United News of Bangladesh

Police have arrested a suspect who is believed to have planted the bomb that exploded on a bustling pedestrian avenue in Istanbul, Turkey’s interior minister said Monday, adding that initial findings indicate that Kurdish militants were responsible for the deadly attack. Six people were killed and several dozen others were wounded in Sunday’s explosion on Istiklal Avenue, a popular thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants that leads to the iconic Taksim Square. Read more: Bomb rocks avenue in heart of Istanbul; 6 dead, dozens hurt “A little while ago, the person who left the bomb was detained by our Istanbul Police Department teams,” the Anadolu Agency quoted Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu as saying. He did not identify the suspect but said 21 other people were also detained for questioning. The minister said evidence obtained pointed to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and to its Syrian extension, the PYD. He said the attack would be avenged. “Those who made us go through this pain in Istiklal Avenue will be inflicted much more pain,” Soylu said. Soylu also blamed the United States, saying a condolence message from the White House was akin to a “killer being first to show up at a crime scene.” Turkey accuses the U.S. of supporting Syrian Kurdish groups. Soylu said of the 81 people who were hospitalized, 50 were discharged. Five of the wounded were receiving emergency care and two of them were in life-threatening condition, he said. Read more: At least 100 dead as two car bombs exploded at Somalia's capital The PKK has fought an insurgency in Turkey since 1984. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since then. Ankara and Washington consider the PKK a terrorist group but they diverge on the issue of the Syrian Kurdish groups, which have fought against the Islamic State group in Syria.Police officers stand at the entrance the street after an explosion on Istanbul's popular pedestrian Istiklal Avenue, late Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022. A bomb rocked on a major pedestrian avenue in the heart of Istanbul on Sunday, killing six people, wounding dozens and sending people fleeing the fiery explosion. Emergency vehicles rushed to the scene on Istiklal Avenue, a popular thoroughfare lined with shops and restaurants that leads to the iconic Taksim Square.(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

During the long, long months when Russian forces were in charge, the national flag was contraband. Only rarely and in the privacy of his own home did Yevhen Teliezhenko dare bring out his prized possession, the banned yellow-and-blue of Ukraine. Now the Russians are gone, forced out of his southern city of Kherson, and the 73-year-old is making up for all that lost time. He and his wife are driving around the city, flying their flag and — with the enthusiasm of teenagers — asking Ukrainian soldiers who liberated them to autograph it. “They were fighting for us. We knew we were not alone," he said. Where just last week there was deep fear in Kherson, now there is an abundance of joy. Read more: Ukrainian police, broadcasts return to Kherson And that emotion is bursting out despite the fact there is no power, no water and barely any cellphone coverage. Food and medicines are in short supply. Life promises to be tough for weeks to come, as winter bites down on barely heated residences. Russia's poisoned parting gifts were the destruction of key infrastructure and the deadly seeding of booby traps around the city. Still, at least hope and happiness are back, which will more than do for now. “Finally freedom!” said 61-year-old Tetiana Hitina, Teliezhenko’s wife. "The city was dead." Kherson was the only provincial capital captured by Russia, seized in the invasion's first weeks. It was a significant — but as it turned out only temporary — prize for Moscow, because of the city's port and its strategic position on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine. The Dnieper's wide waters now separate Ukraine's troops, who fought their way for weeks toward Kherson, and its former Russian occupiers, who abandoned the city last week in the face of the Ukrainian advance, escaping to the river's eastern bank. Yet the fighting is far from over. Russian troops are now digging in there, bracing for the next Ukrainian move. Over the sounds of Ukrainians rejoicing for a third day running Sunday in Kherson's main square, the thump of artillery fire could be heard in the distance. About 70% of the wider Kherson region is still in Russian hands. Roads leading into Kherson bear witness to the ferocity of the fighting — much of it largely unreported at the time because Ukraine had blacked out frontline news from the region to avoid giving useful intelligence to the Russians. For tens of kilometers (miles) on approach to the city, the war and its ravages have left not a building untouched. Amid the abandoned trenches and the charred remains of military hardware, a surprising sight: children popped out of mutilated homes to wave at cars rolling through their village, which until only recently was a war zone. Freed of their occupiers, residents of Kherson are now able to begin telling the grim stories of life under Moscow's rule. Some spoke of Russian soldiers detaining people in the streets, seemingly arbitrarily, for checks and questioning — and sometimes worse. Read more: Russia says Kherson city withdrawal complete Others worry about friends and acquaintances who were told to leave Kherson when Russian forces were beginning their weeks-long withdrawal. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated, ferried across the Dnieper and bused deeper into territory that Russia still holds. In the final days before they finished their pullout last week, Russian troops grew increasingly nervous and rumors flew around the city, said Karina Zaikina, 24. “They were stealing and morally pressuring us,” she said. “It was clear that they were scared because they all walked only in groups.” “I woke up calm today,” she said. “For the first time in many months, I wasn’t scared to go to the city.” In scenes reminiscent of European cities that Allied forces liberated in World War II, Kherson residents poured into the city's central square, honked car horns, danced, wept and hugged. In one place, two people who were alleged to have collaborated with the Russians were tied to poles with their hands behind their backs. For the moment, billboards that the city's former Russian-backed administrators put up are still there. But surely, not for long. Their now-outdated message reads: “Russia is here forever.”

Ukrainian police officers returned Saturday, along with TV and radio services, to the southern city of Kherson following the withdrawal of Russian troops, part of fast but cautious efforts to make the only regional capital captured by Russia livable after months of occupation. Yet one official still described the city as “a humanitarian catastrophe.” People across Ukraine awoke from a night of jubilant celebrating after the Kremlin announced its troops had withdrawn to the other side of the Dnieper River from Kherson. The Ukrainian military said it was overseeing “stabilization measures” around the city to make sure it was safe. The Russian retreat represented a significant setback for the Kremlin some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine in breach of international law and declared them Russian territory. The national police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said Saturday on Facebook that about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes. Police teams also were working to identify and neutralize unexploded ordnance and one sapper was wounded Saturday while demining an administrative building, Klymenko said. Ukraine’s communications watchdog said national TV and radio broadcasts had resumed in the city, and an adviser to Kherson’s mayor said humanitarian aid and supplies had begun to arrive from the neighboring Mykolaiv region. But the adviser, Roman Holovnya, described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe.” He said the remaining residents lacked water, medicine and food — and key basics like bread went unbaked because a lack of electricity. Read: Russia says Kherson city withdrawal complete “The occupiers and collaborators did everything possible so that those people who remained in the city suffered as much as possible over those days, weeks, months of waiting” for Ukraine’s forces to arrive, Holovnya said. “Water supplies are practically nonexistent.” The chairman of Khersonoblenergo, the region’s prewar power provider, said electricity was being returned “to every settlement in the Kherson region immediately after the liberation.” Despite the efforts to restore normal civilian life, Russian forces remain close by. The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Saturday the Russians were fortifying their battle lines on the river’s eastern bank after abandoning the capital. About 70% of the Kherson region remains under Russian control. Ukrainian officials from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on down have cautioned that while special military units had reached Kherson, a full deployment to reinforce the advance troops in the city still was underway. Ukraine’s intelligence agency thought some Russian soldiers may have stayed behind, ditching their uniforms to avoid detection. “Even when the city is not yet completely cleansed of the enemy’s presence, the people of Kherson themselves are already removing Russian symbols and any traces of the occupiers’ stay in Kherson from the streets and buildings,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. Zelenskyy said the first part of the stabilization work includes de-mining operations. He said the entry of “our defenders” — the soldiers — into Kherson would be followed by police, sappers, rescuers and energy workers, among others. “Medicine, communications, social services are returning,” he said. “Life is returning.” Photos on social media Saturday showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities the Kremlin installed to run the Kherson region. A Telegram post on Yellow Ribbon, a self-described Ukrainian “public resistance” movement, showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing Soviet-era military figures. Moscow’s announcement that Russian forces were withdrawing across the Dnieper River, which divides both the Kherson region and Ukraine, followed a stepped-up Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country’s south. In the last two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have reclaimed dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson, and the military said that’s where stabilization activities were taking place. Read: Ukraine fears 'city of death' as Russia withdraws troops from Kherson Russian state news agency Tass quoted an official in Kherson’s Kremlin-appointed administration on Saturday as saying that Henichesk, a city on the Azov Sea 200 kilometers southeast of Kherson, would now serve as the region’s “temporary capital.” Ukrainian media derided the announcement, with the Ukrainska Pravda newspaper saying Russia “had made up a new capital” for the region. Across much of Ukraine, moments of jubilation marked the exit of Russian forces, since a retreat from Kherson and other areas on the Dnieper’s west bank would appear to shatter Russian hopes to press an offensive west to Mykolaiv and Odesa to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. In Odesa, the Black Sea port, residents draped themselves in Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flags, shared Champagne and held up flag-colored cards with the word “Kherson” on them. But like Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sought to temper the excitement. “We are winning battles on the ground, but the war continues,” he said from Cambodia, where he was attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Kuleba brought up the prospect of the Ukrainian army finding evidence of possible Russian war crimes in Kherson, just as it did after Russian pullbacks in the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions. “Every time we liberate a piece of our territory, when we enter a city liberated from Russian army, we find torture rooms and mass graves with civilians tortured and murdered by Russian army in the course of the occupation,” Ukraine’s top diplomat said. “It’s not easy to speak with people like this. But I said that every war ends with diplomacy and Russia has to approach talks in good faith.” U.S. assessments this week showed Russia’s war in Ukraine may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Elsewhere, Russia continued its grinding offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east, targeting the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, the Ukrainian General Staff said. Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported Saturday that two civilians were killed and four wounded over the last day as battles heated up around Bakhmut and Avdiivka, a small city that has remained in Ukrainian hands. Russia’s push to capture Bakhmut demonstrates the Kremlin’s desire for visible gains following weeks of setbacks. It would also pave the way to move onto other Ukrainian strongholds in the heavily contested Donetsk region. In the Dnipropetrovsk region west of Donetsk, Russia troops again shelled communities near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the Ukrainian regional governor said.

Russia said its troops finished withdrawing Friday from the western bank of the river that divides Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, allowing Ukrainian forces to move cautiously toward reclaiming the country’s only Russian-occupied provincial capital in what would be a major victory. In a statement carried by Russian state news agencies, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the withdrawal was completed at 5 a.m. and not a single unit of military equipment was left behind. The retreat, which came two months after Russian forces withdrew from eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, represents another huge setback for Moscow in its 8 1/2-month war in Ukraine. Reports emerged of residents hoisting Ukrainian flags in places the Russians pulled out of, including the city of Kherson. A Ukrainian regional official, Serhii Khlan, said he heard the flags were “appearing en masse all over the place.” He disputed the Russian claim that retreating forces took all their equipment with them, saying he was told “a lot” of hardware got left behind. Khlan, who spoke to journalists from outside the city, said he heard that some Russian troops also were left behind and had dressed in civilian clothes, possibly with plans to engage in acts of sabotage.” He said their exact number was unclear. The Kremlin remained defiant Friday, insisting the development in no way represented an embarrassment for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow continues to view the entire Kherson region as part of Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He added that the Kremlin doesn’t regret holding festivities just over a month ago to celebrate the illegal annexation of Kherson and three other occupied or partially occupied regions of Ukraine. Despite abandoning their positions on the western bank, Russian forces still control about 70% of the Kherson region. Shortly before the Russian announcement, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation in the province as “difficult.” It reported Russian shelling of some of the villages and towns Ukrainian forces reclaimed in recent weeks during their counteroffensive in the Kherson region. READ: Ukraine fears 'city of death' as Russia withdraws troops from Kherson The General Staff of Ukraine’s army said the Russian forces also left looted homes, damaged power lines and mined roads in their wake. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak predicted Thursday the departing Russians would seek to turn Kherson into a “city of death” and would continue to shell it after relocating across the Dnieper River. Ukrainian officials were wary of the Russian pullback announced this week, fearing their soldiers could get drawn into an ambush in Kherson city, which had a prewar population of 280,000. Military analysts also had predicted it would take Russia’s military at least a week to complete the troop withdrawal. Without referencing events unfolding in Kherson, Zelenskyy said in a video message thanking U.S. military personnel on Veterans Day that that “victory will be ours.” “Your example inspires Ukrainians today to fight back against Russian tyranny,” he said. “Special thanks to the many American veterans who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine and to the American people for the amazing support you have given Ukraine. With your help, we have stunned the world and are pushing Russian forces back.” However, some quarters of the Ukrainian government barely disguised their glee at the pace of the Russian withdrawal. “The Russian army leaves the battlefields in a triathlon mode: steeplechase, broad jumping, swimming,” Andriy Yermak, a senior presidential adviser, tweeted. Social media videos apparently filmed by soldiers on routes toward Kherson showed villagers hugging the Ukrainian troops. Recapturing the city could provide Ukraine a strong position from which to expand its southern counteroffensive to other Russian-occupied areas, potentially including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. From its forces new positions on the eastern bank, however, the Kremlin could try to escalate the war, which U.S. assessments showed may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. A Russian S-300 missile strike overnight killed seven people in Mykolaiv, a city about 68 kilometers (42 miles) from Kherson’s regional capital, Zelenskyy’s office said Friday morning. Rescue crews sifted through the rubble of a five-story residential building in search of survivors. READ: Russia-Ukraine War: US estimates 200,000 military deaths, injuries on both sides Standing in front of what used to be his family’s apartment, Roman Mamontov, 16, awaited news about his missing mother. Mamontov said he found “nothing there” when he opened an apartment door to look for his mother after the missile struck. Friday was her 34th birthday, the teenager said. “My mind was blank at that moment. I thought it could not be true,” he said. “The cake she prepared for the celebration is still there.” Zelenskyy called the missile strike “the terrorist state’s cynical response to our successes at the front.” “Russia does not give up its despicable tactics. And we will not give up our struggle. The occupiers will be held to account for every crime against Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said. The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t acknowledge striking a residential building in Mykolaiv, saying only that an ammunition depot was destroyed “in the area of the city.” The president’s office said Russian drones, rockets and heavy artillery strikes across eight regions killed at least 14 civilians between Thursday morning and Friday morning. The state of the key Antonivskiy Bridge that links the western and eastern banks of the Dnieper in the Kherson region remained unclear Friday. Russian media reports suggested the bridge was blown up following the Russian withdrawal; pro-Kremlin reporters posted footage of the bridge missing a large section. But Sergei Yeliseyev, a Russian-installed official in the Kherson region, told the Interfax news agency that “the Antonivskiy Bridge hasn’t been blown up, it’s in the same condition.” Gen. Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army forces in Europe, described the retreat from Kherson as a “colossal failure” for Russia and said Russian military commanders should have pulled all their forces out of the city “weeks ago,” to put the Dnieper River between them and Ukraine’s advancing troops. Hodges, speaking in a phone interview with The Associated Press, said he expected Ukrainian commanders would work to keep the pressure on Russia’s depleted forces in the weeks ahead, ahead of a possible future push next year for Crimea, seized by Russia in 2014. Russia is “going to have a very difficult time over the next several months continuing to hold back a very confident Ukrainian military that has a strong wind in their back” in the wake of the offensive for Kherson, he said.

Russia said it began withdrawing troops from the strategic Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday, in a potential turning point in the grinding war, but a Ukrainian official warned that Russian land mines could render it a “city of death.” Kyiv acknowledged Moscow’s forces had no choice but to flee Kherson but remained cautious, fearing an ambush. With Ukrainian officials tight-lipped about their assessments of the situation and reporters not present, it was difficult to know what was happening in the industrial port city, from which tens of thousands have fled in recent weeks and where remaining residents are afraid to leave their homes. A forced pullout from Kherson — the only provincial capital Moscow had captured — would mark one of Russia’s worst setbacks, recalling their forces’ abandonment of attempts to take the national capital, Kyiv, in the early days of the war. Recapturing Kherson could provide Ukraine a launching pad for supplies and troops to try and win back other lost territory in the south, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally seized in 2014. Already, Ukrainian forces seem to be scoring more battlefield successes in the region. The armed forces commander-in-chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, said that since Oct. 1 Kyiv’s forces have advanced 36.5 kms (22.7 miles) and retaken 41 settlements in the Kherson region — which the Kremlin has illegally annexed. That included 12 just on Wednesday. As Russian troops withdraw, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, warned they had laid mines throughout Kherson, saying they wanted to turn it into a “city of death” and would shell it from the positions across the Dnieper River where they are consolidating forces. Read: Russia-Ukraine War: US estimates 200,000 military deaths, injuries on both sides From these new positions, the Kremlin could try to escalate the conflict — which U.S. assessments showed may have already left tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead or wounded. The Russian Defense Ministry reported Thursday a “maneuver of units of the Russian group” to the Dnieper River’s eastern bank, also known as its left bank. The defense minister on Wednesday ordered a troop withdrawal from the city and nearby areas after his top general in Ukraine reported that the loss of supply routes had made defense “futile.” Some Western observers, including the highest-ranking U.S. military officer, believe the Kremlin’s forces have been forced to pull out but that a full withdrawal could take time. On Thursday, Ukrainian officials appeared to soften their skepticism. Zaluzhny said that “the enemy had no other choice but to resort to fleeing,” because Kyiv’s army has destroyed supply systems and disrupted Russia’s military command in the area. Still, he said the Ukrainian military could not confirm that Russian forces were indeed withdrawing. Alexander Khara, of the Kyiv-based think tank Center for Defense Strategies, echoed those concerns, saying he remains fearful that Russian forces could destroy a dam upriver from Kherson and flood approaches to the city. The former Ukrainian diplomat also warned of booby traps and other possible dangers retreating Russians left behind. “I would be surprised if the Russians had not set up something, some surprises for Ukraine,” Khara said. Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at international affairs think-tank Chatham House, said the cautious response from Ukraine explains “why, until Ukrainians are in the city, they don’t want to declare that they have it (in) control.” A resident said Kherson was deserted Thursday and that explosions could be heard from ​​​around Antonivskyi Bridge — a key Dnieper River crossing that Ukrainian forces have repeatedly bombarded. Read: Russia claims to have left the captured city, but Ukraine is dubious. “Life in the city seems to have stopped. Everyone has disappeared somewhere and no one knows what will happen next,” said Konstantin, who insisted that his last name be withheld for security reasons. Russian flags have disappeared from the city’s administrative buildings, and there is no sign of the Russian military personnel who earlier moved into the apartments of evacuated residents, he said. Ukrainian officials have been cautious throughout the war in declaring any victories against a Russian force that at least initially outgunned and outmanned them. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was careful in his assessment. He spoke Thursday to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his office said they agreed “it was right to continue to exercise caution until the Ukrainian flag was raised over the city.” Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a day earlier that he believed a retreat was underway, but that Russia had amassed 20,000 to 30,000 troops in Kherson and that a full withdrawal could take several weeks. One analyst noted that the Ukrainian army has been systematically destroying bridges and roads, making a quick transfer of Russian troops across the river impossible. “The main question is whether the Ukrainians will give the Russians the opportunity to calmly withdraw, or fire at them during the crossing to the left bank,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said. “The personnel can be taken out on boats, but the equipment needs to be taken out only on barges and pontoons, and this is very easily shelled by the Ukrainian army.” In other developments: Read: As winter approaches, Ukraine struggles with power outage — A Kremlin spokesman said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not attend the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia next week, avoiding a possible confrontation with the United States and its allies over his war in Ukraine. — The head of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Thursday that three civilians had been killed in the region and 12 wounded in the last 24 hours. Writing on Telegram, the official also reported that law enforcement officers found the bodies of five people killed during the Russian occupation of the town of Yarova, which Ukraine retook on Sept. 19. — Russian forces overnight pounded the city of Nikopol and nearby areas, Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. The shelling wounded a 80-year-old woman and damaged 10 residential buildings, a gas station, a gas pipeline and a power line. The neighboring Zaporizhzhia region was also shelled Thursday, according to deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

According to the senior-most US general, Mark Milley, the Russia-Ukraine war has claimed the lives of or injured 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman also said that 40,000 or so civilians perished as a result of being involved in the fight, the BBC reports. The estimations are the highest a Western official has yet provided. He, however, said that indications that Kyiv was prepared to resume discussions with Moscow provided “an opening” for dialogue. Read more: Russia to withdraw from key city of Kherson Ukraine has recently indicated a willingness to engage in some dialogue with Moscow after withdrew a demand that negotiations stop until Vladimir Putin was ousted from office. Gen Milley said that in order for any negotiations to be fruitful, Russia and Ukraine would need to “mutually recognise” that a triumph “is maybe not achievable through military means, and therefore you need to turn to other means”. The US general, who serves as President Joe Biden’s top military advisor, claimed that the number of casualties could persuade Moscow and Kyiv to discuss during the coming winter, when fighting may slack off due to the cold. The BBC report quoted Gen Milley as saying “You’re looking at well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” adding, “Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.” Read more: Kyiv prepares for worst winter with no heat, water or power Both Russia and Ukraine closely guard the number of casualties. Only 5,937 soldiers had died in total since the conflict began, according to Moscow’s most recent report, which was released in September. Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu dismissed allegations of a substantially higher death toll. There has been a great deal of human suffering, according to Gen Milley. He added that since Russia’s incursion began on February 24, there have been between 15 and 30 million new refugees. Over 7 million refugees from Ukraine have been registered by the UN in countries all around Europe, including Russia. The number excludes those who were compelled to leave their homes but are still in Ukraine, nevertheless. Read more: Russia rejoins key deal on wartime Ukrainian grain exports Moscow declared on Wednesday (November 09, 2022) that its troops would begin to leave Kherson, a crucial city in the south and the only sizable city to be taken by Russian forces. While “early evidence” showed that a retreat had started, Gen Milley noted that Russia had gathered between 20 and 30,000 troops in the city and that the withdrawal may take several weeks.

Russia’s military announced Wednesday that it’s withdrawing from Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson and nearby areas, in what would be another in a series of humiliating setbacks for Moscow’s forces in the 8-month-old war. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately confirm the move — and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested in recent days that the Russians were feigning a pullout from Kherson in order to lure the Ukrainian army into an entrenched battle. Zelenskyy called attempts to convince civilians to move deeper into Russian-controlled territory “theater.” The top Russian military commander in Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, reported to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday that it was impossible to deliver supplies to the city of Kherson and other areas on the western bank of the Dnieper River that it lies on. Shoigu agreed with his proposal to retreat and set up defenses on the eastern bank. The withdrawal from Kherson — which sits in a region of the same name that Moscow illegally annexed — would be another significant setback. The city, with a prewar population of 280,000, is the only regional capital to be captured by Russian forces since the Feb. 24 invasion began. Ukrainian forces had zeroed in on the strategic industrial city, which sits on the Dnieper River that divides the region and the country itself. During the summer, Ukrainian troops launched relentless attacks to reclaim parts of the larger province. Read more: Impact of Russia-Ukraine War on Asia’s climate goals More than 70,000 residents were evacuated in late October, along with members of the Kremlin-installed regional government, according to the Moscow-appointed officials, although Ukrainian officials questioned the claim. The remains of Grigory Potemkin, the Russian general who founded Kherson in the 18th century, also were reportedly moved from the city’s St. Catherine’s Church. The city and parts of the surrounding region were seized in the opening days of the conflict as Russian troops pushed their attack north from Crimea — the area illegally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014. In recent months, Ukraine used U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers to repeatedly hit a key bridge on the Dnieper in Kherson and a large dam upstream that is also used as a crossing point. The strikes forced Russia to rely on pontoons and ferries that also were targeted by Ukraine. The Russian announcement came as villages and towns in Ukraine saw more heavy fighting and shelling Wednesday. At least nine civilians were killed and 24 others were wounded in 24 hours, the Ukrainian president’s office said. It accused Russia of using explosive drones, rockets, heavy artillery and aircraft to attack eight regions in the country’s southeast. Ukrainian and Russian forces also clashed overnight over Snihurivka, a town about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the southern city of Kherson. The president’s office said widespread Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system continued. Two cities not far from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant were shelled overnight, it said. More than 20 residential buildings, an industrial plant, a gas pipeline and a power line were reportedly damaged in Nikopol, which lies across the Dnieper River from the the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Read more: Russian envoy hopes war in Ukraine ends soon: Hasan Further west, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the Ukrainian governor reported “massive” overnight strikes with exploding Iranian-made drones that wounded four energy company workers in the city of Dnipro. “Attacks on civilian infrastructure are war crimes in themselves. The Kremlin is at war with Ukrainian civilians, trying to leave millions of people without water and light (for them) to freeze in the winter,” Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said on Ukrainian TV.

A protester was arrested Wednesday after hurling eggs and vitriol at King Charles III and Camilla, the queen consort, as they walked in the northern England city of York. The incident happened as the king and his wife were entering York through Micklegate Bar, a medieval gateway where monarchs are traditionally welcomed to the city. Video footage showed several eggs in motion and smashed on the ground. None appeared to hit the royal couple, who continued to greet crowds. Several police officers could be seen grappling with a man at a crowd barrier. Britain’s PA news agency reported that he booed and shouted “This country was built on the blood of slaves” as he was being detained. Read: First coins featuring King Charles III unveiled Other members of the crowd tried to drown him out by chanting “Shame on you” and “God save the King.” Charles and Camilla traveled to York as part of a series of engagements around the U.K. marking the start of the new king’s reign. They also visited the city’s cathedral, York Minster, and unveiled a statue of the king’s mother. Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September after 70 years on the throne.

Many Europeans are now facing hard choices due to a difficult financial situation and more than one in four of them said they are in a "precarious" situation and over half see a serious risk it will become so over the coming months, with an unexpected expense that could push them into poverty, according to a survey. This feeling is particularly strong in Greece and France. As the cost of living, driven by higher energy prices, raging inflation and war in Ukraine, tightens their grip, Pollster Ipsos and French anti-poverty NGO Secours Populaire have set up a "European Barometer of Precariousness and Poverty" for the first time to observe the social situation, opinions, and concerns of people in France, the UK, Germany, Greece, Italy and Poland. Half of more than 6,000 people polled in the six countries, from June 17 to July 6, told Ipsos that their purchasing power had shrunk over the past three years – mainly due to soaring food, fuel, heating and rent bills. Read: Soaring inflation threatens to unleash political turmoil across Europe In this "very difficult context, Europeans do not feel secure." Across Europe, rising inflation is behind a wave of protests and strikes that underscores growing discontent with the spiralling cost of living and threatens to unleash political turmoil. Europeans have seen their energy bills and food prices soar because of the war in Ukraine. Despite natural gas prices falling from record summer highs and governments allocating over $566 billion in energy relief to households and businesses since September 2021, it is not enough for some protesters, according to the think tank Bruegel. Energy prices have driven inflation in the 19 countries that use the euro currency to a record 9.9 percent, making it harder for people to buy what they need. "Many Europeans have declared falling into financial difficulties. This situation is particularly difficult in Greece, where 51 percent of respondents said they are in this situation," Ipsos said. Around 55 percent of Europeans feel that there is a significant risk that they will find themselves in an unstable financial situation in the coming months, with inflation continuing to rise in the continent. Read: Europe sees fastest pace of rate hikes since euro launched They have little financial wiggle room, with 64 percent of respondents indicating they are unsure of which expense to cut back on because they have already done so. This anxiety is growing in Italy and Greece and now concerns seven out of 10 people. "More than one in three Europeans said they have had to restrict their travel recently. More than one in five said they have been cold recently and have not turned up the heating at home. One in seven has even had to ask for the help of relatives or take several jobs," Ipsos said. "Beyond their own situation, the Europeans see the precariousness around them, particularly in their neighbourhoods, with 41 percent observing that there are many precarious people in their neighbourhoods and 30 percent in their close circle or at work. This difficult situation is particularly worrying in Greece, Italy and Poland."

The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country's energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out. “We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations," Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity. He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships and “we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.” Read more: Russia rejoins key deal on wartime Ukrainian grain exports Russia has focused on striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region. Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said. Kyiv plans to deploy about 1,000 heating points, but it's unclear if that would be enough for a city of 3 million people. As Russia intensifies its attacks on the capital, Ukrainian forces are pushing forward in the south. Residents of Ukraine's Russian-occupied city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible, Ukraine's military said Sunday. Russian soldiers warned civilians that Ukraine's army was preparing for a massive attack and told people to leave for the city's right bank immediately. Russian forces are preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to seize back the southern city of Kherson, which was captured during the early days of the invasion. In September, Russia illegally annexed Kherson as well as three other regions and subsequently declared martial law in the four provinces. The Kremlin-installed administration in Kherson already has moved tens of thousands of civilians out of the city. Russia has been “occupying and evacuating” Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians that they're leaving when in fact they're digging in, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's Southern Forces, told state television. “There are defense units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up,” she said. Read more: As winter approaches, Ukraine struggles with power outage Russian forces are also digging in in a fiercely contested region in the east, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending Ukrainian army following Moscow's illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province. The attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region's Ukrainian governor, said. Shelling killed one civilian and wounded three, he reported late Saturday. “The destruction is daily, if not hourly,” Kyrylenko told state television. Moscow-backed separatists have controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Protecting the separatists' self-proclaimed republic there was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's justifications for the invasion, and his troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province. Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia's launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes hitting more than 35 villages in nine regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, according to Zelenskyy's office. The strikes killed two people and wounded six. In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions. The front line is now on Bakhmut's outskirts, where mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military company, are reported to be leading the charge. Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the group who has typically remained under the radar, is taking a more visible role in the war. In a statement Sunday he announced the funding and creation of “militia training centers” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions in the southwest, saying that locals were best placed to “fight against sabotage” on Russian soil. The training centers are in addition to a military technology center the group said it was opening in St. Petersburg. In Kharkiv, officials were working to identify bodies found in mass graves after the Russians withdrew, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor's office, told local media. DNA samples have been collected from 450 bodies discovered in a mass grave in the city of Izium, but the samples need to be matched with relatives and so far only 80 people have participated, he said. In one sliver of good news, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reconnected to Ukraine’s power grid, local media reported Sunday. Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain vital cooling systems, but it had been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian shelling severed its outside connections.