World

Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to renew a two-month truce, the United Nations said on Thursday, in an 11th-hour move on the day it was set to expire.

Aid agencies and Western governments had urged the Yemeni government and Huthi rebels to extend the truce, which went into effect in April and significantly reduced the intensity of fighting in a conflict the UN says has triggered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“I would like to announce that the parties to the conflict have agreed to the United Nations’ proposal to renew the current truce in Yemen for two additional months,” the UN special envoy on Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said in a statement.

Yemen has been gripped by conflict since the Iran-backed Huthi rebels took control of the capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the beleaguered government the following year.

Grundberg said the truce was extended under the same terms as the previous one. It officially came into effect when the old one expired, at 7:00pm Yemen time (1600 GMT).

US President Joe Biden hailed the extended ceasefire, noting also “it’s important that we work from here to make it permanent”.

Saudi Arabia likewise welcomed the announcement on Thursday, saying it was “keen to support UN efforts for a long-term political solution to the Yemeni crisis”, reported the official Saudi Press Agency.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said that the extension “shows a serious commitment from all parties to end the senseless suffering of millions of Yemenis”.

“We hope this… will allow for further progress on the reopening of roads linking cities and regions, allow more displaced people to return to their homes, and ensure humanitarian aid” reaches those previously beyond reach NRC’s Yemen country director, Erin Hutchinson, said in a statement.

– ‘Additional steps’ –

On Wednesday, a Yemeni aircraft left Sanaa for Cairo on the first commercial flight between the two cities since 2016.

It was the seventh such flight under the truce, with the previous six all heading to the Jordanian capital Amman. 

Beyond opening Sanaa airport to some commercial flights –- a lifeline to Yemenis needing medical care abroad –- the truce has allowed oil tankers to dock in the rebel-held port of Hodeida, potentially easing fuel shortages in Sanaa and elsewhere. 

But a provision for the rebels to ease their siege of Yemen’s third-largest city Taez has yet to be implemented, angering the government which is demanding roads to the city be opened. 

The rebels in turn have called on the government to pay the salaries of public sector employees working in areas under their control. 

“In order for the truce to fully deliver on its potential, additional steps will need to be taken, particularly on the matters of road openings and commercial flight operations,” Grundberg said.

He would continue to engage on such issues, he said, to help “move towards a sustainable political settlement to the conflict that meets the legitimate aspirations and demands of Yemeni women and men.”

A Sanaa resident, Nabil al-Qanis, said Yemenis were “tired” of the war and wanted it to be over.

“All parties must work hard to stop the war… and the UN must put pressure on any obstinate party,” he told AFP.

The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left millions on the brink of famine.

More than four million people have been displaced, and 19 million stand to go hungry this year, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, said on Wednesday. 

That includes “more than 160,000 who will face famine-like conditions”, he said.

Russian forces hammered Ukrainian positions in the Donbas region on Thursday, as Kyiv said Moscow was in control of 20 percent of Ukrainian territory on the eve of the war’s 100th day.

Vladimir Putin’s troops have set their sights on capturing eastern Ukraine since being repelled from around the capital Kyiv after their invasion began on February 24.

While their advance has been much slower than Moscow expected, Russian troops have expanded their control beyond the 43,000 square kilometres (16,600 square miles) taken when Russia seized Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014.

“Today, about 20 percent of our territory is under the control of the occupiers,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address to Luxembourg lawmakers.

The invasion, which enters its 100th day on Friday, has allowed Moscow to capture territory that was “much greater” than the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined, added the president.

Thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to flee, with Ukraine’s east now bearing the brunt of Russia’s assault which Zelensky said was killing up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers every day.

Street fighting was raging in the industrial hub of Severodonetsk in Lugansk, part of the Donbas.

The strategic city is a key target for Moscow which already controls 80 percent of the area, but Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday vowed Ukrainian forces would fight “until the end”.

Severodonetsk’s Azot factory, one of Europe’s biggest chemical plants, was targeted by Russian soldiers who fired on one of its administrative buildings and a warehouse where methanol was stored.

– ‘Shooting is everywhere’ –

Ukrainian troops were still holding an industrial zone, Gaiday said, a situation reminiscent of Mariupol where a huge steel works was the south-eastern port city’s last holdout until Ukrainian troops finally surrendered in late May.

In the city of Sloviansk, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Severodonetsk, residents recounted constant bombardments by Russian troops. 

Paramedic Ekaterina Perednenko, 24, said she had only just returned to the city five days ago but realises that she will have to leave again.

“It’s very difficult here. Shooting is everywhere, it’s scary. No water, electricity or gas,” she said.

Retiree Leonid, 79, said he was also leaving the city and would seek refuge elsewhere in Europe.

“I feel pain. The most prominent feeling I have is that we didn’t deserve this. We don’t understand why we are punished like this,” he told AFP.

Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces assessed that “the most difficult situation is in the Lugansk region, where the enemy is trying to displace our units”. 

He pleaded for modern armaments from NATO, telling France’s top general, Thierry Burkhard that “the enemy has a decisive advantage in artillery.”

“It will save the lives of our people”.

– Financial squeeze –

Bridget Brink, the new US ambassador to Kyiv, promised Thursday that the United States would “help Ukraine prevail against Russian aggression” after presenting her credentials to Zelensky.

Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden announced that Washington was sending more advanced, Himar multiple rocket lunch systems to Ukraine.

The mobile units can simultaneously launch multiple precision-guided missiles up to 80 kilometres away.

They are the centrepiece of a $700 million package that includes air-surveillance radar, more Javelin short-range anti-tank rockets, artillery ammunition, helicopters, vehicles and spare parts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Washington of “adding fuel to the fire,” although US officials insist Ukraine has promised not to use them to strike inside Russia.

Beyond plying Ukraine with armaments, Western allies have also sought to choke off Russia’s financial lifeline in a bid to get Putin to change course.

Ramping up an already long list of embargoes, the United States blacklisted Putin’s money manager and a Monaco company that provides luxury yachts to Moscow’s elite.

Washington hit Sergei Roldugin, labelled “Putin’s middle-man,” Roldugin’s opera singer wife Elena Mirtova, and Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova with sanctions, as well as several large yachts in which Putin allegedly has an interest, the Treasury said.

Across the Atlantic, EU nations agreed new sanctions that would halt 90 percent of Russian oil imports to the bloc by the end of the year. 

– Hunger crisis –

Russia warned that European consumers would be the first to pay the price for the partial oil embargo.

EU ambassadors dropped, however, the leader of Russia’s Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, from a proposed blacklist to win over opposition from Hungary.

But some relief was in view for the overheated oil market as top producers including Saudi Arabia agreed to add 648,000 barrels per day to the market in July, up from 432,000.

The war has wrecked Ukraine’s economy, forcing the central bank to more than double its key interest rate in an unprecedented action on Thursday to prop up the hryvnia. 

But it carries far wider consequences too, with risks that it could trigger a global food crisis growing.

Ukraine — one of the world’s main producers — will likely export only half the amount of grain that it did in the previous season, the Ukrainian Grain Association said.

The conflict was already translating into higher costs for consumers purchasing essentials from cereals to sunflower oil to maize, with the poorest among the hardest hit.

The head of the African Union, Senegalese President Macky Sall, is to visit Russia on Friday for talks with Putin.

The visit is aimed at “freeing up stocks of cereals and fertilisers, the blockage of which particularly affects African countries”, along with easing the Ukraine conflict, Sall’s office said. 

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Hurricane Agatha, the first of the Pacific season, left nine people dead and six missing after slamming into southern Mexico, fewer than previously thought, authorities Thursday.

Agatha barreled ashore on Monday near Puerto Angel in Oaxaca state as a Category Two hurricane, the second lowest on a scale of five, causing flooding, landslides and damage to homes.

The storm was the strongest to make landfall along Mexico’s Pacific coast in May since record keeping began in 1949, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC).

“We have nine officially confirmed deaths and six people still missing,” Oaxaca governor Alejandro Murat told reporters.

The previous day he had reported 11 dead and 22 missing based on preliminary information.

The toll was revised after communication and access was restored to remote mountain communities.

“The inhabitants of Oaxaca affected by this hurricane are not alone,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.

“We’re going to support them, so that the roads are restored, so that the services are improved,” he told reporters.

Mexico is regularly lashed by tropical storms on both its Pacific and Atlantic coasts, generally between the months of May and November.

On Thursday the remnants of Agatha were located over Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, home to major Caribbean beach resorts.

The country’s meteorological service said there was an 80 percent chance of a new storm forming within the next five days.

The United States placed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s money-manager and a Monaco company that provides luxury yachts to Moscow’s elite on its sanctions blacklist Thursday, stepping up pressure over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Washington hit Sergei Roldugin, labelled “Putin’s middle-man,” Roldugin’s opera singer wife Elena Mirtova, and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova with sanctions, as well as several large yachts in which Putin allegedly has an interest, the Treasury said.

The sanctions also included several senior government officials and powerful businessmen, and aircraft and a luxury yacht tied to Andrei Kostin, the chief executive of VTB Bank, one of the country’s largest.

And, in parallel, the US Commerce Department placed some 70 Russian companies on a list that blocks them from obtaining crucial US technologies and goods.

The sanctions are designed to “degrade the key networks used by Russia’s elites, including President Vladimir Putin, to attempt to hide and move money and anonymously make use of luxury assets around the globe,” the Treasury said.

The White House said the action was meant to step up pressure on Moscow more than three months after it invaded Ukraine.

“The United States, alongside over 30 partners around the world, has imposed unprecedented sanctions and export controls to hold President Putin to account for his war against Ukraine, restrict Russia’s access to critical technology it needs to fund its war machine, and turn Russia into a global financial pariah,” the White House said in a statement.

The Treasury said it declared four luxury yachts linked to Putin and on which he has taken numerous trips as “blocked property,” meaning they can be seized.

In addition, it took aim at Imperial Yachts, based in Monaco and operating a Moscow office serving Russian tycoons, and its owner Evgeniy Kochman.

Imperial both leases yachts to the Russian elite and manages yachts owned by Russian oligarchs, the Treasury said. 

The sanctions on Imperial include placing a block on its largest yacht, the three-year-old, 136-meter “Flying Fox,” which was raided by authorities in the Dominican Republic on April 1 on a US request as part of an investigation on alleged money laundering and arms trafficking.

Roldugin and his wife were blacklisted by the US for the first time, after having been placed on European sanctions lists in February.

He is better known as a cellist and the artistic director of the St. Petersburg Music House, and has been a friend of Putin for more than four decades. Roldugin is godfather to one of the Russian president’s daughters.

But the Treasury says he is a key figure in managing Putin’s personal wealth offshore.

“Russia’s elites, up to and including President Putin, rely on complex support networks to hide, move, and maintain their wealth and luxury assets,” said Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson. 

“Today’s action demonstrates that Treasury can and will go after those responsible for shielding and maintaining these ill-gotten interests,” Nelson said.

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

– Street fighting in Severodonetsk –

Ukrainian forces pledge to fight “until the end” in Severodonetsk but with Russian forces in control of most of the key eastern city, their prospects of success appear slim.

“Street fighting continues,” Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday says on Telegram, estimating 80 percent of the city is in Russian hands.

Lugansk is one of two regions, along with Donetsk, that make up Ukraine’s industrial heartland Donbas which Russia has vowed to “liberate”.

Once in control of Severodonetsk, Russian forces will likely try cross the Donets river flowing through it to target nearby Donetsk, according to a British defence ministry intelligence note.

– Russia controls 20 percent of Ukraine: Zelensky –

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia controls about one-fifth of his country, from the ground gained since the February 24 invasion to the annexed Crimean peninsula and territory held by Moscow-backed separatists since 2014.

“Today, about 20 percent of our territory is under the control of the occupiers,” the Ukrainian leader tells EU lawmakers.

Zelensky says in 2014, the separatists and the Russian military gained control of 43,000 square kilometres (16,600 square miles) of territory, but says that has increased to nearly 125,000 square kilometres — an area “much greater” than the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined.

– ‘EU oil embargo to hit Europeans’ –

Russia warns that European consumers will be the first to suffer after Brussels introduced a partial embargo on Russian oil over Ukraine. 

“As a result of these decisions, European consumers will suffer above all,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak says, adding there may be a “big deficit” of oil products in the European Union.

On Monday, the EU agreed to a sixth package of sanctions on Moscow that will see the majority of Russian oil stopped, but exempted supplies by pipeline in a concession to Hungary.

– AU chief to meet with Putin on food –

 

African Union head, Senegalese President Macky Sall, will meet President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday to discuss food shortages caused by the conflict, which are exacerbating hunger in parts of Africa.

Both Ukraine and Russia are major suppliers of wheat and other cereals to Africa, while Russia, which is under export-limiting Western sanctions, is a key producer of fertiliser.

Sall’s office says the visit, proposed by Putin, is aimed at “freeing up stocks of cereals and fertilisers.”

– Danes vote to join EU defence policy – 

Danes vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to join the EU’s common defence policy 30 years after the NATO member opted out.

Almost 67 percent of people in the traditionally eurosceptic country back the move, which comes hot on the heels of neighbouring Finland’s and Sweden’s historic applications for NATO membership.

– Sweden ramps up aid –

Sweden announces additional aid of one billion kronor ($102 million, 95 million euros) to Ukraine, consisting of both financial aid and military equipment including anti-ship missiles and anti-tank launchers.

In late February, after the invasion began, Sweden broke its longstanding doctrine of not sending weapons to countries in active conflict.

Last month, Sweden, along with neighbouring Finland, in May overturned decades of military non-alignment by submitting historic joint applications to join NATO.

– Hundreds of “mercenaries” killed – 

Moscow says it has managed to stem the arrival of foreign “mercenaries” in Ukraine over the past month and has killed “hundreds”. 

“Hundreds of foreign mercenaries in Ukraine have been destroyed by Russia’s long-range precision weapons shortly after their arrival” to undergo training, the Russian defence ministry states.

– Putin money man blacklisted –

The United States places Russian President Vladimir Putin’s money-manager and a Monaco provider of luxury yachts to Moscow’s elite on its sanctions blacklist.

Washington hit Sergei Roldugin, labelled “Putin’s middle-man,” Roldugin’s opera singer wife Elena Mirtova, and foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova with sanctions, as well as several large yachts in which Putin allegedly has an interest, the US Treasury says.

– Russia ready to settle debt disputes –

Russia says it is ready to directly settle any disputes with its creditors after missing payments on its foreign debt due to Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Punishing Western sanctions on Russia have largely severed the country from the international financial system, making it difficult for Moscow to service its debt.

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EU ambassadors on Thursday dropped the leader of Russia’s Orthodox church from a proposed blacklist, allowing them to agree a new round of sanctions after opposition from Hungary, diplomats said.

“Another strong package of sanctions was agreed today against Putin and the Kremlin,” tweeted EU chief Ursula von der Leyen. 

“This will reduce Russia’s capacity to finance its war.”

Budapest had stalled final approval of the fresh wave of sanctions over the war in Ukraine, including a ban on most Russian oil imports, by demanding that Patriarch Kirill be taken off the list.

EU leaders on Monday thought they had clinched agreement on the new measures after giving in to Hungarian premier Viktor Orban’s demand to exempt Russian oil arriving via pipeline. 

But the other 26 nations had to buckle again to wrap up the package in the face of Orban’s obstinacy after he insisted the Russian church leader’s name also be removed.

An EU diplomat said there was “some frustration and disappointment” with Hungary, but an acceptance that securing the broader measures after weeks of haggling was more important. 

– ‘Freedom of religion’ –

Kirill, 75, is a fervent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has backed his military campaign in Ukraine. 

Orban, the closest EU leader to the Kremlin, had said he opposed adding Kirill to the list as it would contravene “freedom of religion”.   

EU officials say the new sanctions will see some 90 percent of Russian oil exports to the EU halted by the end of the year as the bloc tries to halt funds flowing to Moscow’s war machine.

A diplomat said other EU nations had refused to give in to a further demand from Orban to keep being able to sell on the Russian oil he will still receive.

The move is seen as the most powerful sanctions taken to date against Moscow after five previous waves of punishment that have rocked the Russian economy.

The package also includes disconnecting Russia’s largest bank Sberbank from the global SWIFT payment system and a ban on three more Russian state media outlets. 

Other prominent additions to the asset freeze and visa ban blacklist include Putin’s alleged girlfriend Alina Kabaeva and military personnel suspected of war crimes in Ukraine. 

The sanctions should be formally adopted later this week when they are published in the EU’s official journal.