KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday called for the world to help Kyiv defeat “Russian evil” as the death toll from a drone strike on Odesa rose to 12, including five children.
The strike on an apartment block in the southern port city early Saturday morning partially destroyed several floors, leaving more than a dozen people under the rubble.
The attack killed five children, including two babies less than a year old, according to statements by Zelensky and the regional governor.
“Mark, who was not even three years old, Yelyzaveta, eight months old, and Timofey, four months old,” Zelensky said, naming the youngest victims of the strike in a post on Telegram.
“Ukrainian children are Russia’s military targets,” he added.
Rescuers were still pulling bodies from the rubble on Sunday evening, more than 36 hours after the strike, although Zelensky said the search and rescue operation had been called off.
He had pleaded Saturday with Kyiv’s Western allies to supply more air-defense systems as Russia continued to pound Ukraine with drones, missiles and artillery fire in the war’s third year.
Kyiv is currently on the back foot, following recent battlefield gains by Russia.
Zelensky said this latest strike underlined the importance of supporting Ukraine. A stalled $60-billion aid package from the United States has left Kyiv facing ammunition shortages.
“We are waiting for supplies that are vitally necessary, we are waiting, in particular, for an American solution,” Zelensky said later Sunday in his evening address.
Russia had lost 15 military aircraft since the beginning of February, he added. “The more opportunities we have to shoot down Russian aircraft... the more Ukrainian lives will be saved.”
There was no comment on the Odesa attack in Moscow. It denies targeting civilians despite evidence of Russian strikes on residential areas and the United Nations having verified at least 10,000 civilian deaths since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine’s emergency services said they had found the bodies of families huddled together as they sifted through the rubble Sunday.
“A mother tried to cover her eight-month-old baby with her body. They were found in a tight embrace,” the agency said on Telegram.
Odesa Governor Oleg Kiper said the bodies of a brother and sister, aged 10 and eight, were also found together in the debris on Sunday evening.
In other incidents, Ukraine’s interior ministry reported one death and three people wounded in the southern Kherson region; and police said an airstrike on a residential quarter of Kurakhove, a town in the eastern Donetsk region, had wounded 16 people.
Russian military bloggers also reported a massive Ukrainian drone attack on the annexed peninsula of Crimea overnight.
Moscow said it shot down 38 Ukrainian drones, while the Rybar Telegram channel, close to Russia’s armed forces, said one had hit a pipeline at an oil depot, the presumed target of the attack.
Kyiv has hit several Russian oil facilities in recent months in what it has called fair retribution for Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
A senior Ukrainian commander also accused Russian forces of dropping explosives containing an unspecified chemical substance over the battlefield, and said the situation on the front lines was “complicated, but under control.”
Meanwhile, the fallout from a leaked audio recording of German military officials looked set to sink relations between Moscow and Berlin even lower on Sunday.
A 38-minute recording of German officers discussing the possible use of German-made Taurus missiles by Ukraine and their potential impact was posted on Russian social media late Friday.
Russia has demanded an explanation from Berlin.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Sunday that Moscow was “using this recording to destabilize and unsettle us,” adding that this was part of Putin’s “information war.”
Zelensky defiant as Ukraine mourns victims of Odesa drone strike
https://arab.news/4rdpe
Zelensky defiant as Ukraine mourns victims of Odesa drone strike
- The attack killed five children, including two babies less than a year old, according to statements by Zelensky and the regional governor
New deadly clashes break out on Afghanistan-Pakistan border despite truce
- At least 5 people were killed, 5 injured on the Afghan side, Taliban authorities say
- Latest clash comes amid reports of back-channel negotiations between the two countries
KABUL: Overnight border clashes have broken out between Afghan and Pakistani forces, authorities in Afghanistan said on Saturday, as tensions between the neighbors escalated following a fragile ceasefire.
The latest exchange of fire that spanned Spin Boldak and Chaman, a key crossing between southeastern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province and Pakistan’s Balochistan, marked violations of a ceasefire that has been in place since October.
The truce brokered by Qatar and Turkey has mostly held for the past two months, after dozens were killed on both sides in what was the deadliest confrontation in years between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But heavy gunfire and shelling erupted again late on Friday, with each side blaming the other for sparking the deadly violence.
“Unfortunately, last night the Pakistani side once again attacked Spin Boldak in Kandahar. The forces of the Islamic Emirate had to respond,” Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesperson of Afghanistan’s Taliban government, told Arab News on Saturday.
He said five people on the Afghan side — including four civilians — were killed in the violence, while five others were injured.
Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesman for Pakistan’s prime minister, said that the Taliban “resorted to unprovoked firing” along their shared border.
“An immediate, befitting & intense response has been given by our armed forces. Pakistan remains fully alert & committed to ensuring its territorial integrity & the safety of our citizens,” he wrote on X.
Local residents in Spin Boldak told Arab News that Friday’s clashes forced families to flee their homes.
“Mortars and bullets smashed into houses and public places,” Samiullah Malang said. “It was difficult … (to) watch women and children flee on motorbikes, tractors and on foot in the cold night.”
Although the fighting largely subsided around midnight, sporadic gunfire continued into the morning, he added.
The overnight violence also reached the Friendship Gate, an official crossing point between Spin Boldak and Chaman, which was closed by Pakistan authorities after the fighting.
Clashes at the border have led to repeated closures of the key border crossing, devastating commerce and disrupting the movement of thousands.
“Every time Pakistan shuts the gate, our fruits rot inside the trucks,” said Afghan businessman Haji Rahmatullah. “Hotels are filled with patients waiting to cross for treatment.”
After the ceasefire agreement in October, subsequent talks for a long-term truce have so far yielded little progress. The latest deadly exchange of fire comes amid reports of back-channel negotiations between Afghan and Pakistani officials, which neither governments have openly confirmed.
Both sides remain deeply divided on core security issues and repeated clashes highlight the absence of an effective de-escalation mechanism, according to Asad Waheedi, a political analyst based in Kabul.
“The talks are not bearing fruit because the demands are unrealistic,” he said. “Pakistan asks the Taliban to guarantee the security of their country. This is impossible. Even when America had all its troops here, it could not guarantee Afghanistan’s security. The Taliban have no presence there (in Pakistan). It is an impractical demand.”
Clashes between Afghan and Pakistani forces along the Durand Line — their 2,640-km border — have occurred for decades but intensified after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, following the withdrawal of US-led troops.
Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of sheltering fighters from the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and allowing them to stage cross-border attacks — a charge Afghanistan denies, saying it does not allow its territory to be used against other countries.
The deadly violence in October was triggered by an unclaimed explosion in Kabul and another in the southeastern province of Paktika, for which the Afghan government blamed the Pakistani military.
“The facts show that the distance between them is huge,” Waheedi said. “Until the demands become practical, these talks will go nowhere, and the fighting will continue.”
