WASHINGTON — A new Ukrainian law aimed at removing the influence of the pro-Moscow Russian Orthodox Church enjoys broad popular support in Ukraine but is being viewed with reservations by international advocates for religious freedom.

Passed on Tuesday by Ukraine’s parliament, the law banning religious organizations that maintain ties to Moscow follows years of controversy over ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The law empowers a government office, the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, to scrutinize religious organizations for possible connections with Russia. If connections are found, the SSU will first issue a prescription to eliminate the violations. If the ties remain, the office will go to court to stop the religious organization’s activities.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to sign the law. He congratulated lawmakers for passing the legislation “regarding our spiritual independence,” saying that they will “continue strengthening Ukraine and our society.”

The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which represents more than 90% of Ukrainian religious communities, welcomed the law’s adoption.

“We categorically condemn activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become an accomplice to the Russian invaders’ bloody crimes against humanity, which sanctifies weapons of mass destruction and openly declares the need to destroy Ukrainian statehood, culture, identity, and, more recently, Ukrainians themselves,” it said in a statement.

The Russian Orthodox Church operates only in Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine and in some monasteries directly subordinated to it. So, the ban will mostly apply to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which, according to the Ukrainian authorities, still maintains its ties to the ROC. After the Russian invasion in 2022, the UOC claimed that it broke those ties.

According to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted in May, 83% of Ukrainian citizens believe that the state should intervene in the activities of the UOC; 63% of respondents want it to be banned.

Religious freedom critics

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent agency responsible for reviewing possible violations of religious freedom abroad and making policy recommendations to the U.S. administration and Congress, has expressed concern about the law’s impact on Ukraine’s regular faithful.

“The most recent version of the law does not fully address prior concerns about the law’s potential to impose collective punishments on entire religious communities. It also introduced new problematic aspects that could compromise the protection of freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression,” says a statement that USCIRF Chair Stephen Schneck sent to VOA.

The commission said it will monitor the law’s implementation after it goes into effect and urged Ukrainian authorities “to ensure that the legislation complies with Ukraine’s commitments under international law.”

Mónika Palotai, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Religious Freedom Institute, called the legislation “divisive.”

“It divides people. It divides the international community. There will be questions about what will happen to those people who belong to this church. What choices do they have?”

Viktor Yelensky, head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, told VOA that Ukraine will adhere to its laws and international obligations.

“Ukraine is not North Korea,” Yelensky said. “The procedure established by this law is quite democratic. The organization in question can challenge our demands in court at various stages. Only the court can stop the activities of the structures of the UOC if it does not want to sever ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.”

Most Ukrainian Orthodox Christians belong to parishes with no affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church.

After centuries in which the Russian Orthodox Church was the predominant Christian denomination in Ukraine, represented by the Ukrainian Exarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church established itself as a separate entity in 1990 while maintaining relations with the Russian church.

In May 2022, its leaders announced their complete independence from the Moscow-based church, which has been a strong supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy of conquering Ukraine.

According to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, only 4% of Ukraine’s population identifies with the UOC. UOC claims that the true number is higher.

There is another Orthodox Christian church in the country — the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which was granted independence by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2019. Since then, many parishes and individuals have switched their affiliation from UOC to OCU, and the process continues.

The UOC spokesperson, Metropolitan Kliment, insisted that the new law will deny Ukrainian citizens and UOC believers the freedom of conscience and religious beliefs. He said that lawmakers ignored appeals from Ukrainian soldiers faithful to this church and targeted the UOC for ties with Moscow that do not exist.

“There are no Moscow churches in Ukraine. Our Church has been operating in Ukraine since time immemorial, and its priests and millions of believers are conscious citizens of Ukraine, not imported from abroad. We did not elect this Verkhovna Rada [parliament] so that it would take away our churches during the war, as the Russians do in the occupied territories,” he wrote to VOA.

In March 2024, the Moscow Patriarchate officially declared the war in Ukraine “holy.” The “World Russian People’s Council” issued a decree which said that “the entire territory of modern Ukraine should fall under the exclusive influence of Russia.”

The UOC, in its statement published the next day categorically rejected and condemned that declaration: “Instead of providing ideological support and justification for Russia’s military aggression and intervention in Ukraine, we believe that the Orthodox Church in Russia should have raised her voice against this war of aggression.”

However, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian authorities have opened criminal cases against more than 100 clergy members of the UOC for such crimes as treason, collaborationism, aiding and abetting the aggressor country and the sale of firearms.

Ukrainian MP Mykyta Poturaiev, the chairman of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, which worked on this legislation, told VOA that the law doesn’t ban the UOC. Its latest version, adopted this week, established an extended grace period of nine months for Ukrainian organizations that still have ties with Russia to sever them and decide on their future.

“They can establish a dialogue with Istanbul, with the Patriarch of Constantinople, or they can establish a dialogue with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” he said.

He insisted that the law doesn’t target religious customs or beliefs but only collaboration with the enemy. “It would be strange if we allowed the FSB or another Russian state body to operate in Ukraine now because they are enemies,” he said.

Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, a Ukrainian theologian and professor at University College Stockholm, says the challenge posed by the Russian Orthodox Church is not unique to Ukraine but is more urgent there than elsewhere.

“All European countries with a sizeable presence of the Moscow Patriarchate face the same dilemma: how to neutralize its influence without violating human rights.”

He said no single country, including Ukraine, has come up with an ideal solution.

“Nevertheless, the adopted law features mechanisms that help contain the damaging Russian influence without damaging the freedom of religion in the country,” he told VOA. 
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washington — A journalist with VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Wednesday marked 1,000 days in jail in Belarus on charges that he and his employer reject as politically motivated.

Andrey Kuznechyk, with RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service — known locally as Radio Svaboda — has been jailed in Belarus since his arrest on November 25, 2021.

He was initially sentenced to 10 days in jail on hooliganism charges, which he rejected. When Kuznechyk was due to be released, authorities kept him in prison and added an additional charge of creating an extremist group.

In a trial that lasted only one day, a regional court found Kuznechyk guilty in June 2022 and sentenced him to six years in prison.

“Belarus’ treatment of Andrey Kuznechyk is reprehensible,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in a post on the social media platform X.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent organization of RFE/RL and VOA, also called for Belarus to release Kuznechyk.

“Journalism is not a crime, yet journalists around the world continue to be persecuted just for reporting the truth,” USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett told VOA in a statement. “Today sickeningly marks the 1,000th day Andrey Kuznechyk has been wrongly detained in Belarus. Every moment he spends in this hard-labor camp is one too many.”

Kuznechyk is one of several journalists and activists who have been jailed in Belarus since 2020, when President Aleksander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, claimed yet another victory in a contested presidential election. Massive protests against the disputed election were met with a severe government crackdown.

There are more than 1,400 political prisoners still held in Belarus, according to the rights group Viasna, and independent news outlets have been forced to shutter or retreat into exile. At the end of 2023, Belarus ranked third worst in the world in terms of journalist jailings, with 28 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Kuznechyk is one of two RFE/RL journalists currently jailed in Belarus.

The second is Ihar Losik, who has been detained since June 2020, before the contested election took place. He was eventually tried behind closed doors on charges including “organization of mass riots” and “incitement of hatred” and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The charges against him are also widely viewed as bogus.

“Andrey Kuznechyk and Ihar Losik have been locked away for years, with callous disregard by Belarus,” Capus said on X.

Kuznechyk and Losik — as well as opposition leader Viktar Babaryka — are being held at Correctional Colony No. 1, which is considered one of the harshest prisons in Belarus.

The third RFE/RL journalist who is imprisoned is Vladyslav Yesypenko, who has been jailed in Russian-occupied Crimea since March 2021. He was charged with “possession and transport of explosives,” which he denies, and sentenced in a closed-door trial to six years in prison.

“Their so-called crimes?” Capus said, referring to the three jailed journalists. “Sharing journalistic words of truth.” RFE/RL calls for their immediate release, he added.

American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was among the outlet’s wrongly jailed journalists until early August, when she was released from Russia as part of a historic prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.

The Washington embassy of Belarus told VOA it had no comment for this story. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. Russia’s Washington embassy also did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.

 
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Greek-flagged oil tanker traveling through the Red Sea came under repeated attack Wednesday, leaving the vessel “not under command” and drifting ablaze after an assault suspected to have been carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the British military said.

The attack, the most serious in the Red Sea in weeks, comes during a monthslong campaign by Houthis targeting ships over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that has disrupted a trade route through which $1 trillion in cargo typically passes each year.

In the attack, men on small boats first opened fire with small arms about 140 kilometers (90 miles) west of the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

Four projectiles also hit the ship, it added. It wasn’t immediately clear if that meant drones or missiles.

“The vessel reports being not under command,” the UKMTO said, likely meaning it lost all power. “No casualties reported.”

Later, the UKMTO warned the ship was drifting while on fire in the Red Sea.

The Greek shipping ministry later identified the vessel as the tanker Sounion, which had 25 crew members on board at the time of the attack as it traveled from Iraq to Cyprus.

The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, though it can take them hours or even days before they acknowledge their assaults.

The Houthis have targeted more than 80 vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors.

Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.

The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the United States or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

The Houthis have also launched drones and missiles toward Israel, including an attack on July 19 that killed one person and wounded 10 others in Tel Aviv. Israel responded the next day with airstrikes on Hodeida that hit fuel depots and electrical stations, killing and wounding a number of people, the rebels say.

After the strikes, the Houthis paused their attacks until Aug. 3, when they hit a Liberian-flagged container ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden. A Liberian-flagged oil tanker came under a particularly intense series of attacks beginning Aug. 8, likely carried out by the rebels. A similar attack happened Aug. 13 as well.

The last three recent attacks, including Wednesday’s, targeted vessels associated with Delta Tankers, a Greek company.

As Iran threatens to retaliate against Israel over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the U.S. military told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area. America also has ordered the USS Georgia guided missile submarine into the Mideast, while the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group was in the Gulf of Oman.

Additional F-22 fighter jets have flown into the region and the USS Wasp, a large amphibious assault ship carrying F-35 fighter jets, is in the Mediterranean Sea.
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New Delhi — Ahead of a visit to Ukraine, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an early return to peace and stability and said he will “share perspectives” on a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Modi will travel to Kyiv on Friday after visiting Poland. He will hold talks with Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy weeks after a visit by the Indian prime minister to its longstanding partner Moscow drew sharp criticism from the Ukrainian leader.

Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in July on a day when Russian missiles struck multiple targets including a children’s hospital in Kyiv killing many civilians.

The Indian leader had called the death of children heart-wrenching, but images of Modi hugging Putin were embarrassing, according to analysts.

“The optics of the Russia visit were not good. So, the effort by going to Ukraine is to show that India is not just taking a passive position on the conflict but wants to actively help in a settlement,” said Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi.

Zelenskyy had said that it was a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts” to see Modi hug “the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”

Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to visit Ukraine since the two countries established diplomatic ties.

“As a friend and partner, we hope for an early return of peace and stability in the region,” Modi said in a statement on Wednesday before leaving New Delhi. He said his trip will be a “natural continuation of extensive contacts” between India and Ukraine.

Modi met Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit held in Italy in June. In March this year, Ukraine’s foreign minister visited the Indian capital in a bid to give momentum to their political and economic ties.

India has not joined its Western allies in directly holding the Kremlin responsible for the war, but it has been urging the two nations to resolve their conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

The Indian foreign ministry said on Monday that India has “substantive and independent ties” with both Russia and Ukraine and was ready to support the negotiation of a peace settlement.

“India has high credibility with Russia,’’ analyst Joshi told VOA. ‘’So the hope is that it can play some kind of a mediatory role and can raise issues with Moscow directly.’’

The visit is also seen as an effort by India to balance its growing ties with Western countries with its refusal to join them in isolating its decades-long partner Russia.

Following the Modi-Putin summit, the United States State Department said it had raised concerns with India about its relationship with Russia and hoped it would use its ties with Moscow to firmly encourage the Kremlin to adhere to the United Nations charter.

Since the conflict began more than two years ago, India has abstained from all U.N. votes against Russia and become one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil as it continues to trade with Moscow.

Analysts say New Delhi’s big challenge is to convince the West and Kyiv that its friendship with Russia is not an endorsement of Putin’s Ukraine policy.

“India is walking the tightrope,’’ Joshi said. ‘’As the war continues and even becomes more intense, it brings more pressure on New Delhi and the Indian position stands out starkly, especially as the Western position on Russia hardens.”

Modi’s visit to Poland, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the country in 40 years, is expected to focus on strengthening economic and political cooperation. He will meet both Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Andrzej Duda, according to the foreign ministry.

Analysts say Modi’s visit to the two countries – Poland and Ukraine – is also part of India’s efforts to increase its engagement with countries in central and eastern Europe as it tries to raise its global profile.
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The Kremlin-appointed governor of Russian-controlled Donetsk in Ukraine said 11 people suffered moderate or minor injuries during the Galaktika mall fire.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the country’s forces now control 92 settlements and more than 1,250 square kilometers in Russia’s Kursk region, after Ukrainian responses to Russia’s cross-border attacks evolved into a surprising offensive. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.
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Germany and other G7 countries are developing ways to support Ukraine through loans financed with the proceeds of frozen Russian assets. The German Finance Ministry announced the effort on Tuesday. Latvia, once a sanctuary for Russian money, is a strong backer of the plan, as VOA’s Myroslava Gongadza reports from Riga. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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Turkey’s embargo on trade with Israel faces growing scrutiny amid opposition claims it’s being increasingly circumvented. The accusations come as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeks to play a leading role in opposing Israel’s war on Hamas. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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PALERMO, Sicily — Rescue teams in Sicily on Tuesday resumed a search for six missing people, including British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his daughter, after a luxury yacht was struck by a violent storm and sank on Monday, killing at least one on board.

The British-flagged “Bayesian,” a 56-meter-long sailboat was carrying 22 people and was anchored just off the port of Porticello when it was hit by ferocious weather.

Jonathan Bloomer, chairman of Morgan Stanley International and Chris Morvillo, a lawyer at Clifford Chance who represented Lynch in a U.S. trial, were among the missing.

The wives of both men were also unaccounted for, said Salvatore Cocina, head of civil protection in Sicily.

“The fear is that the bodies got trapped inside the vessel,” he told Reuters.

Prosecutors in the nearby town of Termini Imerese have opened an investigation.

Specialist divers had reached the ship on Monday at a depth of some 50 meters, but access was limited due to objects in the way, the fire brigade said.

Fifteen people had escaped before the boat went down, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, who owned the boat, and a 1-year-old girl.

On Monday, rescue teams recovered the body of the yacht’s onboard chef, identified as Antiguan citizen Ricardo Thomas.

Storms and heavy rainfall have swept Italy in recent days, after weeks of scorching heat lifted the temperature of the Mediterranean sea to record levels, raising the risk of extreme weather conditions, experts said.

“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30 degrees Celsius, which is almost 3 degrees more than normal. This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,” said meteorologist Luca Mercalli.

“We can’t say that this is all due to global warming but we can say that it has an amplifying effect,” he told Reuters.

The British government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch said four inspectors had been sent to Sicily to conduct a “preliminary assessment.”

One expert at the scene of the disaster who declined to be named said an early focus of the investigation would be whether the yacht’s crew had had time to close access hatches into the vessel before the storm struck.
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Moscow — A Russian court rejected an appeal Monday by a U.S. soldier who has been jailed for three years and nine months for alleged death threats and theft.

Gordon Black was sentenced in June by a court in Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, where he was arrested in May while visiting a Russian woman he met and dated while serving in South Korea.

The 34-year-old was detained after the woman, named by Russian media as Alexandra Vashuk, reported him to the police after an argument, saying he physically attacked her and stole about $110 from her.

Black pleaded “partially guilty” to theft and not guilty to threatening to kill Vashuk, saying she had started an argument after drinking.

Black appealed his sentence and Monday, the Primorye regional court rejected the appeal, saying in a statement that it decided “to leave the verdict in place” after examining the case.

The pair met in October 2022 on the dating app Tinder in South Korea and had dated there, Black said, before Vashuk then invited him to come to Vladivostok.

Black is one of several American citizens imprisoned in Russia.

Washington has accused Moscow of arresting its citizens on baseless charges to use them as bargaining chips to secure the release of Russians convicted abroad.

On August 1, Russia freed U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and 14 others in its biggest prisoner swap with the West since the Cold War.
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BERLIN — Two German warships await orders from Berlin, their commander said, to determine whether next month they will be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait, drawing a rebuke from Beijing.

While the U.S. and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy’s first passage through the strait since 2002.

China claims sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180-km (110 miles) wide waterway that divides the two sides and is part of the South China Sea. Taiwan strongly objects to China’s sovereignty claims and says only the island’s people can decide their future.

The Taiwan Strait is a major trade route through which about half of global container ships pass, and both the United States and Taiwan say it’s an international waterway.

“The decision has not been taken yet,” the commander of the naval task group, Rear Admiral Axel Schulz, told Reuters in a telephone interview, adding the weather would play a role.

“We are showing our flag here to demonstrate that we stand by our partners and friends, our commitment to the rules-based order, the peaceful solution of territorial conflicts and free and secure shipping lanes.”

Asked about the German ships’ potential passage, China’s foreign ministry said Taiwan was an internal Chinese affair and the key to stability was opposing Taiwan’s independence.

“China has always been opposed to the undermining of China’s territorial sovereignty and security under the guise of freedom of navigation,” ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing.

Before their possible passage through the strait next month, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main plan to call in Tokyo on Tuesday. They will also make stops in South Korea and the Philippines.

They will take part in exercises in the region with France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the United States.

Over the last four years, Beijing’s military has increased its activities in the strait.

Expanding military presence

Sailings through the waterway by foreign warships, especially American, are regularly condemned by Beijing, which says such missions “undermine peace and stability” in the region.

Germany, for whom both China and Taiwan, with its huge chip industry, are major trade partners, has joined other Western nations in expanding its military presence in the region as their alarm has grown over Beijing’s territorial ambitions.

In 2021, a German warship sailed through the South China Sea, for the first time in almost 20 years.

Last month, the Luftwaffe deployed fighter jets to Japan for the first joint drills there.

Schulz said he was not planning for any specific security measures should the warships under his command cross the Taiwan Strait, calling it a “normal passage” similar to sailing through the English Channel or the North Sea.

However, he anticipated any passage would be closely monitored.

“I expect the Chinese navy and potentially the coastguard or maritime militia to escort us,” he said, describing this as common practice.
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Rome — A luxury superyacht carrying foreign tourists capsized and sank off Sicily in bad weather early Monday. One body was found, six people remain missing and 15 people were rescued, including a 1-year-old girl, authorities said.

The sailboat had overturned sometime before 5 a.m. off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, where it was anchored. It had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers that included British, American and Canadian citizens, the Italian coast guard said. Local media said a sudden fierce storm, including tornadoes over water known as waterspouts, had battered the area overnight but skies were clear and seas calm by Monday morning.

The 56-meter (184-foot) British-flagged Bayesian was known for its single 75-meter (246-feet) mast, one of the world’s tallest made of aluminum and which was lit up at night, just hours before it sank. Online charter sites list it for rent for up to 195,000 euros (about $215,000) a week.

One of the survivors, identified only as Charlotte, said she had momentarily lost hold of her 1-year-old daughter Sofia in the water, but then managed to hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety, Italian news agency ANSA reported, quoting the mother.

Eight of the 15 people rescued and taken to shore at Porticello were hospitalized. One body was found near the wreck, but six others were unaccounted for, said Luca Cari, a spokesperson for the Italian fire rescue service.

Rescue crews located the vessel at a depth of 50 meters (163 feet) off Porticello and deep-water police divers were trying to access the hull, Cari said. The operations, which were visible from shore, involved helicopters and rescue boats from the coast guard, fire rescue and civil protection service.

Fisherman Francesco Cefalu said he had seen a flare from shore at around 4:30 a.m. and immediately set out to the site but by the time he got there, the Bayesian had already sunk, with only cushions, wood and other items from the superyacht floating in the water.

“But for the rest, we didn’t find anyone,” he said from the port hours later. He said that he immediately alerted the coast guard and stayed on site for three hours, but didn’t find any survivors. “I think they are inside, all the missing people.”

He said he had been up so early to check the weather to see if he could go fishing, and surmised that a sudden waterspout had struck the yacht.

“It could be that the mast broke, or the anchor at the prow pulled it, I don’t know,” he said.

The seven who weren’t rescued included one crew member and six passengers, the coast guard said.

The yacht, built in 2008 by the Italian firm Perini Navi, can accommodate 12 passengers in four double cabins, a triple and the master suite, plus crew accommodations, according to Charter World and Yacht Charters.

The vessel, which previously was named Salute when it flew under a Dutch flag, featured a sleek, minimalist interior of light wood with Japanese accents designed by the French designer Remi Tessier, according to descriptions and photos on the charter sites.
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Germany has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national in the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines that carry natural gas from Russia to Western Europe. At question is whether the Ukrainian government was involved in the 2022 attack, which many say contributed to a global spike in inflation. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Berlin.
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Serhiy Danilets is one of the more than 100 thousand Ukrainian soldiers estimated to have been wounded in Russia’s war against Ukraine. But serious combat injuries haven’t stopped him and other fighters from enjoying life and, in some cases, making plans to head back to the front lines. Anna Kosstutschenko met with some of them in Kyiv
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Lisbon — Hundreds of Portuguese firefighters scrambled Sunday to put out a wildfire sweeping parts of the Atlantic island of Madeira’s south coast, a popular tourist destination, with strong winds complicating efforts to tackle the blaze. 

The wildfire, which started Wednesday in a remote rural area of Ribeira Brava has spread to the neighboring municipality of Camara de Lobos, and now has three fronts, island authorities said. 

Nearly 200 firefighters, backed by 38 vehicles, are tackling the fire but high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds are complicating efforts to combat the flames. A helicopter also battled the blaze but had to stop operating as the night set in. 

“This fire, which is very dangerous, I have no doubt it was caused by arson in an inaccessible area where air support could not operate,” the president of the regional government of Madeira, Miguel Albuquerque, told reporters. 

No injuries or fatalities have been reported, but 160 people have been evacuated as a precaution, he said. 

The entire coastline of Madeira — an autonomous region of Portugal home to around 250,000 people — has been placed on orange alert, the second highest level, until Monday, due to high temperatures. 

According to weather agency IPMA, the temperature in Madeira reached 30 degrees Celsius (86°F) in the last few days. Strong winds that were fanning the flames led to dozens of canceled flights. 

Portugal sent a force of 76 firefighters from the mainland to Madeira on Saturday and the neighboring Azores archipelago was to send 15 firefighters Sunday evening. 
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Seoul, South Korea — North Korea condemned Ukraine’s incursion into Russia as an unforgivable act of terror backed by Washington and the West, adding it would always stand with Russia as it seeks to protect its sovereignty, state media said Sunday.

Ukraine’s drive into Russia is a product of the anti-Russia confrontational policy of the United States, which is pushing the situation to the brink of World War III, KCNA news agency said.

The U.S. handed “astronomical” sums of lethal weapons to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the report said.

“We strongly condemn the armed attack against the Russian territory by the Zelenskyy puppet regime under the control and support of the United States and the West as an unforgivable act of aggression and terror,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement, according to KCNA.

North Korea has dramatically upgraded its ties with Russia in the past year with two summit meetings by their leaders who pledged closer cooperation in all areas.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pact in Pyongyang on a “comprehensive strategic partnership” that included a mutual defense agreement.

South Korea, Ukraine and the United States have accused North Korea of supplying artillery and missiles to Russia for use in its unprovoked war against Ukraine. North Korea and Russia have denied the allegations. 
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