List of All Articles with Tag 'europe'

Ukrainian soldiers successfully repelled attacks along the war frontline at Avdiivka on Tuesday as a new offensive from Russian soldiers erupted near the eastern Ukraine town, officials said. “I can add that our defenders on the Avdiivka front repelled all the attacks of the enemy, no losses of lines and positions were sustained,” colonel Oleksandr Shtupun, the spokesperson of the joint press centre of defence forces, said. He confirmed an escalation of Russian military offensive actions on the same front. He said Ukrainian forces repelled attacks in Keramika, Ocheretyne, Berdychiv, Stepove, Lastochkyne, Tonenke, Avdiivka, and Pervomaiske in Donetsk oblast. Around three Russian battalions launched a ground assault on Monday on the eastern town which remained one of the most heavily fortified areas of Donetsk oblast, officials in Ukraine confirmed. "The invaders also launched air strikes near Berdychiv and Avdiivka. From the morning till now, the civilian infrastructure of Avdiivka and the settlements in the Pokrovske district around it are periodically shelled. Avdiivka was bombarded from tubed artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems,” he said in a national telecast. Ukrainian officials have confirmed that they view Russian attacks along the Andiivka and Donetsk city as active enemy efforts to prevent them from moving forces to Zaporizhzhia. In fresh signs of escalation, Russian tanks and armoured personnel were also seen moving towards Ukrainian lines which were backed by air strikes around 5am on Tuesday morning, reported Kyiv Post citing multiple sources. According to the Ukraine’s general staff of the Armed Forces, Russia targeted more than 130 settlements in Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblast with artillery fire. It added that Ukrainian defence forces saw success in the areas east of Klishchiivka and Andriivka. The defence by Kyiv’s troops continued in the south of Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast. In the past 24 hours, Ukrainian Air Force carried out 11 air strikes on Russian positions of concentration of troops, weapons and military equipment and nine air strikes on the anti-aircraft missile system used by Russia. A Russian Su-25 fighter jet and seven drones were also shot down, along with successful attacks on Russian ammunition depot, command post, artillery systems among other critical Russian infrastructure, the general staff said in the latest war update on Wednesday. According to the Russian military bloggers, Moscow’s actions in the Avdiivka area operations were aimed at capturing the city Ukraine took back just last month, the Institute for the Study of War said. They claimed Russian forces wanted to encircle Ukrainian troops. “A successful encirclement of Avdiivka – one of the most heavily fortified areas of the Donetsk Oblast front line – would very likely require more forces than Russia has currently dedicated to the Avdiivka-Donetsk City effort,” it said in its latest assessment. Read More Ukraine-Russia war – live: Moscow fails in bid to return to UN’s top human rights body Russia will only resume nuclear tests if the US does it first, a top Russian diplomat says Ukraine's Zelenskyy visits neighboring Romania to discuss security and boost ties Russia faces a tough fight to regain its seat in the UN's top human rights body

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The EU has written to Elon Musk warning him that the platform is being used to spread illegal content.

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Irish-Israeli woman Kim Damti, 22, has been missing since the Supernova music festival attack.

Ukraine’s military said air-defense forces downed 27 out of 36 drones launched by Russia overnight against the southern

Vladimir Putin has given Russian lawmakers 10 days to find how best to revoke Moscow’s ratification of a critical nuclear treaty which bans Russia from testing atomic weapons shortly after he suggested the possibility of resuming such testing. The chair of the State Duma (lower house of parliament) Vyacheslav Volodin and other parliament heads laid out a deadline for Russian lawmakers to study the de-ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) option until 18 October, a statement from the Duma read. Mr Volodin said revoking the ratification on testing nuclear weapons will be in Russia’s national interest as he discussed the matter with parliamentary leaders on Monday. If revoked, Russia will signal a warning to the US that Moscow can fundamentally change the assumptions of post-Cold War nuclear planning. This comes just four days after Mr Putin said that Russia’s nuclear doctrine – which determines the conditions in which he would press the nuclear button – did not need updating. But he added that Russia could look at revoking ratification of the significant nuclear treaty to bring it into line with the United States, which has signed but not ratified the pact. The US has previously said Russia’s pulling out from the treaty will endanger "the global norm" against nuclear test blasts. In a U-turn from Mr Putin’s remarks on Friday, his envoy to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said Moscow would revoke its ratification of the pact. Western security analysts have said such a step from Moscow will be a reminder that it still possesses the world’s largest nuclear arsenal at a time when it is locked in a standoff with the West over Ukraine. If Russia goes ahead with a nuclear test, it could encourage others such as the US or China to retaliate in a similar test and renew a fresh wave of nuclear arms race between the global superpowers. These nations have not carried out nuclear tests after the Soviet Union collapse in 1991. Russia’s actions have sparked concern, said Robert Floyd, head of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty Organization. He added that he is in touch with senior Russian officials to make the case for continued ratification, something he said was in the interest of humanity as a whole. Mr Floyd had requested a meeting with "key leaders" in Moscow as soon as possible, he said. "The CTBTO operates a global monitoring system which can detect a nuclear test explosion anytime, anywhere," he said in a statement. "Banning nuclear testing remains essential to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and to safeguarding current and future generations from the harmful effects of explosive nuclear testing." The de-ratification move can take “Russia and the world backward to a dangerous era of tit-for-tat nuclear threats”, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association. Read More Ukraine-Russia war – live: It is in Russia’s interests to inflame war in the Middle East, says Zelensky Russia reports coolant leak in backup line at space station and says crew not in danger Ukraine advances in east and south with more ‘partial success’ even as rain muddies battlefield Ukraine repels Russian attacks on five fronts as Putin resorts to old weaponry and reserves Satellite images show spike in border activity as North Korea ‘supplies weapons to Russia’ for Ukraine war

Ukrainian soldiers fighting off Russian attacks in the eastern battlefield achieved “partial success” in the past 24 hours while troops in southern Ukraine inflicted over a hundred Russian casualties, officials said as the war was close to clocking 600 days. The troops secured partial success near Andriivka, a small Ukrainian village captured last month along with the nearby locality of Klishhiivka, said Ilia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine‘s eastern group of forces. "We are repelling constant attacks near Klishchiivka and Andriivka,” the spokesperson told national television. "Every day we are making headway in the Bakhmut sector. We are talking about hundreds of metres at a time that we are liberating from our enemies and strengthening our positions. It is, however, too early to talk about achieving concrete goals,” he said. The “partial” headway in territorial advance was also reported in southern Ukraine by general Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of forces in the south. “We have partial success west of Verbove. During the past 24 hours, the enemy carried out eight airstrikes, 18 combat encounters, and also launched 455 artillery barrages,” the top military official said on his Telegram channel. Verbove is one of the cluster of villages that Ukraine is targeting, with the larger town of Tokmak as the next large target. The Ukrainian units of rocket troops and artillery from the Tavria Air Defence Forces launched 795 fire missions during the day, he said. “The total losses of the enemy amounted to 147 people,” he said but did not give details about the injuries, deaths, and capture of Russian soldiers as prisoners of war. Three Russian ammunition depots were also bombed, along with two tanks and an artillery system, he said. This comes amid first signs of deterioration in battlefield conditions due to weather as Russian military bloggers said rainfall has worsened visibility in southern Ukraine. Experts monitoring the war said changing weather conditions will hinder the reconnaissance drone operations on both sides. “One Russian milblogger claimed that the ground has become muddy and obstructs tracked vehicle movement, though another milblogger claimed that the ground has not yet become muddy enough to inhibit vehicle movement,” said the Institute for the Study of War in its latest assessment on Monday. It added that exact conditions likely vary along the frontline, though weather conditions are generally worsening.It cited Yevlash’s report stating that the Russian forces are relying less heavily on aviation and drone activity in the Kupiansk-Lyman direction due to heavy rainfall. The Russian accounts of fighting claimed its forces thwarted Ukrainian attacks near Bakhmut and inflicted heavy casualties in strikes on Ukrainian positions outside the city. Now on the edge of entering its fifth month, Ukraine’s counteroffensive aims to secure control of areas around Bakhmut in order to recapture the town, which was seized by Russian forces in May after months of heavy battles. Read More Ukraine-Russia war – live: It is in Russia’s interests to inflame war in the Middle East, says Zelensky Zelensky says Russia trying to incite war in the Middle East Satellite images show spike in border activity as North Korea ‘supplies weapons to Russia’ for Ukraine war Ukraine repels Russian attacks on five fronts as Putin resorts to old weaponry and reserves Russia reports coolant leak in backup line at space station and says crew not in danger

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that it was in Russia’s interests to stoke war in the Middle East to weaken global unity. “Based on available information -- very clear information -- it is in Russia’s interests to inflame war in the Middle East to create a new source of pain and suffering that would weaken global unity, create divisions and help Russia in undermining freedom in Europe,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. It comes as Ukrainian forces have made small gains over the weekend along multiple points of the frontline as “heavy rain” threatens to slow down Kyiv’s counteroffensive. Geolocated images showed Ukrainian infantry roughly 300 metres north of Novoprokopivka, south of Robotyne, which is the deepest they have been seen inside Russian-occupied territory as part of that attack. This line has emerged as Ukraine’s main axis of the counteroffensive in the past month, though progress slowed after the liberation of Robotyne at the end of August. The Ukrainian General Staff also claimed on Sunday that Ukrainian forces had achieved “partial success” near Bakhmut, though that remains unconfirmed. Read More Russia claims `neo-Nazis' were at wake for Ukrainian soldier in village struck by missile killing 52 Zelensky says Russia trying to incite war in the Middle East Ukraine repels Russian attacks on five fronts as Putin resorts to old weaponry and reserves Russia plans to reverse global nuclear test ban, announces envoy

Chinese leader Xi Jinping spent the first part of this year seeking to play global peacemaker, proposing a

Asian shares advanced while Treasuries jumped following dovish comments on rates from Federal Reserve officials. Stocks in Australia,