World

Ukraine war: ‘It doesn’t stop’ – the soldiers fighting Russia from beneath the trees

Published

3 years ago

October 21, 2022

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When soldiers in Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanised Brigade do their work, most tasks are performed under trees.

It is a simple matter of staying alive.

Members of the brigade’s Oril Company stack their munitions under a stand of gnarly-looking trees. Their mortars are hidden in the bushes.

Putin’s forces ‘preparing to blow up major dam’ – Ukraine war live updates

We were told to walk in single file – and strongly advised not to stand in groups of more than two.

Best to try and look like an ordinary civilian if the Russians are watching from the sky.

And everyone knows the Russians are watching.

“Quadcopters (drones), it’s quadcopters. They can see us. Everything we do needs to be masked,” says Yurii, the commander of Oril Company.

A former carpenter, Yurii is now military commander in a village just outside the eastern city of Bakhmut.

Drones have become a serious headache, he said, passing information onto Russian gunners.

“It’s like 24 hours a day, we have attacks on our positions, it doesn’t stop,” he added.

‘Time for us to go down’

However, the 93rd Brigade also has drones and when the company commander was radioed a set of coordinates, his men ran over to the bushes to retrieve the mortar.

“Vuha!” shouted a serviceman, warning everyone to cover their ears, as he dropped one of two mortar shells down the tube.

There was a momentary silence, before the munition screamed into the sky.

A minute or two later, we received the Russians’ reply. A tank shell descended with a sickening whine, crashing into the earth several hundred metres from our position.

“Time for us to go down,” said Yurii, calmly.

Like a game of hide and seek, we took refuge in a nearby underground bunker as a succession of Russian shells screeched through the vicinity.

When they hit the earth, a blast of air gushed through the bunker’s main door.

Six or seven soldiers eat, sleep – and store their arms in the bunker – and with unmistakable pride.

Yurii showed me a bulky 50-calibre machine gun that his team had ripped from the top of a Russian tank.

They are probably his biggest supplier of weapons, he said.

“We have American, Romanian, Czech, Bulgarian and Russian stuff. It’s multinational, but we have a lot of Russian (equipment), they’re like trophies, but we prefer Czech or American.”

‘Russians are learning from us’

Western countries, like the US and UK, have provided Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of military hardware, but they are still outgunned by the Russians.

Yurii thinks the enemy has five times the number of artillery pieces.

Still, human motivation is a different story. “We know what we’re fighting for. They don’t,” he said.

Yurii and his men have been trying to turn their fleet of off-the-shelf drones into miniature bombers, by strapping cigar-shaped grenades to the bottom.

“I ask my friend, to drop a present in this hole, and we have success,” he said, showing me a video of the grenade tumbling into a pit hiding a gun position.

“But Russians now (do) this too, we show them the example, so they are learning from us.”

‘Don’t walk in the middle road, OK?’

After the Russian barrage, we returned to the surface, for the commander wanted to take us to a town called Soledar. It is the site of some of the most ferocious fighting in this war.

Every structure had been damaged or destroyed, and smoke emanating from the ruins of a salt factory made it difficult to breath.

It was like a scene from World War Two.

“It’s like Stalingrad,” he said. “We maybe have 90% (of the) buildings smashed. We call it Soled-grad. Like Stalingrad yes?”

Yurii emitted a sad-sounding laugh, then readied his men for the walk back to the bunker.

Before we parted, he offered a few words of advice.

“Don’t walk in the middle road, OK? And if you hear something coming, jump in the ditch.”

World

Donald Trump announces 30% tariff on imports from EU

Published

4 hours ago

July 12, 2025

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Donald Trump announces 30% tariff on imports from EU

Donald Trump has announced he will impose a 30% tariff on imports from the European Union from 1 August.

The tariffs could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the US.

Mr Trump has also imposed a 30% tariff on goods from Mexico, according to a post from his Truth Social account.

Announcing the moves in separate letters on the account, the president said the US trade deficit was a national security threat.

In his letter to the EU, he wrote: “We have had years to discuss our trading relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, trade Deficits, engendered by your tariff, and non-Tariff, policies, and trade barriers.

“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal.”

In his letter to Mexico, Mr Trump said he did not think the country had done enough to stop the US from turning into a “narco-trafficking playground”.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said today that the EU could adopt “proportionate countermeasures” if the US proceeds with imposing the 30% tariff.

Ms von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement that the bloc remained ready “to continue working towards an agreement by Aug 1”.

“Few economies in the world match the European Union’s level of openness and adherence to fair trading practices,” she continued.

“We will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required.”

Ms von der Leyen has also said imposing tariffs on EU exports would “disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains”.

Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on the X social media platform that Mr Trump’s announcement was “very concerning and not the way forward”.

He added: “The European Commission can count on our full support. As the EU we must remain united and resolute in pursuing an outcome with the United States that is mutually beneficial.”

Mexico’s economy ministry said a bilateral working group aims to reach an alternative to the 30% US tariffs before they are due to take effect.

The country was informed by the US that it would receive a letter about the tariffs, the ministry’s statement said, adding that Mexico was negotiating.

Trump’s tariff threats and delays

On his so-called “liberation day” in April, Mr Trump unleashed “reciprocal tariffs” on many of America’s trade partners.

The US president said he was targeting countries with which America has a trade imbalance.

However, since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.

The US imposed a 20% tariff on imported goods from the EU in April but it was later paused and the bloc has since been paying a baseline tariff of 10% on goods it exports to the US.

In May, while the US and EU where holding trade negotiations, Mr Trump threated to impose a 50% tariff on the bloc as talks didn’t progress as he would have liked.

However, he later announced he was delaying the imposition of that tariff while negotiations over a trade deal took place.

As of earlier this week, the EU’s executive commission, which handles trade issues for the bloc’s 27-member nations, said its leaders were still hoping to strike a trade deal with the Trump administration.

Without one, the EU said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.

World

‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

Published

23 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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'At least 798 killed' at Gaza aid points - as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.

The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.

Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.

The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.

Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.

“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.

The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.

It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.

The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.

After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.

World

At least 798 people have been killed at Gaza aid points, the UN says

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.

A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.

The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.

The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.

In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.