Western Leaders in Kyiv Pledge Support for Ukraine on War Anniversary

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, from right, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend a laying of flowers ceremony at the Memory Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, from right, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend a laying of flowers ceremony at the Memory Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
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Western Leaders in Kyiv Pledge Support for Ukraine on War Anniversary

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, from right, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend a laying of flowers ceremony at the Memory Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, from right, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attend a laying of flowers ceremony at the Memory Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

The prime ministers of Italy and Canada signed security deals with Ukraine on Saturday as Western leaders rallied round a war-weary Kyiv on the second anniversary of Russia's military invasion, with no end in the sight to the fighting.

After initial successes in pushing back the Russian army, Ukraine has suffered recent setbacks on the eastern battlefields, with its generals complaining of growing shortages of both arms and soldiers.

Looking to dispel concerns the West is losing interest in the conflict, Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Canada's Justin Trudeau came to Kyiv early on Saturday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

"The message I want to send today to ... all the Ukrainian people is that they are not alone. I want you to know that we are deeply grateful," Meloni said as she signed a 10-year defense pact with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Trudeau signed a similar accord and pledged some $2.25 billion in financial and military support this year.

"We will stand with Ukraine with whatever it takes, for as long as it takes," Trudeau said.

Ordinary Ukrainians held services to commemorate the anniversary, laying flowers to honor their many dead, amid fears that the war would continue for years, with Russian President Vladimir Putin showing no sign of backing down.

"I'm a realist and understand that most likely the war will drag on for the next three or four years. I hope society will mobilize, I hope we'll be able to somehow defeat Russia," said Denys Symonovskiy, a Kyiv resident.

Zelenskiy took the foreign leaders to see Hostomel airport - the site of a ferocious battle at the start of the invasion as Russia tried to fly in paratroopers to seize the capital Kyiv a few kilometers away.

"Two years ago, we met enemy troopers here with fire, and two years later, we are meeting our friends, our partners, here," Zelenskiy said in a televised speech delivered against a backdrop of wrecked aircraft.

"Any normal person wants the war to end. But none of us will allow our Ukraine to end," he added. "The word 'independent' will always stand next to the word 'Ukraine' in future history."

Outside Kyiv, the war continued unabated.

Russian drones attacked the port of Odesa for a second night running, hitting a residential building, killing one person, the regional governor said. In Dnipro, a Russian drone hit an apartment building and a rescue operation uncovered two dead.

Meanwhile, a source in Kyiv said Ukrainian drones had caused a blaze at a Russian steel plant, which a Russian official identified as one in Lipetsk, some 400 km (250 miles) from Ukraine, that is responsible for about 18% of Russian output.

US aid still blocked

The Canadian and Italian security deals mirrors similar pacts signed recently with France and Germany.

However, $61 billion in aid promised by US President Joe Biden is being blocked by Republicans in Congress, casting a long shadow over Kyiv's hopes of pushing back the much larger, better supplied Russian military.

Biden was due to take part in a video conference of fellow leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) major democracies on Saturday, with Zelenskiy invited to join in.

The West sees the invasion as an unjustified act of aggression that must be repelled and Italy, current chair of the G7, said it was vital to challenge perceptions that it was wearying of the conflict and Russia was winning.

When Russian tanks and infantry streamed across the border before dawn on Feb. 24, 2022, Ukraine's 40 million people defied expectations by slowing and stopping their advance.

But as the war enters its third year, setbacks in the east have left Ukraine's army looking vulnerable.

Seeking to maintain Western focus on Ukraine, Zelenskiy has warned that Putin may not stop at Ukraine's borders if he emerges victorious. Putin dismisses such claims, and casts the war as a wider struggle with the United States, which he says aims to dismantle Russia.

Anniversary events were planned across Ukraine, including in the western city of Lviv, hundreds of kilometers from the fighting, where grieving women cried as a priest led a prayer at a service in a cemetery festooned with blue and yellow Ukrainian flags, each marking the death of a soldier.

"The boys are holding the front line. We can only imagine what effort and price is paid for every peaceful day we have. I want to believe it is not all in vain. We have funerals every day," Evhenia Demchuk, a widow and mother-of-two, told Reuters.

The initial shock of the invasion has gradually faded into familiarity and then fatigue, as the world watched initial Russian gains and a stunning Ukrainian counteroffensive in late 2022 slow into grinding trench warfare.

Russia, with a much bigger population to replenish the army's ranks and a larger military budget, might favor a drawn-out war, although its costs have been huge as it seeks to navigate sanctions and a growing reliance on China.

Ukraine’s position grows precarious

Ukraine's position is more precarious. Villages, towns and cities have been razed, troops are exhausted, and Russian missiles and drone strikes rain down almost daily.

Russia this month registered its biggest victory in nine months, capturing the eastern town of Avdiivka and ending months of deadly urban combat.

Yet Zelenskiy remained defiant.

"I am convinced that victory awaits us," he told diplomats in Kyiv this week in an emotional address. "In particular, thanks to unity and your support."

A recent World Bank study said rebuilding Ukraine's economy could cost nearly $500 billion. Two million housing units have been damaged or destroyed, and nearly 6 million people remain abroad after fleeing the invasion.

In addition to seeking money and weaponry, Zelenskiy is promoting legislation allowing Ukraine to mobilize up to half a million more troops - a target some economists say could paralyze the economy.

Russia's finances have so far proved resilient to unprecedented sanctions. While natural gas exports have slumped, oil sales have held up, thanks largely to Indian and Chinese buying, and the economy has been boosted by massive defense spending.



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."