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Zelenskiy Visits Kharkiv Region as Russian Pressure Mounts in East

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with top military officials as he visits Kharkiv region, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine May 16, 2024 in this handout image. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with top military officials as he visits Kharkiv region, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine May 16, 2024 in this handout image. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
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Zelenskiy Visits Kharkiv Region as Russian Pressure Mounts in East

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with top military officials as he visits Kharkiv region, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine May 16, 2024 in this handout image. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with top military officials as he visits Kharkiv region, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine May 16, 2024 in this handout image. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Thursday to boost morale and reinforce Ukraine's troops in the region where Russian forces are trying to press their new offensive beyond the border areas.
Moscow has made inroads of at least several kilometers into the north of Kharkiv region since Friday, forcing Kyiv's outmanned troops to try to hold the line on a new front as Russia mounts more pressure on the front in the east.
"The direction remains extremely difficult - we are strengthening our units," Zelenskiy said after holding a meeting in the city with his top commander and senior military leaders.
The Ukrainian leader, who has cancelled all his upcoming foreign trips as the battlefield situation deteriorates, met wounded soldiers recovering at a medical facility and posed for photographs with troops at another location, Reuters reported.
Apart from inflicting devastation on frontline settlements and dealing a blow to Kyiv's morale, Russia's Kharkiv push is a headache for Ukrainian war planners whose troops are already stretched over a more than 1,000 kilometer line.
Ukraine's military said late on Wednesday that its forces fighting near the town of Kupiansk were pulling back to more "advantageous positions". Kupiansk lies more than 85 km southeast of the city of Kharkiv.
In a statement on Thursday, the General Staff said Russia was directing its most intense assaults on the fronts near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia's offensive has been unrelenting for months.
"Intensive combat action continues along nearly the whole front line. The occupiers are most active on the Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk fronts," it said in its battlefield readout.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Moscow's forces were improving their positions "every day" along the front in Ukraine in all directions and that the advance was going to plan.
UKRAINIAN DILEMMAS
After reporting fighting in the northern districts of the border town of Vovchansk, some 45 kms from the city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian General Staff said its troops had launched a counterattack to hit back at the invaders.
Kyiv, whose shortages of manpower have been compounded by delays to Western arms supplies, has warned that Russia may be preparing for a big offensive in the coming weeks. It has flagged a Russian buildup of small units near its Sumy region.
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, told Reuters that Moscow's Kharkiv push looked aimed at drawing in Kyiv's limited reserves into battle before the main summer offensive begins.
"If Ukraine overcommits in Kharkiv and Sumy, they may preserve some territory there, perhaps prevent Kharkiv civilians from suffering artillery bombardments, perhaps even push back the enemy back to the border," he said.
"But it may cost them the war, if the reserves are not available to respond to crises during the Russian summer offensive."
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city which is home to some 1.3 million people, has been pounded for months by airstrikes that defenders struggle to stop with depleted air defenses covering a city just 30 km from the border.
Russian forces have pressed two main thrusts into the region, including one towards Vovchansk, the town 5 km (3 miles) from the border and the other towards the village of Lyptsi, which lies about 17 km from the northern outskirts of Kharkiv.
"The enemy's plans to penetrate deeper into the town of Vovchansk and gain a foothold there were thwarted," the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement.
Ukraine has scrambled to evacuate civilians from the town and other border areas and about 8,000 people have left their homes so far.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko accused Russian forces of killing a resident in Vovchansk who tried to escape on foot and refused to obey their orders.
Serhii Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of the regional police, said in televised comments that Russian troops taken up to 40 civilians captive.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify Klymenko or Bolvinov's claims.
Describing the situation in Vovchansk as under control, the Ukrainian military said its defensive actions had forced Russian troops to reduce the tempo of their push into the north of the region.
Russia says it has taken control of 12 villages since it launched its attack. Russia's defense ministry said on Thursday its forces had made deep advances into Ukraine's defenses and inflicted personnel and hardware losses near Vovchansk and Lyptsi.
Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv's regional governor, said Russian troops had struck a village near Vovchansk with cluster munitions, injuring six people.

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World

North Korea Says Tested AI-assisted Torpedo System

North Korea has tested a "new-type" precision-guided torpedo system that uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance, state media reports. ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP/File
North Korea has tested a "new-type" precision-guided torpedo system that uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance, state media reports. ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP/File
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North Korea Says Tested AI-assisted Torpedo System

North Korea has tested a "new-type" precision-guided torpedo system that uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance, state media reports. ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP/File
North Korea has tested a "new-type" precision-guided torpedo system that uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance, state media reports. ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP/File

North Korea said Saturday it had successfully tested a new torpedo system that uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance.

The Korean Central News Agency said the weapon tested Thursday was a “super-speed, precisely guided” torpedo system named Zam-2.0. It didn't explain what was meant by artificial intelligence.

The report added that test verified the weapon’s propulsion systems, which were developed through more than 180 tests over the past five years.

South Korea’s military, which often accuses the North of exaggerating its military technologies, did not immediately comment on KCNA’s report.

North Korea has been ramping up weapons demonstrations in recent weeks, including conducting its first underwater-launched missile tests in nearly three years, as leader Kim Jong Un shifts his focus to naval capabilities after years of ballistic missile development. Experts say the missile tests, carried out Wednesday, likely involved a yet-to-be-deployed submarine that Pyongyang has said is designed to launch nuclear weapons.

North Korea also tested hypersonic missile systems of various ranges on Sept. 20 and Oct. 3 as it seeks to expand its arsenal of weapons designed to overwhelm missile defenses in South Korea and Japan. Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, claimed that the missiles tested on Oct. 3 also used artificial intelligence technology.

But some experts say that while North Korea is likely improving its guidance software, it's doubtful that the country's weapons really have advanced digital capabilities such as autonomous target designation,

Kim Jong Un in recent years has halted all diplomacy and cooperation with South Korea and described it as a permanent enemy, as a yearslong stalemate in nuclear negotiations with Washington drags on.

 

 

 

 

World

Russia Hails Trump Waiving Sanctions as 'Historic'

FILE - US President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin, Aug. 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - US President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin, Aug. 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
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Russia Hails Trump Waiving Sanctions as 'Historic'

FILE - US President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin, Aug. 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - US President Donald Trump greets Russian President Vladimir Putin, Aug. 15, 2025, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

Russia on Saturday hailed US President Donald Trump's move to waive new sanctions on it as "historic", as Ukraine worries he is taking Moscow's side in Europe's worst conflict since World War II.

Trump signed an executive order Friday that waived sweeping US sanctions targeting Russia's energy revenues amid a clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The decision came despite Russia increasing strikes on Ukraine -- especially its capital, Kyiv -- in the fifth year of its offensive, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

"The Trump administration's suspension of the Graham Act is an important and truly historic moment," Kirill Dmitriev, envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on social media.

The Lindsey Graham Act -- named after the deceased US senator who sponsored the bill -- targeted Russia's energy and defense sectors, as well as Putin and the so-called "shadow fleet" of tankers used by Moscow to circumvent Western sanctions.

The Kremlin and Putin have not yet reacted to the move, which is a major diplomatic win for Moscow.

Dmitriev said the act would have caused "serious damage first and foremost to the US economy and global markets".

Trump's waiver comes after he struck a deal with Putin to ease existing sanctions on Russia in exchange for Moscow releasing large amounts of diesel onto global markets.

He announced the executive order Friday, shortly after Putin appeared in military uniform and said Moscow aims to capture the rest of east Ukraine.

US-led talks to end the war in Ukraine have not led to a breakthrough. Both Putin and Zelensky have frustrated Trump in the past with a lack of progress in halting the grinding war.

The move is bound to spook Ukraine's European allies, who worry the White House is taking the Kremlin's side.

Zelensky rallied his allies Friday on a visit to Brussels for a European Union summit, urging them to keep financing Ukraine's fight and insisting he was standing up for his country amid the row with Trump.

Russian forces struck Ukraine's southern city of Kherson Saturday after Trump's announcement, killing one person and wounding 22, local officials said.

- Putin vows more -

Russia has increased strikes on Kyiv in recent weeks, squeezing the city as Ukrainians brace for another winter of war.

Ukraine has been struggling to shoot down Russian missiles and has been left scrambling to boost defenses ahead of winter.

Russia controls large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine and Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine by force.

"On the whole I see a positive trend in the operations of the troop groupings," Putin told army leaders Friday, dressed in military attire.

"Undoubtedly, one of the main objectives remains the liberation of the Donetsk People's Republic," he added, using the Kremlin's name for the eastern Donetsk region.

European leaders put on a show of unity with Zelensky Friday as he grappled with Trump.

"This is no time to withdraw the support to Ukraine. This is no time to relieve Russia's sanctions," said European Council chief Antonio Costa.

"Now it is time to increase our support, to increase our pressure."

European concerns have been heightened by disruptions to a critical US-provided satellite system that has hampered Ukraine's ability to counter Russia's intense bombardments.

World

Bangladesh is Battling Measles. It's a 'Real Warning' to Other Nations

Patients suspected of having measles receive treatment on the floor of the overcrowded measles isolation ward at Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital in Sylhet, Bangladesh, September 12, 2026. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Patients suspected of having measles receive treatment on the floor of the overcrowded measles isolation ward at Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital in Sylhet, Bangladesh, September 12, 2026. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
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Bangladesh is Battling Measles. It's a 'Real Warning' to Other Nations

Patients suspected of having measles receive treatment on the floor of the overcrowded measles isolation ward at Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital in Sylhet, Bangladesh, September 12, 2026. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Patients suspected of having measles receive treatment on the floor of the overcrowded measles isolation ward at Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital in Sylhet, Bangladesh, September 12, 2026. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

Bangladesh is battling to contain the world’s worst measles outbreak, a crisis exacerbated by weak data, inadequate outreach and vaccination gaps that experts say offers a warning to other nations about the deadly risk of falling immunization rates.

Bangladesh, whose routine vaccination program faltered in 2025, reported 202,000 suspected measles cases – 22,000 of them laboratory-confirmed – since the start of the outbreak in mid-March to October 9, the World Health Organization said. That’s more suspected cases than any other country this year, Reuters said.

So far, 1,147 people have died of the highly contagious disease, with 94% of reported deaths among children under five years old, the WHO said.

Bangladesh's experience shows the challenge of containing an outbreak when vaccination coverage falls below 95%, a level the WHO says is needed to prevent outbreaks. Bangladesh almost achieved that in recent years but in 2025 coverage dropped.

A Reuters review of WHO documents, alongside interviews with more than a dozen scientists, health workers and officials, shows Bangladesh was also hampered in its emergency response by data that left out millions of children, shortcomings in preparation and a failure to reach enough parents.

"This is a real warning to every country," said Mark Jit, a WHO vaccine adviser and professor at the School of Global Public Health at New York University.

Preventing an outbreak through vaccinations was easier, cheaper and safer than responding to an emergency, he said.

"The response will stop the outbreak eventually, but in the meantime, many will have had measles, and some will have died," he said.

Ziauddin Hyder, special assistant on health affairs to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, told Reuters in September the government was doing everything it could to end the outbreak. The government did not respond to further questions sent in October for this article.

‘THEY CAME ONLY AFTER I BURIED MY SON’

In the northeast Sylhet region, one of the worst-hit areas in the nation of 178 million people, two-year-old Arman ‌Hossain died unvaccinated in July, 24 ‌hours after admission to hospital for treatment paid for by selling the family's three-wheeled auto rickshaw. His unvaccinated four-year-old sister survived.

His father Amin Mia, 26, said ‌no health ⁠workers came to their remote ⁠village in Sylhet to offer vaccinations in time. "They came only after I buried my son," he said.

Measles usually kills two or three people in every 1,000 cases, the WHO says, but the disease can be more deadly in poorer nations because of factors such as malnutrition.

In the town of Chhatak, also in the Sylhet region, the daughter of 30-year-old carpenter Humayun Rashid died unvaccinated in June aged nine months. Labiba Akter could have received an inoculation in April when an emergency program lowered the vaccination age to six months from nine.

"No health worker came to tell us," her father said.

In May, Health Minister Sardar Md. Sakhawat Husain said the emergency drive had brought cases in hotspots "almost to zero" and the outbreak was under control.

Yet in September, Bangladesh reported a daily average of 1,198 new cases of measles, which causes a high fever, cough and telltale rash. That was the highest total since May.

The Bangladesh outbreak comes as vaccine hesitancy is rising, particularly in wealthier nations, amid skepticism championed by figures such as US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In Bangladesh, access to inoculations and awareness are bigger hurdles, experts said.

Until recently, Bangladesh had been a vaccination success story. The WHO and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF estimated that in 2024 it achieved 96% coverage ⁠for the first vaccine dose and 93% for the second, which is given to capture the small percentage of children who don't develop immunity after one shot.

But that same ‌year, protests erupted that ended 15 years of rule by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. In the ensuing political turmoil, health workers went on strike, vaccine orders ‌were delayed and follow-up vaccinations that usually accompany routine programs were disrupted.

In a report published in July this year, WHO and UNICEF estimated first-dose coverage in 2025 had fallen to 90%, while second-dose coverage was 86%, several percentage points below the 95% needed for herd ‌immunity.

The report also raised questions about the quality of official data on vaccinations for measles and other diseases for the years 2023 to 2025.

It said preliminary figures sometimes showed numbers of those inoculated exceeded 100% of those targeted, ‌indicating mistakes in counting doses or target numbers.

EMERGENCY PROGRAMME MISSED MILLIONS

Still, when the measles outbreak erupted, Bangladesh responded swiftly and initially seemed to be winning the battle.

An emergency program was followed by an initial slowdown in new cases after almost 20 million children received a vaccination in April and May. The government said it had covered every child in the target age group of six months to five years.

But in reality the program fell short. This emerged when another routine health intervention in June had a target list with 4 million more children than the measles campaign despite covering the same age group.

"There is a gap," prime ministerial adviser Hyder told Reuters on September 14, as measles cases rose again, blaming vaccine hesitancy by parents or child illnesses for keeping kids away.

Other challenges have also ‌emerged.

Documents detailing meetings in April and August between the government, the WHO and other health partners, reviewed by Reuters and not previously reported, show how efforts to act fast may have led to shortcomings.

Minutes from the April 19 meeting outlined how the government opted for just one round of so-called readiness checks before launching its ⁠emergency vaccination program due to time constraints, instead of the typical ⁠four rounds. Checks cover everything from ensuring fridges are available for keeping vaccines cool to determining how many children should be vaccinated.

The single round of checks suggested most - but not all - districts were ready, according to the minutes.

THE POOREST ‘PAY THE PRICE’

"When preparedness checks are not done properly, it is often the poorest and hardest-to-reach children who miss out on vaccination and pay the price," said Professor Mahmudur Rahman, an epidemiologist and chair of Bangladesh's National Verification Committee for Measles and Rubella Elimination.

Hyder said the April campaign was launched in four weeks. Yet Tajul Islam Abdul Bari, who led immunization in Bangladesh until 2017, said campaigns usually demand months of planning.

By the August meeting, shortcomings in the rollout were identified. Minutes noted the proportion of children with confirmed measles cases who had not been vaccinated was "virtually unchanged between pre-campaign (82%) and post-campaign (85%) ... underscoring persistent coverage gaps".

The WHO did not respond to questions about the April and August meetings. But deputy WHO representative to Bangladesh, Dr Rajesh Narwal, said the WHO was determined to support the government in its goal of vaccinating every child at risk.

"Routine immunization must become more effective and resilient so that these gaps do not develop again," he said.

In Sylhet, where official records show 180 children have died, 8 of 16 families Reuters interviewed in September said they had not seen health workers offering vaccinations. At least six families said health workers visited only after a child had died from measles in their community.

At the end of September, the government launched a new campaign to target 3.4 million children previously missed.

"We will involve people across villages so that no child is left behind," the health minister told a news conference.

Yet reaching every child remains a challenge. UNICEF and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics say as many as 40% of children go unregistered, while government data showed around a third of health worker posts are unfilled.

Health experts are also pushing the government to expand the program to vaccinate children over five. That age group represents a third of measles cases, the WHO says.

In addition, scientists in Bangladesh are studying why immunity is waning faster than expected in babies up to six months or so. They are usually still protected by maternal antibodies, experts say.

Ensuring prompt medical care is vital, the WHO says, another challenge for Bangladesh as it also fights a dengue epidemic.

In September, every ward in Sylhet's 100-bed Shahid Shamsuddin Ahmed Hospital, which is treating measles, appeared overwhelmed. On the day Reuters visited, 178 patients were admitted.