World

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was on Friday named head of the Socialist International (SI) as the movement of centre-left parties gathered in Madrid for a three-day congress. 

The telegenic 50-year-old takes over from former Greek prime minister George Papandreou as head of the SI, a movement grouping 132 political parties from around the world.

There was no vote for the appointment as Sanchez — who has led Spain’s Socialist Party since 2014 — was the only candidate running, with his nomination welcomed by a show of applause. 

Sanchez told the delegates he was taking over “with one intention: for this organisation to become a big ideological platform for the progressive international movement”. 

A self-described feminist whose cabinet is largely made up of women, Sanchez also reassured his female colleagues that as head of SI, he would “fight in favour of gender parity”.

The nomination could prove to be a springboard for Sanchez to take up a major post on the world stage. 

Former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres led SI before going on to head the United Nations refugee agency in 2005 then later becoming UN secretary-general in 2017.

Sanchez’s appointment comes a year before Spain holds a general election which polls suggest he will struggle to win.

“While symbolic… this post could be a way (for Sanchez) to regain credit among (Spanish) voters by presenting himself as influential on the world stage,” Pablo Simon, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University, told AFP this week. 

“But it also could be that he plans on capitalising on this network of international contacts” which the post offers to “play a prominent role later” in a top global body, he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday told a group of mothers whose sons are fighting in Ukraine that he shares the pain of those who have lost loved ones in the conflict.

The carefully choreographed meeting at Putin’s residence took place as anger simmers in Russia over a chaotic military draft and deaths of soldiers in Ukraine.  

At least one woman at the meeting wore a black headscarf, apparently marking a recent loss.

“I want you to know — I personally and the entire leadership of the country share this pain,” Putin told the group ahead of Mother’s Day, which is celebrated in Russia on Sunday.

“We understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son, a child,” Putin said.

He offered condolences to one of the women saying her son did not die “in vain” and reiterated his pledge to fulfil Moscow’s goals in Ukraine.

Russian authorities have introduced legislation that effectively bans any public criticism of the offensive. Kremlin critics accuse authorities of concealing the real number of dead and wounded Russian troops.

Putin told the 17 women that Moscow was fighting the “neo-Nazi regime” in Ukraine and warned that they should be wary of what they read on the internet.

“It is clear that life is more complex than what is shown on our TV screens or even on the internet, nothing can be trusted there,” he said. 

– ‘Answer our questions’ –

He also denounced what he called attempts by “the enemy” to “devalue (and) compromise” Moscow’s tactics in Ukraine. 

Anger and concern have built across Russia since September, when the Kremlin announced that hundreds of thousands of well-trained and well-equipped men would be conscripted and sent to the battlefield to bolster Moscow’s struggling campaign in Ukraine.

But chaos ensued, with widespread reports of exempted men — the elderly or infirm — being dispatched to the front or conscripts dying after receiving nearly no training, forcing the Kremlin to concede “mistakes”.

The meeting — the first of its kind since Putin launched the offensive on February 24 — is a sign that the Kremlin takes the growing malaise seriously. 

Ahead of Putin’s meeting, some activists said the get-together would not offer a platform for frank discussion.

“The president will meet with some mothers pulled out of his pocket, who will ask the right questions and thank him,” said Olga Tsukanova, an activist mother. 

“I’m not alone. Invite us, Vladimir Vladimirovich, answer our questions!” she told AFP ahead of the meeting.

Tsukanova was not invited to meet Putin.

– ‘Muddy trenches’ –

National television broadcast some critical comments from mothers who attended the meeting, however. 

One woman, whose husband and two sons went to fight in Ukraine, said there were not enough camouflage robes. 

“The uniform becomes unusable very quickly, the trenches are muddy and damp,” she added in televised remarks.

Another mother was shown on TV thanking Putin for “taking care” of the women.

Anger over the fate of mobilised men has put the Kremlin in an uncomfortable position, analysts say. 

While authorities have unleashed an unprecedented crackdown on political dissent, the word of mothers appears sacred in Russia. 

Imprisoning them is not an option, observers say.

Two wars in Chechnya led to the rise of the mothers’ movement in Russia that became a thorn in the Kremlin’s side.

But this time the climate is different, with no independent media left in the country.

– ‘Not a peace movement’ –

This means there has been little public questioning of the military campaign in Ukraine. But in Russia some are asking questions about the conditions in which their husbands and sons are sent to fight.

Mothers’ and wives’ status as relatives of mobilised men serving the country gives them a form of protection.

“There is a subconscious feeling that women have that right” to hold power to account, sociologist Alexei Levinson of the independent Levada Centre said.

“But this is not a women for peace movement,” he warned.

“They want the state to fulfil its responsibility as a ‘collective father’ towards the mobilised.”

For now, the soldiers’ mothers’ movement is uncoordinated and disparate, mainly consisting of worried relatives posting videos on social media.

In a climate of suspicion not seen since the Soviet era, many women fear that complaining about the offensive could mean trouble and refrain from speaking to the foreign press.

“We have sent letters to authorities,” one woman told AFP anonymously. 

“It’s not the journalists that will take our guys out of the trenches and we do not want to harm them even more.”

Nearly half of Kyiv residents were still without electricity on Friday as engineers battled to restore services two days after Russian strikes hammered the country’s energy grid.

After nine months of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin met for the first time with women whose children are fighting in Ukraine, assuring those who had lost sons that he and Russia’s elite “share this pain”.

And in the southern region of Kherson, the governor there said Russian shelling had forced the evacuation of patients from hospitals in the city of Kherson.

The systematic and targeted Russian attacks over recent weeks have brought Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to its knees as winter approaches, spurring fears of a health crisis and a further exodus.

Utility workers were still working Friday to reconnect the heating and water as temperatures in Kyiv approached freezing, as UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited to announce a new aid package.

“We have to endure this winter –- a winter that everyone will remember,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

“We have to do everything so that we remember it — not because of what it threatened us with — but because of what we managed to do to protect ourselves from this threat.”

Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmygal told a government meeting that electricity providers were now providing 70 percent cover.

“Almost all Ukraine’s critical infrastructure has been reconnected,” he said.

But, he added: “On average, from 200,000 to 400,000 consumers are cut off power in each region at certain hours.”

Cars queued outside petrol stations in Kyiv on Friday to stock up, AFP journalists said. Mobile networks in some areas were still experiencing disruption.

– ‘We live like this now’ –

Millions of Ukrainians have endured the cold without power since Russia fired dozens of missiles and launched drone attacks at water and electricity facilities on Wednesday.

“Yes, this is a difficult situation and yes, it can happen again,” presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on television.

“But Ukraine can cope.”

With gas for cooking and heating disconnected in her Kyiv apartment, Albina Bilogub told AFP that she and her children all slept in the same room to stay warm.

“In our building, very few people have gas, so we go to the woman that I work for — I change her clothes because she is disabled — and we cook there,” she said.

“This is our life. One sweater, a second, a third. We live like this now.”

In northern Kyiv, a vet in blue scrubs and a face mask shone a light over an operating table in a darkened clinic as colleagues operated on an ailing dog late Thursday.

“We were in the middle of an operation and our lights turned off because a rocket fell not far away, so there was a power cut,” said Oleksiy Yankovenko.

“I had to finish the operation under the flashlights,” he added.

– ‘Brutal attacks’ –

Putin meanwhile met the mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine at his residence near Moscow.

“I want you to know: I personally and the entire leadership of the country share this pain,” he told them.

He warned them that a lot of news reports about the conflict could not be trusted, describing them as “fake news, deceit and lies”.

But Russia would achieve its goals in Ukraine, he added.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s presidency said Russian shelling had killed 11 people and wounded nearly 50 across the southern Kherson region Thursday.

On Friday, the region’s governor said hospital patients in the city of Kherson had been evacuated to nearby regions because of “constant Russian shelling”. Patients at a psychiatric facility in the region also had to be evacuated.

Ukraine’s forces recaptured the city from Russian forces earlier this month.

Ukraine’s Western allies have denounced the Russian attacks on energy as a “war crime”, coming in the wake of a string of military setbacks for Russia on the frontlines.

Moscow insists it targets only military linked infrastructure and has blamed Kyiv for the blackouts, saying Ukraine can end the suffering by agreeing to Russian demands.

Britain’s foreign minister announced new aid for Ukraine during his visit to Kyiv, including ambulances and support for victims of sexual violence by Russian soldiers.

“As winter sets in, Russia is continuing to try and break Ukrainian resolve through its brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and energy infrastructure,” Cleverly said.

“Russia will fail,” he said, vowing UK support “will continue for as long as it takes”.

The attacks on Ukraine’s grid are Russia’s latest strategy designed to force Ukrainian capitulation after Moscow’s forces failed to topple the government and capture Kyiv nine months after launching their invasion.

Although they have captured swathes of territory in the south and east and the Kremlin claimed to annex four regions, Ukrainian troops are clawing back territory.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday denied being the main target of a judicial investigation into the government’s use of management consultants and their role in recent election campaigns.

The French financial crime prosecutor’s office revealed late Thursday that it had opened a probe which was thought to be focused on Macron and his 2017 and 2022 presidential campaigns.

“I’m not scared of anything,” the 44-year-old head of state told reporters during a trip to the town of Dijon. 

“I believe that your servant is not at the heart of the investigation,” he added, referring to himself. 

“It’s normal that the justice system does its work. It does it freely and will shine a light on this issue.” 

The prosecutor’s statement did not name Macron or his election campaign, but said investigators were looking into allegations of favouritism and hidden campaign financing in relation to management consultancies.

The probe began after complaints following the publication of a Senate report in March which showed government spending on consultants had more than doubled during Macron’s first term from 2017-22.

The favouritism allegation could relate to US-based consultancy firm McKinsey, which was the biggest beneficiary of these contracts and reportedly provided staff to Macron’s 2017 campaign team for free.

– KcKinseygate? –

“I tell you, no,” Macron replied when asked about the allegation, adding that he had explained himself “hundreds of times” already.

The Senate’s revelations about spending on consultants — which reached a billion euros ($1.1 billion) last year — were seized on by Macron’s opponents during his campaign for a second term this April.

The scandal, dubbed “McKinseygate” by the French media, became a debating point, with many French people shocked by the use of expensive and foreign firms which specialise in strategic advice and IT services.

Macron has repeatedly defended the recourse to consultants.

“When you want to go very quickly and very strongly with a policy, you need to make use of outside contractors occasionally,” he told reporters in late March.

The investigation is significant because it could be the first that risks personally implicating the president.

Several of his allies, including his current chief of staff, face legal investigations over a range of charges.

– ‘Slow poison’ –

The most damaging incident involved his former bodyguard who was filmed beating up protesters in 2018 and was later convicted of assault.

“For the moment, this issue is going completely over the head of French people who are obsessed with economic, energy and social considerations,” Frederic Dabi, the director of polling group Ifop, told AFP.

“It remains to be seen if it will become a slow poison for Macron’s camp if there are a series of judicial developments,” he added.

France has strict rules on the financing of election campaigns and political parties, which have led to many convictions in recent decades.

Right-wing ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy received a one-year prison sentence in September 2021 for illegal financing of his 2012 re-election bid.

Judges concluded that Sarkozy spent nearly twice the legal limit on his doomed quest for a second term.

He has appealed.

“Let’s stop imagining that because an investigation has been opened that there’s something outrageous,” MP Sylvain Maillard, interim leader of Macron’s party in parliament, told Europe 1 on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday told a group of mothers whose sons are fighting in Ukraine that he shares the pain of those who have lost their loved ones in the conflict.

The carefully-choreographed meeting at Putin’s residence took place as anger simmers in Russia over a chaotic military draft and deaths of soldiers in Ukraine. 

“I want you to know: I personally and the entire leadership of the country share this pain,” Putin told a group of soldiers’ mothers ahead of Mother’s Day, which Russia will mark on Sunday. 

“We understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son, a child,” Putin said in his opening remarks which lasted just a few minutes.

The Russian leader, who has introduced legislation that effectively bans any public criticism of the offensive, also told the 17 women they should be wary of what they read on the internet.

“It is clear that life is more complex than what is shown on our TV screens or even on the internet, nothing can be trusted there,” he said. 

At least one woman at the meeting wore a black headscarf, apparently marking a recent loss.

Anger and concern have built across Russia since September, when the Kremlin announced that hundreds of thousands of well-trained and well-equipped men would be conscripted and sent to the battlefield to bolster Moscow’s struggling campaign in Ukraine.

But chaos ensued, with widespread reports of exempted men — the elderly or infirm — being dispatched to the front or conscripts dying after receiving nearly no training, forcing the Kremlin to concede “mistakes”.

The meeting — the first of its kind since Putin launched the offensive on February 24 — is a sign that the Kremlin takes the growing malaise seriously. 

Ahead of Putin’s meeting some activists said the Kremlin meeting would not offer a platform for frank discussion.

“The president will meet with some mothers pulled out of his pocket, who will ask the right questions and thank him,” said Olga Tsukanova, an activist mother. 

“As usual.”

Her 20-year-old son is currently undergoing his military service and she wants to make sure he will not be sent to Ukraine.

Last week Tsukanova travelled around 900 kilometres (560 miles) from the city of Samara on the Volga river in the hope of being seen at the Kremlin.

– ‘Invite us, Vladimir’ –

“I’m not alone. Invite us, Vladimir Vladimirovich, answer our questions!” she told AFP ahead of the Kremlin meeting, referring to the president by his patronymic.

Tsukanova was never invited to attend the meeting with Putin.

Anger over the fate of mobilised men, which risks degenerating into real discontent, has put the Kremlin in an uncomfortable position, analysts say. 

While authorities have unleashed an unprecedented crackdown on political dissent while troops fight in Ukraine, the word of mothers appears sacred in Russia. 

Imprisoning them is not an option, observers say.

For Putin, the sight of angry relatives may bring back difficult memories from the start of his rule more than two decades ago. 

In August 2000, the Russian leader was criticised for responding too slowly when the Kursk submarine sank, killing all 118 crew onboard.

Two wars in Chechnya led to the rise of the mothers’ movement in Russia that became a thorn in the Kremlin’s side.

But this time the climate is different, with no independent media left in the country and an effective ban on public criticism of Putin’s offensive.

This means there has been little public questioning of the military campaign in Ukraine. But in Russia some are asking questions about the conditions in which their husbands and sons are sent to fight.

– ‘Not a peace movement’ –

Mothers’ and wives’ status as relatives of mobilised men serving the country gives them a form of protection.

“There is a subconscious feeling that women have that right” to hold power to account, sociologist Alexei Levinson of the independent Levada Centre said.

“But this is not a woman for peace movement,” he warned.

“They want the state to fulfil its responsibility as a ‘collective father’ towards the mobilised.”

For now, the soldiers mothers’ movement is uncoordinated and disparate, mainly consisting of worried relatives posting videos on social media, where some informal groups have formed.

This is how Tsukanova, who has links to controversial figure Svetlana Peunova — accused in Russia of spreading political conspiracy theories — became involved in the mothers’ movement.

In a climate of suspicion not seen since the Soviet era, many women fear that complaining about the offensive could mean trouble and refrain from speaking to the foreign press.

“We have sent letters to authorities,” one woman told AFP anonymously. 

“It’s not the journalists that will take our guys out of the trenches and we do not want to harm them even more.”