KYIV: Ukraine needs about $3 billion in foreign financial aid on a monthly basis to get through 2024, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said on Wednesday, highlighting the challenges Kyiv faces as US support begins to falter.
Marchenko said Ukraine’s macroeconomic stability during the war with Russia had been possible due to a steady inflow of international financial aid from Kyiv’s allies, something he added remained crucial this year.
“In 2024, the monthly need for external financing will reach about $3 billion. We cannot allow a delay in attracting external financing,” Marchenko said in a statement.
Ukraine has received more than $73 billion in financial aid from its Western partners in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
So far this year the level of support has been much lower as major packages from the European Union and the United States have suffered major delays.
The EU finally approved its 50 billion euro four-year facility for Ukraine this month but the US financial and military support package remains stuck in Congress, blocked by Republican lawmakers.
Addressing finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations on Wednesday, Marchenko said the government had been more active on the domestic debt market this year and looked for other ways to increase its budget revenues.
Senior executives of several of Ukraine’s biggest state-owned companies have told Reuters they had paid some of their obligatory budget payments in advance to help the government cover the budget deficit.
Ukraine’s budget gap is about $37 billion this year.
Ukraine channels most of its budget revenues into the defense effort and relies on foreign aid to pay pensions and state employees’ wages, and to cover social and humanitarian spending.
Finance ministry data shows Ukraine received about $1.2 billion from Japan and Norway in the first two months of this year.
“International donors’ help is not just a financial issue, but an opportunity to support millions of Ukrainians who need it and to save the lives of thousands of soldiers,” Marchenko said.
Ukraine needs $3 billion in financial aid per month in 2024, Kyiv says
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Ukraine needs $3 billion in financial aid per month in 2024, Kyiv says
- “We cannot allow a delay in attracting external financing,” Marchenko said
- The EU finally approved its 50 billion euro four-year facility for Ukraine this month
Trial opens into UK stabbing spree that sparked riots over misinformation attacker was Muslim
- Authorities blame far-right agitators for violence, including by sharing misinformation alleged attacker was Muslim asylum seeker
- Unrest, which lasted several days, saw far-right rioters attack police, shops, hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques
LONDON: The trial of a teenager accused of killing three young girls in a stabbing spree last year that sparked the UK’s most violent riots in a decade is set to begin Monday.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, is due to stand trial at Liverpool Crown Court, accused of murdering three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last year in Southport, northwest England.
Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, were killed in the attack in the seaside resort near Liverpool on July 29, 2024.
Ten others were injured, including eight children, in one of the country’s worst mass stabbings in years.
Rudakubana faces a total of 16 charges, including three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and one count of possessing a blade days after the attack.
The trial is expected to last four weeks after pleas of not guilty were entered on his behalf.
The stabbings sent shock waves across the UK, triggering unrest and riots in more than a dozen English and Northern Irish towns and cities, including in Southport and Liverpool.
Authorities blamed far-right agitators for fueling violence, including by sharing misinformation claiming the alleged attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.
The unrest, which lasted several days, saw far-right rioters attack police, shops, hotels housing asylum seekers and mosques, with hundreds of participants subsequently arrested and charged.
Rudakubana was born in Wales to parents of Rwandan origin and lived in Banks, a village northeast of Southport.
Despite being 17 years old at the time, restrictions on reporting Rudakubana’s name were lifted in August due to concerns over the spread of misinformation.
“Continuing to prevent the full reporting has the disadvantage of allowing others to spread misinformation, in a vacuum,” judge Andrew Menary said as he lifted the restrictions.
Taylor Swift, then in the middle of her Eras tour, wrote on Instagram that she “was completely in shock” the day after the attack on the dance class at the start of the school holidays.
The pop star reportedly met two of the survivors of the attack during her August shows in London.
The UK’s head of state King Charles III also traveled to Southport in August to meet with survivors, inspecting a sea of floral tributes laid outside the city’s town hall.
And Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Prince William visited Southport in October “to show support to the local community,” Kensington Palace said. It was their first joint public engagement since Kate ended a course of chemotherapy for cancer.
In October, the suspect was charged with two additional offenses in relation to evidence obtained “during searches of Axel Rudakubana’s home address” following the attack, the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS), which brings public prosecutions, said.
The charges were for the “production of a biological toxin, namely ricin,” and “possessing information ... likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
The terrorism offense related to suspicion of possessing an Al-Qaeda training manual, although the attack was not treated as a terrorist incident.
Following speculation on social media related to policing decisions in the case, Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said she realized the added charges could trigger fresh rumors.
“We would strongly advise caution against anyone speculating as to motivation in this case,” Kennedy was quoted as saying.
She urged people to be patient and “don’t believe everything you read on social media.”
Rudakubana has appeared in several hearings since the attack, often wearing a grey sweatshirt, and refusing to speak in all of them.
In the last hearing in December, he appeared via videolink at Liverpool Crown Court from high-security Belmarsh prison, in southeast London.
The Attorney General and Merseyside police have warned the press and public against publishing any material that risks prejudicing the trial.
Russia says captured two more villages in east Ukraine
MOSCOW: Russian forces have captured two more villages in east Ukraine, including one just a few kilometers from Pokrovsk, a key supply hub for Kyiv’s forces, the defense ministry said Monday.
Army units “liberated” Shevchenko and Novoyegorivka in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk respectively, it said. Shevchenko is around three kilometers (two miles) from Pokrovsk.
Indian police volunteer gets life sentence for rape, murder of Kolkata junior doctor
- Sanjay Roy was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against him
- The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday
KOLKATA: An Indian court awarded the life sentence on Monday to a police volunteer convicted of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at the hospital where she worked in the eastern city of Kolkata.
The woman’s body was found in a classroom at the state-run R G Kar Medical College and Hospital on Aug. 9. Other doctors stayed off work for weeks to demand justice for her and better security at public hospitals, as the crime sparked national outrage over a lack of safety for women.
Sanjay Roy, the police volunteer, was convicted by judge Anirban Das on Saturday who said circumstantial evidence had proved the charges against Roy.
Roy said he was innocent and that he had been framed, and sought clemency.
The federal police, who investigated the case, said the crime belonged to the “rarest-of-rare” category and Roy, therefore, deserved the death penalty.
Judge Das said it was not a “rarest-of-rare” crime, adding that Roy could go in appeal to a higher court.
The sentence was announced in a packed courtroom as the judge allowed the public to witness proceedings on Monday. The speedy trial in the court was not open to the public.
The parents of the junior doctor were among those in court on Monday. Security was stepped up with dozens of police personnel deployed at the court complex.
Myanmar military, minority armed group agree ceasefire, China says
- The two sides held talks in China’s southwestern city of Kunming
- Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces
BEIJING: The Myanmar military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) signed a formal agreement for a ceasefire that began on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said, halting fighting near the border of both countries.
The two sides held talks in China’s southwestern city of Kunming where they thanked Beijing for its efforts to promote peace, ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a regular news briefing on Monday.
“Cooling down the situation in the north of Myanmar is in the common interest of all parties in Myanmar and all countries in the region, and contributes to the security, stability and development of the border areas between China and Myanmar,” she said.
China will continue to actively promote peace and dialogue and provide support and assistance to the peace process in northern Myanmar, Mao said.
The MNDAA is one of several ethnic minority armed groups fighting to repel the military from what they consider their territories.
It is part of the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance, with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army, that launched an offensive against the military junta in late October 2023 seizing swathes of territory near the border with China.
The MNDAA, made up of ethnic Chinese, said last July it had taken control of a major military base near the Chinese border.
Analysts say China is worried about the advance of anti-junta forces which have pushed the military out of vital borderlands and started making inroads toward the central city of Mandalay.
The military seized power from Myanmar’s civilian government in February 2021, plunging the country into crisis.
China fears chaos along its more than 2,000 kilometer long border with Myanmar would jeopardize investment and trade.
Beijing previously brokered a ceasefire deal in the northern borderlands in January 2024, but the deal broke down a few months later.
France to keep fighting for release of French-Israeli hostages, says foreign minister
PARIS: France will keep fighting to obtain the release of the two French-Israeli nationals held by Hamas, foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot told BFM TV on Monday.
“We will continue to fight until the last hour for their release,” Barrot told BFM TV, adding France had “no news on their health status nor on the terms of their detention.”
Hamas released three Israeli hostages and Israel released 90 Palestinian prisoners on Sunday, on the first day of a ceasefire suspending a 15-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip and inflamed the Middle East.
French-Israeli nationals Ofer Kalderon and Ohad Yahalomi are expected to be on the list of 33 hostages to be released in the first phase of the draft Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
