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Italy

OOPS! Worker Puts Foot Through Fresco At Florence's Uffizi

ANSA, LA STAMPA, LA REPUBBLICA (Italy)

Worldcrunch

FLORENCE- It only took a step in the wrong place by a worker doing maintenance in the floor above to bust through a 500-year-old fresco in the famed Uffizi Gallery.

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According to ANSA news agency, the fallen piece depicted an allegorical female figure from the 16th Century. The fallen piece is about 30-centimeters wide Antonio Natali, the Uffizzi director, didn't seem to shaken. “The fallen fragments have all been recovered and now our conservator will put them back in their original form, like with a puzzle,” Natali said, according to La Repubblica.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Putin's New Military Decree To Push Untrained Recruits To The Frontline

As Russia continues to suffers heavy losses in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree to mandate training for military reserves, which human rights activists is meant to be used to force new recruits to the frontlines.

Russian men wait in line outside a contract enlistment station in Balashikha near Moscow.

Men wait in line outside a contract enlistment station in Balashikha near Moscow.

Agents.Media

Russian President Vladimir Putin has quietly signed a new decree that calls for a special two-month training regiment for all men in the military reserves. In February 2022, Putin signed a similar decree six days before the start of the invasion of Ukraine.

The current document, signed late Wednesday, does not say when the training camps will occur nor how many people will be called. But already, the move may reveal a lot about the state of Russia's military capabilities.

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Reports say an estimated 147,000 more Russians have been called up for military service in 2023 than last year. However, there is no official accounting of how many of those called for duty are professional soldiers and how many are new volunteers.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that the participants of the two-month training would not participate in actual combat. But government critics believe that Putin has called for the new training rules precisely as a way to force more recruits and reserves to the frontline, as Russia has exhausted its stock of professional soldiers, volunteers, and even former prisoners — and is facing difficulties replenishing its troops.

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