UN Watchdog Says Landmines Are Placed Around Ukrainian Nuke Plant Occupied by Russia 

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Mar 15, 2024

UN Watchdog Says Landmines Are Placed Around Ukrainian Nuke Plant Occupied by Russia 

The UN atomic watchdog says its staff at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant report seeing anti-personnel mines around the site as Kyiv pursues a counteroffensive against the

The UN atomic watchdog says its staff at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant report seeing anti-personnel mines around the site as Kyiv pursues a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s entrenched forces after 17 months of war.

“Having such explosives on the site is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance and creates additional psychological pressure on plant staff,” International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement late Monday.

However, any detonation of the mines, located between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers, “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems,” the statement said.

The IAEA has repeatedly expressed concern about the facility, which is one of the 10 biggest in the world, amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe. The UN agency has officials stationed at the plant, which is still run by its Ukrainian staff.

The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Ukraine’s military intelligence said last month without providing evidence that Russia is planning a “large-scale provocation” at the nuclear power plant in the southeast of the country and had placed suspected explosives on the roof. Russia, in turn, has alleged without offering evidence that Ukraine was planning a false flag attack involving radioactive materials.

The IAEA statement said that the Russian occupiers still haven't granted it access to the roofs of the reactors and their turbine halls.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday that air defenses intercepted Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia fired at Kyiv overnight, in what was the sixth drone attack on the capital this month. No casualties or damage were reported, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration head.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a Russian patrol ship destroyed two Ukrainian sea drones that attacked it in the Black Sea early Tuesday. It said the crew of the Sergey Kotov patrol ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet wasn’t hurt in the attack 370 kilometers (200 nautical miles) southwest of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

Ukrainian officials, in turn, said that Russians used cluster munitions in an attack on Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, late Monday.

Rockets hit a recreational pond, killing a 10-year-old boy and wounding four other children ranging in age from 5 to 12, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration.

Russia and Ukraine have both used cluster munitions throughout the war, and the US has recently provided them to Ukraine.

Western analysts said Tuesday that Russia's recent attacks on Odesa and other parts of southern Ukraine have employed missiles that were originally developed to destroy aircraft carriers.

Each missile weighs 5.5 metric tons, the UK Ministry of Defense said in an assessment.

In only a week, Russia has fired dozens of missiles and drones at the Odesa region, on Monday hitting a cathedral. The strikes have come since Moscow broke off from a landmark grain deal a week ago. Odesa is a key Ukrainian hub for exporting grain.

The attacks have damaged several grain silos at Chornomorsk Port, south of Odesa, and Russian drones have hit docks on the Danube River, approximately 200 meters (650 feet) from the Romanian border, according to the assessment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted as saying on Sunday that he would work to change the committee that selects judges, amid a wave of protests over planned legislation which could see the highest court stripped of many of its powers.

Asked about the next phase of legislation on the judiciary, Netanyahu said "it would probably be about the composition of the committee that elects judges". He told Bloomberg: "That's basically what's left."

"Because other things I think we should not legislate," he said, without elaborating.

Proponents of the legislation say it restores balance to the branches of government, while those against say it removes checks on government powers. The planned judicial overhaul has sparked national protests and criticism at home and abroad.

Last month, the coalition passed legislation that removed the court's power to strike down government actions based on the action being classified as "unreasonable".

Netanyahu told Bloomberg he did not want the government intervening in decisions made by the central bank and would consider asking the current director to stay on.

At least 15 passengers were killed and 50 more injured when a train derailed near the Pakistani town of Nawabshah in southern Sindh province, officials said Sunday.

The Hazara Express was on its way from Karachi to Rawalpindi when 10 cars derailed near the Sarhari railway station off Nawabshah, said senior railway officer Mahmoodur Rehman Lakho. Lakho is in charge of railways in the accident area.

Lakho said rescue crews took injured passengers to the nearby Peoples Hospital in Nawabshah.

Mohsin Sayal, another senior railway officer, said train traffic has been suspended on the main railway line as repair trains have been dispatched to the scene.

Sayal said alternative travel arrangements and medical care will be made available for the train's passengers.

Train crashes often occurred on poorly maintained railways tracks in Pakistan where colonial-era communications and signal systems haven't been modernized and safety standards are poor.

Dozens of migrants were dramatically rescued by Italy as they foundered in the sea or clung to a rocky reef Sunday after three boats launched by smugglers from northern Africa shipwrecked in rough waters in separate incidents over the weekend. Survivors said some 30 fellow migrants were missing from capsized vessels.

In a particularly risky operation, two helicopters battled strong winds to pluck to safety, one by one, migrants stranded for nearly two days on a steep, rocky reef of tiny Lampedusa island. Firefighters said all the migrants, including a child, who had been clinging to the rocks after their boat smashed into the reef late Friday early Saturday, were saved.

For years, migrants have taken to smugglers’ unseaworthy vessels to make the risky crossing of the Mediterranean to try to reach southern European shores in hopes of being granted asylum or finding family or jobs, especially in northern European countries.

In all, 34 migrants had been stranded for two nights on the reef, including two pregnant women, said Federico Catania, a spokesperson for the Alpine assistance group whose experts were lowered from a hovering Italian air force helicopter. Migrants, some wearing shorts and flip-flops, clung to their rescuers as they were pulled up into the copter.

One of the women, eight months pregnant, was taken to hospital, said Giornale di Sicilia, a local newspaper.

Some were rescued by a firefighter helicopter and the others by an Italian air force copter, which lowered expert Alpine mountaineering rescuers down to the reef and one by one hoisted the migrants from the rocks.

The helicopter operation was launched after the coast guard determined the rough sea would make it impossible for rescue boats to approach the jagged rocks safely. A day earlier, Italian helicopters dropped food, water and thermal blankets down to the migrants on the reef.

Meanwhile, survivors of two boats that capsized on Saturday some 23 nautical miles (42.5 kilometers) southwest of Lampedusa told rescuers that about 30 fellow migrants were missing. The Coast Guard said that in two operations it saved 57 migrants and recovered the bodies of a child and of a woman.

Coast Guard members lowered a wide rope ladder and helped pull up migrants into their rescue vessel, rocked by wind-whipped waves. At least one coast guard diver jumped into the sea to help guide a raft, tossed into the Mediterranean by the rescuers, so the survivors could cling to it while it was pulled toward the vessel, according to details gleaned from a coast guard video of the rescue.

Before the two bodies were recovered on Saturday, a total of 1,814 migrants were known to have perished in 2023 while attempting the Mediterranean crossing to Italy in boats launched from Tunisia or Libya, said Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesperson for the UN migration agency IOM.

So many had made the crossing in recent days that 2,450 migrants were currently housed at Lampedusa's temporary residence, which has a capacity of about 400, said Ignazio Schintu, an official of the Italian Red Cross which runs the center. Once the winds slacken and the seas turn calm, Italy will resume ferrying hundreds of them to Sicily to ease the overcrowding, he told state TV.

The two boats that capsized in open seas were believed to have set out from Sfax — a Tunisian port — on Thursday, when sea conditions were good, the Italian coast guard said.

But since sea conditions were forecast to turn bad on Saturday, “it's even more criminal for smugglers to let them leave,” said Di Giacomo of the IOM.

Voyages from Libya's shores used to be riskier, he said, but because lately Tunisia-based smugglers have been using particularly flimsy vessels, that route across the central Mediterranean is becoming increasingly deadly.

Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are setting out from Tunisia in “fragile iron vessels that after 24 hours often break in two, and the migrants fall into the sea,” Di Giacomo said, in an audio message from Sicily.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose right-wing government includes the anti-migrant League party, has galvanized the European Union to join it in efforts to coax Tunisia's leader, with promises of aid, to crack down on migrant smuggling. But despite a spate of visits by European leaders to Tunisia lately, the boats keep being launched nearly daily from Tunisian ports.

Iran has equipped its Revolutionary Guards’ navy with drones and 1,000-km range missiles, Iranian news agencies reported on Saturday, as the US offers to put guards on commercial ships going through the Arab Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz.

According to the official IRNA news agency, various types of drones, along with several hundred cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges ranging from 300 to 1000 kilometers, have been added to the naval capabilities of the Revolutionary Guards.

These additions were reported by Reuters.

Last week, the Revolutionary Guards conducted maneuvers on the occupied Emirati island of Abu Musa, with participation from naval forces as well as special units from the Basij militia.

Meanwhile, media outlets affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards launched a propaganda campaign to spotlight the utilization of artificial intelligence in missiles.

Revolutionary Guards' Navy Commander Alireza Tangsiri told state TV on Saturday that the new missiles had better precision, as well as a longer range.

“The cruise missiles can attack several targets simultaneously and the commands can be altered after take-off,” Tangsiri said.

“In the drone system, flight time can be extended, larger and heavier warheads can be utilized, e-warfare can be countered, firing at moving targets is possible, and their location can be pinpointed,” he added regarding drones.

Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami said: “Instead of the enemy’s presence becoming a threat to us, it has become an opportunity.”

“By seizing opportunities, overcoming threats and risks, our defensive and military productivity growth rates have increased,” he added.

“Today, the systems and equipment in the field are a normal phenomenon in our view; we are not astonished as we were in past years.”

Salami downplayed the impact of US sanctions on the expansion of Iran’s weaponry, especially concerning ballistic missiles and Iranian drones.

“The enemies wanted to impose sanctions on us, but we have grown stronger,” he remarked.

The naval forces of the Revolutionary Guards serve as a parallel entity to the Iranian Army’s navy and are responsible for safeguarding Iran’s waters in the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

A meandering storm was headed again toward southwestern Japan on Sunday, prompting fresh warnings about dangerously heavy rainfall after the same area was hit several days ago.

Tropical Storm Khanun, which means jackfruit in Thai, was returning to the southernmost group of islands of Okinawa moving slowly northward, packing winds of up to 30 meters per second (67 miles per hour) and hovering over Okinawa through Monday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki warned residents to brace for torrential rains and mudslides.

“This could mean that the dangers about to hit the area where you are living are unusual and on a scale you have never experienced,” he said of the storm.

He asked people to prepare escape routes to safety in advance.

“Do not let your guard down,” he said.

Large parts of Okinawa, including the main city of Naha, were being slammed by extremely heavy rainfall, according to weather reports.

The storm hit the same area last week, killing two people, injuring dozens of others and squelching power temporarily to tens of thousands of homes, according to the Okinawa government.

Weather experts said the storm’s wandering path was unusual and that it was moving slowly, affecting a wide area with strong winds and heavy rainfall. It also appeared to be getting stronger, experts said.

The storm was expected to continue moving northward, possibly making landfall on Japan’s southern major island of Kyushu by Wednesday or Thursday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Niger’s new military junta has asked for help from the Russian mercenary group Wagner as the deadline nears for it to release the country’s ousted president or face possible military intervention by the West African regional bloc, according to an analyst.

The request came during a visit by a coup leader, Gen. Salifou Mody, to neighboring Mali, where he made contact with someone from Wagner, Wassim Nasr, a journalist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, told The Associated Press. He said three Malian sources and a French diplomat confirmed the meeting first reported by France 24.

“They need (Wagner) because they will become their guarantee to hold onto power,” he said, adding that the group is considering the request. A Western military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, told the AP they have also heard reports that the junta asked for help from Wagner in Mali.

Niger’s junta faces a Sunday deadline set by the regional bloc, known as ECOWAS, to release and reinstate the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who has described himself as a hostage.

Defense chiefs from ECOWAS member states finalized an intervention plan on Friday and urged militaries to prepare resources after a mediation team sent to Niger on Thursday wasn’t allowed to enter the capital or meet with junta leader Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani.

On Saturday, Nigeria's Senate advised the nation’s president, the current ECOWAS chair, to further explore options other than the use of force to restore democracy in Niger, noting the “existing cordial relationship between Nigeriens and Nigerians.”

The legislators had deliberated on the president's request informing them of ECOWAS’ decisions and Nigeria’s involvement, as required by law.

Final decisions by ECOWAS, however, are taken by a consensus among its member countries.

After his visit to Mali, run by a sympathetic junta, Mody warned against a military intervention, vowing that Niger would do what it takes not to become “a new Libya,” Niger’s state television reported Friday.

Niger has been seen as the West’s last reliable counterterrorism partner in a region where coups have been common in recent years. Juntas have rejected former colonizer France and turned toward Russia. Wagner operates in a handful of African countries, including Mali, where human rights groups have accused its forces of deadly abuses.

It isn't possible to say Russia is directly involved in Niger's coup, but “clearly, there's an opportunistic attitude on the part of Russia, which tries to support destabilization efforts wherever it finds them,” French foreign affairs ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre told broadcaster BFM on Friday. For days after Niger's junta seized power, residents waved Russian flags in the streets.

The spokeswoman described Wagner as a “recipe for chaos.”

Some residents rejected the junta's approach.

“It’s all a sham,” said Amad Hassane Boubacar, who teaches at the University of Niamey. “They oppose foreign interference to restore constitutional order and legality. But on the contrary, they are ready to make a pact with Wagner and Russia to undermine the constitutional order ... They are prepared for the country to go up in flames so that they can illegally maintain their position."

On Saturday, France’s foreign affairs minister, Catherine Colonna, said the regional threat of force was credible and warned the putschists to take it seriously. “Coups are no longer appropriate ... It’s time to put an end to it,” she said.

The ministry said France supported the ECOWAS efforts “with firmness and determination” and called for Bazoum and all members of his government to be freed.

But Algeria, which borders Niger to the north, told another visiting ECOWAS delegation that it opposed a military intervention, though it too wants a return to constitutional order.

Niger’s military leaders have been following the playbook of Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso, also run by a junta, but they're moving faster to consolidate power, Nasr said: “(Tchiani) chose his path, so he’s going full on it without wasting time because there’s international mobilization.”

One question is how the international community will react if Wagner comes in, he said. When Wagner came into Mali at the end of 2021, the French military was ousted soon afterward after years of partnership. Wagner was later designated a terrorist organization by the United States, and international partners might have a stronger reaction now, Nasr said.

And much more is at stake in Niger, where the US and other partners have poured hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance to combat the region’s growing extremist threat. France has 1,500 soldiers in Niger, though coup leaders say they have severed security agreements with Paris. The US has 1,100 military personnel in the country.

It’s unclear what a regional intervention would look like, when it would begin or whether it would receive support from Western forces. Niger’s junta has called on the population to watch for spies, and self-organized defense groups have mobilized at night to monitor cars and patrol the capital.

“If the junta were to dig in its heels and rally the populace around the flag — possibly even arming civilian militias — the intervention could morph into a multifaceted counterinsurgency that ECOWAS would not be prepared to handle,” said a report by the Hudson Institute, a conservative US think tank.

While some in Niger are bracing for a fight, others are trying to cope with travel and economic sanctions imposed by ECOWAS. Land and air borders with ECOWAS countries have been closed, while commercial and financial transactions have been suspended.

Residents said the price of goods is rising and there’s limited access to cash.

“We are deeply concerned about the consequences of these sanctions, especially their impacts on the supply of essential food products, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, petroleum products and electricity,” said Sita Adamou, president of Niger’s Association to Defend Human Rights.

Flames engulfed a university building's wooden roof in Donetsk following Ukrainian shelling on Saturday, said an emergency official in the Russia-controlled city in eastern Ukraine.

"As a result of the latest attack on Donetsk, the first building of the University of Economics and Trade is on fire," Alexei Kulemzin, the Russia-installed mayor, said on Telegram.

"We are using 12 water tanks, three ladders and 100 fire fighters," said Alexei Kostrubitsky, the Russia-installed emergency minister for the region that Moscow calls the Donetsk People's Republic.

"The whole roof is on fire."

Kostrubitsky said Ukrainian forces used cluster munitions in the shelling that caused the blaze. Reuters could not independently verify the information. Both sides have used cluster munitions in the course of Russia's 17-month invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine, which received supplies of US cluster munitions last month, has vowed to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the alleged shelling. Both sides deny targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Kostrubitsky said there were no people inside the building during the shelling.

"The most difficult thing is that the roof is wooden, so the fire spreads fast."

Russia's RIA state news agency cited Kostrubitsky and emergency services as saying the fire spread to an area of about 1,800 sq m (19,400 sq ft) before being contained early on Sunday.

An earthquake in eastern China before dawn Sunday knocked down houses and injured at least 21 people, according to state media, but no deaths were reported.

The magnitude 5.5 quake occurred near the city of Dezhou, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of Beijing, the Chinese capital, at 2:33 a.m., according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. The US Geological Survey put the magnitude at 5.4.

The quake caused 126 homes to collapse and 21 people were injured, government broadcaster China Central Television and other news outlets reported.

TV broadcasters showed Dezhou residents who ran outdoors after the quake sitting on sidewalks in the predawn darkness. Video on social media showed bricks that had fallen from cracked walls.

Train lines were being inspected for possible damage, the official China News Service said. CCTV said gas service was shut off in some areas due to damage to pipes.

Dezhou and the surrounding area administered by the city have about 5.6 million people, according to the city government website.

The quake was centered about 10 kilometers (six miles) below the surface, according to the CENC.

“The closer to the surface the earthquake is, the stronger you are going to feel it,” said Abreu Paris, a geophysicist at the US Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center.

Tremors were felt in parts of Beijing, but authorities said no damage from the earthquake was found in the capital.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has instructed factories making missile engines, artillery and other weapons to boost capacity as an important part of bolstering the country's defense capabilities, state media said on Sunday.Kim's inspections from Thursday to Saturday included the production of engines for strategic cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as shells for super large-caliber multiple-rocket launchers and transporter-erector-launchers, said state news agency KCNA.His unusual visits to multiple arms production facilities over several days come as Pyongyang pushes to develop various strategic and conventional weapons and holds prominent displays of a range of arms, Reuters said.The launchers Kim inspected are normally used to fire ballistic missiles.North Korea has tested rocket launchers for larger caliber shells, advanced cruise missiles and last month its newest ballistic missiles, including a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.Kim cited improved precision processing and modernized automation in the production of large-caliber multiple-rocket launcher shells, KCNA said.He called for the mass production of "various kinds of cutting-edge strategic weapon engines... and thus make a great contribution to bringing about a revolution in developing new strategic weapons of our style," the agency said.Photos showed Kim firing different types of assault rifles, with fiery blasts coming off the muzzle as he took aim at a target that was out of frame.Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on North Korea's political strategy at the Sejong Institute near Seoul, said Kim is likely focused on modernization and technical innovation of weapons that will help with the export of arms to Russia.Marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War on July 27, Pyongyang held a major military parade displaying its newest nuclear-capable missiles and attack and spy drones, with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and a senior Chinese official joining Kim in the reviewing stand.At a large defense exhibition, Kim gave Shoigu a tour of the display of ballistic missiles and what appeared to be a new drone.The United States has accused North Korea of providing arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine, including a "significant" number of artillery shells, as well as a shipment of infantry rockets and missiles to Russia's mercenary Wagner Group.Russia and North Korea have denied those claims.

Ukraine said Russia bombed a blood transfusion center near the front line in a wave of air strikes overnight while Moscow reported that it had shot down a drone heading to the capital on Sunday in the third such attack in a week.

Both countries have stepped up attacks on each other's troops, weaponry and infrastructure supporting the war as Ukraine seeks to dislodge Russian forces who have dug in across southern and eastern Ukraine since their invasion last year.

The Moscow-appointed head of Crimea said the Chonhar bridge to the peninsula, which was annexed from Ukraine by Moscow in 2014, had been damaged by a missile strike. Another of the three road links between Crimea and Russian-occupied parts of mainland Ukraine, near the town of Henichesk, was shelled and a civilian driver wounded, a Moscow-appointed official said.

Traffic was halted on a third bridge, linking Russia to Crimea, after both sides said a Ukrainian naval drone full of explosives struck a Russian fuel tanker vessel overnight from Friday to Saturday, the second such attack in 24 hours.

The attacks are making it increasingly hard to get on and off the Black Sea peninsula, which is of military importance to Moscow as well as a popular tourist destination for Russians.

Inside Russia, Moscow's Vnukovo airport suspended flights on Sunday, citing unspecified reasons outside its control. Vnukovo imposed similar suspensions when Moscow was attacked by drones last week. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said a drone had been shot down on Sunday south of the capital.

At least 10 Russian missiles appear to have got through Ukraine's air defenses in the overnight attack, which Ukraine's air force said involved 70 air assault weapons including cruise and hypersonic missiles as well as Iranian-made drones.

Local media said a worker at a grain silo had been wounded and a rescuer died during a rescue operation.

The attacks followed what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said was a bomb attack on a blood transfusion center in the town of Kupiansk, a railway hub around 16 km (10 miles) from the front in the eastern Kharkiv region.

"There are dead and wounded," he said on his Telegram channel, adding that rescue workers were extinguishing a fire at the scene and describing the strike as a "war crime".

He did not say how many casualties there were or whether they were military or civilian. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians or military hospitals in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions and destroyed cities.

Russia's defense ministry said it had conducted successful strikes on Ukrainian air bases in the western Rivne and Khmelnytskyi regions and southern Zaporizhzhia region, without giving details.

Ukraine's air force said it destroyed 30 out of 40 cruise missiles and all 27 of the Shahed drones that Russia launched overnight. It also said Russia launched three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, but did not disclose any further information on them.

It was not clear what happened to the 10 cruise missiles that were not shot down.

The deputy governor of the Khmelnytskyi region, Serhiy Tiurin, said a military airfield in Starokostiantyniv was among the targets. He said most of the missiles were shot down, but explosions had damaged several houses, a cultural institution and the bus station and a fire had broken out at a grain silo.

"Now, it is the Starokostiantyniv airfield that haunts the enemy," Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said.

Russia had targeted the airfield at the end of July.

Pipeline leak

Poland halted oil flows through one part of the Druzhba pipeline carrying oil from Russia to Europe after detecting a leak, the latest hitch to energy flows since Russia invaded Ukraine. There was no indication of the cause and Germany said oil supplies were secure. Poland said it expected oil to flow again on Tuesday.

Ukraine is two months into a grueling counteroffensive to try to push out Russian forces occupying almost a fifth of its territory in the south and east.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month that while Ukraine had recaptured half the territory that Russia had initially seized, the Ukrainian counteroffensive was in its early days and would take shape over "several months".

Another sea drone attack on Russia's navy base at Novorossiysk damaged a warship on Friday, the first time the Ukrainian navy had projected its power so far from its shores.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested Moscow would launch more strikes against Ukrainian ports in response to Kyiv's attacks on Russian ships in the Black Sea, and threatened to hand Ukraine "an ecological catastrophe".

Zelenskiy's aide Mykhailo Podoliak characterized the overnight Russian missile attacks as a response to Ukraine's overtures to Global South countries that have been reluctant to take sides in a conflict that has hurt the global economy.

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