ukraine, according to officials. 

The Pentagon announced Friday it is providing an additional $2.1 billion in long-term weapons aid for Ukraine, including more Patriot missile battery munitions and small, hand-launched Puma drones.

Unlike the immediate aid to Ukraine sent from Pentagon stocks through the presidential drawdown authority, this aid money is provided under the United States’ Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and is meant to be spent on Ukraine’s future security needs. 

Moscow began a renewed offensive in Ukraine earlier this year that has stalled, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently confirmed that Kyiv’s massive counteroffensive has begun.

A senior military official, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, said the Ukrainian counteroffensive would probably not be “as dramatic” as some people expect but still would be carried out “deliberately and effectively” by targeting Russia’s ability to control its defenses inside Ukraine. 

Russian forces have spent months heavily fortifying their positions inside Ukraine, making Kyiv’s counteroffensive even more difficult to execute.

“It’s harder to go on offense than it is to be on defense,” Bowman said. Ukrainians “have entrenched, dug in Russian forces with minefields in front of them. That’s about as hard as it can get in warfare.”
…

A Swedish appeals court on Monday said police had no legal grounds to block two gatherings where protesters had planned to burn the Quran earlier this year.

A burning of Islam’s holy book outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm in January sparked anger in the Muslim world, leading to weeks of protests and calls for a boycott of Swedish goods, and further stalled Sweden’s NATO membership bid.

Following that incident, police refused to authorize two other requests, one by a private individual and one by an organization, to hold Quran burnings outside the Turkish and Iraqi Embassies in Stockholm in February.

Police argued the January protest had made Sweden “a higher priority target for attacks.”

Following appeals from both protest organizers, the Stockholm Administrative Court overturned the decisions, saying the cited security concerns were not enough to limit the right to demonstrate.

But Stockholm police in turn appealed the rulings to the appeals court, which on Monday sided with the lower administrative court.

In both rulings — on the two separate applications — the appeals court said “the order and security problems” referenced by the police did not have “a sufficiently clear connection to the planned event or its immediate vicinity.”

It added that the ruling could be appealed to Sweden’s Supreme Administrative Court.

Swedish police had authorized the January protest organized by Rasmus Paludan, a Swedish-Danish activist who has been convicted of racist abuse.

Paludan also provoked rioting in Sweden last year when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of Islam’s holy book.

The Quran burning in January also damaged Sweden’s relations with Turkey, which took particular offence that police had authorized the demonstration.

Ankara has blocked Sweden’s NATO bid because of what it perceives as Stockholm’s failure to crack down on Kurdish groups it views as “terrorists.”

“It is clear that those who caused such a disgrace in front of our country’s embassy can no longer expect any benevolence from us regarding their application for NATO membership,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in January.

Swedish politicians have criticized the Quran burnings but have also adamantly defended the right to freedom of expression.
…

Latest developments:

Russian President Vladimir Putin observed Russia's national day on Monday. During an awards ceremony, Putin spoke about national unity and patriotic pride for “the greatness and glory of the fatherland," at what he admitted was a "difficult time" for the country.
U.S. President Joe Biden's meeting with outgoing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has been pushed back a day after Biden underwent an unexpected root canal procedure. The two are now expected to hold talks Tuesday.
Swiss authorities said Monday’s attack of several government websites was claimed by the NoName hacking group controlled by pro-Russian hackers. The government websites were down as Switzerland’s parliament prepares for a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Thursday. It also coincides with a national holiday in Russia.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that although it was too soon to predict where Ukraine’s counteroffensive was going, Washington was confident that Kyiv will continue to take back its land occupied by Russia.

During a news conference in Washington, Blinken said the United States was determined to maximize its support for Ukraine so it can succeed on the battlefield. A “robust” package of political and practical support for Ukraine, Blinken added, can also be expected at the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.

A Ukrainian official said Monday the country’s troops retook control of Storozhov, a village in the Donetsk region as they conduct a counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Russia.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar thanked a marine brigade in a Telegram post, saying the Ukrainian flag was flying over Storozhov. She said the scene would repeat in every area until Ukrainian forces liberate all of Ukraine’s land.

The development came a day after Ukrainian officials said their troops recaptured three other villages in the area: Blahodatne, Neskuchne and Makarivka.

Ukraine’s General Staff said Monday that during the past day there had been heavy fighting elsewhere in Donetsk, including in Bakhmut, and in the Luhansk region.

F-16s training

Ukrainian pilots could begin training on F-16 fighter jets as soon as this summer. The Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said this is a first step toward supplying Kyiv with a powerful, long-term capability in its war with Russia, Reuters reports.

Previously, the Netherlands had said it aimed to start training Ukrainian pilots “as soon as possible,” but had not specified when such training could start.

Ollongren told Reuters the goal was to have the training program fully operational within six months. A possible location for the training could be in Denmark where there are flight simulators. The training would begin with two groups of 12 Ukrainian pilots, already experienced flying Soviet-era MiGs.

The Dutch defense chief did not, however, commit to supplying F-16s to Ukraine.

“It is a very strong weapons system. It’s a very strong capability. But it’s not going to be available anytime soon and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, of course, knows that,” Ollongren said. She did note that F-16s will be “very important for the future,” in Ukraine.

“When the war is over Ukraine has to be able to defend itself to deter Russia from trying again,” she said. “And I think … that’s what the Ukrainians also see.”

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power

The United Nations atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant this week to assess risks from the decrease of water levels at the Kakhovka reservoir.

Ukraine’s Kakhovka reservoir has lost nearly three-quarters of its volume of water since the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed last week, but it has not impacted the plant’s cooling ponds, Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets said Monday.

Ukrainian nuclear authorities said the water at the plant’s cooling ponds remains stable and high enough because the pods are separate from the reservoir and can be refilled by wells in the area. The water in the pond evaporates slowly, they said, because the reactors are not producing power.

In Kherson, the United Nations is coordinating relief efforts for the Kakhovka disaster by delivering water, food and hygiene items to almost 180,000 people. Since the day of the disaster, the U.N. has distributed more than 800,000 liters (211,000 gallons) of bottled water and 70,000 monthly rations of ready-to-eat food, U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Dujarric told reporters Monday, adding that the U.N. has also provided information to 100,000 people in the area about risks regarding mine contamination.

In his nightly video address Sunday, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy decried Russian attacks on evacuation routes for civilians escaping flooded areas.

“It was an evacuation from Kardashynka, a village on the left bank of Kherson region. … The occupiers created this disaster by blowing up a dam, leaving people to their fate in flooded towns and villages, and then shelling the boats that are trying to take people away,” he said.

Kyiv and Russia trade blame on the destruction of the dam that led to catastrophic flooding.

Black Sea grain deal

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern Monday that Russia will pull out of the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal by July 17.

The agreement allowing safe wartime export of grain and fertilizers from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports may be nixed by Moscow if its terms regarding its own grain and fertilizer shipments are not met.

While Russian exports of food and fertilizer are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have obstructed shipments.

Russia demands the export of ammonia via a pipeline to Ukraine’s port of Pivdennyi and the reconnection of Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT international payment system.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Pakistani authorities are touting the arrival of the first shipment of discounted Russian crude oil as “transformative,” however, analysts say the extent of relief it will bring the country’s crisis-riddled economy is not clear.  

Pakistan’s minister for petroleum, Musadik Malik, told the Reuters news agency that Islamabad paid Moscow for the cargo in yuan, the Chinese currency. The Pakistani government has so far not disclosed the price.

Announcing the arrival of the Russian vessel “Pure Point,” with a little more than 45,000 metric tons of crude oil, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a tweet Sunday night that the country was moving “one step at a time toward prosperity, economic growth and energy security and affordability.”

Authorities at the southern Karachi Port terminal began offloading the cargo Monday morning. Shariq Amin Farooqi, public relations officer for the Karachi Port Trust, told VOA the entire process would take 26 to 30 hours.  

Economic distress  

The discounted crude shipment comes at a time when import-dependent Pakistan faces a severe liquidity crunch. The country spends the biggest portion of its import funds, around $18 billion annually, on energy and fuel. 

According to recent central bank data, foreign exchange reserves were below $10 billion as of June 2, with the State Bank of Pakistan holding less than $4 billion – barely enough to cover a month of select imports.   

Pakistan has been teetering on the brink of default since last year. Its economy has grown at a rate of 0.29% in the fiscal year ending this month, according to government projections, while annual inflation reached a record high of almost 38% last month.  

Russian deal  

As part of what the government in Islamabad has called a “trial” shipment, Pakistan will receive a total of 100,000 metric tons of crude oil from Russia. The second shipment is expected in a few weeks.  

Islamabad began negotiating for discounted crude oil from Moscow last year in a bid to take advantage of the $60 per barrel price cap placed on Russian oil by the United States and its allies to deprive Moscow of funds in the wake of the war on Ukraine.

The deal was finalized in April after Pakistan’s minister for petroleum, Musadik Malik, led a delegation to Moscow late last year and a Russian delegation visited Islamabad in March to cement the details.   

The Pakistani government has so far not disclosed the payment method or the price at which it is acquiring crude from Moscow.

Dubai-based oil trading expert Ahmad Waqar told VOA that for the deal to truly ease Pakistan’s economic pain, it should include purchase on credit as Pakistan is strapped for cash.  

“In my opinion, right now, more than discount we need to get cargo on credit,” Waqar said.

Pakistan traditionally buys the bulk of its energy from Gulf countries with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates its top suppliers. While the Saudis have often supplied fuel on credit, Pakistan’s budget for the next fiscal year starting in July does not include any such facility from its Middle Eastern ally.  

Waqar said he believes the cost of getting cargo all the way from Russia via Oman, instead of from Gulf countries located nearby could also chip away at the possible benefit to Pakistan.    

“Russian cargoes are not as cheap as they used to be, let’s say, 10 months ago when India started buying from Russia…There was a different pricing level at the time. Since then, more international traders started buying and prices went up. It’s not possible to now say that ‘I can get Russian cargo very cheaply,’” Waqar said.  

In the past, petroleum minister Malik also tried to downplay the relief Russian oil could provide to Pakistanis at the pump, however, after the arrival of the cargo, local media quoted him saying Pakistanis will see a reduction in prices in a few weeks.  

How much usable fuel will be produced from the Russian crude is also not clear yet. Pakistan Refinery Limited, tasked with processing it, will submit a report to the government detailing the quality and quantity of the products.   

US approval  

Despite initial pushback from Washington, Pakistan’s neighbors China and India’s energy imports from Russia rose after the war in Ukraine began last year, with the latter seeing its purchases increase almost ten-fold since April 2022.  

Responding to Pakistan’s decision to purchase crude oil from Russia, the State Department in April said that it understood the demand for Russian energy and would not interfere in any country’s decision to buy from Moscow.  

“Countries will make their own sovereign decisions. We have never tried to keep Russian energy off the market,” said spokesperson Vedant Patel.    

The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Masood Khan, also dismissed concerns that the deal could damage already strained ties between Islamabad and Washington, saying U.S. officials had been consulted.   

“We have placed the first order for Russian oil, and this has been done in consultation with the United States government. There’s no misunderstanding between Washington and Islamabad on this count,” Khan told a gathering at the Washington-based Wilson Center in April.
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