World

KYIV — Ukraine said on Monday its forces had recaptured small clutches of land from Russian forces along the southern front and near Bakhmut, regions where Kyiv's troops have focused their slow-moving counter-offensive.

Kyiv launched its bid to wrest back territory controlled by Moscow in June, after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons and recruiting assault battalions.

Its efforts have focused on the war-battered town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as several points along the frontline in the south, towards Crimea.

"Two square kilometres were liberated in the Bakhmut sector," outgoing Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said on state media.

Her announcement came one day after Kyiv said its forces had retaken Klishchiivka, a village south of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May after one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the war.

Malyar also said Ukrainian forces had clawed back 5.2 square kilometres in the south, where its forces are working to push deeper at two points along the front.

But Ukraine's progress against entrenched Russian positions has been limited since June, spurring debate among Kyiv's Western allies over its military strategy.

Russian forces have pursued their aerial bombardment campaign, targeting Ukraine's southern regions and maritime export hubs in particular.

Ukraine said its air defence systems had downed a swarm of attack drones and nearly 20 cruise mislies in Russia's latest aerial barrage overnight.

'Sabotage-terrorist acts' 

"A total of 24 strike UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were recorded around the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions. Eighteen attack drones were shot down by air defence units," the air force said on social media.

It added that Kyiv had shown down all 17 cruise missiles fired by Russia.

Russia meanwhile said on Monday it had hit Ukrainian "storage sites" for British Storm Shadow cruise missiles and ammunition with depleted uranium, a controversial weapon supplied by the United States to Kyiv.

In Russian-occupied Donetsk, authorities reported a Ukrainian strike that damaged the building of the local Moscow-installed administration. The latter said the strike had not caused casualties.

Kyiv is stepping up aerial attacks on Russia.

Moscow said it had repelled Ukrainian drones over outer Moscow and two border regions, as well as over several parts of occupied Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russian cities and Crimea have been targeted throughout the war but Russian officials have downplayed their significance.

In southern Russia, security services said they had arrested two Russian nationals who were preparing “sabotage-terrorist acts” on the orders of the anti-Kremlin nationalist group “Freedom of Russia Legion”.

The Ukraine-based group organised a dramatic cross-border incursion into the Russian region of Belgorod in May, with Moscow even deploying helicopters to quell the push into its territory.

The FSB said it detained the two Russian citizens in the southern Rostov region near the border with Ukraine “while they were preparing to set fire to an administrative building”.

Rostov was also the scene of an armed rebellion by Wagner mercenary fighters this summer.

Kyiv announced its territorial gains as Beijing said China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, would begin a four-day visit to Russia on Monday for security talks.

China and Russia are strategic allies. Both countries frequently tout their “no limits” partnership and economic and military cooperation.

China’s foreign ministry said Wang would hold security consultations at the invitation of Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council.

The visit was due a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un left Russia following a rare six-day trip, which appeared to solidify his country’s ties with President Vladimir Putin and fanned Western fears that Pyongyang could provide Moscow with weapons.

A top United Nations expert meanwhile warned that respect for human rights inside Russia had substantially worsened since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

“The situation of human rights in the Russian Federation has significantly deteriorated since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,” UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova said in her first report on Russia.

Russia has criminalised criticism of the military, and law enforcement officials have detained thousands for protesting or speaking out against the invasion.

ROME — Italy was set Monday to unveil tough rules to deter migrants after record boat crossings from North Africa to Lampedusa saw the country's southernmost tip overwhelmed with new arrivals.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the Cabinet would sign off on new measures on Monday, including increasing the time migrants due to be expelled from Italy can be detained from a maximum of 135 days to 18 months.

"It means that, and I sent a very clear message to the whole of Africa, if you rely on traffickers to break Italian laws, when you arrive in Italy you must know that you will be detained and then repatriated," she said in a television interview.

After landing, migrants whom Italy determines should be expelled are sent to so-called "permanent repatriation centres" (CPRs).

The vast majority of migrants who arrive in Italy, however, are sent to reception centres throughout the country where they stay while they await a decision on their asylum request.

Those earmarked for repatriation spent an average of 40 days in Italy's nine CPRs last year, from Bari in southern Italy to Rome and Milan, according to data from the country's prison watchdog.

The time limit for detentions used to be 18 months between 2011 and 2014, before being reduced under a centre-left government led by Matteo Renzi.

The existing CPRs can hold 1,161 people at a time.

Nearly 6,400 people passed through them in 2022, most of whom came from Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria and Albania.

Just over 3,150 were repatriated, the authority said.

Meloni, who won the election last year on a vow to stop immigration, said on Sunday the defence ministry would also be charged with setting up more repatriation centres "as soon as possible".

The government allocated 42.5 million euros ($45.3 million) at the end of 2022 for new repatriation centres, and the defence ministry is expected to look for existing sites that can be reconverted into centres in low-population areas.

Over 127,000 people have landed in Italy so far this year against some 66,200 people in 2022, according to the interior ministry.

Last week over 8,500 people, more than Lampedusa’s population, arrived in hundreds of boats, overwhelming the migration centre, built to house 400 people.

Meloni has called on Italy’s EU partners to share more of the responsibility and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, visiting Lampedusa Sunday, offered a 10-point plan to help Rome deal with the crisis.

The plan is designed to combine a firm stance against smugglers by making it easier for people eligible for asylum to legally enter the European area.

LAMPEDUSA, Italy — The European Union presented on Sunday an emergency plan for Italy to help it handle migrant arrivals after a record number of people landed on its island of Lampedusa over the past week.

The surge in asylum seekers on the Italian island of Lampedusa has rekindled a fierce debate in Europe on how to share responsibility for the tens of thousands reaching the Continent each year.

"Irregular migration is a European challenge and it needs a European answer," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a visit to Lampedusa, offering a 10-point plan to help Rome deal with the crisis.

Since Monday, around 8,500 people — more than the island's entire local population, have arrived in around 200 boats, according to the UN migration agency.

Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost island, has long been a landing point for migrant boats from North Africa. But this week officials said its migration centre, built to house fewer than 400 people, was overwhelmed.

"We are doing everything possible," Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said at a press conference with von der Leyen on Lampedusa.

It is "the future that Europe wants for itself that is at stake here, because the future of Europe depends on Europe's capacity to face major challenges", Meloni said.

The Italian Red Cross, which runs the overcrowded Lampedusa migration centre, said Sunday that 1,500 migrants remained there despite having a capacity for just 400.

Transfers of migrants to Sicily and the mainland have not kept up with the flow of new arrivals, although further transfers were expected to be made Sunday, the Red Cross said.

Burden sharing? 

Von der Leyen said her aid plan for Italy included increased support for the European Agency for Asylum (EUAA) and the EU's Frontex border control agency to register new arrivals.

The increased measures include ensuring that fingerprints are taken and conducting interviews to make sure people are directed toward the proper authorities.

The EU will also step up aid for transporting asylum seekers from Italy to other EU members, under a voluntary scheme for sharing responsibility for migrants, in particular women and unaccompanied minors.

But the EU programme for sharing the burden of new arrivals has met resistance in several bloc members, with right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary the most strongly opposed to the plan.

This week, EU heavyweight Germany said it had stopped accepting migrants living in Italy under the European solidarity scheme, saying Rome was failing to honour its obligations under EU rules.

Under the bloc’s so-called Dublin procedure, irregular migrants must be registered in the EU country they first enter. If they later travel to another nation in the bloc, they can be returned to their first EU port of call.

“That is why we have sent a signal to Italy,” a German government spokesman said Friday.

But Mediterranean countries like Italy have argued that the rules place an excessive burden on border nations, particularly since new arrivals often want to move on and live in other EU countries.

127,000 this year 

More than 127,000 migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores so far this year, almost double the number in the period last year.

Ships operated by NGOs including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have rescued nearly 500 migrants in 11 operations in the Mediterranean in recent days and are headed for major Italian ports.

But dozens of small boats also continue to make the perilous sea-crossing to Lampedusa, just 145 kilometres off the coast of Tunisia.

In July, von der Leyen, with Meloni’s strong backing, struck an agreement with Tunisia aimed at curbing the flow of irregular migration from the North African country.

Over 2,000 people have died this year crossing from North Africa to Italy and Malta, according to the UN migration agency.

SYDNEY — Australians rallied around the country on Sunday to fight for a landmark Indigenous rights reform that is bleeding support in the polls before an October 14 referendum.

Tens of thousands joined “Walk for Yes” events in major cities ahead of the vote that could grant Indigenous Australians a constitutionally enshrined right to be consulted on policies that affect them — a so-called Voice.

More than 200 years since British colonisation, Indigenous people — whose ancestors have lived on the continent for about 60,000 years — have shorter lives than other Australians, poorer education and are far more likely to die in police custody.

“I think we need a voice in parliament and I think it’s about time,” said Laurel Johnson, a 58-year-old retired Indigenous community services worker who joined hundreds of people at the Sydney rally, many seeking shade during a spring heatwave.

Asked if the Voice would improve the lot of Indigenous people, she said: “I jolly well hope so.”

Her sister Priscilla Johnson, 53, said some Indigenous people still lived in “Third World” conditions.

“Australia is considered a First World country. The poor social determinants of health have been continuous since the 1788 invasion,” she said, referring to the landing of the First Fleet that established a British penal colony in Australia.

In Melbourne, more than 10,000 supporters marched through the streets, some with banners reading: “You’re the voice, vote yes”.

Thousands more gathered in Canberra, Perth, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart and Alice Springs.

But the “Vote Yes” campaign, launched just weeks ago by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, faces an uphill battle.

Recent surveys show about 60 per cent against the reform versus 40 per cent in support — a near reversal of the situation a year ago.

‘Massive policy change’ 

To pass, the referendum needs majority support across Australia but also a majority in at least four of the six states.

Voting is compulsory, with non-voters who don’t have a valid reason liable to a fine of 20 Australian dollars (US$13).

Voters will be asked: “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”.

Opponents of the reform — including the conservative opposition — say it would confer special privileges on Indigenous peoples while adding an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

They also complain there is insufficient detail about how the Indigenous Voice would work. The exact process would be debated and legislated by parliament if the “yes” case prevails.

Aiming to change the national mood, the “yes” campaign launched a television advertising blitz at the weekend featuring an Indigenous boy who asks: “Will I grow up in a country that hears my voice? Will I live as long as other Australians? Will I get to go to a good school?”

Cameron Lum, a 34-year-old supporter of the Voice proposal, said he joined the Sydney rally to support “long overdue change in this country”.

“I think it opens doors to massive policy change led by First Nations people,” he said.

ATHENS — Faced with criticism for his alleged poor handling of the fires and floods that struck Greece this summer, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis pledged fresh funding and reforms in order to fight the “climate war”.

The promises could reinvigorate the image of his newly elected government that has been tarnished by footage of residents taking refuge on their roofs in desperate need of rescue as rising waters engulfed poorly prepared regions.

“Greece is facing a war in a time of peace,” Mitsotakis said in his Thessaloniki International Fair keynote speech on Saturday.

“Over a two-week period, we experienced the worst wildfire and the worst floods in our history,” he added.

“The climate crisis requires the mobilisation of the whole of society,” he added on Sunday on the sidelines of the fair.

Floods devastated the fertile Thessaly plain in central Greece in early September.

The preceding storm killed 17 people, swallowed cotton crops and fruit trees and killed hundreds of thousands of animals on Greece’s breadbasket.

The country was already grappling with “the biggest fire ever recorded in the EU”, according to a European Commission spokesman, in the northeast region of Evros bordering Turkey.

Twenty-eight people were killed in the blaze, among them two firefighting pilots and 20 migrants in the Evros region.

It followed violent flames that ravaged the tourist islands of Rhodes and Corfu in July, with thousands of evacuations ordered.

‘Restart’

Mitsotakis also pledged a 10 per cent rebate on property tax for anyone who insures their home against natural disasters, adding he is considering making such insurance compulsory.

The Sunday daily Protothema saw these announcements as “a restart” for the government.

The conservative leader admitted a certain “confusion of responsibilities” between the state services responsible for responding to torrential rains, as well as “the frequent tendency” to shift blame to others.

“In Thessaly and Evros, I have heard the anger of the people,” said the prime minister, whose New Democracy (ND) Party won an absolute majority in the June parliamentary elections.

His government has since been blasted by the opposition and residents affected by the floods for the slowness of emergency services and the lack of preparedness.

Fingers were pointed at failures in cooperation between the army and civil protection in the hours following the disaster.

But the leader dismissed his critics’ arguments.

Anyone who thinks that another country would have handled the storm and its extensive flooding better is “completely wrong”, he said on Sunday.

No reshuffle 

In just three months in office, the Mitsotakis has seen two of his ministers resign, including one in charge of citizen protection, because he was on holiday on an island in the Aegean Sea while fires raged.

The Greek press has speculated a cabinet reshuffle will follow local elections on October 8.

However, Mitsotakis insisted on Sunday that he had “no intention of reshuffling” the Cabinet.

The Mitsotakis government bears “enormous responsibility” for the destruction caused by the extreme weather, said Effie Achtsioglou, former labour minister and candidate for the presidency of the left-wing Syriza Party.

She condemned the fact that “no serious flood prevention work has been carried out”.

According to a poll for the private television channel Mega, 61 per cent of those questioned have a negative image of the government and 66 per cent believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction.

BAMAKO — The military leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger on Saturday signed a mutual defence pact, ministerial delegations from the three Sahel countries announced in Mali’s capital Bamako.

The Liptako-Gourma Charter establishes the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goita posted on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Its aim is to “establish an architecture of collective defence and mutual assistance for the benefit of our populations”, he wrote.

The Liptako-Gourma region — where the Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger borders meet — has been ravaged by jihadism in recent years.

“This alliance will be a combination of military and economic efforts between the three countries”, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told journalists.

“Our priority is the fight against terrorism in the three countries.”

A jihadist insurgency that erupted in northern Mali in 2012 spread to Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.

All three countries have undergone coups since 2020, most recently Niger, where soldiers in July overthrew president Mohamed Bazoum.

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened to intervene militarily in Niger over the coup.

Mali and Burkina Faso quickly responded by saying that any such operation would be deemed a “declaration of war” against them.

The charter signed on Saturday binds the signatories to assist one another — including militarily — in the event of an attack on any one of them.

“Any attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracting parties shall be considered as an aggression against the other parties and shall give rise to a duty of assistance... including the use of armed force to restore and ensure security,” it states.

It also binds the three countries to work to prevent or settle armed rebellions.

Mali has, in addition to fighting jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and the Daesh group, seen a resumption of hostilities by predominantly Tuareg armed groups over the past week.

The escalation risks testing an already stretched army as well as the junta’s claims that it has successfully turned around a dire security situation.

The successionist groups had in 2012 launched a rebellion before signing a peace agreement with the state in 2015. But that accord is now generally considered moribund.

The renewed military activity by those armed groups has coincided with a series of deadly attacks attributed mainly to the Al Qaeda-linked alliance Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM).

Mali’s junta pushed out France’s anti-jihadist force in 2022 and the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA in 2023.

French troops have also been pushed out of Burkina Faso, while Niger’s coup leaders have renounced several military cooperation agreements with France.

MOSCOW — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Vladivostok on Saturday where he met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and inspected a hypersonic aircraft missile system before boarding a warship.

Kim's first official visit abroad since the COVID-19 pandemic has fanned Western fears that Moscow and Pyongyang will defy sanctions and strike an arms deal.

Moscow is believed to be interested in buying North Korean ammunition to continue fighting in Ukraine, while Pyongyang wants Russia's help to develop its missile programme.

The Kremlin has said no agreement has or will be inked.

Kim's extended tour of Russia's far eastern region, which began Tuesday, has leaned heavily martial, including his military-dominated entourage, symbolic exchange of rifles with President Vladimir Putin and tour of a fighter jet factory in engineering hub Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

After meeting Kim on Wednesday at the Vostochny cosmodrome roughly 8,000 kilometres from Moscow, Putin talked up the prospect of greater cooperation with North Korea and said there were "possibilities" for military ties.

Upon arriving in Vladivostok, a large coastal city near the Chinese and North Korean borders, Kim was greeted by Shoigu and an honour guard, state news agency TASS reported.

At the Knevichi airfield, Shoigu showed Kim "the Kinzhal missile system on the MiG-31I missile carrier", TASS said, adding that its "flight and technical capabilities" were outlined to Kim by a top military official.

Kim and Shoigu then boarded frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov where the "Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolay Evmenov, spoke about the characteristics of the ship and anti-submarine weapons - four-tube torpedo tubes and RBU-6000 rocket launchers," TASS said.

Kim is expected to visit the Far Eastern Federal University and marine biology laboratories at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Vladivostok.

Colleges in Russia’s Far East have historically accepted North Korean students.

‘Troubling’ cooperation 

Kim is visiting Russia as Putin seeks to bolster alliances with other world leaders ostracised by Western countries.

The longtime allies are both under a raft of international sanctions, Moscow for the Ukraine conflict and Pyongyang for its nuclear tests.

Kim and Putin’s gifting each other rifles at the spaceport summit on Wednesday further fuelled speculation that an arms export deal could be on the table, despite Western warnings.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday however, that no agreements had been signed during Kim’s ongoing trip, and “there was no plan to sign any”.

While meeting Kim, Putin accepted an invitation to visit North Korea, according to the Kremlin, and he reportedly offered to send a North Korean to space, which would be a first.

Moscow also mentioned the possibility of helping North Korea to manufacture satellites, a prospect that has alarmed Washington.

The cooperation announced during Kim’s Russia is “quite troubling and would potentially be in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reports following the leaders’ summit.

North Korean satellites, he noted, have been used to develop Pyongyang’s ballistic missiles.

Pyongyang recently failed twice in its bid to put a military spy satellite into orbit.

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung-un gifted each other rifles when they met in Far Eastern Russia, the Kremlin said on Thursday, confirming the isolated Russian leader will visit North Korea as Moscow woos another pariah state.

The Russian president, who has sought to strengthen alliances with other hardline leaders ostracised by the West, met with Kim on Wednesday amid speculation they would agree on an arms deal.

Russia is eager for ammunition to continue fighting in Ukraine, while North Korea wants Moscow's help to develop its missile programme.

Putin “gave [Kim] a rifle from our production of the highest quality. In return, he also received a North Korean-made rifle,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Putin also gifted the North Korean leader a “glove from a space suit that has been to space several times”.

Kim, who seldom leaves his country, held talks with Putin at the Vostochny cosmodrome. The Kremlin said his visit to Russia’s Far East would last “a few more days”.

Moscow also confirmed that Putin “gratefully accepted Kim’s invitation” to visit Pyongyang, which North Korean state television earlier announced.

Peskov said Moscow will first “quickly prepare” to send Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Pyongyang, with his trip expected in October, before a Putin visit can be arranged.

It would be Putin’s second trip to the world’s most reclusive state, with which Russia shares a short border.

He visited Pyongyang in July 2000 to meet Kim’s father Kim Jong-il, just months after being elected to the presidency.

More than two decades later, Russia is facing unprecedented isolation from the West over Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, with Putin seeking to boost Soviet-era alliances.

‘We are watching’

In Pyongyang, North Korea’s Central News Agency praised Kim’s summit with Putin, saying the pair held “historic” talks.

Kim’s visit to Russia is his first foreign trip since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.

Both countries are under a raft of sanctions, and Kim’s visit has sparked widespread concern over illicit arms agreements.

After the summit, Putin told reporters that he saw “possibilities” for military cooperation.

The head of South Korea’s ruling party slammed what he called “a devil’s deal” while Japan warned against any violations of UN bans on arms deals with the North after the Putin-Kim summit.

“We are watching [the talks] with concerns including the possibility that it could lead to violations of the Security Council’s ban on all arms-related material transactions with North Korea,” Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa told reporters.

After waving goodbye to Kim at the Vostochny cosmodrome, Putin told Russian television that Kim would oversee a display of Russian warships in the far eastern city of Vladivostok to “demonstrate the capabilities of the Pacific Fleet”.

He also said Kim will visit a university in Vladivostok. Colleges in Russia’s Far East have historically accepted North Korean students.

Kim crossed into Russia in his bulletproof train.

‘Blood alliance’ 

Both leaders vowed on Wednesday to strengthen their relationship, heavily referencing the two countries’ 20th century ties.

“We will always be with Russia,” Kim said.

“An old friend is better than two new ones,” Putin said, quoting a Russian proverb and referencing the Soviet Union’s role in the Korean War.

Western countries warned Moscow and Pyongyang against striking an arms deal as the conflict in Ukraine grinds on.

“I think Russia has already tested the North Korean shells in battlefields and is now ready to expand its use going forward,” said Kim Jong-dae, a former South Korean MP and visiting scholar at the Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies.

He said the summit “signals a seismic change in Northeast Asian geopolitics”, adding that a stronger alliance between North Korea, Russia and China could become a “destabilising force in the region”.

Kim was accompanied by a military-heavy entourage, with top Russian military officials also involved in the talks.

“North Korea-Russia relations can be said to have completely returned to the level of blood alliance during the Cold War,” Cheong Seong-chang, researcher at the Sejong Institute, told AFP.

He said that while there have been summits between the two countries before, “there has never been a time when North Korea brought in almost all of its key military officials like the one happening right now”.