No sign of peace on first anniversary of Russia-Ukraine war as both sides brace for prolonged conflict

A missile strike on a building in Ukraine’s Dnipro in January killed 5 people and wounded 39, with President Volodymyr Zelensky describing the targeting of civilian areas as a Russian ‘terror’ tactic. (AFP)
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Updated 24 February 2023
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No sign of peace on first anniversary of Russia-Ukraine war as both sides brace for prolonged conflict

  • Millions have been displaced, tens of thousands killed since the war began on Feb. 24, 2022
  • GCC member states have refrained from expressing support for either side, backed diplomacy instead 

DUBAI: Exactly a year ago Russia sent troops over its border into Ukraine’s north, east and south with the aim of quickly encircling the capital, Kyiv, and removing the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. 

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said the “special military operation” was intended to “demilitarize” and “denazify” the country to protect ethnic Russians, prevent Kyiv joining NATO, and to keep it in Russia’s sphere of influence. 

As it turned out, Russian forces met with stiff resistance from the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian army, who repulsed the advance on the capital and forced entire divisions to retreat from the cities of Kharkiv in the northeast and Kherson in the south.  

Twelve months on, the war, which Russian military strategists probably expected to last just a matter of days, has become a bitter stalemate, with the opposing armies dug in along a front line spanning 1,500 km from north to south across the east of Ukraine.  

Although Russia has attempted to annex four Ukrainian provinces — Luhansk and Donetsk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to the south — it does not fully control these areas. And as events during the past year have shown, even Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, is vulnerable.  

Since Russia launched its “special military operation” on Feb. 24, some 8 million Ukrainians have been displaced across Europe and further afield, while thousands of soldiers have died on both sides. Various Western sources estimate the conflict has caused 150,000 casualties on each side, with Russian military personnel possibly accounting for 150,000  of the deaths.  




Millions have fled the country since the invasion in February last year. (AFP)

“Russia wages nineteenth century colonization war tactics in the twenty-first century. It doesn’t work — not the tools, not the ways, and not the cause,” Dmytro Senik, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UAE, told Arab News in advance of the first anniversary of the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.  

As the war drags on, Moscow has been forced to source weapons and ammunition from sympathetic allies, including Tehran, which is widely believed to be providing to the Russian military the same brand of kamikaze drones that it has used and given to proxy groups in the Middle East.  

Many such drones have been used in recent months to attack civilian infrastructure, including power stations and residential apartments in Ukrainian cities.  

“As Russia continues to fail on the battlefield, with Russian generals confirming it, they began to target Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and thermal power stations with the purpose of depriving Ukrainians of heat, power supply, and water pumping,” said Senik.  

“They claim they came to the ‘rescue.’ But, instead, they are killing and destroying lives. The Russians were intending to freeze us to death, to make our conditions miserable. It goes against Article 2 of the Convention on Genocide. Time and time again, Russia violates international law.” 

Speaking of Russian narratives of Nazism, Senik said: “For the Kremlin, every neighboring country which plans its own future of nation-building and does not want to become a colony of a Russian empire, in the view of the Russians, becomes a Nazi.”

For their part, pro-Russia voices have urged the Kremlin to up the ante to achieve the strategic objectives of the war.  

After an explosion damaged the Kerch Bridge that connects Russia to Crimea last October, Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia’s state funded RT news channel, wondered aloud on social media what Moscow’s response would be, asking: “And?”  

Branding Russia’s actions an illegal act of aggression, the West has imposed layers of sanctions on Kremlin officials, the Russian economy, and its hydrocarbon industry, partly contributing to a global inflation crisis and fuel price spike.  

Another damaging consequence of the war was disruption to regional agriculture and Black Sea shipping, which led to fears of a global grain shortage, causing food prices to skyrocket, especially in import-dependent nations of the Middle East and Africa, forcing the UN to intervene as a mediator.  

INNUMBERS

• 150,000 Estimated number of military casualties on each side, according to Western sources.

• 21,000 Estimated number of Ukrainian civilians killed or wounded, according to the UN.

• 8m Ukrainians forced to flee since the war broke out, according to the UN refugee agency.

• 5m Ukrainians internally displaced. The same number have reportedly sought refuge in Russia.

• 65,000 Suspected war crimes, according to the EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.

While Ukrainian grain exports resumed last July thanks to a UN-brokered deal between Kyiv and Moscow, some countries had to wait months for their shipments, while others, such as Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Lebanon, have struggled to stabilize the price of bread due to inflation.  

Fredrick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, has called the war a “wake-up call” for policymakers, one that constitutes an “inflection point in history” when leaders have the chance to make decisions that will have “an outsized influence” on future generations.  

However, the West’s involvement in the war, including the supply of weapons, ammunition and, more recently, modern battle tanks to Ukraine, has pushed relations between Moscow and Washington to their lowest ebb since the Cold War.  

In a state of the nation address on Tuesday, Putin said his country was suspending the New START treaty — the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty, signed by Russia and the US in 2010 — and was ready to resume nuclear testing. Nevertheless, the Russian foreign ministry has said Moscow will continue to strictly observe the quantitative restrictions and to notify the US of planned test launches of inter-continental ballistic missiles.  

On Monday, US President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Kyiv, his first to the country since the start of the war, where he pledged Washington’s continued support for Ukraine in a meeting with Zelensky.  

Biden also met with NATO and European leaders in the Polish capital Warsaw on Wednesday, with the allies vowing to further “reinforce our deterrence and defense posture across the entire eastern flank from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”  

While this was going on, Putin was holding talks with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, who was visiting Moscow after Washington and NATO voiced concern that China could be preparing to supply Russia with weapons — a charge Beijing denies.  




Western countries including Germany and the UK have provided Ukraine with combat vehicles. (AFP)

“We will not be overwhelmed by threats and pressure from third parties,” Wang said, according to a readout following the meeting, which further quoted him as saying that China is willing to “deepen political trust” and “strengthen strategic coordination” with Russia.  

Beijing has sought to position itself as a neutral party in the war, while maintaining close ties with strategic ally Russia. It has said it is “deeply concerned” and that the conflict is “intensifying and even getting out of control.”  

Following the meeting, Moscow said Beijing had presented its views on approaches to a “political settlement” in Ukraine.  

Meanwhile, in New York, the UN General Assembly met on Wednesday with Kyiv and its allies to garner support for a resolution calling for a “just and lasting peace.”  

Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, described the conflict “an affront to our collective conscience,” calling the anniversary “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community.”  

The international community remains divided on the war. In October last year, 143 member states of the General Assembly voted to condemn the annexation of parts of Ukraine. While Russia, Belarus, Syria, and North Korea opposed the motion, India and China were among the 35 states that abstained.  

The member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have refrained from expressing support for either side in the conflict, instead calling for diplomacy to end the crisis. But they have supported resolutions calling for respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.




Since Russia launched its “special military operation” on Feb. 24, some 8 million Ukrainians have been displaced across Europe and further afield. (AFP)

Having acted as go-between in a prisoner swap and maintained ties with all parties to the conflict, the Kingdom remains well placed to act as a mediator between Russia on the one hand and Ukraine and Western countries on the other hand.  

Despite the apparent exhaustion on both sides, officials in Kyiv, Washington and other Western capitals fear Russia will use the war’s first anniversary to launch a new offensive with hundreds of thousands of troops to break the stalemate. Senik, however, is unconcerned.  

“I don’t think numbers matter. It is about quality not quantity,” he said. “The Russian army was confident but dysfunctional, waging Second World War tactics of using men as cannon fodder. Russia lost more than 20,000 soldiers trying to take the small town of Soledar, a town of 9,000 civilians. Putin does not care about his people.”  

In Senik’s view, the Ukrainians are equally prepared to fight on. “For centuries Russia has been trying to eradicate Ukrainian culture. The fight is 300 years old and still ongoing,” he told Arab News.  

“We stood up against what was believed to be the second strongest army in the world. We continue to fight and show resilience. We will prevail. And we would rather stay without light and heat but never with Russia.”


How COP29 outcome may impact countries most affected by climate change

Updated 3 sec ago
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How COP29 outcome may impact countries most affected by climate change

  • UN Climate Change Conference in Baku brought together policymakers, researchers and environmentalists from 200 countries
  • Discussions covered energy transition, climate finance, loss and damage funding and environmental cost of geopolitical tensions

BAKU, Azerbaijan: The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference concluded in the capital of Azerbaijan on Friday with climate activists, world leaders and investors reflecting on climate change’s global impacts and the urgent need for actionable solutions.

This year’s event emphasized financing mechanisms, particularly to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable nations, and especially the developing countries most affected by climate change.

COP29 — the 29th Conference of the Parties under the United Nations climate organization UNFCCC — ran from Nov. 11 to 22 and brought together policymakers, researchers, and environmentalists from 200 countries.

“War creates a climate crisis not just where it happens; it pollutes air, water, and land,” said one of the participants at COP 29. (AN photo by Abdulrahman bin Shalhoub)

A dominant theme was energy transition, as fossil fuel emissions remain the biggest driver of global warming.

The UN reports that burning coal, oil, and gas accounts for more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and roughly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

Policymakers argued that reducing reliance on traditional fuels and adopting modern energy solutions could significantly shrink the global carbon footprint and bring the world closer to net-zero targets.

The University of Exeter’s Global Carbon Budget recently projected total CO2 emissions to rise from 40.6 billion metric tons in 2023 to 41.6 billion in 2024.

COP29 has been called "the finance COP," referring to the significance of funding to put an end to the rapid increase of global temperatures. (AN photo by Abdulrahman bin Shalhoub)

Sharing his perspective on the COP29 negotiations and the change he hopes to see, climate activist Philip McMaster, known on social media as SustainaClaus, told Arab News he is campaigning for a a healthier environment for children.

“The message of SustainaClaus is ‘Make childhood great again.’ Why? Because we all had a childhood before,” he said on the sidelines of the conference. “It was either great or not, but it was a very important period of time, and that is what these negotiations should be about: how we make the world a better place for the next generations.”

He added: “I hope to see global change.”

DID YOUKNOW?

• In the first week of COP29, as a step to foster sustainable energy, Saudi Arabia signed an executive program with Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan to strengthen collaboration on renewable energy development.

• The COP29 agenda included energy transition, finance, urbanization and Article 6.

• Climate finance was the main topic discussed in Baku, along with the need to raise funds for vulnerable nations.

Military activity also emerged as a significant environmental threat. Olga Lermak, communications lead at Greencubator, a Ukraine-based cleantech accelerator, noted the ecological devastation caused by war.

“War creates a climate crisis not just where it happens; it pollutes air, water, and land,” she said.

Harmony among people is a top priority to maintain a healthier environment, according to some activists. (AN photo by Abdulrahman bin Shalhoub)

Ukraine accounts for 35 percent of Europe’s biodiversity, including 70,000 plant and animal species, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. Among its endangered animals are the sandy blind mole-rat, the Russian desman, and the saker falcon.

The country’s ongoing conflict with Russia has caused significant damage to that biodiversity, according to Lermak.

“I hope that the negotiations held here bring great solutions, something that will help us to move forward,” she said. “I hope it is not just conversations, not just talking, but real action after this.”

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This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

Another key issue debated at COP29 was loss and damage funding — addressing “unavoided” damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable countries as well as “unavoidable” damage such as that caused by rising sea levels. Investment in emissions reduction was one of the key solutions put forward for dealing with unavoided damage.

Researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change estimate that the loss and damage needs of vulnerable countries will amount to between $130 billion and $940 billion in 2025 alone.

Gloria Bulus, team lead at Nigeria’s Bridge that Gap Initiative, emphasized that beyond highlighting loss and damage, there must also be a focus on delivering investment and implementing concrete solutions.

Gloria Bulus, team lead at Nigeria’s Bridge that Gap Initiative. ( AN photo by Abdulrahman bin Shalhoub)

“We are expecting a lot to be (invested) in terms of the loss and damage, so that it goes beyond the speeches,” she said.

Highlighting some of the pressing environmental challenges her country is facing, Bulus expressed her hope for “fair” negotiations.

“Negotiations have been very slow for us,” she said. “What we want is action. What we want is an outcome that favors people, where we have renewable energy transition.”

Among other steps, COP29 promised to secure “the highest ambition outcome possible,” proposing that wealthier countries contribute $250 billion annually to developing nations to support their efforts in tackling climate change.
 

 


UK car wash owners trafficked thousands of people from Middle East to Europe

Dilshad Shamo and Ali Khdir pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court for their roles in a human trafficking ring. (Supplied)
Updated 3 sec ago
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UK car wash owners trafficked thousands of people from Middle East to Europe

  • Migrants from Syria, Iraq, Iran offered different tiers of service
  • Dilshad Shamo and Ali Khdir trafficked 100 people per week in trucks, ships and by plane

LONDON: Thousands of people from the Middle East were trafficked into Europe through a vast people smuggling network based out of a British car wash.

In an operation that at times resembled a travel agency, people from Syria, Iraq and Iran were offered different tiers of service to be smuggled into Europe by various routes. 

Two men pleaded guilty in a UK court on Friday to charges related to their roles in the people smuggling ring.

The UK’s National Crime Agency said Dilshad Shamo, 41, and Ali Khdir, 40, operated from the unlikely location of a car wash in Caerphilly, a town in Wales.

They were arrested in April 2023 after they had been placed under surveillance as part of an investigation that found they were trafficking about 100 people a week over a period of two years, the BBC reported.

The men used messaging and social media apps to advertise their services with videos from people who had made the journeys.

One video shows a man hidden in the back of a truck with other migrants.

“Lorry route agreement, crossing agreement with the knowledge of driver,” he says. “Here we have men, women and children. Thank God the route was easy and good.”

Another video shows a family traveling by plane. “We are very happy … this is the visa, may God bless him, we are really happy,” the migrant says.

Shamo and Khdir offered three tiers of service, the lowest being smuggling people into Europe by foot or vehicle; the next by cargo ships or yachts; and the highest level arranged travel by plane. 

The smuggling routes went through Turkiye, Belarus, Moldova and Bosnia and ended in Italy, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Germany and France. The NCA said many of the migrants continued to the UK.

Payment was made using informal “hawala” money transfers through brokers based in Iraq and Istanbul.

Once a deposit was made, Shamo and Khdir would receive a message and arrange for the migrants to be transported by their specified route or timeframe. The two men used WhatsApp to communicate with people smugglers across Europe.

The NCA said they were part of a larger organized crime group and could have made hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds that is unlikely to be recovered, the BBC reported.

“Ali Khdir and Dilshad Shamo were leading a double life,” NCA Branch Commander Derek Evans said. “While on the surface they seemed to be operating a successful car wash, they were actually part of a prolific people smuggling group moving migrants across Europe and taking thousands in payment.

“We worked painstakingly to piece together their movements to prove their important roles in a group, from advertising their services through videos to boasting of successful trips on messaging groups.”

The UK’s Minister for Border Security and Asylum Angela Eagle said criminals like Khdir and Shamo put countless lives at risk by smuggling vulnerable people in a “shameless attempt to make cash.”

She added: “We are taking action against the people smuggling gangs and will stop at nothing to dismantle their networks and bring justice to the system.”

Shamo and Khdir pleaded guilty 10 days into their trial at Cardiff Crown Court and will be sentenced at a later date.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer made smashing people smuggling gangs a key pledge of his election campaign earlier this year.

He has vowed to treat traffickers like terrorists and announced a new Border Security Command with additional powers to track human traffickers and shut down their bank accounts.

Politicians in the EU are battling to stem public anger at rising immigration with more than 380,000 illegal border crossings made into the EU in 2023.

Many fear that if conflicts in the Middle East escalate, Europe could face a steep rise in illegal migration similar to 2015 at the height of the Syrian Civil War.


Putin says Russia will keep testing new missile in combat

Updated 50 min 37 sec ago
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Putin says Russia will keep testing new missile in combat

  • The Kremlin leader described the missile’s first use as a successful test, and said more would follow
  • “We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are created for Russia,” he said

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would keep testing its new Oreshnik hypersonic missile in combat and had a stock ready for use.
Putin was speaking a day after Russia fired the new intermediate-range weapon into Ukraine for the first time, a step he said was prompted by Ukraine’s use of US ballistic missiles and British cruise missiles to hit Russia.
The Kremlin leader described the missile’s first use as a successful test, and said more would follow.
“We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are created for Russia,” he said in televised comments to defense officials and missile developers.
“Moreover, we have a stock of such products, a stock of such systems ready for use.”
A US official, however, said the weapon Russia used was an experimental one. The official said Russia has a limited number of them and that this is not a capability that Russia is able to regularly deploy on the battlefield.
Intermediate missiles have a range of 3,000-5,500 km (1,860-3,415 miles), which would enable them to strike anywhere in Europe or the western United States from Russia.
Security experts said the novel feature of the Oreshnik missile was that it carried multiple warheads capable of simultaneously striking different targets — something usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.
Ukraine said the missile reached a top speed of more than 13,000 kph (8,000 mph) and took about 15 minutes to reach its target from its launch.
The firing of the missile was part of a sharp rise in tensions this week as both Ukraine and Russia have struck each other’s territory with increasingly potent weapons.
Moscow says that by giving the green light for Ukraine to fire Western missiles deep inside Russia, the US and its allies are entering into direct conflict with Russia. On Tuesday, Putin approved policy changes that lowered the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with conventional weapons.

SEVERE ESCALATION
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s use of the new missile amounted to “a clear and severe escalation” in the war and called for strong worldwide condemnation. He said Ukraine was working on developing new types of air defense to counter “new risks.”
The Kremlin said the firing of the Oreshnik was a warning to the West against taking further “reckless” actions and decisions in support of Ukraine.
The Oreshnik was fired with conventional, not nuclear warheads. Putin said it was not a strategic nuclear weapon but its striking power and accuracy meant that its impact would be comparable, “especially when used in a massive group and in combination with other high-precision long-range systems.”
He said the missile was incapable of being shot down by an enemy.
“I will add that there is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasize once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production,” he said.


WHO keeps mpox at highest alert level

Updated 22 November 2024
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WHO keeps mpox at highest alert level

  • “The decision was based on the rising number and continuing geographic spread of cases, operational challenges in the field,” WHO said
  • The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the country hardest hit by the outbreak, followed by Burundi and Nigeria

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Friday it had decided to keep its alert for the mpox epidemic at the highest level, as the number of cases and countries affected rises.
“The decision was based on the rising number and continuing geographic spread of cases, operational challenges in the field, and the need to mount and sustain a cohesive response across countries and partners,” it said in a statement.
“The WHO Director-General, agreeing with the advice of the (International Health Regulations) IHR Emergency Committee, has determined that the upsurge of mpox continues to constitute a public health emergency of international concern,” it said, extending the emergency first declared on August 14.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the country hardest hit by the outbreak, followed by Burundi and Nigeria.
Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus transmitted to humans by infected animals but can also be passed from human to human through close physical contact.
It causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions, and can be deadly.
The August emergency declaration was in response to a surge in cases of the new Clade 1b strain in the DRC that spread to nearby countries.
That and other mpox strains have been reported across 80 countries — 19 of them in Africa — so far this year, WHO has previously said.


London’s Gatwick Airport reopens terminal following security alert

Updated 22 November 2024
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London’s Gatwick Airport reopens terminal following security alert

  • Police sent a bomb disposal team to deal with a suspected prohibited item that they said had been found in luggage at the airport’s south terminal, 30 miles south of London
  • “The earlier security alert has now been resolved and cleared by police,” Gatwick said

LONDON: London’s Gatwick Airport, the second busiest airport in Britain, reopened a terminal on Friday after a security alert earlier in the day forced its evacuation and caused travel disruption for thousands of people.
Police sent a bomb disposal team to deal with a suspected prohibited item that they said had been found in luggage at the airport’s south terminal, 30 miles south of London.
“The earlier security alert has now been resolved and cleared by police,” Gatwick said in a statement. “The South Terminal is reopening to staff and will be open to passengers shortly.”
The incident disrupted weekend travel plans for thousands of passengers, with more than 600 flights due to land or take off on Friday from Gatwick, amounting to more than 121,000 passenger seats, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Thousands of passengers were seen outside the terminal and the surrounding area in videos posted online after the terminal shut for several hours. Emergency foil blankets were distributed to some of the passengers who were waiting in the cold, social media pictures showed.
In a separate incident earlier on Friday, London police carried out a controlled explosion near the US embassy in south London after discovering a suspect package. Police later said they believed it was a hoax.