Tourists are waiting more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens. Taxi lines at Rome’s main train station are running just as long. And so many visitors are concentrating around St. Mark’s Square in Venice that crowds get backed up crossing bridges — even on weekdays.

After three years of pandemic limitations, tourism is expected to exceed 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations this summer, from Barcelona and Rome, Athens and Venice to the scenic islands of Santorini in Greece, Capri in Italy and Mallorca in Spain.

While European tourists edged the industry toward recovery last year, the upswing this summer is led largely by Americans, boosted by a strong dollar and in some cases pandemic savings. Many arrive motivated by “revenge tourism” — so eager to explore again that they’re undaunted by higher airfares and hotel costs.

Lauren Gonzalez, 25, landed in Rome this week with four high school and college friends for a 16-day romp through the Italian capital, Florence and the seaside after three years of U.S. vacations. They aren’t concerned about the high prices and the crowds.

“We kind of saved up, and we know this is a trip that is meaningful,” said Gonzalez, who works at a marketing agency. “We are all in our mid-20s. It’s a (moment of) change in our lives. … This is something special. The crowds don’t deter us. We live in Florida. We have all been to Disney World in the heat. We are all good.”

Americans appear equally unperturbed by recent riots in Paris and other French cities. There was a small drop in flight bookings, but it was mainly for domestic travel.

 

“Some of my friends said, ‘It’s a little crazy there right now,’ but we thought summer is really a good time for us to go, so we’ll just take precautions,” Joanne Titus, a 38-year-old from Maryland, said while strolling the iconic Champs-Elysees shopping boulevard.

The return of mass tourism is a boon to hotels and restaurants, which suffered under COVID-19 restrictions. But there is a downside, too, as pledges to rethink tourism to make it more sustainable have largely gone unheeded.

“The pandemic should have taught us a lesson,” said Alessandra Priante, director of the regional department for Europe at the U.N. World Tourism Organization.

Instead, she said, the mindset “is about recuperating the cash. Everything is about revenue, about the here and now.”

“We have to see what is going to happen in two or three years’ time because the prices at the moment are unsustainable,” she said.

The mayor of Florence is stopping new short-term apartment rentals from proliferating in the historic center, which is protected as a UNESCO heritage site, as mayors of Italy’s other art cities call for a nationwide law to manage the sector.

Elsewhere, the anti-mass tourism movements that were active before the pandemic have not reappeared, but the battle lines are still being drawn: graffiti misdirected tourists in Barcelona away from — instead of toward — the Gaudi-designed Park Guell.

Despite predictable pockets of overtourism, travel to and within Europe overall is still down 10% from 2019, according to the World Tourism Organization. That is partly due to fewer people visiting countries close to the war in Ukraine, including Lithuania, Finland, Moldova and Poland.

In addition, Chinese visitors have not fully returned, with flights from China and other Asia-Pacific countries down 45% from 2019, according to travel data company ForwardKeys.

Tourism-dependent Greece expects 30 million visitors this year, still shy of 2019’s 34 million record. Still, the number of flights are up so far, and tourist hotspots are taking the brunt.

The Culture Ministry will introduce a new ticketing system for the Acropolis this month, providing hourly slots for visitors to even out crowds. But no remedy is being discussed for the parking line of cruise ships on the islands of Mykonos and Santorini on busy mornings.

Spain’s tourism minister, Hector Gomez, called it “a historic summer for tourism,” with 8.2 million tourists arriving in May alone, breaking records for a second straight month. Still, some hotel groups say reservations slowed in the first weeks of summer, owing to the steep rise in prices for flights and rooms.

Costs are growing as flights from the U.S. to Europe are up 2% from 2019 levels, according to ForwardKeys.

 

“The rising appetite for long-haul travel from America is the continued result of the ‘revenge travel’ boom caused by the pandemic lockdowns,” said Tim Hentschel, CEO of HotelPlanner, a booking site. “Big cities within these popular European countries are certainly going to be busy during the summer.”

Americans have pushed arrivals in Italian bucket-list destinations like Rome, Florence, Venice and Capri above pre-pandemic levels, according to Italy’s hotel association, Federalberghi.

They bring a lot of pent-up buying power: U.S. tourists in Italy spent 74% more in tax-free indulgences in the first three months of the year, compared with same period of 2019.

“Then there is the rest of Italy that lives from Italian and European tourism, and at the moment, it is still under 2019 levels,” Federalberghi president Bernabo Bocca said.

He expects it will take another year for an across-the-board recovery. An economic slowdown discouraged German arrivals, while Italians “are less prone to spending this year,” he said.

And wallets will be stretched. Lodging costs in Florence rose 53% over last year, while Venice saw a 25% increase and Rome a 21% hike, according to the Italian consumer group Codacons.

Even gelato will cost a premium 21% over last year, due to higher sugar and milk prices.

Perhaps nothing has encouraged the rise in tourism in key spots more than a surge in short-term apartment rentals. With hotel room numbers constant, Bocca of Federalberghi blames the surge for the huge crowds in Rome, inflating taxi lines and crowding crosswalks so that city buses cannot continue their routes.

In Rome and Florence, “walking down the street, out of every building door, emerges a tourist with a suitcase,” he said.

While Florence’s mayor is limiting the number of short-term rentals in the historic center to 8,000, no action has been taken in Venice. The canal-lined city counts 49,432 residents in its historic center and 49,272 tourist beds, nearly half of those being apartments available for short-term rental.

Inconveniences are “daily,” said Giacomo Salerno, a researcher at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University focusing on tourism.

It difficult to walk down streets clogged with visitors or take public water buses “saturated with tourists with their suitcases,” he said.

Students cannot find affordable housing because owners prefer to cash in with vacation rentals. The dwindling number of residents means a dearth of services, including a lack of family doctors largely due to the high cost of living, driven up by tourist demand.

Venice has delayed plans to charge day-trippers a tax to enter the city, meant to curb arrivals. But activists like Salerno say that will do little to resolve the issue of a declining population and encroaching tourists, instead cementing Venice’s fate as “an amusement park.”

“It would be like saying the only use for the city is touristic,” Salerno said.
…

Ukrainians have quickly learned how to counter Russian information attacks since Russia’s invasion in the country, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on her official Telegram channel Saturday.
Since last July, the U.K. has trained 18,000 Ukrainian volunteer infantrymen under the Operation Interflex training program, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian soldiers have been trained to “survive and be lethal in their fight against the illegal invasion of their homeland” it said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin could be arrested if he attends the BRICS summit scheduled in South Africa because of an arrest warrant issued against him last March by the International Criminal Court, which accused him of the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.

 

Russia’s security apparatus experienced “a period of confusion and negotiations,” following the Wagner Group’s mutiny last month, the British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily intelligence update about Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, however, an interim arrangement for the mercenary group’s future is shaping up, according to the report posted on Twitter.

Meanwhile, some social media groups associated with Wagner restarted their postings, focusing on Wagner’s activities in Africa. The ministry said recent announcements from Russian officials indicate that Russia is “likely prepared” to accept “Wagner’s aspirations to maintain its extensive presence on the continent.”

Both Ukraine and Poland Saturday confirmed the arrival of Wagner forces in Belarus, one day after Minsk said the mercenaries were training its troops.

“There may be several hundred of them at the moment,” Stanislaw Zaryn, Poland’s deputy minister coordinator of special services, said on Twitter.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, has not been spotted in Belarus – he has not been seen in public since June 24.

Black Sea Grain Initiative

Russian President Vladimir Putin is remaining silent about a possible extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative that is set to expire Monday.

In a phone call Saturday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Putin discussed “the need for a permanent and sustainable solution to the movement of grain from Russia and Ukraine to the international markets,” according to the South African president’s office. No further details were provided.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked Putin to extend the Black Sea deal in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT international payment system, but he has not received a reply, according to a U.N. spokesperson Friday.

“Discussions are being had, WhatsApp messages are being sent, Signal messages are being sent and exchanged. We’re also waiting for a response to the letter,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters when asked about the negotiations.

Russia has said it would agree to extend the deal only if its conditions are met regarding implementation.

Ukraine-South Korea

In a display of support for Ukraine, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol made a surprise visit to Saturday to Kyiv, announcing that Seoul will increase aid to Ukraine to $150 million this year, following an $100 million aid package last year. Yoon also said that Seoul will cooperate with Kyiv on infrastructure projects in Ukraine.

In a press conference Saturday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Yoon said South Korea aims to provide “a larger scale of military supplies” to Ukraine this year, after last year supplying nonlethal military inventory, such as body armor and helmets. He did not provide details. Zelenskyy thanked the South Korean president for his country’s support.

Earlier this month, Yoon told The Associated Press that supplies of de-mining equipment, ambulances, and other nonmilitary materials “are in the works” after a request from Ukraine, adding that South Korea already provided support to rebuild the Kakhovka Dam, destroyed last month.

South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia, has joined in the international sanctions against Russia and has provided Ukraine with humanitarian and financial support. So far, it has not provided weapons, in line with its long-standing policy of not supplying arms to countries actively engaged in conflict.

Yoon’s visit to Ukraine, his first, comes on the heels of NATO’s two-day summit in Lithuania this week.

Yoon and his wife toured Bucha and Irpin, two small cities near Kyiv where mass graves were discovered after Russian troops retreated last year. He laid flowers at a monument to the country’s war dead.

In his address Saturday, Zelenskyy called Yoon’s visit to Ukraine very important and “a very important direction of our international work.” He also thanked several countries, leaders and organizations for supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression.

Zaporizhzhia shelling

Russia and Ukraine traded blame Saturday for shelling that injured three civilians in a village the Zaporizhzhia region. The region is one of four Moscow said it annexed last year, but it does not control it.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, said Russian forces shelled the village of Stepnohirske, where the three people were injured. The city of Zaporizhzhia was also targeted and 16 buildings were damaged, said Anatoliy Kurtiev, secretary of the city council. Both men spoke via the Telegram messaging app.

Meanwhile, the Moscow-installed official who oversees the parts of Zaporizhzhia Russia controls said Ukrainian forces destroyed a school in the village of Stulneve, while air defense intercepted a drone over the city of Tokmak.

Reuters could not independently verify either report.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Thousands of participants of the Budapest Pride march wound through the streets of the Hungarian capital on Saturday with marchers voicing their anxiety over the increasing pressure on the LGBTQ+ community from the country’s right-wing government.

The 28th annual event comes as the country’s laws, which ban the depiction of homosexuality or gender transition, to minors under 18 have begun to be applied with increasing regularity, resulting in fines and other penalties for those who disseminate LGBTQ+ content.

Before the march, which began in Budapest’s city park, Pride organizer Jojo Majercsik said that while the laws, passed in 2021, didn’t have immediate practical effects, they are now increasingly being used to crack down on LGBTQ+ visibility.

“You can now see how the propaganda law passed two years ago is being applied in practice and how the public discourse has become more angry,” Majercsik said, referring to the 2021 law. “It is now apparent how they are trying to limit the rights of LGBTQ people in the media world, in the world of movies, films and books.”

Majercsik pointed to a number of recent instances of media content that depicted LGBTQ+ people being restricted. This week, a national bookseller was fined around $36,000 for placing a popular LGBTQ+ graphic novel in its youth literature section, and for failing to place it in closed packaging as required by law.

Additionally, a 30-second animated campaign video produced by Budapest Pride — in which two female characters meet and touch foreheads — was ruled unsuitable for audiences under 18 by Hungary’s media authority, and may therefore only be broadcast between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Such policies, enacted by the governing party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have led rights groups to warn that the rights of sexual minorities are being rapidly drawn back in the Central European country.

Orban’s government portrays itself as a champion of traditional family values, and a defender of Christian civilization from what it calls “gender madness.” It has repeatedly said its laws were designed to protect children from “sexual propaganda.”

But some Hungarians see the policies as deliberate attempts to stigmatize the LGBTQ+ community for political gain.

David Vig, director at Amnesty International Hungary, said that in contrast to some countries in Western Europe and North America where Pride events are celebrations of LGBTQ+ history and culture, Budapest Pride is a way of protesting increasing crackdowns on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“Unlike Pride marches in more happy countries of the world, this is really a human rights demonstration,” Vig told The Associated Press. “This is for social acceptance and this is for equal rights, because in Hungary, these are not secured. We are second-class citizens in many spheres of public life.”

Vig recounted a conflict that ensued this week after Amnesty International Hungary painted a city bench in rainbow colors to celebrate Pride month. The bench was defaced several times throughout the week by a white supremacist group of soccer fans, and anti-LGBTQ+ slogans were spraypainted in the vicinity.

“It is really a clear political message of stopping the LGBTQI community of the country from coming into public spaces, to showing who we are,” Vig said.

On Saturday, a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack struck Budapest Pride’s official webpage shortly before noon. It was unavailable throughout the day. Several small groups of counterprotesters lined the streets on the Pride march route, waving banners with anti-LGBTQ+ slogans.

But despite such opposition, Kristof Steiner, an emcee at Budapest Pride, said there were signs that younger generations of Hungarians are increasingly tolerant of the LGBTQ+ community.

“There are new laws that are making it nearly impossible for an LGBTQ person to live normally. We are being very much marginalized,” he said. “But at the same time, there is a very positive change. I see that the new generation is completely different.”

Nimrod Dagan, a Pride march participant, said he thinks LGBTQ+ rights in Hungary and in his home country of Israel are being “taken away,” and that he feels a responsibility to stand up for his community by taking part in the march.

“I don’t think it’s a celebration. It’s clear for everybody here that, unlike in other countries … of the world, there is a bigger meaning to this,” Dagan said. “I would say that it’s a happy protest.”
…

When Marketa Vondrousova punched away a volley and fell to the ground after completing one of the most unexpected runs to the Wimbledon title, a jumble of thoughts must have been running through her head.

After all, Saturday was meant to be the day when Tunisian sixth seed Ons Jabeur would finally become the first Arab and first African woman to win a Grand Slam title.

Instead, a distraught Jabeur was left with tears streaming down her face as her Wimbledon dream was wrecked in the final for the second year running with a 6-4 6-4 drubbing.

In stark contrast, Vondrousova knelt down on the grass in her moment of triumph — staring at the turf that until this fortnight had not brought her much joy.

The Czech left-hander had won only one match at the All England Club before this year and 12 months ago she had come to London as a tennis tourist with her arm and elbow in a plaster cast as she recovered from a second bout of wrist surgery.

Her time out from the sport meant that she fell so far off the tennis radar that she no longer even had a clothing sponsor.

But the 42nd-ranked Czech put those problems behind her to become the first unseeded woman to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish as she completed her own phenomenal comeback story.

“I don’t know what’s happening right now,” Vondrousova said during the presentation ceremony as she was given a standing ovation by a 15,000-strong capacity Centre Court crowd that included tennis greats Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova.

“Ons, you are such an inspiration for all of us and I hope you will win this one day; you are an amazing person.

“This time last year I had a cast on so it’s amazing that I can now stand here and hold this [trophy], it’s crazy,” added the Czech, whose husband Stepan Simek had flown in from Prague especially for the final after being relieved of his cat-sitting duties at home.

“It’s amazing as tomorrow is the first anniversary of our wedding. I am exhausted but I am so proud. I am going to have a beer as it’s been an exhausting two weeks,” said Vondrousova.

While the clearly elated Czech began her victory lap to show off the Rosewater Dish to all corners of Centre Court, Britain’s Princess of Wales was left to console a sobbing Jabeur who could not fathom how she had messed up her chance of holding aloft the most famous trophy in women’s tennis.

The truth of the matter was that she was the architect of her own downfall, with the 31 unforced errors she produced telling their own story.

“This is very, very, tough. I am going to look ugly for those photos,” the 28-year-old Jabeur told the crowd.

After the hollering fans gave the crowd favorite a prolonged ovation, she added: “This is the most painful loss of my career.

“Today is going to be a tough day for me but I’m not going to give up and I am going to come back stronger. It’s been a tough journey, but I promise I will come back and one day win this tournament.”

Only time will tell if she can fulfill that promise but on Saturday, she was ruing all the chances she had missed during the opening exchanges of a contest that was effectively being played in an indoor arena after the roof was closed to block out the howling winds blowing through the grounds.

Jabeur knows she could have won the first set 6-0, having had game points in each of the opening six games. But the variety, imagination and mental fortitude she had shown to knock out four Grand Slam champions en route to the final simply deserted her on Saturday.

She let a 2-0 opening-set lead slip through her fingers, with Vondrousova breaking back and then saving four break points in the fourth game.

It still seemed like Jabeur had the match on her racket when she leapt to a 4-2 lead by breaking her 24-year-old opponent to love.

But then inexplicably the wheels fell off Jabeur’s game as she lost 16 of the next 18 points, with a sloppy service return handing Vondrousova the set.

While the Czech was on a roll, winning five games on the trot, the crowd did their best to wake up Jabeur who appeared to be trapped in her own personal nightmare, albeit in front of a global audience.

The Tunisian, who also lost the 2022 U.S. Open final to Iga Swiatek, finally responded to take a 3-1 lead in the second set but that respite proved to be a false dawn.

The racket she had used as a wand to bamboozle six other rivals during these championships had lost its magical powers and she conceded five of the next six games in a hail of unforced errors, leaving Vondrousova to bask in the glory of following in the footsteps of fellow Czech-born Wimbledon champions Navratilova, Jana Novotna and Petra Kvitova.
…

Tens of millions were battling dangerously high temperatures in the United States on Saturday as record heat forecasts hung over Europe and Japan, in the latest example of the threat from climate change.

A powerful heat wave stretching from California to Texas was expected to peak as the National Weather Service warned of an “extremely hot and dangerous weekend.”

Daytime highs were forecast to range between 10- and 20-degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the U.S. Southwest.

In Arizona, one of the hardest-hit states, residents face a daily endurance marathon against the sun.

The state capital, Phoenix, recorded 16 straight days above 43 degrees Celsius (109F), with temperatures hitting 44C (111F) on Saturday en route to an expected 46C (115F).

California’s Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth, is also likely to register new peaks on Sunday, with the mercury possibly rising to 54C (130F).

Temperatures reached 48C (118F) by midday on Saturday and even overnight lows could exceed 38C (100F).

Authorities have been sounding the alarm, advising people to avoid outdoor activities in the daytime and to be wary of dehydration.

At a construction site outside Houston, Texas, a 28-year-old worker who gave his name only as Juan helped complete a wall in the blazing heat.

“Just when I take a drink of water, I get dizzy, I want to vomit because of the heat,” he told AFP.  

The Las Vegas weather service warned that assuming high temperatures naturally come with the area’s desert climate was “a DANGEROUS mindset! This heat wave is NOT typical desert heat.”

Southern California is fighting numerous wildfires, including one in Riverside County that has burned more than 1,214 hectares (3,000 acres) and prompted evacuation orders.

Further north, the Canadian government reported that wildfires had burned a record-breaking 10 million hectares (25 million acres) this year, with more damage expected as the summer drags on.  

Historic highs forecast

In Europe, Italy faces weekend predictions of historic highs, and the health ministry issued a red alert for 16 cities including Rome, Bologna and Florence.

The weather center warned Italians to prepare for “the most intense heat wave of the summer and also one of the most intense of all time.”

The thermometer is likely to hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in Rome by Monday and even 43C (109F) on Tuesday, smashing the record of 40.5C set in August 2007.

The islands of Sicily and Sardinia could wilt under temperatures as high as 48C (118F), the European Space Agency warned — “potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe.”

The Acropolis in Athens, one of Greece’s top tourist attractions, will close during the hottest hours on Sunday, the third day running.

In France, high temperatures and resulting drought are posing a threat to the farming industry, earning Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau criticism from climatologists on Saturday for having brushed aside conditions as “normal enough for summer.”  

This June was the second hottest on record in France, according to the national weather agency, and several areas of the country have been under a heat wave alert since Tuesday.  

There is little reprieve ahead for Spain, as its meteorological agency warned Saturday that a new heat wave Monday through Wednesday will bring temperatures above 40C (104F) to the Canary Islands and the southern Andalusia region.  

Killer rains

Parts of eastern Japan are also expected to reach 38 (100F) to 39C (102F) on Sunday and Monday, with the meteorological agency warning temperatures could hit previous records.

Relentless monsoon rains have reportedly killed at least 90 people in northern India, after burning heat.

The Yamuna River running through the capital, New Delhi, has reached a record high, threatening low-lying neighborhoods in the megacity of more than 20 million people.

Major flooding and landslides are common during India’s monsoons, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency and severity.

Morocco was slated for above-average temperatures this weekend with highs of 47C in some provinces — more typical of August than July — sparking concerns for water shortages, the meteorological service said.  

River Tigris shrinking

Water-scarce Jordan was forced to dump 214 metric tons of water on a wildfire that broke out in the Ajloun forest in the north amid a heat wave, the army said.  

In Iraq, where scorching summers are common, Wissam Abed usually cools off from Baghdad’s brutal summer by swimming in the Tigris River.

But as rivers dry up, so does the age-old pastime.  

With temperatures near 50C (122F) and wind whipping through the city like a hairdryer, Abed stood in the middle of the river, but the water only came up to his waist.

“Year after year, the water situation gets worse,” the 37-year-old told AFP.

While it can be difficult to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, scientists insist global warming, linked to dependence on fossil fuels, is behind the multiplication and intensification of heat waves.

The EU’s climate monitoring service said the world saw its hottest June on record last month.
…

Spanish authorities have preemptively evacuated some 500 people to avoid a wildfire that has broken out on the Canary Island of La Palma. 

The regional president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, said Saturday that, in addition to forcing the removal of the residents, the blaze has destroyed at least 11 homes within the relatively small burned zone of 140 hectares (345 acres). He warned that the number of evacuees could easily increase. 

“With the resources that we are deploying, we hope we can control the fire today, but the winds are shifting,” Clavijo said. “More gusting winds are expected and combined with the dryness of the terrain and the lack of rain, this situation is complicated.” 

Spain’s army has deployed 150 of its firefighters to help local crews battle the blaze. More local firefighters are arriving on boats from the neighboring island of Tenerife, according to Clavijo. 

The fire is on the western side of the island on wooded, hilly terrain dotted with homes. It is not an area that was directly impacted by the 2021 volcano eruption. 

Puntagorda Mayor Vicente Rodríguez told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE that the fire started inside the limits of his municipality. He added that the area has seen below-average rainfall in recent years, just like large parts of the drought-stricken mainland, due to changing weather patterns impacted by climate change. 

The fire coincides with a heatwave that is hitting southern Europe. 

Spain saw record high temperatures in 2022 and this spring as it endures a prolonged drought. Authorities and forestry experts are concerned that the conditions are ripe for a difficult wildfire campaign after seeing virulent fires as early as March. 

La Palma, with a population of 85,000, is one of eight members of Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago off Africa’s western coast. At their nearest point, the islands are 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Morocco. 
…

The U.K.’s oldest medical union Saturday hit out at government plans to increase the amount migrant workers pay to use the state health care service, to cover public-sector wage increases.  

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government this week approved recommendations to boost wages of teachers, doctors and police by between 5.0 to 7.0 percent.  

Sunak ruled out tax increases or government borrowing to fund the raise but instead said hikes in the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and visa fees would raise $1.3 billion.  

Doctors in Unite, which represents junior doctors, general practitioners and hospital consultants, said it was “appalled” at the move, as it would see migrants pay double to use the National Health Service (NHS).  

Most employees in the U.K. have National Insurance contributions deducted at the source on their salaries, which pays for the National Health Service, as well as state pension and unemployment schemes. 

“Just like other workers, migrants contribute to NHS funding through general taxation. Doubling the NHS surcharge to over $1,570 per year is an unjust additional penalty,” Doctors in Unite said.  

“Migrants are effectively ‘taxed twice’ to access the same service,” it added, calling the move “immoral and divisive.”  

The IHS, initially brought in to prevent “medical tourism,” is now paid by most migrants under tighter post-Brexit entry rules. 

It is paid per person in addition to visa fees for stays of more than six months.  

Over-18s pay $817 per year while students and under-18s pay $615 per year.  

The government has proposed raising the IHS for adults to $1,355, and $1,016 at the reduced rate. 

Work and visit visas will go up by 15 percent, while the cost of student and leave-to-remain visas among others will rise by at least 20 percent.  

Net migration in the U.K. hit a record 606,000 in 2022, according to official figures released in May, heaping pressure on the government, which has pledged to cut dependency on foreign labor.  

Sunak has described legal immigration levels as “too high,” and is separately battling record levels of asylum claims from migrants crossing the Channel in small boats.  

Critics warn the IHS increases — paid for by individuals or their companies — could worsen under-staffing in many sectors, and prompt high-skilled workers and students to go elsewhere. 

Migrant and refugee charity Praxis has accused ministers of treating people born outside the U.K. as “cash cows” at a time when they were struggling to repay already high visa renewal fees. 

The genomics research center The Wellcome Sanger Institute said it spent more than $393,000 in immigration fees for its employees in 2022. 

“These proposed increases create further barriers for global talent… and will have a detrimental effect on [the] U.K. and global science,” said head of policy Sarion Bowers. 
…

Even on the streets of London, Finn Lau does not feel safe from the reach of the Chinese Communist Party.

He is among the exiled pro-democracy activists facing arrest warrants issued by Hong Kong authorities last week, with a reward of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) offered for information that helps lead to their detention.

Since then, Lau said he has seen several menacing online messages from pro-Chinese groups.

“I got some screenshots coming from some Telegram groups, saying that ‘perhaps we should lure them with some kind of tactics, such that we could catch them or kill them,” he said.

Lau helped to organize the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. 

“I proposed different kinds of strategies, hosted different rallies and even did advocacy abroad,” Lau told VOA, “So that’s why they are accusing me of so-called collusion with foreign forces.”

Lau was arrested on January 1, 2020, but Hong Kong police failed to identify him as a ringleader, and he was released.

Soon after that he fled to Britain. China has since issued several arrest warrants for him but earlier this month was the first time Hong Kong authorities explicitly offered a bounty for his arrest.

“The head of the Hong Kong government, he said they will chase us until the end of the world,” Lau said. 

“To be honest I feel less safe in the U.K.. After all I faced different kinds of harassment, no matter whether it is virtual online harassment or physical harassment, for the last few years. I was attacked near my home in 2020.”  

That attack in London left Lau with severe injuries. He described the attackers as of East Asian origin and said he believes they were directed by the Chinese government, though Beijing denies involvement. British police have failed to identify the attackers.

Lau is demanding that British authorities take the latest threats more seriously.

“I request for assurance from the U.K. government that if there is anyone attempting to kidnap or to detain me under the so-called Hong Kong National Security Law, then they should be tried and charged under U.K. law for kidnapping.” 

“I have tried to contact the [British] Home Office as well as the police, several times. But there is no response at all,” he told VOA.

Lau said he believes Britain is reluctant to take a harder line as it does not want to jeopardize trade links with China.

“The U.K. government is one of the democratic countries that should hold China accountable, especially for what the Chinese Communist Party has been doing in Hong Kong. The U.K. government has signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration with the PRC back in 1984, which guaranteed – in theory – at least 50 years of autonomy, rule of law, civil liberties etc., to Hong Kongers after the 1997 Hong Kong handover,” Lau added.

The British government did not respond directly to VOA requests for comment. 

Foreign Office ministers have recently condemned the bounties offered for the arrest of the Hong Kong activists. They said it is a long-standing policy not to comment on operational matters regarding their protection in Britain.

Despite the reward for his arrest, Lau said he is not deterred.

“I should continue to fight on behalf of other Hong Kongers who cannot do so in Hong Kong. I’ve got friends sitting in the prison of Hong Kong. So that’s why I must continue to fight.”

Meanwhile, Hong Kong police this week called several family members of Nathan Law in for questioning. Law is another pro-democracy activist and former lawmaker living in London, also subject to an arrest warrant and bounty. They were released without charge.
…

The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers.

Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws.

Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground for fellow prisoners who had not survived. One man who refused to dig was shot on the spot — yet another body for the grave.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are being detained across Russia and the Ukrainian territories it occupies, in centers ranging from brand-new wings in Russian prisons to clammy basements. Most have no status under Russian law.

And Russia is planning to hold possibly thousands more. A Russian government document obtained by The Associated Press dating to January outlined plans to create 25 new prison colonies and six other detention centers in occupied Ukraine by 2026.

In addition, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in May allowing Russia to send people from territories with martial law, which includes all of occupied Ukraine, to those without, such as Russia. This makes it easier to deport Ukrainians who resist Russian occupation deep into Russia indefinitely, which has happened in multiple cases documented by the AP.

Many civilians are picked up for alleged transgressions as minor as speaking Ukrainian or simply being a young man in an occupied region, and are often held without charge. Others are charged as terrorists, combatants, or people who “resist the special military operation.” Hundreds are used for slave labor by Russia’s military, for digging trenches and other fortifications, as well as mass graves.

Torture is routine, including repeated electrical shocks, beatings that crack skulls and fracture ribs, and simulated suffocation. Many former prisoners told the AP they witnessed deaths. A United Nations report from late June documented 77 summary executions of civilian captives and the death of one man due to torture.

Russia does not acknowledge holding civilians at all, let alone its reasons for doing so. But the prisoners serve as future bargaining chips in exchanges for Russian soldiers, and the U.N. has said there is evidence of civilians being used as human shields near the front lines.

The AP spoke with dozens of people, including 20 former detainees, along with ex-prisoners of war, the families of more than a dozen civilians in detention, two Ukrainian intelligence officials and a government negotiator. Their accounts, as well as satellite imagery, social media, government documents and copies of letters delivered by the Red Cross, confirm a widescale Russian system of detention and abuse of civilians that stands in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Some civilians were held for days or weeks, while others have vanished for well over a year. Nearly everyone freed said they experienced or witnessed torture, and most described being shifted from one place to another without explanation.

“It’s a business of human trafficking,” said Olena Yahupova, the city administrator who was forced to dig trenches for the Russians in Zaporizhzhia. “If we don’t talk about it and keep silent, then tomorrow anyone can be there — my neighbor, acquaintance, child.”

Invisible prisoners

The new building in the compound of Prison Colony No. 2 is at least two stories tall, separated from the main prison by a thick wall.

This facility in Russia’s eastern Rostov region has gone up since the war started in February 2022, according to satellite imagery analyzed by the AP. It could easily house the hundreds of Ukrainian civilians who are believed detained there, according to former captives, families of the missing, human rights activists and Russian lawyers. Two exiled Russian human rights advocates said it is heavily guarded by soldiers and armored vehicles.

The building in Rostov is one of at least 40 detention facilities in Russia and Belarus, and 63 makeshift and formal in occupied Ukrainian territory where Ukrainian civilians are held, according to an AP map built on data from former captives, the Ukrainian Media Initiative for Human Rights, and the Russian human rights group Gulagu.net. The recent U.N. report counted a total of 37 facilities in Russia and Belarus and 125 in occupied Ukraine.

Some also hold Russian prisoners accused or convicted of a variety of crimes. Other, more makeshift locations are near the front lines, and the AP documented two locations where former prisoners say Ukrainians were forced to dig trenches.

The shadowy nature of the system makes it difficult to know exactly how many civilians are being detained. Ukraine’s government has been able to confirm legal details of a little over 1,000 who are facing charges.

At least 4,000 civilians are held in Russia and at least as many scattered around the occupied territories, according to Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist who talks to informants within Russian prisons and founded Gulagu.net to document abuses. Osechkin showed AP a Russian prison document from 2022 saying that 119 people ”opposed to the special military operation” in Ukraine were moved by plane to the main prison colony in the Russian region of Voronezh. Many Ukrainians later freed by Russia also described unexplained plane transfers.

In all, Ukraine’s government believes around 10,000 civilians could be detained, according to Ukrainian negotiator Oleksandr Kononeko, based on reports from loved ones, as well as post-release interviews with some civilians and the hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers returned in prisoner exchanges. Ukraine said in June that about 150 civilians have been freed to Ukrainian-controlled territory, and the Russians deny holding others.

“They say, ‘We don’t have these people, it’s you who is lying,'” Kononeko said.

The detention of two men from the Kherson region in August 2022 offers a glimpse at how hard it is for families to track down loved ones in Russian custody.

Artem Baranov, a security guard, and Yevhen Pryshliak, who worked at a local asphalt plant with his father, had been friends for over a decade. Their relationship was cemented when both bought dogs during the coronavirus pandemic, according to Baranov’s common-law wife, Ilona Slyva. Their evening walks continued even after Russia seized their hometown of Nova Kakhovka — shy Baranov with a giant black Italian mastiff and Pryshliak with a toy poodle whose apricot fur matched his beard.

Their walk ran late the night of Aug. 15, and Pryshliak decided to stay at Baranov’s apartment rather than risk being caught breaking the Russian curfew. Neighbors later told the family that 15 armed Russian soldiers swooped in, ransacked the apartment and seized the men.

For a month, they were in the local jail, with conditions relaxed enough that Slyva was able to talk to Pryshliak through the fence. Baranov, he told her, couldn’t come out.

She sent in packages of food and clothes but did not know if they were reaching him. Finally, on Baranov’s birthday, she bought his favorite dessert of cream eclairs, smashed them up, and slipped in a scrap of paper with her new Russian phone number scrawled on it. She hoped the guards would have little interest in the sticky mess and just pass it along.

A month went by, and the families learned the men had been transferred to a new prison in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Then the trail went dark.

Four more months passed. Then a call came from the family of a man they had never met but would soon come to know well: Pavlo Zaporozhets.

Zaporozhets, a Ukrainian from the occupied Kherson region charged with international terrorism, was sharing a cell in Rostov with Baranov. Since he faced charges, he had a lawyer.

It was then that Slyva knew her gift of eclairs — and the phone number smuggled within them — had reached its destination. Baranov had memorized her number and passed it through a complex chain that finally got news of him to her on April 7.

Baranov wrote that he was accused of espionage — an accusation that Slyva scorned as falling apart even under Russia’s internal logic. He was detained in August, and Russia illegally annexed the regions only in October.

“When he was detained, he was on his own national territory,” she said. “They thought and thought and invented a criminal case against him for espionage.”

Baranov wrote home that he was transported across prisons with his eyes closed in two planes, one of which had about 60 people. He and Pryshliak were separated at their third transfer in late winter. Pryshliak’s family has received a form letter from the Rostov prison denying he is an inmate there.

The number of civilian detainees has grown rapidly over the course of the war. In the first wave early on, Russian units moved in with lists of activists, pro-Ukrainian community leaders, and military veterans. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov was taken when Russian forces seized control of his city but exchanged within a week for nine Russian soldiers, he said.

Then they focused on teachers and doctors who refused to work with the occupation authorities. But the reasons for apprehending people today are as mundane as tying a ribbon to a bicycle in the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow.

“Now there is no logic,” Fedorov said.

He estimated that around 500 Ukrainian civilians are detained just in his city at any time — numbers echoed by multiple people interviewed by the AP.

A Ukrainian intelligence official said the Russian fear of dissidents had become “pathological” since last fall, as Russians brace for Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation.

The AP saw multiple missing person notices posted on closed Ukrainian social media chats for young men seized off the streets. The messages, written in Ukrainian, describe detentions at gunpoint at home and on the street, with pleas to send information and emojis of hearts and praying hands.

The Geneva Conventions in general forbid the arbitrary detention or forced deportation of civilians, and state that detainees must be allowed to communicate with loved ones, obtain legal counsel and challenge allegations against them. But first they must be found.

After months writing letter after letter to locate Pryshliak, his sister-in-law Liubov thinks she knows why the prisoners are moved around: “So that the families cannot find them. Just to hide the traces of crimes.”

Slaves in the trenches

Hundreds of civilians end up in a place that is possibly even more dangerous than the prisons: the trenches of occupied Ukraine.

There, they are forced to build protection for Russian soldiers, according to multiple people who managed to leave Russian custody. Among them was Yahupova, the 50-year-old civil administrator detained in October 2022 in the Zaporizhzhia region, possibly because she is married to a Ukrainian soldier.

Under international humanitarian law, Yahupova is a civilian — defined as anyone who is not an active member of or volunteer for the armed forces. Documented breaches of the law constitute a war crime and, if widespread and systematic, “may also constitute a crime against humanity.”

But the distinctions between soldiers and civilians can be hard to prove in a war where Ukraine has urged all its citizens to help, for example by sending Russian troop locations via social media. In practice, the Russians are scooping up civilians along with soldiers, including those denounced by neighbors for whatever reason or seized seemingly at random.

They picked Yahupova up at her house in October. Then they demanded she reveal information about her husband, taping a plastic bag over her face, beating her on the head with a filled water bottle and tightening a cable around her neck.

They also dragged her out of the cell and drove her around town to identify pro-Ukrainian locals. She didn’t.

When they hauled her out a second time, she was exhausted. As a soldier placed her in front of a Russian news camera, she could still feel the dried blood on the back of her neck. She was going to give an interview, her captors told her.

Behind the camera, a gun was pointed at her head. The soldier holding it told her that if she gave the right answers to the Russian journalist interviewing her, she could go free.

But she didn’t know what the right answers were. She went back to the cell.

Three months later, without explanation, Yahupova was again pulled outside. This time, she was driven to a deserted checkpoint, where yet another Russian news crew awaited. She was ordered to hold hands with two men and walk about 5 meters (yards) toward Ukraine.

The three Ukrainians were ordered to do another take. And another, to show that Russia was freeing the Ukrainian civilians in its custody.

Except, at the end of the last take, Russian soldiers loaded them into a truck and drove them to a nearby crossroads. One put shovels into their hands.

“Now you will do something for the good of the Russian Federation,” he said.

And so Yahupova ended up digging trenches until mid-March with more than a dozen Ukrainian civilians, including business owners, a student, a teacher, and utility workers. She could see other crews in the distance, with armed guards standing over them. Most wore Russian military uniforms and boots, and lived in fear that Ukrainian artillery would mistake them for the enemy.

The AP confirmed through satellite imagery the new trenches dug in the area where Yahupova and a man on the Ukrainian crew with her said they were held. He requested anonymity because his relatives still live under occupation.

“Sometimes we even worked there 24 hours a day, when they had an inspection coming,” he said.

The man also spoke with other Ukrainian civilians digging mass graves nearby for at least 15 people. He said one civilian had been shot for refusing to dig. Satellite imagery shows a mound of freshly-dug earth in the spot the man described.

The man escaped during a Russian troop rotation, and Yahupova also made her way out. But both said hundreds of others are still in the occupied front lines, forced to work for Russia or die.

When Yahupova returned to her home after more than five months, everything had been stolen. Her beloved dog had been shot. Her head ached, her vision was blurred, and her children — long since out of the occupied territories — urged her to leave.

She traveled thousands of miles through Russia, north to the Baltics and back around to the front line in Ukraine, where she reunited with her husband serving with Ukrainian forces. Earlier married in a civil ceremony, the two got wed this time in church.

Now safe in Ukrainian territory, Yahupova wants to testify against Russia — for the months it stole from her, the concussion that troubles her, the home she has lost. She still reflexively touches the back of her head, where the bottle struck her over and over.

“They stole not only from me, they stole from half the country,” she said.

Torture as a policy

The abuse Yahupova described is common. Torture was a constant, whether or not there was information to extract, according to every former detainee interviewed by the AP. The U.N. report from June said 91% of prisoners “described torture and ill-treatment.”

In the occupied territories, all the freed civilians interviewed by the AP described crammed rooms and cells, tools of torture prepared in advance, tape placed carefully next to office chairs to bind arms and legs, and repeated questioning by Russian’s FSB intelligence agency. Nearly 100 evidence photos obtained by the AP from Ukrainian investigators also showed instruments of torture found in liberated areas of Kherson, Kyiv and Kharkiv, including the same tools repeatedly described by former civilian captives held in Russia and occupied regions.

Many former detainees spoke of wires linking prisoners’ bodies to electricity in field telephones or radios or batteries, in a procedure one man said the Russians dubbed “call your mother” or “call Biden.” U.N. human rights investigators said one victim described the same treatment given to Yahupova, a severe beating on the head with a filled water bottle.

Viktoriia Andrusha, an elementary school math teacher, was seized by Russian forces on March 25, 2022, after they ransacked her parents’ home in Chernihiv and found photos of Russian military vehicles on her phone. By March 28, she was in a prison in Russia. Her captors told her Ukraine had fallen and no one wanted any civilians back.

For her, like so many others, torture came in the form of fists, batons of metal, wood and rubber, plastic bags. Men in black, with special forces chevrons on their sleeves, pummeled her in the prison corridor and in a ceramic-tiled room seemingly designed for quick cleaning. Russian propaganda played on a television above her.

“There was a point when I was already sitting and saying: Honestly, do what you want with me. I just don’t care anymore,” Andrusha said.

Along with the physical torture came mental anguish. Andrusha was told repeatedly that she would die in prison in Russia, that they would slash her with knives until she was unrecognizable, that her government cared nothing about a captive schoolteacher, that her family had forgotten her, that her language was useless. They forced captives to memorize verse after verse of the Russian national anthem and other patriotic songs.

“Their job was to influence us psychologically, to show us that we are not human,” she said. “Our task was to make sure that everything they did to us did not affect us.”

Then one day, without explanation, it was over for her and another woman kept with her. Guards ordered them to pack up, cuffed them and put them in a bus. The weight Andrusha had lost in prison showed starkly in the cast-off jacket that hung from her shoulders.

They were soon joined by Ukrainian soldiers held captive elsewhere. On the other side, Andrusha saw three Russian soldiers. Although international law forbids the exchange of civilians as prisoners of war, the U.N. report on June 27 said this has happened in at least 53 cases, and Melitopol Mayor Fedorov confirmed it happened to him.

A man detained with Andrusha in March 2022 is in captivity still. She doesn’t know the fate of the others she met. But many former captives take it upon themselves to contact the loved ones of their former cellmates.

Andrusha recalled hours spent memorizing whispered phone numbers in a circle with other Ukrainians, on the chance one of them might get out. When she was freed, she passed them along to Ukrainian government officials.

Andrusha has since regained some of her weight. She talks about her six months in prison calmly but with anger.

“I was able to survive this,” she said, after a day back in the classroom with her students. “There are so many cases when people do not return.”

In the meantime, for loved ones, the wait is agony.

Anna Vuiko’s father was one of the earliest civilians detained, in March last year. A former glass factory worker on disability, Roman Vuiko had resisted when Russian soldiers tried to take over his home in suburban Kyiv, neighbors told his adult daughter. They drove a military truck into the yard, shattered the windows, cuffed the 50-year-old man and drove off.

By May 2022, Vuiko was in a prison in Kursk, Russia, hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. All his daughter has gotten from him since is a handwritten letter, which arrived six months after he was taken away and four months after he wrote it. The standard phrases told his daughter nothing except that he was alive, and she suspects he has not received any of her letters.

“I think about it every day,” she said. “It’s been a year, more than a year. … How much more time has to pass?”
…

The United States took custody Friday of a Russian national extradited from Estonia and suspected of being an intelligence agent as the Biden administration pursues possible prisoner exchanges for U.S. detainees in Russia. 

Vadim Konoshchenok was arrested in Estonia late last year as he sought to cross the border into Russia carrying semiconductors and U.S.-made ammunition for sniper rifles, according to charges filed against him. 

He is alleged to be a central figure in a seven-person smuggling ring, which included five Russians and two Americans who operated “under the direction of Russian intelligence services” to obtain U.S. electronics and other goods restricted by U.S. export controls. 

U.S. officials said more than 450 kilograms of U.S.-origin ammunition was interdicted or seized from Konoshchenok’s operation. 

He faces up to 30 years in prison for conspiracy, violation of export controls, smuggling and money laundering.  

Konoshchenok “allegedly provided cutting edge, American-developed technologies and ammunition to Russia for use in their illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” said the Justice Department’s Andrew Adams. 

Konoshchenok’s extradition to the United States comes as Washington seeks to negotiate the return of U.S. citizens held by Moscow. 

They include Paul Whelan, a corporate security official convicted in a Russian court of espionage, and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is facing charges of espionage. 

The United States denies either was involved in spying but has been in negotiations to see if they could be swapped for Russians that it holds. 

“I’m serious about a prisoner exchange,” Biden said Thursday in Finland. 

“I’m serious about doing all we can to free Americans who are being illegally held in Russia or anywhere else for that matter. And that process is underway,” he said. 

Last December, the United States traded jailed Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who was jailed in Russia months earlier on drug charges. 

In April 2022, Russia released Trevor Reed, a former Marine imprisoned two years earlier for assaulting Russian police officers. 

At the same time, the United States freed a Russian pilot jailed for drug trafficking. 

The U.S. also holds Alexander Vinnik, a Russian money launderer extradited from Greece last year, and Vladimir Dunaev, a malware and ransomware hacker extradited from South Korea in 2021. 

And Washington is seeking the extradition from Brazil of Sergey Cherkasov, an alleged Russian spy who attended graduate school in Washington under deep cover. 
…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the guest of honor at this year’s Bastille Day celebration Friday in Paris.

Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron will watch the spectacle together as French and Indian soldiers march down the Champs Elysee.

French-manufactured Rafale fighter jets that India purchased a few years ago will also participate in a flyover of the Arc de Triomphe.

Modi’s guest of honor status in the annual event marking France’s national holiday comes after India’s recent approval to purchase 26 Rafale jets and three Scorpene-class submarines from France for India’s military.

Macron said Thursday at a dinner for Modi held at the Elysee Palace that India is “a giant in the history of the world that will have a determining role in our future” and “is also a strategic partner and friend.”

Meanwhile, also on Thursday, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for “human rights to be integrated into all areas of the EU-India partnership, including in trade.” The resolution called on member states “to systematically and publicly raise human rights concerns” at the highest level.

In addition, an assortment of personalities urged Macron, in a commentary in Le Monde, not to forget Modi’s dismal human rights record and to “encourage Prime Minister Modi to end repression of the civil society, assure freedom of major media (outlets) and protect religious liberty.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

LATEST DEVELOPMENT:  

• France has posthumously awarded the Legion of Honor, the country’s highest award, to Arman Soldin, an Agence France-Presse journalist who was killed in Ukraine. 

“Through his strength of character, his journey and his drive,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a letter to AFP, Arman Soldin “embodied your editorial staff’s passion — a passion to convey the truth, tell stories and gather testimonies.”

The British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily report on Ukraine that Russia’s recent announcement that the nuclear-powered submarines of Russia’s Northern Fleet will not participate in the Navy Day fleet review in St. Petersburg on July 30 is “likely primarily due to” maintenance and availability concerns. 

However, the ministry also said there is also “a realistic possibility that Internal security concerns since Wagner Group’s attempted mutiny have contributed to the decision.” 

Russian attacks killed at least three Ukrainian civilians and wounded another 38, Ukraine’s presidential office reported Thursday. 

The government in Kyiv said Russian forces targeted 13 cities and villages under Russian control in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region with air attacks, missiles and heavy artillery.  

In the Zaporizhzhia region, also partly Russian occupied, Ukraine said 21 people were injured by drone debris on Wednesday and that fires broke out in Kherson after Russian shelling.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said their air defenses shot down 20 Iranian-made drones fired by Russia that targeted the Kyiv region. But they said wreckage from the drones fell on four districts of the capital early Thursday, hospitalizing two people with shrapnel wounds and destroying several homes. 

The interior ministry said firefighters extinguished a blaze in a 16-story apartment building and another fire in a nonresidential building. Debris also smashed into the front of a 25-story apartment building. 

The latest wave was the third consecutive night in which the drones were used in attacks on Kyiv.

Elsewhere, Ukraine said one of its missile strikes killed a senior Russian officer, Lt. Gen. Oleg Tsokov, who was leading Moscow’s forces against Kyiv’s recent counteroffensive in southern Ukraine. 

Ukraine said Tsokov was killed when the Ukrainian military struck the city of Berdyansk on Tuesday with British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Russia’s defense ministry has not reported Tsokov’s death.

 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
…

President Joe Biden wrapped up his European trip in Finland, meeting with NATO’s newest member and other Nordic leaders as conflict in Ukraine casts a pall over the continent’s future. VOA White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports from Helsinki.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin offered mercenary fighters with the Wagner Group the opportunity to remain serving together in Russia after their revolt, he said in an interview published late Thursday.

Putin, interviewed by the Russian daily Kommersant, said this was one of several offers he made at a meeting with around three dozen fighters and Wagner founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, late last month, five days after Wagner staged the abortive revolt against Russia’s military hierarchy.

Under the offer, the fighters would stay under their current commander, who the newspaper identified only by his call sign of “Grey Hair.”

Putin also said it was up to Russia’s government and parliament to work out a legal framework for private military formations.

Kommersant said Putin spoke of meeting 35 Wagner fighters and Prigozhin in the Kremlin and offering them options for the future, including remaining under their commander of 16 months.

“All of them could have gathered in one place and continued their service,” Kommersant quoted the president as saying. “And nothing would have changed. They would have been led by the same person who had been their real commander all that time.”

As Putin is the army’s commander-in-chief, he seemed to be implying that they would remain within the Russian military, although he did not say that explicitly.

“Many of them nodded when I said this,” Kommersant quoted Putin as saying.

However, Prigozhin disagreed, it reported.

“Prigozhin … said after listening: ‘No, the boys won’t agree with such a decision,” Kommersant quoted Putin as saying.

Wagner fighters played a key role in the Russian army’s advance into eastern Ukraine and were the driving force in the capture in May of the city of Bakhmut after months of battles.

But Prigozhin constantly accused the military of failing to back his men, and Wagner fighters unhappy with the Defense Ministry’s conduct of the war took control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on June 23 and began moving toward Moscow.

They halted their advance the next day after being offered a deal under which they could resettle in Belarus, along with Prigozhin. Any notion of pressing charges against Prigozhin was dropped.

Putin told the newspaper there was no possibility of Wagner remaining in its current form.

“Wagner does not exist,” Putin told Kommersant. “There is no law on private military organizations. It just doesn’t exist.”
…

Israel’s defense minister visited Azerbaijan on Thursday, seeking to strengthen ties between countries with shared opposition to Iran. 

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Azerbaijani officials agreed to work together to deter threats from Iran, the Israeli Defense Ministry said. Israel views Iran as its archenemy, while Azerbaijan, which borders Iran to the north, also has a rocky relationship with Iran. 

“We have many shared challenges — in particular the fight against terrorism — which not only threatens national security but also aims to destabilize the region,” Gallant said in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. “Together, we may further deepen the ties between our countries and strengthen the cooperation between our defense establishments and our forces.” 

Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing Iran’s calls for Israel’s destruction and its support of hostile militant groups. It also accuses Iran of trying to develop a nuclear bomb, a claim that Iran denies. 

Israel has repeatedly threatened to take military action against Iran, and Iran has accused Israel of involvement in a series of mysterious attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists and installations. On Thursday, Gallant said that Israel recently allocated billions to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. 

Azerbaijan accuses Iran of supporting hard-line Islamists who tried to overthrow the government in Baku, a charge Iran also denies. 

Relations between Tehran and Baku have soured further this year. In May, Iran expelled four Azeri diplomats, a month after Azerbaijan expelled four Iranian diplomats. In January, a gunman stormed Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran’s capital, killing its security chief and wounding two guards. 

In March, Azerbaijan opened an embassy in Israel in another sign of warming ties. 
…

A Russian general in charge of forces fighting in southern Ukraine has been relieved of his duties after speaking out about problems faced by his troops, a move that reflected new fissures in the military command following a brief rebellion by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. 

Major General Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th army in the Zaporizhzhia region, which is a focal point in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, said in an audio statement to his troops released Wednesday night that he was dismissed after a meeting with the military brass in what he described as a treacherous stab in the back to Russian forces in Ukraine. 

Popov said the military leadership was angered by his frank talk about challenges faced by his forces, particularly the shortage of radars tracking enemy artillery, which resulted in massive Russian casualties. 

“The top officers apparently saw me as a source of threat and rapidly issued an order to get rid of me, which was signed by the defense minister in just one day,” he said. “The Ukrainian military has failed to break through our army’s defenses, but the top commander hit us in the rear, treacherously and cowardly beheading the army at this most difficult moment.” 

Popov, who uses the call name “Spartacus,” addressed his troops as “my gladiators” in the audio message released by retired Gen. Andrei Gurulev, who commanded the 58th army in the past and currently serves as a lawmaker. The 58th army consists of several divisions and smaller units. 

The 48-year-old Popov, who has risen from platoon commander to lead a large group of forces, has encouraged his soldiers to come directly to him with any problems — an easygoing approach that contrasted sharply with the stiff formal style of command common in the Russian military. Russian military bloggers say he’s widely known for avoiding unnecessary losses — unlike many other commanders who were eager to sacrifice their soldiers to report successes. 

“I faced a difficult situation with the top leadership when I had to either keep silent and act like a coward, saying what they wanted to hear, or call things by their names,” Popov said. “I didn’t have the right to lie for the sake of you and our fallen comrades.” 

Many military bloggers argued that Popov’s dismissal eroded troop morale at a time of relentless Ukrainian attacks. One blogger, Vladislav Shurygin, said it has dealt a “terrible blow to the entire army,” while another, Roman Saponkov, described it as a “monstrous terror attack against the army’s morale.” 

In a sign that many in Russian officialdom share Popov’s criticism of the military leadership, Andrei Turchak, the first deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament and head of the main Kremlin party United Russia, strongly backed the general, saying that “the Motherland can be proud of such commanders.” 

Andrei Kartapolov, a retired general who heads the defense affairs committee in the lower house, also said the Defense Ministry should deal with the issues raised by Popov. 

News of Popov’s dismissal added to the blow that Russian troops received when another senior officer, Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov, was killed Tuesday by a Ukrainian missile strike. 

Popov’s remarks about the need to rotate his exhausted troops that have been fighting the Ukrainian counteroffensive since early June, reportedly angered General Staff chief General Valery Gerasimov, who shrugged them off as panicky and promptly ordered his dismissal. 

Gerasimov was shown meeting with military officers Monday in a video released by the Defense Ministry, the first time he was seen since last month’s abortive rebellion by Prigozhin, who had demanded his ouster. 

Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov noted that Popov’s statement echoed criticism of the top brass by Prigozhin. However, he added that the general’s statement wasn’t a rebellion, but instead a call for intervention by President Vladimir Putin. 

“Such public disputes at the top of the Russian army isn’t a show of force,” he said. 
…

Russia and Belarus will not get a formal invitation to the 2024 Paris Olympics when more than 200 national teams receive their traditional invites later this month, the IOC said Thursday.

It is an International Olympic Committee tradition exactly one year before a Summer Games or Winter Games opens to invite all the national teams worldwide to the event.

Despite the protocol move, some Russian and Belarusian athletes could still compete in Paris — despite their countries’ war on Ukraine — without their national teams being invited.

The IOC said Thursday that 203 eligible national Olympic committees (NOCs) will be sent their invitations to Paris on July 26.

“For the reasons given, this will exclude the NOCs of Russia and Belarus, plus the NOC of Guatemala, which is currently suspended,” the Olympic body said in a statement.

The president of the Belarus NOC is Viktor Lukashenko, the son of state leader Alexander Lukashenko. He followed his father in the Olympic post.

The IOC urged international sports bodies last year to block and isolate athletes, officials and host cities from Russia and Belarus within days of the war starting 17 months ago.

This year, as the next Olympics approach, the IOC has pushed those sports bodies to try to let some Russians and Belarusians evaluated as neutral individuals to compete in qualifying events for Paris.

The IOC has consistently said it can choose not to invite Russia and Belarus at all to what is its own event.

“The IOC will take this decision at the appropriate time, at its full discretion, and without being bound by the results of previous Olympic qualification competitions,” it said Thursday.

Guatemala is currently suspended from the Olympic movement because of alleged government interference with the independence of the NOC there.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to the Arab Gulf States next week in his latest effort to improve ties across the region after years of tensions. Earlier this month, Turkey restored full diplomatic relations with Egypt, and rapprochement efforts continue with Israel. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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China’s two-way trade with Russia rose in June to its highest level since the Ukraine war started, Chinese customs data showed on Thursday, at a time that both of the neighbors have described their relations as at a new high. 

Bilateral trade value surged to $20.83 billion in June, the highest since February 2022, according to the data by the General Administration of Customs, despite slowing global demand and rising geopolitical risks. 

China’s imports from Russia rose 15.7% to $11.28 billion, faster than a 10% increase in May. China has been buying discounted Russian oil, coal and some metals. 

Outbound shipments to Russia soared 90.9% last month to a total of $9.55 billion, slower than a 114% growth registered in May.  

The Chinese customs agency did not release a breakdown of the data on Thursday.  

According to analytical agency Autostat, six of the top 10 brands by market share in Russia’s auto industry are Chinese, such as Haval, Chery and Geely, which have filled a vacuum left by departing Western firms. 

China’s President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged to continue working with Russia to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation. 

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that a visit by President Vladimir Putin to China was on the agenda, adding that it was a good time to maintain the good relations between their countries.  
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Sweden’s highest court Thursday blocked the extradition of two men wanted by Turkey for alleged involvement with a group Turkey blames for a 2016 coup attempt.

The Swedish court said the men, who are refugees, faced the risk of persecution if they were to be sent to Turkey.

Turkey says the men are part of a group led by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.

The Swedish court also said the allegation that the men downloaded a mobile application that is used by members of the group was not grounds for extradition because that act would not constitute participating in a terrorist organization under Swedish law.

The decision comes days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would drop his objections to Sweden joining NATO after saying Sweden was not doing enough to crack down on terrorist groups.

Sweden enacted a number of reforms in recent months, including a new counterterrorism law, as part of an agreement with Turkey.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 
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