The PM’s frivolous style won’t be missed in the EU, but his serious side emerged on Ukraine
Boris Johnson’s supporters last week championed his legacy as a bullish enforcer of the British people’s will against European technocrats.
The reality of his diplomatic record over six years in office, first at the foreign office and then at 10 Downing Street, is rather different. Negotiators in Brussels found the old Etonian more malleable than they had expected.
Continue reading...Ottawa defies Ukraine’s objections to return of equipment for Nord Stream 1 pipeline, saying it needs to support Europe’s access to ‘reliable and affordable energy’
Canada will return a repaired Russian turbine to Germany that it needs for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, despite objections from Ukraine, as the sanctions regime came up against the energy crisis sparked by the war.
Canada’s minister of natural resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, said in a statement on Saturday the government was issuing a “time-limited and revocable permit” to exempt the return of turbines from its Russian sanctions, to support “Europe’s ability to access reliable and affordable energy as they continue to transition away from Russian oil and gas”.
Continue reading...Warning of ‘huge battle’ as Ukrainian armed forces plan counteroffensive in the Russian-occupied territories
Ukraine has warned residents in southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to evacuate as it prepares to launch a counteroffensive to retake the area. The Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were quickly occupied by Russian troops in late February after they crossed the bridge from Russian-annexed Crimea.
Late on Friday night, Iryna Vereshchuk, the deputy prime minister for the ministry of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, called on Ukrainians in the occupied territories to leave by “all means possible”.
Continue reading...Vitaliy Kim, taekwondo-practising governor of Mykolaiv region, is famous for making anti-Russian gags on his social media channels, but deadly serious about defeating his foe in the Kremlin
When Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine on 24 February, Vitaliy Kim was still in bed sound asleep.
“I was dreaming something, but can’t remember what, and when I woke up, everybody was panicking,” said Kim, 41, governor of the industrial region of Mykolaiv. “It was frightening. People were asking me what to do now.”
Continue reading...The Eta group’s kidnap and murder of a young councillor in 1997 united a country in revulsion and the wounds are still open today
The place where it happened is out past the hotel, the roundabout, the pharmacy and the blocks of flats hung with washing and geraniums, out where the small Basque town of Lasarte-Oria gives way to a narrow road fringed with trees and ferns.
Today, little carries on the humid coastal air save for birdsong, the barking of a distant dog and the growl of a cultivator. But, 25 years ago this week, two shots from a .22 calibre Beretta pistol rang out beneath the trees and echoed across the length and breadth of Spain.
Continue reading...Ruling on an attack on a nursing home early in the conflict, UN says no war crimes committed but both sides partially responsible
Earlier we reported on Ukrainian soldiers arriving in UK for training. About 1,050 UK service personnel are running the programme, which will train up to 10,000 Ukrainians over the coming months.
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who visited the training this week, said:
This ambitious new training programme is the next phase in the UK’s support to the armed forces of Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression. Using the world-class expertise of the British army, we will help Ukraine to rebuild its forces and scale up its resistance as they defend their country’s sovereignty and their right to choose their own future.
Continue reading...Up to 10,000 new recruits will train for several weeks to help in their country’s fight against Russia
British forces have begun training Ukrainian soldiers in a new programme to help in their fight against Russia.
Up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers will arrive in the UK for specialist military training lasting several weeks. The first cohort met the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, on Thursday, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed.
Continue reading...Soviet-era ports being resuscitated but officials say only way to mitigate global hunger is to end Russia’s Black Sea blockade
Ukraine is restoring and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade.
Before the war, Ukrainian river ports on the Danube were seldom used, with some of them in complete disrepair. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its control of exit routes to the Black Sea , Kyiv is resuscitating its old river harbours in order to avoid the sea blockade and accelerate the exportation of the country’s wheat.
Continue reading...Authorities keen to avoid repeat of fatal glacier fall and avalanche but need to protect local tourism industry
The summer season was just getting into the swing in the mountain towns based around the Marmolada, the highest peak in the Italian Dolomites, when a huge mass of ice from a glacier on its north side snapped off last Sunday afternoon, causing a fatal avalanche.
Hotels, restaurants and mountain refuges were packed, and trails busy with hikers, climbers and cyclists, many flocking to the mountains in search of slightly fresher temperatures during Italy’s intense heatwave.
Continue reading...Authorities say blaze brought under control but likely to take days to extinguish amid drought conditions, heat and strong winds
Nearly 1,000 firefighters backed by water-dropping planes have been deployed to battle a massive blaze in France’s southern Gard region that burned 600 hectares (1,500 acres) and forced the evacuation of residents.
Local authorities said on Friday the wildfire had been brought under control but would take days to extinguish.
Continue reading...Luhansk governor says Russian forces shelling indiscriminately, Kyiv criticises Moscow at G20 summit, US sends Ukraine more artillery systems
Luhansk’s governor said Russian forces were indiscriminately shelling populated areas on Friday, Reuters reports. “They are not stopped even by the fact that civilians remain there, dying in houses and yards,” Serhiy Gaidai said.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has asked all residents in the Russian-occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to “evacuate by all possible means”. There would be “harsh battle” as the Ukrainian army would be “de-occupying these territories”, he said.
Belgium will reopen its embassy in Kyiv and send a new ambassador, the Belgian prime minister confirmed. The embassy would open next week and ambassador Peter Van De Velde, whom Alexander De Croo met before he was sent to Ukraine, will represent Belgium.
Ukraine’s military says it has destroyed two Russian command posts near Kherson, according to Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the joint southern command of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The Ukrainian foreign minister criticised Russia at the G20 summit in Bali, saying it prefers to follow its own rules instead of cooperating multilaterally with the international community. “I am strong supporter of multilateralism,” Dmytro Kuleba said. “But it lacks tools to protect itself from those who disrespect other nations, who prefer to play with common rules instead of playing by the rules. We have such a country at this table today – Russia.”
The Ukrainian parliament adopted a set of new laws on Friday during its plenary session. The new laws include safety guarantees for journalists working in battle areas, improved social protection for rescuers, and postponed transitioning to keep records of the gas volumes in units of energy.
The US is sending four more Himars, or high mobility artillery rocket systems, to Ukraine, a US senior defence official said at a press briefing on Friday. The four additional Himars will bring the total number given to Ukraine to 12. According to the official, the first eight were especially useful as the fighting in Donbas against Russian forces evolved into an artillery fight.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin dares west to beat Russia on battlefield; Serhai Haidai says Sievierodonetsk ‘is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster’
The situation in occupied Sievierodonetsk “is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster” and the city is being widely looted by Russian troops, according to Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, Serhai Haidai.
He posted to Telegram this morning, claiming:
In Sievierodonetsk, 80% of housing was destroyed or damaged. Some people try to return for things, but more and more often … they find an empty apartment, even if it survived. Having entered the city, the Russians first deported part of the local population, took away the keys, and then began to rob everything. They drive up to high-rise buildings in trucks. If the furniture is good, they take it away. It is no longer just about household appliances.
The city is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster – there is no centralised water supply, gas supply, or electricity supply.
Last night, for the first time in several weeks, there was no night shelling of Kharkiv. But we have no right to lose our vigilance. After all, just yesterday evening, the enemy massively shelled the Nemyshlyan district of the city. Damaged houses, garages, containers, outbuildings. In total, four people died and nine were injured in Kharkiv oblast during the day.
Active hostilities continue on the contact line. In the Kharkiv direction, the enemy is shelling the positions of our defenders and the civilian population with artillery and rocket systems.
Continue reading...Parliament approves measures to use mothballed sites to produce electricity and preserve gas supplies
Germany’s two houses of parliament have passed emergency legislation to reactivate mothballed coal-fired power plants in order to support electricity generation amid fears of gas shortages as Russia curbs capacity.
The move has been described as “painful but necessary” by the government’s environmentalist economics minister, Robert Habeck. It has the backing of leading Greens in the coalition government, who argue it is needed as a short-term crisis management tool.
Continue reading...Dos Santos’s near-four-decade rule was marked by brutal civil war lasting almost three decades
Angola’s former president José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa’s second biggest oil producer for nearly four decades, has died aged 79.
Dos Santos died at the Teknon clinic in Barcelona, Spain, where he was being treated following a prolonged illness, the presidency said.
Continue reading...Russian president dares the west to try to win on the battlefield and says chances of talks growing dimmer
Vladimir Putin has issued one of his most ominous warnings yet, claiming Moscow has barely started its campaign in Ukraine and daring the west to try to defeat it on the battlefield.
Speaking at a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday, the Russian president said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on.
Continue reading...Spanish auteur behind the 1973 arthouse hit will direct a new film, Cerrar los Ojos, due for release in 2023
Veteran Spanish director Víctor Erice, best known for 1973 classic The Spirit of the Beehive, is making his first feature film in 30 years, it has been revealed.
El Diario reports that the new project, titled Cerrar los Ojos (Close Your Eyes), is being funded by Canal Sur, the public broadcaster for the Andalusia region of Spain. No information has been divulged as to its content, other than that José Coronado and María León have been cast in the lead roles, and that it is due for release in 2023.
Continue reading...Alexei Gorinov receives first long-term sentence under harsh laws introduced since Russian invasion
A court in Moscow has sentenced an opposition councillor to seven years in jail for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war.
Alexei Gorinov, a deputy at Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district council and trained lawyer, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army.
Continue reading...Politics, electronic music and 25,000 people expected at Rave the Planet Parade this weekend, 12 years after fatal Duisburg crush
Neon bodypaint, string vests and no-nonsense four-to-the-floor beats will return to the streets of Berlin this weekend as the legendary Love Parade techno event makes a comeback in the German capital after a hiatus of more than 15 years.
Saturday’s daytime outdoor event carries a new name – the Rave the Planet Parade – but is being organised by some of the same people who put together the first Love Parade on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Continue reading...Russian president hits out at western involvement in war and claims his forces have not ‘started anything yet in earnest’
Authorities in Odesa are reporting that grain silos in the region and Snake Island have been hit by rockets or missiles overnight.
An official channel for Odesa posted:
Two rockets hit two agricultural hangars at night, which were destroyed. About 35 tonnes of grain were stored in one of them.
According to preliminary data, there are no victims.
Continue reading...Kremlin gloats as oligarch Oleg Deripaska welcomes end of ‘stupid clown’ but Zelenskiy pays tribute to ‘true friend’
Boris Johnson’s downfall has been met with delight and ridicule in Moscow, while in Kyiv Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed sadness at the resignation of his key ally.
Johnson, who championed weapons transfers to Ukraine in the early stages of the war and was the first leader of a G7 country to visit Kyiv in April, has emerged as a much-loved figure in Ukraine. “We all heard this news [of Johnson’s resignation] with sadness,” Zelenskiy said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by phone. “Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you.
Continue reading...