KOBZARTSI, Ukraine: Hundreds of cemeteries near front lines will be closed to Ukrainians wanting to pay their respects at graves of their relatives for Orthodox Easter this weekend, as officials fear the danger of land mines and unexploded ordnance.
But in the formerly Russian-occupied village of Kobzartsi in the southwest Mykolaiv region, residents say they are hugely grateful that demining officers have been able to clear one of the two local cemeteries of hazards to allow them to visit.
“Thank God that (deminers) came through here. We will visit (the cemetery) as usual, and we will celebrate Easter. Thank God we are alive, this is most important,” said Olena Yarova, a 46-year-old villager.
Many Ukrainians visit the graves of their loved ones around Easter to pay their respects and tidy up the graves.
Only 42 people remain in Kobzartsi out of 1,200 who lived there before Russia invaded in February 2022. Fighting has littered Ukraine with an appalling amount of dangerous war detritus.
The head of the demining unit in Kobzartsi said they had found munitions and debris on the ground.
“If it goes off nearby, there is a 100 percent possibility of shrapnel wounds. In 90 percent of such cases a person dies after being hit with such munitions,” said Vladyslav Hrytsai, the officer.
The second cemetery was not demined and 74-year-old Lidiia Osypenko said: “We will go only after the deminers. We will not go without them. It is dangerous to go just like this.”
The village was liberated after months of occupation in November when Ukrainian forces recaptured a swathe of the Kherson region, which was taken shortly after the start of Russia’s invasion.
The governor of Kherson region, tracts of which remain occupied, has declared a ban on cemetery visits for Easter this year. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, back in Ukrainian hands after a partial Russian occupation, 753 cemeteries have been closed.
Frontline cemeteries shut to Ukrainians for Easter over dangerous war debris
https://arab.news/yg79q
Frontline cemeteries shut to Ukrainians for Easter over dangerous war debris
- Many Ukrainians visit the graves of their loved ones around Easter to pay their respects and tidy up the graves
- Only 42 people remain in Kobzartsi out of 1,200 who lived there before Russia invaded in February 2022
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
