Russian artillery strikes yesterday pounded Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, after Moscow announced it was expanding its war aims, even as Russian gas flows to Europe resumed through the Nord Stream pipeline.
The attacks on the eastern city — scarred by weeks of Russian shelling — came after 10 days of scheduled work ended on the Nord Stream gas pipeline that had spurred fears of a permanent cutoff.
Kharkiv’s regional governor said two people were killed and 19 injured, four of whom were in a serious condition.
Photo: AFP
Three people were killed by strikes a day earlier in Kharkiv, where some semblance of normal life had returned in the past few weeks after Ukrainian forces pushed back Russian troops from the city limits.
“We are asking Kharkiv residents to be extremely careful. The enemy is firing chaotically and brutally at the city. Stay in shelters!” Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Synyehubov wrote on social media.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said there was also some damage on a mosque in Kharkiv, accusing Russia of “contempt” after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Iran this week.
In Kramatorsk in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting, a school that Ukrainian officials said was being used as a food aid storage point was also struck.
“I have been working at this school for 16 years. It was my home,” the school’s deputy director Olena Shmadchenko, 56, said.
Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and the war has left thousands dead, forced millions to flee their homes and wrought havoc with the economy.
Ukraine’s central bank yesterday said it was devaluing the hryvnia by 25 percent.
“The new hryvnia rate will become an anchor for the economy and will add its resilience in conditions of uncertainty,” the bank said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the resumption of gas supplies from Russia to Europe through Germany came a day after Europe unveiled emergency measures to circumvent Russian energy “blackmail.”
In its latest package of penalties on Wednesday, the EU targeted gold exports and froze assets at Russia’s largest bank Sberbank.
The German government had been worried Moscow would not reopen the taps on the Nord Stream pipeline after Russia in the past few months severely curbed flows in retaliation against sanctions.
“It’s working,” a Nord Stream spokesman said yesterday, without specifying the amount of gas being delivered.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS