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Media watchdog groups are expressing concern over the fate of journalists who have disappeared in Ukraine after a Ukrainian photojournalist was found dead Saturday.

Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photographer who had been missing for more than two weeks, was found dead near the capital, Kyiv.

“He went missing in the conflict area on March 13 in the Kyiv region. His body was found near the village of Huta-Mezhyhirska on April 1,” presidential aide Andriy Yermak said Saturday in a post on Telegram.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned Levin’s death, calling on both sides of the conflict to investigate the killing.

Russian and Ukrainian authorities must “ensure that those responsible are held accountable and guarantee the safety of journalists covering the war from the ground,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in a statement Saturday.

The Washington-based National Press Club said Levin was killed by Russian forces while working north of Kyiv. It added that Levin is the ninth journalist to have been killed covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine which began February 24.

“We ask that his death be investigated as a war crime. Targeting of civilians, including journalists, is a war crime,” Jen Judson, President of the National Press Club and Gil Klein, President of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, said in a joint statement Sunday.

Russia is denying the targeting of civilians or journalists, saying such reports are “fake news.”

A Lithuanian filmmaker, Mantas Kvedaravicius, was killed Saturday in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to the Ukrainian military. Mariupol, in southeast Ukraine, is besieged by Russian forces.

Since the beginning of the conflict, several journalists have also been wounded in attacks by Russian forces.

Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko, a correspondent for the 1+1 news channel, was hit by shrapnel March 25, when he was covering a humanitarian corridor near the northern city of Chernihiv.

Several other Ukrainian journalists have been reported missing in recent days.

The CPJ reported Friday that Ukrainian journalist Konstantin Ryzhenko has been missing since March 30. On the same day, Russian soldiers searched in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson for Ryzhenko, and since then his family has lost contact with him.

Kherson is currently under the control of Russian forces, according to media reports.

A day after his disappearance, a note appeared on Ryzhenko’s Telegram account, saying “if you are reading this text, it means that something has happened.”

The post apparently explained that Ryzhenko, who works as the chief editor of the Kherson Newscity local news website, had scheduled that post for publication in case he had been detained or lost access to his phone or to the internet.

Ryzhenko’s “disappearance adds to a growing list of Ukrainian journalists who have gone missing since the beginning of the Russian invasion,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said in a statement Friday.

Another Ukrainian journalist, Iryna Dubchenko, was detained March 26 by Russian forces and taken to the eastern city of Donetsk, according to the Ukrainian National Union of Journalists, and members of her family.

Donetsk is controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

Dubchenko, who has worked for several Ukrainian outlets including the news website Depo.Zaporizhzhia, newspaper Subota and the UNIAN news agency, was reportedly arrested in the town of Rozivka, where she was caring for her grandmother.

Her sister, Oleksandra, told the Ukrainian journalists’ union that when Russian soldiers searched her home March 26, they said they “knew everything about [Dubchenko’s] journalistic activities.”
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Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius, 45, was killed trying to flee Ukraine’s city of Mariupol besieged by the Russians, the Ukrainian military said Sunday.   

“While trying to leave #Mariupol, the occupiers killed Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, who is the author of the documentary Mariupolis,” the defense ministry’s information agency wrote on Twitter.   

Russian filmmaker Vitali Manski, who founded Artdocfest, a film festival in Moscow that had previously invited Kvedaravicius, also announced the death.   

Kvedaravicius “was killed today in Mariupol, camera in hand” in this “shitty war of evil against the whole world,” Manski wrote on Facebook.   

Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said it was “shocked” by the news of Kvedaravicius’ death in Mariupol “where he was documenting #Russia’s war atrocities. His previous film “Mariupolis” (2016) told the story of a besieged city with a strong will to live,” it added.   

Born in 1976, Kvedaravicius made his name with the documentary “Mariupolis,” filmed in the Ukrainian city and which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2016.   

Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol has hampered Russian efforts to consolidate its hold on southern and eastern areas of Ukraine since invading on February 24.   

At least 5,000 residents have been killed in the southern port city, according to Ukrainian officials, while the estimated 160,000 who remain face shortages of food, water and electricity. 
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Russia faced mounting international condemnation amid reports of possible war crimes committed by Russian forces in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and other parts of Ukraine.

In a post on Twitter on April 3, European Council President Charles Michel said Moscow will face “further EU sanctions.”

Michel said he was “shocked by haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army in Kyiv liberated region.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement that her government has seen “increasing evidence of appalling acts by the invading forces in towns such as Irpin and Bucha.”

Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said on April 2 that some 300 local civilians had been shot during the time the town was occupied by Russian forces. About 280 were allegedly dumped in a mass grave, while the rest were left in the streets.

Moving and graphic images of the bodies have been distributed on social media.

“These are the consequences of Russian occupation,” Fedoruk was quoted as saying.

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING – The following tweet contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing.

Russia has not responded to the reports.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Germany’s Bild newspaper that “what happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide.” He said Russian President Vladimir Putin bore responsibility.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dymtro Kuleba said the “Bucha massacre was deliberate.”

“I demand new, devastating G7 sanctions NOW,” Kuleba wrote in an April 3 post on Twitter, referring to the Group of Seven leading economies.

The accusations of alleged atrocities have emerged as Russian forces pull back from positions around Kyiv and the northern cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on April 3 that it had “documented several cases of Russian military forces committing laws-of-war violations against civilians in occupied areas of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions of Ukraine.”

The NGO said that, on March 4, Russian forces in Bucha shot at least one man in the back of the head.

Truss said on April 2 that she was “appalled by atrocities in Bucha and other towns in Ukraine” and promised that perpetrators would be prosecuted.

In his post on Twitter, Michel said the European Union was assisting Ukraine “in gathering of necessary evidence for pursuit in international courts.”

The International Criminal Court had earlier opened an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.

The Human Rights Watch report included several allegations of rapes, two cases of summary executions involving seven victims, and other instances of threats and violence against civilians.

“The cases we documented amount to unspeakable, deliberate cruelty and violence against Ukrainian civilians,” Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director, was quoted as saying.
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Polls opened across Hungary early Sunday as voters in the Central European country faced a choice: take a chance on a diverse, Western-looking coalition of opposition parties, or grant nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban a renewed mandate with a fourth consecutive term in office.

The contest is expected to be the closest since Orban took power in 2010, thanks to Hungary’s six main opposition parties putting aside ideological differences to form a united front against his right-wing Fidesz party.

Recent polls suggest a tight race but give Fidesz a slight lead, making it likely that undecided voters will determine the victor in Sunday’s vote.

Opposition parties and international observers have pointed out structural impediments to defeating Orban by electoral means, highlighting pervasive pro-government bias in the public media, domination of commercial news outlets by Orban allies and a heavily gerrymandered electoral map.

Yet despite what it calls an uneven playing field, the six-party opposition coalition, United For Hungary, has asked voters to support its efforts to introduce a new political culture in Hungary based on pluralistic governance and mended alliances with the EU and NATO.

The coalition’s candidate for prime minister, Peter Marki-Zay, has promised to bring an end to what he alleges is rampant government corruption, and to raise living standards by increasing funding to Hungary’s ailing health care and education systems.

After voting along with his family in his hometown of Hodmezovasarhely, where he serves as mayor, Marki-Zay on Sunday called the election an “uphill battle” due to Fidesz’s superior economic resources and advantage in the media, “but if everybody will vote, we still know that there are more people that want change in Hungary.”

“There is still a chance that we can defeat our 1,000-year-old history’s most corrupt government,” Marki-Zay said.

Orban – a fierce critic of immigration, LGBTQ rights and “EU bureaucrats” – has garnered the admiration of right-wing nationalists across Europe and North America.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson broadcast from Budapest for a week last summer, where he extolled Orban’s hardline approach to immigration and the razor wire fence he erected along Hungary’s southern border.

A proponent of what he calls “illiberal democracy,” Orban has taken many of Hungary’s democratic institutions under his control, and depicted himself as a defender of European Christendom against Muslim migrants, progressivism and the “LGBTQ lobby.”

In his frequent battles with the EU, of which Hungary is a member, he has portrayed the 27-member bloc as an oppressive regime reminiscent of the Soviet occupiers that dominated Hungary for more than 40 years in the 20th century, and has bucked attempts to draw some of his policies into line with EU rules.

Those policies, including what critics view as violations of the rights of LGBTQ people, misuse of EU funds and exerting undue control over Hungary’s media, have put him at odds with Brussels and resulted in billions of euros in EU funding being withheld from his government.

While Orban had earlier campaigned on divisive social and cultural issues, he dramatically shifted the tone of his campaign after Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February, and has portrayed the election as a choice between peace and stability or war and chaos.

While the opposition called for Hungary to support its embattled neighbor and act in lockstep with its EU and NATO partners, Orban, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has insisted that Hungary must remain neutral and maintain its close economic ties with Moscow, including continuing to import Russian gas and oil.

At his final campaign rally on Friday, Orban told a crowd of supporters that supplying Ukraine with weapons – something that Hungary, alone among Ukraine’s EU neighbors, has refused to do — would make the country a military target, and that sanctioning Russian energy imports would cripple the economy.

“This isn’t our war, we have to stay out of it,” Orban said.

But Marki-Zay said on Sunday that the stakes of the election were about even more than the immediate conflict next door, and that he and his movement were “fighting for decency, we are fighting for the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Hungary.”

“We are fighting for the whole world. We want to show that this model that Orban has … introduced here in Hungary is not acceptable for any decent, honest man,” Marki-Zay said.
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Pope Francis visited the grotto Sunday where St. Paul lived after washing up on Malta, recalling the welcome the apostle received and urging better treatment of modern-day arrivals on the Mediterranean island.

On the final day of his weekend trip to Malta, the 85-year-old pontiff will also hold open-air mass before visiting a migrant center that will soon host refugees from the Ukraine war.

According to Christian tradition, Paul was shipwrecked on Malta in 60 AD while en route to Rome and performed several miracles in his three months there.

Following in the footsteps of former popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis visited the holy grotto in Rabat, lighting a candle and saying a prayer.

He recalled how Paul and his fellow travelers were welcomed, even though “no one knew their names, their place of birth or their social status.”

He called on God to “help us to recognize from afar those in need, struggling amidst the waves of the sea, dashed against the reefs of unknown shores” and grant that “our compassion be more than empty words.”

The pope, who last summer underwent colon surgery and canceled an event in February due to acute knee pain, appeared to have trouble walking during the visit, where he also met the sick and disabled at the connected Basilica of St. Paul.

Safe harbor

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has overshadowed the pope’s first trip to Catholic-majority Malta, a voyage delayed two years by coronavirus.

Addressing politicians and diplomats Saturday, he warned that “some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts” in a thinly veiled accusation against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Asked by a reporter about a possible trip to Kyiv, he said a visit to Ukraine’s capital was “on the table.”

The war has caused the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, which feeds into a key theme of Francis’ nine-year papacy — the need to welcome those fleeing war, poverty or the effects of climate change.

Malta is on the frontline of the route from North Africa into Europe and thousands of people who risked the crossing in overcrowded boats have ended up here.

But charity groups have accused Malta of turning a blind eye to desperate people in its waters, and the pope on Saturday reminded the archipelago of its status as a “safe harbor”, while adding that other countries must also step in.

“The growing migration emergency — here we can think of the refugees from war-torn Ukraine — calls for a broad-based and shared response,” he said.

‘Very tired’

After visiting the grotto, the pope headed to Floriana, near the capital Valletta, where he was set to conduct mass for a 10,000-strong crowd of followers.

Awaiting him among the crowd was 67-year-old Anna Balzan from the nearby city of Qormi and her extended family. Over her shoulders was draped a Vatican flag she purchased during John Paul II’s visit in 1990.

“I’ve seen Benedict and John Paul when they came to Malta,” she said, expressing concern for the current pope’s health.

“I saw him as very tired yesterday… I think he is suffering.”

Later Sunday, Francis will return to the theme of migrants by visiting the John XXIII Peace Lab, a center inspired by the pope of that name, which is preparing for the arrival of Ukrainian refugees.

Run for the past five decades by a Franciscan friar, now 91, it already hosts around 55 young men from different parts of Africa who arrived in Malta without any legal papers. 
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Serbians headed to the polls Sunday in elections that will likely see populist President Aleksandar Vucic extend his rule in the Balkan country, as he vows to provide stability amid war raging in Ukraine.

The country of around 7 million will elect the president, deputies for the 250-seat parliament and cast votes in several municipal contests.

The latest opinion polls say Vucic’s center-right Serbian Progressive Party should maintain its control over the parliament, while the president is in pole position for a second term.

“Personally, I see a stable progress and I voted in accordance with this opinion,” Milovan Krstic, a 52-year-old government employee, told AFP after casting his vote in Belgrade.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has cast a long shadow over a contest that observers had earlier predicted would focus on environmental issues, corruption and rights.

Vucic has deftly used the return of war in Europe along with the coronavirus pandemic to his advantage, promising voters continued stability amid uncertain headwinds.

“These crises have shaken much stronger economies than ours, but we are completely stable. We are successfully facing the challenges,” the president wrote recently in a widely published op-ed, vowing to raise wages and pensions if elected again.

Only a few months ago, the opposition seemed to have momentum.

In January, Vucic axed a controversial lithium mine project following mass protests that saw tens of thousands take to the streets in protest.

The move was a rare defeat for Vucic who has rotated through a range of positions including prime minister, president and deputy premier along with a stint as the defense chief during a decade in power.

The polls predict that he will win again on Sunday even as the opposition hopes a high turnout could force a run-off.

Analysts, however, say the opposition has little chance of dethroning Vucic or eating away at his coalition in the parliament, which possesses a lion’s share of the seats.

The president has also carefully managed the country’s response to the war in Ukraine by officially condemning Russia at the United Nations but stopping short of sanctioning Moscow at home, where many Serbs hold a favorable view of the Kremlin.

The opposition in turn has largely refrained from attacking Vucic’s position on the conflict, fearing any call for harsher measures against Russia would backfire at the ballot box.

Vucic also headed into elections with a plethora of other advantages.

Following a decade at the helm, he has increasingly tightened his grip over the various levers of power, including de facto control over much of the press and government services.

In the months leading up to the campaign, the president rolled out a range of financial aid offers to select groups, prompting critics to say he was trying to “buy” votes before the contest.

Polling stations opened from 0500 GMT and close at 1800 GMT, with unofficial results due later in the evening.
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The friendship of Ukrainian musician Valeriya Sholokhova and Russian musician Nikita Morozov transcends the fighting between their countries. For VOA News, Iacopo Luzi has the story.
Camera: Iacopo Luzi
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The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — when the faithful fast from dawn to dusk — began at sunrise Saturday in much of the Middle East, where Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent energy and food prices soaring.

The conflict cast a pall over Ramadan, when large gatherings over meals and family celebrations are a tradition. Many in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia planned to start observing Sunday, and some Shiites in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq were also marking the start of Ramadan a day later.

Muslims follow a lunar calendar, and a moon-sighting methodology can lead to different countries declaring the start of Ramadan a day or two apart.

Muslim-majority nations including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates had declared the month would begin Saturday morning.

A Saudi statement Friday was broadcast on the kingdom’s state-run Saudi TV and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates, congratulated Muslims on Ramadan’s arrival.

Jordan, a predominantly Sunni country, also said the first day of Ramadan would be on Sunday, in a break from following Saudi Arabia. The kingdom said the Islamic religious authority was unable to spot the crescent moon indicating the beginning of the month.

Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic group, Muhammadiyah, which counts more than 60 million members, said that according to its astronomical calculations Ramadan begins Saturday. But the country’s religious affairs minister had announced Friday that Ramadan would start on Sunday, after Islamic astronomers in the country failed to sight the new moon.

It wasn’t the first time the Muhammadiyah has offered a differing opinion on the matter, but most Indonesians — Muslims comprise nearly 90% of the country’s 270 million people — are expected to follow the government’s official date.

Many had hoped for a more cheerful Ramadan after the coronavirus pandemic blocked the world’s 2 billion Muslims from many rituals the past two years.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, millions of people in the Middle East are now wondering where their next meals will come from. The skyrocketing prices are affecting people whose lives were already upended by conflict, displacement and poverty from Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Sudan and Yemen.

Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which Middle East countries rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles. They are also top exporters of other grains and sunflower seed oil used for cooking.

Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, has received most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in recent years. Its currency has now also taken a dive, adding to other pressures driving up prices.

Shoppers in the capital, Cairo, turned out earlier this week to stock up on groceries and festive decorations, but many had to buy less than last year because of the prices.

Ramadan tradition calls for colorful lanterns and lights strung throughout Cairo’s narrow alleys and around mosques. Some people with the means to do so set up tables on the streets to dish up free post-fast Iftar meals for the poor. The practice is known in the Islamic world as Tables of the Compassionate.

“This could help in this situation,” said Rabei Hassan, the muezzin of a mosque in Giza as he bought vegetables and other food from a nearby market. “People are tired of the prices.”

Worshippers attended mosque for hours of evening prayers, or tarawih. On Friday evening, thousands of people packed the al-Azhar Mosque after attendance was banned for the past two years to stem the pandemic.

“They were difficult (times) … Ramadan without tarawih at the mosque is not Ramadan,” said Saeed Abdel-Rahman, a 64-year-old retired teacher as he entered al-Azhar for prayers.

Higher prices also exacerbated the woes of Lebanese already facing a major economic crisis. Over the past two years, the currency collapsed and the country’s middle class was plunged into poverty. The meltdown has also brought on severe shortages in electricity, fuel and medicine.

In the Gaza Strip, few people were shopping on Friday in markets usually packed at this time of year. Merchants said Russia’s war on Ukraine has sent prices skyrocketing, alongside the usual challenges, putting a damper on the festive atmosphere that Ramadan usually creates.

The living conditions of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the impoverished coastal territory are tough, compounded by a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007.

Toward the end of Ramadan last year, a deadly 11-day war between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel cast a cloud over festivities, including the Eid al-Fitr holiday that follows the holy month. It was the fourth bruising war with Israel in just over a decade.

In Iraq, the start of Ramadan highlighted widespread frustration over a meteoric rise in food prices, exacerbated in the past month by the war in Ukraine.

Suhaila Assam, a 62-year-old retired teacher and women’s rights activist, said she and her retired husband are struggling to survive on their combined pension of $1,000 a month, with prices of cooking oil, flour and other essentials having more than doubled.

“We, as Iraqis, use cooking oil and flour a lot. Almost in every meal. So how can a family of five members survive?” she asked.

Akeel Sabah, 38, is a flour distributor in the Jamila wholesale market, which supplies all of Baghdad’s Rasafa district on the eastern side of the Tigris River with food. He said flour and almost all other foodstuffs are imported, which means distributors have to pay for them in dollars. A ton of flour used to cost $390.

“Today I bought the ton for $625,” he said.

“The currency devaluation a year ago already led to an increase in prices, but with the ongoing (Ukraine) crisis, prices are skyrocketing. Distributors lost millions,” he said.

In Istanbul, Muslims held the first Ramadan prayers in 88 years in the Hagia Sophia, nearly two years after the iconic former cathedral was converted into a mosque.

Worshippers filled the 6th-century building and the square outside Friday night for tarawih prayers led by Ali Erbas, the government head of religious affairs. Although converted for Islamic use and renamed the Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque in July 2020, COVID-19 restrictions had limited worship at the site.

“After 88 years of separation, the Hagia Sophia Mosque has regained the tarawih prayer,” Erbas said, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. 
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French President Emmanuel Macron held his first big rally Saturday in his race for reelection, promising the French more “progress” and “solidarity” over the next five years, but his campaign has hit a speed bump.

It’s been dubbed “the McKinsey Affair,” named after an American consulting company hired to advise the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and other policies. A new French Senate report questions the government’s use of private consultants and accuses McKinsey of tax dodging. The issue is energizing Macron’s rivals and dogging him at campaign stops ahead of France’s April 10 first-round presidential vote.

Macron, a centrist who has been in the forefront of diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine, has a comfortable lead in polls so far over far-right leader Marine Le Pen and other challengers.

“We are here to make possible a project of progress, of independence, for the future, for our France,” Macron told a crowd of about 30,000 at a stadium that usually hosts rugby matches. “I see difficulties to make ends meet, situations of insecurity … and so much more to accomplish to turn back extremism.”

Inflation, bonuses, pensions

Speaking to those who see “all their salary go into gasoline, bills, rent” as the war in Ukraine is driving up food and energy prices, Macron promised to let companies give a tax-free bonus to employees of up to 6,000 euros ($6,627) as soon as this summer.

He also promised to raise the minimum pension to 1,100 euros ($1,214) a month for those who have worked full time — up from about 700 euros now. The retirement age will need to be progressively raised from 62 to 65 to finance the plan, he said.

Supporters welcomed him, chanting “Macron, president!” “One, two, five more years!” and waved the French tricolor flag.

McKinsey

But for those trying to unseat Macron, the word “McKinsey” is becoming a rallying cry.

Critics describe the French government’s 1 billion euros spent on consulting firms like McKinsey last year as privatization and Americanization of French politics and are demanding more transparency.

The French Senate, where opposition conservatives hold a majority, published a report last month investigating the government’s use of private consulting firms. The report found that state spending on such contracts has doubled in the past three years despite mixed results, and warned they could pose conflicts of interest. Dozens of private companies are involved in the consulting, including giants like Ireland-based multinational Accenture and French group Capgemini.

Most damningly, the report says McKinsey hasn’t paid corporate profit taxes in France since at least 2011, but instead used a system of “tax optimization” through its Delaware-based parent company.

McKinsey issued a statement saying it “respects French tax rules that apply to it” and defending its work in France.

McKinsey notably advised the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, which got off to a halting start but eventually became among the world’s most comprehensive. Outside consultants have also advised Macron’s government on housing reform, asylum policy and other measures.

Macron’s defense

The Senate report found that such firms earn smaller revenues in France than in Britain or Germany, and noted that spending on outside consultants was higher under conservative former President Nicolas Sarkozy than under Macron.

Budget Minister Olivier Dussopt said the state money spent on consultants was about 0.3% of what the government spent on public servants’ salaries last year and that McKinsey earned only a tiny fraction of it. He accused campaign rivals of inflating the affair to boost their own ratings.

The affair is hurting Macron nonetheless.

A former investment banker once accused of being “president of the rich,” Macron saw his ratings surge when his government spent massively to protect workers and businesses early in the pandemic, vowing to do “whatever it takes” to cushion the blow. But his rivals say the McKinsey affair rekindles concerns that Macron and his government are beholden to private interests and out of touch with ordinary voters.

Everywhere Macron goes now, he’s asked about it.

“The last few days, I heard a lot speaking about tax evasion, an American company,” Macron said at Saturday’s rally. “I want to remind those who show outrage that they used them (consulting firms)” in local government as well.

He also pointed to his government’s fight to make sure corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

“The minimum tax in Europe, we fought for it, we did it,” he said.

France is pushing for quick implementation in the 27-nation European Union of the minimum corporate tax of 15%, on which more than 130 countries agreed last October.
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A diverse coalition of opposition parties made their final appeal to Hungarian voters Saturday ahead of the country’s fiercely fought election that will decide whether nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban continues his autocratic rule for a fourth consecutive term. 

Several hundred supporters of the six-party coalition, United For Hungary, gathered in the rain in central Budapest one day before the vote Sunday. The movement’s leader, Peter Marki-Zay, said this national election was about bringing an end to “the most corrupt government in our 1,000-year history,” and ushering in a new era of inclusive democracy in the Central European and European Union nation. 

“We welcome everyone, right or left, Christian, Jewish or atheist, of any origin or sexual orientation. Because we believe that what’s important is not what divides us, but what unites us,” Marki-Zay said. 

A small-town mayor and self-proclaimed conservative Christian, Marki-Zay, 49, became the figurehead of the six-party coalition after he was selected by an opposition primary in October to challenge Orban for the post of prime minister. 

The six parties, which include the liberal Democratic Coalition, the centrist Momentum and the right-wing Jobbik, as well as smaller green parties and Socialists, are for the first time running against Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party as a united bloc. 

That hard-fought strategy of total unity, they say, is the only way to overcome structural impediments to defeating Orban, including what they call a media environment dominated by Fidesz allies and unfairly gerrymandered electoral districts that give Orban’s party significantly more parliamentary seats than its portion of the popular vote. 

Recent polls suggest the race will be the closest in more than a decade, but give Fidesz a small lead. Some analysts suggest that due to Hungary’s electoral map, the opposition bloc will need to defeat Fidesz by 3 to 4 points nationally to gain a majority in parliament. 

United For Hungary has campaigned on restoring Hungary’s alliances with partners in the EU and NATO, which they say have suffered under the last 12 years of Orban’s leadership. 

At the Saturday rally, 18 opposition candidates running in Budapest districts enumerated elements of their program, including ending what they call widespread corruption under Orban. They also want Hungary to secure billions in EU financial support that has been withheld from Orban’s government over concerns about democratic backsliding and violations of the rule of law. 

Marki-Zay also spoke at length about Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, a war that has transformed the election campaigns of both Fidesz and the opposition. 

Orban, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has refused to supply Ukraine with weapons or allow their transfer across the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. Orban has also insisted on maintaining economic ties with Moscow, including importing Russian fossil fuels. 

That ambiguous approach to the war in Ukraine, Marki-Zay said, has made Sunday’s election about whether Hungary would belong to the democratic West or among the autocracies of the East. 

“This struggle is now bigger than us. The war in Ukraine gave this struggle special meaning,” Marki-Zay said, adding that “Viktor Orban has been left alone” among European leaders. 

Ahead of the rally, Ukrainian mothers and their children who fled Ukraine as refugees marched in central Budapest to protest Russia’s war on their home country. Some held up signs asking Orban to “stop supporting murderers.” 

One protester, Margaretha, left Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv for Budapest two weeks after the start of the war. The 25-year-old graphic designer said since she was unable to stay in Ukraine “I have to at least contribute from the outside.” 

“I feel it is also very important to grab the attention of Hungarians to historical connections that they also had to Russia, so they can rethink their attitude,” she said, pointing out that Hungary was under Soviet domination for more than 40 years. 

Closing the rally, Marki-Zay said his coalition was “standing at the gate of victory,” and called on Hungarian youths to convince their parents and grandparents to vote for change. 

“Tomorrow, together, we can win back our national pride. Let us be proud once again to say that we are Hungarians,” he said. 
…

Ukrainian forces were advancing on Saturday into areas north of Kyiv littered with debris and destroyed Russian tanks as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused departing Russian soldiers of leaving behind mines.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Ukrainian troops had retaken more than 30 towns and villages in the region since Russia announced this week it would scale down operations around the capital to focus on battles in the east.

British military intelligence said Russian troops had abandoned Hostomel airport in a northwestern suburb of the capital, where there had been fighting since the first day of the invasion.

In the east, a Red Cross convoy was again seeking to evacuate civilians from the besieged port of Mariupol after abandoning an attempt on Friday because of a lack of security guarantees. But that renewed mission was not expected to reach the port until at least Sunday.

Russia has depicted its drawdown of forces near Kyiv as a goodwill gesture in peace negotiations. Ukraine and its allies say Russian forces have been forced to regroup after suffering heavy losses.

“In the north of our country, the invaders are leaving. It is slow but noticeable. In some places they are being kicked out with fighting. Elsewhere they’re abandoning the positions themselves,” Zelenskyy said in a video address released on Saturday.

“They are mining all this territory. Houses are mined, equipment is mined, even the bodies of dead people,” he said, without citing evidence.

Russia’s defense ministry did not reply to a request for comment on the allegations.

Reuters could not independently verify the allegations.

In the village of Nova Basan, northeast of Kyiv, which was among those retaken by Ukrainian forces, the body of a man lay next to the carcass of a car. A woman wept as men brought a coffin to remove the body.

The village showed signs of heavy fighting, with collapsed buildings and the wreckage of tanks and armored vehicles strewn around. Another dead body, apparently that of a Russian soldier, lay near a destroyed armored personnel carrier.

Fleeing Mariupol

Maksim (Maks) Levin, a Ukrainian photographer and videographer who was working for a Ukrainian news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters, was killed while covering the war. 

His body was found in a village north of the capital Kyiv on April 1, the news website LB.ua where he worked said on Saturday.

Russia denies targeting civilians in what President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “de-nazifying” Ukraine.

Ukraine calls it an unprovoked war of aggression and Western countries have imposed sweeping sanctions in an effort to squeeze Russia’s economy.

In encircled Mariupol, Russia’s main target in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Donbas, tens of thousands of civilians remained trapped with scant access to food and water.

A convoy of about 54 Ukrainian buses and other private vehicles, accompanied by a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was renewing its attempt to organize a mass evacuation from the city after turning back on Friday.

ICRC spokesperson Ewan Watson said the team had not yet reached Mariupol, adding they left the city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday morning and would spend the night en route. 

Some civilians who have escaped Mariupol and reached Zaporizhzhia said Russian soldiers repeatedly stopped them to check for the presence of Ukrainian fighters as they fled.

“They stripped the men naked, looked for tattoos,” said Dmytro Kartavov, a 32-year-old builder, adding that the troops paid particular attention to the men’s knees. “I work, I do repairs, naturally my knees – these are working knees. They say – (you) climbed trenches, dug, and the like.”

Missile strikes

Pope Francis came the closest he has yet to criticizing Vladimir Putin over the invasion. He did not name the Russian president but said a “potentate” was fomenting conflicts for nationalist interests.

“Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interests, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, while ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared or not be at all,” he said during a visit to Malta.

Even as Russian forces pulled back from some northern areas, Ukrainian officials reported missile strikes on targets in various parts of the country.

The governor of southcentral Dnipro region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said a Russian rocket hit a rail line, badly damaging the tracks and suspending train traffic in the area. He did not say if there were any casualties.

In the early hours, Russian missiles hit the cities of Poltava and Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, Dmitry Lunin, head of the Poltava region, wrote in an online post.

Before dawn, as sirens sounded across Ukraine, the Ukrainian military reported Russian airstrikes on the cities of Severodonetsk and Rubizhne in the Luhansk region.

Russia’s defense ministry said high-precision air-launched missiles had disabled military airfields in Poltava and Dnipro.

It added later that its forces had hit 28 Ukrainian military facilities across the country, including two depots of rockets and artillery weapons and ammunition.

Alcohol sales in Kyiv

In Kyiv, people started buying alcohol again after Mayor Vitali Klitschko relaxed a monthlong ban.

Olena, a psychologist who was buying beer in a supermarket, said it did not mean people had forgotten the war.

“We are just supporting our country in this way. No one will be better off if we are depressed, doing nothing,” she said.

“I’m happy because for two weeks I’ve been walking around thinking ‘I want a beer,'” she said, smiling.
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Irina, her husband and 4-year-old son hid in the cellar of their house in Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, for three weeks as intense fighting, including a tank battle, raged around them.

“At first my son seemed to be coping okay,” she says. “But then with unrelenting stress, shelling and blasts, there was a deterioration — the boy started to become withdrawn. He became nervous. He started to stutter,” she says.

Their escape from Chernihiv wasn’t gentle either.

“We had to drive along a road, which we knew was mined. And we saw a lot of burned-out cars with people, families, scorched inside. We tried to ignore it all and just continue because we had our kid and just wanted to save him,” she says.

She doesn’t know what her son saw, what he took in from the carnage and how it is churning inside him. He was in his booster seat in the back of their car. She hopes he slept through a lot of the dangerous and terrifying journey from Chernihiv.

“I have not tried to raise anything with him about what he saw,” she added. She has heard that drawing is good therapy for traumatized children and has been encouraging him to do so.

So far, he has been drawing repeatedly the yellow and blue Ukrainian colors.

Many Ukrainian evacuees say they have noticed their children have changed and seemed to be displaying signs of trauma and stress, even those who did not witness at first hand horrifying scenes.  Some exhibit rage; others seem withdrawn. Some are bed-wetting.

“It won’t just be combatants, we will have to help after this war,” says the Reverend Mykola Kwich, a Greek-Catholic priest in western Ukraine. Kwich is a trained counselor and has helped rehabilitate soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Civilians who have gone through bombardments and shelling and have witnessed a lot will need help,” he said. “We are expecting to have to do a huge amount of psychological work. We will have to do this work because it will impact our society and lead to more problems.

“Wars are about destruction. In the same way towns and buildings get damaged during war, so with people inside. After war, you can’t be the same person. But there are methods and therapy we can use to help restore people’s mental health and assist them to pursue a normal life, if they are willing. Of course, you won’t return to being the person you were before,” he adds.

Refugee reception centers in central and Western Ukraine are trying to offer traumatized adults counseling and play therapy for kids. “We do have specialists and priests coming to visit the evacuees” says Valeriy Dyakiv, director of a reception facility sheltering about 300 evacuees in the central Ukrainian town of Vinnytsia.

“Prayers calm people a little bit,” he adds. “And for children there are different types of activities. We had a puppet show the other day, and for some kids it was a huge surprise because they were from small villages and they had never seen puppets before,” he says. The activities for the kids also involve drama and poetry readings.

 The center managed by Dyakiv has the benefit of having as an evacuee a well-known Ukrainian actress, Olena Prystup, who fled her hometown of Kharkiv, the beleaguered eastern Ukraine town. “My favorite role? Prystup ponders when asked. “Ophelia,” she then says.

That seems highly fitting what Prystup is trying to do now — to help traumatized children deal with their stress. William Shakespeare’s Ophelia, from the drama “Hamlet,” is a young Danish noblewoman and potential wife for Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet’s actions, ends up falling into a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning herself.

“We have two groups of kids,” Prystup says. “The youngsters are learning some poems by heart and then reciting them at short performances. And the older ones, teenagers, are actually working on a play right now. I don’t know how it’s going to shape out. I hope it is going to be okay, and some of them are talented,” she adds.

Professional psychiatrists worry, though, that Ukraine doesn’t have the health care capacity to cope with what is likely to be needed when the war is over. Even before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine suffered a high prevalence of depression, alcoholism and suicide compared to some other European countries.

A report by the World Health Organization in 2020 noted that mental health disorders are the country’s second leading cause of disability and affect about 30 percent of the population. The WHO also noted that many Ukrainians distrust psychiatry because of the Soviet past when psychiatry was used as a tool of repression — dissidents were often accused of being “mentally ill” and incarcerated in hospitals during the Communist era.

It said in a report, “Challenges include a large institutionalized psychiatric system associated with human rights violations, alongside public stigma and low awareness of mental health. Social services for people with mental disorders are limited or absent in the community.”
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Pakistan’s military chief Saturday slammed Russia’s military attack on Ukraine, calling for immediate cessation of what he described as a “huge tragedy” being inflicted on a smaller country.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s rare criticism of Moscow evidently was at variance with that of his country’s embattled prime minister, Imran Khan, who has advocated Islamabad’s neutrality in the conflict and refused to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions.

“Sadly, the Russian invasion against Ukraine is very unfortunate as thousands of people have been killed, millions made refugees and half of Ukraine destroyed,” Bajwa told an international security dialogue in Islamabad.

“Despite legitimate security concerns of Russia, its aggression against a smaller country cannot be condoned. Pakistan has consistently called for an immediate cease-fire and cessation of hostilities,” Bajwa said.

The general advocated support for an urgent dialogue between all sides to resolve the conflict, praising the Ukrainians for effectively resisting the Russian aggression.

Bajwa used the example of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in his televised speech to caution Pakistan’s massive arch-rival India against launching another war with his country.

“This has given a heart to smaller countries that they can still defend their territory with smaller but agile forces against an aggression by a bigger country by carrying out selective modernization in equipment and adopting noble ideas,” the Pakistani military chief said.

Critics noted Bajwa’s comments have marked a significant departure from the policy Prime Minister Khan has been advocating on the Ukraine crisis.

Khan, who faces an opposition-launched parliamentary no-confidence vote Sunday, maintains Pakistan made a mistake by joining the West during the Cold War and wants to remain neutral in the Russia-Ukraine conflict to have good ties with both the countries.

The Pakistani leader has refused to condemn Putin and publicly criticized Western diplomats in Islamabad for urging his government in a rare joint letter last month to denounce Moscow’s aggression against Kyiv.

“Why would we condemn Russia? Are we your slaves that we would do whatever you say?” he asked in televised speeches to large recent public rallies organized by his ruling party.

Khan visited Putin on the day Russian forces attacked Ukraine. The Pakistani leader defended his visit, saying it was planned long before the conflict erupted.

He alleged this week in an address to the Pakistani nation that the no-confidence vote seeking his ouster from power was being orchestrated by the United States to punish him for visiting Russia, charges Washington vehemently rejected.

On Friday, Khan told local ARY television that his government had formally protested to the U.S. for meddling in Pakistani politics.

“It’s evident now that the conspiracy has been hatched from abroad! Everyone knows it. We have handed a demarche to the American Embassy, telling them that you have interfered in [the no-confidence vote],” asserted the Pakistani leader.

When asked whether the embassy had received the demarche, a State Department spokesperson told VOA that “as a standard practice, we don’t comment on diplomatic correspondence.”

“In terms of U.S. involvement in Pakistan’s internal affairs, there is no truth to these allegations,” the spokesperson said.

The political turmoil reportedly has strained Khan’s relationship with Bajwa, though both leaders deny any tensions. 

In his Friday interview, Khan said Bajwa offered him the opportunity to resign, hold new elections or face the no-trust vote, and he decided to fight the vote in parliament. 

Pakistan has suffered several military coups leading to long periods of dictatorial rule, and critics say the army continues to influence elected governments from behind, though Bajwa’s spokesman has rejected accusations they are behind the current turmoil. Khan recently lost his simple majority in parliament after dozens of his party’s lawmakers defected and key allies abandoned him to join the opposition.

In his Saturday speech, Bajwa apparently attempted to ease diplomatic tensions with Washington, saying his country wants to broaden and expand bilateral ties.

“We share a long history of excellent and strategic relationship with the United States, which remains our largest export market,” the army chief said. “Similarly, European Union, United Kingdom, the Gulf, Southeast Asia and Japan are also vital for our national development and progress,” he added. 

However, Khan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, while addressing the same security conference after Bajwa, reiterated his government’s neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“Pakistan has maintained a principled and nonpartisan position on the matter,” Qureshi said, but he did not question or criticize the Russian aggression.

“We have consistently emphasized the fundamental principles of the U.N. Charter, including non-use and threat of use of force; respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states; and pacific settlement of disputes,” the Pakistani foreign minister said.

“We believe that a diplomatic solution through dialogue and negotiations is indispensable – and must be pursued as a matter of priority,” Qureshi said.
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New details have emerged about Belarusians fighting for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion as part of a broader struggle to free their own country from Russian domination and the rule of Moscow-backed autocrat Alexander Lukashenko.

Speaking exclusively to VOA in a Tuesday phone interview, the deputy commander of the largest pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighting force said its numbers have almost reached the size of an average Ukrainian battalion, which he said has about 450-500 troops.

“Several thousand more have applied to join us through our online recruitment tool,” said Vadim Kabanchuk of the Kastus Kalinouski battalion, named after a Belarusian revolutionary who led a regional uprising against Russian occupation in the 1860s.

The Kalinouski battalion began forming in Kyiv after Russia had begun its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The battalion uses the Telegram channel @belwarriors to share news and images of its activities. On March 9, it announced its adoption of the Kalinouski name in a video posted to the platform.

Kabanchuk said he is one of a number of the Belarusian battalion’s fighters who have been active in Ukraine’s defense starting in 2014. That year, Russian forces invaded eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region to foment a separatist uprising within its Russian-speaking community.

Belarusians have been drawn to fight for Ukraine for years in the hope that freeing it from Russian occupation would boost their own efforts to rid Belarus of Moscow’s influence and end the 27-year presidency of Lukashenko, a key Russian ally.

The Kalinouski battalion swore an oath of allegiance to Belarus and Ukraine in a Telegram video posted March 25. Four days later, in another video, battalion members said they had a new status as part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and held up green booklets that resembled Ukrainian military IDs.

There has been no confirmation of the Kalinouski battalion’s announcement on websites run by the Ukrainian government and military. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a VOA email asking whether it could provide such a confirmation.

Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told VOA that he believes the Kalinouski battalion’s declared integration into the Ukrainian Armed Forces is credible. He described the battalion as the biggest and “perhaps best organized” of the Belarusian groups fighting for Ukraine and said it has earned a right to display Belarus’ national flag and coat of arms in its operations.

“As of now, they will be fighting not only in one place, not only in defense of Kyiv, but all over Ukraine,” Viacorka said.

As Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Belarusian fighters of what later became the Kalinouski battalion joined the Ukrainian military’s volunteer Territorial Defense Force units in Kyiv, according to deputy commander Kabanchuk. The Kyiv Independent news site had reported in January that the Territorial Defense Force units would comprise former active-duty Ukrainian military personnel and other volunteers, including civilians.

Kabanchuk said some of the Kyiv territorial defense units that his fellow Belarusian fighters joined included Ukrainian fighters with ties to the Azov regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard. The Azov regiment is known for the far-right beliefs of some of its members and has been most active in Mariupol, the southern Ukrainian port besieged by Russia for weeks.

“We initially were part of Kyiv territorial defense units whose members called themselves part of the ‘Azov movement,'” said Kabanchuk. “But we are not part of the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov regiment and don’t want to be confused with it,” he added.

Most Belarusians who volunteer to fight for Ukraine are driven not by far-right ideology but by a belief that Kyiv’s struggle is part of their own fight to free Belarus from Russian imperialism, said former Belarusian Foreign Ministry official Pavel Slunkin in a phone call with VOA.

“They include bloggers, journalists, I.T. specialists, factory workers. All kinds of professions. And they want to see Belarus as a democratic state,” said Slunkin, now an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Not all Belarusians who seek to join the Kalinouski battalion will make it through a multistage vetting process aimed at weeding out security threats, Kabanchuk explained. Those threats include the possibility of Lukashenko’s agents trying to infiltrate the battalion, he said.

“Many of the thousands who applied will be rejected after in-person interviews at the Belarusian recruitment center in the Polish capital, Warsaw, which acts as a first-stage filtration hub for potential fighters,” Kabanchuk said. “Others will be rejected as unsuitable after they arrive to the battalion bases.”

Smaller groups of Belarusian fighters have been active in other parts of Ukraine in recent weeks, according to Belarusian opposition figures. In a Thursday tweet, Tsikhanouskaya said a recently formed regiment called Pahonia is training new volunteers on behalf of Ukraine’s armed forces.

In a Friday statement to VOA, a spokesperson for the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine, Norwegian-born Damien Magrou, responded to a question about Pahonia by saying Ukrainian officials are considering an initiative to integrate “suitable” Belarusian volunteers into the legion.

Kabanchuk said the Kalinouski battalion prefers not to join the international legion because his fighters have much more autonomy as a separate unit.

Viacorka, the Tsikhanouskaya adviser, said in a Thursday tweet that he hopes the Pahonia regiment will form the basis of a new professional Belarusian army in a post-Lukashenko era.

Lukashenko derided the pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighters last month, telling a government meeting that the fighters are “crazy” and motivated only by money.

As for his own troops, he has avoided sending them into Ukraine to join in Russia’s invasion.

Kabanchuk said that if Lukashenko were to do that, some of the Belarusian military’s forces would surrender, and others would turn against the Belarusian autocrat.

“He understands very well that sending troops into Ukraine will speed up the fall of his regime,” Kabanchuk said.
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