KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian missile strike that smashed a prominent skyline television tower in Kharkiv was part of the Kremlin’s effort to intimidate Ukraine’s second-largest city, which in recent weeks has come under increasingly frequent attack.
The strike sought to “make the terror visible to the whole city and to try to limit Kharkiv’s connection and access to information,” Zelensky said in a Monday evening address.
The northeastern Kharkiv region straddles the approximately 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been locked in battle for more than two years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The front line has changed little during a war of attrition, focused mostly on artillery, drones and trenches.
Since late March, Russia has stepped up the pressure on Kharkiv, apparently aiming to exploit Ukraine’s shortage of air defense systems. It has pounded the local power grid and hit apartment blocks.
On Monday, a Russian Kh-59 missile struck Kharkiv’s 250-meter (820-foot) -high TV tower, breaking it roughly in half and halting transmissions.
A Washington think tank said Russia may be eyeing a ground assault on Kharkiv.
“The Kremlin is conducting a concerted air and information operation to destroy Kharkiv City, convince Ukrainians to flee, and internally displace millions of Ukrainians ahead of a possible future Russian offensive operation against the city or elsewhere in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment.
The expected arrival in Ukraine in coming weeks of new military aid from its Western partners possibly has prompted Russia to escalate its attacks before the help arrives, the ISW said, adding that trying to capture Kharkiv would be “a significant challenge” for the Kremlin’s forces.
Instead, the Russian military command “may attempt to destroy Kharkiv City with air, missile, and drone strikes and prompt a large-scale internal displacement of Ukrainian civilians,” it said.
The US Senate was returning to Washington on Tuesday to vote on $61 billion in war aid to Ukraine after months of delays. Zelensky said US President Joe Biden assured him the aid would include long-range and artillery capabilities.
“Four priorities are key: defense of the sky, modern artillery, long-range capacity, and to ensure that packages of American aid arrive as soon as possible,” Zelensky said.
Also Tuesday, Britain pledged 500 million pounds ($620 million, 580 million euros) in new military supplies for Ukraine, including 400 vehicles, 60 boats, 1,600 munitions and 4 million rounds of ammunition.
The shipment will also include British Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which have a range of about 150 miles (240 kilometers) and have proven effective at hitting Russian targets, the British government said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke with Zelensky on Tuesday morning to confirm the new assistance. He was due to announce the aid later Tuesday during a visit to Warsaw where he was meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Less cheering news came from the European Union, however. EU countries that have Patriot air defense systems gave no clear sign Monday that they might be willing to send them to Ukraine, which is desperately seeking at least seven of the missile batteries.
Ukraine’s army is also heavily outnumbered in the fight, and expanding the country’s mobilization has been a delicate issue.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Tuesday signaled that authorities plan to clamp down on young men of conscription age who have moved abroad, with details of the specific measures to be made public soon.
“Staying abroad does not relieve a citizen of his or her duties to the homeland,” Kuleba said on the social media platform X.
Meanwhile, Russia launched 16 Shahed drones and two Iskander-M ballistic missiles over Ukraine’s southern and central regions, the Ukrainian air force said Tuesday morning. It said all but one of the drones were intercepted.
In Odesa, an overnight attack injured nine people, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. Among those injured were two infants and two children aged nine and 12, Kiper said. City mayor Hennadii Trukhanov said 58 apartments in 22 buildings were damaged.
In other developments:
A Russian missile strike near Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, injured four people who were admitted to hospital, regional Gov. Serhii Lysak said.
Russian forces dropped a guided aerial bomb in Kostiantynivka, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, injuring five people who were riding in a car, police said. Two of them were in critical conditions.
A Russian strike on Kharkiv’s TV tower is part of an intimidation campaign, Ukraine’s Zelensky says
https://arab.news/67dfv
A Russian strike on Kharkiv’s TV tower is part of an intimidation campaign, Ukraine’s Zelensky says
- Kharkiv region straddles the approximately 1,000-kilometer front line where Ukrainian and Russian forces have been locked in battle for more than two years
- “Four priorities are key: defense of the sky, modern artillery, long-range capacity, and to ensure that packages of American aid arrive as soon as possible,” Zelensky said
African Union ‘dismayed’ US withdrawing from WHO
Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic
ADDIS ABABA: The African Union expressed dismay Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, urging his administration to reconsider.
Just hours after taking office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing the US to withdraw from the UN agency, which threatens to leave global health initiatives short of funding.
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said in a statement he was “dismayed to learn of the US government’s announcement to withdraw” from the Geneva-based WHO.
Washington is easily the biggest financial contributor to the organization and the pullout comes as Africa faces a range of health crises, including recent outbreaks of mpox and Marburg viruses.
“Now more than ever, the world depends on WHO to carry out its mandate to ensure global public health security as a shared common good,” Moussa Faki said, adding he hopes “the US government will reconsider its decision.”
He said Washington was an early supporter of the Africa CDC, the African Union’s health watchdog which works with the WHO to counter present and emerging pandemics.
Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and said prior to his inauguration that “World Health ripped us off.”
The United States was in the process of withdrawing from the WHO during Trump’s first term, but the move was reversed under Joe Biden.
Tom Frieden, a former US senior health official, wrote on X that the withdrawal “weakens America’s influence, increases the risk of a deadly pandemic, and makes all of us less safe.”
It comes as fears grow of the pandemic potential of a bird flu outbreak, which has infected dozens and claimed its first human life in the United States earlier this month.
WHO member states have been negotiating the world’s first treaty on handling future pandemics since late 2021 — negotiations now set to proceed without the US.
In Itaewon, Seoul’s Korean Muslim minority finds a sense of belonging
- Muslims make up only around 0.3 percent of South Korea’s 51 million population
- Seoul Central Mosque in Itaewon is South Korea’s first and largest
SEOUL: Tucked away behind the main avenue of Seoul’s central Itaewon district, the signs along “Muslim Street” — which features the Korean alphabet Hangul and Arabic script side by side — is the first giveaway of the neighborhood’s soul.
A little walk up the street, visitors would then find the Seoul Central Mosque — the country’s first and largest — that for decades has served as a beating heart for South Korea’s minority Muslim community.
“Korean Muslims are one of the smallest minority groups in Korea … In Itaewon, no one thinks I am weird when I tell them I am Muslim, or when I pray at the mosque or dress in Arab clothes. It gives me a sense of tranquility. And it also satisfies a big portion of the loneliness I feel as a Muslim,” Eom Min-a, a 35-year-old government official, told Arab News.
“When I meet friends in Itaewon, or when I pray in the mosque with other Muslims, I feel that I am not alone in this country. That makes me keep wanting to go there.”
In South Korea, Muslims make up only around 0.3 percent of the country’s 51 million population, according to the Korea Muslim Federation. Migrant workers from Muslim countries make up the bulk of the Korean Muslim community, as around 70 percent of them are foreigners.
For Koreans like Eom, being Muslim is often a lonely and alienating experience. She deals with microaggressions from time to time and often feels excluded from the larger society.
But whenever she visits Itaewon, she feels liberated. It is also the place where she meets her Muslim friends — most of whom are foreigners — and eats Arab food.
“When you go to Itaewon, you can see the mosque on top of the neighborhood’s highest hill. You feel a sense of pride,” she said. “I feel liberated and I find a lot of emotional comfort there.”
Though small, the growth of the Muslim community in Korea is often traced back to when the Seoul Central Mosque was built in 1976, with funding from Saudi Arabia.
Since then, Muslims in and around Seoul have visited the mosque in Itaewon especially to get together and celebrate the main holidays in Islam, Eid Al-Adha and Eid Al-Fitr.
“Before my child was born, I would go to the central mosque in Itaewon during Ramadan or Eid and participate in the prayers,” business owner Kim Jin-woo told Arab News.
“From our point of view as Muslims, the neighborhood and the Central Mosque feel like home … In our heart, it is a place like home.”
Kim’s visits to Itaewon are also related to household needs at times, including buying halal or Arab ingredients. From dates to homemade hummus to falafel, the shop Kim goes to carries more Arab products than Korean ones.
“My family also goes to Itaewon to shop for groceries. My wife mostly cooks Moroccan food at home, and the shopping center there has a large assortment of Arab groceries and halal meat,” he said.
Over the years, Seoul’s Muslim neighborhood has grown into a beacon of diversity and peaceful coexistence even for other Itaewon residents, including for 83-year-old Kim C., a non-Muslim who has run a shop in the area for over 40 years.
“I have hired foreign Muslim employees myself. They are genuine people,” Kim told Arab News. “They are no different from my other neighbors.”
200,000 intl troops needed to secure any Ukraine peace: Zelensky
- Zelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, “we need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers” to secure any peace deal
- “From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing“
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any peace deal agreed with Russia would require at least 200,000 European peacekeepers to oversee it, according to comments published Wednesday.
US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has raised the spectre of some kind of halt in the fighting after he vowed to end the war — though he has never explained how.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos a day earlier, Zelensky said any deal to end the conflict would need to be overseen by a large foreign contingent of peacekeepers.
Zelensky said that given the small size of the Ukrainian army compared to that of Russia, “we need contingents with a very strong number of soldiers” to secure any peace deal.
“From all the Europeans? Two hundred thousand. It’s a minimum. Otherwise, it’s nothing,” he said.
He said any other arrangement would be akin to the monitoring mission led by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in eastern Ukraine that disintegrated when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
“They had offices and that’s all,” Zelensky said, underscoring the need from the Ukrainian perspective for an armed force to prevent further Russian attacks.
The Ukrainian leader has repeatedly said that Ukraine must be represented at any talks with international parties to end the conflict and that only robust security guarantees can dissuade Russia from attacking again.
Ukraine’s fear that Moscow would use a truce to rebuild its military stems partially from the decade that followed peace agreements between Kremlin-backed separatists and Kyiv in 2014 which failed to halt Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
In an earlier address at Davos, Zelensky called on Europe to establish a joint defense policy and said European capitals should be prepared to increase spending, while calling into question Trump’s commitment to NATO, the US-led security bloc.
Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider imposing fresh sanctions on Russia if President Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
Afghan suspect arrested after two killed in knife attack in German park
- The Afghan suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park
- A 41-year old man and a two-year old boy were fatally injured, police said
BERLIN: A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan has been arrested following a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday in which two people were killed, including a toddler, police said.
The suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the Bavarian city, where the attack occurred at around 1045 GMT.
A 41-year old man and a two-year old boy were fatally injured, police said in a post on social media platform X. Two seriously injured people were receiving hospital treatment.
Police said there was no indication of further suspects and no danger to the public.
The stabbing adds to a string of violent attacks in Germany that have raised concerns over security and stirred up tensions over migration ahead of parliamentary elections on Feb. 23.
A doctor was arrested after a car-ramming attack at a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg on Dec. 20, in which six people were killed and around 200 injured.
Macron says Europe must protect sovereignty in face of Trump’s return
- Macron made the remarks at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz
PARIS: More than ever, Europeans, including France and Germany, must protect their sovereignty in the face of the return of US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.
He made the remarks at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Paris, adding that it was important to support the automobile, steel, chemical sectors, among others.
“After the inauguration of a new administration in the United States, it is necessary more than ever for Europeans and for our two countries to play their role of consolidating a united, strong and sovereign Europe,” Macron said.
