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We know Worldcrunch can reach even farther, deeper and faster with the active participation of all newshounds of goodwill and linguistic abilities to help spot and/or translate relevant (and just plain good) stories from around the planet. Crunch It will become our platform to make that happen.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met on Thursday at a summit in Uzbekistan, their first face-to-face encounter since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.
The meeting comes as Russia is reeling from major Ukraine advances on the ground in the six-month-old war, and with the Western alliance holding firm in its support of Kyiv. In their meeting, Russia state media reported that Putin told Xi Jinping he appreciated China’s “balanced position” regarding the conflict in Ukraine. The Kremlin leader also condemned U.S. “provocations” in the Taiwan Strait.
The meeting took place at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference, hosted in the historic Uzbek city of Samarkand along the Silk Road, and also includes India, Pakistan and four central Asian nations.
In televised remarks at the meeting, Putin told Xi: "We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends when it comes to the Ukraine crisis. We understand your questions and concerns about this. During today's meeting, we will of course explain our position."
Russia has been seeking China’s support since February’s invasion of Ukraine left it isolated in the face of wide-reaching Western sanctions and military support for Kyiv. China has tried to toe the line, but has repeatedly blamed the U.S. and NATO for provoking Moscow.
Hours before the two leaders met, Russian and Chinese navies conducted joint patrols and exercises in the Pacific Ocean according to Russia's Ministry of Defense, in a symbolic show of force.
This meeting comes amid Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south of the country to take by Russian-occupied territory and Putin’s troops are retreating in mass.
After Each Spoke With Putin, UN Secretary-General, German Chancellor Pessimistic About Peace Deal
Guterres commented: “A ceasefire is not in sight… I would be lying if I said it would happen.”
Guterres and Putin also discussed the grain deal, prisoners of war, and Russia’s promise that there would be no obstacles to a fact-finding mission into last month’s prison attack in the Russian-occupied region of Eastern Ukraine in which dozens were killed.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also had a phone call with Putin a day earlier, and likewise expressed little hope of a diplomatic breakthrough.
Russian Missile Strikes Provoke Floods, Residents Told To Evacuate
Russian missile strikes destroyed a water pumping station in Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown. The strikes caused the Inhulets River to break through a dam. Residents in districts around the river were asked to evacuate their homes on Thursday.
This incident caused the embankments to flood which are close to residential buildings. But the water level has dropped and continues to fall according to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region civil military administration Valentyn Reznichenko.
Zelenksy’s Suprise Visit To Newly Liberated City Of Izium
Ukrainian President Zelensky Visits Recaptured City of Izium
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the town of Izium in the northeastern region of Kharkiv on Wednesday, five days after the country’s army recaptured the city from Russian occupation.
Zelensky attended a ceremony in the main square of the town where he raised the Ukrainian flag over the city’s administrative building, a testament to the growing confidence of officials in Kyiv. "Earlier, when we looked up, we always looked for the blue sky. Today, when we look up, we are looking for only one thing, the flag of Ukraine," he said on Telegram.
Izium is located near the border between the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions and was under Russian occupation for over five months. The Russian army was using the city as a launching pad for attacks towards the Donetsk region.
Officials in Kyiv are investigating a car crash involving the motorcade of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday. The president’s press secretary said that Zelensky was not seriously hurt. The statement read, “a car collided with the car of the President of Ukraine and escort vehicles. Medics accompanying the head of the state provided the driver of the car with emergency aid and transferred him to an ambulance.”
New Video Of Soldiers Being Recruited In Russian Prison
\u201cFor the first time, a video emerges of a recruitment talk for Wagner by Prigozhin in a Russian prison camp. Absolutely bonkers. \u201cNobody goes back behind bars. If you serve six months, you are free. If you arrive in Ukraine and decide it\u2019s not for you, we execute you.\u201d\u201d
After a new video emerged, the unofficial head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was forced to confirm that his private militia has recruited Russian prisoners to fight in the war in Ukraine.
According to U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, the militia, known as Putin’s “ghost army,” has been recruiting in prisons since July.
A video, posted Wednesday by a journalist, shows Prigozhin speaking to inmates at a prison, saying that those who commit themselves to fighting in the conflict will be rewarded after six months with a pardon from their sentence, and will be able to return home or remain in the ranks of the Wagner militia.
U.S. Senators Introduce Bill To Designate Russia State Sponsor Of Terrorism
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham
U.S. Senators have introduced new legislation that would label Russia as a sponsor of terrorism. This designation was pushed by Ukraine, but has been opposed by President Joe Biden’s administration for fear of making eventual peace negotiations more difficult.
The Bill was introduced by both Democratic and Republican Senators. "The need for this measure is more pressing now than ever before," said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the designation would send a strong signal of support to Kyiv, as well as U.S. allies, while imposing stiff penalties on Russia.
Sofia To Budapest? Potential Putin Allies Inside The EU
A mural depicting Vladimir Putin in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In early October, Bulgaria will once again hold elections, as the country struggles to choose its path: democracy or cronyism, pro-Western or pro-Russian.
For the EU, there is a lot at stake. Bulgaria could play a key role in Europe’s energy supply – if its government is wiling. German daily Die Welt notes that another potential headache for Brussels is the possibility that Bulgaria could follow Hungary’s example in opposing strict sanctions on Russia. Read more here
In Crimea, Wedding Guests Arrested For Dancing To A Ukrainian Song
In Russia and in its occupied territories, repression and arrests continue to target those who sympathize with Ukraine or speak out against the war — and they’re getting more absurd.
In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, wedding guests, including the mothers of the bride and groom, were detained for dancing to the Ukrainian folk song Chervona Kalina. They were fined and sent to a detention center for 15 days. The official reason was the display of Nazi symbols and discrediting the Russian army, though pro-Russian publications referred to the song as "the anthem of Ukrainian nationalists."
A relative loss of power by sovereign states to non-state actors, as well as China's ascent, are part of a wider reshaping of power structures that is tense, "anarchic" and far from complete.
Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.
Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.
Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.
The martyrdom of Mariupol
Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.
There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.
Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.
The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.
So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.
Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.
Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.
Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.
"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”
In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.
A daughter of Kyiv
Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.
My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.
Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.
Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine
Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”
These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.
On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.
Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.
