Ukrainians hold out in east, prepare battle for Kherson

Ukrainians hold out in east, prepare battle for Kherson
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A passerby looks at a car damaged by Russian shelling in central Bakhmut, the site of the heaviest battle in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Oct. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Ukrainians hold out in east, prepare battle for Kherson
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Ukrainian tankers flash the victory sign in Bakhmut, the site of the heaviest battle in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Oct. 26, 2022. (AP Photo)
Ukrainians hold out in east, prepare battle for Kherson
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A mother mourns at the grave of only son at a cemetery in Mykolaiv on Oct. 26, 2022. His son, a soldier, was killed during a Russian bombing raid four months ago. (AP)
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Updated 27 October 2022
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Ukrainians hold out in east, prepare battle for Kherson

Ukrainians hold out in east, prepare battle for Kherson
  • Ukrainian counter-offensive in Kherson slows as Russian forces dig in

FRONT LINES NORTH OF KHERSON, Ukraine: Ukrainian troops are holding out against repeated attacks by Russian forces in two eastern towns while those at the southern front are poised to battle for the strategic Kherson region, which Russia appears to be reinforcing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Wednesday evening video address that there would be good news from the front but he gave no details.
He did not mention what was happening in Kherson, which officials and military analysts have predicted will be one of the most consequential battles of the war since Russia invaded Ukraine eight months ago.
The most severe fighting in eastern Ukraine was taking place near Avdiivka, outside Donetsk, and Bakhmut, Zelensky said.
“This is where the craziness of the Russian command is most evident. Day after day, for months, they are driving people to their deaths there, concentrating the highest level of artillery strikes,” he said.
Russian forces have repeatedly tried to seize Bakhmut, which sits on a main road leading to the Ukrainian-held cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
The looming battle for Kherson city at the mouth of the Dnipro River will determine whether Ukraine can loosen Russia’s grip on the south.

Fresh recruits inserted

While much of the front line remains off limits to journalists, at one section of the front north of the Russian-occupied pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro, Ukrainian soldiers said Russian shelling was stepping up again after having tailed off in recent weeks.
Radio intercepts indicated freshly mobilized recruits had been sent to the front and Russian forces were firmly dug in.

“They have good defensive lines with deep trenches, and they are sitting deep underground,” said Vitalii, a Ukrainian soldier squatting in a weed-choked irrigation canal, concealed from any prowling enemy drones by overhanging trees.
Ukrainian forces advanced along the Dnipro River in a dramatic push in the south at the start of this month, but progress appears to have slowed. Russia has been evacuating civilians on the west bank but says it has no plans to pull out its troops.
Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, said wet weather and rough terrain were making Kyiv’s counter-offensive in Kherson harder than it was in the northeast, where it pushed Russia back in September.
At the front, intermittent artillery fire echoed from both sides, with towers of smoke rising in the distance.
A Ukrainian helicopter gunship swept low over the fields, loosed rockets at the Russian positions and wheeled around spitting flares to distract any heat-seeking anti-aircraft rockets fired at it.
“In this area, they are very active. They shell every day and are digging trenches and preparing for defense,” a unit commander at the front, who asked to be quoted by his nickname, Nikifor, said of the Russians.
His location in Mykolaiv province could not be identified under Ukrainian military regulations.
The unit holds a network of well fortified trenches dug into tree lines opposite the Russian fortifications, and rain has turned the dirt tracks that access them to mud, especially where tank treads have churned them up.

Australia said it was sending 30 more armored vehicles and deploying 70 soldiers to Britain to help train Ukrainian troops there to bolster Kyiv’s war effort.
“We’re mindful that Ukraine needs to now be supported over the longer term if we’re going to put Ukraine in a position where it can resolve this conflict on its own terms,” Defense Minister Richard Marles told ABC television.

Nuclear rehearsal
Since Russia began losing ground in a counter-offensive in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken a series of steps to intensify the conflict, calling up hundreds of thousands of Russian reservists, proclaiming the annexation of occupied land and repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.
This month, Russia launched a new campaign of strikes using missiles and Iranian-made drones against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, also hitting parks and homes across the country.
In Russia, the military staged a high-profile rehearsal for nuclear war, with state television broadcasts dominated by footage of submarines, strategic bombers and missile forces practicing launches in retaliation for an atomic attack.
Moscow has conducted a diplomatic campaign this week to promote an accusation that Kyiv is preparing to release nuclear material with a so-called “dirty bomb,” an allegation the West calls baseless and a potential pretext for Russian escalation.
Despite the rising tensions, United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said he was “relatively optimistic” that a UN-brokered deal that allowed a resumption of Ukraine Black Sea grain exports would be extended beyond mid-November.
 


Govts urged to meet obligations under Women, Peace and Security agenda

Govts urged to meet obligations under Women, Peace and Security agenda
Updated 22 sec ago
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Govts urged to meet obligations under Women, Peace and Security agenda

Govts urged to meet obligations under Women, Peace and Security agenda
  • Some 614m women, girls living in conflict-related contexts, up 50% since 2017
  • ‘We need women’s voices in decision-making processes,’ Emirati official tells summit attended by Arab News

NEW YORK: Governments must up their efforts to meet their obligations under the Women, Peace and Security agenda, as conflict-linked deaths hit a 28-year high, a delegation of foreign ministers and UN representatives said on Wednesday.
Addressing a summit titled “Advancing the Sustainability and Adaptability of the WPS Agenda,” held during the 78th session of the UN General Assembly and attended by Arab News, the US secretary of state said the participation of a diverse collective of women is imperative to addressing global violence.
“When peacekeeping agreements include the thoughts of women, research shows a higher likelihood of them being both agreed to and to their enduring. This is something I see every day in my work and know it’s very real,” said Antony Blinken.
“It’s imperative women are used to strengthen security and end conflict, and through the WPS Focal Points Network we must build partnerships and share information or we’ll reinvent the wheel time and time again.”
The session was held in the lead-up to the 23rd anniversary of the first UN resolution of the WPS agenda, resolution 1325. But in recent years there have been seeming reversals in the successes initially hoped for.
Not only have conflict-related deaths hit a 28-year high, but 614 million women and girls are now living in conflict-related contexts, representing a 50 percent increase on 2017, and leading speakers to call for a new “path to peace.”
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Namibia’s minister of international relations and cooperation, said the formation of the WPS Focal Points Network in 2016 — of which the country is a founding member — had revealed the lack of progress surrounding the agenda.
Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, echoed Blinken’s call for the increased participation of women in peacebuilding and peace-sustaining efforts, as she highlighted some of the themes of a pending annual WPS report.
“Our report underlines the urgent need for ambitious and measurable targets for women’s direct participation on delegations and negotiations, as we call for governments to nominate and appoint women as mediators, and accept their expertise as normal,” she said.
“Towards this, the report will call for governments to earmark a minimum of 15 percent of their mediation funds to support women’s participation, and to report in real time that participation.”
Grynspan’s call for minimum funding levels comes amid an international decrease in funding for women-led foundations, a factor she called to be reversed with a UN pledge to raise $300 million for women’s organizations in crisis situations over the next three years.
“We must ensure national action plans on WPS are budgeted, because we as women aren’t a vulnerable group, but a group who have been violated. That’s a different concept,” she added.
Both the US and the UAE have been very vocal in their own domestic efforts to see the WPS agenda normalized as part of everyday life, with Blinken noting America having become the first country to introduce a WPS Act, entrenching its commitment to the agenda.
Ahood Al-Zaabi, director of the UN department at the UAE Foreign Ministry, said her country has prioritized legal and policy reform in line with its WPS obligations.
Describing the UAE’s efforts as focused on the “long-term,” she pointed to its global outreach program for training mediators, with some 500 candidates already trained across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
“We need women’s voices in decision-making processes,” she said. “This must take into consideration an inclusive approach with all segments of society, which is particularly relevant in the security sectors.”
Commenting on the dearth of women leading in peace talks, Sima Sami Bahous, executive director of UN Women, said: “Let us be unwavering in our unambiguous rejection of our reality. We continue to see all-male delegations.
“Even in UNGA, women leadership is celebrated as the exception rather than seen as the norm.”


From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News

From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News
Updated 19 min 20 sec ago
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From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News

From Syria to Sudan, refugee agencies need money, access and an end to fighting, UNHCR official tells Arab News
  • UN refugee agency’s assistant high commissioner for operations made the comments on the sidelines of UN General Assembly session
  • Raouf Mazou said refugees not dependent on humanitarian assistance are more capable of going back to their place of origin

NEW YORK: With every passing year, the global displacement crisis becomes more and more severe. The number of people forced to flee their homes crossed the 110 million mark in May this year, yet there seems to be no end in sight to the phenomenon.

From the Mediterranean and the Andaman seas to the English Channel and the US-Mexico border, refugees and migrants have been dying in their thousands every year attempting dangerous sea crossings and land routes.

Just last fortnight, more than 120 small boats arrived in Lampedusa in the span of roughly 24 hours, bringing the number of people at the local reception center alone to more than the Mediterranean island’s full-time population.

According to Italy’s Interior Ministry, more than 127,000 migrants have reached the country by sea so far this year, nearly double the number for the same period last year.

While conflict and violence are traditionally the main drivers of displacement, climate change and economic instability are also to blame, Raouf Mazou, assistant high commissioner for operations at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told Arab News on the sidelines of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly here.

Syrian children gather at a refugee camp in Saadnayel in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. (AFP)

“We see an acceleration in this number over the past 10 years. We’ve seen a constantly increasing number of people displaced, internally displaced refugees,” he said.

Citing the example of five years of failed rains in Somalia leading to drought, which subsequently led to clashes over access to water and eventually waves of displacement, Mazou said: “In the past, we tended to look at displacement simply as a group of people fighting and crossing the border. Now, more and more, we’re thinking, why? Why are they fighting and what are the reasons? And what we’re seeing is droughts.”

As the number of refugees and displaced persons continues to grow worldwide, so too does anti-migrant rhetoric. Various European leaders and officials, from Hungary’s Viktor Orban and France’s Marie Le Pen to former British PM David Cameron and former Polish PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski, have made strong anti-migrant statements.

Despite Europe’s stricter migration policies and investments in surveillance technology, people-smuggling networks across the Mediterranean Sea have demonstrated they can quickly adapt to the situation. “All indicators in Tunisia and the broader region were showing increased arrivals were going to continue,” Tasnim Abderrahim a Tunisian researcher at The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, told the Associated Press news agency recently.

Though panic over the waves of refugees reaching Europe’s shores may be on the rise, Mazou’s comments suggest that the brunt of the displacement crisis is being borne by countries with far less resources at their disposal.

Raouf Mazou is assistant high commissioner for operations at UNHCR. (Supplied)

“Most of the 110 million that I’m talking about are people who are internally displaced,” he said. “Some 75 percent of the refugees are in low- and middle-income countries. So, people are not fleeing toward the so-called wealthier countries.”

According to UNHCR statistics, the 46 least developed countries account for less than 1.3 percent of global GDP, and yet are home to more than 20 percent of all refugees.

The influx of people to primarily low- and middle-income nations, Mazou said, is an issue both for those fleeing their homes and the countries to which they flee.

“Because they are low- and middle-income countries, they already have issues and challenges,” he said.

According to Mazou, since the eruption of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on April 15, more than 1 million people have fled Sudan into neighboring countries, primarily Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.

INNUMBERS

• 108.4m People worldwide who are forcibly displaced.

• 76 percent Share of refugees hosted by low- and middle-income countries.

Most of Sudan’s neighbors are already suffering from their own internal crises, with many of them already hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees.

“We believe that we now have about 400,000 refugees who have arrived into Chad, and that is added to about 600,000. So, we’re getting close to 1 million refugees in a country that is quite fragile. And they are also coming to a place that has experienced droughts on a number of occasions,” he said.

South Sudan has also faced an influx of people from Sudan, many of them South Sudanese who had been displaced by conflicts in their own country. Mazou said about 50,000 people have crossed into South Sudan since the start of the current Sudan conflict — “they have gone back to a country which has huge problems: security problems, political problems, governance problems, and infrastructure problems.”

For now, Sudan remains one of the countries most in need of assistance. Mazou said that of the $1 billion in funding needed to serve the needs of Sudanese refugees and internally displaced persons, UNHCR has received just over $200 million thus far.

Syrian refugees walk on their way back to the Syrian city of Jarabulus. (AFP)

“The problem of not having the resources that we need is that we are not in a position of making sure that health care is available and accessible to this mass of people who are leaving. Support from the international community would help us to make sure that the health care that is required is provided. We need to make sure that water is available. We need to make sure that education is available,” he said.

UNHCR teams have been active on the ground in the region, setting up reception centers at border points to register and identify vulnerable people and provide basic aid such as food and water. That said, the traditional approach of the UNHCR is no longer appropriate in the face of modern conflicts, according to Mazou.

“For many years, the way we were supporting these countries was to establish camps — refugee camps — and then provide support and assistance in these camps, expecting that people would not stay long and they would go back to their place of origin,” he said.

“What we’ve seen, unfortunately, is that people stay 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. What we’re trying to push for now — and we see a number of countries are welcoming that — is inclusion and integration. So, basically saying, ‘you’re a refugee, you’ve crossed into our country, but you’re going to be supported as part of the community that has welcomed you. You will be allowed to work and contribute to the economy of the country where you are, and then later on you will go back.’”

Mazou said that a number of countries have adopted this approach in whole or in part, citing the examples of Syrian refugees who are able to work in Jordan, refugees in Kenya who are able to find employment, and Venezuelan nationals in Colombia who are able to obtain documents that allow them to work and become part of society.

According to Mazou, more than 1 million people have fled Sudan as a result of the conflict. (AFP)

International financial institutions and regional financial institutions, including the African Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, Interamerican Development Bank, World Bank and International Finance Corporation, have all worked with the UNHCR and national governments in order to allow refugees to become self-sufficient.

While UNHCR has pushed for a self-reliance-centered approach, according to Mazou the funding needs for such projects are massive.

“You need development resources, long-term resources, multi-year resources, to be able to put in place situations where the refugees, even if they are in exile, are in a position to live normal lives until they can go back to their place of origin,” he said.

“What we’ve also seen is that when refugees are not dependent on humanitarian assistance when they’re in exile, they’re in a better position to go back to their place of origin and rebuild their communities.”


UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia

UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia
Updated 21 September 2023
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UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia

UK to charge five Bulgarians with spying for Russia
  • The charges relate to alleged offenses that took place between August 2020 and February 2023, the CPS added

LONDON: Five Bulgarian nationals suspected of spying for Russia will be charged with conspiracy to conduct espionage, UK prosecutors said Thursday.
Three men and two women “will be charged with conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state,” the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.
The charges relate to alleged offenses that took place between August 2020 and February 2023, the CPS added.
Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, Katrin Ivanova, 31, Ivan Stoyanov, 31, and Vanya Gaberova, 29, will appear at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday.
Three of them — Roussev, Dzhambazov and Ivanova — were charged in February with “possession of false identity documents with improper intention,” the CPS said.


Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine

Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine
Updated 21 September 2023
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Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine

Zelensky returns to Washington to face growing dissent among Republicans to US spending for Ukraine
  • Zelensky will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House
  • National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the Ukrainian president “our best messenger” in persuading US lawmakers to keep vital US money and weapons coming

WASHINGTON: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Washington on Thursday for a whirlwind one-day visit, this time to face the Republicans now questioning the flow of American dollars that for 19 months has kept his troops in the fight against Russian forces.
Zelensky will meet with President Joe Biden at the White House, speak with US military leaders at the Pentagon and stop at Capitol Hill to talk privately with Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate as the world is watching Western support for Kyiv.
It is Zelensky’s second visit to Washington since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and comes as Biden’s request to Congress for an additional $24 billion for Ukraine’s military and humanitarian needs is hanging in the balance.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the Ukrainian president “our best messenger” in persuading US lawmakers to keep vital US money and weapons coming.
“It’s really important for members of Congress to be able to hear directly from the president about what he’s facing in this counteroffensive,” Kirby told reporters Wednesday, “and how he’s achieving his goals, and what he needs to continue to achieve those goals.”
Biden has called on world leaders to stand strong with Ukraine, even as he faces domestic political divisions at home. A hard-right flank of Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump, Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 race for the White House, is increasingly opposed to sending more money overseas.
As the White House worked to shore up support for Ukraine before Zelensky’s visit, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top intelligence officials briefed senior lawmakers behind closed doors Wednesday to argue the case.
But some Senate Republicans walked out of the briefing no more convinced than before about the necessity of spending more on Ukraine. “It’s not close to the end,” Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said. “What we’re basically told is, ‘Buckle up and get out your checkbook.”’
Since the start of the war, most members of Congress supported approving four rounds of aid to Ukraine, totaling about $113 billion, viewing defense of the country and its democracy as an imperative, especially when it comes to containing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some of that money went toward replenishing US military equipment sent to the frontlines.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who traveled to Kyiv this week, said cutting off US aid during the Ukrainians’ counteroffensive would be “catastrophic” to their efforts.
“That would clearly be the opening that Putin is looking for,” Kelly said Wednesday. “They cannot be successful without our support.”
The political environment has shifted markedly since Zelensky addressed Congress last December on his first trip out of Ukraine since the war began. He was met with rapturous applause for his country’s bravery and surprisingly strong showing in the war.
His meeting with senators on Thursday will take place behind closed doors in the Old Senate Chamber, a historical and intimate place of importance at the US Capitol, signifying the respect the Senate is showing the foreign leader.
But on the other side of the Capitol, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who faces more opposition within his Trump-aligned ranks to supporting Ukraine, is planning a separate meeting with Zelensky, with a smaller bipartisan group of lawmakers and committee chairmen.
“I will have questions for President Zelensky,” McCarthy told reporters before the visit.
The House speaker said he wanted more accountability for the money the US has already approved for Ukraine before moving ahead with more.
And, McCarthy said, he wants to know, “What is the plan for victory?”
In the Senate, however, Ukraine has a strong ally in Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who is out front in pushing his party, and the president, to continue robust support for Kyiv.
McConnell urged Biden before Wednesday’s closed-door briefing to senators to make sure the administration’s top brass puts forward a more forceful case in support of Ukraine so Congress can send Zelensky what’s needed to win the war.
“I sometimes get the sense that I speak more about Ukraine matters than the president does,” McConnell said in a speech Wednesday.


First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul

First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul
Updated 21 September 2023
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First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul

First Ukraine grain ship since Russian blockade reaches Istanbul
  • The Palau-flagged Resilient Africa vessel was carrying 3,000 tons of wheat

ISTANBUL: The first grain ship to sail from Ukraine since Russia reimposed its Black Sea blockade in July reached Istanbul on Thursday, marine traffic monitors said.
Ukrainian officials said the Palau-flagged Resilient Africa vessel was carrying 3,000 tons of wheat when it left Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port on Tuesday.