Moscow warns the US over allowing Ukraine to hit Russian soil with longer-range weapons

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov moderates Russian President Vladimir Putin's year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (AFP)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov moderates Russian President Vladimir Putin's year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor exhibition hall in central Moscow on December 14, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 18 November 2024
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Moscow warns the US over allowing Ukraine to hit Russian soil with longer-range weapons

Moscow warns the US over allowing Ukraine to hit Russian soil with longer-range weapons

KYIV, Ukraine: The Kremlin warned Monday that President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied longer-range missiles adds “fuel to the fire” of the war and would escalate international tensions even higher.
Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain, new factor to the conflict on the eve of the 1,000-day milestone since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.
It also came as a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and injuring 84 others. Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 43, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, US officials told The Associated Press on Sunday, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
The Kremlin was swift in its condemnation.
“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The scope of the new firing guidelines isn’t clear. But the change came after the US, South Korea and NATO said North Korean troops are in Russia and apparently are being deployed to help Moscow drive Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk border region.
Biden’s decision almost entirely was triggered by North Korea’s entry into the fight, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, and was made just before he left for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.
Russia also is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region. It has also conducted a devastating aerial campaign against civilian areas in Ukraine.
Peskov referred journalists to a statement from President Vladimir Putin in September in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes.
It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Putin said at the time. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
Peskov claimed that Western countries supplying longer-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kyiv. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” he said.
Putin warned in June that Moscow could provide longer-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allowed Ukraine to use its allies’ arms to attack Russian territory. After signing a treaty with North Korea, Putin issued an explicit threat to provide weapons to Pyongyang, noting Moscow could mirror Western arguments that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how to use them.
“The Westerners supply weapons to Ukraine and say: ‘We do not control anything here anymore and it does not matter how they are used.’” Putin had said. “Well, we can also say: ‘We supplied something to someone — and then we do not control anything.’ And let them think about it.”
Putin had also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.
Biden’s move will “mean the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in military action against Russia, as well as a radical change in the essence and nature of the conflict,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue military support to Ukraine. He has also vowed to end the war quickly.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a muted response Sunday to the approval that he and his government have been requesting for over a year, adding, “The missiles will speak for themselves.”
Consequences of the new policy are uncertain. ATACMS, which have a range of about 300 kilometers (190 miles), can reach far behind the about 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line in Ukraine, but they have relatively short range compared with other types of ballistic and cruise missiles.
The policy change came “too late to have a major strategic effect,” said Patrick Bury, a senior associate professor in security at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.
“The ultimate kind of impact it will have is to probably slow down the tempo of the Russian offensives which are now happening,” he said, adding that Ukraine could strike targets in Kursk or logistics hubs or command headquarters.
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, agreed the US move would not alter the war’s course, noting Ukraine “would need large stockpiles of ATACMS, which it doesn’t have and won’t receive because the United States’ own supplies are limited.”
On a political level, the move “is a boost to the Ukrainians and it gives them a window of opportunity to try and show that they are still viable and worth supporting” as Trump prepares to take office, said Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
The cue for the policy change was the arrival in Russia of North Korean troops, according to Glib Voloskyi, an analyst at the CBA Initiatives Center, a Kyiv-based think tank.
“This is a signal the Biden administration is sending to North Korea and Russia, indicating that the decision to involve North Korean units has crossed a red line,” he said.
Russian lawmakers and state media bashed the West for what they called an escalatory step, threatening a harsh response.
“Biden, apparently, decided to end his presidential term and go down in history as ‘Bloody Joe,’” lawmaker Leonid Slutsky told Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, called it “a very big step toward the start of World War III” and an attempt to “reduce the degree of freedom for Trump.”
Russian newspapers offered similar predictions of doom. “The madmen who are drawing NATO into a direct conflict with our country may soon be in great pain,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta said.
Some NATO allies welcomed the move.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland, which borders Ukraine, praised the decision as a “very important, maybe even a breakthrough moment” in the war.
“In the recent days, we have seen the decisive intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine, above all, those missile attacks where civilian objects are attacked, where people are killed, ordinary Ukrainians,” Duda said.
Easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing,” said Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna of Russian neighbor Estonia.
“We have been saying that from the beginning — that no restrictions must be put on the military support,” he told senior European Union diplomats in Brussels. “And we need to understand that situation is more serious (than) it was even maybe like a couple of months ago.”
But Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, known for his pro-Russian views, described Biden’s decision as “an unprecedented escalation” that would prolong the war.
 

 


USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, study says

USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, study says
Updated 01 July 2025
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USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, study says

USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, study says
  • Projections suggest that ongoing deep funding cuts - combined with the potential dismantling of the agency - could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years

PARIS: More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable people, a third of them small children, could die because of the Trump administration’s dismantling of US foreign aid, a study in the Lancet journal projected Tuesday.
“For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,” study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a statement.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
President Donald Trump's administration, since taking office in January, has made funding cuts to USAID and its aid programs worldwide in what the U.S. government says is part of its broader plan to remove wasteful spending.
Human rights experts and advocates have warned against the cuts. USAID funding has had a crucial role in improving global health, primarily directed toward low and middle-income countries, particularly African nations, according to the study.

BY THE NUMBERS
The study estimated that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programs have prevented more than 91 million deaths globally, including 30 million deaths among children.
Projections suggest that ongoing deep funding cuts - combined with the potential dismantling of the agency - could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years, the study in The Lancet said.
Washington is the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.

KEY QUOTE
"Our estimates show that, unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030," the study said.

CONTEXT
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in March the Trump administration canceled over 80% of all programs at USAID following a six-week review.
The remaining approximately 1,000 programs, he said, would now be administered "more effectively" under the U.S. State Department and in consultation with Congress.

 

 

 


Palestine Action to challenge UK ban

Palestine Action to challenge UK ban
Updated 30 June 2025
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Palestine Action to challenge UK ban

Palestine Action to challenge UK ban
  • Palestine Action said an urgent hearing to challenge the proscription will be held at the High Court in London on Friday
  • The ban of Palestine Action is set to be debated in parliament on Wednesday and Thursday, and could take effect from Friday

LONDON: UK campaign group Palestine Action on Monday said it would challenge its planned proscription as a terrorist group, as the British government said it could be banned by the end of the week.
The government announced last week plans to designate the pro-Palestinian group as a “terrorist” organization after its activists broke into a British air force base and vandalized two planes.
The group, which has condemned the move as an attack on free speech, said an urgent hearing to challenge the proscription will be held at the High Court in London on Friday.
The challenge was backed by Amnesty International and other rights groups.
Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, said in a statement the proposed ban would have “far-reaching implications” on “fundamental freedoms of speech, expression and assembly in Britain.”
After announcing the measure last week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper launched the process to ban the group on Monday in parliament.
The ban is set to be debated in parliament on Wednesday and Thursday, and could take effect from Friday.
Labour holds a massive majority in the House of Commons, meaning the proposal should pass easily.
Palestine Action said it was seeking an injunction or interim relief from the courts “because of the Home Secretary’s decision to try to steamroll this through Parliament.”
Earlier this month, two of its activists broke into the RAF Brize Norton base in southern England and sprayed two planes with red paint.
Cooper last week said the vandalism was “the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage” committed by the group since it formed in 2020.
The government cites previous damage claimed by the group in actions at a Thales defense factory in Glasgow in 2022 and on Israeli defense tech firm Elbit Systems UK last year in Bristol, in the country’s southwest.
“Such acts do not represent legitimate acts of protest and the level of seriousness of Palestine Action’s activity has met the test for proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000,” the government said in a statement.
Palestine Action says it is a “direct action and civil disobedience protest movement” seeking “to prevent serious violations of international law by Israel.”
“Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. Causing disruption to the UK-based arms factories used by Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems, is not terrorism,” co-founder Ammori said.
“The terrorism and war crimes are being committed in Palestine by Israel, which is being armed by Britain, and benefitting from British military support.”


Trump signs an executive order ending US sanctions on Syria

Trump signs an executive order ending US sanctions on Syria
Updated 01 July 2025
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Trump signs an executive order ending US sanctions on Syria

Trump signs an executive order ending US sanctions on Syria
  • White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the move was designed to ‘promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace’

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday ending most US economic sanctions on Syria, following through on a promise he made to the country’s new interim leader.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the move was designed to “promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace.”
The executive order is meant to “end the country’s isolation from the international financial system, setting the stage for global commerce and galvanizing investments from its neighbors in the region, as well as from the United States,” Treasury’s acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brad Smith, told reporters on a call Monday morning to preview the administration’s action.
Monday’s actions do not rescind sanctions imposed on ousted former President Bashar Assad, his top aides, family members and officials who had been determined to have committed human rights abuses or been involved in drug trafficking or part of Syria’s chemical weapons program. Known as the Caesar Act sanctions, they can only be repealed by law.
The White House posted the text of the order on X after the signing, which was not open to the press.
The US granted Syria sweeping exemptions from sanctions in May, which was a first step toward fulfilling the Republican president’s pledge to lift a half-century of penalties on a country shattered by 13 years of civil war.
Along with the lifting of economic sanctions, Monday’s executive order lifts the national emergency outlined in an executive order issued by former President George W. Bush in response to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, Treasury officials said. Five other previous executive orders related to Syria were also lifted.
Sanctions targeting terrorist groups and manufacturers and sellers of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon will remain in place.
Trump met with Syria’s interim leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia in May and told him he would lift sanctions and explore normalizing relations in a major policy shift in relations between the US and Syria.
“This is another promise made and promise kept,” Leavitt said Monday.
The European Union has also followed through with lifting nearly all remaining sanctions on Syria.
Still, some restrictions remain in place. The US still designates Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism and the group led by Al-Sharaa as a foreign terrorist organization.
A State Department official said the department is reviewing those designations.


Palestine’s Red Crescent chief tells UK’s Prince William of humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Palestine’s Red Crescent chief tells UK’s Prince William of humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Updated 30 June 2025
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Palestine’s Red Crescent chief tells UK’s Prince William of humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Palestine’s Red Crescent chief tells UK’s Prince William of humanitarian crisis in Gaza
  • The prince meets representatives of the organization and the British Red Cross to discuss the challenges aid workers face in the territory
  • They tell of the worsening conditions in Gaza, increasingly urgent humanitarian requirements, and the need to protect medical teams

LONDON: Younis Al-Khatib, the president of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, held talks with the UK’s Prince William during an official visit to Kensington Palace in London on Monday.

William, the Prince of Wales, met Al-Khatib and other representatives of his organization, along with members of the British Red Cross, to discuss the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and explore ways in which international humanitarian efforts might be enhanced.

The prince’s guests described the worsening conditions in Gaza, the increasingly urgent humanitarian needs in the territory, the challenges faced by aid workers and the need to protect medical teams, the Palestine News Agency reported. They also reviewed the efforts being made to help those affected by ongoing Israeli attacks.

Al-Khatib said that more than 1,600 Palestine Red Crescent Society employees and volunteers continue to work under extremely hazardous conditions in Gaza to provide emergency medical services and distribute relief supplies. Since the war in Gaza began in late 2023, he added, 28 Red Crescent personnel have been killed amid the Israeli attacks or while performing their duties.

The meeting was part of ongoing coordinated efforts by the Red Crescent to highlight the escalating crisis in Gaza, where more than 55,000 Palestinians have been killed during the ongoing conflict, most of them women and children.


Week of heavy rains and floods across Pakistan kills 46 people

A boy pushes his cousin on wheelchair through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rains, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 29
A boy pushes his cousin on wheelchair through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rains, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 29
Updated 30 June 2025
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Week of heavy rains and floods across Pakistan kills 46 people

A boy pushes his cousin on wheelchair through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rains, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, June 29
  • The deaths from the past week include 13 tourists from a family of 17 who were swept away Friday
  • Other four family members were rescued from the flooded Swat River in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province

PESHAWAR: Nearly a week of heavy monsoon rains and flash floods across Pakistan has killed at least 46 people and injured dozens, officials said Monday.
The fatalities caused by abnormally strong downpours since Tuesday include 22 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 13 in eastern Punjab province, seven in southern Sindh, and four in southwestern Balochistan, the National Disaster Management Authority and provincial emergency officials said.
“We are expecting above-normal rains during the monsoon season and alerts have been issued to the concerned authorities to take precautionary measures,” said Irfan Virk, a Pakistan Meteorological Department deputy director.
Virk said that forecasters cannot rule out a repeat of extreme weather like the devastating floods in 2022. Rains inundated a third of the country, killing 1,737 people and causing widespread destruction.
The deaths from the past week include 13 tourists from a family of 17 who were swept away Friday. The other four family members were rescued from the flooded Swat River in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Rescuers found 12 bodies from the group and divers continued searching Monday for the remaining victim, said Bilal Faizi, a provincial emergency service spokesman.
The incident drew widespread condemnation online over what many called a slow response by emergency services.
On Sunday, the National Disaster Management Authority had warned of potential hazards and advised people against crossing rivers and streams.