MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin made a surprise weekend visit to the war-ravaged port of Mariupol, state media reported, the Kremlin leader’s first trip to the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine’s Donbas region since the conflict began.
The visit came after Putin traveled to Crimea on Saturday in an unannounced visit to mark the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine, and just two days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader.
Putin is yet to comment publicly on the ICC warrant, but his trips into Ukrainian territory claimed by Russia was seen by some observers as an act of defiance.
Mariupol fell in May after one of the war’s longest and bloodiest battles, marking Russia’s first major victory after it failed to seize Kyiv and focused instead on southeastern Ukraine
The Organization for Security and Cooperation and Europe (OSCE) said Russia’s early bombing of a maternity hospital there was a war crime.
Putin flew by helicopter to Mariupol for “a working trip,” Russian news agencies reported citing the Kremlin. He traveled around several districts of the city, making stops and talking to residents.
It is the closest to the front lines Putin has been since the year-long war began.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant on Friday against Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine, a highly symbolic move that isolates the Russian leader further.
While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has made a number of trips to the battlefield to boost the morale of his troops and talk strategy, Putin has largely remained inside the Kremlin while running what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Kyiv and its allies say the invasion, now in its 13th month, is an imperialistic land grab that has killed thousands and displaced millions of people in Ukraine.
’BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN’
In the Nevsky district of Mariupol, Putin visited a family in their home, Russian media reported. The new residential neighborhood has been built by Russian military with first people moving in last September.
Residents have been “actively” returning, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who accompanied Putin, was cited as saying by Russian agencies.
Mariupol had a population of half a million people before the war and was home to the Azovstal steel plant, one of Europe’s largest.
“The downtown has been badly damaged,” Khusnullin said. “We want to finish (reconstruction) of the center by the end of the year, at least the facade part. The center is very beautiful.”
Russian media broadcast videos showing the Russian leader driving a car at night through a built-up area as well as walking into what media said was the philharmonic, restored in just three months.
There was also no immediate reaction to the visit from Kyiv.
Mariupol is in the Donetsk region, one of the four regions Putin moved in September to annex. Kyiv and its Western allies condemned the move as illegal. Donetsk, together with the Luhansk region, comprise most of the Donbas industrialized part of Ukraine that has seen the biggest battle in Europe for generations.
Russian media reported on Sunday that Putin also met with the top commander of his military operation in Ukraine, including Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov who is in charge of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Putin visits Mariupol as part of surprise tour of occupied Ukraine
https://arab.news/jw3e4
Putin visits Mariupol as part of surprise tour of occupied Ukraine
- The visit came after Putin traveled to Crimea in an unannounced visit
- Mariupol was Russia’s first major victory after it failed to seize Kyiv
UK’s Labour pitches for power with promise of growth
- Starmer will describe Labour’s blueprint for government as a “manifesto for wealth creation”
- Economists said the incoming government could get some momentum from expected falls in interest rates
LONDON: Britain’s Labour party on Thursday launches its general election manifesto, hoping that a promise to get the economy growing again will catapult it into power after 14 years in opposition.
Labour has been consistently some 20 points ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives for nearly two years, making its leader Keir Starmer a virtual shoe-in as the country’s next prime minister if polls are correct.
But Starmer, 61, still has work to do before polling day on July 4 to overcome persistent Tory claims about Labour profligacy with public finances and warnings that it will increase personal taxes.
The manifesto launch comes two days after the Tories promised voters more tax cuts, in a campaign where the affordability of the main parties’ spending plans have come under close scrutiny.
In details trailed in advance by the party, Starmer will describe Labour’s blueprint for government as a “manifesto for wealth creation” and call it “our number one priority.”
“The mandate we seek from Britain at this election is for economic growth,” the former human rights lawyer and chief public prosecutor will tell party members in Manchester, northwest England.
“Growth is our core business — the end and the means of national renewal,” he will add, promising sustained economic growth to drive up living standards.
To get there, Labour is promising to restore economic stability after the turbulence of recent years that saw inflation hit 11.1 percent in October 2022 — its highest in 40 years.
It vowed to introduce tough new spending rules to allow businesses to plan, a cap on corporation tax at 25 percent and an industrial strategy for longer-term investment, particularly in green tech and AI.
Starmer and his likely finance minister Rachel Reeves look set to have little room for maneuver, however, with the economy stagnant in April after emerging from recession in the first quarter.
Both Labour and the Tories have ruled out increasing the VAT sales tax, income tax rates and National Insurance, which pays for state health care, pensions and unemployment, if they win.
Economists said the incoming government could get some momentum from expected falls in interest rates and inflation by the end of the year.
Many Labour policies — from continued support for Ukraine and scrapping the Tories’ plan to deport failed asylum seekers to Rwanda, to recognizing Palestinian sovereignty as part of the peace process — have been drip-fed over months.
As in 1997, when Tony Blair won a landslide after 18 years of Tory rule, Starmer knows that he needs to reassure a jittery electorate that Labour can provide stability and economic competence.
At the last election in 2019, his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn stood on a radical platform that included proposals for sweeping renationalization of key industries, and tax hikes for high earners.
Starmer, who took over after Labour was routed by Boris Johnson’s Tories and has dragged the party back to the less threatening center ground, and will vow it is “pro business and pro worker.”
Britons have endured an unprecedented period of political upheaval, with five Tory prime ministers since 2010, and three in just four months in 2022.
Much of that was the result of Brexit, the country’s tortuous departure from the European Union, but also self-inflicted wounds such as Liz Truss’s short-lived tenure, when her unfunded tax cuts spooked the markets and crashed the pound.
One of Starmer’s first tasks if he finds himself in Downing Street on July 5 will be to prepare for a crunch NATO summit in Washington the following week, and to host a meeting of European leaders.
Study details huge emissions resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- Aside from killing tens of thousands and displacing millions of people, the war launched by Russia has has also caused vast environmental damage
KYIV: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has directly caused or paved the way to the emission of 175 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, a joint report said on Thursday.
The report, published by Ukraine’s environment ministry and climate NGOs, said their estimate included both emissions that had been released and those that would be produced during repair work following the destruction caused by the February 2020 invasion.
It laid out some of the main carbon-emitting activities caused by fighting.
“Billions of liters of fuel used by military vehicles, nearly a million hectares of fields and forests set ablaze, hundreds of oil and gas structures blown up and vast amounts of steel and cement used to fortify hundreds of miles of front lines,” it said.
The 175 million tons estimate was the equivalent to the annual emissions produced by 90 million cars, or the whole of the Netherlands in a year, it said.
The war launched by Moscow has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, but it has also caused vast environmental damage as two armies engage in the biggest European land war in 80 years.
The report, which seeks to quantify the war’s carbon footprint, was put together in cooperation by Ukraine’s environment ministry and climate researchers from Ukraine and other countries.
The report used a measure called the Social Cost of Carbon to calculate the approximate financial cost of the additional emissions.
“The total climate damage that the Russian Federation has caused after 24 months of the war amounts to more than USD 32 billion,” it said.
The report said that the war emissions could be divided approximately into three thirds: military activity, the steel and concrete needed to rebuild damaged infrastructure, and the final third being made up of several disparate factors including fires and movement of people.
“In the early months of the war, the majority of the emissions were caused by the large scale destruction of civilian infrastructure requiring a large post-war reconstruction effort,” the report said.
“Now, after two years of war, the largest share of emis- sions originate from a combination of warfare, landscape fires and the damage to energy infrastructure.”
Military activity was responsible for 51.6 million tons of CO2 equivalent emmmisions, the report said.
The majority of that number, 35.2 million tons of CO2 equivalent, was caused by the Russian military’s fuel consumption, with a further 9.4 milion tons from the Ukrainian military’s use of fuel.
Among the world’s biggest consumers of fuel, militaries worldwide account for 5.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2022 estimate, opens new tab by international experts.
According to the report, the war has significantly increased the frequency of landscape fires in the affected areas.
It said a million hectares of land had been scorched by 27,000 war-related fires, causing the equivalent atmospheric damage of 23 million tons of CO2.
The report also calculated that the closure of airspace over Ukraine and some parts of Russia, as well as the restrictions on certain carriers’ use of Russia’s airspace, have created just over 24 million tons of CO2 of additional emissions.
“Restrictions or caution has largely cleared the skies above some 18 million km2 of Ukraine and Russia, adding hours to journeys between Europe and Asia that consume additional fuel,” it said.
NATO to take over coordination of arms deliveries to Ukraine ahead of possible Trump win
- Russia-leaning Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress feared to block US aid to Ukraine should he return to power
- UK to announce about $310 million Ukraine aid in G7 summit
BRUSSELS, Belgium: NATO is set to take over the coordination of arms deliveries to Ukraine from the US, the alliance’s chief said on Wednesday, in a bid to safeguard the military aid mechanism as NATO-skeptic Donald Trump bids for a second term as US president.
“I expect that ministers will approve a plan for NATO to lead the coordination of security assistance and training to Ukraine,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.Hours before, Hungary had given up its resistance to the Ukraine support package NATO aims to agree at its Washington summit in July, comprising a financial pledge and the transfer to NATO of the coordination of arms supplies and training.
During a visit by Stoltenberg to Budapest, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country would not block NATO decisions on providing support for Ukraine but had agreed that it would not be involved.
He added he had received assurances from Stoltenberg that Hungary would not have to provide funding for Ukraine or send personnel there.
Hungary has been at odds with other NATO countries over Orban’s continued cultivation of close ties to Russia and refusal to send arms to Ukraine, with Budapest’s foreign minister last month labelling plans to help the war-torn nation a “crazy mission.”
Stoltenberg had proposed that NATO take on coordination of international military aid for Ukraine, giving the alliance a more direct role in the war against Russia’s invasion while stopping well short of committing its own forces.
The move is widely seen as an effort to provide a degree of “Trump-proofing” by putting coordination under a NATO umbrella.
But diplomats acknowledge such a move may have limited effect, as the US is NATO’s dominant power and provides the majority of weaponry to Ukraine. So if Washington wanted to slash Western aid to Kyiv, it would still be able to do so.
Stoltenberg has also asked allies to keep up funding military aid for Ukraine at the same level as they have since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, adding up to some 40 billion euros per year.
On Wednesday, he said he was hopeful allies would find agreement on a financial pledge before the summit to make the support for Ukraine more robust and more predictable.
UK readies $309.69 million aid
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will announce up to 242 million pounds ($309.69 million) in bilateral assistance to Ukraine in the G7 summit, his office said on Wednesday, to support immediate humanitarian, energy and stabilization needs for Ukraine.
“We must be decisive and creative in our efforts to support Ukraine and end Putin’s illegal war at this critical moment,” Sunak said ahead of the summit.
The Group of Seven nations and the European Union are also considering how to use profits generated by Russian assets immobilized in the West to provide Ukraine with a large up-front loan to secure Kyiv’s financing for 2025.
UK’s Sunak, Starmer face televised grilling by unhappy voters
LONDON: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer were grilled by voters at a televised event on Wednesday, with both challenged over past decisions, pledges and how they would fund policies if they won a July 4 election.
At their last meeting in television studios before the poll, the two men took turns to face an interviewer and then an audience, whose questions and responses underscored the everyday struggles of many in Britain and the mistrust of politicians.
With just over three weeks until an election opinion polls suggest Labour will easily win, Sunak was booed and heckled over doctors’ strikes, migration and his policy to introduce national service for young people.
Starmer was taken to task for what one audience member said was his avoidance of answering questions, and over his previous support of his predecessor, left-wing veteran Jeremy Corbyn.
A poll taken after the event in the northern English town of Grimsby said 64 percent believed Starmer had won the event on Sky News.
Starmer told the audience that he would start implementing his policies from ‘day one’ if he won the election but shied away from answering whether he was being honest when in 2019 he said his left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, should become prime minister.
“I want to get the place when I can roll up my sleeves and work with you ... to say the government is on your side,” Starmer said to applause. “That will be a massive difference to the last 14 years.”
SUNAK BOOED
Sunak was challenged over some of his policies, which audience members said had yet to solve their inability to get dentist appointments, reduce waiting lists in the National Health Service or stop the arrival of migrants in small boats.
“I know we’ve been through a tough time, of course we have... its been tough for all of you here tonight, all of you watching, but I do believe we have turned a corner and we’ve got a clear plan for the future,” he said.
“I am going to keep fighting hard until the last day of this election.”
The event came a day after Sunak unveiled 17 billion pounds of tax cuts in his governing party’s manifesto, trying to convince voters’ that he had a plan to make them better off while Labour’s policies are vague and ill-thought through.
He said again on Wednesday that a vote for Starmer was akin to writing him a blank cheque, repeating the contested accusation that a Labour government would increase taxes by more than 2,000 pounds. Starmer denied that was the case.
On Thursday, Labour will be try to set the story straight with its own manifesto, a document which sets out the policies the party will pursue in government, an agenda Starmer said would put wealth creation and economic growth at its heart.
Labour has repeatedly said it will stick to strict spending rules — a line Labour, traditionally seen as the party of tax and spend, has adopted not only to try to show it has changed since being led by Corbyn but also to challenge Conservative attacks that it will increase taxes.
But it was Corbyn who came back to haunt Starmer on Wednesday, when he was asked whether he believed what he said when in 2019 he said the veteran leftist would make a good prime minister and when he made 10 left-wing pledges to become Labour leader a year later, several of which he has since dropped.
“Have I changed my position on those pledges, yes I have,” said Starmer. “I think this party should always put the country first.”
US slams Russia over alleged abduction of Ukrainian children
WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday again accused Russia of taking Ukrainian children, some of whom were put up for adoption, after fresh media accounts detailed alleged abductions.
“This is despicable and appalling. These Ukrainian children belong with their families inside Ukraine,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
“Russia is waging a war not just against the Ukrainian military — but against the Ukrainian people.”
An investigation by the Financial Times, published Wednesday, identified and located four Ukrainian children allegedly transferred to Russia, then offered for adoption on the website usynovite.
The children are aged between 8 and 15 years old.
According to the report, the name of one child was changed to Russian and no mention is made on the site of their Ukrainian origins.
Ukraine is demanding the return of nearly 20,000 minors it says have been illegally taken by Russia since the start of Moscow’s invasion in 2022.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the allegations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told AFP last month that he planned to make the return of children a top priority at this weekend’s summit in Switzerland on ending the war.
