Category: Євросоюз

Kyiv was rocked by a massive drone attack early Saturday, using Iranian-designed Shahed drones. Five people, including a child, were wounded in the attack, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko’s Telegram post. Ukraine’s air force said the attack was the largest drone attack since the beginning of Russia’s invasion. The British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily report on the invasion that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet’s ability to reload vessels with cruise missiles at its Novorossiysk base will likely be “a significant factor” in the effectiveness of the fleet. The fleet has traditionally reloaded its cruise missiles at Sevastopol, but …

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The Israeli government said Friday that it would summon the Belgian and Spanish ambassadors following remarks by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his Belgian counterpart Alexander de Croo on the war between Israel and Hamas.  The announcement came after the two leaders criticized Israel for the suffering of Palestinian civilians under Israeli military operations in Gaza. Sanchez also called for European Union recognition of a Palestinian state, saying Spain might do so on its own.  Speaking at a joint news conference Friday on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, Sanchez said the time had come …

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A Russian lawmaker and staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin has denied media allegations that he adopted a missing 2-year-old girl who was removed from a Ukrainian children’s home and changed her name in Russia. Sergey Mironov, 70, the leader of political party A Just Russia, asserted on social media that the Ukrainian security services and their Western partners concocted a “fake” report to discredit true Russian patriots like himself. His statement, posted on X, followed the BBC and independent Russian news outlet Important Stories publishing an investigation Thursday that said Mironov adopted a child named Margarita Prokopenko who was …

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French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Friday that China’s cooperation is vital on an issue that has divided it and much of Europe: ending the war in Ukraine. She encouraged China to continue working on its Ukrainian peace proposal while also ensuring that Chinese entities do not aid Russia in what she called “the ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine” — phrasing the Chinese side would disagree with. “France underlines once again how its cooperation with China is essential to promote a just and lasting peace,” she said after talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “We are counting on …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced a plan to endorse a national strategy for the development of artificial intelligence, emphasizing that it’s essential to prevent a Western monopoly. Speaking at an AI conference in Moscow, Putin noted that “it’s imperative to use Russian solutions in the field of creating reliable and transparent artificial intelligence systems that are also safe for humans.” “Monopolistic dominance of such foreign technology in Russia is unacceptable, dangerous and inadmissible,” Putin said. He noted that “many modern systems, trained on Western data are intended for the Western market” and “reflect that part of Western ethics, …

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Irish police arrested 34 people after suspected far-right protesters in central Dublin attacked police, damaged shops and set fire to vehicles Thursday night following the stabbing of three children by an unidentified man earlier in the day. The head of the Irish police, Commissioner Drew Harris, said one officer was seriously injured in the violence that began after news spread that a 5-year-old girl was receiving emergency medical treatment at a Dublin hospital following the attack outside a school. At least 100 people took to the streets, some armed with metal bars and covering their faces. Harris described the protesters …

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The shelves at Moscow supermarkets are full of fruit and vegetables, cheese and meat. But many of the shoppers look at the selection with dismay as inflation makes their wallets feel empty. Russia’s Central Bank has raised its key lending rate four times this year to try to get inflation under control and stabilize the ruble’s exchange rate as the economy weathers the effects of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and the Western sanctions imposed as a consequence. The last time it raised the rate — to 15%, doubled that from the beginning of the year — the bank said …

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Russia, which had bombarded the eastern city of Avdiivka for weeks, is now sending waves of troops toward the destroyed but strategically important spot in eastern Ukraine — and suffering terrible losses, Ukrainian senior officials and soldiers said Thursday. “The fields are just littered with corpses,” Oleksandr, a deputy of a Ukrainian battalion in the 47th mechanized brigade, told Agence France-Presse. “They are trying to exhaust our lines with constant waves of attacks,” he said. He declined to provide his full name for security reasons. It is a strategy similar to the one Russia used against Bakhmut, a city it …

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Hundreds of supporters from Georgia’s main opposition party gathered Thursday in the capital, Tbilisi, demanding their ex-leader’s release from prison on the 20th anniversary of the country’s pro-democracy revolution. Mikheil Saakashvili spearheaded the bloodless Rose Revolution in 2003 and led the Black Sea nation for nine years before going into exile. After his return, he was arrested on abuse-of-power charges that rights groups say were politically motivated. “The idea of a united, strong, democratic, European, free Georgia was a driving force of the Rose Revolution and its leader, Saakashvili,” a leader from his United National Movement (UNM) party, Tina Bokuchava, …

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Turkey’s central bank delivered another huge interest rate hike on Thursday as it tries to curb double-digit inflation that has left households struggling to afford food and other basic goods. The bank pushed its policy rate up by 5 percentage points, to 40%, marking its sixth big interest rate hike in a row focused on beating down inflation that hit an eye-watering 61.36% last month. However, the bank said its rate hikes would soon end. “The current level of monetary tightness is significantly close to the level required to establish the disinflation course,” the bank said. “Accordingly, the pace of …

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Ukrainian traders’ union UGA said on Thursday that parliament’s “ill-considered” plans to change grain trading rules could completely halt Ukraine’s key grain exports. On November 21, a bill passed its first reading in parliament that would change rules on the taxation of grain export transactions and could also introduce minimum export prices for grain. The bill is designed to minimize tax evasion on certain agricultural products, such as grain and oilseeds. “UGA is concerned about a possible complete halt in grain exports from Ukraine due to the adoption by the parliament of ill-considered legislative changes to grain and oilseed exports …

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The Gershkovich family is accustomed to having Thanksgiving without their son, journalist Evan Gershkovich, since he has lived abroad as a reporter for several years. But this year, his absence at the Thanksgiving table weighs particularly heavily because Gershkovich is jailed in a Russian prison. “Having a Thanksgiving with Evan there would have been a huge treat. But, of course, this Thanksgiving, it’s just hard,” Danielle Gershkovich, Evan’s sister, told VOA. There’s “a literal, physical darkness,” she said. As millions of people across the United States and the world celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, two American journalists — Gershkovich, as well …

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The EU is poised to give 900 million euros ($980 million) to Hungary as an advance on its part of post-Covid pandemic recovery funds which remain frozen in a dispute over the rule of law. The European Commission said Thursday that the money, which it termed a “pre-financing,” would go towards a greening of Hungary’s energy production, once EU member states signed off on it. Brussels’ announcement came after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was accused of being ready to veto further EU aid to Ukraine and stall Kyiv’s push for membership talks in order to unblock the frozen funds. …

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Russian state television said Thursday one of its journalists died after being hurt in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine. The Russian network announced the death of Boris Maksudov a day after the Russian defense ministry said he was hit while working in Zaporizhzhia. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Thursday that Russian shelling killed one person and injured another in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region. The officials said the areas hit by the Russian shelling included a residential building. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used part of his nightly address Wednesday to highlight new military aid packages …

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He’s been called the Dutch Donald Trump. He’s been threatened with death countless times by Islamic extremists, convicted of insulting Moroccans, and Britain once banned him from entering the country. Now Geert Wilders has won a massive victory in a Dutch election and is in pole position to form the next governing coalition and possibly become the Netherlands’ next prime minister. An exit poll revealing his landslide appeared to take even 60-year-old political veteran Wilders by surprise. In his first reaction, posted in a video on X, formerly Twitter, he spread his arms wide, put his face in his hands …

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Finnish border guards and soldiers began erecting barriers including concrete obstacles topped with barbed wire at some crossing points on the Nordic country’s lengthy border with Russia to better control an influx of migrants, officials said Wednesday. Finland said it will close three more crossing points, leaving only one Arctic point open for migrants seeking asylum. Some 600 migrants without proper visas and documentation, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, have arrived in Finland in November compared to a few dozen in September and October. The arrivals include residents of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Kenya, Morocco and Somalia, border …

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The United States and Germany, the two top providers of military aid to Ukraine, pledged continued support this week as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared his core goal was securing international assistance for the year ahead. But experts caution that the US and Germany risk being perceived as too closely tied to Ukraine’s grinding war with Russia. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. …

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As Ukraine’s forces continue their counteroffensive, mines and explosives threaten its people in de-occupied regions. According to the Ukrainian government, since the start of the Russian invasion, mines have killed at least 264 civilians and injured more than 830. Demining efforts, led by various entitles, are actively underway. Myroslava Gongadze tells the story. (Camera: Eugene Shynkar; Produced by Daniil Batushchak) …

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From headlines taken out of context to the framing of fringe figures as representative of wider American views, Russian state-run outlets are cherry-picking U.S. content to back up Kremlin narratives. And it comes with results. Headlines such as “Biden accused of concealing extent of corruption in Ukraine” and “US highlights NATO inability to withstand Russia for extended period” regularly propel state-run stories into the top five spots on Russian search engines, with a potential reach of millions of views. Americans regularly cited by Russian media include former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, Republican Representative James Comer, and members of “The …

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The Kremlin on Tuesday hosted Palestinian representatives and foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Indonesia in what observers say was a bid to showcase its position on the Israel-Hamas war. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from the VOA Moscow Bureau. VOA footage by Ricardo Marquina. …

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