Ukrainians said on Wednesday they were battling on in the port of Kherson, the first sizeable city Russia claimed to have seized, while air strikes and bombardment caused further devastation in other cities, especially Kharkiv in the east.
Russia’s week-old invasion has yet to achieve its aim of overthrowing Ukraine’s government but has sent more than 870,000 people fleeing to neighbouring countries and jolted the global economy as governments and companies line up to isolate Moscow.
The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to deplore the invasion “in the strongest terms”. It demanded that Russia withdraw its forces in a resolution backed by 141 of the assembly’s 193 members.
Bombing of Kharkiv, a city of 1.5 million people, has left its centre a wasteland of ruined buildings and debris.
“The Russian ‘liberators’ have come,” one Ukrainian volunteer lamented sarcastically, as he and three others strained to carry the dead body of a man wrapped in a bedsheet out of the ruins on a main square.
At least 25 people have been killed by shelling and air strikes in Kharkiv in the past 24 hours, authorities said. After an air strike on Wednesday, the roof of a police building in central Kharkiv collapsed in flames.
‘THEY JUST WANT TO DESTROY’
Pavel Dorogoy, 36, a photographer who lives near the city centre, said Russian forces had also targeted the city council building, which was empty at the time, a telephone exchange and a television tower on the edge of Kharkiv.
“Most people hid in the basements for most of the day today and last night … The Russians cannot enter the town so they’re just attacking us from afar, they just want to destroy what they can,” he said.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and says it aims to disarm Ukraine, a country of 44 million people, in a “special military operation”.
Russia said it would hold a second round of peace talks with Ukraine on Thursday on the border with Belarus, Russian news agencies reported, after a first round made scant progress on Monday. There was no immediate word from Kyiv on the reports.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday Russia must stop bombing if it wanted to negotiate.
In Washington’s assessment, a U.S. official said, there has been no significant change on the ground in Ukraine since Tuesday despite the launch of more than 450 Russian missiles against Ukrainian targets.
Russia said it had captured Kherson, a southern provincial capital of around 250,000 people strategically placed where the Dnipro River flows into the Black Sea.
Zelenskiy adviser Oleksiy Arestovych denied Kherson was fully under Russian control, saying: “The city has not fallen, our side continues to defend.”
The U.S. official also said Kherson remained contested.
Also in the south, Russia was bombarding the port of Mariupol, which it says it has surrounded in a ring around the Sea of Azov. The besieged city’s mayor said Mariupol had suffered mass casualties after a night of intense strikes. He gave no full casualty figure, but said it was impossible to evacuate the wounded and that water supplies were cut.
EXODUS
Apple, Exxon, Boeing and other firms joined an exodus of international companies from Russian markets that has left Moscow financially and diplomatically isolated since President Vladimir Putin ordered the Feb. 24 invasion.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow still sought Ukraine’s “demilitarisation” and said there should be a list of specified weapons that could never be deployed on Ukrainian territory. Moscow opposes Kyiv’s bid to join NATO.
U.S. President Joe Biden said in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday that Putin had underestimated Ukraine and its Western supporters.
“He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of strength he could never have anticipated or imagined: he met Ukrainian people,” Biden said, drawing applause from lawmakers who waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags.
On Wednesday, asked if the United States would ban Russian oil and gas, Biden said “nothing is off the table”.
Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister Emine Dzhaparova won a standing ovation at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, in sharp contrast to a walk-out on Tuesday by more than 100 diplomats during an address by Lavrov.
Russia’s defence ministry said 498 Russian soldiers had died in Ukraine and another 1,597 had been wounded since the start of the invasion. It was the first time Moscow put a figure on its casualties. It said more than 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers and “nationalists” had been killed, Interfax news agency reported.
Ukraine said more than 7,000 Russian soldiers had been killed so far and hundreds taken prisoner, including senior officers.
The numbers given by Moscow and Kyiv could not be independently verified.
Russia’s main advance on the capital – a huge armoured column, stretching for miles along the road to Kyiv – has been largely frozen in place for days, Western governments say.
The U.S. official said the Russians “are behind schedule” in their assault on Kyiv.
The Kremlin’s decision to launch war – after months of denying such plans – has shocked Russians accustomed to viewing Putin, their ruler of 22 years, as a methodical strategist.
Russia’s rouble currency plunged to a new record low on Wednesday, a slide that will hit Russians’ living standards, and the stock market remained closed. The central bank, itself under sanctions, has doubled interest rates to 20%.
In an echo of the post-Soviet economic collapse of the 1990s, Russians have queued at banks to salvage their savings.
Leading Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny said from prison that Russians should protest daily against the war, a spokesperson tweeted.
Ukraine said more than 1,000 volunteers from 16 countries were on their way to fight alongside Ukrainian forces, and that it would free any Russian prisoners whose mothers come to collect them at the border.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets and Aleksandar Vasovic in Ukraine and by Reuters bureauxWriting by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Catherine Evans)
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
