Germany’s Foreign Minister Says in Kyiv That Air Defenses Are an ‘Absolute Priority’ for Ukraine

Ukrainian servicemen of the 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade wait before fire a Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 4, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukrainian servicemen of the 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade wait before fire a Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 4, 2024. (Reuters)
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Germany’s Foreign Minister Says in Kyiv That Air Defenses Are an ‘Absolute Priority’ for Ukraine

Ukrainian servicemen of the 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade wait before fire a Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 4, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukrainian servicemen of the 43rd Separate Artillery Brigade wait before fire a Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine May 4, 2024. (Reuters)

Sending air defense systems to Ukraine to help protect it from Russian cruise missiles, rockets and drones is an “absolute priority,” Germany’s foreign minister said in Kyiv on Tuesday after visiting a local power plant that was largely reduced to ruins by a recent barrage.

Annalena Baerbock said that what she called a “global initiative” launched by Germany to provide Ukraine with more air defense systems had raised nearly 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion) — “but it is completely clear that even more is needed,” she said at a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Germany is the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States.

Ukrainian officials have for months pleaded with the country’s Western partners to supply it with further sophisticated air defense systems, especially US-made Patriots, so Kyiv’s forces can fend off Russian air assaults that have pummeled the country during the war. Civilian areas as well as the power grid and military targets have repeatedly been hit.

While the bombing goes on, Ukraine’s depleted troops are trying to hold off a fierce Russian offensive along the eastern border in one of the most critical phases of the war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Germany recently pledged a third US-made Patriot battery for Ukraine, but Kyiv officials say they are still facing an alarming shortfall of air defenses against the Russian onslaught.

The Kremlin's forces have used their advantage in the skies to debilitate Ukraine's power grid, hoping to sap Ukrainian morale and disrupt its defense industry.

Baerbock, accompanied by Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko, toured a thermal power plant in central Ukraine that was heavily damaged on April 11. In the plant’s scorched interior, workers of Centrenergo, a state company that operates the plant, were still scooping up rubble several weeks after it was hit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the Kremlin’s forces were still focusing their efforts on the eastern Donetsk province and northeastern Kharkiv region, where explosive-laden Russian glide bombs are wreaking destruction on military and civilian areas.

“This brings us back again and again to the need for air defense — for additional defense systems that could significantly mitigate the difficulties for our warriors and the threat to our cities and communities,” Zelenskyy said late Monday on social media.

Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s forces are still in control of the contested areas, though Russia says it has captured a series of border villages.

It wasn't possible to independently verify either side's battlefield claims.

Baerbock had planned to visit Kharkiv on Tuesday, but the trip had to be called off for security reasons, German news agency dpa reported. Almost 11,000 people have been evacuated from Kharkiv border areas since Russia launched its offensive actions there on May 10.

A Russian overnight drone attack hit transport infrastructure in the city of Kharkiv, the regional capital, damaging more than 25 trucks, buses and other vehicles, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Tuesday. Seven people were wounded, he said.

Ukraine’s general staff said that the frequency of Russian attacks in Kharkiv slowed on Monday, though fighting continued.

Russian troops are also conducting reconnaissance and sabotage raids in Ukraine’s northern Sumy and Chernihiv regions, shelling border settlements and laying more minefields, according to Dmytro Lykhovii, Ukraine’s general staff spokesman. The front line is about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) long.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been resisting appeals from Ukrainian officials to provide Taurus missiles, which are equipped with stealth technology and have a range of up to 500 kilometers (300 miles).

The German- and Swedish-made missiles would be able to reach targets deep in Russia from Ukrainian soil. But Berlin has balked at that prospect, saying that sending the missiles would bring a risk of it becoming directly involved in the war.

The restriction on not allowing Ukraine to fire at Russia has denied Kyiv the ability to strike at Russian troops and equipment massing for attacks on the other side of the border, a Washington-based think tank said.

“These US and Western policies are severely compromising Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against current Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv (region) or any area along the international border where Russian forces may choose to conduct offensive operations in the future,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment late Monday.

Meanwhile, more than 3,000 Ukrainian prisoners have filed requests to be pardoned and join the army, Ukraine’s deputy justice minister, Olena Vysotska, said Tuesday, adding that authorities expected up to 5,000 prisoners to apply under the program.

The measure, which Zelenskyy signed into law late last week, is part of an effort to expand the army, which is outnumbered by Russia’s forces. Other steps to boost ranks include increasing fines for draft dodgers fivefold and providing incentives to soldiers, such as cash bonuses or money toward buying a house or car.

Prisoners convicted of serious crimes aren't eligible, and applicants must pass tests before putting on a uniform.



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."