Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Says Foreign Aid Delays Are Making Life ‘Very Difficult’ on the Front Line

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP)
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Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Says Foreign Aid Delays Are Making Life ‘Very Difficult’ on the Front Line

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends a meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the Munich Security Conference at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP)

Delays in weapons deliveries from Western allies to Ukraine are opening a door for Russian battlefield advances, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, making the fight “very difficult” along parts of the front line where the Kremlin’s forces captured a strategic city last weekend ahead of the war’s second anniversary.

Zelenskyy and other officials have often expressed frustration at the slowness of promised aid deliveries, especially since signs of war fatigue have emerged. European countries are struggling to find enough stocks to send to Kyiv, and US help worth $60 billion is stalled over political differences. That appears to be playing into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Even so, more help is heading Ukraine’s way, as Sweden announced Tuesday its biggest aid package so far and Canada said it was expediting the delivery of more than 800 drones.

Zelenskyy, in his daily video address late Monday, said Russia has built up troops at some points along the 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line, apparently aiming to pounce on any perceived defensive weaknesses.

“They (the Russians) are taking advantage of delays in aid to Ukraine,” he said after visiting the command post in the area of Kupiansk, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, on Monday.

He said Ukrainian troops keenly felt a shortage of artillery, air defense systems and long-range weapons.

Ukrainian forces withdrew from the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka during the weekend, where they had battled a fierce Russian assault for four months despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

Putin on Tuesday congratulated his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on capturing Avdiivka and urged him to press Russia’s advantage.

Shoigu said the military launched up to 460 strikes on Avdiivka per day, equivalent to about 200 metric tons of explosives. “We got the enemy in such a state that it was forced to flee the unbearable conditions,” Shoigu said.

But Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that while the situation on the battlefield is hard, especially due to a lack of ammunition, the situation on the eastern front is not catastrophic.

“We fight and will continue to fight,” he told news outlet Ukrainska Pravda. “We have only one request to our partners: to help with weapons, with ammunition, and with air defense.”

He claimed that Russia racked up heavy losses of troops and equipment in the fight for bombed-out Avdiivka. His claim could not be independently verified.

Analysts predicted a lull in Russian attacks in the Avdiivka area. The Kremlin's forces will require time to “rest and refit,” the UK Ministry of Defense said in an assessment Tuesday. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, also expected an “operational pause” by Russia in the area.

Zelenskyy said talks with foreign partners are focusing on how to “resume and extend" support.

Sweden, which is poised to join NATO, said Tuesday it will donate military aid to Ukraine worth 7.1 billion kronor ($681 million). That includes 30 boats, some of which are fast and powerful military assault craft, and underwater weapons.

The deal also includes artillery ammunition, Leopard tanks, shoulder-borne anti-aircraft defense systems, anti-tank missiles, grenade launchers, hand grenades and medical transport vehicles, as well as underwater drones and diving equipment.

“By supporting Ukraine, we are also investing in our own security,” Defense Minister Pål Jonson told a news conference in Stockholm. “If Russia were to win this terrible war, we would have significantly greater security problems than we have today.”

The Canadian government said Monday it will dispatch more than 800 drones to Ukraine starting as early as this spring. They are part of a previously announced 500 million Canadian dollars ($370 million) in military help for Ukraine.

Ukraine last year received $42.5 billion from foreign partners, of which $11.6 billion was in non-repayable grant aid, Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance said Tuesday.

The grant assistance was provided by the US, Japan, Norway, Germany, Spain, Finland, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, and Iceland, it said. The US provided the biggest amount of non-repayable grant aid, with $11 billion.

Long-term concessional financing amounted to $30.9 billion, which included loans from the European Union ($19.5 billion), the International Monetary Fund ($4.5 billion), Japan ($3.4 billion), Canada ($1.8 billion), the U.K. ($1 billion), the World Bank ($660 million) and Spain ($50 million).

Meanwhile, a Russian Lancet drone struck a house in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region Tuesday, killing five members of the same family, the regional administration said.

A mother, her two sons and two other relatives who were visiting died as a result of the strike in Nova Sloboda, a village bordering Russia.

Ukraine shot down all 23 Shahed drones that Russia launched on Monday night over various regions of the country, the country’s air force said.

Air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russian aircraft activity had dropped off after Ukraine recently shot down a number of enemy warplanes.

The air force commander, Mykola Oleschuk, said on Monday that his troops destroyed Su-34 and Su-35 bomber jets. Over the weekend he said that other Russian jets were shot down.



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."