Inside Ukraine’s trenches: ‘It’s like the First World War – very compact, claustrophobic’
In the lowlands which separate the regions Mykolaiv and Kherson, there is little of great value to see.
The fields are flat and generally featureless, and the residents of local villages have evacuated their homes.
Yet this territory is critically important, for it serves as the gateway to the city of Kherson.
A metropolitan centre of some 300,000, it is the only regional capital the Russians have managed to capture – which makes it an inestimable military prize.
By capturing the city, the Ukrainians would effectively banish the enemy from western side of the Dnipro River, reinforcing the momentum they have built over the past weeks.
Their forces lie some 30km from the outskirts of the city and we were taken to a series of narrow-walled trenches which form the Ukraine side of the current front line.
A soldier called Oleksandr, who led us down a passage, then pointed at a hole that had been chiselled in the wall.
“Sleep,” he said, opening a small wooden door.
“That’s where we go, sleep and take cover.”
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Cover is something Oleksandr needs. This position is continually hit by the Russians.
It’s very active, every day, tanks and mortars, small and big calibre, howitzers, cluster bombs, Grad missiles – everything they have, they use.
Nearby, we found soldiers Vadim and Anatoly staring at the horizon from their lookout post.
It was cramped and claustrophobic but they said the Ukrainians will soon take more ground.
“We won’t be here for long, just for a couple of days,” said Anatoly.
“But winter is coming, won’t that make it more difficult?” I asked.
“We can take it, we’ll be okay.”
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There is a machine gun post that protects Ukrainian positions in the area and the commander told us he was willing to take us if we were prepared to run.
We sprinted through a section of open ground and found a pair of gunners at the end of a shallow trench.
They told us that this spot had recently been seized by the Russians.
“Browning gun, Germany. I can show you,” said one, as he gripped the handles of his heavy machine gun.
“If you look forward, 11 o’clock, there’s a building there and our intelligence is now saying there are Chechens inside.”
Chechen fighters, under the direction of Ramzan Kadyrov, a prominent Russian supporter of Vladimir Putin, are actively involved in this war, developing a fearsome reputation for brutality.
“Have you used (the gun)?”, I asked.
“Yes, we have used it and successfully too – it’s undefendable. I can only imagine how the enemy felt afterwards.”
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The light was fading and the commander told us that we had to return. He had good reason to ask us to leave – the field in front us was peppered with artillery fire as we made our way out.
We knew that the men on this ramshackle trench line would have a long and difficult night.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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