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KYIV, Ukraine — Pro-Kremlin authorities in Ukraine's Kherson said on Wednesday they will ask Russia to annex the region as Moscow seeks to shore up its gains in the increasingly drawn-out and bloody war.

Gas supplies to energy-starved Europe were also disrupted by a halt in Russian supplies flowing through Ukraine as the international shockwaves of the February 24 invasion continued.

The developments came as Ukraine said it was pushing Russian troops away from the country's second city Kharkiv in the northeast but facing stiff resistance from the invading forces.

Russia has focused on eastern and southern Ukraine since it failed to take Kyiv in the first weeks after the February 24 invasion, and US intelligence has warned Putin is ready for a long war.

Kherson, the first major Ukrainian city to fall after the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbour, is north of Crimea, which itself was annexed by Moscow in 2014 after an internationally-condemned vote.

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of Kherson's Moscow-installed civilian and military administration, said there would be a "request to make Kherson region a full subject of the Russian Federation".

Stremousov suggested the authorities would appeal directly to Putin without putting the move to a vote. But the Kremlin replied that it was up to the residents of Kherson to "determine their own fate".

Kherson is just north of Crimea and essential for its water supplies. But Russia also appears set on creating a land bridge to Crimea from its own territory, with US intelligence suggesting it wants to go all the way across the southern coast to Moldova.

'They come in waves' 

On the battlefield, Ukraine's forces were boosted by what Kyiv says is the recapture of four villages around Kharkiv

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Tuesday that he had "good news" from Kharkiv and praised the "superhuman strength" of Ukrainian defenders.

Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said Wednesday that “occupiers continue to focus their efforts on preventing the further advance of our troops towards the state border of Ukraine” from Kharkiv.

But Ukraine is engaged in what appears to be an increasingly desperate effort to hold the Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east.

“They come in waves,” volunteer fighter Mykola said of the Russians’ repeated attempts to push south past a strategic river near a rural settlement called Bilogorivka.

Nearby, the casing of a cluster munition stood upright like a fence pole not far from a team of Ukrainian medics rushing a bleeding soldier from the eastern front.

One of the doctors reassured the wincing fighter that the tourniquet being squeezed just above his knee did not mean he was about to lose a part of his leg.

US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday said Putin was “preparing for prolonged conflict” and “still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas.”

‘Unwavering determination’ 

The war in Ukraine has also fuelled Europe’s growing energy crisis, with Kyiv pressing for an embargo on oil and gas imports from Russia.

Ukraine on Wednesday said Russia had halted gas supplies through a key transit hub in the east of the country, a day after the Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz said it was no longer responsible for gas coming through Russian-occupied territory. 

Germany said inflows of Russian gas had as a result fallen by a quarter compared to a day before, although it was getting extra supplies from Norway and the Netherlands.

Germany is highly dependent on Russia for its gas supplies and has rejected an immediate full embargo on Russian gas, although it backs a halt on Russian oil that the EU is seeking.

Ukraine has been pushing Western countries for more support on all fronts, with Washington the latest to step up.

As President Joe Biden warned that Ukraine would within days likely run out of funds to keep fighting, the US House of Representatives voted late Tuesday to send a $40 billion aid package to the country.

“With this aid package, America sends a resounding message to the world of our unwavering determination to stand with the courageous people of Ukraine until victory is won,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

The United States views it as increasingly likely that Putin will mobilise his entire country, including ordering martial law, and is counting on his perseverance to wear down Western support for Ukraine.

As Russia cracks down internally, a member of the band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, said she had left Russia by disguising herself as a food delivery courier to escape police. 

‘Ukrainian culture exists’ 

One of the key symbols of Ukrainian resistance has been the strategic port of Mariupol, where Ukraine says around 1,000 troops remain trapped in increasingly dire circumstances at the Azovstal steelworks.

The sprawling plant is the final bastion of Ukraine’s defiance in the devastated city, over which Russia now has almost complete control.

A sister plant of the Azovstal mill in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia has highlighted how the Mariupol facility has proven key to the Ukrainian resistance to the numerically superior Russian force.

“We can stay in the shelters for a long time,” said Zaporizhstal employee Ihor Buhlayev, 20, in his hooded silver safety gear as molten metal flowed and sparked behind him. “I think it will give us the chance to survive.”

One other rallying point for Ukrainians has become the Eurovision song contest, the world’s biggest live music event which takes place this weekend.

Ukraine’s rap folk band Kalush Orchestra is the favourite to win the camp celebration, and they progressed through Tuesday night’s semi-final to ensure they participate in Saturday’s grand final. 

“We are here to show that Ukrainian music and Ukrainian culture exists,” frontman rapper Oleh Psiuk said. 

KYIV, Ukraine — The United States warned on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready for a long war in Ukraine and will not stop at the eastern Donbas region where fighting is currently raging.

Washington's bleak prediction came as Ukraine said its membership of the European Union was a question of "war and peace" for the whole continent as it faces up to Moscow.

As it battled Russian attempts to advance in the east, Kyiv hailed what it said was EU powerhouse Germany's change of stance on a Russian oil embargo and on supplying arms to Ukraine.

Violence still raged in southern Ukraine with overnight missile strikes in the port of Odessa, while officials said some 1,000 troops were trapped in the Azovstal steel works in the devastated city of Mariupol.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 but Ukrainian forces managed to push Moscow's forces back from Kyiv, and the conflict is now well into its third month.

Putin gave few hints on his plans in a speech during a huge military parade in Moscow on Monday, saying only that Russian troops were defending the “Motherland” and blaming the West for the conflict. 

But US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said on Tuesday that Putin will not end the war with the Donbas campaign and is determined to build a land bridge to Russian-controlled territory in Moldova.

US intelligence also views it as increasingly likely that Putin will mobilise his entire country, including ordering martial law, and is counting on his perseverance to wear down Western support for Ukraine.

“We assess President Putin is preparing for prolonged conflict in Ukraine during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas,” Haines said.

‘Counting the bombs’ 

Moscow switched its focus to Russian-speaking Donbas, where separatists have been fighting since 2014, after failing to take Kyiv.

Ukraine’s presidency said the “epicentre of the fighting has moved” to Bilogorivka in the Lugansk region, the site of a deadly Russian air strike on a school on Sunday that Ukrainian officials said killed 60 people. 

Shelling also continued in Ukraine’s easternmost strongholds, the sister cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, it said. An AFP team had seen columns of Ukrainian trucks moving away from Severodonetsk on Monday.

Civilians were struggling to survive between the constantly shifting front lines.

“I feel total apathy. I am morally starved — not to mention physically,” said bricklayer Artyom Cherukha, 41, as he collected water trickling from a natural spring in Lysychansk.

He was trying to get supplies for his family of nine, as people in the areas steadily lose access to water and food.

“We sit here counting the bombs,” said Cherukha.

In the south, a series of missile strikes in Odessa overnight meanwhile destroyed buildings, set ablaze a shopping centre and killed one person, just hours after a visit by European Council President Charles Michel.

Michel had earlier warned that vital supplies of wheat and grain that were ready for export from Ukraine, one of the world’s key producers, were stuck in Odessa because of the conflict.

Germany ‘changed position’ 

Ukraine has been pushing Western countries for more support, and has been particularly critical of Germany for its slow response and unwillingness to give up Russian energy.

But the tone changed on Tuesday when German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s surprise visit to Bucha, a town outside Kyiv where Russian troops have been accused of war crimes.

“I would like to thank Germany for changing its position on a number of issues,” Dmytro Kuleba told a press conference in Kyiv with Baerbock.

“Germany has changed its position on arms supplies to Ukraine,” said Kuleba, adding that Kyiv was also “grateful to Germany for supporting the introduction of the oil embargo” by the EU.

The Ukrainian top diplomat however pushed for the European Union to admit his country, after French President Emmanuel Macron said it could take decades for Ukraine to join.

“I want to emphasise that Ukraine’s membership in the EU is a matter of war and peace in Europe,” said Kuleba. “One of the reasons that this war started is that Putin was convinced that Europe doesn’t need Ukraine.”

The German was accompanied by her Dutch counterpart Wopke Hoekstra, whose country reopened its embassy in Kyiv.

US President Joe Biden has meanwhile resurrected a World War II measure to aid Kyiv, opening the spigots on artillery, anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank weapons and other powerful Western materiel.

US lawmakers were set to begin debate on Tuesday on a nearly $40 billion aid package, which is expected to pass comfortably with rare bipartisan support.

‘Urgent evacuation’ 

Moscow has made more progress in southern Ukraine but “more than a thousand” Ukrainian soldiers remain in the Azovstal steel works in the port of Mariupol, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, told AFP.

The plant is the final bastion of Ukrainian resistance in the city, which has seen relentless destruction since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 24 invasion.

“Hundreds are injured. There are people with serious injuries who require urgent evacuation. The situation is deteriorating every day,” said Vereshchuk. 

Many civilians have been evacuated from the plant in recent days, as Russia pushes for full control of Mariupol to open up a land corridor from Crimea, which it seized in 2014.

Russia faces mounting international outrage, and is already under tough sanctions. 

Moscow said it would not participate in Thursday’s special session of the UN Human Rights Council on Ukraine.

The Council announced on Monday that it would hold a special session at Kyiv’s request to examine “the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression”.

In another step forward in building pressure on Russia, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said she made “progress” on a proposed Russian oil embargo during talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The populist Orban is one of Putin’s closest friends in Europe and had held up the bloc’s attempt to phase out Russian oil — one of the most painful measures yet taken by the West — as he pointed to economic consequences in landlocked Hungary.

Western powers on Tuesday separately accused Russian authorities of carrying out a cyberattack against a satellite network an hour before the invasion of Ukraine to pave the way for its assault.

COLOMBO — Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa quit on Monday, as an outbreak of political violence killed five people including an MP and wounded almost 200.

Lawmaker Amarakeerthi Athukorala from the ruling party shot two people, killing a 27-year-old man, and then took his own life after being surrounded by a mob of anti-government protesters outside Colombo, police said.

And another ruling-party politician who was not named opened fire on anti-government protesters in the southern town of Weeraketiya, killing two and wounding five, according to police.

Sri Lanka has suffered months of blackouts and dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines in its worst economic crisis since independence.

This sparked weeks of overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations against President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, as well as his brother the prime minister.

On Monday scores of Rajapaksa loyalists attacked unarmed protesters camping outside the president’s office on a seafront promenade in downtown Colombo, AFP reporters said.

“We were hit, the media were hit, women and children were hit,” one witness said, asking not to be named.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon and declared an immediate curfew in Colombo, which was later widened to include the entire South Asian island nation of 22 million people.

A total of 181 people were hospitalised, a Colombo National Hospital spokesman told AFP. Eight were injured elsewhere.

The army riot squad was called in to reinforce police. Soldiers had mostly been deployed throughout the crisis to protect deliveries of fuel and other essentials, but not to prevent clashes before.

“Strongly condemn the violent acts taking place by those inciting and participating, irrespective of political allegiances,” President Rajapaksa tweeted. “Violence won’t solve the current problems.”

Mahinda Rajapaksa tendered his resignation as prime minister, saying it was to pave the way for a unity government — but it was unclear if the opposition would cooperate.

US condemnation 

The US ambassador Julie Chung tweeted that Washington condemned “the violence against peaceful protestors today, and call[s] on the government to conduct a full investigation, including the arrest and prosecution of anyone who incited violence”.

Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur, said she had heard “disturbing reports... of repression and disproportionate use of force against peaceful demonstrators who are protesting against allegations of corruption & widespread impunity in Government”.

After the Colombo violence, anti-government protesters who had been demonstrating peacefully since April 9 began retaliating across the island, despite the curfew.

MP Athukorala’s car was surrounded by thousands of people in the town of Nittambuwa as he returned home from the capital after the clashes.

He shot two people before fleeing to a nearby building and then “took his own life with his revolver”, a police official told AFP by telephone.

Athukorala’s bodyguard was also found dead at the scene, police said.

Angry mobs set alight the homes of at least three pro-Rajapaksa politicians, along with some nearby vehicles, while buses and trucks used by the government loyalists in and around Colombo were targeted for destruction.

Doctors at Colombo National Hospital intervened to rescue wounded government supporters, with soldiers breaking open locks to open the gates.

“They may be murderers, but for us they are patients who must be treated first,” a doctor shouted at a mob blocking the entrance to the emergency unit.

Mobs attacked the controversial Rajapaksa museum in the family’s ancestral village in the deep south of the island and razed it to the ground, police said. Two wax statues of the Rajapaksa parents were flattened.

State of emergency 

On Friday, the government imposed a state of emergency granting the military sweeping powers to arrest and detain people, after trade unions brought the country to a virtual standstill.

The defence ministry said in a statement on Sunday that anti-government demonstrators were behaving in a “provocative and threatening manner” and disrupting essential services.

Sri Lanka’s crisis began after the coronavirus pandemic hammered vital income from tourism and remittances, starving it of foreign currency needed to pay off its debt and forcing the government to ban many imports.

This in turn has led to severe shortages, runaway inflation and lengthy power blackouts.

In April, the country announced it was defaulting on its $51 billion foreign debt.

KYIV, Ukraine — President Vladimir Putin defended Russia's war in Ukraine as necessary to protect the "Motherland" as Moscow flexed its military muscle on Monday at a huge parade marking the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany.

Fierce battles raged in eastern Ukraine while Putin made his Victory Day speech against a backdrop of intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbling through Red Square.

The Russian leader made no major announcements on Russia's next steps but channelled Russian pride in its World War II triumph to mobilise support for the Ukraine invasion, now in its third month.

In a sign of international opposition to the war, protesters splattered Russia's ambassador to Poland with red liquid when he tried to lay a wreath in Warsaw to mark Victory Day.

The conflict is mired in the history between ex-Soviet neighbours Ukraine and Russia, with Putin saying the so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine is in part to "de-Nazify" the country.

Putin blamed the West and Ukraine for today's conflict, telling the parade that Russia faced an "absolutely unacceptable threat" and warning against the "horror of a global war".

"You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no-one forgets the lessons of the Second World War," he said.

The celebration in Red Square also featured some 11,000 troops and more than 130 military vehicles, although a planned military flypast was cancelled.

'Very serious battles' 

On the ground, the key battles are being fought in Ukraine's east, which Russia is seeking to secure having tried and failed to take the capital Kyiv and the north.

The governor of eastern Lugansk region, Sergiy Gaiday, said on Monday there were "very serious battles" around Bilogorivka and Rubizhne, as Russia tries to take the Russian-speaking Donbas. 

Donbas encompasses Lugansk and the neighbouring region of Donetsk.

An AFP team saw columns of trucks filled with soldiers and heavy equipment move down the main road leading away from the city of Severodonetsk, suggesting Ukraine was giving up the defence of its last stronghold in Lugansk.

Russian forces were heavily shelling the roads, while the Ukrainians were firing back to help cover the apparent pullout.

Officials said 60 civilians were killed in a Russian air strike on a school in the eastern village of Bilogorivka on Sunday, one of the highest single death tolls since the February 24 invasion.

Pro-Russian separatists meanwhile feted Victory Day in Ukraine’s devastated southern port of Mariupol, where depleted Ukrainian forces are defending their final bastion at the Azovstal steelworks.

Separatist leader Denis Pushilin and residents carried a giant black and orange ribbon of Saint George, a symbol of WWII celebrations in Russia — through the city that has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the invasion on February 24. 

Full control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and eastern regions of Ukraine run by pro-Russian separatists.

‘We will win’ 

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky invoked the ghosts of World War II to chide Russia for claiming sole credit for winning.

“We will not allow anyone to annex this victory. We will not allow it to be appropriated,” he said in a video speech about an hour before Putin spoke.

Hailing what he said were Ukrainian victories against Nazi German forces during World War II, he said “We won then. We will win now.”

Yet in Kyiv the commemoration day was largely shunned as life slowly returned to normal, weeks after fierce fighting raged in its suburbs.

The capital’s Maidan square was largely empty. Small patrols of police and Ukrainian armed forces kept watch with air sirens temporarily disrupting the quiet morning, as people waited for any sign from Putin of an upcoming escalation. 

“Whatever he says, we need to do what we need to win and free our land. And that’s it,” said retired diplomat Mykola, 75. 

The West, which has hailed Zelensky as a hero, rallied behind Ukraine’s defiance of Russia as the historical significance of Victory Day continued to resonate.

British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Putin of “mirroring fascism” and said Russia’s bemedalled generals should “face court martial” for their handling of the war.

European Union President Charles Michel however found himself having to take shelter from missile strikes during a surprise trip to Odessa.

‘Fascists’ 

In Warsaw, pro-Ukraine activists hurled red liquid at Russian ambassador Sergei Andreev and other men in his entourage at the cemetery of Soviet soldiers in the Polish capital

They chanted “fascists” and brandished the Ukrainian flag as they blocked his way, an AFP correspondent at the scene saw.

“The admirers of neo-Nazism have again shown their faces,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram, repeating Russia’s assertion that it is fighting neo-Nazis in Ukraine.

The fighting continued unabated on the ground.

In Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukraine, a Ukrainian soldier with the nom de guerre Koval said that Russians had now entered its northern side.

“We are defending the southern half of the city,” the soldier told AFP.

One ray of hope has come from prisoner swaps.

Ukrainian soldier Glib Stryzhko, 25, was gravely wounded and captured in Mariupol in April but finally released after a secret phone call to his mother.

“After we were loaded onto the bus waiting for us, the driver said: ‘Guys, you can breathe. You are home now,’” Stryzhko told AFP from his hospital bed in Zaporizhzhia.

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Ukraine tried to evacuate more civilians from a besieged Mariupol steel plant on Saturday as Russian forces unleashed new bombardments across the country ahead of Victory Day festivities in Moscow.

The Azovstal steel mill is the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the devastated port city and its fate has taken on a symbolic value in the broader battle since Russia's invasion.

Fighting continues on many fronts, and Ukraine's defence ministry said it had destroyed another Russian warship, a Serna-class landing craft, in the Black Sea.

"The traditional parade of the Russian Black Sea fleet on May 9 this year will be held near Snake Island — at the bottom of the sea," the ministry added. Russia did not immediately confirm the incident.

Ukraine's defence ministry had earlier said Russian forces had resumed their assault on the Azovstal site, despite talk of a truce to allow trapped civilians to flee the complex.

Vice Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said rescuers would try to evacuate more civilians on Saturday.

On Monday, President Vladimir Putin will celebrate the World War II Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with a traditional Victory Day parade.

According to Russia's defence ministry, 77 aircraft will conduct a flypast, including the rarely-seen Il-80 Doomsday plane that can withstand a nuclear attack.

Eight Mig-29 fighter jets will fly over Moscow's Red Square forming the letter "Z", he mark of Russia's military assault in Ukraine.

The campaign has run into tough resistance, and provoked Kyiv's western allies into slapping massive economic sanctions on the Russian economy and Putin's inner circle.

But with Victory Day fast approaching, Ukrainian officials fear more intense missile and artillery bombardments and renewed assaults as Moscow scrambles for symbolic wins.

The Ukrainian rescue service said a missile hit a technical college in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern region of Donetsk, causing a fire and at least two deaths.

Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said there had been “massive bombardments” along the frontline.

Strikes were also reported in the north of Ukraine near the city of Kharkiv and in the southern city of Mikoleyev, a key Russian target.

Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive of their own.

Bridges down 

According to the defence ministry, Russian troops were forced to demolish three road bridges near Tsyrkuny and Ruski Tyshky outside Kharkiv, to slow the Ukrainian advance.

According to British intelligence, Ukrainian forces equipped with high-end weaponry by the western allies, have been able to destroy at least one of Russia’s most advanced tanks, the T-90M.

“The conflict in Ukraine is taking a heavy toll on some of Russia’s most capable units and most advanced capabilities,” UK Defence Intelligence said.

“It will take considerable time and expense for Russia to reconstitute its armed forces following this conflict,” it said, warning sanctions on advanced components would make it harder for Russia to rearm.

The west, meanwhile, is stepping up arms deliveries to Ukraine’s defenders.

US President Joe Biden on Friday announced another package of military assistance worth $150 million, including counterartillery radars used for detecting the source of enemy fire.

This brings the total value of US weaponry sent to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began to $3.8 billion.

Biden had urged Congress to approve a further $33 billion package, including $20 billion in military aid, “to strengthen Ukraine on the battlefield and at the negotiating table”.

The G-7 leaders, including Biden, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky are to meet in video conference on Sunday to discuss Western support for Kyiv.

And Biden’s wife, US First lady Jill Biden, is in Romania meeting US troops and Ukrainian refugees.

The Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, who has finished a four-day visit to Ukraine, including to areas just outside Kyiv, condemned “staggering” human rights violations by Russian forces.

Her visit showed “the extent of such egregious human rights and humanitarian law violations, with mounting evidence of widespread arbitrary killings, torture, and enforced disappearances”.

The organisation, which protects human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe, expelled Russia as a member in March.

Azovstal evacuation 

On Friday, Zelensky said “diplomatic options” were also under way to rescue Ukrainian soldiers from the Mariupol steelworks, as civilian evacuations continued.

The Russian defence ministry said 50 people were evacuated from the site, including 11 children.

It added they were handed over to the UN and Red Cross, which are assisting in the operation, and that the “humanitarian operation” would continue on Saturday.

About 200 civilians, including children, are thought to be trapped in the tunnels and bunkers beneath Azovstal, along with Ukrainian soldiers making their last stand.

Russia announced a day-time ceasefire at the plant for three days starting Thursday but the Ukrainian army said Russian “assault operations” had continued by ground and air.

Ukraine’s Azov battalion, leading the defence at Azovstal, said one Ukrainian fighter had been killed and six wounded when Russian forces opened fire during an attempt to evacuate people by car.

Russia to remain ‘forever’ 

Since failing to take Kyiv early on in the war, Russia has refocused on the south and east of Ukraine.

Taking full control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and separatist, pro-Russian regions in the east.

In those regions, separatists said they had removed Ukrainian and English language traffic signs for Mariupol and replaced them with Russian ones.

Locals want to see proof that “Russia has come back here forever”, said Denis Pushilin, head of a pro-Russian breakaway region in Donetsk.

In neighbouring Lugansk, Ukrainian officials said on Friday that Russian forces had almost encircled Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Kyiv, and are trying to storm it.

Kherson in the south remains the only significant city Russia has managed to capture since the war began.

A senior official from the Russian parliament visiting the city on Friday also emphasised that Russia would remain in southern Ukraine “forever”.

“There should be no doubt about this. There will be no return to the past,” Andrey Turchak said.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday vowed a new start to face immense challenges in foreign and domestic policy, as he was inaugurated for a second term after his election victory over the far-right.

In a ceremony at the Elysee Palace, Macron was confirmed by Constitutional Council chief Laurent Fabius as the winner of April election and then signed the formal re-investiture document.

Attended by 450 people, including his wife Brigitte and his only surviving predecessors Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, the ceremony was relatively modest but marked the first time a French leader is serving a second term in 20 years.

Macron faces a daunting agenda of implementing the reforms he vowed when he came to power as France’s youngest-ever president in 2017, as well as dealing with the Russian assault against Ukraine.

“Rarely has our world and our country been confronted with such a combination of challenges,” he said, referring to the Russian invasion, the pandemic and the ecological emergency.

He vowed to be a “new president” for a “new mandate” and create a “stronger France”.

“Every day of the mandate that lies ahead I will have just one compass point. And that is to serve.”

‘Worn-out rites’ 

He also suggested a more inclusive and understanding style of ruling after his first term saw critics complain the former investment banker had abrasive and arrogant methods.

He vowed a “new method” to govern, far from the “worn-out rites and choreography” of the past.

In a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, 21 cannon shots were fired from the Invalides military memorial complex to celebrate the inauguration.

With no drive down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees or long red carpet, the ceremony resembled the reinaugurations of Francois Mitterrand in 1988 and Jacques Chirac in 2002, the last French president to win a second term.

Macron’s second term will only start officially when the first one expires at midnight on May 13.

He is set to keep playing a leading role in efforts to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine, while he carries an immense burden of expectation as a leader on the European stage with Germany still finding its footing in the post-Angela Merkel era.

Macron vowed to “act to avoid any escalation following the Russian aggression in Ukraine, to help democracy and courage to prevail, to build a new European peace and a new autonomy on our continent”.

On the domestic front, Macron must deal with the crisis over the rising cost of living and also brace for possible protests when he finally tackles his cherished pension reform, raising France’s retirement age.

He reaffirmed a vow for full employment in France and vowed to fight against inequality by reforming the health and school systems as well as against “daily insecurities and terrorism that is still there”.

Attending the ceremony were the parents of teacher Samuel Paty who was beheaded by an Islamist extremist in 2020. His mother was moved to tears when the president embraced them.

‘Having difficulty’ 

Macron won the second round of presidential polls on April 24 with a score of 58.55 per cent against far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

The ceremony comes at a time of political flux in the wake of Macron’s election victory, as France gears up for legislative polls that swiftly follow in June.

Macron is expected to name a new premier in place of incumbent Jean Castex to lead a revamped government into the elections, but not until his second term officially kicks off.

He has mooted naming a female politician with a focus on social responsibility, although reports have indicated that overtures to leftist figures, such as former official Veronique Bedague and Socialist parliamentary group chief  Valerie Rabault, have been rebuffed.

“Here they are obviously having difficulty finding the right person,” French political historian Jean Garrigues told AFP.

Meanwhile, the Socialist arty along with the Greens and Communists, is forming an unprecedented alliance for the parliamentary elections with the hard left France Unbowed Party of Jean-Luc Melenchon.

He was by far the best performing left-wing candidate in the first round of presidential elections and is spearheading efforts to mount a convincing challenge to Macron.

Pro-Macron factions have regrouped under the banner of Ensemble (Together) while his own Republic on the Move party, which has struggled to create a grass-roots base, is renaming itself Renaissance.

Garrigues said the problems of the ruling party were “linked by nature to his [Macron’s] political positioning which is both on the right and the left”.

SEOUL — North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Saturday, Seoul said, its second missile launch in three days, after the United States warned Pyongyang could be preparing for a nuclear test.

Pyongyang has dramatically ramped up its sanctions-busting missile launches this year, conducting 15 weapons tests since January including firing an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time since 2017.

The latest launch comes just days before South Korea swears in a new, hawkish President Yoon Suk-yeol, who has vowed to get tough on Pyongyang and bolster the US security alliance.

Satellite imagery indicates North Korea may also be preparing to resume nuclear testing, with the US State Department on Friday warning a test could come “as early as this month”.

“Our military detected around 14:07 [05:07 GMT] a short-range ballistic missile presumed to be an SLBM fired from waters off Sinpo, South Hamgyong,” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.

Sinpo is a major naval shipyard in North Korea and satellite photos have in the past shown submarines at the facility.

The missile flew 600 kilometres at a maximum altitude of 60 kilometres, the JCS added, a distance that indicates it was a short-range ballistic missile.

It landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Tokyo’s Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said.

He added that the “extremely high frequency” of tests by North Korea this year was “absolutely unacceptable”.

Pyongyang’s “remarkable development of nuclear and missile-related technology” is a regional and global security risk, he said, adding that Japan also believed “North Korea will be ready to carry out a nuclear test as early as this month”.

Seeking ‘upper hand’ 

Last month, while overseeing a huge military parade, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to develop his nuclear forces “at the fastest possible speed” and warned of possible “pre-emptive” strikes.

Pyongyang is “preparing its Punggye-ri test site and could be ready to test there as early as this month”, the US State Department said on Friday.

The test could coincide with US President Joe Biden’s visit to Japan and South Korea later this month, or with the May 10 inauguration of Yoon, the State Department added.

“The North is showing its words on nuclear strength are not without substance,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

“Recent launches show strategic intent to claim the upper hand with the new Seoul government,” especially before Biden’s visit, he said.

North Korea carried out six nuclear tests before embarking on a bout of high-profile diplomacy with the United States in 2018 and 2019, with former president Donald Trump meeting four times with Kim before talks collapsed. Diplomacy has since languished.

Repeated negotiations aimed at convincing Kim to give up his nuclear weapons have come to nothing.

“Instead of accepting invitations to dialogue, the Kim regime appears to be preparing a tactical nuclear warhead test,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“A seventh nuclear test would be the first since September 2017 and raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula, increasing dangers of miscalculation and miscommunication between the Kim regime and the incoming Yoon administration,” Easley added.

‘Subservient’ 

South Korea’s conventional military capacity outstrips that of the North, and Yoon has called for more US military assets to be deployed in the South, a topic likely to be on the agenda when Biden visits Seoul.

South Korea last year tested its own SLBM, putting it among a small group of nations that have such technology.

North Korea’s “submarine technology probably remains short of being able to stay at sea for extended periods while avoiding detection”, Easley said.

“But the ability to launch ballistic missiles from a submarine would further complicate missions to neutralise and defend against North Korea’s nuclear forces,” he added.

On Wednesday, North Korea test-fired what Seoul and Tokyo said was a ballistic missile, although Pyongyang’s state media — which typically report on weapons tests — did not comment on the event.

For five years under President Moon Jae-in, Seoul has pursued a policy of engagement with Pyongyang. But for incoming leader Yoon, this “subservient” approach has been a manifest failure.

Analysts have said the string of missile launches indicates North Korea’s Kim may be warning Seoul he is not open to dialogue with South Korea’s new government on Yoon’s terms.