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Finland Will Close Last Russian Border Crossing if Necessary, Its PM Says

Finland is ready to close its last border crossing with Russia if Moscow keeps pushing migrants across, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Monday as migrants continued to make the treacherous journey through the Arctic.

“We have closed all our border stations on the eastern border except for one and we are ready to close the last one if needed,” Orpo told reporters in Helsinki.

“Finland is protecting the European Union’s external border and NATO’s border. We will not let this phenomenon continue,” he added.

Finland has seen a surge in asylum-seekers entering without visas across its 1,300-kilometer border with Russia, with around 800 crossing since August.

The migrants are predominantly from the Middle East and Africa.

This has prompted Finland to close all but its northernmost border crossing, in the remote Murmansk region in the Arctic, over the past two weeks.

Finnish officials claim Russia is attempting to destabilize its Nordic neighbor, with Orpo last week calling it “a systematic and organized action by the Russian authorities.”

In April, Moscow warned it would take “countermeasures … in tactical and strategic terms” after branding Finland’s decision to join NATO as an “assault on our security.”

Since last Thursday, the only border crossing that has remained open is the Raja-Jooseppi station.

Migrants continued to cross there this weekend, with a total of 60 arriving on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, according to the Finnish Border Guard.

Finland is obligated by international law to ensure that migrants can seek asylum, and the availability of locations can be limited only in exceptional circumstances, according to Finnish legal experts.

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Niger Junta Repeals Law Aimed at Slowing Migration to Europe 

Niger’s junta said Monday that it had revoked an anti-migration law that helped reduce the flow of West Africans to Europe, but that was reviled by desert dwellers whose economies had long relied on the traffic. 

The law, which made it illegal to transport migrants through Niger, was passed in May 2015 as the number of people traveling across the Mediterranean Sea from Africa reached record highs, creating a political and humanitarian crisis in Europe where governments came under pressure to stop the influx. 

Niger’s junta, which took power in a July coup, repealed the law on Saturday and announced it Monday evening on state television. 

The junta is reassessing its relations with former western allies who condemned the coup, and is seeking to shore up support at home, including in the northern desert communities that had benefited most from migration. 

The number of migrants moving through Niger, a main transit country on the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert, dropped sharply over the years because of the law, but the change drained the lifeblood from towns and villages that had fed and housed migrants and sold car parts and fuel to traffickers. 

In return, the European Union launched the nearly $5.5 billion Trust Fund for Africa in 2015, aimed at eradicating the root causes of migration, but many felt it was not enough. Unemployment soared in places like the ancient city of Agadez, a popular gateway to the Sahara. 

How European leaders greet the news and what the impact will be on migration to Europe are yet to be seen. 

But some people welcomed it. Andre Chani used to earn thousands of dollars a month driving migrants through the desert before police impounded his trucks in 2016. He plans to restart his business once he has the money. 

“I’m going to start again,” he said via text message from Agadez on Monday. “We are very happy.”

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Зеленський і фон дер Ляєн обговорили виконання Києвом рекомендацій Єврокомісії

Президент України Володимир Зеленський повідомив про «важливу розмову» з президенткою Єврокомісії Урсулою фон дер Ляєн напередодні засідання Європейської ради в грудні.

«Обговорили прогрес України у виконанні рекомендацій Європейської комісії для початку переговорів про вступ до ЄС. Запевнив, що Україна виконає всі рекомендації до грудневого засідання Європейської ради, включно з тими, що стосуються прав національних меншин і зміцнення антикорупційних інституцій», – повідомив Зеленський у телеграмі.

У свою чергу, Урсула фон дер Ляєн після розмови з Зеленським повідомила, що Україна зосереджена на реалізації кроків та реформ, пов’язаних з фінансовою підтримкою ЄС.

«Гарний обмін думками з Володимиром Зеленським напередодні важливих дискусій на грудневому засіданні. Україна зосереджена на реалізації 7 кроків та реформ, пов’язаних з фінансовою підтримкою ЄС. Єврокомісія твердо підтримує Україну у підготовці її майбутнього в ЄС», – написала вона в соцмережі Х.

27 листопада віцепрезидентка Єврокомісії з питань цінностей і прозорості Вера Юрова перебувала в Києві, де обговорювала питання про вступ України до Європейського союзу. Вона зустрілася з представниками всіх політичних груп українського парламенту. 

У червні 2022 року Європейська рада ухвалила рішення про надання Україні статусу кандидата на вступ до Європейського союзу.

8 листопада Єврокомісія рекомендувала почати переговори з Україною про вступ до ЄС. Президентка комісії Урсула фон дер Ляєн заявила, що Україна виконала 90% рекомендацій, які дав ЄС.

Як повідомив в ефірі Радіо Свобода (програма «Свобода. LIVE») заступник керівника Офісу президента Ігор Жовква, всі критерії для початку переговорів українська сторона виконає до середини грудня, коли буде засідання Європейської Ради.

На саміті у грудні лідери 27 країн-членів ЄС мають політично затвердити рішення про початок переговорів, а вже в березні за умови, що Україна виконає всі рекомендації, можуть розпочатися переговори.

 

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Більшість у Конгресі підтримує додаткове фінансування для України – Держдеп

«Ми з оптимізмом дивимось на додатковий пакет від США. Вважаю, що Сенат готується до рухів упродовж наступних кількох тижнів»

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Obama Portraitist Turns His Brush to African Presidents

Acclaimed American artist Kehinde Wiley — known for portraying former US president Barack Obama and U.S. pop star Michael Jackson — has turned his brush to Africa. His “A Maze of Power” exhibit in Paris, portrays 11 former and current African presidents, exploring power through the lens of historical European portrait painting. Lisa Bryant went to the show and has this report from the French capital

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Spain to Invest 1.4 Billion Euros to Protect Threatened Donana Wetland

National and regional authorities in Spain signed an agreement Monday to invest 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in areas around the treasured national park of Donana in a bid to stop the park from drying up.

Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera said the plan was aimed at encouraging farmers to stop cultivating crops that rely heavily on water from underground aquifers that have been overexploited in recent years, damaging one of Europe’s largest wetlands.

“This is an agreement with which we put an end to pressure on a natural treasure the likes of which there are few in the world,” Ribera said.

Andalusia regional President Juan Moreno said farmers will receive financial incentives to stop cultivating and to reforest land in and around some 14 towns close to Donana. He said farmers who wish to continue cultivating will receive less money but must switch to farming dry crops ecologically.

As part of the agreement, Andalusia will cancel previously announced plans to expand irrigation near Donana, a decision that UNESCO, the central government and ecologists criticized for putting more pressure on the aquifer.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve, Donana is a wintering site for half a million waterfowl and a stopover spot for millions more birds that migrate from Africa to northern Europe.

Ecologists working in and near the park have long warned that its ecosystem of marshes and lagoons is under severe strain because of agriculture and tourism. The situation has been made worse by climate change and a long drought, along with record high temperatures.

Andalusia recently announced a plan to allow the Donana park to annex some 7,500 hectares (18,500 acres) by purchasing land from a private owner for 70 million euros.

Donana currently covers 74,000 hectares (182,000 acres) on an estuary where the Guadalquivir River meets the Atlantic Ocean on Spain’s southern coast. 

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«Якість і швидкість мають значення». Віцепрезидентка ЄК в Києві обговорила вступ України до ЄС

«Мала честь обговорити приєднання України до ЄС із представниками всіх політичних груп українського парламенту»

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Кулеба їде до Брюсселю: візьме участь у засіданні Ради Україна-НАТО і зустрінеться з Боррелем

29 листопада Кулеба візьме участь у першому засіданні Ради Україна-НАТО на рівні міністрів закордонних справ

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За останні півтора місяці армія РФ, ймовірно, мала один із найвищих показників втрат за всю війну – британська прозвідка

За останні шість тижнів, ймовірно, спостерігався один із найвищих показників втрат серед особового складу у армії РФ за всю війну в Україні. Про це пише у своєму огляді Міністерство оборони Британії з посиланням на дані розвідки.

«Тяжкі втрати багато в чому були спричинені наступом Росії на донбаське місто Авдіївку», – повідомляє британська сторона.

Раніше періодом з найвищою смертністю для Росії був березень 2023 року у розпал російського наступу на Бахмут, вказує Міноборони Британії, і додає, що тоді йшлося про в середньому 776 смертей на день.

«Хоча військова розвідка не може перевірити методологію, враховуючи загальну кількість убитих та поранених, цифри цілком правдоподібні», – йдеться в повідомленні.

Протягом листопада 2023 року втрати армії РФ, за даними українського Генштабу, становили в середньому 931 особу на день. Російська сторона однак дані про втрати своїх вояків не наводить.

Україна і Росія майже не дають інформації про свої втрати у війні. Москва офіційно востаннє називала кількість убитих понад рік тому, Київ цього не робив, заявляючи, що дані будуть розкриті після війни.

Газета The New York Times у серпні з посиланням на неназваних представників адміністрації США повідомила, що загальна кількість військовослужбовців, убитих та поранених з обох сторін війни в Україні за півтора року, що минули з початку масштабного вторгнення РФ, наближається до 500 тисяч.

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ДБР повідомило про завершення розслідування авіатрощі у Броварах

Державне бюро розслідувань завершило розслідувати авіакатастрофу гелікоптера 18 січня 2023 року у Броварах. Матеріали справи відкриті для ознайомлення підозрюваним та їхнім захисникам, а також потерпілим та їх законним представникам, повідомляє у понеділок пресслужба ДБР.

Повідомляється, що після ознайомлення матеріали будуть передані до суду.

У серпні слідчі повідомили про підозру п’ятьом посадовцям Державної служби України з надзвичайних ситуацій за порушення правил безпеки польотів гелікоптера, на борту якого перебувало керівництво Міністерства внутрішніх справ та ще кілька осіб.

Вранці 18 січня у Броварах Київської області поруч із дитячим садком та 14-поверховим житловим будинком впав гвинтокрил Держслужби з надзвичайних ситуацій. Внаслідок падіння гелікоптера загинули 14 людей, з них одна дитина та 9 людей, які перебували на борту. Постраждала 31 людина, серед яких 13 дітей.

На борту вертольота, який розбився, було керівництво МВС. Загинув міністр Денис Монастирський, перший заступник міністра Євген Єнін і державний секретар МВС Юрій Лубкович. В Офісі президента заявили, що керівництво МВС прямувало «в одну з гарячих точок».

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Church Official Says Kidnapped German Priest Freed in Mali

German missionary Father Hans Joachim Lohre who was kidnapped in Mali’s capital Bamako last year has been freed by his captor, a church official told Reuters on Sunday.

Patient Nshombo of the Missionaries for Africa told Reuters by telephone that Lohre had been released.

“Yes, he has been freed, but we have to wait for further details from the authorities,” Nshombo said.

The government of Mali did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the German foreign office declined to comment.

Lohre, who had been living in Bamako for 30 years, was meant to celebrate Mass on a Sunday morning in the Malian capital last year when his colleagues noticed that his car remained parked in front of his house and his telephone was switched off.

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Greek Police Arrest 6 Alleged Migrant Traffickers, Hunting 7 More

Greek police have arrested six people who they say are members of a large human trafficking gang that violently extorted money from migrants to assist them in crossing into neighboring Albania and travel to European Union countries to the north.

The six suspects — a Syrian, a Palestinian and four Iraqis — were arrested Saturday at a village less than 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Albanian border, police said Sunday.

Seven more members of the gang were arrested in the same area on Sept. 28. At that time, 11 migrants had been found detained in shacks and abandoned military outposts.

Police said in September that the traffickers, who had already collected upward of 1,000 euros (nearly $1,100) from each of the migrants to help them cross into Albania, had detained them, demanding an additional 1,500 euros ($1,640). Police said the traffickers tortured the migrants, videotaped the torture sessions and sent the footage to the victims’ relatives in the Middle East and South Asia.

This time, no migrants were found with the traffickers.

Police say they are searching for seven other members of the gang still at large.

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Орбан знову заявив, що Україна не зможе перемогти Росію на полі бою. Київ наразі не реагував

Віктор Обран також вважає, що Захід помилився зі стратегією щодо війни РФ проти України

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Russia Launches Largest-Yet Wave of Drone Strikes on Kyiv

Russia launched its largest drone strike to date on Ukraine over the weekend. Kyiv says it destroyed all but one, but falling debris caused several injuries and damaged buildings. A top U.N. official called for continued solidarity with Ukraine. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.

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Tens of Thousands March Against Antisemitism in London

Ten of thousands of people participated in a march against antisemitism in London on Sunday protesting a rise in hate crimes against Jews since the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among the estimated 60,000 demonstrators in the first march of its kind since the Israel-Hamas war began and the largest gathering against antisemitism in London for decades according to organizers. Johnson marched along the U.K.’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and other senior government officials.

Protestors carried placards with the message “Shoulder to shoulder with British Jews” “Never Again Is Now,” and “Zero tolerance for anti-Semites.” Others showed the faces of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas in a show of solidarity with the Jewish communities which have recently suffered a spate of hate crimes, especially in the nation’s capital.

Some people sang in Hebrew while others chanted “Bring them home” in reference to the hostages.

London’s Metropolitan Police received reports of 554 antisemitic offences between Oct. 1 and Nov. 1, up from 44 a year earlier, a more than 10-fold increase. Reports of Islamophobic offences almost tripled to 220 during the same period.

Police arrested a far-right activist, Tommy Robinson, at the start of Sunday’s march after he refused to leave the area at the request of police officers.

Organizers of the demonstration had asked Robinson not to attend because of the distress his presence was likely to cause.

Sunday’s march took place a day after a latest demonstration in the British capital by pro-Palestinian protestors calling for a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.  

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Pope Says he Has Lung inflammation, Aide Reads Message for Him 

Pope Francis, suffering from a “lung inflammation,” appeared seated in the chapel of his residence instead of in St. Peter’s Square while an aide read the pontiff’s Sunday message. 

The 86-year-old pope, wearing his traditional white robes and with a bandage on his right hand, remained seated next to the aide during the reading.  

“Dear brothers and sisters. Happy Sunday. Today, I cannot appear at the window because I have this problem of an inflammation in the lungs,” Francis said. 

Francis went to a Rome hospital on Saturday for a scan that the Vatican said had ruled out lung complications after a bout of flu forced him to cancel activities.  

The Vatican provided no explanation for the apparent difference between its statement on Saturday and what the pope said on Sunday. 

One part of one of the pope’s lungs was removed when Francis was a young man in his native Argentina.  

Francis then introduced the priest, Father Paolo Braida, who went on to read the pope’s Sunday message based on the Gospel. Francis coughed several times during the reading. 

The pope delivered a blessing and Braida read the rest of message, including appeals for peace in Ukraine, thanks for the release of some hostages in Gaza and confirmation of the pope’s intention to travel to Dubai on Friday to attend the U.N. climate change conference. 

Francis ended with his traditional closing remarks: “I wish everyone a good Sunday. Please do not forget to pray for me. Have a good lunch and see you next time.” 

Staying in the residence spared the pope from going outside for the short journey to the Apostolic Palace on what was a particularly cold Rome morning for the end of November. 

He would have had to get in a car, be driven to a courtyard and take an elevator to the top floor of the palace to reach the window overlooking St. Peter’s Square. 

The event was broadcast on giant screens to the crowds gathered in the square, as well as on the usual television and internet channels. 

Earlier this month Francis skipped reading a prepared speech for a meeting with European rabbis because he had a cold, but he appeared to be in good health during a meeting with children hours later that day. 

In June he had surgery on an abdominal hernia, spending nine days in hospital. He appears to have recovered fully from that operation. 

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Russia Moves Its Air Defense System from Kaliningrad 

The British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine that Russia’s recent transport movements indicate that Russia has “likely moved” its strategic air defense systems from its Baltic coast enclave of Kaliningrad.

This move from Kaliningrad which is surrounded on three sides by NATO member states highlights “the overstretch the war has caused for some of Russia’s key, modern capabilities.”

Saturday was Holodomor Remembrance Day in Ukraine, a time when Ukrainians remember the famine that starved several million people to death in the 1930s because of Soviet policies.

The Holodomor — which means “death by starvation” in Ukrainian — was a deliberate policy of Josef Stalin that Ukrainians, along with more than 30 countries, consider genocide but something Moscow denies.

On Holodomor Saturday, Kyiv was rocked by Russia’s largest drone attack since its invasion of Ukraine in February of last year. Ukraine said it shot down 74 of the 75 Iranian-designed Shahed drones launched by Russia in a six-hour air raid.

Five people, including a child, were wounded in the attack, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko’s Telegram post. Sixty-six of the drones were downed over Kyiv, Ukraine’s air force said. The damage caused power outages for 17,000 people, a city official said.

 

“It looks like tonight we heard the overture. The prelude to the winter season,” Serhiy Fursa, a prominent Ukrainian economist, wrote on Facebook.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia has carried out 911 attacks, killing 19 Ukrainians and wounding 84 across the country in the last week.

“The enemy is intensifying its attacks, trying to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians,” he said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. It was doing so deliberately, “just like 90 years ago, when Russia killed millions of our ancestors.”

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Europe’s Jews Worry as Antisemitism Rises Amid Israel-Hamas War

As he sits in Geneva, Michel Dreifuss does not feel all that far away from the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. The ripples are rolling through Europe and upending assumptions both global and intimate — including those about his personal safety as a Jew.

“Yesterday I bought a tear-gas spray canister at a military-equipment surplus store,” the 64-year-old retired tech sector worker said recently at a rally to mark a month since the Hamas killings. The choice, he says, is a “precaution,” driven by a surge of antisemitism in Europe.

Last month’s slayings of about 1,200 people in Israel by armed Palestinian militants represented the biggest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. The fallout from it, and from Israel’s intense military response that health officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza say has killed at least 13,300 Palestinians, has extended to Europe. In doing so, it has shaken a continent all too familiar with deadly anti-Jewish hatred for centuries.

The past century is of particular note, of course. Concern about rising antisemitism in Europe is fueled in part by what happened to Jews before and during World War II, and that makes it particularly fearsome for those who may be only one or two generations removed from people who were the victims of riots against Jews and Nazi brutality.

What most chills many Jews interviewed is what they see as the lack of empathy for the Israelis killed during the early morning massacre and for the relatives of the hostages — about 30 of whom are children — suspended in an agonizing limbo.

“What really upsets me,” said Holocaust survivor Herbert Traube said at a Paris event commemorating the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 government-backed pogroms against Jews in Germany and Austria, “is to see that there isn’t a massive popular reaction against this.”

Acts of antisemitism — and how that’s defined

Antisemitism is broadly defined as hatred of Jews. But a debate has been raging for years over what actions and words should be labeled antisemitic.

Criticism of Israel’s policies and antisemitism have long been conflated by Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and by some watchdog groups. Critics say that blurring helps undermine opposition to the country’s policies and amps up perceptions that any utterance or incident against Israeli policy is antisemitic.

Some language — whether for or against Israel or the Palestinians – “makes it sound like a football match,” says Susan Neiman of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany. “We are perpetuating the idea that you’ve got to be on one side or the other instead of being on the side of human rights and justice,” she said.

Others argue that antisemites often use criticism of Israel as a placeholder for expressing their views.

The list of examples of anti-Jewish sentiment since the Oct. 7 attacks is long and documented by governments and watchdog groups across Europe.

Little more than a month after the attack in Israel, the French Interior Ministry said 1,247 antisemitic incidents had been reported since Oct. 7, nearly three times the total for all of 2022.
Denmark's main Jewish association said cases were up 24 times from the average of the last nine months.
The Community Security Trust, which tracks antisemitic incidents in Britain, reported more than 1,000 such events — the most ever recorded for a 28-day period. 

 

That all comes despite widespread denunciations of anti-Jewish hatred — and support for Israel — from leaders in Europe since the attack.

Some of Europe’s Jews say they see it on the streets and the news. Jewish schoolchildren face bullying on their way to class, or — in one instance — have been asked to explain Israel’s actions, according to Britain’s Community Security Trust. There’s been talk of blending in better: covering skullcaps in public and perhaps hiding mezuzahs, the traditional symbol on doorposts of Jewish homes.

In Russia, a riot broke out at an airport in which there were some antisemitic chants and posters from a crowd of men looking for passengers who had arrived from Israel. A Berlin synagogue was firebombed. An assailant stabbed a Jewish woman twice in the stomach at her home in Lyon, France, according to her lawyer.

In Prague’s Little Quarter last month, staffers at the well-known Hippopotamus bar refused to serve beer to several tourists from Israel and their Czech guides, and some patrons served up insults. Police had to step in. In Berlin, Jews are still reeling from an attempted firebombing of a synagogue last month.

“Some of us are in a state of panic,” said Anna Segal, 37, the manager of the Kahal Adass Jisroel in Berlin, a community of 450 members.

Coming to grips with a feeling of dread

Some community members are changing how they live, Segal said. Students no longer wear uniforms. Kindergarten classes don’t leave the building for field trips or the playground next door. Some members no longer call taxis, or they hesitate to order deliveries to their homes. Hebrew-speaking in public is fading. Some wonder if they should move to Israel.

“I hear more and more from people from the Jewish community who say they feel safer and more comfortable in Israel now than in Germany, despite the war and all the rockets,” Segal said. “Because they don’t have to hide there.”

And in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, some protesters are shouting, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Some say that’s a call for Palestinian freedom and is not anti-Jewish but anti-Israel; the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea includes not only Israel, but also the West Bank and east Jerusalem, where Palestinians have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967. Many Jews, though, say the chant is inherently anti-Jewish and calls for the destruction of Israel.

Faced with fears that antisemitism will spread, communities are taking action. A hotline has been set up in France to help provide psychological support for Jews. The Community Security Trust, which aims to protect the Jewish community and foster good relations with others, has joined with the British government to distribute primers on how to address antisemitism in primary and secondary schools.

Peggy Hicks, a director at the U.N. human rights office, says the actions of governments and political movements are fair game for criticism but warned against discrimination, which the Geneva-based office has long battled. In the chaos of the past weeks, she sees reason to hope.

“I’ve been amazed in the course of my working in human rights about the amount of compassion and the resilience of human beings,” Hicks said. “People who have lost children and come together on both sides of a conflict, who have shared a loss — but from opposing sides — and who have found a way to get past the fact that they should actually be enemies.”

She added: “I don’t think everybody has the ability to show that kind of courage. But the fact that it exists, I think, gives us all something to aspire to.”

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«Росія поважає й розуміє силу»: спікер парламенту Фінляндії виступив українською у Раді

Галла-аго нагадав, що його країна також стала «жертвою російських імперіалістичних амбіцій» в ході радянсько-фінської війни

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Ukraine Unveils Monument to Soldier Shot Dead in Widely Shared Video

A Ukrainian soldier who was posthumously awarded a medal after a widely shared video showed him declaring “Glory to Ukraine” before apparently being shot dead, was commemorated with a statue in his northern hometown Saturday. 

The video shared in March showed a man the military later named as Oleksandr Matsievskiy, a sniper with a unit from the region of Chernihiv, saying “Slava Ukraini,” a phrase more than a century old that has become a popular expression of resistance to Russia’s February 2022 invasion. 

Standing smoking a cigarette in a wooded area, carrying no visible weaponry, Matsievskiy is then seen slumping to the ground, apparently struck repeatedly by unseen shooters. 

Kyiv blamed “brutal and brazen” Russians for his death, as did his mother Paraska Demchuk, 68. 

“He would have taken all of them with him if he had a grenade,” she said, as she proudly showed the medal President Volodymyr Zelenskiy bestowed on her son representing the “Hero of Ukraine” honor. 

“He would say to me, ‘Mum, I will never let them capture me,'” she said through tears. “He wouldn’t just bandy words about. It was on the inside, it was like a core inside him,” she said. 

Kyiv has opened a criminal investigation into the death of Matsievskiy, who was quickly talked of as a hero on social media, where many supporters posted the words “Heroyam Slava,” or “Glory to the Heroes,” the traditional response to Slava Ukraini.  

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