Putin is attempting to destabilise European countries to divert attention from Ukraine, warns Kosovo’s president
On the eve of the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine there are ominous warnings the Ukraine conflict could widen and draw in other countries.
America says China is considering entering the conflict as an active partner of Russia and will start sending weapons.
And there are very real fears Vladimir Putin is stepping up efforts to destabilise countries from Moldova to the Western Balkans.
That was the focus of an exclusive interview with Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani at the Munich Security Conference.
“What he’s trying to do is to divert the attention of the West away from Ukraine,” she told Sky News.
“The way he would be able to do that is by creating other conflicts in Europe, whether we’re talking about Moldova, Georgia or the Western Balkans.”
Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani
As she spoke, pro-Russian politicians were rallying protestors in the Moldovan capital Chisinau.
The country’s government claims Russia is seeking to destabilise it.
President Osmani says the Kremlin wants the same in Kosovo via its ally Serbia.
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She says Russia is using methods it employed in eastern Ukraine to foment civil war and destabilise the country in 2014.
“They tried to create false flag operations,” she said.
“They bring in paramilitary forces that are dressed in civilians within our territory through illegal routes, and then they send in weapons and they also send in green uniforms without insignia so that it doesn’t look like a traditional military attack.
Protests in Chisinau. Pic: AP
“But in fact, they do prepare a lot of hybrid attacks, which is a mix of what these paramilitary forces do in northern Kosovo.”
Kosovo won independence after the Kosovo War that followed the break up of Yugoslavia and the intervention of NATO.
Several countries, Serbia among them, do not recognise it.
Kosovo accuses Russia of helping Serbia stir up separatism among the ethnic Serb minority in the country.
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Putin is trying to ‘exhaust the West’
President Osmani says the international community is not doing enough to deter Russia from meddling in her county and others.
“Look, sometimes we feel just like when Poland and the Baltics were warning that this is exactly what’s going to happen many, many years ago, that Russia is going to go with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and not just Ukraine, because they see other neighbours as temporary states.
“They were not being listened to.”
And as allies discuss how best to end the war in Ukraine the Kosovan president warned against any territorial compromise with the Kremlin.
“Genocidal regimes should not be rewarded with territory,” she said.
World
Director of one of last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza detained in Israeli military raid
The director of one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza was arrested in a raid the Israeli military said was targeting a Hamas command centre.
The Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was held by Israeli forces on Friday along with dozens of other staff and taken to an interrogation centre.
Sky News has spoken to patients who say they were forced outside and told to strip in winter weather after troops stormed the hospital.
Israel‘s military said it “conducted and completed a targeted operation” as the hospital was being used as a command centre for Hamas military operations.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. File pic
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement said more than 240 terrorists were detained, some of whom tried to pose as patients or flee using ambulances.
Among those taken for questioning are the hospital’s director, who it said was suspected of being a “Hamas terrorist operative”.
Around 15 people involved in last year’s 7 October attack on southern Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 250 others abducted, were also detained, the IDF said.
The Israeli military said hundreds of patients and staff were evacuated to another hospital before and during the operation, and it had provided fuel and medical supplies to both hospitals.
Militants fired on its forces and they were “eliminated”, while weapons, including grenades, guns, munitions, and military equipment, were also seized in the raid, it said.
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, and wounded more than 108,000 others, according to the health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive in largely isolated northern Gaza against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped.
The health ministry said a strike on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical personnel.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was “appalled” by Friday’s raid, which it said put northern Gaza’s last major health facility “out of service”.
“The systematic dismantling of the health system and a siege for over 80 days… puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk,” a statement said.
The Israeli military said in a statement: “The IDF will continue to act in accordance with international law regarding medical facilities, including those where Hamas has chosen to embed its military infrastructure and conduct terrorist activities in blatant violation of international law.”
Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh has been cremated after a state funeral as politicians and the public mourned his death.
Widely regarded as the architect of the country’s economic reform programme, he died on Thursday aged 92.
His body was taken on Saturday morning to the headquarters of his Congress party in New Delhi, where party leaders and activists paid tribute to him and chanted: “Manmohan Singh lives forever.”
Former Indian PM Manmohan Singh pictured in 2014. File pic: AP
Abhishek Bishnoi, a party leader, said Mr Singh’s death was big loss for the country.
“He used to speak little, but his talent and his actions spoke louder than his words,” he said.
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Later, Mr Singh’s body was transported to a crematorium ground for his last rites as soldiers beat drums.
Government officials, politicians and family members paid their last respects to Mr Singh, whose casket was adorned with flowers and wrapped in the Indian flag.
Indian President Draupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called Mr Singh one of the country’s “most distinguished leaders”, attended the funeral ceremony.
Gursharan Kaur (right), wife of Mr Singh, attends his funeral. Pic: AP
Mr Singh’s body was then transferred to a pyre as religious hymns played and he was cremated.
Authorities have declared a seven-day mourning period and cancelled all cultural and entertainment events during that time.
Mr Singh was prime minister for 10 years and leader of the Congress party in parliament’s upper house.
He was chosen to be prime minister in 2004 by Sonia Gandhi, the widow of assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Mr Singh was re-elected in 2009, but his second term was clouded by financial scandals.
This led to the Congress party’s crushing defeat in the 2014 national elections by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
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