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Recent statements by French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron about the war in Ukraine are “dangerous” and will deepen international tension around the conflict, the Kremlin’s spokesman said on Friday.
In an interview published on Thursday, Macron repeated an earlier comment that he doesn’t rule out sending troops to Ukraine.
Cameron, meanwhile, said during a visit to Kyiv the same day that Ukraine will be able to use British long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia - a possibility that some other NATO countries providing weapons have balked at.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded Macron’s comment “a very important and very dangerous statement.” Remarks by Macron about possible direct French engagement in the conflict represent a “very dangerous trend,” he said.
Visitors look at a French-made AMX-10RC armored vehicle at an exhibition of Western military equipment captured from Kyiv forces, Moscow on Friday, May 3, 2024. Associated Press
Cameron’s statement about Ukraine’s right to use British weapons provided to strike facilities inside Russia is “another very dangerous statement,” Peskov told reporters.
“This is a direct escalation of tensions around the Ukrainian conflict, which potentially may threaten European security, the entire European security architecture,” Peskov added.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 significantly heightened tension between the Kremlin and NATO countries. The alliance countries have provided much of the military hardware that Kyiv is using to fight Russia, ensuring that the tension has continued to simmer. Russia, in turn, has sought help from China, Iran and North Korea, according to the US.
German FM says Russia will face consequences for cyberattack
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Russia will face consequences after accusing its military intelligence service of masterminding an “absolutely intolerable” cyberattack, as NATO and European Union member countries said they will not let Russia’s “malicious" behavior in cyberspace go unanswered.
Relations between Russia and Germany were already tense over German military support to Ukraine.
Baerbock said Russian state hackers were behind a cyberattack last year that targeted the Social Democrats, the leading party in the governing coalition. The German Interior Ministry added that German companies, including in the defense and aerospace sectors, as well as targets related to Russia’s war in Ukraine were a focus of the attacks.
The Council of the EU and the Czech Foreign Ministry said that Czechia's institutions have also been a target of a cyber campaign by the same group.
The ministry said APT28, which is associated with the Russian military intelligence service GRU, exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook from 2023.
In a statement by Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat said they “strongly condemn the malicious cyber campaign conducted by the Russia-controlled APT28 against Germany and Czechia.”
The EU noted that it had previously imposed sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for APT28 attacks targeting the German parliament in 2015. It said it will not tolerate the continuation of such attacks, particularly with EU elections upcoming in June.
NATO said that APT28 targeted “other national governmental entities, critical infrastructure operators and other entities across the Alliance," including in Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden.
Ukraine urges West to speed up military aid deliveries
Ukraine’s president and foreign minister on Friday pressed British Foreign Secretary David Cameron to accelerate the delivery of promised military aid to Kyiv, as Russia heaps battlefield pressure on depleted Ukrainian forces in the third year of the war.
“It is important that the weapons included in the UK support package announced last week arrive as soon as possible,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the social platform X, as Cameron visited Kyiv on Thursday.
He said armored vehicles, ammunition and missiles of various types were top of the list.
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Vital support pledged by Western allies to help Ukraine fend off the Kremlin’s forces has been delayed by political disagreements in the US and a lack of manufacturing capacity in Europe. That has opened a door to advances for the bigger and better-equipped Russian army, especially along the front line in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine and its Western partners are in a race against the clock to deploy the new military aid, especially a fresh batch of US support, in the coming weeks and prevent Russia from taking more ground.
The pressing concern at the moment is keeping the strategic eastern hilltop city of Chasiv Yar out of Russian hands. Capturing the city would offer Russia the opportunity of attacking other key cities deeper inside the Donetsk region and hitting important Ukrainian supply lines.
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Never before in recent history have so many journalists and media workers been killed so rapidly as in the past year, mostly in Gaza.
More than 140 were killed in just a few months as they tried to report on the war, according to Gaza's media office. Both the Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists put that figure at more than 100.
On Thursday at a ceremony in Chile's capital Santiago, Nasser Abu Baker, President of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and Vice-President of the International Federation of Journalists, received the UNESCO prize on behalf of his colleagues in Gaza.
It came on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, observed on May 3rd.
A warning also came from UN chief Antonio Guterres who said that the media workers have come under attack in every part of the world in the last year.
"The United Nations recognises the invaluable work of journalists and media professionals to ensure that the public is informed and engaged. Without facts, we cannot fight mis- and disinformation. Without accountability, we will not have strong policies in place. Without press freedom, we won't have any freedom. A free press is not a choice, but a necessity," he said.
Press freedom is being put to the test, says RSF
And to mark World Press Freedom Day, the pressure group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published a global index detailing the working conditions for journalists in 180 countries.
Within the European Union, the "Freedom of the Press Worldwide" report labelled conditions for journalists as "problematic" in Greece, as well as in Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine and Poland.
In Serbia and Albania, conditions are rated as "difficult". The situation is even more severe in Russia, Belarus and Turkey, categorised as "very serious".
According to the report, in Russia "more than 1,500 journalists have fled abroad since the invasion of Ukraine."
It also warns that "press freedom is being put to the test" by the ruling parties in Hungary (67th), Malta (73rd) and Greece (88th), the EU’s three worst-ranked countries. Italy (46th), ruled by the government of Giorgia Meloni, has also fallen five places.
But there have been some improvements in Europe.
"The political environment for journalism has improved in Poland and Bulgaria ... thanks to new governments with more concern for the right to information," the report said.
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The United Nations humanitarian aid agency says hundreds of thousands of people would be “at imminent risk of death” if Israel carries out a military assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The city is a critical lifeline for humanitarian aid and currently hosts thousands of displaced Palestinians from other parts of Gaza.
The UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths has said that an invasion of Rafah would be "nothing short of a tragedy beyond words".
Israel has previously said it would begin a ground invasion into the city, insisting that it remains a stronghold of Hamas.
Leaders across the world have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be cautious about any incursion into Rafah.
On Thursday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said any US response to such an incursion would be up to President Joe Biden, but currently, “conditions are not favourable to any kind of operation”.
Erdogan imposes trade ban on Israel
Other world leaders have also warned Israel against a ground invasion of Rafah. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country has imposed a trade ban on Israel, saying it could no longer “stand by and watch” the violence in Gaza.
Turkey on Thursday announced that it had suspended all imports and exports to Israel and that the ban would remain until a permanent ceasefire agreement was reached.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives to speak at a presser after Friday noon prayer in Istanbul, 3 May 2024 AP Photo/Khalil Hamra
“Up to now, Israel has killed [between] 40,000 to 45,000 Palestinians without mercy. As Muslims, we could not stand by and watch,” Erdogan told reporters following traditional Friday prayers in Istanbul.
Trade between Turkey and Israel reached $9.5 billion (€8.8bn), according to Erdogan.
The Turkish leader has faced domestic pressure to stop trade ties with Israel, losing points to a smaller Islamist party in local elections in March.
Israeli strike on Rafah kills seven
An Israeli strike on the city of Rafah on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip killed seven people, including children, hospital officials said on Friday.
The overnight strike on the Chahine family home killed two adults and five children, aged between 7 and 16, according to a list of the names released by Abu Youssef al-Najjar Hospital.
Palestinians stand in the ruins of the Chahine family home, after an overnight Israeli strike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 3, 2024. Ismael Abu Dayyah/Copyright 2024 The AP All rights reserved
The strike comes a day after Hamas said it was sending a delegation to Egypt for further ceasefire talks — a new sign of progress in attempts by international mediators to hammer out an agreement between Israel and the militant group to end the war in Gaza.
The overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war stands at least 34,622, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians killed.