WORLD BRIEFING: May 19, 2024
Ukraine accused Russia of potential war crimes Saturday, saying their shelling targeted civilians in residential areas of two cities in northeastern Ukraine. In the first case, a Russian airstrike wounded six people, including two teens and a child in the city of Kharkiv. In the second case, Russian shelling in Vovchansk, a town 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the Russian border, killed a 60-year-old woman and injured three other civilians. A 59-year-man also was injured in the village of Ukrainske, they said. Thousands of civilians have been killed or injured since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow denies targeting civilians. Russia said its forces shot down a Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missile on Saturday. A similar missile launched last week on the Russian border town of Belgorod caused the collapse of an apartment building, killing at least 15 people. Fierce battles continue along the now-longer front line of Ukraine - RFE/RL
In an interview with AFP, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv needs more air defenses to hold the front line since Russia's surprise offensive in the Kharkiv region last week. "Today, we have about 25% of what we need to defend Ukraine. I'm talking about air defense," he said. Ukraine needs "120 to 130" F-16 fighter jets or other advanced aircraft to achieve air parity with Russia, he added. He said Ukrainian troops have managed to stop enemy forces that have moved 5 to 10 kilometers (3.1 to 6.2 miles) into Ukrainian territory along the northeastern border, but he cautioned that those troops could be the "first wave" in a wider Russian offensive. "I won't say it's a great success (for Russia), but we have to be sober and understand that they are going deeper into our territory," he said, speaking from Kyiv on Friday. Zelensky said the situation in the Kharkiv region has been controlled but not stabilized.
France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind protests and violence that have rocked its Pacific island territory of New Caledonia for the past few days over the French government’s decision to change a voting law. Azerbaijan, which has traditionally had little presence in the Asia Pacific and is nearly 14,000km (8,700 miles) away from New Caledonia, has denied the allegations of interference - Al Jazeera
A powerful ethnic armed group fighting Myanmar's military government in the country's western state of Rakhine claimed Saturday to have seized a town near the border with Bangladesh, marking the latest in a series of victories for foes of the country's military government. Members of the state's Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority, targets of deadly army-directed violence in 2017, appear to have been the main victims of fighting in the town of Buthidaung, where the Arakan Army claims to have chased out forces of the military government. There are contradictory accounts of who is to blame for the reported burning of the town, compelling its Rohingya residents to flee. The competing claims could not be verified independently, with access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area mostly cut off. Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told The Associated Press by text message from an undisclosed location that his group had seized Buthidaung after capturing all the military's outposts there - VOA
A Russian court has ruled that Deutsche Bank and UniCredit's assets in Russia are to be seized, documents showed. European banks have largely exited Russia after Moscow launched its offensive on Kyiv in 2022. A court in St. Petersburg ruled in favor of seizing 239 million euros ($260 million) from Deutsche Bank, documents dated May 16 showed. The same day, it ordered the seizure of around 463 million euros ($504 million) worth of assets belonging to Italy's UniCredit. Both decisions were issued in answer to a request from RusKhimAlians, which was planning to build a major gas processing and liquefaction plant in cooperation with German company Linde, which pulled out of the project due to Russia's military assault. RusKhimAlians sued UniCredit and Deutsche Bank — both guarantors of the project. - Moscow Times
Women in Ukraine have increasingly stepped into roles men used to perform before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Now they are in demand in steel plants as male workers are sent to the battlefield. At ArcelorMittal’s plant in Kryvih Rih, a city in southern Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town, managers say hiring more female workers is a matter of survival for the business. Of its 18,000-strong workforce at the start of the war, some 3,500 men have been mobilised and more are likely to follow this year. “If they continue to mobilise, we will not have enough [staff] to operate,” Mauro Longobardo, the plant’s chief executive, told the Financial Times. “We are talking here about existence of the company.” In an effort to lure staff, ArcelorMittal has placed huge billboards across the city featuring women in the plant’s orange overalls, with slogans such as “Ladies really run things here!”. “We are trying to break the paradigm that only men can do some specific jobs,” Longobardo said. - FT
