The sowing season is in full swing in Ukraine despite a series of significant challenges that farmers face as Russia continues its war on the country. The agricultural industry faces mined fields, instability with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and a ban on the export of four key products to five European Union countries. Lesia Bakalets has more from Warsaw, Poland. VOA footage by Daniil Batushchak.
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With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodgan facing a tough re-election challenge, opposition and non-government organizations are stepping up efforts to ensure a fair vote amid growing concerns over voter security. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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People squeezed by inflation and demanding economic justice took to streets across Asia, Europe and the Americas on Monday to mark May Day, in an outpouring of worker discontent not seen since before the worldwide COVID-19 lockdowns.

Celebrations were forced indoors in Pakistan, tinged with political tensions as in Turkey, as both countries face high-stakes elections. Russia’s war in Ukraine overshadowed scaled-back events in Moscow, where Communist-led May Day celebrations were once massive affairs.

Across France, some 800,000 people marched, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. They mobilized against President Emmanuel Macron’s recent move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. Organizers see pension reform as a threat to hard-fought worker rights, while Macron argues it’s economically necessary as the population ages.

While marchers were largely peaceful, violence by radicals, an ever-present reality at French marches, marred the message, notably in Paris. A Paris police officer was seriously injured by a Molotov cocktail, among 108 officers injured around France, Darmanin said.

“Violence is increasingly strong in a society that is radicalizing,” the interior minister said on BFM-TV news station, blaming the ultra-left. He said some 2,000 radicals were at the Paris march.

Tear gas hung over the end point of the Paris march, Place de la Nation, where a huge black cloud lofted high above the trees after radicals set two fuel cans afire outside a building renovation site, police said.

French union members were joined by groups fighting for economic justice, or just expressing anger at what is seen as Macron’s out-of-touch, pro-business leadership.

In Northern Macedonia’s capital Skopje, thousands of trade union members protested a recent government decision granting ministers a 78% raise. The minimum monthly wage in one of Europe’s poorest countries is 320 euros ($350), while the hike will put ministers’ wages at around 2,300 euros ($2,530).

In Turkey, police prevented demonstrators from reaching Istanbul’s main square, Taksim, and detained around a dozen of them, independent television station Sozcu reported.

In Pakistan, authorities banned rallies in some cities because of a tense security and political atmosphere. In Peshawar, in the restive northwest, labor organizations and trade unions held indoor events to demand better workers’ rights amid high inflation.

Sri Lanka’s opposition political parties and trade unions held workers’ day rallies protesting austerity measures and economic reforms linked to a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Protesters demanded the government halt moves to privatize state-owned and semi-government businesses.

In South Korea, tens of thousands of people attended rallies in its biggest May Day gatherings since the pandemic began in early 2020.

“The price of everything has increased except for our wages. Increase our minimum wages!” an activist at a Seoul rally shouted at the podium.

In Tokyo, thousands of labor union members, opposition lawmakers and academics demanded wage increases to offset the impact of rising costs as they recover from damage from the pandemic. They criticized Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s plan to double the defense budget, saying the money should be spent on welfare, social security and improving people’s daily lives.

In Indonesia, demonstrators demanded the government repeal a job creation law they argue would only benefit business.

In Taiwan, thousands of workers protested what they call the inadequacies of the self-ruled island’s labor policies, putting pressure on the ruling party before the 2024 presidential election.

Protests in Germany kicked off with a “Take Back the Night” rally organized by feminist and queer groups on the eve of May Day to protest violence directed at women and LGBTQ+ people. On Monday, thousands more turned out in marches organized by Germany labor unions in Berlin, Cologne and other cities, rejecting recent calls by conservative politicians for restrictions on the right to strike.

More than 70 marches were held across Spain, and powerful unions warned of “social conflict” if low salaries compared to the EU average don’t rise in line with inflation. The Illustrious College of Lawyers of Madrid urged reforms of historic laws that require them to be on call 365 days of the year, regardless of the death of family members or medical emergencies. In recent years, lawyers have tweeted images of themselves working from hospital beds on IV drips to illustrate their plight.

Italy’s far-right premier, Giorgia Meloni, made a point of working Monday — as her Cabinet passed measures on Labor Day that it contends demonstrates concern for workers. But opposition lawmakers and union leaders said the measures do nothing to increase salaries or combat the widespread practice of hiring workers on temporary contracts.

In war-ravaged Ukraine, May Day is associated with Soviet-era celebrations when the country was ruled from Moscow — an era that many want forgotten.

“It is good that we don’t celebrate this holiday like it was done during the Bolshevik times. It was something truly awful,” said Anatolii Borsiuk, a 77-year-old in Kyiv.

In Venezuela, which has suffered rampant inflation for years, thousands of workers demonstrated to demand a minimum wage increase at a time when the majority cannot meet basic needs despite their last increase 14 months ago. “Decent wages and pensions now!” protesters chanted in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

In Bolivia, leftist President Luis Arce led a Labor Day march in La Paz with a major union and announced a 5% increase in the minimum wage. Arce said his government “is strong because the unions are strong.”

In Brazil, the focus was not only on traditional labor unions but on part-time workers and those in the informal sector, with the government of new leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announcing a group on proposals to regulate that sector after the president recently described those workers as “almost like slaves.”
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Germany expelled Russian diplomats mid-April in order “to reduce the presence of intelligence services” in the country, the government said Monday, in justifying a decision that triggered retaliatory expulsions by the Kremlin.  

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “the activity of these people was not in line with their diplomatic status,” adding it had been in contact with Russia in recent weeks about the matter.  

Berlin had previously not provided a justification for the departure of the diplomats, a move that triggered the expulsion of some 20 German embassy staff in Moscow. Germany’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the embassy staff left Moscow on Monday. 

“Unlike the members representing Russia in Germany, our colleagues have always concerned themselves with behaving in accordance to their diplomatic status,” the ministry said.  

A close economic partner with Russia before the military offensive in Ukraine, Germany has since moved away from Moscow, supporting Kyiv in the conflict both financially and militarily. 

Since the onset of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian espionage in Germany has grown at a rate rarely equaled in recent years, according to German security services.  

In spring 2022, Germany had already expelled some 40 Russian diplomats who Berlin believed to represent a threat to its security.  

Last October, the head of German’s cybersecurity agency, Arne Schoenbohm, was fired after news reports revealed his proximity to a cybersecurity consultancy believed to have contacts with Russian intelligence services.  

A month later, a German reserve officer received a suspended prison sentence of a year and nine months for spying for Russia. 
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Ukraine is finalizing preparations for its anticipated spring counteroffensive against Russia, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country will fight with or without Western military jets.

Ukraine’s battlefield progress depends heavily on military supplies from the West. Military experts say, without advanced jets from Kyiv’s NATO allies, the counteroffensive will likely consist of costly battles of attrition.

In recent days, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was among Western leaders who held meetings with Ukraine’s leadership and military command. He emphasized that through the Contact Group led by the United States, NATO allies and partners have provided more than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine, including over 1,550 armored vehicles, 230 tanks and vast amounts of ammunition.

“In total, we have trained and equipped more than nine new Ukrainian armored brigades. This will put Ukraine in a strong position to continue to retake occupied territory,” said the NATO secretary general last week during a press conference.

Ukraine says it needs more. Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, recently held a working meeting with U.S. Army General Christopher Cavoli. According to VOA sources, the generals conferred on Ukraine’s military abilities and agreed on the need for a thorough assessment of Ukraine’s readiness for a counteroffensive.

Posting on Facebook after the meeting, Zaluzhnyi wrote that participants had “considered in greater depth the operational situation along the entire front line … the likely scenarios, threats and prerequisites for our future actions.”

Zaluzhnyi added, “We focused on the importance of timely supply of sufficient ammunition and materiel. I emphasized the need to provide Ukraine with a wide range of armament and air defense systems, which will significantly help us to solve the problematic issues in our resistance to Russian aggression.”

VOA sources in Ukraine’s military command confirmed that Ukraine has largely spent its supply of aged Soviet military hardware and munitions. Ukraine’s military has been fighting on the eastern and southern fronts in recent months, hoping to exhaust Russian forces without giving up territory.

Ukraine is having success in that regard, according to U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

“Russia has exhausted its military stockpiles and its armed forces and since December alone,” Kirby told reporters Monday. “[J]ust since December, we estimate that Russia has suffered more than 100,000 casualties, including over 20,000 killed in action, nearly half of whom were Wagner [Group] soldiers.”

At the same time, Ukraine is transitioning to Western weapons systems, making the country even more reliant on Western military support.

Ukraine is having success in that regard, according to U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby. “Russia has exhausted its military stockpiles and its armed forces and since December alone,” Kirby told reporters Monday. “[J]ust since December, we estimate that Russia has suffered more than 100,000 casualties, including over 20,000 killed in action, nearly half of whom were Wagner [Group] soldiers.”

As it preps for a spring counteroffensive, one of Ukraine’s critical unmet needs is fighter jets, according to Gustav Gressel, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

In a recent article, Gressel wrote that “[e]xtensive fortifications in the Russian rear may slow Ukrainian advances long enough to allow Russian aircraft to strike the forces clearing obstacles. …To screen the ground forces from such attacks, the Ukrainian air force will have to come out, at least to disrupt Russian attacks.”

Addressing Ukraine’s need for jets, Gressel wrote: “The US should learn from last year’s delay over tank deliveries and approve their release as soon as possible.”

“The end of the war depends on Ukraine,” NATO’s assistant secretary-general for public diplomacy, Ambassador Baiba Braže, recently told VOA. “[T]he most important part is ensuring that Ukraine is supported in maximum ways. If it wants to continue fighting, it has the capability to continue fighting.”
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Ukrainian judokas will not take part in this month’s world championships in Qatar following the International Judo Federation’s  decision to readmit Russians and Belarusians as neutrals, the Ukrainian Judo Federation said on Monday.

The International Olympic Committee last month recommended that athletes from the two countries be allowed to return to international competition as neutrals.

The IJF last week announced that it would allow judoka from Russia and Belarus to participate in the May 7-14 championships, saying its decision would allow Russians and Belarusians to participate in qualifying for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

The IOC’s recommendations exclude athletes who support the war or are contracted to military or national security agencies. The IJF has said it has enlisted an independent company to perform background checks and identify any such athletes.

However, the Ukrainian federation alleged that a number of Russian judoka registered for the championships are “active servicemen.”

“We do not see here neutrality, equal conditions and a ‘bridge to peace,’ as stated in the IJF Resolution on the participation of Russian and Belarusian teams in the World Championships in Doha,” the UJF said.

“We see here a decision that contradicts the latest recommendations of the International Olympic Committee … We are disappointed with the decision of the International Judo Federation. Therefore, we have decided not to participate in the World Championships in Doha.”

Ukraine has barred its national sports teams from competing in events that include competitors from Russia and Belarus.

The IJF and the Judo Federation of Russia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

After Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, for which Belarus was a staging area for Russian troops, the IJF removed Russian President Vladimir Putin from his position as honorary president and cancelled a Grand Slam event in Kazan, Russia.
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New Developments:

“A free press is a pillar, maybe the pillar of a free society,” said U.S. President Joe Biden, as he called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, from Russian captivity.
A French artist dedicates a mural to executed Ukrainian POW.
Pope Francis says he will do anything to bring peace in Ukraine.

Russia launched 18 missiles at Ukraine’s capital Monday morning. Ukraine says it intercepted 15 of them. Preliminary reports from Kyiv indicate that there were no casualties, according to the Associated Press. 

Also overnight, Russia targeted the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad with a missile strike. The AP reports seven missiles were aimed at the city, but some were intercepted. Reuters reports that 34 people, including five children, were hurt in the strike. 

The report, posted on Twitter, said there is imagery that shows that Russia “has made a particular effort” to strengthen the northern border of occupied Crimea, “including with a multi-layered defensive zone near the village of Medvedevka.”

In addition, according to the ministry, Russia has dug “hundreds of miles of trenches well inside internationally recognized Russian territory, including in the Belgorod and Kursk regions.”

The trenches show, the update said, that Russia is worried that Ukraine could achieve “a major breakthrough.” Some of the work, however, the ministry said, has “likely been ordered by local commanders and civil leaders in attempts to promote the official narrative that Russia is ‘threatened’ by Ukraine and NATO.” 

Russian attacks across Ukraine have killed at least 477 children wounded nearly 1,000 since Russia invaded more than a year ago, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Sunday in a report posted on the messaging app Telegram.

Most casualties were documented in the Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts, where 452 and 275 children were either killed or wounded, respectively. The casualty rate among children is expected to be higher, the report said, as the current count does not include data from Russian-occupied territories or where hostilities are ongoing.

On Sunday in Uman, two children who had died in an attack Friday were buried. In all, 23 people, including six children, died in the Russian attack on an apartment building in Uman.

Last month, Ukraine’s National Police said nearly 400 children are missing.

More than 19,000 children from Russian-occupied territories have been subjected to forced deportations to Russia. So far, Ukraine has retrieved only 364 of them, according to Children of War, a Ukrainian national database.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russia President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian official overseeing the forced deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia.

At a recent Moscow news conference, Lvova-Belova rejected the ICC’s war crime charges as false, saying her commission acted on humanitarian grounds to protect the interests of children in an area where military action was taking place, according to the Reuters news agency.

The Kremlin has previously called the ICC’s actions “outrageous and unacceptable.”

But many Ukrainian children who were returned to families and guardians tell a different story.

In April, Vitaly, a child from the Kherson region, told Reuters: “We were treated like animals. We were closed in a separate building.” He said he and other children were told their parents no longer wanted them.

Sunday was the professional day of border guards in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Sunday. “They were the first to face the occupier in the east,” he said, “they are holding the border firmly.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Heather Howarth tugged at King Charles III’s ears and tittered with satisfaction. 

The other ladies who gather to knit and natter in her small English village thought the ears should be bigger. But when creating a crocheted likeness of the new king, she was determined not to cause offense. 

“He might not like this one,” she said reaching out to give the king a fond pat. “But he’ll love his Grenadier Guards!” 

Howarth and her friends in the village of Hurst, a stone’s throw from Reading, west of London, have fashioned a woolly coronation procession to rival the pomp and circumstance that will take place when Charles is crowned on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. Sheathing the 29 posts that circle the community pond with their knitted and crocheted creations, the women have recreated the cast of characters set to attend the big event. 

There’s the king, of course, the queen consort and the Archbishop of Canterbury. And lots of Grenadier Guards. They even threw in Paddington Bear — a sort of honorary member of the royal family after he shared tea with the late Queen Elizabeth II in a film celebrating her 70 years on the throne. 

The Hurst Hookers are part of a phenomenon that has taken hold across Britain in recent years, with guerrilla knitters and crochet enthusiasts celebrating holidays and royal occasions by decorating the nation’s iconic red post boxes and other public spaces with their handiwork. There’s no money in it, and the creations are sometimes stolen. But they do it anyway because they have fun brightening their communities, even if no one asked them to. 

“Yarn bombers” around the country have been hard at work for months creating everything from golden coaches to crenelated castles and jewel-encrusted crowns that will add fuzzy bits of color to the coronation festivities. 

But how to explain the Hurst Hookers?

This is a group that got started during the coronavirus pandemic, meeting every couple of weeks at the local cricket club when Britain’s intermittent lockdowns would permit. It’s bring your own gin and tonic, but there’s tea for anyone who wants it. When the 18 women aren’t meeting up for crocheting and community, they keep in touch via WhatsApp. The pings are so incessant at least one member has had to turn off her alerts. 

They began planning and creating their coronation scene in early September, soon after the queen died and Charles became king. By April, it was finally time to install it. 

The “guerrilla” action began just after 5:30 p.m. on a recent Friday as the setting sun bathed the newly cleaned pond in a peaceful light. 

Clad in jackets and sweaters on a chilly spring night, the women arrived with their creations tucked inside huge shopping bags emblazoned with supermarket logos, then swooped down on the posts surrounding the pond. 

There was little stealth, but much determination. 

First they pulled out the crocheted likenesses of Charles, wearing a crown and a cape fashioned from an old Christmas stocking, and Camilla, with a flash of unruly blond hair.  

Then came the archbishop, whose spectacles rest on a bulbous woolen nose. And finally, the red-coated guardsmen. 

Quick as you like, the figures were pulled down over the posts and firmly stapled in place, with the precisely embroidered medals, moustaches, sergeant stripes and other embellishments getting an extra staple or three. 

“King Charles wants our support, doesn’t he?” Howarth said. “How else do I show that I am supporting him?” 

Valerie Thorn, who did the embroidery, carefully researched all the decorations, so that every medal was from a different campaign in which the guards participated. The insignia on Charles’ chest is so precise that from a few feet you mistake it for the real thing. The archbishop’s miter, modeled after the one he wore at his installation, is immediately recognizable. 

So far, the fat sergeant character seems to be the village favorite.

A Daily Mail newspaper columnist described crafters such as these as “unhinged … woolly delinquents.” Rather than taking offense, the ladies of the Hurst Hookers embraced the jibe. 

“I’m going to embroider that on a T-shirt,” said Thorn, 76, with pride. “If I am unhinged, what is wrong with that?”

And when the installation was almost complete, there was the moment to put the icing on the confection. 

Pip Etheridge pulled out a resplendent copy of St. Edward’s Crown — the crown that will be placed on Charles’ head next weekend — and handed it to Janette Vorster because she didn’t want to be in the pictures. 

In a procession all their own, the group trooped to the village store for the piece de resistance, installing the crown atop the post box out front. 

As they chatted around the post box, the group debated whether their handiwork was more about the coronation or about themselves. They giggled, talked about posting the photos on social media and wondered what the neighbors might say. And they just kept laughing. 

“If you swapped that one with the real one,” Etheridge asked, nodding to her crown, “do you think he’d notice?” 
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Pope Francis said Sunday that talks were underway to return colonial-era artifacts in the Vatican Museum that were acquired from Indigenous peoples in Canada and voiced a willingness to return other problematic objects in the Vatican’s collection on a case-by-case basis. 

“The Seventh Commandment comes to mind: If you steal something you have to give it back,” Francis said during an airborne press conference en route home from Hungary. 

Recently, Francis returned to Greece the three fragments of the Parthenon sculptures that had been in the Vatican Museums’ collection for two centuries. The pope said Sunday that the restitution was “the right gesture” and that when such returns were possible, museums should undertake them. 

“In the case where you can return things, where it’s necessary to make a gesture, better to do it,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t, if there are no possibilities — political, real or concrete possibilities. But in the cases where you can restitute, please do it. It’s good for everyone, so you don’t get used to putting your hands in someone else’s pockets.” 

His comments to The Associated Press were his first on a question that has forced many museums in Europe and North America to rethink their ethnographic and anthropological collections. The restitution debate has gathered steam amid a reckoning for the colonial conquests of Africa, the Americas and Asia and demands for restitution of war loot by the countries and communities of origin. 

The Vatican has an extensive collection of artifacts and art made by Indigenous peoples from around the world, much of it sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens. 

The Vatican insists the artifacts, including ceremonial masks, wampum belts and feathered headdresses, were gifts. But Indigenous scholars dispute whether Native peoples at the time could have freely offered their handicrafts given the power differentials at play in colonial periods. 

Francis, the first-ever Latin American pope, knows the history well. Last year, he travelled to Canada to personally apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses they endured at the hands of Catholic missionaries at residential schools. 

In the run-up to the visit, Indigenous groups visited the Vatican’s Anima Mundi museum, saw some of their ancestors’ handiwork, and expressed interest in having greater access to the collection, and the return of some items. 

“The restitution of the Indigenous things is underway with Canada — at least we agreed to do it,” Francis said, adding that the Holy See’s experience meeting with the Indigenous groups in Canada had been “very fruitful.” 

Indeed, just a few weeks ago in another follow-up to the Canada apology, the Vatican formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery.” This theory, backed by 15th-century “papal bulls,” was used to legitimize the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and forms the basis of some property laws today in the U.S. and Canada. 

Francis recalled that looting was a common feature during colonial-era wars and occupations. “They took these decisions to take the good things from the other,” he said. 

He said going forward, museums “have to make a discernment in each case,” but that where possible, restitution of objects should be made. 

“And if tomorrow the Egyptians come and ask for the obelisk, what will we do?” he said chuckling, referring to the great obelisk that stands at the center of St. Peter’s Square. The Roman Emperor Caligula brought the ancient obelisk to Rome more than 2,000 years ago, and it was moved to the square in the 16th century. 

The Vatican Museums are mentioned in the 2020 book “The Brutish Museums,” which recounts the sacking of the Royal Court of Benin City by British forces in 1897 and the subsequent dispersal in museums and collections around the globe of its famed Benin Bronzes. 

In the appendix, the Vatican is listed as one of the museums, galleries or collections that “may” have objects looted from Benin City, in today’s Nigeria, in 1897. 

The Vatican Museums hasn’t responded to requests for information. The Nigerian Embassy to the Holy See, asked recently about the claim, said its “contact in the Vatican is currently looking into the issue.” 
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Russian fashion designer Vyacheslav “Slava” Zaitsev, dubbed the “Soviet Christian Dior,” has died at the age of 85, his fashion house told AFP Sunday.   

Confirming Russian media reports, a spokeswoman added that when Zaitsev had celebrated his birthday in March with friends, “we could already see he was very, very, weak.” 

“The couturier Vyacheslav Zaitsev has died,” Russian state channel Perviy Kanal reported, paying tribute to a man who “dictated Soviet and Russian fashion for decades, an innovator who wasn’t afraid of bold experiments.”  

“It’s a great loss for the world of international fashion,” Ria Novosti news agency quoted Russian stylist Sergei Zverev as saying.    

Russia’s most famous fashion designer, Zaitsev achieved global success with bright dresses adorned with the flower patterns found on traditional Russian shawls.    

From a modest childhood in Ivanovo, a town of 400,000 people to the northeast of the capital, his career took him to the catwalks of Paris, New York and Tokyo.   

The French press in the 1960s dubbed him the “Soviet Christian Dior.”  

Watched closely by the KGB because of his contacts with Western designers and his flamboyant character, Zaitsev was initially refused permission to leave the Soviet Union and his first collections were shown abroad without him.    

In 1962, Zaitsev’s first collection of clothes — a uniform for female workers that featured skirts with the flower patterns of traditional Russian shawls and multicolored boots — was rejected by Soviet authorities.    

“The colors were too bright and contrasted with the greyness of Soviet everyday life, where an individual should not differ from the rest of society,” Zaitsev said in an interview with AFP in 2018.    

But the collection, nonetheless, attracted international attention. In 1963, French magazine Paris Match became the first Western media outlet to describe Zaitsev as a pioneer of Soviet fashion.   

Celebrity clients 

Born into a poor family with a mother who worked as a cleaner, he initially was barred from attending a top-flight university because his father, taken captive by the Nazis during World War II, had, like other former prisoners-of-war, been labeled an “enemy of the people” and sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp.   

“When I was a child, my mother taught me embroidery so I wouldn’t roam the streets without purpose,” he told AFP. “In the evenings I would pick flowers with girls on Lenin Avenue to draw them and recreate them in embroidery. That’s how I began my adventure in art.”   

He studied at a vocational college until the age of 18 and then went on to the unglamorous Moscow Textile Institute.   

“During my studies, I lived with a family whose children I looked after. The apartment was tiny and I slept on the floor under the table,” he recalled.   

Later in life, between 2007 and 2009, he presented a popular television show called “The Verdict of Fashion,” in which stylists dressed participants in the latest street looks.   

He counted several Russian movie stars, singers and the ex-wife of President Vladimir Putin, Lyudmila, among his clients. 
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Relatives and friends cried next to coffins Sunday as they buried children and others killed in a Russian missile attack on this central Ukrainian city, while fighting claimed more lives elsewhere.

Almost all of the 23 victims of the attack Friday died when two missiles slammed into an apartment building in Uman. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said six children were among the dead.

Mykhayl Shulha, 6, cried and hugged relatives next to the coffin of his 11-year-old sister Sofia Shulha during Sunday’s funeral, while others paid respects to a 17-year-old boy.

As mourners held candles, crossed themselves and sang, the priest at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “Quick to Hear” waved a vessel containing incense over the coffins. He said the deaths had hit the entire community hard.

“I live nearby,” said Father Fyodor Botsu. “I personally knew the children, the littlest, from when they were very young, and I personally baptized them in this church. I’m worried with everyone since I have children and I’m a citizen of this country and have been living in this city for 15 years.”

He said he prayed “that the war should end, and peace should come to our homes, city and country.”

At the damaged building in Uman, people brought flowers and photos of the victims.

Russia’s 14-month-long war brought more deaths elsewhere Sunday.

The governor of a Russian region bordering Ukraine said four people were killed in a Ukrainian rocket attack. The rockets hit homes in the village of Suzemka, nine kilometers from the Ukrainian border, said Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz. He said two other residents were injured and that defense systems had knocked down some of the incoming shells.

Bryansk and the neighboring Belgorod region have experienced sporadic cross-border shelling throughout the war. In March, two people were reported killed in what officials said was an incursion by Ukrainian saboteurs in the Bryansk region.

Also Sunday, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said his Kherson region in Ukraine came under Russian artillery fire 27 times in the past 24 hours, killing one civilian.

An expected spring counteroffensive by Ukraine could be concentrated in the Kherson region, a gateway to Crimea and other Russian-occupied territory in the southern Ukrainian mainland. Ukrainian forces drove Russian forces out of the regional capital Kherson last year, a significant defeat for Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelenskyy said the counteroffensive wouldn’t wait for the delivery of all promised military equipment.

“I would have really wanted to wait for everything that was promised,” Zelenskyy told Finnish, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian journalists. “But it happens that the terms (of weapons deliveries and counteroffensive), unfortunately, do not coincide a little bit. And, I will say frankly, we pay attention to the weather.”

Ukraine is particularly hopeful that it will receive Western fighter jets, but Zelenskyy said his forces wouldn’t delay the counteroffensive for that, so as not to “reassure Russia that we still have a few months to train on the planes, and only then will we start.”

Zelenskyy said he spoke Sunday with French President Emmanuel Macron about the weapons supply and was pleased with its “speed and specificity.”

Macron’s office said he reiterated France’s commitment to provide Ukraine “all the aid necessary to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and discussed long-term European military aid.

The head of the Wagner mercenary group that is leading Russia’s battle in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut gave an even more precise timetable for the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Ukrainian military will launch the counteroffensive by May 15 because by then strong rains will have stopped and the soil will be dry enough for tanks and artillery to move, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview with a Russian journalist posted Saturday.

In other battlefield developments, Ukraine’s northern command said the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, which border Bryansk and Belgorod, came under fire 11 times Sunday night.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a 48-year-old resident of Nikopol was killed, and two were injured, in Russian shelling, according to Gov. Serhii Lysak. He said six multi-story buildings and six private houses were damaged, as well as several other buildings, gas pipelines, and a power line.
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Pope Francis said Sunday the Vatican was willing to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war. He said, the Holy See had already helped mediate some prisoner exchanges and would do “all that is humanly possible” to reunite families.

“All human gestures help. Gestures of cruelty don’t help,” Francis said during an airborne news conference en route home from Hungary.

Francis also revealed a secret peace “mission” was underway. However, he gave no details when asked whether he spoke about peace initiatives during his talks in Budapest this weekend with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Hungary.

“I’m available to do anything,” Francis said. “There’s a mission that’s not public that’s underway; when it’s public I’ll talk about it.”

The International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant for Russia President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s commissioner, accusing them of war crimes for abducting children from Ukraine.

Russia has denied any wrongdoing, contending the children were moved for their safety.

Last week Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with Francis at the Vatican and asked him to help return Ukrainian children taken following the Russian invasion.

“I asked His Holiness to help us return home Ukrainians, Ukrainian children who are detained, arrested, and criminally deported to Russia,” Shmyhal told the Foreign Press Association after the audience.

Francis recalled that the Holy See had facilitated some prisoner exchanges, working through embassies, and was open to Ukraine’s request to reunite Ukrainian children with their families.

The prisoner exchanges “went well. I think it could go well also for this. It’s important,” he said of the family reunifications. “The Holy See is available to do it because it’s the right thing,” he added. “We have to do all that is humanly possible.” 
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A large high-powered Russian delegation of 36 legal and human rights experts has failed to persuade a United Nations watchdog committee that the government has complied with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Russia was one of six state parties to the convention whose record came under review by the 18-member Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD, during its latest three-week session, which ended Friday.

The committee, which monitors member states’ implementation of the convention, expressed deep concern about “the grave human rights violations committed during the ongoing armed conflict by the Russian Federation’s military forces and private military companies against those protected under the convention, particularly ethnic Ukrainians.”

Committee member Mehrdad Payandeh said that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the committee has received reports of severe human rights violations and abuses including “instances and practices of excessive use of force, killings, extrajudicial and summary executions, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence” attributable to the state party.

The committee also has received information about the forcible transfer and deportation to the Russian Federation of inhabitants, particularly children from territories in Ukraine occupied under the effective control of the Russian Federation.

“We have addressed these concerns,” said Payandeh. “Again, the Russian Federation did not comment on those concerns or provide any more information.

“We raised our concerns in our concluding observations and recommended to the state party to investigate and to end these practices, so far as they are in violation of the convention,” he said.

The Ukrainian government in mid-April reported that more than 19,384 children have been deported to Russia and the fate of many thousands more remains unclear. The U.N. and human rights organizations say many children allegedly have been given for adoption to Russian families.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the war crimes of unlawful transfer and the deportation of children.

Earlier in April, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe opened an investigation into the forcible transfer and deportation of children to the Russian Federation from parts of Ukraine under Russian control.

The U.N. committee said it also has received disturbing reports of incitement to racial hatred and propagation of racist stereotypes against ethnic Ukrainians and of alleged forced mobilization and conscription into the army both within the Federation and on other territories under its effective control. Payandeh noted that these practices “disproportionately affect members of ethnic minorities, including Indigenous peoples.”

CERD’s review of Russia’s record, which began April 12, got off to a shaky start. The Russian delegation refused to discuss and respond to questions posed by the committee on issues related to the armed conflict and the convention rights of residents of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based in Sevastopol.

The Russians argued that it was inappropriate to discuss the issue of Crimea due to a case pending at the International Court of Justice.

“We laid our position that we did not find anything in the ongoing procedures in front of the International Court of Justice [that] would hinder us from assessing the situation,” said Payandeh.

“The refusal of the Russian Federation to address these issues did not hinder us from addressing them in our concluding observations.” But, he added, “It made our work more difficult, and we would have liked to engage in a constructive dialogue.

“The purpose of this exercise with the Russian Federation is to raise our concerns, to hear their observations and then to come to our conclusions,” he said.

The committee accused the Russians of destroying and damaging Crimean Tatar cultural heritage, of imposing restrictions on Crimean Tatar’s political and civic rights, as well as harassing, threatening and instigating the assassinations of human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, and journalists.

Committee members are calling on the Russian Federation to carry out impartial investigations into all reported cases of human rights abuse cited in its final observations. They are also seeking an end to the practice of forced mobilization and conscription of members of Crimean Tatars and Indigenous peoples in Crimea and in the ongoing armed conflict with Ukraine.

Russia has not yet commented on CERD’s report. The committee says it expects the Russian Federation to present a follow-up report within one year on questions raised regarding the armed conflict in Ukraine, on the rights of residents in Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as the situation of stateless persons, and undocumented and irregular migrants.
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China’s Ding Liren was crowned on Sunday as the 17th world chess champion in a tense match against Russian-born Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana, Kazakhstan, in the last chapter of an odds-defying sequence of events.

Thirty-year-old Ding won the rapid chess playoff by 2.5 points to 1.5, capitalizing on Nepomniachtchi’s mistakes in time trouble in the last of the shorter-format games, following the pair’s 7-7 tie in a psychological battle across 14 longer “classical” games.

“One Ding to rule em all,” fellow grandmaster Anish Giri wrote on Twitter in honor of the new champion.

Ding’s triumph means China holds both the men’s and women’s world titles, with current women’s champion Ju Wenjun set to defend her title against compatriot Lei Tingjie in July.

“The moment Ian resigned the game was a very emotional moment, I cannot control my feelings,” the new world champion said in a press conference.

Ding had leveled the score in the regular portion of the match with a dramatic win in game 12, despite several critical moments – including a purported leak of his own preparation.

The Chinese grandmaster takes the crown from five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who defeated Nepomniachtchi in 2021 but announced in July he would not defend the title again this year.

Carlsen said he was not motivated to play shortly after Nepomniachtchi won the Candidates tournament, the prestigious qualifier to the match.

Ding, runner-up in the Candidates thanks to an incredible second half of the event, was next in line.

He had only been invited to the tournament at the last minute to replace Russia’s Sergey Karjakin, whom the International Chess Federation, or FIDE, banned for his vocal support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ding ranks third in the FIDE rating list behind Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi.

The new champion will attend from May 4 the first tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest, Romania, after being almost inactive since 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China.
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On his third and final day of his Hungary trip, Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Sunday in Budapest before tens of thousands of people in the historic Kossuth Lajos Square. Hungarian President Kataline Novak and Prime Minister Viktor Orban were among the attendees.

Throughout his trip in Hungary, Francis has urged Hungarians to remember and take in refugees from Ukraine and also refugees from the Middle East and Africa who are arriving on Europe’s shores in record numbers.

While Europeans have not always been charitable or receptive to the migrants from Africa and the Middle East, they have been more accepting of the Ukrainians who fled their homes after the Russian invasion.

Orban has said that migration threatens to replace Europe’s Christian culture.

At Mass on Sunday, Francis called on the clergy and lay people to become “increasingly open doors … be open and inclusive … help Hungary to grow in fraternity, which is the path of peace.”
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It will be a coronation of many faiths and many languages.

King Charles III, keen to show that he can be a unifying figure for everyone in the United Kingdom, will be crowned in a ceremony that will for the first time include the active participation of faiths other than the Church of England.

Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh leaders will take part in various aspects of the coronation, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office said Saturday, as it revealed details of a service it described as an act of Christian worship that will reflect contemporary society.

The ceremony also will include female bishops for the first time, as well as hymns and prayers sung in Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic, as well as English.

“The service contains new elements that reflect the diversity of our contemporary society,” Archbishop Justin Welby, spiritual leader of the Church of England, said in a statement. “It is my prayer that all who share in this service, whether they are of faith or no faith, will find ancient wisdom and new hope that brings inspiration and joy.”

The coronation ceremony reflects Charles’ efforts to show that the 1,000-year-old monarchy is still relevant in a country that is much more diverse than it was when his mother was crowned 70 years ago. While the king is the supreme governor of the Church of England, the latest census showed that less than half of the population now describe themselves as Christian.

Built around the theme “Called to Serve,” the coronation service will begin with one of the youngest members of the congregation — a Chapel Royal chorister — greeting the king. Charles will respond by saying, “In His name and after His example, I come not to be served but to serve.”

The moment is meant to underscore the importance of young people in the world today, according to Lambeth Palace, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The service will also include many historic elements underscoring the ancient traditions through which power has been passed on to new kings and queens throughout the centuries.

In the most sacred part of the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury will anoint the king with oil, consecrating him and setting him apart from his subjects.

A screen will cover Charles at this moment, and the anointing won’t be visible on television or to most people in the abbey, except for a few senior members of the clergy.

“When the screen which will surround the coronation chair is removed, the king is revealed to us all as someone who has taken on the responsibility of serving God and serving the people,” a Lambeth Palace spokesperson said while speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

This will be followed by the presentation of the coronation regalia, sacred objects like the orb and scepter that symbolize the monarch’s power and responsibilities.

In another innovation that reflects the changed religious landscape in Britain, members of the House of Lords from the Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh traditions will present the king with objects with no explicit Christian symbolism.

The new king will then be crowned and the refrain “God Save the King” will echo through the Abbey.

After Charles is crowned, the traditional homage of the peers will be replaced by an “homage of the people,” in which people in the Abbey and those watching on television will be invited to affirm their allegiance to the king.

Camilla will then be anointed, in a form similar to that of Queen Elizabeth, the queen mother, in 1937. However, Camilla’s anointing won’t be hidden behind a screen.

The congregation will also be invited to say the Lord’s Prayer in the language of their choice.

Just before Charles sets off in the Gold State Coach for a procession on the streets of London, the leaders and representatives of faith communities will deliver a greeting in unison. The greeting won’t be amplified out of respect for those who are observing the Jewish sabbath and are barred from using electrical devices, Lambeth Palace said.
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Russia on Saturday promised it would respond harshly to what it said was Poland’s illegal seizure of its embassy school in Warsaw, an act it called a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.

Polish state-run news channel TVP Info earlier reported that police showed up outside the Russian embassy school in Warsaw on Saturday morning.

When asked about the incident, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson told Reuters the building housing the embassy school belonged to the Polish state.

Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the Polish authorities had entered the embassy school’s grounds with the aim of seizing it.

“We regard this latest hostile act by the Polish authorities as a blatant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and as an encroachment on Russian diplomatic property in Poland,” the ministry said.

“Such an insolent step by Warsaw, which goes beyond the framework of civilized inter-state relations, will not remain without a harsh reaction and consequences for the Polish authorities and Polish interests in Russia,” it said.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said late on Saturday on the Telegram messaging app that it will give “a legal assessment” of the “seizure,” but it did not provide any further details.

Lukasz Jasina, a Polish foreign ministry spokesperson, told Reuters that it was Russia’s right to protest but that Poland was acting within the law.

“Our opinion, which has been confirmed by the courts, is that this property belongs to the Polish state and was taken by Russia illegally,” he said.

Sergei Andreyev, Moscow’s ambassador to Poland, had earlier told Russian state news agencies that the building housing the embassy school was a diplomatic one which Polish authorities had no right to seize.

The two countries’ fraught relations have soured further over the war in Ukraine with Warsaw positioning itself as one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies, playing a leading role in persuading allies to provide it with heavy weaponry.

In March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Poland said it was expelling 45 Russian diplomats suspected of working for Moscow’s intelligence services.
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Turkey’s first astronaut will travel to the International Space Station by the end of the year, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday.

Air force pilot Alper Gezeravci, 43, was selected to be the first Turkish citizen in space. His backup is Tuva Cihangir Atasever, 30, an aviation systems engineer at Turkish defense contractor Roketsan.

Erdogan made the announcement at the Teknofest aviation and space fair in Istanbul, the president’s first public appearance since falling ill during a TV interview on Tuesday. He appeared alongside Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, and Libya’s interim prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.

“Our friend, who will go on Turkey’s first manned space mission, will stay on the International Space Station for 14 days,” Erdogan said. “Our astronaut will perform 13 different experiments prepared by our country’s esteemed universities and research institutions during this mission.”

Erdogan described Gezeravci as a “heroic Turkish pilot who has achieved significant success in our Air Force Command.”

The Turkish Space Agency website describes Gezeravci as a 21-year air force veteran and F-16 pilot who attended the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology.

Wearing a red flight jacket, Erdogan appeared in robust health as he addressed crowds at the festival. Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for May 14, and opinion polls show Erdogan in potentially his toughest race since he came to power two decades ago.

Turkey is dealing with a prolonged economic downturn, and the government received criticism after a February earthquake killed more than 50,000 in the country. Experts blamed the high death toll in part on shoddy construction and law enforcement of building codes.

While campaigning for reelection, Erdogan has unveiled a number of prestigious projects, such as Turkey’s first nuclear power plant and the delivery of natural gas from Black Sea reserves.
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“We thought we could die.”

The Russian invasion had just begun when Nancy Pelosi made a surprise visit to Ukraine, the House speaker then the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to lead a congressional delegation to Kyiv.

Pelosi and the lawmakers were ushered under the cloak of secrecy into the capital city, an undisclosed passage that even to this day she will not divulge.

“It was very, it was dangerous,” Pelosi told The Associated Press before Sunday’s one-year anniversary of that trip.

“We never feared about it, but we thought we could die because we’re visiting a serious, serious war zone,” Pelosi said. “We had great protection, but nonetheless, a war — theater of war.”

Pelosi’s visit was as unusual as it was historic, opening a fresh diplomatic channel between the U.S. and Ukraine that has only deepened with the prolonged war. In the year since, a long list of congressional leaders, senators and chairs of powerful committees, both Democrats and Republicans, followed her lead, punctuated by President Joe Biden’s own visit this year.

The steady stream of arrivals in Kyiv has served to amplify a political and military partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine for the world to see, one that will be tested anew when Congress is again expected this year to help fund the war to defeat Russia.

“We must win. We must bring this to a positive conclusion — for the people of Ukraine and for our country,” Pelosi said.

“There is a fight in the world now between democracy and autocracy, its manifestation at the time is in Ukraine.”

Looked beyond US borders

With a new Republican majority in the House whose Trump-aligned members have balked at overseas investments, Pelosi, a Democrat, remains confident the Congress will continue backing Ukraine as part of a broader U.S. commitment to democracy abroad in the face of authoritarian aggression.

“Support for Ukraine has been bipartisan and bicameral, in both houses of Congress by both parties, and the American people support democracy in Ukraine,” Pelosi told AP. “I believe that we will continue to support as long as we need to support democracy… as long as it takes to win.”

Now the speaker emerita, an honorary title bestowed by Democrats, Pelosi is circumspect about her role as a U.S. emissary abroad. Having visited 87 countries during her time in office, many as the trailblazing first woman to be the House speaker, she set a new standard for pointing the gavel outward as she focused attention on the world beyond U.S. shores.

In her office tucked away at the Capitol, Pelosi shared many of the honors and mementos she has received from abroad, including the honorary passport she was given on her trip to Ukraine, among her final stops as speaker.

It’s a signature political style, building on Pelosi’s decades of work on the House Intelligence committee, but one that a new generation of House leaders may — or may not — chose to emulate.

The new Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this month, the Republican leader’s first foray as leader into foreign affairs.

Democrat Hakeem Jeffries took his own first trip abroad to as House minority leader, leading congressional delegations last week to Ghana and Israel.

Pelosi said it’s up to the new leaders what they will do on the global stage.

“Other speakers have understood our national security — we take an oath to protect and defend — and so we have to reach out with our values and our strength to make sure that happens,” she said.

‘A fight for everyone’

When Pelosi arrived in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stood outside to meet the U.S. officials, the photo that ricocheted around the world a show of support for the young democracy fighting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

“The courage of the president in greeting us on the street rather than us just meeting him in his office was yet again another symbol of the courage of the people of Ukraine,” she said.

Pelosi told Zelenskyy in a video released at the time “your fight is a fight for everyone.”

Last year, in one of her final trips as speaker, Pelosi touched down with a delegation in Taipei, Taiwan, crowds lining the streets to cheer her arrival, a visit with the Taiwanese president that drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing, which counts the island as its own.

“Cowardly,” she said about the military exercises China launched in the aftermath of her trip.

Pelosi offered rare praise for McCarthy’s own meeting with Tsai, particularly its bipartisan nature and the choice of venue the historic Reagan library.

“That was really quite a message and quite an optic to be there. And so, I salute what he did,” she said.

In one of her closing acts as House speaker in December, Pelosi hosted Zelenskyy for a joint address to Congress. The visit evoked the one made by Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain, at Christmastime in 1941 to speak to Congress in the Senate chamber of a “long and hard war” at the start of World War II.

Zelenskyy presented to Congress a Ukrainian flag signed by frontline troops that Pelosi said will eventually be displayed at the U.S. Capitol.

The world has changed much since Pelosi joined Congress — one of her first trips abroad was in 1991, when she dared to unfurl a pro-democracy banner in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square shortly after the student demonstrations that ended in massacre.

After the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s Russia and China that remain front of her mind.

“The role of Putin in terms of Russia that is a bigger threat than it was when I came to Congress,” she said. A decade after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, she said, Putin went up.

“That’s where the fight for democracy is taking place,” she said.

And, she said, despite the work she and others in Congress have done to point out the concerns over China’s military and economic rise, and its human rights record, “that has only gotten worse.”
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A walrus that became a global celebrity last year after it was seen frolicking and basking in a Oslo fjord before it was euthanized by the authorities has been honored with a bronze sculpture in Norway. 

The life-size sculpture by Norwegian artist Astri Tonoian was unveiled Saturday at the Oslo marina not far from the place where the actual 600-kilogram (1,300-pound) mammal was seen resting and relaxing during the summer of 2022. 

The walrus, named Freya, quickly became a popular attraction among Oslo residents but Norwegian authorities later made a decision to euthanize it — causing public outrage — because they said people hadn’t followed recommendations to keep a safe distance away from the massive animal. 

Norwegian news agency NTB said a crowdfunding campaign was kicked off last fall to finance the sculpture. The private initiative managed to gather about 270,000 Norwegian kroner ($25,000) by October, NTB said. 
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