Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 02-11-2024

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

Hungarian President Katalin Novak has resigned after coming under mounting pressure for pardoning a man convicted as an accomplice for helping cover up a sex abuse case in a children’s home. “I made a mistake … Today is the last day that I address you as a president,” she said in a speech broadcast on state television. “I made a decision to grant a pardon last April, believing that the convict did not abuse the vulnerability of children whom he had overseen. I made a mistake as the pardon and the lack of reasoning was suitable to trigger doubts over the zero tolerance that applies to paedophilia,” she added. At least 1,000 people protested in the country’s capital on Friday, demanding her resignation. Hungarian opposition parties had also demanded she leave office - Al Jazeera

The party of the imprisoned former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, won the most seats in parliamentary elections this week, delivering a strong rebuke to the country’s powerful generals and throwing the political system into chaos. While military leaders had hoped the election would put an end to the political turmoil that has consumed the country since Mr. Khan’s ouster in 2022, it has instead plunged it into an even deeper crisis, analysts said. Never before in the country’s history has a politician seen such success in an election without the backing of the generals — much less after facing their iron fist. In voting on Thursday, candidates from Mr. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or P.T.I., appeared to win about 97 seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, the country’s election commission reported on Saturday. The military’s preferred party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or P.M.L.N., led by a three-time former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, won at least 73 seats, the commission said. Only seven seats were left unaccounted for — not enough to change the outcome as reported by the commission - NYT

Fresh off his successful campaign to torpedo a border security bill tied to aid for Ukraine, Donald Trump is now calling only for loans.

With the US Senate set to vote on a $95.3 billion foreign aid package that would provide for Israel and Ukraine, former President Donald Trump on Saturday insisted the US should not provide foreign aid unless it is structured as a loan.

“WE SHOULD NEVER GIVE MONEY ANYMORE WITHOUT THE HOPE OF A PAYBACK, OR WITHOUT ‘STRINGS’ ATTACHED. THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SHOULD BE ‘STUPID’ NO LONGER!” Trump posted Saturday on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded after being banned from Twitter in 2021.

During a recent cybersecurity conference, Kyivstar’s president said hackers attacked the company’s virtual and physical infrastructure and that “a total change in architecture” is needed.

Kyivstar President Oleksandr Komarov has divulged further details about Russia’s cyberattack against the telecommunications company in December, which left its system infrastructure extensively damaged and knocked it out of operation for days.

During a panel discussion at the Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum (KICRF), Komarov said that there were two versions of events according to the ongoing investigation by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), with one version pointing towards compromised accounts between Kyivstar and a service provider.

After a huge shake-up in the top brass of Ukraine’s armed forces, Zelensky met with his new team of military leaders. On Sunday he replaced the commander of the Joint Forces.

President Volodymyr Zelensky spent all day Saturday in meetings with his new team of military leadership. 

“We continue to reboot the management team in the Armed Forces,” he wrote on his official Telegram channel. 

The head of UNESCO and Italy’s ambassador to Ukraine met with the mayor of Odesa to pledge half a billion euros for an ambitious reconstruction project.

The Mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, welcomed an Italian government delegation headed by the Special Envoy for the Reconstruction and Strengthening of Ukraine’s Stability, Davide La Cecilia, in Odesa for an official visit on Feb. 9. The Italian officials were accompanied by the Head of UNESCO desk in Kyiv, Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi.

A working meeting in the City Council was held to discuss restoration of the Transfiguration Cathedral and to present the UNESCO plan for the reconstruction of historical buildings in Odesa damaged by Russian attacks. Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi indicated the main directions of cooperation: the urgent stabilization of damaged monuments, the creation of a masterplan for the management of cultural heritage objects.

Top US participation announced in forthcoming Munch Security Conference that will focus heavily on supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion.

Vice President Kamala Harris will lead the US delegation to the annual Munich Security Conference, the White House said Friday, as a sweeping defense aid package for Ukraine and Israel is stalled in Congress.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has just returned from a trip to the Middle East, will also attend the forum next week, dubbed the Davos of Defense, which brings together top Western diplomats and military officials.

This is a space offering mutual support and assistance to servicemen who had gone through Russian prisons and are now trying to regain strength and get used to a normal life.

At the initiative of Mariupol defenders, a special hub was opened in the capital city of Kyiv to help former prisoners of war, released from Russian captivity, to keep in touch with each other, receive counseling services and rehabilitation advice.

That’s according to the press service of the Coordination Headquarters for POW Treatment, Ukrinform reports.

Falling debris lightly wounded a 39-year-old man in the southern region of Dnipro.

Ukraine said it destroyed most of the 45 attack drones launched by Russia overnight, with little damage reported on Sunday morning.

The announcement comes a day after authorities announced seven killed in a Russian attack that set a petrol station ablaze in Ukraine's second biggest city, Kharkiv.

The Peresopnytsia Gospel, the first Gospel translated into Ukrainian and illuminated as a bound manuscript, is the Ukrainian people’s sacred treasure and pride.

National libraries in all Christian countries keep different versions of the holy scriptures that havegreatly influenced their spiritual development. The Europeans highly esteem the Codex Sinaiticus. The Baltic nations cherish the Zograph Gospel. The Ukrainians keep the Peresopnytsia Gospel with due care and reverence in acknowledgement of itscontribution to shaping Ukraine as a Christian European nation. This book, as the first translation ofthe Word of God into the living Ukrainian language, is their precious literary treasure.

In 988, Prince Volodymyr of Kyiv baptized his people, thus ushering the nascent state of Kyivan Rus into the Christian community of European peoples. 

In taking over as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, who replaces Valery Zaluzhny, will face some formidable tests.

Ukraine's new army head Oleksandr Syrsky, who was appointed in Kyiv's largest military shake up since Russia invaded, is taking the helm at a precarious moment in the war.

After nearly two years of fighting, these are the five most pressing challenges the 58-year-old commander, who was born in Russia, is facing.

Tucker Carlson’s trip to Moscow follows a long tradition of those grasping at an easy opportunity for validation, to assuage inner frustrations and to satisfy delusions of grandeur.

When the chips are down and freedom is on the line, there is always a motley, unimpressive collection of the weak who see their opportunity to shine by antagonism. Moments of historic importance are clear for everyone to see. And when you haven’t got much to offer, what better way to be significant than to grandstand with the enemy to draw attention to yourself? At least history will remember you.

In September 1939, the British were surprised to find a very English-sounding voice on their radio sets. “Germany calling, Germany calling,” it implored. The dissatisfied New York-born William Joyce, an enthusiastic leader in the British Union of Fascists, hadfled to Germany at the beginning of the war. 

The former president boasted about how he would punish NATO countries that don’t pay their bills and reveled in how he sabotaged the border bill that would pave the way for aid to Ukraine.

White House hopeful Donald Trump said on Saturday he would “encourage” Russia to attack members of NATO who had not met their financial obligations, his most extreme broadside against the military alliance he has long expressed skepticism about.

With US lawmakers debating new aid for Ukraine ahead of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, the former president has repeatedly said it was unfair to commit the United States to defending NATO’s 30 other member nations.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

Israeli forces geared up on Friday for a ground assault on Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced by violence further north are trapped in desperate conditions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the military had been told to come up with a plan to evacuate civilians, but aid agencies warned that a military offensive in such a densely populated area could end up killing large numbers of innocent people. “There is a sense of growing anxiety, growing panic in Rafah because basically people have no idea where to go," said Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA. U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday Israel's response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas militants was "over the top" and Washington said it would not support any military operation mounted in Rafah without due consideration for civilians - Reuters

Medical professionals have stepped up calls for President Biden to take a mental competency test after Thursday’s blistering report from special counsel Robert Hur revealed the 81-year-old can’t remember basic facts about his own life and career. The Hur report, released Thursday, assessed Biden as too senile to be prosecuted over his wrongful retention of classified documents and noted the commander-in-chief “did not remember when he was vice president” and “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died” over two days of interviews in October. Something isn’t right, and even if it’s minor, it must be explained to the public,” Dr. Stuart Fischer, a primary care physician at a nursing home in the Bronx, told The Post. “The horse is out of the barn. Not only does [Biden] have an infirmity of some degree, but he has delayed producing objective evidence,” the internal medicine expert added, arguing that “no one is buying” the president’s defenses about his memory. Despite being the oldest president in US history, Biden has refused to take mental acuity tests despite repeated calls to do so from his critics — as well as consistent polling showing a majority of Americans share those concerns - NY Post