Air and train traffic in and around the city was suspended after the mobile phone take shelter alert, the first issued in an EU and Nato country since the start of Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Air raid alert! Go immediately to a shelter or a safe place, take care of your family members and wait for further instructions, read the defence ministry's warning, which was sent at about 10.20am on Wednesday and lasted for about an hour.
The Kyrgyz Justice Ministry has announced that 50 companies will be forced to suspend their activities after they had been flagged by Western partners. "After they report risks, we study them and respond. For example, the United States and the United Kingdom have made allegations regarding 51 companies," Deputy Prime Minister Daniyar Amangeldiev told state news agency Kabar on May 19. "We conducted an investigation and suspended the registration of 50 companies. There may be suspicious circumstances. We will prove it in court," he added.
His films have been hailed as damning allegories of the Russian population's apathy in the face of state oppression. Yet when director Andrey Zvyagintsev learned of his country's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he too was paralysed, and literally so. A severe infection with Covid-19 had left the film-maker stranded at a clinic in Hanover, Germany, struggling to breathe with 90% lung damage and unable to move or feel his limbs for several months.
Evika Silina announced her resignation on Thursday, a day after the Progressives party, her left-leaning coalition partner, withdrew its support over her decision to fire the defence minister, Andris Spruds, a Progressives member. The Progressives' move left Silina, who leads the centre-right New Unity party, without a ruling majority. Latvia's president, Edgars Rinkevics, is due to meet all party representatives on Friday for talks on a new government.
A well-known academic with Russia's Hermitage Museum, Butyagin had worked on archaeological digs in the Myrmekion site, located in Crimea, both before and after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. The work helped discover ancient artefacts, including Alexander the Great-era coins.
We want to show people something of the physical reality of the conflict. We hope to bring it home to them that this is a war going on here and now in Europe, and that we ignore it at our peril.
Both the CIA and MI6 had amassed troves of deep intelligence about the impending war and were issuing dire notices to their allies about the inevitability of an invasion by Putin. Those warnings were all but ignored in key European capitals. Why? In large part because US and British intelligence were considered untrustworthy after the extraordinary intelligence debacle in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
We clearly see that Russia is trying to drag African citizens into a deadly war. According to our data, there are currently over 1,780 citizens from the African continent fighting in the Russian army. The African soldiers hail from 36 countries and are part of a trend that is crucial to counter Ukraine's military on the front lines.
Around 9pm the evening before, I had received a message from a colleague at another news outlet. It was an unequivocal warning from an intelligence source that the war would start that night. We discussed it among the Guardian's Ukraine reporting team and international editors. My colleague Emma Graham-Harrison, who was on an overnight train from Kyiv towards the frontline city of Mariupol, decided she would get off halfway, in the middle of the night, and beg a spot on the first train heading back to Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Kremlin had launched 297 drones and nearly 50 missiles on Sunday, in the latest in a wave of overnight strikes. He said a significant proportion had been shot down as he called on allies to strengthen the country's air defences against enemy attacks. The Ukrainian president said: Moscow continues to invest in strikes more than in diplomacy.
Four years ago Russian troops were a few kilometres away from Leleka maternity hospital, beyond a pine forest and a lake. Vladimir Putin's plan to conquer Ukraine wrapping it into a new Russian empire began just down the road. They were meant to seize Kyiv and topple Volodymyr Zelenskyy's pro-western government. To the Kremlin's surprise, Ukraine fought back. A Russian armoured column was destroyed in nearby Bucha.
Speaking ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion, Johnson suggested the West could 'flip a switch' in Putin's thinking by demonstrating military commitment, emphasizing the significance of timely action for global stability. He said the UK and its allies were working within a 'coalition of the willing' framework, but argued deployment should not be delayed until after a peace agreement, inviting readers to consider their role in shaping future decisions.
