Australia Condemns Russia's 13-Year Sentence for Citizen
Australia's foreign minister condemned a 13-year prison sentence handed down by a Russian court to an Australian national who fought with Ukrainian forces, calling the process a 'sham trial' and vowing to press for his release.
Oscar Jenkins, 33, was convicted in a Russian-controlled court in occupied eastern Ukraine on Friday of fighting in an armed conflict as a mercenary, local media have reported.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China tells G7 to stop 'manipulating' China issues for its own agenda
BEIJING (Reuters) -China warned the Group of Seven advanced economies on Friday against "manipulating" issues related to the world's second-largest economy for their own agenda, after they accused Beijing of unfair business practices a year earlier. Beijing's criticism of the G7 and what it represents comes amid a surge in global trade tension between the United States and China this year, as well as within the bloc's membership. In remarks ahead of a three-day G7 summit in Canada set to start from Sunday, Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry, accused the group of having always upheld a Cold War mentality. The bloc should "stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs, stop undermining other countries' development, (and) stop manipulating issues related to China," Lin told a regular news conference. The G7 provokes conflicts and confrontations, said Lin, adding that such practices were "doomed to fail". In the communique after its 2024 summit in Italy that mentioned China more than 20 times, the G7 said its companies needed to be protected from China's unfair business practices. It also warned of action against Chinese financial institutions that helped Russia obtain weapons for its war in Ukraine. The participation of countries beyond the grouping, such as India and Brazil, in last year's event also irked China, which viewed the move as a bid to sow discord among countries of the Global South. New leaders will represent five of the G7's members - Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan and the United States - at next week's summit.
New York Times
44 minutes ago
- New York Times
Russian Forces Expand Fighting to a New Region of Eastern Ukraine
Pressing ahead with a new summer offensive, Russian forces have entered the Dnipropetrovsk region of eastern Ukraine for the first time in three years of war — signaling their capacity to keep expanding the fight as cease-fire talks show little signs of progress. Advancing west from the Donetsk region, the main theater of the ground war today, small squads of Russian soldiers began crossing into neighboring Dnipropetrovsk last weekend, according to three Ukrainian officers fighting in the area. A battlefield map by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, based on verified combat footage, now shows that Russian forces have secured a tiny foothold in the area. Russia is unlikely to try to seize the new region, which it has signaled in the past that it has no intentions of doing. Instead, military analysts and Ukrainian soldiers view the push as both symbolic — aimed at denting Ukrainian morale by breaching a new region — and strategic, designed to bolster its defenses in neighboring areas where it has already dug in. Still, both goals are likely to further widen the battlefield in a war now grinding through its fourth year. An officer with the call sign 'Barbarossa' from Ukraine's 72nd Brigade, which is currently fighting off Russian assaults into Dnipropetrovsk, said that Russia had accumulated 'a lot of forces' in the area, and that he expected them to push deeper into the region. Like other officers quoted in this article, he asked to be identified by his first name or call sign only, in keeping with military protocol. Russia's Defense Ministry first claimed on Sunday that some of its forces had reached the administrative border between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk and were 'continuing their offensive.' Ukraine's top military command has so far denied that Russian troops have entered Dnipropetrovsk. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Ukrainians face painful wait to learn if loved ones are among returned bodies
By Margaryta Chornokondratenko and Aleksandar Vasovic BUCHA, Ukraine (Reuters) -Volodymyr Umanets, a 69-year-old security guard, hopes his son will be among the Ukrainian prisoners of war now being handed over by Russia, but he knows he could be part of a more sombre homecoming: the repatriated remains of dead soldiers. Not knowing which group his son, Sergiy, will be in is a torment. 'I am told to wait. What else is left for me to do?' said Umanets, as tears welled up in his eyes. This week Russia and Ukraine began implementing a deal reached at June 2 peace talks in Istanbul to hand over 1,000 prisoners of war each, and also a huge number of human remains. Alongside the joyful scenes of soldiers returning home and hugging loved ones, there have been macabre images of men dressed in hazmat suits transferring body bags from refrigerated trucks. Russia said it plans to hand over the remains of around 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers in this phase of the exchange. So far this week, it said it transferred 1,212 sets of remains, while Ukraine said it handed over the bodies of 27 Russian soldiers. Volodymyr Umanets's son Sergiy, 49, served in the army as a younger man and volunteered to rejoin shortly after the February 2022 full-scale invasion. He was serving in the Ukrainian military in south-eastern Ukraine when he went missing in combat in December 2023. His father, who works as a security guard in the town hall in Bucha, outside Kyiv, said he still hopes Sergiy is alive, and that he was captured by the Russian side. But he acknowledged the possibility that his son may have been killed. He gave authorities a sample of his DNA so that if Sergiy's remains are recovered, he can be identified. 'You know, I want to know at least something, to get at least some information,' he said. 'I read recently in the newspaper that a young man was declared missing. And during the exchange of bodies, his DNA was identified. He was buried today. I wish I knew at least this.' Each side has been handing over soldiers' remains periodically throughout the conflict, but the swap now underway is of an unprecedented scale. PAINSTAKING PROCESS For Ukraine, the repatriation of the remains marks the start of a long and painstaking process to identify who they are, how they died, and to notify their families. The task is made more complicated because sometimes the returned soldiers were killed in explosions so their bodies are in fragments, according to Djordje Alempijevic, a professor of forensic science at Belgrade University who helped examine the remains of people killed in conflicts in the Western Balkans in the 1990s. An added complication, he said, is that some of the remains have been stored for a long time, and they degrade, even if kept in refrigeration. In the best case scenario, the bodies are returned with some documents to help identification, said Dmytro Hapchenko, a local council official in Bucha who has worked on remains of people killed in the war. But he said that does not always happen. In fact, Ukraine has alleged that Russia's approach to processing the remains of Ukrainian soldiers has been haphazard. On June 2, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told reporters that in previous repatriations of remains, Russia handed over bodies to Ukraine that were actually dead Russian soldiers. Russia, in response, has accused Ukraine of deliberately delaying the exchange of the remains, stranding trucks with human bodies on the Russian side of the border, a claim denied by Ukraine. Absent any identifying documents for the returned remains, forensic pathologists will try to conduct an autopsy, said Alempijevic. He said they look for features like old bone fractures, dental characteristics, and metal plates or screws from old surgeries. Alempijevic, member of the UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, said autopsies also allowed pathologists to look for evidence of a war crime. Ukrainian prosecutors have alleged some Ukrainian soldiers were tortured in captivity, or summarily executed, and they are preparing criminal prosecutions. Russia has denied those allegations. Hapchenko, the Bucha city official, said he was supporting families from his area whose loved ones went missing in the fighting. 'Unfortunately, there are quite a few of them,' he said. Referring to the repatriation of fallen soldiers now underway, he said: 'Maybe now they'll be able to bury them.' (Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
