Month: December 2023

Ukraine and Poland will open an additional border crossing for empty freight trucks Monday to free up a much-needed route for Kyiv, with some crossings blocked by weeks of protests by Polish drivers, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday. Those protests, over what Polish truckers see as unfair competition from their Ukrainian peers, started on Nov. 6, with four border crossings now under blockade. Polish haulers’ main demand is to stop Ukrainian truckers having permit-free access to the EU, something that Kyiv and Brussels say is impossible. Ukrainian border service said Uhryniv checkpoint, currently operating only for passenger cars and buses, would …

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Ukrainian officials launched an investigation Sunday into allegations that Russian forces killed surrendering Ukrainian soldiers after grainy footage on social media appeared to show two uniformed men being shot at close range after emerging from a dugout. “The video shows a group in Russian uniforms shooting at point-blank range, two unarmed servicemen in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who were surrendering,” the prosecutor’s office said in a Telegram update Sunday. The video first appeared Saturday on DeepState, a popular Ukrainian Telegram channel covering the war.  It shows the surrendering soldiers, one of them with his hands up, …

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U.S. funding for Ukraine may soon come to an end. A divided Congress has so far failed to approve a long-term budget for the U.S. government, let alone new money for aiding allies mired in conflicts abroad. The country’s top defense official says that’s a mistake. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more. …

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A bloodstain by a bridge over the Seine river was the only remaining sign on Sunday of a fatal knife attack 12 hours earlier on a German tourist, allegedly carried out by a young man under watch for suspected Islamic radicalization. The random attack near the Eiffel Tower has drawn special concern for the French capital less than a year before it hosts the Olympic Games, with the opening ceremony due to take place along the river in an unprecedented scenic start in the heart of Paris. After killing the tourist, the suspect crossed the bridge to the city’s Right …

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday thanked everyone who has helped Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, including soldiers, workers of the Emergency Service of Ukraine, the National Police, the National Guard and more. “It is important that everyone remains committed to the common cause,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address.  “It is important that every week one can say, “I have contributed something of my own to the common defense.” Earlier Saturday, power was restored at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was lost on Friday, averting again a “nuclear catastrophe,” according to a statement by …

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To his followers, he was “Grieg,” their guide through tantra yoga toward enlightenment and a higher state of consciousness. For European police, Gregorian Bivolaru represents a far more sinister figure: a master manipulator accused of sexual abuse and exploitation.  The arrest this week in the Paris region of the 71-year-old Romanian yoga guru and 40 others marked the culmination of a six-year manhunt involving Interpol. The raid, led by 175 officers of a French police unit that combats sect-related crime, also freed 26 people, who were described by authorities as sect victims who had been housed in dirty and cramped …

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French police arrested a man who targeted passersby in Paris on Saturday night, killing a German tourist with a knife and injuring two others, France’s interior minister said. Police subdued the man, a 25-year-old French citizen who had spent four years in prison for planning a violent offense. After his arrest, he expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office confirmed it has opened an investigation. The attacker went after a German couple with a knife, killing the man …

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Ukraine’s ex-President Petro Poroshenko said he had been stopped from leaving the country Friday morning in what he described as a politically motivated bid to disrupt his work. Poroshenko, who led Ukraine from 2014 to 2019 and is now an opposition lawmaker, posted a video of himself at a border crossing with Poland, saying he had been turned away and holding up papers that he said showed he had official permission to cross. Under martial law, Ukrainian officials must get special approval to travel abroad. The Ukrainian parliament’s deputy speaker, Oleksandr Korniyenko, later confirmed he had cancelled Poroshenko’s permission to …

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French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday that France was “very concerned” by the resumption of violence in Gaza and that he was heading to Qatar to help in efforts to kickstart a new truce ahead of a cease-fire.  Macron also told a news conference at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai that the situation required the doubling down on efforts to obtain a lasting cease-fire and the freeing of all hostages.  A temporary truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed Friday after mediators were unable to extend the pause. Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse.  Macron also urged …

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a blunt message to Western leaders Friday and declared at an international security conference that his government was not prepared to “review its goals” in Ukraine.  “We aren’t seeing any signals from Kyiv or its masters about their readiness to seek any kind of political settlement,” Lavrov told reporters while attending an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe conference in North Macedonia.  “We see no reason to review our goals,” he said.  Some diplomats protest North Macedonia, which joined NATO in 2020, waived a flight ban on Russian officials so Lavrov could attend …

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