World

KYIV — Russian military exercises in Belarus will continue, Minsk announced on Sunday, leaving Moscow with a large force near the northern Ukraine border as Western powers warn of an imminent invasion.

The announcement came as French President Emmanuel Macron called Russia's Vladimir Putin for talks the Elysee described as "the last possible and necessary efforts to avoid a major conflict in Ukraine".

Moscow had previously said the 30,000 troops it has in Belarus were simply carrying out readiness drills with its ally, which would be finished by February 20, allowing the Russians to head back to their bases.

But, as the day arrived for the operation to end, the Belarus defence ministry said Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko had decided to "continue inspections", citing increased military activity on their shared borders and an alleged "escalation" in east Ukraine.

The move will be seen as a further tightening of the screws on Ukraine, already facing increased shelling from Russian-backed separatist rebels and a force of what Western capitals says is more than 150,000 Russian personnel on its borders.

It will also be seen as a rebuff to efforts by leaders like Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz to urge their Russian counterpart to pull back from the brink of war.

More bombardments were heard by AFP reporters overnight close to the frontline between government forces and the Moscow-backed rebels who hold parts of the districts of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Occupied enclave 

Russia could launch an attack on Ukraine “at any time”, the White House reaffirmed Saturday, as Western politicians gathered in Munich to discuss the crisis.

US Press Secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden was due to hold a rare Sunday National Security Council meeting over Russia-Ukraine tensions, having said on Friday he was “convinced” Moscow planned to invade its ex-Soviet neighbour within days.

Psaki said Biden was briefed on meetings at the Munich Security Conference, where Western representatives, including Vice President Kamala Harris, gathered to discuss the mounting tensions.

The president’s national security team “reaffirmed that Russia could launch an attack against Ukraine at any time”, she added.

“Every indication indicates that Russia is planning a full-fledged attack against Ukraine,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, echoing US President Joe Biden, who believes the invasion is imminent.

The Moscow-backed separatists have accused Ukraine of planning an offensive into their enclave, despite the huge Russian military build-up on the frontier.

Kyiv and Western capitals ridicule this idea, and accuse Moscow of attempting to provoke Ukraine and of plotting to fabricate incidents to provide a pretext for a Russian intervention.

“Russian military personnel and special services are planning to commit acts of terror in temporarily-occupied Donetsk and Lugansk, killing civilians,” alleged Ukraine’s top general Valeriy Zaluzhniy.

“Our enemy wants to use this as an excuse to blame Ukraine and move in regular soldiers of the Russian armed forces, under the guise of ‘peacekeepers’,” the military chief of staff said.

The rebel regions have made similar claims about Ukraine’s forces and have ordered a general mobilisation, while staging an evacuation of civilians into neighbouring Russian territory.

Officials with the Lugansk rebels claimed Sunday they had repulsed an attack by Ukrainian forces that had left two civilians dead, but the Ukrainian interior ministry immediately denounced the claim as an “absolute fake”.

Russian investigators said they had opened a probe into the alleged incident.

Russia, according to Western leaders, has more than 150,000 troops along with missile batteries and warships massed around Ukraine, poised to strike.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Macron on Saturday he would not respond to Russia’s provocations, according to the Elysee.

But in his speech to the Munich Security Conference, he also condemned “a policy of appeasement” towards Moscow.

“For eight years, Ukraine has been holding back one of the greatest armies in the world,” he said.

He called for “clear, feasible timeframes” for Ukraine to join the US-led NATO military alliance, something Moscow has said it would never accept, as it tries to roll back Western influence.

Western officials in Munich warned of enormous sanctions if Russia attacks, with US Vice President Kamala Harris saying this would only see NATO reinforce its “eastern flank”.

Nuclear drills 

On Saturday, from the Kremlin situation room, Putin and Lukashenko watched the launch of Russia’s latest hypersonic, cruise and nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.

Putin has also stepped up his rhetoric, reiterating demands for written guarantees that NATO roll back deployments in eastern Europe to positions from decades ago.

“The big question remains: Does the Kremlin want dialogue?” European Council President Charles Michel asked at the Munich Security Conference. “We cannot forever offer an olive branch while Russia conducts missile tests and continues to amass troops.”

The volatile front line between Ukraine’s army and Russian-backed separatists has seen a “dramatic increase” in ceasefire violations, monitors from the OSCE European security body have said.

Hundreds of artillery and mortar attacks were reported in recent days, in a conflict that has rumbled on for eight years and claimed more than 14,000 lives.

The OSCE said there had been 1,500 ceasefire violations in Donetsk and Lugansk on Friday alone, and AFP reporters in the area have heard heavy shelling since.

On Saturday, a dozen mortar shells fell within a few hundred metres of Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy as he inspected a frontline position with journalists in tow.

GUBA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia began generating electricity from its mega-dam on the Blue Nile on Sunday, a milestone in the controversial multi-billion dollar project.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, accompanied by high-ranking officials, toured the power generation station and pressed a series of buttons on an electronic screen, a move that officials said initiated production.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is set to be the largest hydroelectric scheme in Africa but has been at the centre of a regional dispute ever since work first began in 2011.

Abiy described Sunday's development as "the birth of a new era".

"This is a good news for our continent & the downstream countries with whom we aspire to work together," he said on Twitter.

Ethiopia's downstream neighbours Egypt and Sudan however view it as a threat because of their dependence on Nile waters, while Addis Ababa deems it essential for its electrification and development.

But Abiy, wearing sunglasses and a khaki-coloured hat emblazoned with the Ethiopian flag as he toured the site, dismissed those concerns.

"As you can see this water will generate energy while flowing as it previously flowed to Sudan and Egypt, unlike the rumours that say the Ethiopian people and government are damming the water to starve Egypt and Sudan," he said as water rushed through the concrete colossus behind him.

"Ethiopia doesn't have the desire to hurt anybody. Ethiopia's only desire is to provide electricity to the mothers who have never seen a lightbulb, to alleviate the burdens of those who carry sticks on their backs to generate electricity, and to extricate them from the poverty we're in currently."

Existential threat 

The $4.2-billion project is ultimately expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity, more than doubling Ethiopia's electricity output.

Only one turbine of 13 turbines is currently operational, with an installed capacity of 375 megawatts.

A second turbine will come online within a few months, project manager Kifle Horo told AFP after the ceremony, adding that the project is currently expected to be fully completed in 2024.

The 145-metre high dam lies on Blue Nile River in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of western Ethiopia, not far from the border with Sudan.

Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about 97 per cent of its irrigation and drinking water, sees the dam as an existential threat.

Sudan hopes the project will regulate annual flooding, but fears its own dams could be harmed without agreement on the GERD’s operation.

Both countries have been pushing Ethiopia for a binding deal over the filling and operation of the massive dam, but talks under the auspices of the African Union (AU) have failed to reach a breakthrough.

“The newly generated electricity from the GERD could help revive an economy that has been devastated by the combined forces of a deadly war, rising fuel prices and the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Addisu Lashitew of the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Project delays 

The dam was initiated under former prime minister Meles Zenawi, the Tigrayan leader who ruled Ethiopia for more than two decades until his death in 2012.

Civil servants contributed one month’s salary towards the project in the year of the project launch, and the government has since issued dam bonds targeting Ethiopians at home and abroad.

But officials on Sunday credited Abiy with reviving the dam after what they claim was mismanagement delayed its progress.

“Our country has lost so much because the dam was delayed, especially financially,” Project Manager Kifle said in his remarks at the launch ceremony.

Those in attendance included First Lady Zinash Tayachew, former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, the heads of the lower house of parliament and the supreme court, regional presidents and government ministers.

The process of filling the GERD’s vast reservoir began in 2020, with Ethiopia announcing in July of that year it had hit its target of 4.9 billion cubic metres.

The reservoir’s total capacity is 74 billion cubic metres, and the target for 2021 was to add 13.5 billion.

Last July Ethiopia said it had hit that target, meaning there was enough water to begin producing energy, although some experts had cast doubt on the claims.

Kifle declined to reveal how much water was collected last year or what the target is for the coming rainy season.

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II tested positive on Sunday for COVID-19 but aides said her symptoms were “mild”, as politicians wished Britain’s longest-serving monarch a rapid recovery in her 70th year on the throne.

In what is meant to be a banner year of Platinum Jubilee celebrations, the news comes at a stressful time for the 95-year-old queen with scandals stalking her two eldest sons, Charles and Andrew.

It is also ill-timed for the UK government, in a week when embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to declare a victory of sorts over the pandemic by announcing the scrapping of remaining legal restrictions in England.

The queen’s heir Prince Charles, 73, tested positive for a second time for the coronavirus on February 10, two days after meeting his mother at Windsor Castle, west of London.

The queen — who is believed to be triple-vaccinated — resumed in-person audiences at the castle last week, but complained to one attendee of suffering from stiffness and was photographed holding a walking stick.

Announcing her first positive test, a Buckingham Palace statement said: “Her Majesty is experiencing mild cold-like symptoms but expects to continue light duties at Windsor over the coming week.”

“She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all the appropriate guidelines.”

It issued a later statement in which the monarch sent her “warmest congratulations” to the British women’s and men’s curling teams, after they won gold and silver medals respectively at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

“I’m sure I speak for everyone in wishing Her Majesty The Queen a swift recovery from COVID and a rapid return to vibrant good health,” Johnson tweeted, as members of his Cabinet sent their own best wishes.

Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition Labour party, tweeted: “Get well soon, Ma’am.”

Among well-wishers gathered outside Buckingham Palace in London, cancer scientist Pasquale Morese said it was “sad” news.

“She’s a symbol of the nation,” he said. “She’s boosted and everything, so she should be alright, hopefully.”

With the infection coming two months before the queen turns 96, royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said: “There will be concerns because of her age, no doubt about that.”

“But the queen by nature is stoic. I think she’s someone who looks at things in a very, very positive way,” he told AFP, anticipating “reasonably regular updates” from the palace.

Queen Elizabeth has generally enjoyed robust health over her long life, but an unexplained issue saw her spend a night in hospital last October.

Nationwide celebrations to mark her Platinum Jubilee are due to be held in June, after she marked 70 years on the throne on February 6.

The COVID scare comes with the royal family mired in difficulties, including tensions with Charles’s second son Prince Harry, who now lives in California with his wife Meghan.

Prince Andrew settled a sexual assault civil lawsuit in the United States last week, reportedly for £12 million ($16.3 million, 14.3 million euros) — which reports say the queen will partly fund.

The queen, whose husband Prince Philip died aged 99 last April, has spent much of the coronavirus pandemic at Windsor Castle, with a reduced number of household staff dubbed “HMS Bubble”.

Respecting the government’s rules on COVID distancing at the time, she sat alone at Philip’s funeral, while Johnson and his staff are under police investigation for apparent breaches of the rules during lockdown parties in Downing Street.

With the Omicron wave apparently under control, the government is expected to press ahead with an announcement on Monday lifting pandemic legislation in England.

The optics have become “a little bit tricky” given the queen’s illness, Conservative MP Caroline Nokes told Times Radio.

But speaking on Sky News, royal commentator Alastair Bruce said the queen “would not want anyone to change any decisions on the basis of her state of health”.

“I think for a very feisty and determined lady of her mid-90s, she is more than ready to deal with what she faces,” he added.

CORFU, Greece — At least 12 truck drivers remained missing from an Italian-flagged ferry ablaze for a second day off Corfu Saturday, as criticism mounted over conditions onboard.

The blaze on the Euroferry Olympia prevented rescuers from boarding, but tugboats managed to tow the vessel closer to the island, ERT television said.

The ferry on Saturday afternoon was just some 11 km north of Corfu, ERT said, after anxious relatives started arriving in the morning.

A thick cloud of black smoke billowed into the sky after wind rekindled the fire, with Greek state agency ANA reporting the heat onboard had reached 500ºC.

The coastguard has said those missing were all lorry drivers, seven from Bulgaria, three from Greece, one from Turkey and one from Lithuania.

On Friday, 280 passengers were evacuated to Corfu after a blaze broke out the previous night as the Olympia was en route from Greece to Italy.

Rescuers who boarded the burning vessel halted work Friday evening because of the intense heat, dense smoke and darkness, ANA said.

One of the rescuers was taken to hospital with respiratory problems but was released on Saturday, the fire brigade told AFP.

The cause of the fire remains unknown.

Shipping Minister Giannis Plakiotakis said a team from the Maritime Accident and Incident Investigation Service was in the area to launch a probe.

Overcrowded cabins 

ERT reported the vessel’s captain and two engineers had on Saturday been brought before a prosecutor.

Plakiotakis told Skai television that, after the fire is extinguished, the ferry would be towed to safety in order to pump out any fuel, and avoid marine pollution.

Rescued truckers told Greece’s public broadcaster some drivers had preferred to sleep in their vehicles because the cabins were overcrowded.

According to the Kathimerini newspaper, the Greek trucker union had since June 2017 warned about conditions on the Olympia as well as another ferry belonging to Italian ferry and container operator, Grimaldi.

Ilias Gerontidakis, the son of a missing Greek trucker, told the Proto Thema online newspaper the Olympia “miserable from every point of view”.

“It had bed bugs, it was dirty, it had no security systems,” said the young truck driver, as he waited in the port for news.

“It had 150 lorries inside. Normally it should have 70 to 75 cabins, but it only has 50. They force us to sleep four people in a cabin”, he said. “My father, from what I was told, slept in the truck.”

Vassilis Vergis, the cousin of another missing driver, said he thought his relative too “was afraid of the cabins”.

“He probably stayed in the truck because he was afraid of coronavirus,” he added.

The ferry’s operator has claimed the 27-year-old vessel had last completed a safety check on February 16.

Undocumented travellers 

The ferry was officially carrying 239 passengers and 51 crew, as well as 153 trucks and trailers and 32 passenger vehicles, the company has said.

But the coastguard has said two of the people rescued — both Afghans — were not on the manifest, sparking fears that more undocumented passengers could also be missing.

The Bulgarian foreign ministry said 127 of its nationals were on the passenger list, including 37 truck drivers.

Another 24 were from Turkey, the country’s NTV station said, while ERT said 21 Greeks were aboard.

Among the rescued, nine people remain in hospital with breathing difficulties.

Fahri Ozgen, a rescued passenger, recounted waiting for four hours for rescuers to arrive, as the flames roared around him.

“Two-hundred and fifty people were screaming, shouting, some of them were jumping into the sea,” he told AFP.

“Some of our friends are still missing, we don’t know where they are.”

Turkish trucker Ali Duran said he had lost everything in the fire

“We lost our money, we lost our passports, we lost all our administrative documents,” he said.

“I don’t even have a shoe to wear.”

The last shipboard fire in the Adriatic occurred in December 2014 on the Italian ferry Norman Atlantic. Thirteen people died in that blaze.

PETRÓPOLIS — Rescue workers pulled more bodies on Saturday from the muddy wreckage left by devastating floods and landslides in the scenic Brazilian city of Petropolis, where the death toll stands at 138, including 26 children.

In a dense fog, workers dug with spades and shovels through the rubble and muck as the search entered its fifth day.

An AFP photographer saw rescuers carrying out two recovered corpses in body bags in the hard-hit neighborhood of Alto da Serra, as relatives sobbed in the street.

In the heart of the disaster zone, rescue workers occasionally blew loud whistles to call for silence and listen for signs of life.

But authorities say there is little hope at this point of finding survivors from Tuesday's torrential rains, which turned streets to gushing rivers in the picturesque city in the southeastern mountains and triggered landslides in poor hillside neighborhoods that wiped out virtually all in their path.

Officials say 24 people have been rescued alive, but that came mostly in the early hours after the tragedy.

Rio de Janeiro state police said 218 people remained missing as of late Friday.

Meanwhile, 91 of the 138 bodies recovered so far have been identified.

Many of the missing may be among the unidentified bodies. But the numbers have been hazy, and it is difficult to know how high the death toll could go.

The dead include at least 26 minors, said the police.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who flew over the disaster zone on Friday by helicopter, said the city was suffering from “enormous destruction, like scenes of war”.

Tuesday’s was the latest in a series of deadly storms to hit Brazil, which experts say are made worse by climate change.

In the past three months, at least 188 people have died in severe rains, mainly in the south-eastern state of Sao Paulo and the northeastern state of Bahia, as well as Petropolis.

‘Like ants’ 

Normal life has been slow returning to central Petropolis, a charming tourist town that was the 19th-century summer capital of the Brazilian empire.

Staff were busy cleaning out shops in the city center, where little was open besides essential stores such as supermarkets and pharmacies.

City officials set up a new collection point for charitable donations on a highway outside town in a bid to lessen traffic chaos created by swarms of ambulances, heavy machinery and trucks loaded with donated food, water and clothing.

“There has been a very strong current of solidarity, for which we are immensely grateful,” said city Social Assistance Secretary Karol Cerqueira in a statement.

Atop the worst landslide, in Alto da Serra, rescue workers in bright orange uniforms and exhausted residents looking for their missing loved ones kept up a slow, dogged search.

Authorities say the mountain of mud and rubble is unstable, so the search is being carried out with hand tools and chainsaws at the hardest-to-reach spots.

It would be too dangerous to bring in the excavators being used in less difficult zones near the bottom of the hillside, said Roberto Amaral, coordinator of the local fire department’s special rescue group.

“It’s impossible to bring in heavy machinery up here, so we basically have to work like ants, going little by little,” he told AFP.

A sobering series of funerals meanwhile continued at the city’s main cemetery, where 72 victims have been buried so far, 19 on Saturday morning alone.

OTTAWA — Police pushed into downtown Ottawa on Saturday in a bid to dislodge several hundred dug-in protesters and big rigs that have choked the Canadian capital for weeks, after a night marked by clashes and more than 100 arrests.

There were tense scenes outside Parliament, with multiple protesters hurling gas canisters at police, who hardened their positions in a determined push to bring the weeks-long protest to an end.

New arrivals slipped past security barricades to join the remaining demonstrators, as police moved in.

“We told you to leave,” Ottawa police tweeted to the demonstrators.

“We gave you time to leave. We were slow and methodical, yet you were assaultive and aggressive with officers and the horses. Based on your behaviour, we are responding by including helmets and batons for our safety.”

Inside parliament, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened a crisis response group, as lawmakers resumed debating the government’s use of emergency powers for the first time in 50 years.

Outside, tensions escalated as police marched forward, reporting on Twitter that “protesters continue to launch gas at police”.

Within minutes police claimed a section of road in front of the prime minister’s office and a stage where demonstrators had rallied crowds of supporters.

Police said they did not use gas against any of the protesters as smoke filled the air.

Prior to Friday, police had arrested 25 people blocking border crossings to the United States. In the last two days, at least 100 more in Ottawa were taken away in handcuffs, including three organisers.

“I’m not leaving,” Johnny Rowe told AFP, dismissing threats of arrest.

“There’s nothing to go back to,” he said. “Everybody here, myself included, has had their lives destroyed by what’s happened in the past two years.”

Some truckers chose to depart on their own, driving their 18-wheelers away after three weeks of demonstrations that at their peak drew thousands to the capital.

“I’m leaving today,” said Vince Green.

He said that he and his wife — a former nurse who lost her job for refusing a mandatory COVID jab — had to return to Calgary, Alberta to check on their kids.

Debate on 

emergency powers 

The so-called “Freedom Convoy” which inspired copycat protests in other countries, began with truckers demonstrating against mandatory COVID-19 vaccines to cross the US border. Its demands grew, however, to include an end to all pandemic rules and, for many, a wider anti-establishment agenda.

At its peak, the movement also included blockades of US-Canada border crossings, including a key trade route across a bridge between Ontario and Detroit, Michigan — all of which have been lifted after costing the economy billions of dollars, according to the government.

The truckers also won support from billionaire Elon Musk, several US Republican lawmakers as well as former president Donald Trump, and even Iran’s former leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Criticised for failing to act decisively to end the protests, Trudeau this week invoked the Emergencies Act, which gives the government sweeping powers to deal with a major crisis.

It’s only the second time such powers have been invoked in peacetime.

Canadian lawmakers, split over the move, with only a small leftist faction backing Trudeau’s minority Liberal government, were debating its use when Parliament was hastily shuttered on Friday.

It was to reopen Saturday, and a final vote on the emergency measures is to be held on Monday at 8:00pm (01:00 GMT Tuesday).

A former Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer accused the Liberal government of using a “sledgehammer to crack down on dissent”.

Trudeau has said the act was not being used to call in the military against the protesters and denied restricting freedom of expression.

The objective was simply to “deal with the current threat and to get the situation fully under control”, he said. “Illegal blockades and occupations are not peaceful protests.”

Kyiv, Ukraine — Artillery shelling in the east of Ukraine and orders from Russian-backed separatists for civilians to evacuate the region ratcheted up already crackling tensions over the massing of Russian troops on Friday ahead of what the United States says is a likely invasion.

The Kremlin continues to insist that it has no plans to attack its neighbour.

However, the United States says that with an estimated 149,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's borders -- as many as 190,000, when including the Russian-backed separatist forces -- it's likely not a matter of if there'll be a large-scale attack, but when.

Adding to jitters, Russia's defence ministry announced that President Vladimir Putin would personally oversee previously scheduled drills involving nuclear-capable missiles on Saturday.

On the ground in Ukraine's disputed east, sporadic clashes fed a growing sense of dread.

An AFP reporter near the front between Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russian territory in the Lugansk region heard explosions and saw damaged civilian buildings on Kyiv's side of the line.

There were growing fears that only a spark -- which Washington warns could be a deliberate "false flag" incident created by the Russians -- might now be needed to set off the largest military confrontation in Europe since World War II.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, attending the Munich Security Conference, warned the size of the assembled Russian force far exceeded that needed for military drills, and that Russia had the capacity to invade without warning.

In Washington, US President Joe Biden was set to make remarks on the crisis at 4:00 pm (21:00 GMT).

Shortly before, Biden was speaking with fellow NATO allies in a conference call expected to cement already well advanced plans for crippling Western economic sanctions against Russia should its troops attack Ukraine.

Accusations fly 

In the eastern separatist areas of Donetsk and Lugansk, Moscow-backed leaders sought to flip the narrative of Russia being the aggressor.

Accusing Kyiv of planning its own offensive to retake the eastern territories, they said the government's forces were carrying out sabotage missions. The evacuations of civilians were said to be in response to worries about a government attack.

But US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the Kremlin of mounting a propaganda campaign to create an excuse for war.

Blinken told the Munich conference what has happened "in the last 24 to 48 hours is part of a scenario that is already in place of creating false provocations, of then having to respond to those provocations and then ultimately committing new aggression against Ukraine".

Ukraine's foreign minister said "Russian disinformation" about a supposed Ukrainian attack was being spread to fuel the war fever.


Putin sees 'deterioration' 

Videos circulating on Russian-language social media showed sirens sounding in Donetsk as Moscow-backed militia leaders ordered the civilian evacuation over the border to Russia.

Denis Pushilin, head of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), declared: "Women, children and the elderly are subject to be evacuated first."

He claimed Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, would soon "give the order for soldiers to go on the offensive."

The leader of neighboring Lugansk Leonid Pasechnik also urged residents to evacuate to Russia "to prevent civilian casualties".

In Moscow, Putin met with the authoritarian leader of Belarus, which is hosting tens of thousands of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.

"We are seeing a deterioration of the situation," Putin said at a joint press conference.

'Could have been much worse' 

On Thursday, a shell punched a hole in the wall of a kindergarten in government-held territory near the frontline in the Ukrainian village of Stanytsia Luganska.

The 20 children and 18 adults inside escaped serious injury but the attack sparked international protest.

"It hit the gym. After breakfast, the children had gym class. So, another 15 minutes, and everything could have been much, much worse," school laundry worker Natalia Slesareva told AFP at the scene.

On Friday, part of the village remained without electricity.

The Ukrainian joint command centre said the rebels had violated the ceasefire 53 times between midnight and 5:00 pm on  Friday, while the Donetsk and Lugansk separatist groups said the army had fired 27 times in the morning.

"Ukrainian defenders returned fire to stop enemy activity only in case of a threat to the lives of servicemen," the command centre said.

Russian 'strategic' forces 

The Russian defense ministry sent a chilling reminder of the stakes in any East-West confrontation when it announced that Putin would oversee Saturday's "exercise of strategic deterrence forces... during which ballistic and cruise missiles will be launched".

The air force, units of the southern military district, as well as the Northern and Black Sea fleets would be involved in the nuclear-capable missile tests.

Russia says that it will not back away from Ukraine unless Western countries agree never to allow Ukraine into NATO and to pull US forces back from eastern Europe, effectively creating a new version of the continent's Cold War-era spheres of influence.

The conflict between the heavily armed pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces in the country's east has already rumbled on for eight years, claiming the lives of more than 14,000 people and forcing more than 1.5 million from their homes.


PARIS — France announced on Thursday that it was withdrawing its troops from Mali after a breakdown in relations with the country's ruling junta, ending a near 10-year deployment against terrotist groups that pose a growing threat in West Africa.

France sent soldiers to its former colony in 2013 to beat back advancing Islamic extremists, but its initial battlefield success was followed by a grinding anti-insurgency operation and rising hostility from Malians.

Anger in Paris about the alleged arrival of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, as well as deepening ties between the Malian regime and Moscow, also hastened the French departure.

"We cannot remain militarily engaged alongside de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden aims we do not share," President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference.

The French decision will see the departure of 2,400 troops from Mali, but fellow EU nations also announced that they would withdraw several hundred soldiers in the smaller European Takuba force that was created in 2020.

Macron "completely" rejected the idea that France had failed in its mission in Mali that has cost the lives of 48 soldiers, with another five dead across the wider Sahel region.

"What would have happened in 2013 if France had not chosen to intervene? You would for sure have had the collapse of the Malian state," he said, adding that French troops had also killed the leaders of local Al Qaeda and Daesh-affiliated groups.

France's bases in Gossi, Menaka and Gao in Mali would be closed within the next four to six months in an "orderly" withdrawal, he vowed.

The announcement comes at a critical time for the 44-year-old French leader, just days before he is expected to make a long-awaited declaration that he will stand for a second term at elections in April.

Macron's priority will now be to ensure that the withdrawal does not invite comparisons with the chaotic US departure from Afghanistan last year.

"The big question is how we leave, and what we put in place to enable our forces to leave in the best possible security conditions," Macron's far-right opponent Marine Le Pen said.

Spreading threat 

France and its European allies vowed to remain engaged in fighting terror in the Sahel, a vast and arid region below the Sahara Desert that Macron has long argued is crucial for European security.

The French leader warned that Al Qaeda and the Daesh group had made this part of Africa "a priority for their strategy of expansion," and said the European Takuba forces in Mali would be shifted to neighbouring Niger.

Since the 2013 French deployment, rebels based in the inhospitable north of Mali have regrouped and moved into the centre, while also launching raids on neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

New fears have emerged of a jihadist push toward the Gulf of Guinea, threatening Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.

Speaking alongside the French leader, Senegalese President Macky Sall said fighting "terrorism in the Sahel cannot be the business of African countries alone".

Richard Moncrieff, an expert on the Sahel region for the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said that France's decision to leave Mali was "far from a surprise given the tensions whch have intensified these last few months between France and Mali".

"In these circumstances, it was more about France leaving Mali rather than being forced out by Bamako," he added.

French daily Le Monde called the withdrawal "an inglorious end to an armed intervention that began in euphoria".

Relations between France and Mali plunged after a coup in 2020 and current strongman Assimi Goita refused to stick to a calendar to return the country to civilian rule.

The West also accuses Mali of turning to the shadowy Wagner group to shore up its position amid growing Russian influence in the region.

Wider impact 

Around 25,000 foreign troops are currently deployed in the Sahel.

They include around 4,600 French soldiers in a regional mission known as Barkhane that France was already planning on winding down.

French army spokesman Colonel Pascal Ianni said that French forces in the region would fall to 2,500-3,000 in the next six months.

In Mali, the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA and EUTM Mali, an EU military training mission, operate alongside Malian forces, but French soldiers backed by air power have long been seen as the most effective fighting force.

Macron said France would still provide air and medical support for MINUSMA in the coming months before transferring these responsibilities.

Olivier Salgado, the spokesman for MINUSMA, told AFP that France's pullout was "bound to impact" the mission and the UN would "take the necessary steps to adapt".

In Berlin, German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said she was "very sceptical" that the country's mission in the EUTM could continue in the light of the French decision.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc was awaiting "guarantees" from Mali's military rulers as it weighs the future of its military and civilian training missions.