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DUBAI: Russian forces destroyed the critical infrastructure in the southern city of Kherson before fleeing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, adding that local authorities were starting to stabilize the city.
Jubilant residents welcomed troops arriving in the center of Kherson on Friday after Russia abandoned the only regional capital it had captured since the start of the war.
“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all the critical infrastructure: communications, water, heat, electricity,” Zelensky said in a video address.
“(Russians) everywhere have the same goal: to humiliate people as much as possible. But we will restore everything, believe me,” he continued.
Zelensky said Ukrainian troops had taken control of more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region.
“Police have launched stabilization measures. Stabilization measures are also underway in Kherson,” he said.
PHNOM PENH: Cambodian leader Hun Sen called for unity Sunday, telling a gathering including Russia, China and the United States that current global tensions have been taking a toll on everyone.
The prime minister, whose country holds the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said at the opening of the East Asia Summit that it was in the world’s common interest to cooperate to solve differences peacefully.
The comments come as regional tensions remain high between the United States and China over Taiwan and Beijing’s growing regional aspirations, and while the Russia invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global supply chains, causing rising energy and food prices far beyond Europe.
Without singling out any nation by name, Hun Sen said he hoped leaders would embrace a “spirit of togetherness in upholding open and inclusive multilateralism, pragmatism and mutual respect in addressing the existential and strategic challenges we all face.”
“Many current challenges and tensions have been hindering our past hard-earned efforts to promote sustainable development and causing greater hardship to people’s lives,” he said as he opened the meeting, which is running in parallel to the ASEAN group’s main summit.
Participants included US President Joe Biden and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, and it comes just a day before the highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Bali.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also taking part in the meetings, which also included the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and others.
On Saturday, Biden promised that the US would work with ASEAN, telling leaders of the strategically vital coalition that “we’re going to build a better future that we all want to see” in the region where US rival China is also working to expand its influence.
He promised to collaborate to build a region that is “free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”
“I look forward to continuing our work together with ASEAN and with each one of you to deepen peace and prosperity throughout the region to resolve challenges from the South China Sea to Myanmar and to find innovative solutions to shared challenges,” Biden said, citing climate and health security among areas of collaboration.
Li Keqiang, meantime, told a meeting of ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea that amid a “turbulent” global security situation, “unilateralism and protectionism are surging, economic and financial risks are rising, and global development is confronted with unprecedented challenges.”
As major economies in East Asia, Li said the group needed to “stay committed to promoting peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and beyond, and to improving the people’s well-being.”
Russian forces destroyed key infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson before fleeing, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as his counterparts in Russia and Iran vowed to deepen economic, political and trade ties.
Zelensky described as hellish battles in the eastern region of Donetsk, where pro-Moscow forces were putting up a much stiffer fight after Russia abandoned on Friday the only regional capital it had captured since the war began in February.
Jubilant residents of Kherson welcomed arriving troops while Zelensky said authorities, in their efforts to stabilize the region, had dealt with nearly 2,000 mines, trip-wires and unexploded shells left by the departing Russians.
Russians “everywhere have the same goal: to humiliate people as much as possible. But we will restore everything, believe me,” Zelensky said in a video address on Saturday.
“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all the critical infrastructure: communications, water, heat, electricity.”
Ukraine’s success in Kherson, where its troops now control more than 60 regional settlements, as well as in other places, benefited partly from resistance in the Donetsk region, despite repeated Russian attacks, Zelensky added.
“There it is just hell — there are extremely fierce battles there every day,” he said. “But our units are defending bravely — they are withstanding the terrible pressure of the invaders, preserving our defense lines.”
In a telephone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi emphasized “further enhancing cooperation in the political, trade and economic fields, including the transport and logistics sector,” the Kremlin said on Saturday.
Russia has stepped up efforts to build ties with Iran and other non-Western countries during the war, with a senior Russian security official having met Iranian leaders in Tehran on Wednesday.
The visit followed accusations by Ukraine and the West that Russia has used Iranian drones to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Iran says it sent Russia a small number of drones before the war began. Last month, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats said that Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles.
But Ukraine will decide on the timing and contents of any negotiation framework with Russia, according to the readout of a Saturday meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Phnom Penh.
The Washington Post reported a week ago that the Biden administration was privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless Putin was removed from power.
Moscow calls its action in Ukraine a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” its smaller neighbor. Kyiv and its allies say Russia’s invasion, which has killed tens of thousands and uprooted millions, was unprovoked and illegal.
On the road to Kherson, villagers holding flowers waited on Saturday to greet and kiss Ukrainian soldiers as they poured in to secure control of the right bank of the Dnipro River after the stunning Russian retreat.
“We’ve become 20 years younger in the last two days,” said Valentyna Buhailova, 61, just before a Ukrainian soldier jumped out of a small truck and hugged her and her companion Nataliya Porkhunuk, 66, in a hamlet near the center of Kherson.
But volleys of artillery fire surrounded the international airport, and police said they were setting up checkpoints in and around the city and sweeping for mines left behind.
The mayor said the humanitarian situation was “severe” because of a lack of water, medicine and bread, as residents celebrated their liberation in what Zelensky called a “historic day.”
“The city has a critical shortage, mainly of water,” Mayor Roman Holovnia told television. “There is currently not enough medicine, not enough bread because it can’t be baked: there is no electricity.”
Renowned graffiti artist Banksy unveiled on Instagram a mural of a girl gymnast performing a handstand on a small pile of concrete rubble in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, which had been occupied by Russia until April and heavily damaged in the early days of fighting.
“This is such a historic moment for our country that people like Banksy and other famous figures are coming here and showing the world what Russia has done to us,” said Alina Mazur, 31, who drove 60km from Kyiv, the capital, for a glimpse.
But the road to Kherson from Mykolaiv was lined by fields scarred by miles of abandoned Russian trenches. A destroyed T72 tank lay with its turret tossed upside down.
The abandoned trenches were littered with refuse, blankets and camouflage netting. An irrigation ditch was filled with discarded Russian gear and several anti-tank mines were visible on the side of road.
People in the village of Kiselivka said the Russians left on Wednesday night.
“They didn’t fire any shots,” said Hyhory Kulyaka, 54, who drove up on a scooter. “They were just gone.”
WASHINGTON: The head of US Customs and Border Protection has resigned from his job leading the nation’s largest law enforcement agency as agents encounter record numbers of migrants entering the US from Mexico.
Chris Magnus submitted his resignation to President Joe Biden on Saturday, saying it had been “a privilege and honor” to be part of the administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden had accepted Magnus’ resignation. “President Biden appreciates Commissioner Magnus’ nearly forty years of service and the contributions he made to police reform during his tenure as police chief in three US cities,” she said.
Two people who were briefed on the matter told The Associated Press on Friday that Magnus was told to resign or be fired less than a year after he was confirmed. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to address the matter publicly.
Magnus’s removal is part of a larger shakeup expected at Homeland Security as it struggles to manage migrants coming from a wider range of countries, including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. This comes as Republicans are likely to take control of the House in January and are expected to launch investigations into the border.
Migrants were stopped 2.38 million times at the Mexican border in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up 37 percent from the year before. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time in August and is more than twice the highest level during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2019.
The Los Angeles Times was first to report on the ultimatum. In a statement to the newspaper, Magnus said he was asked by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to step down or be fired.
VLEUTEN, Netherlands: Each night before bedtime in the small Dutch town of Vleuten, Evert van Zijtveld lights two candles at a concrete shrine next to his front door to remember his murdered children.
Eight years and four months ago his daughter Frederique, 19, and son Robert-Jan, 18, died with 296 others when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot from the sky over war-torn Ukraine.
Now the 67-year-old is hoping for justice and closure in a high-security Dutch courtroom on Thursday, where judges will deliver their verdicts on four suspects who remain at large.
“Those who are responsible for downing MH17 should be sent to prison. If they are guilty, the international community should hunt them down,” Van Zijtveld told AFP in an interview.
For Van Zijtveld and others who lost loved ones when the Boeing 777 traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was hit by what prosecutors say was a Russian-supplied missile, the loss is still raw years later.
Large photographs of Frederique and Robert-Jan adorn the home of Van Zijtveld and his wife Grace, who also lost her own mother Neeltje Voorham, 77, and stepfather Jan van der Steen, 71, in the disaster.
One picture shows a smiling Van Zijtveld cuddling his daughter, which in a tragic irony was taken in the departures lounge at Schiphol airport when Frederique was departing on another trip.
“Angry is not the right word,” sighed Van Zijtveld, a tall and dapper Dutchman who has earned widespread respect through his work in helping other relatives of victims deal with their grief, and setting up a fund for under-privileged children.
“I am just very sad. My children and my parents-in-law were taking a holiday in the eastern part of the world. They were hit by a BUK. They were murdered. They were wonderful people.”
Prosecutors say the four suspects — three Russians and a Ukrainian — played a key role in supplying the missile and have demanded life sentences if the men are convicted.
About an hour’s drive to the east, in the village of Renkum, Sander Essers says he often listens to music to help him deal with his grief.
The 72-year-old lost his brother Peter, sister-in-law Jolette Nuesink and their two children Emma, 20 and Valentijn, 17.
“Some evenings I take some time to listen to my brother’s favorite Brazilian music, to think about him and his family and to cry,” Essers told AFP.
“For me, the verdict will be the partial end for the search for justice for my dear family… I hope the legal proof will be sufficient to come to a verdict.”
Both Van Zijtveld and Essers say the verdict, whatever the judges decide, will be a milestone after more than eight years of heartache, often under the intense glare of the media.
Many bereaved relatives testified during the trial which started in March 2020, offering heartbreaking accounts of the impact from the loss of their loved ones.
“This is a kind of a closure, this phase. It’s too heavy to start it all over again,” Van Zijtveld said.
He had tough words for the four accused, Russians Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko.
“They are real cowards” for not coming to court, he said, his eyes for the first time flashing with anger.
Essers urged those involved in the downing of MH17 to come clean, saying there was no chance of forgiveness until they spoke.
“Open up, if you ever want to be at peace with yourself and to be able to look at yourself with at least some feeling of dignity,” he said when asked what his message was to those involved.
But Van Zijtveld took a harder line.
“I cannot accept it,” he said.
“My children and parents-in-law were murdered. I cannot forgive them. I can never do that.”