NEWS
Russia claims responsibility for Ukrainian train station strike
Russia’s Defence Ministry has confirmed that its forces were behind Wednesday’s missile strike on a railway station in central Ukraine that Kiev said left at least 25 people dead, including civilians.
However, Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov, claimed that more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers on their way to fight in the Donbass region had been killed in the attack in the central Dnipropetrovsk region town of Chaplyne.
No evidence was produced to support the claim that so many soldiers died, however. Konashenkov added that the rocket hit a part of the station used by the Ukrainian military and that military equipment had also been destroyed.
The Ukrainian authorities said that 25 people, including two children, had died in the attack, while at least 30 others were injured.
The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said that both residential areas and railway infrastructure in Chaplyne had been targeted by Russian forces.
Tymoshenko said that an 11-year-old who was crushed under rubble and a 6-year-old killed in a car fire near the train station had been among the victims.
Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian claims could be independently verified.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, which was carried out on Ukraine’s Independence Day, which fell six months to the day after the Russian invasion began.
US President Joe Biden called Zelensky on Thursday to offer him his moral support and to promise Washington’s continuing backing for Kiev as the war entered its seventh month.
Ukrainian train stations and rail infrastructure have repeatedly been targeted during the war.
In April, at least 57 people died in an attack on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donbass region.
Another recurring feature has been Russian efforts to take control of Ukrainian nuclear plants, which has led to worries that a miscalculation could result in a nuclear catastrophe.
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Kiev said on Thursday that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, had been disconnected from the Ukrainian electricity grid, though Ukrainian nuclear agency Enerhoatom stressed that the plant’s power supply, which is vital for its safetly, was being maintained.
In his Thursday night video address, Zelensky called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to act with greater urgency over the contested plant:
“Every minute that the Russian military remains at the nuclear power plant means the risk of a global radiation disaster,” he stressed.
Moscow said that the last two last operational reactors at the plant had been forced to temporarily shut down due to Ukrainian shelling, though the Russian-installed governor of the Zaporizhzhya region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on Telegram that one of the reactors had subsequently been restarted.
Kiev and Moscow have repeatedly blamed each other for the shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
According to Enerhoatom, all four of the power plant’s supply lines have now been damaged by Russian shelling.
Washington blasted Russia’s attempts to claim the plant and the energy it produced on Thursday.
“No country should turn a nuclear power plant into an active war zone,” said deputy State Department spokesperson Verdant Patel, adding that it was very clear that the energy produced at Zaporizhzhya belonged to Ukraine.
Also on Thursday, the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) cited observers as saying that internationally-banned cluster munitions have been used in by Russian forces in Ukraine.
Calling the reports “shocking,” the CMC said that the munitions had caused hundreds of casualties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine began in February.
“Preliminary data indicates at least 689 casualties reported during cluster munition attacks in Ukraine for the first half of 2022.
Many casualties may have gone unrecorded,” it added.
An 2008 international treaty bans cluster munitions, though many key countries, including the United States and Russia, are not signatories to the agreement.
In another hint that the war could still escalate, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered a 137,000-person expansion of the Russian army, growing its entire personnel to over 2 million, including some 1.15 million troops.
No official reason was given for the increase.
The President of the African School of Governance, Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu has admonished state actors against resorting to brutal force in the bid to muscle out separatist agitators.
In the aftermath of Mazi Simon Ekpa, the Finland based Biafran nationalist agitator being caught in legal web and the Nigerian government moving swiftly to seek his repatriation, the former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has cautioned that ‘We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.’
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The political economist, while expressing his hope in Nigeria, made it clear that “hope is not a strategy”.
He bared his mind in a series of posts on his verified handle on micro-blogging site, X on Friday.
Moghalu wrote, “Despite sustained contemporary difficulties, I am hopeful about Nigeria. But hope is not a strategy. We need to improve state capacity for effective governance.
“We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.
“We must learn to be honest with ourselves and address the root causes of our problems. Why ignore them, when the problem is actually quite solvable? The problem with continuing with this approach is that when the danger crystallizes, those who thought they were benefiting from
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has criticized the federal government’s plan to secure an additional N1.7 trillion loan through Eurobonds to cover a shortfall in the 2024 budget, describing the borrowing as unsustainable and harmful to Nigeria’s economy.
In a statement shared on Thursday via his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Atiku accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of burdening Nigerians with debt while failing to provide clear answers about the country’s fiscal challenges.
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He also faulted the National Assembly for enabling what he called a “voracious appetite” for loans.
The former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate expressed alarm over a recent World Bank report ranking Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), calling the development troubling.
“The recent report released by the World Bank, showing Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), is very concerning,” Atiku stated.
He raised further concerns about the government’s decision to benchmark the proposed loan at an exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s official rate being over N1,600.
“What makes this particular loan proposal even more concerning is that it is benchmarked at the exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, whereas the current exchange rate from the Central Bank of Nigeria stands at over N1,600 to 1 USD,” he said.
Atiku questioned the need for additional borrowing, given the government’s earlier claims of record-high revenue collection.
“In July this year, Tinubu boasted that the FIRS and Customs under his watch had collected all-time high revenues to finance the budget. Why are they still borrowing?” he said
He accused the government of a lack of transparency, describing the borrowing spree as detrimental to Nigerians already struggling under economic hardship.
“There is something that they are not telling Nigerians, even as they are being crushed by a combination of their failed trial-and-error policies and loan rackets.”
Atiku also referenced a report by BudgIT, a budget monitoring group, which criticized the 2024 budget for its inefficiencies.
He alleged that corruption, rather than infrastructure or development needs, was driving the government’s borrowing decisions.
“These loans are powered by corruption and not for infrastructure and development needs. This voracious appetite for humongous loans is deeply concerning,” he said.
Reflecting on Nigeria’s financial history, Atiku lamented the return to significant foreign indebtedness just years after former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration cleared the country’s debt.
“It is agonizing to see that just a few years after the Obasanjo administration took us out of foreign indebtedness, we are today back at the top spot in the same conundrum,” he stated.
He called for a more cautious approach to borrowing, urging the government to prioritize fiscal responsibility and transparency to avoid worsening Nigeria’s economic challenges.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a historic step, issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The charges include crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed during Israel’s recent assault on Gaza.
In a detailed statement, the ICC accused the Israeli leaders of “intentionally and knowingly depriving the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
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The ICC’s move marks a significant escalation in international scrutiny of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu and Gallant are alleged to have orchestrated policies that caused severe harm to the civilian population in Gaza, leading to widespread condemnation from human rights organizations.
Alongside the charges against Israeli officials, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif. Deif has long been a central figure in Hamas’s military operations. Israel’s military claims to have killed him in a July airstrike, although this has not been independently verified.
The warrants highlight growing calls for accountability amid the ongoing conflict in the region. The ICC’s actions are likely to provoke heated debate and may complicate diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the crisis.
With the warrants issued, global attention now turns to how the international community will respond and whether any practical steps will be taken to enforce them.
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