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2001 Anthrax Attacks Fast Facts | CNN

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CNN
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Here’s a look at the 2001 anthrax attacks, also referred to as Amerithrax.

There are four types of anthrax infection: cutaneous (through the skin), inhalation (through the lungs; the most deadly), gastrointestinal (through digestion) and injection anthrax. Injection anthrax is common in heroin-injecting users in northern Europe. This has never been reported in the United States.

Anthrax can be contracted by handling products from infected animals or by breathing in anthrax spores and by eating undercooked meat from infected animals.

It has been blamed for several plagues over the ages that killed both humans and livestock. It emerged in World War I as a biological weapon.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes anthrax as a Category A agent: one that poses the greatest possible threat for a negative impact on public health; one that may spread across a large area or need public awareness and requires planning to protect the public’s health.

Read more: America’s long and frightening history of attacks by mail

Five people died and 17 people were sickened during anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001; outbreak is often referred to as Amerithrax.

Anthrax was sent via anonymous letters to news agencies in Florida and New York and a congressional office building in Washington, DC.

Of the five victims who died of inhalation anthrax, two were postal workers. The other three victims were an elderly woman from rural Connecticut, a Manhattan hospital worker from the Bronx and an employee at a Florida tabloid magazine who may have contracted anthrax through cross-contamination.

The letters were sent to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Sen. Patrick Leahy, and the New York Post offices. The letters were postmarked Trenton, New Jersey.

No arrests were made in the attacks.

The FBI has interviewed more than 10,000 people and issued more than 6,000 subpoenas in the case.

4.8 million masks and 88 million gloves were purchased by the Postal Service for its employees, and 300 postal facilities were tested for anthrax.

Over 32,000 people took antibiotics after possible exposure to anthrax.

Stevens, Bob – photo editor at American Media Inc, died of inhalation anthrax, October 5, 2001

Morris, Thomas Jr. – DC postal worker, died of inhalation anthrax, October 21, 2001

Curseen, Joseph Jr. – DC area postal worker, died of inhalation anthrax, October 22, 2001

Nguyen, Kathy – employee at Manhattan hospital, died of inhalation anthrax, October 31, 2001

Lundgren, Ottilie – Connecticut woman, died of inhalation anthrax, November 22, 2001

October 5, 2001 – Sun photo editor Stevens dies of inhalation anthrax.

October 12, 2001 – NBC News announces that an employee has contracted anthrax.

October 15, 2001 – A letter postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, opened by an employee of Senate Majority Leader Daschle contains white powdery substance later found to be “weapons grade” strain of anthrax spores. More than two dozen people in Daschle’s office test positive for anthrax after the envelope is discovered.

October 19, 2001 – An unopened letter tainted with anthrax is found in the offices of the New York Post. One Post employee is confirmed to have a cutaneous infection and a second shows symptoms of the same infection.

October 21, 2001 – DC postal worker Morris Jr. dies of inhalation anthrax.

October 22, 2001 – DC postal worker Curseen dies of inhalation anthrax.

October 31, 2001 – Nguyen, a stockroom worker for the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, dies of inhalation anthrax.

November 9, 2001 – The FBI releases a behavioral profile of the suspect, who is probably a male loner and might work in a laboratory.

November 16, 2001 – A letter sent to Senator Leahy is found to contain anthrax. The letter is among those at the Capitol that has been quarantined. The letter contains at least 23,000 anthrax spores and is postmarked October 9, in Trenton, New Jersey.

November 22, 2001 – Lundgren, a 94-year-old Connecticut woman, dies of inhalation anthrax.

January 2002 – FBI agents interview former US Army bioweapons scientist Steven Hatfill as part of the anthrax investigation.

June 2002 – Bioweapons researcher Hatfill is named a “person of interest” by the FBI.

June 25, 2002 – The FBI searches Hatfill’s Maryland apartment and Florida storage locker with his consent.

June 27, 2002 – The FBI says it is focusing on 30 biological weapons experts in its probe.

August 1, 2002 – The FBI uses a criminal search warrant to search Hatfill’s Maryland apartment and Florida storage locker a second time; anthrax swab tests come back negative.

August 6, 2002 – Attorney General John Ashcroft refers to Hatfill as a “person of interest.”

August 11, 2002 – Hatfill holds a press conference declaring his innocence. He holds a second one on August 25, 2002.

September 11, 2002 – The FBI searches Hatfill’s former apartment in Maryland for the third time.

August 26, 2003 – Hatfill files a civil lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Justice Department and the FBI claiming his constitutional rights have been violated. The suit alleges violations of Hatfill’s Fifth Amendment rights by preventing him from earning a living, violations of his Fifth Amendment rights by retaliating against him after he sought to have his name cleared in the anthrax probe and the disclosure of information from his FBI file. The suit also seeks an undetermined amount of monetary damages.

July 11, 2004 – The former headquarters of American Media, Inc. in Boca Raton, Florida, where Stevens contracted the anthrax is pumped full of chlorine dioxide gas for decontamination. This was the last building exposed to anthrax in the fall of 2001.

June 27, 2008 – The Justice Department reaches a settlement with Hatfill. The settlement requires the Justice Department to pay Hatfill a one-time payment of $2.825 million and to buy a $3 million annuity that will pay Hatfill $150,000 a year for 20 years. In return, Hatfill drops his lawsuit, and the government admits no wrongdoing.

July 29, 2008 – Bruce Ivins, a former researcher at the Army’s bioweapons laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, dies after overdosing during a suicide attempt on July 27.

August 6, 2008 – Judge unseals and releases hundreds of documents in the 2001 FBI Anthrax investigation that detail Ivins’ role in the attacks.

August 8, 2008 – The Justice Department formally exonerates Hatfill.

September 25, 2008 – The court releases more documents including emails that Ivins sent to himself.

February 19, 2010 – The Justice Department, FBI and US Postal Inspection Service announce its investigation into the 2001 anthrax mailings is at an end.

March 23, 2011 – A report, entitled The Amerithrax Case, is released through the Research Strategies Network, a non-profit think tank based in Virginia. According to the report, old mental health records suggest Ivins should have been prevented from holding a job at a US Army research facility in Maryland. The report was requested by the US Department of Justice.

October 9, 2011 – The New York Times reports indicate there are scientists questioning the FBI assertions regarding Ivins. Possibly Ivins, if he was involved, worked with a partner. Also, the scientists say the presence of tin in the dried anthrax warrants that the investigation be reopened.

November 23, 2011 – The Justice Department settles for $2.5 million with Stevens’ family. The family originally sued for $50 million in 2003, arguing that the military laboratory should have had tighter security.

December 19, 2014 – The Government Accountability Office releases a 77-page report reviewing the genetic testing used by the FBI during the investigation into the anthrax attacks.

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In Ukraine, it’s not hatred they feel, its wrath

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Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

“We were invisible before, and to become visible is a huge step,” historian Olena Dzhedzhora said, as we discussed how Ukraine has drawn the attention of the rest of Europe and the United States.

The dignified, gray-haired historian joined the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv as it was being founded in 2002 — the first Catholic university to open anywhere in the former Soviet Union — just 11 years after the country declared independence. And since Russia’s invasion, Dzhedzhora, an archeologist-turned-medievalist, has been busy making darkness visible, along with around 30 volunteers — students, lecturers and others — who’ve been video recording and transcribing war testimonies gathered from people of all walks of life in Ukraine.

Last year, Lviv became a sort of Noah’s Ark, crowded with the displaced. And Dzhedzhora’s university stopped functioning for months — sheltering war refugees, feeding them, collecting medicine and raising cash for those who wanted to move west as Europe opened its doors.

“When I looked in their eyes, or talked with them, I had a feeling that I must capture their stories somehow,” she said. “We started to listen to these people and, with their permission, film them. Right now, we have 157 long video interviews and are busy translating them. They include volunteers, drivers, military men, medical personnel, people who teach and who make art and play music, and also those who experienced Russian occupation,” she added.

The project set out with two aims — to record war testimony for posterity, and to show the wider world what’s happening to Ukrainians. “The challenge, initially, for us, personally, was that none of us had any experience interviewing people suffering deep trauma. We have always stayed away from children because we fear retraumatizing them,” she said. “I am the only historian in the group, but all of us are very good listeners.”

Discussing the testimonies, Dzhedzhora remarked that “people say funny things in the interviews; they say very deep things, and they say very unexpected things. Some people, after a couple of months, reread their interviews and say, ‘Did I say that? That’s very interesting. I already forgot about that.’ People often forget or repress their first reactions to trauma.”

And she teared up recalling some of their stories — one, of a deeply traumatized 45-year-old woman who endured the three-month-long siege of Mariupol, and remained there during the early days of Russia’s occupation before being able to flee. “At first, she didn’t want to talk, saying she couldn’t, but eventually she did, and what most shocked the woman was how some of her neighbors welcomed the Russians, and started to point out people who were Ukrainian-oriented. They were among the earliest also to loot apartments,” Dzhedzhora said. And to the woman’s disgust, she later saw one of the looters interviewed on Ukrainian television, claiming to be a patriot.

Another painful interview for the historian was with artist Ivanka Krypyakevych — the partner of Mykhailo Dymyd, a professor at the university — on the loss of their oldest son, Atemi. Atemi died fighting in Donetsk in June, and Ivanka gave her testimony two days after his funeral. “Yes, I knew him, and know the family well. Atemi was such an excellent, such an interesting young man,” Dzhedzhora added.

Through these experiences, she said she found most interviewees didn’t harbor personal hatred toward Russians. “They understand that would be very destructive for themselves. So it’s not the hatred — it’s something I don’t even know how to express it in English.” Then it came to her: “It is more Biblical. Something much more powerful than hatred. It is wrath,” she said.

Righteous judgement.

Back in Kyiv, I then sat down with a young American, a veteran of the U.S. army named Eric, who’s seen plenty of war and joined the international legion of foreign volunteers in April. “When the invasion happened, I was like, ‘the Russians suck’ . . . But I thought it is not my fight. Then they started the terror bombing and attacking malls, hospitals and schools and stuff like that, and I thought, ‘I can do something about this.’”

Eric served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he admits he enlisted to fight in Ukraine for prosaic reasons too. He left the army realizing that with America’s “forever wars” winding down, he might not see action again. “I do miss getting shot at. That was enjoyable when it started happening again,” he said.

“I know what I am. I’m a soldier. I’m a dude who goes and fights wars, kills people, all that stuff, gets paid for it. It’s, like, objectively speaking, not a morally healthy thing. But there’s still standards, there’s rules, laws. There’s like a code, and you’re supposed to adhere to [it]. I mean, it’s war. It’s brutal. There’s none of this, like, ‘Yeah, man, you know, as long as they fly a white flag.’ A lot of times, if somebody’s trying to surrender, you’re not going to realize that. You see movement. You see a guy. You shoot,” he added.

The foreign legion in Ukraine now numbers around a thousand, and most of the wannabe heroes, the unfit and the fantasists who initially flocked to join in the early weeks have been booted out — or “dipped out,” in Eric’s words — once they went through their first bombardment or firefight, and realized “it’s real life and dangerous.”

“We still get some nutters — the vetting process isn’t great,” he grimaced, recalling how some German neo-Nazis had joined up last year, but they “dipped out because nobody wanted to work with them. We’re literally fighting fascists here. That’s what Russia is. Fascist. Their squad nickname was Wehrmacht. It was really stupid,” he said.

Eric, who asked to withhold his last name as he doesn’t want exposure, also echoed other American legionnaires when discussing the differences between various foreign fighters. The Belarusians, Chechens and Georgians are seen as much more ideological, viewing the war as a way toward freeing their own countries from Russia’s control, while most of the Americans and the British, as well as Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, are more like Eric — veterans whose chief motivation for being in Ukraine is to avoid civilian life, although they stress the rightness of the Ukrainian cause.

Motivations aside, the highly combat-experienced Americans and Brits are often used in especially risky commando and reconnaissance missions. And it was on such a mission that Eric and his entire squad was wounded near Bakhmut last year. He got shot in the chest — the bullet partly penetrating his body armor — and was then hit by two fragmentation grenades during a vicious close-quarter skirmish.

“I was bleeding in a bathroom — in the same building I got wounded in, with the Russians still inside. So, me and another guy, and then later another guy, were balls to the wall, trading fire with the Russians and tossing grenades at each other. I couldn’t move my arm and my leg, so I was, like, handing off magazines to the others, and then losing blood and passing out.” Another of the legion’s platoons was ordered to mount a rescue, “but they were busy making Instagram videos about the BTR [Russian armored personnel carrier] we’d all blown up earlier,” he said, chortling.

Meanwhile, among the many unintended consequences Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has triggered — including prodding Sweden and Finland to join NATO, wrecking the Moscow-tied Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was once a useful Kremlin tool of influence, and volunteering foreign fighters — there’s now another that will likely infuriate the homophobic leader: boosting support for gay rights in Ukraine.

“If Putin hates gays, we should support them,” announced Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Kozhemiakin to the surprise of many last month. Kozhemiakin previously served as an officer in the Soviet Navy from 1982 to 1988, and he was in the Russian KGB for several years.

His support for LGBTQ+ rights came during a committee hearing on a bill introduced in April by Inna Sovsun, an opposition lawmaker from the liberal, pro-European Holos party. Sovsun’s bill seeks to legalize same-sex civil partnerships, granting LGBTQ+ civil partners the same rights as married heterosexual couples. According to Sovsun, the war has helped shift public opinion, with many recognizing the inequity of the partners of LGBTQ+ soldiers not having any legal rights when their loved ones get wounded or killed — including making medical decisions on their behalf, burying them or receiving any state benefits.

Over a hundred soldiers have so far come out as LGBTQ+, and thousands more are estimated to be serving. “Kozhemiakin’s speech was the most impressive I’ve seen in the parliament, and was the least expected,” Sovsun said. But she also cautioned: “I think if the parliament were to vote on this today, it would fail. My feeling is that the parliament is more conservative than our society because 56 percent of Ukrainians actually support it.”

And public support is growing still, but the government doesn’t yet have an official position. “Zelenskyy does things when it’s clear the public wants him to do it. He hasn’t quite worked out what the public’s position is yet” on this, she said.

But she hopes he will . . . and soon.

CORRECTION: This article was updated to correct the number of years after Ukraine’s independence that the Ukrainian Catholic University was founded.



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Sudan’s two warring generals agree to seven-day truce ‘in principle’

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Warring generals in Sudan have agreed “in principle” to a seven-day ceasefire, the government of neighbouring South Sudan said Tuesday, after regional envoys denounced repeated violations of previous truces.

Diplomatic efforts have intensified to end more than two weeks of war in Africa‘s third-largest country as warnings multiply about a “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis.

More than 430,000 people have already been forced to flee their homes, the United Nations said.

Hundreds of others have been killed and thousands wounded. 

Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy turned rival, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), “have agreed in principle for a seven-day truce from May 4th to 11th,” the South Sudanese foreign ministry in Juba said in a statement.

 


 

Multiple truces agreed since fighting began on April 15 have been repeatedly violated, including one announced by South Sudan early in the war.

Witnesses reported renewed air strikes and anti-aircraft fire in Khartoum on Tuesday.

The repeated violations sparked criticism earlier Tuesday at a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of the Extended Mechanism on the Sudan Crisis which brought together African, Arab, UN and other representatives.

The two generals have agreed to truces – the latest one on Sunday – yet “continue fighting and shelling the city”, said Ismail Wais, of the northeast African bloc IGAD which includes Sudan and South Sudan.

‘No longer safe’

“Our priority today is to have the ceasefire prolonged and respected, then to ensure humanitarian assistance,” African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat said, opening the meeting.

The later agreement of the week-long truce came in a phone conversation South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir had with the warring parties as part of IGAD’s initiative for a pause in fighting, Juba’s foreign ministry said.

“We’ll have to see whether this is accepted by all the parties and whether it’s implemented by the forces on the ground,” said Farhan Haq, the UN chief’s deputy spokesman.

Kenyan President William Ruto said earlier that the conflict had reached “catastrophic levels” and finding ways to provide humanitarian relief “with or without a ceasefire” was imperative.

The UN refugee agency said more than 100,000 people were estimated to have fled to Sudan’s neighbours.

Despite the dire humanitarian needs, on Tuesday the UN said its 2023 aid appeal for Sudan was $1.5 billion short.

But some relief has been arriving in the country.


© france24

 

After the World Health Organization (WHO) shipped in six containers of medical equipment, including supplies for treating trauma injuries, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Tuesday said it delivered 10 tonnes of supplies to a hospital in Khartoum as teams prepared to “launch emergency response activities.”

Only 16 percent of Khartoum’s hospitals are now fully functional, according to the UN.

A Sudanese physician, Howida Elhassan, posted a social media video of medical staff struggling to cope with a surge of wounded civilians at a hospital in Khartoum’s East Nile neighbourhood.

Blood appeared to stain the floor of the crowded facility where patients, one who seemed to grimace in pain with blood on his shirt, lay or sat on cots.

“On days when there are battles in the area, we receive between 30 to 40 injured people,” in addition to regular cases, Elhassan said. “Other medical staff cannot reach us because roads are no longer safe. We are understaffed and lack equipment.”

In addition to the more than 500 killed in the fighting, 250 are estimated to be missing, said a spokesman for the Mafqud (Missing) online project.

Munira Edwin turned to the project when her brother Babiker disappeared on the first day of fighting. Mafqud called her back nearly two weeks later.

“He had been found dead with two bullets” in his body, she said, struggling to hold back tears.

It was too late on Monday, as well, for the victim who several men carried into a Khartoum hospital, covered in a grey cloth after a van was riddled with bullets. The back seat was soaked in blood. Luggage rested on the roof, as if the passengers had been trying to flee.

At risk of getting caught in the crossfire, some civilians still venture out. Long queues formed Tuesday at petrol stations offering the scarce commodity, as well as at banks and ATMs.

Ahead of the South Sudanese announcement, UN head of mission Volker Perthes said discussions involving Saudi and US mediators were underway with the rival generals to firm up a truce.

Burhan’s envoy, Dafaallah al-Haj, was in Cairo where he met senior Egyptian and Arab League officials.

Haj told a press conference that he hoped the Arab League, African Union, Saudi Arabia and the US could play a role in such talks toward a more lasting truce.

While diplomats try to stop the fighting, foreign governments have scrambled to evacuate their citizens, thousands of whom have been brought to safety by air or sea in operations that are now winding down.

Darfur exodus

Russia’s armed forces said on Tuesday they were evacuating more than 200 people from Sudan on four military transport planes.

Saudi Arabia said it transported another 220 people to Jeddah.

Beyond Khartoum, lawlessness has engulfed the Darfur region from where more than 70 percent of the 330,000 people displaced inside Sudan by the fighting have fled, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Darfur is still scarred by a war that erupted in 2003 when then-strongman Omar al-Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militia, mainly recruited from Arab pastoralist tribes, against ethnic minority rebels.The Janjaweed – whose actions led to war crimes charges against Bashir and others – later evolved into the RSF.

(AFP)



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Sudan’s military rules out negotiations with rival paramilitary force

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Sudan’s military ruled out negotiations with a rival paramilitary force on Thursday, saying it would only accept its surrender as the two sides continued to battle in central Khartoum and other parts of the country, threatening to wreck international attempts to broker a longer cease-fire.

A tenuous 24-hour cease-fire that began the previous day ran out Thursday evening with no word of extension. The military‘s statement raised the likelihood of a renewed surge in the nearly week-long violence that has killed hundreds and pushed Sudan‘s population to the breaking point. Alarm has grown that the country’s medical system was on the verge of collapse, with many hospitals forced to shut down and others running out of supplies.

The expiring truce had failed to put a stop to fighting throughout the day and brought only marginal calm to some parts of the capital Khartoum. But many residents took advantage to flee the homes where they have been trapped for days. “Massive numbers” of people, mostly women and children, were leaving in search of safer areas, said Atiya Abdulla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate.

>> Read more : In Khartoum, corpses litter the streets: ‘The fighting keeps residents from burying them

Thursday afternoon, the military said in a statement that it would not negotiate with its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, over an end to the crisis and would only discuss terms of its surrender. “There would be no armed forces outside (of) the military system,” it said.

The demise of the truce, the second attempt this week, underscored the failure of the United States, U.N., European Union and regional powers to push Sudan’s top generals to halt their campaigns to seize control of the country. Instead, army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan and RSF commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo have each appeared determined to win outright military victory over the other.

In a sign they expect violence to escalate, the U.S. and other countries were making preparations to evacuate their citizens in Sudan — a difficult prospect since most major airports have become battlegrounds and movement out of Khartoum to safer areas is dangerous.

The U.S. military is moving assets to a base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti for a possible evacuation of American Embassy personnel, administration officials said. Japan plans to send military planes to Djibouti, and the Netherlands has dispatched its own to Jordan.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appealed for the combatants to commit to a three-day cease-fire to coincide with the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, beginning Friday, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. “We are living a very important moment in the Muslim calendar. I think this is the right moment for a cease-fire to hold,” he told reporters.

But so far direct communications to the rival generals by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Turkish president and others over the past days have been unable to secure even 24 hours of calm, much less a longer truce aimed at leading to negotiations to resolve the crisis. Each side’s main regional allies, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have called in vain for talks.

At least 330 people have been killed and 3,300 wounded in the fighting since it began Saturday, the U.N.’s World Health Organization said, but the toll is likely higher because many bodies lie uncollected in the streets.

Through the day Thursday, gunfire could be heard constantly across Khartoum. Residents reported the heaviest fighting around the main military headquarters in central Khartoum. Military warplanes struck RSF positions at the airport and in the neighboring city of Omdurman, residents said. The military said its warplanes Thursday also struck a convoy of RSF vehicles heading to the capital, though the claim could not be independently confirmed.

Khartoum residents have been desperate for a respite after days of being trapped in their homes, their food and water running out. Aid groups have been unable to deliver help to Sudan’s overwhelmed hospitals, Atiya said. Hospitals in Khartoum are running dangerously low on medical supplies, often operating without power and clean water. Around 70% of hospitals near the clash sites throughout the country are out of service, the Sudanese Doctors Syndicate said Thursday. At least nine hospitals were bombed, it said.

“We are worried that Sudan’s healthcare system could completely collapse,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, said.

Airstrikes on Thursday afternoon hit medical facilities in Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan province southwest of Khartoum, killing at least 26 civilians and 17 policemen, the Doctors’ Syndicate said. Clashes have intensified in the city, driving more than 3,300 people from their homes, many o them crowding in a school and a sports facility, it said.

The fighting has been disastrous for a country where the United Nations says around a third of the population — some 16 million people — are in need of humanitarian aid. The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF warned that critical care has been disrupted for 50,000 severely acutely malnourished children, who need round-the-clock treatment.

Save the Children said power outages across the country have destroyed cold chain storage facilities for lifesaving vaccines, as well as the national stock of insulin and several antibiotics. Millions of children, the aid group said, are now at risk of disease and further health complications. It said 12% of the country’s 22 million children are suffering from malnutrition and are vulnerable to other diseases.

The Egyptian and Sudanese militaries said that Egypt succeeded in repatriating dozens of its military personnel who had been detained by the RSF when it attacked Merowe airport, north of the capital, early in the fighting. Egypt said its personnel were there for training and joint exercises.

The conflict has once again derailed Sudan’s attempt to establish democratic rule since a popular uprising helped oust helped depose long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir four years ago. Burhan and Dagalo jointly carried out a coup purging civilians from a transitional government in 2021.

The explosion of violence came after weeks of growing tensions between the two generals over new international attempts to press a return to civilian government.

Both sides have a long history of human rights abuses. The RSF was born out of the Janjaweed militias, which were accused of widespread atrocities when the government deployed them to put down a rebellion in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the early 2000s.

The conflict has raised fears of a spillover from the strategically located nation to its African neighbors.

Sudan’s fighting has also caused up to 20,000 Sudanese to seek refuge in eastern Chad, the U.N. said Thursday. At least 320 Sudanese soldiers fled to Chad, where they were disarmed, said Daoud Yaya Brahim, Chad’s defense minister. The troops were apparently fleeing from Darfur, where the RSF is the most powerful armed force.

“Chad is for the moment trying to remain neutral … (but) Chad will be forced to pick sides if Sudan continues its descent into civil war,” said Benjamin Hunger, Africa analyst for Verisk Maplecroft, a risk assessment firm.

(AP)

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Death toll from Sudan fighting tops 180 as clashes in Khartoum enter third day

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As explosions and gunfire thundered outside, Sudanese in the capital Khartoum and other cities huddled in their homes for a third day Monday, while the army and a powerful rival force battled in the streets for control of the country.  

At least 185 people have been killed and over 1,800 wounded since the fighting erupted, UN envoy Volker Perthes told reporters. The two sides are using tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas. Fighter jets swooped overhead and anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies as darkness fell.

The toll could be much higher because there are many bodies in the streets around central Khartoum that no one can reach because of the clashes. There has been no official word on how many civilians or combatants have been killed. The doctors’ syndicate earlier put the number of civilian deaths at 97.

The sudden outbreak of violence over the weekend between the nation’s two top generals, each backed by tens of thousands of heavily armed fighters, trapped millions of people in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low in many areas. 

Top diplomats on four continents scrambled to broker a truce, and the UN Security Council was set to discuss the crisis.

“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in a southern district of Khartoum.

She said a shell stuck a neighbour’s house Sunday, killing at least three people. “We couldn’t take them to a hospital or bury them.”

In central Khartoum, sustained gunfire erupted and white smoke rose near the main military headquarters, a major battle front.

Nearby, at least 88 students and staffers have been trapped in the engineering college library at Khartoum University since the start of fighting, one of the students said in a video posted online Monday.

One student was killed during clashes outside and another wounded, he said. They do not have food or water, he said, showing a room full of people sleeping on the floor. 

Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented. The turmoil comes just days before Sudanese were to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.

The power struggle pits Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, against Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group. The former allies jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup. The violence has raised the specter of civil war just as Sudanese were trying to revive the drive for a democratic, civilian government after decades of military rule.

Under international pressure, Burhan and Dagalo had recently agreed to a framework agreement with political parties and pro-democracy groups, but the signing was repeatedly delayed as tensions rose over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces and the future chain of command.

The US, the UN and others have called for a truce. Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — which forged close ties to the RSF in recent years as it sent thousands of fighters to support their war in Yemen — have also called for both sides to stand down. 

But both generals have thus far dug in, demanding the other’s surrender and ruling out negotiations. 

Dagalo, whose forces grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias in Sudan’s Darfur region, has portrayed himself as a defender of democracy and branded Burhan as the aggressor and a “radical Islamist.” Both generals have a long history of human rights abuses and their forces have cracked down on pro-democracy activists.

Heavy gunbattles raged in multiple parts of the capital and Omdurman, where the two sides have brought in tens of thousands of troops, positioning them in nearly every neighbourhood. At least six hospitals in Khartoum were shut down because of damage from fighting, nearby clashes or because they ran low on fuel, said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate.

Hadia Saeed said she and her three children were sheltering in one room on the ground floor of their home for fear of the shelling as gunfire rattled across their Bahri district in north Khartoum. They have food for a few more days, but “after that we don’t know what to do,” she said. 

Residents said fierce fighting with artillery and other heavy weapons raged Monday afternoon in the Gabra neighbourhood southwest of Khartoum. People were trapped and screaming inside their homes, said Asmaa al-Toum, a physician living in the area.

Fighting has been particularly fierce around each side’s main bases and at strategic government buildings — all of which are in residential areas.

The military on Monday claimed to have secured the main television building in Omdurman, fending off the RSF after days of fighting. State-run Sudan TV resumed broadcasting. 

On Sunday, the RSF said it abandoned its main barracks and base, in Omdurman, which the armed forces had pounded with airstrikes. Online videos Monday purported to show the bodies of dozens of men said to be RSF fighters at the base, strewn over beds, the floor of a clinic and outside in a yard. The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed independently.

The military and RSF were also fighting in most major centers around the country, including in the western Darfur region and parts of the north and the east, by the borders with Egypt and Ethiopia. Battles raged Monday around a strategic airbase in Merowe, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) northwest of the capital, with both sides claiming control of the facility.

Only four years ago, Sudan inspired hope after a popular uprising helped depose long-time autocratic leader Omar al-Bashir. 

But the turmoil since, especially the 2021 coup, has frustrated the democracy drive and wrecked the economy. A third of the population — around 16 million people — now depends on humanitarian assistance in the resource-rich nation, Africa’s third largest.

Save the Children, an international charity, said it has temporarily suspended most of its operations across Sudan. It said looters raided its offices in Darfur, stealing medical supplies, laptops, vehicles and a refrigerator.

The World Food Program suspended operations over the weekend after three employees were killed in Darfur, and the International Rescue Committee has also halted most operations.

With the US, European Union, African and Arab nations all calling for an end to fighting, the UN Security Council was to discuss the developments in Sudan later Monday. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was consulting with the Arab League, African Union and leaders in the region, urging anyone with influence to press for peace. 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed the violence in separate phone calls with his Saudi and French counterparts, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.

At a meeting of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in Japan on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Sudanese “want the military back in the barracks. They want democracy. They want the civilian-led government, Sudan needs to return to that path.”

(AP)

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Violent power struggle continues in Sudan as army bombs paramilitary bases

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Sudan’s army appeared to gain the upper hand on Sunday in a bloody power struggle with rival paramilitary forces, pounding their bases with air strikes, witnesses said, and at least 59 civilians were killed including three UN workers.

The fighting erupted on Saturday between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan‘s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.

It was the first such outbreak since both joined forces to oust veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019 and was sparked by a disagreement over the integration of the RSF into the military as part of a transition towards civilian rule.

Burhan and Hemedti agreed a three-hour pause in fighting from 4 pm local time (1400 GMT to 1700 GMT) to allow humanitarian evacuations proposed by the United Nations, the UN mission in Sudan said, but the deal was widely ignored after a brief period of relative calm.

As night fell residents reported the boom of artillery and roar of warplanes in the Kafouri district of Bahri, which has an RSF base, across the Nile river from the capital Khartoum.

Eyewitnesses told Reuters the army was renewing air strikes on RSF bases in Omdurman, Khartoum’s sister city across the Nile, and the Kafouri and Sharg El-Nil districts of adjacent Bahri, putting RSF fighters to flight.

The United States, China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the U.N. Security Council, European Union and African Union have appealed for a quick end to the hostilities that threaten to worsen instability in an already volatile wider region.

Efforts by neighbours and regional bodies to end the violence intensified on Sunday. Egypt offered to mediate, and regional African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development plans to send the presidents of Kenya, South Sudan and Djibouti as soon as possible to reconcile Sudanese groups in conflict, Kenyan President William Ruto’s office said on Twitter.

The eruption of fighting over the weekend followed rising tensions over the RSF’s integration into the military. Discord over the timetable for that has delayed the signing of an internationally-backed agreement with political parties on a transition to democracy after a 2021 military coup.

Clashes in Khartoum 

A statement by the army said there were ongoing clashes in the vicinity of military headquarters in central Khartoum, and said that RSF soldiers were stationing snipers on buildings, but that they were “monitored and being dealt with.”

Earlier on Sunday, witnesses and residents told Reuters that the army had carried out air strikes on RSF barracks and bases in the Khartoum region and managed to destroy most of the paramilitaries’ facilities.

They said the army had also wrested back control over much of Khartoum’s presidential palace from the RSF after both sides claimed to control it and other key installations in Khartoum, where heavy artillery and gun battles raged into Sunday.

RSF members remained inside Khartoum international airport besieged by the army but it was holding back from striking them to avoid wreaking major damage, witnesses said.

But a major problem, witnesses and residents said, was posed by thousands of heavily armed RSF members deployed inside neighbourhoods of Khartoum and other cities, with no authority able to control them.

“We’re scared, we haven’t slept for 24 hours because of the noise and the house shaking. We’re worried about running out of water and food, and medicine for my diabetic father,” Huda, a young resident in southern Khartoum told Reuters.

“There’s so much false information and everyone is lying. We don’t know when this will end, how it will end,” she added.

A protracted confrontation could plunge Sudan into widespread conflict as it struggles with economic breakdown and tribal violence, derailing efforts to move towards elections.

Energy-rich powers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have sought to shape events in Sudan, seeing the transition away from toppled strongman Bashir’s rule as a way to roll back Islamist influence and improve stability in the region.

They have also pursued investments in sectors including agriculture, where Sudan holds vast potential, and ports on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.

Civilian casualties

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reported at least 56 civilians had been killed and 595 people including combatants had been wounded since the fighting erupted.

Scores of military personnel were killed, the doctors’ committee said, without giving a specific number due to a lack of first-hand information from hospitals.

The UN World Food Programme said it had temporarily halted all operations in hunger-stricken areas of Sudan after three Sudanese employees were killed during fighting in North Darfur and a WFP plane was hit during a gun battle at Khartoum airport.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the killings and called for accountability.

“Those responsible should be brought to justice without delay,” Guterres said on Twitter. “Humanitarian workers are #NotATarget.”

Volker Perthes, UN special envoy for Sudan and head of its country mission, said in a statement he was appalled by reports of shelling and looting impacting UN and other humanitarian facilities.

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan bin Al-Saud had separate phone calls with Burhan and Hemedti and called for an end to military escalation, Saudi state media said on Sunday. The minister affirmed Riyadh’s call for calm.

In a speech to an Arab League meeting on the crisis on Sunday, Sudan said the Sudanese should be allowed to reach a settlement internally without foreign interference.

The armed forces said it would not negotiate with the RSF unless the force dissolved. The army told soldiers seconded to the RSF to report to nearby army units, which could deplete RSF ranks if they obey.

RSF leader Hemedti, deputy head of state, called military chief Burhan a “criminal” and a “liar”.

State television cut its transmission on Sunday afternoon, a move employees said was meant to prevent propaganda broadcasts by the RSF after its forces entered the main state broadcaster building in Omdurman and started to air pro-RSF programming.

(REUTERS)

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Air strikes hit Sudan capital as clashes escalate between army and paramilitaries

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Three civilians died in battles between Sudanese paramilitaries and the regular army, which said it launched air strikes against them, sparking global concern days after the army warned the country was at a “dangerous” turning point. 

The paramilitaries said they were in control of the presidential place as well as Khartoum airport, claims denied by the army, as civilian leaders called for an immediate ceasefire to prevent the country’s “total collapse”.

The doctors’ union reported the three civilian deaths, including at Khartoum airport which is in the city centre, and in North Kordofan state. At least nine others were wounded, the medics said.

The eruption of violence came after weeks of deepening tensions between military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his number two, paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, over the planned integration of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into the regular army.

That was a key element of talks to finalise a deal that would return the country to civilian rule and end the crisis sparked by their 2021 coup, which triggered a deepening economic crisis in what was already one of the world’s poorest countries.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “deeply concerned” and urged both sides to “stop the violence immediately”, a call echoed by the United Nations, African Union, Arab League, regional bloc IGAD and the European Union.


Russia‘s foreign ministry said there was “serious concern in Moscow,” which called for urgent steps toward a ceasefire.

The army said it had carried out air strikes and “destroyed” two RSF bases in Khartoum. 

More than 120 civilians had already been killed in a crackdown on regular pro-democracy demonstrations since the coup.

‘Sweeping attack’ 

The RSF said its forces had taken control of Khartoum airport, after witnesses reported seeing truckloads of fighters entering the airport compound, as well as the presidential palace — where Burhan is officially based — and other key sites.

Its claims were quickly denied by the army, who said the airport and other bases remain under their “full control”, publishing a photograph of black smoke billowing from what it said was the RSF headquarters.

The army also accused the paramilitaries of burning civilian airliners at the airport, and Saudi flag carrier Saudia said it had suspended all flights to and from Sudan until further notice after one of its Airbus A330 planes “was involved in an accident”.

RSF chief Daglo vowed no let-up. “We will not stop fighting until we capture all the army bases and the honourable members of the armed forces join us,” he told Al Jazeera. 

Created in 2013, the RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia that then president Omar al-Bashir unleashed against non-Arab ethnic minorities in the western Darfur region a decade earlier, drawing accusations of war crimes. 

A plan to integrate the RSF into the regular army is one of the main points of contention, analysts have said.


Haggling between the two men has twice forced postponement of the signing of an agreement with civilian factions setting out a roadmap for restoring the democratic transition disrupted by the 2021 coup.

Witnesses also reported clashes around the state media building in Khartoum’s sister city Omdurman.

Outside the capital, witness Eissa Adam said explosions and gunfire had been heard across the North Darfur state capital of El Fasher, where civilians were hunkered down inside their homes.

Witnesses in the South Darfur state capital Nyala also reported clashes.

The two sides traded blame for starting the fighting.

The RSF said they were “surprised Saturday with a large force from the army entering camps”, reporting a “sweeping attack with all kinds of heavy and light weapons”.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Nabil Abdallah said the paramilitaries launched the fighting, attacking “several army camps in Khartoum and elsewhere around Sudan”.

“Clashes are ongoing and the army is carrying out its duty to safeguard the country”, he added.

Burhan, in a statement to Al Jazeera, said he “was surprised by Rapid Support Forces attacking his home at 9:00 am”, without giving details.

‘Slipping into abyss’ 

The military’s civilian interlocutors called on both sides “to immediately cease hostilities and spare the country slipping into the abyss of total collapse.” 

Their plea was echoed by US ambassador John Godfrey, who tweeted that he “woke up to the deeply disturbing sounds of gunfire and fighting” and was “currently sheltering in place with the embassy team, as Sudanese throughout Khartoum and elsewhere are doing”.


The head of the United Nations mission in Sudan, Volker Perthes, called for an “immediate” ceasefire, to “spare the country from further violence”. 

Western governments had been warning of the dangers of all-out fighting between the rival security forces since the army issued its warning to the paramilitaries on Thursday.

Daglo has said the 2021 coup was a “mistake” that failed to bring about change in Sudan and reinvigorated remnants of Bashir’s regime ousted by the army in 2019 following month of mass protests. 

Burhan, a career soldier from northern Sudan who rose the ranks under Bashir’s three-decade rule, maintained that the coup was “necessary” to bring more groups into the political process.

(AFP)



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Russian shelling in Ukraine’s eastern city of Sloviansk kills at least eight

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The Russian shelling of a residential building in Sloviansk on Friday killed at least eight people and injured 21, according to the Donetsk regional governor. Also on Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said that China won’t sell weapons to either side in the war in Ukraine, in response to Western concerns that Beijing could provide military assistance to Russia. Follow our blog to see how the day’s events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2)

This live blog is no longer being updated. For more of our coverage on the war in Ukraine, please click here.

9:35pm: Ukraine secures $5 billion in further funding after meetings, prime minister says

Ukraine secured promises of $5 billion in additional funding to support its ongoing fight against Russia during “fruitful meetings” in Washington this week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters on Friday.

Shmyhal met with representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank as well as top US officials, on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

He said Ukraine received new pledges of additional support from Switzerland, Denmark and a number of other countries during the meetings, as well as an agreement from US aircraft maker Boeing to relieve Ukrainian companies of $200 million in previous commitments. Kyiv expected to receive more support during an upcoming conference in London, he added.

8:55pm: Death toll in Russian shelling of Sloviansk flats rises to eight, says Donetsk regional governor

The death toll in a Russian shelling of an apartment block in the east Ukrainian city Sloviansk has risen to eight including a toddler, the governor of the Donetsk region said on Friday.

 “Twenty-one people were wounded and eight people died,” the governor of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian television. 

8:52pm: Family of detained US journalist in Russia breaks silence 

The parents of detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on Friday said that they remained optimistic for a positive outcome to his detention insisting that their son “still loved Russia.”

“It’s one of the American qualities that we absorbed, you know, be optimistic, believe in a happy ending,” Gershkovich’s mother, Ella Milman told the Wall Street Journal, speaking out for the first time since his arrest. “But I am not stupid. I understand what’s involved, but that’s what I choose to believe,” she added.

Ella and her husband Mikhail Gershkovich fled the Soviet Union separately in 1979 and settled in New Jersey, raising their two children, Evan and a daughter Danielle.

The spying charges against Gershkovich, who had previously worked for the Moscow bureau of AFP, are the first of their kind in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, prompting an outcry from media outlets, rights groups and foreign governments.

8:38pm: Putin signs electronic draft bill into law 

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill to create a digital draft system, greatly facilitating mobilising Russians into the army, more than a year into the Kremlin’s Ukraine offensive. 

The bill cracks down on those seeking to avoid conscription. A document of the law was published on an official government information portal, Russian news agencies reported. 

>> Read more: Russia’s electronic draft: As soon as they hit ‘send’, you’ve been called up

8:30pm: Asked about leaked US intel, Ukraine says remains united with US, partners

Ukraine remains united with the United States and other partners in its ongoing military fight against Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters on Friday.

Asked about the leaked U.S. intelligence, Shmyhal said no Russian disinformation would disrupt Ukraine’s battle for its country.

7:14pm: Airman charged as US vows to send message over documents leak

A young national guardsman was charged Friday with orchestrating the most damaging leak of US classified documents for a decade, as the government signaled it intends to make an example of the 21-year-old.

Jack Teixeira was arrested Thursday following a week-long probe into the leak of documents which unveiled US concern over Ukraine’s ability to fend off the Russian invasion.

6:37pm: UN chief raises concerns with Russia about Ukraine grain deal

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has written to Russia, Ukraine and Turkey to raise concerns about the implementation of a deal that allows the safe wartime export of grain from several Ukrainian Black Sea ports, a UN spokesman said on Friday.

The move comes after the United Nations said no ships were inspected on Tuesday under the deal “as the parties needed more time to reach an agreement on operational priorities.”

Inspections resumed on Wednesday.

6:05pm: Finland unveils first section of Russian border fence

Finland’s border guard on Friday unveiled the first section of a 200-kilometre border fence with Russia being built after Moscow invaded Ukraine last year.

Finland joined NATO just a week ago and its 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) border has also doubled the frontier between the US-led military alliance and Russia.

Three metres (10 feet) tall and topped with barbed wire, it will cost around 380 million euros ($417 million) and is due to be completed by 2026.

 “The necessity was triggered by a change in the security situation in Europe,” Brigadier General Jari Tolppanen Tolppanen told reporters. “There is a need to reduce dependence on the effectiveness of Russian border control.”

5:58pm: UK says Ukrainian troops forced to leave parts of Bakhmut

Ukrainian troops have been forced to withdraw from some territory in the battlefield city of Bakhmut as Russia mounts a renewed assault there, Britain said in an intelligence update on Friday.

5:50pm: Russian shelling kills five, wounds 15 in eastern city of Sloviansk, Kyiv says

The Russian shelling of a residential building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday killed at least five people and wounded 15, the local governor said, warning that there could be people buried in the rubble.

“As of 18:00 local time (1600 GMT), there are five dead and 15 wounded,” the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Telegram. “There is a possibility that seven people, including one child, are under the rubble.”

1:55pm: China vows not to sell arms to any party in Ukraine war

China won’t sell weapons to either side in the war in Ukraine, the country’s foreign minister has said, responding to Western concerns that Beijing could provide military assistance to Russia.

China has maintained that it is neutral in the conflict, while backing Russia politically, rhetorically and economically at a time when Western nations have imposed punishing sanctions and sought to isolate Moscow for its invasion of its neighbour.

Qin Gang is the highest-level Chinese official to make such an explicit statement about arms sales to Russia. He added that China would also regulate the export of items with dual civilian and military use.

“Regarding the export of military items, China adopts a prudent and responsible attitude,” Qin said at a news conference alongside visiting German counterpart Annalena Baerbock. “China will not provide weapons to relevant parties of the conflict, and manage and control the exports of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations.”

1:15pm: Finnish embassy in Moscow receives letter containing powder

Finland‘s embassy in Moscow has received a letter containing an unknown powder and has reported the matter to the Russian authorities, Russian news agencies report.

Relations between Moscow and Helsinki have deteriorated sharply since Finland formally joined NATO on April 4, becoming the 31st member of the US-led military alliance. Finland shares a long land border with Russia.

The embassy received three letters on Thursday, one of which contained a powder, the RIA news agency reported.

“In line with the security rules of the Finnish foreign ministry, the letters in question were handed to official representative organs of Russia which will study the matter,” RIA quoted the embassy as saying.

11:15am: China defence minister to visit Moscow next week

Chinese Defence Minister Gen. Li Shangfu will visit Russia next week for meetings with counterpart Sergei Shoigu and other military officials, China’s Defence Ministry has said.

Li’s visit underscores China’s strengthening engagement with Russia, with which it has largely aligned its foreign policy in an attempt to reshape the world order to diminish the influence of the United States and other Western democracies. 

China has refused to criticise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and blamed the US and NATO for provoking Moscow. During a 2022 visit to Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a joint statement declaring a “no limits” relationship between the two countries. 

Li will also visit Russia’s military academy during his April 16-19 trip, Defence Ministry spokesperson Col. Tan Kefei said.

The trip follows an official visit to Moscow last month by Xi that emphasised how China is increasingly becoming the senior partner in the relationship as it provides Russia with political cover and an economic lifeline during its war on Ukraine. 

10:50am: Russia puts Pacific Fleet on high alert in surprise inspection

Russia has put its Pacific naval fleet on high alert as part of a surprise inspection aimed at building its defensive capabilities, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has said.

“The main objective of this inspection is to increase the ability of the Armed Forces to repel the aggression of a probable enemy from the direction of ocean and sea,” Shoigu said on state television.

The drill will also simulate an enemy landing on Russia’s Sakhalin island and on its southern Kuril Islands, some of which are claimed by Japan in a territorial dispute dating back to the end of World War Two.

Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said Russia’s naval forces would be deployed to training areas and would carry out combat exercises as part of the drill.

10:25am: Russian oil exports jump despite sanctions

Russian oil exports jumped to their highest level in almost three years in March despite Western sanctions, but revenues were down sharply from last year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

The West has imposed a slew of sanctions against Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, including price caps on its crude and oil products and EU embargoes.

Russia retaliated by slashing its production by 500,000 barrels per day, and its partners at the OPEC+ oil cartel shocked the markets by announcing their own output cuts earlier this month.

The IEA said total oil shipments from Russia rose by 600,000 bpd to 8.1 million bpd last month. While Russia’s oil revenues rebounded by $1 billion to $12.7 billion, they were still down 43 percent compared to a year ago.

9:45am: Ukraine bans its national teams from competing with athletes from Russia, Belarus

Ukraine has banned its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus, the sports ministry has said in a decree.

The decision, criticised by some Ukrainian athletes, comes after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) angered Kyiv by paving the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine had previously warned its sports federations that it would strip them of their status as governing bodies if their athletes competed on the international stage with Russians and Belarusians.

Some Ukrainian athletes, including Olympian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, have criticised the ban, saying it will lead to the destruction of Ukrainian sports.

“If Ukrainian representatives are not present at competitions, then we completely vacate the international sports grounds and give the Russian/Belarusian representatives the opportunity to promote their narratives and propaganda,” he wrote on Twitter.

4:09am: Russia claims Bakhmut has been surrounded

Russia said Thursday it had cut off Ukrainian forces inside Bakhmut, while Kyiv insisted supply lines were still open into the town, scene of the most brutal battle of the war.

AFP was unable to verify the status on the ground in the eastern town, which has turned into the longest and bloodiest fight since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

The Russian army said its airborne troops were “blocking the transfer of Ukrainian army reserves to the city and the possibility of retreat for enemy units”. It also said that Wagner mercenary units were advancing in Bakhmut.

But the Ukrainian army told AFP it had communication with its troops inside Bakhmut and was able to send them munitions. “This does not correspond to reality,” Sergiy Cherevaty, spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces said, referring to Russia’s claims. “We are able to … deliver food products, ammunition, medicines, all that is necessary, and also to recover our wounded.” The Ukrainian general staff nevertheless acknowledged a “difficult” situation in Bakhmut.

  • Key developments from Thursday, April 14:

The European Union added Russia’s Wagner mercenary group to its sanctions list for “actively participating in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine” as US authorities made an arrest in connection with the leak of confidential documents.

A Ukrainian army spokesman rejected Moscow’s claims of “blocking” Kyiv’s forces from getting in or out of the frontline hotspot of Bakhmut, while Russian paramilitary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin also said it was premature to claim Russia had encircled Ukrainian forces in the war-torn city.

>> Read our live blog for all of yesterday’s developments as they unfolded

© France Médias Monde graphic studio

 (FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)

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Western arms supplies ‘no guarantee’ of a decisive victory for Ukraine

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Ukraine has been preparing to launch a spring counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by Russians and is hoping to repeat the success of its counterattacks last September. Despite the supply of Western arms, including battle tanks, Ukrainian forces will have to change their tactics if they hope to achieve a breakthrough, according to historian and retired army officer Michel Goya.

Ukraine has made no secret of its plans to launch a counteroffensive in the spring and reclaim land occupied by Russian forces since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022. The Ukrainian army has already successfully carried out similar attacks last September, driving back Russian forces in Kharkiv and Kherson provinces. 

>> Key battles in the Ukraine war: From Kyiv’s stand to the Kharkiv counterattack

Ukraine has received several widely publicised deliveries of military equipment from its Western backers these past days, including armoured vehicles from the US, the UK and Germany. The military hardware, however, “is no guarantee of a significant victory”, says historian and former French Marines colonel Michel Goya. 

He discussed Ukraine’s upcoming counter-offensive on the sidelines of a conference organised this week by the Jean Jaurès Foundation, a Paris-based think tank. 

FRANCE 24: How does Ukraine plan to carry out its counteroffensive this spring? 

Michel Goya: The Ukrainians are obliged to launch major offensives; they cannot afford to chip away at enemy defences like the Russians. Kyiv must secure significant wins as soon as possible, in order to liberate as much territory as it can, while inflicting the heaviest damage possible on Russian forces. 

To accomplish this, the Ukrainian army will have to break through Russian lines and disrupt their set-up. They need victories like those in September in the provinces of Kharkiv and Kherson. Right now, Ukrainian forces need to advance up to Melitopol (in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province) and Starobilsk (in the eastern Luhansk province) and inflict maximum damage on the enemy. 


 

They will need to concentrate their resources and forces – at least a dozen brigades – on a specific area. When their momentum stalls, they will need to renew their attacks in order to secure three to four victories like those in September. A single counteroffensive will not be enough to reach the strategic goal of liberating all territories [under Russian occupation]. 

F24: Are the weapons supplied by the West enough to help Ukraine reach its aims? 

MG: It’s not all down to the military equipment. The tanks, armoured vehicles and mobile artillery [supplied by the West] will allow Kyiv to build up coherent and solid combat units, which could spearhead the offensive. But current supplies will only allow Ukrainian forces to build up at most three to four brigades, which is not enough to secure a decisive victory. Kyiv will need at least a dozen brigades for its offensive to be effective – as was the case last September. Moreover, Russian lines are now probably stronger than they were back then, which means the Ukrainians will need to double down. 

Aside from the number of troops, what also matters is their organisation; it is very complicated to coordinate different units that require specific know-how and competent leadership. Are Ukrainian forces capable of reaching this level of coordination? That’s the real question. 

F24: What impact could this offensive have on the outcome of the war? 

MG: There are two potential outcomes in the event of a Ukrainian offensive. Either it fails, which would lead to a frozen conflict in which Ukrainian forces are incapable of breaking through Russian defences, or it succeeds, which would destabilise the current balance on the ground. 

Russia cannot remain idle if Ukrainian forces advance in Zaporizhzhia or Luhansk provinces, especially since Kyiv’s forces would come close to sensitive areas such as Crimea and the separatist republics of the Donbas. Ukraine’s counterattack can only lead to a robust response from Russia. 

This would require a new mobilisation of military personnel, such as the one last September, when President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilisation of military reservists.  

The Pandora’s box has been opened; nothing can prevent Moscow from mobilising 300,000 or 600,000 more men, or even one million. Russia has crossed the line and there are no more limits – except practical ones, since it is impossible to transform civilians into competent troops overnight, without adequate training. 

F24: Why are multiple Ukrainian counterattacks necessary? 

MG: We could imagine a scenario in which Ukrainian forces achieve a breakthrough in Zaporizhzhia province that in turn triggers a broader collapse of Russian lines across the country. From that point on, everything would become easier for Ukraine, from a military point of view, and it might even win back the Donbas and Crimea.  

However, this remains an unlikely scenario to me. 

The Ukrainian offensive would necessarily have to stop at some point. It’s impossible to advance continuously along the front line for hundreds of kilometres. They would need provisions, logistics and abundant manpower – enough to replace the soldiers exhausted by combat. When Ukrainian forces advanced in Kharkiv province in September, the Russians later managed to stop them in Luhansk province. 

It is quite likely that the Ukrainian army will see some success, but not strategic victories that would enable it to reclaim all its territories. They will therefore have to multiply their attacks, bearing in mind that the Russians still have several cards up their sleeves, including the threat of a nuclear escalation. There is still a risk of nuclear blackmail – and indeed of such weapons being used, though this would come at a huge political cost for Moscow.  

This article was translated from the original in French. 

 

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Serbia’s far right seizes on Putin’s war to push retaking Kosovo

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BELGRADE — Serbia’s ultra-nationalists are using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to galvanize their campaign against Kosovo’s independence — and anti-war activists are getting caught in the crossfire.

Politicians on Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s right flank have sniffed out an opportunity to tie Russia’s war on Ukraine to their desire to swallow up Kosovo, even as Vučić engages in EU-brokered negotiations to partially normalize relations with Kosovo, the independence of which neither Belgrade nor Moscow recognize.

A victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine is a stepping stone to Serbia regaining Kosovo, according to Miša Vacić, the leader of the highly nationalistic, pro-Kremlin Serbian Right political party.

“We must be patient and must wait to finish in Ukraine, and after that we will have enough time,” he told POLITICO.

More than 200,000 Russians have arrived in Serbia since the beginning of the invasion. As one of just a handful of European countries offering visa-free entry to Russian passport-holders, it provides safe harbor for those seeking an exit for reasons ranging from economic to ideological.

Vacić, who in September traveled to Russian-occupied Donetsk to observe the so-called referendum to join Russia that was widely slammed by Western governments as a sham, claims Russian liberal activists in Serbia are a threat to realizing his ideal society, if they join forces with their local counterparts. 

“It is a real revolution of liberals,” Vacić said, adding that even if only 10 percent of the new Russian arrivals were committed liberal activists, Serbia would still be flooded with at least 20,000 of his political enemies. “They think they must liberate Serbia from Serbs, from traditional Serbian values.”

Violent threats

Among the Russians who have arrived in Belgrade since Putin launched his full-scale invasion last year is Ilya Zernov. The 19-year-old political activist from Tolyatti in southwestern Russia sought sanctuary in Belgrade last March — his anti-war protests prompted a police search of his student dormitory in Kazan.

“I realized that I would not be able to continue my studies, and would not be able to be in Russia for a long time,” Zernov told POLITICO, adding that the police who searched his dorm threatened him with violence and imprisonment.

Zernov is an active participant in the Russian Democratic Society (RDS), an anti-war organization founded last year in Belgrade with the stated goal of supporting Ukrainian victory. It has since emerged as one of the most visible pro-Ukraine advocacy groups in Serbia, regularly organizing protests in the streets.

But in a country where Putin enjoys significant support amid an increasingly assertive ultra-nationalist movement, anti-war activists are a target.

A Russian Democratic Society (RDS) event on February 24, 2023 | Bennett Murray for POLITICO

Zernov reported to the police last month that Vacić had assaulted him. The attack, which Zernov said occurred after he attempted to paint over anti-Ukrainian graffiti on the side of a Belgrade apartment block, left him with a perforated eardrum. Vacić denies assaulting Zernov.

Threats of violence also overshadowed plans to hold two anti-war rallies on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“The police warned us that they had information that some kind of violent provocations were being planned by these extreme-right people,” said RDS co-founder Peter Nikitin, whose group organized one of the protests.

Nikitin also rejected Vacić’s claims that his group, and those like it, are seeking to campaign on social issues in Serbia.

“Our only purpose is to show the world and the Serbian public what is happening, and to mobilize public opinion for Ukraine,” he said, adding that it is Vacić who wants to make Serbia subservient to foreign interests. “[Vacić] is pushing Russian interests and Putin’s interests in Serbia very directly, and he’s the one trying to turn Serbia into Russia.”

Rallying around ‘Z’

As the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approached last month, tensions simmered in Belgrade.

A far-right rally in mid-February ended with participants attempting to break into President Vučić’s office. Damjan Knezevic, the leader of the People’s Patrol far-right network, gave a fiery speech to a crowd of around 1,000 calling for Vučić to be overthrown, amid a heated national debate over the proposal to resolve the Serbia-Kosovo dispute.

Many in attendance waved Russian flags or sported pro-war symbols, including the letter “Z” used by the Russian military to mark its vehicles in Ukraine, and the skull and crosshairs logo of the Wagner Group, a private mercenary force that has been backing Moscow’s military in the war.

Police arrested Knezevic and two other associates the following day on charges of inciting violence. On the day of the rally, another People’s Patrol member was also arrested in Serbia’s second city Novi Sad on weapons charges after being discovered with a rifle, optic sight and ammunition. 

The arrests spurred yet more outrage among People’s Patrol followers, who doubled down on plans to hold a pro-war rally on February 24, adjacent to RDS’ anti-war protest. While authorities refused to issue a permit for the People’s Patrol rally, officials feared riots would ensue.

When the first year anniversary of the invasion arrived, RDS held a scaled-back version of its planned events, per police advice. It proceeded without incident.

A man wearing a patch with a “Z” on it at a rally on February 15, 2023 | Bennett Murray for POLITICO

Natalia Taranushchenko, an organizer for Belgrade-based Ukrainian association Cini Dobro who is originally from Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region, told POLITICO that while Serbia is generally welcoming, “There are still symbols of Russian aggression, letter Z on the streets of Belgrade, and we still hear that Ukrainians are ‘Nazis’ and a lot of other Russian propaganda.”

Still, there’s some hope for the Ukrainians and anti-war Russians seeking safety in Serbia: Putin’s stalled offensive has also deflated the ultra-nationalists here.

“Serbs were very passionate because they were expecting that Putin would overthrow Ukraine in three days, and after that they thought he would say that we need to get back Kosovo for Serbia,” said Čedomir Stojković, a Belgrade-based lawyer who investigates covert Russian influence in his country. 

“But over time, as the war did not happen the way people expected, those expectations started to change, and now because there is cognitive dissonance, there is no passion,” he said.



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