Page 338 - Icks News Today

Bridges are blown in a key Donbas city. Russian forces are advancing. About 100-200 Ukrainian soldiers are dying every day. Amid withering Russian artillery and rocket fire, the tide of war is turning against Ukraine. Kyiv says the only way to turn it back is to get more Western weapons faster.

Accelerating Western aid to Ukraine could bring a quicker end to Russia's invasion, Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. historian Anne Applebaum said in an interview with RFE/RL's Belarus Service.

A delegation from the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) says a presidential election held in Uzbekistan in October 2021 lacked competition, allowing incumbent Shavkat Mirziyoev to win without facing any serious challenger.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's spokeswoman says the Kremlin critic has been transferred to a penitentiary with harsher conditions.

Civilians in the small town of Bakhmut in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region continue to feel the onslaught of advancing Russian troops. RFE/RL photographer Serhiy Nuzhnenko captured the scene shortly after the shelling on June 13.

Human Rights Watch has demanded Kazakh authorities release opposition figure Zhanbolat Mamai, who faces up to 10 years in prison on charges of organizing mass riots and knowingly disseminating false information during protests early this year.

For a group of students in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, their nontraditional graduation photos, with the city's destruction as a backdrop, serve as a record of lives interrupted by military conflict. RFE/RL spoke with photographer Stanislav Senyk about the striking images he captured.

Ukrainian officials say Russian forces are now in control of most of Syevyerodonetsk after all bridges leading out of the key eastern city were destroyed amid the fierce military clash in the Donbas region that Kyiv has called "one of the most brutal battles in and for Europe."

Pope Francis has chided Russia for the "brutality" shown by its troops in the war it launched against Ukraine, which has been "brave" in its fight to defend itself.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to adopt a clearer position on the war between Ukraine and Russia.