Europe

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3395472

Archived version

...

"The vast majority of cluster munitions that are being used in the world today are being used by Russia in Ukraine," said Mary Wareham, deputy director of the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch.

Their use "is an element of Moscow’s broader policy of terror against the Ukrainian people," Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said on June 26.

...

Ukrainian authorities have documented at least 5,974 cases of Russia’s cluster munitions use in Ukraine since 2022, the Foreign Ministry said.

When such attacks are launched on big cities, like Russia’s strike on Kyiv on June 17 that killed 30 and injured 172 people, they stand out for the number of civilian casualties inflicted. According to Wareham, videos from the attack site suggest the use of cluster munitions delivered by a cruise missile.

Ukrainian authorities said that Russia also used cluster munitions in a strike on a playground in Kryvyi Rih on April 4, killing 20 people, including nine children, in the deadliest single attack on Ukrainian children verified by the UN since the start of the full-scale invasion.

...

In another attack, two ballistic missiles struck the center of Sumy minutes apart on Sunday afternoon of April 13, during a religious holiday. Thirty-five people were killed and 117 injured, "mainly civilians who were walking on the street or traveling on a bus, and people attempting to help the victims of the first strike," the UN report said.

Other deadly strikes on civilians with cluster munitions were reported by local Ukrainian authorities in the past few months, including the attack on Kharkiv on April 18, Chuhuiv in Kharkiv Oblast on May 23, a village in Sumy Oblast on May 26, and a UN-documented attack in Dobropillia that killed 11 people and injured 48 on March 7.

...

[The cluster munition's] most common use is in artillery rounds, but they can also be carried in ballistic and cruise missiles that Russia routinely launches on Ukrainian cities, along with hundreds of drones.

...

Cluster munitions indiscriminately kill or maim civilians caught in wide areas of impact at the time of the attack, experts say. A large percentage of bomblets also fail to detonate after scattering and could claim people’s lives decades after active fighting ends.

An international treaty called the Convention on Cluster Munitions was established in 2008 with the aim of moving the world away from their use. Since then, 124 countries have signed the treaty, but in 2024, Lithuania withdrew from it, citing the threat from Russia's use of cluster munitions in a potential war with NATO. Neither Russia nor Ukraine nor the U.S. are signatories.

...

"Cluster munitions just cross a really big line, and should never be used by any actor under any circumstances, in a city or anywhere else," Wareham said.‌

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3394940

Archived version

...

[Deminer Viktoria] Shynkar and her colleagues, who work for the demining charity the Halo Trust, uncovered 243 TM-62 Soviet-designed anti-tank mines left by the Russian army in a neighbouring field.

A chunky and intimidating 32-centimetres in diameter and 13-cm-wide, the TM-62 contains 7.5 kilos of TNT and can puncture a tank if triggered.

The presence of landmines and other unexploded ordnance is a significant issue in Ukraine, impacting civilians and Ukraine’s agricultural industry – a major employer and source of income to the country.

...

Established by the [Ukrainian] Ministry of Defence, the country’s National Mine Action Centre (NMAC) has produced a map that highlights areas it confirms as hazardous, are suspected of being hazardous as well as those that have been cleared or checked for hazards. [The map can be seen in the linked article.]

...

The information is collated from over 80 demining groups operating in the country, which employ people like Shynkar. They collect data from the field and share it with the NMAC who upload it to this map made using the IMSMA platform produced by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining.

Yet the data the NMAC map contains, while significant, is only partial.

For example, it only creates a picture for the Ukrainian side of the front line, and just parts of it at that, with an area 20 kilometres from the frontline inaccessible to demining groups. Those same demining groups are also not operating in Russian-controlled regions, making the overall picture even less clear.

Furthermore, just because an area may be noted as not being impacted in landmine datasets doesn’t mean that it is not at risk from mines or other explosive ordnance that may not have detonated on impact. Some may simply not have been found yet.

...

The country’s Agriculture Minister, Vitaliy Koval, ... stated that just over 123,000 km2 of land still needs to be assessed for the presence of landmines or explosives. That is a huge area, almost the same size as Greece, much of which remains inaccessible along the 1,500 km frontline.

...

As of May 31, 2025, [Deminer Viktoria Shynkar] had been with the Halo Trust for a year. It’s a position she feels comfortable in despite the danger that comes with the job.

“Not once have I regretted [taking on the work], not at all,” she says. “I like the job very much. Because there are many good people here, and I feel like I’m resting at work.”

On top of that, the impact of what she is doing gives her satisfaction.

“There’s a lot of contamination … and farmers can’t work, can’t grow crops,” she says.

“We really need this, so I want to help however I can, so that our country can prosper.”

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3390551

Archived version

An arson attack on a Ukrainian restaurant in Estonia's capital, Tallinn, was an influence operation ordered by Russian intelligence and carried out by two Moldovan citizens, a court heard on Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Slava Ukraina restaurant in Tallinn's Telliskivi district on January 31 ... camera footage clearly showed it was a deliberate act. The restaurant owner said:]: "It was arson, they smashed the windows."

The defendants ... were caught by law enforcement agencies in Italy on February 11, [One of the defendants admitted to participating in and supporting intelligence activities directed against Estonia by carrying out two counts of arson.

Under a plea agreement, he told the Prosecutor's Office that he established ties with individuals connected to the GRU – the foreign military intelligence agency of the Russian Armed Forces – in summer 2024 and was tasked with setting fire to a supermarket in Osula village, Võru County.

...

https://archive.ph/2025.07.03-032450/https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/China-rejects-blame-for-EU-economic-woes-Brussels-urges-rare-earth-access

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/43048049

A Spanish member of the European Parliament said Wednesday he wants the European Commission to ban Israeli military companies from accessing EU funds, citing their potential use in the war in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.

Nacho Sanchez Amor, a socialist MEP and member of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, said the EU must avoid “double standards” in addressing human rights violations.

“The EU cannot fall under double standards when it comes to HumanRightsViolations & it cannot be accessory to Netanyahu genocidal actions,” Amor wrote on X, referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pursued a war of genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza since late 2023.

archive.today link

An 18-year-old French man who claimed affiliation with the misogynist “incel” movement has been arrested and placed under formal investigation on suspicion of planning attacks targeting women, France’s national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office (PNAT) has said.

The arrest on Wednesday was part of PNAT’s first case linked to the “incel” (involuntary celibate) movement, an online network of men motivated to engage in violence against women whom they believe unjustly reject their sexual or romantic advances.

PNAT confirmed on Tuesday that it had opened a judicial investigation “against a young man, aged 18, claiming to be a member of the incel movement”, adding that he was being investigated for allegedly “associating with terrorist criminals to prepare one or more crimes against people”.

GENEVA – UN experts* today urged the United Kingdom not to ban the “direct action” group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000.

“We are concerned at the unjustified labelling of a political protest movement as ‘terrorist’,” the experts said. “According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.”

The Government asserts that the group is “terrorist” because some members have allegedly caused criminal damage to property, including at military bases and arms companies, with the aim of progressing its political cause and influencing the Government. Proscription would trigger a range of criminal offences relating to support for the group.

The group also wants to fend off any attempt to repurpose the €142 billion European Social Fund for other priorities, such as defence.