MYKOLAIV, Ukraine: Under pressure in the south of Ukraine, Russia fired missiles and drones into Ukrainian-held Mykolaiv on Sunday, destroying an apartment block in the ship-building city near the front and said the war was trending toward “uncontrolled escalation.”
Mykolaiv lies roughly 35 km (22 miles) northwest of the front line to occupied Kherson, the southern region where Russia has ordered 60,000 people “to save your lives” and flee a Ukrainian counter offensive.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who some Russian nationalists have blamed for Moscow’s setbacks since the Feb. 24 invasion, discussed the “rapidly deteriorating situation” in calls with French and Turkish counterparts, the ministry said.
Without providing evidence, Shoigu said Ukraine could escalate with a “dirty bomb” — conventional explosives laced with radioactive material. Ukraine does not possess nuclear weapons, while Russia has said it could protect Russian territory with its nuclear arsenal.
A Russian missile strike on Sunday wiped out the top floor of an apartment block in Mykolaiv, sending shrapnel and debris across a plaza and into neighboring buildings, smashing windows and cracking walls. Cars were crushed under rubble, Reuters witnessed. No fatalities were recorded.
“After the first blast, I tried to get out, but the door was stuck. After a minute or two, there was a second loud blast. Our door was blown into the corridor,” said Oleksandr Mezinov, 50, who was awoken from his bed by the blasts.
Ukraine shot down 14 Russian “kamikaze” drones over Mykolaiv overnight, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram. The drones are designed to explode on impact and have hammered Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month.
Kim said Russia also attacked with S-300 missiles, one of which hit the five-story apartment building.
Intensifying attacks
Russian troops have withdrawn from parts of the front in recent weeks and occupation authorities are evacuating civilians deeper into Russian-held territory before an expected battle for Kherson, the regional capital on the west bank of the Dnipro river. Kherson is a gateway to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
“The situation today is difficult. It’s vital to save your lives,” Russian Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said in a video message. “It won’t be for long. You will definitely return,” he added.
One man was killed and three injured after a blast in the city, a Russian state news agency said. Emergency services said an improvised explosive device was detonated near a car in the city.
Russia-installed authorities there reported a shortage of vessels to ferry people across the river at one point on Sunday, blaming a “sharp increase in the number of people wishing to leave.”
Around 25,000 people have been evacuated since Tuesday, the Interfax news agency said.
Ukraine’s military said it was making gains in the south, taking over at least two villages it said Russia had abandoned.
Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.
Ukraine’s advances in recent weeks around Kherson and in the country’s northeast have been met with intensifying Russian missile and drone attacks on civilian infrastructure, which have destroyed about 40 percent of Ukraine’s power system ahead of winter.
Winter misery looms
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of planning to blow up the Nova Kakhovka dam, which holds roughly as much water as the Great Salt Lake in the US state of Utah. Breaching it could flood a swathe of southern Ukraine, including Kherson.
Neither side has produced evidence to back up their claims about the dam, which supplies water to Crimea and the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
In another setback for Moscow, a Russian military jet crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk in Russia’s far east on Sunday,
killing the two pilots, the second fatal incident in six days involving a Sukhoi fighter plane.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian attacks on energy infrastructure had struck on a “very wide” scale. He pledged his military would improve on an already good record of downing missiles with help from its partners.
With the war about to start its ninth month and winter approaching, the potential for freezing misery loomed.
More than a million people were without power, presidential adviser Kyrylo Tymoshenko said. A city official said strikes could leave Kyiv without power and heat for days or weeks.
Moscow has acknowledged targeting energy infrastructure but denies targeting civilians in what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Russia hits Ukraine homes, evacuates Kherson, warns of escalation
https://arab.news/8bkm4
Russia hits Ukraine homes, evacuates Kherson, warns of escalation
- Ukraine’s advances in recent weeks around Kherson and in the country’s northeast have been met with intensifying Russian missile and drone attacks on civilian infrastructure
- Ukrainian PZelensky said the Russian attacks on energy infrastructure had struck on a “very wide” scale
Two killed, 32 injured after bridge collapses at tourist destination in India’s Maharashtra
- Incident occurred in Kundamala area in Pune district, which has witnessed heavy rains over the past few days
- It was not raining when the bridge collapsed in an area frequented by picnickers, PTI news agency reported
NEW DELHI: At least two people died and 32 others were injured after an iron bridge over a river collapsed at a popular tourist destination in India’s western Maharashtra state, the state’s top elected official said Sunday.
At least six people were rescued and hospitalized in critical condition, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis wrote on social media platform X.
The incident occurred in Kundamala area in Pune district, which has witnessed heavy rains over the past few days, giving the river a steady flow, Press Trust of India reported.
It was not raining when the bridge collapsed in an area frequented by picnickers, the news agency reported.
Police said teams of the National Disaster Response Force and other search and recovery units have undertaken rescue operations, Press Trust reported.
Rescue work at the scene has been accelerated, Fadnavis said.
Ukraine’s Sumy region on edge as Russian advance closes in
- Ukraine held swathes of the territory for eight months, until a spring offensive by Russian forces supported by North Korean troops pushed them back
STETS’KIVKA: Despite the driving rain, a few elderly residents wander into the streets of Stetskivka in northeast Ukraine to catch a yellow bus to go shopping in nearby Sumy, the regional capital.
They are worried about the Russian drones that have been striking the area with increasing regularity, more than three years into Moscow’s invasion.
“I’m afraid. Nobody knows what could happen to the bus we take,” Galyna Golovko, 69, told AFP at the small shop she runs near the bus stop.
Golovko said she never goes out in the morning or evening when Russian drones criss-cross the sky.
“It’s scary how many drones fly in the morning.... In the morning and in the evening it’s just hell,” she said.
The border with the neighboring Russian region of Kursk is just 17 kilometers (11 miles) away.
The Sumy region was the starting point for a Ukrainian incursion into Kursk last year.
Ukraine held swathes of the territory for eight months, until a spring offensive by Russian forces supported by North Korean troops pushed them back.
Moscow has since advanced toward the city of Sumy, taking several villages along the way and forcing mandatory evacuations of civilian residents.
At the Stetskivka bus stop, an elderly woman said she had packed up in case Russian troops arrive in town, where Ukrainian soldiers have replaced a pre-war population of 5,500 people.
The town is just 10 kilometers from the front line, and residents said there is heavy fighting nearby.
Beyond Stetskivka, “everything has been destroyed, there is not a single village,” Golovko said.
On her shop counter, there was a plastic box with a few banknotes — donations for a local family that lost its home, destroyed by a Russian glide bomb.
Ten kilometers to the south lies Sumy, a city that had 255,000 inhabitants before the war.
So far, restaurants are crowded and there seems little concern about the Russian advance.
But buildings in the city bear the scars of Russian bombardments.
And, when the sounds of car horns go down in the evenings, explosions can be heard in the distance.
The streets are lined with concrete bunkers against the increasingly frequent strikes from Russia, which has said it wants to set up a “buffer zone” to prevent future Ukrainian incursions.
“The enemy is trying to advance,” said Anvar, commander of the drone battalion of the 225th regiment, which is leading the defense of the region.
“We are pushing them back. Sometimes we advance, sometimes they do,” he told AFP in an apartment that serves as a base for his unit.
“We still have troops in the Kursk region. Nobody has tried to drive them out,” he said, calling the conflict in the region a “war of positions.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said the Russian offensive in Sumy had been stopped, just a day after Russian forces said they had captured another village in the region.
Sitting next to Anvar, one of his men soldered microprocessors in silence, except for electronic clicking that made the room feel like a laboratory.
Surrounded by 3D printers and piles of batteries, the members of the brigade are busy transforming Chinese drones into flying weapons.
“It is now a drone war,” the commander said.
Anvar said that Russia was continually sending “cannon fodder” along this part of the front to try and overwhelm Ukrainian troops.
“I know people who have gone mad because of the number of people they manage to kill in a day.”
Russian soldiers “continue marching calmly” amid the bodies of their fallen comrades, he said.
In Stetskivka, Golovko voiced confidence that Ukrainian soldiers would hold the line and said she was “not going anywhere.”
“I will stay at home,” she said tearfully, beating the counter with her fist.
“I have traveled to Russia. We have friends there, and relatives. Everything was fine before.
“One day, this madness will end. The madness that Putin unleashed will end,” she said in a shaky voice.
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‘Hidden treasure’: Rare Gandhi portrait up for UK sale in July
- Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in India’s history, led a non-violent movement against British rule
- 1931 painting by British-American artist Clare Leighton is believed to be the only oil portrait Gandhi sat for
LONDON: A rare oil painting of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, which is believed to have been damaged by a Hindu nationalist activist, is to be auctioned in London in July.
Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in India’s history, led a non-violent movement against British rule and inspired similar resistance campaigns across the world.
He is the subject of tens of thousands of artworks, books and films.
But a 1931 painting by British-American artist Clare Leighton is believed to be the only oil portrait he sat for, according to the painter’s family and Bonhams, where it will be auctioned online from July 7 to 15.
“Not only is this a rare work by Clare Leighton, who is mainly known for her wood engravings, it is also thought to be the only oil painting of Mahatma Gandhi which he sat for,” said Rhyanon Demery, Bonhams Head of Sale for Travel and Exploration.
The painting is a “likely hidden treasure,” Caspar Leighton, the artist’s great-nephew, told AFP.
Going under the hammer for the first time next month, the painting is estimated to sell for between £50,000 and £70,000 ($68,000 and $95,000).
Clare Leighton met Gandhi in 1931, when he was in London for talks with the British government on India’s political future.
She was part of London’s left-wing artistic circles and was introduced to Gandhi by her partner, journalist Henry Noel Brailsford.
“I think there was clearly a bit of artistic intellectual courtship that went on,” said Caspar, pointing out that his great-aunt and Gandhi shared a “sense of social justice.”
The portrait, painted at a crucial time for India’s independence struggle, “shows Gandhi at the height of his power,” added Caspar.
It was exhibited in London in November 1931, following which Gandhi’s personal secretary, Mahadev Desai, wrote to Clare: “It was such a pleasure to have had you here for many mornings doing Mr.Gandhi’s portrait.”
“Many of my friends who saw it in the Albany Gallery said to me that it was a good likeness,” reads a copy of the letter attached to the painting’s backing board.
The painting intimately captures Gandhi’s likeness but it also bears reminders of his violent death.
Gandhi was shot at point-blank range in 1948 by disgruntled Hindu nationalist activist Nathuram Godse, once closely associated with the right-wing paramilitary organization RSS.
Godse and some other Hindu nationalist figures accused Gandhi of betraying Hindus by agreeing to the partition of India and the creation of Muslim-majority Pakistan.
According to Leighton’s family, the painting was attacked with a knife by a “Hindu extremist” believed to be an RSS activist, in the early 1970s.
Although there is no documentation of the attack, a label on the back of the painting confirms that it was restored in the United States in 1974.
Under UV light, Demery pointed out the shadow of a deep gash running across Gandhi’s face where the now-restored painting was damaged.
“It feels very deliberate,” she said.
The repairs “add to the value of the picture in a sense... to its place in history, that Gandhi was again attacked figuratively many decades after his death,” said Caspar.
The only other recorded public display of the painting was in 1978 at a Boston Public Library exhibition of Clare Leighton’s work.
After Clare’s death, the artwork passed down to Caspar’s father and then to him.
“There’s my family’s story but the story in this portrait is so much greater,” he said.
“It’s a story for millions of people across the world,” he added.
“I think it’d be great if it got seen by more people. Maybe it should go back to India — maybe that’s its real home.”
Unlike countless depictions of the man known in India as the “father of the nation” — in stamps, busts, paraphernalia and recreated artwork — “this is actually from the time,” said Caspar.
“This might be really the last truly significant picture of Gandhi to emerge from that time.”
Iran denies asking Cyprus to convey messages to Israel
- Christodoulides told journalists Iran had asked Cyprus to convey ‘some messages’ to Israel but he did not say who specifically the messages were from or what they said
DUBAI: Iran did not send any message to Israel via a third country, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said on Sunday, after Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said earlier Tehran had asked Nicosia to convey “some messages” to Israel.
President Nikos Christodoulides said Sunday Iran has asked Cyprus to convey “some messages” to Israel, as the east Mediterranean island appealed for restraint in a rapidly escalating crisis in the Middle East.
Christodoulides spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and he has also spoken to the leaders of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Greece, his office said Sunday.
Christodoulides told journalists Iran had asked Cyprus to convey ‘some messages’ to Israel but he did not say who specifically the messages were from or what they said.
Cypriot officials offered no clarity on the nature of the messages, which came after the Cypriot foreign minister spoke to his Iranian counterpart on Friday night.
Christodoulides also said he was not happy with what he said was a slow reaction by the European Union to the unfolding crisis in the Middle East.
Cyprus, the EU member situated closest to the Middle East, had asked for an extraordinary meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, he said. Projectiles sent by Iran to strike Israel were visible from various locations across Cyprus on Friday and Saturday night.
“It is not possible for the EU to claim a geopolitical role, to see all these developments and for there not to be at the very least a convening of the Council of Foreign Ministers,” Christodoulides told journalists.
Cyprus has offered to assist in the evacuation of third-party nationals from the region, and has called on all sides to refrain from actions which could escalate the conflict.
Hajj operations set ‘global benchmark’ in crowd management: Sri Lanka envoy
- Almost 1.7m people undertook Hajj pilgrimage this year
- Saudi authorities used AI systems to manage pilgrim flow
COLOMBO: Saudi Arabia’s organization of this year’s Hajj has set a new standard in crowd management through the use of advanced technologies, Sri Lanka’s envoy said on Sunday, as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims started to return home.
In the 2025 Hajj season, almost 1.7 million people undertook the spiritual journey that is one of the tenets of Islam. More than 1.5 million arrived in the Kingdom from abroad, according to data from the General Authority for Statistics.
Pilgrims started to arrive in May, ahead of the main rituals which this year fell on June 6-10. Many have already departed for their countries of origin but special post-Hajj flights will continue to operate until mid-July.
The way the temporary influx of people has been handled by the Kingdom has “set a global benchmark in crowd management and smart innovation,” said Ameer Ajwad, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the Kingdom, who this year was part of his country’s Hajj contingent.
Technology has played a key role in monitoring footage from more than 15,000 cameras installed in and around the holy city of Makkah.
The monitoring systems were designed to detect unusual crowd movements and anticipate bottlenecks in foot traffic to help prevent stampedes.
“The Kingdom set an exemplary global benchmark for crowd management by using AI-based crowd monitoring, predictive analytics as well as preventing unauthorized entries,” Ajwad told Arab News.
“Innovations by using advanced technologies such smart tents, digital tools and AI systems were also introduced to facilitate this year’s Hajj arrangements.”
More than 420,000 workers from the public and private sectors, including security services, served pilgrims during this year’s Hajj, GASTAT data shows.
The envoy highlighted the “tireless services rendered by the Saudi security and military officers, as well as guides and volunteers,” and extended gratitude to the Ministry of Health for “providing world-class healthcare services to the Hajj pilgrims (from) around the globe, including heart surgery for a Sri Lankan pilgrim.”
About 3,500 Sri Lankans took part in the pilgrimage this year. Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the 22 million population of the island nation, which is predominantly Buddhist.
