Month: June 2024

MILAN, ITALY — While Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni adopts a reassuring Western-allied foreign policy, cultural wars at home are preserving her far-right credentials heading into a European parliamentary election, where her neo-fascist-rooted Brothers of Italy party is projected to secure significant gains — and a possible coalition role. In less than two years leading the EU’s third-largest economy, Meloni has emerged as the most powerful right-wing leader in Europe, a position emphasized in a fiery speech in May to a Vox rally in Spain that included French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, Hungarian President Viktor Orban and pro-Trump Republicans. Still, her …

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SINGAPORE — Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy arrived in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue conference on Saturday, where he planned to meet U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and discuss support for his embattled country in an address to delegates.  After arriving at the conference venue in a motorcade amid heavy security, Zelenskyy said in a statement on the social media platform X that he had come to gather support from the Asia-Pacific region for a peace summit planned for June 15-16 in Switzerland.  “Global security is impossible when the world’s largest country disregards recognized borders, international law, and the U.N. Charter, resorts …

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KYIV — Russia launched a barrage of missiles and drones on Saturday, damaging energy facilities in five regions across Ukraine, officials said. Ukraine’s national grid operator Ukrenergo said the attack damaged energy facilities in the eastern Donetsk, southeastern Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, central Kyrovohrad region, and Ivano-Frankivsk region in the west. “Today morning the Russians launched another strike on Ukrainian energy facilities. Since March it is already the sixth massive, complex, missile and drone attack against the civilian energy infrastructure,” Ukrenergo said. Ukrainian air defense shot down 35 of 53 Russian missiles and 46 of 47 Russian drones, the air force …

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BRUSSELS — Around 400 million European Union citizens go to the polls next month to elect members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, in one of the biggest global democratic events. Far-right parties are seeking to gain more power amid a rise in the cost of living and farmers’ discontent, while the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are on the minds of voters. One of the biggest questions is whether European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will remain in charge as the most visible face of the EU. Here is a look at the upcoming election and the biggest issues …

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THE WHITE HOUSE — Less than a day after U.S. President Joe Biden granted Ukraine authorization to strike inside Russia with American weaponry, Michael Carpenter, senior director for Europe at the National Security Council, spoke with VOA’s Iuliia Iarmolenko to discuss details of the new policy and explain what prompted the president’s reversal of a longstanding ban. Carpenter, former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, emphasized that U.S. policies barring Ukraine from using American-provided ATACMS, or long-range missiles, and other munitions to strike offensively inside Russia have not changed. The following interview has been edited for length …

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Washington — Nearly eight months after a freelance journalist disappeared on assignment in Russian-occupied Ukraine, Moscow confirmed that the reporter is in its custody.  Victoria Roshchyna, a contributor to Ukrainian media outlets including Ukrainska Pravda, had planned to report on what life is like for those living under Russian occupation.   But shortly after passing through a border post on Aug. 3, 2023, communication between Roshchyna and her family ended. Since then, her family and colleagues have been trying to locate the journalist.   Then last month, Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed in a letter to the family that the reporter has been detained …

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