Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Pleads for More Ammunition at Albania Summit of Southeastern European Nations

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the audience during a joint press conference with Albania's Prime Minister, as part of the "Ukraine Southeast Europe Summit" in Tirana on February 28, 2024. (AFP)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the audience during a joint press conference with Albania's Prime Minister, as part of the "Ukraine Southeast Europe Summit" in Tirana on February 28, 2024. (AFP)
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Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Pleads for More Ammunition at Albania Summit of Southeastern European Nations

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the audience during a joint press conference with Albania's Prime Minister, as part of the "Ukraine Southeast Europe Summit" in Tirana on February 28, 2024. (AFP)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the audience during a joint press conference with Albania's Prime Minister, as part of the "Ukraine Southeast Europe Summit" in Tirana on February 28, 2024. (AFP)

Ukraine’s president pleaded Wednesday for more ammunition to repel Russian advances as he co-hosted a summit with Albania's government to build further support for Kyiv among southeastern European countries while signs of war fatigue grow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that increasing the supply of armaments, and especially ammunition, was paramount for Ukraine just over two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion. “I think this is the question of: Will we stand or not,” he said during his speech to the summit.

His impassioned plea comes as Russian troops have seized the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine amid worsening shortages of weapons and soldiers for Ukraine's military. Western analysts and observers say the Russians are attacking in strength along four parallel axes in the northeast, aiming to press deeper into the Ukraine-held western part of the Donetsk region and also penetrating into the Kharkiv region north of it.

Russia took the strategic eastern city of Avdiivka earlier this month by overwhelming Ukrainian forces with large numbers of troops and superior air and artillery firepower. Fierce fighting has continued with Russia pushing Kyiv’s forces out of another three villages to the city’s west in the last few days.

Zelenskyy arrived in Albania overnight to join a summit of eleven countries from southeastern Europe, along with officials from the European Union and other international organizations. It was the latest stop in an international tour that saw him in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to push for a peace plan and the return of prisoners of war from Russia.

Zelenskyy sought to build solidarity among his country and those of the Western Balkans, saying that all of them deserved to be members of the European Union and NATO if they choose.

“The European Union and NATO have provided Europe with the longest and most reliable era of security and economic development, and we are all equally worthy of being a part of the European and Euro-Atlantic communities,” Zelenskyy said.

Securing further support is key to Ukraine’s leader while his country faces battlefield challenges. Zelenskyy on Sunday announced that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action since Russia’s invasion — the first time that Kyiv had confirmed the number of its losses.

He acknowledged, again, in Tirana that “the problems with the supply of ammunition" were impacting the situation on the battlefield.

Russia’s tactics in Avdiivka, including its use of dozens of glide bombs to obliterate Ukrainian positions in the city, has raised concerns it could replicate the same methods elsewhere along the frontline if Western aid to support air-defense systems and supplies of long-range weapons and artillery do not come through soon.

Around Bakhmut, which fell to Russia last May after the longest battle since the full-scale invasion began, Russian troops are trying to push towards Chasiv Yar, according to a spokesman for the operational group overseeing the eastern front line. Illia Yevlash said Tuesday that Russia is reinforcing its troops with assault units, using air attacks, and that heavy fighting was ongoing on the outskirts of the city.

Meanwhile, further north on the frontline, Russian troops are pressing forward around Lyman and Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region that borders Russia.

Ukraine has urged Western leaders to increase the joint production of weapons and ammunition, improve Ukrainian air defenses and put new pressure on Russia via expanded sanctions.

Not all the countries at the meeting are in full support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Kremlin ally Serbia is the only European country that has refused to align with EU sanctions following Russia’s invasion. It continues signing cooperation agreements with Moscow.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he insisted that the summit statement should not include any call for sanctions on Russia and should not include proposed wording about Russia's negative influence in the Balkan region.

Albania, a NATO member since 2009 and a candidate for EU membership, has voiced its full support for Kyiv against Russia’s invasion. It has provided military assistance in the form of ammunition and training of Ukrainian military. It was among the first countries offering shelter to Ukrainian refugees. It has joined international sanctions against Russian officials and institutions.

As a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in the last two years, Albania joined the US in initiating resolutions against Russia’s invasion.

Zelenskyy said all of the countries at the summit must remain vigilant over what Russian President Vladimir Putin does next.

“The interaction between us, between neighbors, between neighboring regions, between all partners, has become a factor that along with the resilience of our people in Ukraine, does not allow Putin to prevail,” Zelenskyy said.



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."