AMMAN, Jan 2 (Reuters) – The Syrian army said on Monday an Israeli missile strike had briefly put the Damascus International Airport out of service, the latest in a string of strikes targeting Iran-linked assets.
A volley of air-launched missiles had hit the airport at 2 a.m., the army said in a statement. They had come from the direction of Lake Tiberias in Israel.
Missiles had also hit targets in the south of Damascus, killing two members of the Syrian armed forces and causing some damage, the army said.
The transport ministry said in an online statement that workers had removed debris from the strikes and that flights would resume by 9 a.m.
Earlier, two regional intelligence sources said the strikes had hit an outpost near the airport of Iran’s Quds Force and militias it backs. Their presence has spread in Syria in recent years.
The Israel Defence Force did not immediately comment on the attack.
Last year, Israel intensified strikes on Damascus International and other civilian airports to disrupt Tehran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.
Syria halted flights to and from the airport in June for nearly two weeks after Israeli strikes caused extensive damage to infrastructure, including a runway and a terminal.
Israel fired missiles at Damascus International again in September, when it also struck the country’s second-largest civilian airport in the northern city of Aleppo, putting it out of operation for several days.
Western and regional intelligence sources say Tehran has adopted civilian air transportation as a more reliable means of ferrying military equipment to its forces and to allied fighters in Syria, following Israeli disruption of ground supply.
Israel says its so-called “campaign between wars” in Syria began a decade ago, on Jan 30, 2013, with a strike against Russian-supplied SA-17 air-defence batteries that Damascus had intended to hand over to Hezbollah.
Four such strikes took place that year, but the pace had accelerated to around one a week currently, the chief of Israel’s armed forces, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi, said last month.
Iran’s proxy militias, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, now hold sway in vast areas in eastern, southern and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has never publicly acknowledged that Iranian forces operate on his behalf in Syria’s civil war, saying Tehran has only military advisers on the ground.
Kohavi last month claimed credit for an air strike on a convoy that had entered Syria from Iraq, saying the target had been a truck carrying Iranian weaponry. read more
Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Bradley Perrett
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More than 280 flights delayed, diverted on New Year’s Day
Transportation chief blames power outage for failure
System partially restored, airlines offer free rebooking
MANILA, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Philippine authorities halted flights in and out of Manila on New Year’s Day due to a malfunction of air traffic control, which also prevented airlines bound to other destinations from using the country’s airspace.
A total of 282 flights were either delayed, cancelled or diverted to other regional airports, affecting around 56,000 passengers at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), the airport operator said on Sunday.
It was unclear how many overflights were affected.
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista apologized for the inconvenience to passengers as he blamed a power outage for the breakdown of the central air traffic control system that also affected operations at other airports in the country.
He said the outdated existing facility should be upgraded immediately and that a back-up system was also needed.
“This is air traffic management system issue,” he said in a media briefing. “If you will compare us with Singapore, for one, there is a big difference, they are at least 10 years ahead of us.”
As of 0800 GMT, “the system has been partially restored thereby allowing limited flight operations”, the Manila International Airport Authority said in a statement. By late evening, eight flight arrivals and eight departures had been allowed, according to the airport operator.
Video clips and photos posted on social media showed long queues at the airport and airline personnel distributing food packs and drinks to stranded passengers.
“We’re told radar and navigation facilities at NAIA down. I was on my way home fm Tokyo – 3 hours into the flight, but had to return to Haneda,” tweeted one passenger – Manuel Pangilinan, chairman of Philippine telecommunications conglomerate PLDT Inc.
“6 hours of useless flying but inconvenience to travellers and losses to tourism and business are horrendous. Only in the PH. Sigh.”
Budget carrier Cebu Pacific (CEB.PS) and Philippine Airlines (PAL.PS) said they were offering passengers due to fly on Sunday free rebooking or the option to convert tickets to vouchers.
Reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz; Editing by Neil Fullick, Peter Graff and Alison Williams
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HONG KONG, Dec 29 (Reuters) – Hong Kong has asked Japan to withdraw a COVID-19 restriction that allows passenger flights from the financial hub to land only at four designated airports, saying the decision would affect about 60,000 passengers.
India, Italy, Taiwan and the United States require mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China after Beijing’s decision last month to lift stringent zero-COVID policies that fuelled a surge in infections across mainland China.
Hong Kong, home to more than 7 million people, is recording around 20,000 coronavirus cases a day but lifted its COVID curbs on Thursday for the first time in three years.
Japan, a top travel destination for those in Hong Kong, said it would limit flights from Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China to Tokyo’s two airports, as well as Osaka and Nagoya, from Friday.
The decision comes during a peak travel season ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday which begins on Jan. 21.
“It is understood that around 250 outbound flights of Hong Kong airlines will be affected between December 30, 2022 and the end of January 2023, affecting around 60,000 passengers,” the government said in a statement late on Wednesday.
City leader John Lee said the government had indicated to Japan that it was disappointed.
“We think that Hong Kong people should be allowed to use not just these four airports,” Lee said.
On Thursday, Hong Kong’s government said Japan would let passenger flights from Hong Kong also land in Hokkaido, Fukuoka and Okinawa provided that no passengers aboard had been in mainland China for the prior seven days, but said the condition was “unreasonable”.
Flights of Hong Kong airlines can still carry passengers back to Hong Kong from airports in Japan, the government said, to ensure their smooth return and “minimise the impact to Hong Kong travellers caused by the incident.”
In a statement, Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways (0293.HK) said it would continue to operate flights to Japan, although it would reduce these to 65 a week, down 20% from its planned schedule for Jan 2023.
HK Express, which is owned by Cathay, said in a separate statement it would only be able to operate 60 scheduled flights a week to destinations in Japan due to the curbs, prompting the cancellation of 41 flights from Hong Kong to Japan in January.
Hong Kong Airlines and Peach Aviation said they would cancel some flight routes because of the rules.
In December, China began dismantling the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its battered economy on course for a complete re-opening next year.
The lifting of curbs following widespread protests has meant that COVID is spreading largely unchecked, probably infecting millions of people each day, some international health experts have said.
Reporting by Farah Master and Twinnie Siu; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Stephen Coates
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RIO DELL, Calif., Dec 20 (Reuters) – A powerful magnitude 6.4 earthquake jolted the extreme northern coast of California before dawn on Tuesday, damaging homes, roads and water systems and leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity.
At least 11 people were reported injured, and two others died from “medical emergencies” that occurred during or just after the quake, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office.
The tremor, which struck at 2:30 a.m. PST and was followed by about 80 aftershocks, was centered 215 miles (350 km) north of San Francisco offshore of Humboldt County, a largely rural area known for its redwood forests, local seafood, lumber industry and dairy farms.
The region also is known for relatively frequent seismic activity, although the latest quake appeared to cause more disruption than others in recent years.
Tuesday’s temblor set off one structure fire, which was quickly extinguished, and caused two other buildings to collapse, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).
The department said its dispatchers fielded 70 emergency calls after the quake, including one report of a person left trapped who needed rescuing, spokesperson Tran Beyea said.
Details on quake-related casualties was sketchy, but one surviving victim was a child with a head injury and the other an older person with a broken hip, according to local media reports citing the sheriff’s office.
‘REALLY INTENSE’
Police closed a bridge crossing the Eel River into Ferndale, a picturesque town notable for its gingerbread-style Victorian storefronts and homes, after four large cracks were discovered in the span. The California Highway Patrol also said the roadway foundation there was at risk of sliding.
Authorities reported at least four other roads in Humboldt County closed due to earthquake damage, and a possible gas line rupture under investigation. One section of a roadway was reportedly sinking, the Highway Patrol said.
Ferndale and the adjacent towns of Fortuna and Rio Dell appeared hardest hit, with damage including water main breaks and about two dozen homes “red-tagged” because they were too unstable to be safely inhabited, state emergency services officials said.
[1/7] The collapsed second story porch of a house is seen after a strong 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern California, in Rio Dell, California, U.S. December 20, 2022. REUTERS/Fred Greaves
“The shaking was really intense,” said Daniel Holsapple, 33, a resident of nearby Arcata, who recounted grabbing his pet cat and running outside after he was jostled awake in pitch darkness by the motion of the house and an emergency alert from his cellphone.
“There was no seeing what was going on. It was just the sensation and that general low rumbling sound of the foundation of the whole house vibrating,” he said.
Janet Calderon, 32, who lives in the adjacent town of Eureka, said she was already awake and noticed her two cats seemed agitated moments before the quake struck, shaking her second-flood bedroom “really hard.”
“Everything on my desk fell over,” she said.
California’s earthquake early warning system appeared to have worked, sending electronic alerts to the mobile devices of some 3 million northern California residents 10 seconds before the first rumbles were felt, said state emergency chief Mark Ghilarducci.
While earthquakes producing noticeable shaking are routine in California, tremors at a magnitude 6.4 are less common and potentially dangerous, capable of causing partial building collapses or shifting structures off their foundations.
Tuesday’s temblor struck in a seismically active area where several tectonic plates converge on the sea floor about 2 miles offshore, an area that has produced about 40 quakes in the 6.0-7.0 range over the past century, said Cynthia Pridmore, a senior geologist for the California Geological Survey.
“So it is not unusual to have earthquakes of this size in this region,” she told a news conference.
Shaking from Tuesday’s quake, which occurred at the relatively shallow depth of 11.1 miles (17.9 km) was felt as far away as the San Francisco Bay area, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The biggest aftershock registered a magnitude 4.6.
Some 79,000 homes and businesses were without power in Ferndale and surrounding Humboldt County shortly after the quake, according to the electric grid tracking website PowerOutage.us.
PG&E crews were out assessing the utility’s gas and electric system for any damage and hazards, which could take several days, company spokesperson Karly Hernandez said.
Reporting by Nathan Frandino in Rio Dell, Calif.; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta in Calsbad, Calif; Rich McKay in Atlanta, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago, Laila Kearney in New York City and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Mark Porter, Lisa Shumaker and Richard Chang
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WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES, Nov 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives was set to vote Wednesday to block a rail strike that could potentially happen as early as Dec. 9, after President Joe Biden warned of dire economic consequences and massive job losses.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said lawmakers will vote Wednesday to impose a tentative contract deal struck in September on a dozen unions representing 115,000 workers.
Pelosi said the House would vote separately on Wednesday on a proposal to give seven days of paid sick leave to railroad employees.
“I don’t like going against the ability of unions to strike but weighing the equities, we must avoid a strike,” she said Tuesday after a meeting with Biden.
Biden had warned Monday of a catastrophic economic impact if railroad service ground to a halt, saying up to 765,000 Americans could lose their jobs in the first two weeks of a strike.
“Congress, I think, has to act to prevent it. It’s not an easy call, but I think we have to do it. The economy is at risk,” Biden said.
Despite the close ties between unions and the Democratic Party, several labor leaders criticized Biden asking Congress to impose a contract that workers in four out of 12 unions rejected over its lack of paid sick leave.
The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, one of four unions that voted against the contract, objected to Biden’s call to Congress to intervene, saying “the railroad is not a place to work while you’re sick. It’s dangerous…. it is unreasonable and unjust to insist a person perform critical work when they are unwell.”
There are no paid sick days under the tentative deal after unions asked for 15 and railroads settled on one personal day.
[1/2] U.S. President Joe Biden meets with congressional leaders including House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 29, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
The union push for paid sick time won support on Capitol Hill, where Senator Bernie Sanders threatened to delay the railroad bill unless he got a vote on the sick time issue.
“Guaranteeing 7 paid sick days to rail workers would cost the rail industry a grand total of $321 million a year – less than 2% of its profits,” Sanders said. “Please don’t tell me the rail industry can’t afford it. Rail companies spent $25.5 billion on stock buybacks and dividends this year.”
Regulators and shippers have accused railroads of cutting staff to improve profitability. The railroads oppose giving their workers paid sick time because they would have to hire more staff. The carriers involved include Union Pacific Corp (UNP.N), Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s (BRKa.N) BNSF, CSX Corp (CSX.O), Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC.N) and Kansas City Southern.
The measure needs a simple majority to pass the House. The bill would require a supermajority of 60 out of 100 votes to pass the Senate.
“I can’t in good conscience vote for a bill that doesn’t give rail workers the paid leave they deserve,” Representative Jamaal Bowman, a Democrat, said on Twitter.
Biden on Monday praised the proposed contract for including a 24% wage increase over five years and five annual $1,000 lump-sum payments.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy also criticized the effort but said “I think it will pass, but it’s unfortunate that this is how we’re running our economy today.”
A rail traffic stoppage could freeze almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoke already surging inflation and cost the American economy as much as $2 billion per day.
Brian Dodge, president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), said the idea of a rail shutdown “is just absolutely catastrophic” after companies spent the last year and a half trying to untangle gridlock in the supply chain. “We’d be setting ourselves back down that same path and it would take just as long to untangle the next time,” he said.
The U.S. Congress has passed laws to delay or prohibit railway and airline strikes multiple times in recent decades.
Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Heather Timmons, Lisa Shumaker and Simon Cameron-Moore
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KOCHI, India Nov 28 (Reuters) – More than 80 people were wounded in southern India as villagers halting the construction of a $900 million port clashed with police, the latest escalation of a months-old protest waged by a mostly Christian fishing community against Asia’s richest man.
The protests are a major headache for Gautam Adani’s $23 billion ports-and-logistics company which has been forced to stop work on the Vizhinjam seaport that is seen winning business from rivals in Dubai, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
Construction, however, has been halted for more than three months after villagers blocked the entrance of the site, blaming the port of causing coastal erosion and depriving them of their livelihoods.
Over the weekend, police arrested several protesters after they blocked Adani’s construction vehicles from entering the port, despite a court order for work to resume.
The arrests prompted hundreds of protesters, led by Roman Catholic priests, to march on the police station, clash with personnel and damage vehicles there, according to police documents and footage on local television.
Senior local police official M R Ajith Kumar told Reuters 36 officers were wounded in the clashes. Joseph Johnson, one of the protest leaders, said at least 46 protesters were also hurt.
Located on the southern tip of India, the port seeks to plug into lucrative East-West trade routes, adding to the global reach of the business led by billionaire Adani, estimated by Forbes to be the world’s third richest man.
Asked about the latest protest, the Adani Group did not immediately comment. The company has said that the port complies with all laws and cited studies that show it is not linked to shoreline erosion. The state government has also said that any erosion was due to natural causes.
FACTBOX – Major industrial disputes in India read more
The protests have continued despite repeated orders by the Kerala state’s top court to allow construction to start. Police have largely been unwilling to take any action, fearful that doing so will set off social and religious tensions.
In the latest clashes, police documents said the protesters “came with lethal weapons and barged into the station and held the police hostage, threatening that if people in custody were not released they would set the station on fire.” Eugine H. Pereira, the vicar general of the archdiocese and a protest leader, said the police pelted the protesters with stones.
The port protests recall the backlash Adani faced in Australia over his Carmichael coal mine. There, activists concerned about carbon emissions and damage to the Great Barrier Reef forced Adani to downsize production targets and delayed the mine’s first coal shipment by six years.
Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Miral Fahmy
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LIMA, Nov 18 (Reuters) – A LATAM Airlines (LTM.SN) jet collided with a firetruck on the runway of Peru’s Jorge Chavez International Airport as it was taking off on Friday, the carrier said, resulting in the death of two firefighters.
No passengers or flight crew members were killed in the incident, the airline said.
It remains unclear why the firetruck entered the runway while the plane was taking off and the prosecutors’ office said it was investigating the incident as potential manslaughter.
Video posted on social media showed the jet colliding with the firetruck as it careened down the runway, then rapidly catching fire and smoking heavily as it ground to a halt.
Lima Airport Partners, which operates Jorge Chavez in Lima, the nation’s most important airport, said the airport will remain closed at least through 1 p.m. local time on Saturday.
The flight was LA2213, covering the domestic Lima-Juliaca route, LATAM Airlines said.
This is the second incident in less than a month involving LATAM Airlines, after one of its planes had its nose destroyed during a severe storm that forced it to make an emergency landing.
Reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima, additional reporting by Fabian Cambero in Santiago, Marcelo Rochabrun in Lima and Carolina Pulice in Mexico City; Editing by Anthony Esposito, Rosalba O’Brien and Matthew Lewis
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AMSTERDAM, Nov 5 (Reuters) – More than 100 environmental activists wearing white suits stormed into an area where private jets are kept at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Saturday and stopped several aircraft from departing by sitting in front of their wheels.
The protest was part of a day of demonstrations in and around the airport organised by environmental groups Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion to protest over greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution caused by the airport and aviation industry.
No delays to commercial flights were reported as of the early afternoon.
“We want fewer flights, more trains and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets,” said Greenpeace Netherlands campaign leader Dewi Zloch.
The environmental group says Schiphol is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands, emitting 12 billion kilograms annually.
[1/5] Climate activists protest against environmental pollution from aviation at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, in Schiphol, Netherlands November 5, 2022. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Hundreds of other demonstrators in and around the airport’s main hall carried signs saying “Restrict Aviation” and “More Trains”.
Responding to the protest, Schiphol said it aims to become an emissions-free airport by 2030 and supports targets for the aviation industry to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Military police tasked with airport security said in a statement they had “made a number of detentions of persons who were on airport property without being allowed”.
The Dutch government announced plans in June for a cap on annual passengers at the airport at 440,000, around 11% below 2019 levels, citing air pollution and climate concerns.
Transportation Minister Mark Harbers told parliament last month his office could not control growing private jet traffic, and the government is considering whether to include the issue in its climate policy.
Reporting by Toby Sterling
Editing by Toby Chopra and Helen Popper
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Green light for Cosco investment divides lawmakers
No management or strategic decisions for Cosco
China’s foreign minister: hope for ‘pragmatic cooperation’
Opposition against deal within coalition parties
BERLIN, Oct 26 (Reuters) – The German cabinet allowed China’s Cosco to buy a stake in a terminal in the country’s largest port on Wednesday in a decision pushed through by Chancellor Olaf Scholz that triggered unprecedented protest within the governing coalition.
With the support of Scholz’s Social Democrat-led ministries, the cabinet approved a 24.9% stake investment by Cosco in one of logistics firm HHLA’s (HHFGn.DE) three terminals in the Hamburg port.
The approved investment is less than the initially planned 35% stake that the Chinese shipping giant and HHLA had aimed for and does not give Cosco any say in management or strategic decisions.
But the painful experience of being too dependent on Russian gas has changed many politicians’ attitude towards strategic foreign investment. The foreign ministry was so upset over the approval that it drew up a note on the cabinet meeting documenting its rejection, Reuters was told by two government sources.
The investment “disproportionately expands China’s strategic influence on German and European transport infrastructure as well as Germany’s dependence on China”, the document, seen by Reuters, says. It points to “considerable risks that arise when elements of the European transport infrastructure are influenced and controlled by China – while China itself does not allow Germany to participate in Chinese ports”.
In the event of a crisis, the acquisition would open up the possibility for China to politically instrumentalise part of Germany’s as well as Europe’s critical infrastructure, it says. The economy ministry and the four ministries led by the liberal Free Democrats joined in drawing up the note, according to the sources.
Scholz, a former mayor of Hamburg, has once again asserted his will against his coalition partners, the Greens and the Free Democrats. After pushing through a nuclear power extension single-handedly last week, the Cosco move fuels discord at home and among European allies who are against the Chinese investment and already see Scholz as increasingly isolated.
Scholz is scheduled to travel to China next week.
HHLA WELCOMES DEAL
HHLA, which is majority-owned by the city of Hamburg and one of the main users of the port, welcomed the deal.
“We appreciate that a solution has been found in objective and constructive talks with the federal government,” said Angela Titzrath, chairwoman of HHLA’s executive board.
It was working on finding an agreement with Cosco on the new conditions in a timely manner, she said.
With the original 35% deal, the German logistics firm had wanted to tie its long-standing shipping customer to Hamburg port in the face of fierce international competition.
Cosco did not immediately reply to a request for comment. A German government source told Reuters that the Chinese company had agreed to the deal.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin, asked about the deal, said on Wednesday that China hoped “relevant parties would see pragmatic cooperation between China and Germany rationally (and) stop gratuitous speculation”, without giving further details.
Supporters of the HHLA deal say it will allow Hamburg to keep pace with rival ports that are also vying for Chinese trade and some of which are partly owned by Cosco.
Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Jan Schwartz, Eduardo Baptista, Paul Carrel; writing by Rachel More, Kirsti Knolle; editing by Maria Sheahan, Louise Heavens and Nick Macfie
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Expected to review Kyiv’s request for air defence systems
May also warn Belarus against closer involvement
Russia says it will respond to greater Western aid
KYIV, Oct 11 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will ask the leaders of the G7 group of nations to urgently supply Ukraine with air defence weapons, after Russia rained down cruise missiles in its latest escalation of its unravelling invasion.
Ukrainians woke up to the wailing of new air raid sirens on Tuesday, with parts of the country left without power. Officials said 19 were killed on Monday in cruise missile strikes across the country, the biggest air raids since the start of the war.
President Vladimir Putin, under domestic pressure to ramp up the conflict as his forces have lost ground since the start of September, said he ordered the strikes as revenge for an explosion that damaged Russia’s bridge to annexed Crimea.
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Kyiv and its allies condemned Russia’s strikes, which mainly hit civil infrastructure such as power stations. Missiles also landed in parks, tourist sites and busy rush hour streets.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven leaders will convene virtually later on Tuesday to discuss what more they can do to support Ukraine and to listen to Zelenskiy, who has called air defence systems his “number 1 priority”. Biden has already promised more air defences.
The broad avenues of the capital Kyiv were largely deserted after air raid sirens resounded as the morning rush hour was beginning – the same time that Russian missiles struck the day before. Residents took cover again deep in the underground Metro, where trains were still running.
Viktoriya Moshkivski, 35, her husband and their two sons were among hundreds of people waiting for the all-clear in the Zolotye Vorota station, one of the deepest, near the downtown park where a missile ripped a crater next to a playground on Monday.
“We live on the other side of the street, and they got scared by the siren. So, we brought them down here,” Moshkiviski said as her sons, Timur, 5, and Rinat, 3, sat by her side on a sleeping bag, the younger playing with a King Kong action figure.
Putin “thinks that if he scares the population, he can ask for concessions, but he is not scaring us,” she said. “He is pissing us off.”
MORE STRIKES
Ukrainian officials reported more strikes on Tuesday, including one on the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia which killed at least one person, although there did not appear to be a repeat of Monday’s nationwide attacks.
Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s sixth largest city, has remained under Ukrainian control throughout the war, despite Russia occupying most of the surrounding province, among four partially occupied regions that Moscow claims to have annexed this month.
Apartment blocks there have been struck overnight at least three times in the past week, killing civilians while they slept. Moscow has denied intentionally targetting them.
In an overnight video address from the scene of one of the attacks in Kyiv, Zelenskiy promised that Ukraine would keep fighting.
People shelter inside a subway station during a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine October 11, 2022. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi
“We will do everything to strengthen our armed forces. We will make the battlefield more painful for the enemy.”
As many as 301 settlements in the regions of Kyiv, Lviv, Sumy, Ternopil and Khmelnytsky remained without electricity on Tuesday morning.
Faced with blackouts, Ukraine has halted electricity exports to neighbouring Moldova and the European Union, at a time when the continent already faces surging power prices that have stoked inflation and hampered industrial activity.
BELARUS FEARS
G7 leaders are also expected to issue a warning Belarus, Moscow’s closest ally, against deeper involvement in the war, after Minsk said on Monday it was deploying soldiers with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what it called a threat from Kyiv and its Western allies.
Belarus has allowed its territory to be used as a staging ground for Russian forces during the war, but has so far stopped short of sending troops to fight.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told France Inter radio on Tuesday that G7 heads of state would probably warn Belarus to stay out of the conflict.
“Russia has crossed another line with a tactic that doesn’t involve fighting on the battlefield but carrying out indiscriminate bombings and since yesterday deliberately hitting civilian targets on all Ukrainian territory,” said Colonna.
“That is a violation of the rules of war and international law.”
Moscow has accused the West of escalating the conflict by supporting Ukraine.
“We warn and hope that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by RIA news agency on Tuesday.
Since Ukrainian forces broke through Russia’s front lines in September, Putin has not only announced the annexation of Ukrainian territory but also called up hundreds of thousands of reservists and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons.
Russia suffered a diplomatic setback on Monday, as the U.N. General Assembly voted to reject its call for the 193-member body to allow a secret ballot this week in a debate over whether to condemn Moscow’s annexations of Ukrainian regions. read more
The president of the United Arab Emirates, a member of the group of oil producers known as OPEC+ that rebuffed the United States last week by announcing steep production cuts, will travel to Russia on Tuesday to meet Putin and push for “military de-escalation”, UAE state news agency WAM reported.
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Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Stephen Coates, Andrew Osborn, Peter Graff; Editing by Philippa Fletcher
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