E’ cominciata l’evacuazione umanitaria a Oleshky. Sotto una pioggia battente, centinaia di civili rimasti intrappolati da mesi nella città sulla linea del fronte nel sud dell’Ucraina, minacciati dalla fame e sottoposti a bombardamenti incessanti, si sono radunati nei pressi dell’ospedale cittadino in attesa di salire sui pullman. I coordinatori principali dell’operazione, la russa Yana Lantratova e l’ucraino Dmytro Lubinets, hanno annunciato che l’operazione ha avuto inizio dopo lo sminamento delle strade locali. Lantratova ha dichiarato in un video diffuso dall’agenzia di stampa statale russa Tass che le persone disposte a lasciare Oleshky stanno salendo sugli autobus, mentre coloro che rimangono riceveranno aiuti. Secondo le autorità, nella città vivono ancora circa 2mila persone. Una tregua localizzata nella regione meridionale ucraina di Kherson è in vigore da 4 giorni e dovrebbe protrarsi fino a domenica sera. “Chiunque desideri lasciare Oleshky avrà l’opportunità di farlo in sicurezza”, hanno affermato Mosca e Kiev in dichiarazioni identiche. “Chi sceglierà di restare potrà farlo e riceverà tutto il sostegno umanitario di cui ha bisogno”, hanno aggiunto.
Lo sminamento dei percorsi designati per l’accesso alla città è stato completato nella tarda serata di giovedì, hanno affermato i funzionari, aggiungendo che due persone sono rimaste uccise durante i lavori. Lubinets ha dichiarato che l’evacuazione sarebbe proseguita fino alle 14:00 ora locale e che la distribuzione degli aiuti sarebbe iniziata 30 minuti dopo. Non è chiaro se si riferisse all’ora ucraina o all’ora della Russia occidentale, che è un’ora avanti. Il percorso che gli sfollati avrebbero seguito non è stato reso noto. Una volontaria di Oleshky, Ksenia Arkhipova, ha dichiarato giovedì ad Associated Press che circa mille residenti le avevano comunicato di voler lasciare la città. Ha aggiunto che era importante che la delegazione ucraina fosse presente a Oleshky perché molti residenti temono che le autorità russe possano interrogarli o arrestarli.
La drammatica situazione di Oleshky ha attirato l’attenzione internazionale. La first lady americana, Melania Trump, ha annunciato venerdì scorso la tregua locale. Una settimana prima, papa Leone XIV, appena tre giorni dopo l’intervento chirurgico per un tumore ai polmoni, aveva parlato con Vladimir Putin, chiedendo un cessate il fuoco che consentisse di evacuare la città. La tregua locale è entrata in vigore martedì e funzionari russi e ucraini si sono recati insieme, per la prima missione del genere, in una città sulla linea del fronte per evacuare i civili. L’esercito russo ha impiegato due giorni per sminare le strade di accesso. Successivamente, giovedì sera, Lubinets e Lantratova sono partiti con una flotta di 25 autobus, in grado di trasportare 750 persone, ambulanze per i malati e le persone con difficoltà motorie e camion carichi di aiuti umanitari.
I preparativi per l’evacuazione erano in corso da maggio, ha scritto giovedì su Telegram Lantratova, mentre si metteva in viaggio verso Oleshky. “La partenza di oggi è il risultato di mesi di negoziati e di un duro lavoro, senza i quali questa missione non sarebbe stata possibile”. Lubinets è il primo funzionario ucraino a visitare la Russia e i territori ucraini occupati dai russi dall’inizio dell’invasione su vasta scala del 2022. «È importante capire che cosa sta succedendo sul terreno e fare tutto il possibile affinché l’accordo raggiunto venga attuato», ha scritto il parlamentare ucraino su X.
Oleshky si trova sulla riva sud-orientale del fiume Dnipro, nell’Ucraina meridionale, dove il corso d’acqua segna la linea del fronte tra i due eserciti in guerra. La città è sotto occupazione russa dall’invasione su vasta scala del 2022. Sulla riva opposta del fiume si trova Kherson, centro molto più grande, presa dalla Russia e successivamente riconquistata dalle forze ucraine. Al momento dell’invasione, Oleshky contava circa 24.000 abitanti, ma la maggior parte di loro era fuggita nelle prime fasi della guerra. Con il crescente predominio dei droni in questa guerra, Oleshky si trova proprio all’interno della cosiddetta «kill zone», la zona di morte che si sta progressivamente estendendo tra le due parti: un’area in gran parte abbandonata dai civili, nella quale qualsiasi cosa si muova sul terreno può essere individuata dall’alto e diventare un bersaglio.
Un cessate il fuoco è in vigore da martedì. Le forze russe, che controllano la città e la regione circostante, hanno iniziato a sminare le strade di accesso e a organizzare il trasporto su camion degli aiuti umanitari, compresi medicinali e generi alimentari. Agli abitanti è stato comunicato di prepararsi a partire in autobus venerdì. Il percorso concordato per l’evacuazione attraversa territori controllati dalla Russia, pertanto sono state coinvolte soltanto le forze russe. Gli ucraini hanno avvertito che i civili temono che l’evacuazione possa comportare il loro arresto o subire vessazioni da parte dei russi, oppure che la Russia possa rendere difficile il loro ritorno in Ucraina.
La Russia stava dando una sistemata a Oleshky in vista dell’arrivo, venerdì, di persone non russe e delle loro videocamere, ha scritto su X Mariam Lambert, ex diplomatica e direttrice della Emile Foundation, un’organizzazione benefica che lavora per aiutare i bambini separati dalle loro famiglie a causa della guerra. Lambert ha riferito che un abitante di Oleshky le aveva raccontato che i russi stavano pulendo le strade, ridipingendo gli edifici e “cercando di creare una bella immagine nel mezzo dell’inferno”.
Roman Kostenko, parlamentare e presidente della commissione per la Difesa e l’intelligence del Parlamento ucraino, ha dichiarato che esistono preoccupazioni sul fatto che il cessate il fuoco possa consentire all’esercito russo di rifornire e avvicendare le proprie truppe nella zona, comprese quelle schierate sulle isole del delta del Dnipro. “Sappiamo che il nemico sfrutterà questa situazione a proprio vantaggio”, ha dichiarato Kostenko. “Credo che cercheranno di effettuare un avvicendamento delle truppe, portare altre forze, riorganizzarsi e occupare posizioni migliori. Perciò dovremo tenerli d’occhio”.
L'articolo Oleshky, iniziata l’evacuazione dei 2 mila abitanti della città martire: 25 autobus per sfollare 750 persone. “Chi resterà riceverà sostegno umanitario” proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.
On Friday, Ukrainian legislator David Arakhamia, head of the ruling Servant of the People party, confirmed that the evacuation of residents from Oleshky—a frontline town in the Kherson region—is continuing while the ceasefire remains in effect.
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Al least “25 buses have been prepared to evacuate 750 residents, with more than 50 medical personnel and nine ambulances on standby and separate transport has also been arranged for pets,” Irish journalist Brian McDonald posted on social networks.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said that 527 people from Oleshky were expected to return to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
The evacuees would enter Ukraine from Belarus. Once in Ukraine, they will undergo medical examinations, receive initial medical care, and be provided with essential supplies and accommodation.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian delegation led by Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets departed for Oleshky on a humanitarian mission, which was made possible by an agreement with Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova, with coordination of U.S. First Lady Melania Trump.
With about 2,000 people remaining at present, Oleshky lies on the left bank of the Dnieper River. The town has been under Russian control since February 2022 and is facing a humanitarian crisis, with shortages of food, medicine and other essential supplies amid continued fighting.
The humanitarian mission followed an agreement on a temporary ceasefire in the area to facilitate aid deliveries and civilian evacuations. The ceasefire is scheduled to remain in effect until 10:59 p.m. Moscow time on Nov. 1.
teleSUR/ JF
Source: Xinhua
File image.
Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps launched a large assault involving 28 armed and explosive-laden unmanned ground vehicles in the Lyman direction in Donetsk region, but the Russian military repelled the attack and wiped out all the robotic platforms.
The assault involved three types of ground vehicles. Two vehicles were equipped with automatic grenade launchers, 18 carried rocket-propelled grenades, and eight were loaded with explosive charges for one-way kamikaze attacks.
Russia’s 3rd Motor Rifle Division stopped the assault using first-person-view (FPV) suicide drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with grenade-dropping mechanisms. It said all 28 ground robots were destroyed before they could accomplish their objectives.
The precise location and date of the failed drone assault were not disclosed by the division, which shared footage of the battle.
The operation highlights Ukraine’s expanding reliance on unmanned ground vehicles to compensate for a shortage of troops.
Rather than relying exclusively on conventional assault groups, Kyiv forces have increasingly experimented with remotely operated platforms carrying explosives and weapons to attack fortified positions.
However, the reported failure also illustrates the limitations of the technology. Despite deploying a relatively large number of armed ground vehicles in a coordinated assault, Kyiv forces were unable to overcome Russian defenses without direct human involvement on the battlefield.
The systems remain vulnerable to aerial surveillance and attack drones, which can intercept them before they reach their targets.
The Russian response also points to the growing adaptation of Russian drone units to the threat posed by armed ground robots.
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One could ask, what might politicians from a far-right party — as the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution describes Alternative for Germany (AfD), write to one another?
More than 400,000 emails exchanged by AfD members between March 2013 and September 2026, effectively covering the party’s entire history, have appeared online.
They were published by hackers from the Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) organisation, who obtained 284 gigabytes of data, including minutes from meetings of the party leadership, payslips, strategic documents, membership lists and donors’ names.
According to the Correctiv website, the material also includes election campaign plans, for example for the 2025 parliamentary election. Their authors describe how to reach potential voter groups. They describe the governing parties at the time as enemies.
It is unclear yet whether all the emails are genuine, but the party has confirmed the leak. German media outlets with access to them estimate that assessing the information could take months.
It is already clear that the emails offer an insight into how Germany’s currently strongest political party operates and how it approaches certain issues, including neo-Nazism.
The media are gradually uncovering messages that are uncomfortable for AfD’s leading figures, including its co-chair Alice Weidel.
One of the most striking findings is that in private she was not as radical as she liked to portray herself in public. And, according to German media, the difference is considerable.
The leaked emails also suggest how the German party sought to forge closer ties with the US conservative Maga movement and president Donald Trump, whom it saw as a potential ally.
In foreign policy, they also point to deeper links with Russia than had previously been known.
Thousands of emails could also play a role in a potential ban on the party, which is not yet decided upon but is being debated in Berlin.
So what have they revealed?
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© The New York Times
O jornal independente russo Novaya Gazeta anunciou nesta sexta-feira (30) que encerrará suas atividades após o que descreveu como uma campanha incessante das autoridades do governo de Vladimir Putin contra o veículo.
A ofensiva incluiu ações de promotores contra alguns de seus principais jornalistas e deixou o jornal sem apoio financeiro e sem sede.
O periódico, frequentemente crítico às autoridades, existe há mais de três décadas e já enfrentou sérios problemas no passado. Seis de seus jornalistas, incluindo a repórter investigativa Anna Politkovskaya, foram assassinados em diferentes circunstâncias.
O editor-chefe e cofundador da publicação, Dmitry Muratov, ganhou o Prêmio Nobel da Paz de 2021 por “esforços para salvaguardar a liberdade de expressão.”
Assim como outros veículos de comunicação independentes do Estado, o Novaya Gazeta passou a sofrer pressão cada vez maior das autoridades depois que a Rússia lançou sua invasão em grande escala da Ucrânia, em 2022, e introduziu amplas regras de censura.
As normas preveem longas penas de prisão para quem desacreditar o Exército russo ou divulgar informações que as autoridades considerem notícias falsas.
“Em 9 de novembro, apagaremos as luzes da casa onde vivemos por 30 anos, desligaremos nossos servidores e partiremos. O jornal não existe mais. As autoridades russas e os serviços de segurança do país obrigaram nossa equipe editorial a encerrar suas atividades”, afirmou o Novaya Gazeta em comunicado.
“Mais de 30 anos de nossas vidas compartilhadas com nosso país e seus cidadãos chegarão ao fim, deixando-nos sem lar, sem meios de subsistência e sob constante ameaça de repressão. Continuamos enquanto pudemos, mas fomos expulsos de nossa casa, e a plataforma de doações que nos permitia receber apoio financeiro de nossos leitores foi fechada. Fomos privados de todos os nossos recursos”, acrescentou o jornal.
Não houve comentário imediato das autoridades.
O Kremlin, no entanto, que acusa serviços de inteligência estrangeiros de tentar estimular o descontentamento na sociedade russa, já afirmou anteriormente que algum nível de censura é necessário em um momento em que a Rússia enfrenta o que descreve como uma luta existencial contra o Ocidente por causa da Ucrânia.
Entenda o que está por trás da tensão entre Trump e Zelensky
Kentridge’s cine-musical creation, made to accompany Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, is a marvel of puppetry, dance and humour, exploring humanity, grief and idealism
The Baku international arts festival in Azerbaijan is showcasing an amazing cine-musical creation, perhaps the most amazing animation I have ever seen. Oh to Believe in Another World is an hour-long collage animation with live-action choreography by the 71-year-old South African artist and film-maker William Kentridge. It is shown with the live orchestral accompaniment of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, and this event is partly in honour of the 120th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth this year, and partly to honour Shostakovich’s reportedly unrequited love (and lifelong friendship) for his student, Azerbaijani pianist and composer Elmira Nazirova.
The 10th symphony was inspired by Stalin and premiered shortly after his death, so it seems probable that Shostakovich had been at work on it for some time before this, long enough beforehand for at least some of the composition to have been conceived without any sense of Stalin’s death. Could part of it perhaps have been originally intended as an obediently dramatic tribute to Stalin? Yet the music arguably combines fear, awe, revulsion, and a hysterical reaction to the mad energy of Stalin’s genocidal tyranny, a darkly ambiguous respect for the great dictator whose victory in 1945 was a mainstay of the postwar dispensation; perhaps there is also a feeling in the music’s swirl that a great and terrible era has passed away, and with it a kind of grief at all that had been sacrificed to it.
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© Photograph: Pete Woodhead
© Photograph: Pete Woodhead
© Photograph: Pete Woodhead
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Written by Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions
Security tensions between Japan and China are escalating while the former strengthens its long-range strike capabilities with American support.
Washington and Tokyo’s latest moves to reinforce their military presence along the so-called first island chain also mark another step in the broader US-China strategic rivalry across the Indo-Pacific region.
Originally conceived as a Cold War US defensive perimeter (stretching from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines), the first island chain is increasingly becoming the centerpiece of an elaborate American-led military architecture designed to constrain Beijing’s growing maritime power.
The recent agreement between Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to implement an “effective denial defense” along that chain illustrates the shift. They also pledged continued cooperation on ammunition production for a potentially prolonged conflict.
During the Keen Sword 2027 exercises now underway, US and Japanese forces plan to deploy mobile missile systems, including American system NMESIS, on Yonaguni Island near Taiwan. Tokyo has already deployed domestically developed long-range (anti-ship) missiles capable of reaching China’s coastal areas.
The wider context is hard to miss. In November 2025 Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made a statement linking a Taiwan contingency to Japan’s own survival, which triggered sharp Chinese protests and a cascade of diplomatic, economic, and maritime frictions.
Beijing then restricted dual-use exports to Japan, while coast guard vessels and radar incidents added to the pressure.
As commentator Oliver Griffin puts it, Beijing views Japan’s buildup as a drift toward neo-militarism.
From Tokyo’s perspective, China’s expanding naval reach makes these steps necessary. This is therefore a classic security dilemma. Measures one side takes to feel “safer” make the other feel less secure, prompting further responses.
The first island chain is both a barrier and a gateway. As expert Simone Chiusa notes, Chinese vessels seeking access to the open Western Pacific must navigate strategic chokepoints through its straits.
The strategic importance of these chokepoints illustrates Alfred Thayer Mahan’s classic sea-power theory: control over key maritime routes and positions remains central to great-power rivalry.
American and Japanese planners see distributed missiles and interdiction systems as deterrence by denial. Beijing sees preparations to restrict its access.
The paradox is clear enough: the more Washington and Tokyo seek to reinforce deterrence, the more Beijing may perceive “encirclement” and accelerate its own capabilities.
Japan’s southwestern islands are thereby becoming an operational frontier of sorts rather than a mere defensive perimeter. An alliance designed primarily to protect Japanese territory then gradually becomes an instrument for projecting power into a Taiwan-related contingency.
As I wrote in May 2026, regarding US missile deployments in the Philippines, Washington’s actions near Taiwan fuel Chinese fears of a containment architecture involving Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. The pattern continues.
China’s maritime-industrial growth has become central to allied planning. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Chinese shipbuilding capacity (measured by gross tonnage) exceeds that of the United States – by a factor of over 200, according to a 2023 US naval intelligence estimate.
Joint Sino-Russian submarine patrols further signal a new maritime era of coordination that certainly complicates American assumptions of uncontested sea control.
Yet the contest is no longer confined to the first island chain. A Japanese Self-Defense Force colonel has proposed a second-island-chain air bridge linking Japan and Australia (with US participation) for logistics and reinforcement – the reasoning being that China’s lengthening maritime strike reach now threatens operations farther into the Pacific.
Some American analysts warn that “pulling back to the second chain” would be strategic folly, while advocates of strategic restraint see a forward approach as intensifying insecurity.
For Japan, the predicament is particularly delicate. Tokyo is becoming more indispensable to Washington’s regional planning at the very moment when Japanese strategists worry about possible US-China accommodation under President Trump’s “transactional” approach.
The alliance security dilemma is real enough: fear of “abandonment” coexists with fear of entrapment in a Taiwan conflict. Japanese policymakers are of course not passive instruments. They act on their own threat perceptions while navigating uncertainty about long-term American commitments.
Gray-zone pressures add another layer. Coast guard patrols and incremental assertions of jurisdiction challenge the utility of high-end missile deployments – designed mainly for conventional scenarios.
Ultimately, efforts to preserve the existing “balance” in the Indo-Pacific may contribute to the very competition that makes that balance harder to sustain.
The American response to China’s rise has largely been to reinforce military alliances and expand forward deployments, risking an increasingly self-perpetuating cycle of militarization rather than fostering regional stability.
Washington is transforming Japan into a more central component of its forward maritime architecture – even as Beijing’s growing capabilities render that very architecture more contested. The risk here is that the cycle of reinforcement and reaction leaves all parties less secure than before.
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