Russian Volunteer Corps and Freedom of Russia Legion say they ‘will hand captured soldiers to Kyiv’
A pro-Ukraine group of Russian partisans has said it captured several soldiers during a cross-border raid into southern Russia and will hand them over to Ukrainian authorities.
The Russian Volunteer Corps made the claim in a video statement released on Telegram on Sunday after a raid into the Russian region of Belgorod.
Continue reading...Girl’s body pulled from wreckage and 22 injured after strike Volodymyr Zelenskiy blames on Russia; fires reported in Shebekino town
Rescue teams search through rubble after an airstrike hits a residential district in Ukraine’s central city of Dnipro.
Rescuers were seen digging with their bare hands as they searched for survivors among the debris.
Continue reading...The rider of a motorbike has died following a crash with a competitor in an Ironman European championship race on Sunday, police in the host city of Hamburg said.
Police said there was a head-on crash when a race support motorbike carrying a rider and a passenger collided with a triathlete who was cycling in the opposite direction.
Continue reading...Pontiff appears to reference a woman who drew pilgrims to a statue near Rome she claimed shed tears of blood
Apparitions of the Virgin Mary are “not always real”, Pope Francis has said, in what appears to be an indirect reference to a woman who drew thousands of pilgrims to a town near Rome to pray before a statue that she claimed shed tears of blood.
“Don’t look there,” the pontiff said during an interview with Rai 1 on Sunday when asked about apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
Continue reading...Ten Americans will pay €1 a month to live in Ollolai, birthplace of former Mr Universe Franco Columbu
Ten American professionals are moving to a small town in the middle of Sardinia known for being the birthplace of a former Mr Universe who was a close friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger, paying a token rent of €1 (86p) a month.
The project, called Work from Ollolai and launched by the local council in collaboration with the Sa Mata association, is aimed at boosting the population in the town, located in the mountainous Barbagia region of the Italian island.
Continue reading...Classic, smoke-stained Dutch drinking spots should be given protected status, say campaigners
On the bar is a dispenser for Dutch jenever – the liquor that inspired British gin – silver taps of lager and 10 hard-boiled eggs at €1 a pop.
Café de Druif is one of Amsterdam’s oldest “brown bars”, or bruine kroegen, and part of a movement to preserve these cosy drinking rooms.
Continue reading...Twenty-two people injured including five children, while row continues over closed air raid shelters
A two-year-old girl was found dead under the rubble of a house near the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight as recriminations continued about the availability of air raid shelters in the capital.
Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipro region, said another 22 people were injured, including five children, in an attack that destroyed or damaged several buildings.
Continue reading...Major demonstration is the fifth recent anti-government protest and was sparked by anger over two mass shootings
Tens of thousands gathered on Saturday for the fifth anti-government protest in recent weeks in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, after two back-to-back shootings that killed 18 people, half of them children.
The “Serbia against violence” protests have evolved into some of the largest rallies since widespread demonstrations triggered the fall of strongman Slobodan Milošević more than two decades ago.
Continue reading...EU has called on leaders in Kosovo and Serbia to immediately reduce tensions and halt ‘divisive rhetoric’
Turkey has announced it will be sending commandos to Kosovo on Sunday in response to a Nato request to join the peacekeeping operation after unrest in the north of the country.
In a statement on Saturday, the Turkish defence ministry called for restraint and constructive dialogue to resolve a crisis it said could harm regional security and stability.
Continue reading...Unless Britain develops a closer relationship with the EU it will continue to haemorrhage investment and jobs, says the GMB
The leader of one of the country’s biggest unions has urged Labour to conduct an “honest debate” about the economic damage being caused to working people by Brexit, as evidence grows that it is fuelling inflation and driving jobs and investment abroad.
In an interview with the Observer, Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, which is one of Labour’s biggest financial backers, giving more than £1m a year, said politicians of all parties had been too afraid to admit the adverse consequences that leaving the EU was having on jobs and life in working communities.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president hints at concern over a possible Trump return in 2024 in Wall Street Journal interview
Ukraine’s president has declared his country’s military is ready to launch a long-awaited counteroffensive and hinted at concern about the possibility of Donald Trump retaking the White House.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, giving an interview to the Wall Street Journal, suggested that a significant attack could come soon and said he hoped a change in the US presidency would not impact military aid to Kyiv.
Continue reading...Parents and schools across Greystones adopt voluntary ‘no-smartphone code’ in bid to curb peer pressure
On the principle of strength in numbers, parents in the Irish town of Greystones have banded together to collectively tell their children they cannot have a smartphone until secondary school.
Parents’ associations across the district’s eight primary schools have adopted a no-smartphone code to present a united front against children’s lobbying.
Continue reading...Mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin criticises factionalism within Russian hierarchy
Petraeus continued to discuss Putin and whether he could escalate attacks:
I think you can’t dismiss it. But I think that the actions to dissuade him from doing that have been very considerable. And I think I would certainly hope that they have convinced him that he and Russia would be much worse off if tactical nuclear weapons were used.
President Xi, his partner without limits has actually turned out to have very distinct limits, and prime minister Modi from India at their summit, some months back, both of them made it very clear that this is something he shouldn’t even think about.
I do tend to think that they [Ukraine] will cut this ability of the Russians to resupply Crimea, along the southeast coast, they will severe that line of communication and begin the process of isolating Crimea as well.
Not in this counteroffensive. No.
But if they can get to the point of beginning to isolate Crimea, I think that changes the dynamics very, very substantially. It couldn’t even prompt Putin to start to consider a negotiated resolution.
Continue reading...Kyiv mayor orders air-raid shelters to operate around the clock; Washington says training for Ukraine on advanced US Abrams tanks has begun
Continue reading...Strikes on the capital have caused few casualties but residents face a new ‘psychological terror’
When the air raid alarms go off at around 3am, the first things exhausted Kyvians do is reach for their mobile phones, check the news, message family and friends – and start listening to the explosions that almost certainly follow.
“You wake up, go to a safe space, maybe a shelter, holding your phone. You cannot work, you cannot read; you sit and look around and wait. In the worst case, you hear a distinctive noise, maybe like a motorcycle passing by,” said Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP and leader of the liberal Holos party.
Continue reading...Attacks said to be ongoing in Russian border region, but no new casualties; Moscow launches sixth airstrike in six days
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Ukraine, has posted some more details of Russia’s overnight attack on Kyiv to his official Telegram channel. He writes:
The occupiers continue to terrorise Ukraine with attack drones and missiles.
Around 11pm the enemy attacked Kyiv with Shahed-136/131 kamikaze drones. They entered from the southern direction, using the topography of the area and the course of the Dnieper River.
The aggressor does not stop. Nikopol region came under attack again. At midnight, the Rashists shelled Nikopol. Shells from heavy artillery flew into the city. People are unharmed. Rescuers are examining the area. The enemy is insidious and does not abandon its tactics of terrorising the civilian population.
Continue reading...Freedom of Russia Legion social media reports contradict Russian claims to have repelled the rebel incursion
Ukrainian-backed Russian rebel groups have said they are still fighting inside Russia’s Belgorod region, despite Moscow’s claims on Thursday to have repelled the incursion.
The Freedom of Russia Legion posted videos on social media of combat purportedly in the Belgorod village Novaya Tavolzhanka, between the Ukrainian-Russian border and the town of Shebekino, the legion’s stated goal.
Continue reading...Deza Powell and Paul Larochelle criticise authorities for delays in transferring Adonis to an ICU
The parents of a 10-month-old baby who died on holiday in Portugal have said their lives have been destroyed.
Deza Powell and Paul Larochelle said they wanted answers from the Portuguese authorities after their son, Adonis, died of sepsis on 19 May, 48 hours after he was first treated in hospital.
Continue reading...A rift widened between the president and Kyiv’s mayor after witness reports that three people were locked out on the street during Russian attack
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has ordered an audit of all Ukrainian air-raid shelters as a rift widened with Kyiv’s mayor after the deaths of three people who were locked out on the street during a Russian attack.
A nine-year-old girl, her mother and another woman were killed by falling debris after rushing to a Kyiv shelter on Thursday morning and finding it was shut. Later that day, the Ukrainian president accused Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, and other city leaders of negligence. Klitschko responded by saying the responsibility for the tragedy should be shared between them.
Continue reading...From Sweden to the US, the handling of the pandemic has been questioned. In some cases criminal proceedings are under way
Britain’s public Covid-19 inquiry, led by the retired judge Heather Hallett, is far from the first independent commission in the world to begin examining a country’s experience confronting the pandemic.
Their formats, mandates – and their progress – vary widely according to systems and traditions, but their task is essentially the same: to assess preparedness, make a record of decision-making, review government responses and learn lessons for the future.
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