Authorities in western India have launched an investigation after far-right Hindus allegedly attacked foreign university students offering prayers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as religious tensions simmer ahead of a crucial general election.

Two people were detained following clashes at the Gujarat University that broke out Saturday after students from countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan began praying on the campus grounds, Ahmedabad police said Sunday.

“Around 20-25 people came and asked them why they were offering namaz (prayers) here and should instead read it in the Masjid (mosque),” Ahmedabad police commissioner GS Malik told reporters.

“An argument broke out between them, stones were pelted, and their rooms were vandalized by the people from outside.”

At least two foreign students were injured, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

“State government is taking strict action against the perpetrators,” spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on social platform X.

The incident is the latest in a string of communal clashes to make headlines in the democracy of 1.4 billion, which has become increasingly polarized along religious lines under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Viral video, purportedly of the incident, shows men throwing stones at the students’ hostel and damaging vehicles. In another clip, men can be heard chanting “Jai Shree Ram (Hail Lord Ram),” a Hindu slogan that has in recent years become a clarion call against Muslims. Another video appears to show a student slapping a man wearing a saffron scarf, a color associated with Hinduism.

Speaking to regional channel News Capital Gujarat, an Afghan student said about 15 people were praying for Ramadan.

“Three people came chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram,’ he said. “After a while, they came back with at least 200-250 people, pelted stones… They broke our bikes, laptops, phones… We are not safe. We request the university to shift us to a safe place.”

Another student told Gujarat First News that the university had given them permission to pray on campus.

Gujarat University vice chancellor Neerja A. Gupta confirmed clashes broke out between two groups after which some foreign students were injured.

“An investigation is underway,” she told reporters. “Some videos have gone viral and the police is trying to investigate the trigger points.”

Analysts have repeatedly raised alarm against rising intolerance in the world’s largest democracy and fear that inter-religious tensions will increase as Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pushes its populist yet divisive policies in the lead up to a nationwide election next month.

In January, communal tensions rose in western Maharashtra state, with three reported altercations between Hindus and Muslims, according to local police.

In a separate incident in central Madhya Pradesh state, a group of right-wing Hindus was seen placing saffron-colored flags on top of a Christian church.

Both incidents took place one week after Modi inaugurated the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, a controversial Hindu temple built on the ruins of a 16th century mosque that was destroyed by hardline Hindus some 30 years ago, setting off a wave of deadly sectarian violence not seen in India since its bloody 1947 partition.

Prominent Muslim lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi criticized Saturday’s violence in Gujarat, calling out Modi and top officials within his government.

“What a shame. When your devotion & religious slogans only come out when Muslims peacefully practice their religion,” he wrote on X. “When you become unexplainably angry at the mere sight of Muslims. What is this, if not mass radicalisation?”

The wide road that passes in front of Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport has a post-apocalyptic stillness these days. Where cars and crowds of people once massed, only tendrils of smoke rise from smoldering piles of trash, sending a bitter taste into the air.

An armored police vehicle hulks nearby; the few police officers on watch cover their faces with balaclavas. This street looks nearly abandoned, as if in the wake of a disaster – an experience that people in Port-au-Prince know better than most. But leaving the city isn’t an option this time; the airport, under siege by gangs, has been forced to close.

Since the start of the month, criminal groups have been attacking with unprecedented coordination the last remnants of the Haitian state – the airport, police stations, government buildings, the National Penitentiary. The culmination of years of growing gang control and popular unrest, their joint assault forced Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign last week, a stunning capitulation that has nevertheless proven futile in restoring calm.

Port-au-Prince’s gangs are still choking off the supply of food, fuel and water across the city. Perhaps the last functional part of the state, Haiti’s National Police, continue to fight, battling to reclaim ground block by block across the city. But the very life of the city they are fighting for seems to be waning, as intensive urban warfare grinds down on basic human ties.

The social fabric is fraying as businesses and schools stay shuttered. Many residents self-isolate, afraid to leave their homes. Some have turned to vigilantism. Fear, mistrust, and anger reign. Death is on everyone’s mind.

Vigilante justice, approved by the police

In the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Canapé Vert, the bustling side streets are evidence of a once-unthinkably harsh strategy to maintain order.

The indelible mark of extrajudicial executions – a stretch of black soot thick and irregular across the pavement – is all that remains of hundreds of suspected criminals killed by residents, their bodies disposed of by flame according to a local security source.

Gangs have long haunted the residents of Port-au-Prince, but their reach has dramatically expanded over recent years, covering 80% of the city today, according to UN estimates. Seeing their city shrinking, many Haitians in this region and beyond have organized among themselves in a vigilante movement known as bwa kale.

The anti-gang movement has seen communities form neighborhood defense committees with shared fortifications, surveillance systems, checkpoints and even patrols.

Their solidarity is effective; in 2023, for example, several areas of the city’s hilly residential areas joined forces with local police to push back the Ti Makak gang, ultimately expelling it from the area entirely, according local sources and a February 2024 report by the Swiss-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

But the line between defense and mob justice is easily crossed. Vigilante groups have also lynched hundreds of people suspected of gang membership or “common crimes,” according to an October 2023 United Nations report.

“We constantly receive threats; they say they will come and attack us, destroy the neighborhood. So we block the streets and the police to do the searches; no civilians are involved in searching cars,” he added. The militia is armed only with “machetes and our bare hands,” he said.

Refugees in their own city

Just five minutes away by car, another community is trying desperately to hold together in even more trying conditions: a displacement camp – one of dozens of sites across the city where tens of thousands of city residents congregate, after being forced from their homes by violence and arson.

Marie Maurice, 56, had seen the gang take territory closer and closer; on February 29, when the warning came of an imminent gang attack, she didn’t waste any time. She left all her belongings behind and fled with the others nearly an hour on foot to the public Argentine Bellegarde school for shelter, she said.

Nearly three weeks weeks later, children here fly kites made of discarded foil and plastic, drive homemade toy cars cut from empty soda cans, with bottle caps for wheels and stones for passengers.

The adults also make a show of normalcy, but with a sense of futility; they’ve elected a leader to liaise with local police and to advocate for aid organizations to bring food and water, for example, but little aid has actually come due to roadblocks across the city.

On the day we met her, she hadn’t eaten at all.

Beyond the difficulty of daily survival, several residents of the camp say they know they’ve worn out their welcome and that relations are worsening with their neighbors. There have been clashes with locals anxious for them to move on, fearing that the influx of outsiders could attract gang attention.

Anticipating the effects of dwindling resources and worsening violence, the International Organization for Migration has repeatedly warned of a sharpening “climate of mistrust” in Haiti that would fray traditional social safety nets, leaving people with nowhere to go.

“High levels of insecurity are creating a climate of mistrust between certain host communities and displaced populations, thus deteriorating social cohesion,” the organization said in an August 2023 report, which also noted that more and more displaced Haitians are ending up in such camps rather than relying on friends and family.

Today, 1,575 people are now living packed into the grid of open-air classrooms – just a handful compared to the over 360,000 who have been displaced across the country according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Divided by fear

Port-au-Prince has been terrorized for years by frequent kidnappings, torture, and rape by the gangs. But today, as Haiti’s elite haggles over the composition of a presidential transitional council – and the international community remains unwilling to intervene – talk of a political solution sounds more than ever like wishful thinking as long as gunshots ring out in the evenings, puncturing the city’s hush.

The proliferation of police, gang and civilian checkpoints meanwhile is fracturing Haiti’s capital into wary and anxious fiefdoms. Increasingly, the only thing that everyone shares is trauma.

Marie-Suze Saint Charles, 47, says her own sons are too terrified of the constant violence to even visit her in the hospital, where she is recovering from a shooting on March 1 that shattered her leg, after being attacked on her way back from work.

One son, 17, was also shot and is in a different hospital. Her other sons – eight and thirteen years old – refuse to leave the house. She is not sure who, if anyone, is feeding them.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that comments from US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for new elections in Israel were “totally inappropriate.”

In a Senate speech that upended longstanding US policy, Schumer — who is the highest-ranking Jewish American in the US government and normally a staunch supporter of Israel — called Netanyahu a “major obstacle” to peace.

“That’s something the Israeli public does on its own. We are not a banana republic,” he said.

Instead, efforts should be focused on “bringing down the Hamas tyranny,” Netanyahu said.

When pressed to comment on whether he would commit to new elections when the war winds down, Netanyahu said, “That’s something for the Israeli public to decide” and added that it was “ridiculous” to talk about it while the war is ongoing.

The humanitarian crisis impacting Palestinian civilians in Gaza has grown increasingly dire as Israel’s war against Hamas continues, a situation that has increased pressure on Democratic party officials, including President Joe Biden, to take a harder line against Israel.

US yet to see ‘credible’ Rafah plan

“Time will tell, but Hamas’ outlandish demands … make that deal a lot more difficult, but we’re going to keep on trying, because we want those hostages back,” he said.

“We understand also that the one thing that gets Hamas to give them,” Netanyahu said, “is the continued military pressure that we are applying there.”

“So we will continue military pressure and we are going to continue to try to get those hostages out.”

Efforts are ongoing on reaching a truce. Mossad Director David Barnea is expected to travel to Doha for further talks next week.

The proposal envisions that a permanent ceasefire would be agreed upon after that initial exchange of hostages and prisoners, as well as a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

In another source of tension between the US and Israel, the White House said Sunday it still has yet to see a “credible” plan from the Israeli government on how it would protect the hundreds of thousands of civilians in southern Gaza if it moves forward with a military operation in Rafah.

The comments come after Netanyahu confirmed his plans to press on with an operation, despite mounting international concern.

“I reiterate: We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of a government meeting.

Russia saw protests at polling stations on Sunday on the final day of voting in an election set to extend Russian President Vladmir Putin’s long hold on power.

Lines at some polling stations in Russia grew suddenly at around 12pm local time Sunday, the hour at which supporters of the deceased opposition leader Alexey Navalny called on people to turn out collectively as a show of opposition support.

One 39-year old voter said he had come at noon “to see other people, and they have come too.”

It’s unclear how many polling stations across the country saw an increase in people waiting at around noon. The Reuters and AFP news agencies also reported protests taking place.

Social media channels set up by supporters of Navalny showed video clips of lines in several places, including Moscow neighborhoods such as Nekrasovka and at Tverskaya Street and locations in St Petersburg. The Navalny team also posted an image from the city of Novosibirsk with the caption: “Today is #noon. The protest has already taken place in the first cities of Siberia. We are looking forward to seeing you.”

More supporters of the Kremlin critic gathered around his grave to pay their respects on Sunday. Video shows dozens of people gathered around the grave at the Borisovsky Cemetery in Moscow, with some laying flowers while others stand in silence or take pictures.

Russians overseas also responded to the calls by Navalny’s supporters to protest at polling stations, forming long lines outside the Russian embassies in Berlin and London.

Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya, meanwhile, was pictured out in Berlin on Sunday, greeting supporters who were rallying against Putin.

Earlier this month, Yulia called for “an all-Russian protest action,” adding, “Alexey called for participation in this noon action against Putin and that’s why it’s so important to me.”

She called on supporters to register their protest by showing up simultaneously at polling booths, and then making their own choice to vote against Putin, write in Navalny, invalidate their ballot or simply leave in silent protest.

Speaking on YouTube, Navalnaya said that the protests “will take place not just in every city, but in every district of every city, millions of Russians can take part and tens of millions more will see it.”

Navalny, Putin’s most formidable opponent, died aged 47 in an Arctic prison on February 16, sparking condemnation from world leaders and accusations from his aides that he had been murdered. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in his death.

Voting in the presidential election has seen some acts of civil disobedience, with Russia filing at least 15 criminal cases after people poured dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbed Molotov cocktails.

More than 60 Russians have been detained across 16 Russian cities Sunday, according to independent human rights group OVD-Info.

Dissent has effectively been outlawed in Russia since it launched its invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

Sunday marks the third and final day of voting, with Russian President Vladimir Putin almost certain to win a fifth term in office.

Voting has been taking place across the country’s 11 time zones – from the far eastern regions near Alaska to the western exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Coast – and its 88 federal subjects, including parts of occupied Ukraine illegally annexed by Russia.

Polling stations in all but the most western regions of Russia have closed with the first election results expected after 9 p.m. Moscow time (2 p.m. ET) Sunday.

The turnout in the election surpassed 70% of eligible voters, according to the Election Commission, with the percentage of people voting in the final hours exceeding the final turnout in 2018, according to official figures.

Putin’s reelection would extend his rule until at least 2030. Following constitutional changes in 2020, he would then be able to run again and potentially stay in power until 2036, which would see him secure his place as Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

For leaders across the West, Vladimir Putin’s inevitable landslide win in an election without true opposition was a reminder of his tight control over Russia’s political arena as his war against Ukraine grinds on.

But Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and other leaders benefiting from Putin’s rejection of a Western-led global order, will be cheering his victory.

Partial results reported by Russia’s election authority as of Sunday night indicated a predictably large victory for the Kremlin leader in the three-day, stage-managed election whose result was a foregone conclusion.

Xi has staked much on his relationship with Putin since the start of the Kremlin’s war more than two years ago, refusing to back away from the “no limits” partnership he declared with the Russian leader weeks before the invasion, while strengthening trade, security, and diplomatic ties.

China has paid a price for this. While it claims neutrality, its refusal to condemn the invasion as the US and its allies united to sanction Russia piqued European suspicion about its motivations. It also drew attention to Beijing’s designs on the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan. An annual NATO report released Thursday reflected the bloc’s hardening line on China, with chief Jens Stoltenberg saying Beijing does “not share our values” and “challenges our interests,” while pointing to its increasing alignment with Moscow.

But China’s stance enabled Xi to stay focused on deeper goals: he sees Putin as a crucial partner in the face of rising tensions with the US and in reshaping a world he believes is unfairly dominated by rules and values set by Washington and its allies. A stable relationship with Moscow, too, allows Beijing to focus on other areas of concern such as Taiwan and the South China Sea.

“Xi sees Putin as a genuine strategic partner,” said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, ahead of the Russian election results, adding that anything less than a landslide win for Putin would be “a disappointment” for Beijing.

And Xi, who has centralized control over his own nation like no Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, won’t be alone among leaders applauding Putin’s renewed grip on power.

Kim Jong Un of North Korea recently met Putin in Russia’s Far East during a rare overseas trip that Washington says focused on Moscow buying munitions from Pyongyang.

For Kim, that tightening bond is a major opportunity to strengthen his struggling economy as he continues weapons development in the face of increased coordination between the US and South Korea.

A sanctions-battered government in Iran, which has been expanding its cooperation with Russia and providing it with drones and ammunition, also gains from a continuation of the Putin era.

Even India, while tightening ties with the US and calling for peace in Ukraine, has benefited from continuing exchanges with Russia, especially through its purchase of discounted oil.

Other governments across the Global South have also looked to bolster partnerships with Russia, even as they back peace in Ukraine and have suffered from knock-on economic impacts of the war.

Alternate world order

While the Russian election was no contest, Putin’s ability to maintain his iron grip on power and reach this point without a defeat in Ukraine has not been a sure bet.

The Russian leader has weathered an apparent miscalculation that what his government still calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine would be a swift success. He faced a challenge from the late warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin who launched a brief but failed rebellion, and Western sanctions that severed Russia’s economy from much of the global market.

In response he’s ramped up repression and further quashed dissent across the country – including from the Kremlin’s most charismatic and prominent domestic critic Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month.

Now, as he emerges poised to carry on for at least another six years, Putin presides over an economy that’s surviving sanctions and a battlefield where his opponent has yet to see a decisive breakthrough. Meanwhile, there are nascent signs of fatigue, in particular from the United States, where a Presidential election in November could upend American support for Ukraine.

Much could still change in the war. But for countries that remained close to Putin or avoided US-led efforts to isolate him, his win ensures the stability of their Russia ties – and of a rising grouping of vehicles for non-Western alignment.

Russia is set to host an annual summit of the BRICS grouping of major developing economies as its chair this year. The group, since 2011 made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, almost doubled in size at the start of this year to also include Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ethiopia, and Egypt.

BRICS is seen as developing countries’ answer to the G7, and its scheduled October summit in Russia’s Kazan will likely underline the stark difference between the two group’s sensibilities. In 2014, G7 countries ousted Russia from what was then a G8 after its 2014 invasion of Crimea, and bailed on its planned summit that year in Sochi.

There is a range of reasons why Putin is seen differently in some parts of the world than in the West: the rise of middle powers who resent US domination of international affairs; the itch for a world order that doesn’t look down on authoritarians or repressive states; or pure economic practicality for economies striving to develop.

US support for Israel, especially amidst the current devastation in Gaza, has been a key alienation point for many of these nations and China’s prominent criticism of how Palestinians are treated has resonated across much of the Global South.

Putin, for his part, has painted BRICS as part of a growing movement eclipsing the established order, including in terms of economic heft.

“There is no getting away from this objective reality, and it will remain that way no matter what happens next, including even in Ukraine,” he said during his state of the union address late last month.

Then he underscored a view he’ll likely want both friend and foe to consider as he enters his new term: “No enduring international order is possible without a strong and sovereign Russia.”

Watchful Beijing

But that doesn’t mean countries tied to Moscow aren’t also watching the conflict in Ukraine carefully. That may be especially true for China, Russia’s most powerful strategic partner.

Beijing has already reaped significant benefit from the war and stands to continue doing so –- as long as it doesn’t trend toward a Russian defeat.

Chinese buyers lapped up record levels of Moscow’s crude oil in 2023, while exports of items such as cars and household electronics to Russia expanded since the invasion, buoying trade to a record high and boosting Chinese yuan-denominated transactions.

Xi has used the war in Ukraine as a platform to pitch his own, albeit vague, alternative system for global security, while a diluted focus of the US government is good news for China.

Beijing, however, says it is working “tirelessly” to bring the conflict to a close as it seeks to carve out an image as peacemaker. It sent special envoy for Eurasia Li Hui on two tours to Russia, Ukraine and other parts of Europe to promote a negotiated end to the conflict, the second of which concluded last week.

But Li, a former ambassador to Russia, and other Chinese officials are seen in much of Europe as merely presenting a plan whose outcome would benefit Putin. That’s in line with European views on Beijing’s stance since the war’s opening days, when it insisted that all sides’ “legitimate security concerns” must be resolved.

For now, as pressure from across the world to end the conflict grows, the foregone results of this weekend’s elections will likely only bolster the view in Beijing – and some other non-Western capitals – that they were right to back Putin.

President Vladimir Putin is set to tighten his grip on the country he has ruled since the turn of the century, with partial results from Russia’s stage-managed election indicating a predictably large victory for the Kremlin leader in a result that was a foregone conclusion.

With half of the ballots counted, Putin was in the lead with 87.3% of the vote, according to preliminary results reported Sunday by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC).

The result means Putin will rule until at least 2030, when he will be 77. Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, he will secure a third full decade of rule.

With most opposition candidates either dead, jailed, exiled or barred from running – and with dissent effectively outlawed in Russia since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – Putin faced no credible challenge to his rule.

The result was inevitable – Putin’s spokesman said last year that the vote was “not really democracy” but “costly bureaucracy” – but the ritual of elections is nonetheless crucially important to the Kremlin as a means of confirming Putin’s authority.

The ritual used to be held every four years, before the law was changed in 2008 to extend presidential terms to six years. Later constitutional changes removed presidential term limits, potentially allowing Putin to stay in power until 2036.

In a victory lap at his election headquarters late Sunday, Putin said the election had “consolidated” national unity and that there were “many tasks ahead” for Russia as it continues its course of confrontation with the West.

“No matter how hard anyone tries to frighten us, whoever tries to suppress us, our will, our consciousness, no one has ever managed to have done such a thing in history, and it won’t happen now and it won’t happen in the future. Never,” he said.

Putin on Navalny’s death

Putin’s fiercest opponents have died in recent months.

After leading a failed uprising in June, Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed two months later after his plane crashed while traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The Kremlin denied any involvement in Prigozhin’s death.

The elections were held a month after Alexey Navalny, Putin’s most formidable opponent, died in an Arctic penal colony. Navalny’s family and supporters have accused Putin of being responsible for his death, a claim rejected by the Kremlin.

In his Sunday evening address, Putin made an unprecedented break with his tradition of not uttering Navalny’s name, discussing his death and confirming discussions over a potential prisoner swap involving the opposition figure. Navalny’s allies had previously claimed he was “days away” from being exchanged before his death.

“As for Mr. Navalny – yes, he passed away. It is always a sad event. And there were other cases when people in prisons passed away. Didn’t this happen in the United States? It did, and not once,” he said.

Putin said a few days before Navalny’s death, he was told of a proposal to exchange him for prisoners held in Western countries. “The person who spoke to me had not finished his sentence yet when I said I agree,” Putin said. “But, unfortunately, what happened [Navalny’s death] happened. There was only one condition that we will exchange him for him not to come back. Let him sit there. Well, such things happen. There’s nothing you can do about it, that’s life.”

Acts of defiance

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, had urged Russians to turn out collectively as a show of opposition on Sunday, the final day of voting across Russia’s 11 time zones and 88 federal subjects. In the runup, the Kremlin warned against unsanctioned gatherings.

Similar protests were staged at Russian embassies across Europe, with large crowds gathering at noon in London, Paris and elsewhere. Navalnaya attended a demonstration in Berlin, waiting in line with other voters in a display of opposition.

The election was also marred by more graphic acts of defiance. As of Saturday, Russia had filed at least 15 criminal cases after people poured dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbed Molotov cocktails at polling stations. Ella Pamfilova, the head of Russia’s CEC, said 29 polling stations across 20 regions in Russia were targeted, including eight arson attempts.

More than 60 Russians were detained across at least 16 cities on the final day of voting, according to independent human rights group OVD-Info.

Wartime election

Russia also held the presidential election in four Ukrainian regions it annexed during its full-scale invasion. Ukraine said the elections violated international law and would be designated “null and void.”

Russian-installed authorities in occupied Ukraine reported high turnout of more than 80%. But evidence has emerged of voter coercion. Russian Telegram channels have shown Russian soldiers accompanying election officials as they go house-to-house to collect votes.

One video from Luhansk showed an elderly woman inside her apartment filling out an election paper and putting it in the ballot box, while a man in army fatigues stands over her with a rifle slung across his chest.

After the release of preliminary results Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Putin a “dictator” and Russia’s election a “sham.”

“It is clear to everyone in the world that this individual, as has happened so often in history, is simply sick with power and is doing everything he can to rule for life. There is no evil he will not commit to prolong his personal power. And there is no one in the world who is immune to this,” Zelensky said.

The election comes after more than two years of war which have exacted huge costs on the Russian population. The Kremlin keeps its casualty numbers shrouded in secrecy, but Western officials believe more than 300,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Responding Sunday to a journalist’s question about French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments last month that he would not rule out sending European forces to Ukraine, Putin said such a move would be “one step from the third World War.”

New avenues

Putin’s invasion has reshaped the world’s post-Cold War geopolitical axes, prompting the West to treat Russia as a pariah state after decades of more amicable relations. The war has also shrunk Putin’s world, after the International Criminal Court last year issued a warrant for his arrest for alleged war crimes committed in Ukraine, obliging more than 100 countries to arrest the Russian leader if he sets foot on their soil.

But the war has also opened new avenues for Russia, which has sought to forge new partnerships and strengthen existing ones. Russia’s relations with China, North Korea and Iran – which have not condemned the invasion – have deepened, and Putin has attempted to court countries in the Global South as he pitches a vision of a world not led by the West.

Putin’s critics accuse him of inventing foreign policy problems to distract from his government’s inability to solve Russia’s myriad domestic problems, from low life expectancy to widespread poverty.

While Russia weathered sanctions imposed by Western countries better than expected, the conflict has warped its economy by sucking resources into military production. Inflation has spiked, basic goods like eggs have become unaffordable, and tens of thousands of young professionals have left the country.

Gauging popular opinion is difficult in authoritarian countries like Russia, where monitoring organizations operate under strict surveillance and many fear criticizing the Kremlin.

But the Levada Center, a non-governmental polling organization, reports that nearly half of Russians strongly support the war in Ukraine and more than three quarters are somewhat supportive. Levada also reports Putin’s approval rating at over 80% – a figure virtually unknown among Western politicians and a substantial increase compared to the three years before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

German authorities have been tracking down the former members of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a now-defunct Cold War-era militant group, who have been on the run for nearly 30 years.

Dubbed the “RAF pensioners” by German media and among Europe’s most wanted people, the female member of a fugitive trio was arrested last month in a Berlin neighborhood where she had been living an apparently normal life for years.

Now, police say they are closing the net on her two alleged male accomplices, hoping to finally bring an end to one of the most notorious chapters in Germany’s post-war history.

Also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, the RAF emerged from a radicalized left-wing student protest movement in West Germany in the late 1960s.

The group – which was supported in part by East Germany’s Stasi secret police force – wreaked havoc throughout the 1970s and 1980s with deadly bombings, kidnappings and shootings. West German politicians as well as high-profile figures in the banking, military and business world were targets, and 34 people were killed, including Dresdner Bank head Jürgen Ponto and federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback. A further 200 people were injured.

While some members were arrested, others went underground when the RAF disbanded in 1998, where they have remained undetected – until now.

Daniela Klette, 65, was arrested in the German capital last month and authorities say they are closing in on two of her alleged accomplices, Burkhard Garweg, 55, and Ernst-Volker Staub, 69.

The trio were on the run from armed robbery and attempted murder charges.

Klette was tracked down in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg on February 26, following a police tip-off. It is thought she had been living in the neighborhood for around 20 years, under the assumed name Claudia Ivone.

She is facing two separate legal cases. One relates to charges of involvement in six armed robberies and at least one attempted murder, in crimes allegedly committed between 1999 and 2016, after the RAF was disbanded, according to a press release from Germany’s Public Prosecutor’s Office.

The other relates to her suspected RAF crimes. While still in the RAF, Klette is accused of involvement in a gun attack on the US embassy in Bonn in 1991, and an explosive attack in Weiterstadt in 1993, the statement says.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, Klette has not yet provided any information about her past but has admitted that she is Daniela Klette.

Despite being the only woman tagged as ‘dangerous’ on Europol’s most-wanted list, she successfully evaded detection from authorities for almost half her life. And in many respects, it appears she was hiding in plain sight.

Neighbors have described how Klette would give maths and German tutoring to local school children in Kreuzberg, German tabloid Bild reported.

She was also often seen in the local area walking her dog, Malaika. One neighbor described her as a “very quiet person,” according to local media reports.

The risk posed by RAF fugitives was underlined after police found a grenade in Klette’s flat, prompting authorities to evacuate the apartment block. Police later confirmed on X that the grenade was safely defused. Meanwhile, authorities have warned that Garweg and Staub are considered dangerous and should not be approached as they may be armed.

It later emerged that investigative journalists were able to track down Klette’s location prior to police pouncing on her Kreuzberg apartment, using artificial-intelligence tools.

By running the picture from her wanted notice through image search tool PimEyes, the journalists from an ARD television podcast generated search results of an older woman named “Claudia Ivone,” Reuters reported.

According to their findings, Ivone was a regular participant in Berlin’s Afro-Brazilian scene, until the Covid-19 pandemic struck. It is unclear if the journalists’ findings were the original source of the police tip-off.

Klette’s arrest has been hailed as a milestone in the fight against domestic terrorism. However, Garweg and Staub remain on the run.

Police have searched several premises in Berlin in recent weeks as part of their efforts and announced the arrests of two men earlier this month, before later confirming they were not the suspects sought.

A week after Klette’s arrest, an unconfirmed report from Bild claimed that Garweg had been sighted by locals begging for money at Berlin’s Oberbaum Bridge.

The pair may also have escaped abroad, police say.

Cold War ‘crossroads’

Wolfgang Kraushaar, a German historian and political scientist who has studied the RAF, says the group was borne out of opposition to capitalism and imperialism.

The RAF, he said, emerged in what was then West Berlin, at the “crossroads” of the Cold War.

“Because of the Vietnam War, their political goals were primarily to combat US military installations. In addition, there was also the fight against the justice system and the [Axel] Springer press.”

The Baader-Meinhof Group – named after its founding members Andreas Baader and Ukrike Meinhof – is often divided into three generations. The first, and most prominent period from 1970-1977, saw the group murder public officials and US soldiers and take many hostages.

The second generation ran from 1974-1982 and, according to Kraushaar, was largely concerned with taking hostages in order to exchange them with imprisoned members of the organization. In April 1975, six RAF members seized the West German Embassy in Stockholm in a hostage standoff with the goal of forcing the release of imprisoned RAF members.

The third generation, from 1982-1998, is the one Klette and her accomplices are suspected of belonging to. The goal of that generation was to “murder representatives of various power elites in order to throw the system they hated into question,” Kraushaar said.

He believes that the RAF posed the most significant danger to individuals who represented certain power elites, including former Chancellor of West Germany Helmut Schmidt, Bavarian opposition politician Franz Josef Strauss and press mogul Axel Springer.

Springer was a German media publisher who, by the early 1960s, owned and controlled much of the country’s conservative print titles including mass-circulation tabloids. He was intrinsically opposed to student radicalism.

The Baader-Meinhof Group officially disbanded in 1998, sending an anonymous letter to Reuters’ office in Cologne in which the remaining members declared that “the urban guerrilla group in the form of the RAF is now history.”

Yet Kraushaar believes the RAF had already long since ended. “With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the implosion of the GDR [German Democratic Republic] and German reunification, the framework conditions were lost.”

But high-profile murders carried out by Baader-Meinhof members remain partly unsolved, including the 1989 killing of Deutsche Bank head Alfred Herrhausen. The Red Army Faction claimed responsibility for the assassination, but the perpetrators were never brought to justice. 

“This is why the capture of an ex-RAF member like Daniela Klette in Berlin is so electrifying for authorities as well as for politicians and parts of the public: people hope that the murder cases that are painfully remembered will finally be solved,” said Kraushaar. 

There is a chance that Klette may break her long-held silence in exchange for leniency, he adds.

For Kraushaar, the Baader-Meinhof Group represents a wound in Germany’s collective memory that has not yet healed.

“The fact that there was a small but determined group that declared war on the [West German] state at a time when the future Nobel Peace Prize winner Willy Brandt had become Chancellor is still a sore point.

“This is a wound that will continue to ache as long as there is no satisfactory investigation into the RAF’s crimes.”

Each time SpaceX’s Starship system leaps off the launchpad, it unleashes an unmistakable roar over South Texas that heralds the most powerful rocket ever built.

Its 33 engines boost the spacecraft, which could eventually carry NASA astronauts to the moon’s surface, on a supersonic journey headed for space.

But the first two test flights ended in explosions in 2023.

SpaceX doesn’t regard these fiery mishaps as failures. Instead, the company utilizes flight tests to gather crucial data and make improvements before the next vehicle rolls out for liftoff.

And this week, another Starship soared from the Starbase facility over the Texas skies, with the team hoping the third time would be the charm.

Defying gravity

Starship’s eventful third test flight achieved multiple milestones before ending prematurely and likely breaking apart.

The spacecraft was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean at the end of its hourlong flight, but SpaceX lost Starship’s signal shortly after the vehicle reentered Earth’s atmosphere.

During a live view of entry, a glowing red halo could be seen around Starship, indicating the scorching temperatures its heat shield faced.

However, the third flight of Starship flew longer and higher than either of the previous tests.

The spacecraft reached orbital speeds and carried out tests of capabilities that will be needed on future flights.

A long time ago

People have been adorning themselves for thousands of years, but for the first time, researchers have figured out how Stone Age humans wore their piercings.

When researchers excavated Boncuklu Tarla, an archaeological site in southeastern Turkey, they found facial piercing adornments placed near the ears and mouths of the remains within the graves.

Specific dental wear patterns revealed that the people buried at the site had piercings likely below their lower lips, similar to an ornament known as a labret.

Fantastic creatures

In the world of amphibians, axolotls manage — in a way — to stay forever young.

“They maintain their juvenile look throughout the course of their life. They’re teenagers, at least in appearance, until they die,” said Dr. Randal Voss, a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

These adorable and aquatic salamanders resemble cheerful Muppets with their wide eyes and frilly gills.

Unlike other amphibians such as frogs, axolotls never make the move to land. And while axolotls have taken the internet by storm, poor water quality in their home of Mexico’s Lake Xochimilco has caused them to become critically endangered. Now, conservationists are getting creative to protect these unusual creatures.

Across the universe

Since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has been experiencing a bit of a communication glitch that causes one of its computers to send a signal but no usable data back to the mission team on Earth.

But engineers are hoping that a “poke” they sent to the aging probe, and the surprising response they just received from Voyager 1, might help them to understand the issue better and troubleshoot it from almost 15 billion miles away.

Voyager 1, launched in 1977 along with its twin, Voyager 2, is currently the farthest spacecraft from Earth.

And much like the Voyager probes and their iconic Golden Records, NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission will carry 2.6 million names, an original poem and meaningful artwork to Jupiter’s ocean moon.

Wild kingdom

The last time a total solar eclipse arced over the United States was in 2017. During the historic event, scientists noticed animals behaving strangely when the skies suddenly darkened over the Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Columbia, South Carolina.

Gorillas readied themselves to sleep, Galápagos tortoises began mating, and giraffes clustered and took off at a gallop.

As the April 8 total solar eclipse approaches, researchers are preparing to watch for increased activity in nocturnal creatures and anxious or sleep-motivated patterns in other critters as the moon’s shadow blocks the bright light of the sun from view for a few moments.

And scientists are inviting the public to join in the fun by helping to gather the sights and sounds of unusual animal behavior.

Discoveries

Take a closer look at these enlightening stories:

— The James Webb Space Telescope helped astronomers locate icy molecules that could be used to form potentially habitable planets, and maybe whip up a cosmic margarita, around two young stars.

— Archaeologists uncovered the lavish grave of a religious leader dubbed “Lord of the Flutes,” who was buried 1,200 years ago alongside gold objects as well as a few dozen sacrificial companions in Panama.

— New research based on brain tests suggests that watching cute puppy videos or interacting with dogs could strengthen brain waves associated with rest and relaxation.

— The unexpected appearance of an Arctic walrus in Scarborough, England, and a trippy nighttime view of a starling are just some of the winning entries of the 2024 British Wildlife Photography Awards.

Russia has filed at least 15 criminal cases after people poured dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbed Molotov cocktails as small acts of civil disobedience marred the presidential vote.

Dissent has effectively been outlawed in Russia since it launched its invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago.

In total, 29 polling stations across 20 regions in Russia have been targeted by “narrow-minded people,” said the head of the Electoral Commission, Ella Pamfilova, according to Russian state news agency Tass.

Eight attempts of arson had been recorded during the election, and 214 ballot boxes had been irretrievably damaged, Pamfilova added.

The cases are being filed under the article on “obstruction of the work of election commissions.”

Pamfilova later said individuals detained for damaging ballots will be checked for Ukrainian connections.

She added that some of those detained for damaging ballot boxes at polling stations had told investigators they had acted for money from abroad and did not know they would be held criminally responsible.

According to Pamfilova, one of the detainees was promised 100,000 rubles ($1,081) to disrupt voting. She also claimed that Russian voters had been messaged from phone numbers in Ukraine and “European countries” with instructions to spoil ballots, saying they had been coerced into carrying out the attacks, with legal and financial pressure.

Pamfilova did not provide evidence or specify which European countries the phone numbers were from.

Numerous incidents

Several incidents were reported across Russia on Saturday, including a resident of Ivanovo, who set fire to a ballot box at a polling station, according to the regional department.

In Yekaterinburg, a man has been detained for 15 days for hooliganism for attempting to pour paint into a ballot box, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported. A woman, who is a university professor in the city, was also arrested for 15 days for smuggling green paint into a polling station, state media TASS reported.

OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights group that monitors Russian repression, reported that a young man, who “wrote the word ‘boycott’ in the voter list manual and tried to carry the ballot given to him away,” was detained in Odintsovo, a city that borders Moscow.

OVD-Info also reported that another Moscow-area resident, Maria Alekseeva, was detained “because of a certain inscription on the ballot.”

Alekseeva’s lawyer, Alan Kachmazov told OVD-Info that “a protocol to discredit the army was drawn up” against her and the police “is planning to take her to court.”

This follows similar incidents caught on camera on the opening day of the three-day vote, which is nearly certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s long grip on power.

CCTV video from a polling station in Moscow showed a young woman pouring what appeared to be green dye into a ballot box. She was immediately detained, according to RIA Novosti.

In St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown, a woman threw a Molotov cocktail at the signboard of a polling station in the Moskovsky district, RIA reported. The fire was quickly extinguished and there were no injuries, officials said.

Polls opened Friday across Russia’s 11 time zones. With most opposition candidates either dead, jailed, exiled, barred from running or simply token figures, Putin is expected to coast to victory, extending his rule until at least 2030.

The turnout on the second day of voting as of 12 p.m. ET was 52%, according to the Central Election Commission of Russia.

While the result of the election is not in doubt, it is important to the Kremlin that the ritual runs smoothly with scant displays of dissent.

“Considering the synchronicity of incidents in different regions, one can assume a deliberate organized provocation,” Alena Bulgakova, chair of the Russian Civic Chamber, said Friday according to Ria Novosti.

Pamfilova earlier called the protesters “scum,” and claimed without evidence that several of those who poured liquid into ballot boxes were paid to do so.

The Russian government often alleges that acts of political dissent are paid-for “provocations” rather than genuine acts of protest.

Green dye has been used in attacks on Russian journalists and opposition figures, most notably on the late Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, Putin’s most formidable opponent.

After staging huge anti-government protests in 2017, Navalny was splashed with antiseptic green dye in an attack that damaged his vision in his left eye.

Navalny died in an Arctic prison a month ago. Russia’s prison service said he “felt unwell after a walk” and lost consciousness, later attributing his death to natural causes. The Kremlin denied any involvement in his death.

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has called on Russians to protest the “fake” presidential election and turn out collectively on the final day of voting on Sunday at noon as a show of opposition.

All schools and colleges in parts of the Russian region of Belgorod will be closed Monday and Tuesday following an increase in Ukrainian attacks on the territory, the region’s governor has announced.

Shopping malls will also be closed Sunday and Monday, Vyacheslav Gladkov added in a statement on Telegram. The affected districts lie alongside the border with Ukraine. The city of Belgorod itself is also subject to the closures.

The frequent attacks have brought the war in Ukraine to Russians largely isolated from the conflict.

Ukraine’s Spy Chief Kyrylo Budanov said Saturday that Russians are among the sabotage groups attacking the Russian regions of Belgorod and Kursk, which borders Ukraine.

“This is a story about how Russians solve this domestic issue. We may like some of them more, others less. But still, both are Russians,” Budanov said.

He added, during a broadcast, that attacks would continue.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the attacks on the Belgorod and Kursk regions have been largely unsuccessful and that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being constantly updated on the situation, Russian state news RIA Novosti reported.

In his earlier statement, Belgorod’s governor Gladkov said “the situation is quite difficult both in the city and in Belgorod district. Naturally, the issue of safety is the most important for all of us.”

“It is clear that teachers, nannies and technical staff are all worried,” he said.

Schools and colleges in the affected districts have effectively been closed from Tuesday evening last week, when Gladkov announced students would undertake what he called “days of self-learning” through Friday. At the time of the announcement he said he hoped schools would be able to resume normal activities on Monday.

Ukraine has been attacking the Belgorod region off and on since the first half of 2023 but scaled up shelling and strikes most about a week ago.

As in other parts of Russia, people in Belgorod are voting in a poll widely expected to see Vladimir Putin returned to power as president.

Voting continued for a second day on Saturday, with authorities having arrested several Russians for carrying out acts of civil disobedience.

On Saturday, Gladkov also said two people were killed in early morning attacks, including a truck driver whose vehicle was hit by a shell.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a post on its own Telegram channel Saturday that Russian forces had repelled attempts by Ukraine fighters to infiltrate Russia in several locations, saying it had carried out “a complex fire attack on concentrations of enemy manpower and equipment.”

The three refineries – which all belong to the Rosneft oil company – are sited along the Volga River at Novokuibyshevsk, Samara, and Syzran, and are located up to 1,000 kms from Ukrainian-held territory.

Local residents in Belgorod have been posting videos to regional social media platforms showing explosions in the city and fires burning outside residential buildings where Ukrainian strikes have taken place.

In one video a woman is heard telling her mother she is scared to leave her apartment.

Earlier in the week Ukrainian groups of Russian fighters on Tuesday mounted a cross-border attack in Belgorod while Belgorod city suffered heavy drone strikes and shelling.