Russia launched a massive airstrike campaign against neighboring Ukraine on Sunday. Local officials say several people died and the power system suffered “severe damage.” VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Berlin — Prominent Russian opposition figures led a march of at least 1,000 people in central Berlin Sunday, criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war in Ukraine and calling for democracy in Russia.

Behind a banner that read “No Putin. No War,” the protesters were led by Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of top Putin critic Alexei Navalny, as well as Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who were freed from Russian detention in a high-profile prisoner exchange this summer.

Shouting “Russia without Putin” and other chants in Russian, the demonstrators held up signs with a wide array of messages on a red background, including “Putin = War” and “Putin is a murderer” in German.

Some marched with the flags of Russia or Ukraine, as well as a white-blue-white flag used by some Russian opposition groups.

Organizers said the march began near Potsdamer Platz and went through the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie and was expected to end outside the Russian Embassy.

“The march demands the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, the trial of Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, and the release of all political prisoners in Russia,” the protesters said in a statement.

Yashin, in a statement before the demonstration, said demonstrators were “using the freedom we have here in Berlin to show the world: A peaceful, free, and civilized Russia exists.”

Navalnaya, Yashin and Kara-Murza have all billed Sunday’s rally as a show of unity at a time when recent rounds of acrimony have roiled the anti-war camp.

Russia’s exiled anti-war opposition has so far largely failed to speak with one voice and present a clear plan of action.

The landmark East-West prisoner swap in August freed key dissidents and promised to reinvigorate a movement unmoored by the death in prison of Navalny, a charismatic anti-corruption campaigner and arch-Kremlin foe.

Instead, tensions have spiked in recent months, as Navalny’s allies and other prominent dissidents swapped accusations that appeared to dash any hopes of a united anti-Kremlin front.

Many opposition-minded Russians have voiced deep frustration with the infighting, and with what some view as efforts by rivaling groups to discredit and wrest influence from one another.
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Rome — Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, according to excerpts released Sunday from an upcoming new book ahead of the pontiff’s jubilee year.  

It’s the first time that Francis has openly urged for an investigation of genocide allegations over Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. In September, he said Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, and that its military has gone beyond the rules of war.  

The book, by Hernán Reyes Alcaide and based on interviews with the Pope, is entitled “Hope never disappoints. Pilgrims towards a better world.” It will be released on Tuesday ahead of the pope’s 2025 jubilee. Francis’ yearlong jubilee is expected to bring more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome to celebrate the Holy Year.  

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” the pope said in excerpts published Sunday by the Italian daily La Stampa.   

“We should investigate carefully to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies,” he added.  

Last year, Francis met separately with relatives of Israeli hostages in Gaza and Palestinians living through the war and set off a firestorm by using words that Vatican diplomats usually avoid: “terrorism” and, according to the Palestinians, “genocide.”  

Francis spoke at the time about the suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians after his meetings, which were arranged before the Israeli-Hamas hostage deal and a temporary halt in fighting was announced.  

The pontiff, who last week also met with a delegation of Israeli hostages who were released and their families pressing the campaign to bring the remaining captives home had editorial control over the upcoming book.  

The war started when the militant Hamas group attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 as hostages and taking them back to Gaza, where dozens still remain.  

Israel’s subsequent yearlong military campaign has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, whose count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and fighters, though they say more than half of the dead are women and children.  

The Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza has triggered several legal cases at international courts in The Hague involving requests for arrest warrants as well as accusations and denials of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  

In the new book, Francis also speaks about migration and the problem of integrating migrants in their host countries.  

“Faced with this challenge, no country can be left alone and no one can think of addressing the issue in isolation through more restrictive and repressive laws, sometimes approved under the pressure of fear or in search of electoral advantages,” Francis said.  

“On the contrary, just as we see that there is a globalization of indifference, we must respond with the globalization of charity and cooperation,” he added. Francis also mentioned the “still open wound of the war in Ukraine has led thousands of people to abandon their homes, especially during the first months of the conflict.” 
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned by a museum in Oslo to Chile’s remote territory of Easter Island in the mid-Pacific, the Kon-Tiki Museum said Wednesday.

In 1947, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed on a log raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 101 days to prove his theory — that the South Sea Islands were settled by seafarers from South America.

He brought 5,600 objects back from Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. This is the third time objects taken by him are being returned.

Many have been stored and displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway’s capital, and some were given back in 1986 and others 2006. The return has been a collaboration between the museum, Chile and Rapa Nui’s local authorities.

“My grandfather would have been proud of what we are about to achieve,” said Liv Heyerdahl, head of the museum and the explorer’s granddaughter.

She told the Norwegian news agency NTB that the objects were brought to Norway “with a promise that they would one day be returned.”

Among those that are being returned this time around are human remains called Ivi Tepuna and sculpted stones.

A nine-person delegation had traveled to Norway this week to collect the items. Four of them spent the night at the Oslo museum, alongside the remains as part of a ritual ceremony to take back the spirits of the remains.

“First one must awaken the spirits, and then speak to them in our original language. Food is then prepared to eat a meal with them, where the smell of the food goes to the spirits,” a member of the delegation, Laura Tarita Rapu Alarcón, told NTB.

“It is important that those who own the culture are involved in the process,” Liv Heyerdahl was quoted as saying by NTB. “Of course these remains should be returned, and it feels right because they belong to the Rapa Nui.”

In 2019, an agreement was signed in Santiago, Chile, during a visit by Norway’s King Harald. However, the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all activities in 2020, the museum said. Harald met with the Rapa Nui delegation on Tuesday.

A book about Thor Heyerdahl’s voyage — he died in 2002 at the age of 87 — has become an international bestseller, and his film of the journey won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1951.

Rapa Nui is best known for the hundreds of moai — monolithic human figures carved centuries ago by this remote Pacific island’s Rapanui people.

Covering about 164 square kilometers and home to about 7,700 people, half of them with Rapa Nui ancestry, Easter Island was formed at least 750,000 years ago by volcanic eruptions and is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands.

Located 3,700 kilometers from South America, Rapa Nui was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. In 2019, it was officially renamed “Rapa Nui-Easter Island” from its previous name of just Easter Island.
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Brussels — Josep Borrell took a deep breath as the train rumbled across Ukraine at the end of his final visit after five tumultuous years as the EU’s foreign policy chief.

“I feel a certain nostalgia,” the 77-year-old Spaniard said, hunching forward to be heard over the noise of the tracks.

“We’ve been working closely with these people, who are great people, who are fighting for their survival,” he said. “And who knows what’s going to happen with them?”

The job of EU top diplomat has often been seen as thankless — trying to coordinate the sometimes radically opposed positions of 27 countries, each jealously guarding their own foreign policy.

But Borrell’s tenure, wrapping up next month, has thrust him into the center of some of the most consequential events in recent world history.

He has helped steer the bloc’s response to the COVID pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and war in the Middle East.

Ukraine war

It was Moscow’s all-out assault in February 2022 that upended European security and came to dominate his time at the helm.

Borrell, a Socialist former Spanish foreign minister with more than 40 years of political experience, immediately pushed for the EU to pay for weapons deliveries to a country at war, a longstanding red line for the bloc.

“This was a breakthrough in the way we behaved.”

Since then, the EU has spent billions more on arming Ukraine and Russia has been hit by repeated rounds of unprecedented sanctions despite regular obstacles from reluctant EU states such as Hungary.

While the Ukraine crisis has revealed the EU’s willingness to act, the war in Gaza by contrast has been the most painful episode for Borrell.

Since Israel unleashed its devastating offensive after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, the EU has had no influence to curb the suffering, with its member states deeply divided over the conflict.

He said the refusal by member states supportive of Israel to do more has damaged the EU on the global stage.

“My biggest frustration is not being able to make it understood that a violation of international law is a violation of international law, whoever does it,” Borrell said.

‘Break taboos’

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs is constrained by how far member states are willing to go, and a simple statement can take days of wrangling.

Borrell has frequently angered EU capitals by going beyond their agreed positions.

“One has to break taboos,” he said. “Agreed language most of the time says nothing. We agree on saying nothing.”

Critics, and there are plenty in sharp-elbowed Brussels, say Borrell has not helped his case, with numerous gaffes and some tactical missteps.

A low point of his tenure was a disastrous trip to Moscow in early 2021 when he was caught in a diplomatic ambush and failed to push back against Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

But as Moscow’s assault on Ukraine played out, he proved a fast learner, said Gabrielius Landsbergis, foreign minister of Lithuania, one of the Baltic states wary of nearby Russia.

“We witnessed a transformation from Russia-threat agnostic into Russia hawk — who could very well come from the Baltics,” he told AFP.

‘All things pass’

On Borrell’s final trip to Ukraine, he held talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, visited a drone factory, and headed to a defensive position near Russia’s border.

“It generates a lot of adrenaline,” he said, to explain how he has kept up with the pace.

Despite the weight on his shoulders, he said there have been moments of joy.

He pointed to the warm welcome he received on his final Ukraine visit, appreciation from some Palestinians and being able to help repatriate hundreds of thousands of Europeans during the pandemic.

As he leaves the stage, the global situation looks perilous, with a new U.S. administration heralding challenges for Europe, Russia advancing in Ukraine and war raging in the Middle East.

Borrell is to be replaced in the job by former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, 47, who is expected to bring a more tightly controlled style.

“She will perform very well, and she will be very happy, and she will suffer less than me,” he said. “I wish her the best.” 
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VIENNA — Russia’s state-owned natural gas company Gazprom stopped supplies to Austria early Saturday, according to the Vienna-based utility OMV, after OMV said it would stop payments for the gas following an arbitration award.

The official cutoff of supplies before dawn Saturday came after Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Friday held a hastily called news conference to emphasize that his country has a secure supply of alternative fuel for this winter.

OMV said it would stop paying for Gazprom gas to its Austrian arm to offset a $242 million arbitration award it won from the International Chamber of Commerce over an earlier cutoff of gas to its German subsidiary.

The Austrian utility said in an email that no gas delivery was made from 6 a.m. on Saturday.

OMV said Wednesday it has sufficient stocks to provide gas to its customers in case of a potential disruption by Gazprom and said storage in Austria was more than 90% full.

“Once again Putin is using energy as a weapon,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote in a post on social media platform X. “He is trying to blackmail Austria & Europe by cutting gas supplies. We are prepared for this and ready for the winter.”

Russia cut off most natural gas supplies to Europe in 2022, citing disputes over payment in rubles, a move European leaders described as energy blackmail over their support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

European governments had to scramble to line up alternative supplies at higher prices, much of it liquefied natural gas brought by ship from the United States and Qatar.

Austria gets the bulk of its natural gas from Russia, as much as 98% in December last year, according to Energy Minister Lenore Gewessler.
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Opposition protesters in Georgia’s breakaway province of Abkhazia have refused to cede control of key government buildings that demonstrators stormed to protest new measures allowing Russians to buy property in the area.

Abkhazian President Aslan Bzhania announced Saturday that he would step down and hold early elections if demonstrators vacated the region’s parliament building. But crowds that gathered in the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi, rejected the deal, and opposition leaders said they would accept only Bzhania’s unconditional resignation.

“None of us have come here for the sake of seats [in parliament],” former Abkhazian Prime Minister Valery Bganba told the crowd in a video livestreamed on social media. “We came here to save our people, our country.”

At least 14 people were injured Friday when opposition protesters clashed with police, Russian state news outlet RIA Novosti reported.

Lawmakers had gathered at the region’s parliament building to discuss ratifying measures allowing Russian citizens to buy property in the breakaway state. However, the session was postponed because demonstrators broke through the gate to the building’s grounds with a truck and streamed inside. Some threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas.

Most of Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in fighting that ended in 1993, and Georgia lost control of the rest of the territory in a short war with Russia in 2008. Russia recognizes Abkhazia as an independent country, but many Abkhazians are concerned that the region of about 245,000 people is a client state of Moscow.

Opponents of the property agreement say it will drive up prices of apartments and boost Moscow’s dominance in the region. Abkhazia’s mountains and Black Sea beaches make it a popular destination for Russian tourists, and the demand for holiday homes could be strong.

The arrest of five opposition figures at a similar demonstration Monday set off wide protests the next day in which bridges leading to Sukhumi were blocked.
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ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Jake Paul beat boxing legend Mike Tyson by unanimous decision to win an intergenerational heavyweight battle in Texas on Friday that failed to live up to its enormous hype.

The bout between the 27-year-old social media influencer-turned-prizefighter Paul and the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion Tyson was streamed live on Netflix and played out in front of a sold-out crowd at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Those fans were left largely disappointed as Tyson showed his age and was never able to generate any offense against his younger opponent, landing just 18 punches to Paul’s 78.

“First and foremost, Mike Tyson — it’s an honor to be able to fight him,” said Paul. “It was as tough and hard as I thought it would be.”

Tyson, who wore a knee brace, never mounted much of a challenge after being wobbled by some left hands in the third round but did enough defensively to avoid taking any serious damage.

He acknowledged after the contest to fighting through a leg injury.

“Yeah, but I can’t use that as an excuse. If I did, I wouldn’t be in here,” Tyson said. “I knew he was a good fighter. He was prepared, I came to fight. I didn’t prove nothing to anybody, only to myself. I’m not one of those guys that live to please the world. I’m just happy with what I can do.”

Tyson, one of the most fearsome heavyweight champions during his heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was in his first professional fight in nearly 20 years. He was noncommittal when asked if he would return to the ring again.

“I don’t know. It depends on the situation,” he said.

Paul (11-1) said he can now fight anyone he wants, possibly even Mexican Canelo Alvarez, after being the main attraction in the mega event that brought out a star-studded crowd and 72,300 fight fans.

“This is the biggest event, over 120 million people on Netflix,” he said. “We crashed the site, the biggest U.S. boxing gate, $20 million, in U.S. history, and everyone is next on the list.”

Taylor beats Serrano

In the co-main event earlier in the evening, Ireland’s Katie Taylor retained her super lightweight title by beating Puerto Rico’s Amanda Serrano in a controversial unanimous decision after a violent affair.

Serrano came forward throughout the fight, but their heads crashed together hard in the early stages, resulting in a deep cut over Serrano’s right eye. The referee later took a point off Taylor for head butts.

In the end all three judges scored it 95-94 for Taylor, who denied accusations from Serrano’s corner that she was fighting dirty.

Taylor won the pair’s previous meeting, at New York’s Madison Square Garden in April 2022, and said there would be a third meeting.
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MOSCOW — Russian forces have captured the villages of Makarivka and Hryhorivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

Makarivka is located to the south of Velyka Novosilka while Hryhorivka, which Moscow calls by its previous name of Leninskoye, is situated to the west of the town of Selydove, captured by Russia last month.

Reuters could not independently verify developments on the battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.  
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WINCHESTER, England — In the half-light of dusk, Martin Edwards surveys the shadows of the ancient woodland from a high seat and waits. He sits still, watching with his thermal camera.

Even the hares don’t seem to notice the deer stalker until he takes aim. The bang of his rifle pierces the stillness. He’s killed a buck, one of many wild deer roaming this patch of forest in Hampshire, southern England.

Edwards advocates humane deer management: the culling of deer to control their numbers and ensure they don’t overrun forests and farmland in a country where they no longer have natural predators. For these advocates, shooting deer is much more than a sport. It’s a necessity because England’s deer population has gotten out of control.

There are now more deer in England than at any other time in the last 1,000 years, according to the Forestry Commission, the government department looking after England’s public woodland.

That has had a devastating impact on the environment, officials say. Excessive deer foraging damages large areas of woodland including young trees, as well as the habitats of certain birds like robins. Some landowners have lost huge amounts of crops to deer, and overpopulation means that the mammals are more likely to suffer from starvation and disease.

“They will produce more young every year. We’ve got to a point where farmers and foresters are definitely seeing that impact,” said Edwards, pointing to some young hazel shrubs with half-eaten buds. “If there’s too many deer, you will see that they’ve literally eaten all the vegetation up to a certain height.”

Forestry experts and businesses argue that culling the deer — and supplying the meat to consumers — is a double win: It helps rebalance the ecosystem and provides a low-fat, sustainable protein.

While venison — a red meat similar to lean beef but with an earthier flavor — is often perceived as a high-end food in the U.K., one charity sees it as an ideal protein for those who can’t afford to buy other meats.

“Why not utilize that fantastic meat to feed people in need?” said SJ Hunt, chief executive of The Country Food Trust, which distributes meals made with wild venison to food banks.

Pandemic population boom

An estimated 2 million deer now roam England’s forests.

The government says native wild deer play a role in healthy forest ecosystems, but acknowledges that their population needs managing. It provides some funding for solutions such as building deer fences.

But experts like Edwards, a spokesman for the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, believe lethal control is the only effective option, especially after deer populations surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic was a boon to deer because hunters, like everyone else, stayed home and the restaurant market — the main outlet for venison in the U.K. — vanished overnight.

“There were no sales of venison and the price was absolutely on the floor,” said Ben Rigby, a leading venison and game meats wholesaler. “The deer had a chance to breed massively.”

Rigby’s company now processes hundreds of deer a week, turning them into diced venison or steaks for restaurants and supermarkets. One challenge, he said, is growing the domestic appetite for venison so it appears on more dinner plates, especially after Brexit put new barriers up for exporting the meat.

“We’re not really a game-eating nation, not like in France or Germany or Scandinavia,” he said. “But the U.K. is becoming more and more aware of it and our trade is growing.”

From the forest to the table

Shooting deer is legal but strictly regulated in England. Stalkers must have a license, use certain kinds of firearms and observe open seasons. They also need a valid reason, such as when a landowner authorizes them to kill the deer when their land is damaged. Hunting deer with packs of dogs is illegal.

Making wild venison more widely available in supermarkets and beyond will motivate more stalkers to cull the deer and ensure the meat doesn’t go to waste, Edwards said.

Forestry England, which manages public forests, is part of that drive. In recent years it supplied some hospitals with 1,000 kilograms of wild venison, which became the basis of pies and casseroles popular with patients and staff, it said.

The approach appears to have been well received, though it has attracted some criticism from animal welfare group PETA, which advocates veganism.

Hunt, the food charity chief, said there’s potential to do much more with the meat, which she described as nutritious and “free-range to the purest form of that definition.”

Her charity distributed hundreds of thousands of pouches of venison Bolognese meals to food banks last year — and people are hungry for more, she said.

She recalled attending one food bank session where the only protein available was canned sardines, canned baked beans and the venison meals.

“There were no eggs. There was no cheese. That’s all that they could do, and people were just saying, ‘Thank you, please bring more (of the venison),” she said. “That’s fantastic, because people realize they’re doing a double positive with helping the environment by utilizing the meat as well.” 
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KYIV, Ukraine — At a secretive factory in Russia’s central grasslands, engineers are manufacturing hundreds of decoy drones meant to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses as they try to protect against a horrific new weapon, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The plant at Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone recently started churning out thermobaric drones alongside the decoys, the investigation found. The thermobaric warheads create a vortex of high pressure and heat that can penetrate thick walls. They suck out all the oxygen in their path, and have a fearsome reputation because of the injuries inflicted even outside the initial blast site: Collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage.

Russia came up with the plan for decoys in late 2022 and codenamed it Operation False Target, according to a person familiar with Russia’s drone production who spoke on condition of anonymity because the industry is highly sensitive. The idea was to launch armed drones along with dozens of decoys, sometimes stuffed with rags or foam, and indistinguishable on radar from those carrying real bombs. Ukrainian forces must make split-second decisions about how to expend scarce resources to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure.

“The idea was to make a drone which would create a feeling of complete uncertainty for the enemy. So he doesn’t know whether it’s really a deadly weapon … or essentially a foam toy,” the person said. With the thermobarics, there is now a “huge risk” an armed drone could deviate from its course and end up in a residential area where the “damage will be simply terrifying,” he said.

Russia’s drone factory

In recent weeks, decoys have filled Ukraine’s skies by the dozens, each one appearing as an indistinguishable blip on military radar screens. During the first weekend of November, the Kyiv region spent 20 hours under air alert, and the sound of buzzing drones mingled with the boom of air defenses and rifle shots.

Unarmed decoys now make up more than half the drones targeting Ukraine, according to the person and Serhii Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian electronics expert whose black military van is kitted out with electronic jammers to down drones.

Both the unarmed decoys and the armed Iranian-designed Shahed drones are being built at a factory in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, an industrial complex set up in 2006 about 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan. It expanded after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and some sectors switched to military production, adding new buildings and renovating existing sites, according to satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press.

In social media videos, the factory promotes itself as an innovation hub. But David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Alabuga’s current purpose is purely to produce and sell drones to Russia‘s Ministry of Defense. The videos and other promotional media were taken down after an AP investigation found that many of the African women recruited to fill labor shortages there complained they were duped into taking jobs at the plant.

Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal for the Shaheds in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, and Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in battle later that year. Soon after the deal was signed, production started in Alabuga.

In October, Moscow attacked with at least 1,889 drones – 80% more than in August, according to an AP analysis tracking the drones for months. On Saturday, Russia launched 145 drones across Ukraine, just days after the reelection of Donald Trump threw into doubt U.S. support for the country.

Since summer, most drones crash, are shot down or are diverted by electronic jamming, according to an AP analysis of Ukrainian military briefings. Less than 6% hit a discernible target, according to the data analyzed by AP since the end of July. But the sheer numbers mean a handful can slip through every day – and that is enough to be deadly.

Daily drone swarms

The swarms have become a demoralizing fact of life for Ukrainians.

Russian drone tactics continue to evolve. Now, more powerful missiles often follow close behind as air defenses are exhausted by the drones. The most destructive are the ballistic and cruise missiles that fly many times faster than the drones, which buzz loudly and can be tracked by the naked eye.

Even the decoys can be useful to Russia. One decoy with a live-feed camera allows the aircraft to geolocate Ukraine’s air defenses and relay the information to Russia in the final moments of its mechanical life.

Night after night, Ukrainian sharpshooters spring into action to down the drones with portable surface-to-air missiles.

One sharpshooter, who like most Ukrainian soldiers asked to be identified by his call-sign Rosmaryn, said he’s shot down perhaps a dozen drones in all over nearly two years and saw one that was stuffed with rags and foam. Rosmaryn sees his adversary in almost human terms, describing the aircraft’s quest to outwit his small unit.

“It was part of a swarm, flying as one of the last ones,” he said. “When it’s in the sky, we can’t tell what kind it is, because everything is inside the drone. We only find out after it’s shot down.”

Many fly at 2,000 to 3,000 meters before dropping to lower altitudes on their final approach, Rosmaryn said. Leaked videos suggest Ukraine is now using helicopters to shoot down the high-altitude drones.

Three decoys of Russian origin have crashed in Moldova in the past week, authorities there said.

Thanks to optical trickery, radar can’t distinguish a drone armed with a Shahed’s usual 50-kilogram payload of explosives or with a thermobaric weapon – also known as a vacuum bomb – from those without a warhead or topped with live-feed surveillance cameras. There are also other even rougher-quality drones, armed and unarmed, but in fewer quantities than the Shahed-style unmanned aircraft.

That’s why, even knowing that decoys now make up most of an incoming swarm, Ukraine can’t afford to let anything through.

“For us, it’s just a point on the radar … It has speed, direction, and altitude,” said Col. Yurii Ihnat, an Air Force spokesperson. “We have no way of identifying the exact target during flight, so we have to either jam them with electronic warfare or use firepower to neutralize them. The enemy uses these to scatter our attention.”

The engines and electronics for the armed Shaheds and decoys are a mix of Chinese and Western imports, according to fragments seen by The Associated Press at a Ukrainian military lab. Without them, the drones can’t fly. Despite nearly three years of sanctions, Moscow can still source the parts – largely from China and via third countries in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Halfway through the series of air alerts on November 2, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the swarms of Shaheds, which he put at 2,000 for the month of October alone, were made possible by Western technology slipping through sanctions.

“Included in this many Shaheds are more than 170,000 components that should have been blocked for delivery to Russia. Microcircuits, microcontrollers, processors, many different parts, without which this terror would simply be impossible,” Zelenskyy said.

The joint manufacturing of the drones — some to carry bombs, others to divert attention — is saving Russia’s military money. Production of the decoys started earlier this year and now the plant turns out about 40 of the cheaper unarmed drones a day and around 10 armed ones, which cost an estimated $50,000 and take longer to produce, according to the person with knowledge of Russian drone production.

The Russian news outlet Izvestia in late October said the aim of the decoy is to “weaken” the enemy by forcing it to waste ammunition before sending in armed Shaheds.

Both Beskrestnov and the person familiar with Russian drone production said engineers at Alabuga are also constantly experimenting, putting Moscow at the cutting edge of drone production. To make electronic interference harder, they add Ukrainian SIM cards, roaming SIMS, Starlinks, fiberoptics – and can sometimes receive real-time feedback before the drones are jammed, downed or run out of fuel. Sometimes they attach a silver-painted foam ball to make the drone seem larger on a radar.

But the latest thermobaric variant is causing new anguish in Ukraine.

Thermobaric fears

From a military point of view, thermobarics are ideal for going after targets that are either inside fortified buildings or deep underground.

Alabuga’s thermobaric drones are particularly destructive when they strike buildings, because they are also loaded with ball bearings to cause maximum damage even beyond the superheated blast, said Albright.

Beskrestnov, who is more widely known as Flash and whose black military van is kitted out with electronic jammers to down drones, said the thermobarics were first used over the summer and estimated they now make up between 3% and 5% of all drones.

“This type of warhead has the possibility to destroy a huge building, especially block flats. And it’s very effective if the Russian Federation tries to attack our power plants,” he said.

They have a fearsome reputation because of the physical effects even on people caught outside the initial blast site, said Arthur van Coller, an expert in international humanitarian law at South Africa’s University of Fort Hare.

“With a thermobaric explosion, because of the cloud it would create, everything in its radius would be affected,” he said. “It creates massive fear in the civilian population. Thermobaric weapons have created this idea that they are really horrible weapons, and that creates fear.” 
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AMSTERDAM — Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof saved his governing coalition on Friday despite threats of an exodus by Cabinet members over the right-wing government’s response to violence against Israeli football fans last week.

Junior Finance Minister Nora Achahbar unexpectedly quit the Cabinet on Friday to protest claims by some politicians that Dutch youths of Moroccan descent attacked Israeli fans in Amsterdam around the November 7 match between a Dutch team Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Her resignation triggered a crisis Cabinet meeting at which four ministers from her centrist NSC party also threatened to quit. If they had, the coalition would have lost its majority in parliament.

“We have reached the conclusion that we want to remain, as a Cabinet for all people in the Netherlands,” Schoof said at a news conference late on Friday in The Hague.

Last week’s violence was roundly condemned by Israeli and Dutch politicians, with Amsterdam’s mayor saying “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” had attacked Israeli fans.

The city’s police department has said Maccabi fans were chased and beaten by gangs on scooters. Police also said the Israeli fans attacked a taxi and burned a Palestinian flag.

Achahbar, a former judge and public prosecutor who was born in Morocco, felt comments by several political figures were hurtful and possibly racist, De Volkskrant daily reported.

“Polarization in the recent weeks has had such an effect on me that I no longer can, nor wish to fulfill my position in this cabinet,” Achahbar said in a statement.

Schoof, a former civil servant who does not have a party affiliation, denied any ministers in the Cabinet are racist. Details of the Cabinet discussion were not disclosed.

The coalition is led by the anti-Muslim populist party PVV of Geert Wilders, which finished first in a general election a year ago. The government was installed in July after months of tense negotiations.

Wilders, who is not a Cabinet member, has repeatedly said Dutch youth of Moroccan descent were the main attackers of the Israeli fans, although police have not specified the backgrounds of suspects.

Schoof said on Monday the incidents showed that some youth in the Netherlands with immigrant backgrounds did not share “Dutch core values.” 
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washington — Reports that billionaire Elon Musk has held multiple calls with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, should be investigated by the Pentagon and law enforcement agencies on national security grounds, two senior Democratic senators said in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

Musk, who has been appointed to a senior government role by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, oversees billions of dollars in Pentagon and intelligence community contracts as CEO of aerospace company SpaceX.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a senior Foreign Relations Committee member, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed told U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Pentagon’s inspector general that Musk’s involvement in those SpaceX programs should be probed for potential debarment and exclusion after reports as recent as October of his conversations with Russian officials. Debarment refers to exclusion from certain contracts and privileges.

“These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” the lawmakers said in a joint letter dated Friday.

Several Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for a probe into Musk’s communications with Moscow since a report by The Wall Street Journal last month on the alleged contact, but the letter to the U.S. officials who could launch such an investigation has not been previously reported.

The call by Shaheen and Reed for a federal probe is a long-shot effort as Trump prepares to return to the White House with backing from Musk, who spent over $119 million on Trump’s reelection campaign and was appointed co-head of the president-elect’s forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency.

SpaceX, Musk and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon and Justice Department did not immediately respond to similar requests.

Russian contact

Reports of Musk’s contact with Russian officials emerged in 2022, when political scientist Ian Bremmer, president of consulting firm Eurasia Group, said he was told by Musk that he had spoken with Putin about the Ukraine war and Russia’s red line for using nuclear weapons. Musk denied Bremmer’s claim and said he had only spoken to Putin 18 months earlier, about space.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported Musk has had multiple conversations with Russian officials, including Putin and his first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, citing unnamed U.S., European and Russian officials.

Shaheen and Reed said in the letter it was “deeply concerning” that Musk reportedly had conversations with Kiriyenko. He was charged this year with other Russian officials by the U.S. Justice Department for spearheading an AI-powered propaganda campaign on Musk’s social-media platform X and other sites to promote Russian interests and influence voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

Musk has publicly claimed he holds a U.S. security clearance, giving him access to secret information at SpaceX, which holds billions of dollars in Pentagon and NASA launch contracts. The company also has a $1.8 billion intelligence community contract to build a vast spy satellite network, Reuters has reported.

“Communications between Russian government officials and any individual with a security clearance have the potential to put our security at risk,” the lawmakers said in the letter.

Tensions between the U.S. and Russia in space have spiked since Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion. Pentagon officials have condemned suspect maneuvers by Russian satellites in orbit and this year accused Russia of developing a space-based nuclear weapon capable of disabling large satellite networks.

Musk’s SpaceX has come to dominate the U.S. space industry and is relied on heavily by NASA and the Pentagon.

The company’s Starlink internet network of nearly 7,000 satellites has made SpaceX the world’s largest satellite operator and a disruptive force in the satellite internet sector, with heavy interest from the Pentagon for military communications. Ukraine’s military relies heavily on Starlink for battlefield connectivity.

The senators sent a separate letter on Friday to U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall saying Musk’s reported conversations raise the need for more competition in the launch and satellite communications industries and to use more companies besides SpaceX for sensitive national security missions.

“Mr. Musk’s reported behavior could pose serious risks to national security, and as CEO of a company with billions of dollars in sensitive defense and intelligence contracts, warrant reconsideration of SpaceX’s outsized role in [the Defense Department’s] commercial space integration,” the lawmakers said.
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The Hague, Netherlands — The Dutch government needs “more time” to flesh out a strategy to fight anti-Semitism after last week’s violence between Israeli football fans and locals, the justice minister has said.  

“Because of the terrible events of November 7 and 8 and because I want to promote a fruitful debate in parliament, I have decided to take more time to get a strategy ready,” Justice Minister David van Weel said.  

“The strategy will soon be sent to parliament,” he said in a letter to MPs, published late on Thursday.  

Prime Minister Dick Schoof promised “far-reaching measures” earlier this week.   

He said they would be announced after a cabinet meeting on Friday but this now seems to be postponed.  

The discussions follow violence in the streets of Amsterdam before and after the Europa League match between Dutch giants Ajax and Maccabi on November 7.  

Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla said that before the match Maccabi fans burned a Palestinian flag, attacked a taxi and chanted anti-Arab slogans, according to city authorities.  

They also reportedly booed a minute’s silence during the match for victims of Spain’s recent deadly floods.  

After the game, youths on scooters engaged in “hit-and-run” assaults on Maccabi fans, officials said.  

Some social media posts had included calls to “hunt Jews”, according to police.    

Schoof said the attacks amounted to “unadulterated anti-Semitism.”   

‘Pouring oil on the fire’  

The authorities have set aside 4.5 million euros ($4.8 million) for the new strategy, including 1.2 million euros for securing Jewish institutions, Dutch media reported.  

Schoof told parliament on Wednesday the government was looking at “far-reaching measures” to punish anti-Semitic violence.  

This included the possibility of scrapping Dutch nationality for people with dual nationality.  

Police, prosecutors and other law authorities have launched a massive probe into the incidents surrounding the Maccabi-Ajax match, with eight suspects behind bars so far.   

Far-right anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders, leader of the biggest party in the coalition government, accused the country’s Muslim community for the unrest.  

He demanded perpetrators be prosecuted “for terrorism, lose their passports and kicked out of the country.”   

But opposition parties condemned Wilders’ language, saying he was “pouring oil on the fire, abusing the genuine fear and pain of one group to stoke hate against another.”  

Many opposition politicians and commentators said that although anti-Semitism was abhorrent, the violence was not one-sided.  

The violence took place against the backdrop of an increasingly polarized Europe, with heightened tensions following a rise in anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and Islamophobic attacks since the start of the war in Gaza. 
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