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Taliban officials to attend UN climate summit for first time since Afghanistan takeover

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The Taliban is sending officials to attend the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku starting on Monday, in what will be the group’s first appearance at the forum since its forceful takeover of Afghanistan.

The Taliban-controlled foreign ministry’s spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi said officials from the country’s National Environmental Protection Agency have arrived in Azerbaijan to attend the Cop29 conference. The Taliban’s leaders have controlled the environmental agency for more than three years now, after they took power in Kabul in August 2021.

The group’s government is not formally recognised by the UN and the international community owing to its restrictions on the basic rights of citizens, particularly women, who are banned from education and the workplace. The UN has stopped the Taliban from taking control of Afghanistan’s seat at the General Assembly and continues to back the appointed representatives from the previous Ashraf Ghani administration to represent the country on the global stage.

Azerbaijan has invited the Afghan environment agency officials to Cop29 as observers, allowing the former insurgent group to “potentially participate in periphery discussion and potentially hold bilateral meetings”, according to a diplomatic source.

But the Taliban will not be allowed to take part in the proceedings of full member states as the Taliban is not recognised within the UN system as Afghanistan’s legitimate leaders, instead as de facto authorities, the source said.

So far the UN has only invited the Taliban to talks specifically on Afghanistan’s future in Doha. China and Russia have expressed willingness to foster ties with the de facto administration and have invited its ministers to attend forums in China and central Asia in the past two years.

Afghanistan has been badly affected by a succession of climate emergencies, including flash floods, torrential rains and droughts, in the past year.

Flash floods have killed hundreds this year, sweeping away villages and people in remote parts of Afghanistan. The war-ravaged country is heavily dependent on agriculture, but successive floods and droughts have wiped away fields and produce.

International isolation has compounded the country’s economic struggles, making its population one of the poorest on the planet.

“Afghanistan is one of the countries that is really left behind on the needs that it has. It is a double price that they are paying,” said Habib Mayar, deputy general secretary of the g7+, an intergovernmental organisation of countries affected by conflict.

“There is lack of attention, lack of connection with the international community, and then there are increasing humanitarian needs.”

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Politics

Europe wants to strike Russia

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The European Union should directly use $300 billion of frozen Russian assets to finance the recovery of war-torn Ukraine, according to Kaja Kallas, the candidate for the EU’s top foreign policy post.

Ms. Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister nominated for the post of EU high representative, said member states should abandon any doubts about the direct use of these assets, citing Kiev’s “legitimate claims” on these funds, following Russia’s invasion.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine knew how to use Russia’s frozen assets. He proposed transferring the entire $300 billion to Kiev. “Frankly, these are Ukrainian funds,” he said.

According to World Bank estimates, by the end of 2023, Ukraine’s total economic, social and financial losses due to the war will amount to $499 billion.

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Surge in Russian drone strikes test Ukrainian defences and devastate families

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Maria was just 14 years old when she was killed by a Russian drone © Facebook/Maria Troyanivska
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Maria Troyanivska had come home early the night a Russian drone hit her bedroom.

“It flew in through the window, right into her room,” her mother Viktoria tells the BBC. After the explosion, she and her husband Volodymyr ran from the next room to find their daughter’s room on fire.

“We tried to put it out, but everything was burning so strongly,” she says through tears. “It was impossible to breathe – we had to leave.”

The Russian Shahed drone killed the 14-year-old in her bed, in her suburban apartment in Kyiv, last month.

“She died immediately, and then burned,” her mother said. “We had to bury her in a closed coffin. She had no chance of surviving.”

A Russian drone flew through Maria’s window, killing her instantly and incinerating the room
© BBC/Kamil Dayan Khan

 

Russia is massively increasing drone strikes on Ukraine. More than 2,000 were launched in October, according to Ukraine’s general staff – a record number in this war.

The same report says Russia fired 1,410 drones in September, and 818 in August – compared with around 1,100 for the entire three-month period before that.

It’s part of a wider resurgence for Russian forces. The invaders are advancing all along the front lines. North Korean troops have joined the war on Moscow’s side. And with the election of Donald Trump for a second term as US president, Ukraine’s depleted and war-weary forces are facing uncertain support from their biggest military donor.

The majority of the Russian drones raining down on Ukraine are Iranian-designed Shaheds: propeller-driven, with a distinctive wing shape and a deadly warhead packed into the nose cone.

Russia has also started to launch fake drones, without any explosives, to confuse Ukraine’s air defence units and force them to waste ammunition.

Compared to missiles they are much cheaper to build, easier to fire, and designed to sap morale.

Every night, Ukrainians go to sleep to notifications pinging on their phones, as inbound drones crisscross the country, setting sirens blaring.

And every morning, they wake to news of yet another strike. Just since the start of November, drones have hit Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.

On Sunday, Russia launched 145 drones at Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky – a record number for a single day since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Kyiv said that day it had managed to shoot down 62 drones, and that a further 67 were “lost” – meaning they were either downed by electronic warfare, or disappeared from radar screens.

Ukrainian air defences are struggling to cope with the surging numbers.

Surge in Russian drone strikes test Ukrainian defences and devastate families

 

“So far we have been intercepting them. I hope we will keep intercepting them,” Sgt Mykhailo Shamanov, a spokesperson for Kyiv city military administration, told the BBC.

While he says Russia tries to hit military installations, the “general aim is terrorising civilians”.

They know the Russians will continue to ramp up these attacks, he said – it’s why his government is constantly asking for more air defence from Western allies.

It’s also why Ukraine is nervously waiting to see how US President-elect Trump will approach the war when he re-enters office.

“Even if air defence works well, drone or missile debris falls on the city. It causes fires, damage and unfortunately sometimes victims,” he explained.

“Every night it’s a lottery – where it hits, where it’s shot down, where it falls and what happens.”

Vitaliy’s mobile defence unit defends the skies around Kyiv
© BBC/Kamil Dayan Khan

 

Vitaliy and his men have no fixed post – their weaponry for shooting down the Shaheds is carried on the back of a flatbed truck, allowing them to manoeuvre quickly.

“We try to monitor, move, outpace the drone, destroy it,” he said.

It’s clear the job is taking its toll.

“Half a year ago, it was 50 drones a month. Now the number has risen to 100 drones, every night,” he said.

Their days are getting longer too. When the Russians used mainly missiles to bomb Ukraine, the unit commander said, the air alerts would last about six hours. “Now, it’s around 12 or 13 hours,” he said.

Vitaliy is confident in front of his men, declaring that they can handle all that the Russians can fire at them if they get weapons from Western allies. “Our guys could even deal with 250 drones [in a night],” he said.

But air defence can only do so much. Ukrainians will continue to suffer until Russia stops its invasion and its air assaults on cities.

Viktoria says their lives are now divided into before and after their daughter’s death. They are staying with a friend after the destruction of their flat; she said they sleep in the corridor at night to shelter from the constant drone attacks.

Viktoria says her life is now divided into before and after her daughter’s death
© BBC/Kamil Dayan Khan

 

“Of course it’s exhausting,” she said. “But it seems to me it makes people even more angry, irritates and outrages them. Because people really cannot understand, especially lately, those attacks that hit peaceful houses.”

“I don’t understand at all why this war started and for what,” Maria’s father, Volodymyr, told the BBC. “What sense does it make? Not from an economic perspective, nor human, territorial – people just die.”

“It’s just some ambitions of sick people.”

Additional reporting by Hanna Chornous and Anastasiia Levchenko

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Blinken heads to Brussels for urgent talks on Ukraine after Trump win

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken speak during an event with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on the Economic Benefits of U.S. Travel and Tourism on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024 © Kevin Wolf/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Europe for urgent meetings with EU and NATO officials on Ukraine, in the shadow of Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House.

The US State Department will hold talks in Brussels on Wednesday on how to boost Ukraine’s support, anticipating a shift in US foreign policy following the transition of power to president-elect Trump.

Trump has previously suggested that he would curtail US military aid to Kyiv after he takes office as part of a general push towards an “America first” approach to foreign policy.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the US to promote his “victory plan” in September, Trump described the country as “demolished”.

He argued Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin before he invaded and repeated his claim that he would put an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Trump has not gone into detail about what his plans for ending the war would be.

During his first term, Trump sold Ukraine Javelin anti-tank missiles that the previous Obama administration refused to provide, which were crucial to Kyiv’s initial ability to fight off Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Nevertheless, the president-elect has been ambiguous about his concrete position on the war. In the sole presidential debate against his election opponent, Kamala Harris, Trump claimed that he wanted the war to end but refused to answer questions about how he planned to help end it.

According to data from the Kiel Institute, America is currently the largest supplier of military aid to Ukraine, with contributions totalling €84.7 billion between 2022 and 2024.

Incumbent US President Joe Biden has remained steadfast in his support for Ukraine, although he stopped short of fully endorsing the Ukrainian leader’s “victory plan”.

The US is currently entering what is known as a lame-duck session, which occurs between Election Day and the end of the two-year congressional term.

As Republicans wait for the next year to have full control of the White House, Democrats are trying to implement as many of their priorities as they can while they have the majority in the Senate.

As Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told in a recent interview, “President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to the Congress and to the incoming administration that the United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe.”

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