WARS
Sunday, 10 December 2023 04:25
What to know after Day 654 of Russia-Ukraine war
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Ukraine condemns Russian plans for elections on occupied territory Ukraine on Saturday strongly condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them "null and void" and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them. Russia's upper house set the country's presidential election this week for next March, and chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time. Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in the east and south of Ukraine during referenda last year dismissed by…
Saturday, 09 December 2023 04:44
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 64
Israeli troops round up Palestinian men in northern Gaza as UN warns aid operation is 'in tatters' Israel said Friday that the military was rounding up Palestinian men in northern Gaza for interrogation, searching for Hamas militants, while desperate Palestinians in the south crowded into an ever-shrinking area, and the U.N. warned that its aid operation is “in tatters.” The detentions pointed to Israeli efforts to secure the military’s hold on northern Gaza as the war entered its third month. Furious urban fighting has continued in the north, underscoring Hamas’ heavy resistance, and tens of thousands of residents are believed…
Saturday, 09 December 2023 04:43
What to know after Day 653 of Russia-Ukraine war
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Ukraine says Russian missiles kill one, troops press on Avdiivka Russian warplanes fired 19 long-range missiles at targets in Ukraine on Friday, killing one civilian in a central region, wounding eight and damaging an industrial facility and power lines, Ukrainian officials said. On the 1,000-km (600-mile) front line in the war against Russia, Ukrainian officials said Moscow's forces pressed on with a drive to encircle the shattered eastern town of Avdiivka. Officials also reported heavy battles in the northeast near Kupiansk, a town seized by Russian forces soon after their February 2022 invasion but later retaken by Ukraine.…
Friday, 08 December 2023 04:29
Son of Israeli war cabinet minister killed in Gaza, IDF says
Master Sgt. (Res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, a combat soldier in the 551st reserve commando Brigade’s 699th Battalion, died in battle, the IDF said in a statement. His father was chief of the general staff of the IDF from February 2015 to January 2018, and served in the military for more than four decades. Gadi Eisenkot joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet as minister without portfolio in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack. He was elected to the Knesset in 2022 and is a member of Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party. Gantz paid tribute to Gal Meir…
Friday, 08 December 2023 04:28
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 63
Israel designates safe zone in Gaza. Palestinians and aid groups say it offers little relief Israel has designated a small slice of mostly undeveloped land along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast as a safe zone — a place where waves of people fleeing the war can find protection from airstrikes and receive humanitarian supplies for their families. The reality? The area of Muwasi is a makeshift tent camp where thousands of dazed Palestinians live in squalid conditions in scattered farm fields and waterlogged dirt roads. Their numbers have swelled in recent days as people flee an Israeli military offensive in nearby areas…
Friday, 08 December 2023 04:27
What to know after Day 652 of Russia-Ukraine war
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE Western aid to Ukraine falls off a cliff – German monitor New commitments of weapons and money to Ukraine by the US and its allies have reached a new low in the past three months, down to almost one tenth of what they were a year ago, Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) reported on Thursday. The research institution updated this week its Ukraine Support Tracker, a database of public aid pledges, which it has been tracking since January last year. Between August and October, the value of new packages dropped to just €2.11 billion…
Thursday, 07 December 2023 04:42
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 62
Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza's second-largest city, blocking aid from population Israeli troops battled Hamas militants Wednesday in the center of the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city, the military said, pressing a ground offensive that has sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing to the territory’s southernmost edge and prevented aid groups from delivering food, water and other supplies. Two months into the war, Israel’s offensive into southern Gaza was bringing to Khan Younis the same fierce urban fighting and intensified bombardment that obliterated much of Gaza City and the north of the territory in past weeks. But…
Thursday, 07 December 2023 04:41
What to know after Day 651 of Russia-Ukraine war
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Zelenskiy assures Ukrainians of victory with US aid in the balance President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainians on Wednesday that Kyiv would defeat Russia and win a fair peace "against all odds" as the future of vital U.S. military and financial aid hung in the balance. Zelenskiy delivered his defiant message in an unusual early-morning video that showed him walking through Kyiv on his way to pay his respects to fallen soldiers on what Ukraine marks as Armed Forces Day. "It has been difficult, but we have persevered," said Zelenskiy, who filmed himself on a mobile phone as he…
Wednesday, 06 December 2023 04:49
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 61
Israel moves into Gaza's second-largest city and intensifies strikes in bloody new phase of the war Israel said Tuesday that its troops had entered Gaza’s second-largest city as intensified bombardment sent streams of ambulances and cars racing to hospitals with wounded and dead Palestinians, including children, in a bloody new phase of the war. The military said its forces were “in the heart” of Khan Younis, which has emerged as the first target in the expanded ground offensive into southern Gaza that Israel says aims to destroy Hamas. Military officials said they were engaged in the “most intense day” of…
Wednesday, 06 December 2023 04:48
What to know after Day 650 of Russia-Ukraine war
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Ukraine sees 'big risk' of losing war if U.S. Congress postpones vital aid Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff said on Tuesday that the postponement of U.S. assistance for Kyiv being debated in Congress would create a "big risk" of Ukraine losing the war with Russia. The remarks by Andriy Yermak were some of the frankest yet from a senior Kyiv official as uncertainty swirls over the future of vital U.S and European Union assistance packages as Ukraine's war with Russia rages on. If the aid is postponed, "it gives the big risk that we can be…
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Wednesday, 06 December 2023 04:47
As its counteroffensive fizzles, Ukraine battles itself, Russia and a shift in world’s attention
Ukraine is battling more than the Russian army. After more than 21 months of grueling war, it’s now grasping for the world’s attention in the shadows of the conflict in the Middle East. And with its much-vaunted counteroffensive fizzling into the snow, with little to show for months of planning and billions in allied military support, Kyiv is also beset by growing internal wrangling. Staring down a long and difficult winter, Ukraine is fighting on multiple fronts. “There is severe fatigue from the war,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Kyiv-based political analyst. “Many Ukrainians are disappointed that a quick victory was…
Tuesday, 05 December 2023 04:41
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 60
Israel orders evacuations as it widens offensive, but Palestinians are running out of places to go Israeli warplanes heavily bombarded an area around Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Monday as the military ordered mass evacuations from the town in the face of a widening ground offensive that is pushing Palestinians into a progressively shrinking portion of the besieged territory. The expanded assault posed a deadly choice for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians — either stay in the path of Israeli forces or flee within the confines of southern Gaza with no guarantee of safety. Aid workers warned that the…
Tuesday, 05 December 2023 04:40
What to know after Day 649 of Russia-Ukraine war
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Deputy Russian army corps commander is killed in Ukraine Major General Vladimir Zavadsky, deputy commander of Russia's 14th Army Corps, has been killed in Ukraine, a top regional official said on Monday. The governor of Russia's Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, said Zavadsky had died "at a combat post in the special operation zone", without giving further details. "Special military operation" is the term that Russia uses to describe the war in Ukraine, now approaching the end of its second year. The investigative news outlet iStories said Zavadsky was the seventh Major General whose death had been confirmed by…
Monday, 04 December 2023 04:44
Here’s the latest as Israel-Hamas war enters Day 59
Israel expands Gaza ground offensive, vows to hit the south with 'no less strength' than the north Israel’s ground offensive expanded to every part of the Gaza Strip, its military said Sunday, as it ordered more evacuations and vowed to hit south Gaza with “no less strength” than the fight that has reduced large parts of north Gaza to a moonscape. Heavy bombardment followed the evacuation orders, and Palestinians in the sealed-off territory bordering Israel and Egypt said they were running out of places to go. Many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people fled to the south after Israel ordered civilians…