Nov 28 (Reuters) – An eruption began in the summit caldera of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, on Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Service’s (USGS) volcanic activity service said.
“At this time, lava flows are contained within the summit area and are not threatening downslope communities,” the notification said.
However, the notification warned, based on previous events, that the early eruption stages of this volcano can be very dynamic and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly.
The volcano alert level was upgraded from an “advisory” to a “warning.”
The notification added that the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) would conduct aerial reconnaissance as soon as possible to assess hazards and better describe the eruption.
Over a dozen earthquakes of more than 2.5 magnitude struck the region in the last two hours, according to the USGS, with one measuring 4.2 in magnitude.
Mauna Loa, which takes up more than half of the Big Island in Hawaii, and rises 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above the Pacific Ocean, last erupted in March and April of 1984, sending a flow of lava within 5 miles (8.05 km) of the city of Hilo.
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Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby Chopra
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The chief executive and other senior leaders at Adidas discussed the potential fallout from its relationship with Kanye West as far back as four years ago, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
During a 2018 presentation to the Adidas executive board, a group of employees reportedly outlined the risks that they faced by interacting with West, who has legally changed his name to Ye. The presentation included a number of mitigation strategies that included cutting ties with the Yeezy creator, the report said.
But Adidas executives did not sever ties when these concerns were raised, and instead continued to meet with Ye to try and hold onto the partnership, which made nearly $2 billion a year for Adidas, or 10% of its revenue, according to Morningstar analyst David Swartz. During one meeting in September of this year, the report said, Ye accused Adidas executives of stealing his designs and showed them a clip of an adult video.
The German sportswear giant officially terminated its partnership with Ye in October after the musician made a series of offensive and antisemitic comments.
“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company said in a statement. “Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
A month later, Adidas announced that it is investigating accusations made by staff relating to Ye’s conduct after an anonymous letter alleged years of abuse.
Ye’s alleged behavior was not new, according to employees who spoke to the Journal. Some of them had raised concerns about Ye to leaders and human resources at Adidas as far back as 2018.
“It is currently not clear whether the accusations made in an anonymous letter are true,” Adidas said in a statement Thursday. “However, we take these allegations very seriously and have taken the decision to launch an independent investigation of the matter immediately to address the allegations.”
When the Covid pandemic was raging in 2020, much of the world was in lockdown and more turned to online shopping.
But Chrisanti Indiana did the unexpected: she expanded her e-commerce business — offline.
Her beauty and personal care e-commerce startup, Sociolla, had just two brick-and-mortar stores in Indonesia in 2019. By the end of 2021, that number grew “10 times” more, she said.
“A lot of people actually told us that it’s a very bold move to actually open an offline presence, while everybody was closing their offline stores [during the pandemic],” she added.
But that was a “well-calculated” move for Social Bella, which operates Sociolla.
We know that this is the time for us to actually prepare … to make sure that after the pandemic, we can serve more and more consumers.
Chrisanti Indiana
Co-founder and CMO, Sociolla
“We know that this is the time for us to actually prepare … to make sure that after the pandemic, we can serve more and more consumers,” she added.
Looking far ahead turned out to be the right move for the 31-year-old. Her online and offline approach transformed her e-commerce startup into a multimillion-dollar beauty conglomerate.
Since 2018, it has raised around $225 million, and drawn an impressive list of investors that include East Ventures, Jungle Ventures, Temasek and Pavilion Capital.
Indiana, the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Social Bella, tells CNBC Make It how she took her Jakarta-based startup to the next level.
Tackling counterfeits
The idea for Sociolla came about in 2015, when Indiana returned home to Jakarta, after studying in Australia.
The makeup junkie realized that in Australia, she had easy access to a wide range of beauty products from international brands. That was a stark contrast to Indonesia.
“There was lot of options for me, but then I came back and there’s basically none,” said Indiana.
“There wasn’t a platform that had it all — I had to find specific sellers on social media, ask friends who can help purchase the product for you [when they are] overseas.”
What made matters worse for her was the online proliferation of counterfeit makeup products that were sometimes selling at “a fraction” of the original’s price.
I still remember vividly in my mind that there’s a lot of like sellers online, especially on social media, that claim their products are 99% authentic. What does that mean, 99% authentic?
Chrisanti Indiana
Co-founder and CMO, Sociolla
“I still remember vividly in my mind that there’s a lot of like sellers online, especially on social media, that claim their products are 99% authentic. What does that mean, 99% authentic?”
Indeed, locally made counterfeits in Indonesia are rife, thanks to cheap labor costs and materials. According to a local report, Indonesian authorities seized illegal cosmetic products worth $9 million in 2018 — twice the previous year’s amount.
Seeing friends buying these products left Indiana perplexed.
“It’s skincare, it’s makeup. It’s something that you put on your skin. It’s just bizarre for me,” she said.
Sociolla has expanded into brick-and-mortar shops. It now has 47 stores in Indonesia and 16 in Vietnam.
Social Bella
Determined to build a space where consumers can get products that are safe and authentic, Indiana teamed up with her brother and friend to launch Social Bella, with a starting capital of $13,000.
“Since we started, we ensure that we only work with authorized distributors or brand owners,” Indiana said.
Building an ‘ecosystem’
Sociolla may have started off as an e-commerce platform, but the trio had bigger dreams.
Social Bella has since gone beyond offline shops — it’s also a distributor for beauty and personal care manufacturers worldwide.
“We become an associate partner for a lot of global brands in Indonesia. We help them not only to distribute their products to Indonesia, but we also help them understand the market,” said Indiana.
On top of that, the business also operates Soco, which Social Bella says is Indonesia’s largest online review service for beauty products. Soco has amassed more than 2.5 million reviews for around 36,000 products,the company added.
Social Bella was founded in 2015 by Chrisanti Indiana, her brother and president Christopher Madiam (left) and CEO John Rasjid (right).
Social Bella
The “beauty journey” for customers goes beyond putting something in their shopping carts and checking out, said Indiana.
“We realized that there’s a lot of touch points that are really important … finding the right products for yourself is not just about going to the store and picking it up. You will make sure that you read the reviews, talk to your friends, or Google first,” she added.
“Soco makes sure that they can access tons of product reviews before they purchase products.”
On top of that, Social Bella also runs Beauty Journal — a lifestyle website, and Lilla, anonline retailer for mothers and babies.
That’s all part of building the business “ecosystem,” as Indiana calls it.
We want to make sure that we are scaling up and reaching more and more consumers. If Social Bella becomes a unicorn, it’s a bonus.
“We want to … to serve more and more women, not only in beauty and personal care, but also in other industries.”
The startup appears to be on the right track — it now boasts more than 30 million users across all its business units, said Social Bella, selling an inventory of 12,000 products from 400 brands worldwide.
Indonesia’s next unicorn?
Over the last two years, Social Bella expanded aggressively, growing from just three Sociolla stores in Indonesia in 2020, to 47 stores there and 16 stores in Vietnam today.
While much of the expansion took place during the pandemic, Indiana said that had always been part of the plan for the e-commerce platform, lockdowns or not.
“It’s actually to create a seamless omnichannel experience … because we believe that we are serving the same customer whether she shops offline or online,” the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia honoree said.
“They can choose to do click-and-collect or … she can also deliver the purchases to her home. It’s making sure that she can shop the way she likes.”
GREEN BAY, Wis. — If anyone inside the Green Bay Packers’ locker room had a problem with quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ assessment of their offense and who should — or should not — receive playing time, then they haven’t addressed it with him.
Not his teammates.
And not coach Matt LaFleur.
That’s according to Rodgers on Wednesday, one day after his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” made waves because the quarterback said, among other things, that players “who are making too many mistakes shouldn’t be playing. Gotta start cutting some reps. And maybe guys who aren’t playing, give them a chance.”
Rodgers said it was nothing he hasn’t shared behind closed doors inside team headquarters at Lambeau Field.
“If one of those guys has a problem with it, I’m right here, and I’d love to have a conversation,” Rodgers said. “I enjoy those conversations. I enjoy any type of conflict like that because I know the resolution on the other side is going to make us a better unit, a better friendship, a better cohesion on the field. But nobody’s come to me and said, ‘I’ve got a problem with what you said.’ I think everybody knows, Matt included, that everything’s got to take a little uptick, get a little better.”
Nor did Rodgers back down from those comments when asked to clarify them.
“I don’t understand why people have a problem with things that are truthful,” Rodgers said. “I’m calling things the way I see it. People don’t think I need to air that stuff out, that’s their opinion. But I’m doing what I think is in the best interest of our guys, and I’ve tried a lot of different things from a leadership standpoint this year, and I was just relating my personal feelings on the situation. I didn’t call anybody out by name. I think we all need to be on the details, and that includes me.”
Rodgers said he was open to extra conversations with teammates and coaches during the week to help fix things. To that extent, Rodgers, who did not practice Wednesday because of his injured right thumb — which he would not say if it was broken or not — moved his treatment time so that he could attend practice and still call plays in the huddle. The Packers also moved up by one day their regular weekly meeting between the quarterbacks and the receivers.
On Tuesday, Rodgers told McAfee that they’ve had missed assignments or had mental errors on as many as 20% of their offensive plays in games this season, including Sunday’s loss to the Washington Commanders that dropped the Packers to 3-4 after a 3-1 start.
“If you’re not performing or executing or doing the things that you’re supposed to be doing, then I’m with Aaron,” veteran receiver Sammy Watkins said Wednesday. “If I’m not playing well and I’m freaking up and busting plays, get me out of the game because that’s not helping the team. I think that’s a wake-up call to everybody, wake-up call to myself. I try to limit myself to having one M.A. a game and that’s my goal. The goal is to have none, but things happen in the fire. I’m with Aaron, man.”
Watkins returned Sunday after a four-week absence because of a hamstring injury, and rookie Christian Watson could return for this Sunday’s game at the Buffalo Bills (5-1) after missing two weeks because of the same injury. However, they could be without Allen Lazard, who did not practice Wednesday because of a shoulder injury.
When rookie Samori Toure was active for the Washington game, it meant that every receiver on the roster has gotten a chance this season. So unless Rodgers was referring to practice squad receivers Juwann Winfree (who has one catch for 17 yards in the three games in which he was elevated from the practice squad) or journeyman Travis Fulgham (who has never played in a game for the Packers), then it’s unclear who he thinks should be playing more.
“I think it’s just, we gotta get our best 11 on the field and if that means going different personnel groups, then we’ll have to do that,” Rodgers said. “But we can’t have the same double-digit, 15-plus mental errors and expect to move the ball efficiently.”
LaFleur gave no indication that he had an issue with Rodgers’ comments.
“We have to be truthful with one another,” LaFleur said. “Sometimes the truth hurts. … I don’t think he publicly called out individuals, I don’t believe, I didn’t sit there and listen to the whole thing, so I just think that you have to get to the root of the truth.”
Green Bay opened as a 10.5-point underdog and by late Wednesday the line had moved to 11.5 at Caesars Sportsbook. Rodgers has never been more than an 8.5-point underdog in his career, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. His 234 career starts (including regular season and playoffs) are the most by any quarterback to never be a double-digit underdog in the Super Bowl era. Rodgers is 0-4, including playoffs, as a touchdown or more underdog.
“You can be a dangerous team when you feel like you have a lot to prove, and when you’re kind of counted out,” Rodgers said. “So I welcome us being counted out as much as possible. I’ve always enjoyed that feeling. And for these guys who have a lot to prove, hopefully they embrace that as well. It’s time to make a name for yourself in this league, and a lot of guys are going to get opportunities on Sunday. On national TV, with millions and millions of people watching — a great time for some of those guys to step into the limelight.”
said he sought to address Beijing’s concerns Thursday about the Ukraine war in his first meeting with Chinese leader
Xi Jinping
since the start of the conflict, which has recently brought major battlefield setbacks for Moscow.
Mr. Putin told his Chinese counterpart that Moscow highly values what he called Beijing’s balanced position regarding the Ukraine crisis. He added that the Kremlin would clarify its position on Ukraine, without explaining further.
“We understand your questions and your concerns,” he said, in remarks broadcast on Russian state television from the meeting, which took place at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan.
He also struck out at the U.S. for what he called provocations in Taiwan and said Moscow would adhere to its One China policy, which asserts that the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate government of China.
China and Russia have maintained “an effective strategic communication” since the beginning of the year, Mr. Xi said in the meeting, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.
“In the face of historical changes in the world and times, as major countries, China is willing to work together with Russia to play a leading role and to inject stability into the turbulent world,” said Mr. Xi.
Most notable was Mr. Putin’s public admission that China has concerns about Russia’s war in Ukraine, said
Craig Singleton,
a former U.S. diplomat and a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank based in Washington. He noted that the Chinese government’s official readout of the meeting made no mention of Ukraine, which signaled that Beijing had no intention of increasing its support for Russia, even as Moscow’s war effort stalls.
“China is also rightly concerned that its continued support for Russia’s invasion has badly damaged both Sino-European relations as well as China’s relationships throughout Central Asia, where most countries are on record as being against Putin’s invasion,” he said.
With the world’s second-largest economy and a shared interest in countering the West, China might be Russia’s most important partner as Moscow weathers many international economic sanctions. At their last meeting, just before the start of the war, the two leaders declared that the relationship between the two countries has “no limits.”
At the time, Russia had nearly 200,000 soldiers within striking distance of Kyiv. Since then, Russia’s invading forces have been driven back from the Ukrainian capital and dealt a number of battlefield blows. Last week, a Ukrainian advance routed Russian soldiers in northeastern Ukraine. On the heels of that and other defeats that have raised questions about Russian capabilities, Mr. Putin might need to dial down his expectations for meaningful assistance from Mr. Xi or their Central Asian counterparts.
While China has been an important trading partner for Russia, with Beijing’s oil purchases helping to offset a decline in exports to Europe, Beijing has been careful not to run afoul of Western sanctions. Chinese leaders have said the country isn’t selling weapons to Russia.
As the West scrambles to move away from Russian energy sources and imposes sanctions on Moscow, China and India have stepped in to fill the gap. WSJ examines how those countries have boosted Russia’s revenue from oil sales, supporting its economy. Photo illustration: Sharon Shi
The Russian economy, cushioned by a windfall from high-price energy exports, has defied earlier expectations of a severe recession. Russian officials have significantly revised forecasts, most recently predicting gross domestic product to fall by 2.9% this year compared with a year earlier. Previously the government had said it expected a contraction of nearly 10%.
Still, the outlook remains bleak, economists say, as sanctions on critical imports and an exodus of Western companies are expected to degrade the long-term potential of the economy.
Ahead of the meeting, the Kremlin said that ties between Moscow and Beijing were stronger than they have ever been, and that trade between the two countries this year had risen by a quarter from 2021, when Russian-Chinese bilateral trade hit a record of $140 billion.
The most interesting discussions between China and Russia on Thursday likely took place behind closed doors, said
Alex Gabuev,
senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and an expert on Russia-Chinese ties. He said the main thrust of the talks was likely about economic partnerships like Power of Siberia 2, an additional proposed Russian gas pipeline to China, as well as how much Beijing could sell its technology to Russia without triggering sanctions.
Vladimir Putin met with Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan, their first in-person meeting since the war in Ukraine started.
Photo:
Alexandr Demyanchuk/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/Associated Press
Mr. Putin will need China “to continue to export semiconductors, without which both Russia’s civil but also military industrial capacity cannot continue to operate,” said
Alicia García Herrero,
chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis. “This is becoming increasingly difficult due to the U.S. expanding export bans on semiconductors.”
The summit in Samarkand, which concludes on Friday, will include Iran as the ninth member of the regional security bloc founded by China, Russia and Central Asian countries in 2001. The leaders are also expected to issue a declaration on its position on international and economic issues. Such announcements are likely to further fuel U.S. concern about an anti-American axis between the two powers that could threaten Washington’s security and economic interests.
Both Chinese and Russian leaders see U.S. foreign policy as being part of a grand strategy to contain the rise and influence of the two major powers through America’s economic heft and its global network of alliances. They have challenged the U.S.-led international order, saying that America’s democratic system isn’t superior to other forms of governance and that Washington is losing authority in the world.
Beijing sees America’s commitment to defend Taiwan and its support for Vietnam in its maritime disputes as a threat, while Moscow views Washington’s backing for Ukraine and other former Soviet republics such as Georgia as a menace. In their last joint statement issued when Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi met in Beijing in February, they opposed expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Washington’s efforts to strengthen its alliances in the Indo-Pacific.
Vladimir Putin sees U.S. foreign policy as part of a strategy to contain the influence of Russia.
Photo:
pavel bednyakov/sputnik/kremlin/Shutterstock
“It is a very useful and important strategic alignment,” said
Raffaello Pantucci,
a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank. “They are two strongmen who don’t share a language. But they do share a worldview, and they agree on who their main threats and enemies are.”
Nevertheless, China has walked a careful line in its dealings with Moscow to avoid being ensnared in any potential sanctions and alienating other countries, such as those in Central Asia, where China is building economic ties. Kazakhstan, the regional economic heavyweight that shares a border with Russia, has refused to support Russia’s actions in Ukraine, a decision that has boosted tensions between the two countries.
Mr. Xi has a lot at stake in a strategic partnership with Russia, but if he goes too far, he risks damaging relationships with some of the Central Asian countries who are wary of Moscow’s war in Ukraine, said
Evan Feigenbaum,
vice president at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington and a former deputy assistant secretary of state.
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Beijing signed a new railway agreement with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday, an ambitious plan to link the Central Asian countries with China that has been under discussion for nearly two decades. Beijing sees the new route as an alternative to its current dependence on a route through Russia and Kazakhstan for overland transit to Europe. That has become even more important in light of the Ukraine war.
“The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway will link us to Asia-Pacific countries, paving the way for new economic opportunities. It will be a great addition to the existing east-west railways,” Uzbekistan’s president,
Shavkat Mirziyoyev,
said at a May 27 meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led trade and economic bloc made up of former Soviet states.
The Central Asians will privately express their discomfort to China if Beijing gets too close to Moscow, said Mr. Feigenbaum.
China has tried to balance those interests by keeping its commitments vague. The country is ready to work with Russia to take the global order in a “more just and rational direction,” China’s top diplomat,
Yang Jiechi,
said in a meeting Monday with Russian Ambassador
Andrey Denisov
in Beijing, without detailing any explicit pledges of support.
—Charles Hutzler contributed to this article.
Write to Keith Zhai at keith.zhai@wsj.com and Thomas Grove at thomas.grove@wsj.com
IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Hand on heart, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy watched his country’s flag rise Wednesday above the recaptured city of Izium, making a rare foray outside the capital that highlights Moscow’s embarrassing retreat from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Russian forces left the war-scarred city last week as Kyiv’s soldiers pressed a stunning advance that has reclaimed large swaths of territory in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.
As Zelenskyy looked on and sang the national anthem, the Ukrainian flag was raised in front of the burned-out city hall. After almost six months under Russian occupation, Izium was left largely devastated, with apartment buildings blackened by fire and pockmarked by artillery strikes.
A gaping hole and piles of rubble stood where one building had collapsed.
“The view is very shocking, but it is not shocking for me,” Zelenskyy told journalists, “because we began to see the same pictures from Bucha, from the first de-occupied territories … the same destroyed buildings, killed people.”
Bucha is a small city on Kyiv’s outskirts from which Russian forces withdrew in March. In the aftermath, Ukrainian authorities discovered the bodies of hundreds of civilians dumped in streets, yards and mass graves. Many bore signs of torture.
Prosecutors said they so far have found six bodies with traces of torture in recently retaken Kharkiv region villages. The head of the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office, Oleksandr Filchakov, said bodies were found in Hrakove and Zaliznyche, villages around 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Kharkiv city.
“We have a terrible picture of what the occupiers did. … Such cities as Balakliia, Izium, are standing in the same row as Bucha, Borodyanka, Irpin,” said Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, listing places where the Ukrainians have alleged Russian forces committed atrocities.
Local authorities have made similar claims in other areas Russia previously held, but it was not immediately possible to verify their information. They have not yet provided evidence of potential atrocities on the scale described in Bucha, where the number and conditions of civilian casualties prompted international demands for Russian officials to face war crime charges.
Moscow’s recent rout in northeast Ukraine was its largest military defeat since Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv area months ago. On the northern outskirts of Izium, the remains of Russian tanks and vehicles lay shattered along a road.
As Zelenskyy visited, his forces pressed their counteroffensive, de-mined retaken ground and investigated possible war crimes. He said “life comes back” as Ukrainian soldiers return to previously occupied villages.
The Ukrainian governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said Ukrainian forces were preparing to retake the region, which borders the Kharkiv region and was has been mostly under Russian control since July. Mobile internet service was down, and intense shelling of Ukrainian forces continued, according to Haidai.
He told The Associated Press that Ukrainian guerrilla forces were flying Ukrainian flags in the cities of Svatove and Starobilsk.
But in Kreminna, another city where Ukrainians raised their flag, Russians returned Wednesday and “tore down the (Ukrainian) flags and are demonstrably showing that they’re there,” Haidai said.
A separatist military leader confirmed the Ukrainian advance on the Luhansk region. Andrei Marochko, a local militia officer, said on Russian TV that the situation was “really difficult.”
“In some places, the contact line has come very close to the borders of the Luhansk People’s Republic,” Marochko said, referring to the independent state the separatists declared eight years ago.
The counteroffensive has left more weapons in Ukrainian hands.
Russian forces likely left behind dozens of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other heavy weaponry as they fled Ukraine’s advance in the east, a Ukrainian think tank said Wednesday.
The Center for Defense Strategies said one Russian unit fleeing the Izium area left behind more than three dozen T-80 tanks and about as many infantry fighting vehicles. Another unit left 47 tanks and 27 armored vehicles.
The center said Russian forces tried to destroy some of the abandoned vehicles through artillery strikes as they fell back. Typically, armed forces ruin equipment left behind so their opponent can’t use it.
However, the chaos of the Russian withdrawal apparently forced them to abandon untouched ammunition and weapons.
With the recent Ukrainian gains, a new front line has emerged along the Oskil River, which largely traces the eastern edge of the Kharkiv region, a Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said Wednesday.
“Russian troops are unlikely to be strong enough to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River because they do not appear to be receiving reinforcements, and Ukrainian troops will likely be able to exploit this weakness to resume the counteroffensive across the Oskil if they choose,” the institute said.
In other areas, Russia continued its attacks, causing more casualties in a war that has dragged on for nearly seven months.
Russian shelling of seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours killed at least seven civilians and wounded 22, Ukraine’s presidential office reported Wednesday morning.
Two people were killed and three wounded after Russia attacked Mykolaiv with S-300 missiles overnight, said regional governor Vitaliy Kim. Settlements near the front line in Mykolaiv region remain under fire.
The Nikopol area, across a river from the shut down Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, was shelled three times during the night, with no injuries were immediately reported, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
Fighting also raged in the eastern Donetsk region, where shelling killed five civilians and wounded 16. Together, Luhansk and Donetsk make up the Donbas, an industrial area that Moscow set out to capture following an unsuccessful attempt to invade Kyiv.
Russian troops are targeting critical infrastructure. Eight cruise missiles aimed at the water supply system hit Kryvyi Rih, a city 150 kms (93 miles) southwest of Dnipro. Deputy Head of President’s office Kyrylo Tymoshenko reported on his Telegram channel.
U.S. President Joe Biden observed Wednesday that Ukrainian forces have made “significant progress” in recent days but said, “I think it’s going to be a long haul.”
While criticism of the invasion seems to be increasing in Russia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that the realization has grown over there by now that this was a mistake to start this war.”
Western military and economic support has allowed Ukraine to keep fighting since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, and the Ukrainian government received more assistance Wednesday.
An international group of creditors, including the U.S., finalized a deal to suspend Ukraine’s debt service through the end of 2023, helping the country ease liquidity pressures and increase social, health and economic spending.
___
Arhirova reported from Kyiva. Associated Press journalist Jon Gambrell in Kyiv contributed.
___
Follow AP war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A crowdfunded Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drone is on view during a presentation at the Lithuanian Air Force Base in Siauliai, Lithuania, on July 6. (Petras Malukas/AFP/Getty Images)
A Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone, secured by Lithuania for Ukraine after a local crowdfunding campaign, is expected to be shipped to Kyiv in the coming hours.
The “Vanagas” (which means “Hawk” in Lithuanian), along with ammunition, arrived in the Baltic country on Monday, the country’s Defense Minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, tweeted. After a press introduction on Wednesday, Anušauskas added the drone would be transferred to Ukraine soon.
“Last hours of Bayraktar “Vanagas” in Lithuania. Very soon it will be delivered to Ukraine,” he tweeted.
The crowdfunding campaign was launched by Lithuanian online broadcaster Laisves TV last month and was able to secure about 6 million euros ($6.11 million) to buy the drone.
The purchase was organized by the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, but it says that after learning it was being bought via a crowdfunding campaign, the manufacturer donated the drone for free.
“Citizens of Lithuania collected funds for this aircraft, but inspired by the idea, the Turkish company ‘Baykar’, the manufacturer of ‘Bayraktar’, decided to donate it,” the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “1.5 million euros of the donated 5.9 million was allocated for arming the unmanned aircraft.”
It is not the first time Baykar has donated some of its drones to the Ukrainian armed forces. Last month, after a Ukrainian crowdfunding campaign secured enough funds to purchase three of the drones, the company said it would be donating them for free.
“We ask that the raised funds be remitted instead to the struggling people of Ukraine,” it said in a statement on June 27.
The Bayraktar TB2 drone has played a key role in Ukraine’s defense against Russia. The country had about 20 of the unmanned aerial vehicles before the start of the war on Feb. 24, but Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on June 28 that his office had been able to secure up to 50 drones since the invasion began.
“In the near future, almost all capacity of the Baykar Makina plant will be focused on meeting the needs of the Armed Forces. It’s about ordering dozens more drones,” Reznikov added.
Ukrainian forces have raised the country’s flag on Snake Island, a strategic and symbolic outpost in the Black Sea that Russian troops retreated from last week after months of heavy bombardment.
“The military operation has been concluded, and … the territory, Snake Island, has been returned to the jurisdiction of Ukraine,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern military command, told reporters.
Ukraine has considered control of the island as a critical step in loosening Moscow’s blockade on its southern ports.
However, it was not clear if Ukrainian troops would seek to re-establish a permanent presence there, as it is dangerously exposed to bombardment.
On Sunday, a military official told the Guardian the area of the Black Sea around Snake Island was still a “grey zone”, meaning that, technically, the Ukrainians did not intend to bring their forces back.
Snake Island became known internationally when Russia first captured it in February. A Ukrainian soldier posted on the island told an attacking Russian warship to “go fuck yourself”, a phrase that has since become one of the most popular Ukrainian slogans of resistance.
‘Go fuck yourself’, Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island tell Russian ship – audio
The Ukrainian postal service issued a stamp showing a Ukrainian soldier giving the finger to the Russian cruiser Moskva, which was later sunk. Since Russia took control, Ukrainian troops have attempted to retake it several times.
Russia claimed it had pulled out from the island on Thursday as a “gesture of goodwill” to show it was not obstructing United Nations attempts to open a humanitarian corridor allowing grain to be shipped from Ukraine.
A Russian military attack of the town of Serhiivka, near Odesa, on Friday has been interpreted by Ukrainian authorities as payback for Russian troops being forced from Snake Island the day before.
At least 21 people, including two children, died in the attack after two Russian missiles struck a multi-storey block of flats and a recreation centre.
“The occupiers cannot win on the battlefield, so they resort to vile killing of civilians,” Ivan Bakanov, the head of Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said. “After the enemy was dislodged from Snake Island, [they] decided to respond with the cynical shelling of civilian targets.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, said that although the pullout did not guarantee the Black Sea region’s safety, it would “significantly limit” Russian activities there. “Step by step, we will push [Russia] out of our sea, our land, our sky,” he said.
Kyiv accused Russia on Saturday of dropping incendiary white phosphorus on Snake Island. Ukrainian personnel were not present at the time of the attack and, according to military experts, the Russians used it to burn the weapons and ammunition left there before their retreat.
Ukrainian women are selling their nudes online to raise money for their country’s troops.
The project, named “TerOnlyFans,” has already raised more than $700,000 since March.
Its founder, Nastassia Nasko, told Insider she feels proud to have found a unique way to help Ukraine.
Nastsassia Nasko says she came up with the idea by accident.
A few days after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, she had posted on Twitter asking if someone with a car could help evacuate an acquaintance out of the Kharkiv, one of the first Ukrainian cities to be besieged by Russian troops.
When nobody responded to her, the 23-year-old tweeted, half-jokingly, that she would send a nude picture of herself to whoever was able to help.
Within five minutes, she had more than 10 messages in her inbox, she told Insider. After she sent a nude picture of herself to a man who offered to help, her acquaintance was safely driven out of Kharkiv.
The experience sparked an idea and several days later —on International Women’s Day — Nasko and her friend, Anastasiya Kuchmenko, launched “TerOnlyFans.” (“Ter” is short for territorial defense.)
The project has a similar model to OnlyFans, the subscription-based social platform which has become a lucrative way for adult content creators to earn money. (It has no connection to OnlyFans, and the company did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.)
But on TerOnlyFans, the money goes straight to the Ukrainian army, rather than to the creators. Three months on, the group has raised more than $700,000, Nasko told Insider.
The majority of the donations go to Ukraine’s Territorial Defense, although Nasko, said the project had also sent some money to refugee or animal-shelter organizations.
Since the website’s launch, 35 women and three men, most of whom are based in Ukraine, have signed up to send pictures to donors. Only 10 of them have had previous experience with OnlyFans, while the others told Nasko they wanted to volunteer to help Ukraine, she said.
Most of the donors are from Ukraine, though the group has also received money from people in the Netherlands, France, and the UK, Nasko said. The highest donation the group ever received was a cryptocurrency payment of $2,800.
Also unlike Onlyfans, the project’s volunteers don’t take requests for pictures, Nasko said: “We are not sex workers, we are trying to raise money for the war.”
Nasko, who is originally from Belarus but lived in Kyiv before the war, told Insider she is proud of her unique approach to collecting donations for Ukraine.
“I feel happy because I can support people in Ukraine and show that not all Belarusians like Russians and that we are good people. We want to help our neighbors,” she said.
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko leader is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has supported him in the invasion.
After Russia invaded of Ukraine, Nasko decided to leave Kyiv and moved into an apartment in Warsaw, Poland, where she manages TerOnlyFans alongside her full-time job as a marketing manager at an esports company.
Together with Kuchmenko, who decided to stay in Kyiv, she continues to promote the project on Telegram, liaises with the volunteers, and double-checks the legitimacy of donations.
The amount of work can be grueling, but Nasko said she had no plans of winding down.
“We will end this project when Putin dies and Russia stops their aggression,” she said.
At least two people were killed and 10 injured in a shooting at a nightclub in Oslo, Norway, early Saturday morning, according to Norwegian authorities, prompting officials to raise the terror alert.
Flowers are left at the scene of a shooting in central Oslo, Saturday, June 25, 2022. Norwegian police say they are investigating an overnight shooting in Oslo that killed two people and injured more than a dozen as a case of possible terrorism.
Hakon Mosvold Larsen / AP
Investigators said the suspect, identified as a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, was arrested after opening fire at three locations in downtown Oslo.
Police said two men, one in his 50s and and the other his 60s, died in the shootings. Ten people were treated for serious injuries, but none of them was believed to be in life-threatening condition. Eleven others had minor injuries.
The Norwegian Police Security Service raised its terror alert level from “moderate” to “extraordinary” — the highest level — after the attack, which sent panicked revelers fleeing into the streets or trying to hide from the gunman.
The service’s acting chief, Roger Berg, called the attack an “extreme Islamist terror act” and said the suspect had a “long history of violence and threats,” as well as mental health issues.
He said the agency, known by its Norwegian acronym PST, first became aware of the suspect in 2015 and later grew concerned he had become radicalized and was part of an unspecified Islamist network.
Norwegian media named the suspect as Zaniar Matapour, an Oslo resident who arrived in Norway with his family from a Kurdish part of Iran in the 1990s.
The suspect’s defense lawyer, John Christian Elden, said his client hadn’t talked to investigators, and he cautioned against speculation on the motive.
“He has not given any reason. It is too early to conclude whether this is hate crime or terrorism,” Elden said in an email to The Associated Press.
Upon the advice of police, organizers canceled a Pride parade that was set for Saturday as the highlight of a weeklong festival. Scores of people marched through the capital anyway, waving rainbow flags.
Police attorney Christian Hatlo said it was too early to say whether the gunman specifically targeted members of the LGBTQ community.
“We have to look closer at that, we don’t know yet,” he said.
Police said civilians assisted them in detaining the man in custody, who was being held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism, based on the number of people targeted at multiple locations.
Investigators seized two weapons after the attack: a handgun and an automatic weapon, Hatlo described both as “not modern” but did not give details.
Not far from Oslo’s cathedral, crime scene tape cordoned off the bars where the shootings took place, including the London Pub, which is popular with the city’s LGBTQ community.
Crowds gathered outside and dropped off cards and flowers at impromptu memorials.
Martin Ebbestad, 29, had walked by earlier, seen the memorials and returned with flowers.
London Pub “is our go-to place. My boyfriend left 20 minutes before (it happened). He was sitting outside in the smoking area,” Ebbestad said. “We know this place so well. It doesn’t feel unsafe, but it does feel very close.”
Olav Roenneberg, a journalist from Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, said he witnessed the shooting.
“I saw a man arrive at the site with a bag. He picked up a weapon and started shooting,” Roenneberg told NRK. “First I thought it was an air gun. Then the glass of the bar next door was shattered and I understood I had to run for cover.”
Another witness, Marcus Nybakken, 46, said he saw a lot of people running and screaming and thought it was a fistfight.
“But then I heard that it was a shooting and that there was someone shooting with a submachine gun,” Nybakken told Norwegian broadcaster TV2.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre called the shooting a “cruel and deeply shocking attack on innocent people.”
He said that while the motive was unclear, the shooting had caused fear and grief in the LGBTQ community.
“We all stand by you,” Gahr Støre wrote on Facebook.
Christian Bredeli, who was at the London Pub, told Norwegian newspaper VG that he hid on the fourth floor with a group of about 10 people until he was told it was safe to come out.
“Many were fearing for their lives,” he said. “On our way out we saw several injured people, so we understood that something serious had happened.”
Norwegian television channel TV2 showed footage of people running down Oslo streets in panic as shots rang out in the background.
Police said the suspect had a criminal record that included a narcotics offense and a weapons offense for carrying a knife.
PST said it spoke to him in May this year “because he had shown a certain interest in statements that were interpreted as insults to Islam.”
“In these conversations, it was assessed that he had no intention of violence, but PST is aware that he has had challenges related to mental health,” the agency said in a statement.
Police advised organizers of the Pride festival to cancel a parade scheduled for Saturday.
“Oslo Pride therefore urges everyone who planned to participate or watch the parade to not show up. All events in connection with Oslo Pride are canceled,” organizers said on the official Facebook page of the event.
Inge Alexander Gjestvang, leader of FRI, a Norwegian organization for sexual and gender diversity, said the shooting shook the Nordic country’s LGBTQ community.
“We’ll be back later, proud, visible, but right now it’s not the time for that,” he told TV2.
Norway’s King Harald V offered condolences to the relatives of victims and said the royal family was “horrified” by the attack.
“We must stand together to defend our values: freedom, diversity and respect for each other. We must continue to stand up for all people to feel safe,” the monarch said.
World leaders condemned the attack on their way to a Group of Seven summit in Germany. The summit’s host, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, tweeted, “The Norwegian people can be sure of our sympathy. The fight against terror unites us.” French President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences in a tweet in Norwegian.
John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told reporters while flying with U.S. President Joe Biden to the G-7 summit, “Our hearts obviously go out to all the families there of the victims, the people of Norway, which is a tremendous ally, and of course the LGBTQI+ community, there and around the world, quite frankly.”
Norway has a relatively low crime rate but has experienced a series of so-called lone wolf attacks in recent decades, including one of the worst mass shootings in Europe. In 2011, a right-wing extremist killed 69 people on the island of Utoya after setting off a bomb in Oslo that left eight dead.
In 2019, another right-wing extremist killed his stepsister and then opened fire in a mosque but was overpowered before anyone there was injured.
Last year, a Norwegian man armed with knives and a bow and arrow killed five people in a town in southern Norway. The attacker, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was sentenced Friday to compulsory psychiatric care.
