Ukraine expands evacuations in Sumy region amid offensive fears
Ukraine ordered the evacuation of 11 more villages in its Sumy region bordering Russia on Saturday amid fears Moscow was gearing up for a fresh ground assault.
Russia claims to have captured several villages in the northeastern region in recent weeks, and has massed more than 50,000 soldiers on the other side of the border, according to Kyiv.
The evacuations came just two days before a possible meeting between the two sides in Istanbul, as Washington called on both countries to end the three-year war.
Russia has confirmed it will send a delegation to the Turkish city, but Kyiv has yet to accept the proposal, warning the talks would not yield results unless the Kremlin provided its peace terms in advance.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of doing "everything" it could to sabotage the potential meeting by withholding its peace terms.
Authorities in Ukraine's Sumy region said Saturday they were evacuating 11 villages within a roughly 30-kilometre (19-mile) range from the Russian border.
"The decision was made in view of the constant threat to civilian life as a result of shelling of border communities," the regional administration said on social media.
A spokesman for Ukraine's border guard service, Andriy Demchenko, said Thursday that Russia was poised to "attempt an attack" on Sumy.
In total, 213 settlements in the region have been ordered to evacuate.
Russia's defence ministry said Saturday that its forces had taken another Sumy region village, Vodolagy.
Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the destruction of towns and villages across parts of the east and south of the country.
The Kremlin's army now controls around a fifth of the country and claims to have annexed five Ukrainian regions as its own, including Crimea, which it seized in 2014.
- 'Strong delegations' -
US President Donald Trump has spearheaded diplomatic efforts to bring an end to the fighting, but Kyiv and Moscow have both accused each other of not wanting peace.
The Kremlin has proposed further negotiations in Istanbul on Monday, after a May 16 round of talks that yielded little beyond a large prisoner-of-war exchange.
Kyiv has not yet said whether it will attend the Monday meeting, and said Friday it did not expect any results from the talks unless Moscow provided its peace terms in advance.
Russia says it will provide its peace memorandum in person on Monday.
AFP | Odd ANDERSEN
But Ukraine suspects it will contain unrealistic demands that Kyiv has already rejected, including that Ukraine cede territory still under its control and abandon its NATO ambitions.
In a statement to the United Nations on Friday, Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia suggested the memorandum might call for Western countries to halt arm supplies to Kyiv and for Ukraine to abandon its military mobilisation.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has fostered warm relations with both Zelensky and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, has become a key mediator amid efforts to end the conflict.
In a call with Zelensky late Friday, the Turkish leader urged both sides to send "strong delegations" to ensure momentum towards peace, according to Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
Turkey has offered to host a summit between Putin, Zelensky and Trump, but the Kremlin has turned down the offer.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
TimesLIVE
24 minutes ago
- TimesLIVE
Russia and Ukraine to talk about peace but remain far apart
Russian and Ukrainian officials are due to sit down on Monday in the Turkish city of Istanbul for their second round of direct peace talks since 2022, but the two sides continue to be far apart on how to end the war as the fighting steps up. US President Donald Trump has demanded Russia and Ukraine make peace, but so far they have not and the White House has repeatedly warned the US will 'walk away' from the war if the two sides are too stubborn to reach a peace deal. The first round of talks on May 16 yielded the biggest prisoner swap of the war but no sign of peace, or even a ceasefire as the two sides merely set out their opening negotiating positions. After keeping the world guessing on whether Ukraine would turn up for the second round, President Volodymyr Zelensky said defence minister Rustem Umerov would meet Russian officials in Istanbul. The Russian delegation will be headed by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who after the first round invoked French general and statesman Napoleon Bonaparte to assert war and negotiations should always be conducted at the same time. On Sunday, Ukraine launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and other military bases, while the Kremlin launched 472 drones at Ukraine, Ukraine's air force said, the highest nightly total of the war.
Daily Maverick
an hour ago
- Daily Maverick
Polish conservative Nawrocki leads presidential vote
By Marek Strzelecki and Anna Koper A late exit poll by Ipsos for broadcasters TVN, TVP and Polsat showed Nawrocki at 51% and his rival, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, at 49%. Readings published just after voting ended had Nawrocki losing at 49.7% to 50.3%. Official results were due on Monday. Nawrocki, 42, an amateur boxer who ran a national remembrance institute, campaigned on a promise to ensure government economic and social policies favour Poles over other nations, including refugees from neighbouring Ukraine. While Poland's parliament holds most power, the president can veto legislation, and the vote was being watched closely in Ukraine as well as Russia, the United States and across the European Union. Both candidates agreed on the need to spend heavily on defence as Trump, the U.S. president, is demanding from Europe and to continue supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's three-year-old invasion. Poland is a member of the 32-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization security alliance. But while Trzaskowski sees Ukraine's future membership of NATO as essential for Poland's security, Nawrocki said recently that if he were president he would not ratify it because of the danger of the alliance being drawn into war with Moscow. Russia has demanded that NATO not enlarge eastward to include Ukraine and other former Soviet republics as a condition of a peace deal with Kyiv, sources have said. Nawrocki has presented the ballot as a referendum on the broad coalition government of pro-Europe Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the leader of the Civic Coalition (KO) party who took office about 18 months ago. 'This will be a good counterweight to the government,' said Mateusz Morawiecki, who was prime minister in the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government that lost power in 2023. Although technically an independent, Nawrocki was backed by PiS in the election. Trzaskowski, 53, had promised to help Tusk complete his government's democratic reforms, which they both say aim to repair an erosion of checks and balances under the former PiS government. Trzaskowski's campaign initially proclaimed victory on Sunday and did not immediately comment after poll readings showed a move in Nawrocki's favour. TUMULTUOUS CAMPAIGN The first round of the election on May 18 saw a surge in support for the anti-establishment far-right, suggesting that the KO-PiS duopoly that has dominated Polish politics for a generation may be starting to fracture. Nevertheless, after a tumultuous campaign in which Nawrocki in particular faced a slew of negative media reports about his alleged past conduct, once again candidates representing the two main parties faced off in the second round. Nawrocki dismissed accusations of wrongdoing in his acquisition of a flat from a pensioner and participation in mass organised fights among football hooligans. Social issues were also at stake in the election. Trzaskowski has said he wanted to see Poland's near total ban on abortion eased, something that outgoing nationalist President Andrzej Duda strongly opposed. A win by Nawrocki will likely mean that Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico gain an ally in central Europe. His victory could lend momentum to the Czech Republic's eurosceptic opposition leader and former Prime Minister Andrej Babis who leads opinion polls ahead of an October election. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke in Nawrocki's favour in May, telling a conservative gathering in Poland that he 'needs to be the next president.'
Eyewitness News
an hour ago
- Eyewitness News
Mexicans elect their judges under shadow of crime, corruption
MEXICO CITY - Mexicans chose their judges Sunday in unprecedented elections that sharply divided opinion in a country plagued by rampant crime, corruption and impunity. The government and its supporters said the reform making Mexico the world's only nation to select all of its judges and magistrates by popular vote was needed to clean up a rotten justice system. Arturo Giesemann, a 57-year-old retiree, said his main motivation for voting was "the disgust I have with the current judiciary because of its corruption." Turnout appeared to be low as many voters struggled to choose from hundreds of largely unknown candidates. "We are not very prepared," said Lucia Calderon, a 63-year-old university teacher. "I think we need more information." In the western state of Jalisco, 63-year-old housewife Maria Estrada said she used her "intuition" as she did not know the candidates. Experts were concerned that the elections would politicize the justice system and make it easier for criminals to influence the courts with threats and bribery. While corruption already exists, "there is reason to believe that elections may be more easily infiltrated by organized crime than other methods of judicial selection," Margaret Satterthwaite, the United Nations special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, told AFP. Hundreds of opponents of the reforms marched through Mexico City waving flags and banners with slogans including: "Hands off our democracy" and "No to electoral fraud." The elections send the judiciary "to its grave," said Ismael Novela, a 58-year-old company worker. "It was the last counterweight we had against the totalitarianism of the executive branch." 'REGIME OF CORRUPTION' President Claudia Sheinbaum hit back at her critics on the eve of the vote. "Those who want the regime of corruption and privileges in the judiciary to continue say this election is rigged. Or they also say it's so a political party can take over the Supreme Court," she said in a video message. "Nothing could be further from the truth," she insisted. The run-up to the vote was not accompanied by the kind of violence that often targets politicians in Mexico. But "it is logical that organized criminal groups would have approached judges and candidates who are important to them," said consultant Luis Carlos Ugalde, a former head of Mexico's electoral commission. Rights group Defensorxs has identified around 20 candidates it considers "high risk," including Silvia Delgado, a former lawyer for Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Another aspiring judge, in Durango state, spent almost six years in prison in the United States for drug crimes. 'GOOD REPUTATION' Voters were tasked with choosing around 880 federal judges - including Supreme Court justices - as well as hundreds of local judges and magistrates. Another election for the remainder will be held in 2027. Candidates are supposed to have a law degree, experience in legal affairs and what is termed "a good reputation," as well as no criminal record. To do a good job, voters "would have to spend hours and hours researching the track record and the profiles of each of the hundreds of candidates," said David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego. He believes that most of the corruption in Mexico's judicial system is in law enforcement agencies and public prosecutor offices. "If you can avoid being prosecuted, you don't have to worry about the judge," said Shirk, who heads the Justice in Mexico research project. The judicial reforms were championed by Sheinbaum's predecessor and mentor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who frequently clashed with the courts before stepping down last year. The main reason for the elections seems to be "because Lopez Obrador had a grudge against the judges," Shirk said.
