Latest news with #Petrenko
Jordan News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Jordan News
Russian Investigative Committee: Two Explosions Behind Bridge Collapses in Kursk and Bryansk Regions - Jordan News
Russian Investigative Committee: Two Explosions Behind Bridge Collapses in Kursk and Bryansk Regions The Russian Investigative Committee confirmed on Sunday that explosions caused the collapse of two bridges in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. اضافة اعلان Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko told Sputnik that the first incident occurred at 10:50 PM on May 31, 2025, on the Vygonichi–Belshino railway section in Bryansk. A road bridge structure collapsed due to an explosion, and its debris fell onto a passing passenger train, leading to fatalities and injuries. In the second incident, at around 3:00 AM on June 1, a railway bridge in the Zheleznogorsk area of Kursk was blown up. The explosion caused a train to derail and fall onto a nearby highway, injuring the engineer and two of his assistants. Petrenko stated that investigators are currently on-site conducting urgent actions to establish the full circumstances of the attacks. Earlier in the day, Russian authorities confirmed that seven people were killed and dozens injured as a result of the twin bridge collapses in regions bordering Ukraine. According to Interfax, Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said the Bryansk bridge was deliberately bombed while a Klimovo–Moscow passenger train with 388 passengers was passing beneath it. The incidents mark a significant escalation in sabotage activities inside Russian territory amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Winnipeg Free Press
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Living together in peace and harmony
When civil war broke out in his native Syria, it wasn't often that Majd Sukar left his Aleppo apartment. In the fall of 2010, he had moved to the city from a small village called Homs, intending to lead the standard life of a university music student. Sukar was prepared for obsessive solo practice, but not like this. 'I had six months of peace in Aleppo, then the whole country went to protest on the 15th of March. By the end of that year, the country was falling apart,' says Sukar, 33. Ruth Bonneville / Free Press From left: Grace Budoloski, Elliot Lazar and Ryan Abdullah Hooper with Majd Sukar playing the clarinet on the balcony during rehearsals of The Band's Visit. 'The only certain thing — the only thing I was sure about — was the clarinet.' Trained as a pianist and as a classical Arabic vocalist by his grandfather, an Aramaic priest who guided Sukar through the intricate melodies of Syriac Christian hymns, the musician gravitated to the clarinet, using the instrument as a reeded passport across war-torn borders. Under threat of ISIS bombardment, he ventured to internet cafés to watch videos of the Romani-Turkish player Hüsnü Senlendirici and Greek virtuoso Vasilis Saleas. 'I had to teach myself. Most of the time, the clarinet is your friend,' he says. Fourteen years later, Sukar, who now lives and plays in Toronto, where he trained at Humber College, is still enamored with an instrument that feels right at home whether in Armenia, Tunisia or Krakow. One never can predict where a career in music will take you — for Sukar, it brought him to Winnipeg to appear in the final production of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre's 2024-2025 season. In casting the role of Simon in The Band's Visit — a cross-border musical that won 10 Tony Awards in 2019 — director Dan Petrenko needed to find an actor who fit a precise description: fluent in Arabic, fluid in jazz improvisation, skilful and soulful with the clarinet, and crucially, available to work. 'There was pretty much one person in Canada we found who checked off those boxes,' says Petrenko, whose mandate at WJT has been marked by a commitment to politically relevant musicals; Pain to Power, a musical grappling with Kanye West's antisemitism, had sold-out runs in both Toronto and Montreal earlier this spring after premièring in Winnipeg in 2024. 'It sadly is becoming more and more relevant,' says Petrenko. Sukar had only appeared in one production as an actor: a November production of Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille called Mafaza. Meaning dry, barren desert and etymologically connected to the Arabic root for 'winning,' Mafaza featured four Palestinian and Syrian artists reflecting on the themes of grief, justice and healing in the context of the Middle East. With Abdul Wahab Kayyali, Sukar composed and performed music that drew on his own experience. Petrenko, who before joining WJT was founding artistic director of Toronto's Olive Branch Theatre, caught wind of the performance and was confident he had found his Simon. After reading The Band's Visit script and listening to the music, Sukar was convinced to let his clarinet carry him to Winnipeg. 'I loved the story, which reflects that in the Middle East there are so many people who just want to live in peace. They aren't involved in war. They aren't involved in blood and I believe that's the kind of message I have in my mind, that everyone could live together in peace and harmony.' Ditto for Omar Alex Khan, who plays Tewfiq, the stern conductor of the titular band, an Egyptian police ensemble from Alexandria invited to play in Israel at a newly opened Arab Cultural Centre. Ruth Bonneville / Free Press Majd Sukar plays Simon, the clarinetist, in The Band's Visit, playing at WJT until May 11. 'I was struck by the music and the songs, but also I loved that it's about a group of Israeli people and a group of Arab people, but it isn't a political show. Yes, it's about these groups of specific people in this show, but there's a universality to it. It's about any group of people, who, like all of us, are trying to figure ourselves out, understand our feelings, figure out the world, trying to survive,' Khan says. To develop his character, Khan wrote a three-page diary entry as Tewfiq, outlining his multiple motivations. 'A director taught me to make three lists: what the character says, what the character does and what the character wants.' Tewfiq, like Sukar and the show's cafe owner, Dina (played by Israeli-Canadian actor Anat Kriger), would like to build a life in music that isn't defined by conflict. 'I think it's the perfect show for nowadays because it talks about humanity, not sides,' says Kriger, who studied musical theatre at Toronto's Randolph College. But the actors, like the work they bring to the Berney Theatre until May 11, are more than aware of the current political climate in Israel-Palestine and have leaned into the show's emphasis on shared culture as a hopeful olive branch. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. Dina and Tewfiq's bond is solidified by shared musical and filmic inspiration during the gorgeous number Omar Sharif. The characters find common ground in their affection for the Oscar nominees's early films, including The River of Love, a 1960 feature referenced throughout Itamar Moses's Tony-winning book. Members of the cast watched the film, based on Anna Karenina, together shortly after they began rehearsing. 'It's a tragic story, but it's Dina's favourite,' says Kriger. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
The Guardian
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
RPO/Petrenko review – a blistering, multi-hued Shostakovich
Southbank Centre's life-enhancing Multitudes festival is turning out to be a stimulating mix of orchestral fireworks and artistic cross-fertilisation. Of course, the trick with multidisciplinary work is to ensure that one form doesn't overwhelm the others, and this Royal Philharmonic take on Shostakovich's epic Leningrad Symphony, with imagery by Russian art/film director Kirill Serebrennikov and video artist Ilya Shagalov, got the balance just right. A brief first half offered a thrusting reading of Sibelius's Finlandia, a more straightforwardly patriotic work than Shostakovich's tantalisingly equivocal symphony. Conductor Vasily Petrenko proved a master of dramatic contrasts, from the opening rasp of low brass to the composer's final proclamation of nationhood. Kurt Weill's Four Walt Whitman Songs were equally effective, thanks to Roderick Williams' honest simplicity and razor-sharp diction. The German expat's gawky settings of nationalistic poetry have the potential to get chopped up and tossed into word salads, but not with Williams at the helm. Firm-toned and equally firmly committed, he landed all four with musical panache and lyrical insight. As for the symphony, Serebrennikov and Shagalov allowed Petrenko's blistering, multi-hued interpretation of Shostakovich's cinematic masterpiece to command centre stage. Their absorbing but never over-fussy illustrations offered extra-cerebral stimulation with evocative and occasionally provocative imagery playing out on three giant screens. Shostakovich's four movements were visualised as a series of discrete yet interconnected narratives, broadening the storyline from Soviet resilience in the face of the destruction of Leningrad (whether by Hitler or, as Shostakovich once suggested, by Stalin) to the impact of man's technological overreach on the planet. The live-guided imagery, which referenced 20th-century constructivism and contemporary sci-fi, was inspired, from a psychedelically infused eyeball scanning the heavens to the blood-red vegetation of a haunted forest. The opening Allegretto channelled the Icarus myth, the on-screen action going cheek-by-jowl with Petrenko's masterly build of Shostakovich's battle theme. In contrast, the light-footed second movement was accompanied by dancing cells and synapses. A poignant, post-apocalyptic Adagio led into an intense, emotional finale where Technicolor flowers blossomed as vividly as Shostakovich's music. Petrenko, visibly moved at the end, never put a foot wrong. Multitudes, at London's Southbank Centre, continues until 3 May.
Russia Today
27-04-2025
- Russia Today
Kiev operative charged in Russian general's assassination
Russian investigators have charged a man with carrying out a car bomb attack that killed a senior general in a Moscow suburb last week. The suspect confessed to acting under orders from Ukrainian security services, the Investigative Committee has said. In a statement released on Sunday, investigators announced that 42-year-old Ignat Kuzin faces charges of committing a terrorist act and illegal handling and manufacturing of explosives. The committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said Kuzin fully admitted his guilt and agreed to confirm his testimony during on-site investigation procedures. Kuzin was detained shortly after the explosion that killed the deputy chief of operations of Russia's General Staff, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, on April 25 outside his home in Balashikha. Petrenko stated that Kuzin had been recruited by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) in 2023. For his involvement, Kuzin was allegedly promised a payment of $18,000. Investigators added that Kuzin moved to Russia in September 2023 'awaiting specific instructions from a Ukrainian handler.' In late 2024, Kuzin received information identifying Moskalik, the deputy chief of operations of Russia's General Staff, as his target and began surveillance by renting an apartment in the same building, according to the Investigative Committee. Authorities said he purchased a car and parked it near the entrance, and later planted an explosive device and also installed surveillance cameras and control systems which he retrieved from a secret cache. The Committee said that after final preparations on April 23, Kuzin 'disappeared from the scene.' The bomb was detonated remotely by an 'unidentified employee of the Ukrainian special services,' Petrenko explained. Investigators confirmed that Moskalik was killed instantly by the blast, which was caused by a improvised explosive device packed with shrapnel. According to the Telegram channel '112', Kuzin was detained in Turkey. The outlet reported that the man is originally from the Ukrainian city of Sumy. Kuzin holds a residence permit in Ukraine, the FSB said.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Car bomb kills senior Russian general in Moscow
A senior Russian military figure was killed Friday after a vehicle exploded in the town of Balashikha in the Moscow region, the Investigative Committee of Russia said. Russian authorities had launched a criminal inquiry into the death of Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement Friday on behalf of the committee, which is Russia's main federal criminal investigations authority. Moskalik was killed in the explosion of a Volkswagen Golf in the city of Balashikha following the 'detonation of a homemade explosive device filled with shrapnel,' Petrenko added. He is the latest in a long line of senior Russian military figures to be killed in bombings since Moscow invaded Ukraine three years ago. Speaking to the media the same day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the blast a "terrorist attack." Authorities in Moscow have used similar language following previous bombing attacks on army personnel that were alleged to have been carried out by or on behalf of Ukraine. Since the start of the war, a number of pro-war Russian figures, including journalist Darya Dugina and former-submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsk, have been assassinated in operations that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv. 'The main question is how to stop the war in the center of Europe, the world. We see so many victims every day," Zakharova said, adding: "Even today, a Russian military was killed in a terrorist attack in Moscow.' In video published by the investigative committee, a burned-out vehicle could be seen on a road, with its hood flung open as investigators took in the scene. Official statements did not state whether Moskalik was inside or near the vehicle when it exploded. Petrenko said the task force assigned to the case would include investigators, forensic experts and other law enforcement professionals. It follows Russia's continuing bombardment of Ukraine's major cities. One of the largest such attacks in recent months came overnight Thursday and killed at least 12 people. President Donald Trump has expressed his frustrations with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling on Putin in a post on his Truth Social platform to "stop" following the sweeping attacks. 'I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing,' Trump said. He told reporters Thursday that he believed Putin would listen to his call for a halt to strikes on Ukraine. He added that while there was 'a lot of hatred' between Russia and Ukraine, they both wanted peace. Trump had also reacted angrily earlier Wednesday to Zelenskyy's refusal to consider ceding territory in exchange for a ceasefire. But Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko contradicted Zelenskyy on Friday, saying that Ukraine may have to relinquish territory. Those comments — a major departure from senior Ukrainian figures' previous remarks — came as Russian state media released video showing U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff meeting with Putin for their latest round of talks. An adviser in Zelenskyy's office, Serhiy Leshchenko, told the BBC Klitschko's remarks were 'counterproductive.' This article was originally published on
