WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine says it hit two Russian military targets in occupied Crimea

Ukraine said on Thursday its air force conducted a strike on a Russian command post near the occupied city of Sevastopol more than 200 km (120 miles) from Kyiv-held territory, and hit a military unit in a separate strike on the Crimean peninsula.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defence units had downed a total of 36 Ukrainian drones over Crimea.

Ukraine's Air Force Commander, Mykola Oleshchuk, posted a video from social media on the Telegram messaging app showing smoke rising from an explosion near Sevastopol, a Crimean port that serves as the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

"Thanks again to the air force pilots and everyone who planned the operation for perfect combat work," he said.

He also published a screenshot of a social media post saying that a Russian military base in the city of Yevpatoria had been hit in a strike.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, described the attack as "the most massive in recent times".

One person was hospitalized after a piece of shrapnel struck a house, he wrote on Telegram.

In a later posting, Razvozhayev said three residents of a home hit by falling debris had been evacuated. Further evacuations might be necessary as forensic experts examine part of a missile that fell near a village.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

In a report just after midnight, Russia's Defence Ministry reported the downing of 36 drones in Crimea and one over the southern Russian region of Krasnodar.

The head administrative official in Saky, home to an air base north of Sevastopol, said several Ukrainian air attacks on the area had been repelled.

And Ukrainian bloggers and unofficial Telegram channels said Russian air defence units had been in action repelling Ukrainian attacks in the Kerch strait, on Crimea's eastern coast, and in the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

The Russian defence ministry had earlier reported that its forces had destroyed 10 incoming missiles over the peninsula.

The Strategic Communications Department of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said a Russian command post had been hit near Sevastopol.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on the Crimean peninsula, which was seized and annexed by Moscow in 2014, seeking to destroy Russian military capabilities and force its fleet to pull back from the Black Sea.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Kyiv has managed to seize the initiative from Russia in the area.

** White House says Russia used missiles from North Korea to strike Ukraine

Russia recently used short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) sourced from North Korea to conduct multiple strikes against Ukraine, the White House said on Thursday, citing newly declassified intelligence.

National security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters the United States will raise the development with the United Nations Security Council.

Kirby called North Korea's arms transfer to Russia a "significant and concerning escalation" and said the United States would impose additional sanctions against those facilitating the arms deals.

Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied conducting any arms deals, but vowed last year to deepen military relations.

The use of the missiles drew condemnation from Britain, as well as South Korea, which had reported in November that North Korea may have supplied SRBMs to Russia as part of a larger arms deal that also included anti-tank and anti-air missiles, artillery and mortar shells, and rifles.

"Our information indicates that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea recently provided Russia with ballistic missile launchers and several ballistic missiles," said Kirby, using the official name of North Korea.

On Dec. 30, he said, "Russian forces launched at least one of these North Korean ballistic missiles into Ukraine," adding that it appeared to have landed in open field.

Then on Tuesday Russia launched "multiple" North Korean missiles as part of a broader wave of heavy air strikes, Kirby said. Washington was still assessing the impact of those missiles.

Russia recently has launched some of its most intense strikes on Ukraine since the war began almost two years ago. Kyiv on Tuesday said that Russia had launched well over 300 attack drones and missiles of various kinds at cities across Ukraine since Friday.

HELPS RUSSIA

"Just like the artillery and munitions, this all helps prolong Russia's warfighting efforts," said Jenny Town, director of the Stimson Center's 38 North Program, which studies North Korea.

While the White House would not say specifically what type of missiles Pyongyang had sent to Russia, Kirby said they had a range of about 900 km (550 miles) and released a graphic that appeared to show KN-23 and KN-25 missiles.

Such missiles are new, solid-propellant SRBMs that North Korea began testing in 2019, said Ankit Panda, of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"This is the first known combat use of these North Korean missiles," he said.

Joost Oliemans, a Dutch researcher and expert on North Korea's military, said images from Ukrainian social media accounts clearly show fragments of the ring housing the control vanes that are characteristic to North Korea's Hwasong-11 family of missiles, which includes the KN-23 and KN-25.

Kirby said the U.S. expects Russia and North Korea to learn from these launches, and anticipates Russia will use additional North Korean missiles to target Ukraine.

He said Iran has not delivered close-range ballistic missiles to Russia, but Washington believes Russia intends to purchase missile systems from Iran.

Moscow has been heavily reliant on Iran for drones and other weaponry for use against Ukraine.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Putin approves citizenship for foreigners in Russian army

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting the right to obtain Russian passports to foreigners who sign up for service in the country’s Armed Forces or other military units during the Ukraine conflict, the Kremlin reported on its website on Thursday.

Family members of such foreigners will also have the right to obtain Russian citizenship, according to the decree.

In addition, simplified naturalization rules will apply to foreigners dismissed from military service during the fighting for health reasons, upon reaching the age limit, or the expiration of their contract.

Applications to secure Russian ID for the foreign nationals are to be considered within a month after the relevant papers are submitted to the Interior Ministry. The term can be extended to up to three months in case some data needs additional verification, the document reads.

The move can help to solve the problem of extraditing foreigners who took part in the fighting for Russia to other countries, according to Aleksandr Khinshtein, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy.

“Now the problem with the extradition of veterans of the military operation to other countries, where they are to be punished as ‘mercenaries’, will be resolved. Russia doesn’t extradite its citizens!” he wrote on Telegram.

Foreigners have been allowed to sign contracts with the Russian military since November 2022. However, a simplified path towards naturalization previously only applied to those who committed to at least one year of service.

Last month, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that the number of “foreign volunteers” joining the country’s military units had increased sevenfold over the past year. He didn’t reveal the exact number.

Also on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry published data on foreign mercenaries fighting on the Ukrainian side. According to its estimates, over 13,500 soldiers of fortune have arrived in the country since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022.

A total of 5,900 mercenaries have been killed, while over 5,600 have fled the battlefield. The number of foreigners in the ranks of the Ukrainian military currently stands at over 1,900, according to the ministry.

** White House not ready to report damage to weapons supplied to Kiev

The US administration is not ready to inform, what portion of US weapons transferred to Ukraine was damaged in combat actions, Coordinator for Strategic Communications of the US National Security Council John Kirby said at the regular briefing.

"That's a better question put to the Ukrainian defense forces, not the United States," Kirby noted. "We are working very, very hard to make sure that for every system that is provided to Ukraine, there's a measure of accountability for it, that we can assure the Congress and the American people that the material is being used appropriately on the field of battle. And we've seen no indication that it hasn't been, that there's been some wide-scale corruption or misuse by the Ukrainian military," the official said.

The US is tracking Ukrainian capabilities in the conflict with Russia, Kirby added. "We added expertise and individuals to the team in Kiev specifically for accountability purposes," he noted.

Reuters/RT/Tass

After futile attempts by others to get the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate allegations of genocide against the parties in the war in Gaza, South Africa raised the stakes by filing a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Unlike the ICC, the ICJ is an organ of the UN for civil complaints, and Israel is a signatory to its charter.

But South Africa’s latest action may well be symbolic. It means nothing to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sworn not to stop the war in Gaza until the last member of Hamas has been eliminated.

In pursuit of that remnant in hospitals, schools, UN safe spaces, bunkers, tunnels – wherever they may be found – at least 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza. No one is exactly sure how many of the dead are members of Hamas, although Israeli military authorities claim they’re hunting them down.

Depending on where you’re getting your figures, however, the number of children, women, innocents (including humanitarian workers) caught in the crossfire are between 12,600 and 15,000. After three months of bombardment, the last Hamas – and we don’t know how many survivors they are – is obviously still on the run. The deadly hunt goes on, as does the war.

First strike

Of course, we can’t minimise how this latest round of war started. The deadly attack by Hamas on Israeli holidaymakers, tourists and picknickers on October 7 in the coastal town of Ashkelon and border towns provoked a global outrage and evoked memories of the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Israel was obliged to defend itself and take reasonable steps to prevent a recurrence.

It does appear, however, that Israel under Netanyahu and with the backing of the US, appears to be telling the world that “reasonable steps” mean, among other things, the killing of thousands of people, apart from the destruction of about 70 percent of the infrastructure in Gaza, on top of a mounting pile of humanitarian carnage.

I’m not sure that South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ would dissuade Netanyahu from the devastatingly bloody hunt for the last Hamas. Even though South Africa’s parliament passed a motion to sever ties with Israel in November, the resort to ICJ was just another in a series of desperate attempts by a number of concerned countries to get Netanyahu to stop the war. Will he?

I doubt that. Yet, I also doubt that this bloody chase that is daily claiming more and more innocent lives on both sides, would track down the last Hamas – or even if it does, that it would not be replaced by something worse.

A page from history

Netanyahu has said this war is about justice for the innocent dead and security for Israel. Unfortunately, history hardly supports the view that a lasting peace can only be purchased by a pledge to destroy an idea or a people with the force of arms. The existence of the State of Israel today, despite all odds, is one proof of that.

If military victory alone could guarantee peace, we might not have had the Second World War. The unfair terms of the Treaty of Versailles, for example, which included territorial annexation, demilitarisation and heavy war reparations, pushed Germany to the brink.

It created conditions that led to the rise of Hitler. In its blind and desperate pursuit of the last “aggressive German” in particular, for example, the Allied forces sowed the seed that led to the rise of exactly what they hated the most: the Weimar Republic, and finally, Nazi Germany.

Over 70 years later, the same mistake was repeated in Iraq. Saddam Hussein was framed as the Hannibal of Mesopotamia with a religious fervour, deadly cult following, and enough weapons to destroy the world beginning, of course, with the potential destruction of his neighbours. Well, it turned out that even though he was a really bad guy, his capacity had been maliciously exaggerated.

Yet, the effect of the war to eliminate Saddam left the country and the entire region broken with religious extremism rising faster than had been known for decades in the region, and deadly franchises of extremism also exported for good measure.

In Afghanistan, the US was too obsessed with its bloody chase of the dangerous Taliban to learn the lessons that humbled Britain and Russia decades earlier. As surely as a stumble imitates a trot, after 20 years, an estimated 243,000 dead as direct result of the war, and $2.3 trillion spent, the US left Afghanistan with its tail between its legs, leaving in charge the same dangerous, but savvier group of Taliban than the ones it set out to vanquish.

That was not all. Like cutting off the head to cure the headache, we also saw this madness, this obsession to suss out, to hunt down, to chase, to search and destroy again in Libya. Moummar Ghaddafi was thought to be spreading a dangerous form of extremism which the West, especially the US and the UK, said it could not ignore because Ghaddafi was thought to possess the capacity to put his money – and tons of it – exactly where his mouth was.

The plan was to strike him and scatter the sheepfold. A US-led attack under President Barack Obama struck Ghaddafi, of course, chasing him down a sewage drainage and killing him there. But what have we got since? The sheep didn’t go away meekly as was planned.

After the killing of Ghaddafi, there has been a significant rise in extremism in the Sahel, destabilising much of the region from Mali to Chad and Niger, with consequences reaching many Northern states in Nigeria. Gaddafi is dead, but his spirit and the vacuum caused by his death have infused radical groups on the continent, making wolves of the sheepfold. The chase continues, but neither Libya nor its neighbours are secure.

Break the cycle

Netanyahu thinks it would be different in Israel. That the destruction of the last Hamas would deliver peace and security to Israel. It’s more complicated than that. If he hasn’t learnt anything from such futile chases in history, then his own personal story should have taught him.

Apart from his belated attempt to use this war to cover his government’s pre-attack intelligence failure and the chaos of the last few years of his premiership, Netanyahu is also a product of years of bitter resentment and distrust of Palestinians. He is proof that wars, more often than not, breed new warriors.

His resolve not to relent until he destroys the last Hamas has been shaped just as much by the killing of his brother, Yoni, after Arab hijackers diverted a plane to Entebbe as it has by the half a dozen Arab-Israeli wars, a number of which he fought as a soldier.

In like manner, the current deadly attacks on Gaza might be raising a generation of non-Hamas Palestinian young people for whom this carnage makes no sense, except to breed in them a fresh spirit of revenge that only perpetrates the cycle of violence, even after the last Hamas has been destroyed. Netanyahu must end this war, if not for his own sake, then for the sake of his own children and children’s children.

October 7 was inexcusable and stands condemned. But unlike the previous wars with the Arabs, the long-term impact of this war on Gaza — beamed live by the minute to our homes with all the horrors, misery and deaths — will be hard for generations of Palestinian children to forget, even when allowance has been made for fabrications.

The cycle of heart-wrenching violence has to stop at some point. And the world must line up behind South Africa to increase the pressure on Netanyahu to stop.

Enough!

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

A few months ago, we asked our readers a simple question: are you happy with how much time you’re spending on your phone?

We received hundreds of responses, and they made one thing clear: many of us are deeply unhappy with how much time we spend on our phones, but find it hard to pull away.

“I’m unhappy, I feel addicted. My ability to concentrate seems to have vanished.”

“I can’t just sit and ‘be’ any more. I automatically reach for my phone if there is a moment of downtime. My brain struggles to settle and focus for any period of time.”

“It’s the first thing I reach for in the morning, and last thing I use at night. I think it’s affecting my ability to be fully with people.”

“Even when I’m not looking at it, I can feel it tugging away at the back of my mind.”

If you also struggle with your phone use, you’re not alone. And with the arrival of a new year, we think it’s the perfect moment to do something about it – and we can help.

This is why we’ve launched Reclaim your brain – our new series and free coaching program that will scrutinize the hold phones have on us, and explain how we can begin to escape their grip.

The newsletter is designed to help you waste less time on your phone using tried and proven methods, and you can sign up here.

‘I stress about the time I’ve already lost to mindless scrolling’

Something isn’t quite right, is it? You might have noticed it yourself: the jarring little moments that have become so normalized, when perhaps they shouldn’t be.

It could be someone almost walking into you in the street because they’re staring at their screen. It might be your friend who can’t stop looking down while you’re sharing a meal, scrolling through Instagram instead of paying attention to you. Or it’s the concert where phones seem to outnumber people, wielded as if everyone is about to have their memories wiped on the way out.

There’s also the smaller, weirder moments: checking your phone when it hasn’t even buzzed. Feeling anxious when you don’t know where it is. Closing an app after exhausting all its possibilities, only to mindlessly open it again. Scrolling when you should be going to sleep, opting to be sleep-deprived instead.

While people have always managed to find ways to procrastinate, it’s remarkable how effective phones have been at eating up more of our attention over the last decade.

A 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 31% of US adults said they were online “almost constantly”, up from 21% in 2015. Half of those aged 18-29 said they were “constantly online”. Meanwhile, a recent review of 82 high quality studies found that excessive phone use has been worsening over time (look out for our deep dive into the science of phone addiction, coming later this week).

Personally, I struggle most when I’m alone, free from anyone’s judgment, and can’t escape the beamlike glow of my phone screen. I stress about the time I’ve already lost to mindless scrolling through TikTok, Instagram and X, and the time I might still lose; the hours that will eventually add up to days, months and years.

Despite knowing I want to spend less time on my phone, I’ve never been able to meaningfully reduce my screen time. As I started reading what Guardian readers had to say about their phone use however, I realized I wasn’t alone.

“I’m finishing a doctoral degree and I feel very disturbed by the way the phone is taking my time (and I can’t control it despite trying to),” wrote Anna Karla, 32, from Lausanne, Switzerland.

“I have to look at a computer screen, like many people, all day at work,” wrote Sara Jean Harden, 30, from Phoenix, Arizona. “When I get off work, I can’t keep myself from looking at my phone.”

Maybe it’s time to try something new.

A free, fun newsletter to help you scroll less and live more

Over the next several weeks, we’ll publish articles exploring all different aspects of our phone lives. But to really make a difference to you, Guardian readers, we’ll also offer a free six-week newsletter to help you reduce your screen time in the new year.

The newsletter is co-written with Catherine Price, the author of How to Break Up With Your Phone. She’s crafted a week-by-week plan with tried-and-proven tasks and tips for reducing your screen time.

The newsletter will also include weekly diary entries from our intrepid reporter Rhik Samadder as he battles his own demons to unglue himself from his phone. Can he finally restore some balance in his life? His methods are unorthodox – and definitely funny – and you can read about his epic journey by signing up.

One more thing: we’re not here to create a panic around what phones are doing to us, especially as scientists are still trying to figure out their various impacts – and many disagree with each other. We’re also not claiming that all screen time is wasted time: phones allow us to read the news, stay in touch with our family and friends, learn new languages and enrich our lives in a whole range of ways. They can help us unwind when life’s many stresses have spun us the other way.

Instead, the simple question at the heart of Reclaim your brain is the same one we asked our readers: are you happy with how much time you spend on your phone? Is it quality time, or mindless scrolling when you’d rather do something else?

The key, then, is finding the right balance between our physical and digital lives.

The Guardian, UK

Trade Union Congress (TUC) has asked the federal government to implement all agreements reached with organised labour in 2023, especially the national minimum wage. 

On October 1, President Bola Tinubu approved N35,000 as the provisional wage increment for all treasury-paid workers for six months as part of an agreement reached with the labour unions to avoid a nationwide strike due to the removal of the petrol subsidy.

Festus Osifo, TUC president, said the union had strived to ensure that social dialogue with the federal government prevailed.

He, however, said the federal government has failed to implement basic agreements with labour, saying “Our hope is not renewed yet”.

Osifo spoke in a New Year message jointly signed with Nuhu Toro, secretary-general of the union, on Wednesday.

He said organised labour had insisted that the October 2, 2023 agreements between the unions and the federal government be notarised by the court.

“However, government has serially violated the agreements. For instance, Item two states clearly that: ‘A minimum wage committee shall be inaugurated within one month from the date of this agreement’,” he said.

“Today, three months after, no such committee has been set up and this is our experience with this government in at least two previous agreements reached from June.

“TUC has resolved to demand of the Tinubu administration that in 2024, all agreements between labour and government should be implemented.

“This include the payment of the monthly N35,000 Wage Award to Public Servants in the Local Government, State and Federal services.

“These must be implemented until a new National Minimum Wage is implemented.”

Osifo said a new minimum wage must be negotiated, implemented, and if further delayed in the year, arrears must be paid.

He noted that inflation, which was running at 28.2 percent, must be drastically reduced to the Sub-Saharan African regional average of 9.4 percent.

The TUC president urged governments at state and federal levels to stop “the unnecessary, economically-unwise and unpatriotic tradition of taking loans”.

“This is especially when these loans only end up being used to purchase thousands of expensive jeeps for legislators, pampered members of the Executive and their spouses, among others,” he said.

He urged the government to stop “its ill-advised devaluation of the national currency”, adding that the move has led to mega inflation in the import-dependent economy.

The TUC president also called for drastic reduction in the price of petrol to repair the damage done to the economy and by ensuring local production of refined products.

Osifo added that the security of Nigerians should be the yardstick with which to determine whether the military, security chiefs and others should remain in office or be replaced.

He urged Tinubu to sanction officials for serious security breaches such as the Plateau killings.

He also said community policing should be prioritised alongside the mobilisation of the citizens to defend themselves against bandits.

“The Year 2024 holds a lot of promise for us all provided Nigerians, as a people, would unite and assert our authority over all powers,” he said.

“These include the Nigerian ruling class manning all branches, levels, institutions and organs of government.”

In December 2023, the federal government said a new minimum wage regime would take effect from April 1, 2024.

The Cable

Central Bank of Nigeria has released inaugural guidelines for banks opening cryptocurrency accounts, while retaining its ban on them holding or trading in virtual assets on their own behalf.

The rules, published on the CBN website on Tuesday, flesh out the regulator’s decision last month to lift its prohibition on banks operating accounts for crypto service providers.

“Current trends globally have shown that there is need to regulate the activities of virtual assets service providers which include cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets,” it said.

Nigeria joins other African regulators in extending oversight of cryptocurrencies, spurred by a string of corporate collapses capped by the bankruptcy of Bahamas-based exchange FTX in April. The continent’s most populous nation has seen a surge in virtual currency adoption, in part fueled by the steep decline of the nation’s fiat currency.

Only naira-based accounts will be permitted and there will be no cash withdrawals, the CBN said. The restrictions also bar clearing third-party checks through crypto accounts and will limit withdrawals to two per quarter.

South Africa, the backdrop to several of the world’s largest crypto scams, in July ordered crypto exchanges operating in the country to apply for licenses by the end of 2023.

That followed neighbor Botswana passing a law in 2022 to regulate the sector which lawmakers said risked becoming the “Wild West” of finance. Kenya has not licensed cryptocurrency activity but has also declined to outlaw it while it prepares regulations.

Elsewhere, the Bank of Mauritius has been pushing ahead with plans to launch a central bank digital currency as part of a broader strategy to embrace financial technology on the Indian Ocean island.

Bloomberg

Sierra Leone's ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma has been charged with four offences including treason for his alleged role in a failed military attempt to topple the West African country's government in November, a court in the capital Freetown said on Wednesday.

The court's decision could escalate tensions in Sierra Leone coming after the attempted coup and a contentious election in which President Julius Maada Bio was reelected for a second term in June 2023.

Tensions have been on the rise in the country that is still recovering from a 1991-2002 civil war in which more than 50,000 were killed.

The result of the election was rejected by the main opposition candidate, and questioned by international partners including the United States and the European Union.

Gunmen on Nov. 26 attacked military barracks, a prison and other locations in Sierra Leone, freeing about 2,200 inmates and killing more than 20 people.

The government said later that it was a foiled coup led mostly by Koroma's bodyguards. They summoned the ex-president for questioning at the start of December.

The former president condemned the attacks in a statement shortly after they happened.

Koroma's charges, which also include misprision of treason and two counts of harbouring, were read out while he stood in the dock and some of his supporters cried in the courtroom.

"A dangerous precedent has been set... We are dragging a former head of state - democratically elected - on trumped up charges under a political vendetta," Koroma’s lawyer, Joseph Kamara, told Reuters.

A high court later on Wednesday granted bail to the former president, who is currently restricted at his home in the capital. The case was adjourned until Jan. 17.

According to Sierra Leone's penal code, a person found guilty of treason could face imprisonment for life.

A letter from West Africa's main regional bloc, ECOWAS, dated Tuesday and seen by Reuters, said Nigeria had offered to host Koroma on a temporary basis, and that the former president had accepted the offer.

Sierra Leone's foreign minister, Timothy Kabba, told Reuters the government had received the letter, which he said did not accurately reflect the meeting President Bio has recently held with an ECOWAS delegation in Freetown.

Kabba said the government will "not countenance" the proposal to relocate Koroma.

Twelve other people also have been charged with treason in connection with the failed coup, including ex-police and correctional officers and a member of Koromoa's security detail, the government said on Tuesday.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia and Ukraine stage major POW exchange after UAE mediation

Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday announced their first exchange of prisoners of war in nearly five months, with more than 200 freed by each side after what both said was a complex negotiation involving mediation by the United Arab Emirates.

Russia's Defence Ministry said 248 military personnel had been handed over by Ukraine. Kyiv said it had brought home 230 people - 224 soldiers and six civilians - in what it said was the largest documented swap of troops so far.

The UAE's foreign ministry acknowledged its role, saying in a statement that the swap was made possible by its "strong friendly relations" with both Moscow and Kyiv.

It offered both further humanitarian efforts and to find a peaceful solution to the war.

A video released by Ukrainian authorities showed returning prisoners draped in the country's blue and yellow flag filing off a bus, singing the national anthem and shouting the patriotic greeting "Glory to Ukraine".

Most, but not all, appeared to be in good health.

One returnee shouted: "We are home! You didn't forget us!"

The Russian Ministry of Defence released a similar video of returning uniformed prisoners arriving in Belgorod in buses. "I'll be home in five hours, roughly speaking, that's going to be a joy," said one unnamed man.

Despite a lack of talks on how to end the 22-month war, Kyiv and Moscow have held many prisoner swaps since the early months of Russia's invasion in February 2022.

But the rate of the exchanges dropped in 2023 and the last one until this week's was in August.

Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's HUR Military Intelligence agency, singled out the UAE's "direct role", saying: "After a significant amount of time, we managed to carry out a very difficult prisoner swap."

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was "truly a great day for Ukraine" and vowed to press on with further swaps facilitated by expanding what he called an "exchange fund" of captured Russian soldiers.

"The more Russians we capture, the more effective the negotiations regarding swaps will be," he said in his nightly video address.

He said some of the returnees had been previously listed as missing.

Ukraine's returnees came from various branches of its armed forces and included participants in the nearly three-month defence of the Azovstal steel plant in the port of Mariupol before it was captured by Russian forces in May 2022.

On the Russian side, a Defence Ministry statement said its released prisoners would undergo medical checks and treatment.

Russia's Commissioner for Human Rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, thanked President Vladimir Putin and the military and intelligence services for their efforts in the exchange.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia shoots down 12 Ukrainian missiles over Belgorod Region

Russian air defenses have shot down six Tochka-U missiles and six Olkha missiles over the Belgorod Region, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"This morning, on January 3, another attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack on facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation using rockets of the Olkha multiple launch rocket system and the Tochka-U missile launcher was foiled. Six missiles of the Tochka-U missile launcher and six rockets of the Olkha MLRS were destroyed over the Belgorod Region," the ministry said in a statement.

Reuters/Tass

Gary Fields

Alfred King was lying in the parking lot of a small apartment building, mortally wounded when police in Alexandria, Louisiana, got to the intersection of 12th and Magnolia streets shortly before 1:30 a.m., Jan. 20.

The 34-year-old was the first fatal shooting of 2023 in the small city where I grew up and a large portion of my family lives.

Alfred’s death was similar to some I have covered since my first in 1985, a 38-year period when hundreds of thousands of people of all races and ethnicities have died violently in the U.S.

I know the details of too many of those incidents, from school shootings to a drug hit in a phone booth. I’ve heard the scream of a mom coming home from work and seeing her son in the street, encircled by yellow police tape. I’ve watched more than one mother gently touch the face of her teenage son then close the lid on the casket.

Some stories are burned into memory, like the Washington, D.C., teenager who asked his mom to send him out of the region to escape the violence. He spent years away only to come home one weekend to plan his high school graduation party and be randomly stabbed to death by a stranger.

While I know some of those back stories, Alfred’s is the one I can personally trace from a decision made years ago by adults to gunshots near the end of a rundown street.

Alfred is my first cousin.

When he was 13 my wife and I tried to get legal custody of him after his mom was murdered, but his guardian said no.

I think about him often and the decision that kept him from reaching escape velocity, the things you need to go right to lift the weight of your birth circumstances off of you. Those include family, education, jobs, friends, neighborhoods, adult interventions, hard work and good luck.

We say people can be whatever they want to be. To a degree that is true, but moving through the socioeconomic levels of America’s economics-based caste system is like the Apollo moon missions of my youth. Millions of parts have to work perfectly to get you there, and back.

According to “Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective,” part of the groundbreaking Opportunity Insights project based at Harvard, only 2.5% of Black kids born to a parent or parents in the bottom quintile move to the top quintile of household income. For white kids, the figure is 10.6%. What is more likely for both is they will stay in the poorest quintile or, at best, move up one level to lower middle class. For white kids, that figure is 53.4%, and for Black kids, 75.4%.

The focus on the statistics tends to be on the racial disparity. I see the disparity, but what I also see is that Black or white, less than half of the kids born poor move up much. Even if they make it one step, a car repair, a missed day at work or a high utility bill can begin a downward spiral.

And there are millions born into that world, although we treat it like a moral failing. One measure of Census data shows more than 10.7 million children younger than 18 lived below the poverty level in 2022, and that figure is undoubtedly higher because millions more lived in places where the incomes couldn’t be determined.

Millions of young people live in homes where social security payments, WIC, SNAP and TANF, various food, nutrition and income assistance programs, are the order of the day.

Poverty isn’t the purview of one race. Neither is violent death. Socioeconomics is a good predictor for victimhood and criminal justice involvement, as well as deficient health care and educational outcomes.

Alfred came into the world on the bottom economic rung and when he was 13 the critical decision was made that likely kept him there. His mom had been shot to death months before in Alexandria. My uncle, his dad, had done what he could but was broken down from working hard labor jobs, usually several at once and was living on limited income himself. He couldn’t promise his son much future.

The first time I met him Alfred was a thin, gangly, very shy kid who kept his head down, avoiding eye contact. He spoke softly and slowly and was the target of bullies.

I don’t remember him smiling — ever. Around me, at least, his nature was melancholy.

For Alfred, I was the cousin who had a charmed life. The truth is, for reasons I will never comprehend, I had nearly everything go right.

We love to talk about people pulling themselves up by their boot straps. A lot of people contributed to my boots and showed me how to use the straps. There were teachers, friends, family, neighbors and luck stirred together. That mixture was added to the foundation, a ninth-grade drop out unwed mom who truly valued education who married a good man who helped her raise me.

Alfred’s grades were not good. Something about the way he looked at me made me ask when he’d last had an eye exam. One optometrist visit and a pair of glasses later he could see the blackboard.

My wife and I decided then. We wanted to bring him back to Maryland where we live. We wanted legal custody so my work benefits could cover him. We also wanted to be able to make decisions on his behalf without unforeseen bureaucratic or legal barriers that might arise.

My now dead uncle said yes but his message to me was Alfred’s now late-grandmother said no. Alfred was getting a government check of some sort. I don’t know how much it paid or what program it was. This year I asked the Social Security Administration what it might have been and there were a couple of possibilities. As a minor, he could have been eligible for benefits because of his dead mom. It also might have been Supplemental Security Income for some health problem he had.

In a place where minimum wage was $5.15 an hour at the time and people lived on the edge of financial ruin, it did not matter how much, or for what. If you are born into a certain economic class everything goes towards basics: food, rent, utilities, clothing.

Alfred stayed in Louisiana.

Over the years, he reached adulthood and when I came home I would give him what cash I had, especially when he had kids of his own. By then he had a criminal record but he treated me the same and he checked on my mom: Aunt Shirley.

I can’t and won’t judge the decision that was made for the 13-year-old. I sadly understand the necessity of it. But I can wonder what would have happened if we had gotten him. I can’t say for certain everything would have been OK but I believe we could have given him more options to a different path. What I want remembered is changing his path would also have changed the lives of anyone he may have wronged, too.

There are abandoned houses and empty lots in the neighborhood where he lived and died. I have been there multiple times this year.

I have seen a few young kids there, born into circumstances they didn’t ask for, lives without margin for errors or bad luck. I pray for them and the millions of kids like them, regardless of race or ethnicity, that everything goes right and they reach escape velocity.

** Gary Fields, an award-winning, veteran journalist, writes about democracy for The Associated Press.

Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says it recorded 112 incidences of crude oil theft across the Niger Delta in one week.

In a documentary posted on its X handle on Tuesday, NNPC said the incidents occurred between December 23, 2023 and December 29, 2023.

The national oil company listed the incident sources to include Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (PINL), Maton Engineering Nigeria Limited, Tantita Security Services, and Shell Petroleum Development Company.

Other highlighted sources are the NNPC command and control centre and government security agencies.

“In the past week, 42 illegal refineries were discovered in Konsho and Tebidaba in Bayelsa state; Obokofia in Imo state; Ogidigben, Mereje and Obodo Omadina, in Delta state,” NNPC said.

“Illegal refineries in Umuire, Abia state, and Upata in Rivers state, were also discovered and destroyed.” 

According to NNPC, 14 illegal connections were uncovered in several parts of the Niger Delta.

“In Owaza, Abia state, a tunnel covering an illegal connection was also uncovered while 10 cases of vandalism were discovered,” NNPC said.

“Illegal storage sites were discovered in Ebocha and Ton Kiri in Rivers state where oil pits were found.

“In Ogbia, Bayelsa state, sacks of crude oil were discovered. More illegal storage sites were uncovered in Urhonigbe, in Edo state; Ekuku-Agbor and Bomadi in Delta state.” 

NNPC said 22 wooden boats conveying stolen crude were discovered in Okrika and Tombia in Rivers state as well as Emereje, Delta state.

Meanwhile, the oil firm said during an operation, 11 vehicle arrests were made in Delta state.

“Eight of these incidents took place in the deep water, 46 in the eastern region, 32 in the central region, while 26 took place in the western region,” NNPC said. 

“Between the 23rd and 26th of December, 2023, 18 suspects were arrested.”

NNPC said it would not back down in the war against crude oil theft.

The Cable