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An airstrike that Israel said was targeting Hamas militants caused widespread damage in a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza on Tuesday. Hamas and hospital officials said numerous people were killed and wounded, as humanitarian organizations warned that the territory’s civilian population was at a breaking point. Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, and local doctors said hundreds of people had been wounded or killed at the Jabaliya refugee camp. Independent verification of the claim was not possible, but Israel itself described the strike as a “wide-scale” attack. The military claimed that an “underground terror infrastructure” — Hamas has built and extensive network of tunnels under the territory — had collapsed.

Persons: Marwan Sultan, “, Dr, Sultan, Ibrahim Biari, Biari, ”, — Organizations: Reuters, Crescent, Indonesian Hospital Locations: Israel, Gaza

Countries sent national security advisers to the Ukraine Peace Forum, the third round of talks based on the country’s proposed 10-point settlement for the war, called the Peace Formula, which calls for a complete withdrawal of Russian forces, an end of hostilities and reparations. Russia was not invited to the forum, reflecting the lack of appetite from Moscow or Kyiv for peace talks — the idea is anathema to Ukraine while Russian forces occupy part of its territory. Even as Ukraine battles to regain territory on the backfield, it is also pursuing an international consensus around its cause, and the forum provided an opportunity to advance its diplomatic position. It is a “fundamentally important first goal” to rally international support, Pavlo Klimkin, a former Ukrainian foreign minister, said in an interview from the talks, which are being held behind closed doors. Another goal, he said, is “to prevent possible sliding toward Russia.”President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in an overnight speech that 66 countries had attended the forum, which Malta’s foreign ministry said it had organized at Ukraine’s request.

Persons: Pavlo Klimkin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelesnky, Maria Zakharova Organizations: Ukraine Peace, ”, European Union, Hamas Locations: Malta, Ukraine, Africa, Latin America, Asia, Russia, Moscow, Kyiv, Ukrainian, United States, Britain, India, Brazil, South Africa, Gaza, Israel

Russian drone strikes near a nuclear power plant in western Ukraine this week have revived anxiety among Ukrainian officials and civilians over one of the most oppressive hardships of the war: a winter assault on their nation’s energy grid. The strikes on Wednesday, which landed near the Khmelnytsky nuclear facility, drew an angry response from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who said it was “highly likely” that the power plant was the target. They also prompted another warning from the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency about the precarious nuclear safety situation in Ukraine. Mr. Zelensky vowed on Wednesday night that Ukraine would hit back at targets inside Russia if Moscow tried once again to plunge his nation into cold and darkness. Unlike a year ago, Kyiv now has a growing fleet of long-range drones and has demonstrated an ability to hit military targets deep inside Russia.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, Moscow, ” Organizations: United Nations, Kyiv Locations: Ukraine, Khmelnytsky, Russia

War does not wait for young love to bloom. In Ukraine, young people on the brink of adulthood now bear its costs instead. It hangs like a shadow over their homes and their work, their relationships and their passions. We spoke with six young Ukrainians about their altered reality. “There is a feeling that you are losing your life, your future.”But how does someone take back a life they’ve never had?

Persons: they’ve Locations: Ukraine

☆ Missile Strike Kills Six Workers at Postal Depot, Ukraine Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-22 | by ( Matthew Mpoke Bigg | More About Matthew Mpoke Bigg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A missile slammed into a postal depot overnight on the outskirts of Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, killing six workers and wounding at least 16 other employees, the Ukrainian authorities said. The depot was in Korotych, one of the city’s western suburbs, said Oleh Syniehubov, of the regional military administration, in a post on the Telegram messaging app. In a separate message, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office accused Russian forces stationed across the border in the Belgorod region of firing a surface-to-air missile. “A missile has just hit it,” the private postal operator, Nova Poshta, said in a statement on Facebook that included video of bomb damage. “There are dead and injured, including those seriously injured.

Persons: Oleh Syniehubov, Ukraine’s, Nova Poshta, Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: Facebook Locations: Ukraine’s, Kharkiv, Korotych, Belgorod, Ukraine

The killing of an enemy admiral in a missile strike would be a coup for any military, but the celebration in Ukraine over the death of Russia’s Black Sea fleet commander may turn out to be short-lived. A day after announcing that the admiral was among 34 officers killed in a strike deep behind enemy lines, Ukrainian officials acknowledged on Tuesday that there might be some uncertainty. The Ukrainian military’s statement that it was now “clarifying” whether the admiral, Viktor Sokolov, had in fact been killed in an audacious strike last week in Russian-held Crimea came after Moscow released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the admiral attending a meeting earlier in the day. Given Moscow’s long history of refusing to acknowledge military setbacks, and the challenges of authenticating its video, it remained uncertain on Tuesday whether Admiral Sokolov was among those killed in the Ukrainian attack on the headquarters of Moscow’s fleet in Sevastopol.

Persons: Viktor Sokolov, Admiral Sokolov Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Crimea, Moscow, Sevastopol

Ukraine’s military claimed on Monday that it had killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in a strike on Crimea — a blow that, if confirmed, would be among the most damaging suffered by the Russian Navy since the sinking of the fleet’s flagship last year. Citing “new information about the losses of the enemy as a result of the special operation,” Ukraine’s special operations forces said in a statement that the strike on Friday killed 34 officers, including the fleet commander, and wounded 105 others. It did not name the naval leader, but the commander of the Black Sea Fleet is Adm. Viktor Sokolov, one of the most senior officers in Russia’s Navy. The attack came during a meeting of Russian commanders, Ukraine’s military said, and badly damaged a headquarters of the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. The chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, also told Voice of America on Saturday that the strike had badly wounded two senior Russian generals — Col. Gen. Aleksandr Romanchuk and Lieut.

Persons: ”, Viktor Sokolov, Kyrylo Budanov, — Col, Gen, Aleksandr Romanchuk, Oleg Tsekov Organizations: Russian Navy, Black, Russia’s Navy, Russian, America, Russia’s Defense Ministry Locations: Crimea, Sevastopol, Russian

☆ Amid Black Sea Threats, Ukraine Steps Up Use of New Shipping Route
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-24 | by ( Matthew Mpoke Bigg | More About Matthew Mpoke Bigg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ukraine has stepped up its use of a new shipping route that has allowed it to begin reviving grain exports to circumvent a de facto Russian blockade of its Black Sea ports. Repeated airstrikes by Russian forces since July on Ukraine’s port of Odesa after the Kremlin’s withdrawal from a deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its food crops directly across the waters to Turkey had forced Ukraine to stop using its three Black Sea ports as an export route and work to establish an alternative. Two ships successfully used the new route last week without incident, and three more cargo vessels have entered Ukrainian waters in recent days, according to officials. When Moscow withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July, it said it would consider any vessel approaching a Ukrainian port to be a potential carrier of military cargo and therefore a threat. The following month, members of the Russian military boarded a cargo vessel at gunpoint, reflecting the rising tensions on the Black Sea, which Western analysts have warned could escalate into violence involving countries not directly involved in the war.

Organizations: Russian, Moscow, Initiative Locations: Ukraine, Ukraine’s, Odesa, Turkey

☆ Ukraine Renews Push to Get Its Grain Out to the World
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( Matthew Mpoke Bigg | More About Matthew Mpoke Bigg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ukraine took two bold steps toward securing export routes for its vital grain industry on Tuesday, sending a ship loaded with wheat along a new Black Sea route in the face of Russian naval aggression and challenging one of its main allies, Poland, over its opposition to Ukrainian imports. In an initial success, the ship, the Resilient Africa, which is loaded with 3,000 metric tons of wheat, crossed the maritime border into Romanian waters on Tuesday evening. It arrived more than 12 hours after it left the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk, according to the MarineTraffic website, which tracks global shipping using satellite data. The importance of establishing a new sea route grew still greater this week in the face of a renewed dispute between Ukraine and its grain-producing European Union neighbors about overland exports. But though the Resilient Africa appears to have navigated itself safely out of Ukrainian waters, experts say much uncertainty remains over whether the country will be able to rebuild a vital industry weighed down by 19 months of war.

Locations: Ukraine, Poland, Africa, Chornomorsk

Two weeks after replacing its defense minister, Ukraine dismissed all six of its deputy ministers on Monday, deepening the housecleaning at a ministry that had drawn criticism for corruption in procurement as the military budget ballooned during the war. Mr. Zelensky is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly in person on Tuesday in New York, and later in the week to meet with President Biden and members of Congress in Washington in his ongoing efforts to shore up support for military aid. He is expected to argue that defending Europe’s borders from an expansionist Russia in Ukraine serves Western interests in preventing a wider war and the destabilization of the European Union. In Ukraine’s fight to take back territory seized by the Russian invasion, the chain of command for battlefield decisions runs directly from Mr. Zelensky to the military’s uniformed general staff, largely bypassing the civilians at the defense ministry, so the turnover is not expected to have an immediate effect on the course of the war. The ministry’s role is primarily not in tactics but logistics — procurement, salaries and benefits — where changes may not be felt right away.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky’s, Zelensky, Biden Organizations: United Nations General Assembly, European Union Locations: Ukraine, United States, New York, Washington, Russia, Western, Russian

Ukraine’s military said Sunday it had retaken the small village of Klishchiivka, the second settlement to come back under Kyiv’s control in three days and the most significant recent advance in its hard-fought counteroffensive to drive Russian forces from the country’s east. Klishchiivka had been occupied by Russian forces since January, when Wagner mercenaries captured it after weeks of combat as part of the nearly yearlong battle for the nearby city of Bakhmut. After Bakhmut fell to Russian troops in May, Ukrainian forces almost immediately began a push to drive Moscow’s troops from areas to the north and south of the city. With Klishchiivka sitting on high ground overlooking roadways in and out of a ruined Bakhmut, the village was very much in their sights. In recent weeks, Kyiv’s troops had been slowly advancing on Klishchiivka, taking heavy casualties in pitched battles.

Persons: Klishchiivka, Wagner, Bakhmut Locations: Klishchiivka, Bakhmut, Russian

The first cargo vessels to arrive at a Ukrainian port since Russia terminated a deal under which Kyiv was able to export food crops across the Black Sea were moored on Sunday in Chornomorsk, offering early signs of hope that Ukraine could open an alternative route for grain shipments. Ukraine’s grain exports provide a vital source of foreign exchange and are also important for global food markets, particularly for countries in Africa and the Middle East that are facing hunger. Russia has imposed a de facto blockade on Ukrainian cargo ships since July, when the Kremlin terminated an agreement that had allowed Kyiv to export grain by sea, a deal that was seen as essential to keeping the world’s food prices stable. But establishing a corridor secure enough for a regular flow of cargo vessels to sail from Ukraine’s seaports is risky, not least because the Black Sea has become an increasingly critical theater in the war as Ukraine contests Russia’s naval dominance. Data from the Marine Traffic website showed the vessels moored in Chornomorsk on Sunday morning.

Persons: Oleksandr Kubrakov Organizations: Kyiv, Kremlin, Marine Locations: Russia, Chornomorsk, Ukraine, Africa, Asia

Like almost every building in Douar Tnirt, a village high up in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, the home was a rubble of broken mud bricks, its broken doorbell insisting in vain that, even after a powerful earthquake, it was still a place where humans could live. Right after the quake struck on Friday, they started search and rescue with their bare, untrained hands, eventually adding shovels and picks. By Sunday, the government had sent neither emergency responders nor aid to Douar Tnirt and several other mountain villages visited by journalists for The New York Times. “They don’t want to see them, and, well, it’s about respect for the dead,” Ms. Id al-Houcine said. “If you don’t, you don’t.”

Persons: Douar Tnirt, ”, Zahra, “, Id, Houcine, Abdessamad Ait Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Douar Tnirt, Morocco, Marrakesh, Abdessamad Ait Ihia

“They have nowhere they can go back to,” Mr. Choula said of his family, who spent Saturday night sleeping in a field with several other families. Some are rallying together to send funds and organize shipments of supplies for survivors while others are heading home to help on the ground. But Mr. Dehy said he had received dozens of calls from Moroccans who want to immediately send help home. For Moroccans watching from afar, “the only thing that helps them is knowing that they helped, that they didn’t just stand idly by,” Mr. Dehy said. Mr. Choula, 41, said he was gathering money to send home.

Persons: Youssef Choula, “, ” Mr, Choula, ”, Latif Dehy, Dehy, —, Ella Williams, Talat N’yakoub, It’s, “ I’ve, Williams Organizations: “, French, of, British Moroccan Society Locations: Gloucestershire, England, Marrakesh, Amizmiz, Moroccan, Avignon, France, Morocco, Europe, Britain, ”

☆ What to Know About the Plane Crash Linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Matthew Mpoke Bigg | More About Matthew Mpoke Bigg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

One day after the crash, here’s what to know. The plane that listed Mr. Prigozhin as a passenger left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on Wednesday at about 6 p.m. local time, bound for St. Petersburg. It crashed in a wooded area near the village of Kuzhenkino, in Tver region, less than 100 miles northwest of Moscow. The shaky video, which appears to have been shot from a cellphone, did not show the plane’s impact. The paint and a partial registration number, RA-02795, visible on the aircraft match a jet that Mr. Prigozhin is known to use.

Persons: Yevgeny V, Russian Wagner, Prigozhin Organizations: RIA Novosti, Embraer Locations: Russian, Moscow, Sheremetyevo, St . Petersburg, Kuzhenkino, Tver

The Netherlands and Denmark said Sunday that they would donate F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine — the first countries to do so — in what President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said was a breakthrough in his nation’s quest to acquire the aircraft considered imperative in the war against Russia. Ukrainian officials acknowledged last week, however, that NATO countries would not donate the planes before next year, which is too late for use in a counteroffensive the government in Kyiv launched this summer. President Biden, setting aside months of resistance, said in May that NATO countries could train Ukrainian pilots on F-16’s, and on Thursday a U.S. official said that the United States would allow allies to send the jets. Speaking during a visit to the Netherlands, Mr. Zelensky said that the Netherlands would donate 42 jets once Ukrainian pilots and engineers had been trained. He also visited Denmark on Sunday and was in Sweden on Saturday, where aircraft were also on the agenda.

Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden, Zelensky Organizations: Sunday, Ukraine —, Russia, NATO, U.S Locations: Netherlands, Denmark, Ukraine, Kyiv, United States, Sweden

Ukraine will not receive F-16 fighter jets from its allies this year as hoped, a spokesman for the country’s Air Force said late Wednesday, confirming that, as expected, the advanced planes won’t play a role in the current counteroffensive. “It is already obvious that we will not be able to protect Ukraine with F-16 fighters this autumn and winter,” Yuriy Ihnat, the spokesman, told Ukrainian television. First flown in 1976, the F-16 “Fighting Falcon” is a supersonic fighter jet used by militaries in 25 countries for air-to-air combat and air-to-ground strikes. It is built by the American defense contractor Lockheed Martin and manufacturers in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway. There are approximately 3,000 in active military service worldwide, including hundreds in the U.S. Air Force and Navy.

Persons: Yuriy Ihnat, “, Lockheed Martin Organizations: country’s Air Force, U.S . Air Force, Navy Locations: Ukraine, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway

The Russian military’s decision to fire warning shots and board a freighter in the Black Sea this weekend has added a new level of uncertainty to the increasingly intense maritime theater of war, as Moscow, apparently for the first time, made good on its threat to treat Ukraine-bound civilian shipping as potentially hostile. The Russian Ministry of Defense on Sunday announced the action, which was confirmed by Ukrainian officials, and video verified by The New York Times shows a military helicopter hovering above the cargo ship Sukru Okan. A group of people in military gear can be seen walking on the deck and climbing into the helicopter, while eight men in civilian clothes — apparently the ship’s crew — sit nearby. But it reflects the rising tensions on the Black Sea, which Western analysts have warned could escalate into violence involving countries not directly involved in the war. Russia’s warning last month about treating third-country shipping as hostile raised fears of armed clashes, and since then, Ukraine’s increasingly robust naval drone force has launched several attacks on Russian warships.

Persons: —, Ukraine’s Organizations: Russian Ministry of Defense, Sunday, Ukrainian, The New York Times Locations: Russian, Moscow, Ukraine

For two decades, Ilya Solkan served as the parish priest in a tiny Ukrainian village outside the capital, Kyiv. He baptized babies, blessed marriages and conducted funerals. The Orthodox church stood at the heart of the village and Mr. Solkan was central to its life. The removal of Mr. Solkan, a priest with no public profile beyond his home village, reflects the gradual rejection by much of Ukrainian society of a church that answers to Moscow — a process that has been accelerated by the war. Specifically, it speaks to the division between the two branches of Orthodox Christianity, the most predominant religion in Ukraine.

Persons: Ilya Solkan, Solkan, ” Organizations: ” Locations: Kyiv, Blystavytsya, Moscow, Christianity, Ukraine

The task facing the advancing Ukrainian troops is monumental. Since seizing Ukrainian territory in last year’s invasion, Russia has built a dense defensive web of minefields, trenches, bunkers, tank traps and other obstacles. Other American officials said that the most recent Ukrainian attack might be preparatory operations for the main thrust or reinforcements to replenish war-weary units. American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said on Wednesday that most of those reserves had been committed. Local occupation officials reported fierce battles raging south of Orikhiv, involving brigades of foreign-trained troops and armor donated by the United States and Germany.

Persons: David Guttenfelder, Igor Konashenkov, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky, ”, “ Organizations: 47th Brigade, The New York Times, Tass, Pentagon, “ Locations: Zaporizhzhia, Russia, Orikhiv, Robotyne, Tokmak, Russian, United States, Germany, Ukraine

Ukraine has launched the main thrust of its counteroffensive, throwing in thousands of troops held in reserve, many of them Western-trained and equipped, two Pentagon officials said on Wednesday, hours after Russian officials reported major Ukrainian attacks in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. A spokesman for Russia’s Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, said the Ukrainians had mounted a “massive” assault with three battalions, reinforced with tanks, south of the town of Orikhiv, and then another a few miles farther south near the village of Robotyne, according to the state news agency Tass. Both were repelled, the ministry said. Other American officials cautioned that the latest Ukrainian attack might be preparatory operations for the main thrust or perhaps just reinforcements to replenish war-weary units. The challenge for the Ukrainians, since they began their counteroffensive in early June, has been to blast open a gap in the deep Russian defense network, and then try to pour through a much larger force.

Persons: Igor Konashenkov Organizations: Pentagon, Russia’s Defense Ministry Locations: Ukraine, Orikhiv, Robotyne

The attack is the closest Moscow has come to hitting the military alliance’s territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. The port strike came amid two drone attacks in central Moscow on Monday morning that Russian officials blamed on Ukrainian forces. At least two nonresidential buildings were hit about 4 a.m. local time, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin of Moscow said on the Telegram messaging app. He added that there had been no “serious damage or casualties.”Ukrainian and Romanian officials denounced the port strike, with President Klaus Iohannis of Romania condemning the attack on Ukrainian infrastructure close to his country’s borders. He said on Twitter that the “recent escalation poses serious risks to the security in the Black Sea,” as well as affecting Ukrainian grain shipments and global food security.

Persons: Sergei Sobyanin, Klaus Iohannis Organizations: Monday, NATO, Twitter Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Romanian, Ukrainian, United States, Reni, Romania, Moscow, ”

☆ What Russia’s Grain Deal Actions Mean for Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Matthew Mpoke Bigg | More About Matthew Mpoke Bigg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Russia warned on Wednesday that it would consider any ship sailing around Ukrainian ports a military target, days after Moscow pulled out of a yearlong deal that had enabled Kyiv to export its grain across the Black Sea despite a wartime blockade. Russia’s moves have profound implications for the export of Ukraine’s grain, a commodity vital for its own economy and world grain markets. Here’s a look at alternative options for Ukraine to export its grain:What is the immediate impact of Russia’s warning? Global grain prices rose sharply following the announcement, but they remained lower than the prices when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. One reason that prices did not rise further is that Ukraine’s grain exports under the Black Sea Grain Initiative had already slowed to a trickle in the days before Russia pulled out of the deal on Monday, according to Sal Gilbertie, head of Teucrium, a U.S.-based investment advisory firm.

Persons: Sal Gilbertie Organizations: Ministry of Defense, Initiative Locations: Russia, Moscow, Ukraine, U.S

As Russia resumes its blockade of ships carrying food from Ukraine, its military bombarded Odesa and an adjoining port late Tuesday and early Wednesday — specifically targeting the ability to export grain, Ukrainian officials said. Hours later, Russia’s Ministry of Defense issued a warning to ship operators and other nations suggesting that any attempt to bypass the blockade might be seen as an act of war. As of midnight, “all ships en route to Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea will be considered as potential carriers of military cargo,” it said in a statement. “Accordingly, the flag countries of such vessels will be considered involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.” The ministry added that even parts of the Black Sea in international waters “have been declared temporarily dangerous for navigation.”Ukrainian officials accused Russia of using food as leverage in the war, in an attempt to extend Ukraine’s pain to the rest of the globe.

Organizations: Russia’s Ministry of Defense Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Odesa, Kyiv

Explosions thundered above Odesa, Ukraine, as Russia targeted it with missiles and drones before dawn on Tuesday, a day after an apparent Ukrainian strike damaged an important Russian bridge and the Kremlin halted a deal for safe passage of grain ships on the Black Sea. Moscow suggested that the unusual barrage aimed at Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port, was in response to the attack on the strategic Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Russia to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. Kyiv had asserted it was related to the grain deal, which the Kremlin denied. “We are talking about a zone that is very close to the area of armed hostilities,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told journalists. Therefore, if something will get formalized without Russia’s participation, these risks need to be considered.”

Persons: ” Dmitri S, ” Organizations: Kremlin Locations: Odesa, Ukraine, Russia, Moscow, Ukraine’s, Kerch, Crimean, Kyiv

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