KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he has held further discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron about the possibility of Western troops deploying in Ukraine to safeguard any peace deal ending the nearly three-year war with Russia.
Zelensky’s disclosure came before an official visit to Kyiv on Tuesday by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. He arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit following a meeting in Warsaw on Monday with his counterparts from France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Poland.
Germany and the four other countries are Europe’s five top military spenders.
Pistorius told German news agency dpa that his visit to Kyiv aims to underscore Germany’s strong support for Ukraine at a time when US President-elect Donald Trump’s term beginning next week looks set to bring deep changes to Washington’s policy on the war.
Pistorius said that his visit “is a signal that Germany, as the biggest NATO country in Europe, stands by Ukraine — not alone, but with the group of five and many other allies.”
Trump has criticized the cost of the war for US taxpayers through major military aid packages for Ukraine, and vowed to bring the conflict to a swift end. He also has made it clear that he wants to shift more of the Ukraine burden onto Europe.
Macron prompted an outcry from other leaders, and he appeared isolated on the European stage, after his remarks almost a year ago floated the possibility of putting Western troops in Ukraine.
Pistorius told reporters in Kyiv that the Warsaw meeting didn’t discuss Macron’s remarks about troop deployments.
Zelensky has said that Ukraine needs security guarantees to bolster any peace agreement — an issue he said late Monday that he discussed with the French leader.
“As one of these guarantees, we discussed the French initiative to deploy military contingents in Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “We considered practical steps for its implementation, possible expansion and involvement of other countries in this process.”
Potentially sending European troops as peacekeepers to Ukraine is fraught with risk. Such a move may not deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again in the future, which is the fear of Ukrainian officials, and could drag European countries into a direct confrontation with Moscow. That, in turn, could pull NATO — including the United States — into a conflict.
Russia’s bigger army has largely pinned Ukrainian forces on the defensive along the around 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line. Ukraine’s defenses are creaking in the eastern Donetsk region amid a Russian onslaught.
Zelensky said Ukraine has more than 100 brigades on the battlefield and each of them requires equipment replenishment before increasing the number of troops through a wider mobilization.
Ukraine has built up a domestic arsenal of long-range drones and missiles that it uses to hit targets on Russian soil far behind the front line. The targets are usually infrastructure that supports the Russian war effort, such as arms depots, oil refineries and manufacturing plants.
Two industrial facilities in Russia’s western Saratov region were damaged after a “massive” Ukrainian drone attack, regional Gov. Roman Busargin said Tuesday.
He claimed that Russian air defenses downed “a large number” of drones and said that there were no casualties, offering no further details.
Ukrainian officials said the Saratov attack, which stretched over several days, “reduced the capabilities of (Russia’s) strategic aviation.”
Tanks holding aviation fuel for Tu-160 bombers caught fire at the Engels military airfield in Saratov, according to a statement on social media by the 14th separate regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine.
Also, the Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of firing six US-made ATACMS missiles, six UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles and 31 drones at Russia’s Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine.
All the missiles and drones were shot down by air defense systems, the ministry claimed in an online statement, but it said that the attack “will not go unanswered.”
Russia has repeatedly threatened Ukraine and the West with retaliation for the use of Western-supplied longer-range weapons to strike Russian soil.
Zelensky, Macron discuss Western troop deployment in Ukraine before German defense chief visits
https://arab.news/nkb33
Zelensky, Macron discuss Western troop deployment in Ukraine before German defense chief visits
- Zelensky’s disclosure came before an official visit to Kyiv on Tuesday by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius
- Pistorius said that his visit “is a signal that Germany, as the biggest NATO country in Europe, stands by Ukraine — not alone, but with the group of five and many other allies”
Driving ban puts brakes on young women in Turkmenistan
- There is no legislation specifically outlawing women under 30 from obtaining a driving license in Turkmenistan
- But it is one of many informal prohibitions that is universally followed, so women that do drive must do so without a permit
In Turkmenistan, the reclusive Central Asian state where she lives, young women are effectively banned from driving.
“I know the rules of the road. I drive calmly, don’t overtake anyone and know how to park,” the 19-year-old said.
Like other women interviewed by AFP in Turkmenistan – ranked by rights groups as one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world – she withheld her surname.
There is no legislation specifically outlawing women under 30 from obtaining a driving license.
But it is one of many informal prohibitions that is universally followed, so women that do drive must do so without this precious permit, which is indeed against the law.
“When my daughter wanted to enroll at the driving school, we were told that she could take lessons but that she would probably not pass the test,” said Guzel, Mekhri’s 57-year-old mother.
So instead of paying for lessons, Guzel assumed the role of instructor and now takes Mekhri outside the capital, Ashgabat, to practice.
“Where there are few cars, police officers and cameras, I let my daughter take the wheel and I teach her,” Guzel, who started driving when she was 40, said.
Among the other transport-related diktats imposed by father-and-son duo Gurbanguly and Serdar Berdymukhamedov – who have ruled the country one after the other since 2006 – are a ban on black cars.
Owners have been forced to paint the vehicles white, the favorite color of Gurbanguly, whose official titles are “Hero-Protector” and “leader of the Turkmen nation.”
Many young women share Mekhri’s frustration.
“I wanted to take my test at 18. At the driving school, the instructor immediately warned the many girls there: ‘You’ve come for nothing. You won’t be able to take it,” said Maisa, a 26-year-old saleswoman.
“But up to the exam, driving schools take both boys and girls, because they pay,” she said.
Goulia, 19, said her parents had wanted to buy her a car when she went to university so she could be more independent, do the family shopping and take her grandmother to hospital and the chemist’s.
“But because of the difficulties that girls like me face getting a driver’s license, my mother said she would have to postpone the decision,” she said.
“I’ve just turned 19 and I can’t get a license but the boys can and I don’t understand why,” she added.
Turkmenistan’s motor transport agency did not respond to an AFP request to comment.
Contacted via phone by AFP, one driving school said “women have the right to enroll in the course and take the exam” before abruptly hanging up.
But another instructor from Ashgabat acknowledged the informal ban.
“It is due to a sharp increase in accidents involving female drivers,” the instructor said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“After an investigation by the authorities, it turned out they were simply buying driving licenses,” the instructor said – a claim AFP could not verify.
Rules have also been tightened for women over 30 who are not covered by the informal ban.
To register a car in their own name, they have to show a marriage certificate, family record book and a report from their employer.
Authorities routinely reject accusations that they are restricting women’s rights.
Responding to a recent United Nations report criticizing the country, the government said: “The motherland treats mothers and women with great respect.”
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, President Serdar Berdymoukhamedov gifted every woman the equivalent of $3 – enough to buy a cake or six kilograms (13 pounds) of potatoes.
‘He is not a criminal’: legal immigrants caught up in Trump raids
- The agency said on social media that it had conducted several raids in Aurora, a Denver suburb, on February 5
DENVER: D Pablo Morales has nothing against Donald Trump, and when the US president promised mass deportations, he was not worried because as a legal migrant from Cuba, he thought they would only affect criminals.
But then immigration officers arrested his son, Luis — a rideshare driver who has never broken the law and was also in the US legally.
“He has all his papers, he has his social security number, his work authorization,” Morales told AFP, displaying the documents.
The two men were visiting friends in Denver when they were woken by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid.
When agents knocked on the door, they calmly presented their papers thinking they had nothing to fear — until Luis was handcuffed and sent to an administrative detention center.
He has yet to be released.
Luis filled out paperwork to apply for residency in 2023 but, the agents told his father, he did not have a hearing date for his application.
Immigration lawyers say the blame lies with the backlog in the US immigration system, where cases often drag on for years because of a shortage of judges.
Luis has lived in New York for almost four years and is married to an American citizen.
“He is not a criminal,” insists his father.
“He’s a hardworking boy like me; we came to this country... to work,” explains this former employee of a Las Vegas casino.
ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the case when contacted by AFP.
The agency said on social media that it had conducted several raids in Aurora, a Denver suburb, on February 5.
“100+ members of the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were targeted for arrest and detention in Aurora, Colorado, today by ICE,” it posted.
According to a report by Fox News, around thirty people were arrested, of whom only one was a gang member.
“I don’t understand,” said Morales. “They were looking for Venezuelans who are part of a criminal gang.
“If he is Cuban and he shows them his papers, I don’t know why they are coming to take him away.”
Local media reported an asylum seeker was also among those rounded up in that particular raid.
Trump rode back into the White House on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping America.
He pledged to carry out “the largest deportation operation in history.”
However, data shows ICE deported fewer people in February — Trump’s first full month in office — than it did under Joe Biden in the same month last year, according to a report by NBC.
But its actions have been very visible, with military jets used to ostentatiously deport handcuffed people to Latin American countries, or to detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Colorado knows it is in the crosshairs.
Its capital, Denver, is a sanctuary city, where Democratic authorities limit the cooperation of local law enforcement with federal immigration police.
And Aurora has been cast by Trump and conservative media as a symbol of an “occupied America,” because of a viral video showing armed men breaking into an apartment there.
City police point out that crime has fallen in Aurora over the last two years.
Last month’s raids were little more than “photo ops” says Laura Lunn, an immigration lawyer.
“I think that the focus on Aurora was a fabricated story to begin with. They’re trying to solve a problem that never existed,” says Lunn, a member of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.
“The rhetoric that the government is using — conflating immigration and criminals — is really damaging, because those two things are not the same.”
ICE says that while its agents are targeting criminals, they are content to make “collateral arrests.”
During the first month of the Trump presidency, the proportion of people without criminal records detained by ICE increased from six to 16 percent, according to the New York Times.
Lunn says no one is safe anymore, even immigrants who are just awaiting their day in court but who have everything in order.
She advises her worried clients to always have photocopies of their files.
“People are being detained today that I would never have guessed even a month ago that they would be detained,” she says.
“It’s really hard for us to predict who might be at risk.”
World Food Programme to cut aid to 1 million people in Myanmar
- The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday more than one million people in war-torn Myanmar will be cut off from food aid starting in April due to “critical funding shortfalls”
YANGON: The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday more than one million people in war-torn Myanmar will be cut off from food aid starting in April due to “critical funding shortfalls.”
“More than one million people in Myanmar will be cut off from WFP’s lifesaving food assistance starting in April due to critical funding shortfalls,” the organization said in a statement.
Myanmar troops under armed attack flee across border: Thai military
- A group of Myanmar soldiers fled across the Thai border on Friday after an assault by an ethnic armed group ousted them from their base, Thailand’s military said
BANGKOK: A group of Myanmar soldiers fled across the Thai border on Friday after an assault by an ethnic armed group ousted them from their base, Thailand’s military said.
Myanmar has been riven by civil war after the military seized power in a 2021 coup, with the junta fighting an array of armed ethnic organizations and pro-democracy partisans.
Fighters from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) attacked the Pulu Tu frontier military base in the early hours of Friday, the Thai military said.
“The Myanmar military defended the base but ultimately the KNLA successfully seized control,” it said in a statement.
“Several Myanmar soldiers were killed and some fled across the border into Thailand.”
The statement did not specify how many Myanmar soldiers had crossed the border into Thailand’s Tak province but said they had been “provided humanitarian assistance.”
KNLA forces seized the base around 3:00 am (2030 GMT Thursday), according to a spokesman for the organization’s political wing, the Karen National Union.
The KNLA fighters took the base after Myanmar troops “abandoned their guns and ran into Thailand,” it said.
A spokesman for the Myanmar junta could not be reached for comment.
The Pulu Tu base is around 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the border town of Myawaddy, a vital trade node that became a battleground between anti-junta fighters and the military last year.
The region is also the epicenter of the scam-center boom in Myanmar, where thousands of foreign nationals trawl the Internet for victims to trick with romance or investment schemes.
Many workers say they were trafficked into the centers and thousands have been repatriated through Thailand in recent weeks under mounting international pressure.
The KNLA has been fighting for decades to establish greater autonomy for the Karen people living along Myanmar’s southeastern flank.
It is among dozens of ethnic armed organizations, already active before the coup, which have proved the most effective fighting forces against the junta.
While the military has suffered substantial territorial losses, analysts say it remains strong in Myanmar’s heartland, with an air force capable of inflicting punishing losses on its adversaries.
The junta issued a conscription order a year ago to boost its embattled ranks, allowing it to call up all men aged 18-35 for military service.
Fire aboard US airliner after diverted to Denver, 12 injured
- An American Airlines jet caught fire after landing at Denver International Airport in Colorado on Thursday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said
WASHINGTON: An American Airlines jet caught fire after landing at Denver International Airport in Colorado on Thursday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.
There were 172 passengers and six crew members aboard, the airliner said, according to local media.
Denver International Airport said in a post on social media platform X that all passengers were safely evacuated from the plane but 12 people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.
Dramatic video images widely shared on social media showed billowing smoke around the jet on the ground near the terminals and passengers standing on a wing as emergency services arrived.
The FAA said American Airlines Flight 1006, flying from Colorado to Dallas-Fort Worth, diverted to Denver International Airport after the crew reported experiencing “engine vibrations.”
“After landing and while taxiing to the gate an engine caught fire and passengers evacuated the aircraft using the slides,” the FAA said in a statement.
The latest incident comes amid concerns about safety after a series of incidents and attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to cut costs at US aviation agencies.
The FAA said it will investigate the latest incident.
