NATO chief warns Bakhmut may fall to Russian invaders in coming days

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A mud-stained gun is seen in front of Ukrainian servicemen who just come back from the trenches of Bakhmut in Chasiv Yar, Ukraine, on March 8, 2023. (AP)
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Updated 09 March 2023
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NATO chief warns Bakhmut may fall to Russian invaders in coming days

  • “What we see is that Russia is throwing more troops, more forces and what Russia lacks in quality they try to make up in quantity,” says Stoltenberg
  • Ukrainian President Zelensky says his armed forces were resolved to stay in Bakhmut, warning that Bakhmut's fall would open the floodgates to nearby cities

KYIV, Ukraine: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Wednesday the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut might fall to Russia in the coming days following months of intense fighting.
His remarks came as Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, which has spearheaded the attack on Bakhmut, claimed to have captured the eastern bank of the industrial town, devastated in the longest battle since Moscow invaded Ukraine a year ago.
Wagner chief and Kremlin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin said on social media Wednesday that his forces “have taken all of the eastern part of Bakhmut,” a salt-mining town with a pre-war population of 80,000.
The intense fighting around Bakhmut has been the longest and bloodiest in Russia’s more than year-long invasion, which has devastated swathes of Ukraine and displaced millions of people.
“What we see is that Russia is throwing more troops, more forces and what Russia lacks in quality they try to make up in quantity,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Stockholm on the sidelines of an EU defense ministers meeting.
“We cannot rule out that Bakhmut may eventually fall in the coming days,” the head of the US-led military alliance said, adding that “this does not necessarily reflect any turning point of the war.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in an interview with CNN of what could happen if Bakhmut falls to Russian forces.
“We understand that after Bakhmut, (Russian forces) could go further” and attack nearby cities in the Donetsk region, he said.
“They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be an open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction,” Zelensky said in an interview set to air Wednesday.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told military officials during a televised meeting on Tuesday that taking control of the city would allow for “further offensive operations” in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin has estimated that between 12,000 and 20,000 Ukrainian troops were still defending the town.
Zelensky told CNN that his armed forces were resolved to stay in Bakhmut.
“Of course, we have to think about the lives of our military. But we have to do whatever we can whilst we’re getting weapons, supplies, and our army is getting ready for the counter-offensive.”

Zelensky on Wednesday hosted UN chief Antonio Guterres in Kyiv, his third visit to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. Guterres stressed the need to extend a deal that has allowed Ukraine to export its grain but is due to expire.
“I want to underscore the critical importance of the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative on 18 March,” Guterres said.
EU defense ministers were meeting in Stockholm to discuss a plan to rush one billion euros’ worth of ammunition to Ukraine as pressure mounts on Kyiv’s allies to bolster supplies to the war effort.
Ukraine’s Western backers warn that Kyiv is facing a critical shortage of 155-millimeter howitzer shells as it fires thousands each day in its fight against the grinding Russian offensive.




A Ukrainian tank fires towards Russian positions at the frontline near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on March 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

“The current rate of consumption compared to the current rate of production of ammunition is not sustainable, and therefore we need to ramp up production,” Stoltenberg said.
But a report by The New York Times on Tuesday claiming US officials had seen new intelligence indicating a “pro-Ukrainian group” was behind last year’s sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines could raise difficult questions among the allies.
“This is not our activity,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told reporters in Stockholm.

In the interview with CNN, Zelensky invited US House speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit Ukraine and see for himself what the war is like. McCarthy has not opposed US aid to Ukraine but he has said more than once that Congress should not be writing “blank checks” to support the war without close scrutiny.
“Mr McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelensky said,
Ukraine on Wednesday said it had identified the man shot dead in a video that sparked outrage on social media as one of its soldiers.
The footage shows what appears to be a detained Ukrainian combatant standing in a shallow trench and smoking, and then being shot after saying “Glory to Ukraine.”
“Based on a preliminary examination, we believe that the video may be authentic,” a spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights Office told AFP on Wednesday.
 


Russian attacks kill 18 civilians in Ukraine as Zelensky seeks more Western help

Updated 54 min 19 sec ago
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Russian attacks kill 18 civilians in Ukraine as Zelensky seeks more Western help

  • Zelensky is keen to lock in additional military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s bigger army
  • A Russian ballistic missile attack on Dnipro hit multiple civilian sites, killing nine people and injuring more than 100

KYIV: Russian drones, missiles and artillery killed at least 18 civilians and injured more than 100 others in Ukraine, officials said Tuesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought guarantees of further Western military aid for his country’s efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.

Russian forces have relentlessly blasted civilian areas of Ukraine throughout the war, which is now in its fourth year. More than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Ukraine has also launched long-range drones against Russia, hitting residential areas.

Zelensky was set to meet Tuesday with Western leaders attending a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands. He is keen to lock in additional military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s bigger army, as recent direct peace talks have delivered no progress on a possible settlement.

Key US military commitments to Ukraine left over from the Biden administration are expected to run out within months, according to analysts, and there is uncertainty over whether US President Donald Trump is willing to provide more.

A Russian ballistic missile attack on Dnipro hit multiple civilian sites in the central Ukrainian city around midday on Tuesday, killing nine people and injuring more than 100, local officials said.

In the nearby town of Samar, an attack killed two people and injured 11, Dnipro’s regional administration head Serhii Lysak wrote on Telegram.

The barrage damaged 19 schools, 10 kindergartens, a vocational school, a music school and a social welfare office, as well as eight medical facilities, according to Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov. One of the blasts blew out the windows of a passenger train.

Russia also shelled residential neighborhoods and critical infrastructure across Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, killing four civilians and wounding at least eleven others, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration.

In the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine, a drone attack late Monday killed three civilians, including a 5-year-old boy, and injured six others, local authorities said.

Among the injured were two 17-year-old girls and a 12-year-old boy, according to officials.

Russian air defense forces overnight shot down 20 Ukrainian drones, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday morning. It said 14 were downed over the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, while two had been flying over the Moscow province.

One drone slammed into a tower block on the outskirts of the Russian capital, sparking a fire on its 17th floor, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said Tuesday. He said a 34-year-old resident suffered shrapnel wounds to his arm and leg. Two other drones were shot down on the approach to Moscow, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

Air traffic was briefly halted as a precaution at two major Moscow airports, Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo, a representative of Russia’s aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said.


Merz says NATO spending boost to counter Russia — not please Trump

Updated 24 June 2025
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Merz says NATO spending boost to counter Russia — not please Trump

  • Merz has been racing to build up Germany’s long-neglected armed forces, with the aim of turning them into the ‘strongest conventional army’ in Europe

BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz insisted a pledge by NATO allies to boost defense spending at a “historic” summit starting on Tuesday would not just aim to please US President Donald Trump.
“We are not doing this, as some claim, to do the United States and its president a favor,” he told the German parliament before setting off for the gathering in The Hague.
“We are doing this based on our own observations and convictions. Russia, above all, is actively and aggressively threatening security and freedom” across Europe, he added.
“We have to fear that Russia will continue its war beyond Ukraine.”
The summit has been viewed as heavily focused on keeping Trump happy after he made comments that sparked concern about Washington’s commitment to NATO and insisted that other member states spend at least five percent of their GDP on defense.
NATO’s 32 countries have thrashed out a compromise deal to dedicate 3.5 percent to core military spending by 2035, and 1.5 percent to broader security-related areas such as cybersecurity and infrastructure.
On Monday, Europe’s biggest economy revealed plans to reach the 3.5 percent level for core spending six years early — in 2029 — with the vast extra outlays necessary made possible after Germany eased its rules on taking on debt.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday that he would head to the NATO summit with the message that “external security and defense capability are once again an absolute priority in (German) government policy.”
“We are bringing about a historic turnaround in defense spending.”
On the summit, he said there were “good signs” about “the broad consensus on how to proceed... I see no reason to assume that we will be given the cold shoulder.”
Since taking office in May, Merz has been racing to build up Germany’s long-neglected armed forces, with the aim of turning them into the “strongest conventional army” in Europe — a radical shift in a country with strong pacifist traditions due to its dark wartime past.
A drive has been launched to boost military personnel, which aims to attract 11,000 fresh recruits this year alone — and Pistorius has suggested conscription, which was halted in Germany in 2011, could be reintroduced if too few people sign up voluntarily.
Germany is also building up a permanent military brigade in Lithuania — the country’s first such overseas deployment since World War II — to bolster NATO’s eastern flank against Russia.


Vietnam aims to sign nuclear power plant deal with Russia in August

Updated 24 June 2025
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Vietnam aims to sign nuclear power plant deal with Russia in August

  • The move follows Vietnam’s restart of plans to develop nuclear power plants
  • It is expected to be online between 2030 and 2035

HANOI: Vietnam’s government said on Tuesday it aims to sign an agreement with its Russian counterpart in August to build the Southeast Asian country’s first nuclear power plant.

Site clearance for development of the plant in Ninh Thuan province is to be completed by the end of this year, the government said in a statement.

The move follows Vietnam’s restart of plans to develop nuclear power plants that were suspended nearly a decade ago, as part of its efforts to ramp up its power generation capacity to support its fast-growing economy.

The government has previously said it expected the first nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of up to 6.4 gigawatts to be online between 2030 and 2035.

The government said on Tuesday it has told the finance ministry, central bank, state energy firm Petrovietnam and utility firm EVN to work with related parties on loans for the project.


Indonesian researchers unearth 500,000-year-old elephant fossils in Java

Updated 24 June 2025
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Indonesian researchers unearth 500,000-year-old elephant fossils in Java

  • Researchers say found elephant fossils may be almost complete 
  • Central Java is also location of archaeological site Sangiran, where ‘Java Man’ was found

Jakarta: Indonesian researchers have discovered fossils of a prehistoric elephant in Central Java, which they estimate are around 500,000 years old. 

The fossils were found in Patiayam, an archaeological site and mountainous area situated on the border of the Kudus and Pati regencies in Central Java, where, throughout the years, ancient animal fossils have been found.

In 2024, a collaborative team organized by the Center for Prehistory and Austronesian Studies, the Dharma Bakti Lestari Foundation and the National Research and Innovation Agency, known locally as BRIN, launched a research project at the site to explore fossil possibilities. 

Though the initial discovery was made then, researchers postponed the project until this year and expanded the site of excavation, which is still ongoing. 

“Based on the geological formation of the site where it was found, we estimate that the fossils are at least 500,000 years old, give or take. We have yet to conduct a direct dating of the fossils, so this is based on a relative dating of the soil layer,” Mohammad Ruly Fauzi, researcher at CPAS and BRIN, told Arab News. 

“We have been able to identify that these belong to an elephas type, but not the specific species … What’s clear is that this is a very big elephant, nothing like elephants today …. It’s prehistoric, not early historic period.”

He said the excavation has made about 50 percent progress and that the elements found so far make up the front part of an elephant. 

“It’s interesting because this is shaping up to be an almost complete fossil … They are all situated pretty closely.” 

Once the excavation is completed, the fossils will be preserved as part of a collection at the Patiayam Archaeological Museum. The discovery might help Patiayam gain recognition as a cultural heritage site, Fauzi added. 

“Every site has its own unique qualities, but Patiayam site is particularly interesting and very deserving to gain status as a national cultural heritage site in our opinion … This research can help serve as a foundation for officials to decide,” he said. 

Central Java, where Patiayam is located, is also home to the Sangiran Early Man Site, a UNESCO World Heritage site renowned for its significant collection of Homo erectus fossils, dating from 1.1 million to 800,000 years ago, including the “Java Man.” 


Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says

Updated 24 June 2025
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Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says

KYIV: Ukraine has intensified efforts to clear land mines and has cut the affected area to around 137,000 square km (53,000 square miles), a 20 percent reduction from the end of 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Tuesday.
Most of the remaining mined areas are farmland, Shmyhal added.
Ukraine is a global major grain grower but it reduced harvests sharply after Russia’s 2022 invasion left large areas occupied and mined.
Shmyhal said about 9,000 people from 112 specialized companies are now involved in mine clearance.
Military analysts say Ukraine needs at least 10 years to demine all territories.