Month: July 2023

A judge in the southern U.S. state of Georgia on Monday refused efforts by former President Donald Trump to block a prosecutor from pursuing an indictment against him for trying to illegally overturn his pivotal 2020 election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump had claimed that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Atlanta had overseen an investigation that was “confusing, flawed and, at times, unconstitutional.”

Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Trump’s claims were “either insufficient or else speculative and unrealized.”

The judge said, “They are insufficient because, while being the subject [or even target] of a highly publicized criminal investigation is likely an unwelcome and unpleasant experience, no court ever has held that that status alone provides a basis for the courts to interfere with or halt the investigation.”

McBurney said the former president could raise legal challenges to the Georgia investigation if he is indicted and when a judge is assigned to the case.

“Guessing at what that picture might look like before the investigative dots are connected may be a popular game for the media and blogosphere,” the judge wrote, “but it is not a proper role for the courts and formal legal argumentation.”

With a grand jury considering the case, Willis has signaled she could soon indict Trump and a host of aides linked to his efforts to upend the 2020 Georgia election result.

She told an Atlanta television station over the weekend, “The work is accomplished. We’ve been working for two-and-a-half years. We’re ready to go.”

As he sought to retain power after losing the 2020 election to Biden, Trump focused his election challenges on several states he narrowly lost to Biden, including Georgia. In the U.S. system of electing presidents, the winner is not determined by the national popular vote, but rather through separate outcomes in each of the 50 states, with the biggest states holding the most sway in the Electoral College vote count that determines the national winner.

In Georgia, Trump in early 2021 called state election officials and asked them to “find” him 11,780 votes, one more than Biden’s winning vote margin, so that Trump could win the state popular vote and its 16 votes in the Electoral College.

Trump is already facing criminal indictments in two other cases. The former president has said he also expects to be indicted in Georgia, as well as by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.

Smith has told Trump the latter is a target of his national investigation of election interference and his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021, riot of Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers met to certify the 2020 election outcome.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the several criminal cases and investigations. Despite his mounting legal peril, polls show that Republican voters overwhelmingly favor him for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination to run again against Biden.

In one of the other criminal cases, also brought by Smith, Trump is accused of illegally retaining 32 highly classified national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida rather than turn them over to the National Archives as he was required to do when he left office.

In a superseding indictment handed up by a federal grand jury last week, Trump was accused of trying to get the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Carlos De Oliveira, to erase security camera footage of boxes of classified material being moved in and out of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago.

De Oliveira, also accused in the case, made his first court appearance on Monday, but he did not enter a plea. He was freed on $100,000 bond and ordered to not discuss the case with others linked to the investigation.

On his Truth Social site Sunday, Trump assailed the allegation that he tried to delete the security camera video.

“Mar-a-Lago security tapes were not deleted,” Trump said. “They were voluntarily handed over to the thugs, headed up by deranged Jack Smith.”

“We did not even go to court to stop them from getting these tapes. I never told anybody to delete them,” he said. “Prosecutorial fiction & misconduct! Election interference!”

Nearly a thousand migrants that recently crossed from Guatemala into Mexico formed a group Saturday to head north together in hopes of reaching the border with the United States.

The group, made up of largely Venezuelan migrants, walked along a highway in southern Mexico, led by a Venezuela flag with the phrase “Peace, Freedom. SOS.” The men, women, children and teenagers were followed by Mexican National Guard patrols.

Migrants told The Associated Press they crossed into Mexico illegally through a river dividing the two countries. They said they decided to organize the group and start out because many had been sleeping on the street and had run out of money to buy food.

“We just want to move forward, to fulfill our American dream and work, because we’re all workers here,” one Venezuelan, Roseli Gloria said while taking a brief rest along the highway.

She carried a backpack and a piece of rolled up foam for sleeping. She said she had been in Mexico for a week before joining the group.

Participants in the group said that they received little aid from Mexican immigration authorities and that they were given mixed and confusing instructions about how to move forward or seek asylum in the U.S.

The formation of the latest migrant group in southern Mexico comes amid a record migratory flow to the United States from countries across Latin America. In the 12 months through May 2023, U.S. authorities reported nearly 2.5 million encounters with migrants on its southern border, an uptick from the year before.

The journey is not an easy one, with migrants often targeted by kidnappings, extorsion and other violence from armed groups in the region. As a result, migrants often travel in groups of hundreds to stay safe.

Migrants from Venezuela previously sought refuge in other South American nations like Colombia and Peru, but increasingly they are making the perilous journey through the jungles of the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama in an attempt to reach the U.S.

Haiti has welcomed “with great interest” a Kenyan offer to lead a 1,000-strong multinational force to bolster security in the violence-torn Caribbean country.

“Haiti appreciates this expression of African solidarity,” a statement from Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus said Sunday, “and looks forward to welcoming Kenya’s proposed evaluation mission.” 

Kenya announced Saturday that it was prepared to deploy 1,000 police agents to help train and support their Haitian counterparts in combating the violent gangs that have taken control of much of capital Port-au-Prince.

“Kenya has accepted to positively consider leading a Multi-National Force to Haiti,” said the Kenyan statement, posted by Foreign Minister Alfred Mutua. 

A Kenyan-led deployment would still require a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, as well as formal agreement by local authorities.

The council has asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to present by mid-August a report on possible options for Haiti, including a U.N.-led mission.

U.S. diplomats have been actively seeking a country to head a multinational force.

Mutua said Kenya would send an “evaluation mission” to Haiti in coming weeks.

Kenya, seen as a democratic anchor in East Africa, has participated in peacekeeping operations in its own region, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.

Gangs in Haiti control roughly 80% of Port-au-Prince, and violent crimes including kidnappings for ransom, carjackings, rapes and armed thefts are common.

With a weak government and its security forces overwhelmed, the country — the poorest Western Hemisphere nation — has seen compounding humanitarian, political and security crises. 

Both Prime Minister Ariel Henry and the U.N.’s Guterres have for nearly a year called for an international intervention. Up to now, no country had stepped forward.

A U.N. peacekeeping mission was in operation in Haiti from 2004 to 2017 but fell out of favor after a cholera outbreak traced to infected UN personnel from Nepal claimed 9,500 lives.  

This week, the United States ordered nonessential embassy personnel and their families to leave Haiti as soon as possible.

On Thursday, a young American nurse and her infant child were kidnapped in Haiti, according to the Christian aid group for which she works.

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA — French President Emmanuel Macron held discussions with his Sri Lankan counterpart Saturday on an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region in the first-ever visit by a French leader to the Indian Ocean island nation.

As the fourth-largest creditor to Sri Lanka, France had pledged cooperation in debt restructuring to help the island nation recover from its economic crisis.

Macron arrived in Sri Lanka on Friday night, following his trip to the South Pacific region, to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations, Sri Lanka’s president’s office said.

Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe praised France’s significant role in global affairs, particularly in areas such as climate mitigation, global debt restructuring, and matters related to the Indo-Pacific region, the statement said.

“Sri Lanka and France are two Indian Ocean nations that share the same goal: an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific. In Colombo we confirmed it: strengthened by 75 years of diplomatic relations, we can open a new era of our partnership,” Macron said in a Twitter message after the meeting.

Latest developments:

Pope Francis appealed Sunday to Russia to revive the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal allowing Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports. The deal expired July 17. Addressing crowds in St. Peter’s Square, the pope urged the faithful to continue praying “for martyred Ukraine, where war is destroying everything, even grain,” calling this “a grave insult to God.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday he expects Russia to resume its attacks on Ukraine’s power grid next winter and pledged to do everything possible to protect his nation’s power infrastructure.  
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported Sunday that Russia has lost 245,700 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia invaded. This number includes 480 casualties suffered by Russian forces over the past day. According to the report, Russia has also lost 4,205 tanks, 8,178 armored fighting vehicles, 7,275 vehicles and fuel tanks, 4,795 artillery systems, 698 multiple launch rocket systems, 459 air defense systems, 315 airplanes, 311 helicopters, 4,011 drones, and 18 boats.

 

News reports say Saudi Arabia will be the venue of a peace summit organized by Ukraine next month, seeking a way to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The talks will take place in Jeddah, August 5-6.

 

The meetings would include Western officials and representatives from up to 30 countries, including Brazil, India, and South Africa, according to The Associated Press, which also reports that a high-level U.S. official will participate.

 

Western officials say they hope the summit can lead to international backing for peace terms favoring Ukraine. News of the talks came after U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan visited the kingdom Thursday. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the summit.

 

Arab nations have overall kept neutral in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in part, because of their military and economic ties with Moscow. Also, Saudi Arabia, as an OPEC member, has kept a closer relationship with Russia, which also is a member nation.

 

Hosting the summit will help boost the profile of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he is trying to improve relations with Iran and push for peace with Yemen, the AP reports.  

 

However, relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States remain tense after OPEC cut oil production. The ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine has led to a spike in energy prices. Also, U.S. intelligence analysts have ascertained that the Saudi prince was behind the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.  

 

Putin promises Africa grain

 

African leaders left Russia after a two-day Russia-Africa summit with no resolution on the resumption of the deal that allowed for the safe export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea corridor.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that higher grain prices, which have risen since Moscow’s exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, will benefit Russian companies as well as the world’s poorest countries.

In his effort to woo African leaders, Putin said during a news conference Saturday in St. Petersburg that Russia will share its profits from rising grain prices with African nations and poor countries. Russia, like Ukraine, is a major grain exporter.

That commitment, with no details, follows Putin’s promise to start shipping 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain for free to each of six African nations in the next three to four months — an amount dwarfed by the 725,000 tons shipped by the U.N. World Food Program to several hungry countries, African and otherwise, under the grain deal. Russia plans to send the free grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and the Central African Republic.

Fewer than 20 of Africa’s 54 heads of state or government attended the Russia summit compared to 43 who attended the previous gathering in 2019.  

 

Russian attacks

A Russian missile attack killed at least one person and injured five in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, National Police said Sunday.

The strike by Russian forces hit “an educational facility,” spokesperson Maryna Polosina said.

A video released by Ukrainian police showed injured people being carried away from the scene as smoke rose from a damaged building nearby.

Moscow said Sunday that Russian forces thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to attack Crimea with 25 drones overnight.

“Sixteen Ukrainian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were destroyed by air defense fire,” the Russian defense ministry said. “There were no victims.”

Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow early Sunday, but there were no casualties, the Tass news agency reported, citing city Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

“Tonight, there was a Ukrainian drone attack. The facades of two office buildings in Moscow City (business district) were slightly damaged. There are no casualties,” Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel.

The Russian defense ministry said it downed three drones targeting the city and described the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime.”  

A security guard was injured, Tass reported, citing emergency officials.

The Vnukovo airport on the outskirts of the city suspended flights for about an hour, according to Tass, and the airspace over and around Moscow was temporarily closed.

Ukrainian counteroffensive

 

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on his official social media accounts Sunday that Moscow would have to resort to using a nuclear weapon if Kyiv’s ongoing counteroffensive was a success.

 

Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, a body chaired by Putin, said that Russia would be forced to fall back on its own nuclear doctrine in such a scenario.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive, which began June 5, appears to be gaining momentum.

Some information in this report came from Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

A witness in the Republican-led probe of U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on Monday said the elder Biden spoke multiple times to his son’s associates but did not talk about business deals, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer appeared for a closed-door interview led by staff from the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which Republican lawmakers hoped would shed light on unproven allegations that Biden was directly involved in his son’s business dealings in Ukraine.

But Democratic Representative Dan Goldman, who attended the interview, told reporters that Archer provided no evidence of wrongdoing by the elder Biden. The inquiry is focused on the years when Biden was vice president under President Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017.

“There is no evidence that anyone other than Hunter Biden received any money in connection with the business transactions with Devon Archer,” Goldman said. 

Republican Representative Jim Jordan, a leading panel member who also chairs the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters that the session was productive. He declined further comment.

Goldman said Archer told investigators that Hunter Biden spoke with his father daily while serving on the board of the Ukraine energy company Burisma and had the then-vice president talk to business associates and others by speaker phone about 20 times over 10 years.

Republicans had expected Archer’s description of the phone calls to provide incriminating evidence against Joe Biden.

Republican Representative Andy Biggs, who has already co-sponsored legislation to impeach President Biden, said Archer’s testimony implicated the president. 

“Archer talked about the ‘big guy’ and how Hunter Biden always said, ‘We need to talk to my guy,'” Biggs told reporters. “I think we should do an impeachment inquiry.” 

But Goldman said, “It was all casual conversation, niceties about the weather, what’s going on. There wasn’t a single conversation about any of the business dealings that Hunter had.” 

House Republicans allege that Hunter Biden used his father’s status as vice president in an influence peddling scheme while he was at Burisma nearly a decade ago. 

The White House has said Joe Biden was never in business with his son. 

Burisma played a central role in Trump’s 2019 impeachment over his alleged efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and help him win re-election. A Republican-majority Senate later acquitted Trump. 

The House investigation has intensified since Trump’s federal indictment in June. 

Claims of Biden wrongdoing in Ukraine have also been contradicted by former Trump insider Lev Parnas, who helped one-time Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani try to dig up damaging information about the Bidens in Ukraine. 

The House Oversight Committee has heard testimony from two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers who say their investigation of Hunter Biden was stymied by the U.S. Justice Department, though the Trump-appointed prosecutor in that case has denied that his work was interfered with. 

Biden’s son appeared in court last week amid expectations that he would plead guilty to two tax charges and avoid a gun charge. But the judge in the case said she could not accept the plea agreement with prosecutors. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has warned that Republicans could begin an impeachment inquiry against President Biden if the federal agencies fail to cooperate with oversight committees probing his administration and family’s business dealings. 

Trump, the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate, went a step further this weekend at a rally in Pennsylvania. 

He called on Republicans to withhold military aid to Ukraine until the Justice Department, FBI and IRS “hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden crime family’s corrupt business dealings.” 

“Any Republican that doesn’t act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried. And get out. Out!” Trump said. 

The European Union and the United States have called for the military junta that seized power in Niger last week to halt their coup and return President Mohamed Bazoum to office.  

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Monday expressed support for actions by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which Sunday imposed sanctions on the coup leaders and gave them a one-week deadline to cede power or face measures including “the use of force.”  

Borrell said in a statement that Bazoum must be returned to power without delay. He also said the EU rejects accusations of foreign interference and that it will hold the junta responsible for any attacks on civilians or against diplomatic personnel or facilities.  

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also welcomed what he called the strong leadership of ECOWAS to “defend constitutional order in Niger” and said the United States joins calls for the immediate release of Bazoum and the restoration of Niger’s democratically elected government.  

Blinken’s spokesperson told reporters Monday that Washington has not yet made an official determination as to whether the military’s actions constitute a coup, as the situation is ongoing and fluid. 

“It is clear that there has been an attempt to remove President Bazoum from office,” Matthew Miller told reporters. “It is not yet clear that attempt will ultimately be successful, so we are watching and monitoring the situation and trying to prevent President Bazoum from being removed from office.” 

Separately, a senior U.S. official told reporters that initially the mutineers did not appear to have much support from the public or senior members of the military. 

“However, in subsequent conversations with some key military leaders, they’ve told us that they did not object to what was taking place, because they couldn’t figure out how to get the presidential guard to stand down without risk to the life of the president and his family, because the presidential guard had surrounded the president’s residence,” the U.S. official said.

The United Nations envoy for West Africa, Leonardo Santos Simao, attended the ECOWAS summit. A U.N. spokesperson told reporters Monday that he reiterated the U.N.’s condemnation of the seizure of power by force and the undermining of democratic governance, peace and stability in Niger. He said aid deliveries continue. More than 4 million people in the country require humanitarian assistance. 

Leaders of the coup have said they acted last week in response to what they described as a worsening security situation and the government’s lack of action against jihadists.

In a statement on state television Monday, the military junta accused former colonial ruler, France, of planning to use military action to free Bazoum. 

On Sunday, hundreds of coup supporters attacked the French Embassy in Niamey, breaking windows and burning the French flag. French officials disputed accusations from some Nigerien military leaders, saying Monday that “no lethal resources were used by the French security forces” during the embassy attack.

Margaret Besheer at the United Nations and Nike Ching at the State Department contributed to this report. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 

An escalating dispute over a gas field in the Persian Gulf poses an early challenge to a Chinese-brokered agreement to reconcile regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saudi Arabia and neighboring Kuwait jointly claim the offshore Al-Durra gas field. Iran says it has rights to the field, which it refers to as Arash. The two sides held talks in Iran in March but were unable to agree on a border demarcation.

A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said the country would not tolerate any infringement on its rights, echoing remarks by the country’s oil minister the previous day.

“We have expressed our readiness to engage in dialogue with the Kuwaiti side,” Kanaani told reporters Monday. “But if there is no interest in mutual utilization of this joint field, the Islamic Republic of Iran has naturally put the exploration and utilization of the resources on its agenda.”

Kuwait’s oil minister told Sky News Arabia last week that his country would commence drilling and production without waiting for a deal.

Saudi Arabia has sided with Kuwait, saying the two countries have exclusive ownership of the field, and has called on Iran to return to negotiations.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, which have backed opposite sides in conflicts across the Middle East and accused each other of destabilizing the region, formally restored diplomatic relations in April following a seven-year freeze. They have since reopened embassies and welcomed senior officials on visits.

But they continue to back opposite sides in Yemen’s civil war, which is ongoing despite a 15-month cease-fire. Saudi Arabia is also in negotiations with the United States over potentially normalizing relations with Israel, which Iran’s leaders have said should be wiped off the map.

“Any step in the direction toward normalization of ties with this aggressive regime will only serve to give it more leeway to commit more atrocities against the Palestinian nation,” Kanaani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said.

It’s unclear whether the dispute over the gas field, which goes back to the 1960s, will escalate beyond rhetoric. But tensions are already high in the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. is building up military forces in response to what it says is Iran’s unlawful seizure of oil tankers and harassment of commercial vessels.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait agreed last year to jointly develop the gas field. Kuwait said at the time that they aimed to produce 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 84,000 barrels of liquefied gas per day. Iran denounced the agreement as illegal and said it should be included in any such plans.

Wildlife enthusiasts across Britain are being encouraged to log sightings of butterflies and some moths, as the world’s largest annual survey of the increasingly endangered pollinating insects returns.

The U.K.-wide “Big Butterfly Count” — which this year runs from July 14 to August 6 — helps conservationists assess the health of the country’s natural environment, amid mounting evidence it is increasingly imperiled. 

Volunteers download a chart helping them to identify different butterfly species and then record their sightings in gardens, parks and elsewhere using a smartphone app and other online tools.

It comes as experts warn the often brightly colored winged insects are in rapid decline in Britain as they fail to cope with unprecedented environmental change. 

“It’s a pretty worrying picture,” Richard Fox, head of science at the Butterfly Conservation charity, which runs the nationwide citizen-led survey, told AFP at Orley Common, a vast park in Devon, southwest England.

“The major causes of the decline are what we humans have done to the landscape in the U.K. over the past 50, 60, 70 years,” he added from the site, which is seeing fewer butterflies despite offering an ideal habitat for them. 

A report published this year that Fox co-authored, based on 23 million items of data, revealed that four in every five U.K. butterfly species have decreased since the 1970s. 

Half of the country’s 58 species are listed as threatened, according to a conservation “red list.” 

‘Citizen scientists’

The UK, one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries, has lost almost half of its biodiversity over recent decades, according to a 2021 U.K. parliament report.

Agriculture, and its use of fertilizers and pesticides, alongside changes to landscapes including the removal of hedge rows to maximize space for growing crops, is partly blamed.

Counting butterflies, which are among the most monitored insects globally, has helped track the grim trend. 

Volunteers have been contributing to the effort since the 1970s, but recording is more popular than ever, in part thanks to evolving technology.

The Big Butterfly Count launched in 2010 and claims to have become the world’s biggest such survey. 

Over 64,000 “citizen scientists” participated last year, submitting 96,257 counts of butterflies and day-flying moths from across Britain.

Butterfly Conservation and the U.K. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have developed an iRecord Butterflies app to help identify and geo-locate different butterfly species sightings.

It has logged nearly 1 million submissions since launching in 2014.

Butterflies help identify the health of an ecosystem because they react quickly to environmental changes and are seen as an early warning system for other wildlife losses, conservationists note.

“One of the great things about butterflies and of this fantastic data that we have about butterflies is that they act as indicators about all the other groups,” Fox explained. 

“So we know a bit about how our bees are doing, we know a little about how bugs, and beetles, and flies, and wasps, and other important insects are doing.”

‘We’ll starve’

Amy Walkden, Butterfly Conservation’s branch secretary in Devon, is one of many enthusiasts monitoring the insects year-round with the help of her 8-year-old daughter, Robin.

“Having a yearly record of what is around and what is not around I think is really good scientific data to indicate changes such as global warming, habitat destruction,” she said. 

Her daughter Robin appears equally aware of their value.

“If we don’t have any butterflies and all the buzzy things, then the things that eat butterflies won’t have any food,” she noted.

“The food chain is basically what we eat and if there is none of them, we’ll starve and we won’t really be able to survive, will we?”

Fox hopes that the latest annual count will help prompt policy makers to take more action, although he concedes the scale of the task is “enormous.”

The U.K. government has said it wants to reverse biodiversity loss and climate change, partly by planting tens of millions of trees in the next three years.

Fox called the plan “fantastic” but said other areas such as low intensity agri-environment schemes are also needed, “so that the public money paid to farmers will benefit the environment and support biodiversity.”

“There’s a lot more we can do there to make sure that the margins around fields are being managed in a way to turn around the fortunes of our more common and widespread butterflies,” he added.

They rode into a kill zone. The timing was off. Many men were lost. In the end, they recaptured the ruined village of Staromaiorske, claiming Ukraine’s biggest advance for weeks. 

Troops at the spearhead of Ukraine’s counteroffensive say a battle last week along the front in the southeast proved to be tougher and bloodier than expected, with plans going awry and an enemy that was well-prepared. 

“The Russians were waiting for us,” said a 29-year-old soldier using the call-sign Bulat, from a unit sent into battle in armored vehicles during last week’s assault. 

“They fired anti-tank weapons and grenade launchers at us. My vehicle drove over an anti-tank mine, but everything was OK, the vehicle took the hit, and everyone was alive. We dismounted and ran towards the cover. Because the most important [thing] is to find cover and then move on.” 

Tales of the battle of Staromaiorske, recounted to Reuters near the front line in southeastern Ukraine, give an indication of why Kyiv’s boldest counteroffensive of the war, soon entering its third month, has proven a slower and bloodier slog than anticipated. 

“Our mission was planned to take two days. But we couldn’t drive in during the darkness at the right time, for a few reasons. So, we drove in later and lost the right moment,” said Bulat. 

Kyiv, which has received billions of dollars’ worth of equipment and training from Western countries to mount its counteroffensive to recapture occupied territory this summer, has acknowledged that its campaign is unfolding more slowly than expected. Commanders say the deliberate pace is needed to avoid high casualties. 

The Russians have had months to prepare their fortifications and sow minefields. The Ukrainian attackers lack the air superiority that their NATO allies normally expect in their training drills. 

The Russian defenders had set up “pre-sighted zones” in anticipation of the attack, said a 24-year-old Ukrainian marine with the call-sign “Dub.” 

“They methodically destroyed the roads. They made pits that prevented driving in and out of the village, even in dry weather. Even walking was quite hard. You can’t use flashlights at night, but you still have to advance.” 

Another soldier, using the call-sign Pikachu, said men in his unit “tried our best. We made it.” 

“The dismount was not great,” the soldier acknowledged. “We advanced slowly but surely. They were shooting, everything was flying. It was scary, but we moved on. Nobody fell back. Everyone did a great job. 

“Many of us who went will never return home.”