MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Thursday that it was still interested in pursuing peace talks on Ukraine despite a large and deadly Russian overnight strike on Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials said the attack had killed at least 15 people, including four children, in a strike on the Ukrainian capital that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was Moscow’s answer to diplomatic efforts to end its war.
Asked if there was a contradiction between Moscow’s stated desire to make progress in peace talks and the attack, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that both sides were continuing to attack each other but that Russia was still interested in achieving its goals via diplomacy.
Russian forces were continuing to target Ukrainian military and military-related infrastructure, he said. Peskov has repeatedly said that Russia does not deliberately target civilians.
He said Ukraine was continuing its own strikes against Russian infrastructure too, including against civilian infrastructure.
“The special military operation continues. You can see that strikes on Russian infrastructure, often on Russian civilian infrastructure, by the Kyiv regime are also continuing.
“The Russian armed forces are also carrying out their tasks. As stated, they continue to strike military and military-related infrastructure.
The strikes are successful, the targets are being destroyed, and the special military operation continues. At the same time, Russia remains interested in continuing the negotiation process in order to achieve our goals through political and diplomatic means.”
Kremlin says it remains interested in pursuing Ukraine peace talks despite overnight strike on Kyiv
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Kremlin says it remains interested in pursuing Ukraine peace talks despite overnight strike on Kyiv
- Ukrainian officials said the attack had killed at least 15 people, including four children, in a strike on the Ukrainian capital that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was Moscow’s answer to diplomatic efforts to end its war
Volcanic eruptions may have brought Black Death to Europe, say new study
- Study says volcanic eruptions in 1345 caused temperatures to drop, leading to crop failure and causing famine
- This led Italy to have ships bring grain from central Asia, where the bubonic plague is thought to have first emerged
- The plague killed tens of millions of people and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe
PARIS: Previously unknown volcanic eruptions may have kicked off an unlikely series of events that brought the Black Death — the most devastating pandemic in human history — to the shores of medieval Europe, new research has revealed.
The outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death killed tens of millions and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe during the mid-14th century.
How it came to Europe — and why it spread so quickly on such a massive scale — have long been debated by historians and scientists.
Now two researchers studying tree rings have suggested that a volcanic eruption may have been the first domino to fall.
By analizing the tree rings from the Pyrenees mountain range in Spain, the pair established that southern Europe had unusually cold and wet summers from 1345 to 1347.
Comparing climate data with written accounts from the time, the researchers demonstrated that temperatures likely dropped because there was less sunlight following one or more volcanic eruptions in 1345.
The change in climate ruined harvests, leading to failed crops and the beginnings of famine.
Fortunately — or so it seemed — “powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” said Martin Bauch, a historian at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe.
“But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe,” he said in a statement.
Deadly stowaways
The city states of Venice, Genoa and Pisa had ships bring grain from the Mongols of the Golden Horde in central Asia, which is where the plague is thought to have first emerged.
Previous research has suggested that these grain ships brought along unwelcome passengers: rats carrying fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
Between 25 and 50 million people are estimated to have died over the next six years.
While the story encompasses natural, demographic, economic and political events in the area, it was ultimately the previously unidentified volcanic eruption that paved the way for one of history’s greatest disasters, the researchers argued.
“Although the coincidence of factors that contributed to the Black Death seems rare, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalized world,” study co-author Ulf Buentgen of Cambridge University in the UK said in a statement.
“This is especially relevant given our recent experiences with Covid-19.”
The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on Thursday.
