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Updated July 28, 2022 at 4:27 PM ET
The FBI is opening settlement discussions with survivors of sexual assault by former U.S. gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, according to legal and congressional sources.
News of the outreach came as senior Justice Department officials traveled to Capitol Hill on Thursday to explain their reasons for declining to prosecute two former FBI agents for their failures in the Nassar case.
In a rare step, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite met with key Senators and their staff members to explain the Justice Department’s legal reasoning–and to offer suggestions for new legislative proposals moving forward.
The Justice Department’s inspector general detailed the botched FBI probe of Nassar in a scathing report last year. IG Michael Horowitz said that while the FBI failed to act, Nassar abused dozens more girls and women.
Watchdogs concluded that the bureau “failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and violated multiple FBI policies.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray apologized to the hundreds of survivors in testimony before Congress in September 2021.
“I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed,” Wray said.
“And that is inexcusable. It never should have happened, and we’re doing everything in our power to make sure it never happens again.”
Lawyers for many of those survivors, including world class gymnasts Simone Byles, McKayla Maroney, and Aly Raisman, filed paperwork this year signaling they would sue the Bureau.
Maroney told lawmakers that the FBI agent who finally reached out to hear her story failed to properly document her report and made false claims about it.
“My fellow survivors and I were betrayed by every institution that was supposed to protect us — the U.S. Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, the FBI and now the Department of Justice,” she said in a written statement this year.
Under a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act, plaintiffs are required to file administrative complaints with the U.S. government. If the federal government fails to act after six months, those plaintiffs can proceed with a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages.
State officials in Michigan ultimately brought Nassar to justice. He’s effectively serving a life sentence on charges including criminal sexual assault and child pornography.
Jamie White, an attorney representing a group of survivors, said he heard from the government Wednesday to start talks to resolve the legal claims.
“My clients have been through extreme trauma and were relieved to see the government is open to a dialogue,” White told NPR. “While dialogue is a positive step in the right direction, we remain prepared to hold parties accountable through an adversarial process if necessary.”
Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, took part in the meeting with DOJ officials Thursday. In a written statement, Grassley said he was not satisfied.
“The FBI once again refused to provide underlying information to support their assumption that a jury wouldn’t convict their agents for botching the Nassar investigation, then trying to cover their tracks,” Grassley said. “It’s the latest example of the Department of ‘Just Us’ trying to avoid accountability for its failures.”
Grassley said both Assistant Attorney General Polite and FBI Director Wray would be testifying before the Judiciary Committee next week and that he expected them to be asked about the case again then.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
IN-DEPTH / IN-DEPTH
Unification Church linked to Abe’s death, sounds alarm in China over cult group’s infiltration
Dangerous hand
A bride poses for a photo before a giant image of the late founder of Unification Church Sun Myung Moon and his wife Hak Ja Han before a mass wedding ceremony in Gapyeong on September 7, 2017. Photo: AFP
The curtains have come down on former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after the sobering end of his funeral. But the cloud of suspicion surrounding his assassination still looms large in the minds of many around the world. Sentiments of shock continue to be expressed at the fact that Japan’s worst political assassination since World War II is related to a cult. On July 8, Abe was fatally shot while addressing a crowd at a campaign stop in Nara by a 41-year-old man identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, who confessed to the police that he “did not resent Abe’s political beliefs,” but that his resentment toward the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, a religious movement founded in South Korea, turned into a desire to kill the former national leader.Yamagami believed Abe had promoted a religious group to which his mother made a “huge donation,” Kyodo news agency has said, citing investigative sources. His mother subsequently went bankrupt. The police investigation into the assassination prompted the head of the Japanese branch of the Unification Church to confirm on July 11 that Yamagami’s mother is a member. Looking back on the history of the Unification Church, people have seen the specter of an extremist religious group looming over the political arena of Japan, South Korea, and even the US. In the mid-1960s, Abe’s maternal grandfather and former Japanese Prime Minister, Nobusuke Kishi, would never have imagined that his association with Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, would sow the seed that eventually led to the death of his grandson.
Expansion of a cult
Moon founded the Unification Church in South Korea in 1954. Within a year, about 30 church centers had sprung up. Moon began organizing the Unification Church on a large scale in the US in the early 1970s. He also sent his church emissaries to Japan in the early days when the Unification Church developed fast. He settled in the US in 1972.One of the activities that the Unification Church likes to practice is mass weddings. Moon claimed that he can complete the unfulfilled task of Jesus: To restore humankind to a state of perfection by producing sinless children, and by blessing couples who would produce them. According to media reports, thousands of couples often attended such mass weddings. But those couples would only meet each other weeks prior and they went into marriage based on Moon’s arrangement. Many had to remain separated for several years doing church work.At the same time, Moon was particularly interested in politics. Church leaders plotted a strategy to defend former US President Richard M. Nixon for his role in the Watergate crisis and held rallies in support of him. In the late 1970s, Moon was embroiled in many scandals and was under investigation by US federal authorities mainly over allegations that he has ties to South Korean intelligence and was involved in bribing members of Congress to support President Park Chung-hee, according to a New York Times report.Moon liked to court world leaders and politicians to advance the Unification Church and sometimes he behaved quite oddly. Moon, who spoke fluent Japanese, launched an anti-communist group in Japan in the late 1960s, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, and built relations with Japanese politicians, according to the church’s publications, Reuters reported. Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s maternal grandfather and a former prime minister, was an honorary executive chair at a group banquet hosted by Moon, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism said on its website.In 2004, Moon had himself crowned “humanity’s savior” in front of members of Congress at a Capitol Hill luncheon, read the New York Times report.Prominent people including the US president were paid to appear at Moon-linked conferences. “The first President George Bush did so after he left office. Others, like former President Gerald R. Ford, Bill Cosby, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and Jack Kemp, attended banquets and gatherings, sometimes saying later that they had not known of a connection between Moon and the organizations that invited them,” said the New York Times report.The Unification Church has a long history of courting Republican officials as part of a propaganda campaign, according to media outlet The Independent. In September 2021, former US President Donald Trump appeared in a virtual address linked to the Unification Church. He praised the founders of the Unification Church. Abe also participated in the same event.The Financial Times reported that for decades, close ties between the Unification Church in Japan and prominent figures in the governing Liberal Democratic Party have been an open secret in Japanese politics.”The Unification Church has a strong capacity for brainwashing with propaganda and external expansion. Through the establishment of personal worship and an emphasis on donations for purposes of enrichment, meddling in private property distribution and marriage autonomy of the congregation, the group has garnered a loyal following,” an expert on religion and security studies surname Zhou told the Global Times.On the other hand, Zhou pointed out that, through generous political cash and mutual exploitation, the Unification Church has gradually gained a strong foothold in East Asia and the world.Along with the expansion of the Unification Church was the growth of Moon’s business empire. He was involved in many industries in South Korea and also had various commercial interests in Japan. Right-wing nationalist donors in Japan were said to be an important financial source. In the US, he had business interests in a range of fields including jewelry and construction, and bought properties including the New Yorker Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.”In addition to spreading extremist ideas, the Unification Church also has a strong sense of modern business management, operating the religious group as a company, investing and expanding extensively in industry, finance, culture, education, media, and other industries, providing the basis for a ‘virtuous’ cycle of development for the expansion of its extremist ideology and political infiltration,” Zhou said.The church has about 600,000 members in Japan, out of 10 million globally, Reuters reported.
Thousands of couples attend a mass wedding held by the Unification Church on August 27, 2018 in Gapyeong, South Korea. Photo: VCG
Conservative tone
During the Cold War, the Unification Church movement was criticized by the mainstream media for its anti-Communist activism.In 2010, Moon bought the US-based media publication the Washington Times into the New World Communications, an international media conglomerate similar to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox News. The conglomerate was directly affiliated with Moon’s Unification Church, the US News reported.The newspaper often plays up claims that the Chinese mainland will “invade” the island of Taiwan, for example, citing US officials who accuse the Chinese military of posing an “acute threat” to the islandThe New York Times reported that Moon acknowledged that in the two decades since the founding of The Washington Times in 1982, he pumped in more than $1 billion in subsidies to keep it going.In 2002, during the 20th anniversary party for the Washington Times, Moon said, “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world,” the Washington Post reported in 2009.Unification is a political concept, and the Unification Church, which uses this concept as its name, has always been a heretical religious organization with distinct political positions and intentions, Zhou noted.
Unification Church followers hold a memorial service mourning the death of their leader Sun Myung Moon in the church’s Seoul headquarters on September 3, 2012.? Photo: AFP
Alarm bellsThe cultist elements behind the Abe assassination have set off alarms in China, which has maintained a zero-tolerance attitude toward cults through various efforts.The Unification Church has been classified as a cult since the 1990s in China. In May 1997, the Ministry of Public Security listed the Unification church as a cultic organization, according to chinafxj.com, a website promoting China’s anti-cult policies under the State Council.The chinafxj.com website states that the Unification Church has been infiltrating China since as early as the country’s Reform and Opening-up in 1978 in the name of investment, sponsorship, and tourism, in a bid to take root in China and expand its influence.In recent years, the cult’s infiltration efforts have become more active in China. Its affiliated organization “International Education Foundation,” for instance, carried out penetration activities in some cities in the name of cultural exchange and educational cooperation. The church also set up branches secretly in Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Xi’an, and other major cities to carry out illegal missionary activities. Sunmoon University also tried to absorb Chinese believers via cooperation with China’s universities, said the website.Currently in China, the Unification Church is among the list of 18 defined cultist organizations masquerading as Christian churches, according to chinafxj.com.The cults share similar traits and modes of operation, such as deifying leaders or founders, promoting inhumane, antisocial, and immoral theories, and inciting the public to confront the larger society, Yan Kejia, director of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Religious Studies, told the Global Times. “The cults could easily confuse the public by taking advantage of religious beliefs and feudal superstition.”China has been cracking down on cults, especially since the late 1990s, Yan noted. “The efforts have been greatly beneficial. The campaigns against cults are widely understood and supported by the public and have brought a breath of fresh air to the society.””The Abe incident proved that governments should pay great attention to issues surrounding cultic activities. It also reminds China that the work to fight cults should be consistently enhanced,” he said.
The top-secret trial, conviction, sentencing and jailing of a former military intelligence officer known as ‘Witness J’ has been described as “unusual” and “unprecedented,” with one of Australia’s national security watchdogs warning it “should never happen again,” ABC reports. Strict secrecy orders were applied to all aspects of the case, and his entire trial occurred behind closed doors, with details only coming to light when Witness J took action in Australian Capital Territory (ACT) courts to complain about his treatment and what he claimed was a breach of his human rights.
The Commonwealth was able to suppress the details of the case by using the National Security Information Act. Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) Grant Donaldson SC raised concerns with how the ACT Supreme Court had agreed to closed hearings in the case, without even hearing any formal submissions from the parties involved, describing that decision as “extremely unusual”. “When the executive government prosecutes crime, it is wielding some of the government’s most-immense power, and those proceedings should be seen and watched,” said Donaldson.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Months after her father was lured back to Rwanda under false pretenses and jailed, Carine Kanimba discovered her own phone had been hacked using private spyware.
Kanimba is the youngest daughter of Paul Rusesabagina, who is credited with saving more than 1,200 lives during the 1994 Rwandan genocide in a story that inspired the movie “Hotel Rwanda.” An opponent of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Rusesabagina is now serving a 25-year prison sentence on charges that he has dismissed as politically motivated.
Researchers have alleged Pegasus was used to spy on Kanimba and her cousin as Rusesabagina’s family was advocating for his release from Rwanda, which received $160 million in foreign aid from the United States in the last budget year.
“Unless there are consequences for countries and their enablers which abuse this technology, none of us are safe,” she told the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday.
Kanimba and technology experts urged Congress to oppose the use of commercial spyware in the US and discourage investment in spyware that has been used to hack the phones of dissidents, journalists, and even US diplomats.
Pegasus infiltrates phones to control their camera and microphone and siphon off data without requiring the user to click on a malicious link. It is part of a burgeoning international market for states to acquire cyber tools that were once available only to the most technically advanced governments. Researchers at Google have identified at least 30 vendors selling “zero-click” exploits or other spyware.
NSO Group says its software can’t be activated against phone numbers with a US country code unless used by an American agency. But there are several documented reports of American officials and citizens having their data captured by Pegasus.
One committee member, Rep. Jim Himes, suggested that off-the-shelf spyware felt “like a very serious threat to our democracy and to democracies around the world.” Himes questioned whether spyware could be deployed from another country against American officials and he criticized companies that invest in it.
Among the investors in a private equity firm that held majority ownership of NSO Group were the Oregon state employee pension fund and the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation.
US officials and many lawmakers in both parties are concerned about foreign interference in future elections and the prospect of Americans trying to overturn a lawful vote by force.
“Nobody, not Mike Pence, not Nancy Pelosi, not Kevin McCarthy … are immune from having their most private deliberations watched,” Himes said. “And that may be just enough to interfere in our elections, just enough to end our democracy.”
US law enforcement and intelligence agencies have long been in the market themselves for ways to hack into phones.
The Biden administration last year imposed export limits on NSO Group and three other firms. But the FBI has acknowledged buying a license for Pegasus for what it said was “product testing and evaluation only.” While spyware companies make huge profits in the Middle East and Europe, it is American business and investment that “legitimizes what they’re doing,” said John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, which has long studied how the programs work.
“Doing business with the US government, getting acquired by a US company or even doing business with an American police department is the golden price for many in the spyware industry,” he said. “As long as that remains as a possibility for problematic actors, they’re going to get support from investors.”
The committee is pushing US spy agencies to “decisively act against counterintelligence threats posed by foreign commercial spyware,” according to the public version of its latest bill authorizing intelligence activities. The bill, which has not yet been voted on by the full House, proposes that the director of national intelligence “may prohibit” individual US agencies from acquiring or using foreign commercial spyware.
But the bill would also allow any intelligence agency chief to seek a waiver from the director if the waiver “is in the national security interest of the United States.”
In a statement, NSO Group noted that the discussion over spyware “at times lacks balance [by] intentionally omitting their lifesaving benefits.”
“NSO reiterates that it thoroughly investigates any claim for illegal use of its technology by customers, and terminates contracts when illegal use is found,” the company said. “Nonetheless, it is critical to consider the benefits and alternatives to these critical technologies.”
Kanimba testified that she was alerted last year by a collective of journalists working with Citizen Lab and Amnesty International that there was reason to believe that she had been spied on. A subsequent forensic analysis of her phone revealed that she had been targeted by Pegasus spyware, she said.
She said the surveillance was triggered as she walked with her mother into a meeting with Belgium’s minister of foreign affairs – Rusesabagina holds Belgian citizenship and US residency – and was active during calls with the State Department and with the office of the US government’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.
Her family lives in San Antonio. Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, a committee member who represents that city, noted that his office’s communications may have been captured by Rwanda because he was advocating for Rusesabagina’s release.
Rwanda denies using Pegasus. Its embassy in Washington said in a statement Thursday that its response “has not changed regardless of who raises them.”
“These are politically motivated allegations aimed at undermining Rwanda’s judicial system and sowing disinformation,” the embassy statement said.
Rusesabagina was sentenced for terrorism offenses related to his alleged links to the armed wing of his opposition political platform. Rusesabagina has denied supporting violence and called the verdict a “sham.”
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1:37PM
A former state TV journalist charged with discrediting Russia’s armed forces by protesting against Moscow’s actions in Ukraine has told a court that the charge against her was absurd.
Marina Ovsyannikova defiantly repeated her protest and said she would not retract her words.
“What’s going on here is absurd,” Ovsyannikova told the court on Thursday. “War is horror, blood and shame.”
Ovsyannikova gained international attention in March after bursting into a studio of Russian state TV, her then employer, to denounce the Ukraine war during a live news bulletin. At the time she was fined for flouting protest laws.
She is now being tried over subsequent social media posts in which she wrote that those responsible for Russia’s actions in Ukraine would find themselves in the dock before an international tribunal.
She faces up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces under a law passed in March
1:04PM
Ukraine has appointed the experienced investigator Oleksandr Klymenko as the head of its Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, responding to a European Union request as it seeks EU membership.
“The fight against corruption is a priority for our state, as our investment attractiveness and business freedom depend on its success,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy’s presidential office, wrote on Telegram.
Klymenko was appointed after a long selection process following his predecessor’s resignation nearly two years ago. He previously worked for the national anti-corruption bureau, another state body that tackles corruption.
Progress in fighting corruption is one of Kyiv’s long-term commitments to its Western partners and its need of financial, political and military support has increased sharply since Russia invaded on Feb 24.
The EU granted Ukraine candidate status earlier this month, putting it on the long road to membership, but said important work still needs to be done including on fighting corruption.
12:30PM
Ukraine stepped up its drive to retake the Russian-controlled south of the country by trying to bomb and isolate Russian troops in hard-to-resupply areas, but said it saw evidence that Moscow was redeploying its forces to defend the territory.
The southern Kherson region, which borders Russian-annexed Crimea, fell to Russian forces soon after they began what Moscow calls “a special military operation” on Feb. 24.
Ukraine, which describes Russia’s actions as an imperial-style war of conquest, said on Thursday its planes had struck five Russian strongholds around the city of Kherson and another city in the area.
British military intelligence, which helps Ukraine, said it was likely that Ukrainian forces had also established a bridgehead south of a river which runs along the wider Kherson region’s northern border.
“Ukraine’s counter-offensive in Kherson is gathering momentum,” it said in a statement.
Ukraine has retaken some small settlements in the north of the region in recent weeks.
12:13PM
Ukraine’s envoy to Turkey on Thursday expressed “sadness” over a chant of “Vladimir Putin” that rang out at a Champions League qualifying round football match in Istanbul involving Dynamo Kyiv.
Images on social media showed a section of Fenerbahce’s packed stadium singing the Russian president’s name in response to Dynamo’s first goal against the Istanbul side on Wednesday.
The Ukrainians won the match 2-1 after drawing 0-0 in the home leg played in Poland because of Russia’s invasion.
“Football is a fair game. Yesterday Dynamo Kyiv were stronger,” Ukraine’s ambassador Vasyl Bodnar tweeted.
“It is very sad to hear the words of support from Fenerbahce’s fans for a Russian murderer and aggressor who bombed our country,” Bodnar wrote.
“I am grateful to the friendly Turkish people for their support of Ukraine and for their consideration of the inappropriate actions of the fans.”
11:25AM
Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor has filed a lawsuit to revoke the registration of the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Thursday.
Novaya Gazeta, a stalwart of Russia’s beleaguered independent media since 1993, suspended operations inside the country in March after receiving warnings from the communications regulator and being forced to remove material from its website on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Part of the paper’s staff have set up a European edition from Riga, Latvia. Novaya Gazeta’s longtime editor in chief, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dmitry Muratov, has remained in Russia despite his vocal opposition to the conflict in Ukraine.
11:06AM
Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces have destroyed six Ukrainian munitions depots in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and in Mikolayiv region.
10:39AM
Negotiations between Moscow and Washington on exchanging prisoners are ongoing, but have not yielded any results yet, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
“A concrete result has not yet been achieved,” Ms Zakharova said in a statement.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday he will speak with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov by phone in the coming days and press him to respond to an offer Washington has made to secure the release of American citizens detained by Moscow.
Further details on the proposed prisoner swap can be found in our post earlier in this blog at 7.34am.
10:21AM
Liz Truss said accusations that the Foreign Office under her leadership lacked expertise on Russia were “completely untrue”.
She told reporters in Leeds: “We have led the world in standing up to Russia. We were the first country to send weapons to Ukraine in Europe, we put the toughest sanctions on Russia of any country, and we’re also making sure that nobody is allowing Ukraine’s sovereign territory to be given up, and we’ve worked with our allies to achieve that.
“I’m proud of our record, but we need to do more, and one of the key areas in bringing down the cost of living is dealing with Russia – making sure they can’t hold the world to ransom over their gas supplies – and I will be tough in standing up to Putin.”
10:02AM
Some 104,000 people had arrived in the UK under Ukraine visa schemes as of Monday, figures published by the Home Office and UK Visas and Immigration show.
This includes 31,300 people under the family scheme, and 72,700 people under the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme.
The figures also show that, as of Tuesday, around 198,200 applications have been made for visas, and 166,200 visas have been issued.
These include 55,000 applications under the family scheme, of which 47,200 visas have been granted, and 143,200 applications under the sponsorship scheme, of which 119,000 visas have been granted.
9:42AM
Russian-installed officials in southern Ukraine said that more than 20 “accomplices” of the Ukrainian army and security services have been detained.
The announcement came a day after Kyiv’s artillery struck a key bridge in Moscow-controlled territory in southern Ukraine, damaging an important supply route as Ukrainian forces look to wrest back control of the region of Kherson.
Members of the Russian guard detained 21 “accomplices” of the Ukrainian armed forces and the SBU security service in the Moscow-occupied region of Kherson and the partially controlled region of Zaporizhzhia, the pro-Kremlin regional administration in Kherson said.
Various weapons and ammunition including 53 hand grenades and more than 24 kilos of explosives have been seized.
State news agency RIA Novosti, citing a member of Russian law enforcement, described the detained agents as a group of gun layers – who help adjust the aim of fire against targets – headed by a female coordinator.
They helped aim rocket and artillery fire at the Russian army in the region of Kherson, RIA Novosti said.
9:15AM
A Ukrainian serviceman runs to take a position in Kharkiv
Credit:
Evgeniy Maloletka /AP
A Ukrainian self-propelled artillery shoots towards Russian forces at a frontline in Kharkiv
Credit:
Evgeniy Maloletka /AP
Ukrainian servicemen rest in a basement between fighting with Russian forces at the frontline in Kharkiv
Credit:
Evgeniy Maloletka /AP
8:31AM
Russian-backed separatists in east Ukraine’s Donetsk said on Thursday that four civilians had been killed by Ukrainian shelling over the previous day.
According to a message posted on an official separatist Telegram channel, four people were killed and another 11 wounded between 08:00 local time on Wednesday and 08:00 on Thursday.
Donetsk city has been controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Ukrainian forces continue to hold positions on the city’s outskirts.
Separatist authorities have accused Ukraine of shelling Donetsk city on multiple occasions, including at a bus stop earlier this month.
7:34AM
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he plans to hold a phone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – the first between the two diplomats since before the start of the war.
The call in the coming days would not be “a negotiation about Ukraine,” Mr Blinken said at a news conference, restating Washington’s position that any talks on ending the war must be between Kyiv and Moscow.
Russia has received no formal request from Washington about a phone call between Mr Blinken and Mr Lavrov, TASS news agency reported.
The United States has made “a substantial offer” to Russia for it to release American citizens WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, Mr Blinken said, without giving details of what the United States was offering in return.
Mr Blinken said he would press Mr Lavrov to respond to the offer.
6:51AM
Ukraine’s counter-offensive in Kherson has gathered momentum, with Ukrainian forces using their new long range weapons to damage at least three bridges, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.
The bridges are used to cross the Dnipro River, which Russia relies upon to supply the area under its control.
“Russia’s 49th Army is stationed on the west bank of the Dnipro River and now looks highly vulnerable,” the ministry wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
“Similarly, Kherson city, the most politically significant population centre occupied by Russia, is now virtually cut off from the other occupied territories. Its loss would severely undermine Russia’s attempts to paint the occupation as a success.”
6:19AM
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the war has only made his marriage stronger, despite the couple’s long periods of separation.
Mr Zelensky, 44, and wife Olena opened up about her family’s forced separation in a series of interviews when Olena visited her husband in the heavily fortified presidential palace.
Mr Zelensky described wife Olena, whom he met 26 years ago when they were still in high school, as his “best friend”.
“Of course she is my love. But she is my greatest friend,” he told Vogue.
Read the full story by Josie Ensor here
Volodymyr Zelensky said his wife was his best friend
Credit:
AFP
4:31AM
This week, our podcast host David Knowles, and our Defence and Security Editor, Dominic Nicholls, will be in Ukraine, meeting prominent politicians, visiting some significant locations of the war so far, and speaking to those who are experiencing the struggle firsthand to hear their stories.
3:17AM
Russian troops will be “annihilated” unless they retreat from the southern city of Kherson, Ukraine warned on Wednesday after it struck a key bridge with US-supplied rockets.
Kyiv’s strafing of the Antonovsky bridge with precise, long-range Himars rocket launchers marks the opening salvo in Ukraine’s counter-offensive to retake the strategic city, likely to be the site of the next big battle as fighting in the Donbas slows.
The 1000-metre-long bridge, which Russian forces rely on to resupply the occupied city, has been left “completely unusable”, according to a Western official.
“Ukraine’s Kherson counteroffensive is now gathering pace,” the official added. “As with so many wars, one central part of the campaign is boiling down to a race to seize and destroy bridges.”
Read the full story here
3:00AM
Russian forces have taken over Ukraine’s second-biggest power plant and are conducting a “massive redeployment” of troops to three southern regions, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said.
There are expectations of a Ukrainian counter-offensive as Russian-backed forces on Wednesday said they had captured the Soviet-era coal-fired Vuhlehirsk power plant.
The capture of the plant in the eastern Donetsk region was Moscow’s first significant gain in more than three weeks.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, described the plant’s capture as only a “tiny tactical advantage” for Russia.
Vuhlehirsk power plant burns in the distance
Credit:
Reuters
2:25AM
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed to rebuild all the bridges and crossings destroyed in the war with Russia, after a Himars strike damaged the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson on Tuesday.
“We are doing everything to ensure that the occupiers do not have any logistical opportunities on our land,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Wednesday.
“Whatever plans they have, we will disrupt them. And we will liberate our territory with military, diplomatic and all other available means until we reach the legal borders of Ukraine.”
A car moving past a crater on Kherson’s Antonovsky bridge
Credit:
AFP
1:57AM
An army is trapped on a riverbank, bridges blown behind them, without hope of rescue or escape. If it sounds familiar, it’s because it is.
The coming battle of Kherson will in many ways be a reversal of May’s struggle for Severodonetsk, where Ukraine found itself trying to maintain an ever-dwindling bridgehead supplied by constantly shelled bridges.
“The way the Ukrainians are going about that is knocking out the bridges over the Dnipro, thereby limiting the logistical support and therefore the availability of things like artillery on the Western bank,” said Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute.
“What we are seeing in terms of tactical actions are small opportunistic advances along multiple axes to roll the Russians into a tighter and tighter pocket along the river.
“It could work. If the Russians are not able to reinforce, it could bring about a collapse of Russian will to fight in Kherson and achieve retaking the city at some point.”
Read the full analysis by Roland Oliphant here
An armoured truck of pro-Russian troops in the Russia-controlled city of Kherson
Credit:
Reuters
1:49AM
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A Ukrainian woman and her husband visit their destroyed house, which was reduced to rubble by Russian rocket attacks, near the capital Kyiv in Ukraine on July 11. On Thursday, Russian forces renewed attacks in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions for the first time in weeks. Photo by Roman Pilipey/EPA-EFE
July 28 (UPI) — Russian forces fired rockets into northern Ukraine from Belarus on Thursday, marking one of Moscow’s most aggressive actions and use of an ally to attack Ukraine since the start of the war five months ago.
Officials said the Russian military fired about 25 missiles in the early morning hours from Belarus and hit the city of Zhytomyr, the Chernihiv region, and other positions outside the capital Kyiv.
Thursday was the first time in weeks that Russian forces have targeted the Chernihiv and Kyiv areas.
Civilians tracking Russian movements in Belarus said the Russian rockets originated from Belarus’s Ziabrauka airfield, near Gomel.
“This morning, the enemy launched a rocket attack on one of the communities of the Vyshgorod district,” Kyiv regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said, according to The Guardian. “The object of the infrastructure was fired upon. Information about the victims is being clarified. All emergency services are already on site.”
The new Russian attack on northern Ukraine came after Britain’s Defense Ministry, which has tracked military movements in Ukraine since the war began in February, reported that a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the south has made some successes in Russian-occupied territory, such as Kherson.
“Ukraine’s counter-offensive in Kherson is gathering momentum,” the ministry noted in a tweet. “Their forces have highly likely established a bridgehead south of the Ingulets River, which forms the northern boundary of Russian-occupied Kherson.”
“Ukraine has used its new long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges across the Dnipro River which Russia relies upon to supply the areas under its control,” the ministry added.
“Similarly, Kherson city, the most politically significant population center occupied by Russia, is now virtually cut off from the other occupied territories. Its loss would severely undermine Russia’s attempts to paint the occupation as a success.”
Ukrainian officials acknowledged that Russia took the village of Novoluhankse and a large power plant in the Donetsk region this week. But they added that Ukrainian troops repelled Moscow’s advance toward Bakhmut from the south and east. In turn, Russian forces fired on Ukrainian military positions in several settlements north of Sloviansk.
Russia also continued its attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv in the northeast, with long-range surface-to-air missiles.
“Kharkiv was shelled twice overnight, both coming immediately after midnight. One hit closer to the center, while the second targeted an adjacent district,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said according to CNN.
“As a result, two small fires broke out and were extinguished by our rescue team. Currently, we have no information about casualties.”
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