EN
EN
EN
Stay on top of Russia-Ukraine war 02-07-2024 developments on the ground with KyivPost fact-based news, exclusive video footage, photos and updated war maps.
With Russian forces dying to find Ukrainian soldiers hiding in occupied Mariupol, Ihor had to invent identities to stay alive. Hundreds of kilometers away, his pregnant wife was about to give birth.
The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.
Donald Trump does not have presidential immunity and can be prosecuted on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, a US court has ruled. Mr. Trump had claimed in the landmark legal case that he was immune from criminal charges for acts he said fell within his duties as president. But Tuesday's ruling in Washington DC struck down that claim. It is a setback for Mr. Trump who has for years cited presidential immunity while battling multiple cases - BBC
The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned against further escalation in the Middle East. In a statement issued Tuesday, the ICRC said: “We are deeply concerned by the waves of escalating violence in the Middle East and strongly warn against the further regionalization of the conflict in Gaza and Israel. This region has been mired in a humanitarian crisis for decades, with civilians in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere paying the highest price. Intensifying hostilities are likely to cause yet more suffering and exacerbate existing humanitarian emergencies. What people in the region need and deserve above all is a respite from violence.”
Securing the shells has been a priority for Kyiv, which is burning through its reserves as Russia throws manpower and resources in a bid to make territorial gains.
Ukraine on Wednesday urged the European Union to take “urgent steps” to increase deliveries of artillery shells, whose stocks Kyiv says are desperately needed to defend the frontline against Russia.
Securing the shells has been a priority for Kyiv, which is burning through its reserves as Russia throws manpower and resources in a bid to make territorial gains.
The numbers behind future US military assistance to Ukraine – if Congress ever approves it – seem pretty straightforward, but there’s a lot of fine print in H.R. 815.
For Israelis and Ukrainians fighting a war and looking to Washington to find a way to de-couple proposed US national security emergency spending from a politically-explosive domestic immigration bill, the future of American military assistance was still murky and worrying.
But the details of the Washington plan to commit resources to national security emergencies overseas, particularly the Israeli war against Hamas and Ukraine’s war against Russia, became a lot clearer on Wednesday, with the publishing of the draft bill that has been argued about for months, was uploaded to the internet.
Western sanctions on high tech equipment and new or replacement parts for locomotives have reduced the Russian state-run rail system's ability to move freight.
Russian state-run railroads suffer from reduced freight capacity due to Western sanctions on parts supplies that reduce locomotive engines available for cargo transport, especially in the last six months.
Since the end of 2023, the state-owned Russian railway (RZHD) has been facing a shortage of locomotives, as the volume of rolling stock repairs and their duration have increased significantly due to a lack of sanctioned imported parts.
After refusing outright to debate the bill last month, 243 lawmakers approved the measure in its first reading on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s parliament tentatively backed a bill on Wednesday aimed at drafting more soldiers into the army, a deeply divisive proposal in a nation exhausted by fighting.
Kyiv’s military had for months been asking the government to draft more soldiers, to boost its dwindling ranks and reprieve its fatigued frontline troops.
Military partisans say they have identified the locations of Russian military equipment and have provided its coordinates to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The Ukrainian partisan group ATESH reported via Telegram that they had observed the movement of military equipment in the Russian-occupied city of Horlivka in the Donetsk region.
“Our operatives recorded the movement of occupiers’ equipment, including tanks, in Horlivka. Coordinates: 48.312411, 37.980464,” the caption accompanying the video released by the partisans read.
Canadian leading Global Affairs Analyst Michael Bociurkiw discusses how he became a top international journalist and commentator.
Elsewhere, CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour and the BBC’s Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg were among those who refuted Carlson’s claim on social media.
The Kremlin said Wednesday “many” foreign news outlets had requested to interview President Vladimir Putin, contradicting talk show host Tucker Carlson’s claim he was the only Western reporter to ask.
The former Fox News host, who visited Moscow for an interview with Putin this week, said no Western journalist had “bothered” to request access to the Kremlin leader since Moscow’s Ukraine offensive began.
Oleksii Sobolev, gave Kyiv Post details of the conditions, donation schedule and repayment terms of the loan element for an EU aid package set to start in March.
On Feb. 1, the EU’s 27 leaders agreed a €50 billion aid package for Ukraine in the next four years. The funds will be provided in a framework designed by the European Commission called the “Ukraine Facility” which will cover all non-military aid.
€39 billion will go towards budgetary support of Ukraine. However, the program schedules payment in tranches subject to Ukraine implementing reforms in certain areas, Oleksii Sobolev, Deputy Ukraine's Minister of Economy, said in an interview with Kyiv Post.
Four large gas leaks were discovered on Nord Stream’s two pipelines off the Danish island of Bornholm at the end of September 2022.
The Swedish prosecutor probing the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines linking Russia and Germany said Wednesday he was closing the investigation, citing a lack of jurisdiction.
Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said he had had “in-depth cooperation” with German authorities in their investigation, and would “hand over material that can be used as evidence in the German investigation.”
The Belarusian ambassador to Moscow said on Tuesday that it was “perplexing” that some individuals and organizations banned in Russia remained legitimate in Belarus and vice versa.
On Tuesday the independent Russian media site Meduza cited an interview published by the Belarusian Belta news site with its ambassador to Moscow, Dmitry Krutoy. In it he claimed the “two allies” were working to create a shared database of “extremists,” and that combining the lists “will be resolved in the near future.”
Krutoy said that “Citizens are bewildered when some of the resources recognized as extremist, in Russia, publish some messages here [in Belarus], or vice versa, and those which are recognized as extremist in our country, publish messages in Russia… [where] criminal cases are not initiated in the Russian Federation.
President Zelensky’s announcement of the creation of the “Unmanned Systems Force” underlines how the weapons have become crucial to fighting the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s President signed a decree on Tuesday to create a separate branch within the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) dedicated to the use of drones and associated technology.
Zelensky said during his nightly video address: “I have just signed a decree initiating the establishment of a separate branch of our Defense Forces – the Unmanned Systems Forces.
The Miss Japan Association said Monday that it had accepted a request from Shiino to return the crown for “personal reasons”, adding there would be no Miss Japan for 2024.
The Ukraine-born winner of the Miss Japan pageant has relinquished her crown after a report emerged of an affair she had with a married doctor.
Karolina Shiino’s nomination in January first sparked debate after some right-wingers questioned the title being awarded to a naturalised Japanese citizen.
The operation, carried out in a zone constantly patrolled by the Russian Air Force and Navy, resulted in the capture of important equipment and the destruction of a critical radar antenna.
Ukrainian special forces revealed on-the-scene footage of its flash-of-lightning special operation “Citadel” during which they blew up a mining platform illegally captured by the Russians in the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SSO) of the Armed Forces reported via Telegram details of the operation with up-close, in-person video.
The standalone bill was also opposed by 13 Republicans as it did not contain budgetary offsets that conservatives have been pushing for with every proposal for new spending.
US lawmakers voted Tuesday to reject a standalone Israel aid bill denounced by critics as a “cynical” bid to thwart a cross-party border security and foreign assistance package that would include cash for war-torn Ukraine.
Republicans in the House of Representatives scheduled the vote after the Democratic-led Senate released a bipartisan bill Sunday pairing billions of dollars for Israel and Ukraine with some of the strictest immigration curbs in decades.
In a post on Telegram on Wednesday morning, President Zelensky said: “We will certainly respond to Russia – terrorists will always feel the consequences of their actions.”
At least five people are dead and dozens more wounded after another Russian mass missile attack on cities across Ukraine on Wednesday morning.
Four people are known to have died in Kyiv and one in Mykolaiv.
US right-wing ex-pundit will interview Putin; Biden again presses Congress on aid bill; Ukraine’s ammo shortage gets worse as Moscow steps up attacks around Avdiivka especially, but AFU makes gains
Overview:
Fired by Fox News, US right-wing provocateur now hitches his wagon to Putin interview
The local military head said that “all is not lost,” but that Russian forces are amassing at the city’s doorstep.
A local official in the linchpin city of Avdiivka sounded the alarm on Tuesday that, as invading forces grow closer to the Ukrainian-held industrial hub in Donetsk, “the situation is very difficult, and in some places, critical.”
For nearly four months, Moscow has focused massive resources on taking Avdiivka, losing more than 13,000 troops there in the process. Since the new year, the red-shaded portion of maps that designate Russian-controlled territory looks something like a claw emerging from the southeast, gradually encircling its grasp on the city, except, at least for now, a broad supply corridor and lifeline along on northwestern radius.
