KYIV: Ukraine’s army has retreated from a neighborhood in the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in the eastern Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a monthslong Russian assault, a military spokesperson said Thursday.
Chasiv Yar is a short distance west of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia last year after a bitter 10-month battle. For months, Russian forces have focused on capturing Chasiv Yar, a town which occupies an elevated location. Its fall would put nearby cities in jeopardy, compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
The Ukrainian army retreated from a northeastern neighborhood in the town, Nazar Voloshyn, the spokesperson for the Khortytsia ground forces formation, told The Associated Press in a written message Thursday.
Ukraine’s defensive positions in the town were “destroyed,” he said, adding that there was a threat of serious casualties if troops remained in the area and that Russia did not leave “a single intact building.”
Months of relentless Russian artillery strikes have devastated Chasiv Yar, with homes and municipal offices charred, and a town that once had a population of 12,000 has been left deserted.
Oleh Shyriaiev, commander of the 255 assault battalion which has been based in the area for six months, said after Russian troops captured the neighborhood, they burned every building not already destroyed by shelling.
Shyriaiev said Russia is deploying scorched-earth tactics in an attempt to destroy anything which could be used as a military position in a bid to force troops to retreat.
“I regret that we are gradually losing territory,” he said, speaking by phone from the Chasiv Yar area, but added, “we cannot hold what is ruined.”
Russian troops outnumber Ukrainians 10-to-1 in the area but Shyriaiev suggested that, even with that ratio, they have not been able to make significant progress in the past six months of active fighting.
The intensity of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defensive line in the area of Chasiv Yar has increased over the last month, Voloshyn said.
In the past week alone, Voloshyn said Russia has carried out nearly 1,300 strikes, fired nearly 130 glide bombs and made 44 ground assaults.
Other Russian attacks in recent weeks have focused on capturing nearby settlements that would allow them to advance to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the biggest cities in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian commanders in the area say their resources remain stretched, largely due to a monthslong gap in military assistance from the United States which threw Ukraine’s military onto the defensive.
Shyriaiev, the assault battalion commander, said ammunition from allies is arriving, but more slowly than needed by the army.
“We are determined to hold on to the end,” said the commander, who has been fighting on the front line since the outbreak of the war.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, the governor of the northern Chernihiv region, Viacheslav Chaus, said Russia launched 22 drones over Ukraine last night. One hit a power infrastructure facility in the northern Chernihiv region, leaving nearly 6,000 customers without electricity, he said, adding that the rest were shot down.
Russia is continually targeting Ukraine’s badly damaged energy infrastructure, resulting in hours of rolling blackouts across the country. Ukrainian officials have warned that the situation may worsen as winter approaches.
Ukraine’s army retreats from positions as Russia gets closer to seizing strategically important town
https://arab.news/mbhxm
Ukraine’s army retreats from positions as Russia gets closer to seizing strategically important town
- For months, Russian forces have focused on capturing Chasiv Yar, a town which occupies an elevated location
- The Ukrainian army retreated from a northeastern neighborhood in the town, Nazar Voloshyn
From Cold War to the Ukraine war: NATO at 75
- After the end of the Cold War, NATO went through several waves of eastwards enlargement that saw its border with Russia grow with the inclusion of Poland and the former Soviet Baltic states
BRUSSELS, Belgium: The NATO military alliance in April marked 75 years since the signing of its founding treaty in Washington — where its members gather for an anniversary summit this week.
Here are some facts and figures about the organization forged in the Cold War and re-energised by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Just 12 countries were founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 as the United States, Canada and much of western Europe clubbed together to face up to the threat of former World War II ally the Soviet Union.
As the alliance’s first Secretary General Lord Ismay quipped, NATO’s purpose was to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
In 1952, often uncomfortable neighbors Turkiye and Greece joined, before West Germany became a member three years later.
After the end of the Cold War, NATO went through several waves of eastwards enlargement that saw its border with Russia grow with the inclusion of Poland and the former Soviet Baltic states.
After Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, Nordic neighbors Sweden and Finland reversed long-standing policies of non-alignment by joining NATO — taking the alliance to 32 members.
In total, NATO countries account for close to one billion people and around 50 percent of the world’s GDP.
Together they have 3.2 million men and women serving in their militaries.
Iceland is the only member without its own army.
NATO has only ever once triggered its Article Five collective-defense clause — which says an attack on one member is considered an attack on all — after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
That decision was a show of support for the alliance’s leading military power and far different from the threat in Europe originally foreseen by its founders.
The fall-out from 9/11 saw NATO get involved in Afghanistan where it remained until 2021, when a calamitous US-led withdrawal allowed the Taliban to take back power.
In response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, NATO allies agreed they would aim to spend two percent of their GDPs on defense.
That goal was raised after Moscow launched its all-out invasion of its neighbor in 2022 to having two percent as a minimum.
Former US president Donald Trump has railed against NATO countries not spending enough, warning he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to those not meeting their obligations.
In 2024, 23 NATO members are expected to reach or top two percent, up from three members in 2014.
June 2024 marked 25 years since NATO deployed troops in Kosovo in 1999, completing the withdrawal of Serbian forces after its 77-day air campaign.
That military intervention was just the second in NATO’s history, following its involvement in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.
A quarter of a century on, NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) still remains on the ground in the Balkans, making it the alliance’s longest-running mission.
After a rise in tensions last year led to rioting that wounded 93 NATO troops, allies agreed to send 1,000 additional soldiers to KFOR — taking its total to around 4,500.
Beyond the Balkans, NATO’s other major overseas missions have included a nearly two-decade deployment in Afghanistan and the 2011 bombing campaign in Libya.
No country has ever withdrawn from NATO, but France spent almost 43 years outside its military command structure after then-president Charles de Gaulle pulled out in 1966 complaining of US domination.
The decision — which saw NATO move its headquarters from Paris to Brussels — was only reversed by former president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.
Nonetheless, France’s sometimes strained relationship with NATO continues. In 2019 President Emmanuel Macron said the alliance was suffering “brain death.”
Macron later said Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine had woken up NATO with the “worst of electroshocks.”
Far right bids for power as France holds parliamentary election
- A longtime pariah for many due to its history of racism and antisemitism, the RN has increased its support on the back of voter anger at Macron, straitened household budgets and immigration concerns
PARIS: France holds a parliamentary run-off election on Sunday that will reconfigure the political landscape, with opinion polls forecasting the far-right National Rally (RN) will win the most votes but likely fall short of a majority.
Such an outcome could plunge the country into a chaotic hung parliament, severely denting the authority of President Emmanuel Macron. Equally, if the nationalist, euroskeptic RN did win a majority, the pro-business, pro-Europe president could find himself forced into a difficult “cohabitation.”
Marine Le Pen’s RN scored historic gains to win last Sunday’s first-round vote, raising the spectre of France’s first far-right government since World War Two.
But after centrist and leftist parties joined forces over the past week in a bid to forge an anti-RN barricade, Le Pen’s hopes of the RN winning an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly seem less certain.
Polls suggest the RN will become the dominant legislative force, but fail to reach the 289-seat majority that Le Pen and her 28-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella believe would allow them to claim the prime minister’s job and drag France sharply rightward.
Polls open at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) and close at 6 p.m. in towns and small cities and 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) in larger cities, with initial projections expected the moment voting ends, based on partial counts from a sample of polling stations.
Much will depend on whether voters follow the calls of leading anti-RN alliances to block the far right from power, or support far-right contenders.
Raphael Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament who led France’s leftist ticket in last month’s European vote, said he viewed Sunday’s run-off as a simple referendum on whether “the Le Pen family takes over this country.”
“France is on the cliff-edge and we don’t know if we’re going to jump,” he told France Inter radio last week.
A longtime pariah for many due to its history of racism and antisemitism, the RN has increased its support on the back of voter anger at Macron, straitened household budgets and immigration concerns.
“French people have a real desire for change,” Le Pen told TF1 TV on Wednesday, adding that she was “very confident” of securing a parliamentary majority.
Even if the RN falls short, it looks set to more than double the 89 seats it won in the 2022 legislative vote, and become the dominant player in an unruly hung parliament that will make France hard to govern.
Such an outcome would risk policy paralysis until Macron’s presidency ends in 2027, when Le Pen is expected to launch her fourth bid for France’s top job.
WHAT NEXT FOR MACRON?
Macron stunned the country and angered many of his political allies and supporters when he called the snap election after a humbling by the RN in last month’s European parliamentary vote, hoping to wrong-foot his rivals in a legislative election.
Whatever the final result, his political agenda now appears dead, three years before the end of his presidency.
Bardella says the RN would decline to form a government if it doesn’t win a majority, although Le Pen has said it might try if it falls just short.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who looks likely to lose his job in the post-election shakeup, has dismissed suggestions Macron’s centrists could seek to form a cross-party government in the event of a hung parliament. Instead, he would like moderates to pass legislation on a case-by-case basis.
An RN majority would force Macron into an awkward “cohabitation” with Bardella as prime minister, with thorny constitutional tussles and questions on the international stage about who really speaks for France.
If the RN is deprived of a majority and declines to form a government, modern-day France would find itself in uncharted territory. Coalition building would be difficult for any of the blocs given the policy differences between them.
French assets have risen on expectations the RN won’t win a majority, with banking shares up and the risk premium investors demand to hold French debt narrowing. Economists question whether the RN’s hefty spending plans are fully funded.
An RN-led government would raise major questions over where the European Union is headed given France’s powerful role in the bloc, although EU laws are almost certain to restrict its plans to crack down on immigration.
For many in France’s immigrant and minority communities, the RN’s ascent has already sent a clear and unwelcoming message.
“They hate Muslims, they hate Islam,” said 20-year-old cinema student Selma Bouziane, at a market in Goussainville, a town near Paris. “They see Islam as a scapegoat for all of France’s problems. So it’s bound to be negative for the Muslim community.”
The RN pledges to reduce immigration, loosen legislation to expel illegal migrants and tighten rules around family reunification. Le Pen says she is not anti-Islam but that immigration is out of control and too many people take advantage of France’s welfare system and creaking public services.
EU foreign policy chief issues fresh rebuke to Hungary’s Orban
BRUSSELS, Belgium: Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban drew a fresh rebuke from EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Saturday after the nationalist leader attended a meeting of the Organization of Turkic States in Azerbaijan.
Brussels, EU allies, the United States and Kyiv had already slammed Orban, whose country took over the European Union’s rotating presidency this month, for holding talks on the Ukraine war with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.
EU officials blasted the surprise trip, saying it threatened to undermine the 27-member bloc’s stance on the conflict and stressed that he was not representing Brussels.
Orban’s participation at an informal OTS summit in Azerbaijan on Saturday was the latest event where he represented Hungary alone and not the European Union, Borrell said.
“Hungary has not received any mandate from the EU Council to advance the relations with the Organization of Turkic States,” Borrell said in a statement.
Orban has already sparred with Brussels over his controversial travels.
“Are we allowed to have dinner, or do we need a #EUCO mandate for that too?” his political director wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the Moscow trip.
The EU also rejected OTS attempts to legitimize the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus by admitting it as an observer, said Borrell.
The island of Cyprus has been divided for decades between the internationally recognized, Greek-speaking Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, and the Turkish-speaking TRNC, only recognized by Ankara.
The OTS is an international organization bringing together countries with Turkic languages, founded in 2009 by Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Hungary became an observer of the group in 2018.
Military leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso rule out returning to the ECOWAS regional bloc
- They pledged to consolidate their own union — the Alliance of Sahel States — created last year amid fractured relations with neighbors
- Niger’s military leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, says ECOWAS has become “a threat to our states”
NIAMEY, Niger: Military junta leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso on Saturday ruled out returning their nations to the West Africa regional bloc whose division could further jeopardize efforts to undo coups and curb violence spreading across the region.
The leaders of the three countries announced that position during their first summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger, after their withdrawal from the West Africa bloc known as ECOWAS in January.
They also accused the bloc of failing its mandate and pledged to consolidate their own union — the Alliance of Sahel States — created last year amid fractured relations with neighbors.
The nearly 50-year-old ECOWAS has become “a threat to our states,” said Niger’s military leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani.
“We are going to create an AES of the peoples, instead of an ECOWAS whose directives and instructions are dictated to it by powers that are foreign to Africa,” he said.
The meeting of the three countries that border one another came a day before an ECOWAS summit being held in Nigeria by other heads of state in the region.
Analysts said the two meetings show the deep division in ECOWAS, which had emerged as the top political authority for its 15 member states before the unprecedented decision of the three countries to withdraw their membership.
Despite efforts by ECOWAS to keep its house united, the alliance between the three military junta-led countries will most likely remain outside the regional bloc as tensions continue to grow, said Karim Manuel, an analyst for the Middle East and Africa with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
“Attempts at mediation will likely continue nonetheless, notably led by Senegal’s new administration, but it will not be fruitful anytime soon,” said Manuel.
Formed last September, the Alliance of Sahel States has been touted by the three junta-led countries as a tool to seek new partnerships with countries like Russia and cement their independence from former colonial ruler France , which they accuse of interfering with ECOWAS.
At the meeting in Niamey, Burkina Faso’s leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, reaffirmed those concerns and accused foreign countries of exploiting Africa.
“Westerners consider that we belong to them and our wealth also belongs to them. They think that they are the ones who must continue to tell us what is good for our states. This era is gone forever; our resources will remain for us and our populations,” Traoré said.
“The attack on one of us will be an attack on all the other members,” said Mali’s leader, Col. Assimi Goïta.
With Goïta elected as the new alliance’s leader, the three leaders signed a pact in committing their countries to creating a regional parliament and a bank similar to those operated by ECOWAS. They also committed to pooling their military resources to fight insecurity in their countries.
At a meeting of regional ministers on Thursday, Omar Alieu Touray, the president of the ECOWAS Commission, said it had not received “the right signals” about any possible return of the three states despite ECOWAS lifting coup-related sanctions that the three nations blamed for their decision to quit the bloc.
It is not only the three countries that are angry at ECOWAS, observers say. The bloc has lost goodwill and support from West African citizens so much that some celebrated the recent spate of coups in the region where citizens have complained of not benefitting from rich natural resources in their countries.
For the most part, ECOWAS is seen as representing only the interests of its members’ leaders and not that of the masses, said Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center think tank.
Eight dead, two million affected by Bangladesh floods
- The South Asian nation of 170 million people, crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has seen more frequent floods in recent decades
KURIGRAM, Bangladesh: The death toll from floods in Bangladesh this week has risen to eight, leaving more than two million affected after heavy rains caused major rivers to burst their banks, officials confirmed Saturday.
The South Asian nation of 170 million people, crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has seen more frequent floods in recent decades.
Climate change has made rainfall more erratic and melting glaciers upstream in the Himalayan mountains.
Two teenage boys were killed when a boat capsized in flood waters in Shahjadur, the northern rural town’s police chief Sabuj Rana told AFP.
“There were nine people in the small boat. Seven swam to safety. Two boys did not know how to swim. They drowned,” he said.
Bishwadeb Roy, a police chief in Kurigram, told AFP that three others had been killed in two separate electrocution incidents after their boats became entangled with live electricity wires in flood water.
Another three died in separate flood-related incidents around the country, officials told AFP earlier this week.
The government said it has opened hundreds of shelters for people displaced by the waters and sent food and relief to hard-hit districts in the country’s north region.
“More than two million people have been affected by the floods. Seventeen of the country’s 64 districts have been affected,” Kamrul Hasan, the secretary of the country’s disaster management ministry, told AFP.
Hasan said the flood situation may worsen in the north over the coming days with the Brahmaputra, one of Bangladesh’s main waterways, flowing above danger levels in some areas.
In the worst-hit Kurigram district, eight out of nine rural towns have been marooned by flood water, local disaster and relief official Abdul Hye told AFP.
“We live with floods here. But this year the water was very high. In three days, Brahmaputra rose by six to eight feet (2-2.5 meters),” Abdul Gafur, a local councillor in the district, told AFP.
“Flood water has inundated more than 80 percent of homes in my area. We are trying to deliver food, especially rice and edible oil. But there is a drinking water crisis.”
Bangladesh is in the middle of the annual summer monsoon, which brings South Asia 70-80 percent of its annual rainfall, as well as regular deaths and destruction due to flooding and landslides.
The rainfall is hard to forecast and varies considerably, but scientists say climate change is making the monsoon stronger and more erratic.
