KYIV, Ukraine: A Russian missile attack struck a hotel in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine on Wednesday evening, wounding 11 people, including journalists, according to local authorities.
The strike comes just ahead of the war’s second anniversary, with both Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of inflicting dozens of civilian casualties in a sharp escalation of attacks.
“Two missiles hit a hotel in the center of Kharkiv. There were no military personnel there. Instead, there were 30 civilians, eleven of whom were wounded,” Mayor Igor Terekhov posted on Telegram.
One of the wounded is in “very serious condition,” he said, adding that Turkish journalists were among those hurt, without providing further details.
According to police, a journalist from a foreign publication had been wounded.
Several other buildings, including two apartment blocks, were also damaged in the latest strike.
Oleg Synegoubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said two Russian S-300 missiles hit the hotel around 10:30 p.m. (2030 GMT).
Nine of the 11 wounded were hospitalized and two were treated on-site, with a 35-year-old man the most seriously injured, he said.
Located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Russian border, Ukraine’s second-largest city has borne a heavy brunt of the war, seeing regular and often deadly aerial assaults.
Kyiv has warned it needs continued Western support and air equipment to sustain its air defense systems amid the intensifying drone and missile attacks launched by Russia.
11 wounded in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv
https://arab.news/mkrgn
11 wounded in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv
- The strike comes just ahead of the war’s second anniversary, with both Moscow and Kyiv accusing each other of inflicting dozens of civilian casualties in a sharp escalation of attacks
UK interior minister insists asylum reforms ‘fair’ amid blowback
- Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders
- Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow”
LONDON: Britain’s interior minister doubled down Thursday on her tough stance on immigration despite criticism from charities and unease within the ruling Labour party that it is shedding left-wing voters.
Shabana Mahmood announced that asylum seekers who break the law or work illegally will be thrown out of government-funded accommodation and lose their support payments.
The policy forms part of a major overhaul of migration rules announced late last year and modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system that aims to slash irregular migration to the UK.
Mahmood argued in a speech that she was “restoring order and control” to Britain’s borders and that her overhaul of the asylum was “firm but fair,” adding she would open new and safe legal routes.
But Amnesty International called the latest measure a “punitive blow” that “risks forcing people into destitution, homelessness and exploitation while they wait for their claims to be decided.”
Mahmood’s reforms are widely seen as an attempt to stem support for the hard-right Reform UK party, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage.
It has topped opinion polls for a year, in part because of the government’s failure to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats.
But her stance has also been credited with contributing to Labour losing support to the progressive Green party, which won a local election in a traditional Labour heartland last week.
Mahmood said there was a middle path between Farage’s “nightmare pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world” and Green Party leader Zack Polanski’s “fairy tale of open borders.”
Her reform that makes refugee status temporary, including for accompanied children, came into force this week.
The status will be reviewed every 30 months, with refugees forced to return to their home countries once those are deemed safe.
They will also need to wait for 20 years, instead of the current five, before they can apply for permanent residency.
She also announced earlier this week that the government would stop issuing education visas to nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
It said there had been a surge in asylum applications by students from those countries and almost 135,000 asylum seekers in total had entered the UK using legal routes since 2021.
