With 84 players from outside the U.S. competing in the NBA this season, the American league broke its record of foreign players. It's not a big surprise then to see nine of them on the American Airlines Arena court tonight, as the San Antonio Spurs face the Miami Heat in the decisive Game 7 of the NBA finals.
Since the 1992 Olympic gold won by Michael Jordan and the Dream Team, the American basketball league has become a 5 billion dollars annual industry and has developped into a global competition, as you can see on our NBA world map.
With 84 players from outside the U.S. competing in the NBA this season, the American league broke its record of foreign players. It's not a big surprise then to see nine of them on the American Airlines Arena court tonight, as the San Antonio Spurs face the Miami Heat in the decisive Game 7 of the NBA finals.
Since the 1992 Olympic gold won by Michael Jordan and the Dream Team, the American basketball league has become a 5 billion dollars annual industry and has developped into a global competition, as you can see on our NBA world map.
Ukrainian grain tycoon Oleksiy Vadatursky was afraid for his life when French daily Le Monde met up with him a few weeks ago in his hometown of Mykolaiv. On Sunday, he and his wife Raisa, were killed in the southern city during an intense shelling attack.
Stay up-to-date with the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war, with our exclusive international coverage.
The deaths, which Ukraine officials say were targeted attacks, stand in sharp contrast to the other top news Monday that a ship carrying grain exports had left from the port of Odessa for the first time since the war began. Russian President Vladimir Putin again appears to be playing a double game when it comes to allowing food supplies to travel freely in the face of global hunger risks.
Vadatursky, 74, was the founder of Nibulon, one of Ukraine's largest grain producing and export companies that had for years exported tons of wheat and grain throughout the world from Mykolaiv, one of the principal Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. Like other export companies, Nibulon’s activities had largely been halted by Russia’s blocking of exports from Ukraine, which threatened the world's food supply.
When Le Monde reporters reached Vadatursky last month, he’d asked not to reveal his location for fear that Moscow was trying to target him. The tycoon, who had accused Russian authorities of stealing grain from his warehouses in Russian-occupied Kherson, said he was not only scared for his safety but also for his employees.
When asked about the recent grain deals made in Istanbul on July 22, between Russia and Ukraine, his response was categorical: “The only possible outcome of this war is total victory. Any other way out is unthinkable. We cannot trust the Russians in any shape or form,” he told reporters.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said the deaths during the pre-dawn hours Sunday were clearly the result of a targeted attack, noting that Vadatursky and his wife were killed when a missile struck the bedroom they were sleeping in; and that out of the 40 missiles that hit the city that night, seven hit their home.
Meanwhile, international officials were busy Monday hailing the first grain shipment to leave Odessa since the start of the war, the result of a UN-brokered deal signed last month in Istanbul.
But as with the contrast of Monday’s news, the day after the deal was signed, Russian missiles hit infrastructure facilities in the port of Odessa. It’s hard to predict the next move, but Russia has shown again that the war on grain is not over.
Putin Announces Arrival Of New “Invincible” Zircon Hypersonic Missile
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the naval parade
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the arrival of a new “invincible” missile that is to be added to the Russian Navy fleet. The announcement was made during a naval parade in St. Petersburg on Russia’s national holiday this Sunday.
In a speech given after inspecting the Navy, Putin promised that Russia would have the military clout to defeat any potential aggressors thanks to the soon-to-be released Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, “which know no obstacles,” Putin said.
Their delivery will begin in the coming months, and the frigate Admiral Gorshkov will be the first Russian ship to be equipped with the missiles.This is not the first mention of the Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles. In May, Russia said that it successfully tested the Zircon missile over a distance of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).
Drone Blast Strikes Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Command In Sevastopol
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev is seen outside the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters
A drone-borne explosive device has detonated at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the city of Sevastopol. The attack was carried out ahead of the planned Navy Day celebrations, some of which were called off.
Sevastopol mayor Mikhail Razvozhaev said six people were injured in the blast.
There was no immediate information on where the drone began its flight; Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, is about 170 kilometers (100 miles) south of the Ukrainian mainland and Russian forces control much of the mainland area along the Black Sea.
Zelensky Calls For Evacuation Of Donetsk Residents
In a video address to the residents of the Donetsk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked everyone still in the eastern region of Ukraine, especially families with children, to leave immediately.
Zelensky also appealed to all Ukrainians. urging them to help the displaced, alongside the state which also guarantees assistance
"A lot of people are reluctant to leave, but it is really necessary to do so,” he said. “And the decision will have to be taken all the same. All the same. Believe me. And the sooner it is done, the more people leave the Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will be able to kill," he said.
Despite the fact that hostilities across the entire region of Donbas began back in 2014, some 200,000 people still remain in the non-controlled territories.
Russia Invites U.N And Red Cross To Investigate Prison Attack
Russia’s defense ministry said it has invited the United Nations and the Red Cross to probe the deaths of Ukrainian prisoners killed in a missile attack on a jail held by Moscow-backed separatists.
Thursday’s attack killed 53, with Russia accusing Kyiv of intentionally hitting the prison with rockets. Ukraine blamed Russian artillery, saying Moscow targeted the prison to hide the mistreatment of those held there.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not yet received permission to visit the site of the attack in Olevnik.
How Russian Oligarchs Adjusted To Sanctions (Hint: They’re Doing Just Fine)
After the start of the Feb. 24 invasion, Russia’s billionaires and elite political class were a prime target. Swift international sanctions were imposed, travel was restricted, yachts and villas in Europe were impounded. The Kremlin oligarchs, it seemed, were bound to suffer.
But these are resourceful people with means at their disposal, and they figure out how to react to the new reality. They found what and how to fly, where to spend their money, how to preserve their summer holidays.
Ukrainian Pravda gathered information about the current state of Russian oligarchs, thanks in part to flight-tracking research.
Roman Abramovich, former owner of Chelsea football club, travels with the help of rented charters. He’s hid his own planes in the Arab Emirates and Switzerland.
Gennady Timchenko does not leave Russia, occasionally visiting Belarus on his own plane. This financier and confidante of Vladimir Putin, with a net worth north of $10 billion, seems to have no problem renouncing his globetrotting, unlike Abramovich.
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov lives in three countries at once: Russia, Chechnya, and Turkey. His personal plane has flown to Istanbul several times since the beginning of the war.
Former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also moves freely within Russia, Turkey, and the Arab Emirates. His personal plane makes regular tourist flights to these countries.
The situation with the oligarchs' yachts is harder to track: the geolocation system is switched off on all non-seized vessels, and it is impossible to locate them.
A new regulation in China is cracking down hard on tattoos. The law is ostensibly about minors, but some argue that it's going too far and actively erasing the glorious Chinese past.
The Maseiantonios, whose roots are in Naples, left their native Italy in search of opportunities and, like so many other Italians, found Buenos Aires. There, they offer the native Neapolitan recipe of pizza to the country that offered Naples its most delectable sports star.
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.
Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) / Twitter
