World

Russian Soldiers Took Their City, Then Their Homes

Published

3 years ago

March 20, 2022

Russian Soldiers Took Their City, Then Their Homes

KYIV, Ukraine — For days, Roman Naumenko and his neighbors on the Pokrovsky condominium complicated outdoors Kyiv had been watching from a couple of quick miles away as Russian forces tried to take over a close-by airport.

“I noticed helicopters that had been firing, coming one after the opposite,” he stated. “It was an enormous shock. I couldn’t consider it was actual.”

Residents would stand outdoors their buildings filming the destruction with their cellphones.

Every day, Russian forces drew nearer and nearer to the condominium complicated. On March 3, one of many buildings was straight hit by a missile. Greater than 150 households had been nonetheless within the 14-building residential complicated on the time, a constructing supervisor informed The New York Occasions.

After which, later that very same day, troops had been actually at Mr. Naumenko’s doorstep.

“We noticed the Russian infantry on the safety digicam of our constructing,” he stated. “From that second, the Russians stayed.”

They made round 200 residents keep too, holding lots of them hostage within the basements of their very own buildings, forcing them at hand over their telephones and taking on their residences. Others had been capable of keep away from detection however nonetheless had been basically prisoners in their very own properties as Russian forces moved into the buildings, which had housed 560 households, and took up sniping positions.

The Occasions interviewed seven residents of the Pokrovsky condominium complicated within the city of Hostomel, about 10 miles northwest of Kyiv. All skilled the assault and the captivity firsthand earlier than discovering methods to flee. Utilizing their accounts, together with footage from safety cameras and cellphones, The Occasions was capable of piece collectively what it regarded and felt like as Russian forces closed in.

“It was actually scary,” stated Lesya Borodyuk, a 49-year-old resident, tearing up at one level as she spoke. “I wrote to my daughter. I used to be saying goodbye to her. I informed her that most likely we shall be bombed now.”

Exterior within the car parking zone, safety cameras confirmed not less than a dozen Russian troops and infantry combating automobiles. Troopers shuttled heavy machine weapons and compelled a person inside a constructing at gunpoint.

Ksenia, who requested to be recognized solely by her first identify, watched along with her husband and youngsters from their second-floor window as Russian forces arrived at their constructing.

“We didn’t know what might occur to us,” she stated. “It was only a whole state of worry.”

One group of troopers used rifles to smash open the entrance door of an condominium constructing. As soon as inside, they entered the elevator and destroyed its safety cameras. In some buildings, troopers went ground by ground tearing doorways off hinges and raiding residences, residents stated.

Inside a couple of hours, in response to the seven residents The Occasions spoke to, Russian troopers had seized your complete complicated and trapped near 200 civilians inside numerous buildings.

“Individuals had been kicked out of the residences,” stated Elena Anishchenko, who was planning to have a good time her 33th birthday with neighbors the day the troopers arrived. “They didn’t ask anybody something, they’d simply inform them to go to the basement.”

Lots of the residents had their telephones and laptops confiscated or destroyed.

“They informed us — ‘Don’t be mad at us, but when we discover your telephone, you can be shot on the spot,’” Ms. Anishchenko stated.

Reduce off from the skin world, Ms. Anishchenko stated she couldn’t learn the information or converse to her household.

Some residents like Ksenia had been capable of stay of their properties — maybe as a result of she had an toddler.

Others went unnoticed. Mr. Naumenko and his spouse hid on the seventh ground of their constructing. He nonetheless had his telephone, which he would activate as soon as a day to textual content his household that he was nonetheless alive.

Households fear: ‘I can’t get in contact.’

Buddies and kinfolk of these trapped in Pokrovsky had been in agony. In discussion groups and through textual content messages, that they had seen clips and display photographs of Russian troopers as they seized the complicated. Then the messages from their family members simply stopped.

Iryna Khomyakova, a resident’s daughter, noticed the closed-circuit tv footage of the troopers getting into the elevator. Apprehensive, she known as her mom, who stated that Russian troopers had simply entered the constructing and that she was pressured with others into the basement.

“My mother’s telephone died,” she stated on March 9, and he or she hadn’t heard from her in days.

Hanna Yaremchuk informed The Occasions through textual content message that she was out of contact along with her father for days, including that he was additionally being held in a basement. She questioned: “Is he alive in any respect? !!! I have no idea!”

Dwelling with troopers

For these being detained, the flexibility to maneuver round relied on the guards.

Ms. Borodyuk and others in her basement had been permitted to go to their residences to get meals and heat garments to assist face up to the chilly of the brick basement. Neighbors had been permitted to prepare dinner collectively and intermingle.

The Russians guarding Ms. Anishchenko’s basement had been extra strict. They allowed the residents solely quick, supervised visits to their residences to get meals and provides for everybody.

“Individuals had been panicking,” Ms. Anishchenko stated, “Everybody was previous their breaking level.”

Finally, 100 or extra troopers had been patrolling outdoors the buildings, and a few had been even dwelling within the residences.

On the seventh ground, Mr. Naumenko and his spouse continued to evade detection. Current shelling within the space had blown out their home windows and the temperature had dropped beneath freezing. With no electrical energy, they improvised methods to prepare dinner, lighting oil in a saucer to heat up meals and utilizing a candle to warmth a can of water. With out warmth within the constructing, they slept absolutely dressed and sporting jackets.

Credit score…Roman Naumenko

In Ksenia’s condominium, every day concerned securing sufficient meals to feed her youngsters and surviving to the following morning. Her new life was a far cry from what she envisioned.

“We had been ready for this condominium for 4 years,” Ksenia stated. “We invested within the renovation. However even this doesn’t matter now.”

‘We are going to liberate you from Nazis’

Exterior, the combating was relentless.

“We bought used to the sounds of taking pictures and we realized to inform one from the opposite,” Mr. Naumenko stated. “Whether or not it was far or shut. Whether or not it was going into our constructing or above the constructing. We might hear that.”

Contained in the condominium complicated, the troopers had been telling their prisoners that Ukraine was about to be liberated, Ms. Anishchenko stated.

Ms. Borodyuk recalled a extra senior Russian officer making an attempt to consolation a woman within the basement the place they had been detained. “He stated: ‘My daughter is 8 years outdated too. I like her very a lot. I miss her. Don’t be afraid, little lady, we are going to liberate you from Nazis.’”

Ms. Borodyuk stated a number of the youthful Russian troops didn’t even know why they had been in Ukraine. When captives requested one soldier why he was right here, he replied, weeping: “The place am I? What ought to I do?”

Evacuated by likelihood

On March 9, Russia and Ukraine agreed to briefly set up a number of humanitarian corridors to permit civilians secure passage out of battle areas. However the Russian troopers at Pokrovsky failed to tell their prisoners.

Ms. Anishchenko heard by likelihood. Throughout a supervised meals go to to her condominium, she noticed a convoy transferring with white flags from the window and requested a Russian soldier what was taking place. He informed her there was a 72-hour no-strike hall in place. She and a few of her neighbors packed a bag and ran.

Credit score…The New York Occasions

On their method out, the scene was grim. “We noticed lifeless our bodies laying on the bottom,” she stated. “We noticed crashed and burned automobiles with our bodies inside.”

Mr. Naumenko turned his telephone on and noticed info in a WhatsApp group in regards to the humanitarian hall evacuation. He and his spouse shortly gathered their issues.

Whereas leaving the complicated, a soldier warned them that he wouldn’t shoot him, however these patrolling elsewhere would possibly.

They fled anyway and escaped unhurt — together with all the opposite residents The Occasions spoke with. Naumenko is now in Kyiv, the place he plans to remain — and maybe struggle.

“The issues I noticed in Hostomel had been a nightmare. I don’t need this to return right here,” he stated.

Movies edited by Dmitriy Khavin.

World

Rebels Backed by Rwanda Close In on Major City in Congo

Published

1 hour ago

January 24, 2025

Press Room

Rebels Backed by Rwanda Close In on Major City in Congo

Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo have surrounded the eastern city of Goma, in one of the sharpest escalations in years of a conflict that has pitted the Central African country against its neighbor Rwanda.

On Thursday, fighting raged between rebels from the Rwanda-backed M23 group and Congolese forces in the town of Saké, the last major army position before Goma, a provincial capital with more than 2 million people. On Tuesday, M23 captured Minova, a key town along one of Goma’s main supply routes.

Goma’s fall would be a major milestone for M23. The group captured the city and held it for two weeks in 2012, but withdrew after Rwanda came under intense international pressure to stop backing the militia. The United States and United Nations say Rwanda funds and directs the M23, charges that Rwanda has denied.

In late 2013, the Congolese Army and United Nations forces quickly defeated the rebel group, which lay dormant afterward for almost a decade.

M23 has since surged back, starting in late 2021, dealing the Congolese Army a series of defeats. At the same time, peace talks spearheaded by Angola, Congo’s southwestern neighbor, have stalled, and the fate of U.N. peacekeepers stationed in eastern Congo was until recently up in the air, with their mandate renewed in December for another year.

Goma has long been a refuge for more than a million civilians fleeing violence from M23 militiamen, Congolese forces and other armed groups in the region.

The rebels launched a major offensive in eastern Congo this year, and now the region is increasingly cut off. Rebels control the land immediately to Goma’s north and west. On its east lies the border with Rwanda. Its south is demarcated by Lake Kivu.

Rebels have also made gains in other parts of North and South Kivu provinces, which include two other major cities, Butembo and Bukavu. M23 has made the capture of Kavumu airport another main objective, according to U.N. intelligence. Government-allied troops have used the airport to support the Congolese armed forces.

Wounded civilians fleeing Saké by foot and on motorcycles arrived at a Goma hospital run by the International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday morning. Abdou Rahamane Sidibé, a senior surgeon with the group, said he and his colleagues have been treating twice as many civilians over the past few weeks than they did on average last year.

“There was too much bombing,” said Hawa Amisi, 52, who fled with only a thin mattress, a bottle of water and four of her children. Ms. Amisi, who had been separated from her husband in the fighting, said she saw dead bodies lying in the street as they fled.

Bruno Lemarquis, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official in Congo, said 2025 would be “a difficult year” because humanitarian needs are likely to rise, and funds are expected to dwindle.

The United States — traditionally Congo’s largest humanitarian donor — is expected to slash aid under the new Trump administration, humanitarian officials and experts say. “Even before the new U.S. administration came in, we were told that U.S. humanitarian support would be slashed by a third,” Mr. Lemarquis said.

The conflict in eastern Congo — an area about the size of Michigan — was once labeled Africa’s World War. It has been going on since the 1990s, and has involved dozens of armed groups, of which M23 is currently dominant.

Rwanda claims M23 is fighting for the rights of Congo’s Tutsis — the ethnic group targeted by extremists from Rwanda’s Hutu majority in the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 people were killed.

But many Congolese see the rebel advance as an invasion of their country by a foreign power.

Now equipped with high-tech weapons, according to a recent U.N. report, M23 rebels are trying to establish a long-term presence in the region. They train police, set up courts, collect taxes and issue birth certificates, experts say, and have assassinated several traditional leaders, replacing them with officials favorable to their cause.

Most observers say M23 wants land and Congo’s valuable rare minerals such as coltan, a metallic ore used to produce tantalum, which is in smartphones and laptops. Last April, M23 seized mines in Rubaya — one of the world’s biggest sources of coltan.

As the rebels have conquered more territory over the past few years, the violence has reached new heights.

Thousands of children have been killed, maimed and forced to become child soldiers. Serious injuries caused by heavy artillery have increased. Many of the victims are children.

Sexual violence has reached extreme levels. In 2023, Doctors Without Borders treated more than 25,000 survivors of sexual violence — the highest number ever recorded in the country. Numbers for the first half of 2024 were even higher.

More than 240,000 people have been forced to flee from their homes since the start of this year, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, as M23 rebels have launched new offensives in the eastern regions of North Kivu province, where Goma sits, and South Kivu. They join 4.6 million people who were already displaced in Congo’s east.

Saikou Jammeh contributed reporting from Dakar, Senegal.

World

Trump's pick for UN ambassador hailed by Israeli minister as 'warrior against antisemitism’

Published

2 hours ago

January 24, 2025

Press Room

Trump's pick for UN ambassador hailed by Israeli minister as 'warrior against antisemitism’

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TEL AVIV – The Trump administration will do more than its predecessor to combat the tidal wave of Jew-hatred unleashed by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli told Fox News Digital.

Chikli noted that, when confirmed, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, former Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., will enter into one of the epicenters of the global assault on the Jewish people and their state.

“We saw Stefanik at the hearing on campus antisemitism in Congress,” he said, noting that once confirmed as a senior member of the Trump administration she will be “stationed in one of the most hostile arenas: the U.N.” Chikli added that she’s “A warrior against antisemitism, we are very happy with her appointment.”

STEFANIK TOUTS GRILLING COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS IN SENATE CONFIRMATION HEARING

Former Rep. Elise Stefanik, the nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, attends her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 21, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In December 2023, Stefanik was widely praised during a congressional hearing on the explosion of antisemitism at American universities. She asked the presidents of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology if calling for genocide against Jews violated their codes of conduct.

A year later, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled the U.S. House of Representatives Staff Report on Antisemitism, compiled by six congressional committees.

Chikli told Fox News Digital four actionable measures to curb the phenomenon: “Enforcing strict compliance with Title VI to prohibit discrimination and address antisemitism on campus; withholding federal funding to institutions that boycott Israel or tolerate antisemitic behavior; requiring universities to disclose foreign contributions and tightening government oversight; and revoking funding and tax exemptions for groups and universities that propagate antisemitism or support terror-related activities.”

Anti-Israel demonstrations continued in New York City Tuesday on Columbia University’s campus. (AP/Yuki Iwamura)

“This report from the speaker of the House shows that this [Trump] administration is highly committed to countering antisemitism,” Chikli said.

In her new role, Stefanik has also promised to fight Jew-hatred at Turtle Bay, which she described as a “den of antisemitism.”

TRUMP’S UN AMBASSADOR PICK ELISE STEFANIK COULD SAVE TAXPAYERS MILLIONS IF TAPS MUSK-RAMASWAMY ‘DOGE’

“Even before the barbaric terrorist attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7, the U.N. has continuously betrayed Israel and betrayed America, acting as an apologist for Iran and their terrorist proxies,” Stefanik said in November after her nomination.

During her Senate confirmation on Tuesday, she said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a conduit for international aid to the Palestinians, should be “at the bottom of the list” of organizations to receive American funding.

In January 2024, then-President Joe Biden halted funding to UNRWA after Israel released evidence that the agency’s staff participated in the Oct. 7 massacre.

Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli (Shahar Azran/Getty Images/File)

According to Chikli, UNRWA effectively serves as Hamas’s educational system, which in turn makes it the engine fueling antisemitism throughout Gaza and Palestinian-administered territories in the West Bank, known by Israelis as Judea and Samaria.

“It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to raise a terrorist. And if you put a child in UNRWA schools, you can be sure that he will graduate with the mindset of a terrorist,” Chikli told Fox News Digital.

NEW REPORTS CLAIM UNRWA WORKS WITH TERRORISTS, TEACHES HATE AS AGENCY HITS BACK AT CRITICS

“[Palestinian children] will learn to admire suicide bombers, Hamas Nukhba terrorists who butchered innocent people. They go to schools named after terrorists, with textbooks that include math problems about how many Israeli soldiers were attacked or how many stones were thrown at them,” he continued.

“That is why it is critical to make sure UNRWA is shut down,” he added.

In October, the Israeli parliament banned UNRWA from operating in the Jewish state. The law takes effect on Jan. 30.

Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, holds a press conference in Jerusalem on Oct. 27, 2023. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)

A spokesperson for Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid told Fox News Digital that “the government and the international community has had 90 days to find alternatives to UNRWA.”

He declined to say whether Lapid was in contact with the Trump administration to discuss “day after” plans once UNRWA ceases operations.

In August, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini confirmed the probable involvement of at least 19 UNRWA employees in the Oct.7 massacre, saying that “the evidence – if authenticated and corroborated – could indicate that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks.”

A view of the UN tower in the background with traffic in the foreground

A general view of the United Nations building New York City, NY on Tuesday, September 19, 2023. Traffic is increased at this time of year as the United Nations General Assembly hosts leaders from around the world. (Julia Bonavita for Fox News Digital)

He later confirmed that at least nine UNRWA staffers were fired after an internal probe.

UNRWA Director of Communications Juliette Touma told Fox News Digital that “we are committed to staying and delivering [aid] in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, until we cannot.”

“UNRWA has the most robust systems in place in comparison to other United Nations agencies when it comes to the adherence to the principle of neutrality with regards to our programs that we do and our staff,” she said.

Asked whether the organization has put together a plan for ongoing operations once the Israeli ban kicks in, she said, “We have not.”

Ayelet Samerano’s son, Yonatan, was kidnapped by a terrorist who also reportedly worked for UNRWA on Oct. 7, 2023. A video of the terrorist dragging Yonatan’s lifeless body into a car went viral.

Memorials at the site of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, on Monday, May 27, 2024. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“I will not let it go. I am pressuring the government very hard for the law, which passed in the Knesset, to be implemented,” Samerano told Fox News Digital. “I didn’t know UNRWA before, but then I investigated and found many documents that prove it’s involved in terror. That they were involved in taking hostages on Oct. 7 and holding kidnapped Israelis in their homes and buildings means there is no reason for this organization to continue to exist.”

“We must ensure that UNRWA will be replaced by another organization that will help the Gazans and make sure terror does not infiltrate them,” she continued. “People outside of Gaza and interested in real peace must teach a new curriculum that will create opportunities for Gazans, not terror.”

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon told Fox News Digital that Stefanik is “a staunch ally of Israel and of the Jewish people.”

“She leads with moral clarity and a strong commitment to justice and truth,” he said. “I am looking forward to working with her at the U.N., where the demonization and distortions about Israel are out of control.”

World

Italy defends decision to expel Libyan warlord wanted by the ICC

Published

3 hours ago

January 24, 2025

Press Room

Italy defends decision to expel Libyan warlord wanted by the ICC

Italy’s interior minister says he expelled Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court because he posed a danger to society.

Italy repatriated a Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to security concerns.

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi made the comments to lawmakers during a Senate session on Thursday, in the government’s first remarks on its decision to expel instead of hand the warlord over to face charges.

Ossama Anjiem – also known as Ossama al-Masri – was flown back on an Italian government plane back to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where he received a hero’s welcome. He was arrested over the weekend after he attended a football match in Turin.

Piantedosi says al-Masri was repatriated to Tripoli for “urgent security reasons, with my expulsion order, in view of the danger posed by the subject”. The interior minister told the Senate, refusing to go into greater detail, citing a scheduled address to lawmakers next week.

Senators were concerned that Rome had ignored its obligations to the ICC – based in The Hague – to turn over wanted criminal suspects. They repeated calls demanding Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni respond to lawmakers in an open question session.

The ICC warrant accuses al-Masri of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Mitiga prison in Libya, starting in 2015. The warlord’s crimes are punishable with life in prison.

The ICC says he was accused of a slew of heinous crimes, among them murder, torture and rape. The court said the warrant was transmitted to member states on Saturday, including Italy. The court also provided real-time information that al-Masri had entered Europe.

The court reminded Italy at the time to contact it “without delay” if it ran into any problems cooperating with the warrant. But Rome’s court of appeals ordered al-Masri freed on Tuesday, after which he was sent aboard an aircraft of the Italian secret services back to Libya.

The Rome court cited a “procedural error in his arrest” as the reason for his repatriation.

The ruling said Justice Minister Carlo Nordio should have been informed ahead of time as the justice ministry is the institution which handles all relations with the ICC.

Human rights groups have documented gross abuses in the Libyan detention facilities where migrants are kept. Following al-Masri’s expulsion and return to Libya, they accuse Italy of complicity in their mistreatment.