Latest developments:

Croatia allocated $1.1 million for the demining of Ukrainian agricultural lands, Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Monday.   





United Nations humanitarian office says a $3.9 billion appeal for humanitarian aid for Ukraine is less than 30% funded. 





Ukraine's Defense Ministry signed an agreement with Turkish company Baykar to build a service center for the repair and maintenance of drones in Ukraine, a ministry official said Monday.   

Russian officials said Tuesday air defenses shot down several Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, with the wreckage from one drone striking a high-rise building in the Russian capital. 

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram the building was the same one struck during another Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday. 

There were no injuries reported from the Tuesday attack. 

Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s capital region multiple times in July, revealing Moscow’s vulnerability as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags on into its 18th month. 

The attacks, including the one Tuesday, have included targeting of the Moskva-Citi business district several miles west of the Kremlin, causing nervousness among employers and employees there who felt the war’s reach to Russia’s nerve center.   

Tech giant Yandex, which has offices around the Russian capital including in Moskva-Citi, asked employees to vacate offices at night when strikes on the Russian capital have tended to occur.   

The United States is not encouraging or enabling attacks inside Russia, White House National Security Council coordinator John Kirby told CNN on Monday.  

Russian attacks 

Russian attacks on Ukrainian towns have left a trail of dead and injured, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stress Ukraine’s need for long-range weapons.   

At least six people were killed by two Russian missiles that hit the city of Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s hometown, Ukrainian officials said Monday.   

Regional Governor Serhiy Lysak announced a day of mourning in the city, saying that among the dead were a 10-year-old girl and her mother. Seventy-five others were wounded, including six children ages 4 to 17 years.    

Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the missiles hit an apartment building and a university building.    

At the damaged residential building, nearly 150 of the building’s residents managed to get out by themselves, and 30 were helped by rescuers, the governor said.    

During his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said preliminary data show that the two missiles were fired at Kryvyi Rih from the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea from the area of Dzhankoy.  

“This proves again and again that for the safety of our cities, for the protection of the normal life of Ukrainians and our children, our military must have enough long-range weapons, enough means to defeat terrorists. The world’s sanctions pressure against Russia deserves a significant increase,” he said.  

“This is already a kind of genocidal everyday reality … Kryvyi Rih,” Zelenskyy’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on X, formerly known as Twitter.  “International law will never work if the aggressor does not see a real power behind it. The power begins with closing the Ukrainian skies with missile defense and air defense systems,” he added.   

Attack on Kherson  

Russian strikes in Kherson Oblast killed four people and wounded 17 others on Monday, among them a 16-year-old girl. Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said that one of the people killed, as well as six of those injured, were working at a utility company when it came under fire. Five others injured were volunteers.  

Later Monday, Russian forces launched a new attack against Kherson, targeting the Korabel district; meanwhile, an attack on the city of Beryslav killed another man.  

Prokudin said the intense shelling is due to Russia replenishing its forces on the east bank of the Dnipro River.  

Peace summit in Saudi Arabia    

U.S. government officials will attend the Ukraine summit scheduled in Saudi Arabia, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller announced during a briefing on Monday, saying that he could not provide more details.  

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that Saudi Arabia would invite Western states, Ukraine and major developing countries to the high-level talks.  

Saudi Arabia’s summit is reportedly scheduled to be held in Jeddah over the weekend to discuss implementation of Zelenskyy’s peace plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.      

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called for an end to the “irrational” war in Ukraine and urged the upcoming peace talks in the Middle East to include representation from both Ukraine and Russia.     

Lopez Obrador said Mexico would only participate in the peace talks if both sides were present.   

The Mexican president has tried to keep his country neutral in the war, though his government has backed some major U.N. resolutions against Russia. Mexico has refused to send arms to Ukraine and has not imposed sanctions against Russia.   

The Kremlin said Monday it would “follow” the meeting but did not currently see conditions for peace talks with Kyiv.   

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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When Pope Francis made the first foreign trip of his papacy — to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day in 2013 — he urged young people to make a “mess” in their local churches, to shake things up even if it ruffled the feathers of their bishops. 

As he embarks this week on another edition of World Youth Day, in Lisbon, Portugal, Francis in many ways has taken his own advice to heart. After 10 years as pope, Francis is accelerating his reform agenda and making revolutionary changes in personnel and policy that are definitely shaking up things. 

Unencumbered by the shadow of Pope Benedict XVI, who died seven months ago, and despite recovering from a second intestinal surgery in as many years, the 86-year-old Francis is opening a frenetic second half of the year with his Portugal visit.  

He seems aware that he has a limited sweet spot of time to solidify the changes he believes are necessary for the 21st century church and is looking to the next generation of faithful and leaders to execute them. 

“The sense I get is that this is the consolidation phase of the pontificate,” said papal biographer Austen Ivereigh. “He’s laying the basis now, laying the ground, for the future.” 

And no better place to put it on display than at a World Youth Day. The international rally, which St. John Paul II launched in 1986 to galvanize young Catholics in their faith, is expected to draw up to 1 million people for the first post-pandemic event of its kind. 

Looking ahead, involving everyone

Francis’ perennial social justice concerns about climate change, social inequality and fraternity, as well as Russia’s war in Ukraine, are expected to be major themes at World Youth Day.

Beyond Portugal, though, Francis’ multifold strategy for laying the groundwork for the future is coming together and will hit significant marks in the coming months. 

His global canvassing of rank-and-file Catholics about their vision for the future comes to fruition this October with a big synod at the Vatican. The meeting is intended to give direction on such hot-button issues as the place of LGBTQ+ Catholics and women in the church, and for the first time will feature women and young people voting on proposals alongside bishops. 

“I really think that for Pope Francis, he felt that ‘OK, now it’s mature’ and it would be good really to involve all the members, all the people in the synod as members” with the right to vote, said Sister Nathalie Becquart, who is one of the key synod organizers. 

To then implement the vision that emerges from the synod, Francis has been naming a slew of unusually young bishops for key archdioceses — in his native Buenos Aires, Madrid and Brussels, among others. At the same time, he’s elevated several cardinals in their 50s — and in some cases their 40s — including the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon who is organizing World Youth Day. 

Putting such young clerics in such important positions ensures a generation’s worth of likeminded leadership in the Vatican and archdioceses around the world. While not all are cookie-cutter proteges of Francis, many are seen as similarly pastorally minded and thus more game to implement his reforms, especially as the older generation of bishops and cardinals dies out. 

After Francis is gone, the youngest of these new cardinals will have some three decades’ worth of local leadership and conclave votes to select future popes, suggesting a generational and ideological shift in the church leadership is very much underway. 

‘A seed for the world’s future’

Francis’ most important young “legacy” appointment was that of the Vatican’s new doctrinal czar, Argentine Cardinal-elect Victor Manuel Fernandez, 61. Francis’ theological ghostwriter ran into Vatican problems in the past over questions about his doctrinal orthodoxy, and his appointment sent shockwaves through the conservative and traditionalist wings of the church. 

Fernandez sees his appointment as part of Francis’ longer-term agenda. “He is proposing a more inclusive church, more respectful of different ways of living, even of thinking,” Fernandez said in an interview. 

Portuguese Cardinal-elect Americo Aguiar, who is in charge of World Youth Day, is another young churchman who also understands his appointment as part of a generational turning point for the Catholic hierarchy. 

At 49, he will become the second-youngest member of the College of Cardinals when he is installed Sept. 30. He is just six months older than the current youngest cardinal, whom Francis elevated this time last year: Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, head of the church in Mongolia where Francis will travel at the end of August. 

“My reading of it is that this has to do with young people, it has to do with youth, it has to do with Portugal, it has to do with World Youth Day, it has to do with all of that,” Aguiar said in an interview. “I think that his objective and his underlining was exactly to send a signal to the young people, to every young person who is preparing the day, whether in Portugal or in the world, to feel identified with this decision.” 

Francis said as much in his monthly prayer intentions for August, this time dedicated to the Lisbon event. 

“In Lisbon, I would like to see a seed for the world’s future,” Francis said. “A world where love is at the center, where we can sense that we are sisters and brothers.” 

His wish in many ways echoed his words at the 2013 World Youth Day in Rio, which now seem prescient in outlining many of the key pastoral messages Francis has emphasized over the past decade. Delivering a spontaneous, off-the-cuff exhortation to a gathering of Argentine pilgrims that was organized at the last minute, Francis urged the young to get out into the streets, spread their faith and “make a mess.” 

“I want to see the church get closer to the people,” Francis said then, speaking in his native Spanish. “I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures.” 

Realizing the radical nature of his message, Francis apologized to the bishops for what was about to come, even though in the 10 years since, he has only gone further than anyone could have imagined at the time. 

“The true reform of the church, you know, is not a revolution bringing something completely from outside,” said Becquart, the French nun, as she reflected on Francis’ agenda. “It’s a path of change that is a way to unfold tradition, but in a very dynamic way.” 
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Venice’s famed Rialto Bridge was jammed with tourists on Monday, the same day UNESCO recommended the watery city be put on its endangered list, citing overtourism and other concerns.

Taking selfies, licking gelato and wheeling suitcases, the hordes of visitors seemed happily oblivious to the possible downgrade UNESCO said was due to the risk of “irreversible” damage. 

New York tourist Ashley Park, 28, said she knew it would be crowded in Venice, but it wasn’t ruining her vacation.

“Obviously, if we lived here with all these tourists, it wouldn’t be fun,” she acknowledged.

Among the crowds on the historic bridge was city worker Diego Nechifrovo, 23, wearing an #EnjoyRespectVenezia T-shirt, who was busy keeping an eye out for misbehaving tourists.

“Sometimes I see someone throwing away his cigarette or walking around without a T-shirt,” he said, noticing a bag of potato chips discarded on the doorstep of a jewelry shop.

The worst? One time a family “sat down right in front of the Doge’s Palace and started to set up a picnic.”

A few weeks ago, a distracted tourist fell into the water, Nechifrovo said. “He was trying to get a good photo.”

Not far away, a seller of watercolors had a sign on his stand pointing to St. Mark’s Square.

“That’s all they want to know,” said the native Venetian, Claudio, who declined to give his last name. “They come to Venice because it’s Venice. That’s all.”

Go to the beach

The days of educated tourists visiting and enjoying the city’s many churches and museums were over, he said.

“Those who come now don’t even know what a museum is. It’s not cultural tourism,” he said.

“They need to go to the beach, or the mountains, but not here!” he lamented. “Please don’t come anymore!”

The list of Venice’s challenges are many, from environmental damage to its lagoon to its fleeing residents – with only about 50,000 left – leaving what many critics charge is now a city without a soul.

Two years ago, Venice narrowly avoided being placed on the same UNESCO list – which is intended to spur governments into action to preserve places deemed of “universal value to humanity” – after the city imposed a ban on massive cruise ships traveling past the center.

Environmental groups warned the ships, carrying thousands of day-trippers and sailing exceptionally close to shore, caused large waves eroding Venice’s foundations and harming the lagoon’s fragile ecosystem.

But the rerouting of the ships to the more distant industrial port of Marghera did not address the issue of overtourism itself.

Some 3.2 million tourists stayed overnight in Venice’s historic center last year, according to official data, a number that does not include the thousands of daily visitors who do not spend the night.

“It’s pretty beautiful – it’s a draw!” said U.S. tourist Mike McWilliams, 53, who had just arrived in the city for a two-day visit with his family.

UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural wing, put Venice on its heritage list in 1987 as an “extraordinary architectural masterpiece,” but it has warned of the need for “more sustainable tourism management.”

On Monday, it said progress had been insufficient while citing “a lack of overall joint strategic vision” by authorities.

Critics say measures put in place to check tourism are ineffective and have come too late.

A long-discussed plan to introduce a paid booking scheme for day-trippers has been repeatedly postponed, now until 2024, over concerns it will seriously dent tourist revenue and compromise freedom of movement.

Back at St. Mark’s Square, city worker Lorenzo Seano, 21, was struggling to keep tourists from sitting on the steps of the surrounding arcades.

The problem of too many tourists invading cities went well beyond Venice, Seano said, but no one in government had tried to tackle the problem “on a structural level.”

“After all, there’s a ton of money coming in,” he said.   
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