Zelensky to unveil ‘victory plan’ to Ukrainian lawmakers after presenting it to Western allies

Zelensky to unveil ‘victory plan’ to Ukrainian lawmakers after presenting it to Western allies
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s presentation to Parliament, announced on Monday by presidential adviser Serhii Leshchenko, comes during a bleak moment in Ukraine. (File/AFP)
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Updated 16 October 2024
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Zelensky to unveil ‘victory plan’ to Ukrainian lawmakers after presenting it to Western allies

Zelensky to unveil ‘victory plan’ to Ukrainian lawmakers after presenting it to Western allies
  • The plan is considered as Ukraine’s last resort to strengthen its hand in any future ceasefire negotiations with Russia
  • No country has publicly endorsed it or commented on its feasibility

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was set to at least partially unveil a plan to win the war against Russia to his country’s Parliament on Wednesday after weeks of dropping hints about the blueprint to lukewarm Western allies, including US President Joe Biden.

The plan — comprising military, political, diplomatic and economic elements — is considered by many as Ukraine’s last resort to strengthen its hand in any future ceasefire negotiations with Russia. Thus far, however, no country has publicly endorsed it or commented on its feasibility.

Zelensky is keen to get the “victory plan” in place before a new US president is sworn in next year, though Ukrainian officials say neither presidential candidate will necessarily improve Kyiv’s standing in the war.

Zelensky’s presentation to Parliament, announced on Monday by presidential adviser Serhii Leshchenko, comes during a bleak moment in Ukraine. The country’s military is suffering losses along the eastern front as Russian forces inch closer to a strategically significant victory near the crucial logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

At every turn, Kyiv is outnumbered by Moscow: The country is struggling to replenish ranks with an unpopular mobilization drive; its ammunition stocks are limited; and Russia’s superiority in the skies is wreaking havoc for Ukrainian defensive lines.

It’s not clear how much of his victory plan Zelensky will reveal on Wednesday; Leshchenko indicated that it would be fully unveiled, while other officials suggested that the president would not divulge its most sensitive elements to all lawmakers.

Either way, the plan essentially puts Kyiv’s future in the hands of its allies. Without it, any deal with Russia would almost certainly be unfavorable for Ukraine, which has lost a fifth of its territory and tens of thousands of lives in the conflict. Kyiv would be unlikely to ever recover occupied territory, or receive reparations for widespread destruction across the country.

Several elements of the plan have already come to light: making Ukraine a member of NATO; allowing the country to use Western long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia; providing resources to strengthen Ukraine’s air and other defenses, and intensifying sanctions against Russia.

Ukraine’s surprise military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August was also part of the plan, Zelensky told reporters. He said the 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of territory captured by Ukraine — along with other provisions of the plan — will likely serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Russia.

NATO’s Article 5 states that an attack against one member is considered an attack against all. Ukraine’s inclusion in the alliance would deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from invading again, Ukrainian officials argue. Western leaders have so far been reluctant to guarantee an invitation, fearing escalation from Putin.

Ukrainian officials were expecting feedback from Western allies at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, during which defense leaders from 50-plus partner nations gather to coordinate weapons aid for the war. Scheduled for this past weekend, the summit was postponed after Biden canceled his attendance in response to Hurricane Milton in the US

Zelensky has since toured Western capitals to present other key allies an outline of his vision. But none so far have given any indication they will support the plan. Some expressed concerns over the tight deadline set by Zelensky, who gave allies just three months to adopt the blueprint’s main tenets in late September.

Thus far, the US has been Kyiv’s main backer during the two-and-a-half-year war. But Biden has balked at the request to use long-range weapons to strike specific targets inside Russia, fearing a possible escalation in the war. Meanwhile, an intensifying conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hezbollah that risks embroiling Iran has diverted Washington’s attention.

Many expect Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris to continue Biden’s policy and maintain the status quo. Under Biden, US assistance to Kyiv, though substantial, has consistently arrived too late to make a significant difference for Ukrainian forces.

Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump has only said that he’d end the war quickly, without saying how.

Meanwhile, Brazil and China have proposed alternate peace plans that Zelensky has rejected, saying they would merely pause the war and give Moscow time to consolidate its battered army and defense industry.


Aid cuts fuel fears on jihadist-hit Lake Chad’s shores

Updated 22 sec ago
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Aid cuts fuel fears on jihadist-hit Lake Chad’s shores

Aid cuts fuel fears on jihadist-hit Lake Chad’s shores
BAGA SOLA: Jihadists surrounded Ahmat Moussa’s isolated village on Lake Chad’s shores in the dead of night and then attacked — with devastating consequences for the fisherman and many of his neighbors.
Boko Haram jihadists have sowed terror among those living around Lake Chad for some 15 years, disrupting the fishing, farming and herding on which millions depend.
“I heard the first blasts and I left without looking back,” 42-year-old Moussa said, of the raid on Balangoura nine months ago.
He has a scar where a Kalashnikov’s bullet hit him in the right leg. And while he escaped, his 16-year-old son was abducted in the raid.
Neighbour Baya Ali Moussa also suffered horror and loss that night.
While she also escaped Balangoura, the body of her 23-year-old son was discovered three days later, floating in the lake.
Both villagers found refuge elsewhere on the lake, but they depend on dwindling help from NGOs and aid organizations battling massive foreign cuts to humanitarian budgets.
Surrounded by Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, Lake Chad’s countless islets serve as hideouts for the Islamist militants, whose violent campaign began in Nigeria’s northeast before spilling into its neighbors.
Jihadist attacks have surged in the wider Sahel region, though Boko Haram has lost ground to the army in the Lake Chad area.
The insurgents have nevertheless remained a constant threat, carrying out frequent kidnappings, executions, rapes and lootings.
In Chad’s Lac province alone, more than 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, says the United Nations.
Tipping people further into poverty in one of the world’s most impoverished nations only helps turn the area into a recruiting ground for the jihadists.


Like 2,000 others, Baya Ali Moussa and Ahmat Moussa have taken refuge in Yakoua, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Lac region’s capital, Bol, on the banks of a branch of the lake.
“Here we’ve nothing to eat or drink, we survive only thanks to community togetherness and to humanitarian workers,” said Baya Ali Moussa.
For three months, the ACTED humanitarian organization has distributed emergency aid to the displaced people in Yakoua.
“Attacks continue, kidnappings continue, camps for displaced people turn into villages, but the humanitarian momentum we saw from 2015 to 2019 has waned,” said Togoum Atikang, who heads ACTED’s rapid response projects.
“Some donors are pulling out their funding,” he added.
“Wherever we pull out, the population will suffer even more,” he warned.
Chad’s Lac region is one of many around the world to be hit by cuts in the United States’s foreign aid budget ordered by President Donald Trump.


Having accounted for half of the World Food Programme’s funding, the United States was the UN food agency’s top bankroller followed by Europe.
“With funds declining, we have to cut back,” said Alexandre Le Cuziat, WFP deputy director in Chad.
At the beginning of July, the WFP suspended its flight service between the Chadian capital N’Djamena and Bol.
So where previously it took less than an hour to fly in goods and people, now the journey will have to be made by road — a whole day along an unsafe route.
The WFP and the UN refugee agency are also shuttering several offices in the Lac region.
“The US financing freeze has hit some seven percent of the humanitarian aid here in Chad since January,” said Francois Batalingaya, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in the country.
“But the problem is that we have no idea of what the rest of the year will bring.”
He worried that aid groups would leave “from the month of October onwards.”
Funding for the humanitarian response plan for Chad is “only at 11 percent” of the 1.45 billion dollars required, he said.
At the same time last year, it was 34-percent funded, he added.
As the international climate for humanitarian funding has gone cold, at the national level Chad has also prioritized sending emergency aid to its eastern border with war-torn Sudan.
More than a million Sudanese have fled to Chad since the civil war began in April 2023.
“As a result, Lake Chad no longer captures the world’s attention,” Batalingaya said.
“If we forget the people of the region, there will be more people displaced and more people will join these armed groups.”

On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away

On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away
Updated 6 min 27 sec ago
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On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away

On the front lines in eastern Ukraine, peace feels far away
  • Diplomatic peace efforts feel so far removed from the battlefield that many soldiers doubt they can bring results
  • Few believe the current talks can end the war; more likely, they say, is a brief pause in hostilities before Russia resumes the assault with greater force

DONETSK REGION: In a dugout where each nearby blast sends dirt raining from the ceiling and the black plastic lining the walls slipping down, Ukrainian soldiers say peace talks feel distant and unlikely to end the war. Explosions from Russian weapons — from glide bombs to artillery shells — thunder regularly overhead, keeping them underground except when they fire the M777 howitzer buried near their trench.

Nothing on the Eastern Front suggests the war could end soon.

Diplomatic peace efforts feel so far removed from the battlefield that many soldiers doubt they can bring results. Their skepticism is rooted in months of what they see as broken US promises to end the war quickly.

Recent suggestions by US President Donald Trump that there will be some ” swapping of territories” — as well as media reports that it would involve Ukrainian troops leaving the Donetsk region where they have fought for years defending every inch of land — have stirred confusion and rejection among the soldiers.

Few believe the current talks can end the war. More likely, they say, is a brief pause in hostilities before Russia resumes the assault with greater force.

“At minimum, the result would be to stop active fighting — that would be the first sign of some kind of settlement,” said soldier Dmytro Loviniukov of the 148th Brigade. “Right now, that’s not happening. And while these talks are taking place, they (the Russians) are only strengthening their positions on the front line.”

Long war, no relief

On one artillery position, talk often turns to home. Many Ukrainian soldiers joined the army in the first days of the full-scale invasion, leaving behind civilian jobs. Some thought they would serve only briefly. Others didn’t think about the future at all — because at that moment, it didn’t exist.

In the years since, many have been killed. Those who survived are in their fourth year of a grueling war, far removed from the civilian lives they once knew. With mobilization faltering and the war dragging on far longer than expected, there is no one to replace them as the Ukrainian army struggles with recruiting new people.

The army cannot also demobilize those who serve without risking the collapse of the front.

That is why soldiers wait for even the possibility of a pause in hostilities. When direct talks between Russia and Ukraine were held in Istanbul in May, the soldiers from 148th brigade read the news with cautious hope, said a soldier with the call sign Bronson, who once worked as a tattoo artist.

Months later, hope has been replaced with dark humor. On the eve of a deadline that US President Donald Trump reportedly gave Russia’s Vladimir Putin — one that has since vanished from the agenda amid talk of a meeting in Alaska — the Russian fire roared every minute for hours. Soldiers joked that the shelling was because the deadline was “running out.”

“We are on our land. We have no way back,” said the commander of the artillery group, Dmytro Loviniukov. “We stand here because there is no choice. No one else will come here to defend us.”

Training for what’s ahead

Dozens of kilometers from Zaporizhzhia region, north to the Donetsk area, heavy fighting grinds on toward Pokrovsk — now the epicenter of fighting.

Once home to about 60,000 people, the city has been under sustained Russian assault for months. The Russians have formed a pocket around Pokrovsk, though Ukrainian troops still hold the city and street fighting has yet to begin. Reports of Russian saboteurs entering the city started to appear almost daily, but the military says those groups have been neutralized.

Ukrainian soldiers of the Spartan brigade push through drills with full intensity, honing their skills for the battlefield in the Pokrovsk area.

Everything at the training range, only 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the front, is designed to mirror real combat conditions — even the terrain. A thin strip of forest breaks up the vast fields of blooming sunflowers stretching into the distance until the next tree line appears.

One of the soldiers training there is a 35-year-old with the call sign Komrad, who joined the military only recently. He says he has no illusions that the war will end soon.

“My motivation is that there is simply no way back,” he said. “If you are in the military, you have to fight. If we’re here, we need to cover our brothers in arms.”

Truce doesn’t mean peace

For Serhii Filimonov, commander of the “Da Vinci Wolves” battalion of the 59th brigade, the war’s end is nowhere in sight, and current news doesn’t influence the ongoing struggle to find enough resources to equip the unit that is fighting around Pokrovsk.

“We are preparing for a long war. We have no illusions that Russia will stop,” he said, speaking at his field command post. “There may be a ceasefire, but there will be no peace.”

Filimonov dismisses recent talk of exchanging territory or signing agreements as temporary fixes at best.

“Russia will not abandon its goal of capturing all of Ukraine,” he said. “They will attack again. The big question is what security guarantees we get — and how we hit pause.”

A soldier with the call sign Mirche from the 68th brigade said that whenever there is a new round of talks, the hostilities intensify around Pokrovsk — Russia’s key priority during this summer’s campaign.

Whenever peace talks begin, “things on the front get terrifying,” he said.


Leaders of Indonesia and Peru hold talks on trade and economic ties

Leaders of Indonesia and Peru hold talks on trade and economic ties
Updated 15 min 7 sec ago
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Leaders of Indonesia and Peru hold talks on trade and economic ties

Leaders of Indonesia and Peru hold talks on trade and economic ties
  • Peruvian President Dina Boluarte has met his Indonesian counterpart, Prabowo Subianto, on Monday on a visit aimed at strengthening economic ties as the two countries look to expand into new markets am
  • The two-day visit is expected to deepen Peru’s ties with Indonesia, after the two nations concluded negotiations which began in May on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

JAKARTA: Peruvian President Dina Boluarte met his Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto on Monday during a visit aimed at strengthening economic ties as the two countries for new markets amid geopolitical challenges and rising trade barriers.

The signing came just four days after the US President Donald Trump began imposing higher import taxes on dozens of countries on Thursday, including a 19 percent rate on Indonesia. Imports from Peru are paying the 10 percent baseline rate Trump set in April.

Boluarte arrived in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta on Sunday afternoon, following an invitation President Prabowo extended when the two leaders met at the APEC Summit in Peru in November 2024.

The two-day visit is aimed at deepening Peru’s ties with Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, after the two nations concluded negotiations which began in May on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or CEPA.

Subianto hosted Boluarte with a ceremony at Merdeka palace in Jakarta before the two leaders lead a closed-door bilateral meeting.

The two leaders are expected to witness the signing of CEPA that could be a major booster to bilateral trade, said Indonesia’s trade minister Budi Santoso ahead of the visit.

“The CEPA deal with Peru is a potential gateway for Indonesian goods and services to enter markets in Central and South America,” Santoso said, “We hope the deal can strengthen Indonesia’s trade presence in the region.”

His ministry’s data showed the country’s total trade with Peru went down from $554.2 million in 2022 to $444.4 million the following year, while Indonesia enjoyed a $290.4 million trade surplus in 2023, driven by major exports including vehicles, footwear and biodiesel.

Indonesia is currently seeking membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Peru is part of, to boost export growth.


Philippines’ Marcos says China ‘misinterpreted’ his comments on Taiwan

Philippines’ Marcos says China ‘misinterpreted’ his comments on Taiwan
Updated 25 min 19 sec ago
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Philippines’ Marcos says China ‘misinterpreted’ his comments on Taiwan

Philippines’ Marcos says China ‘misinterpreted’ his comments on Taiwan
  • Philippine leader: ‘War over Taiwan will drag the Philippines kicking and screaming into the conflict. That is what I was trying to say’
  • Over a hundred thousand Filipinos live and work in Taiwan, according to Philippine government data

MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Monday that Beijing has “misinterpreted” his comments saying Manila will be inevitably drawn in to a conflict between China and Taiwan should one erupt.

China accused Marcos of “playing with fire” after the Philippine leader said during a visit to India that “there is no way that the Philippines can stay out of it” due to its proximity to the democratically governed island.

“We are, I think for propaganda purposes, misinterpreted,” Marcos told a press briefing.

“I’m a little bit perplexed why it would be characterized as such, as playing with fire,” he added.

Marcos said Filipinos working and living in Taiwan will have to be evacuated if a conflict does arise but maintained that he wishes to avoid confrontation and war.

Over a hundred thousand Filipinos live and work in Taiwan, according to Philippine government data.

“War over Taiwan will drag the Philippines kicking and screaming into the conflict. That is what I was trying to say,” Marcos said.

Marcos’ comments come at a time of heightened tensions between Manila and Beijing over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway where the two countries have had a series of maritime run-ins over the past years.

On Monday, a Philippine vessel transporting provisions to Filipino fishermen in the Scarborough Shoal was sprayed at with a water cannon by a Chinese coast guard ship, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The vessel managed to evade being hit.

China’s embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the president’s remarks.

Responding to the Monday incident, China’s coast guard said it had taken necessary measures to expel Philippine vessels from Scarborough Shoal, which China claims as its own territory.

It described the operation as “professional, standardized, legitimate and legal.”

A 2016 ruling of an international arbitral tribunal voided Beijing’s sweeping claims in the region, saying they had no basis under international law, a decision China rejects.


North Korea warns of ‘resolute counteraction’ over US-South Korea drills

North Korea warns of ‘resolute counteraction’ over US-South Korea drills
Updated 23 min 54 sec ago
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North Korea warns of ‘resolute counteraction’ over US-South Korea drills

North Korea warns of ‘resolute counteraction’ over US-South Korea drills
  • The warning comes as Seoul and Washington are set to carry out their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, aimed at containing the nuclear-armed North, from August 18 to 21

SEOUL: North Korea will react with “resolute counteraction” in the event of provocations from upcoming joint military drills between South Korea and the United States, its defense chief said Monday in a state media dispatch.

The warning comes as Seoul and Washington are set to carry out their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, aimed at containing the nuclear-armed North, from August 18 to 21.

North Korea — which attacked its neighbor in 1950, triggering the Korean War — has always been infuriated by US-South Korean military drills, decrying them as rehearsals for invasion.

“The armed forces of the DPRK will cope with the war drills of the US and (South Korea) with thoroughgoing and resolute counteraction posture... at the level of the right to self-defense,” North Korean defense chief No Kwang Chol said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

The US stations around 28,500 troops in South Korea, and the allies regularly stage joint drills they describe as defensive in nature.

Seoul and Pyongyang have recently appeared to be heading toward a thaw in relations, with the two sides removing propaganda loudspeakers along the border.

Seoul has said North Korean troops have begun dismantling propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled its own.

The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarised zone, Seoul’s military said in June, after the election of President Lee Jae Myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang.

Relations between the two Koreas had been at one of their lowest points in years under former president Yoon Suk Yeol, with Seoul taking a hard line toward Pyongyang, which has drawn ever closer to Moscow in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Lee has taken a different approach to dealing with the North since his June election, including requesting civic groups cease sending propaganda leaflets over the border by balloon.