Раніше Сейм Польщі ухвалив закон про допомогу громадянам України, які вимушено покинули свою країну через війну
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As Russia lays claim on the southeastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Poland’s president makes an unannounced visit to Ukraine’s capital and addresses parliament in a show of support for the embattled nation. U.S. President Joe Biden signs a hefty aid package to Ukraine while Russia continues pressing its offensive in the eastern Donbas region. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Берлін прагне зменшити свою значну залежність від газу з Росії після вторгнення цієї країни в Україну
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A sea of Ukrainian flags marks the graves of the fallen at Kharkiv’s cemetery N°18.
The cemetery, at Bezliudivka, on the outskirts of Ukraine’s second city, has had a military section for several years.
It has been burying Ukrainian soldiers since the Russian invasion three months ago. And on Saturday, more soldiers were laid to rest beside their comrades.
Two coffins placed on trestles belonged to Sergiy Profotilov, born in 1976, and Igor Malenkov, born in 1985. Both were killed at Vilkhivka, to the east of Kharkiv.
The official date of their deaths marked on their graves was May 11. But that was probably when their bodies were recovered from the village, the scene of fierce fighting before its liberation over a month ago.
“They were found with five other bodies that we couldn’t identify,” said one soldier, who spoke on condition he is not identified.
“We suspect they were executed,” he added. “They were killed by bullets to the back of the head.”
Only half a dozen soldiers and the brother of one of the dead were present for the ceremony, which lasted about an hour.
The military chaplain recited the prayers and sprinkled incense on the coffins under the grey sky, against a background of Russian and Ukrainian artillery fire just a few kilometers away.
The mourners laid red carnations on the graves. Then, after a brief exchange of greetings and embraces, they went their separate ways.
The brother walked alone down a line of dozens of graves, the death certificate in his hand.
Two pickup trucks arrived carrying soldiers from Ukraine’s foreign legion. About a dozen of them have come to pay a final homage to one of their comrades, a Dutch soldier killed by artillery fire.
It was forbidden to film the ceremony or to identify the fallen fighter.
Here, there was no religious ceremony, but a brief speech in English given by an officer. One soldier, with a British flag on his vest, gave a military salute. Another touched the cross before leaving.
At a fifth ceremony, the family of 47-year-old Olexandr Gaponchev was mourning his death at Tsyrkuny, north of Kharkiv. Many of those present in tears.
And a few minutes later, the fifth funeral of the day started.
The mother of the fallen soldier wept inconsolably over her son’s coffin, held up by members of her family, as rain began to fall.
Then as the coffin was lowered into the ground, each mourner threw a fistful of earth into the grave before the cemetery workers filled it in and planted a wooden cross with the name of the dead soldiers.
Behind that grave, a line of Ukrainian flags flapped in the wind, one for each grave.
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Клеман Бон: «Не хочу пропонувати українцям жодних ілюзій чи брехні»
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Раніше сьогодні Генштаб ЗСУ повідомляв, що Росія продовжує обстріли населених пунктів та інфраструктурних об’єктів у прикордонній зоні
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The first Grand Slam tournament without any COVID-19 restrictions since the pandemic started in early 2020 kicked off under menacing skies at Roland Garros Sunday.
The French Open was the first major to be hit by the pandemic when it was postponed two years ago but all safety measures were lifted for this tournament, giving the fortnight a welcome sense of normality again.
Thousands of mask-free spectators flocked into the stadium before play started at 11:00 local time (0900GMT) as Roland Garros opened its gates for the start of the main tournament.
Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, one of the favorites to win the women’s singles, opened proceedings on the main Philippe Chatrier court against Pole Magda Linette who levelled the match at one-set all by winning the second set tiebreak.
The highlight of the day will be teenage sensation Carlos Alcaraz starting his campaign against Argentine Juan Ignacio Londero in the last match on Chatrier.
The French Open is the only one of the four majors to start on a Sunday.
World number one and defending champion Novak Djokovic is due to make his return to Grand Slam action on Monday after he was not allowed to take part in the Australian Open because of his refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The Serbian is bidding to match 13-times French Open champion Rafael Nadal’s men’s record of 21 Grand Slam titles and the two are on a quarter-final collision course.
Iga Swiatek, the hot favorite in the women’s draw, is scheduled to play her first match on Monday or Tuesday.
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Britain has insisted it is up to the European Union to unblock political paralysis in Northern Ireland, after assuring a delegation from the U.S. Congress of its “cast-iron” commitment to peace in the province.
The UK government has provoked anger on both sides of the Atlantic with a plan to overhaul the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, a trading arrangement that was agreed as part of its Brexit divorce deal with the EU.
London is bidding to placate pro-UK unionists who are refusing to join a new power-sharing government in Belfast — led for the first time by pro-Irish nationalists — until the protocol is reformed.
Interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis demanded that Brussels adopt a new negotiating mandate to address the fierce objections of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
“I made this point to the EU myself before the (May 5) elections. My view was, it was much easier to get a deal before the elections than afterwards,” Lewis said.
“The idea that it was going to be easier after the elections was a crazy one from the EU.”
The protocol recognized Northern Ireland’s status as a fragile, post-conflict territory that shares the UK’s new land border with the EU.
Keeping the border open with neighboring Ireland, an EU member, was mandated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, given that the frontier was a frequent flashpoint during three decades of violence.
‘Frank’ discussion
But the protocol’s requirement for checks on goods arriving from England, Scotland and Wales has infuriated the DUP and other unionists, who say it drives a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Lewis stressed that the DUP, as the biggest unionist party, had a democratic mandate to back its position.
“And at the moment, the protocol, which the EU claims is about protecting the Good Friday Agreement, is the very document putting the Good Friday Agreement most at risk,” he said.
But the EU insists the protocol is not up for renegotiation.
And last week Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, warned that the UK could forget about a post-Brexit trade deal if it rewrites the agreement.
On Saturday, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss met in England with a congressional delegation led by Richard Neal, a senior member of Pelosi’s Democratic party in the House.
“We discussed our cast-iron commitment to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, the importance of free trade and our condemnation of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Truss tweeted.
The foreign ministry declined to comment further.
But according to Britain’s Observer newspaper on Sunday, Truss told Neal’s delegation that London could not let the “situation drag on” if the EU did not respond favorably.
Neal, however, stressed Washington’s “unity” with the EU after the members of Congress visited Brussels on Friday.
And after what he called the “frank” meeting with Truss, the Democrat tweeted on Sunday: “I urge good faith negotiations with the EU to find durable solutions for post-Brexit trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
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Жоден із президентів наразі не повідомляв про відвідини Ради офіційно
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For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:
4:04 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry says Russia has deployed Terminator tank support vehicles to the Severodonetsk area of the Donbas region. That area remains a key priority for Russia, the update says. However, it notes, “with a maximum of 10 Terminators deployed they are unlikely to have a significant impact on the campaign.”
3:02 a.m.: The New York Times reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia’s blockade of grain shipments “will create a food crisis if we do not unblock the routes for Ukraine.” Appealing for weapons, he said a military solution was one way to unblock them.
2:04 a.m.: CNN, citing Russian state media, reports that Russia may swap Ukrainian prisoners for a pro-Russian politician and oligarch.
That man, Viktor Medvedchuk, has been in Ukrainian custody since April. Before the Russian invasion, CNN reports, he’d been accused of treason.
1:07 a.m.: International sanctions have “practically broken” logistics in Russia, Al Jazeera reports.
“The sanctions imposed on Russia… have practically broken all logistics in our country. And we have to look for new logistics corridors,” said Vitaly Savelyev, Russia’s transport minister.
12:02 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that Russia has again accused Ukraine of attacking its settlements. Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region, said there were no casualties or damage to infrastructure.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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There will be no cease-fire or concessions to Russia, Ukraine’s lead negotiator said Saturday as Russia upped its assault on Luhansk, one of the two provinces that make up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
“The war will not stop (after concessions). It will just be put on pause for some time,” Mykhailo Podolyak, who is also an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said, explaining Ukraine’s position in light of recent calls for a cease-fire from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. “They’ll start a new offensive, even more bloody and large-scale,” Podolyak added.
Pro-Russian separatists have fought Ukraine for control of the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces – which together make up the Donbas – since 2014, when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukrainian forces in the two provinces said via Facebook that at least seven people had been killed in Donetsk in the previous 24 hours when Russians, using aircraft, artillery, tanks, rockets, mortars and missiles, pummeled civilian structures and residential areas, Reuters reported.
The Ukrainians said they had turned back nine attacks, destroying five tanks and 10 armored vehicles, according to the Facebook post.
“The situation in Donbas is extremely difficult,” Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address. He said Ukrainian forces were holding off the Russian army as it was trying to attack the cities of Sloviansk and Sievierodonetsk.
On Friday night Zelenskyy said that victory against Russia will ultimately come through a diplomatic settlement.
“The victory will be difficult, it will be bloody and in battle, but its end will be in diplomacy. I am very convinced of this,” Zelenskyy said in a Ukrainian television interview late Friday. “There are things that we can’t bring to an end without sitting at the negotiation table.”
The Ukrainian leader also said his country is attempting to recover fighters who surrendered to Russian forces after weeks of fighting at the Azovstal steel plant in the southern port city of Mariupol.
“Everything will depend on (the responsibilities) the U.N., the Red Cross and the Russian Federation took on themselves, that they (the fighters) all will be in safety, waiting for one or the other exchange format,” he said. He said Ukraine’s intelligence service is making preparations “for a dialogue and an exchange.”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly three months ago, on Feb. 24.
Concern for the treatment of those fighters increased Saturday when Denis Pushilin, the pro-Kremlin head of an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow-backed separatists, said they would face tribunals.
Pushilin said there were 2,439 people in custody, including some foreign nationals among the fighters.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Saturday that Ukraine would fight for the return of every soldier.
There was no immediate confirmation from Ukraine that Mariupol was fully under Russian control.
The port city is the scene of the war’s bloodiest siege, with Russian forces bombarding it for nearly three months. Much of Mariupol has been reduced to rubble, and more than 20,000 civilians are feared dead.
But its capture adds to Moscow’s goal of a land route from Russia to the Crimea and perhaps beyond.
Russia destroyed a Ukrainian special operations base near Odesa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port on Saturday, as well as a significant cache of Western-supplied weapons in northern Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, The Associated Press reported, quoting Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side.
The end of the fighting in Mariupol not only gives Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory, but it allows him to shift fighters east to the Donbas.
Among the developments there:
The only functioning hospital in Sievierodonetsk, the main city under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region, has three doctors left and enough supplies for 10 days, Gov. Serhii Haidai said.
Haidai also said Russian troops destroyed a bridge on the Siverskiy Donets River between Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. There was fighting on the outskirts of Sievierodonetsk from morning through the night, Haidai said on the Telegram messaging app.
A monastery in the village of Bohorodichne in the Donetsk region was evacuated after it was hit by a Russian airstrike, the regional police said Saturday, the AP reported.
About 100 monks, nuns and children had been sheltering in the basement of the church and no one was hurt, the police said in a Facebook post, which included a video of the damage to the monastery as well as nuns, monks and children boarding vans on Friday for the evacuation.
Zelenskyy on Saturday emphasized that the Donbas remains part of Ukraine and his forces were fighting to liberate it.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Припинення боїв без виведення військ призведе до того, що Росія через якийсь час «почне новий наступ, ще кривавіший і масштабніший», вважає радник голови ОП
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North Macedonia’s fugitive former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has been handed a nine-year prison sentence for illegally ordering the 2011 demolition of a multimillion-dollar residential and business complex owned by a former political ally turned opponent.
The Criminal Court in the capital, Skopje, found that the demolition was an “act of political revenge” against Fijat Canoski, then the leader of the small Party for European Future (PEI), who had left Gruevski’s conservative government coalition and joined the opposition.
Three other former officials at the time of the demolition were also sentenced late Friday. Toni Trajkovski, the former mayor of the Gazi Baba municipality, one of the 10 neighborhoods that make up Skopje, and a former municipal official were sentenced to four years each in prison while former Transport Minister Mile Janakieski got three years in prison. The three were also sentenced to pay a total of 11 million euros ($11.6 million) in damages.
Three other officials were acquitted.
This is Gruevski’s fourth conviction since he left office in 2016 after nearly 10 years in power.
In 2018, he was sentenced to two years for unlawfully influencing interior ministry officials over the purchase of a luxury armored car. In 2020, he received 1½ years in prison for orchestrating violence against his political opponents in 2013. In April 2022, he was sentenced to seven years for using his party’s funds to enrich himself.
Gruevski fled to Hungary in 2018 before his first sentence could be carried out. He has compared himself in social media postings to Joseph K., the main character of Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial” who is convicted and executed without ever learning of what he is accused.
There are two more cases pending against Gruevski for corruption, election irregularities and abuse of office. The charges stem from a wiretapping scandal that broke in 2015, when it emerged that the phone conversations of more than 20,000 people had been illegally recorded, including those of politicians, judges, police, journalists and foreign diplomats.
The scandal brought down Gruevski’s government and he lost the subsequent 2016 election to Social Democrat Zoran Zaev.
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The Ukrainian forces who made a determined last stand in a Mariupol steel mill against Russian troops were a mixture of seasoned soldiers, border guards, a controversial national guard regiment and volunteers who took up arms in the weeks before Russia’s invasion.
As Russia announced it had completed its takeover of Mariupol with the surrender of the fighters who served as the final obstacle, Ukraine’s government did not confirm the city’s fall. Earlier in the week, Ukrainian officials said its combatants in the Azovstal steel plant had completed their mission and were being evacuated, describing them as heroes who had fulfilled a grueling task.
Here’s a look at these Ukrainian forces, who were taken prisoner by the Russians as they left the plant, and what they accomplished:
Who were the defenders of Mariupol?
Russia’s Defense Ministry said a total of 2,439 Ukrainian fighters from the steelworks had surrendered since Monday, including over 500 Friday, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
The fighters who held out at Azovstal, for much of the nearly three-month siege of Mariupol with Ukrainian civilians who sought safety in the plant’s underground bunkers and tunnels, came from a variety of different military and law enforcement units, according to Ukrainian officials.
There was the Azov Regiment, which is part of Ukraine’s National Guard; the 36th Special Marine Brigade of Ukraine’s Naval Forces and the 12th brigade of the National Guard. Border guards, police officers, and territorial defense squads formed shortly before the war supplemented their ranks.
The bulk of these forces were deployed to defend Mariupol, home to a strategically located port, at the start of the Russian invasion. Marines from the 36th brigade held the port and another large plant in Mariupol for more than a month, until they ran out of supplies and ammunition.
They moved to the Azovstal steel mill to join the Azov Regiment, a national guard unit with roots in the far right, and some of them were captured by the Russians.
Why does Russia label them ‘nationalists’?
In announcing Azovstal’s seizure, the Russian Defense Ministry’s chief spokesperson referred to the Azov Regiment’s fighters as Nazis and said their commander was taken away in an armored vehicle because of residents’ alleged hatred of him “for numerous atrocities.”
No evidence has surfaced of the regiment mistreating Ukrainian civilians, hundreds of whom sheltered underground with the fighters. The regiment released several videos taken inside Azovstal that showed their members interacting with the civilians and giving children sweets.
Russian officials and state media repeatedly made negative assertions about the Azov Regiment.
The National Guard unit grew out of a group called the Azov Battalion, formed in 2014 as one of many volunteer brigades that rose to bolster Ukraine’s underfunded and questionably led military in the fight against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
That conflict broke out after massive protests drove Ukraine’s Kremlin-leaning president from office.
The Azov Battalion drew its initial fighters from far-right circles and elicited criticism for some of its tactics. Its current members rejected accusations of nationalism and radicalism. Sviatoslav Palamar, the regiment’s deputy commander, said in a recent interview from the steel mill that he preferred the term “patriotism.”
What did the defenders accomplish?
As Mariupol became a symbol of the suffering and resistance of Ukrainians after Russia invaded their country, Ukrainian officials repeatedly stressed the role the fighters at Azovstal played in defending the city and stymying Russian progress elsewhere.
“The Ukrainian troops in Mariupol have already performed a feat, drawing the elite forces of the Russian army onto themselves and significantly slowing down the advance of the Russians in the southeast,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said.
After the plant’s defenders were instructed to end their fight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the move was proper and humane because “Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle.”
The ruined seaside city and the outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian fighters whose persistence frustrated Russia’s objective to capture Mariupol quickly are now irrevocably etched into Ukrainian history, regardless of the outcome of the war.
The defense of Mariupol “will go down in history as Thermopylae of the 21st century,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, said as the fighters started leaving the plant. “The Azovstal defenders thwarted the enemy’s plans to seize eastern Ukraine, drew away enormous numbers of enemy forces, and changed the course of the war.”
Thermopylae is widely considered one of history’s most glorious defeats, in which 300 Spartans held off a much larger Persian force in 480 B.C. before finally succumbing. They were killed to a man, including their king.
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«Путін чітко заявив про свої амбіції щодо розширення Росії. Те, що його спроби взяти Київ не увінчалися успіхом, не означає, що він відмовився від цих амбіцій»
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За словами Ердогана, ці країни мають відмовитися від фінансової і політичної підтримки «терористичних» груп, які загрожують національній безпеці Туреччини
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A storm that swept across parts of Germany generated three tornadoes, the country’s weather service said Saturday. One of them left a trail of destruction and more than 40 people injured in a western city.
Meteorologists had warned of heavy rainfall, hail and strong gusts of wind in western and central Germany on Friday, and people in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia were advised to stay home. Storms on Thursday had already disrupted traffic, uprooted trees that toppled onto rail tracks and roads, and flooded hundreds of basements in western Germany.
The German Weather Service confirmed three tornadoes in North Rhine-Westphalia — in Paderborn, in nearby Lippstadt, and on the edge of the town of Hoexter, news agency DPA reported.
Forty-three people were injured in Paderborn as the tornado tore across the city’s downtown area on Friday afternoon, 13 of them seriously, Mayor Michael Dreier said.
Trees in a park and stop lights “snapped like matches,” roofs were ripped off buildings and windows smashed, he told reporters on Saturday, and the storm left a roughly 300-meter-wide trail of destruction. A tree hit the windshield of a fire truck, but the occupants weren’t hurt.
Police urged people to stay home or stay out of the city on Saturday so as not to get in the way of recovery work. They said they still expected possible risks from high wind.
Further south, authorities in Bavaria said 14 people were injured Friday when the wooden hut they were trying to shelter in collapsed during a storm at Lake Brombach, south of Nuremberg.
Elsewhere in Europe, Spain was sweltering Saturday under unusually high temperatures for late spring, with a mass of hot, dry air carrying dust from North Africa.
The mercury rose to 42.3 degrees Celsius (108 Fahrenheit) on Friday afternoon in Andujar, in the southern Andalucia region, after reaching 39.5 degrees Thursday. Two of the region’s provincial capitals, Cordoba and Sevilla, also saw similar temperatures.
At least 13 regions were on alert Saturday due to heat, Spain’s State Meteorological Agency AEMET said, and the temperatures could provoke storms in five of them. The “unusual and extreme” temperatures are expected to peak Saturday.
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