Sri Lanka has told hundreds of thousands of Russians and some Ukrainians staying in the country to escape the war that they must leave in the next two weeks, immigration officers said.

The immigration controller issued a notice to the tourism ministry asking Russian and Ukrainian people staying on extended tourist visas to leave Sri Lanka within two weeks from 23 February.

Just over 288,000 Russians and nearly 20,000 Ukrainians have traveled to Sri Lanka in the last two years since the war began, according to official data.

Commissioner-General of Immigration said the “government is not granting further visa extensions” as the “flight situation has now normalised”.

However, the office of president Ranil Wickremesinghe ordered an investigation of the notice to the tourism ministry in an apparent bid to prevent diplomatic tensions.

The president’s office said that the notice had been issued without prior cabinet approval and the government had not officially decided to revoke the visa extensions, reported the Sri Lankan newspaper Daily Mirror.

The exact number of visitors who extended their stay beyond the typical 30-day tourist visa duration remains unclear.

However, concerns have been raised over thousands of Russians and a smaller number of Ukrainians staying in the country for an extended period of time and even setting up their own restaurants and nightclubs.

Tourism minister Harin Fernando told Daily Mirror that the ministry has been receiving complaints of some Russian tourists running unregistered and illegal businesses in the southern part of the country.

Raids were conducted by the authorities following discussions with the Immigration Department, he said.

It comes amid a furious social media backlash over Russian-run businesses with a “whites only” policy that strictly bars locals. These businesses include bars, restaurants, water sports and vehicle hiring services.

In a bid to boost tourism and recover from its worst economic crisis since 2022, Sri Lanka began granting 30-days visas on arrival and extensions for up to six months.

In April 2022, the nation defaulted on its $46bn (£36 bn) foreign debt. The economic crisis triggered violent street protests for several months and ultimately culminated in the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa three months later.

Source: Independent

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All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine spring conscription campaign, calling up 150,000 citizens for statutory military service, a document posted on the Kremlin’s website showed on Sunday (31 March).

All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18.

In July Russia’s lower house of parliament voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30 from 27. The new legislation came into effect on 1 January 2024.

Compulsory military service has long been a sensitive issue in Russia, where many men go to great lengths to avoid being handed conscription papers during the twice-yearly call-up periods.

Conscripts cannot legally be deployed to fight outside Russia and were exempted from a limited mobilisation in 2022 that gathered at least 300,000 men with previous military training to fight in Ukraine – although some conscripts were sent to the front in error.

In September Putin signed an order calling up 130,000 people for the autumn campaign and last spring Russia planned to conscript 147,000.

Russian attacks

Russian shelling killed at least three people in different regions of eastern Ukraine on the front of the more than two-year-old war against Russia, local officials said, and two more in Lviv region, far from the front lines.

In the centre of the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a frequent target of Russia’s intensifying assaults on energy and other infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said a strike targeted civilian infrastructure in the evening.

Regional news outlets said aerial bombs had been dropped on different areas of the region. No injuries were reported.

Earlier on Sunday, heavy shelling killed a man in the town of Borova, southeast of Kharkiv, local prosecutors said.

Police in Donetsk region, in Ukraine’s southeast, said Russian shelling hit 14 towns and villages, with two dead reported in Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held regional centre of Donetsk.

Russian forces captured the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk region last month and have since made small gains, but the situation along the 1,000-km front has changed little for months.

Attacks on infrastructure have extended well beyond the front line and Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozitskyi said two bodies were pulled from rubble after on such strike by cruise missiles. Rescue work continued through the day at the site.

Over the border in Russia’s Belgorod Region, a frequent target of Ukrainian shelling, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a woman was killed when a border village came umder attack.

Reuters could not independently confirm accounts of military action from either side.

Source

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Kiev is being bombed by the Russians, but despite the dangers the indiscriminate bombing brings, Ukrainians have their humor, and a bit of the “so what” attitude. 

Let’s call her Maria, because we don’t know her correct name and we don’t want to endanger the young coffee aficionado to targeted Russian attacks targeting the Ukrainian spirit of everything can be fixed with a good cup of coffee. 

The young Ukrainian barista keeps working despite today’s Russian missile strike destroying large parts of her cafe. “They won’t be able to break us,” Maria tells the reporter with a smile pouring the coffee in the morning. 

The front window was broken by the blast and the shop a bit in a mess, but Maria worked cheerfully away. 

Putin’s terror campaign against the civilian population becomes more and more like Hitler’s war machine. And if the Russians must waste a million-dollar missile for taking out a window of a coffee shop they become more desperate. 

Maria serves the cup of black gold with a smile. She goes about the business of geopolitics just with no worries. They can’t break us is their way of living. Slava Ukrainia. 

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If European countries don’t see defeat coming, we can’t turn the wheel to avoid it

I left my meeting with a senior French officer feeling that the west is so weak it scarcely exists any more. “The West”, a longtime object of obsession for anti-westerners from Egypt’s President Nasser to Vladimir Putin, has shrivelled to a small rump of countries squabbling with each other. At times they seem willing to let Ukraine lose its war.  

 I share the emotional impulse to keep intoning that Ukraine will win. But Panglossian war propaganda is becoming counterproductive. We need to see a possible defeat coming so that we can turn the wheel and avoid it. We can if we want to. 

I met the officer days after Emmanuel Macron suggested that Nato troops could be sent to Ukraine. As usual with France’s attempts to lead, most of its so-called allies responded by saying, in essence: “Shut up, France.” 

The officer thought Macron had spoken in desperation, compelled by French pessimism about Ukraine. Westerners have grown used to the war as a background rumble that never seems to change. One day, this could stop being true. Russian troops have a firepower advantage of perhaps five-to-one over Ukrainians.

Western countries are weak firstly because they lack allies. Non-aligned states in Asia, Africa and the Gulf never cared much about Ukraine’s struggle. They have been further alienated by western double standards over Israel’s killing of 30,000 Palestinians.

If western countries support human rights in Ukraine but not in Palestine, then they don’t support human rights.  Meanwhile, the US seems to be abandoning “The West” like a sinking ship leaving the rats. This goes beyond Donald Trump’s plan, as relayed by his chum Viktor Orbán, to “not give a single penny” to Ukraine if he becomes president again. Even if Trump loses and Republicans win just one chamber of Congress, they can keep blocking aid to Ukraine.  

The French long dreamt of Europe running its own military affairs without the US butting in. Now the dream is coming true, and it’s terrifying. Europeans cannot even agree whether this is an existential war for them (as eastern Europeans believe), a war of choice (as western countries seem to think) or a war to ignore (Olaf Scholz of Germany’s view). 

Western powers have often labelled wars existential — in Algeria, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — only to abandon them after realising they were, in fact, wars of choice. European pacifists hope Ukraine’s war will remain similarly self-contained. Perhaps Putin might stop once he’s swallowed the country. After all, western domino theories proved wrong about Vietnam, too.

So uncommitted are western states to arming Ukraine that they are treating it as a public-spending programme of choice, one you can ditch when money gets tight, like the UK’s HS2 train line. It’s not merely that our countries are disunited. France itself — the one western military with much fighting experience this past decade, albeit in the Sahel — is disunited.

A contingent of Putinist French officers still admires Russia and would rather fight what it considers the “Islamic peril” inside France. And in 2027, Putin’s longtime admirer Marine Le Pen could become French president. Putin has another military advantage over us: his willingness to sacrifice his people. Russia might have suffered more casualties taking the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka than all western European deaths in combat put together in the past 50 years.

The French officer told me apologetically: “We’re an old continent, no longer used to making war.”  This is a backhanded tribute to the success of European societies. Much though western Europeans like to whine, their region may be the safest and most liveable in history. It’s the apotheosis of the humanistic project. But Putin suspects we treasure life too much to defend it.  

If he wins, that wouldn’t mean a new Iron Curtain descending across Europe. It would be more like a portable cotton curtain, blown around by Russia’s will. “The West” could shrink to a thin line stretching from Britain to (if we’re lucky) Poland. 

Happily, we can change course. Russia has a poorly trained army and a Canada-sized economy. “This should be feasible, easily,” says Steven Everts of the EU Institute for Security Studies. Victory would require western countries to send non-combat troops such as de-miners, trainers and vehicle engineers. Countries would need to follow Denmark in giving every shell in their cupboards to Ukraine.

Germany would have to send Taurus missiles. Replacing American support for Ukraine would cost the other Nato states about €65 per citizen per year. We could choose to let Ukraine win.

Source: Financial Times

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Virtual appearances in the Senate and House had been scheduled for Tuesday, but were cancelled at the last moment. 

It came after a top Ukrainian official warned they are in danger of losing the war against Russia if more US military aid is not approved.

Senate leader Chuck Schumer did not explain why Mr Zelensky was a no-show. 

The chamber’s top Democrat said the Ukrainian president was occupied with a “last-minute” matter, without providing further detail. 

The Ukrainian leader was due to appear by video at a classified briefing of senators by top US officials. The meeting proceeded but discussions about the aid package soon descended into chaos.

Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said earlier on Tuesday there was a “big risk” of Ukrainian defeat without continued US support.

“It will be difficult to keep in [the] same positions and for the people to really survive,” he added, in a speech at the US Institute of Peace in Washington DC.

Mr Yermak’s dire assessment was given just hours before Mr Zelensky pulled out.

Ukraine’s embassy in Washington DC did not immediately respond to a BBC question asking for further explanation for the cancellation. 

It comes on the heels of a renewed push by the White House for additional support for Ukraine. The US Congress, however, is still not close to a deal on a compromise spending package that would help fund the war effort.

“We are out of money – and nearly out of time,” wrote Shalanda Young, the White House budget director, in a letter to Republican and Democratic leaders published on Monday. 

She warned that a failure by Congress to approve more military aid to Ukraine before the end of the year would “kneecap” the nation in its fight against Russia and that there was no “magic pot of funding” left to draw from.

On Monday, however, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, seemed dismissive of the latest pleas to provide tens of billions of dollars more in funding.

“The Biden Administration has failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers,” he wrote on social media.

The funding impasse comes as fighting on the frontlines appears to have reached a practical stalemate. 

Ukraine’s much anticipated counter-offensive in the south appears to have slowed down, while Kyiv’s forces are struggling to maintain a foothold they had established on the east bank of the vast Dnipro river. 

Since the war began in February 2022, the US Congress has approved more than $110bn (£87bn) in military and economic aid to Ukraine. The Biden administration has warned for months, however, that most of that money has already been distributed.

According to Frederick Kagan, director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor at the US Military Academy, the funding delays are already having very real consequences on the Ukrainian battlefield. The current counter-offensive against Russia is being scaled back, and future operations to regain lost territory are in doubt.

“The Ukrainians have to make a hard choice here,” he said. “If they are not confident that they’re going to get anything else from the United States, then they have to conserve what they have.”

What the Ukrainian military needs, he said, is tanks, armoured personnel vehicles, fighter planes, drones and long-range weapons – and the US is the only country that can provide this hardware quickly and in the amounts that Ukraine requires in the coming year.

There continues to be bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress for additional US aid to Ukraine, even if it does not reach the $61.4bn level that the White House has requested. Turning that congressional support into legislation that the president can sign into law, however, has proven to be a sizeable challenge.

Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate are currently negotiating an even-larger $106bn spending package that includes aid to Ukraine along with military support for Israel and Taiwan and increased funding for security on the US-Mexico border.

It is this last component of the package, however, that has caused the most political heartburn. Democrats have balked at proposed immigration policy changes, including altering how asylum-seekers at the border are processed and tightening the requirements necessary to qualify for entry into the US.

“In return for providing additional funding for Ukraine, we have to have significant and substantial reforms to our border policy,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas said in a television interview on Sunday.

Chuck Schumer has said he will bring a military aid bill to a vote in the chamber this week, but it is unclear if it will have sufficient Republican support without an agreement on immigration measures.

According to US media, a screaming match erupted on Tuesday afternoon at a classified briefing on the aid package provided by Biden administration officials, as Senate Republicans accused Democrats of ignoring their call for border security funding.

Even if Ukraine aid can clear the Senate hurdle, its outlook in the House of Representatives is murky. While Speaker Johnson has said he supports additional funds for Ukraine, he was one of 117 Republicans in the chamber who voted on 28 September to block $300m in additional security assistance for that country.

If he brings a Senate-backed massive aid package to a vote in the chamber, relying on Democratic support to win passage, he could sharply divide Republicans and threaten his own grip on power before another round of acrimonious budget negotiations early next year.

“The United States is going to run in excess of a $2.5 trillion deficit this year,” Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana told BBC World Tonight’s James Coomarasamy on Tuesday. 

“So why should the people of the United States borrow money from China to give it up to Ukraine? That is not in our best interests.” 

In a possible attempt to shore up congressional support, the White House has been pitching additional Ukrainian aid in economic as well as national security terms. In her letter to Congress, Ms Young noted that the requested funds would be used to manufacture armaments at factories located across the country.

“We will modernise vital munitions and equipment like Javelins made in Alabama, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems made in West Virginia, Arkansas and Texas… and artillery shells made in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Iowa and many other states,” she writes.

As an election year approaches, the White House may be hoping that members of Congress are looking for ways to tout how their actions are helping the local economies in their home districts.

Mr Kagan said he was not surprised that Ukraine funding had become a more controversial topic of political debate in the US as the conflict approaches its third year. 

“The American people deserve to have hashed out by their representatives exactly what America’s interests are, and to have real debate on distribution of what is after all the large amount of money,” he says.

In the end, however, he said the stakes were clear. 

“The outcome of this war is going to be determined primarily by what the Ukrainians can do, but a very close second by what the United States chooses to do.”

Source: BBC

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said Ukraine is “light years away” from joining the EU.

The comments came as he was reelected as the president of the right-wing nationalist Fidesz party for the 11th consecutive time in Budapest on Saturday.

“Our task will be to correct the mistaken promise to start negotiations with Ukraine since Ukraine is now light years away from the European Union,” Orban said.   

Hungary’s Prime Minister argued that the EU’s promise to start admission talks with Kyiv was a “mistake,” adding he and his government would “resist” EU talks scheduled for mid-December on whether to formally extend an invitation to Kyiv to join. 

Unanimity among all member states is required to admit a new country into the EU, giving Orban a powerful veto. 

The EU’s executive earlier this month recommended the beginning of accession talks with Ukraine, saying that its government “has shown a remarkable level of institutional strength, determination and ability to function.”

But Orban, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s only EU allies, has argued that negotiations should not begin with a country that is at war, and that Ukraine’s accession would reorient the EU’s system of distributing funds to member countries.

Some critics have speculated that Hungary, which has also threatened to block an EU plan to provide a four-year, €50 billion aid package for Ukraine, is using its resistance to leverage concessions from the EU.

Billions in funding have been withheld from Budapest over concerns that the government has failed to uphold rule-of-law and human rights standards.

Source: Euronews

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“For Ukraine, this is a top priority — to be ready for a political decision to start negotiations on EU membership this year,” Zelensky said, while participating in a meeting of the College of the European Commission via a video link.

Currently, Ukraine is implementing seven recommendations of the European Commission as quickly as possible to enable a political decision to pave the way for the membership negotiations, Zelensky said.

In particular, Ukraine is implementing reform of constitutional justice and strengthening anti-corruption efforts, he noted.

For her part, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who also participated in the meeting, voiced her support for Ukraine’s accession into the EU.

In June 2022, EU leaders accepted Ukraine as a candidate for membership in the bloc.

Source: Xinhua

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The United States and Britain last month signalled support for an EU plan to tax windfall profits generated by frozen Russian sovereign assets to finance Ukraine as Kyiv battles a full-scale Russian invasion that started in February 2022.

Finance ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised countries meeting in Morocco on Thursday estimated $280 billion (266 billion euros) worth of such assets had been frozen, and expected more work in the coming months to find legally sound ways of using them to aid Ukraine.

EU members Germany and France are part of the G7 club, where the EU executive European Commission is also represented.

The EU’s own work among its 27 member states on harnessing frozen Russian state assets for Ukraine has been repeatedly delayed due to legal concerns, among others, after the bloc’s sanctions on private Russian wealth were challenged in courts.

The bloc’s national leaders meeting for a summit in Brussels on Oct. 26-27 are due to call for “decisive progress… on the use of revenues from Russia’s immobilised assets”, according to their draft joint statement seen by Reuters on Friday.

Diplomats from EU countries are due to hold technical talks on the matter on Oct. 17. There was no immediate comment from the European Commission on when the Brussels-based executive would put forward a related legal proposal.

Belgium, an EU country but not a G7 member, said earlier this week it would spend 2.3 billion euros on supporting Ukraine that it expects to collect in 2023-24 taxes on Russian central bank assets immobilised on its soil.

Belgian clearing house Euroclear manages some 125 billion euros of frozen Russian central bank assets. The company had no comment on Friday.

An EU official said this week that EU talks on the windfall tax had failed to make progress for months in part to due objections from Belgium, which currently has sole discretion of what to do with tax revenue on swelling Euroclear profits.

An official from Belgium said the country was pushing for a G7 solution, explaining that an EU-only ban would not be effective as business would reroute from Euroclear to other international clearing houses free of such requirements.

Other clearing houses in Europe include Deutsche Boerse’s Eurex in Frankfurt and the London-based LCH, which handles the bulk of euro-denominated interest rate swaps even after Brexit.

LCH is a unit of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG.L). Thomson Reuters, the parent company of the Reuters news agency, holds a minority stake in LSEG.

Source: Reuters

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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the attack was “planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets, and reconnaissance planes.”

Zakharova also said U.S. and British intelligence helped coordinate the missile strike.

While the U.S. and other Western partners have provided military equipment and training to Ukraine, U.S. officials have previously denied playing a direct role in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion.

When Russia accused the United States of being involved in a May drone attack on the Kremlin, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called the claim “ludicrous.”

Russian Video Shows Commander Ukraine Claimed to Kill

A television channel run by Russia’s Defense Ministry broadcast undated video Wednesday showing Adm. Viktor Sokolov, the leader of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, saying the fleet was performing successfully.

It was the second consecutive day in which video of Sokolov appeared on Russian television, following a Ukrainian claim that he was killed in the Crimea missile strike.

Source: VOA

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“We want to propose the European Commission to introduce refundable deposits or another financial mechanism for traders who import grain from Ukraine. If they can prove that the grains leave Europe via the Baltic or Polish ports, they will get their money back,” Czech Minister of Agriculture Marek Vyborny said in a statement.

He made the remarks following a meeting with his counterparts from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in the southern Czech town of Znojmo. Ukraine’s Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Mykola Solskyi also participated in the meeting online.

“It is essential that Ukraine be able to guarantee us that its grain exports will go to third countries through the so-called solidarity corridors and will not stay in Europe … and thus disrupt the market,” Vyborny said. “We want guarantees that the grains do not end up in EU countries and thus disrupt the market.”

The minister also said that it is necessary to look for “an EU-wide solution” instead of unilateral bans to make the solidarity corridors more efficient.

The EU has been supporting the export of Ukrainian grains and other foodstuffs, notably through the solidarity corridors. However, the move has led to temporary distortions in the markets of five member states neighboring Ukraine. In May, the European Commission imposed a ban on grain exports from Ukraine to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Earlier this month, the Commission decided to drop the ban, but Hungary, Poland and Slovakia said that they would continue the embargo on Ukraine’s grains, causing disputes with Ukraine.

The Czech Republic currently holds the one-year V4 presidency. The V4 ministers also discussed forestry strategies and legislation during their meeting.

Source: Xinhua

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