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Hilltop coal-mining town a tactical prize in Ukraine war
In a small coal-mining town on Ukraine’s eastern front line, a fight for strategic superiority is being waged in a battlefield steeped with symbolism as the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears.
The town of Vuhledar — meaning “gift of coal” — has emerged as a critical hot spot in the fight for Donetsk province that would give both sides, the Ukrainian forces who hold the urban center, and the Russians positioned in the suburbs, a tactical upper hand in the greater battle for the Donbas region.
Located on an elevated plane that is one of the few high-terrain spots in the area, its capture would be an important step for Russia to disrupt Ukrainian supply lines. Securing Vuhledar would give Ukraine a potential launching pad for future counter-offensives south.
Then there is the symbolic weight: Vuhledar is close to the administrative border of Donetsk province, and winning it would play into Russia’s greater aim of controlling the region as a whole.
“The center of gravity of the Russian military effort is in Donetsk, and Vuhledar is basically the southern flank of that,” said Gustav Gressel, a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relation’s Berlin office.
Also read: UN draft resolution: Any peace must keep Ukraine intact
The grinding fight to win the area has cost Russia manpower and weapons, as Ukrainians continue to hold up defensive lines. Russia sends battalion-sized scout groups to probe Ukrainian lines and shoot artillery toward their positions with an eye to pushing north toward the critical N15 highway, a key supply route.
In remarks this week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian troops were advancing “with success” in Vuhledar. Meanwhile, a British defense intelligence briefing said Russia's aim was to capture unoccupied areas of Ukrainian-held Donetsk but it was unlikely to build up the forces required to change the outcome of the war.
Vuhledar’s pre-war population of 14,000 has dwindled to about 300. The majority of the town’s residents worked in the coal mine and nearby factories before the war.
Olha Kyseliova, who was recently evacuated, worked in a brick factory before the fighting upended her life.
Russian forces ramped up attacks beginning on Jan. 24, residents said. That day, a missile tore through Kyseliova's nine-story building. She was sheltering in the basement with her three children and emerged to find a gaping hole through the roof of her third-floor apartment.
That was the moment she decided she had to leave her hometown. “I cried the entire way out, I didn’t want to leave,” she said.
Three Ukrainian brigades are positioned in Vuhledar and on the outskirts of the town. The Associated Press spoke to five commanders in units from all three, who provided only their first names in keeping with Ukraine's military policy. Russia’s 155 Marine infantry troops are positioned just four kilometers (two miles) away in Vuhledar’s suburbs.
For both sides, the town is tactically important.
“It’s one of the main logistics points of the Donbas region, and also one of the main points of elevation,” said Maksym, the deputy commander of a Ukrainian marine infantry battalion. “By capturing Vuhledar, Russians can easily occupy the entire Donetsk region.”
Seizing Vuhledar would would enable Russia to push forward and threaten Ukrainian supply lines feeding into the fierce Marinka front line to the north, said Gressel of the European Council on Foreign Relations. For Ukraine, Vuhledar would be a launching pad for future counter-offensives toward Mariupol and Berdiansk.
From their perch in the town, Ukrainian forces can see into Russian lines and have so far been able to repel Russian attempts to encircle Vuhledar. Columns of Russian tanks and armored vehicles transporting infantrymen continuously assault and attempt to break Ukrainian defenses. Aviation, rockets and artillery target the town.
“But with our fighters and anti-tank equipment their attempts have not been successful,” said Maksym, the Ukrainian deputy commander. “The situation is strained, but controlled.”
Similar to other front lines along the east, the Russians are losing scores of infantrymen in an attempt to tire and weaken Ukrainian defensive lines. Serhii, the commander of a Ukrainian intelligence unit, said he saw Russian soldiers sent straight through fields mined by the Ukrainians following Russia’s capture of the village of Pavlivka, south of Vuhledar, in November.
“They de-mine our fields by using their own people,” he said.
Ukrainian commanders said some of their units are suffering from dire ammunition shortages.
That view was not shared across brigades, suggesting some are better supplied than others. Taras, the commander of a mortar unit, said his forces were suffering very serious shortages. Faced with orders to target an enemy position, he said, “I have just two or three rounds of ammunition to do it. It’s nothing.”
Two commanders of a brigade inside Vuhledar reported the Russians hurled gas-laden projectiles that caused severe disorientation for hours, and burning of the throat and skin. Higher-ranking commanders did not comment on the type of gas used and said an investigation was ongoing.
“They are probing and testing us across the eastern front line, including in Vuhledar,” said Oleksandr, a commander who was recently rotated out of the town. “They are trying to find our points of weakness.”
For now, Russia’s activities around Vuhledar are not “operationally significant,” said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst with the U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War. More combat power is required to execute breakthroughs that would achieve the stated aim of the Russian invasion — the capture of the entire Donetsk province.
Even in the event of victory in Vuhledar, Russia would still need a lot of combat power to push north. Three months after capturing the village of Pavlivka in November, Russian forces have yet to make breakthroughs in Vuhledar, which is only four kilometers — a six-minute drive — away.
“It’s not operationally significant because Russians will still have to fight for more territory to make a meaningful disruption of Ukrainian ground lines of communication to western Donetsk,” Stepanenko said. Vuhledar is just "one settlement on their way, where they are already suffering significant losses and where they already seem to have suffered losses in the area before.”
Meanwhile, the last of Vuhledar’s residents said they are staying put.
Oleksandra Havrylko, police press officer for the Donetsk region, pleads with those who remain to leave the devastated area. Most spend their days hiding in basements, coming out when there are lulls in fighting to charge phones and gather supplies in the town’s points of refuge, called “invincibility centers”.
All but one of the town's children have been evacuated. The father of a 15-year-old, the last remaining minor in the town, refuses to part with his son or leave the area, she said.
“There are people in the city who don’t want to be evacuated, we tried many times,” she said. Most have never ventured far from their hometown.
Russia hits targets across Ukraine with missiles, drones
KYIV, Ukraine, Feb 11 (AP/UNB) — Russia used strategic bombers, cruise missiles and killer drones in a wave of attacks across Ukraine early Friday, while Moscow's military push that Kyiv says has been brewing for days appeared to pick up pace in eastern areas ahead of the one-year anniversary of its invasion.
Russian forces have launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and seven Shahed drones since late Thursday, Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said.
Ukrainian forces downed 61 cruise missiles and five drones, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has campaigned for more Western support against Russia's military ambitions, said: “This is terror that can and must be stopped.”
Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s ground forces were focusing on Ukraine’s industrial east, especially the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the industrial Donbas region where recent fighting has been most intense, the Ukrainian military said. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014.
Kremlin is striving to secure areas it illegally annexed last September — the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions — and where it claims its rule is welcomed, according to Kyiv officials.
Moscow’s goals have narrowed since it launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 2022, military analysts say. At that time, the capital, Kyiv, and the installation of a puppet government were among its targets, but numerous battlefield setbacks, including yielding Donbas areas it had initially captured, have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremin is currently concentrating its efforts on gaining full control of the Donbas, Kyiv claims, and is pushing at key points on several fronts, though Russian progress is reportedly slow.
In the Donetsk region, local Ukrainian officials reported that the Russian military deployed additional troops and launched offensive operations. “There is a daily escalation and Russian attacks are becoming active throughout the region,” Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
In Luhansk province, the Russian army is trying to punch through Ukrainian defenses, according to regional Gov. Serhii Haidai.
Read more: Russian attacks on Ukraine reported; at least 11 dead
“The situation is deteriorating, the enemy is constantly attacking, the Russians are bringing in a large amount of heavy equipment and aircraft,” Haidai said.
There has been little change in battlefield positions for weeks amid freezing winter conditions.
Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed head of the Donetsk region, said that Russian forces had secured positions on the southern outskirts of Vuhledar. He added that Ukraine has sent additional reinforcements to the city that slowed the Russian advance.
Pushilin’s claim couldn’t be independently verified.
Vuhledar is a strategically important town that sits next to a railway link crossing the region on the way to Crimea. Capturing the town is important for Russia to secure the safety of the railway connection to Crimea and advance its goal of seizing the entire Donetsk region.
The cruise missiles aimed at Ukraine were launched by Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers and from Russian navy ships in the Black Sea, military chief Zaluzhnyi said, while the S-300 missiles were launched from the Belgorod region just inside Russia and the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Moscow once again targeted the power supply in “another attempt to destroy the Ukrainian energy system and deprive Ukrainians of light, heat, water.” The International Atomic Energy Agency said two of Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants reduced power “due to renewed shelling of the country’s energy infrastructure.”
The barrage was broad, also taking aim at the capital, Kyiv, and Lviv, near Ukraine's Western border with Poland. It also struck critical infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city in the northeast. Seven people were wounded there, two of them seriously, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
Air raid sirens sounded across much of the country.
Also Friday, Moldova’s Ministry of Defense said that a missile was detected traversing its airspace near the border with Ukraine. Moldova’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the Russian ambassador in Chisinau has been summoned for talks over the “unacceptable violation”.
The ministry said that the missile was detected in its airspace at around 10 a.m. and flew over two border villages before heading toward Ukraine.
The spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Forces, Yurii Ihnat, told The Associated Press that another missile crossed the airspace of Romania, a NATO member country. Romania’s defense ministry denied that, however, saying the closest the missile came to Romania’s airspace was approximately 35 kilometers (20 miles).
High-voltage infrastructure facilities were hit in the eastern, western and southern regions, Ukraine’s energy company, Ukrenergo, said, resulting in power outages in some areas. It was the 14th round of massive strikes on the country’s power supply, the company said. The last one occurred on Jan. 26 as Moscow seeks to demoralize Ukrainians by leaving them without heat and water in the bitter winter.
Zaporizhzhia City Council Secretary Anatolii Kurtiev said the city had been hit 17 times in one hour, which he said made it the most intense period of attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.
Ukraine’s Air Force shot down 10 Russian missiles over Kyiv, according to the Kyiv City Administration. The fragments of one missile damaged two cars, a house and electricity wires. No casualties were reported.
The Ukraine Air Force said Russia launched S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles on the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia provinces. Those missiles cannot be destroyed in mid-air by air defenses but they have a relatively short range so the Russians have used them for attacks on areas not far from Russian-controlled territory.
The Khmelnytskyi province in Western Ukraine was also attacked with Shahed drones, according to regional Gov. Serhii Hamalii.
Russia has in the past used Iranian-made Shahed drones to strike at key Ukrainian infrastructure and sow fear among civilians, according to Western analysts. They are known as suicide drones because they nosedive into targets and explode on impact like a missile.
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy makes emotional appeal for EU membership
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked his Western allies Thursday for more weapons and said “a Ukraine that is winning” its war with Russia should become a member of the European Union, arguing the bloc won’t be complete without it.
And at the close of a 16-hour summit that ended when Zelenskyy was already gone, the EU leaders pledged they would do all it takes to back Ukraine but offered no firm timetable for membership talks to start, as Zelenskyy had hoped for.
French President Emmanuel Macron said the leaders agreed to support Ukraine “tirelessly, over the long term … to win the war.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked his Western allies Thursday for more weapons and said “a Ukraine that is winning” its war with Russia should become a member of the European Union, arguing the bloc won’t be complete without it.
Zelenskyy made his appeal during an emotional day at EU headquarters in Brussels as he wrapped up a rare, two-day trip outside Ukraine to seek new weaponry from the West to repel the invasion that Moscow has been waging for nearly a year. As he spoke, a new offensive by Russia in eastern Ukraine was under way.
Zelenskyy, who also visited the U.K. and France, received rapturous applause and cheers from the European Parliament and a summit of the 27 EU leaders, insisting in his speech that the fight with Russia was one for the freedom of all of Europe.
“A Ukraine that is winning is going to be member of the European Union,” Zelenskyy said, building his appeal around the common destiny that Ukraine and the bloc face in confronting Russia.
“Europe will always be, and remain Europe as long as we ... take care of the European way of life,” he said.
EU membership talks should start later this year, Zelenskyy said, an ambitious request given the huge task ahead. Such a move would help motivate Ukrainian soldiers in their defense of the country, he said.
“Of course we need it this year,“ he said, then looked at European Council head Charles Michel, and insisted, tongue-in-cheek: “When I say this year, I mean this year. Two, zero, 23.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, said “there is no rigid timeline.” In practice, membership often has taken decades to complete.
He held up an EU flag after his address and the lawmakers stood in somber silence as the Ukrainian national anthem and the European anthem “Ode to Joy” were played in succession.
Before his speech, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said allies should consider “quickly, as a next step, providing long-range systems” and fighter jets to Ukraine. The response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine “must be proportional to the threat, and the threat is existential,” she said.
Metsola also told Zelenskyy that “we have your back. We were with you then, we are with you now, we will be with you for as long as it takes.”
A draft of the summit’s conclusions seen by The Associated Press said “the European Union will stand by Ukraine with steadfast support for as long as it takes.”
During his time in Brussels, Zelenskyy asked Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger to give Ukraine its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, and he replied: “We will work on” the request. Slovakia grounded its fleet of MiG-29s last year.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the bloc will send Zelenskyy “this signal of unity and solidarity, and can show that we will continue our support for Ukraine in defending its independence and integrity.”
Military analysts say Putin is hoping that Europe’s support for Ukraine will wane as Russia is believed to be preparing a new offensive.
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“Of course we need it this year,“ he said, then looked at European Council head Charles Michel, and insisted, tongue-in-cheek: “When I say this year, I mean this year. Two, zero, 23.”
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, however, said “there is no rigid timeline.” In practice, membership often has taken decades to complete.
He held up an EU flag after his address and the lawmakers stood in somber silence as the Ukrainian national anthem and the European anthem “Ode to Joy” were played in succession.
Before his speech, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said allies should consider “quickly, as a next step, providing long-range systems” and fighter jets to Ukraine. The response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine “must be proportional to the threat, and the threat is existential,” she said.
Metsola also told Zelenskyy that “we have your back. We were with you then, we are with you now, we will be with you for as long as it takes.”
A draft of the summit’s conclusions seen by The Associated Press said “the European Union will stand by Ukraine with steadfast support for as long as it takes.”
During his time in Brussels, Zelenskyy asked Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger to give Ukraine its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, and he replied: “We will work on” the request. Slovakia grounded its fleet of MiG-29s last year.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the bloc will send Zelenskyy “this signal of unity and solidarity, and can show that we will continue our support for Ukraine in defending its independence and integrity.”
Military analysts say Putin is hoping that Europe’s support for Ukraine will wane as Russia is believed to be preparing a new offensive.
The Kremlin’s forces “have regained the initiative in Ukraine and have begun their next major offensive” in the eastern Luhansk region, most of which is occupied by Russia, the Institute for the Study of War, said in its latest assessment. “Russian forces are gradually beginning an offensive, but its success is not inherent or predetermined.”
Zelenskyy used the dais of the European Parliament hoping to match Wednesday’s speech to Britain’s legislature when he thanked the nation for its unrelenting support.
That same support has come from the EU. The bloc and its member states have already backed Kyiv with about 50 billion euros ($53.6 billion) in aid, provided military hardware and imposed nine packages of sanctions on the Kremlin.
The EU is in the midst of brokering a new sanctions package worth about 10 billion euros ($10.7 billion) before the war’s anniversary. And there is still plenty of scope for exporting more military hardware to Ukraine as a Russian spring offensive is expected.
Russia is watching Zelenskyy’s movements closely. On Wednesday, Russian state television showed the flight path of a British air force plane that Zelenskyy used to travel to London, taken from a flight monitoring site. The anchor noted the plane flew from an air base in Rzeszow, Poland, that is a hub for Western arms deliveries to Ukraine.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by Putin, visited a Siberian arms factory Thursday and said his country will respond to the Western aid by churning out thousands of tanks.
“Our enemy was begging for aircraft, missiles and tanks on a trip abroad,” Medvedev said during a visit to the аactory in Omsk. “We will naturally increase the output of various types of weapons and military equipment, including modern tanks. We are talking about production and modernization of thousands of tanks.”
Fighting in Ukraine intensified Thursday, with Kyiv’s military intelligence agency saying Russian forces have launched an offensive in the the partially occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions, with the aim to grab full control of the entire industrial region, known as the Donbas. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014.
“An escalation is underway and the main goal is to seize Donbas by the end of March,” Main Intelligence Directorate spokesman Andriy Yusov told Ukrainian television.
In Donetsk, the front line expanded significantly over the previous day, with fierce battles taking place as Moscow’s forces closed in on key Ukrainian-held towns, according to regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russian shelling struck a kindergarten, hospital, cultural center, factory and apartment buildings, he said.
“The intensity of the shelling has increased dramatically and we are seeing a significant intensification of activity by the Russian army immediately in the south, center and north of the region,” Kyrylenko said. “Russia is again actively using combat aircraft to shell our cities and villages.”
Russian forces also stepped up attacks in neighboring Luhansk province, launching “a broad offensive,” regional Gov. Serhii Haidai said.
In Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv province, 23 cities and villages came under shelling. In the border city of Vovchansk, shelling damaged about 10 apartment buildings.
Rescuers push to find survivors of 'disaster of the century'
Rescue workers made a final push Thursday to find survivors of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria that rendered many communities unrecognizable to their inhabitants and led the Turkish president to declare it “the disaster of the century." The death toll topped 20,000.
The earthquake affected an area that is home to 13.5 million people in Turkey and an unknown number in Syria and stretches farther than the distance from London to Paris or Boston to Philadelphia. Even with an army of people taking part in the rescue effort, crews had to pick and choose where to help.
The scene from the air showed the scope of devastation, with entire neighborhoods of high-rises reduced to twisted metal, pulverized concrete and exposed wires.
In Adiyaman, Associated Press journalists saw someone plead with rescuers to look through the rubble of a building where relatives were trapped. They refused, saying no one was alive there and that they had to prioritize areas with possible survivors.
A man who gave his name only as Ahmet out of fear of government retribution later asked the AP: “How can I go home and sleep? My brother is there. He may still be alive.”
The death toll from Monday’s 7.8 magnitude catastrophe rose to nearly 21,000, eclipsing the more than 18,400 who died in the 2011 earthquake off Fukushima, Japan, that triggered a tsunami and the estimated 18,000 people who died in a temblor near the Turkish capital, Istanbul, in 1999.
The new figure, which is certain to rise, included over 17,600 people in Turkey and more than 3,300 in civil war-torn Syria. Tens of thousands were also injured.
Even though experts say people could survive for a week or more, the chances of finding survivors in the freezing temperatures were dimming. As emergency crews and panicked relatives dug through the rubble — and occasionally found people alive — the focus began to shift to demolishing dangerously unstable structures.
The DHA news agency broadcast the rescue of a 10-year-old in Antakya. The agency said medics had to amputate an arm to free her and that her parents and three siblings had died. A 17-year-old girl emerged alive in Adıyaman, and a 20-year-old was found in Kahramanmaras by rescuers who shouted “God is great.”
In Nurdagi, a city of around 40,000 nestled between snowy mountains some 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the quake's epicenter, vast swaths of the city were leveled, with scarcely a building unaffected. Even those that did not collapse were heavily damaged, making them unsafe.
Throngs of onlookers, mostly family members of people trapped inside, watched as heavy machines ripped at one building that had collapsed, its floors pancaked together with little more than a few inches in between.
Mehmet Yilmaz, 67, watched from a distance as bulldozers and other demolition equipment began to bring down what remained of the building where six of his family members had been trapped, including four children.
He estimated that about 80 people were still beneath the rubble and doubted that anyone would be found alive.
“There’s no hope. We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs, and there was nothing,” Yilmaz said.
Mehmet Nasir Dusan, 67, sat watching as the remnants of the nine-story building were brought down in billowing clouds of dust. He said he held no hope of reuniting with his five family members trapped under the debris.
Still, he said, recovering their bodies would bring some small comfort.
“We’re not leaving this site until we can recover their bodies, even if it takes 10 days,” Dusan said. “My family is destroyed now.”
In Kahramanmaras, the city closest to the epicenter, a sports hall the size of a basketball court served as a makeshift morgue to accommodate and identify bodies.
On the floor lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds. At least one appeared to be that of a 5- or 6-year-old.
At the entrance, a man wept over a black body bag that lay next to another in the bed of a small truck. “I’m 70 years old. God should have taken me, not my son,” he cried.
Workers continued to conduct rescue operations in Kahramanmaras, but it was clear that many who were trapped in collapsed buildings had already died. One rescue worker was heard saying that his psychological state was declining and that the smell of death was becoming too much to bear.
In northwestern Syria, the first U.N. aid trucks since the quake to enter the rebel-controlled area from Turkey arrived, underscoring the difficulty of getting help to people there. In the Turkish city of Antakya, dozens scrambled for aid in front of a truck distributing children's coats and other supplies.
One survivor, Ahmet Tokgoz, called for the government to evacuate people from the region. Many of those who have lost their homes found shelter in tents, stadiums and other temporary accommodation, but others have slept outdoors.
“Especially in this cold, it is not possible to live here,” he said. “If people haven’t died from being stuck under the rubble, they’ll die from the cold.”
The winter weather and damage to roads and airports have hampered the response. Some in Turkey have complained that the government was slow to respond — a perception that could hurt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a time when he faces a tough battle for reelection in May.
“As you know, the earthquake hit an area of 500-kilometer (311-mile) diameter where 13.5 million of our people live, and that made our job difficult,” Erdogan said Thursday.
In the Turkish town of Elbistan, rescuers stood atop the rubble from a collapsed home and pulled out an elderly woman.
Rescue teams urged quiet in the hopes of hearing stifled pleas for help, and the Syrian paramedic group known as the White Helmets noted that “every second could mean saving a life.”
But more and more often, the teams pulled out dead bodies. In Antakya, more than 100 bodies were awaiting identification in a makeshift morgue outside a hospital.
With the chances of finding people alive dwindling, crews in some places began demolishing buildings. Authorities called off search-and-rescue operations in the cities of Kilis and Sanliurfa, where destruction was not as severe as in other areas. Vice President Fuat Oktay said rescue work was mostly complete in Diyarbakir, Adana and Osmaniye.
Across the border in Syria, assistance trickled in. The U.N. is authorized to deliver aid through only one border crossing, and road damage has prevented that thus far. U.N. officials pleaded for humanitarian concerns to take precedence over wartime politics.
It wasn't clear how many people were still unaccounted for in both countries.
Turkey’s disaster-management agency said more than 110,000 rescue personnel were now taking part in the effort and more than 5,500 vehicles, including tractors, cranes, bulldozers and excavators had been shipped. The Foreign Ministry said 95 countries have offered help.
Hope dims for families in Turkey as rescue turns to recovery
Precious hours have turned to tense days across earthquake-hit southern Turkey as fewer people are pulled alive from the rubble. While family members watch rescue workers shift to recovery, they also face an awful truth: that it's unlikely they'll ever be reunited with their missing loved ones.
In Nurdagi, a city of around 40,000 nestled between snowy mountains some 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the epicenter of the quake, throngs of onlookers — mostly family members of people trapped inside — watched on Thursday as heavy machines ripped at one building which had collapsed, its floors pancaked together with little more than a few inches in between.
Mehmet Yilmaz, 67, watched from a distance as bulldozers and other demolition equipment began to bring down what remained of the building where six members of his family — including three children and a three-month-old baby — were trapped.
The operation there had become one not of rescue, but of demolition.
“There’s no hope. We can’t give up our hope in God, but they entered the building with listening devices and dogs and there was nothing,” said Yilmaz. He hasn't moved from his hopeful perch beside the building for three days.
He estimated about 80 people were still trapped within the collapsed structure, but said he didn’t believe any of them would be recovered alive.
“The building looks like stacks of paper and cardboard, the fifth floor and the first floor have collided into one,” he said grimly, his eyes full of resignation.
Scarcely a building remains in Nurdagi that has not suffered major damage. In those where it was believed there could still be survivors, workers used pick axes, jackhammers and shovels to carefully chip away at the hunks of concrete and twisted knots of rebar in hopes of discovering a sign of life. In other buildings, like the one where Yilmaz's family was trapped, it became more about recovery.
In Kahramanmaras, the nearest city to the earthquake’s epicenter, workers on Thursday continued to search for survivors, but most of their discoveries were comprised of the dead. Standing atop a tall mound of debris, three men reached into a crevice and pulled out a body wrapped in a red blanket, its bare feet protruding.
The body was placed in the bucket of a backhoe and slowly lowered to the ground.
One rescue worker was heard saying that his psychological state was in decline after days of searching, and that the smell of death among the rubble was becoming too much to bear.
Nearby, an indoor sports hall serves as a makeshift morgue to accommodate and identify bodies that were recovered from the debris. On the basketball court-sized floor of the hall lay dozens of bodies wrapped in blankets or black shrouds, at least one of which seemed to be the small body of a five or six-year-old child.
At the entrance to the morgue, a man wept aloud over a black body bag that lie next to another in the bed of a small truck.
“I’m 70 years old! God should have taken me, not my son!” he cried.
Erdal Usta, an assistant to the provincial prosecutor, said the bodies that are dug from the rubble are brought to the building and catalogued, and await identification by relatives who can then transport them to receive burial.
One woman, who did not wish to give her name, said she had brought the body of her father-in-law to the morgue to be formally registered as deceased. She and her family, she said, had dug the man out of the debris with their own hands, but he had been crushed in the collapse.
In Nurdagi, 67-year-old Mehmet Nasir Dusan sat in a chair watching as the remnants of a 9-floor building were brought down by excavators in billowing clouds of dust. He said he held no hope, either, of reuniting with his five family members trapped beneath the debris.
Still, he said, recovering their bodies would bring some small comfort.
“We’re not leaving this site until we can recover their bodies, even if it takes ten days,” he said. “My family is destroyed now.”
Ghana soccer player Atsu's well-being, whereabouts unknown
Ghana international soccer player Christian Atsu is missing after the earthquake in Turkey, his club and agent said Thursday, following earlier reports he was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building and taken to a hospital.
Atsu's well-being and whereabouts were unknown. Aydin Toksoz, the deputy head of Hatayspor soccer club, told Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency news service that club sporting director Taner Savut was also missing after the massive earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria and has now killed more than 19,000 people, with that number expected to rise.
The 31-year-old Atsu, who previously played for English clubs Chelsea and Newcastle, signed for Hatayspor late last year. The club is based in the southern city of Antakya, near the epicenter of the earthquake that struck in the early hours of Monday and devastated the region. Atsu and Savut were believed to have been in buildings that collapsed, the club had said.
Nana Sechere, the agent for Atsu, said in messages to The Associated Press that he traveled to Turkey to try to find Atsu but the player “is yet to be found.”
Hatayspor and the Ghana soccer association announced on Tuesday that Atsu was rescued from a ruined building on Monday night and taken to a medical facility for treatment.
Toksoz said Hatayspor was now "not able to confirm this information.”
"We have not been able to reach Atsu or Taner Savut,” Toksoz told the Anadolu Agency.
Ghana's ambassador to Turkey said she was also searching for Atsu. Francisca Ahsitey-Odunton told Ghanaian radio she was given a list of 200 hospitals or medical facilities that Atsu could have been sent to if he was rescued and she had also been unable to confirm where the player was.
She said she hoped he was in one of those hospitals and his location hadn't been confirmed “in all the confusion, which is understandable under the circumstances."
Antakya is one of the cities hardest hit by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which has destroyed thousands of buildings in Turkey alone and sent more than 110,000 rescue personnel scrambling to find survivors trapped under wreckage. More than 63,000 people have been injured in Turkey.
Atsu scored late in injury time to give Hatayspor a 1-0 win over Istanblul-based Kasimpaşa S.K. in the Turkish league on Sunday, earning him praise from his new club hours before the earthquake struck.
Zelenskyy to visit UK for first time since Russia’s invasion
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Britain on Wednesday, his first trip to the U.K. since Russia’s invasion began nearly a year ago and only his second confirmed journey outside Ukraine during the war.
The British government says Zelenskyy will hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, address Parliament and meet with U.K. military chiefs.
The U.K. is one of the biggest military backers of Ukraine and has sent the country more than 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in weapons and equipment.
The visit comes as Sunak announced that Britain will train Ukrainian pilots on “NATO-standard fighter jets.” Ukraine has urged its allies to send jets, though the U.K. says it’s not practical to provide the Ukrainian military with British warplanes.
More than 10,000 Ukrainian troops have also been trained at bases in the U.K., some on the Challenger 2 tanks that Britain is sending.
“I am proud that today we will expand that training from soldiers to marines and fighter jet pilots, ensuring Ukraine has a military able to defend its interests well into the future,” Sunak said. “It also underlines our commitment to not just provide military equipment for the short term, but a long-term pledge to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine for years to come.”
Zelenskyy addressed the U.K. Parliament remotely in March, two weeks after the start of the invasion. He echoed World War II leader Winston Churchill’s famous “never surrender” speech, vowing that Ukrainians “will fight till the end at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost.”
Before Sunak took office, Zelenskyy had formed a bond with Boris Johnson, who was one of Ukraine’s most vocal backers while he was U.K. prime minister. Sunak took office in October and has pledged to maintain the U.K.’s support.
It will be Zelenskyy’s second known trip visit abroad since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. He visited the U.S. in December.
Zelenskyy may be seeking Western pledges of more advanced weapons before potential spring offensives by both Russia and Ukraine.
In Brussels, there were increasing expectations that the Ukrainian leader might also make his first visit to European Union institutions since the war began.
Leaders from 27-nation bloc will be gathering for a summit in Brussels on Thursday. That would enable Zelenskyy to meet with all major leaders of the bloc in one day. Zelenskyy has often addressed EU summits only through video calls from Ukraine.
The EU’s legislature has also slated a special plenary session in Brussels for Thursday in the hopes that Zelenskyy will come following his trip to Britain.
The London visit came as Russian forces blasted areas of eastern Ukraine with more artillery bombardments, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday, in what Kyiv authorities believe is part of a new thrust by the Kremlin’s forces before the invasion anniversary.
Russian forces over the past day launched major shelling attacks on areas near the front line in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, killing a 74-year-old woman and wounding a 16-year-old girl in the border town of Vovchansk, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said.
Russian forces in Ukraine are focusing their efforts on “waging a counteroffensive” in the country’s industrial east, with the aim of taking full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
Russian troops launched assaults near Bakhmut and Vuhledar, two mining towns in the Donetsk region that have been among Moscow’s key targets, Ukrainian officials said.
Seizing Bakhmut could severely disrupt Ukraine’s military supply routes. It would also open a door for Moscow’s forces to drive toward key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.
Ukrainian authorities say the Kremlin’s goal is to complete full control of the Donbas, an expansive industrial area bordering Russia. That would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a major battlefield success after months of setbacks and help him rally public opinion behind the war.
Military analysts say that after a Ukrainian counteroffensive that started last summer and recaptured large areas from Russia, the war has been largely static in recent months.
Russia is now also trying to break through Ukrainian lines near the towns of Avdiivka and Marinka in Donetsk, as well as near Kreminna, a front-line town in the Luhansk region which lies along a key Russian supply route, the Ukrainian General Staff said.
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Raf Casert contributed to this report from Brussels.
Wreckage, rescue and hope in Turkey's earthquake epicenter
Zeliha Hisir tried to speak, but could barely move after her hourslong rescue Tuesday near the epicenter of a powerful earthquake that has devastated parts of Turkey and Syria.
The 58-year-old woman's eyes darted around in shock and relief as a rescue crew covered her in a bright pink and green fuzzy blanket. Dressed only in shorts and a T-shirt, she had survived through freezing temperatures in Kahramanmaras.
Her son, Mufit Hisir, told The Associated Press that firefighters who flew in from Antalya had rescued his relatives.
“Two hours ago my sibling was rescued after a six-hour effort. And my mother’s rescue took two hours. They’re both well,” he said.
Crowds gathered at wreckage sites throughout Turkey, vapor showing the cold air as people breathed in and out in anticipation of reaching more survivors. Even those who had emerged or escaped collapse in Monday's magnitude 7.8 earthquake and its aftershocks now had to sleep in cars, outside or in government shelters.
In the town of Nurdagi, residents who lost loved ones said relatives could have been saved if rescue teams had arrived earlier. Steel rods jutted out of destroyed concrete like vines that rescuers had to work around in the town nestled below snowcapped hills.
“My sister has four children. She has one sister-in-law, in-laws and nephews and nieces. They’re all gone. They’re all gone,” Nilufer Sarigoz said, putting her face in her hands and sobbing.
Men cried as they used their hands to bless four dead bodies wrapped in blankets in the back of a pickup truck.
Sixteen-year-old Havva Topal still hadn't heard from her uncle, his wife and children, who were in a burning building.
“We’ve heard nothing, no news," she said. "The building collapsed after the earthquake and then a fire started 15 to 20 minutes later. No firefighters came, no excavators. We tried to save them on our own, by scooping water out with plates.”
“Our landlord’s spouse was brought out yesterday,” she later added. "They were charred, in pieces, in a horrible condition.”
Race to find survivors as quake aid pours into Turkey, Syria
Search teams and aid poured into Turkey and Syria on Tuesday as rescuers working in freezing temperatures and sometimes using their bare hands dug through the remains of buildings flattened by a powerful earthquake. The death toll soared above 7,200 and was still expected to rise.
But with the damage spread over a wide area, the massive relief operation often struggled to reach devastated towns, and voices that had been crying out from the rubble fell silent.
“We could hear their voices, they were calling for help," said Ali Silo, whose two relatives could not be saved in the Turkish town of Nurdagi.
In the end, it was left to Silo, a Syrian who arrived a decade ago, and other residents to recover the bodies and those of two other victims.
Monday's magnitude 7.8 quake and a cascade of strong aftershocks cut a swath of destruction that stretched hundreds of kilometers (miles) across southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. The shaking toppled thousands of buildings and heaped more misery on a region wracked by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis. One temblor that followed the first registered at magnitude 7.5, powerful in its own right.
Unstable piles of metal and concrete made the search efforts perilous, while freezing temperatures made them ever more urgent, as worries grew about how long trapped survivors could last in the cold. Snow swirled around rescuers in Turkey's Malatya province, according to footage circulated by the state-run Anadolu news agency.
The scale of the suffering — and the accompanying rescue effort — were staggering.
More than 8,000 people have been pulled from the debris in Turkey alone, and some 380,000 have taken refuge in government shelters or hotels, said Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay. They huddled in shopping malls, stadiums, mosques and community centers, while others spent the night outside in blankets gathering around fires.
Many took to social media to plead for assistance for loved ones believed to be trapped under the rubble. Anadolu quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying all calls were being “collected meticulously” and the information relayed to search teams.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said 13 million of the country's 85 million people were affected, and he declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. Turkey was already grappling with an economic downturn ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in May.
Adelheid Marschang, a senior emergencies officer with the World Health Organization, said up to 23 million people could be affected in the entire quake-hit area, calling it a “crisis on top of multiple crises.”
Turkey is home to millions of refugees from the Syrian civil war. The affected area in Syria is divided between government-controlled territory and the country’s last opposition-held enclave, where millions live in extreme poverty and rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
Teams from nearly 30 countries around the world headed for Turkey or Syria.
As promises of help flooded in, including a pledge of $100 million from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey sought to accelerate the effort by allowing only vehicles carrying aid to enter the worst-hit provinces of Kahramanmaras, Adiyaman and Hatay.
The United Nations said it was “exploring all avenues” to get supplies to rebel-held northwestern Syria, and it released $25 million from its emergency fund to help kick-start the humanitarian response in Turkey and Syria.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the road leading to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing from Turkey to northern Syria was damaged, temporarily disrupting aid delivery to the rebel-held northwest. Bab al-Hawa is the only crossing through which U.N. aid is allowed into the area.
Dujarric said the U.N. is preparing a convoy to cross the conflict lines within Syria. But that would likely require a new agreement with President Bashar Assad's government, which has laid siege to rebel-held areas throughout the civil war.
Read more: Turkey earthquake: Missing Bangladeshi student rescued from collapsed building
Volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets have years of experience rescuing people from buildings destroyed by Syrian and Russian airstrikes in the rebel-held enclave, but they say the earthquake has overwhelmed their capabilities.
Mounir al-Mostafa, the deputy head of the White Helmets, said they were able to respond efficiently to up to 30 locations at a time, but now face calls for help from more than 700.
“Teams are present in those locations, but the available machinery and equipment are not enough,” he said, adding that the first 72 hours after the earthquake were crucial for any rescue effort.
Nurgul Atay told The Associated Press she could hear her mother's voice beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the Turkish city of Antakya, the capital of Hatay province. But efforts to get into the ruins had been futile without any heavy equipment to help.
“If only we could lift the concrete slab, we'd be able to reach her,” she said. “My mother is 70 years old, she won't be able to withstand this for long.”
But help did reach some. Several dramatic rescues were reported across the region as survivors, including small children, were pulled from the rubble more than 30 hours after the earthquake.
Residents in a Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother apparently gave birth to her while buried in the rubble of a five-story apartment building, relatives and a doctor said.
The newborn was found buried under the debris with her umbilical cord still connected to her mother, Afraa Abu Hadiya, who was found dead, they said.
The baby was the only member of her family to survive from the building collapse in the small town of Jinderis, next to the Turkish border, Ramadan Sleiman, a relative, told The Associated Press.
Turkey has large numbers of troops in the border region and has tasked the military with aiding in the rescue efforts, including setting up tents for the homeless and a field hospital in Hatay province.
A navy ship docked on Tuesday at the province’s port of Iskenderun, where a hospital collapsed, to transport survivors in need of medical care to a nearby city.
Read more: Earthquake death toll crosses 5,000 as Turkey, Syria seek survivors
A large fire at the port, caused by containers that toppled over during the earthquake, sent thick plumes of black smoke into the sky. The Defense Ministry said the blaze was extinguished with the help of military aircraft, but live footage broadcast by CNN Turk showed it was still burning.
Turkey’s emergency management agency said the total number of deaths in the country had passed 5,400, with over 31,000 people injured.
The death toll in government-held areas of Syria climbed over 800, with some 1,400 injured, according to the Health Ministry. At least 1,000 people have died in the rebel-held northwest, according to the White Helmets, with more than 2,300 injured.
The region sits on top of major fault lines and is frequently shaken by earthquakes. Some 18,000 were killed in similarly powerful earthquakes that hit northwest Turkey in 1999.
Greece: 3 dead after boat with migrants hits rocks
Three migrants died and 16 others were rescued off the Greek island of Lesbos on Tuesday after a dinghy transporting them from the nearby coast of Turkey hit rocks in high winds, authorities said. The coast guard said the three bodies were recovered off the eastern coast of the island, adding that a rescue effort involving two patrol boats, a helicopter and ground crews was underway to search for others possibly missing. None of the people on the dinghy had been given life jackets. The tragedy in the eastern Aegean Sea occurred two days after four children and a woman died when a boat carrying more than 40 migrants smashed into rocks on island of Leros.