World

Apple on Wednesday confirmed that it removed popular Russian social network VKontakte from its App Store globally due to sanctions imposed by Britain.

The British government on Monday sanctioned 92 Russian individuals and entities after President Vladimir Putin’s regime held referendums in Moscow-controlled areas of Ukraine — denounced by Kyiv and its allies as a “sham” — and stepped up threats against the West.

“Sham referendums held at the barrel of a gun cannot be free or fair and we will never recognize their results,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

The sanctions target “those behind these sham votes, as well as the individuals that continue to prop up the Russian regime’s war of aggression,” he said.

San Petersburg-based tech firm VK said in a blog post that some of its applications were no longer available from the App Store, which serves as the lone gateway for content onto Apple mobile devices.

VK apps are used for messaging, digital payments and grocery shopping as well as social networking.

The VK apps removed from the App Store were being distributed by developers controlled or majority-owned by parties sanctioned by the UK government, and Apple is complying with the law, according to the Silicon Valley tech giant.

Apple said that it terminated developer accounts associated with the apps, which were not available from the App Store regardless of users’ locations.

People who have already installed the apps on devices can still use them, but updates will no longer be provided through the App Store, according to Apple and VK.

“Their core functionality will be familiar and stable,” VKontakte-parent VK said of the apps.

“There may be difficulties with the work of notifications and payments.”

Kremlin-backed officials in Ukraine appealed to President Vladimir Putin Wednesday to annex the regions under their control, after the territories held votes denounced by Kyiv and the West as a “sham”.

Ukraine called on the EU to hit Russia with more sanctions and NATO to send more weapons to the frontline after the Kremlin-installed officials rolled out the alleged results late Tuesday.

The appeal came despite repeated warnings from Moscow that it could use its nuclear arsenal to defend the territories from a Ukrainian counter-offensive that has wrested back swathes of territory this month already.

“Ukraine cannot and will not tolerate any attempts by Russia to seize any part of our land,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The United States announced a new package of weapons and supplies Wednesday worth $1.1 billion, including precision rocket systems, ammunition, armoured vehicles and radars.

The European Commission proposed fresh sanctions targeting Russian exports worth seven billion euros, an oil price cap, an expanded travel blacklist and asset freezes.

The EU slammed the “illegal” vote and said the results were “falsified”, while the White House and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said they would “never” recognise them.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau vowed to disregard the votes and offer Kyiv further support.

Lugansk was the first Russian-controlled region of Ukraine to appeal to Putin to intervene, with the recently captured southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson following shortly after.

“Our residents made a historic choice and have decided to become part of the multinational population of the Russian Federation,” the Kremlin-installed leader in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said in a statement published on social media.

The Russian foreign ministry in a statement on Wednesday said the regions made a “conscious and free choice” in favour of annexation.

Only Donetsk — which along with Lugansk makes up the industrial Donbas region partially controlled by pro-Kremlin separatists since 2014 — had yet to formally ask Putin for annexation.

The appeal to Putin represents a turning point in the seven-month invasion as Russian officials in Moscow suggest they could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and Putin calls up thousands of reservists to cement the Kremlin’s authority in the territories.

– ‘What have we ended up with?’ –

The four territories — Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south; Donetsk and Lugansk in the east — create a crucial land corridor between Russia and the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014. 

Together, all five make up around 20 percent of Ukraine, whose forces in recent weeks have been clawing back ground.

Despite those gains — particularly in the northeast — Russian forces have battered the second-largest city of Kharkiv and overnight a salvo of missiles hit a railway yard, knocking out power to more than 18,000 households.

Iryna Mayor, 51, a machine operator in the rail wagon workshop, paused from shifting rubble and laying damp and torn record books out to dry, to angrily mock the invasion.

“We’re Russian-speaking people, and what have we ended up with? Have we got peace, brotherhood? No, you can see what we got,” she declared, pointing at the twisted debris surrounding the missile craters.

Lawmakers are expected to vote hastily to annex the territories now that the results have been announced, and Russian news agencies have said Putin could sign legislation formalising the land grab this week.

– ‘I’m in shock’ –

Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine coincided with his decision to call up hundreds of thousands of reservists to back up Russia’s struggling forces in eastern Ukraine.

The move has sparked panic, protests and an exodus among military-aged Russian men for neighbouring countries such as Georgia and Kazakhstan.

Moscow announced Wednesday it would no longer issue passports to Russian men called up to serve and a region bordering Russia closed to passenger cars, with both moves fuelling fears the borders could close entirely.

The same day, a Russian court remanded three young poets into custody for two months after they took part in an event against the mobilisation, the OVD-Info human rights NGO said.

At a military recruitment office in Saint Petersburg there was confusion and resignation, as draftees and their families bid each other goodbye.

Nikita, a 25-year-old reservist, had tears in his eyes as he held hands with his 22-year-old fiancee as he said goodbye.

“If you have to go, you have to,” he said. 

“I don’t know what to say. I am in shock,” Alina said, her gaze locked on Nikita.

Along the frontline of Ukraine, six people were injured in the Kharkiv region by Russian strikes, officials in Kyiv said, while five civilians were killed and 10 more wounded by Moscow’s forces. 

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, just days after Pyongyang’s last test and ahead of a visit to South Korea by US Vice President Kamala Harris.

The launches, part of a record-breaking blitz of weapons tests this year by North Korea, came after Seoul’s spy agency warned that Pyongyang was close to conducting another nuclear test.

South Korea’s military said it had “detected two short-range ballistic missiles fired from the Sunan area in Pyongyang”.

The missiles flew “around 360 kilometres (223 miles) at an altitude of 30 kilometres at the speed of Mach 6”, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, adding that it was analysing the details of the launches.

“Our military has reinforced monitoring and surveillance and is maintaining utmost readiness in close coordination with the United States,” it added.

Japan also confirmed the launches, with deputy defence minister Toshiro Ino saying North Korea’s recent spate of missile tests were “unprecedented” in frequency.

“The repeated missile launches cannot be tolerated,” he said.

The United States also condemned the launches but said it remains open to dialogue with North Korea.

“These launches are in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council Resolutions and pose a threat to the DPRK’s neighbors and the international community,” a State Department spokesman said, using the abbreviation for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“We remain committed to a diplomatic approach to the DPRK and call on the DPRK to engage in dialogue,” this official said.

The latest launch comes after North Korea test-fired a short-range ballistic missile on Sunday.

Harris is due to arrive in Seoul on Thursday for a brief visit, during which she will go to the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea.

The White House has said Harris’s trip, which follows a visit to Japan, intends to underscore the importance of the alliance with Seoul.

Washington is Seoul’s key security ally and stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to help protect it from the North.

Last week, the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan conducted joint drills with South Korea’s navy in waters off the Korean peninsula.

Under Seoul’s hawkish new President Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, the two countries have boosted joint exercises, which they insist are purely defensive — but North Korea sees them as rehearsals for an invasion.

– ‘Harbinger’ –

South Korean and US officials have been warning for months that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is preparing to conduct another nuclear test.

Earlier Wednesday, Seoul’s spy agency said Pyongyang appeared to have completed “a third tunnel at its Punggye-ri nuclear site”, MP Yoo Sang-bum told reporters after a briefing from Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.

Pyongyang is likely to choose the window between “China’s upcoming Communist Party Congress on October 16 and the midterm elections in the United States on November 7” for its next nuclear test, Yoo said.

North Korea, which is under multiple UN sanctions for its weapons programmes, typically seeks to maximise the geopolitical impact of its tests with careful timing.

The isolated regime has tested nuclear weapons six times since 2006. Its last and most powerful one in 2017 — which Pyongyang claimed was a hydrogen bomb — had an estimated yield of 250 kilotons.

Seoul has also detected signs the North is preparing to fire a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), the president’s office said Saturday, a weapon Pyongyang last tested in May.

“Today’s launch makes it clear the North is attempting to gain an upper hand on the peninsula with a nuclear arsenal at its disposal,” Kim Jong-dae of the Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies told AFP.

The repeated tests are “a harbinger of Pyongyang’s aggressive posturing to come next month — with missile launches and a possible nuclear test”, he said.

Iran launched cross-border missile and drone strikes that killed 13 people in Iraq’s Kurdistan region Wednesday after accusing Kurdish armed groups based there of stoking a wave of unrest that has rocked the Islamic republic.

The September 16 death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, 22, while in the custody of Iran’s morality police has sparked a major wave of protests and a crackdown that has left dozens of demonstrators dead.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has accused the Iraq-based Kurdish groups of “attacking and infiltrating Iran… to sow insecurity and riots and spread unrest”.

After earlier Iranian cross-border attacks that caused no casualties, Wednesday’s assault killed “13 people — including a pregnant woman — and wounded 58, most of them civilians, including children”, Iraqi Kurdistan counter terrorism services said in a statement late Wednesday.

“More than 70” strikes were carried out using “ballistic missiles” and armed drones, it added.

Iran state television said the Guards had “targeted several headquarters of separatist terrorists in northern Iraq with precision missiles and destructive drones”.

An AFP correspondent reported smoke billowing from locations hit, ambulances racing to the scene and residents fleeing, at Zargwez, about 15 kilometres (10 miles) from Sulaimaniyah.

– ‘Cowardly attacks’ –

Iraqi Kurdish television channel K24 said three of its journalists were wounded.

The United Nations refugee agency in Iraq said the attack impacted “Iranian refugee settlements”.

UNHCR Iraq said on Twitter that Iranian refugees were said to be among the casualties, adding that the assault “reportedly impacted a primary school where refugee students were present”.

The US armed forces’ Central Command said in a statement that “US forces brought down an Iranian Mojer-6” drone headed towards Arbil “as it appeared as a threat to CENTCOM forces in the area”. 

In Baghdad, Iraq’s federal government called in the Iranian ambassador to protest the deadly strikes, while the UN mission in Iraq (UNAMI) deplored the attack, saying “rocket diplomacy is a reckless act with devastating consequences”.

The United States said it “strongly condemns” Iran’s “brazen attacks” and warned against further strikes, said State Department spokesman Ned Price.

Britain said Iraq’s “indiscriminate bombardment” demonstrates “a repeated pattern of Iranian destabilising activity in the region”.

Germany also slammed the “escalation” and rejected “attempts to locate the causes of the Iranian protests in the neighbouring country”.

Other Iranian strikes Wednesday destroyed buildings around Zargwez, where several exiled left-wing Iranian Kurdish parties maintain offices.

“The area where we are has been hit by 10 drone strikes,” said Atta Nasser, an official from exiled Iranian group Komala.

“The headquarters of the Kurdistan Freedom Party has been hit by Iranian strikes,” Hussein Yazdan, said an official from the party about the site in the Sherawa region south of Arbil.

Another group, the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, said its bases and headquarters in Koysinjaq, east of Arbil, were also struck by “missiles and drones”.

“These cowardly attacks are occurring at a time when the terrorist regime of Iran is unable to crack down on ongoing protests inside and silence the Kurdish and Iranian peoples’ civil resistance,” it tweeted.

– Attack drones –

Amini, 22, died in Tehran three days after being arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women that demands they wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes.

Her death sparked Iran’s biggest protests in almost three years and a crackdown that has killed at least 76 people, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights, or “around 60”, according to Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency.

Protests have rocked especially Kurdish communities in western Iran that share strong connections with Kurdish-inhabited areas of Iraq.

Many Iranian Kurds cross the border into Iraq to find work, due to a biting economic crisis in Iran driven by US sanctions.

The Guards’ General Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy for operations, said Tuesday about Iraqi Kurdistan that “the establishment of a base by the enemies of the Islamic Revolution in this region is not acceptable,” Tasnim news agency reported.

“For some time now, counter-revolutionary elements have been attacking and infiltrating Iran from the northwest of the country to sow insecurity and riots and spread unrest.”

He added that several of “these anti-revolutionary elements were arrested during some riots in the northwest (of Iran), so we had to defend ourselves, react and bomb the surroundings of the border strip”.

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