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Ukraine downs Russian hypersonic missile with US Patriot
Ukraine's air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kyiv using newly acquired American Patriot defense systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow's most modern missiles.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot defense systems.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.
The Kinzhal is one of the latest and most advanced Russian weapons. The Russian military says the air-launched ballistic missile has a range of up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,250 miles) and flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.
A combination of hypersonic speed and a heavy warhead allows the Kinzhal to destroy heavily fortified targets, like underground bunkers or mountain tunnels.
The Ukrainian military has previously admitted lacking assets to intercept the Kinzhals.
Ukraine took its first delivery of the Patriot missiles in late April. It has not specified how many of the systems it has, but they have been provided by the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
Germany has acknowledged sending at least one system and the Netherlands has said it has provided two.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said he first asked for Patriot systems when visiting the U.S. in August 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion but seven years after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
He has described possessing the system as “a dream” but said he was told in the U.S. at the time that it was impossible.
Crowds, dignitaries gather for King Charles III's coronation
Tens of thousands of spectators, thousands of troops, hundreds of guests and a smattering of protesters converged Saturday around London's Westminster Abbey, where King Charles III, a man who waited seven decades to become king, will be crowned with all the pomp and pageantry Britain can muster.
And it can muster a lot.
There will be crowns and diamonds, soaring music, purple robes and magnificent hats — and a rousing cheer of “God Save the King” inside the abbey and in the streets outside.
The church buzzed with excitement and was abloom with fragrant flowers and colorful hats as guests began to arrive two hours before the ceremony. Streaming into the abbey were celebrities such as Judi Dench, Emma Thompson and Lionel Richie, alongside politicians, judges in wigs, soldiers with gleaming medals attached to red tunics and members of the House of Lords in their red robes.
Thousands of people from across the U.K. and around the world camped overnight along a 1.3-mile (2-kilometer) route to catch a glimpse of the monarch as he travels from Buckingham Palace to the medieval abbey where kings have been crowned for a millennium.
The crowds grew during morning, in intermittent rain, along the route, which the newly crowned king and Queen Camilla will take back to the palace, this time in a 261-year-old gilded carriage accompanied by 4,000 troops, forming Britain’s biggest military parade in 70 years.
To the royal family and government, the occasion — code-named Operation Golden Orb — is a display of heritage, tradition and spectacle unmatched around the world.
Dean of Westminster David Hoyle who will help lead the service, predicted it would be spectacular.
“I’m used to ceremony on a national level. Even I think this is pretty jaw-dropping,” he said.
But to republican protesters who gathered to holler “ Not my king,” it’s celebration of an institution that stands for privilege and inequality.
The anti-monarchy group Republic said six of its members, including its chief executive, were arrested as they arrived at the protest. Police have said they will have have a “low tolerance” for people seeking to disrupt the day, sparking criticism that they are clamping down on free speech.
For 1,000 years and more, British monarchs have been crowned in grandiose ceremonies that confirm their right to rule.
These days, the king no longer has executive or political power, and the service is purely ceremonial since Charles automatically became king upon death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September.
The king remains the U.K.’s head of state and a symbol of national identity — and Charles will have to work to unite a multicultural nation at at time when reverence for the monarchy has been replaced, for many, with apathy.
Double-digit inflation is also making everyone in the U.K. poorer, and he has sought to lead a smaller, less expensive royal machine for the 21st century.
So this will be a shorter affair than Elizabeth's three-hour coronation.
In 1953, Westminster Abbey was fitted with temporary stands to boost the seating capacity to more than 8,000, aristocrats wore crimson robes and coronets, and the coronation procession meandered 5 miles (8 kilometers) through central London so an estimated 3 million people could cheer for the glamorous 27-year-old queen.
Organizers this time have shortened the procession route, trimmed the coronation service to less than two hours and sent out 2,300 invitations to world royalty, heads of state, public servants, key workers and local heroes, plus a smattering of celebrities.
The guest list includes U.S. First Lady Jill Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Canadian leader Justin Trudeau and eight current and former British prime ministers.
The king's family will be on hand, including his sparring sons Prince William and Prince Harry — though not Harry's wife Meghan and their children, who remain at home in California.
Built around the theme “Called to Serve,” the coronation service will begin with one of the youngest members of the congregation — a boy chorister — greeting the king. Charles will respond by saying, "I come not to be served but to serve.”
The moment is meant to underscore the importance of young people — and is a new addition in a service laden with the rituals through which power has been passed down to new monarchs throughout the centuries.
The symbolic peak of the two-hour service will come halfway through when Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby places the solid gold St. Edward’s Crown on the monarch’s head. Trumpets will sound and gun salutes will be fired across the U.K.
In another change, Charles has scrapped the traditional moment at the end of the service when nobles were asked to kneel and pledge their loyalty to the king.
Instead, Welby will invite everyone in the abbey to swear “true allegiance” to the monarch. He'll invite people watching on television to pay homage, too — though that part of the ceremony has been toned down after some criticized it as a tone-deaf effort to demand public support for Charles. Welby will now suggest people at home take a “moment of quiet reflection” or say “God Save the King.”
The public’s response to Charles, though, during the service and along the parade route, is key, said George Gross, a visiting research fellow at King’s College, London and an expert on coronations.
“None of this matters if the public don’t show up,’’ Gross said. ‘’If they don’t care, then the whole thing doesn’t really work. It is all about this interaction.’’
And today's public is very different from the audience that saw Elizabeth crowned.
Almost 20% of the population now come from ethnic minority groups, compared with less than 1% in the 1950s. More than 300 languages are spoken in British schools, and less than half of the population describe themselves as Christian.
Although organizers say the coronation remains a “sacred Anglican service,” the ceremony will for the first time include the active participation of other faiths, including representatives of the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh traditions.
Royal Drama: King’s fractious family on stage at coronation
King Charles III lives in a palace, travels in a chauffeur-driven Bentley and is one of Britain’s richest men, but he's similar to many of his subjects in one very basic way: His family life is complicated — very complicated.
There’s a second wife, an embarrassing brother, and an angry son and daughter-in-law, all with allies who aren’t shy about whispering family secrets in the ears of friendly reporters.
The new king will hope to keep a lid on those tensions when his royally blended family joins as many as 2,800 guests for Charles' coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. All except Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are attending.
How Charles manages his family drama over the coming weeks and years is crucial to the king’s efforts to preserve and protect the 1,000-year-old hereditary monarchy he now embodies. Without the respect of the public, the House of Windsor risks being lumped together with pop stars, social media influencers and reality TV contestants as fodder for the British tabloids, undermining the cachet that underpins its role in public life.
Royal historian Hugo Vickers says people should look past the sensational headlines and focus on what Charles accomplishes now that he is king.
Also read: King’s coronation draws apathy, criticism in former colonies
“In a sense, he sort of becomes a new man when he becomes king,” said Vickers, author of “Coronation: The Crowning of Elizabeth II.”
“Look at him as he is now, look at him the way he is approaching everything, look at his positivity and look at how right he’s been on so many issues,” he added. “Unfortunately, he had those difficult times with his marriages and some of the other issues, but we live in a very tricky era.”
The horror show came back to haunt Charles last week, when the king’s estranged younger son, Prince Harry, dropped a new round of allegations Tuesday about the royal family into the middle of the coronation buildup.
In written evidence for his invasion of privacy claim against a British newspaper, Harry claimed his father prevented him from filing the lawsuit a decade ago. The prince said Charles didn’t want to dredge up graphic testimony about his extramarital affair with the former Camilla Parker-Bowles when he was married to the late Princess Diana.
Diana was the mother of Harry and his elder brother and heir to the throne, William, the Prince of Wales. Camilla, now the queen consort, went on to marry Charles in 2005 and will be crowned alongside her husband at Westminster Abbey.
If the past is any indication, attention will now shift to body language, seating plans and even wardrobe choices during the coronation, as royal watchers look for any signs of a thaw in the family tensions.
But Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, doesn’t expect Harry to have a lot of contact with the rest of his family. In any case, Harry won’t be in the U.K. for long, so there’s not much time for fence mending.
"The stuff that we discovered (Tuesday) is really not going to help his cause,” Little said. “But, you know, will there be time to go over all that with the king and the Prince of Wales? Unlikely.”
The royal soap opera didn’t begin with the current generation of royals. After all, Edward VIII sparked a constitutional crisis in 1936 when he abdicated the throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.
Charles’ grandfather, George VI, is credited with saving the monarchy with a life of low-key public service after he replaced his flamboyant elder brother. The late Queen Elizabeth II burnished the family’s reputation during a 70-year reign, in which she became a symbol of stability who cheered the nation’s victories and comforted it during darker times.
But Charles grew up in a different era, under the glare of media attention as deference to the monarchy faded.
He has been a controversial figure ever since the very public breakdown of his marriage to Diana, who was revered by many people for her looks and her compassion.
Diana alleged that there had been “three people” in the marriage, pointing the finger at Charles’ longtime love Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Camilla, initially reviled by Diana’s fans, has worked hard to rehabilitate her image. Her ex-husband and their children are expected to attend the coronation, with her grandsons serving as pages of honor.
She supports a raft of causes, ranging from adult literacy to protecting the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. But even that effort has sparked tensions.
Harry claimed in his memoir “Spare” that the senior royals leaked unflattering stories about him to the news media in return for more favorable coverage, particularly to improve Camilla's image.
At the time of their marriage in 2018, Harry and Meghan were celebrated as the new face of the monarchy. Meghan, a biracial American actress, brought a touch of Hollywood glamour to the royal family and many observers hoped she would help the Windsors connect with younger people in an increasingly multicultural nation.
Those hopes quickly crumbled amid allegations that palace officials were insensitive to Meghan’s mental health struggles as she adjusted to royal life.
Harry and Meghan walked away from frontline royal duties three years ago and moved to California, from which they have lobbed repeated critiques at the House of Windsor.
In a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey they hinted at racism in the palace, alleging that one unidentified member of the royal family had inquired about the color of their unborn son’s skin before his birth.
Harry, i n a Netflix series broadcast last year, said the episode was an example of unconscious bias and that the royal family needed to “learn and grow” so it could be “part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”
The repeated attacks led to months of speculation about whether the couple would be invited to the coronation. The palace finally answered that question two weeks ago when it announced that Harry would attend but Meghan would remain in California with their two children.
And then there is Charles' brother Prince Andrew, who became a toxic time bomb inside the royal family when the world learned about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the financier's long-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes in 2008, died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on a second set of charges. Maxwell was convicted last year of helping procure young girls for Epstein and is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Florida.
Andrew gave up his royal duties in 2019 after a disastrous interview with the BBC in which he tried to explain away his links to Epstein and Maxwell. He was stripped of his honorary military titles and patronages as he prepared to defend a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who said she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was a teenager.
Andrew denied the allegations but settled the suit last year before it came to trial. While terms of the agreement weren’t released, The Sun newspaper reported that Charles and the late queen paid the bulk of the estimated 7 million pound ($8.7 million) settlement.
“I think it was inevitable that when Charles became king, a lot of the personal stuff would come back to haunt him,″ Little said. “I think as far as the king is concerned, he just has to shrug his shoulders and get on with the job in hand.”
Liverpool to mark coronation, notes 'strong views' of fans
Liverpool will play the national anthem before the start of its Premier League game on Saturday to mark the coronation of King Charles III and acknowledged Friday that “some supporters have strong views on it.”
The team said it would play “God Save the King” after the league had contacted clubs playing home games and “strongly suggested” they note the historic occasion.
Liverpool supporters booed the national anthem — which was formerly “God Save the Queen” — when it was played ahead of the FA Cup final a year ago and the Community Shield in July because of what is perceived to be a long-held opposition toward the establishment.
Queen Elizabeth II held the throne for seven decades until her death in September at the age of 96.
Liverpool fans booed the national anthem in the 1980s and during what some refer to as the “managed decline” of the city during the tenure of the Conservative Party-led government. Deepening those feelings were the actions of the government following the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, and many from the left-leaning city continue to feel let down by the state.
Liverpool hosts Brentford at Anfield on Saturday afternoon. The club tucked its plans into an announcement that also discussed charity initiatives and support of the city of Liverpool hosting the Eurovision Song Contest.
“Just over a week ago, the Premier League contacted all home clubs and strongly suggested to mark this historic occasion across home matches this weekend and provided a list of activity for clubs to get involved in,” Liverpool said on its website.
Before kickoff, “players and officials will congregate around the center circle when the national anthem will be played,” the club said. “It is, of course, a personal choice how those at Anfield on Saturday mark this occasion and we know some supporters have strong views on it.”
During Wednesday's 1-0 win over Fulham at Anfield, fans in the Kop voiced their disapproval of the coronation using explicit song lyrics.
“The club’s position is my position,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said Friday at his pre-match news conference. “This is definitely a subject which I cannot really have a proper opinion about. I'm from Germany, we don't have a king or a queen. I'm 55 years old, have really no experience with that.”
Royal weddings are “massive things in Germany,” he added, likening it to watching a movie.
“I'm pretty sure a lot of people in this country will enjoy the coronation, some will maybe not really be interested and some will not like it,” Klopp said.
Anti-Muslim Twitter feed in Spain: 'A recipe for disaster'
The person who operates the Twitter account claims to be an Islamic fundamentalist living in Spain, empathizing with violent extremists and longing for the days, more than six centuries ago, when Muslims ruled the country.
The views are as fake as the account, part of a loose and informal effort by far-right nationalists in Spain to use social media to stir up anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant fervor and to undermine faith in Spain's multicultural democracy. In some cases, they exploit Twitter's loose rules to spread hateful messages and threats of violence, while in others they pose as Muslims as a way to disparage actual followers of Islam.
By harnessing the power of social media to communicate, coordinate and evangelize, those behind the so-called Reconquista movement are relying on the same playbook used by far-right extremists in the U.S., Brazil and other countries who have used social media to expand their power and recruit new followers.
Reconquista also borrows the same rhetoric used by far-right groups in the U.S., and even some of the same online memes, including Pepe the Frog, a crudely drawn amphibian who has become a mascot for white supremacist and antigovernment groups in the U.S. In one Reconquista meme, Pepe is shown wearing the garb of a 16th century Spanish conquistador.
As in the U.S. and other countries, the Spanish nationalists have seized on debates over trans rights, spreading misleading claims about the exploitation of children and supposed conspiracies to eradicate the idea of gender. They've also criticized COVID-19 vaccines, feminism, efforts to address climate change and support for Ukraine following Russia's invasion.
The remarkable overlap of tactics and interests isn't a coincidence, but reflects how far-right groups in many countries are learning from one another, copying each other's successes, said Joel Finkelstein, co-founder of the Princeton, N.J.-based Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University, a group focused on identifying cyberthreats that published a report on Reconquista this week. The findings were first reported by The Associated Press.
“This is a recipe for disaster,” Finkelstein told the AP. ”All over the world we’re seeing different manifestations of the same kind of problem. The flags are all different, but it’s remarkable how similar the memes are.”
One concern, Finkelstein said, is that the rhetoric could lead to offline violence.
Reconquista takes its name from the successful effort by Christian leaders to reconquer vast parts of the Iberian peninsula from its Islamic rulers and expel Muslims during the Middle Ages. It's a term embraced by some on the far-right, who see their opposition to Islam and immigrants as a divinely ordained sequel of sorts to that bloody, centuries long conflict.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric from accounts linked to Reconquista soared after a Moroccan man attacked two Catholic churches in the southern city of Algeciras in January, killing a church officer and injuring a priest. The man, an unauthorized immigrant, is now jailed in the psychiatric ward of a Spanish prison awaiting the results of a judicial probe; authorities believe he acted alone.
Many of the violent threats against Muslims that spread on Twitter following the attack violated the platform’s rules, and in some cases the platform did act to remove the content or suspend the author. But often those behind the content simply created a new account days after they were suspended.
The far-right party Vox helped popularize Reconquista online, using the term repeatedly in Tweets ahead of the 2019 election. Vox, whose members express strongly anti-immigrant views, now holds 52 seats, or the third largest number, in Spain's 350-member lower legislative chamber. The party's Twitter account was briefly suspended in 2020 for accusing its critics of promoting pedophilia, and again in 2021 for inciting hatred against Muslims.
The party's leader, Santiago Abascal, has made several references to the Reconquista, as he did last year in a Tweet. “Today is the anniversary of the reconquest of Granada, an indelible memory of the day the recovery of the entire national territory was completed after eight centuries of Islamic invasion,” he wrote.
Supporters of La Reconquista often display Spanish flags in their profiles and some openly praise Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator whose rule ended more than 40 years ago. They often refer to Muslims as Moors, an outdated historical term for Muslims from North Africa. One uses a photo of ex-U.S. President Donald Trump as their profile picture.
“If loving Spain is very facha, well, I am very facha,” reads the Twitter bio of one supporter of La Reconquista, using a Spanish term for fascism.
“Reconquista style, but we won't only remove the moors but also those who opened their doors to them,” wrote another.
Spain has responded to the effort to rehabilitate Franco’s legacy by passing a law last year that made it a crime to glorify the dictator. In 2019 Franco’s body was exhumed from a tomb at a grandiose memorial complex built by the fascists. He was reburied in a nearby cemetery.
Far-right groups in several countries have sought to reshape public understanding of events like the holocaust, slavery and, more recently, the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. By ignoring the details of the historic Reconquista or Franco's dictatorship, La Reconquista seeks to legitimize its own anti-immigrant views as traditional Spanish values, according to Marc Esteve Del Valle, a professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who has studied Reconquista’s use of the internet.
In that sense, the internet isn't just a place where Reconquista supporters find each other and share information, but a method of shaping public opinion and politics.
“The social networks are tools to organize, to mobilize. It's where the movement lives,” Esteve Del Valle said.
Twitter has drastically reduced its staff focused on ferreting out misinformation, hate speech and extremist content since it was bought by Elon Musk. The company did not respond to messages seeking comment about La Reconquista.
In recent years a number of informally organized far-right groups have used social media in similar ways.
In Italy, an anti-vaccine group known as V_V (after the movie “V for Vendetta”) has used Telegram to threaten nurses, doctors and others involved in efforts to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Germany, a similar group known as Querdenken used Facebook to encourage violence against vaccine supporters until it was kicked off the site. In Brazil, supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro plotted on social media ahead of January's violent attack in Brasilia.
And in the U.S., social media played a critical role in spurring the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and is now being used by supporters of Trump in an effort to whitewash the events of that day.
Trump himself has helped build bridges between some of the groups, as when he praised the Spanish Vox Party during a video message played at a rally last year.
“We have to make sure that we protect our borders and do lots of very good conservative things,” Trump told the crowd. “Spain is a great country and we want to keep it a great country. So congratulations to Vox for so many great messages you get out to the people of Spain and the people of the world.”
Russia's Wagner boss threatens Bakhmut pullout in Ukraine
The owner of Russia’s Wagner military contractor threatened Friday to withdraw his troops next week from the protracted battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, accusing Moscow's military command of starving his forces of ammunition and causing them heavy losses.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy entrepreneur with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed that Wagner had planned to capture Bakhmut by May 9, Russia's major Victory Day holiday celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
It is not the first time Prigozhin has raged about ammunition shortages and blamed Russia’s military, with which he has long been in conflict. Known for his bluster, he has previously made unverifiable claims and threats he hasn’t carried out.
Prigozhin’s spokespeople also published a video of him Friday standing in front of about 30 uniformed bodies lying on the ground and saying they are Wagner fighters who died on Thursday alone. He angrily demands ammunition from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov.
“These are someone’s fathers and someone’s sons,” Prigozhin says, pointing at the bodies and swearing. “The scum that doesn’t give us ammunition will eat their guts in hell.”
Wagner has spearheaded the struggle for control of Bakhmut, the longest — and likely bloodiest — battle of the war. More than eight months of fighting there is believed to have cost thousands of lives. A pullout by Wagner would be a huge blow to the Russian campaign.
For the Ukrainian side, Bakhmut has become an important symbol of resistance to Russia’s invasion. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says its loss could begin building international support for a deal that could require Ukraine to make unacceptable compromises.
Prigozhin's spat with the Russian military leadership dates back to Wagner’s creation less than 10 years ago. During the war in Ukraine, he has chastised Russia's top military officials, publicly accusing them of incompetence — behavior that is highly unusual in Russia’s tightly controlled political system.
One general Prigozhin actively criticized was fired, but other top officials he has lashed out at appear to have retained the Kremlin’s trust. In January, Putin put Gerasimov in charge of the Russian forces in Ukraine, a move some observers also interpreted as an attempt to cut Prigozhin down to size.
Prigozhin alleged Friday that Russia’s regular army was supposed to protect the flanks as Wagner troops pushed forward but is “barely holding on to them,” deploying “tens and rarely hundreds” of troops.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately comment on the claims, and it was not possible to independently verify them.
“Wagner ran out of resources to advance in early April, but we’re advancing despite the fact that the enemy’s resources outnumber ours fivefold,” Prigozhin’s statement said. “Because of the lack of ammunition, our losses are growing exponentially every day.”
Ukrainian officials were skeptical about Prigozhin’s claims of ammunition shortages. Ukraine’s military intelligence representative, Andrii Cherniak, told The Associated Press that Wagner’s forces had clearly failed in their goal of taking Bakhmut by May 9 and Prigozhin had made the statement to “justify their unsuccessful actions.”
Prigozhin has toured Russian prisons to recruit fighters, promising inmates pardons if they survive a half-year tour of front-line duty with Wagner. Western countries and United Nations experts have accused Wagner mercenaries of committing numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali.
Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, has tactical military value for Moscow, though analysts say it won’t be decisive in the war’s outcome.
The city had a prewar population of 80,000 and was an important industrial center. It is now a devastated ghost town.
Prigozhin’s statement said Wagner will be forced to pull out of Bakhmut on May 10 and have Russia’s regular army take over. He said his force hasn’t received enough artillery ammunition supplies from the Russian military since Monday, and blamed “jealous military bureaucrats.”
Western officials and analysts believe Russia has run low on ammunition as the 14-month conflict became bogged down in a war of attrition over the winter, with both sides resorting to long-range bombardments.
Prigozhin has already threatened to withdraw from Bakhmut once, in an interview with a Russian military blogger last week, if the situation with ammunition doesn't improve.
Asked by The AP about Prigozhin’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during his daily conference call with reporters that he had seen refences to it in the media but refused to comment further.
Also Friday, an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region which borders the annexed Crimean Peninsula briefly caught fire after it was attacked by a drone, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials. The fire was small and was quickly put out, the report said.
It was the second straight day that the Ilyinsky refinery had came under a drone attack. Drone attacks on oil facilities in Russian regions on the border with Ukraine have been reported almost daily over the past week.
Suspect arrested in Serbia’s second mass shooting in 2 days
A gunman killed eight people and wounded 14 in three Serbian villages, authorities and media reported, shaking a nation still in the throes of grief over a mass shooting a day earlier. Police arrested a suspect Friday after an all-night manhunt.
The second shooting came Thursday, a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade, the capital.
The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars, but unused to mass murders. Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, Wednesday’s shooting was the first at a school in the country’s modern history.
The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Also Read: 8 fatally shot in Serbia town a day after 9 killed at school
Late Thursday, an attacker shot at people in three villages near Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, according to state broadcaster RTS.
“I heard some tak-tak-tak sounds,” recalled Milan Prokic, a resident of Dubona, near Mladenovac. Prokic said he first thought people were shooting to celebrate a birth, as is tradition in Serbia.
“But it wasn’t that. Shame, great shame,” Prokic added.
Police said a suspect, identified by the initials U.B., was arrested near the central Serbian town of Kragujevac, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Belgrade.
Authorities released a photo of the suspect in a police car, showing a young man in a blue T-shirt with an inscription and a map of part of Europe on it.
Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called the shootings “a terrorist act,” state media reported.
Before the second shooting, Serbia spent much of Thursday reeling. Students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, filled streets around the school in central Belgrade as they paid silent homage to slain peers. Serbian teachers’ unions announced protests and strikes to warn about a crisis in the school system and demand changes.
The same day, authorities moved to boost gun control, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them away from children. The government ordered a two-year moratorium on short-barrel guns and tougher sentences for people who enable minors to get ahold of guns.
Under current law, a registered gun owner in Serbia must be over 18, healthy, and have no criminal record. Weapons must be kept locked and separately from ammunition.
Wednesday’s shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar school also left seven people hospitalized, six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remains in life-threatening condition, and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said Thursday.
Authorities have identified the shooter as Kosta Kecmanovic and said he is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental hospital, and his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security.
Gun ownership is common in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: The country has one of the highest number of firearms per capita in the world. And guns are often fired into the air at celebrations in the region.
Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the number of weapons in Serbia, a highly divided country where convicted war criminals are frequently glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unpunished. They also note that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s, as well as ongoing economic hardship, could trigger such outbursts.
Dragan Popadic, a psychology professor at Belgrade University, told The Associated Press that the school shooting has exposed the level of violence present in society and caused a deep shock.
“People suddenly have been shaken into reality and the ocean of violence that we live in, how it has grown over time and how much our society has been neglected for decades,” he warned. “It is as if flashlights have been lit over our lives and we can no longer just mind our own business.”
8 fatally shot in Serbia town a day after 9 killed at school
A shooter killed at least eight people and wounded 13 in a drive-by attack near a town close to Belgrade late Thursday, the second such mass killing in Serbia in two days, state television reported.
The attacker shot randomly at people near the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, the RTS report said early Friday. Police were looking for a 21-year-old suspect who fled after the attack, the report said.
The shooting came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father's guns in a rampage at a school in Belgrade that killed eight of his fellow students and a school guard.
The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation unused to mass murders.
Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings are extremely rare. Wednesday's school shooting was the first in the country's modern history. The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called Thursday's shooting "a terrorist act," state media reported.
Special police and helicopter units have been sent to the region as well as ambulances, it added.
No other details were immediately available, and police had not issued any statements.
Earlier Thursday, Serbian students, many wearing black and carrying flowers, filled streets around the school in central Belgrade as they paid silent homage to peers killed a day earlier. Thousands lined up to lay flowers, light candles and leave toys to commemorate the nine people who were killed on Wednesday morning.
The tragedy also sparked a debate about the general state of the nation following decades of crises and conflicts whose aftermath have created a state of permanent insecurity and instability, along with deep political divisions.
Authorities on Thursday moved to boost gun control, as police urged citizens to lock up their guns and keep them away from children.
Police have said that the teen used his father's guns to carry out the attack. He had planned it for a month, drawing sketches of classrooms and making lists of the children he planned to kill, police said on Wednesday.
The boy, who had visited shooting ranges with his father and apparently had the code to his father's safe, took two guns from the safe where they were stored together with bullets, police said on Wednesday.
The shooting on Wednesday morning in Vladislav Ribnikar primary school also left seven people hospitalized — six children and a teacher. One girl who was shot in the head remains in a life-threatening condition, and a boy is in serious condition with spinal injuries, doctors said on Thursday morning.
To help people deal with the tragedy, authorities announced they were setting up a helpline. Hundreds answered a call to donate blood for the wounded victims. A three-day mourning period will begin Friday morning.
Serbian teachers' unions announced protests and strikes to warn about a crisis in the school system and demand changes. Authorities shrugged off responsibility, with some officials blaming Western influence.
The shooter, whom the police identified as Kosta Kecmanovic, has not given any motive for his actions.
Upon entering his school, Kecmanovic first killed the guard and three students in the hallway. He then went to the history classroom where he shot a teacher before turning his gun on the students.
Kecmanovic then unloaded the gun in the school yard and called the police himself, although they had already received an alert from a school official. When he called, Kecmanovic told duty officers he was a "psychopath who needs to calm down," police said.
The children killed Wednesday were seven girls and one boy. One of the girls was a French citizen, France's foreign ministry said.
Authorities have said that Kecmanovic is too young to be charged and tried. He has been placed in a mental institution, while his father has been detained on suspicion of endangering public security because his son got hold of the guns.
"I think we are all guilty. I think each one of us has some responsibility, that we allowed some things we should not allow," said Zoran Sefik, a Belgrade resident, during Wednesday evening's vigil near the school.
Jovan Lazovic, another Belgrade resident, said he was not surprised: "It was a matter of days when something like this could happen, having in mind what is happening in the world and here," he said.
Gun culture is widespread in Serbia and elsewhere in the Balkans: The region has among the highest numbers of guns per capita in Europe. Guns are often fired into the air at celebrations and the cult of the warrior is part of national identities.
Experts have repeatedly warned of the danger posed by the number of weapons in a highly divided country like Serbia, where convicted war criminals are glorified and violence against minority groups often goes unpunished. They also note that decades of instability stemming from the conflicts of the 1990s, as well as ongoing economic hardship, could trigger such outbursts.
"We have had too much violence for too long," psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin told N1 television. "Children copy models. We need to eliminate negative models ... and create a different system of values."
UK holds local elections amid storm over new voter ID rules
Millions of people in England were voting Thursday in local elections that are the first test of electoral opinion since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took over a fractious and exhausted Conservative Party six months ago.
The Conservatives say they expect to lose ground in elections for more than 8,000 seats on 230 local councils across England as voters punish them for the turmoil that engulfed the party under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He resigned amid multiple scandals and was replaced by Liz Truss, whose rash tax-cutting plans spooked financial markets, hammered the value of the pound and roiled the wider British economy.
The party chose Sunak, a smooth former banker, to try to restore stability to the economy and the government.
Sunak said Wednesday that his party was expecting the election to be “hard for us,” but vowed the Conservatives were leaving behind the “box set drama” of the Johnson and Truss eras.
“I’ve only been prime minister for six months but I do believe we’re making good progress,” he told a think-tank event. “Just think about where we were then and where we are now.”
The left-of-center main opposition Labour Party hopes the results will confirm its front-runner status for the next national election, due by the end of 2024.
University of Strathclyde polling expert John Curtice said if Labour secured more than a 10% lead in the projected national vote share based on the local results, it would signal a likely general election victory for the party.
The election is the first to be held since the government changed the law to require voters show photo identification at all U.K. polling stations.
The government says ID is required to vote in many democracies, and the move will help prevent voter fraud. Critics say there is little evidence electoral fraud is a problem in Britain.
Acceptable forms of ID include passports, driver’s licenses and senior citizens’ travelcards – but not transit passes for young people.
The government says getting an older person’s travelcard requires proof of age, unlike other transit passes. But the discrepancy has brought allegations the change will disproportionately prevent young people – the group least likely to support the Conservatives – from voting. Poor people are also less likely to have photo ID than the more affluent.
University of Exeter political scientist Rebecca Baker said “there will very likely be voters who turn up on the day unable to use the polling booth.”
“We may also see much longer queues to vote, in light of the extra elements needed and poor tempers, placing additional strain on the already overloaded polling staff.”
Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0600GMT) and close at 10 p.m. (2100GMT). Most results are due Friday.
There are no elections in Scotland or Wales, while Northern Ireland will vote May 18. London, the U.K.’s largest city, will not elect its mayor and council until next year.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy convinced Putin will face court justice
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday he was convinced that Russian President Putin would face an international war crimes court when Ukraine wins the war that has been raging for over a year.
In a speech titled “No Peace without Justice for Ukraine” given in The Hague, the city that hosts the International Criminal Court, Zelenskyy said that Putin “deserves to be sentenced for these criminal actions right here in the capital of the international law.”
“And I’m sure we will see that happen when we win. And we will win,” he said. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, relating to the abduction of children.
The ICC cannot prosecute the crime of war aggression itself. Zelenskyy’s speech was an appeal for a full-fledged tribunal to prosecute that overarching crime, a heart-felt plea for a special tribunal for aggression.
“If we want true justice, we should not look for excuses and should not refer to the shortcomings of the current international law but make bold decisions that will correct that shortcomings that unfortunately exist in international law.”
Zelenskyy’s speech came a day after he denied that Ukrainian forces were responsible for what the Kremlin called an attempt to assassinate Putin in a drone attack on Moscow. The Kremlin promised retaliation for what it termed a “terrorist” act.
Putin’s spokesman on Thursday accused the United States of being behind the alleged attack.
Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a daily conference call that the Kremlin was “well aware that the decision on such actions and terrorist attacks is not made in Kyiv, but in Washington.”
“And then Kyiv does what it’s told to do,” Peskov said, without offering evidence for his claim.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military claimed three Russian drones that hit the southern city of Odesa early Thursday had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” written on them, seemingly referring to the strikes in Moscow. Also, Kyiv was the target of an air attack for the third time in four days.
In total, Ukraine’s Air Forces intercepted 18 out of 24 Iranian-made drones launched by Russian forces in various regions. No casualties were reported.
Zelenskyy was welcomed outside the ICC building by the court’s president, Poland’s Piotr Hofmański. Staff crowded at windows to get a glimpse of Zelenskyy’s arrival and raised a Ukrainian flag next to the court’s own flag outside the building.
Judges at the ICC last month announced they had found “reasonable grounds to believe” that Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights were responsible for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
But the chances of Putin standing trial in The Hague are remote. The court does not have a police force to execute its warrants, and the Russian leader is unlikely to travel to any of the ICC’s 123 member states that are under an obligation to arrest him if they can.
The ICC said in a March 18 statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has made repeated visits to Ukraine and is setting up an office in Kyiv to facilitate his ongoing investigations.
However, the ICC does not have jurisdiction to prosecute Putin for aggression — the unlawful invasion of another sovereign country. The Dutch government has offered to host a court that could be established to prosecute the crime of aggression and an office is being established to gather evidence.
The new International Center for Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression should be operational by summer, the European Union’s judicial cooperation agency, Eurojust, said in February.
The Netherlands has been a strong supporter of the Ukrainian war effort since Russia’s invasion last year. Among military equipment Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government has promised are 14 modern Leopard 2 tanks it is buying together with Denmark. They are expected to be delivered next year.
The Netherlands also joined forces with Germany and Denmark to buy at least 100 older Leopard 1 tanks for Ukraine.
Among other military hardware, it also sent two Patriot air defense missile systems and promised two naval minehunter ships as well as sending military forensic experts to assist war crime investigations.
Zelenskyy’s visit came on the day the Dutch remember their war dead.
Questions continued to swirl around Russia’s claim that it foiled an attack by Ukrainian drones on the Kremlin early Wednesday.
Putin wasn’t in the Kremlin at the time and was at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Peskov told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.
There was no independent verification of the purported attack. Russian authorities said it occurred overnight but presented no supporting evidence. Questions also arose as to why it took the Kremlin hours to report the incident and why videos also surfaced later in the day
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. was “unable to confirm the authenticity” of Russia’s claims of a Ukrainian attack on Moscow. Asked whether the U.S. believed Putin was a lawful target of any potential Ukrainian strike, Jean-Pierre said that since the start of the conflict, the U.S. was “not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its border.”
Asked whether the U.S. was concerned that the accusation might have been a false flag operation by Russia to serve as a pretext for more aggressive military action on Ukraine, Jean-Pierre said she didn’t want to speculate, but added, “Obviously Russia has a history of doing things like this.”
Two Russian oil facilities in southern regions of the country near Ukraine were attacked by drones in what appeared to be a series of attacks on fuel depots behind enemy lines, Russian media said Thursday.
Four drones struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, which borders the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing law enforcement sources. Another facility was reportedly hit in the neighboring Rostov region.