International

Russia pushes on key Ukraine city while Kyiv’s Kursk incursion slows

Published

2 weeks ago

September 1, 2024

Ukraine currently controls the Russian town of Sudzha

Russia pushes on key Ukraine city while Kyiv’s Kursk incursion slows

Russia has made sweeping advances in recent days that threaten to outweigh the gains made by Ukraine in its cross-border attack into the Kursk region.

Russian forces are just a few kilometres from the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a crucial logistics hub used by the Ukrainian military.

Home to a key railway station and major roads, Pokrovsk is an essential supply and reinforcement point for Ukraine’s troops on the eastern front line.

Critics in Kyiv fear that the country’s military has made a serious miscalculation.

By sending troops into Kursk instead of reinforcing the eastern frontline, the military has left Pokrovsk and other important Ukrainian towns exposed, these critics say.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

On a visit to the front line, Ukraine’s armed forces chief Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia was throwing “everything that can move” into its assault.

“The situation is extremely difficult,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded on Wednesday.

“If we lose Pokrovsk,” military expert Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov warned, “the entire front line will crumble.”

Why Pokrovsk matters

Pokrovsk is next to another town, Myrnohrad. Together, the two settlements had a pre-war population of over 100,000, most of whom have now fled. They are the last major cities in that part of the Donetsk region that remain under Ukrainian control.

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The battle for Pokrovsk is really a continuation of the battle for Avdiivka, which Ukraine lost in February after months of bloody fighting.

Avdiivka, which is about 40km (25 miles) south-east of Pokrovsk, was seen as a fortress that protected the settlements and roads to its west – helping to bolster Ukraine’s presence along the entire frontline.

When it finally fell, Avdiivka was left in ruins. It was a serious loss for Ukraine.

It meant that Russia could move its focus to Pokrovsk and the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar, which overlooks some of the important cities in Donetsk still under Ukrainian control. Intense fighting there on Saturday left five people dead.

For weeks now a mass evacuation of Ukrainian civilians from Pokrovsk has been under way, with thousands said to have left already.

Gen Syrskyi said he was working “to strengthen the defence of our troops in the most difficult areas of the front, to provide the brigades with a sufficient amount of ammunition and other material and technical means”.

How Russia’s advance gathered speed

Russia has long held Pokrovsk as one of its key objectives. For months its forces have slowly ground towards it.

Experts believe Moscow has deployed around one third of its Central Army Group, or about 30,000 troops, to the offensive – as well as its most battle-ready reserves.

This week, it took the Ukrainian town of Novohrodivka, infuriating some in Ukraine who felt it should have been better defended.

“The trenches in front of Novohrodivka were empty. There was practically no Ukrainian army in the once 20,000-strong city,” Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla wrote on Facebook.

With its forces undermanned and outnumbered, it is believed the Ukrainian military withdrew from Novohrodivka to strengthen its defence of Pokrovsk.

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“The Ukrainian command likely deemed the defence of Novohrodivka not worth the potential losses,” said the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Elsewhere, Russian forces have launched assaults on the town of Selidove, just south of Novohrodivka, and other areas of the Donetsk region nearby.

The Russian offensive has been helped by a shift in tactics, which are increasingly mirroring those used earlier in the war by the Wagner mercenary group.

Ukrainian forces report coming up against wave after wave of Russian infantry sent forwards in an attempt to storm their positions.

Some have dubbed these tactics “meat assaults”.

The tactics – though costly – quickly exhaust Ukrainian units forced to fend off constant attacks.

Armoured vehicles are used sparingly – complicating the task of Ukrainian tanks and artillery, which have little to aim at on the battlefield.

Russia has also been using powerful glide bombs, forcing Ukraine to disperse its units when shelling begins and sometimes even withdraw troops from the front line.

Meanwhile, the progress of Ukraine’s landmark cross-border offensive has slowed considerably in the past week.

Sudzha – the largest settlement Ukraine has captured inside Russia – has a population of around 5,000, which is three times less than that of Novohrodivka, the settlement Russia captured earlier this week.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s commander in chief said that Kyiv’s forces had taken 1,294 sq km (500 sq miles) of territory inside Kursk, including 100 settlements – and captured 594 Russian soldiers in the process.

These figures should be treated with caution, but they are no doubt significant. The question is whether they will justify the potential losses on Ukraine’s eastern frontline.

“One of the objectives of the offensive operation in the Kursk direction was to divert significant enemy forces from other directions, primarily from the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions,” Gen Syrskyi said on Tuesday.

But that objective appears to have failed. Russian forces have not been redeployed from the Pokrovsk frontline.

On the contrary they’ve been strengthened by additional troops and their advance has quickened.

Russia pushes on key Ukraine city while Kyiv’s Kursk incursion slows

Related Topics:Kyiv's Kursk Russia Ukraine

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Nurse escapes gang-rape attempt in Indian hospital, cuts doctor’s private parts with blade

Published

4 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Trends Admin

Nurse escapes gang-rape attempt in Indian hospital, cuts doctor’s private parts with blade

A month after a trainee doctor was raped and m8rdered in Kolkata, India, sparking anger and protests nationwide, a gang-rape attempt was made on a nurse at a private hospital in Bihar.

Police said one of the assaulters is a doctor who is also the administrator of the institution. However, the nurse managed to escape after inflicting a cut on his private parts with a blade.

The nurse was wrapping up work at the RBS Health Care Centre in Gangapur under the Musrighararari police station limits in Samastipur district on Wednesday night when hospital administrator Dr Sanjay Kumar (pictured) and two of his associates – all of whom were drunk – tried to r@pr her.

Trying to free herself from the clutches of Dr Kumar and the others, the nurse used a blade to slash at the doctor’s genitals.

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She managed to escape and dial the police after hiding in a field outside the hospital

Deputy Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar Pandey said a team was rushed to the hospital and, after making sure that the nurse was safe, three people were arrested, including the doctor. The other two accused have been identified as Sunil Kumar Gupta and Awadhesh Kumar.

Mr Pandey said the men had locked the hospital from the inside and turned off the CCTV cameras before trying to s3xually ass@ult the nurse.

“The presence of mind and courage shown by the survivor is praiseworthy,” he said.

The police have recovered half a bottle of liquor, the blade used by the nurse, blood-stained clothes and three cellphones.

Officials said the three men had been drinking before trying to assault the nurse and they will also be charged under prohibition laws because Bihar is a dry state.

Doctor Sanjay is also the organization minister of Hindu Samaj Party.

Nurse escapes gang-rape attempt in Indian hospital, cuts doctor’s private parts with blade

International

Israeli leaflets tell south Lebanon residents to evacuate

Published

10 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Trends Admin

Lebanon's Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack triggered war in the Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)

Israeli leaflets tell south Lebanon residents to evacuate

BEIRUT: Israel dropped leaflets over a Lebanon border village Sunday urging residents to leave, state-run media said, but Israel’s military told AFP a brigade had taken the initiative without approval.

It was the first time Israelis had told residents of south Lebanon to evacuate in 11 months of cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israel over the Gaza war, triggered by Hezbollah ally Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

“The Israeli enemy dropped leaflets over Wazzani calling on those in the area and its surroundings to evacuate,” the official National News Agency said, referring to a southern border village.

Wazzani mayor Ahmed Al-Mohammed shared with AFP a picture of the leaflets that showed a map of the region with the areas marked for evacuation marked in red.

The leaflet read in Arabic: “To all residents and refugees living in the area of the camps, Hezbollah is firing from your region. You must immediately leave your homes and head north of the Khiam region before 04:00 p.m. (1300 GMT). Do not return to this area until the end of the war.”

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It added: “Anyone present in this area after this time will be considered a terrorist.”

Wazzani is an agricultural region where Syrians are often hired to work the land.

Asked about the incident, an Israeli military spokeswoman said the leaflets had been dropped by drone in an area from which rockets had been fired into northern Israel.

“This was an initiative of the 769 Brigade, it was not approved by the Northern Command. An investigation has been opened,” she added.

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli aircraft regularly drop leaflets urging residents to evacuate before an attack.

On Saturday, Hezbollah’s second-in-command Naim Qassem warned that an all-out war by Israel aimed at returning 100,000 displaced people to their homes in areas near the Lebanon border would displace “hundreds of thousands” more Israelis.

The cross-border violence since early October has killed 623 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 141 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

Israeli leaflets tell south Lebanon residents to evacuate

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International

Deadly floods hit Central, Eastern Europe

Published

11 hours ago

September 16, 2024

Trends Admin

Deadly floods hit Central, Eastern Europe

A firefighter died during a flood rescue in Austria and one person drowned in Poland, as torrential rain caused by Storm Boris continued to wreak havoc across Central and Eastern Europe.

In Romania, five people have died, while several remain unaccounted for in the Czech Republic.

The Austrian province surrounding Vienna has been declared a disaster area, with its leaders speaking of “an unprecedented extreme situation”.

Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk declared a state of natural disaster.

Some of the worst rainfall has been in the Czech Republic, where some areas have seen around three months’ rainfall in just three days.

Evacuations are under way and four people remain missing – three in a car which disappeared into a river in North Moravia, and one man who was swept into a flooded stream in South Moravia.

Marek Joch, a resident of Lipov in the southeast, said the town was “closed from all sides” and the “next wave” of the flood is still to come.

“Now everyone is trying to clean up as quickly as possible to prevent further large spills from the river. Unfortunately, no one knows when the water will recede.

“We still have to survive until Tuesday, this is not the end.”

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Jesenik, a town located in the Jeseniky mountains, is described as completely cut off, with roads and rail lines underwater.

Around 17,000 people in the Kłodzko area alone are without power, and internet and mobile telephone connections are down.

Several dozen police and firefighters in Prague were called to rescue a man who went swimming in the flooded Vltava at 7am on Sunday.

On Saturday, police in North Moravia were called after three men were spotted wading into the flooded River Odra on paddleboards.

The mayor of Slobozia Conachi, a village in Romania’s south-eastern Galati region, said 700 homes had been flooded.

“This is a catastrophe of epic proportions,” Emil Dragomir said.

Four people were killed in Galati on Saturday, with a fifth death confirmed on Sunday.

In Austria, governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner said a firefighter had died while pumping out a flooded cellar.

She said the whole of the Lower Austria province has been declared a catastrophe zone.

Multiple trains have been cancelled, parts of the Vienna underground have been closed, and at least one motorway has flooded.

In a post on X, Austria‘s Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the storm situation had “worsened” and was “very serious.”

In the Polish town of Stronie Slaskie, a dam has been breached, releasing a torrent of water that has destroyed at least one house, the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management said.

In the same town a bridge collapsed, funnelling water through the streets.

“Soldiers supporting the local population are cut off from their land route back,” the Polish Ministry of Defence said.

“Many residents have to be evacuated from the roofs of their homes.”

In Glucholazy, in the southwest, the mayor of the town said the local river had overflowed its banks and was flooding the town.

A resident of the town, Zofia Owsiaka, said everyone was “scared” and there seemed to be “no hope of the rain stopping”.

In Krakow, Poland’s second largest city, residents have been offered sandbags for flood protection.

Speaking from the town of Klodzko, one of the worst-affected areas, Tusk said 1600 people in the district had been evacuated.

A total of 17,000 people in the area are without power, he said, and in parts Starlink satellites links are being used to maintain mobile phone signal and internet connections.

He added that a helicopter had been sent to help with rescue efforts in regional capital Wroclaw.

On Sunday, the mayor of Klodzko announced that his town had “lost the battle” against the floods, and that the situation had become “critical”.

Why has Storm Boris been so devastating?

Storm Boris has already brought extreme amounts of rain across central and eastern Europe, with more downpours forecast until at least the end of Monday.

The storm has been so devastating for two reasons.

Firstly, cold air from the north has mixed with moisture drawn up from the unusually warm waters of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Secondly, an area of low pressure has been stuck in a blocked weather pattern, meaning it is trapped between high pressure to both the west and east.

Following extreme flooding in 2021, the World Weather Attribution Network concluded that the warming climate meant the likelihood and intensity of such events in Europe was increasing.