Russian President Vladimir Putin has presented a car to his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un, state media said Tuesday, in another sign of warming ties between the two countries that have raised concerns in the United States.

The Russian-made car for Kim’s personal use was delivered Sunday by a Russian delegation, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency TASS the car was an Aurus, the luxury automaker founded in 2018 to produce Russia’s official state cars.

Kim’s sister – and senior Pyongyang official – Kim Yo Jong thanked Putin on her brother’s behalf and said, “the gift serves as a clear demonstration of the special personal relations between the top leaders of the (North Korea) and Russia,” according to KCNA.

Russia has repeatedly fired North Korean-supplied short-range ballistic missiles at Ukrainian targets in recent weeks. Meanwhile, US officials fear that North Korea may be able to use a tighter relationship with Russia to loosen China’s influence, potentially removing what some believe has been an important handbrake on Pyongyang’s nuclear testing program.

In January, high-ranking North Korean and Russian diplomats met in Moscow in advance of what North Korean state media says is a forthcoming visit to Pyongyang by Putin — his first in more than 20 years. And Kim visited Russia for a summit with Putin in September, where he endorsed the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine and said, “I will always be standing with Russia.”

Putin’s gift potentially violates United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea for its nuclear weapons program, though the ban on luxury goods sales to the country has not prevented Kim from appearing in a range of high-end vehicles over the years.

The North Korean leader is often seen being chauffeured in what’s believed to be a Mercedes-Maybach Pullman Guard armored limousine, worth upwards of $1 million.

In 2018, he arrived at a meeting with US officials in a black Rolls-Royce. Earlier that year, two armored Mercedes-Maybach S600 Guard vehicles were shipped from the Netherlands to North Korea, likely for Kim’s use, according to the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies.

The center also reported that Pyongyang imported more than 800 luxury vehicles in the period from 2015 to 2017 alone – the majority originating from Russian companies.

During Kim’s visit to Russia last September, Putin showed his Aurus limousine to the North Korean leader.

Former US President Donald Trump also gave Kim a viewing of the presidential Cadillac limousine nicknamed “the Beast” during their talks in Singapore in 2018.

Julian Assange’s legal team returned to London’s High Court on Tuesday to fight for what could become his final attempt at avoiding extradition to the United States, where he is facing life in prison if convicted on espionage charges.

After a years-long battle, the 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder is down to his only remaining legal avenue in the British justice system and now just two UK High Court judges stand between him and a possible flight across the Atlantic.

The two-day hearing will examine whether the embattled Australian should be granted leave to appeal a 2022 extradition decision made by former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel. If the court’s decision goes against Assange, he must be extradited within 28 days. However, his legal team is expected to apply to the European Court of Human Rights for an intervention to ground the flight through a rule 39 order.

Assange is wanted by US authorities on 18 criminal charges relating to his organization’s dissemination of classified material and diplomatic cables in 2010 and 2011.

Each of those counts carries a potential sentence of 10 years, meaning that if convicted, Assange could be sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.

Tuesday’s hearing is the latest stage in a convoluted journey that has left Assange incarcerated at Belmarsh, a high-security prison in the south-east of the British capital, years after an undignified eviction from London’s Ecuadorian embassy.

Assange began his whistleblowing website WikiLeaks in 2006 in what he argued was a bid to challenge the West’s power structures and uphold human rights.

But his self-described quest for “radical transparency and truth,” combined with a polarizing personality, transformed him over the following years into a notorious character, earning him crusaders and critics in equal measure.

How we got here

Assange’s battle began in 2010 when then-little-known WikiLeaks started publishing huge quantities of classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Starting in April, the website posted a video showing a US military helicopter firing on and killing two journalists and several Iraqi civilians in 2007. Several months later, it disclosed more than 90,000 classified Afghan war documents dating back to 2004.

In 2012, Assange sought political asylum within the Ecuadorian embassy in west London. He remained there for almost seven years until the Metropolitan Police entered his safe haven in 2019 acting on an extradition warrant from the US Justice Department. British officers moved in after Ecuador withdrew his asylum and invited authorities into the embassy, citing Assange’s bad behavior.

The US want Assange to be brought to the US where he faces an 18-count indictment handed down by the Eastern District of Virginia. This alleges that the WikiLeaks founder actively solicited classified information, pushing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to obtain thousands of pages of classified material and providing Assange with diplomatic State Department cables, Iraq war-related significant activity reports and information related to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Two years later, a British judge rejected the US request on the grounds that such a move would be “oppressive” by reason of his mental health. The US continued to press for Assange’s extradition and successfully overturned the judge’s ruling months later after providing fresh assurances on Assange’s treatment in America.

What is his legal team asking for now?

At the hearing on Tuesday, Assange’s team was expected to assert that he is being extradited for political reasons and that a handover to the US violates the European Convention on Human Rights.

Assange did not attend the hearing as he is unwell, his lawyer Edward Fitzgerald told the court, the UK’s PA Media news agency reported.

Fitzgerald told the court Assange “is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest.”

Ahead of the hearing, Assange’s wife Stella described her husband’s situation as “extremely grave.”

Speaking with reporters at a meeting organized by the Foreign Press Association on Thursday, she added: “It is the final hearing. If it doesn’t go Julian’s way, there is no possibility to appeal to the Supreme Court or anywhere else in this jurisdiction.”

She also emphasized her concerns for Assange’s wellbeing and said she fears that if extradited, he could take his own life. “His health is in decline, mentally and physically. His life is at risk every single day he stays in prison. If he is extradited, he will die.”

Why is his extradition controversial?

Supporters of Assange and human rights groups have long voiced concern over the US indictment, saying that if the extradition order is allowed to proceed it could have a radical effect on journalism.

“The risk to publishers and investigative journalists around the world hangs in the balance. Should Julian Assange be sent to the US and prosecuted there, global media freedoms will be on trial, too,” said Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on counterterrorism and criminal justice in Europe, in a statement.

Rebecca Vincent, director of International Campaigns for Reporters Without Borders, said his case had “alarming implications for journalism and press freedom.”

“Not least of all, as he would be the first publisher tried under the US Espionage Act, which lacks a public interest defense,” Vincent said during a press conference last Thursday. “This means that this precedent could be applied to any others that publish stories based on classified documents, so that could affect any journalist – any mainstream media organization – anywhere in the world.”

“It’s a two-day hearing and obviously that reflects the number of issues that the defense sought to raise,” he explained. Vamos added that the judges would “be mindful that lots of people are paying attention” to Assange’s case and would likely take some time to consider the arguments presented.

This is a developing story – more to come.

United Nations experts have called for an investigation into what they described as “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations” against Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and the West Bank by Israeli forces.

The allegations include extrajudicial killing, arbitrary detention, degrading treatment, rape and sexual violence, according to a statement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released on Monday. It did not detail how they did their fact-finding, but they referred to photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances reportedly taken by Israeli troops and uploaded online.

Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva also said it “forcefully rejects” what it called “despicable and unfounded claims” by the group of UN experts.

It said authorities had received no complaints of abuse but stressed “Israel remains ready to investigate any concrete claims of misconduct by its security forces when presented with credible allegations and evidence.”

The experts, who are part of the largest body for independent fact-finding and monitoring in the UN human rights system, expressed their concerns over the “arbitrary detention” of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls since the Hamas attacks of October 7.

“Many [Palestinian women and girls] have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten,” the statement said. “On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.”

The UN experts further said they were distressed by reports of “multiple forms of sexual assault” against Palestinian women and girls in detention, including “being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers.”

“At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the statement added, calling on Israel to uphold the rights and dignity of Palestinian women and girls.

The UN and human rights organizations were criticized for being slow to denounce the reports of rape and mutilation against Israelis – mostly girls and women but also men – by Hamas fighters on October 7.

The UN agency UN Women released a statement in December condemning the attacks saying it was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during those attacks.”

Responding on Monday to the UN experts’ call for an investigation, Israel again accused the UN of remaining “silent on the horrific sexual violence and gender-based violence perpetrated by Hamas on and since October 7.”

Russia is entering its third year of war in Ukraine with an unprecedented amount of cash in government coffers, bolstered by a record $37 billion of crude oil sales to India last year, according to new analysis, which concludes that some of the crude was refined by India and then exported to the United States as oil products worth more than $1 billion.

While Russian crude sales to India are not subject to sanctions and are entirely legitimate, an examination of shipping routes by experts suggests this huge volume of shipments might involve the so-called “shadow fleet” of crude tankers, specially created by Moscow to try to disguise who it is trading with and how, and maximize the Kremlin’s profits.

The two tankers have colorful histories. Both embarked from Russia weeks earlier. One is owned by an Indian-based company accused of involvement in sanctions violations, and the other was previously owned by an individual subject to separate US sanctions, according to shipping monitoring firm Pole Star Global.

“Transfers are (sometimes) done legally, but they’re also used as an illicit tactic to evade sanctions,” said David Tannenbaum at Pole Star Global. “You’re adding multiple layers to the shell game of vessels as they try and confuse authorities as to where this oil is coming from and who’s buying it at the end of the day.”

Dozens of similar transfers occur each week in the Laconian Gulf of Greece, a convenient waypoint en route to the Suez Canal and Asian markets, analysts say.

Earlier in February, the US Treasury rolled out a new package of sanctions against ships and companies suspected of helping move Russian crude in violation of US sanctions, in a bid to impede the functioning of Russia’s shadow fleet.

The United States led a coalition of countries in late 2022 that agreed to a “price cap,” undertaking not to buy Russian crude above $60 a barrel. Those nations also forbade their shipping companies and insurance firms – key players in global shipping – from facilitating the trade of Russian crude above that price.

“The price cap was the real trigger for the creation of the shadow fleet,” said Viktor Katona, head of crude oil analysis at trade research firm Kpler. “The longer the supply chains, the more difficult it is to disentangle ship-to-ship transfers, the more difficult it would get… to determine the real cost of a Russian barrel.”

Tannenbaum at Pole Star Global said the firm “suspected” that the primary motive for these transfers was to evade sanctions as “almost all these vessels” had a connection to the US or the European Union, and would be subject to the price cap. “This bay is enclosed. It’s out of the way. And so they can kind of do this activity pseudo-anonymously.”

Ami Daniel, CEO of Windward, made a similar assessment: “That is part of a Russian methodical, systemic effort to just make everything much more complicated.” He described the incentive for Russia and oil traders to circumvent sanctions as “gigantic,” saying: “You really needed to have a reason to transfer 60-plus million barrels in the middle of the ocean and export them to India because it’s much easier not to do that – to sail directly.”

The shadow fleet has enabled Russia to create a parallel shipping structure that can weather the changing tactics and focus of Western sanctions, with hundreds of tankers of opaque ownership, using complex routes. Windward estimates that this fleet grew to 1,800 vessels last year.

The net impact of India’s crude purchases has been to weaken the pinch Russian President Vladimir Putin feels from oil sanctions. Russia’s federal revenues ballooned to a record $320 billion in 2023 and are set to rise further still. Roughly a third of the money was spent on the war in Ukraine last year, according to some analysts, and a greater proportion still is set to finance the conflict in 2024.

The funds at the Kremlin’s disposal put Moscow in a better position to sustain a lengthy war than Kyiv, which is struggling to maintain the desperately needed flow of Western cash.

According to an analysis of public data from the Russian finance ministry by RAND economist Howard Shatz, Russian federal revenue and expenditure were both at an all-time high in 2023. Yet Moscow still didn’t balance the books, he said, an indication of the war’s sheer cost, but also of the hit to oil revenue from sanctions.

“Despite the jump in revenues, the federal budget deficit was at its third-highest… larger only in 2022 and 2020,” he said. “Tax on domestic production and imports are both high and effective, which means they are taxing their own population to pay for this war,” he said.

India has justified its purchases from Russia as a means of keeping global prices lower as it’s not competing with Western nations for Middle Eastern oil. India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri told CNBC last week: “If we start buying more of the Middle Eastern oil, the oil price will not be at $75 or $76. It will be $150.”

India’s complex role in global oil trade is also reflected in the fate of the oil products Russian crude is turned into. Some of the crude is refined into oil products at refineries on India’s western coast, and then exported to the US and other countries signed up to sanctions on Russian oil. Products refined outside of Russia are not covered by sanctions, an omission critics call a “refinery loophole.”

The analysis by the CREA estimated the US was the biggest buyer of refined products from India made from Russian crude last year, worth $1.3 billion between early December 2022, when the price cap was introduced, and the end of 2023. The organization’s estimates are based on publicly available shipping and energy data.

The value of these oil product exports rises significantly once US allies that are also enforcing sanctions against Russia are included. The CREA estimated that $9.1 billion worth of oil products made from Russian crude was imported by these nations in 2023, a 44%  increase from the year before.

Moscow has found means to enrich itself off this refining and export process too. One of the Indian refineries and ports accepting Russian crude is in Vadinar, and run by a company called Nayara Energy, which is 49.1% -owned by Russian state oil giant Rosneft. The CREA estimated that the US imported $63 million worth of oil products refined in Vadinar in 2023, and that about half the crude used in the plant was Russian. All of which is entirely above board.

But the organization’s report added that exports from Vadinar “lead to significant tax revenues for the Kremlin in the form of taxing the exported Russian crude oil” and also via the profits made by Rosneft from the refining and resale to Moscow’s Western opponents.

Still, analysts say the profits that can be made from even the smallest evasion of sanctions against Russia are vast, because of the significant sums involved in trading a single oil tanker’s cargo. “Really you’re talking about something which is amazingly lucrative,” said Daniel at Windward. “The temptation to do that… is absolutely huge for the traders. They could just make $10 to 40 million within four or five months. I’m not sure there’s any other opportunity in the world to do that.”

Israel will expand military operations in the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah if hostages held by Hamas are not returned by the start of Ramadan, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has warned.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know — if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue to the Rafah area,” Gantz told a gathering of American-Jewish organizations in Jerusalem on Sunday.

“We will do so in a coordinated manner, facilitating the evacuation of civilians in dialogue with our American and Egyptian partners to minimize civilian casualties,” the Israeli minister added.

The Muslim holy month is expected to start on March 10 or 11. Israel believes that 130 hostages remain in Gaza – 101 alive and 29 dead – following Hamas’ October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,200 people in Israel.

Israel’s subsequent war on Hamas has killed more than 29,000 people and injured another 68,000 in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the enclave.

Gantz’s comments appear to be the clearest indication yet of a timeline around an Israeli military operation in the southern Gaza city, where more than 1 million displaced Palestinians are taking shelter near the Egyptian border.

“To those saying the price is too high, I say this very clearly: Hamas has a choice — they can surrender, release the hostages, and the citizens of Gaza will be able to celebrate the holy holiday of Ramadan,” Gantz said.

The comments come amid stuttering talks aimed at securing the release of hostages and a longer-term ceasefire in Gaza. In its latest proposal, Hamas has demanded the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave and eventually a permanent end to the war, as well as the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel – including those serving life sentences – as part of any hostage deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described Hamas’ proposal as “delusional.”

Israel has said it plans to expand its ground operations into Rafah as part of its goal to destroy Hamas after the October 7 attacks. But there is growing concern that the roughly 1.5 million Palestinians sheltering there will have nowhere to go.

Many in the international community, including the United States and the United Nations, have warned against Israel’s operation in Rafah, with UN aid chief Martin Griffiths saying such an offensive could lead to “a slaughter” and leave humanitarian efforts in Gaza “at death’s door.”

Neighboring Egypt has also been on edge over Israel’s possible operation, boosting its security presence at its border with the Gaza Strip with extra troops and machinery, as well as deploying more soldiers at checkpoints leading to the Rafah border.

Egypt’s security buildup comes amid fears of the war spilling over into its territory should Israel begin its operation in Rafah. With more than half of Gaza’s population sheltering just steps away from the frontier, Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesperson has warned that “targeting this area of the strip, which is filled with so many civilians, poses a danger.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Sunday denied that there were any kind of preparations taking place at the border, saying the reported activities were “the ordinary maintenance of our border and our border fortification.”

“It is in no way related to providing any camps or shelter on our side of the border,” Shoukry said in an interview with Sky News, stressing that displacing Palestinians out of Gaza would amount to a “liquidation of the Palestinian cause.”

Meanwhile, Israel has continued to press ahead with its operation in other parts of Gaza.

After days of bombardment, Israeli forces last week raided what was the largest hospital still functioning in the enclave, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, rendering it “completely out of service” and unable to handle critical cases, the Gazan health ministry said Sunday. Dozens of health care workers were arrested and some 80 patients transferred out of the hospital to an unknown location, a ministry spokesman said. Electricity has been cut off and seven people have so far died as a result, the spokesman added.

The Israeli military said it had credible evidence that Hamas had previously held hostages at the hospital, and that the bodies of deceased hostages may be at the medical complex.

Hamas said it had “no business” in the hospital.

It is a pivotal moment, where both Russian advances and Western atrophy threaten to transform the biggest land war in Europe since the 1940s.

Traveling from the Munich Security Conference towards Ukraine’s frontlines, the polite frustration and manicured pleas of Western leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky feel yet more desperate. The warnings that Ukraine might suffer setbacks on the frontline if the United States Congress continued to hold up a $60 billion aid package have now curdled into a bitter, brutal reality.

The pledges and rhetoric of Munich’s suits and limousines have so far amounted to little; in the wait, or abyss, ahead, Ukraine is losing people and land. It is all very real, very immediate and stark. After months of stalemate, the possibility of sweeping changes on the frontlines is quite real.

The horrific death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny meant the brutality of the Putin regime was amplified and crystal-clear for European leaders who had feared the gathering would be dogged by doubts over a future Trump presidency’s adherence to the NATO alliance. Latvia’s president spoke of “murder,” Germany’s defense minister of how the death showed Russia was “willing and able to provoke” the West. Ukraine reasoned it was clear proof Putin was too irrational a man to negotiate with.

Yet still, the conference – often a talking shop, fixated on entourages and colored-passes over concrete results – ended without major progress. US President Joe Biden had said in 2021 that Navalny’s death would lead to “devastating consequences” for Russia. Yet the White House’s toolkit has been somewhat emptied by the 2022 invasion and as of Monday morning – 72 hours after Navalny’s passing was announced – no measures have been announced. Indeed, Vice President Kamala Harris could only berate the “political gamesmanship” of a Republican-led Congress that has just taken two weeks off.

Meanwhile, Zelensky – taking the stage in Munich right after Ukraine announced its withdrawal from the significant eastern frontline town of Avdiivka on Saturday – found the climate of defeat in Ukraine, and savagery in Russia, did almost nothing to bring the urgently needed US billions closer.

In and of itself, the Ukrainian defeat Avdiivka does not herald a sea change in Kyiv’s fortunes. It is only of moderate strategic importance. But Ukraine held it for a decade, since Russia’s first invasion in 2014 pushed into the Donbas region. Ukraine announced a voluntary withdrawal after months of immense Russian pressure, a choice perhaps fomented by some political realities. The defense of Bakhmut — another town on the eastern front that Moscow was willing to squander thousands of lives to take last year — did, critics of Ukrainian policy argue, cost Kyiv resources it would have better devoted to its counteroffensive in the south last summer.

That counteroffensive failed, and the reshuffle of Ukraine’s top brass — in which the architect of the failed summer push, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, was replaced by his top deputy Oleksandr Syrsky — comes at both the worst and best time, depending on who you are talking to. The animosity between Zelensky and his military chief had become a distraction to the war effort, and new ideas were clearly needed.

Yet Syrsky must replace a near iconic commander who is deeply popular with troops and civilians, at a time when Ukraine is hobbled in all directions. He does not have a moment to take stock or reassess. Some analysis has seen Syrsky’s opening act of withdrawing from Avdiivka as a bid to show he is a more protective custodian of troops’ lives than his hard man reputation would suggest.

Kyiv is now dealing with Russian surges on many fronts. After Avdiivka, they may attempt to sweep up other surrounding villages. Yet the fall of this railway hub frees up Kremlin units and air power to fight elsewhere. That could be Vulehdar to the south. To the west, one of the main and incremental gains of the southern counteroffensive — Robotyne, where hundreds died in pitched battles for a tiny village — is under threat. Russian bloggers have suggested a full assault on its eastern flank. Ukrainian officials insist they have been repelled. There is pressure near Kupiansk, on the edges of Kharkiv, and there also could be another Russian surge around Bakhmut.

The extent of Russia’s capabilities and intent is unclear at the moment, and it is important to remember the mess and collapse they were in a year ago was under the same president and defense minister. But they are badly in need of demonstrating a win ahead of Putin’s rubber-stamp re-election as president just under a month from now. Their military-industrial complex appears to be humming in producing war materiel, and the Kremlin’s coffers have never been fuller.

It would be a mistake to think Putin – with his state apparatus and economy now fully retooled for indefinite conflict – has curbed his ambitions. He even spoke about Poland, a NATO member, as an errant vassal in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson. How far he is willing to go remains unclear, but the fact that the answer to the question is unknown should be cause for concern.

The key asset of Russia’s forces now is persistence – dogged and callous. Moscow has something Kyiv lacks, and that is a constant stream of recruits — conscripts, mercenaries, prisoners — for the frontlines, which it is willing to waste for minor objectives, with unimaginative frontal assaults, and can replenish at a staggering rate.

Conversely, Ukraine lacks manpower and is stalling on a decision to widen the draft to include 25- and 26-year-olds. Zaluzhnyi wanted another 500,000 men, and that has yet to happen. Ammunition is lacking, and so on imperilled frontlines, Ukraine must ration shells, while Moscow’s forces can even rely on top-ups from as far away as North Korea to keep their artillery stocked. Western aid, replenished by the European Union last month, is still meager because of Republican dysfunction in Congress. The House has gone on a two-week break; that fortnight might see changes on the frontlines that Ukraine would not have dreamed of just six months ago.

The impact of Congress’s indecision is already calamitous. The belief — perhaps held by some uninformed Republicans — that if Ukraine is ignored enough, Putin will somehow stop and just go away, has already been exposed as delusional in the last weeks alone.

The Kremlin will not stop. Ukraine will continue to weaken without Western aid in its billions. The war will not go away. And the decisions the West will face in the coming months are not over whether they are willing to continue with the paltry aid they are currently prevaricating over. Instead they may face larger existential questions about providing a lot more help, very urgently, to stop Ukraine’s war becoming Europe’s.

Avdiivka was on the front lines of war between Kyiv and Moscow for almost a decade. Fierce fighting raged there for months following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

The withdrawal was far less drawn out. When the Ukrainian military abandoned the town on Saturday, handing Russia its most important victory in months, it was rapid and ruthless.

“Leave the 300 (wounded),” one soldier was purportedly ordered, “and burn everything.”

Hours after Russian troops raised their flags over Avdiivka, one horrifying story has emerged of several injured soldiers who failed to escape – and were later killed as Russian troops reached their position.

The Ukrainian servicemen there were part of the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade, occupying a position known as Zenit. As Russian forces advanced through Avdiivka last week, Zenit came under heavy attack.

Soldiers stationed there made desperate attempts to escape the ruins of the town, according to Viktor Biliak, one of the soldiers there. In a long and often bleak Instagram post Biliak described the dangerous route that lay ahead.

“There was zero visibility outside. It was just about survival. A kilometer across the field. A bunch of blind kittens guided by a drone. Enemy artillery. The road to Avdiivka is filled with Ukrainian corpses,” he wrote.

Eventually a commander informed him over the radio that the wounded would not be evacuated. Six men were left behind. The messages they left were hard to read, Biliak said.

“Their despair, their doom. It will always stay with us. The most courageous are the ones who die,” he said.

The soldiers left behind

Avdiivka has been on the front lines since pro-Moscow separatists seized large portions of the Donbas region, including the nearby city of Donetsk, in 2014. Years of fighting has turned the town into a heavily fortified stronghold, with entrenchments built up over the past eight years.

But with Ukraine’s army under pressure along several points on the front line and facing ammunition and manpower shortages, the Russian military may have sensed a window of opportunity. It pummelled the area with airstrikes and artillery before intensifying the ground assault.

Ukrainian forces made the decision over the weekend to abandon the town, handing Russia its most significant victory since it captured the city of Bakhmut last year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the decision to pull back was made to “save our soldiers’ lives.”

Among those trapped and surrounded was a 30-year-old junior sergeant and combat medic from Dnipropetrovsk region named Ivan Zhytnyk, call-sign “Django.” He’d been fighting in Avdiivka for nearly two years, as had the 110th Brigade.

He was badly injured and could not move.

On Thursday, he was able to contact his sister Kateryna and other family members in an emotional video call, a call that has since received widespread coverage on Ukrainian and social media.

Kateryna asks her brother: “So, what, they … no one is coming? Your guys are there too (with you), or are you alone?”

Zhytnyk replied: “Everyone left, everyone retreated. They told us that a car would pick us up. I have two broken legs, shrapnel in my back. I can’t do anything …

He said there were a half-dozen soldiers at the Zenit position, four of whom, like Zhytnyk, could not walk.

Kateryna responds: “I don’t know how to … who to call,” she said while crying. “I can’t figure it out. Who will pick you up?”

No one did.

Ukrainian journalists working with Slidstvo.info later talked to relatives of three of the Ukrainians who were left wounded at the position.

Kateryna told Slidstvo.info: “They had been waiting for the (evacuation) vehicle for a day and a half. And when they realized that no one was coming to pick them up, they started calling everyone. When Ivan called me, he was in so much pain, they had given him everything they had left, but they were running out of medicine and food.”

Later Thursday, another relative reached Zhytnyk via video link, according to Kateryna.

“My brother said that the command had agreed that the Russians would take them out because our men would not get to them,” Kateryna said. As they spoke, she said, the video showed Russian troops entering the position where the men were trapped.

Another of the soldiers trapped at Zenit was Andrii Dubnytskyi. His wife Liudmyla told Slidstvo.info: “We talked at 10 a.m. (on Thursday). He was wounded in the groin, he was reeling, trying to joke, started crying. Then we texted …”

“The last message was at 12:00 that he would be captured,” she said.

‘Mom, I am a warrior’

On Friday, a video was posted by a Russian military blogger that showed the bodies of several of the soldiers. The video carried the emblem of the Russian Army’s 1st Slavic Brigade, which had entered the Zenit area in the south of Avdiivka two days earlier, according to multiple accounts.

The text on the video says it was shot on Friday in Avdiivka at a “military unit facility.” It refers to the Ukrainian troops there as Nazis and says ”only death is waiting for you at our land.”

Kateryna recognized her brother’s body by his clothes and by the water bottle he was holding when the Russians took them from the Zenit position.

Biliak, the soldier who posted his account on Instagram, recognized Andrii Dubnytskyi because he had a tattoo in the shape of a cross on his arm.

So did Dubnytskyi’s wife, Liudmyla, who found the video late at night. “At 10:30 p.m. I found this video, I recognized him by his tattoo,” she said.

“He was called up on March 8, 2022, and since then he had been in Avdiivka all the time … My daughter was 4 months old when he was mobilized,” she told Slidstvo.info.

The mother of another of the soldiers made the same horrifying discovery.

Heorhii Pavlov, call-sign “Panda,” had been a contract soldier since 2015 and had served at the Zenit position for the last year, according to his mother Inna.

“They waited for three days for an (evacuation) car,” she said.

“On the 14th he was wounded, he had shrapnel wounds, his back … I begged him very much, son, surrender, I need you alive – he has a small child, 5 years old.”

“He said: Mom, I am a warrior,” Inna recounted to Slidstvo.info.

“I would like to believe that they are alive. The only thing I want now is to find my son,” she said Friday.

A few hours later she recognized the body of her son in the same Russian video.

A well-known Ukrainian military blogger, Yurii Butusov, has since posted the names of all six soldiers who were left behind at the Zenit position.

“These wounded were unable to move on their own, and there were no evacuation vehicles available to transport them. Due to the complete encirclement of Zenit, no vehicles could get through for evacuation,” Butusov said.

It’s not known how the soldiers died, but Butusov alleged that the Russian military “executed the helpless unarmed wounded, who were captured and unable to move.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office in Ukraine said an investigation had been launched into “violation of the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder” in the case of the injured soldiers.

In a statement published Monday, the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade said that it attempted to negotiate with Russian forces to evacuate wounded troops from the Zenit position after it was completely encircled.

“They [agreed] to evacuate our wounded and provide them with assistance, and subsequently exchange them (for other prisoners of war). Our soldiers were ordered to save their lives,” the statement read.

The brigade later learned its soldiers were killed from the video released by Russian forces.

“War is cruel and we are fighting for freedom at a high price,” it said.

The incident comes as the Israeli military said it had arrested hundreds of militants at the hospital, which is in Khan Younis, including some posing as doctors.

Israeli forces also said they found medications with the names of Israeli hostages on them inside the hospital, releasing a video of soldiers showing medicine boxes with inscriptions and sometimes photos on the labels of who they apparently were prescribed to.

The source said when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) took control of the hospital last week, they broadcast a message saying: “Doctors, come outside.”

When the medics came out and were ordered to take off their clothes, they protested because of the frigid conditions.

“Take off your clothing,” the witness said the doctors were told.

The doctors then removed their clothes in the cold and were kept outside for several hours before Israeli troops chose five doctors to return to the complex to take care of patients. The eyewitness does not know what happened to the other doctors.

That left five doctors to treat dozens of patients in the old building of the compound, said the eyewitness, who has been inside the hospital and asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

Nasser had been the largest functioning hospital in Gaza prior to the IDF’s raid last week.

The World Health Organization [WHO] said the medical complex, which now has around 180 patients and 15 medical staff, has neither tap water nor electricity and is relying on a backup generator to maintain lifesaving machines.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has also said it faced “major challenges” to deliver fuel to the hospital amid the ongoing military activity in the area.

The eyewitness said the hospital had no electricity and that patients were dying every day due to the Israeli blockade of the hospital.

The source said the air had filled with the smell of rotting bodies. “Four patients died in recent days, and [Israeli] forces haven’t allowed them to remove the patients from the building, and the smell is very bad,” the eyewitness said.

Food and water are scarce, the eyewitness said. When WHO officials arrived on Saturday, “we said: “If you don’t bring food and water, we will die,” the eyewitness added.

The WHO later brought in some water and canned goods like tuna, but there were no carbohydrates, like bread or rice, the eyewitness said. “They [the patients] can’t eat this without bread,” the eyewitness added.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday the evacuation of patients has continued amid an “acute shortage” of food, oxygen and basic medical supplies.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said Sunday that around 70 healthcare workers in the medical complex were arrested by Israeli forces and 80 patients had been transferred out of the hospital to an unknown location.

Hamas militants arrested, IDF says

The IDF said Monday they apprehended “hundreds” of Hamas militants hiding in Nasser Hospital, including some of whom they say had been posing as medical staff, and that they found medicines with the names of Israeli hostages on them during their raid on the medical complex.

“As part of IDF activity in the hospital, boxes of medicine were found with the names of Israeli hostages on them. The packages of medicine that were found were sealed and had not been transferred to the hostages,” the IDF said in its statement Monday.

The IDF claimed that some of the people they apprehended had participated in the October 7 attack on Israel. They included “those with connections to the hostages, as well as significant Hamas operatives.”

The Israeli military did not say where the suspects had been moved, but said they have been transferred “to undergo further investigations by security forces.”

Gaza’s Ministry of Health denied the claims, calling them “not true,” adding, “hospitals provide service to civilians in Gaza.”

A European Space Agency satellite is expected to reenter and largely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday morning.

The agency’s Space Debris Office, along with an international surveillance network, is monitoring and tracking the Earth-observing ERS-2 satellite, which is predicted to make its reentry at 6:14 a.m. ET Wednesday, with a 15-hour window of uncertainty. The ESA is also providing live updates on its website.

“As the spacecraft’s reentry is ‘natural’, without the possibility to perform manoeuvers, it is impossible to know exactly where and when it will reenter the atmosphere and begin to burn up,” according to a statement from the agency.

The exact time of the satellite’s reentry remains unclear due to the unpredictability of solar activity, which can change the density of Earth’s atmosphere and how the atmosphere tugs on the satellite. As the sun nears its 11-year cycle’s peak, known as solar maximum, solar activity has been ramping up. Solar maximum is expected to occur later this year.

The sun’s increased activity already had an impact on speeding up the reentry of the ESA’s Aeolus satellite in July 2023.

The ERS-2 satellite has an estimated mass of 5,057 pounds (2,294 kilograms) after depleting its fuel, making it similar in size to other space debris that reenters Earth’s atmosphere every week or so, according to the agency.

At around 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, the satellite is expected to break apart and the majority of the fragments will burn up in the atmosphere. The agency said that some fragments could reach the planet’s surface, but they won’t contain any harmful substances and will most likely fall into the ocean.

ERS-2’s backstory

The Earth-observing ERS-2 satellite first launched on April 21, 1995, and it was the most sophisticated satellite of its kind at the time to be developed and launched by Europe.

Along with its twin, ERS-1, the satellite collected valuable data on the planet’s polar caps, oceans and land surfaces and observed disasters like flooding and earthquakes in remote areas. The data gathered by ERS-2 is still used today, according to the agency.

In 2011, the agency decided to end the satellite’s operations and deorbit it, rather than adding to the swirl of space junk orbiting the planet.

The satellite executed 66 deorbiting maneuvers in July and August of 2011 before the mission officially concluded later that year on September 11. The maneuvers burned through the rest of the satellite’s fuel and decreased its altitude, setting ERS-2’s orbit on a trajectory to slowly spiral closer to Earth and reenter the atmosphere within 15 years.

The chances of an individual person being injured by space debris each year are less than 1 in 100 billion, about 1.5 million times lower than the risk of being killed in an accident at home, according to the agency.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi had a message for his European counterparts over the weekend: no matter how the world changes, China will be “consistent and stable” – a “force for stability.”

The claim, which Wang delivered during remarks at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, comes as European leaders are warily watching the upcoming United States elections – concerned that the potential return of former President Donald Trump could upend their partnership with Washington.

Those concerns flared in the past week after Trump said he would not defend NATO allies that failed to spend enough on defense – a stunning threat for many in Europe as Russia’s invasion grinds on in Ukraine.

The timing of Trump’s comments couldn’t have been better for Wang, who is visiting Europe as Beijing struggles to repair deteriorating relations with the bloc — an effort made more urgent by its domestic economic struggles and ongoing frictions with the US.

“No matter how the world changes, China, as a responsible major country, will keep its major principles and policies consistent and stable and serve as a staunch force for stability in a turbulent world,” Wang said during remarks in Munich, while calling for China and Europe to “stay clear of geopolitical and ideological distractions” and work together.

But while Wang’s pitch may land on receptive ears in some European capitals where leaders hope to stabilize aspects of their relations with China, Beijing also has a major issue when it comes to making real progress to repair ties, analysts say: its steadfast relationship with Moscow.

Those challenges were underscored over the weekend in Munich, where the security conference was overshadowed by shock and anger as reports emerged of the death at age 47 of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

Leaders decried his death as the work of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime – with outrage amplifying mounting concern about the fate of Ukraine, which lost key ground to Russia on Friday.

“Wang’s message to his European hosts is that geopolitical differences should not be allowed to get in the way of close cooperation,” said Noah Barkin, a visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) think tank.

“What is left unsaid is that China is not prepared to change the positions and policies that worry the Europeans most, namely its deepening relationship with Russia and its distortive trade practices.”

Russia relations

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began two years ago, Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have bolstered their countries’ relations as both face rising tensions with the West. China – which has not condemned Russia’s invasion and claims impartiality in the conflict – has also emerged as a key lifeline for the sanctions-hit Russian economy.

In Europe, this has galvanized concerns about China’s own global ambitions and played a role in the European Union’s ongoing push to recalibrate its policy toward China.

In a panel discussion in Munich on Saturday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg drew a parallel between Russian aggression and China, saying continued American support for Ukraine would “send a message” to Xi discouraging potential use of force in Taiwan, a self-ruled island China’s ruling Communist Party claims.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell reiterated the bloc’s “expectation that China refrains from supporting Russia,” in a meeting with Wang Friday. Western governments have not accused Beijing of sending extensive aid to Russia’s military.

The EU is considering placing trade restrictions on three mainland Chinese firms as part of a proposed round of measures meant to hamper the Russian war effort, Bloomberg reported last week.

Wang made an apparent attempt to address concerns about China’s ties to Russia over the weekend, framing the relationship for his audience in Munich as part of Beijing’s efforts to cooperate with “major countries” to address global challenges.

“Russia is China’s largest neighboring country,” Wang said, repeating usual statements that their relationship is not an alliance and does not “target any third party.” As such, “a China-Russia relationship that grows steadily … meets the shared interests of the two countries” and “serves the strategic stability of the Asia-Pacific and the world,” he said.

When asked by conference chairman Christoph Heusgen in a public discussion whether China should do more to rein in Russia, Wang also hit back at what he claimed were attempts “to blame China or to shift the responsibility of resolving the Ukraine crisis to China.” Beijing has worked “relentlessly” to promote peace talks, he said.

The diplomat reiterated as much in a meeting with Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba on Saturday, stressing that China does not “sell lethal weapons to conflict areas or parties of conflict” and that it would “not give up its efforts” to re-establish peace.

But those efforts have fallen well short of European hopes that China would use its considerable economic leverage and regular high-level communication with Russia, including between Xi and Putin, to end the conflict in a way that respected Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Instead, a push from Beijing to frame itself as a potential peacemaker in the conflict, spearheaded by Wang at last year’s Munich Security Conference, hasn’t produced tangible results. A plan for a “political settlement” of the conflict put forward by Beijing at that time was widely criticized as likely to help Moscow consolidate its territorial gains, as it called for a ceasefire without the prior withdrawal of Russian troops.

It’s also unclear whether Beijing will attend an upcoming Ukraine-backed Global Peace Summit in Switzerland. Kuleba raised the event in his meeting with Wang, according to a statement on the Ukrainian diplomat’s X account. Beijing’s readout did not mention the event.

The ‘Trump factor’

Observers say that against this backdrop, Wang’s apparent attempts to dial down European concerns about China’s position relative to the war may have little impact within the EU.

“As long as war in Ukraine continues, EU policies toward China will move into closer alignment with the US. Most likely, Europeans will join the US to double down export restrictions over critical technologies in light of viewing the Union’s economic security as paramount,” according to Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at the Chatham House think tank in London.

The bloc is considering a host of measures that would help it to “de-risk” European supply chains from China, secure critical technologies and protect its market from what it sees as certain artificially cheap Chinese goods. Beijing sees European policy as excessively influenced by the United States.

Wang also attempted to push back against such measures in Munich, warning that “those who attempt to shut China out in the name of ‘de-risking’ will make a historic mistake.”

The Chinese diplomat met a number of European counterparts on the sidelines of the security conference, before continuing on to Spain. He is also due to visit France this week.

Wang may see more success in stabilizing relations with individual EU member states interested in boosting economic ties — and those looking with uncertainty at the impending US elections, according to observers.

In his European meetings, Wang may “utilize the ‘Trump factor’ to point out that completely siding with the United States is not in the best interests of European countries,” according to Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor in the City University of Hong Kong’s department of public and international affairs.

As president, Trump not only voiced skepticism of the system of US alliances in Europe, but leveraged tariffs on European steel and aluminum, sparking retaliatory measures on US goods from Europe.

“Wang Yi may point out that … if Trump becomes president it will be a problem if (Europe) doesn’t have a good relationship with China … He wants to persuade the European countries to be more neutral,” Liu said.

Beijing has made some progress in smoothing relations with European countries in the past year, including during a visit to China from French President Emmanuel Macron last spring – a development Wang will hope to build on.

“In national capitals, there will be a greater focus on keeping the relationship with Beijing stable, in part to head off the risk of a two-front trade conflict with Beijing and Washington, should Trump return to the White House,” said Barkin of GMF, who is also a senior adviser at the New York-based Rhodium Group.

“(China’s) worst nightmare is a united transatlantic front on trade, technology and security issues … China will use Trump’s words to reinforce the message in European capitals that Washington is not a reliable partner,” he said.