World News Archives | Page 2 of 3 | Best CCTV Security Camera

Moscow office tower hit again with drone, Ukraine hospital suffers deadly attack

Investigators are shown at a damaged office building in Moscow on Tuesday, the second time the area has come under attack in three days. (Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters) A high-rise building in Moscow’s business district that houses three Russian government ministries was struck by a drone for the second time in three days on Tuesday, in what Russia called an attempted Ukrainian “terrorist attack.” The building that was struck is known as the “IQ quarter,” which houses the Ministry of Economic Development, the the Ministry of Digital Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Video obtained by Reuters showed a section of its glass facade, high above the ground, had been destroyed by the impact. “At the moment, experts are assessing the damage and the state of the infrastructure for the safety of people in the building. This will take some time,” Darya Levchenko, an adviser to the economic development minister, said on the Telegram messaging service. She said staff were working by video-conference. Moscow has come under repeated drone attacks since early May, when two drones were fired at the roof of a building in the Kremlin complex. Emergency personnel work outside a damaged office block in the Moskva-Citi business district following a reported drone attack in Moscow on Tuesday, the second drone strike since Sunday. (Alexander Memenov/AFP/Getty Images) While the incidents have not caused casualties or major damage, they have provoked widespread unease amid the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine is proceeding according to plan. Ukraine hasn’t directly claimed responsibility for the attacks, although Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia should expect “more unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, more war.” “Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war,” Podolyak wrote on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. In a statement, the Russian Defence Ministry said it had thwarted the “attempted terrorist attack” and downed two drones west of the Moscow city centre. It said another one was foiled by jamming equipment and went “out of control” before crashing into buildings in the Moskva-Citi business district. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said it hit the same tower that had been struck on Sunday. “The facade has been damaged on the 21st floor. Glazing was destroyed over 150 square metres,” he said. A witness told Reuters: “We were going to see the tower where the explosion happened the day before yesterday. Suddenly there was this explosion, and we immediately ran. There were shards of glass and then smoke rising. Then the security services starting running that way. The shards were really big.” Vnukovo airport, one of three major airports serving the capital, briefly shut down but later resumed full operations. After the first drone hit the business district on Sunday, tech company Yandex sent a memo to staff instructing them not to be in the office at night and urging them to “take care.” Many companies in Russia continue to allow employees to work in hybrid mode, split between home and the office, following the lockdowns imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Ukrainian attacks on Moscow and other targets inside Russia were “acts of desperation” and that Russia was taking all measures possible to protect against strikes. Kyiv typically does not claim responsibility for specific incidents on Russian territory, and it did not claim Sunday’s attack, though President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war was “gradually returning to Russia’s territory — to its symbolic centres.” Two drones reached the Kremlin in May, the most high-profile incident, but other attacks have targeted buildings near the Defence Ministry’s headquarters on the Moscow River and the capital’s exclusive Rublyovka suburb, home to much of Russia’s political, business and cultural elite. Inside Ukraine on Tuesday, a doctor was killed and five medical workers were wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in the southern city of Kherson, regional officials said. “Today at 11:10 a.m., the enemy launched another attack on the peaceful residents of our community,” military administration head Roman Mrochko wrote on Telegram. Photos posted by officials showed the bloodied floor of a balcony and a gaping hole in a roof with debris strewn over the floor. Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said four medical workers had been wounded, in addition to a badly wounded nurse whose injuries were reported earlier. Mrochko said the young doctor had only worked in his job for a few days and that doctors were fighting for the life of the nurse. The facility’s surgery department was also damaged in the shelling, Prokudin said. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said it had been working at the hospital supplying medical equipment and providing mental health consultations to people displaced by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June. “We unequivocally condemn this disgraceful attack on a medical facility and extend our condolences to the family of the doctor who died,” the group said in a social media post. In a separate incident in the northeastern village of Pershotravneve, an elderly woman was killed and a man was wounded in midday Russian shelling, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov wrote on Telegram. Reuters could not immediately verify the details of the reports. Investigators examine a damaged skyscraper in the ‘Moscow City’ business district after a reported drone attack in Moscow early Sunday. (The Associated Press) Three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, Russian authorities said, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure of traffic in and out of one of four airports around the Russian capital. It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fuelling concerns about Moscow’s vulnerability to attacks as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month. The Russian Defence Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defence systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed

Moscow office tower hit again with drone, Ukraine hospital suffers deadly attack Read More »

“UN begins complex oil tanker salvage operation to avoid ‘catastrophic’ spill in Red Sea”

Leave a Comment / Global News, United Nation, United Nation / admin

Best CCTV Security Camera in Brampton Cheap CCTV Camera in Brampton An international team began siphoning oil out of a decrepit oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on Tuesday, the United Nations chief said, a crucial step in a complex salvage operation. In a statement, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the operation a mission “to defuse what might be the world’s largest ticking time bomb.” For years, many organizations have warned that the neglected vessel, known as FSO Safer, may cause a major oil spill or even explode. “In the absence of anyone else willing or able to perform this task, the United Nations stepped up and assumed the risk to conduct this very delicate operation,” Guterres said. The tanker carries four times as much oil as was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the world’s worst ecological catastrophes, according to the UN. Now, the more than 1.1 million barrels of oil stored in the tanker will be moved to another vessel the UN has purchased, Guterres said. The Safer is moored six kilometres from Yemen’s western Red Sea ports of Hodeidah and Ras Issa, a strategic area now embroiled in the country’s civil war. The vessel has not been maintained for eight years and its structural integrity is compromised, making it at risk of breaking up or exploding. Seawater has entered the engine compartment, causing damage to the pipes and increasing the risk of sinking, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press in June 2020. For years, the UN and governments of other countries as well as environmental groups have warned that if an oil spill — or explosion — occurs, it could disrupt global commercial shipping, causing untold damage to the global economy. In total, the Safer salvage operation is expected to cost about $144 million US — an estimate that also includes finding a permanent storage solution for the oil. The UN says that figure is a fraction of the estimated $20 billion US it would cost to clean up an oil spill from the tanker. The United States contributed $10 million US for the transfer and urged other countries to chip in more needed for the operation, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. Canada has contributed $2.5 million Cdn to the salvage mission. The oil transfer came after months of on-site preparatory work and is scheduled to be completed in 19 days, the UN said. The tanker Nautica that is to receive the oil, now renamed the Yemen, reached Yemen’s coast earlier this month and the salvage team managed on Saturday to safely berth it alongside the Safer. “The transfer of the oil to the Yemen will prevent the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic spill in the Red Sea, but it is not the end of the operation,” David Gressly, UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Yemen, said Monday. After transferring the oil, the Yemen vessel will be connected to an undersea pipeline that brings oil from the fields, said Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program. Steiner said the Safer tanker would be towed away to a scrapyard to be recycled. The UN chief said about $20 million US is still needed to finish the salvage operation, including cleaning and scrapping the tanker and removing any remaining environmental threat to the Red Sea. Home CCTV Camera in Brampton Best CCTV Camera in Brampton United Nations Development Program Administrator Achim Steiner, seen speaking during a Thursday news conference, says a deal has been signed to secure the purchase of a large crude carrier that can help get oil off a rusting tanker stranded off the coast of Yemen. (Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press) The United Nations (UN) announced Thursday it signed an agreement to purchase a very large vessel that can transfer more than 1 million barrels of crude now stranded in a rusting tanker off the coast of war-torn Yemen. The deal is the first step in an eventual operation to evacuate the cargo and eliminate the threat of massive environmental damage from a possible oil spill or explosion. Achim Steiner, administrator of the UN Development Program, told a news conference that the deal was signed with Euronav, the world’s largest independent tanker company, to secure the purchase of a large crude carrier for the endeavour. The double-hulled carrier, found “following an intense search on an extremely stressed global market,” is expected to sail within the next month to Yemen’s Red Sea waters and park alongside the FSO Safer, he said. “If all things go according to plan,” the ship-to-ship crude transfer would start in early May,” Steiner said. The Japanese-made Safer was built in the 1970s and sold to the Yemeni government in the 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of oil pumped from fields in Marib, a province in eastern Yemen. The impoverished Arab Peninsula country has for years been engulfed in civil war. Yemen’s conflict started in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia. The following year, a Saudi-led coalition entered the war to fight the Houthis and try and restore the internationally recognized government to power. No annual maintenance has taken place since 2015 on the ship, which is is 360 metres long with 34 storage tanks. Most crew members, except for 10 people, were pulled off the vessel after the Saudis entered the conflict. In 2020, internal documents obtained by The Associated Press showed that seawater has entered Safer’s engine compartment, causing damage to pipes and increasing the risk of sinking. Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases, has leaked out. Experts said maintenance was no longer possible because the damage to the ship is irreversible, according to an Associated Press report. The situation has raised fears of a massive oil spill or explosion that could cause an environmental catastrophe. The UN has repeatedly warned that the tanker could release four times more oil than the notorious Exxon Valdez disaster

“UN begins complex oil tanker salvage operation to avoid ‘catastrophic’ spill in Red Sea” Read More »

“Saudi soccer club Al-Hilal makes world record $332M US bid for France’s Mbappe”

Leave a Comment / World News, Sports / admin

Best CCTV Security Camera in Brampton Paris Saint-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe will be laughing all the way to the bank if he can agree to a deal with Saudi soccer club Al-Halil, which has made a $332-million US bid for the superstar. (Julien de Rosa/AFP via Getty Images) Best CCTV Camera in Brampton After missing out on Lionel Messi, Saudi soccer club Al-Hilal made a record 300 million euro ($332 million US) bid for Kylian Mbappe on Monday, an offer which could see the France striker join Cristiano Ronaldo in the oil-rich kingdom. Paris Saint-Germain confirmed the offer for its player and has given Al-Hilal permission to open negotiations directly with Mbappe. The 2018 World Cup winner is in a contract standoff with PSG after his decision not to take up the option of a 12-month extension on his deal. Instead, he plans to walk away as a free agent at the end of the upcoming season when he is widely expected to join Real Madrid. PSG cut Mbappe from its preseason tour of Japan on Saturday, with the French club determined to sell him unless he can be convinced to sign a new contract. A new deal now looks highly unlikely with relations between the 24-year-old Mbappe and PSG becoming increasingly tense. Saudi Arabia has sought in recent years to buy its way into international sports. Besides Ronaldo, whose contract reportedly earns him up to $200 million a year, Saudi-funded LIV Golf has shaken up professional golf. The moves are part of efforts by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to leverage the kingdom’s oil wealth to provide new jobs and opportunities for Saudi Arabia’s youth. However, critics have dismissed the efforts as “sportswashing,” attempting to leverage professional sports to clean up the kingdom’s image as it remains one of the world’s top executioners and waging a years-long war in Yemen. U.S. intelligence agencies also believe Prince Mohammed ordered the killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Earlier this year, Al-Hilal failed to sign Messi, with the Argentina great choosing to join Inter Miami instead. The bid for Mbappe would make him the most expensive soccer player in history, overtaking the $262 million PSG paid for Neymar, who joined from Barcelona in 2017. The offer represents Saudi Arabia’s most ambitious move yet as part of a determined recruitment drive to lure the game’s biggest players to the country. After Ronaldo agreed to join Al-Nassr in December, Saudi soccer clubs have gone into overdrive by targeting leading names from Europe’s top leagues. Real Madrid great and current Ballon d’Or holder Karim Benzema signed for Saudi soccer club Al-Ittihad last month and has been joined by 2018 World Cup winner N’Golo Kante. Roberto Firmino, Kalidou Koulibaly and Marcelo Brozovic are among other big names to head to the lucrative Saudi league, which is making mega-money offers to players in a bid to raise the profile and quality of soccer in the country. While that was not enough to convince Messi to join Al-Hilal after leaving PSG, more stars are expected to follow in the footsteps of Ronaldo and Co. Premier League players like Riyad Mahrez and Jordan Henderson have recently been linked with moves from Manchester City and Liverpool, respectively. The reported salaries and commercial deals for Ronaldo, Benzema and Kante could earn them a combined figure of nearly $1 billion. Mbappe has said he plans to see out the final year of his contract, which would leave PSG powerless to prevent him from leaving for nothing next year. The French champions, who are owned by Qatar Sports Investments, have already seen Messi leave for nothing in return and are determined to earn a fee for a player who is widely considered one of the few capable of taking over from Messi and Ronaldo as soccer’s biggest star. His omission from PSG’s touring squad in Japan raises the possibility that he could be benched next season if he refuses to sign a contract or agree to leave during this transfer window. Al-Hilal are said to be among a host of clubs that have been alerted to his potential availability, but it is unlikely any could match the bid that has been put forward. There has been an expectation that he would join Madrid, which had a bid of $190 million rejected by PSG in 2021. Madrid needs a top class forward after losing Benzema at the end of the season. Mbappe had until July 31 to trigger a one-year extension on his contract. He has been at the club since 2017 after signing from Monaco in a transfer worth a reported $190 million. Kylian Mbappe has told Paris Saint-Germain he will not take up the option of a 12-month extension on his contract, which expires at the end of next season. The France superstar confirmed his decision in a letter to PSG, a person with knowledge of the correspondence told The Associated Press. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The person also said PSG would not allow Mbappe to leave as a free agent, raising the possibility of an immediate bidding war by other clubs and potential transfer this summer. The French club, which is owned by Qatar Sports Investments, has already seen Lionel Messi leave for nothing in return, with the Argentine great making a stunning move to MLS team Inter Miami. There is also uncertainty about the future of another PSG star — Brazil international Neymar. But the potential departure of the 24-year-old Mbappe would be the greatest loss to PSG, given that he is a national icon and widely considered one of the few players capable of taking over from Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as soccer’s biggest star. Cheap CCTV Camera in Brampton Kylian Mbappe (7), Lionel Messi (30) and Neymar (10) walk off the field for Paris Saint-Germain on June 3. Messi announced his intent to sign with Inter Miami in the MLS

“Saudi soccer club Al-Hilal makes world record $332M US bid for France’s Mbappe” Read More »

“This weekend’s scorching weather around the world”

Leave a Comment / weather, World News / admin

A pedestrian cools off in water misters along the sidewalk during a heat wave in Las Vegas on Friday. Climate scientists say 2023 is on track to be the hottest year since records began. (Ronda Churchill/AFP/Getty Images) Excessive heat warnings remained in effect on Sunday for people around the world, from the United States, to Europe, and Japan. The heat wave that’s spreading across a swath of the U.S. from Oregon, down the West Coast, and into the Southwest including Texas through Alabama, is unusual, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md. There’s a mass of high pressure air sitting like a dome “parked” over the affected areas and it’s deflecting any rain and storm systems that could provide relief to more than 100 million Americans under heat warnings and cautions, said Taylor. Phoenix, Ariz., is centred squarely under the heat dome, and the temperature was expected to climb to 47 C on Sunday, matching the high on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures in Arizona’s capital have been at or above 43 C every day for 16 consecutive days, nearing the 1974 record of 18 days in a row for that level of heat. Some of the estimated 200 cooling centres in metro Phoenix planned to extend their weekend hours, and emergency rooms were ready to treat people with heat-related illnesses. In Nevada, an intense heat wave threatens to break Las Vegas’s all-time record high of 47.2 C this weekend. Misters have been set up along the Las Vegas Strip to provide some relief. A man cools off in misters along the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday. (John Locher/The Associated Press) The National Weather Service says the extreme heat will continue through the middle of this week. Forecasters have warned people to take precautions to protect themselves from the heat, such as cancelling outdoor activities during the day. High temperatures that have already sparked wildfires in Spain and Croatia were also being felt in central parts of Europe, including Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic — and with another heat wave in the forecast, more high temperatures were expected across the continent in the coming days. On Spain’s La Palma Canary Island, officials ordered more than 4,000 people to evacuate their homes on Saturday because of a raging wildfire. The fire, which has destroyed at least 20 homes, coincides with a heat wave that has persisted for nearly a week in southern and central Europe. Italy issued hot weather red alerts for 16 cities on Sunday, with meteorologists warning that temperatures will hit record highs across southern Europe in the coming days. Spain, Italy and Greece have been experiencing scorching temperatures for several days already, damaging agriculture and leaving tourists scurrying for shade. Forecasters say a new weather system with extreme heat pushed into southern Europe from North Africa on Sunday and could lift temperatures above 45 C in parts of Italy early this week. “We need to prepare for a severe heat storm that, day after day, will blanket the whole country,” Italian weather news service Meteo reported on Sunday. “In some places ancient heat records will be broken.” In parts of eastern Japan, highs of 38 and 39 C were expected on Sunday and Monday, with forecasters warning temperatures could break records. A traffic worker stands guard on Sunday at the entrance to a flooded underpass in Akita, Japan. (STR/JIJI Press/AFP via Getty Images) Japan issued heat alerts on Sunday to tens of millions of people in 20 of the country’s 47 prefectures due to high temperatures, while torrential rain pummelled other regions, the AFP news agency reported. Flash flooding hit the city of Akita in northern Japan on Sunday, leaving one person dead and four injured. In South Korea, days of heavy rain have triggered flash floods and landslides. Rescuers on Sunday pulled nine bodies from a flooded tunnel where around 15 vehicles were trapped in muddy water, officials said. A total of 37 people have died and thousands have been evacuated since July 9, when heavy rain started pounding South Korea’s central regions. After Earth’s hottest week on record, extreme weather surprises everyone — even climate scientists The heat has been unprecedented, and extreme weather, from wildfires to floods, are ravaging various corners of the world. Data suggests last week was the hottest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Temperatures have soared across much of southern Europe and the southern United States, while powerful rain storms led to flooding in Vermont, India, Japan — and Montreal on Thursday. At the same time, Canada has already surpassed the record for the total area burned in a wildfire season. This follows the hottest June on record, with unprecedented sea surface temperatures and record low Antarctic sea ice coverage. “There’s a lot of concern from the scientific community and a lot of catch up in the scientific community trying to understand these incredible changes we’re seeing at the moment,” said Michael Sparrow, head of the WMO’s world climate research program. All this comes at the onset of El Niño, which is expected to further fuel the heat both on land and in the oceans, according to Prof. Christopher Hewitt, WMO’s director of climate services. “We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Niño develops further,” he said. “These impacts will extend into 2024.” Global sea surface temperatures hit new records for the time of the year both in May and June, according to the WMO. In Florida, for instance, the water temperature near Johnson Key was 36 Celsius, about 5 degrees warmer than normal this time of year, meteorologists said. “As we go forward, we will see more extreme weather,” said Altaf Arain, a professor in the school of earth, environment and society at McMaster University and director of McMaster’s Centre for Climate Change. While Arain isn’t entirely surprised by the surging temperatures, he said the idea of a “new normal” should be thrown out the window. “It may not be fair to use that term because when you talk about the new normal, then you have to look at the time scale,” he said. “We will have a new normal

“This weekend’s scorching weather around the world” Read More »

“Drone hits Crimean ammunition depot as strikes kill, wound civilians and journalists in Ukraine”

Leave a Comment / World News, Russia Ukraine War / admin

A plume of smoke rises over an ammunition depot where explosions occurred at the facility in Kirovsky district in Crimea, July 19, 2023. (Viktor Korotayev/Kommersant Publishing House via AP) KYIV, UKRAINE – A Ukrainian drone strike Saturday caused a massive explosion at an ammunition depot in Russia-annexed Crimea, forcing the evacuation of nearby homes in the latest attack since Moscow cancelled a landmark grain deal amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories. The attack on the depot in central Crimea sent huge plumes of black smoke skyward and came five days after Ukraine struck a key bridge that links Russia to the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014 and after Moscow suspended a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to safely export its grain through the Black Sea. Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea, said in a Telegram post that there were no immediate reports of casualties from the strike, but that authorities were evacuating civilians within a 5-kilometre radius of the blast site. The Ukrainian military took credit for the strike, saying it destroyed an oil depot and Russian military warehouses in Oktyabrske, in the Krasnohvardiiske region of Crimea, though without specifying which weapons it used. A Crimean news channel posted videos Saturday showing plumes of smoke billowing above rooftops and fields near Oktyabrske, a small settlement next to an oil depot and a small military airport, as loud explosions rumbled in the background. In one video, a man can be heard saying the smoke and blast noises seemed to be coming from the direction of the airport. The strike came during a week in which Ukraine attacked the Kerch Bridge and Russia, in what it described as “retribution” for the bridge attack, bombarded southern Ukrainian port cities, damaging critical infrastructure including grain and oil terminals. Ukraine also attacked the bridge in October, when a truck bomb blew up two of its sections, which took months to repair. Moscow decried that assault as an act of terrorism and retaliated by bombarding Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, targeting the country’s power grid over the winter. The Kerch Bridge is a conspicuous symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and an essential land link to the peninsula. The US$3.6 billion, 19-kilometre (nearly 12-mile) bridge is the longest in Europe and is crucial for Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine. Speaking at the Aspen security forum via video link, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the bridge a legitimate target for Ukraine, noting that Russia has used it to ferry military supplies and it must be “neutralized.” In a video address to the nation later Saturday, Zelenskyy said he had a phone call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss “our steps to unblock and ensure the stable operation of the grain corridor” following Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal. Zelenskyy said they agreed to hold a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council in the nearest days for consultations on the issue. “We can overcome the security crisis in the Black Sea,” he said. As fierce fighting continues in Ukraine’s bid to retake territory from Russia, Russian shelling killed at least two civilians and wounded four others on Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported. A 52-year-old woman died in Kupiansk, a town in the northeastern Kharkiv region, while another person was killed in a cross-border Russian attack on a village in the neighbouring Sumy province. Earlier Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian attacks on 11 regions across the country on Friday and overnight had killed at least eight civilians and wounded others. A DW cameraman was injured Saturday by shrapnel from Russian cluster munitions that also killed one Ukrainian soldier and wounded several others near the town of Druzhkivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, the German broadcaster said in a statement. Cameraman Ievgen Shylko was part of a team sent to report from the Ukrainian army training ground about 23 kilometres (14 miles) away from the frontline, it said. “We were filming the Ukrainian army during target practice when suddenly we heard several explosions,” DW correspondent Mathias Bölinger said. “We lay down, more explosions followed, we saw people were wounded. Later, the Ukrainian army confirmed that we had been fired at with cluster munitions.” Cluster munitions, which open in the air and release multiple small bomblets, are banned by more than 100 countries because of their threat to civilians, but they have been used extensively by both sides in the war. The Pentagon has said the cluster munitions the U.S. recently gave to Ukraine will give Kyiv critically needed ammunition to help bolster its counteroffensive. The Russian Defence Ministry announced that a group of Russian journalists came under artillery fire in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. In an online statement, it said four correspondents for pro-Kremlin media had been struck by cluster munitions and that one of them, Rostislav Zhuravlev of the state RIA Novosti news agency, later died from his injuries. The Kremlin-installed head of the Russia-occupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia region, Yevhen Balitsky, claimed in a Telegram post that the journalists were travelling in a civilian vehicle that was hit by shelling. The claims couldn’t be independently verified. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced the attack on journalists as a “heinous crime” in which the U.S. and its allies were complicit. The Ukrainian air force on Saturday morning said that overnight, it had brought down 14 Russian drones, including five Iranian-made ones, over the country’s southeast, where battles are raging. In a regular social media update, the air force said that all Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones launched by Russian troops during the night were brought down, pointing to Ukraine’s increasing success rate in neutralizing them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0fP6B7nT-4 KYIV, UKRAINE – Russia pounded Ukraine’s southern cities with drones and missiles for a third consecutive night Thursday, keeping Odessa in the Kremlin’s crosshairs after a bitter dispute over the end of a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to send grain through the key Black Sea port. The strikes killed at least two people in Odessa. In Mykolaiv,

“Drone hits Crimean ammunition depot as strikes kill, wound civilians and journalists in Ukraine” Read More »

“NATO’s latest moves could bottle up much of Russia’s naval power”

Leave a Comment / World News, News / admin

A Russian nuclear submarine sails off to take part in Pacific Fleet drills near Vladivostok, Russia on April 14, 2023. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP) Since midnight Wednesday, Moscow time, Russia has been warning the world that any ship approaching a Ukrainian port “will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo.” This obvious threat to sink commercial shipping appears to be an attempt to prevent ships from taking on Ukrainian grain. This week, Russia unilaterally ended talks on renewing the Black Sea Grain Initiative that has allowed food to flow to other countries from Ukraine, despite the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked Turkey to join him in a new arrangement to protect grain ships without Russia’s involvement. Turkey has yet to respond. The threat to sink commercial shipping marks an escalation that can only be carried out under a state of declared war, said Tanya Grodzinski, a naval historian at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont. That’s something Russian President Vladimir Putin has been anxious to avoid, opting instead to present his war on Ukraine as a “special military operation.” The new threat may say more about Russia’s weakness than its strength, as the strategic balance in the waters around European Russia shifts against it. The day the NATO summit in Vilnius opened — July 11 — was marked in Cuba by the arrival of the Russian Navy warship Perekop of the Baltic Fleet. The Cuban government welcomed the Perekop — the biggest Russian warship to visit Cuba in many years — with a cannon salute from Havana’s old fort. For Moscow, the visit allowed Russia to project its military power into the Americas and show support for the Cuban Communist Party, a close ally, on the second anniversary of a popular revolt against its rule. But as the fanfare unfolded in Havana, events in Vilnius that morning and the night before were building a new fence around the Perekop’s home ports of St Petersburg and Kaliningrad. Russia’s Baltic fleet will still be able to sail in peacetime but it’s being strategically bottled up as its home sea becomes a NATO lake. And to the south, Russia’s storied Black Sea fleet, already hurt by the humiliating loss of its flagship Moskva, faces an uncertain future and the possible loss of both its bases and its naval supremacy. One way in, one way out The Baltic and the Black Sea share a geographical feature: they both have only one slender opening into the world’s oceans. In the Baltic, three narrow straits separate Denmark from Sweden; the widest, between two Danish islands, is a mere 16 kilometres across. Ships seeking to exit the Black Sea to enter the Mediterranean must sail the Bosphorus River and the Dardanelles Strait — both of which are entirely within the territorial waters of NATO member Turkey. Four days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey closed the straits to all warships, a move that principally affects Russia. A Russian navy vessel launches an anti-ship missile test in the Peter The Great Gulf in the Sea of Japan on March 28, 2023. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP) For those reasons, Russia has long preferred to station the main part of its blue water navy and its nuclear submarines at its Arctic and Pacific ports. Grodzinski said the Baltic and Black Sea fleets were central to Russia’s emergence as a great power after the 1790s. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and NATO’s response to it, threatens that standing, she added. “If this was viewed as a gamble on the part of Mr. Putin to recreate this image he has of Russia, this historic image of Russian being a great power, it’s being thwarted diplomatically in the Baltic and militarily in Ukraine and the Black Sea,” she told CBC News. “The implications for his leadership and position could be quite significant.” Putin and his defenders have claimed he launched his war to keep NATO away from Russia’s borders. Instead, the conflict triggered a new round of NATO expansion that this year caused Russia’s border with the alliance to more than double in length. The accession of Finland in April added more than 1,300 kilometres of NATO-Russia border. The green light for Sweden to join the alliance, which came on the eve of the Vilnius summit, turns the Baltic Sea into NATO’s backyard. At the start of the year, the northern shores of the Baltic, including both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia, were neutral territory. Sweden and Finland, two countries that maintain highly professional navies and air forces, had for decades remained outside of the European alliance. Now, every inch of Baltic shoreline outside of Russian waters is controlled by NATO allies — allies that are increasingly well-armed. “You’re seeing this rejuvenation of naval forces all across Europe,” said Grodzinski. “Sweden, Norway, Finland and so forth are expanding their navies. There is a greater NATO presence in in the Baltic Sea, which never really occurred before. So there’s a completely different dynamic.” Swedish Black Hawk helicopters fly past the Navy ship that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin travels on during a military demonstration through the islands in the southern Stockholm archipelago on Wednesday, April 19, 2023. (Lolita Baldor/Associated Press) The Swedes, said retired Canadian admiral Mark Norman, “have an incredibly capable military with some very advanced technologies, many of which are homegrown or organic capabilities. They are experts in what I would call sea control in relatively shallow waters. “They’re experts in mining, counter-mining. They are experts in submarining and in anti-submarining. These are vital capabilities.” A Russian ship leaving Saint Petersburg must first sail through the Gulf of Finland, where only about 80 kilometres of open water separate Helsinki from the Estonian capital Tallinn. NATO is now on both sides of that narrow strait. The even narrower corridor of international waters in the middle is within easy range of NATO’s sea-skimming missiles from either shore. The new political geography of the region means “in effect, in any form of conflict, the Baltic gets cut off,” said maritime and arctic security expert Rob Huebert of the University of Calgary. “We’re not going to be able to see any

“NATO’s latest moves could bottle up much of Russia’s naval power” Read More »