logo
Kremlin says enhanced missile range for Ukraine would be dangerous

Kremlin says enhanced missile range for Ukraine would be dangerous

The Herald7 days ago

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday said any decision by European countries that might give Ukraine enhanced long-range missile capabilities would be a dangerous move, Kremlin correspondent Alexander Yunashev reported.
Peskov's comments came after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had spoken about the absence of range restrictions for weapons delivered to Ukraine, which one German government official said did not represent a change in policy.
'The potential decisions, if such decisions have been made, run absolutely contrary to our aspirations for reaching a political settlement,' Peskov said.
He said such decisions, if there were any, were "quite dangerous".
Merz on Monday said his government would do everything possible to keep supporting Ukraine militarily, pointing out that the lack of range restrictions meant Ukraine could attack military targets in Russia.
'Ukraine wasn't able to do that until some time ago,' Merz said at the WDR European Forum.
'With very few exceptions, it did not do so until recently.'
Washington allowed Ukraine to use US-made weapons to strike deep into Russia, Reuters reported in November, in a significant reversal of US policy in former president Joe Biden's final months in office.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Ukrainian strikes cut power to Russian-held areas, officials say
Ukrainian strikes cut power to Russian-held areas, officials say

Daily Maverick

timean hour ago

  • Daily Maverick

Ukrainian strikes cut power to Russian-held areas, officials say

Officials said there was no effect on operations at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station – Europe's largest nuclear facility which was seized by Russia in the weeks after Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Russian officials running the plant said radiation levels were normal at the facility, which operates in shutdown mode and produces no power at the moment. Russia-installed governors in the two regions said the Ukrainian attacks prompted authorities to introduce emergency measures and switch key sites to reserve power sources. Power was knocked out to all parts of Zaporizhzhia under Russian control, Russia-installed Governor Yevgeny Belitsky wrote on Telegram. 'As a result of shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, high-voltage equipment was damaged in the northwestern part of the Zaporizhzhia region,' Belitsky wrote. 'There is no electricity throughout the region. The Energy Ministry of Zaporizhzhia region has been instructed to develop reserve sources of power. Health care sites have been transferred to reserve power sources.' In adjacent Kherson region, farther west, Russia-appointed Governor Vladimir Saldo said debris from fallen drones had damaged two substations, knocking out power to more than 100,000 residents of 150 towns and villages in Russian-held areas. Emergency crews working to restore power quickly, he said. For many long months in the winter, it was Ukrainian towns and villages that endured repeated electricity cuts as Russian attacks focused strikes on generating capacity. Each side has repeatedly accused the other of launching attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and running the risk of a nuclear accident. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week in response to a Ukrainian complaint that it saw no sign that Russia was preparing to restart the Zaporizhzhia plant and connect it to the Russian grid. The IAEA has stationed monitors permanently at Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine's other nuclear power stations.

Amid all the talk about preventing gender-based violence, sex workers are ignored
Amid all the talk about preventing gender-based violence, sex workers are ignored

Mail & Guardian

timea day ago

  • Mail & Guardian

Amid all the talk about preventing gender-based violence, sex workers are ignored

When courts dismiss violence on the basis of occupation, the message is clear: sex workers' lives matter less. As International Sex Workers Day approaches, many will rush to be seen. Statements will be issued, social media tiles shared and a flurry of symbolic visibility will flicker across timelines. But for sex workers on the front lines, skin-deep solidarity does nothing to help them navigate broken health systems, violent law enforcement and exclusionary public policy. What makes sex work dangerous are the laws, policies and attitudes that surround it. When police wield condoms as evidence, when shelters deny access based on moral judgment, when courts dismiss violence on the basis of occupation, the message is clear: sex workers' lives matter less. This leads to a brutal reality in which sex workers are 17 times more likely to be killed than the rest of the population, according to a The What little recourse the broader population may have in law enforcement (as citizens, survivors of abuse, or as workers) is simply not available to sex workers when their jobs are a crime. A Even worse, police officers often target and extort sex workers. A Serbian sex worker told researchers: '[The officer] pulled out a police badge and said 'C'mon, you want me to take you in [to jail] or screw you?' I was scared, and allowed him to screw me.' Sex workers are stripped of their dignity day in and day out. They are no more than a legal inconvenience, a public relations liability, a line item in someone else's report. This is not a coincidence. It is the result of systemic neglect. The dangerous politics of protection Human rights violations against sex workers are often masked by the language of public safety. In many countries, 'rescue' operations involve rounding up sex workers, jailing them and forcing them into rehabilitation programmes that neither respect their rights nor improve their safety. Such abuses are only strengthened by those in the the anti-trafficking sector who continue to conflate consensual sex work with forced labour. At the same time, governments refuse to work with sex worker-led organisations as legitimate stakeholders in violence prevention. The result? Interventions designed in boardrooms instead of communities and funding cycles that prioritise 'rescue' over rights. Even in relatively progressive contexts, decriminalisation is debated endlessly while police brutality continues without pause. Most countries operate under partial criminalisation or vague regulatory frameworks that leave sex workers exposed to violence without legal recourse. These grey zones are not neutral, they're often lethal. And in today's political climate, where anti-rights movements are gaining ground in every region, sex workers are among the first to be targeted, often alongside LGBTQ+ people and migrants. The rollback of hard-won human rights always starts with those who have the least institutional power. And too often, sex workers are treated as expendable. What real safety looks like It does not have to be this way. There is no shortage of evidence on what works when sex workers are seen as experts in their own lives and supported to lead the response. A The Lancet found that community empowerment approaches, those led by sex workers themselves, result in lower rates of violence, better health outcomes and increased condom use. Safety for sex workers looks like: Decriminalisation of all aspects of consensual adult sex work; Legal reform to ensure that sex workers can report violence without fear of arrest; Access to justice that includes legal aid, human rights training for law enforcement, and pathways to restitution; Non-discriminatory health care, inclusive of sexual and reproductive health, mental health, and trauma services; and Sustainable funding for sex worker-led movements, not just token consultation. We don't need more research. We need more political courage. The Cost of Erasure As someone who works at the intersection of gender-based violence and sex work, I've witnessed the deep institutional reluctance to name sex workers as survivors of violence in their own right. I've read strategies to fight gender-based violence that list every vulnerable group except the one most consistently brutalised by the state. I've seen national action plans that mention 'inclusive' services while operating under laws that criminalise the very people they claim to serve. Silence tells sex workers that their pain is not valid, their voices not credible and their rights not urgent. Sex workers are not passive victims waiting to be rescued. They are advocates, care workers, organisers and strategists who have built safety networks in the absence of state protection. They are the ones who distribute condoms, educate peers, challenge stigma and hold abusive systems to account. Any violence prevention strategy that does not include them at the centre is not only inadequate, it is dishonest. On this International Sex Workers Day, we must go beyond gestures. The international community cannot continue to ignore the double standard it applies to sex workers when it comes to gender justice. Governments cannot claim to care about ending gender-based violence while criminalising, excluding and persecuting sex workers. Safety is not a buzzword. It is the outcome of political decisions about who is worthy of protection and who is abandoned to survive alone. If we are serious about ending violence against women and gender-diverse people, we must start where the system is most violent and most unaccountable. And that means standing with sex workers, not as an act of charity, but as an act of solidarity and justice. Because safety doesn't appear when it's merely used as a slogan, it has to be built up as a system. We won't fix the system we've got now by ignoring the people who have survived its worst failures. Tian Johnson is the founder of the Pan-African health justice NGO, The African Alliance and GBV adviser to the Hands Off 2 programme which works with sex worker-led organisations, religious leaders, law enforcement, service providers and NGOs dedicated to human rights in efforts to reduce violence against sex workers.

Polish conservative Nawrocki leads presidential vote
Polish conservative Nawrocki leads presidential vote

Daily Maverick

timea day 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.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store