United News of Bangladesh

French media are reporting that people have been stabbed at a Paris train station and the interior minister says several people were injured before police “rapidly neutralized” the attacker. Media reports, quoting unnamed police sources, say police opened fire early Wednesday morning on the attacker who was armed with a knife and injured several people. Paris police say the incident at the Gare du Nord station is now over but are offering no other immediate details. Read more: US warns of possible attack in Islamabad amid security fears Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin also says the attacker injured several people at the station but his tweet gives no other details on their number or the extent of the injuries. He says the attacker was “rapidly neutralized."

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.

Prince Harry has accused his stepmother, Camilla, the queen consort, of leaking private conversations to the media to burnish her own reputation as he promotes a new book that lays bare his story of his life behind palace walls. In interviews broadcast Sunday and Monday, Harry accused members of the royal family of getting “into bed with the devil” to gain favorable tabloid coverage, singling out Camilla’s efforts to rehabilitate her image with the British people after her longtime affair with his father, now King Charles III. “That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,” he told CBS. “There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street.” Read More: Prince Harry says book an attempt to “own my story” after 38 years of “spin and distortion” by others Harry spoke to Britain’s ITV, CBS’s “60 Minutes” and “Good Morning America″ to promote his book “Spare,” which is to be widely released Tuesday. Some U.K. bookshops opened at midnight to meet demand for the highly anticipated memoir, which has generated incendiary headlines with reports that it includes details of bitter family resentments, as well as Harry and his wife Meghan’s decision to give up their royal roles and move to California. “I want to be able to paint the picture myself, see it for myself, and then be able to say, okay, yes, maybe things have changed or maybe the person has matured," said Chris Imfidon, chair of the charity Excellence in Education. He traveled from Essex to London to buy three copies of “Spare,” wanting to compare the media picture of Harry to what's in the book. "If I just read in the newspaper, I don’t think I’ll be satisfied just hearing because each newspaper gives it totally different picture of the duke, he said. In the interviews, Harry repeatedly blamed the media for the troubles that afflicted the couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, saying the coverage contributed to the rift with his brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate. Read More: Prince Harry’s claim he killed 25 in Afghanistan draws anger, worry “They always pitched us against each other,″ he told Good Morning America. “They pitch Kate and Meghan against each other.” Harry was also unapologetic about launching legal battles against some parts of the British media. While he said his father believes it is “probably a suicide mission” to take on the press, Harry described changing the media landscape in the UK as being “my life’s work.” But Harry also continued to criticize the royal family itself. He repeated his claim that there was “concern” in the royal family about his unborn child’s skin color after he married biracial American actress Meghan Markle. Harry and Meghan first mentioned the incident during an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, but they haven’t identified the family member who expressed concern. Read More: Prince Harry’s assertion of killing 25 in Afghanistan criticised by both enemies and allies Harry insisted his family wasn’t racist, but said the episode was an example of unconscious bias. The prince told CBS that he was “probably bigoted” before he met Meghan, and said that the royal family, which is held to a higher moral standard, needed to “learn and grow” in order to be “part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” “Otherwise unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism,” Harry told ITV. “Spare” explores Harry’s grief over the death of his mother in 1997, and his long-simmering resentment at his role as the royal “spare,” overshadowed by the “heir” — older brother William. He recounts arguments and a physical altercation with William, reveals how he lost his virginity and describes using cocaine and cannabis. He also says he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan — drawing criticism from both the Taliban and British military veterans. Read More: Prince Harry says William called Meghan “difficult, rude and abrasive” before physical attack The allegations about Camilla are particularly sensitive because of her role in the acrimonious breakdown of Charles’ marriage to the late Princess Diana, William and Harry’s mother. Diana once described Camilla, who carried out a long-term affair with Charles, as the third person in their marriage. While many members of the public initially shunned Camilla, she has won fans by taking on a wide range of charitable activities and has been credited with helping Charles appear less stuffy and more in tune with modern Britain. Writing about his father’s 2005 wedding to Camilla, Harry says: “I had complex feelings about gaining a stepparent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar.” Still, he says he wanted his father to be happy. “In a funny way I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?” Read More: Harry and Meghan slam British tabloids in new Netflix series “Spare” is the latest in a string of public pronouncements by Harry and Meghan since they quit royal life and moved to California in 2020, citing what they saw as the media’s racist treatment of Meghan and a lack of support from the palace. It follows the interview with Winfrey and a six-part Netflix series released last month. In the ghostwritten memoir, Harry, 38, describes the couple’s acrimonious split from the royal family after their request for a part-time royal role was rejected. The television interviews are certain to pile more pressure on the royal family. Harry is also appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Royal officials haven’t commented on any of the allegations, though allies have pushed back on the claims, largely anonymously. Read More: Prince Harry's memoir ‘Spare’ to narrate journey from ‘trauma to healing’ Harry has defended the memoir describing it as his effort to “own my story” after years of “spin and distortion” by others. In the “60 Minutes” interview, Harry denied his book was intended to hurt his family. Omid Scobie, co-author of “Finding Freedom,” a book on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, said Harry is offering the look behind the palace walls that the public has always wanted. “Of course, that does come with some downsides for those who have been part of his journey,″ Scobie told the BBC. “We heard some sort of really startling confessions and stories about members of the royal family, particularly when it comes to Camilla and her relationship with the press.’’ Read More: Meghan addresses youth summit on UK visit with Prince Harry While Harry said he hadn’t spoken with his father or brother in a while, he hopes to find peace with them. But he told ITV that the “the ball is in their court.” “They’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile,” he said. While the saga is damaging to the royal family, it may not be as harmful as people might think and will give the global audience a forum to discuss difficult issues like misogyny and racism, said Boston University professor Arianne Chernock, an expert in modern British history. But she was cautious about doomsayers suggesting the monarchy itself was in trouble. The institution has endured more than 1,000 years after all. “This is a central component of the history of the royal family,’’ she said. “Scandal is the norm not the exception.’’ Read More: William, Harry to unveil Diana statue as royal rift simmers

Prince Harry defended his decision to publish a memoir that lays bare rifts inside Britain’s royal family, saying it’s an attempt to “own my story” after 38 years of “spin and distortion” by others. Harry spoke to Britain’s ITV and CBS’s “60 Minutes” to promote his book, “Spare,” which has generated incendiary headlines with its details of private emotional turmoil and bitter family resentments. In interviews broadcast Sunday, Harry accused members of the royal family of getting “into bed with the devil” to gain favorable tabloid coverage, claimed his stepmother Camilla, the queen consort, had leaked private conversations to the media and said his family was “complicit” in his wife Meghan’s “pain and suffering.” Read more: Prince Harry’s claim he killed 25 in Afghanistan draws anger, worry Harry said Camilla had to rehabilitate her image with the British people after her longtime affair with his father and that he was one of the victims of her efforts for better coverage in the tabloids. “That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,” he told CBS. “There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street.” He repeated his claim on ITV that there was “concern” in the royal family about his unborn child’s skin color after he married biracial American actress Meghan Markle, and said the British monarchy should address its attitudes to race. Harry and Meghan first mentioned the incident during an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021. They have not identified the family member who expressed concern. Read more: Prince Harry says William called Meghan “difficult, rude and abrasive” before physical attack Harry said the episode was an example of unconscious bias rather than racism, adding that the royal family needed to “learn and grow” in order to be “part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” “Otherwise unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism,” Harry said. He said that “especially when you are the monarchy – you have a responsibility, and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others.” He said a recent incident in which a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II asked a Black British woman where she was “really” from was “a very good example of the environment within the institution.” “Spare” explores Harry’s grief at the death of his mother in 1997, and his long-simmering resentment at the role of royal “spare,” overshadowed by the “heir” — older brother Prince William. He recounts arguments and a physical altercation with William, reveals how he lost his virginity (in a field) and describes using cocaine and cannabis. He also says he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan — a claim criticized by both the Taliban and British military veterans. Harry told ITV that he cried only once after his mother’s death — at her burial. He said he feels guilt about not showing emotion when he and William greeted crowds of mourners outside Kensington Palace, Diana’s London home. In the book Harry blames his family’s stiff-upper-lip ethos, saying he had “learned too well … the family maxim that crying is not an option.” The Associated Press purchased a Spanish-language copy of the book in advance of its publication around the world on Tuesday. “There were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking people’s hands, smiling,” Harry told ITV journalist Tom Bradby. “I’ve seen the videos, right, I looked back over it all. And the wet hands that we were shaking, we couldn’t understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears that they were wiping away. “Everyone thought and felt like they knew our mum, and the two closest people to her, the two most loved people by her, were unable to show any emotion in that moment.” Harry told “60 Minutes” that it took him over a decade to accept that his mother was dead. He and his brother often discussed the notion that she had gone into hiding and would reappear later. “I had huge amounts of hope,” he said. It was only after reading the police report of his mother’s death, seeing photos from the scene and later — at the age of 23 — following the same route into the Paris tunnel where his mother died when her driver crashed while evading paparazzi that her death became a reality, he said. “Spare” is the latest in a string of public pronouncements by Harry and Meghan since they quit royal life and moved to California in 2020, citing what they saw as the media’s racist treatment of Meghan and a lack of support from the palace. It follows the Winfrey interview and a six-part Netflix documentary released last month. In the ghostwritten memoir, Harry, 38, describes the couple’s acrimonious split from the royal family in early 2020, after their request for a part-time royal role was rejected. Harry contrasts the withdrawal of the couple’s taxpayer-funded security with the case of his uncle, Prince Andrew, who was removed as a working royal over his friendship with the U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Last year, Andrew settled a lawsuit from a woman who accused him of sexually abusing her while she traveled with financier Epstein when she was 17. Andrew paid an undisclosed sum as part of the settlement, but didn’t admit wrongdoing. Harry alleges that no one considered removing Andrew’s security despite the “shameful scandal.” The TV interviews are just two of several given by Harry that are set to heap more pressure on the royal family. He is also appearing on “Good Morning America” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Royal officials haven’t commented on any of the allegations, though allies have pushed back on the claims, largely anonymously. Veteran British journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, a biographer and friend of King Charles III, said Saturday that Harry’s revelations were the type “that you’d expect … from a sort of B-list celebrity,” and that the king would be pained and frustrated by them. In the “60 Minutes” interview, Harry denied that his description of his brother’s “alarming baldness” and fading resemblance to their mother as he aged was harsh and said his book was not intended to hurt his family. While he said that he hadn’t spoken with his father or brother in a while, he hopes to find peace with them. Harry told ITV that he wants reconciliation with the royal family, but “the ball is in their court.” “They’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile,” he said.

Ukraine's president praised the United States for including tank-killing armored vehicles in its latest multibillion-dollar package of military aid, saying they are “exactly what is needed” for Ukrainian troops locked in combat against Russian forces, even as both sides celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Saturday. The White House announcement Friday of $3.75 billion in weapons and other aid for Ukraine and its European backers came as Moscow said its troops are observing a short Orthodox Christmas cease-fire. Ukrainian officials denounced the unilateral 36-hour pause as a ploy and said it appeared to have been ignored by some of Moscow's forces pressing ahead with the nearly 11-month invasion. Ukrainian officials reported Russian shelling attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions on Saturday. Russia's Defense Ministry insisted Saturday that its forces along the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line were observing the Kremlin-ordered truce, but returned fire when attacked. The latest package of U.S. military assistance was the biggest to date for Ukraine. For the first time, it included 50 Bradley armored vehicles and 500 of the anti-tank missiles they can fire. Germany also announced it would supply around 40 Marder armored personnel carriers and France promised wheeled AMX-10 RC tank destroyers. Read more: Kremlin-ordered truce is uncertain amid mutual mistrust Together, this week's pledges were powerful signals that Ukraine can count on continued long-term Western aid against Russian President Vladimir Putin's drive to dismember the country. In his nightly televised address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the U.S. aid package as “very powerful.” “For the first time, we will get Bradley armored vehicles — this is exactly what is needed. New guns and rounds, including high-precision ones, new rockets, new drones. It is timely and strong,” he said. He thanked U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. lawmakers and “all the Americans who appreciate freedom, and who know that freedom is worth protecting.” Celebrated by both Ukrainians and Russians, the Orthodox Christmas holiday also underscored the enmity that Russia's invasion is precipitating between them. In a revered cathedral in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, the Christmas service Saturday was delivered in the Ukrainian language — instead of Russian — for the first time in decades, highlighting how Ukraine is seeking to jettison Moscow's remaining influences over religious, cultural and economic life in the country. Ukraine’s government on Thursday took over administration of the Kyiv-Pechersk monastery's Dormition Cathedral from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which had been loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church, and allowed the Ukrainian church to use it for the Christmas service. The monastery complex is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cathedral was built about 1,000 years ago, then reconstructed in the 1990s after being ruined in World War II. “It’s an amazing moment," said Alex Fesiak, among hundreds of worshippers who attended. “Previously this place — on Ukrainian territory, within Kyiv — has been linked to Moscow. Now we feel this is ours, this is Ukrainian. This is part of the Ukrainian nation.” Read more: US to send $3.75B in military aid to Ukraine, its neighbors The Putin-ordered Christmas cease-fire that started Friday was first proposed by the Russian Orthodox Church's Kremlin-aligned head, Patriarch Kirill. The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar and celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7. Putin's order said a cease-fire would allow worshippers in combat zones to attend Christmas services. But Ukrainian officials didn't commit to following it and dismissed the move as a Russian ploy to buy time for its struggling invasion forces to regroup. Ukrainian and Western officials portrayed the announcement as a Russian attempt to grab the moral high ground and possibly snatch battlefield initiative and momentum from Ukrainian forces amid their counteroffensive of recent months. The pause was due to end Saturday night — at midnight Moscow time, which is 11 p.m. in Kyiv. The Ministry of Defense in Britain, a leading supplier of military aid to Ukraine, said Saturday in its daily readout on the invasion that “fighting has continued at a routine level into the Orthodox Christmas period.” In the fiercely contested Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai reported continued Russian shelling and assaults. Posting Friday on Telegram, Haidai said that in the first three hours of the cease-fire, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions 14 times and stormed one settlement three times. The claim couldn't be independently verified. Ukrainian authorities on Saturday also reported attacks elsewhere in the previous 24 hours although it wasn't clear whether the fighting was before or after the cease-fire's start. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces carried out a missile strike and 20 salvos with rockets, and targeted settlements in the east, northeast and south. The head of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday reported two civilian deaths the previous day from Russian strikes in the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut and to its north, in Krasna Hora. In the southern Kherson region, Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said Saturday that Russian forces shelled 39 times on Friday, hitting houses and apartment buildings, as well as a fire station. One person was killed and seven others were wounded.

In a book full of startling revelations, Prince Harry’s assertion that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan is one of the most striking — and has drawn criticism from both enemies and allies. In his memoir, “Spare,” Harry says he killed more than two dozen Taliban militants while serving as an Apache helicopter copilot gunner in Afghanistan in 2012-2013. He writes that he feels neither satisfaction nor shame about his actions, and in the heat of battle regarded enemy combatants as pieces being removed from a chessboard, “Baddies eliminated before they could kill Goodies.” Harry has talked before about his combat experience, saying near the end of his tour in 2013 that “if there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game.” But his decision to put a number on those he killed, and the comparison to chess pieces, drew outrage from the Taliban, and concern from British veterans. “Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return,” prominent Taliban member Anas Haqqani wrote Friday on Twitter. The Taliban, who adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam, returned to power when Western troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi said Harry’s comments “are a microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces who murdered innocents without any accountability.” In Britain, some veterans and military leaders said publishing a head count violated an unspoken military code. Col. Tim Collins, who led a British battalion during the Iraq war, told Forces News that the statement was “not how you behave in the Army; it’s not how we think.” Retired Royal Navy officer Rear Adm. Chris Parry called the claim “distasteful.” Some questioned whether Harry could be sure of the toll, but Harry said he reviewed video of his missions, and “in the era of Apaches and laptops,” technology let him know exactly how many enemy combatants he had killed. Read more: Prince Harry's memoir ‘Spare’ to narrate journey from ‘trauma to healing’ Others said Harry’s words could increase the security risk for him and for British forces around the world. “I don’t think it is wise that he said that out loud,” Royal Marines veteran Ben McBean, who knows Harry from their military days, told Sky News. “He’s already got a target on his back, more so than anyone else.” Retired Army Col. Richard Kemp told the BBC the claim was “an error of judgment” that would be “potentially valuable to those people who wish the British forces and British government harm.” Harry lost his publicly funded U.K. police protection when he and his wife Meghan quit royal duties in 2020. Harry is suing the British government over its refusal to let him pay personally for police security when he comes to Britain. Tens of thousands of British troops served in Afghanistan, and more than 450 died, between the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 and the end of U.K. combat operations in 2014. Harry spent a decade in the British Army, serving twice in Afghanistan. He spent 10 weeks as a forward air controller in 2007-2008 until a media leak cut short his tour. He retrained as a helicopter pilot with the British Army Air Corps so he could have the chance to return to the front line. He was part of a two-man crew whose duties ranged from supporting ground troops in firefights to accompanying helicopters as they evacuated wounded soldiers. Harry has described his time in the army as the happiest of his life because it let him be “one of the guys” rather than a prince. After leaving the military in 2015 he founded the Invictus Games, an international sports competition for sick and injured veterans. Read more: Prince Harry says William called Meghan “difficult, rude and abrasive” before physical attack Harry's memoir is due to be published around the world on Tuesday. The Associated Press obtained an early Spanish-language copy.

An uneasy quiet settled over Kyiv on Friday despite air-raid sirens that blared there and across Ukraine shortly after a Russian cease-fire declaration for Orthodox Christmas went into effect. Ukrainian and Western officials have scorned the truce as a ploy. No explosions were heard in the capital. And reports of sporadic fighting elsewhere in Ukraine could not immediately by confirmed. Clashes there could take hours to become public. Kyiv residents ventured out into a light dusting of snow to buy gifts, cakes and groceries for Christmas Eve family celebrations, hours after the cease-fire was to have started. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered his forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire. Kyiv officials dismissed the move but didn’t clarify whether Ukrainian troops would follow suit. The Russian-declared truce in the nearly 11-month war began at noon Friday and was to continue through midnight Saturday Moscow time (0900 GMT Friday to 2100 GMT Saturday; 4 a.m. EST Friday to 4 p.m. EST Saturday). Air-raid sirens sounded in Kyiv about 40 minutes after the Russian cease-fire was to come into effect. The widely used “Alerts in Ukraine” app, which includes information from emergency services, showed sirens blaring across the country. Russia's Defense Ministry alleged that Ukrainian forces continued to shell its positions, and said its forces returned fire to suppress the attacks. But it wasn’t clear from the statement whether the attacks and return of fire took place before or after the cease-fire took effect. The ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, reported multiple Ukrainian attacks in the eastern Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. It was not possible to verify the claims. United Nations staffers on the ground in Ukraine “have not seen reports of intense of major fighting,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. But he cautioned that “they’re not everywhere.” Putin’s announcement Thursday that the Kremlin’s troops would stop fighting along the more than 1,000-kilometer (680-mile) front line and elsewhere was unexpected. It came after the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, proposed a cease-fire for the Christmas holiday. The Orthodox Church, which uses the Julian calendar, celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7. But Ukrainian and Western officials portrayed the announcement as an attempt by Putin to grab the moral high ground, while possibly seeking to snatch the battlefield initiative and rob the Ukrainians of momentum amid their counteroffensive of recent months. “Now they want to use Christmas as a cover to stop the advance of our guys in the (eastern) Donbas (region) for a while and bring equipment, ammunition and mobilized people closer to our positions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Thursday. He didn't, however, state outright that Kyiv would ignore Putin’s request. In a Christmas Eve message to the nation, Zelenskyy called it "a holiday of harmony and family unity. And together we are all a big Ukrainian family. “No matter where we are now — at home, at work, in a trench, on the road, in Ukraine or abroad — our family is united as never before. ... United in its belief in a single victory.” Read more: Putin orders weekend truce in Ukraine; Kyiv won’t take part U.S. President Joe Biden has also expressed wariness about the Russian cease-fire, saying it was “interesting” that Putin was ready to bomb hospitals, nurseries and churches in recent weeks on Christmas and New Year’s. “I think (Putin) is trying to find some oxygen,” Biden said. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington had “little faith in the intentions behind this announcement,” adding that Kremlin officials ”have given us no reason to take anything that they offer at face value.” The Institute for the Study of War agreed the truce could be a ruse allowing Russia to regroup. “Such a pause would disproportionately benefit Russian troops and begin to deprive Ukraine of the initiative,” the think tank said late Thursday. "Putin cannot reasonably expect Ukraine to meet the terms of this suddenly declared cease-fire, and may have called for the cease-fire to frame Ukraine as unaccommodating and unwilling to take the necessary steps toward negotiations.” And Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said that whether or not the cease-fire holds, “I don’t take it at face value.” “When Russia announces cease-fires, in the way Russia conducts war, there are usually ulterior motives,” she said. “Historically, what the Russian government and Russian military usually do when they announce a cease-fire is to use it as a tactical opportunity, to just take a breather or gain a little bit of space.” Meanwhile, the U.S. reiterated its support for Kyiv on Friday with a new $3.75 billion military assistance package for Ukraine and its neighbors on NATO’s eastern flank. The latest tranche of assistance will for the first time include Bradley armored vehicles for Ukraine. The armored carrier is used to transport troops to combat and is known as a “tank-killer” because of its anti-tank missile. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Bradleys will be particularly useful to Ukraine in ongoing fighting in largely rural areas of eastern Ukraine. Germany, too, plans to send armored personnel carriers by the end of March. On the streets of Kyiv, some civilians said Friday that they spoke from bitter experience in doubting Russia’s motives. “Everybody is preparing (for an attack), because everybody remembers what happened on the new year when there were around 40 Shahed" Iranian drones, said capital resident Vasyl Kuzmenko. “But everything is possible.” Read more: Sitting ducks? Russian military flaws seen in troop deaths At the Vatican, Pope Francis said he was sending wishes from his heart “to the Eastern churches, both the Catholic and the Orthodox ones, that tomorrow will celebrate the birth of the Lord.” Speaking to thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Epiphany feast day, Francis said, “In a special way, I would like my wish to reach the brothers and sisters of martyred Ukraine," and prayed for peace there.

The U.S. will send $3.75 billion in military weapons and other aid to Ukraine and its neighbors on NATO’s eastern flank, the White House announced Friday, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on. The latest tranche of assistance will include for the first time Bradley armored vehicles for Ukraine. The armored carrier is used to transport troops to combat and is known as a “tank-killer” because of the anti-tank missile it can fire. The biggest U.S. assistance package to date for Kyiv includes a $2.85 billion drawdown from the Pentagon’s stocks that will be sent directly to Ukraine and $225 million in foreign military financing to build the long-term capacity and support modernization of Ukraine’s military, according to the White House. It also includes $682 million in foreign military financing for European allies to help backfill donations of military equipment they’ve made to Ukraine. “The war is at a critical point and we must do everything we can to help the Ukrainians resist Russian aggression,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in announcing the aid. Read more: Putin orders weekend truce in Ukraine; Kyiv won’t take part The direct assistance for Ukraine includes 50 Bradleys as well as 500 anti-tank missiles and 250,000 rounds of ammunition for the carriers. The U.S. is also sending 100 M113 armored personnel carriers, 55 mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPS, and 138 Humvees, as well as ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and air defense systems and other weapons and thousands of rounds of artillery, according to the Pentagon. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the Bradleys will be particularly useful to Ukraine in ongoing heavy fighting in largely rural areas of eastern Ukraine. “It’s very much tied to the war that we’re seeing on the ground right now and what we anticipate we’ll see throughout the winter months,” Kirby said. Critics have complained that the U.S. has been too slow to provide key weapons such as the Bradleys and battle tanks like the Abrams, saying they could have helped in the fight last year. At the Pentagon, Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary for Russia and Ukraine, said this is the right time to provide the Bradley. “The Ukrainians have demonstrated a lot of growing proficiency in maintenance and sustainment,” she said. Read more: Russia says phone use allowed Ukraine to target its troops She added that the U.S.-led training set to begin later this month will enable troops to operate, maintain and repair the weapons and that providing tanks, such as the Pentagon’s more complex, gas guzzling, heavily armored M1 Abrams tank, would require more maintenance and other training. The new U.S. package was detailed by the White House and Pentagon as Germany announced it would supply around 40 Marder armored personnel carriers to Ukraine in this year’s first quarter. Germany announced its intention to send the Marder APCs following a phone call between Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Joe Biden on Thursday. “These 40 vehicles should be ready in the first quarter already so that they can be handed over to Ukraine,” Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, told reporters in Berlin. Germany plans to train Ukrainian forces to use the vehicles, and Hebestreit said experts expect that process to take around eight weeks. Germany has already given significant military aid, including howitzers, Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and an IRIS-T surface-to-air missile system, with three more of those set to follow this year. Scholz has long been wary of pressure to supply the Marder and other, heavier Western-made vehicles such as tanks, insisting that Germany wouldn’t go it alone with such deliveries. Officials noted that other countries hadn’t supplied any. But this week, France, the U.S. and Germany all announced plans to send comparable armored vehicles that fall short of tanks. Germany last year championed deals in which eastern NATO allies sent familiar Soviet-era equipment to Ukraine, with Germany in turn supplying those countries with more modern Western-made equipment. Hebestreit said there had been talks with the U.S. and others since mid-December on how to support Ukraine going forward. He said the possibility of supplying Soviet-produced equipment is “slowly coming to an end,” while the situation in Ukraine is changing with massive Russian strikes on infrastructure and fighting that could increase when the weather warms up. Ukraine and a number of German lawmakers inside and outside Scholz’s governing coalition also have called for Germany to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks. Advocates of delivering the Leopard were cheered by the move on Marder APCs and vowed to keep pressing the point. But Hebestreit said that battle tanks weren’t an issue in Thursday’s call between Scholz and Biden. He said Germany will stick to its principles of supporting Ukraine as strongly as possible, while not going it alone on weapons supplies and ensuring that NATO doesn’t become a party to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Germany also said Thursday that it will follow the U.S. in supplying a Patriot air defense missile battery to Ukraine. That was at the request of the U.S. and also is expected in the first quarter, Hebestreit said. It comes on top of Patriot systems that Germany has sent or plans to send to Slovakia and Poland.

Europe ended a bad year for inflation with some relief as price gains eased again. While the cost of living is still painfully high, the slowdown is a sign that the worst might be over for weary consumers. The consumer price index for the 19 countries that used the euro currency rose 9.2% in December from a year earlier, the slowest pace since August, the European Union statistics agency Eurostat said Friday. Croatia joined the eurozone on Jan. 1. It was the second straight decline in inflation since June 2021. In November, the rate dipped to 10.1% after peaking at a record 10.6% in the previous month. Households and businesses across Europe have been plagued by surging energy costs since Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February, which played havoc with oil and natural gas markets and have been the main driver of inflation. The latest numbers indicate that the energy crisis may be easing for now. Energy price rises slowed to 25.7%, down from 34.9% in November and 41.5% in October. Natural gas prices have slipped from all-time highs this summer as Europe has largely filled its storage for winter with supplies from other countries while warmer-than-usual weather has reduced fears of a shortage during the heating season. Food price gains, the other big factor that's been driving up European inflation, held fairly steady. Prices for food, alcohol and tobacco rose at a 13.8% annual pace in December, a smidgen higher than the month before. Read more: Europe’s inflation likely hasn’t peaked, says central bank chief Lagarde Inflation also has been worsened by bottlenecks in supplies of raw materials and parts amid rebounding global consumer demand after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions ended. “It is likely that the peak in inflation is behind us now, but far more relevant for the economy and policymakers is whether inflation will structurally trend back to 2% from here on,” said Bert Colijn, senior eurozone economist at ING Bank. So-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, climbed to 5.2% last month from November's 5%, as prices rose for both services and goods such as clothing, appliances, cars and computers. Colijn and other economists said that means European Central Bank officials will likely roll out more interest rate hikes to get inflation back to their 2% target. Soaring costs for energy and food have threatened a recession and fed labor unrest as wages fail to keep pace with the price rises. Across Europe, subway staff, hospital workers, train drivers, postal workers and air traffic controllers have gone on strike, threatening political turmoil. In a sign that energy costs remain a worry for political leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday urged energy suppliers to renegotiate what he called “abusive contracts” with small businesses to ensure “reasonable" price hikes. Macron spoke to bakers gathered at the presidential palace for a traditional Epiphany kings cake ceremony, underscoring how energy and food prices are intertwined. “Like you, I’ve had enough of people making excessive profits on the crisis," he said. The French government has capped natural gas and electricity price hikes to 15% this year for consumers and some very small companies that don't use much energy. But more energy-intensive businesses, like bakeries, aren't covered, leaving some of them facing closure because they can't pay their bills. While governments have offered relief on high energy bills, central banks are battling inflation by hiking interest rates. Last month, the European Central Bank raised its benchmark rate by half a point, slowing its record pace of interest rate increases slightly but promising that more hikes are on the way. It matched actions taken by counterparts in the U.S., United Kingdom and elsewhere. Read more: Record inflation puts the squeeze on Eurozone economies “The eurozone economy is at best stagnating, and persistently strong core inflation means the ECB will feel duty bound to press on with its tightening cycle for a while yet,” said Andrew Kenningham, chief Europe economist for Capital Economics.

The Russian military’s top brass came under increasing scrutiny Wednesday as more details emerged of how at least 89 Russian soldiers, and possibly many more, were killed in a Ukrainian artillery attack on a single building. The scene last weekend in the Russian-held eastern Ukrainian town of Makiivka, where the soldiers were temporarily stationed, appears to have been a recipe for disaster. Hundreds of Russian troops were reportedly clustered in a building close to the front line, well within range of Ukraine’s Western-supplied precision artillery, possibly sitting close to an ammunition store and perhaps unwittingly helping Kyiv’s forces to zero in on them. It was one of the deadliest single attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and the highest death toll in a single incident acknowledged so far by either side in the conflict. Ukraine’s armed forces claimed the Makiivka strike killed around 400 Russian soldiers housed in a vocational school building. About 300 more of them were wounded, officials alleged. It wasn't possible to verify either side's claims due to the fighting. The Russian military sought to blame the soldiers for their own deaths. Gen. Lt. Sergei Sevryukov said in a statement late Tuesday that their phone signals allowed Kyiv’s forces to “determine the coordinates of the location of military personnel” and launch a strike. Emily Ferris, a research fellow on Russia and Eurasia at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told The Associated Press it is “very hard to verify” whether cellphone signaling and geolocation were to blame for the accurate strike. She noted that Russian soldiers on active duty are forbidden from using their phones — exactly because there have been so many instances in recent years of their being used for targeting, including by both sides in the Ukraine war. The conflict has made ample use of modern technology. Read more: Putin orders weekend truce in Ukraine; Kyiv won’t take part She also noted that blaming the soldiers themselves was a “helpful narrative” for Moscow as it helps deflect criticism and steer attention toward the official cellphone ban. Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to move the conversation along, too, as he took part via video link in a sending-off ceremony Wednesday for a frigate equipped with the Russian navy’s new hypersonic missiles. Putin said the Zircon missiles that the Admiral Gorshkov frigate was carrying were a “unique weapon,” capable of flying at nine times the speed of sound and with a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). Russia says the missiles can't be intercepted. Meanwhile, away from the battlefields, France said Wednesday it will send French-made AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine — the first tanks from a Western European country — following an afternoon phone call between French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. The French presidency didn't say how many tanks would be delivered and when. The NATO member has given Ukraine anti-tank and air defense missiles and rocket launchers. Later Wednesday, President Joe Biden confirmed that the U.S. is considering sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine. The Bradley is a medium armored combat vehicle that can carry about 10 personnel, or be configured to carry additional ammunition or communications equipment. The Pentagon has already provided Ukraine with more than 2,000 combat vehicles, including 477 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles and more than 1,200 Humvees. The weekend Makiivka strike seemed to be the latest blow to the Kremlin’s military prestige as it struggles to advance the invasion of its neighbor. But Ferris, the analyst, said “there should be a bit of caution around leaning too heavily on this (attack) as a sign of (the) Russian army’s weakness.” As details of the strike have trickled out in recent days, some observers detected military sloppiness at the root of so many deaths. U.K. intelligence officials said Wednesday that Moscow’s “unprofessional” military practices were likely partly to blame for the high casualties. “Given the extent of the damage, there is a realistic possibility that ammunition was being stored near to troop accommodation, which detonated during the strike, creating secondary explosions,” the U.K. Defense Ministry said on Twitter. Read more: Ukraine to get French combat vehicles in 'first' such move In the same post, the ministry said the building struck by Ukrainian missiles was little more than 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the front line, within “one of the most contested areas of the conflict,” in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region. “The Russian military has a record of unsafe ammunition storage from well before the current war, but this incident highlights how unprofessional practices contribute to Russia’s high casualty rate,” the update added. The Russian Defense Ministry, in a rare admission of losses, initially said the strike killed 63 troops. But as emergency crews searched the ruins, the death toll mounted. The regiment’s deputy commander was among the dead. That stirred renewed criticism inside Russia of the way the broader military campaign is being handled by the Ministry of Defense. Vladlen Tatarsky, a well-known military blogger, accused Russian generals of “demonstrating their own stupidity and misunderstanding of what’s going on (among) the troops, where everyone has cellphones.” “Moreover, in places where there’s coverage, artillery fire is often adjusted by phone. There are simply no other ways,” Tatarsky wrote in a Telegram post. Others blamed the decision to station hundreds of troops in one place. “The cellphone story is not too convincing,” military blogger Semyon Pegov wrote. “The only remedy is not to house personnel en masse in large buildings. Simply not to house 500 people in one place but spread them across 10 different locations.” Unconfirmed reports in Russian-language media said the victims were mobilized reservists from the region of Samara, in southwestern Russia. The Institute for the Study of War saw in the incident further evidence that Moscow isn’t properly utilizing the reservists it began calling up last September. “Systemic failures in Russia’s force generation apparatus continue to plague personnel capabilities to the detriment of Russian operational capacity in Ukraine,” the think tank said in a report late Tuesday. Ferris, of the Royal United Services Institute, said the Makiivka strike shows the Russian army is more interested in growing its number of troops, not in training them in wartime skills. “That’s really how Russia conducts a lot of its warfare — by overwhelming the enemy with volume, with people,” she said. "The Kremlin view, unfortunately, is that soldiers’ lives are expendable.” In a grinding battle of attrition, Russian forces have pressed their offensive on Bakhmut in Donetsk despite heavy losses. The Wagner Group, a private military contractor owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with close ties to Putin, has spearheaded the Bakhmut offensive. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that convicts Wagner pulled from prisons accounted for 90% of Russian casualties in fighting for Bakhmut, according to a senior administration official who requested anonymity to discuss the finding. The White House said last month that intelligence findings showed Wagner had some 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine, including 40,000 recruited convicts. The U.S. assesses that Wagner is spending about $100 million a month in the fight.