Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus has been appointed chair of the international advisory board of Moscow’s Financial University (under the government of the Russian Federation). On November 23, he joined a high-level strategic meeting with Prof Stanislav Prokofiev, Rector of the Financial University, and his colleagues. The Financial University hosted the meeting. At the meeting, Dr Yunus was invited to be the chair of the university’s International Advisory Board. Creation of Palestine state urgent; US key actor in bringing this to reality: Dr Yunus Dr Yunus gave his consent to this appointment, the Yunus Center said today. The Financial University is one of the top five universities in Russia with 3,000 academic staff. Dr Yunus was invited to give a lecture to the faculty and students of the university last year on his thoughts on creating a new civilization based on social business, working towards achieving three zero goals – zero net carbon emissions, zero wealth concentration, and zero unemployment. The International Advisory Board will be a deliberative collegial body. Its primary goals are to attract the best international experience, to provide in-depth expert analysis, and to prepare proposals for strategic development, as well as academic, research and innovation activities of the university. ‘False and fabricated’: Dr Yunus’ lawyer says about Tk 25.22cr embezzlement case During the meeting, the rector of the Russian university explained the role of the international advisory board in developing the university’s academic programme and in designing the future direction of research at the university. He explained how the university community admires Dr Yunus’ concept of social business. He also said that Financial University would like to introduce the concept in their academic programmes. He said that students will be encouraged to design and implement social businesses during their academic years at the university, and the institution will provide financial support to the student-entrepreneurs to start their social businesses. ‘Committed no crime, not afraid,’ says Dr Yunus at ACC The meeting was also attended by Professor Mikhail Eskindarov, President of the University; Professor Ekaterina Kameneva, Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs; Professor Kirill Babaev, Director of the Center for International Scientific and Educational Projects; Liliya Prikhodko, Head of the International Relations Department; and Mikhail Mamuta, Head of the Service for the Protection of Financial Services to Consumers and Minority Shareholders, Bank of Russia, the Central Bank of Russia. The participants also discussed the prospects of cooperation between the Financial University and the Yunus Centre. Rector of the Financial University, Prof Stanislav Prokofiev, expressed his support for the ideas of social business as a guarantee for sustainable and long-term social development. Case filed against Dr Yunus at Rangpur Labour Court

The United States has said it is aware of Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova's “deliberate mischaracterization” of US foreign policy and US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas’ meetings. “The United States does not support any political party in Bangladesh. Nor does the United States favor one political party over another,” a State Department spokesperson said on Saturday (November 25, 2023). The US State Department reiterated that they want what the Bangladeshi people want: free and fair elections conducted in a peaceful manner. USA will support Bangladesh after election: Momen To support that shared goal of free and fair elections conducted in a peaceful manner, the US embassy personnel engage and will continue to engage with the government, opposition, civil society, and other stakeholders to urge them to work together for the benefit of the Bangladeshi people, said the State Department spokesperson. Maria Zakharova, during a weekly briefing on November 22, said that Russia has spoken repeatedly about the attempts by the United States and its allies to influence the internal political process in Bangladesh, ostensibly under the banner of ensuring “transparency and inclusiveness” in the upcoming parliamentary election. Information has come to light regarding a meeting at the end of October between US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas and a high-ranking representative of the local opposition, according to the Russian side. They reportedly discussed plans to organize mass anti-government protests in the country during the meeting, the Russian side said. In particular, the American Ambassador “promised” the representative of the opposition information support in the event that the authorities use force against participants in “peaceful demonstrations.” These assurances were purportedly made on behalf of the embassies of the United States, Britain, Australia and several other countries, according to a Facebook post shared by the Russian Embassy in Dhaka. China's cooperation is vital in ending Russia-Ukraine war: French FM "How can these actions of the American Ambassador to Bangladesh be regarded? They can be seen as nothing less than gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state on the part of Washington and its satellites, demonstrating open disregard for the norms and rules enshrined in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," the Russian spokeswoman said. "On our part, we have no doubts regarding the ability of the Bangladeshi authorities to hold the parliamentary election scheduled for January 7, 2024, in full compliance with national legislation, independently, without the help of overseas well-wishers," said the Russian spokeswoman.

Russian air defenses stopped eight drones converging on Moscow, officials said Tuesday, in an attack that authorities blamed on Ukraine, while Russia pursued its relentless bombardment of Kyiv with a third assault on the city in 24 hours. The Russian defense ministry said five drones were shot down and the systems of three others were jammed, causing them to veer off course. It called the incident a "terrorist attack" by the "Kyiv regime." The attack caused "insignificant damage" to several buildings, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Two people received medical attention for unspecified injuries but did not need hospitalization, he said in a Telegram post. Residents of two high-rise buildings damaged in the attack were evacuated, Sobyanin said. Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the wider Moscow region, said some of the drones were "shot down on the approach to Moscow." Ukraine made no immediate comment on the attack, which would be one of its deepest and most daring strikes into Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than 15 months ago. The attacks have raised questions about the effectiveness of Russia's air defense systems. A senior Russian lawmaker, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian business news site RBC that "we have a very big country and there will always be a loophole where the drone can fly around the areas where air defense systems are located." Kartapolov said the purpose of the attacks was to unnerve the Russian people. "It's an intimidation act aimed at the civilian population," RBC quoted him as saying. "It's designed to create a wave of panic." Moscow residents reported hearing explosions before dawn. Police were seen working at one site of a crashed drone in southwest Moscow. An area near a residential building was fenced off, and police put the drone debris in a cardboard box before carrying it away. At another site, apartment windows were shattered and there were scorch marks on the building's front. It was the second reported attack on Moscow. Russian authorities said two drones targeted the Kremlin earlier this month in what they portrayed as an attempt on President Vladimir Putin's life. Ukrainian drones have reportedly flown deep into Russia several times. In December, Russia claimed it had shot down drones at airfields in the Saratov and Ryazan regions. Three soldiers were reported killed in the attack in Saratov, which targeted an important military airfield. Earlier, Russia reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone that targeted the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol in Russia-annexed Crimea. In Ukraine, Russia launched a pre-dawn air raid on Kyiv, killing at least one person and sending the capital's residents again scrambling into shelters. At least 20 Shahed explosive drones were destroyed by air defense forces in Kyiv's airspace in Russia's third attack on the capital in the past 24 hours, according to early information from the Kyiv Military Administration. Overall, Ukraine shot down 29 of 31 drones fired into the country, most in the Kyiv area, the air force later added. Before daylight, the buzzing of drones could be heard over the city, followed by loud explosions as they were taken down by air defense systems. In the overnight attacks on Kyiv, one person died and seven were injured, according to the municipal military administration. A high-rise building in the Holosiiv district caught fire after being hit by debris either from from drones being hit or interceptor missiles. The building's upper two floors were destroyed, and there may be people under the rubble, the Kyiv Military Administration said. More than 20 people were evacuated. Resident Valeriya Oreshko told The Associated Press in the aftermath that even though the immediate threat was over, the attacks had everyone on edge. "You are happy that you are alive, but think about what will happen next," the 39-year-old said. A resident who gave only her first name, Oksana, said the whole building shook when it was hit. "Go to shelters, because you really do not know where it (the drone) will fly," she advised others. "We hold on." Elsewhere in the capital, falling debris caused a fire in a private house in Darnytskyi district and three cars were set alight in Pechersky district, according to the military administration. The series of attacks that began Sunday included a rare daylight attack Monday that left puffs of white smoke in the blue skies. On that day, Russian forces fired 11 ballistic and cruise missiles at Kyiv at about 11:30 a.m., according to Ukraine's chief of staff, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. All of them were shot down, he said. Debris from intercepted missiles fell in Kyiv's central and northern districts during the morning, landing in the middle of traffic on a city road and also starting a fire on the roof of a building, the Kyiv military administration said. At least one civilian was reported hurt. The Russian Defense Ministry said it launched a series of strikes early Monday targeting Ukrainian air bases with precision long-range air-launched missiles. It claimed the strikes destroyed command posts, radars, aircraft and ammunition stockpiles, but didn't say anything about hitting cities or other civilian areas.  

Russia's defense minister on Tuesday hosted his counterparts from Iran, Syria and Turkey for talks that were part of the Kremlin's efforts to help broker a rapprochement between the Turkish and Syrian governments. The Russian Defense Ministry said the talks focused on “practical steps to strengthen security in the Syrian Arab Republic and to normalize Syrian-Turkish relations.” Moscow has waged a military campaign in Syria since September 2015, teaming up with Iran to allow Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government to reclaim control over most of the country while Turkey has backed armed opposition to Assad throughout the 12-year conflict. While the bulk of Russia's armed forces have been busy fighting in Ukraine, Moscow has maintained its military presence in Syria and has also made persistent efforts to help Assad rebuild fractured ties with Turkey and other countries in the region following the civil war that has killed nearly 500,000 people and displaced half of the country’s prewar population. Also Read: Sweden expels 5 Russian Embassy staff on suspicion of spying In December, Moscow hosted a surprise meeting of the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers, the first such encounter since Syria’s uprising-turned-civil-war began in 2011. And earlier this month, senior diplomats from Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran met in Moscow for two days of talks intended to set the stage for a meeting of the four countries' foreign ministers. The efforts toward a Turkish-Syrian reconciliation come as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is under intense pressure at home to send Syrian refugees back amid a steep economic downturn and an increasing anti-refugee sentiment. He faces presidential and parliamentary elections in May. The Russian Defense Ministry said in its readout of Tuesday’s talks that the parties "reaffirmed their adherence to the preservation of Syria’s territorial integrity and the need to step up efforts to allow a speedy return of Syrian refugees.” Also Read: UN chief, representatives of the West berate Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov over Ukraine war The Turkish Defense Ministry issued a similarly worded statement, noting that the four ministers discussed the issue of strengthening security in Syria, the concrete steps that can be taken to normalize ties between Turkey and Syria, the fight against terrorist and extremist groups on the Syrian territory and efforts for the return of Syrian refugees. The statement said the sides also emphasized the importance of the continuation of the four-party meetings “to ensure and maintain stability in Syria and the region as a whole.” On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also hosted Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and his counterparts from Syria and Iran for separate bilateral talks. Turkey has de facto control over large swathes of northwestern Syria, and Assad's government has described the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syrian territory is a prerequisite for a normalization of ties. But even as Turkey has supported Syrian opposition fighters in the north, Ankara and Damascus are equally dismayed over the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria’s northeast. Turkey-backed opposition fighters have clashed with the SDF in the past, accusing them of being an arm of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The PKK has for decades waged an insurgency within Turkey. Assad’s government has cast the SDF as a secessionist force that has been pilfering the country’s wealth while controlling Syria’s major oil fields. The Russian Defense Ministry noted that during Tuesday's talks “special attention was given to countering terror threats and fighting all groups of extremists on Syrian territory.”

Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has reached Moscow. He is currently on a two-day official visit, on invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was received by senior officials of the Russian foreign ministry, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Russia Shafqat Ali Khan and other embassy officials on Sunday (January 29, 2023) upon his arrival in Moscow, reports Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Read more: Pakistan's premier apologizes to nation for power outage The two foreign ministers are scheduled to meet today for official talks. The Pakistani foreign minister was quoted by Dawn as saying: “I’ve been invited to speak at the international luncheon of the annual National Prayer Breakfast and will make an in-and-out trip for that.” Meanwhile, as part of Pakistan’s effort to re-engage with the US, the foreign minister and Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar are expected to visit Washington soon. Read more: Pakistan orders malls to close early amid economic crisis Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is expected to visit New York to attend a UN-sponsored conference on Muslim women, being held on Pakistan’s initiative on March 8. He is also likely to attend another UN event in New York on March 15 to commemorate the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, as per Pakistani media report.

Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the grinding, monthslong battle for control of eastern Ukraine that is part of Moscow’s wider war. “Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday of the scene around Bakhmut and the nearby Donetsk province city of Soledar. “The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” Zelenskyy said. “This is what madness looks like.” The Kremlin, whose invasion of its neighbor 10 1/2 months ago has suffered numerous reversals, is hungry for victories. Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other Ukrainian provinces in September, but its troops have struggled to advance. After Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November, the battle heated up around Bakhmut. Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Malyar, said Russia has thrown “a large number of storm groups” into the fight for the city. “The enemy is advancing literally on the bodies of their own soldiers and is massively using artillery, rocket launchers and mortars, hitting their own troops,” she said. Pavlo Kyrylenko, the Donetsk region’s Kyiv-appointed governor, on Tuesday described the Russian attacks on Soledar and Bakhmut as relentless. “The Russian army is reducing Ukrainian cities to rubble using all kinds of weapons in their scorched-earth tactics,” Kyrylenko said in televised remarks. “Russia is waging a war without rules, resulting in civilian deaths and suffering.” Wounded soldiers arrive around the clock for emergency treatment at a Ukrainian medical stabilization center near the front line around Bakhmut. Medics fought for 30 minutes Monday to save a soldier, but his injuries were too severe. Another soldier suffered a head injury after a fragment pierced his helmet. Medics quickly stabilized him enough to transfer him to a military hospital. “We fight to the end to save a life,” Kostyantyn Vasylkevich, a surgeon and the center’s coordinator, told The Associated Press. “Of course, it hurts when it is not possible to save them.” The Moscow-backed leader of the occupied areas of Donetsk said Tuesday that Russia’s forces were “very close” to taking over Soledar. But the gains were coming “at a very high price,” Denis Pushilin told Russian state TV. Control over the city would create “good prospects” for taking over Bakhmut, as well as Siversk, a town further north where Ukrainian fortifications “are also quite serious,” Pushilin said. The U.K. Defense Ministry concurred with that appraisal of the battle developments. Russian troops alongside soldiers from the Wagner Group, a Russian private military contractor, have advanced in Soledar and “are likely in control of most of the settlement,” the ministry tweeted Tuesday. It said that taking Soledar, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Bakhmut, was likely Moscow’s immediate military objective and part of a strategy to encircle Bakhmut. But it added that “Ukrainian forces maintain stable defensive lines in depth and control over supply routes” in the area. Read more: Ukraine faces grim start to 2023 after fresh Russian attacks The Wagner Group’s leader, Dmitry Prigozhin, confirmed in a post on a Russian social media platform Tuesday that his forces are fighting in the area and acknowledged “heavy battles” in Soledar against a Ukrainian army he said “bravely fights.” A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Wagner Group “has moved from being a niche sideshow of Russia’s war to a major component of the conflict,” adding that its forces now make up as much as a quarter of Russian combatants. An exceptional feature of the fighting near Bakhmut is that some of it has taken place around entrances to disused salt mine tunnels which run for some 200 kilometers (120 miles), the British intelligence report noted. “Both sides are likely concerned that (the tunnels) could be used for infiltration behind their lines,” it said. In Russia, two signs emerged Tuesday that officials were grappling with the military shortcomings revealed during the conflict in Ukraine. Russian Defense Minister Shoigu, whose performance has been fiercely criticized in some Russian circles but who has retained Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confidence, said Tuesday that his military would use its experience in Ukraine to improve combat training. Military communications and control systems will be improved using artificial intelligence, Shoigu said, and troops will be given better tactical gear and equipment. The second indication of trouble involves Russia’s production of weapons and other supplies its military needs for the fight in Ukraine. The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, warned that officials who failed to meet deadlines for such items could face criminal charges. Putin appointed Medvedev last month to head a new commission tasked with trying to solve the military’s supply problems. Numerous reports have suggested Russia is running low on certain weapons and was sending some troops into battle with insufficient equipment and clothing. Part of the Kremlin’s challenge is keeping up with the weapons and supplies that Western allies have provided to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that NATO members “have become a party to the conflict, pumping weapons, technology and intelligence data into Ukraine.” Several front-line cities in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces have witnessed intense fighting in recent months. Together, the provinces make up the Donbas, a broad industrial region bordering Russia that Putin identified as a focus from the war’s outset and where Moscow-backed separatists have fought since 2014. Russia’s grinding eastern offensive captured almost all of Luhansk during the summer. Donetsk escaped the same fate, and the Russian military subsequently poured manpower and resources around Bakhmut. Read more: Ukraine reports more Russian drone attacks Taking Bakhmut would disrupt Ukraine’s supply lines and open a route for Russian forces to press on toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk. Like Mariupol and other contested cities, Bakhmut has endured a long siege without water and power even before Moscow launched massive strikes to take out public utilities across Ukraine. Kyrylenko, the Donetsk region’s governor, estimated more than two months ago that 90% of Bakhmut’s prewar population of over 70,000 had fled since Moscow focused on seizing the entire Donbas. Ukraine’s presidential office said at least four civilians were killed and another 30 wounded in Russian shelling between Monday and Tuesday. Vitaliy Kim, the governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, said Russian forces shelled the port of Ochakiv and the area around it late Monday and again early Tuesday. He said 15 people, including a 2-year-old child, were wounded in Monday’s shelling.

Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, Russia’s defense ministry said Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago. Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a defense ministry statement said. It did not say when the strike happened. The strike, using a U.S.-supplied precision weapon that has proven critical in enabling Ukrainian forces to hit key targets, delivered a new setback for Russia which in recent months has reeled from a Ukrainian counteroffensive. According to the governor of Russia’s Samara region, Dmitry Azarov, an unspecified number of residents of the region were among those killed and wounded by the strike on the town of Makiivka. Russian military bloggers, whose information has largely been reliable during the war, said ammunition stored close to the facility had exploded in the attack and contributed to the high number of casualties. Expressing anger at the losses, Daniil Bezsonov, an official with the Russian-appointed administration in Russian-occupied Donetsk, called for the punishment of military officers who ordered a large number of troops to be stationed at the facility. The Ukrainian military appeared to acknowledge the attack Monday, with the General Staff confirming that Makiivka was hit on Dec. 31, and saying 10 Russian military vehicles were destroyed or damaged. It added that Russian personnel losses were still being clarified. In a claim that could not be independently verified, the Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s Armed Forces had maintained Sunday that some 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school. Meanwhile, Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target the country’s energy infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion. The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve. On Monday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight. All of them were destroyed, according to air defense forces. Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces. Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital. In the outlying Kyiv region a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said. Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “energy terrorism” as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is “weaponizing winter” in its effort to demoralize the Ukrainian resistance. Read more: Putin, Xi vow closer ties as Russia bombards Ukraine again Ukraine is using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to help shoot down Russia’s missiles and drones, as well as send artillery fire into Russian-held areas of the country. Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in his New Year’s address to the nation that 2022 was “a year of difficult, necessary decisions.” Putin insists he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security — an assertion condemned by the West, which says Moscow bears full responsibility for the war. Russia is currently observing public holidays through Jan. 8. Drones, missiles and artillery shells launched by Russian forces also struck areas across Ukraine. Five people were wounded in the Monday morning shelling of a Ukraine-controlled area of the southern Kherson region, its Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram. The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said. Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted. Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile. “We are staying strong,” the Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted. A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said. Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials. In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said. Read more: Ukraine conflict casts shadow on Russia as it enters 2023

President Vladimir Putin claimed that Russia is ready for talks to end the war in Ukraine even as the country faced more attacks from Moscow — a clear sign that peace wasn’t imminent. Putin said in a state television interview, excerpts of which were released on Sunday afternoon that Russia is “prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes with all the participants of this process.” He said that “it’s not us who refuse talks, it’s them” — something the Kremlin has repeatedly stated in recent months as its 10-month old invasion kept losing momentum. Putin also repeated that Moscow has “no other choice” and said he believed the Kremlin was “acting in the right direction.” READ: Some Ukrainians move Christmas to detach again from Russia “We’re defending our national interests, the interests of our citizens, our people,” he said. Putin’s remarks come as attacks on Ukraine continue. A country-wide air raid alert was announced twice on Sunday alone, and three missiles in the afternoon hit the city of Kramatorsk in the partially occupied Donetsk region, local officials reported. The missiles hit an industrial area of the city, and there weren’t any casualties, according to the Ukrainian governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko. Kyrylenko said that the city of Avdiivka was also attacked on Sunday with six rounds of shelling, and a woman was wounded there. Elsewhere in the front-line region, around the city of Bakhmut, where fierce battles have been underway in recent weeks, the Russian forces were struggling to keep up the pace of their offensive, a U.S.-based think tank reported this weekend. “Russian forces’ rate of advance in the Bakhmut area has likely slowed in recent days, although it is too early to assess whether the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has culminated,” the Institute for the Study of War wrote in its recent update. The think tank cited Russian military bloggers, who it said have recently acknowledged “that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and its surrounding settlements.” READ: A Christmas season without its traditional glow in Ukraine Sources on Ukrainian social media “previously claimed that Ukrainian forces completely pushed Russian forces out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut” around Dec. 21, the report added. “Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause,” the institute concluded. A day before, a deadly Russian attack on the southern city of Kherson, retaken by Ukrainian forces last month, killed and wounded scores of people. The Russian forces shelled Ukrainian-held areas of the partially occupied Kherson region 71 times over the past 24 hours, including 41 attacks on the city of Kherson, the region’s Ukrainian governor Yaroslav Yanushevich reported on Sunday. A total of 16 people have been killed, according to the official, including three emergency workers killed in the process of demining the Berislav district of the region. Yanushevich said that 64 more have been wounded. In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Nikopol was shelled overnight from heavy artillery, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. No casualties have been reported.

When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship. Moscow called the allegation “false and baseless,” and Lebanon’s prosecutor general sided with the Kremlin and declared that the 10,000 tons of barley and wheat flour wasn’t stolen and allowed the ship to unload. But an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. AP used satellite imagery and marine radio transponder data to track three dozen ships making more than 50 voyages carrying grain from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to ports in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. Reporters reviewed shipping manifests, searched social media posts, and interviewed farmers, shippers and corporate officials to uncover the details of the massive smuggling operation. ___ This story is part of an AP/FRONTLINE investigation that includes the War Crimes Watch Ukraine interactive experience and and upcoming documentary, “Putin’s Attack on Ukraine: Documenting War Crimes,” which premieres 10/9c Oct. 25 on PBS.___ The ongoing theft, which legal experts say is a potential war crime, is being carried out by wealthy businessmen and state-owned companies in Russia and Syria, some of them already facing financial sanctions from the United States and European Union. Meanwhile, the Russian military has attacked farms, grain silos and shipping facilities still under Ukrainian control with artillery and air strikes, destroying food, driving up prices and reducing the flow of grain from a country long known as the breadbasket of Europe. The Russians “have an absolute obligation to ensure that civilians are cared for and to not deprive them their ability of a livelihood and an ability to feed themselves,” said David Crane, a veteran prosecutor who has been involved in numerous international war crime investigations. “It’s just pure pillaging and looting, and that is also an actionable offense under international military law.” The grain and flour carried by the 138-meter-long (453 feet) Laodicea likely started its journey in the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, which Russia seized in the early days of the war. Video posted to social media on July 9 shows a train pulling up to the Melitopol Elevator, a massive grain storage facility, with green hopper cars marked with the name of the Russian company Agro-Fregat LLC in big yellow letters, along with a logo in the shape of a spike of wheat. Russian occupation official Andrey Siguta held a news conference at the depot the following week where he said the grain would “provide food security” for Russia-controlled regions in Ukraine, and that his administration would “evaluate the harvest and determine how much will be for sale.” As he spoke, a masked soldier armed with an assault rifle stood guard as trucks unloaded wheat at the facility to be milled. Workers loaded flour into large white bags like those delivered by the Laodicea to Lebanon three weeks later. Siguta, along with four other top Russian occupation officials, was sanctioned by the U.S. government on Sept. 15 for overseeing the theft and export of Ukranian grain. Putin signed treaties Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine into the Russian Federation, in defiance of international law. The United States and European Union immediately rejected “the illegal annexation.” Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov told AP the occupiers are moving vast quantities of grain from the region by train and truck to ports in Russia and Crimea, a strategic Ukrainian peninsula that Russia has occupied since 2014. Despite Russian claims to have annexed Crimea, the United Nations ruled that land grab was also illegal. Videos posted on social media in recent months show a steady stream of grain transport trucks moving south through occupied areas of Ukraine with the letter “Z” painted on their sides, a wartime symbol for Russia and its military forces. Agro-Fregat train cars have been recorded rolling through the Crimean port town of Feodosia, where satellite imagery shows trucks and trains lined up as grain was being loaded onto ships. The Kremlin has denied stealing any grain, but Russia’s state-run news agency Tass reported on June 16 that Ukrainian grain was being trucked to Crimea, resulting in long lines at border checkpoints. Tass later reported that grain from Melitopol had arrived in Crimea and that additional shipments were expected, bound for customers in the Middle East and Africa. A July 11 satellite image shows the Laodicea tied up at a pier in Feodosia. The ship’s radio transponder was turned off and its cargo holds were open, being filled with a white substance from waiting trucks. Two weeks later, when it arrived at the Lebanese port city Tripoli, it claimed to be carrying grain from a small Russian port on the other side of the Black Sea. A copy of the ship’s manifests obtained by AP claimed its port of origin was Kavkaz, Russia. Its cargo was listed as nearly 10,000 metric tons of “Russian Barley and Russian Flour in Bags.” The shipper was listed as Agro-Fregat and the buyer was Loyal Agro Co Ltd., a wholesale grocer headquartered in Turkey. Agro-Fregat didn’t respond to emailed questions and soon after AP’s inquiry, the company’s website appears to have been taken down. A phone number that had been listed on the website was out of service last week. A spokesman for Loyal Agro said the company took delivery of 5,000 tons of flour and the rest of the ship’s cargo went to Tartus, Syria. “We reached an agreement with Russia, the flour came from Russia,” said Muhammed Cuma, a spokesman for the company. “If the flour was stolen, then the Lebanese authorities would not have allowed it (to be imported).” But the Laodicea couldn’t have picked up its cargo in Kavkaz, the Russian port listed on the manifest. The ship’s hull, which reaches 8 meters (26 feet) below the surface, would run aground in the relatively shallow port, which according to Russia’s transport regulator can only accommodate ships with a maximum depth of 5.3 meters (17.5 feet). The port in Feodosia is more than twice as deep — easily able to accommodate the big ship. The Laodicea is one of three bulk cargo vessels operated by Syriamar Shipping Ltd., a Syrian government-run company under U.S. sanctions since 2015 for its ties to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. AP tracked 10 voyages made by the Laodicea and her sister ships — Souria and Finikia — from the Ukrainian coast to ports in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Syriamar didn’t respond to emails to its headquarters in Latakia, Syria. A call to the phone number on the company’s website went unanswered. ___ Another company involved in smuggling grain is United Shipbuilding Corp., a Russian state-owned defense contractor that builds warships and submarines for Russia’s navy. In April, the company and its senior executives were sanctioned by the United States for providing weapons to the Russian war effort. The company, through its subsidiary Crane Marine Contractor, bought three cargo ships just weeks before Putin invaded Ukraine, in a departure from its core business providing heavy lift platforms to the oil and gas industry. The three ships have made at least 17 trips between Crimea and ports in Turkey and Syria. A spokeswoman for United Shipbuilding Corp. in Moscow didn’t respond to questions sent via email. When AP called Crane Marine Contractor a receptionist answered by saying the company’s name. A man she transferred the call to, however, insisted AP had the wrong number. “You have reached the wrong place, we do not have such information,” said the man, who refused to give his name. “I have no clue what you are talking about and no clue who I can connect you with, do you understand?” During a typical voyage in mid-June, a 170-meter-long ship (560 feet) called the Mikhail Nenashev was captured on satellite being loaded at the Russian-controlled Avlita Grain Terminal in Sevastopol, Crimea, while its radio transponder was turned off. The ship’s crew turned the signal back on two days later while underway in the Black Sea. It turned south toward the Mediterranean and arrived on June 25 in Dörtyol, Turkey where exclusive video obtained by AP shows it two days later at a pier owned by MMK Metalurji, a steel producer. Cranes at the dock can be seen scooping up large bucket loads of grain and dropping it into waiting trucks that drive away. MMK Metalurji is the Turkish subsidiary of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, a major Russian steel conglomerate controlled by Viktor Rashnikov, a Russian billionaire who is close to Putin. Rashnikov and his company have been sanctioned by the United States, European Union and United Kingdom for providing revenue and equipment in support of Russia’s war effort. In an email to AP, the company said the grain came from Russia: “The place where the said cargo is loaded is PORT KAVKAZ … according to the customs declaration and the written declaration made by the shipping agency to us.” As with Laodicea, Nenashev’s draught is too deep to dock at the Kavkaz port. Ami Daniel, CEO of the marine data analytics company Winward, said ships running dark is a red flag that illegal activity is occurring. He said it is also common for smugglers to falsify shipping manifests and customs declarations to hide the true origin of their cargo. “Illegally falsifying documentation is a tactic used by bad actors to disguise the origin of the goods they are transporting, be it for the purpose of evading sanctions, trafficking illicit goods, or other crimes,” said Daniel, a former Israeli naval officer. Rashnikov, who has a personal fortune estimated at more than $10 billion, appears to have anticipated the sanctions. Days before Russia launched its February invasion, his 140-meter-long superyacht (460 feet), the Ocean Victory, cruised from Dubai to the Maldives, a remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean where the government hasn’t enforced Western sanctions. Ocean Victory’s crew turned off its radio transponder on March 1, and the $300 million party barge has been running dark ever since. Since the invasion, global grain prices have skyrocketed, boosting profits for Russian smugglers, while triggering what U.N. World Food Program director David Beasley on Sept. 15 called a “tsunami of hunger” affecting at least 345 million people. While there is little evidence Ukrainians themselves are under threat of famine, Russia’s war of aggression has starved its economy of export revenue. In 2021, before Russia’s most recent invasion, Ukraine exported $5 billion worth of wheat, corn and vegetable oils — primarily in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The high prices haven’t helped Ukrainian farmers in the occupied regions, who have been forced to sell their harvests to Russian-controlled companies for half of what they would have been paid before the war, according to Fedorov, the Melitopol mayor. If a farmer refuses, he said, the Russians just take the grain anyway, paying nothing. “It is a very low price, and our farmers don’t understand what they can do,” said Fedorov, who evacuated to Ukrainian-controlled territory after the invasion but keeps in touch with people back home. Ukrainian agricultural holding company HarvEast reported that Russians had taken about 200,000 metric tons of grain, which CEO Dmitry Skornyakov said cost his company about $50 million. He said his employees in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol reported the grain was trucked across the border into Russia. “To steal it, they just drive to Rostov and Taganrog, small Russian ports, then mix it with the Russian grain and say that that is Russian grain,” Skornyakov said. The same appears to be happening at sea. Satellite imagery and transponder data shows large cargo ships anchored off the Russian coast rendezvousing with smaller ships shuttling grain from both Crimean and Russian ports, obscuring the true origin of the cargo. Those larger ships then carried the blended grain to Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Daniel, the former naval officer whose company tracks ships globally, said ship-to-ship transfers of cargo at sea are rare, and are usually tied to smuggling. “When you’re a sanctioned country, you have a much more limited market,” he said. “So if you don’t blend your cargoes or if you don’t hide your origin, you probably have a much smaller market and therefore much lower price.” High demand for grain makes it easy for Russians to find buyers, said Oleg Nivievskyi, assistant professor and vice president for economics education at the Kyiv School of Economics. “There will be no problem to sell the stolen grain from Ukraine whatsoever,” he said. Yayla Agro, which makes packaged dried goods and ready-to-eat meals regularly stocked on the shelves of Turkish supermarkets, said it bought 8,800 metric tons of corn delivered by the Russian ship Fedor to the Turkish port of Bandirma on June 17. The cargo would be worth about $2.7 million. In a statement to AP, Yayla Agro denied it had ever purchased grain from the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, and said the bill of lading, certificate of origin and other official documents show the ship had been loaded in the port of Kavkaz. “We would like to stress that our company is involved in international trade, abides by ethical rules and considers abiding by international law as an absolute priority,” the company said. “In the same vein, (Yayla Agro) meticulously examines whether its commercial partners are the subject of any international sanction.” Satellite imagery from June 12 shows the Fedor was actually loaded in Sevastopol, Crimea. AnRussTrans, the Russian company that owns the ship through a subsidiary, didn’t respond to emailed questions. Sergey Dubrov, who answered the phone at the company’s headquarters in Moscow, denied receiving AP’s email and said he would only respond to written questions. “I can say one thing,” he added. “The ships exclusively work on legal transportation and do not violate international law.” Yayla also confirmed purchasing 7,000 metric tons of corn from another Russian ship, SV. Nikolay, on June 24. Satellite imagery shows the ship had docked at the grain terminal in Sevastopol six days earlier, but the company said its documentation showing the grain had come from Kavkaz. As with the other smuggling ships, both the Fedor and SV. Nikolay are too big to dock at Kavkaz. ___ Turkey’s role in the theft of Ukrainian grain is particularly sensitive because the NATO country has tried to play the role of mediator between the two warring countries. Turkey helped broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine in July to allow both countries to export grain and fertilizer through safe corridors in the Black Sea. The deal did not address the grain Russia has taken from occupied areas. In the last two months Ukrainian officials said more than 150 ships carrying grain have departed from ports they still control, including shipments to Somalia and Yemen, war-torn nations currently facing famine. Yet there are also indications the Turkish government itself may be a recipient of disputed grain from Ukraine. AP and “Frontline” tracked trips from Crimea to Turkey by the smuggling ships Mikhail Nenashev, Laodicea and Souria to docks with seaside silos operated by the Turkish Grain Board, a government-run entity that imports and exports grain and other agricultural products. The board’s press office and executives did not respond to emails with detailed questions about the suspect shipments. Though Turkish authorities have pledged to stop illegal smuggling, Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a June news conference his country had not found any evidence of theft. “We’ve received such claims,” he said. “And such information is coming from the Ukrainian side from time to time. We take every claim seriously and investigate it seriously. ... In our investigation on ships’ ports and goods’ origins, following claims about Turkey, we saw the origin records to be Russia.” Whatever the records say, the smuggling operation continues. Crane Marine Contractor’s ship Matros Koshka — named for a Russian sailor lauded as a national hero for his bravery during the Crimean War of 1854 — cruised north last week into the Black Sea with a listed destination of Kavkaz before turning off its transponder and running dark. Satellite imagery taken Thursday showed the 161-meter-long ship (528 feet) had docked once again at the grain terminal in the occupied Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, little more than a mile from a Soviet-era statue honoring its namesake.

A surge in fighting on the southern front line and a Ukrainian claim of new attacks on Russian positions fed speculation Tuesday that a long-expected counteroffensive to try to turn the tide of war has started. Officials in Kyiv, though, warned against excessive optimism in a war that has seen similar expectations of changing fortunes before. Even though independent verification of battlefield moves has been extremely tough, the British defense ministry said in an intelligence report that, as of early Monday, “several brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces increased the weight of artillery fires in front line sectors across southern Ukraine.” Attention centered on potential damage Ukraine might have inflicted on Russian positions around the port city of Kherson, a major economic hub close to the Black Sea and one of Moscow's prized possessions since it started the invasion just over half a year ago. Ukraine’s presidential office reported Tuesday that “powerful explosions continued during the day and night in the Kherson region. Tough battles are ongoing practically across all” of the strategic area. Ukrainian forces, the report said, have destroyed a number of ammunition depots in the region and all large bridges across the Dnieper that are vital to bring supplies to the Russian troops. Russian state news agency Tass reported five explosions rocking Kherson on Tuesday morning — blasts likely caused by air defense systems at work. The Ukrainian military’s Operation Command South also reported destroying a pontoon crossing the Dnieper that the Russian forces were setting up and hitting a dozen command posts in several areaas of the Kherson region with artillery fire. “The most important thing is Ukrainian artillery’s work on the bridges, which the Russian military can no longer use," Ukrainian independent military analyst Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press. “Even the barges have been destroyed. The Russians can’t sustain forces near Kherson — this is the most important.” On Monday, the southern command center's Nataliya Gumenyuik told Ukrainian news outlet Liga.Net that Kyiv’s forces have launched offensive operations “in many directions in our area of responsibility and have breached the enemy’s first line of defense.” The statement quickly made headlines after weeks of reports that Ukraine forces were preparing an offensive there and as Ukrainian attacks on the Kherson region intensified. Read: UN agency to inspect Ukraine nuclear plant in urgent mission Zhdanov said that Russia has three lines of defense in the Kherson region, and breaching the first one signals only “isolated offensive actions by the Ukrainian army.” The war has ground to a stalemate over the past months with casualties rising and the local population bearing the brunt of suffering during relentless shelling in the east and also in the wider area around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant which has also been at the heart of fighting in Ukraine. Amid fears the plant could be damaged, leading to a radioactive leak, a U.N. nuclear watchdog team has arrived in Kyiv and is further preparing a mission to safeguard the Russian-occupied plant from nuclear catastrophe. The stakes couldn’t be higher for the International Atomic Energy Agency experts, who will visit the plant in a country where the 1986 Chernobyl disaster spewed radiation throughout the region, shocking the world and intensifying a global push away from nuclear energy. “Without an exaggeration, this mission will be the hardest in the history of IAEA,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Compounding an already complicated task is the inability of both sides in the war to agree on much beyond allowing the team to go there. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the wider region around the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, time and again. Nikopol, which is just across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia plant, once again came under a barrage of heavy shelling, local authorities said, with a bus station, stores and a children’s library sustaining damage. The dangers of an accident are now so high that officials have begun handing out anti-radiation iodine tablets to nearby residents. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted to speculation about whether his forces had launched a major counteroffensive by asking in his nightly video address Monday, “Anyone want to know what our plans are? You won’t hear specifics from any truly responsible person. Because this is war.” His adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, cautioned against “super-sensational announcements” about a counteroffensive. From the other side, the Moscow-appointed regional leader of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, dismissed the Ukrainian assertion of an offensive in the Kherson region as false. He said Ukrainian forces have suffered heavy losses in the area. And For its part, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had inflicted heavy personnel and military equipment losses on Ukrainian troops. The Kherson region is just north of the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 to set off a conflict that was frozen until the Feb. 24 invasion.