Most of those killed in the crash near Kharkiv were military cadets, officials say
At least 22 people including military cadets were killed and two others were seriously injured when a Ukrainian air force plane crashed near Kharkiv in the east of the country, the interior ministry said.
Deputy interior minister Anton Gerashchenko confirmed the death toll, describing the incident as a “shock”, and saying that the cause of the crash on Friday was being investigated.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Testimony of HGV drivers from ex-Soviet countries raises fresh questions over supply chain
Haulage drivers delivering to Amazon distribution centres across Europe allege that safety records are being deliberately manipulated and wages withheld in a breach of the e-commerce multinational’s pledges about working conditions in its supply chain.
HGV drivers recruited from former Soviet-bloc countries have told the Guardian that they were instructed to cheat tachograph machines that log their working hours, so that they could drive illegally long and unsafe stints in western Europe.
Continue reading...Committee says secretary of state has refused to comply with subpoenas for documents connected to Ukraine scandal
Congressional Democrats have launched contempt proceedings against Mike Pompeo for his refusal to comply with subpoenas for documents connected to the Ukraine scandal that led to Donald Trump’s impeachment.
The move is the culmination of a long-running struggle over Congress’s authority to conduct oversight of government agencies. The secretary of state, who was a fierce advocate of congressional rights when he was a Republican representative from Kansas, has ignored a string of demands for documentation from the Democrat-controlled House foreign affairs committee (HFAC).
Continue reading...A gunman in Ukraine has released 13 hostages after the country's president agreed to post a video on Facebook recommending a 2005 animal rights documentary.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy promoted Earthlings, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, to help end an hours-long standoff in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk, where 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh had seized a bus with the people onboard.
The video has since been taken down from Facebook and Kryvosh arrested.
Continue reading...Gunman surrenders after video recommending 2005’s Earthlings posted on Facebook
A gunman in Ukraine armed with an automatic rifle and grenades has surrendered to police and released 13 hostages after the country’s president consented to his demand to recommend the 2005 film Earthlings starring Joaquin Phoenix.
The niche film recommendation, delivered by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over Facebook, helped end an hours-long standoff in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk, where 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh seized a bus and demanded that dozens of government officials admit to being “terrorists”.
Continue reading...Graffiti spray-painted on a monument to Nazi soldiers in a small Canadian city is being investigated by police as a hate crime – a move that has prompted disbelief among human rights advocates.
Around 21 June, the words “Nazi war monument” were spray-painted on to a cenotaph commemorating soldiers in the 14th SS Division in an Ontario cemetery, the Ottawa Citizen reported.
Continue reading...Missile defence operators had failed to recalibrate their systems, Tehran says
A report from Iranian investigators on the shooting down in January of a Ukrainian jet has blamed a misaligned air defence system giving wrong information to its operators, who did not seek authorisation to fire before killing all 176 people onboard.
Iranian officials initially blamed the crash of Ukrainian Airlines flight 752 near Tehran on the morning of 8 January on technical problems with the aircraft, but days later admitted their own missiles had mistakenly downed it.
Continue reading...Bodies of French bulldogs were among about 500 dogs discovered on flight from Ukraine at Toronto airport
Canada has launched an investigation after some 500 puppies – 38 of them dead – were found on board a Ukraine International Airlines plane at the Toronto airport, officials said Saturday.
The surviving French bulldogs, a popular breed in Canada, were suffering from symptoms including dehydration, weakness and vomiting when they were found on the flight from Ukraine that landed at Toronto Pearson airport on 13 June, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a statement.
Continue reading...Much progress has been made in attitudes towards sexual equality and gender identity – but in many places a dramatic backlash by conservative forces has followed. By Mark Gevisser
On a visit to Senegal in 2013, Barack Obama held a press conference with the Senegalese president Macky Sall. “Mr President,” asked an American journalist, “did you press President Sall to make sure that homosexuality is decriminalised in Senegal? And, President Sall,” the journalist continued, “as this country’s new president, sir, will you work to decriminalise homosexuality?”
The question was inevitable: the previous day, while they were flying over the Atlantic, Obama and his staff had erupted into cheers when they heard that the US supreme court had overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, paving the way for same-sex marriage across the country. The president had issued a statement from Air Force One: “The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”
Continue reading...Lockdown exposed the scale of the commercial baby business in Ukraine, and now women hired for their wombs are speaking out
Some are crying in their cots; others are being cradled or bottle-fed by nannies. These newborns are not in the nursery of a maternity hospital, they are lined up side by side in two large reception rooms of the improbably named Hotel Venice on the outskirts of Kyiv, protected by outer walls and barbed wire.
They are the children of foreign couples born to Ukrainian surrogate mothers at the Kyiv-based BioTexCom Centre for Human Reproduction, the largest surrogacy clinic in the world. They’re stranded in the hotel because their biological parents have not been able to travel in or out of Ukraine since borders closed in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Continue reading...Tehran says it will transfer boxes of Flight 752 abroad but insists investigation is nearly complete
The black boxes of a Ukrainian plane that was mistakenly downed near Tehran airport will be of “no help” in any investigation, but Iran is ready to transfer them abroad, state media said Saturday.
Flight 752, an Ukraine International Airlines jetliner, was struck by a missile and crashed shortly after taking off from the Tehran airport on 8 January.
Continue reading...Audit probed energy company Burisma, of which Biden was a board member from 2014-2019
An audit of thousands of old case files by Ukrainian prosecutors found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hunter Biden, the former prosecutor general, who had launched the audit, told Reuters.
Ruslan Ryaboshapka was in the spotlight last year as the man who would decide whether to launch an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, in what became a key issue in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Continue reading...Recordings containing edited conversations between the two while in office published by Ukrainian associate of Rudy Giuliani
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said that leaked recordings of phone calls allegedly between Joe Biden and former president Petro Poroshenko would be investigated by the country’s law enforcement agencies, adding that their contents might be “perceived, qualified as treason”.
The remarks prompted an angry rebuttal from Poroshenko, who said that the Zelenskiy administration may have played a role in their release and should be investigated.
Continue reading...Witnesses accuse government of covering up severity of blaze near site of nuclear disaster
Wildfires in Ukraine have spread to just over a mile from the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a disposal site for radioactive waste, according to activists, as more than 300 firefighters work to contain the blaze.
A video posted by a Chernobyl tour operator showed flames and a cloud of smoke rising within sight of the protective shelter over the carcass of Chernobyl’s Unit 4 nuclear reactor, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Continue reading...Adam Schiff calls Trump ‘vindictive president’ after president fired the inspector general of the US intelligence community
Donald Trump is “decapitating the leadership of the intelligence community in the middle of a national crisis”, senior Democrat Adam Schiff has charged, after the president fired the inspector general of the US intelligence community late on Friday night.
Related: Donald Trump fires intelligence watchdog who sparked impeachment process
Continue reading...Several witnesses in ‘fear for their lives’ if their identities are revealed, hearing into shooting down of airliner is told
Dutch prosecutors have accused Russia of trying to sabotage the investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 in Ukraine in 2014, saying this has cast “a dark shadow” over the impending trial of four suspects.
Pre-trial hearings began in Amsterdam on Monday. Prosecutors say the defendants – three Russians and a Ukrainian – helped arrange the Russian missile system that shot down MH17, a civilian airliner. All 298 people on board were killed. Most of the passengers were Dutch nationals.
Continue reading...Family of Richard Mayne say it could be years before they know why 298 people died
On Sunday Liz Mayne will make a familiar “pilgrimage” to the Netherlands. In 2015, she flew in to inspect the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, shot down over eastern Ukraine the previous summer. “You could still smell the burning,” she says. “It was an overwhelming experience.”
Her son Richard, a second-year student at Leeds University, was one of 298 people on board. Ten were Britons. All perished. Richard was 20. His body was recovered intact from sunflower fields near the village of Hrabove. He was returned in the clothes he had set off in: sweatshirt and socks bearing the logo of his favourite rugby team, the Leicester Tigers.
Continue reading...The TV comic turned maverick Ukrainian leader on Putin, power and Trump’s impeachment
What’s the difference between playing a president on screen and being one in real life? Not much, according to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the man who’s done both.
“It’s very similar,” he says, his compact frame engulfed by a green leather armchair in his opulent presidential office. Then he changes his mind: in fact, the real job lasts a whole five years, and comes with far greater challenges than can fit into one season of a television show. “It’s true there are more problems. They are catastrophic. They appear, I’m sorry to say, like pimples on an 18-year-old kid. You don’t know where they will pop up, or when.” The 42-year-old speaks in his native Russian, his expressive face switching from boyish amusement to tortured concern in a flash.
Continue reading...In an exclusive interview, Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he is ready to walk away from Russia talks unless there is progress
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, believes he can negotiate a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, but has threatened to walk away from talks after a year if there is no progress with his Russian counterpart.
“Time is ticking,” he told the Guardian in a rare interview, to be published in full on Saturday. “The government can spend one year on the entire agreement. Then it should be implemented. Any longer is prohibited.”
Continue reading...Lifelike scenes of violence in Soviet-influenced experimental movie raises ethical concerns
Tatiana Shorokhova, a film critic from St Petersburg, has admitted to feeling sick and “physically afraid” while watching DAU. Natasha, a controversial film by Ilya Khrzhanovsky produced from a years-long experiment on an immersive set built as a replica of a Soviet-era research institute. In fact, she likened the experience to rape.
It was not just the graphic scenes of violence against the titular character or depictions of real sex while drunk, she said, but the understanding that all of this was, in a way, real.
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