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Russia’s attack at Poland’s border shattered the image of calm in western Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

March 15, 2022

Russia’s attack at Poland’s border shattered the image of calm in western Ukraine

Firefighters search a constructing for survivors after an assault in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday, March 14. No less than one lifeless physique was pulled from the rubble after hours of digging.

Ukrainian troopers take cowl from incoming artillery fireplace in Irpin, Ukraine, on Sunday, March 13.

A Ukrainian soldier surveys a destroyed authorities constructing in Kharkiv on March 13.

A mom and son relaxation in Lviv, Ukraine, whereas ready to board a practice to Poland on Saturday, March 12.

Ukrainian servicemen work contained in the broken maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 9. “The destruction is big,” the town council stated. “The constructing of the medical facility the place the youngsters have been handled lately is totally destroyed.”

A displaced Ukrainian mom embraces her baby whereas ready on the Przemysl railway station in Poland on Tuesday, March 8.

A Ukrainian serviceman walks previous the stays of a Russian plane mendacity in a broken constructing in Kharkiv on March 8.

A firefighter works to extinguish flames after a chemical warehouse was reportedly hit by Russian shelling close to Kalynivka, Ukraine, on March 8.

Alexandra, 12, holds her 6-year-old sister, Esyea, who cries as she waves at her mom, Irina, on Monday, March 7. The youngsters have been leaving Odessa, Ukraine.

Members of the Crimson Cross assist folks fleeing the Kyiv suburb of Irpin on March 7.

Civilians search safety in a basement bomb shelter in Kyiv on March 6.

Native residents assist clear the rubble of a house that was destroyed by a suspected Russian airstrike in Markhalivka, Ukraine, on Saturday, March 5.

George Keburia says goodbye to his spouse and youngsters as they board a practice in Odessa on March 5. They have been heading to Lviv.

Ukrainians crowd underneath a destroyed bridge as they attempt to flee throughout the Irpin River on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 5.

Folks take away private belongings from a burning home after shelling in Irpin on March 4.

Folks crowd on a platform as they attempt to board a westbound practice in Kyiv on March 4.

A bullet-ridden bus is seen after an ambush in Kyiv on March 4.

Folks take shelter on the ground of a hospital throughout shelling in Mariupol on March 4.

A member of the Ukrainian army offers directions to civilians in Irpin on March 4. They have been about to board an evacuation practice headed to Kyiv.

A Ukrainian baby rests on a mattress at a brief refugee middle in Záhony, Hungary, on March 4.

A Ukrainian soldier carries a child throughout a destroyed bridge on the outskirts of Kyiv on March 3.

Residents react in entrance of a burning constructing after shelling in Kharkiv on March 3.

A Ukrainian soldier who says he was shot 3 times within the opening days of the invasion sits on a hospital mattress in Kyiv on March 3.

Folks type a human chain to switch provides into Kyiv on March 3.

A cemetery employee digs graves for Ukrainian troopers in Kyiv on March 3.

A mom cares for her two toddler sons within the underground shelter of a maternity hospital in Kyiv on March 3. She gave beginning a day earlier, and he or she and her husband have not but selected names for the twins.

A member of Ukraine’s Territorial Protection Forces sits with a weapon in Kyiv on March 2.

Paramedics deal with an aged lady wounded by shelling earlier than transferring her to a hospital in Mariupol on March 2.

Residents of Zhytomyr, Ukraine, work within the stays of a residential constructing on March 2. The constructing was destroyed by shelling.

A member of Ukraine’s Territorial Protection Forces inspects injury within the yard of a home in Gorenka on March 2.

A Ukrainian lady takes her youngsters over the border in Siret, Romania, on March 2. Many Ukrainians are fleeing the nation at a tempo that might flip into “Europe’s largest refugee disaster this century,” the United Nations Refugee Company stated.

Militia members arrange anti-tank barricades in Kyiv on March 2.

Folks wait at a practice station in Kyiv on March 2.

Folks shelter in a subway station in Kyiv on March 2.

Ukrainian troopers attend Mass at an Orthodox monastery in Kyiv on March 1.

Medical staff present a mom her new child after she gave beginning at a maternity hospital in Mariupol on March 1. The hospital is now additionally used as a medical ward and bomb shelter.

An administrative constructing is seen in Kharkiv after Russian shelling on March 1. Russian forces have scaled up their bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis.

Ukrainian emergency staff carry a physique of a sufferer following shelling that hit the Metropolis Corridor constructing in Kharkiv on March 1.

A lady named Helen comforts her 8-year-old daughter, Polina, within the bomb shelter of a Kyiv youngsters’s hospital on March 1. The woman was on the hospital being handled for encephalitis, or irritation of the mind.

Ukrainian refugees attempt to keep heat on the Medyka border crossing in Poland on March 1.

Volunteers in Kyiv signal as much as be part of Ukraine’s Territorial Protection Forces on February 28.

A member of the Territorial Protection Forces hundreds rifle magazines in Kyiv on February 28.

Ukrainian forces order a person to the bottom on February 28 as they elevated safety measures amid Russian assaults in Kyiv.

A displaced Ukrainian cradles her baby at a brief shelter arrange inside a gymnasium in Beregsurány, Hungary, on February 28.

Smoke billows over the Ukrainian metropolis of Vasylkiv, simply outdoors Kyiv on February 27. A hearth at an oil storage space was seen raging on the Vasylkiv Air Base.

Folks wait on a platform contained in the railway station in Lviv on February 27. Hundreds of individuals at Lviv’s foremost practice station tried to board trains that will take them out of Ukraine.

A Russian armored automobile burns after preventing in Kharkiv on February 27. Road preventing broke out as Russian troops entered Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, and residents have been urged to remain in shelters and never journey.

Native residents put together Molotov cocktails in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, on February 27.

Automobiles line up on the highway outdoors Mostyska, Ukraine, as folks try and flee to Poland on February 27.

Ukrainian troops in Kyiv escort a prisoner February 27 who they suspected of being a Russian agent.

Ukrainian service members take place on the Vasylkiv Air Base close to Kyiv on February 27.

A lady sleeps on chairs February 27 within the underground parking zone of a Kyiv resort that has been became a bomb shelter.

A broken residential constructing is seen in Kyiv on February 26.

Folks in Kyiv run for canopy throughout shelling on February 26.

An residence constructing in Kyiv is seen after it was broken by shelling on February 26. The outer partitions of a number of residence models seemed to be blown out fully, with the interiors blackened and particles hanging unfastened.

A police automobile patrols the streets of Kyiv on February 26.

Ukrainian troops examine a web site following a Russian airstrike in Kyiv on February 26.

Following a nationwide directive to assist complicate the invading Russian Military’s makes an attempt to navigate, a highway employee removes indicators close to Pisarivka, Ukraine, on February 26.

Ukrainian service members search for and accumulate unexploded shells after preventing in Kyiv on February 26.

The physique of a Russian soldier lies subsequent to a Russian automobile outdoors Kharkiv on February 25.

A lady weeps in her automotive after crossing the border from Ukraine into Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania, on February 25.

A Ukrainian soldier sits injured from crossfire inside Kyiv on February 25.

A toddler from Ukraine sleeps in a tent at a humanitarian middle in Palanca, Moldova, on February 25.

A firefighter walks between the ruins of a downed plane in Kyiv on February 25.

Members of the Ukrainian Nationwide Guard take positions in central Kyiv on February 25.

Folks stroll previous a residential constructing in Kyiv that was hit in an alleged Russian airstrike on February 25.

The physique of a college worker, who in response to locals was killed in latest shelling, lies within the separatist-controlled city of Horlivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk area on February 25.

Kyiv residents take shelter in an underground parking storage on February 25.

A wounded lady stands outdoors a hospital after an assault on the japanese Ukrainian city of Chuhuiv, outdoors of Kharkiv, on February 24.

The physique of a rocket stays in an residence after shelling on the northern outskirts of Kharkiv on February 24.

A boy performs together with his pill in a public basement used as a bomb shelter in Kyiv on February 24.

A person mourns after an airstrike reportedly hit an residence advanced in Chuhuiv on February 24.

Ukrainian service members sit atop armored automobiles driving in japanese Ukraine’s Donetsk area on February 24.

Folks in Kyiv attempt to board a bus to journey west towards Poland on February 24.

Folks search shelter inside a subway station in Kharkiv on February 24.

Folks wait after boarding a bus to depart Kyiv on February 24.

Cops examine the stays of a missile that landed in Kyiv on February 24.

A employees member of a Kyiv resort talks on the telephone on February 24.

Folks wait in line to purchase practice tickets on the central station in Kyiv on February 24.

A photograph offered by the Ukrainian President’s workplace seems to indicate an explosion in Kyiv early on February 24.

A convoy of Russian army automobiles is seen February 23 within the Rostov area of Russia, which runs alongside Ukraine’s japanese border.

Ukrainian troopers speak in a shelter on the entrance line close to Svitlodarsk, Ukraine, on February 23.

Smoke rises from a broken energy plant in Shchastya that Ukrainian authorities say was hit by shelling on February 22.

A broken home is labored on after shelling close to the Ukrainian front-line metropolis of Novoluhanske on February 22.

Ukrainian troopers pay their respects throughout Sydorov’s funeral in Kyiv on February 22.

Russian howitzers are loaded onto practice automobiles close to Taganrog, Russia, on February 22.

Protesters demanding financial sanctions towards Russia stand outdoors the Ministry of Overseas Affairs in Kyiv on February 21. Solely a small variety of protesters confirmed as much as reveal.

Activists maintain a efficiency in entrance of the Russian embassy in Kyiv on February 21 in assist of prisoners who have been arrested in Crimea. They are saying the pink doorways are a logo of the doorways that have been kicked in to look and arrest Crimean Tatars, a Muslim ethnic minority.

Ukrainian servicemen store within the front-line city of Avdiivka, Ukraine, on February 21.

Folks lay flowers on the Motherland Monument in Kyiv on February 21.

An area resident exhibits the depth of a crater from shelling in a area behind his home within the village of Tamarchuk, Ukraine, on February 20.

Ukrainian service members are seen alongside the entrance line outdoors of Popasna, Ukraine, on February 20.

Folks evacuated from the pro-Russian separatist areas of Ukraine are seen at a brief shelter in Taganrog, Russia, on February 20.

Anastasia Manha lulls her 2-month-old son Mykyta after alleged shelling by separatists forces in Novohnativka, Ukraine, on February 20.

A Ukrainian soldier stays on place on the entrance line close to Novohnativka on February 20.

A pair arrives on the metropolis council to get married in Odessa, Ukraine, on February 20. As Ukrainian authorities reported additional ceasefire violations and prime Western officers warned about an impending battle, life went on in different components of the nation.

A lady rests in a automotive close to a border checkpoint in Avilo-Uspenka, Russia, on February 19.

A Ukrainian service member walks by a constructing on February 19 that was hit by mortar fireplace within the front-line village of Krymske, Ukraine.

Fighter jets fly over Belarus throughout a joint army train the nation held with Russia on February 19.

Ukrainian troopers stand guard at a army command middle in Novoluhanske on February 19.

Folks sit on a bus in Donetsk on February 18 after they have been ordered to evacuate to Russia by pro-Russian separatists.

Kids play on outdated Soviet tanks in entrance of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv on February 16.

Ambassadors of European nations lay roses on the Wall of Remembrance in Kyiv on February 16. The wall comprises the names and images of army members who’ve died for the reason that battle with Russian-backed separatists started in 2014.

US troops stroll on the tarmac on the Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport in southeastern Poland on February 16. US paratroopers landed in Poland as a part of a deployment of a number of thousand despatched to bolster NATO’s japanese flank in response to tensions with Russia.

A 200-meter-long Ukrainian flag is unfolded on the Olympic Stadium in Kyiv on February 16 to mark a “Day of Unity,” an impromptu celebration declared by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A lady and baby stroll beneath a army monument in Senkivka, Ukraine, on February 14. It is on the outskirts of the Three Sisters border crossing between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

Ukrainian service members speak at a front-line place in japanese Ukraine on February 14.

Members of Ukraine’s Nationwide Guard look out a window as they journey a bus by means of the capital of Kyiv on February 14.

Satellite tv for pc photos taken on February 13 by Maxar Applied sciences revealed that dozens of helicopters had appeared at a beforehand vacant airbase in Russian-occupied Crimea.

Professional-Russian separatists observe the motion of Ukrainian troops from trenches in Ukraine’s Donbas space on February 11.

Ukrainian service members unpack Javelin anti-tank missiles that have been delivered to Kyiv on February 10 as a part of a US army assist package deal for Ukraine.

Ukrainian service members stroll on an armored preventing automobile throughout a coaching train in japanese Ukraine’s Donetsk area on February 10.

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News

Trump Calls Officials Handling Los Angeles Wildfires ‘Incompetent’

Published

4 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

Trump Calls Officials Handling Los Angeles Wildfires ‘Incompetent’

President-elect Donald J. Trump offered fresh criticism early Sunday of the officials in charge of fighting the Los Angeles wildfires, calling them “incompetent” and asking why the blazes were not yet extinguished.

“The fires are still raging in L.A.,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social site. “The incompetent pols have no idea how to put them out.”

Mr. Trump’s comments indicated that the fires, and officials’ response to them, will likely occupy a prominent place on his domestic political agenda when he takes office on Jan. 20. He has renewed a longstanding feud with California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who in turn has accused Mr. Trump of politicizing the fires.

California politicians have faced criticism over the fires since they broke out on Tuesday, including questions over how local and state authorities had prepared for them and how they have grown so quickly into huge blazes.

Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles had to contend with questions about whether there was adequate warning about the likelihood of devastating fires, and why there was a shortage of water and firefighters during the initial response. At a news conference on Thursday, she avoided a question about her absence from the city when the fires began — she was in Ghana on a previously scheduled official visit — and said that any evaluation of mistakes or failures by “any body, department, individual” would come later.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, has also fended off criticism from Mr. Trump, who blamed him for the failure to contain fires and claimed he had blocked an infusion of water to Southern California over concerns about how it would affect a threatened fish species.

Mr. Newsom’s press office responded by saying in a statement that the “water restoration declaration” that Mr. Trump had accused him of not signing did not exist. “The governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need,” the statement said.

Mr. Newsom and Kathryn Barger, the chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, have invited Mr. Trump to tour fire damage in the city. He has not responded publicly to those invitations.

At least 16 people had died as a result of the fires as of Sunday morning, and at least 12,000 structures had been destroyed, officials said. Mr. Trump alluded to that devastation in his post on Sunday.

“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost,” he wrote. “There is death all over the place. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?”

His post did not mention any officials by name.

News

Russia’s war economy is a house of cards

Published

6 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

Russia’s war economy is a house of cards

Stay informed with free updates

The most important thing Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to impress on Ukraine’s western friends is that he has time on his side, so the only way to end the war is to accommodate his wishes. The apparent resilience of Russia’s economy, and the resulting scepticism in some corners that western sanctions have had an effect, is a central part of this information warfare.

The reality is that the financial underpinnings of Russia’s war economy increasingly look like a house of cards — so much so that senior members of the governing elite are publicly expressing concern. They include Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of state defence giant Rostec, who warned that expensive credit was killing his weapons export business, and Elvira Nabiullina, head of the central bank.

This pair know better than many people in the west, who have been taken in by numbers indicating steady growth, low unemployment and rising wages. But any economy on a full mobilisation footing can produce such outcomes: this is basic Keynesianism. The real test is how already employed resources — rather than idle ones — are being shifted away from their previous uses and into the needs of war.

A state has three methods to achieve this: borrowing, inflation and expropriation. It must choose the most effective and painless mix. Putin’s conceit — towards both the west and his own public — has been that he can fund this war without financial instability or significant material sacrifices. But this is an illusion. If Chemezov’s and Nabiullina’s frustrations are spilling into public view, it means the illusion is flickering.

A new report by Russia analyst and former banker Craig Kennedy highlights the huge growth in Russian corporate debt. It has soared by 71 per cent since 2022 and dwarfs new household and government borrowing.

Notionally private, this lending is in reality a creature of the state. Putin has commandeered the Russian banking system, with banks required to lend to companies designated by the government at chosen, preferential terms. The result has been a flood of below-market-rate credit to favoured economic actors.

In essence, Russia is engaged in massive money printing, outsourced so that it does not show up on the public balance sheet. Kennedy estimates the total at about 20 per cent of Russia’s 2023 national output, comparable to the cumulative on-budget allocations for the full-scale war.

We can tell from the Kremlin’s actions that it sees two things as anathema: visibly weak public finances and runaway inflation.

The government eschews a significant budget deficit, despite growing war-related spending. The central bank remains free to raise interest rates, currently at 21 per cent. Not enough to beat down inflation driven by state-decreed subsidised credit, but enough to keep price growth within bounds.

The upshot is that Chemezov’s and Nabiullina’s problems are not an error that can be fixed but inherent to Putin’s choice to flatter public finances and keep a (high) lid on inflation. Something else has to give, and that something else includes businesses that cannot operate profitably when borrowing costs exceed 20 per cent.

Putin’s privatised credit scheme, meanwhile, is storing up a credit crisis as the loans go bad. The state may bail out the banks — if they don’t collapse first. Given Russians’ experience of suddenly worthless deposits, fears of a repeat could easily trigger self-fulfilling runs. That would destroy not just banks’ but the government’s legitimacy.

Putin, in short, does not have time on his side. He sits on a ticking financial time bomb of his own making. The key for Ukraine’s friends is to deny him the one thing that would defuse it: greater access to external funds.

The west has blocked Moscow’s access to some $300bn in reserves, put spanners in the works of its oil trade and hit its ability to import a range of goods. Combined, these prevent Russia from spending all its foreign earnings to relieve resource constraints at home. Intensifying sanctions and finally transferring reserves to Ukraine as a down payment on reparations would intensify those constraints.

Putin’s obsession is the sudden collapse of power. That, as he must be realising, is the risk his war economics has set in motion. Making it recede, by increasing access to external resources through sanctions relief, will be his goal in any diplomacy. The west must convince him that this will not happen. That, and only that, will force Putin to choose between his assault on Ukraine and his grip on power at home.

martin.sandbu@ft.com

News

Crews race to contain LA wildfires as menacing winds may ramp up: Live updates

Published

6 hours ago

January 12, 2025

Press Room

Crews race to contain LA wildfires as menacing winds may ramp up: Live updates

LOS ANGELES − Fire crews on Sunday were racing to gain an upper hand against infernos that have ignited across the Los Angeles area amid ominous new wind warnings as flames threatened additional Southern California communities.

Aircraft unloaded water and fire retardant on hills where the Palisades Fire − the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles − ballooned another 1,000 acres to a total of 23,654, destroying more homes. The expansion of the fire, which was 11% contained, to the north and east spurred officials to issue more mandatory evacuations to the west of the 405 freeway as the blaze put parts of Encino and Brentwood in peril.

Cal Fire official Todd Hopkins said the Palisades Fire had spread into the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood and threatened to jump into the upscale Brentwood community and the San Fernando Valley.

The Palisades Fire is one of six blazes that have erupted since Tuesday, leaving at least 16 people dead. Four of the six fires remained active on Sunday.

Santa Ana winds that have fueled the blazes for the past week were expected to strengthen Sunday morning in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and again late Monday through Tuesday morning. Sustained winds could reach 30 mph, with gusts up to 70 mph possible , forecasters said.

“Critical fire-weather conditions will unfortunately ramp up again … for southern California and last through at least early next week as periodic enhancements of off-shore winds continue,” the National Weather Service said. “This may lead to the spread of ongoing fires as well as the development of new ones.”

Developments:

∎ About12,000 structures have been damaged or destroyed from the wildfires, which have consumed about 38,000 acres of land total, according to CalFire.

∎ Evacuation orders throughout the Los Angeles area now cover 153,000 residents. Another 166,000 residents have been warned that they may have to evacuate, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, said.

∎ Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an investigation into water supply issues that may have impeded firefighters’ efforts.

At least 16 people have died between the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner said Saturday.

The Palisades Fire had at least five deaths, according to medical examiner records, and 11 people have died in the Eaton Fire.

Of the 16 total deaths in both fires, the only victim identified by officials was Victor Shaw, 66, who died Wednesday protecting his home in Altadena. Another victim was man in his 80s, but authorities did not release his name, pending notification of next of kin.

To the northeast, the Eaton Fire stood at 14,117 acres and was 15% contained after ripping through parts of Altadena and Pasadena. More than 7,000 structures were damaged or destroyed, Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

In Altadena, California official Don Fregulia said managing the Eaton Fire and its impact will be a “huge, Herculean task” that he said will take “many weeks of work.”

Progress was reported Saturday in bringing electrical power back to some Los Angeles neighborhoods.

Southern California Edison CEO Steven Powell said there are now about 48,000 customers without power, “down from over half a million just a couple days ago.”

Yes fire officials warned public safety power shutoffs were again likely to prevent new fires being ignited.

“They help save lives,” Marrone said. “Yes, they’re a challenge to deal with, but it’s certainly better than having another fire start.”

Richard and Cathryn Conn evacuated from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood earlier this week, only to find out that much of their neighborhood had been decimated. But they still aren’t sure about their four-bedroom house where they’d lived for over a quarter-century.

“You can visualize every room,’’ Richard Conn, 75, said, “and then you know there’s a 50% chance it doesn’t exist anymore.”

“If you have ever wondered what it was like living in Dresden after the World War II firebombing, you should come to the Palisades,” he said.

They also don’t know what’s going to happen next as dangerous weather conditions have made it difficult to contain the fires, and more brush fires seem to keep popping up all over the county.

“I feel like people are panicking,” said Gary Baseman, 64. Read more.

As California fire officials are still getting to the bottom of what sparked the wildfires raging across Los Angeles, and politicians point fingers at one another, climate change is helping drive an increase in large wildfires in the U.S.

“Climate change is leading to larger and more severe wildfires in the western United States,” the latest National Climate Assessment previously reported. These fires have “significant public health, socioeconomic, and ecological implications for the nation.”

But is climate change the main factor in California? It’s not quite that simple. Reporters from the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, dive into this topic. Read more here

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, Eduardo Cuevas; Reuters