International

Kyiv ‘ready to fight’ as Russian forces close in on Ukraine capital

Published

2 years ago

March 13, 2022

Ukrainian officials have said Kyiv is “ready to fight” as Russian forces renewed their bombardment on the capital and observers warned of “an unimaginable tragedy” unfolding after more than two weeks of war.

Air raid sirens and shelling rang out over Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities on Saturday morning amid warnings from western defence officials that the Russians were beginning to gain ground around the capital.

There were reports of loud explosions in Dnipro in the country’s east on Saturday, as well as Mykolaiv, Nikolaev and Kropyvnytskyi.

But Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the capital was “ready to fight”. He called it a “city under siege”, with checkpoints prepared and supply lines in place. “Kyiv will stand until the end.”

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies on Saturday has shown homes and buildings on fire and Russian artillery battalions appearing to fire on towns surrounding to the north-west of the Ukrainian capital as forces advance. The Guardian has not independently verified the images.

A senior US defence official said at a Pentagon briefing on Friday: “We do assess that the Russians are beginning to make more momentum on the ground towards Kyiv, particularly from the east.”

The UK Ministry of Defence said on Saturday morning that “the bulk of Russian ground forces” were around 25km from the centre of Kyiv, while the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remain encircled and continued to suffer heavy Russian shelling.

However, the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, said that Russian operations around Kyiv “remained largely stalled over the past 24 hours” to “resupply and refit frontline units” – an assessment shared by Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, who said on Friday that the Russian advance had been halted over the past day.

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on Ukrainians to continue fighting, but said living conditions in the Kyiv region had deteriorated into a “humanitarian catastrophe” with disrupted gas, heating and water. The Ukrainian president said his country had reached a “strategic turning point” in the conflict. “It is impossible to say how many days we still have [ahead of us] to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it,” he said. “We are already moving towards our goal, our victory.”

About 2 million people – half the population of the metropolitan area – had left the capital, the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said on Friday, and those who remained continued to prepare for its defence.

“Every street, every house is being fortified,” he said. “Even people who in their lives never intended to change their clothes, now they are in uniform with machine guns in their hands.”

Ukrainian soldiers described fierce fighting for control of the main highway leading into the capital, while missile strikes were reported hitting just outside Kyiv’s city limits on Friday.

“It’s frightening, but what can you do?” said Vasil Popov, a 38-year-old who works in advertising sales. “There is nowhere to really run or hide. We live here.”

Continuing Russian bombardments and attacks on civilians in cities across Ukraine have prompted warnings of “an unimaginable tragedy” and a new flurry of alarm from the UN that Russia is committing war crimes.

“We are really heading towards an unimaginable tragedy,” Stephen Cornish of Doctors Without Borders told Agence France-Presse, insisting “there is still time to avoid it, and we must see it avoided”.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped and under fire in Ukrainian cities, but the situation in Mariupol is especially dire. Ten days into Russia’s siege, its population has no access to electricity or mobile phone networks, and water and food are running out. On Friday 7,144 people were evacuated from four Ukrainian cities, Zelenskiy said in a televised address – a much lower number than managed to leave in each of the two previous days.

Zelenskiy accused Russia of refusing to allow people out of Mariupol and said Ukraine would try again to deliver food and medicines there on Saturday.

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Ukraine has repeatedly raised concerns that Moscow’s ally Belarus, which has served as a staging point for Russian forces, will soon have its troops drawn into the invasion. Ukraine’s state centre for strategic communications said Belarus might launch an invasion of Ukraine today, after a meeting in Moscow between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko. Ukraine accused Russia of staging “false flag” air attacks on Belarus from Ukraine to provide an excuse for an offensive.

Putin and Lukashenko agreed on Friday that Moscow would supply its smaller neighbour with military equipment and mutual support against western sanctions, including on energy prices, the official Belarus state news agency BelTA said.

Foreign combatants have already entered the Ukrainian conflict on both sides, but the Kremlin has ramped up efforts to bring in reinforcements from Syria. Syria’s military has begun recruiting troops from its own ranks to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, promising payments of $3,000 a month – a sum of up to 50 times more than a Syrian soldier’s monthly salary. A furious Zelenskiy accused Russia of hiring “murderers from Syria, a country where everything has been destroyed … like they are doing here to us”.

As the war continues, Russia faces an expanding net of sanctions. Western governments have announced plans to impose punitive tariffs on Russian trade to further isolate Moscow from the global economy. The G7 group of wealthy nations said it would strip Russia of “most favoured nation” status under World Trade Organization rules. The US president, Joe Biden, announced plans to ban the import of seafood, vodka and diamonds from Russia, and the UK government says it is planning to ban exports of luxury goods to Russia.

Deutsche Bank and Sony Pictures have joined the exodus of western businesses from Russia. In a statement posted on its website, Deutsche Bank said it was “in the process of winding down our remaining business in Russia” and that there “won’t be any new business in Russia”. Russia has moved to block Instagram after its parent company, Meta, said it would allow calls for violence against Putin and Russian soldiers involved in the invasion of Ukraine to appear on the social media platform. Russian prosecutors demanded that access to Instagram be blocked, and authorities moved to recognise Meta as an “extremist organisation”.

The US has also imposed sanctions on a group of Russia’s elite, including billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, three family members of Putin’s spokesman and members of parliament.

THE GUARDIAN

With Agence France-Presse

Related Topics:Featured Kyiv ready to fight Russian forces Ukraine capital

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International

Large-scale earthquake hits Taiwan

Published

10 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Trends Admin

Large-scale earthquake hits Taiwan

A cluster of earthquakes struck the island republic of Taiwan early Tuesday, the strongest having a magnitude of 6.1, U S Geological Survey reported.

There were no reports of casualties in the quakes, although there were further damages to two multi-story buildings that had been evacuated following a magnitude 7.4 quake that hit the island earlier this month, killing 13 people and injuring over 1,000. That earthquake was centred along the coast of the rural and mountainous Hualien County.

It was the strongest earthquake in the past 25 years in Taiwan and was followed by hundreds of aftershocks. The quakes Tuesday’s are considered the latest of those.

According to the USGS, Tuesday’s quake of 6.1 magnitude had its epicentre 28 kilometres (17.5 miles) south of the city of Hualien, at a depth of 10.7 kilometers. The half-dozen other quakes ranged from magnitude 4.5 to magnitude 6, all near Hualien. Taiwan’s own earthquake monitoring centre put the magnitude of the initial quake at 6.3. Such small discrepancies are common between monitoring stations.

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The largest among them were two earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 and 6.3 that occurred at 2:26 a.m. and 2:32 a.m. Tuesday, respectively, according to the Taiwan center. Numerous of the scores of aftershocks could be felt on the upper floors of apartment buildings in the capital, Taipei, about 150 kilometres (93 miles) across steep mountains to the northwest.

The Full Hotel in downtown Hualien partially collapsed during the quakes and was left leaning at a severe angle. However, it had been undergoing renovations and was unoccupied at the time. The nearby Tong Shuai Building was also empty, having been marked for demolition after being heavily damaged in the April 3 quake.

Schools and offices in Hualien and the surrounding county were ordered closed on Tuesday as hundreds of aftershocks continued to strike on land and just off the coast in the Pacific Ocean, the vast majority below magnitude 3. Authorities advised anyone whose home had been damaged in the last quake to move out until the aftershocks subsided, and some decided to wait in their cars.

Large-scale earthquake hits Taiwan

International

Stormy flood: Dubai airports return to operations after flights cancellation

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Trends Admin

Stormy flood: Dubai airports return to operations after flights cancellation

Emirates Airlines, in conjunction with FlyDubai, has resumed its regular flight operations from Dubai International Airport, marking a pivotal moment in the restoration of normalcy following the recent disruptions.

The decision on flight resurgence was finalised on Saturday, April 20, 2024, after the unprecedented rainfall, resulting in significant flooding across the city, inflicted substantial challenges on Dubai International Airport, disrupting flight schedules and causing numerous cancellations and delays.

Emirates Airlines, the largest carrier at the airport, bore the brunt of the impact, with approximately 400 flights cancelled, exerting strain on passengers and airport infrastructure.

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Tim Clark, President of Emirates, acknowledged the gravity of the situation, highlighting the formidable obstacles presented by the adverse weather conditions. The inundation prompted Emirates and FlyDubai to temporarily halt check-in and transit services at Dubai International Airport, leaving thousands of travelers stranded amidst the chaos.

Speaking via a statement in his open letter addressed to passengers, Clark recognized the frustration stemming from congestion, lack of information, and confusion within the terminals.

“Most sincere apologies to every customer who has had their travel plans disrupted.” With the airport struggling to manage the aftermath of the flooding, hundreds of thousands of passengers found themselves stranded, exacerbating the challenges faced by Emirates, the world’s busiest international aviation hub.

Stormy flood: Dubai airports return to operations after flights cancellation

International

Netanyahu vows to increase military pressure on Hamas

Published

3 days ago

April 21, 2024

Trends Admin

Netanyahu vows to increase military pressure on Hamas

Israel will increase ‘military pressure’ on Hamas in a bid to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed.

Netanyahu threatened action ‘in the coming days’ and promised Israeli forces would ‘deliver additional and painful blows’ without specifying further.

Despite an international outcry, Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the army will launch a ground assault on Rafah, a southern Gaza city so far spared an Israeli invasion where more than 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge.

Israeli strikes on Rafah overnight killed 22 people, including 18 children, health officials said Sunday.

The premier’s latest remarks came a day after US lawmakers approved $13 billion in new military aid to close ally Israel, even as global criticism mounts over the dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas, whose October 7 attack triggered the Gaza war, said the US aid was a ‘green light’ for Israel to ‘continue the brutal aggression against our people’.

Netanyahu, in a video statement on Sunday, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, said Israel ‘will deliver additional and painful blows’ to Hamas.

‘In the coming days we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages,’ he said.

‘We will land more and painful blows on Hamas – soon.’

Israel estimates 129 captives remain in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack, including 34 who the military says are dead.

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The army has said at least some of the hostages are held in Rafah, which has so far been spared an Israeli invasion and is where most of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have sought shelter.

Earlier this week, the G7 group of developed economies said that it opposed a ‘full-scale military operation’ there, fearing ‘catastrophic consequences’ for civilians.

Israeli forces had already been carrying out regular strikes on the city.

Netanyahu has faced pressure within Israel, with an anti-government rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday demanding action to secure the release of hostages.

Ofir Angrest, whose brother Matan was kidnapped on October 7, called for Jewish Israelis to leave an empty chair at their Seder meals, marking the beginning of Passover on Monday, to remember the captives.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

The first Israeli strike in Rafah killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant and the doctors saved the baby, the hospital said. The second strike killed 17 children and two women from an extended family.

‘These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?’ asked one relative, Umm Kareem. Another relative, Umm Mohammad, said the oldest killed, an 80-year-old aunt, was taken out ‘in pieces.’ Small children were zipped into body bags.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18 months old, were among those killed. A woman and three children were still under the rubble.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, at least two-thirds of them children and women.

It has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction. Around 80 per cent of the territory’s population have fled to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.

The $26 billion aid package approved by the US House of Representatives on Saturday includes around $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, which experts say is on the brink of famine. The Senate could pass the package as soon as Tuesday, and President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.

The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the US against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly this month, raising fears of all-out war between the longtime foes.

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Tensions have also spiked in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the military says attacked a checkpoint with a knife and a gun near the southern West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the two killed were 18 and 19, from the same family. No Israeli forces were wounded, the army said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said it had recovered 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp in the West Bank that began late Thursday. Those killed include three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy.

The military said it killed 14 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Ten Israeli soldiers and one border police officer were wounded.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was wounded in an explosion Sunday, the Magen David Adom rescue service said.

A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag planted in a field. When he kicks it, it appears to trigger an explosive device.

At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli military raids, which often trigger gunbattles, or in violent protests.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for new elections to replace Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned.

The war has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians and wounded another 76,980, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count. It says the real toll is likely higher as many bodies are stuck beneath the rubble or in areas that medics cannot reach.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants fight in dense, residential neighborhoods. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The military says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.