Russia Accuses Ukraine’s Western Allies of Helping Attack Its Black Sea Fleet Headquarters

 This satellite photo provide by Planet Labs PBC on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023 shows damage to a headquarters building for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. The building was struck in a missile attack launched by the Ukrainian military. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo provide by Planet Labs PBC on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023 shows damage to a headquarters building for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. The building was struck in a missile attack launched by the Ukrainian military. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
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Russia Accuses Ukraine’s Western Allies of Helping Attack Its Black Sea Fleet Headquarters

 This satellite photo provide by Planet Labs PBC on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023 shows damage to a headquarters building for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. The building was struck in a missile attack launched by the Ukrainian military. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo provide by Planet Labs PBC on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023 shows damage to a headquarters building for the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. The building was struck in a missile attack launched by the Ukrainian military. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Russia on Wednesday accused Ukraine’s Western allies of helping plan and conduct last week’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters on the annexed Crimean Peninsula.

“There is no doubt that the attack had been planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets and reconnaissance planes and was implemented upon the advice of American and British security agencies and in close coordination with them,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

Moscow has repeatedly claimed that the US and its NATO allies have effectively become involved in the conflict by supplying weapons to Ukraine and providing it with intelligence information and helping plan attacks on Russian facilities.

Unconfirmed news reports said Storm Shadow missiles provided to Ukraine by the UK and France were used in the attack on the headquarters.

The UK Ministry of Defense didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on Zakharova's remarks or reports that Storm Shadow missiles were used in the strike.

The accusation came as new video reported to show that the fleet’s commander, Adm. Viktor Sokolov, was still alive despite Ukraine’s claims — without providing supporting evidence — that he was among 34 officers killed in Friday’s strike on the port city of Sevastopol.

The Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has been a frequent target since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Crimea has served as the key hub supporting the invasion and has increasingly come under fire by Ukraine.

Ukraine said the strike that put a large hole in the main building of the headquarters had wounded 105 people, though those claims couldn't independently be verified.

Russia initially said one serviceman was killed but quickly retracted that statement and said the person was missing.

Moscow has provided no updates on any casualties.

The Kremlin didn’t comment on Sokolov’s status, but the Defense Ministry on Tuesday released a video showing him among other senior officers attending a video conference with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Sokolov didn’t speak in the clip.

When asked about Sokolov on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that he took part in the call with Shoigu but refrained from further comment.

Russian state television stations on Wednesday showed Sokolov speaking to journalists in Sevastopol after handing awards to a Black Sea Fleet soccer team. Sokolov was asked to say a few words to residents after the latest developments — an apparent reference to the Ukrainian claim that he was killed with scores of other officers in the missile strike on the fleet’s headquarters.

“What happened to us? Nothing happened to us,” Sokolov responded. “Life goes on. The Black Sea Fleet confidently and successfully carries out the tasks assigned to it by the command. Surface forces, submarine forces, naval aviation, and coastal troops are successfully completing tasks.”

Ukraine’s Special Operation Forces posted a statement Tuesday saying its sources claimed that Sokolov was among the dead, many of whom hadn’t yet been identified. It said it was trying to verify the claim after the video surfaced.

Zakharova's statements follow comments made Tuesday by Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, who said the arrival of American-made Abrams tanks in Ukraine and a US promise to supply an unspecified number of long-range ATACMS missiles would push NATO closer to a direct conflict with Russia.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."