MOSCOW: A senior Russian commander said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had been pushed out of one village in Russia’s border region but that Kyiv’s forces were still probing along the front more than nine days since the lightning incursion into Russia.
The biggest foreign attack on sovereign Russian territory since World War Two unfurled on Aug. 6 when thousands of Ukrainian troops smashed through Russia’s western border in an embarrassment for the Russian top military brass.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that his forces had advanced a few kilometers and that the goal of replenishing an ‘exchange fund’ of prisoners of war was being achieved. One Ukrainian official said Kyiv was carving out a buffer zone to protect its population against attack.
Major General Apti Alaudinov, who commands Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces who are fighting in Kursk, said that Russian forces had forced out Ukraine from Martynovka about 18 kilometers from the border.
“We have burned everything that moves, everything that we have been able to find,” Alaudinov told Russian state television from Kursk region, reminding viewers of Russia’s defeat of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia.
Alaudinov, a close ally of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, said that Ukraine was sending in more forces into the Russian region but that the shift in resources was weakening Ukrainian forces at other parts of the front.
“The enemy is pushing, he is trying to get through from everywhere, push through,” Alaudinov said, admitting that initiative was still with Ukraine. “But every day the enemy’s forces are melting.”
The Russian town of Sudzha, a transhipment hub for Russian natural gas flowing to Europe via Ukraine, was not under full Ukrainian control, he said. Ukraine on Wednesday said it was fully under Ukrainian control.
Alaudinov also spoke of the chaotic battlefield situation in the region when his forces arrived shortly after the incursion, with forests teaming with Ukrainian forces and a lack of clarity on whose forces were where.
Ukraine’s incursion appeared aimed at forcing Moscow to slow its advance along the rest of the front inside Ukraine, though the Russian defense ministry also reported intense battles along the Ukraine front and said that its troops had taken better positions at several points.
Ukraine said there was no sign Russian military pressure was receding along the eastern front inside its borders on Thursday and reported the heaviest fighting in weeks near Pokrovsk.
GOING INTO RUSSIA
Supported by swarms of drones, heavy artillery and tanks, Ukrainian units have since carved out a sliver of the world’s biggest nuclear power and battles were ongoing along a front about 18km inside Russian territory on Thursday.
Kursk’s acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, said that the Glushkov district, which has a population of 20,000, was being evacuated. At least 200,000 people have so far been evacuated from the border regions, according to Russian data.
Kremlin deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, visited Kurchatov, the town servicing the Kursk nuclear power station which is just 40km from the fighting.
While the Ukrainian attack has embarrassed Moscow, revealed the weakness of its border defenses and changed the public narrative of the war, Russian officials said what they cast as a Ukrainian “invasion” would not change the course of the war.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has been advancing for most of the year along the 1,000-km front in Ukraine and has a vast numerical superiority. It controls 18 percent of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian incursion into Russia has yielded its biggest battlefield gains since 2022.
FIGHTING IN RUSSIA
The West, which backs Ukraine and has said it will not allow President Vladimir Putin to win the war, has repeatedly said it knew nothing of the Ukrainian plans to attack Russia. Russian officials say they do not believe such statements.
“Of course they are involved,” Russian lawmaker Maria Butina said. “When I studied in the United States the main rule was: ‘Don’t poke the bear’. What the West is doing today? They are poking the bear.”
Putin said on Monday that Ukraine “with the help of its Western masters” was aiming to improve Kyiv’s negotiating position ahead of possible peace talks.
Russia’s defense ministry published footage which it said showed a Russian drone destroying a US-made Stryker armored combat vehicle in the Kursk region. Russian officials have warned that if Western weapons were used on Russian territory, then Moscow would consider that a grave escalation.
By bringing the war to Russia, Zelensky faces the risk of weakening Kyiv’s defenses along the front in Ukraine while Russia has already sent in thousands of reserves in a bid to expel the Ukrainian soldiers.
And if Ukraine wants to hold the Russian territory it has taken, it will need to build a sophisticated logistics operation to support its forces, military analysts said.
Russian commander says Ukraine’s forces pushing along the border front
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Russian commander says Ukraine’s forces pushing along the border front
- Biggest foreign attack on sovereign Russian territory since World War Two unfurled on Aug. 6 when thousands of Ukrainian troops smashed through Russia’s western border
Floods displace 122,000 people in Malaysia
- The number surpassed the 118,000 displaced during one of the country’s worst floodings in 2014
Kuala Lumpur: More than 122,000 people have been forced out of their homes as massive floods caused by relentless rains swept through Malaysia’s northern states, disaster officials said Saturday.
The number surpassed the 118,000 displaced during one of the country’s worst floodings in 2014, and disaster officials feared it could rise further as there was no let-up in torrential downpours.
The death toll remained at four recorded across Kelantan, Terengganu and Sarawak.
Kelantan state bore the brunt of the flooding, accounting for 63 percent of the 122,631 people displaced, according to data from the National Disaster Management Agency.
There were nearly 35,000 people evacuated in Terengganu, with the rest of the displacements reported from seven other states.
Heavy rains, which began early this week, continued to hammer Pasir Puteh town in Kelantan, where people could be seen walking through streets inundated with hip-deep waters.
“My area has been flooded since Wednesday. The water has already reached my house corridor and is just two inches away from coming inside,” Pasir Puteh resident and school janitor Zamrah Majid, 59, told AFP.
“Luckily, I moved my two cars to a higher ground before the water level rose.”
She said she allowed her grandchildren to play in the water in front of his house because it was still shallow.
“But if the water gets higher, it would be dangerous, I’m afraid they might get swept away,” she added.
“I haven’t received any assistance yet, whether it’s welfare or other kinds of help.”
Muhammad Zulkarnain, 27, who is living with his parents in Pasir Puteh, said they were isolated.
“There’s no way in or out of for any vehicles to enter my neighborhood,” he told AFP.
“Of course I’m scared... Luckily we have received some assistance from NGOs, they gave us food supplies like biscuits, instant noodles, and eggs.”
Floods are an annual phenomenon in the Southeast Asian nation of 34 million people due to the northeast monsoon that brings heavy rain from November to March.
Thousands of emergency services personnel have been deployed in flood-prone states along with rescue boats, four-wheel-drive vehicles and helicopters, said Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who chairs the National Disaster Management Committee.
China coast guard says it conducted patrols around Scarborough Shoal in South China Sea
- Tensions between China and the Philippines over disputed areas of the South China Sea have escalated throughout the year, particularly over the Scarborough Shoal
BEIJING: China’s coast guard said it had conducted patrols around the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Saturday to safeguard China’s territorial rights.
The coast guard has continued to strengthen law enforcement patrols in the territorial waters and surrounding areas of Scarborough Shoal since the beginning of November, and “resolutely safeguarding the country’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” it said in a statement.
Tensions between China and the Philippines over disputed areas of the South China Sea have escalated throughout the year, particularly over the Scarborough Shoal.
13 more killed in Pakistan sectarian fighting
- Fresh fighting broke out last Thursday when two separate convoys of Shiite Muslims traveling under police escort were ambushed, killing more than 40
Peshawar: Sectarian feuding in northwest Pakistan killed 13 more people, a local government official said Saturday, as warring Sunnis and Shiites defied repeated ceasefire orders in recent conflict claiming 124 lives.
Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country, but Kurram district — in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the border with Afghanistan — has a large Shiite population and the communities have clashed for decades.
Fresh fighting broke out last Thursday when two separate convoys of Shiite Muslims traveling under police escort were ambushed, killing more than 40.
Since then 10 days of fighting with light and heavy weapons has brought the region to a standstill, with major roads closed and mobile phone services cut as the death toll surged.
A Kurram local government official put the death toll at 124 on Saturday after 13 more people were killed in the past two days.
Two were Sunni and 11 Shiite, he said, whilst more than 50 people have been wounded in fresh fighting which continued Saturday morning.
“There is a severe lack of trust between the two sides, and neither tribe is willing to comply with government orders to cease hostilities,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Police report that many people want to flee the area due to the violence, but the deteriorating security situation makes it impossible,” he added.
A seven-day ceasefire deal was announced by the provincial government last weekend but failed to hold. Another 10-day truce was brokered Wednesday but it also failed to stymie the fighting.
A senior security official in the provincial capital of Peshawar, also speaking anonymously, confirmed the total death toll of 124.
“There is a fear of more fatalities,” he said. “None of the provincial government’s initiated measures have been fully implemented to restore peace.”
Police have regularly struggled to control violence in Kurram, which was part of the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas until it was merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said 79 people had been killed in the region between July and October in sectarian clashes.
The feuding is generally rekindled by disputes over land in the rugged mountainous region, and fueled by underlying tensions between the communities adhering to different sects of Islam.
Schools shut as heavy storm approaches India coast
- Cyclonic storm Fengal is forecast to make landfall in Tamil Nadu state with sustained winds of 70-80 kilometers an hour
- The forecast urged fishing crews to stay off the water and predicted surging waves of one meter that posed a flood risk
BENGALURU: Schools in India’s south were shut and hundreds of people moved inland to storm shelters ahead of a powerful cyclone storm set to hit the region on Saturday.
Cyclonic storm Fengal is forecast to make landfall in Tamil Nadu state with sustained winds of 70-80 kilometers an hour (43-50 mph) in the afternoon, India’s weather bureau said.
The forecast urged fishing crews to stay off the water and predicted surging waves of one meter (three feet) that posed a flood risk to low-lying coastal areas.
Schools and colleges in numerous districts across Tamil Nadu were shut and at least 471 people had been moved to relief camps, the Economic Times newspaper reported.
Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
Fengal skirted the coast of Sri Lanka earlier this week, killing at least 12 people including six children.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows them to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
But better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.
Thailand flooding kills nine, displaces thousands
- ‘Very heavy rain’ could continue to affect some areas of the country’s south through next week
- The government has deployed rescue teams to assist affected residents
BANGKOK: Flooding driven by heavy rains in southern Thailand has killed nine people and displaced more than 13,000, officials said Saturday, as rescue teams using boats and jet skis worked to reach stranded residents.
Local media footage showed residents wading through murky, chest-deep water and cars submerged in flooded streets.
“Flooding across eight provinces in southern Thailand has affected 553,921 households and claimed nine lives, prompting agencies to mobilize urgent assistance,” the country’s disaster agency said on its official Facebook page.
More than 13,000 people had been forced to flee their homes, with temporary shelters set up in schools and temples, it added.
Nampa, a resident of coastal Songkhla province, told state broadcaster Thai PBS she was concerned about the dwindling food supplies.
“We are doing fine now, but I am not sure how long can we stay in this condition,” she said.
Two hospitals in nearby Pattani province suspended operations to prevent floodwaters from damaging medical facilities.
In neighboring north Malaysia, the rains have forced the evacuation of at least 80,000 people to temporary shelters this week, with disaster officials there saying at least four people have been killed.
The Thai Meteorological Department has warned that “very heavy rain” could continue to affect some areas of the country’s south through next week.
The government has deployed rescue teams to assist affected residents and designated 50 million baht ($1.7 million) in flood relief for each province.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said Friday on social media platform X that the goal was to “restore normalcy as quickly as possible.”
While Thailand experiences annual monsoon rains, scientists say man-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.
Widespread flooding across the country in 2011 killed more than 500 people and damaged millions of homes.
