KYIV: Ukraine’s capital suffered what officials said was Russia’s largest drone attack of the war on Saturday, leaving five people wounded as the rumble of air defenses and explosions woke residents at sunrise.
The attack began hitting different districts of Kyiv in the early hours of Saturday, with more waves coming as the sun came up. The air raid warning lasted six hours.
Air force chief Mykola Oleschuk said 71 of the 75 drones launched at Ukraine had been downed.
He praised the effectiveness of ‘mobile fire’ units — usually fast pickup trucks with a machine gun or flak cannon mounted on their flatbed. According to Oleschuk, these downed nearly 40 percent of the drones.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on the Telegram app, said the attack had injured five people, including an 11-year-old girl, and damaged buildings in districts all across the city.
Fragments from a downed drone had started a fire in a children’s nursery, he said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky pointed out that the attack had come in the early hours of the day when Ukrainians commemorate their worst national tragedy — the 1932-33 Holodomor famine in which several million people starved to death.
“Wilful terror .... The Russian leadership is proud of the fact that it can kill,” he wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine’s leadership has previously drawn parallels between Holodomor and Russia’s current invasion.
Ukraine and over 30 other countries recognize Holodomor as a genocide of the Ukrainian people by the Soviet Union, which ruled Ukraine at the time and sought to crush its desire for independence.
Moscow denies the deaths were caused by a deliberate genocidal policy and says that Russians and other ethnic groups also suffered because of famine.
The target of Saturday’s attack was not immediately clear, but Ukraine has warned in recent weeks that Russia will once again wage an aerial campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy system, as it sought to do last winter.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said nearly 200 buildings in the capital, including 77 residential ones, had been left without power as a result of the attack.
“It looks like tonight we heard the overture. The prelude to the winter season,” Serhiy Fursa, a prominent Ukrainian economist, wrote on Facebook.
Russia launches biggest drone attack on Ukraine overnight
https://arab.news/cq99x
Russia launches biggest drone attack on Ukraine overnight
- President Volodymyr Zelensky said over 70 Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones had been launched at Ukraine
- Attack injured at least five people and damaged buildings across the city
Political stability at stake as Malaysia’s Najib awaits verdict in biggest 1MDB trial
- A Malaysian high court will decide on Friday whether to convict Najib of four more charges of corruption and 21 counts of money laundering involving the illegal transfer of about 2.2 billion ringgit ($539 million) from 1MDB
KUALA LUMPUR: Jailed former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will hear a verdict on Friday in the biggest trial he faces over the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, a ruling that could risk deepening tensions within the administration of current premier Anwar Ibrahim.
Investigators have said about $4.5 billion was allegedly stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a state fund co-founded by Najib in 2009, and that more than $1 billion allegedly made its way into his personal bank accounts. Najib, 72, last year apologized for mishandling the scandal while in office but he has consistently denied wrongdoing, saying he was misled by 1MDB officials and a fugitive financier, Jho Low, on the source of the funds. In 2020, Najib was convicted of graft and money laundering for illegally receiving funds from a 1MDB unit and began a 12-year prison sentence two years later after losing all his appeals. That sentence was later halved by a pardons board chaired by Malaysia’s king, with Najib due for release in 2028.
A Malaysian high court will decide on Friday whether to convict Najib of four more charges of corruption and 21 counts of money laundering involving the illegal transfer of about 2.2 billion ringgit ($539 million) from 1MDB.
If found guilty, he could face maximum jail terms of between 15 and 20 years on each charge, as well as a fine of up to five times the value of the alleged misappropriations.
The implementation of the penalties, however, could be stayed pending further appeals.
VERDICTS TEST GOVERNMENT STABILITY
The decision will be closely watched after another court this week dismissed a bid by Najib to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest.
That ruling reignited tensions in Anwar’s ruling administration, which includes Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organization.
UMNO campaigned against Anwar in a 2022 election but joined his coalition to form a government after the poll ended in a hung parliament.
Several UMNO leaders expressed disappointment with the decision to deny Najib house arrest, saying it risked diluting the powers of Malaysia’s rulers, while others were angered by social media posts by some members of Anwar’s coalition celebrating the ruling.
Anwar this week called for all parties to handle news of the verdict with patience and wisdom, adding that it was “inappropriate to muddy the atmosphere or add tension” even if there were those who chose not to sympathize with Najib and his family. A guilty verdict for Najib on Friday could strain ties further, with some UMNO leaders already calling for the party to review its pact with Anwar or withdraw from the government altogether. An acquittal, however, may weaken Anwar, who has been under pressure to uphold his credentials as an anti-graft campaigner. Anwar has been accused by critics of betraying progressive voters and allies after prosecutors dropped some corruption charges against Najib and other UMNO figures. The premier has repeatedly said he does not interfere in court cases.
