Russian Forces Pound Avdiivka for Fourth Straight Day

Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)
Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)
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Russian Forces Pound Avdiivka for Fourth Straight Day

Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)
Ukrainian forces in Donetsk (AFP)

Russian forces pounded the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for the fourth day in a row on Friday.

In attacks elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian missile strike killed one person in the city of Pokrovsk, also in the east, while a drone attack in the south killed a women and seriously injured her husband.

"The fighting has been going on for four consecutive days," Vitaliy Barabash, head of the city's military administration, told Ukrainian national television.

"They have substantial reserves of personnel and equipment. Avdiivka is completely ablaze. They shoot, using everything they have. The hospital is again under fire, as are administrative buildings and our volunteer center."

Russia has focused its campaign along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front on the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Russia's representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzia, said the intensified battles in the east signified a new stage in its campaign.

"Russian troops have, for several days now, switched over to active combat action practically throughout the entire front line," Nebenzia told a session of the UN Security Council, Reuters reported.

"The so-called Ukrainian counteroffensive can therefore be considered finished."

Russian forces abandoned the western bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region late last year, but continue to shell towns there from positions on the eastern bank.



German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
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German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

More details emerged Sunday about those killed when a man drove a car at speed through a Christmas market in Germany, while mourners continued to place flowers and other tributes at the site of the attack.

Police in Magdeburg, the central city where the attack took place on Friday evening, said that the victims were four women ranging in age from 45 to 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy they had spoken of a day earlier.

Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition. They were being treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, and beyond.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg attack as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.

The suspect was on Saturday evening brought before a judge, who behind closed doors ordered that he be kept in custody pending a possible indictment.

Police haven’t publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, accusing German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The horror triggered by yet another act of mass violence in Germany make it likely that migration will remain a key issue as German heads toward an early election on Feb. 23.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party had already been polling strongly amid a societal backlash against the large numbers of refugees and migrants who have arrived in Germany over the past decade.

Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for having allowed high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is known for a strong anti-migration position going back years, used the attack in Germany to lash out at the European Union’s migration policies.

At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orban insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and terrorist acts.”

Orban vowed to “fight back” against the EU migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too.”