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Copenhagen, Denmark — Pollution, habitat degradation, climate change and overuse of freshwater resources are putting a strain on Europe, with only a third of its surface water in good health, the European Environment Agency warned  Tuesday.

“The health of Europe’s waters is not good. Our waters face an unprecedented set of challenges that threatens Europe’s water security,” EEA executive director Leena Yla-Mononen said in a statement.

Only 37% of Europe’s surface water bodies achieved “good” or “high” ecological status, a measure of aquatic ecosystem health, the EEA report said.

Meanwhile, only 29% of surface waters achieved “good” chemical status over the 2015-21 period, according to data reported by EU member states.

Europe’s groundwaters — the source of most drinking water on the continent — fared better, with 77% enjoying “good” chemical status.

Good chemical status means the water is free of excessive pollution from chemical nutrients and toxic substances like PFAS and microplastics.

Surface water is threatened by air pollution — such as coal burning and car emissions — as well as the agriculture industry, whose dumped waste contaminates the soil.

“European agriculture needs to increase its use of more sustainable organic and agro-ecological practices, accompanied by incentives and a change in our food and dietary habits,” the report said.

The European agency analyzed 120,000 surface water bodies and 3.8 million square kilometers (1.5 million square miles) of groundwater body areas in 19 EU countries and Norway.

It called on EEA member states to halve their use of pesticides by 2030.

“We need to redouble our efforts to restore the health of our valued rivers, lakes, coastal waters and other water bodies, and to make sure this vital resource is resilient and secure for generations to come,” Yla-Mononen said. 

Climate change effects, including extreme droughts and flooding, and the overuse of freshwater resources are putting a strain on Europe’s lakes, rivers, coastal waters and groundwaters “like never before,” the EEA said.

Governments must prioritize reducing water consumption and restoring ecosystems, it said.
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TALLINN, Estonia — The last time any of Maria Kolesnikova’s family had contact with the imprisoned Belarusian opposition activist was more than 18 months ago. Fellow inmates at the penal colony reported hearing her plead for medical help from inside her tiny, smelly cell.

Her father, Alexander Kolesnikov, told The Associated Press by phone from Minsk that he knows she’s seriously ill and tried to visit her several months ago at the facility near Gomel, where she is serving an 11-year sentence, but has failed whenever he goes there.

On his last attempt, he said the warden told him, “If she doesn’t call or doesn’t write, that means she doesn’t want to.”

The 42-year-old musician-turned-activist is known to have been hospitalized in Gomel in May or June, but the outcome was unclear, said a former prisoner who identified herself only as Natalya because she feared retaliation from authorities.

“I can only pray to God that she is still alive,” Kolesnikov said in an interview. “The authorities are ignoring my requests for a meeting and for letters — it is a terrible feeling of impotence for a father.”

Kolesnikova gained prominence when mass protests erupted in Belarus after the widely disputed August 2020 election gave authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in office. With her close-cropped hair, broad smile and a gesture of forming her outstretched hands into the shape of a heart, she often was seen at the front of the demonstrations.

She became an even greater symbol of defiance in September of that year when Belarusian authorities tried to deport her. Driven to the Ukrainian border, she briefly broke away from security forces in the neutral zone at the frontier and tore up her passport, then walked back into Belarus. She was convicted a year later of charges including conspiracy to seize power.

Natalya, whose cell was next to Kolesnikova’s before being released in August, said she had not heard her talking to guards for six months. Other inmates heard Kolesnikova’s pleas for medical assistance, she said, but reported that doctors did not come for “a very long time.”

In November 2022, Kolesnikova was moved to an intensive care ward to undergo surgery for a perforated ulcer. Other prisoners become aware of her movements because “it feels like martial law has been declared” in the cellblock, Natalya said. “Other prisoners are strictly forbidden not only to talk, but even to exchange glances with Maria.”

Her sister, Tatiana Khomich, said she was told by former inmates that the 5 feet, 9 inches Kolesnikova weighed only about 45 kilograms (100 pounds).

“They are slowly killing Maria, and I consider that this is a critical period because no one can survive in such conditions,” said Khomich, who lives outside Belarus.

The last time Kolesnikova wrote from prison was in February 2023. Letters to her “are ripped up before her eyes by prison personnel,” her sister said, relaying accounts from other former inmates.

Kolesnikova, who before the 2020 protests was a classical flutist who was especially knowledgeable about baroque music, is one of several major Lukashenko opponents to disappear behind bars.

The prisons department of the Belarusian Interior Ministry refused to comment on Kolesnikova’s case.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee has repeatedly demanded Belarusian authorities take “urgent protective measures” in relation to Kolesnikova and other political prisoners held incommunicado. In September, the European Parliament demanded that Belarus release all political prisoners.

Former inmates say Kolesnikova wore a yellow tag that indicates a political prisoner. That marks them for additional abuse by guards and officials, rights advocates say.

The human rights group Viasna counts about 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, including the group’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder, Ales Bialiatsky. At least six have died behind bars.

“It was too late to save Alexei Navalny (from prison in Russia), and it was too late for six people in Belarus. We and the Western world don’t have much time to save Maria’s life,” Khomich said.

Amnesty International has begun a campaign to raise awareness about Kolesnikova’s fate, urging people to take up her plight with Western officials and politicians.

Other prominent opposition figures who are imprisoned and have not been heard from in a year or more include Siarhei Tsikhanouski, who planned to challenge Lukashenko in the 2020 election but was imprisoned; his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, took his place on the ballot and was forced to leave the country the day after the vote.

Aspiring opposition candidate Viktar Babaryka also was imprisoned before the election as his popularity among prospective voters soared. Kolesnikova was his campaign manager but then joined forces with Tsikhanouskaya. Prominent opposition figure Mikola Statkevich and Kolesnikova’s lawyer, Maxim Znak, are imprisoned and have not contacted the outside world since the winter of 2023.

Lukashenko denies Belarus has any political prisoners. At the same time, in recent months he has unexpectedly released 115 prisoners whose cases had political elements; those released had health problems, wrote petitions for pardons and repented.

Belarus is deeply integrated with Russia, and some observers believe Lukashenko is concerned about the extent of his dependence on Moscow, hoping to restore some ties with the European Union by releasing political prisoners ahead of a presidential election next year.

“Minsk is returning to the practice of bargaining with the West to try to soften sanctions and achieve at least partial recognition of the results of the upcoming presidential election,” said Belarusian analyst Alexander Friedman. “Lukashenko’s regime is interested in not becoming part of Russia and therefore wants at least some communication with the West, offering to talk about political prisoners.”

Lukashenko’s critics and human rights activists say they see no real change in government policy since all leading pro-democracy figures are still behind bars and authorities have seized three times as many opposition activists to refill the prisons.

“It is difficult to consider these pardons as a real thaw since the repressions continue, but the West should encourage Lukashenko to continue releasing political prisoners,” Khomich said. “The regime is sending clear signals to Western countries about its readiness to release people, and it’s very important that [the signal] is heard, and the opportunity is seized.”

 
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berlin — Increased acts of espionage and sabotage, possible direct military confrontation with NATO as early as 2030: German secret services sounded the alarm Monday about the growing danger they believe Moscow’s interference in Germany and Europe represents.

It was a bleak picture that the three heads of the German intelligence services painted Monday during their annual hearing before MPs.

“It’s burning almost everywhere,” said the head of the Federal Intelligence Service (BfV), Thomas Haldenwang, regarding threats from outside — Russia, China, Iran — as well as from within with radical Islam and the extreme right.

Intelligence officials have been particularly vocal about Moscow’s interference in Germany in the context of the war in Ukraine, where Germany is the second largest arms supplier after the United States.

“Whether we like it or not, we are in direct conflict with Russia,” said the head of the German intelligence and counterintelligence service (BND), Bruno Kahl.

Package bomb?

“Russian espionage and sabotage are increasing in Germany, both quantitatively and qualitatively,” added Haldenwang.

Germany has been rocked by several cases of alleged espionage for Russia, particularly since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In April, two men with Russian and German citizenship were indicted for planning acts of sabotage for Russia, including at a U.S. military base, to undermine German aid to Ukraine.

Haldenwang accused Moscow of being behind the case of a parcel that caught fire at a DHL carrier center in Leipzig in July before its scheduled transport by plane.

If the package “had exploded on board during the flight,” he said, “there would have been a crash and the debris could have affected all the people here in Germany who sympathize with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and his regime, openly and secretly.”

Haldenwang also mentioned disinformation campaigns and cases of use of spy drones.

From a “storm,” the Russian threat has “become a real hurricane” which moves “from east to west,” he added in a metaphor with the Baltic States and Poland, where Russian actions “are much more brutal than they are currently here.”

The head of the German military counterintelligence service (BAMAD), Martina Rosenberg, reported a “significant increase in acts of espionage and sabotage” targeting the German army.

Moscow is seeking to obtain information on “deliveries of German arms to Ukraine” and to “create a feeling of insecurity,” according to BAMAD.

And the Kremlin “is preparing for further escalation in hybrid and covert actions,” Kahl said.

Red lines

With these acts of interference of an “unprecedented level,” the Kremlin wants to “test the red lines of the West,” estimated the director of the secret services.

For him, Russia will “probably” be able “to carry out an attack against NATO by the end of this decade.”

“A direct military conflict with NATO is becoming an option for Russia,” he added.

Russia on Monday rejected the assertion by German’s foreign intelligence chief that it would be able to attack NATO by the end of this decade, saying it was NATO that threatened Russia.

Referring to successive waves of NATO expansion, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was NATO that had moved toward Russia, not the other way round.

In an interview with the daily Handelsblatt, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser accused Moscow of acting “in an ever more aggressive manner.”

German services “prevented possible explosive attacks” and “demonstrated just a few months ago the seriousness of the Russian threat,” she also said.

In July, the American channel CNN reported that the United States and Germany had foiled an assassination plot attributed to Russia against the head of the German industrial group Rheinmetall, which supplies arms to Ukraine. The accusations were rejected by Moscow.

In August, fears of sabotage prompted security alerts at two military bases in Germany.

The German government announced Wednesday parallel measures aimed at strengthening security controls, particularly on social networks, in the face of increased risks of espionage in ministries and sabotage of critical infrastructure.
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SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — The death toll from this month’s devastating floods and landslides in Bosnia has reached 26 people, while rescue teams are searching for at least one more person still missing 10 days after a rainstorm caused havoc in the Balkan country, authorities said Monday. 

Torrential rains and winds hit four municipalities in central and southern Bosnia on October 4. Homes, roads and bridges were destroyed, leaving villages cut off without roads or power. 

Rescue teams have been sifting through the rubble for days, looking for those still missing. The hardest-hit area was in and around the southern town of Jablanica, where a village was buried in rocks from a quarry on a hill above. 

Local government said 19 people died in Jablanica, where a collective funeral will be held on Tuesday. Four people died in Konjic, east of Jablanica, and three more in Fojnica further north. 

Residents in the Jablanica area have said they heard a thundering rumble that woke them up in the middle of the night. They watched as houses disappeared before their eyes. 

The debris that was swept away from the flood-hit areas has clogged the otherwise perfectly clear, emerald green-colored Neretva River that is a favorite destination for visitors and locals alike. 

All kinds of debris, from pieces of wood to home appliances, has piled up by a hydroelectric dam on the Neretva, creating a virtual island of waste on the river and illustrating the devastation the floods have caused. 

Human-caused climate change increases the intensity of rainfall because warm air holds more moisture. This summer, the Balkans were also hit by long-lasting record temperatures, causing a drought. Scientists said the dried-out land has hampered the absorption of floodwaters.
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Warsaw — Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday defended a plan to temporarily suspend the right to asylum as human rights and civil society organizations express concerns about the move.  

Poland has struggled since 2021 with migration pressures on its border with Belarus — which is also part of the European Union’s external border.  

“It is our right and our duty to protect the Polish and European border,” Tusk said Monday on X. “Its security will not be negotiated.”  

Successive Polish governments have accused Belarus and Russia of organizing the mass transfer of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to the EU’s eastern borders to destabilize the West. They view it as part of a hybrid war that they accuse Moscow of waging against the West as it continues its nearly three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  

Some migrants have applied for asylum in Poland, but before the requests are processed, they travel across the EU’s border-free travel zone to reach Germany or other countries in Western Europe. Germany, where security fears are rising after a spate of extremist attacks, has recently responded by expanding border controls at all of its borders to fight irregular migration. Tusk called Germany’s move “unacceptable.”  

Tusk announced his plan to temporarily suspend the right for migrants to seek asylum at a convention of his Civic Coalition on Saturday. It will be part of a strategy that will be presented to a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.  

Dozens of nongovernmental organizations urged Tusk in an open letter to respect the right to asylum guaranteed by international conventions, which Poland signed, including the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and Poland’s own constitution.  

They argued that fundamental rights and freedoms must be respected.  

“It is thanks to them that thousands of Polish women and men found shelter abroad in the difficult times of communist totalitarianism, and we have become one of the greatest beneficiaries of these rights,” the letter said.  

It was signed by Amnesty International and 45 other organizations that represent a range of humanitarian, legal and civic causes.  

Tusk argued that Finland also suspended accepting asylum applications after facing migration pressure on its border with Russia.  

“The right to asylum is used instrumentally in this war and has nothing to do with human rights,” Tusk said on X on Sunday.  

A spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, acknowledged the challenge posed by Belarus, but also Russia, and didn’t explicitly criticize Tusk’s approach.  

“It is important and imperative that the union is protecting the external borders, and in particular from Russia and Belarus, both countries that have put in the past three years, a lot of pressure on the external borders,” Anitta Hipper said during a briefing Monday. “This is something that is undermining the security of the EU member states and of the union as a whole.”  

But she also underlined that EU member countries are legally obliged to allow people to apply for international protection.  

Hipper noted that the commission intends to “work on ensuring that the member states have the necessary tools to respond to these types of hybrid attacks.” 
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BRUSSELS — The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on Iran’s deputy defense minister, senior members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and three airlines over allegations that they supplied drones, missiles and other equipment to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine. 

Deputy Defense Minister Seyed Hamzeh Ghalandari is one of seven senior officials now banned from traveling in Europe and whose assets in the bloc were frozen. The EU said he “is involved in the development of Iran’s [drone] and missile program,” given his high-level defense role. 

Iran Air, Mahan Air and Saha Airlines had their assets frozen. The EU said their planes were “used repeatedly to transfer Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles and related technologies to Russia, which have been used in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.” 

EU foreign ministers endorsed the sanctions at a meeting in Luxembourg. 

In March, the bloc had warned that “were Iran to transfer ballistic missiles and related technology to Russia for use against Ukraine, the EU would be prepared to respond swiftly, including with new and significant restrictive measures.” 

EU member countries, except for Hungary, have been supplying weapons and ammunition as well as economic and other support to Ukraine worth some 118 billion euros ($129 billion) since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.  
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London — A British woman who died after being exposed to the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok was unwittingly caught up in an “illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt,” a public inquiry was told on Monday.

Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three children, died in July 2018 after spraying herself with what she thought was perfume from a discarded bottle containing the deadly chemical weapon.

Her death followed a failed poison attack against former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, southwest England. The U.K. government has said it was “highly likely” Russia was behind the plot.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury in March 2018. They survived after intensive hospital treatment and now live under protection.

At the start of public hearings into Sturgess’s death in Salisbury, inquiry lawyer Andrew O’Connor said the perfume bottle contained enough Novichok to poison “thousands” of people.

“It’s no exaggeration to say the circumstances of Dawn Sturgess’s death were extraordinary,” he told the hearing.

“When Ms Sturgess was poisoned by Novichok four months after the Skripal poisoning, the real possibility emerged that she had been caught — an innocent victim — in the crossfire of an illegal and outrageous international assassination attempt,” he added.

U.K. authorities believe that agents targeting the Skripals threw the perfume bottle away, making the two cases “inextricably interwoven”.

The attempt to kill Skripal, on whom Russian President Vladimir Putin had sworn vengeance, plunged London-Moscow relations to a new low.

Britain blames the Novichok attack on two Russian security service officers who allegedly entered the country using false passports. A third has been named as the operation’s mastermind.

All three are thought to be members of the GRU Russian intelligence agency. Russia, whose constitution does not allow extradition, has denied involvement and dismissed the inquiry as a “circus.”

Six years on, relations between the countries — already hit by claims that Russia was behind the 2006 radiation poisoning of former agent Alexander Litvinenko — remain in deep freeze.

The Sturgess inquiry will include closed sessions to investigate “private material” and intelligence related to the case. The Skripals will not give live evidence due to safety concerns.

Sturgess’s family was “particularly concerned” about whether the U.K. government had taken appropriate steps to protect the Skripals and the wider public from collateral damage, according to O’Connor.

International arrest warrants have been issued for the suspects, but Theresa May, who was prime minister at the time of the attack, warned justice was unlikely.

She told the BBC last week that she hoped the inquiry would help “the family and friends of Dawn Sturgess feel it has got to the truth.”

But “closure to all the people affected would only finally come with justice, and that justice is highly unlikely to happen,” May added.
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Geneva — The head of the U.N. refugee agency warned on Monday that displacement crises in Lebanon and Sudan could worsen, but said tighter border measures were not the solution, calling them ineffective and sometimes unlawful.

Addressing more than 100 diplomats and ministers in Geneva at UNHCR’s annual meeting, Filippo Grandi said an unprecedented 123 million people are now displaced around the world by conflicts, persecution, poverty and climate change.

“You might then ask: what can be done? For a start, do not focus only on your borders,” he said, urging leaders instead to look at the reasons people are fleeing their homes.

“We must seek to address the root causes of displacement, and work toward solutions,” he said. “I beg you all that we continue to work — together and with humility — to seize every opportunity to find solutions for refugees.”

Without naming countries, Grandi said initiatives to outsource, externalize or even suspend asylum schemes were in breach of international law, and he offered countries help in finding fair, fast and lawful asylum schemes.

Western governments are under growing domestic pressure to get tougher on asylum seekers and Grandi has previously criticized a plan by the former British government to transfer them to Rwanda.

In the same speech he warned that in Lebanon, where more than one million people have fled their homes due to a growing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the situation could worsen further.

“Surely, if airstrikes continue, many more will be displaced and some will also decide to move on to other countries.”

He called for a drastic increase in support for refugees in Sudan’s civil war, saying lack of resources was already driving them across the Mediterranean Sea and even across the Channel to Britain.

“In this lethal equation, something has got to give. Otherwise, nobody should be surprised if displacement keeps growing, in numbers but also in geographic spread,” he said.

The UNHCR response to the crisis that aims to help a portion of the more than 11 million people displaced inside Sudan or in neighboring countries is less than 1/3 funded, Grandi said.

The number of displaced people around the world has more than doubled in the past decade.

Grandi, set to serve as high commissioner until Dec. 2025, said the agency’s funding for this year had recently improved due to U.S. support but remained “well below the needs.”
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dijon, France — The International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV), a sort of “U.N. of wine” which brings together experts from the sector, called for “sustainable development” of the vine Sunday, following a ministerial meeting in France.

“The effects of climate change amplify” the challenges facing the vine, stressed 37 members out of 50 participating in the meeting at the OIV headquarters in Dijon.

The signatories encourage “biodiversity reservoirs, such as grape varieties and the entire ecosystem that surrounds them, by limiting soil erosion, capturing carbon … and reducing waste,” adds the ministerial declaration, the first in the history of the organization which is celebrating its centenary this year.

The OIV has set itself the “objectives” of “supporting innovation, ambitious, resilient and sustainable cultural and oenological practices … as well as biodiversity such as the conservation and use of diversity in the vine, the exploitation of new vine varieties and efficient water management.”

The “sustainability” of vines and wine also applies to “economic and social” matters, explained the director general of the OIV, New Zealander John Barker, at a news conference, stressing the need for the sector to adapt to the decline in wine consumption.

Created on November 29, 1924, by eight countries (Spain, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Tunisia), the OIV today brings together 50 countries, covering 88% of world wine production, with the notable absence of the United States, which slammed the door in 2001, after the failure of its candidate for its presidency.

China will become the 51st member state in November.

The organization is not political but brings together technical and scientific experts who exchange information on the sector and try to harmonize standards at the international level.
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Since May 2024, heavy fighting has been going on near the village of Hlyboke, some 30 kilometers from Kharkiv, and animals are the victims of active fighting just as much as locals. Volunteers recently rescued four ponies from Hlyboke, and now these horses are giving back… in their own way. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story.
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Paris — French President Emmanuel Macron called on Iran’s leader Masoud Pezeshkian to support a “general de-escalation” in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in a telephone conversation Sunday, his office said.

Macron stressed “the responsibility of Iran to support a general de-escalation and to use its influence in this direction with the destabilizing actors that enjoy its support.” Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters are fighting Israeli troops in Lebanon.

The Iranian presidential website said that in his conversation with Macron, Pezeshkian had called for an end to “crimes” in Lebanon and Gaza.

They discussed ways to secure a “cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel,” a statement on the website said.

Pezeshkian “asked the French president to work together with other European countries to force the Zionist regime to stop the genocide and crimes in Gaza and Lebanon,” the statement added.

The Israeli army is engaged in close combat with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon this Sunday, where it announced for the first time the capture of an enemy fighter. It is also intensifying its airstrikes against the pro-Iranian formation.

For its part, the Lebanese Islamist movement said it was fighting Israeli soldiers at the end of the afternoon “with automatic weapons” and “rockets” in at least four villages bordering Israel, with the Israeli army doing “face to face combat.”  

After having weakened the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, Israel moved the front of the war to Lebanon, saying it wanted to allow the return to northern Israel of some 60,000 inhabitants, displaced by the rocket attacks carried out for a year by Hezbollah in support for Hamas.
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Paris — Chinese state-owned carmaker GAC is exploring the manufacture of EVs in Europe to avoid EU tariffs, the general manager of its international business told Reuters on Sunday, joining a growing list of Chinese companies planning local production. 

The company is among China’s largest automakers and is targeting 500,000 overseas sales by 2030. It does not yet sell EVs in Europe but will launch an electric SUV tailored to the European market at the Paris Auto Show, which kicks off Monday. 

GAC still viewed Europe as an important market that was “relatively open” despite moves by the European Commission to impose tariffs on EVs made in China, Wei Heigang said, speaking in Paris ahead of the show. 

“The tariffs issue definitely has an impact on us. However, all this can be overcome in the long term … I am positive there is going to be a way to get it all resolved,” he said. 

“Local production would be one of the ways to resolve this,” he added. “We are very actively exploring this possibility.” 

Discussions were at a very early stage and the company was still considering whether to build a new plant or share — or take over — an existing one, according to Wei. 

The compact SUV on display in Paris, a 520-kilometer (323-mile) range vehicle called “Aion V,” should launch in some European markets in mid-2025, priced at less than 40,000 euros ($43,748), though the final price has not yet been set, GAC said. 

After that launch, the next GAC vehicle due for sale in Europe will be a small electric hatchback, to be released in late 2025. 
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Kyiv — Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman urged international organizations Sunday to respond to a claim that several Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv had launched an incursion in August.

DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site close to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, said Russian troops shot and killed nine Ukrainian “drone operators and contractors” on Oct. 10 after they had surrendered. 

Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram that he sent letters to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the claim, calling it “another crime committed by the Russians.” 

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said Russian troops had killed 16 captured Ukrainian soldiers in the partially occupied Donetsk region. 

There was no immediate response from Russian officials. 

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force said Sunday that its air defenses had shot down 31 of 68 drones launched at Ukraine by Russia overnight into Sunday in the regions of Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Sumy and Cherkasy. A further 36 drones were “lost” over various areas, it said, likely having been electronically jammed. 

The air force added that ballistic missiles struck Odesa and Poltava while Chernihiv and Sumy came under attack by a guided air missile. Local authorities didn’t report any casualties or damage. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had launched around 900 guided aerial bombs, more than 40 missiles and 400 drones against Ukraine over the past week. 

Zelenskyy appealed on social platform X to Ukraine’s allies to “provide the necessary quantity and quality of air defense systems” and “make decisions for our sufficient range”. Kyiv is still awaiting word from its Western partners on its repeated requests to use the long-range weapons they provide to hit targets on Russian soil. 

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said that 13 Ukrainian drones were shot down over three regions of Russia: six each in the Belgorod and Kursk regions, and one in the Bryansk region, all of which border Ukraine.
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moscow — Speaking behind the thick white walls of Moscow’s ancient Danilov Monastery, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk is adamant: People must not be forbidden to pray in their chosen branch of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

He speaks calmly, but Yakimchuk is one of many Orthodox Christians in Russia who are angry about a law passed by Kyiv in August that targets a Russia-linked Orthodox church that long dominated religious life in Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration accuses the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of spreading pro-Russian propaganda in time of war and of housing spies, charges it denies.

Under the law, the Russian Orthodox Church itself was banned on Ukrainian territory and a government commission was tasked with compiling a list of “affiliated” organizations – expected to include the UOC – whose activities will be outlawed, too.

“In the 21st century, in the center of Europe, millions of people are being deprived of their basic civil rights,” Yakimchuk, wearing a black cassock and a large Orthodox cross around his neck, told Reuters in an interview.

“Because what does it mean to ban a church, which is the largest religious denomination in Ukraine, no matter how much the current Ukrainian authorities would like to downplay its scale? Everyone understands perfectly well that it is impossible to forbid people to pray.”

Whether the UOC retains the following it once did is disputed. An independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) that was set up after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 to be fully independent of Moscow has seen its popularity grow rapidly since President Vladimir Putin sent his forces into Ukraine in 2022.

Ukrainian authorities say the UOC is fair game. They have launched dozens of criminal proceedings, including treason charges, against dozens of its clergy. At least one has been sent to Russia as part of a prisoner swap.

Church divided

However, Yakimchuk’s denunciation of what he calls “absolute lawlessness” in Ukraine is a reflection of how the nearly 32-month war – which Moscow calls a “special military operation” – has divided Orthodox hierarchies in the two countries, even though they all adhere to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

The UOC tried to distance itself from Moscow once the war was underway, condemning Russia’s actions and removing references to the “Moscow Patriarchate” from its name.

But those attempts angered clerics in Moscow, who have thrown their weight behind what they cast as Russia’s “holy war” in Ukraine against the expanding influence of what they see as a decadent, godless West. The UOC’s efforts also failed to allay Kyiv’s concerns about the church’s activities and loyalties.

The process of shutting down UOC operations in Ukraine – something one Ukrainian lawmaker called “cleansing” – is likely to be lengthy and involve court battles, but the church’s days seem numbered. Some opinion polls suggest more than 80% of Ukrainians do not trust the UOC.

The Kremlin, which has forged close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, has described Ukraine’s new law as “an open attack on freedom of religion.”

One Russian Orthodox priest in St. Petersburg, Leonid Trofimuk, branded Ukraine’s action as “Satanism” and compared it to Soviet-era state repression of religion.

“The 20th century is behind us,” he said. “We saw the persecution of the church at that time, but we didn’t think that there would be this kind of persecution that is going on now in Ukraine.”

Ordinary Russian churchgoers interviewed by Reuters also expressed concern.

“There is a kind of total politicization of matters of faith going on,” said Sergei, a St. Petersburg resident. “I would like common sense to prevail and the international community to finally pay attention.”

His criticism of Kyiv’s moves was echoed by churchgoers leaving a golden onion-domed church more than 900 miles (1,448 km) away to the south, in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city seized by Russian forces in 2022 after a long siege.

“This is wrong – you shouldn’t do this kind of thing,” said Olga, a Mariupol resident who was wearing a headscarf. “How can he [Zelenskyy] interfere with faith in God? This is not a matter for the state.”
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