PARIS — French prosecutors opened an investigation into an online harassment complaint made by Olympic boxing champion Imane Khelif after a torrent of criticism and false claims about her sex during the Summer Games, the Paris prosecutor’s office said Wednesday.

The athlete’s lawyer Nabil Boudi filed a legal complaint Friday with a special unit in the Paris prosecutor’s office that combats online hate speech.

Boudi said the boxer was targeted by a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” as she won gold in the women’s welterweight division, becoming a hero in her native Algeria and bringing global attention to women’s boxing.

The prosecutor’s office said it had received the complaint and its Office for the Fight against Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crime had opened an investigation on charges of “cyber harassment based on gender, public insults based on gender, public incitement to discrimination and public insults on the basis of origin.”

Khelif was thrust into a worldwide clash over gender identity and regulation in sports after her first fight in Paris, when Italian opponent Angela Carini pulled out just seconds into the match, citing pain from opening punches.

Claims that Khelif was transgender or a man erupted online. The International Olympic Committee defended her and denounced those peddling misinformation. Khelif said that the spread of misconceptions about her “harms human dignity.”

Among those who referred to Khelif as a man in critical online posts were Donald Trump and J. K. Rowling. Tech billionaire Elon Musk reposted a comment calling Khelif a man.

Khelif’s legal complaint was filed against “X,” instead of a specific perpetrator, a common formulation under French law that leaves it up to investigators to determine which person or organization may have been at fault.

The Paris prosecutor’s office didn’t name specific suspects.

The development came after Khelif returned to Algeria, where she met with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on Wednesday and will be welcomed by family later this week in her hometown of Ain Mesbah.

In Algeria, Khelif’s former coach Mustapha Bensaou said the boxer’s complaint in France was initiated by the Algerian authorities and should “serve as a lesson in defending the rights and honor (of athletes) in Algeria and around the world.”

“All those involved will be prosecuted for violating Imane’s dignity and honor,” Bensaou said in an interview with The Associated Press. He added: “The attacks on Imane were designed to break her and undermine her morale. Thank God, she triumphed.”

The investigation is one of several underway by France’s hate crimes unit that are connected to the Olympics.

It is also investigating alleged death threats and cyberbullying against Kirsty Burrows, an official in charge of the IOC’s unit for safeguarding and mental health, after she defended Khelif during a news conference in Paris. Under French law, the crimes, if proven, carry prison sentences that range from two to five years and fines ranging from 30,000 to 45,000 euros.

The unit is also examining complaints over death threats, harassment or other abuse targeting six people involved in the Games’ opening ceremony, including its director Thomas Jolly.
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moscow — Marina and her family were used to hearing the distant boom of explosions from their village in Russia’s Kursk region, just a few kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

On the night of August 6, the explosions became so loud their beds began shaking.

“Nobody knew anything,” the 39-year-old hairdresser told Agence France-Presse at a humanitarian aid center run by the Orthodox Church in Moscow.

Ukrainian soldiers and armored vehicles began pouring into the region in the early hours of that morning, mounting the biggest cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.

The operation came almost 2½ years into Russia’s assault on Ukraine, which has seen Moscow capture large swaths of Ukrainian territory and strike Ukrainian cities.

But for many living in the border region, the attack came as a surprise.

“Drones started flying over the farms, over fields, over cars,” said Marina. “We couldn’t get through to anyone to find out how to leave, and where to go.”

‘Can’t get out’

When her village some 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from the border was cut off from electricity and water, Marina knew they had to leave.

“Some said maybe it’ll blow over, and so maybe they stayed till the last minute. Now, they can’t get out of there,” she said.

Despite the risks, Marina’s partner, Yevgeny, decided to take her and their two children to the region’s capital, Kursk, a place that was still safe “for a few days,” he thought.

They left their dog and cat behind.

As they saw the long line of cars on the road and deserted villages, they finally realized the scale of the attack under way.

The family reached Kursk in the early morning, where they found accommodation in a center for evacuees.

Their neighbors were not so lucky: They were injured by a drone as they fled.

“We hoped it would all be over soon,” Marina said.

But on Sunday, debris from a downed Ukrainian missile fell on a residential building in Kursk, injuring 15 people, according to the authorities.

At least 12 civilians have been killed and more than 100 injured since the incursion began, according to authorities.

‘There’s nothing left’

The family went to Moscow, where their friends were waiting for them — four of them already living in a tiny studio flat north of the capital.

Now living eight to a room, Marina and Yevgeny have been desperately trying to find out what’s happening in their home region.

Half an hour before meeting AFP at the Moscow aid center, Yevgeny managed to contact a neighbor, who confirmed the Ukrainian army was now occupying their village.

“They’ve moved into my father-in-law’s house, which he’d just renovated, right next to the shop that they’ve already emptied,” he said.

Ukraine has said it will open humanitarian corridors for civilians in the captured territory so they can evacuate toward Russia or Ukraine.

Russia says more than 120,000 people have fled fighting in the region, but Yevgeny said many of his neighbors were stuck.

“Honestly, it’s a tricky situation. Nobody’s going to kick them out in a day and a half,” Yevgeny told AFP of the Ukrainian army.

“The longer it goes on, the more time they have, the better their position is, and the harder it will be to drive them out.”

“In short, there’ll be nothing left to live in. There’s nothing left,” he said.

A neighbor managed to let Marina and Yevgeny’s cat and dog out of the house, where they had been locked for several days.

“Now, they’ll have to find their own food in the village,” he said sadly.
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Authorities in Britain are trying to work out the origins of the violent far-right protests that erupted in towns and cities across the country earlier this month. While some blame simple racism and false news spread on social media, others say deeper social and economic forces are at work. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Berlin — Germany has asked Poland to arrest a Ukrainian diving instructor who was allegedly part of a team that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines two years ago, according to reports in German media published on Wednesday. 

However, one media outlet said the man appeared to be no longer living in Poland.  

The multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

German investigators believe the Ukrainian diver was part of a team that planted the explosives, the SZ and Die Zeit newspapers reported alongside the ARD broadcaster, citing unnamed sources. 

The German prosecutor general’s office declined to comment on the reports, which said the German government had handed a European arrest warrant to Poland in June. The Polish National Public Prosecutor’s Office made no immediate comment. 

The German interior ministry declined to comment and the justice ministry did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment. 

Suspected accomplices 

Another man and a woman — also Ukrainian diving instructors — have been identified in Germany’s investigation into the sabotage but so far no arrest warrants have been issued for them, according to SZ, Zeit and ARD. 

The explosions destroyed three out of four Nord Stream pipelines, which had become a controversial symbol of German reliance on Russian gas in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Russia blamed the United States, Britain and Ukraine for the blasts, which largely cut Russian gas off from the lucrative European market. Those countries have denied involvement. 

Germany, Denmark, and Sweden all opened investigations into the incident, and the Swedes found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the explosion site, confirming the blasts were deliberate acts. 

The Swedish and Danish probes were closed this February without identifying any suspect. 

In January 2023, Germany raided a ship that it said may have been used to transport explosives and told the United Nations that it believed trained divers could have attached devices to the pipelines at a depth of about 70 to 80 meters (230-262 ft). 

 
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Vancouver, British Columbia — Tens of thousands of people have signed online petitions for the release of environmentalist Paul Watson, the controversial activist arrested in Greenland on an extradition request by the Japanese government.

Watson’s latest legal journey started July 21 in Nuuk, Greenland, when he was arrested aboard his foundation’s ship, the John Paul DeJoria.

His arrest and extradition appear to be tied to alleged actions in 2010 against the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru 2.

For the past several decades, Watson has been known to take severe measures, including the ramming and disabling of whaling ships, to stop the commercial harvesting of whales. Many of the ships were from Japan. He also gained further notoriety as the focus of the reality TV series “Whale Wars.”

The John Paul DeJoria’s captain, Lockhart MacLean, said it made a regular stop for provisions when Danish national police came aboard after a friendly visit by Greenlandic police. Greenland is a territory of Denmark.

“So, these were police that had been flown in from Copenhagen, came on board, and they had a very different attitude,” MacLean said. “They’re much more, much more aggressive and firm, and obviously, within a few minutes, they had taken Paul Watson in cuffs into a van, off the ship.”

MacLean said the ship will continue to travel via the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean in an effort to stop Japanese whaling.  

 

Watson, a 73-year-old Canadian American, has been arrested many times.

 

Among the original members of Greenpeace, created in 1972 in Vancouver, he split from that organization five years later to form the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Under that group, he garnered worldwide headlines for ramming whaling ships at sea. He formed the Captain Paul Watson Foundation in 2022.

 

Rex Weyler was the director of the original Greenpeace and co-founded Greenpeace International in 1979.

 

He says Watson’s arrests usually strengthen his cause.

“Paul Watson being arrested is one of his tactics, and it was one of our tactics at Greenpeace, which is to challenge what the whalers or sealers or other extractors of ecological resources were doing,” Weyler said. “And if they wanted to arrest us, that’s fine, because when they arrest us, it only heightens the story. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

For Teale Phelps Bondaroff, research director of OceansAsia, Watson’s arrest was a surprise. Bondaroff, who has worked for Sea Shepherd in the past, said the arrest shows that commercial harvesting of whales still exists.

 

“Anything like this draws attention to the issue. One of the things I find is interesting is a lot of folks, when you talk about whaling, see it as something of the past and aren’t aware of the fact that there are still countries that are whaling today,” Bondaroff said.

MacLean said because of Watson’s age, a 15-year prison sentence in Japan would amount to a life sentence. He hopes that a freed Watson will manage to rejoin them on their campaign against Japanese whaling.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry was asked to comment on this story through the Japanese Embassy in Ottawa but did not respond.
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LONDON — The Chinese government has resubmitted its plans to build a “super embassy” in London, a decision testing the new British government’s strategy for dealing with China after the victory of the Labour Party in the general election last month.

According to the new plan, the super embassy will be built on the former Royal Mint Court site near the Tower of London, with a total area of about 576,000 square meters (620,000 square feet) — 10 times the size of China’s existing embassy in London.

The project includes not only the embassy building but also 225 residences and a cultural exchange center. 

The proposal was rejected by the Tower Hamlets Council in 2022 and was set aside after China failed to appeal in time. 

Since China bought the land for roughly $327 million in 2018, the plan has faced ongoing opposition from members of parliament and local residents concerned about security, particularly as protests in the surrounding area could increase significantly.

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson told VOA the planning team is reviewing the latest application, and public consultation has begun, but a target committee date has not been scheduled.

Politicians and activists believe that China’s choice to resubmit its plan is a test of the bottom line of the new British government’s China policy. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith believes the Labour Party may not be as tough on China as the Conservatives.

“The Labour government has become ambivalent about China and has in no way seemed to be taking any interest in the threat that China is posing,” he told VOA in a phone interview.

With the Labour government coming to power in early July, the United Kingdom’s relationship with China is undergoing a process of re-examination. Foreign Minister David Lammy said the administration would conduct a comprehensive review of its relationship with China to ensure that it could cooperate with China in areas of common interest while addressing global threats.

George Robertson, the former NATO secretary-general and head of the British government’s strategic defense assessment, warned that China was one of the countries that posed a deadly threat to the U.K.

The “Strategic Defense Review,” expected to be published in the first half of 2025, will help define the government’s defense policy for the next decade. The re-application of China’s super embassy program will undoubtedly be a test in this review process and policy shift.

The Tower Hamlets Council is dominated by the Labour Party. According to The Daily Telegraph, representatives of the Chinese Embassy in the U.K. said in a document submitted to the district council that the 2022 refusal decision was baseless and urged officials to reconsider the plan.

“I have no doubt that this will be classified as a risk and be evaluated continuously by the Labour Party,” said Rex Lee, a media spokesman for ESEA4Labour. 

East and Southeast Asians for Labour was founded in 1999 with the mission of promoting the Labour Party’s values, civic conscience and duties, according to its website.

“The Labour Party has been clear in their support of Hong Kongers and Uyghurs and all others who try to hold the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] into account in human rights breaches. There is no space for CCP to maneuver under the Labour government,” he said.

Megan Khoo, policy adviser for Hong Kong Watch, told VOA that the proposal “should feature in the new government’s audit of U.K.-China relations, including how such an establishment would hold the potential to threaten the more than 190,000 Hong Kongers which now call Britain home. 

“This site could serve as a vessel for the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] increasing transnational repression against Hong Kongers and other Chinese dissident groups, and as such, has no place on U.K. soil. The new government must not allow itself to be toyed with and make it immediately clear that it will not allow the PRC to call the shots,” she said.

VOA requested comment from the Chinese Embassy but did not receive a response by the time of publication.  

The Royal Mint site has sparked many discussions about the preservation and safety of history, due to its historical value. 

“It’s a historic building, which would not lend itself to be an embassy,” said Smith, the former Conservative Party leader. “It would be the loss of a historic building under the ownership of China. It would become Chinese territory forever, and that is not to be allowed. Certainly not the CCP.”

In 2022, pro-democracy protesters were assaulted by Chinese diplomats outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester. Opponents of the new embassy site argue that this incident demonstrates China’s intention to use the location to suppress protests, as the site offers limited space for demonstrations.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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LONDON — British authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people following days of rioting involving violence, arson and looting as well as racist attacks targeting Muslims and migrants, a national policing body said Tuesday. 

The riots, which followed the killings of three young girls in the northern English town of Southport, began after the July 29 attack was wrongly blamed on an Islamist migrant based on online misinformation. 

Violence broke out in cities across England and also in Northern Ireland, but there have been fewer instances of unrest since last week after efforts to identify those involved were ramped up.  

Many have been swiftly jailed, with some receiving long sentences. 

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said in its latest update that 1,024 had been arrested and 575 charged across the U.K. 

Those arrested include a 69-year-old accused of vandalism in Liverpool and an 11-year-old boy in Belfast. 

A 13-year-old girl pleaded guilty to violent disorder at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court, prosecutors said, having been seen on July 31 punching and kicking the entrance to a hotel for asylum-seekers. 

“This alarming incident will have caused genuine fear amongst people who were being targeted by these thugs — and it is particularly distressing to learn that such a young girl participated in this violent disorder,” prosecutor Thomas Power said. 

The last time Britain witnessed widespread rioting was in 2011, when the fatal shooting of a Black man by police triggered several days of street violence. 

Fast and tough judicial action was viewed as helping quell the unrest in 2011, when around 4,000 people were arrested over several weeks.
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Warsaw, POLAND — Poland on Tuesday signed a $10 billion deal to buy 96 Apache attack helicopters from U.S. manufacturer Boeing in an upgrade to the country’s military capabilities.

Poland has sharply accelerated the modernization of its armed forces since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022.

“This is the landmark purchase by Poland for its armed forces of … 96 state-of-the-art AH-64E Apache attack helicopters,” Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters.

“Today we are taking a milestone in the transformation and equipping of the army,” he added, speaking at the Inowroclaw air base, where the Apaches are to be stationed.

The deal is the latest in a string of contracts signed by Poland with the United States in recent days.

On Friday, Warsaw announced a deal to buy hundreds of AIM-120C AMRAAM air-to-air missiles. On Monay there was a contract to build 48 launchers for the U.S.-designed Patriot air defense systems.

Poland, a staunch ally of Ukraine, has announced it would spend more than 4% of its annual economic output on defense this year — twice NATO’s target of 2%.

The Ukraine war has also solidified the relationship between the United States and Poland, a country on NATO’s eastern flank that sees Washington as one of its main allies.

The Apache helicopter sale was approved last year by the U.S. State Department and Congress.

The deal “changes the face of the Polish army’s operations and complements” previous purchases, Kosiniak-Kamysz said, pointing notably at the Abrams tanks that Poland bought in the past years.

According to the Polish government, the Apaches are designed to work with the tanks.

“For the Abrams, the Apache is an essential element,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

In 2022, Poland bought 250 Abrams tanks in a modern M1A2 variant, which are expected to be delivered later this year. It will be the first country outside the United States with the tanks.

The attack helicopter agreement also envisages providing the Polish army with maintenance equipment, technical and training support, flight simulators and spare parts.

“Offset, purchase, leasing, pilot training, technology, armament — it was all negotiated together. It’s a historic day for helicopter aviation,” Deputy Defense Minister Pawel Bejda said.

“These $10 billion are the insurance of our country, the insurance of our freedom,” Bejda added, saying that the Apaches would serve the Polish efforts to “deter those who have evil intentions.”

The first U.S.-made helicopters are to be delivered in 2028, but some Polish pilots have already begun training on them.

The Apaches will replace outdated Russian Mi-24 helicopters.
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Ukraine took the fight to Russia in recent days, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Monday his army’s move to “push the war out into the aggressor’s territory” with attacks in Russia’s Kursk region. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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San Diego, Calif. — Belarus sentenced two more journalists to prison last week in what media groups say is a continuation of a crackdown on media since the contested 2020 election and protest movement. 

A court in the city of Mogilev sentenced freelance reporter Ales Sabaleuski to four years in prison and cameraman Yauhen Hlushkou to three years on extremism-related charges. Both were also ordered to pay fines of $2,450, according to media watchdogs. 

The charges are linked to the journalists’ work with the independent news outlet 6TV Bielarus, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ. Belarus had earlier labeled 6TV Bielarus as an extremist group. 

Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, condemned the closed-door trial that took place last Wednesday, calling the Belarusian judicial system “rigged.” 

The sentences are “yet another example of the Belarusian authorities’ relentless harassment of members of the press,” she said in a statement. 

Belarus-based human rights groups, including Viasna, issued a statement calling on authorities to release the journalists, and to stop using prosecution to limit rights and freedoms. 

Media and civil liberties groups say Belarusian authorities have used arrests and prison to target critics and opposition voices since the 2020 disputed presidential election. Mass protests spread across Belarus that year, after President Alexander Lukashenko was voted in for a sixth term. 

The election had been widely seen as fraudulent, with opposition leaders imprisoned or threatened. 

Belarus has since arrested dozens of journalists and labeled several media outlets as extremist organizations. 

Data collected by Viasna show thousands of politically motivated arrests in the past four years, with at least 1,385 still imprisoned. CPJ additionally found 28 journalists imprisoned in Belarus for their work as of late 2023. That makes Belarus the third-worst jailer of journalists in the world, after China and Myanmar, the watchdog says. 

The press office of the Belarus Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment. 

Among those detained are Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk, who worked for VOA sister network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

On the four-year anniversary of the election on Friday, the Belarusian Association of Journalists issued a joint statement with other watchdogs, calling on authorities to release all jailed media workers. 

“Lukashenko’s regime has been crushing free speech and stripping journalists of their freedom for too long,” the statement said. 

“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of our unjustly imprisoned colleagues, and express our solidarity with those who were forced to flee their country and still have to live in fear abroad. Belarusian authorities must stop harassing and intimidating journalists.”

Belarus ranks 167 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index and is considered one of the most dangerous countries in Europe to be a journalist.
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ROME — Archaeologists in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii have discovered the remains of two more victims of the volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago.

The skeleton of a man and a woman were found in a small, makeshift bedroom in a villa which was being restructured when the eruption struck, the Pompeii archeological site said in a statement Monday.

The woman was lying on a bed with gold, silver and bronze coins around her, along with jewelry including gold and pearl earrings. The man lay at the foot of the bed.

The once-thriving city of Pompeii, near Naples, and the surrounding countryside was submerged by volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius exploded in 79 AD.

The eruption killed thousands of Romans who had no idea they were living beneath one of Europe’s biggest volcanoes which buried the city in a thick layer of ash, preserving many of its residents and buildings.

The latest victims discovered had chosen the small room as a refuge, waiting for the end of the rain of rock fragments which had blocked the door and prevented them from escaping.

They were eventually buried under the flow of lava and other boiling hot material from the volcano, the statement said.

“The opportunity to analyze the invaluable anthropological data on the two victims … allows us to recover a considerable amount of data on the daily life of ancient Pompeians,” site director Gabriel Zuchtriegel said.

Ancient Pompeii, rediscovered only in the 16th century, has in recent years seen a burst of archaeological activity aimed at halting decades of decay and neglect.
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dubai, united arab emirates — Iran has put its long-range Mohajer-10 drones on display at a defense exhibit in Russia, Iran’s official news agency reported Monday. 

U.S. officials have accused Iran of sending drones to Russia, including the Mohajer-10’s predecessor, the Mohajer-6, that Moscow had used in its invasion of Ukraine. Tehran denies this. 

Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said the more advanced system was being shown at the Army 2024 International Military-Technical Forum, an event that runs from Monday to Wednesday in Patriot Park outside Russia’s capital. 

The report came as the Middle East braces for Iran’s threatened retaliation against Israel after the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. 

Iran released details of the Mohajer-10 system in August last year, saying it had an enhanced flight-range duration and could carry a greater payload. 

A video accompanying that report showed the drone alongside other military hardware, with text saying “prepare your shelters” in both Hebrew and Persian. 

According to Iranian media reports, the drone has an operational range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) and can fly for up to 24 hours. Its payload can reach 300 kilograms (661 pounds), double the capacity of the Mohajer-6, the reports have added. 
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London — A man has been arrested after an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were stabbed in central London, London’s Metropolitan Police said Monday.

The attack occurred in Leicester Square, a magnet for tourists with its shops, theaters and cinemas. The square and surrounding area have an estimated 2.5 million visitors every week.

Police said the two victims were taken to a major trauma center. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

The stabbing occurred as Britain is on edge after violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fueled by right-wing activists who used social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event.

It was not immediately clear whether the stabbing had any link to the unrest.

Police had been braced for further riots over the weekend, but no widespread unrest emerged. Ministers remained on high alert, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said, adding its work was not done in dealing with the fallout from the violence.
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KYIV — An official in the Kursk border region of Russia on Monday urged more residents to evacuate due to the “very tense situation” in the area, where Russian forces are still scrambling to respond to a surprise Ukrainian attack after almost a week of fierce fighting.

Russia’s emergency authorities say more than 76,000 people have fled their homes in areas of Kursk, where Ukrainian troops and armor poured across the border on Aug. 6, reportedly driving as deep as 30 kilometers into Russia and sowing alarm.

The governor of the Belgorod region adjacent to Kursk also announced the evacuation of people from a district near the Ukrainian border, describing Monday morning as “alarming” but giving no detail.

Ukrainian forces swiftly rolled into the town of Sudzha about 10 kilometers over the border after launching the attack. They reportedly still hold the western part of the town, which is the site of an important natural gas transit station.

The Ukrainian operation is taking place under tight secrecy, and its goals — especially whether Kyiv’s forces aim to hold territory or are staging hit-and-run raids — remain unclear. The stunning maneuver that caught the Kremlin’s forces unawares counters Russia’s unrelenting effort in recent months to punch through Ukrainian defenses at selected points along the front line in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has seen previous incursions into its territory during the nearly 2 1/2-year war, but the foray into the Kursk region marked the largest attack on its soil since World War II, embarrassing President Vladimir Putin and constituting a milestone in the hostilities. It is also the first time the Ukrainian army has spearheaded an incursion rather than pro-Ukraine Russian fighters.

The advance has delivered a blow to Putin’s efforts to pretend that life in Russia has largely remained unaffected by the war. State propaganda has tried to play down the attack, emphasizing the authorities’ efforts to help residents of the region and seeking to distract attention from the military’s failure to prepare for the attack and quickly repel it.

Kursk residents recorded videos lamenting they had to flee the border area, leaving behind their belongings, and pleading with Putin for help. But Russia’s state-controlled media kept a tight lid on any expression of discontent.

Retired Gen. Andrei Gurulev, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, criticized the military for failing to properly protect the border.

He noted that while the military has set up minefields in the border region, it has failed to deploy enough troops to block enemy raids.

“Regrettably, the group of forces protecting the border didn’t have its own intelligence assets,” he said on his messaging app channel. “No one likes to see the truth in reports. Everybody just wants to hear that all is good.”

Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group open-source intelligence agency, which monitors the war, said the toughest phase of Ukraine’s incursion is likely to begin now as Russian reserves enter the fray.

He said that “if the Ukrainians are going to advance any further from where they are now, it’s going to be a tough battle, unlike the opening moments of this offensive.”

Ukraine’s progress on Russian territory “is challenging the operational and strategic assumptions” of the Kremlin’s forces, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

It could compel Russia to deploy more military assets to the long border between the two countries, the Washington-based think tank said in an assessment late Sunday.

It described the Russian forces responding to the incursion as “hastily assembled and disparate.”

In other developments:

— The International Atomic Energy Agency said a fire near Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant had “no impact” on the facility’s safety.

Radiation levels are unchanged at what is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world, the U.N. body said.

Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the blaze at a cooling tower outside the plant’s perimeter, and the IAEA chief said late Sunday that the war continues to imperil the Zaporizhzhia facility.

“These reckless attacks endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident. They must stop now,” Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
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