…

kyiv, ukraine — Ukraine said Wednesday that it had destroyed Russian pontoon bridges with U.S.-made weapons to defend its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, while Moscow said its forces had halted Kyiv’s advance there and had gained ground in eastern Ukraine. 

Kyiv has announced a string of battlefield successes since it crossed unexpectedly into the Kursk region on August 6. Moscow has steadily inched forward in eastern Ukraine, pressuring troops worn down by 2½ years of fighting. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s military was responding to the Russian push by strengthening its forces around Pokrovsk, the focus of Russian advances in eastern Ukraine. 

Speaking in one of his regular televised addresses, he also urged Kyiv’s allies to honor commitments to send munitions for use by the Ukrainian armed forces. 

“This is fundamental for defense,” he said. 

Ukraine has closely guarded its overarching aims in the Kursk region but said it had carved out a buffer zone from an area Russia has used to pound targets in Ukraine with cross-border strikes. 

A video posted by Ukrainian special forces showed strikes on several pontoon crossings in the Kursk region, where Russia has reported that Ukraine has destroyed at least three bridges over the Seym River as it seeks to hold the captured land. 

“Where do Russian pontoon bridges ‘disappear’ in the Kursk region? Operators … accurately destroy them,” Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said on the Telegram messenger. 

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has said Kyiv has made bigger territorial gains in the Kursk region than Moscow has made in Ukraine this year. Russia has called the incursion an escalation. 

Ukraine smashed through the Russian border in the Kursk region on August 6 in an attempt to force Moscow to divert troops from the rest of the front, though Russian forces have continued to advance in recent days. 

Russia took the settlement of Zhelanne, which lies less than 20 km to the east of the transport hub Pokrovsk, according to the Russian defense ministry.  

Both sides reported being targeted by major drone attacks. Ukraine said it intercepted 50 of 69 drones launched by Russia; Moscow said its air defenses destroyed 45 drones over Russian territory, including 11 over the Moscow region. 

Reporting back to Moscow, Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces and the deputy head of the defense ministry’s military-political department, said Russia had stalled the Ukrainian incursion. 

“We halted them and started pushing them back,” Alaudinov told Rossiya state television. He said Ukrainian forces were regrouping and could soon launch a new attack, though he gave no further details. 

Russia has repeatedly said the Ukrainian offensive has been halted. Ukraine has kept touting gains, saying it has captured 92 settlements over an area of more than 1,250 square km. 

The Ukrainian military, which has not made significant gains on its own soil since late 2022, has gotten a much needed morale boost from the incursion. 

Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliament’s national defense committee, said Russia’s priority remained to capture the Donetsk region despite the incursion and that it was not pulling forces from near Pokrovsk to act as reinforcements.  

Mykola Bielieskov, a research fellow at the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank in Kyiv, said attacks on bridges and pontoons would help Ukraine build a defensive line along the river. 

“This is an opportunity to make it more stable, systemic, ready to repel Russian attacks,” he said in remarks on national television.  

Reuters confirmed that all of the strike locations of pontoon bridges shown in the video were on or near the Seym River in the Kursk region.  

The video also showed drone strikes on military trucks and other locations described as a Russian munitions warehouse and an electronic warfare complex in the region. Other locations or the date when the video was filmed could not be independently verified. 

Separately, Reuters was able to verify that at least one pontoon crossing was apparently destroyed.  

The Ukrainian statement said U.S.-manufactured HIMARS rocket systems had been used as part of operations to disrupt Russian logistics in the Kursk region, Kyiv’s first official statement acknowledging its use of the weapon during its incursion. 

Washington has not commented directly on the use of U.S.-made weapons in the Kursk region, while saying U.S. policies have not changed and Ukraine was defending itself from Russia’s ongoing all-out invasion. 

While allies have barred Ukraine from conducting long-range strikes with Western weapons inside Russia, they have allowed Kyiv to use them to hit border areas since Russia’s new offensive on Kharkiv region this spring.
…

washington — A journalist with VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Wednesday marked 1,000 days in jail in Belarus on charges that he and his employer reject as politically motivated.

Andrey Kuznechyk, with RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service — known locally as Radio Svaboda — has been jailed in Belarus since his arrest on November 25, 2021.

He was initially sentenced to 10 days in jail on hooliganism charges, which he rejected. When Kuznechyk was due to be released, authorities kept him in prison and added an additional charge of creating an extremist group.

In a trial that lasted only one day, a regional court found Kuznechyk guilty in June 2022 and sentenced him to six years in prison.

“Belarus’ treatment of Andrey Kuznechyk is reprehensible,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in a post on the social media platform X.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent organization of RFE/RL and VOA, also called for Belarus to release Kuznechyk.

“Journalism is not a crime, yet journalists around the world continue to be persecuted just for reporting the truth,” USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett told VOA in a statement. “Today sickeningly marks the 1,000th day Andrey Kuznechyk has been wrongly detained in Belarus. Every moment he spends in this hard-labor camp is one too many.”

Kuznechyk is one of several journalists and activists who have been jailed in Belarus since 2020, when President Aleksander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, claimed yet another victory in a contested presidential election. Massive protests against the disputed election were met with a severe government crackdown.

There are more than 1,400 political prisoners still held in Belarus, according to the rights group Viasna, and independent news outlets have been forced to shutter or retreat into exile. At the end of 2023, Belarus ranked third worst in the world in terms of journalist jailings, with 28 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Kuznechyk is one of two RFE/RL journalists currently jailed in Belarus.

The second is Ihar Losik, who has been detained since June 2020, before the contested election took place. He was eventually tried behind closed doors on charges including “organization of mass riots” and “incitement of hatred” and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The charges against him are also widely viewed as bogus.

“Andrey Kuznechyk and Ihar Losik have been locked away for years, with callous disregard by Belarus,” Capus said on X.

Kuznechyk and Losik — as well as opposition leader Viktar Babaryka — are being held at Correctional Colony No. 1, which is considered one of the harshest prisons in Belarus.

The third RFE/RL journalist who is imprisoned is Vladyslav Yesypenko, who has been jailed in Russian-occupied Crimea since March 2021. He was charged with “possession and transport of explosives,” which he denies, and sentenced in a closed-door trial to six years in prison.

“Their so-called crimes?” Capus said, referring to the three jailed journalists. “Sharing journalistic words of truth.” RFE/RL calls for their immediate release, he added.

American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was among the outlet’s wrongly jailed journalists until early August, when she was released from Russia as part of a historic prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

The Washington embassy of Belarus told VOA it had no comment for this story. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. Russia’s Washington embassy also did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

 
…

…

Bucharest, Romania — Romanian authorities on Wednesday searched the home of controversial influencer Andrew Tate, who is awaiting trial over human trafficking and rape charges, as part of a new investigation, officials said.

One of the world’s best-known influencers known for misogynist and sometimes violent maxims, Andrew Tate has been accused of having formed an organized criminal network in early 2021 in Romania and Britain, along with his brother Tristan. They have denied the charges.

Prosecutors allege that 37-year-old Tate, his 36-year-old brother and two women set up a criminal organization and sexually exploited several victims. A trial date has not yet been set.

On Wednesday prosecutors “conducted a raid this morning, on August 21, 2024, at the residence of the Tate brothers as part of a search related to a new investigation,” prosecutors said in a statement.

The office for organized crime said that four search warrants were executed, in connection with “the crimes of forming an organized criminal group, trafficking in minors,” “sexual relations with a minor” and “money laundering.”

Neither of the statements indicated whether the new charges targeted the brothers.

They were detained in 2022 in Bucharest and spent three months in detention before being released under judicial supervision to await trial.

The brothers also face rape and assault allegations in separate cases in Britain, where they have also been accused of tax evasion.

In 2016, Tate appeared on the “Big Brother” reality television show in Britain but was removed after a video emerged showing him attacking a woman.

He then turned to social media platforms to promote his divisive views.

Giving tips on how to be successful, along with misogynistic and sometimes violent maxims, his videos have made him one of the world’s best-known influencers.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the country’s forces now control 92 settlements and more than 1,250 square kilometers in Russia’s Kursk region, after Ukrainian responses to Russia’s cross-border attacks evolved into a surprising offensive. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.
…

Germany and other G7 countries are developing ways to support Ukraine through loans financed with the proceeds of frozen Russian assets. The German Finance Ministry announced the effort on Tuesday. Latvia, once a sanctuary for Russian money, is a strong backer of the plan, as VOA’s Myroslava Gongadza reports from Riga. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
…

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces have either destroyed or damaged all three of the bridges over the Seym River in western Russia, according to Russian sources, as Kyiv’s incursion into western Russia entered its third week Tuesday.

Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is changing the trajectory of the war and boosting morale among Ukraine’s war-weary population, though the ultimate outcome of the incursion — the first attack on Russia since World War II — remains impossible to predict.

Even as Ukraine hails its success on Russian territory, the Russian push in eastern Ukraine is poised to claim another key center, the city of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s attacks on the three bridges over the Seym River in Kursk could potentially trap Russian forces between the river, the Ukrainian advance and the Ukrainian border. Already they appear to be slowing down Russia’s response to the Kursk incursion, which Ukraine launched on Aug. 6.

Over the weekend, Ukraine’s Air Force commander posted two videos of bridges over the Seym being hit, and satellite photos by Planet Labs PBC analyzed Tuesday by The Associated Press confirmed that a bridge in the town of Glushkovo had been destroyed.

A Russian military investigator confirmed Monday that Ukraine had “totally destroyed” one bridge and damaged two others in the area. The full extent of the damage remained unclear.

“As a result of targeted shelling with the use of rocket and artillery weapons against residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in the Karyzh village … a third bridge over the Seym River was damaged,” the unnamed representative for Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a video published on the Telegram channel of Russian state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov.

Russian military bloggers Vladimir Romanov and Yuri Podolyaka and several high-profile pro-war Telegram channels in Russia also claimed that the third bridge had been targeted and damaged. Podolyaka’s post was shared by Roman Alekhin, an advisor to Kursk’s acting regional governor.

Since the incursion into the Kursk region began, the Ukrainian army has captured 1,250 square kilometers (480 square miles) and 92 settlements, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Zelenskyy said in recent days that the operation is aimed at creating a buffer zone that can prevent future attacks on his nation from across the border, and that Ukraine is capturing a large number of Russian prisoners of war that it hopes to exchange for captured Ukrainians.

TASS, a Russian state news agency, reported that 17 people have died and 140 have been injured in Ukraine’s incursion, citing an unnamed source in the Russian medical service. Of 75 people hospitalized, four are children.

Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said Tuesday afternoon that more than 500 people had left dangerous areas in the Kursk region over the past 24 hours. In total, more than 122,000 people have been resettled since the Ukrainian attack began, it said.

In another example of Ukraine taking the war to Russian soil, a massive fire burned for the third consecutive day after an oil depot was hit by Ukrainian drones.

The fire at the depot in the town of Proletarsk burned across an area of a hectare (2 1/2 acres), according to Russian state news agencies. There were 500 firefighters involved in the operation, and 41 of them already have been hospitalized with injuries, according to TASS, citing local officials.

Ukraine’s Army General Staff claimed responsibility Sunday for attacking the oil depot, which was used to supply the needs of Russia’s army, calling it a measure “to undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian Federation.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Ukrainians of “trying to destabilize our country” and compared them to terrorists.

“We will punish the criminals. There can be no doubt about that,” Putin said Tuesday. He was meeting with mothers of children killed in the 2004 Beslan school attack by Islamic militants that left more than 330 people dead.

Ukraine’s incursion has exposed Russian vulnerabilities according to analysts and Ukrainian officials.

Zelenskyy said Monday that he believes Ukraine’s actions would help to dispel Western fears of offering more robust military aid to Kyiv. Some allies have been handing over weapons slowly and imposing limits on how they can be used, fearing that crossing a Russian “red-line” could lead to escalation, even nuclear escalation.

“We have now achieved an extremely important ideological shift: the naive and illusory concept of so-called ‘red lines’ regarding Russia that dominated the assessments of the war by some of our partners has crumbled these days somewhere near Sudzha,” the president said, referring to a seized Russian town under Ukrainian control.

Much remains unknown about Ukrainian operations in Russia but satellite images provide some clues.

Pontoon bridges — temporary bridges used by militaries when formal bridges are blown out — could be seen in the satellite images provide by Planet Labs PBC in two different positions along the Seym River in recent days. The pontoons likely were built by Russian troops trying to supply forces around the Ukrainian advance.

One pontoon bridge appeared along the serpentine path of the river between Glushkovo and the village of Zvannoye on Saturday, but not in images taken Monday. On Monday, smoke could be seen rising along the banks of the river nearby — typically the sign of a strike.

Meanwhile along the frontline in eastern Ukraine, Russia continued to bear down on the city of Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region, forcing Kyiv’s forces to pull back and Ukrainian civilians to flee their homes. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

Russia’s relentless six-month slog across the region following the capture of Avdiivka, has cost both sides heavily in troops and armor. 

Russia wants control of all parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which together make up the Donbas industrial region. 
…

Southport, United Kingdom — King Charles III on Tuesday visited the town in northwest England where a devastating knife attack that killed three young girls sparked nationwide anti-immigration riots.

The 75-year-old monarch inspected a vast sea of floral tributes to the victims and will meet children who survived the attack in the seaside town of Southport.

Buckingham Palace said he wanted to thank “frontline emergency staff for their ongoing work serving local people.”

Charles was criticized by some, including historian Kate Williams, for not issuing a public statement on the riots. Although the monarch conveyed his condolences to the families of the three girls killed, he did not comment on the unrest until nearly two weeks later. Traditionally, the monarch does not comment on anything that could cause political controversy.

But in calls with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and police chiefs, the king later said he had been “greatly encouraged” by the reaction “that countered the aggression and criminality from a few with the compassion and resilience of the many.”

Footage showed the king waving to people as he walked through the town center.

He was later set to meet regional leaders, representatives from the emergency services and others. They will include local groups and faith leaders affected by the violent disorder that hit Southport the day after the July 29 mass stabbing.

Charles was also due to meet privately with some of those caught up in the knife attack, which claimed the lives of three girls, ages 6, 7 and 9, and injured 10 others, eight of them also children.

The meeting was to include some of the surviving children who were present at the community center, as well as their families.

The children were attending a dance class when an assailant entered the building and began attacking them.

Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time, has been charged with murder and attempted murder over the stabbing spree. A motive for the atrocity has not been disclosed, but police have said it is not being treated as terrorism related.

More than a dozen English towns and cities saw unrest and riots in the week that followed the events in Southport.

Officials have blamed far-right elements for helping to stir up the disorder, which targeted mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers as well as police officers and other properties.

The authorities have cited misinformation spread online that Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum seeker for fueling the violence. He was actually born in Britain to parents who hail from Rwanda, an overwhelmingly Christian country.

In the immediate aftermath of the July 29 tragedy, Charles and Queen Camilla conveyed their condolences to the families of the three girls killed but did not comment on the near-daily riots for some time.

The king eventually praised British police and emergency services “for all they are doing to restore peace in those areas that have been affected by violent disorder.”

He hoped the “shared values of mutual respect and understanding will continue to strengthen and unite the nation,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson had said.

The riots have led to more than a thousand arrests and hundreds of convictions, after Prime Minister Starmer vowed those who participated would be quickly called to account.
…

BERLIN — Two German warships await orders from Berlin, their commander said, to determine whether next month they will be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait, drawing a rebuke from Beijing.

While the U.S. and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy’s first passage through the strait since 2002.

China claims sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180-km (110 miles) wide waterway that divides the two sides and is part of the South China Sea. Taiwan strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.

The Taiwan Strait is a major trade route through which about half of global container ships pass, and both the United States and Taiwan say it’s an international waterway.

“The decision has not been taken yet,” the commander of the naval task group, Rear Admiral Axel Schulz, told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding the weather would play a role.

“We are showing our flag here to demonstrate that we stand by our partners and friends, our commitment to the rules-based order, the peaceful solution of territorial conflicts and free and secure shipping lanes.”

Asked about the German ships’ potential passage, China’s foreign ministry said Taiwan was an internal Chinese affair and the key to stability was opposing Taiwan’s independence.

“China has always been opposed to the undermining of China’s territorial sovereignty and security under the guise of freedom of navigation,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.

Before their possible passage through the strait next month, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main plan to call in Tokyo on Tuesday. They will also make stops in South Korea and the Philippines.

They will take part in exercises in the region with France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United States.

Over the last four years, Beijing’s military has increased its activities in the strait.

Expanding military presence

Sailings through the waterway by foreign warships, especially American, are regularly condemned by Beijing, which says such missions “undermine peace and stability” in the region.

Germany, for whom both China and Taiwan, with its huge chip industry, are major trade partners, has joined other Western nations in expanding its military presence in the region as their alarm has grown over Beijing’s territorial ambitions.

In 2021, a German warship sailed through the South China Sea, for the first time in almost 20 years.

Last month, the Luftwaffe deployed fighter jets to Japan for the first joint drills there.

Schulz said he was not planning for any specific security measures should the warships under his command cross the Taiwan Strait, calling it a “normal passage” similar to sailing through the English Channel or the North Sea.

However, he anticipated any passage would be closely monitored.

“I expect the Chinese navy and potentially the coastguard or maritime militia to escort us,” he said, describing this as common practice.
…

Rome — A luxury superyacht carrying foreign tourists capsized and sank off Sicily in bad weather early Monday. One body was found, six people remain missing and 15 people were rescued, including a 1-year-old girl, authorities said.

The sailboat had overturned sometime before 5 a.m. off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, where it was anchored. It had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers that included British, American and Canadian citizens, the Italian coast guard said. Local media said a sudden fierce storm, including tornadoes over water known as waterspouts, had battered the area overnight but skies were clear and seas calm by Monday morning.

The 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian was known for its single 75-meter (246-feet) mast, one of the world’s tallest made of aluminum and which was lit up at night, just hours before it sank. Online charter sites list it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week.

One of the survivors, identified only as Charlotte, said she had momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother.

Eight of the 15 people rescued and taken to shore at Porticello were hospitalized. One body was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for, said Luca Cari, a spokesperson for the Italian fire rescue service.

Rescue crews located the vessel at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) off Porticello and deep-water police divers were trying to access the hull, Cari said. The operations, which were visible from shore, involved helicopters and rescue boats from the coast guard, fire rescue and civil protection service.

Fisherman Francesco Cefalu said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4:30 a.m. and immediately set out to the site but by the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.

“But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,” he said from the port hours later. He said that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on site for three hours, but didn’t find any survivors. “I think they are inside, all the missing people.”

He said he had been up so early to check the weather to see if he could go fishing, and surmised that a sudden waterspout had struck the yacht.

“It could be that the mast broke, or the anchor at the prow pulled it, I don’t know,” he said.

The seven who weren’t rescued included one crew member and six passengers, the coast guard said.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate 12 passengers in four double cabins, a triple and the master suite, plus crew accommodations, according to Charter World and Yacht Charters.

The vessel, which previously was named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag, featured a sleek, minimalist interior of light wood with Japanese accents designed by the French designer Remi Tessier, according to descriptions and photos on the charter sites.
…

…