1UA TV

French firefighters are trying to extinguish a large fire that has broken out on the country’s southern border with Spain. It is France’s first major forest fire of the season.

“We deplore the loss of nearly 1,000 hectares,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Monday. The fire is under control, but it has not been fully extinguished, the minister added.

Darmanin cautioned that this summer will be “extremely difficult” due to a dry winter in southern Europe. He said he expects the fires will be “as difficult as summer 2022,” when 785,000 hectares were decimated in Europe.

France has deployed about 500 firefighters for the blaze on its border with Spain.
…

Japanese video games group Sega has offered to buy Angry Birds maker Rovio, valuing the Finnish company at over $770 million, the companies said Monday.   

“Combining the strengths of Rovio and Sega presents an incredibly exciting future,” Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, CEO of Rovio, said in a statement, which added that Rovio was recommending shareholders to accept the offer.   

The offer, which represents a 19% premium over Rovio’s closing share price on Friday, is part of the Sonic the Hedgehog maker’s “long-term goal” of expanding into the mobile gaming market, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi said.   

“Among the rapidly growing global gaming market, the mobile gaming market has especially high potential,” he added.   

In 2022, Rovio, which employs over 500 people, saw a revenue of $350 million, and an adjusted net profit of $34.5 million.   

Rovio launched the bird slingshot game in 2009 and it soared rapidly to become one of the most popular games on Apple’s App Store.   

In 2016, the “Angry Birds” movie, produced by Sony Entertainment, was a huge success and grossed $350 million worldwide.   

Rovio also manages Angry Birds theme parks in several countries and oversees the publication of children’s books about the famous birds in a dozen languages.   

Following the global success of Angry Birds, Rovio has remained heavily reliant on its flagship game, struggling to develop another similar hit.   

After years of success tied to its Angry Birds mobile games, Rovio hit a rough patch in 2015 and laid off a third of its staff.   

Sega is aiming to open the offer period in early May, hoping to complete the deal in the third quarter, the company said. 
…

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel is to be decorated with Germany’s highest possible honor on Monday in recognition of her near-record 16 years at the helm of the country. 

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier plans to bestow the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement on the four-term chancellor, who will become only the third ex-leader to receive that level of distinction. The other two were Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first leader, and Helmut Kohl, who led Germany to reunification. 

Merkel, 68, was the first woman to lead Germany and the first chancellor who grew up behind the Iron Curtain in communist East Germany. 

She stepped down in December 2021 with a well-regarded record of leading Europe’s biggest economy through a series of crises, including the global financial crisis, the eurozone debt crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. She didn’t seek a fifth term and ended her tenure as post-World War II Germany’s second-longest serving leader, 10 days short of one-time mentor Kohl’s record. 

Merkel’s legacy has attracted increasingly critical scrutiny since her departure, largely because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She has staunchly defended her diplomatic efforts, saying that a much-criticized 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine bought Kyiv precious time. 

She also has been unapologetic about her government’s decisions to buy large quantities of natural gas from Russia, Germany’s primary gas supplier when she left office, saying last year that “from the perspective of that time” those decisions made sense. 

Merkel has kept a relatively low profile since stepping down and has stayed out of the current political fray. Her successor, Olaf Scholz, is expected to attend Monday’s ceremony. 
…

Russia and Belarus won’t be allowed to compete in International Ice Hockey Federation tournaments if the war in Ukraine continues, the group’s president said Sunday.

With both nations already barred from competing in IIHF events through 2024, its president, Luc Tardif, said a decision on the two countries’ eligibility in 2025 will be made in March.

“I hope Russia and Belarus will come back as soon as possible, because it will mean the war is over,” Tardif said during a news conference held on the final day of the women’s world hockey championships being held in the Toronto suburbs.

“It’s a question of security for fans, our teams. Anyway, no visa, cannot travel,” Tardif added. “And nobody knows how long it’s going to take.”

Russian men’s and women’s hockey players last competed under the Russian Olympic Committee banner at the 2022 Beijing Games, which concluded shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine. That led to the IIHF barring Russia and ally Belarus from competition, and having Finland and Latvia host the men’s world championships being held next month, after the event was initially awarded to St. Petersburg, Russia.

Should the IIHF extend its ban in March, the decision would affect Belarus’ eligibility to compete in the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics because that country’s teams would be unable to play in Olympic qualifying tournaments in 2025. Russia’s men’s and women’s teams have maintained their rankings while not being allowed to compete.

The International Olympic Committee is leaning toward having Russian and Belarus athletes compete in next year’s Paris Summer Games. Tardif said the IIHF isn’t following the IOC’s advice because hockey is a team sport. Another issue is security concerns after the IIHF last month cited a risk assessment study it conducted in determining it is not safe to allow Russia and Belarus to compete.

The Russian Hockey Federation dismissed the IIHF’s security concerns as a “contrived reason” to keep its teams out of competition.

“I understand that sometimes there is a politic approach,” Tardif said Sunday. “As a human being, I’ve got my own understanding of the situation. But with my IIHF cap, I have to take the decision following our executive and to protect our competition.”

In other news, USA Hockey announced it has selected Utica, New York, as host for next year’s women’s world championships, tentatively scheduled to run from April 4-14. That would mark the fifth time the United States has hosted the tournament and first since 2017, when it was held in Plymouth, Michigan.
…

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday that he will press for a trade agreement between the European Union and Indonesia as part of his country’s efforts to reduce its reliance on China for crucial raw materials.

Speaking at the opening of the annual Hannover Messe trade fair, Scholz told Indonesian President Joko Widodo that a trade deal between Southeast Asia’s most populous nation and the 27-nation bloc would create an economic area with 700 million people.

“I am working to finally get this agreement across the finish line,” Scholz said of the negotiations between Jakarta and Brussels, which have been ongoing since 2016.

The German leader said he was similarly hopeful about talks between the EU and the Mercosur bloc in South America, Mexico, Australia, Kenya and India.

“Here, too, a whole new dynamic has emerged in recent months,” he said, adding that such agreements were necessary to help countries reduce their dependence on particular markets.

Germany is particularly concerned about becoming too reliant on China, including for crucial commodities needed for digitalization and the shift toward a zero-carbon economy.

“At the moment, we import many of them from China,” Scholz said.

“And that’s despite the fact that rare earth, copper or nickel are often not extracted there but in countries such as Indonesia, Chile or Namibia,” he said. “We want to change that.”

Scholz said building processing facilities for such raw materials in the countries where they are found would benefit the local economy and should be part of any new trade deal.

Indonesia is the partner country of this year’s Hanover fair.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed his country’s broad ties with China on Sunday, including military cooperation, as he met with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in Moscow. 

“Development of relations between our two nations is going well in all areas — in the economy, social, cultural and educational sectors, and in military departments,” Putin said in opening remarks. 

The Kremlin posted footage of the meeting showing Putin shaking hands with Li and then sitting down at a table. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was also present.

Beijing had announced Li’s visit to Moscow last week, saying he would meet defense officials, but made no mention of a meeting with Putin. Chinese President Xi Jinping met Putin in Moscow last month. 

The two countries have strengthened their ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. China has officially claimed neutrality on Moscow’s invasion but at the same time Russia and China have declared they have a “no-limits” partnership. 

China has offered a peace plan to end the fighting in Ukraine, but it does not call for Russia to withdraw its troops, as demanded by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before peace talks can occur. 

China has often denied sending military equipment to Russia, but a Kyiv official said last Friday that Ukrainian forces are finding a growing number of components from China in Russian weapons used in Ukraine.
…

Sunday marked the second wartime celebration of Orthodox Easter in Ukraine. Russian forces and the paramilitary Wagner Group freed 130 Ukrainian prisoners of war, while one of Ukraine’s top military commanders marked the holiday by visiting front-line troops. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
…

New developments:

Ukraine says more than 100 prisoners of war were freed in a major Orthodox Easter exchange with Russia Sunday. It’s the second time Orthodox Ukrainians are marking the holiday since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion.
Russian shelling overnight hit an Orthodox church in Zaporizhzhia province despite the holiday. At least four civilians were killed, and eight others were injured.
Russia President Vladimir Putin marked the Orthodox Easter holiday attending a midnight service Saturday, crossing himself several times, even as Russian troops continued shelling Ukraine.
British military analysts say Moscow is bringing back a senior general that was dismissed in January. His return could signal a larger role for Russia’s air borne forces.

Ukraine and Russia said Sunday they carried out a new prisoner exchange on the Sunday of Orthodox Easter, with Kyiv saying 130 of its military personnel had returned home.

Watch related video by Arash Arabasadi:

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s president, said the returning prisoners of war included soldiers, sailors, border guards and others, but it was not known how many Russian captives Ukraine released. Despite the ongoing war, now in its 14th month, the two countries have exchanged prisoners several times, usually roughly in equal numbers.

In a video on Telegram, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group fighting alongside Moscow’s troops, was seen ordering a soldier to prepare the Ukrainian captives to leave Russian-controlled territory “by lunchtime” Sunday. The POWs were shown walking along a road and boarding trucks.

Yermak said in a Telegram post that the latest group of released Ukrainians included troops who fought near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city where Russian and Ukrainian forces have for months engaged in fierce fighting.

“The lives of our people are the highest value for us,” Yermak said, adding that Kyiv’s goal was to bring back all remaining POWs, although he did not disclose any head count of the remaining military personnel held by Russia.

Orthodox Easter celebrations in Ukraine were muted, with curfews barring the faithful from customary all-night services, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus in the Christian faith.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended Easter services Saturday in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. He crossed himself several times during the midnight service, known as the Divine Liturgy. When Patriarch Kirill announced, “Christ has risen,” Putin, along with other members of the congregation, replied, “Truly he is risen.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his Easter address released Sunday, described the holiday as marking “the victory of good, the victory of truth, the victory of life,” and he stressed what he said was Ukrainian unity in the face of Russian aggression.

“Belief in victory unites all of us always, and especially today,” Zelenskyy said. “At Easter, which from time immemorial has been a family holiday for Ukrainians, a day of warmth, hope and great unity. We are one big family — Ukrainians. We have one big home — Ukraine. We have one big goal — victory for all.”

Despite the holiday, fighting raged on, with officials in the country’s south and east saying that churches had not been spared. The head of the local military administration in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia province said Russian shelling overnight hit an Orthodox church in the town of Komyshuvakha. Photos showed residents rescuing icons from the church, its gutted frame visible in the background.

Ukrainian officials said at least four civilians were killed and eight others were wounded Saturday and overnight. In the Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin-appointed head of the Donetsk region claimed that a Ukrainian strike killed one civilian and wounded six others in the province’s namesake capital.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

New developments:

Eleven people were killed and 21 were injured in Russian airstrikes in the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. Rescue crews are trying to reach victims trapped in the rubble of an apartment building.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has enacted a law making it easier to mobilize Russians into the military, even as one of his allies says it’s time to end military operations in Ukraine.
America’s top diplomat says Russia is not granting U.S. officials access to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Hanoi, that “we need consular access now.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Saturday that he had a long conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, and they discussed the Ukrainian peace formula that Zelenskyy described as being, “absolutely realistic and quite concrete.” The two leaders also discussed, according to Zelenskyy, their participation in the Vilnius NATO summit this summer.

The British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Sunday on the Russian invasion of Ukraine that it is “highly likely” that General Colonel Mikhail Teplinsky, commander of Russia’s corps of airborne troops, the VDV, has returned to a major role in Ukraine, after being dismissed in January 2023.

The ministry described Teplinsky as “likely one of the few senior Russian generals widely respected by the rank-and-file” and that his “recent turbulent career suggests intense tensions between factions within the Russian General Staff about Russia’s military approach in Ukraine.”

His return means he will “highly likely” promote the VDV’s traditional role as an elite force, according to the intelligence update, and it is “unlikely” that his role will be limited to VDV units.

“In recent days,” the intelligence report said, “the VDV have resumed a key mission in the battle for Bakhmut, and likely undertaken novel integration with TOS-1A thermobaric rocket launchers in the Kremina sector.”

Bakhmut, the main target of Russia’s offensive in the east and the scene of months of grinding warfare, is experiencing some of its bloodiest fighting, Ukraine’s military said Saturday.

“Bloody battles unprecedented in recent decades are taking place in the middle of the city’s urban area,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern military command, said of the eastern Ukrainian city that was once home to 70,000 people.

“Our soldiers are doing everything in bloody and fierce battles to grind down [the enemy’s] combat capability and break its morale. Every day, in every corner of this city, they are successfully doing so,” he told the 1+1 television channel.

His comments came as the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that the Wagner mercenary group now controlled two more areas on the northern and southern outskirts of the city. Reuters could not independently confirm the report.

Wagner’s reported gains Saturday came one day after the group’s founder said Russia has should end its “special military operation” against its neighbor.

“Russia has achieved the results it wanted” and has “eradicated most of active male population of Ukraine and intimidated the rest,” Yevgeny Prigozhin posted Friday on Telegram, omitting any of Ukraine’s victories over Russia.

Death toll rising in Sloviansk

The death toll from a Russian airstrike Friday rose to at least 11 people, with 21 wounded in the eastern Ukrainian city of, northwest of Bakhmut.

In his nightly video address Saturday, Zelenskyy said that the rescue operation continues in Sloviansk and Donbas after Friday’s Russian missile strike.

“It is reported that under the rubble of buildings, there are still bodies of the dead, unfortunately,” he said. Among them, he said, is a 2-year-old boy. Fifty residential buildings, of which more than 30 are apartment buildings, were damaged or destroyed, he said.

“None of those who are guilty of this aggression can be forgiven and forgotten,” he added.

Gershkovich prisoner swap

Russia has not allowed access of U.S. officials to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich since he was detained last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday.

“We continue to call for his immediate release,” Blinken told reporters during a news conference in Hanoi. “We need consular access now,” The Washington Post reported.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Russia could consider a prisoner exchange for the jailed reporter once a Russian court reaches a verdict on espionage charges against him, a senior Russian official said.

Poland curbs imports

Poland’s government said Saturday it would temporarily stop grain and other food imports from Ukraine to stem the rising anger of Polish farmers, who say they cannot compete with the lower-priced Ukrainian grain on the market.

Ruling party leader Jarosław Kaczyński said at a party convention in eastern Poland that while Poland supports Ukraine, it is forced to act to protect its farmers who are facing a “moment of crisis.”

“Today, the government has decided on a regulation that prohibits the importation of grain, but also dozens of other types of food, to Poland,” Kaczyński said. The government announced its import ban on agricultural products such as sugar, eggs, meat, dairy and vegetables would last until June 30.

Farmers in neighboring countries also have complained they are losing money because of Ukrainian grain flooding into their countries, causing prices to fall.

Orthodox Easter

Russian President Vladimir Putin attended Easter services Saturday in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral.

He crossed himself several times during the midnight service, known as the Divine Liturgy. When Patriarch Kirill announced, “Christ has risen,” Putin, along with other members of the congregation, replied, “Truly he is risen.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Pope Francis on Sunday publicly defended St. John Paul II, condemning as “offensive and baseless” insinuations that recently surfaced about the late pontiff.

In remarks to tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said he was aiming to interpret the feelings of the faithful worldwide by expressing gratitude to the Polish pontiff’s memory.

Days earlier, the Vatican’s media apparatus had described as “slanderous” an audiotape from a purported Roman mobster who insinuated that John Paul would go out looking for underage girls to molest.

The tape was played on an Italian TV program by Pietro Orlandi, brother of Emanuela Orlandi, the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee who lived at the Vatican. The disappearance of the 15-year-old in 1983 is an enduring mystery that has spawned countless theories and so far fruitless investigations in the decades since.

Francis noted that in Sunday’s crowd in the square were pilgrims and other faithful in town to pray at a sanctuary for divine mercy, a quality John Paul stressed often in his papacy, which spanned from 1978 to 2005.

“Confident of interpreting the sentiment of all the faithful of the entire world, I direct a grateful thought to the memory of St. John Paul II, in these days the object of offensive and baseless insinuations,” Francis said, his voice turning stern and his words drawing applause.

Last week, Pietro Orlandi met for hours with Vatican prosecutors who earlier this year reopened the investigation into his sister’s disappearance. Italy’s Parliament has also begun a commission of inquest into the case.

Emanuela vanished on June 22, 1983, after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

Among the theories about what happened to her have been ones linking the disappearance to the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt against John Paul in 1981 in St. Peter’s Square or to the international financial scandal over the Vatican bank. Still other theories envision a role played by Rome’s criminal underworld.

The recent four-part Netflix documentary “Vatican Girl” explored those possible scenarios and provided new testimony from a friend who said Emanuela had told her a week before she disappeared that a high-ranking Vatican cleric had made sexual advances toward her.

Her brother has long insisted the Vatican knows more than it has said. The Vatican prosecutor in charge of the probe says the pontiff has given him free rein to try to find the truth.

While at the Vatican last week, Pietro Orlandi provided Vatican prosecutors with an audiotape from a purported Roman mobster insinuating that John Paul would go out looking for underage girls to molest. The Vatican’s editorial director in a scathing editorial noted the insinuation lacked any “evidence, clues, testimonies or corroboration.”

Writing in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Andrea Tornielli said “no one deserves to be vilified in this way, without even a shred of a clue, on the basis of the ‘rumors’ of some unknown figure in the criminal underworld or some sleazy anonymous comment produced on live TV.”

John Paul’s longtime secretary, Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, also criticized the insinuations as “unreal, false and laughable if they weren’t tragic and even criminal.”

Pietro Orlandi’s lawyer, Laura Sgro, has insisted her client wasn’t accusing anyone.
…

In the wake of Friday’s deadly Russian missile strikes, Ukraine’s air force said the country would soon have weapons with which to try to prevent such attacks: a Patriot air defense system.

The delivery of the Patriot is expected in Ukraine sometime after Easter, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said. The primarily Orthodox Christian country observes Easter on Sunday.

Speaking Saturday on Ukrainian state TV, Ihnat declined to give a precise timeline for the arrival of the defensive missile system but said the public would know “as soon as the first Russian aircraft is shot down.”

A group of 65 Ukrainian soldiers completed their training last month at Fort Sill, a U.S. Army post in Oklahoma, and returned to Europe to learn more about using the defensive missile system to track and shoot down enemy aircraft.

Officials said at the time that the Ukrainians would then go back to their country with a Patriot missile battery, which typically includes six mobile launchers, a mobile radar, a power generator and an engagement control center.

Germany and the Netherlands also have pledged to provide a Patriot system each to Ukraine. In addition, a SAMP/T anti-missile system pledged by France and Italy “should enter Ukraine in the near future,” Ihnat said this week.

The Ukrainian military is looking to beef up its ability to intercept missiles as it prepares for an expected spring counteroffensive to retake Russian-occupied areas of the country.
…

Ireland’s president has led tributes to Mark Sheehan, guitarist with Irish rock band The Script, after his death at 46.

The band said Sheehan died in a hospital Friday after a brief illness. In a statement, The Script called him a “much-loved husband, father, brother, band mate and friend.”

Formed in Dublin in 2001 by Sheehan, singer Danny O’Donoghue and drummer Glen Power, The Script topped U.K. and Irish charts with its self-titled debut album in 2008. It included the hits We Cry, Breakeven and The Man Who Can’t Be Moved, which reached No. 1 in five countries.

The band’s pop-inflected rock sound made it one of Ireland’s biggest bands in the 2010s. The Script went on to have six Top 10 albums in the U.K. and one top three album in the U.S.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins praised the band’s “originality and excellence” and sent condolences to Sheehan’s family.

“Through their music, Mark and The Script have played an outstanding part in continuing and promoting this proud tradition of Irish musical success across the world,” Higgins said.

Sheehan is survived by his wife, Rina Sheehan, and their three children.
…

In a muddy trench under fire from Russian forces 200 meters away, Ukrainian servicemen injured while holding the line near the bloodiest battle of Moscow’s invasion face a precarious extraction.

“If someone gets unlucky, we have to carry them between 1 and 3 kilometers to the nearest place they can be collected,” a Ukrainian soldier, who calls himself Begemot, told AFP journalists several kilometers from the embattled city of Bakhmut.

“Even a light injury can be fatal in these conditions,” he added, the sound of artillery thundering behind him.

The difficulty of hauling out injured troops is one of the myriad factors dictating the timing of a highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russian positions across the sprawling front line.

Ukraine is understood to be stockpiling precision ammunitions, mass recruiting assault battalions and mastering Western-supplied arms in preparation for a decisive pushback against Russian forces.

Observers of the Kremlin’s invasion say that after fending off a months-long lackluster Russian offensive in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine could hit back within weeks.

But in the water-logged eastern industrial Donetsk region, Ukrainian soldiers tasked with holding the line against waves of Russian forces say: not yet.

“Any military hardware that passes here, their undercarriage will get stuck in the mud. They’ll be targets. We can’t talk about a counteroffensive yet,” Begemot said.

‘We have to grind them down’

AFP journalists moving toward a front-line position near Bakhmut saw Ukrainian troops dislodging by hand their transport stuck in the mud.

Watching over that same battlefield from footage streamed by drones over the trenches, 42-year-old battalion commander Evgeny sees assault as inevitable.

“It’s going to happen. Clearly. The situation on the front line dictates that. But a counteroffensive can only happen when the enemy’s forces are exhausted,” he told AFP.

He said that in the weeks his troops have been tasked with containing Russian forces from advancing around Bakhmut’s flanks, the attackers have lost steam.

“We have to grind them down so they can’t relocate their forces,” he said, describing in detail how Russian forces send waves of dispensable, then more experienced fighters toward his trenches.

Based on intercepted radio communications and footage his drones feed back to the bunker, he believes Russian forces — still pushing deeper inside Bakhmut — are preparing for Ukraine to attack, too.

“The enemy has started to lay mines along sections of their lines, which means they are tired. They’re preparing to defend,” he said.

Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said as much this week.

“Now only one thing remains: gain a firm foothold and dig into the territories that we already control,” the 61-year-old Kremlin ally said.

‘I’ll live in my basement’

For civilians in the crossfire, those who haven’t fled more than a year of intense fighting, the prospect of an escalation changes little.

Several kilometers west of Bakhmut, in the village of Kalynivka, 71-year-old Vera Petrova gestured to the artillery damage to her home to explain why she wasn’t making preparations to flee a counteroffensive.

“We’ve already been shelled. Half the kitchen roof was destroyed. Our neighbor’s roof was destroyed. This isn’t even serious,” she said referring to thuds, near and distant, of incoming and outgoing shelling.

Her street, lined with cherry trees and abandoned one-story homes, has about two dozen residents remaining, a fraction of those who once called it home.

“If my home is destroyed. I’ll live in my basement,” she added, without flinching at each boom.

In the trenches, Begemot said even if Ukraine managed to increase the rhythm of the artillery fire, it would be senseless to attack now.

“Even if there are a lot of us, and we had a bunch of artillery, how far could we go in one day? Five kilometers? Maybe 10?”

“They won’t have any strength left and you are not just walking, you need to fight,” he said.
…

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni acknowledged “anomalies” in the handling of a Russian businessman who escaped from house arrest in Italy to avoid extradition to the United States and said Saturday she would speak with the justice minister to understand what happened.

During a visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Meloni termed the case of Artyom Uss “grave” and vowed to get to the bottom of it when she returned to Rome.

Uss, the 40-year-old son of a Russian regional governor, was detained in October 2022 at Milan Malpensa Airport on a U.S. warrant accusing him of violating sanctions. In November, a ruling from a Milan appeals court resulted in him being moved from jail to house arrest and outfitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet.

He escaped from Italy on March 22 — a day after a Milan court recognized as legitimate the U.S. extradition request — and surfaced in Russia earlier this month.

“For sure there are anomalies,” Meloni told reporters in Ethiopia. “The principal anomaly, I’m sorry to say, is the decision of the appeals court to offer him house arrest with a frankly debatable motivation, and to then maintain that decision even after there was an extradition request. Because obviously in that case, the flight risk becomes more obvious.”

Meloni welcomed the decision by Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio to undertake a disciplinary investigation, saying “we have to have clarity.” But she said Italy didn’t have detailed intelligence information from the U.S. Justice Department “about the nature of the person.”

Italian daily newspaper la Repubblica reported Saturday that U.S. authorities made clear that the Russian presented a “very high flight risk” in two notes to Nordio’s office — one from October 19, two days after Uss’ arrest, and the other sent after he was granted house arrest November 25.

The U.S. asked for Uss to remain jailed pending the outcome of extradition proceedings and cited six cases in the past three years in which suspects escaped from house arrest in Italy while extradition requests were pending, la Repubblica quoted the notes as saying.

The newspaper said Nordio assured the U.S. in a December 6 note that the electronic monitoring bracelet put on Uss and his required periodic check-ins with police were sufficient. The newspaper cited the Milan court’s reply to Nordio’s investigation as saying the justice minister had the authority at any time to impose tougher restrictive measures on someone in extradition proceedings.
…

Germany will switch off its last three nuclear reactors Saturday, exiting atomic power even as it seeks to wean itself off fossil fuels and manage an energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

While many Western countries are upping their investments in atomic energy to reduce their emissions, Germany is bringing an early end to its nuclear age.

Europe’s largest economy has been looking to leave behind nuclear power since 2002, but the phase-out was accelerated by former chancellor Angela Merkel in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

The exit decision was popular in a country with a powerful anti-nuclear movement, stoked by lingering fears of Cold War conflict and atomic disasters such as Chernobyl in Ukraine.

“The risks of nuclear power are ultimately unmanageable,” said Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who this week made a pilgrimage to the ill-fated Japanese plant ahead of a G-7 meeting in the country.

But the challenge caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which put an end to cheap gas imports, and the need to quickly cut emissions has upped calls in Germany to delay the withdrawal from nuclear power.

The environmental activism organization Greenpeace, at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement, organized a celebratory fete at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark the occasion.

“Finally, nuclear energy belongs to history! Let’s make this April 15 a day to remember,” the organization said.

In contrast, conservative daily FAZ headlined its Saturday edition “Thanks, nuclear energy,” as it listed benefits it said nuclear had brought the country over the years.

A mistake

Initially planned for the end of 2022, Germany’s nuclear exit had already been pushed back once.

As Russian gas supplies dwindled last year, officials in Berlin were left scrambling to find a way to keep the lights on, with a short extension agreed until mid-April.

Germany, the largest emitter in the European Union, also powered up some of its mothballed coal-fueled plants to cover the potential gap left by gas.

The challenging energy situation had increased calls domestically for the exit from nuclear to be delayed.

Germany had to “expand the supply of energy and not restrict it any further” in light of potential shortages and high prices, the president of the German chambers of commerce Peter Adrian told the Rheinische Post daily.

The conservative leader of Bavaria Markus Soeder meanwhile told the Focus Online website that he wanted the plants to stay online and three more to be kept “in reserve.”

Outside observers have been similarly irked by Germany’s insistence on exiting nuclear while ramping up its coal usage, with climate activist Greta Thunberg in October slamming the move as “a mistake.”

Sooner or later

At the Isar 2 complex in Bavaria, technicians will progressively shut down the reactor from 10 p.m. (2000 GMT) Saturday, severing it from the grid for good.

By the end of the day, operators at the other two facilities, in northern Emsland and southwestern Neckarwestheim, will have taken their facilities offline as well.

The three final plants provided just 6% of Germany’s energy last year, compared with 30.8% from all nuclear plants in 1997.

“Sooner or later” the reactors will start being dismantled, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told the Funke group ahead of the scheduled decommissioning, brushing aside the idea of an extension.

The government has the energy situation “under control,” Habeck assured, having filled gas stores and built new infrastructure for the import of liquefied natural gas to bridge the gap left by Russian supplies.

Instead, the minister from the Green party, which was founded on opposition to nuclear power, is focused on getting Germany to produce 80% of its energy from renewables by 2030.

To this end, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for the installation of “four to five wind turbines a day” over the next few years — a tall order given that just 551 were installed last year.

But the current rate of progress on renewables could well be too slow for Germany to meet its climate protection goals.

Despite planning to exit nuclear, Germany has not “pushed ahead enough with the expansion of renewables in the last 10 years,” Simon Mueller from the Agora Energiewende think tank told AFP.

To build enough onshore wind capacity, according to Mueller, Germany now must “pull out all the stops.”
…

The construction of barbed-wired fence along Finland’s long border with Russia – primarily meant to curb illegal migration – has broken ground near the southeastern town of Imatra less than two weeks after the Nordic country joined NATO as the 31st member of the military alliance. 

The Finnish Border Guard on Friday showcased the building of the initial three kilometer (1.8 mile) stretch of the fence to be erected in Pelkola near a crossing point off Imatra, a quiet lakeside town of some 25,000 people. 

Finland’s 1,340-kilometer (832 miles) border with Russia is the longest of any European Union member. 

Construction of the border fence is an initiative by the border guard that was approved by Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government amid wide political support last year. The main purpose of the three-meter (10-foot) high steel fence with a barbed-wire extension on top is to prevent illegal immigration from Russia and give reaction time to authorities, Finnish border officials say. 

In 2015-2016, Moscow attempted to influence Finland by organizing large numbers of asylum-seekers to northern Finnish crossing points in the Arctic Lapland region. Russian authorities were seen deliberately ushering thousands of asylum-seekers — mostly from Iraq, Afghanistan and other Middle East nations – to those border crossing points. 

The move was seen as a show of muscle by Moscow. The issue was settled when Finnish President Sauli Niinistö held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The flow of migrants stopped shortly thereafter. 

This is a scenario that Finland — a nation 5.5 million people that officially became a NATO member on April 4 — wants to prevent from repeating itself. 

Border officials are quick to acknowledge, however, that it was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year – the main reason for Finland’s quick push to join NATO after decades of military nonalignment – that prompted construction of the border fence. 

“Border barrier fence was no kind of political topic before the war [in Ukraine]. And actually, it wasn’t a kind of plan of the Finnish border guard,” Brig. Gen. Jari Tolppanen, head of the technical division at the Finnish Border Guard, told The Associated Press. “All changed after the attack [of Russia against Ukraine].” 

The pilot section of the fence is scheduled to be completed by this summer, while the barrier will eventually be extended to a maximum of 200 kilometers (124 miles). It will cover areas – in bits and pieces of separate length – mainly in southeastern Finland near the main border crossing points with Russia, but it will also have sections up in the Arctic north in Lapland. 

“In this new situation, we must have much more credible and much more independent border control,” Tolppanen said. “We need to strengthen our resources. And the fence is necessary in order to manage, for example, large-scale illegal immigration.” 

Imatra is located a mere seven kilometers off the Russian industrial town of Svetogorsk in the Karelia region and is a few hours’ drive away from Russia’s second city of St. Petersburg. The town has a long history in dealing with Russians – tourists, day-trippers and permanent residents alike. 

“Here in Imatra, we’re not so afraid about Russians because the border has always been there and it has never been open like between European countries,” said Antero Lattu, vice chairman of Imatra City Council. He stressed that locals aren’t afraid of Russians “but we’re happy because of that fence.” 

Erkki Jouhki, who works as a town planner, agreed but also stressed Finland’s military capabilities. NATO membership gives Finland “a strong back but we have a very strong army. it’s very well [armed] … it’s a very modern army here because of Russia.” 

The border fence project is estimated to cost a total of $422 million and is scheduled to be completed by 2026. 

Finland’s long eastern frontier runs mainly through thick forests. In some places the Finnish-Russian border is marked only by wooden posts with low fences meant to stop stray cattle. 
…

Ukrainian soldiers evacuate parts of Bakhmut as fighting there intensifies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a bill to make it easier to mobilize Russians into the military.
China has promised not to sell weapons to either Ukraine or Russia, The Associated Press reports.
Russian forces have brought large amounts of provisions and water to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and may barricade a skeleton staff inside, says Kyiv’s state atomic agency, Energoatom.

The head of the Wagner Group wants Russia to get out of Ukraine. The time has come for a “firm end” to the war in Ukraine, Yevgeny Prigozhin posted on Telegram on Friday. He said Russian “government and society now need a firm end” to the war in Ukraine.

He said, “Russia has achieved the results it wanted” and has “eradicated most of active male population of Ukraine and intimidate the rest,” failing to mention any of Ukraine’s triumphs over Russia.

Prigozhin said Russia forces should now “hold on for dear life to the territories we already have.”

The Wagner Group has provided mercenaries for Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.  

Meanwhile, At least eight people were killed and 21 were wounded Friday in a Russian airstrike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, northwest of Bakhmut.

Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told national television that seven missiles had been fired on the city. According to Ukrainian national police, S-300 missiles struck 10 apartment buildings and other sites. The top two floors of a five-story building collapsed after the strike. Rescue teams were looking for survivors.

A child was pulled alive from the rubble but died on the way to a hospital, Daria Zarivna, a senior official in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said. Kyrylenko also said people were believed to be trapped under the debris.

“Not a single hour of this week before Orthodox Easter passed without murders and terror,” Zelenskyy tweeted Friday. “This is an evil state, and it will lose. To win is our duty to humanity as such. And we will win!” he said.

Later, in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that “for every Russian attack on our cities and villages, on our positions, for every killing of Ukrainians, the occupier must suffer the most tangible losses.”

Russian conscription law

The latest strikes come as Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill Friday allowing authorities to issue electronic conscription notices. The law has raised concern that Russia is planning another mobilization drive.

Previously, Russian law required an in-person delivery of conscription notices, which led some Russians to avoid the draft by staying away from their homes.

Under the new law, the conscription notices are considered valid as soon as they are sent electronically. The law also prohibits those who are conscripted from leaving the country and allows authorities to suspend the drivers’ licenses of conscripts who fail to report for duty.

In September, Putin announced the mobilization of about 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine. The Associated Press reports the order is estimated to have prompted an exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russian men.

Bakhmut withdrawal

In the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, fighting continues to intensify. According to Reuters, analysts said Friday that Ukrainian forces there were trying to push back against a coordinated three-pronged attack by the Kremlin’s forces and against Russian attempts to intercept supplies to Ukrainian soldiers.

In its Friday intelligence update, the British Ministry of Defense wrote that Ukrainian troops had been forced to withdraw from parts of Bakhmut after a renewed Russian assault on the ravaged city. According to the update, “Russia has re-energized its assault on the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut as forces of the Russian MoD [Ministry of Defense] and Wagner Group have improved co-operation.”

Ukrainian officials say Russia has been drawing down troops from other areas on the front for a major push on Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to capture for nine months to regain the momentum of the all-out invasion it launched more than a year ago.

“The enemy is using its most professional units there and resorting to a significant amount of artillery and aviation,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“Every day, the enemy carries out in Bakhmut from 40 to 50 storming operations and 500 shelling episodes,” she said. The British intelligence update said Ukraine still held western districts of the town but had been subjected to intense Russian artillery fire the previous two days.

“Ukrainian forces face significant resupply issues but have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to concede,” it said.

China weapons

In other key developments, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Friday his country would not sell weapons to Russia or Ukraine. His pledge was a response to Western concerns that Beijing could assist Russia militarily.

China has asserted its neutrality in the conflict, while Western nations have imposed sanctions against Moscow.

Qin added that China would also regulate the export of items with dual civilian and military use.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces say they are discovering a growing number of Chinese components in Russian weaponry used in Ukraine. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, senior adviser to Zelenskyy, told Reuters via a video call that in “the weapons recovered from the battlefield, we continue to find different electronics.”

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Russian forces have brought large amounts of provisions and water supplies to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which they captured in southeastern Ukraine after invading last year, Kyiv’s state atomic agency, Energoatom, said Friday.

The agency said this activity might indicate Russia was preparing to hold employees inside because of a dire shortage of qualified staff at Europe’s largest nuclear plant and in anticipation of Ukraine’s anticipated counteroffensive.

“Given the intense shortage of nuclear specialists needed to operate the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and fearing a Ukrainian offensive, the [Russians] are preparing for the long-term holding of ZNPP employees as hostages,” Energoatom said.

“The invaders have already brought a lot of provisions and water to the station,” the agency added in a statement. “The occupiers will probably not allow the station staff to leave after one of the regular work shifts, forcibly blocking them at the ZNPP,” it said.

There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Zelenskyy soldier beheading

In a tweet Friday, Zelenskyy thanked British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for condemning the “inhumane execution” of a Ukrainian soldier. “Together we must stop the aggressor & put an end to terror,” he said.

Ukrainian officials on Wednesday opened an investigation into a video on social media purportedly showing one of Kyiv’s soldiers being beheaded.

News agencies could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video. Zelenskyy said that the video showed the “execution of a Ukrainian captive” and that “everyone must react. Do not expect that it will be forgotten that time will pass.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

“Remember, Joey, the best drop of blood in you is Irish,” President Joe Biden said, quoting his grandfather.

Such fierce ethnic pride from “the most Irish of all American presidents,” as the Taoiseach describes him, was guaranteed to be a crowd-pleaser, and Biden knew it.

Biden displayed an endless supply of that pride during a three-day visit that culminated in a Friday night speech in Ballina, County Mayo, where his paternal ancestors once lived. The speech was the last item on his schedule before he returned to Washington.

“Being here feels like coming home,” he told the crowd of 27,000, diving into his family background stretching back before the Irish famine of the mid-1800s.

The Irish “always believe in a better tomorrow,” he said. “Our strength is something that overcomes everyday hardships.”

Biden’s love of his Irish roots and, in turn, the affection shown in the rapturous applause of Irish lawmakers listening to his speech to parliament and in the cheering crowds lined up waiting for his motorcade in blustery weather, could also reach another audience — American voters.

“Ireland is one of the few countries where an American president can guarantee an uncritical welcome,” said Brendan O’Leary, the Lauder professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

This visit, designed to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, is especially important. The 1998 peace deal helped end 30 years of bloody conflict over whether Northern Ireland should unify with Ireland or remain part of the United Kingdom.

By showing the U.S. is playing a constructive role in sustaining peace, Biden is sending an important message to Americans, in contrast to less successful foreign policy outcomes such as the chaotic U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, O’Leary told VOA.

Biden’s Republican Party rivals had a different view. On Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, former President Donald Trump slammed Biden’s tour of his ancestral homeland.

“The world is exploding around us. You could end up in a third world war and this guy is going to be in Ireland!” he said Tuesday night.

Foreign policy credits aside, O’Leary said Biden clearly represents his Irish American experience as typical of the American middle-class experience.

“I think that facilitates his ‘Ordinary Joe’ campaigning,” he added.

‘My plan is to run again’

Speaking to reporters before departing Ireland on Friday, Biden said he would announce his reelection bid “relatively soon.”

“I told you, my plan is to run again,” he said.

His campaign will again center on his middle-class agenda, a message deeply interwoven with his Irish roots and working-class family background.

The latest U.S. government census indicates that about 10% of Americans, 31 million people, claim Irish ancestry. In presidential elections of the past few decades, Irish Americans traditionally backed Democratic candidates until 2016, when Trump won about half of their support.

But more than ancestries, elections are determined by programs and values. In his 50 years in politics, Biden, who says he was raised “with a fierce pride in our Irish ancestry,” often highlights the egalitarianism and communal solidarity captured in his family’s creed — that everyone is your equal.

“I don’t know that a lot of other politicians would say something like that,” said Timothy Meagher, a former associate professor at Catholic University of America who studies ethnic history focusing on Irish Americans.

“There’s a kind of sense, from him, of an identification with working class people, with regular people,” Meagher told VOA. “That follows, I think, from that kind of Irish heritage, that we’re all in this together.”

Other values include the dignity of work, which Biden has linked to legislative calls for job-creating policies that enable workers to earn a living wage, form unions and receive paid family and medical leave.

His outlook on immigration is also imbued by his Irishness. On at least two occasions during his trip, he told the story of how his maternal ancestor, shoemaker Owen Finnegan, emigrated to New York in 1849, about the same time as former President Barack Obama’s maternal ancestor Joseph Kearney, also a shoemaker from a nearby county.

“Isn’t that amazing?” he said to reporters Thursday. “The idea that they both would seek a new life and think that their great-great-grandsons would end up being president of the United States is remarkable.”

It’s the story of how poor immigrants can live the American dream, said Eoin Drea, a senior researcher at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. “I think that’s how President Biden views his family’s transition into where they are now,” he told VOA.

Possibilities

Biden’s origin story shapes how he understands the country’s psyche, often repeating what he said he told Chinese leader Xi Jinping, that the United States can be defined in one word: possibilities.

His optimism could resonate with another group of voters — naturalized citizens and descendants of immigrants. In the 2020 presidential race, more than 23 million immigrants, comprising about 10% of the electorate, were eligible to vote, according to a Pew Survey based on census data.

The cynical view is that political expediency motivates Biden to lean into his image of a scrappy son of a working-class family from Scranton, Pennsylvania. But for the endless “Bidenisms” and quotes of his parents that always begins with “Joey…,” Meagher said Biden comes across as genuine.

“There is a sort of politics to it, but it’s one that he seems to fit into naturally,” he said.

Through his rhetoric and legislative proposals, Biden has woven a consistent theme in his first term — build the economy from the bottom up and middle out by creating jobs, including for people who don’t have college degrees.

Whether that will carry him to a second term remains to be seen. Especially if he again faces Trump, the leading Republican contender, according to a recent poll.

In 2020, Trump’s nativist “Make America Great Again” message secured him 66% of the votes from white men without a four-year college degree, compared with Biden’s 31%.
…