France’s Macron Urges Green Light for Ukraine to Strike Targets inside Russia with Western Weapons

 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks on as French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to reporters on the day of a joint Franco-German cabinet meeting at the German government's guest house, Schloss Meseberg castle north of Berlin, in Gransee, Germany, May 28, 2024. (Reuters)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks on as French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to reporters on the day of a joint Franco-German cabinet meeting at the German government's guest house, Schloss Meseberg castle north of Berlin, in Gransee, Germany, May 28, 2024. (Reuters)
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France’s Macron Urges Green Light for Ukraine to Strike Targets inside Russia with Western Weapons

 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks on as French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to reporters on the day of a joint Franco-German cabinet meeting at the German government's guest house, Schloss Meseberg castle north of Berlin, in Gransee, Germany, May 28, 2024. (Reuters)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks on as French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to reporters on the day of a joint Franco-German cabinet meeting at the German government's guest house, Schloss Meseberg castle north of Berlin, in Gransee, Germany, May 28, 2024. (Reuters)

France’s president has joined the head of NATO in pushing for a policy shift that could change the complexion of the war in Ukraine — allowing Kyiv to strike military bases inside Russia with sophisticated long-range weapons provided by Western partners.

The question of whether to allow Ukraine to hit targets on Russian soil with Western-supplied weaponry has been a delicate issue since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

Western leaders have mostly shrunk from taking the step because it runs the risk of provoking Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly warned that the West's direct involvement could put the world on a path to nuclear conflict.

But the war has been going Russia’s way recently as the Kremlin’s forces have exploited Ukrainian shortages in troops and ammunition after a lengthy delay in US military aid, and Western Europe’s inadequate military production slowed crucial deliveries to the battlefield.

Russian missiles and bombs have pummeled Ukrainian military positions and civilian areas, including the power grid. Ukraine is facing its hardest test of the war, and untying its hands on long-range weapons could spur a fightback and upset the Kremlin.

Macron said that France's position is that “we think we must allow (Ukraine) to neutralize the (Russian) military sites from which the missiles are fired."

“If we tell (the Ukrainians) you do not have the right to reach the point from which the missiles are fired, we are in fact telling them that we are delivering weapons to you, but you cannot defend yourself,” Macron said late Tuesday on an official visit to Germany.

His remarks came a day after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged the alliance’s members to lift some of the restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons.

“The right to self-defense includes hitting legitimate targets outside Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said at a NATO meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria on Monday.

Already, at the start of May, Moscow interpreted as a threat UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s comment that Ukraine could use British long-range weapons, such as the Storm Shadow cruise missile, to hit back at Russia.

That, and Macron’s comments that he doesn’t exclude sending troops to Ukraine, prompted Russia to announce it would hold drills involving tactical nuclear weapons. Russia also warned the UK government that its decision could bring retaliatory strikes on British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere.

The leaders are choosing their words carefully. Macron underlined that only Russian bases used to launch missiles against Ukraine should be regarded as legitimate targets — not other Russian bases or civilian infrastructure.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, speaking alongside Macron, was as usual more guarded and noncommittal, noting that Ukraine “is allowed to defend itself” under international law.

Scholz’s spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, clarified Wednesday that the chancellor meant that Ukraine’s defense “isn’t limited to its territory.” He declined to say what agreements with Ukraine on weapons supplied by Germany stipulate, insisting they are confidential.

Scholz has insisted on avoiding steps that could end up drawing NATO into a battlefield confrontation with Russia. Other Western leaders have expressed similar fears of a creeping, high-stakes escalation.

His concerns are shared in Washington. Over the past two years, the US has gradually ceded to Ukrainian requests for support, sending tanks and long-range missile systems that it initially hesitated to provide, but with a caveat on aiming them at Russian soil.

“There’s no change to our policy at this point,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday. “We don’t encourage or enable the use of US-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia.”

Western leaders are keen to put pressure on Putin, whose forces have recently been pushing hard against Ukrainian defenses in eastern and northeastern Ukraine.

This week has brought a cascade of new European aid, with Belgium and Spain each pledging around 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in new military support to Ukraine. Sweden announced Wednesday it will donate aid worth 13 billion kronor ($1.23 billion) — the largest package Sweden has donated so far. It will include air defense systems, artillery ammunition and armored vehicles.

Ukraine has recently been under intense pressure from Russian attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region and in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region.

Putin has said he wants to establish a “buffer zone” in Kharkiv to halt cross-border Ukrainian assaults. Analysts say the Kharkiv push also draws depleted Ukrainian forces away from Donetsk.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Tuesday that Russia’s Kharkiv push has slowed in recent days and the Kremlin’s forces are probing the front line in Donetsk for weaknesses.



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."