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Daily Archives: June 9, 2022
Zelenskiy says stalemate with Russia is not an option as it happened – The Guardian
Posted: June 9, 2022 at 4:54 am
Nearly 600 people detained in torture chambers in Kherson, says Ukraine
Ukraine has accused the Russian army of abducting residents in the Kherson region in the south of the country and keeping them in torture chambers.
Tamila Tacheva, the Ukrainian presidencys permanent representative in Crimea, said in a briefing:
According to our information, about 600 people are detained in specially equipped basements, in torture chambers, in the Kherson region.
About 300 people are in the basement in Kherson city and the rest are in other settlements of the region, Tacheva said, according to Ukrainian state news agency, Ukrinform.
She added:
They are detained in inhuman conditions and are victims of torture.
Those being detained are mainly journalists and activists who organised pro-Ukrainian rallies in Kherson and its region after Russian troops occupied the territory, as well as prisoners of war, Tacheva said.
Some Ukrainians held in the Kherson region civilians but also detained combatants have been sent to jails in Crimea, she added.
It was not possible to independently verify these claims.
Updated at 12.01EDT
Thats all from me, Samantha Lock, for now. Please join me a little a later when we launch our new live blog covering all the latest developments from Ukraine.
Here is a comprehensive run-down of where things currently stand as of 3am.
Ukraine is launching a Book of Executioners, a system to collate evidence of war crimes Kyiv says were committed during Russias occupation, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian prosecutors say they have registered more than 12,000 alleged war crimes involving more than 600 suspects since the Kremlin started its invasion on 24 February.
Next week, a special publication is to be launched - The Book of Executioners - an information system to collect confirmation of data about war criminals, criminals from the Russian army, Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Zelenskiy said this would be a key element in his longstanding pledge to bring to account Russian servicemen who have committed what Ukrainian authorities have described as murders, rape and looting.
These are concrete facts about concrete individuals guilty of concrete cruel crimes against Ukrainians, Zelenskiy said.
He cited the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where investigators found what they say is evidence of mass executions.
Moscows Chief Rabbi has reportedly fled Russia, after coming under pressure to support Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine.
Journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt tweeted late on Tuesday: Can finally share that my in-laws, Moscow Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and Rebbetzin Dara Goldschmidt, have been put under pressure by authorities to publicly support the special operation in Ukraine and refused.
More than 31,000 Russian servicemen have already died in Ukraine, president Zelenskiy has claimed, adding that the frontline situation has not changed significantly over the past 24 hours.
The hottest spots are the same. First of all, Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, he said in his latest address.
More than 31,000 Russian servicemen have already died in Ukraine. Since February 24, Russia has been paying almost 300 lives a day for a completely pointless war against Ukraine. And still the day will come when the number of losses, even for Russia, will exceed the permissible limit.
Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also provided an update as to Ukraines application to join the EU.
In his latest address, he said he held a meeting on Tuesday on communication with the European Union and with individual EU member states on Ukraines application and candidate status.
Diplomatic activity in this direction does not stop even for a day. I hear daily reports, including on the preparation of procedural decisions in the European Union.
The team of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, our diplomats, the team of the government in general - all, absolutely all are working to achieve a significant historical decision already in June, which we all expect. For its part, Ukraine has done all, absolutely all the necessary work for this.
As they say in such cases: the ball is in the court of European structures, European countries.
A stalemate with Russia is not an option, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, reiterating a plea for foreign help in the war.
Ukraines fierce resistance of Russias invasion led to a stalemate in parts of the country, with Moscow re-focussing its forces in the east.
In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper on Tuesday, he said:
Victory must be achieved on the battlefield.
We are inferior in terms of equipment and therefore we are not capable of advancing.
We are going to suffer more losses and people are my priority.
Asked what Ukraine would consider a victory, Zelenskiy said restoring the borders Ukraine controlled before Russias invasion on 24 February would be a serious temporary victory.
But he said the ultimate aim was the full de-occupation of our entire territory.
Asked about talks with Russia, which have been suspended since late March, Zelenskiy said he had not changed his position, adding that war should be ended at the negotiating table.
He said he was ready for direct talks with Vladimir Putin, adding that there was nobody else to talk to but the Russian president.
Its not long before 2am on Wednesday in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
News continues to come in about Ukrainian prisoners of war captured by Russian invading forces in Mariupol.
Well have more coming up, so please stay tuned as the blogging passes from the Guardian US team over to our colleagues in Australia, where Samantha Lock will keep you abreast as things happen.
Heres where things stand:
Breaking news is coming through from Tass, the Russian state-owned news agency, declaring that more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in the southern port city of Mariupol after weeks taking a last stand have been transferred to Russia, Reuters reports.
More Ukrainian prisoners of war will be taken to Russia later on, Reuters is further reporting, with Tass citing a Russian law enforcement source.
Ukraine has said it is working for all the prisoners to be returned while some Russian legislators say they should be put on trial.
More details will be forthcoming, no doubt, and well bring them to you as they emerge.
Previously, the Guardians Pjotr Sauer had reported, more than 900 Ukrainian troops who had been trapped at Mariupols besieged Azovstal steel plant, where Ukrainian forces held out for weeks, had been sent to a prison colony on Russian-controlled territory within Ukraine, Moscow has said, and their fate had been uncertain.
Now, it appears, they and more of their comrades, have been taken to Russia proper.
Its probably fair to say that, if that is confirmed, their fate is currently even more uncertain.
Surrender at the besieged steel works came in the middle of last month, after it became clear that any remaining troops would, in fairly short order, be obliterated by Russian forces, with hope of rescue or reinforcements expired.
Just a few days earlier in May, the last remaining civilians holed up at the steel works were evacuated, and my colleague Emma Graham-Harrison sent this dispatch.
What remains of Mariupol is now under Russian control, and there are reports of an epidemic of cholera among those remaining in the occupied city, with sewage and water supply problems and dead bodies rotting in the streets.
Updated at 18.21EDT
The World Bank said on Tuesday its board of executive directors approved $1.49 billion of additional financing for Ukraine to help pay wages for government and social workers, expanding the banks total pledged support for Kyiv to over $4 billion.
The World Bank said in a statement that the latest round of funding for Ukraine is supported by financing guarantees from Britain, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Latvia.
Ukraines economy is in tatters.
The project is also being supported by parallel financing from Italy and contributions from a new Multi-Donor Trust Fund.
The news came as the bank also warned that the global economy faces a protracted period of weak growth and high inflation reminiscent of the 1970s as the impact of a two-year pandemic is compounded by Russias invasion of Ukraine, my colleague Larry Elliott reported earlier.
In its half-yearly economic health check, the Washington-based Bank said echoes of the stagflation of four decades ago had forced it to cut its growth forecast for this year from 4.1% to 2.9%.
David Malpass, the Banks president, said: The war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, supply chain disruptions and the risk of stagflation are hammering growth. For many countries, recession will be hard to avoid.
Read more of Larrys report here.
Rubizhne, on the outskirts of the embattled industrial hub of Sievierodonetsk, in the Luhansk area of the Donbas that invading Russian forces are trying to subdue, some new satellite images are emerging showing severe damage.
The US satellite firm Maxar Technologies has just tweeted these pictures.
The Kyiv Independent news outlet reminds us that there has been heavy fighting over Rubizhne for weeks.
Also this:
Fighters with the resisting Ukrainian forces and the invading Russians appear to be bogged down in some key parts of southern and south-eastern Ukraine, fighting old-school trench warfare amid the boom of artillery.
Footage is often hard to verify in terms of exact location and time of filming in this 100+ days of conflict, but the sight and sound in this clip is in some way timeless.
CNNs Matthew Chance just aired a dispatch from Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine, where he reported on forces dug in and grinding front lines as the bone-shaking artillery guns pound away at each side.
He indicated that from what he was witnessing, in an exclusive report, that the Ukrainian and Russian forces have fought themselves to a standstill right now.
That was despite messages coming out from the Ukrainian authorities that Ukraine was making progress. But officers on the ground were also expressing grim satisfaction that Russia had not toppled the country within days as they claimed Vladimir Putin must have envisioned.
Here was Chances recent online report about Russia striking the capital Kyiv again after a long hiatus.
Continued here:
Zelenskiy says stalemate with Russia is not an option as it happened - The Guardian
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The Ukraine war is spurring more Russian couples to marry – NPR
Posted: at 4:54 am
After long eschewing marriage, Pyotr Kolyadin and Tatyana Neustroyeva wed in April in St. Petersburg, Russia. It's "sort of like an anchor that you throw forward and maybe somehow it will pull you out," Pyotr says. Tatyana Neustroyeva hide caption
After long eschewing marriage, Pyotr Kolyadin and Tatyana Neustroyeva wed in April in St. Petersburg, Russia. It's "sort of like an anchor that you throw forward and maybe somehow it will pull you out," Pyotr says.
About a year ago, some friends asked Tatyana Neustroyeva and Pyotr Kolyadin that fateful couple question: Would they get married? In unison, they gave their replies: He said yes and she said no.
The two hadn't discussed it. At 40, they'd known each other half their lives and been together almost two years, living in St. Petersburg, Russia. Tatyana viewed marriage a bit of an archaic convention; Pyotr was into it, but wanted the time to be right.
Then, on Feb. 24, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The couple felt they couldn't breathe, floating in a fog, with one clarity: They should get married, now.
"To me, we are facing a world apocalypse," Pyotr says, "and this is sort of like an anchor that you throw forward and maybe somehow it will pull you out. It's kind of an island of order in a world of chaos."
Soon, they began noticing on social media, on local news lots of other couples holding rushed, quick ceremonies. In St. Petersburg, articles noted long lines for fast-track registration. In Moscow, some 9,000 couples married in April in a 12-year record.
"The more people think that whatever is coming could seriously upend their life, the more likely they are to make relationship decisions," says William Hiebert, a marriage counselor in Illinois and general secretary of the International Family Therapy Association.
Hiebert points out other big disasters had spurred waves of weddings, such as the much-studied 1989 Hurricane Hugo, the 2011 tsunami in Japan and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Psychologists explain that when uncertainty meets fear in a way that's too big to grasp, people crave closure in this case by defining and sealing their love.
Tatyana and Pyotr got married on a Tuesday among six friends and, afterward, captured the memory at a photo booth. Tatyana Neustroyeva hide caption
Tatyana and Pyotr got married on a Tuesday among six friends and, afterward, captured the memory at a photo booth.
"It's sort of trying to grab time and put it to a standstill," Hiebert says, "an attempt to control what little you can control."
In fact, for Russian couples, the war in Ukraine became a marriage catalyst for reasons both psychological and practical.
After about two years of dating, Kirill Gorodnii and his now-wife Katya were looking for a shared apartment in Moscow when Russia invaded Ukraine, the birthplace of Kirill's father.
"The first day of the war, we were shocked," says Kirill, 27. "The second day of the war, we were scared. The third day of the war, we decided that we have to move elsewhere."
To this day, the Kremlin insists its attacks on Ukraine are a "special military operation," with new laws threatening a decade in prison for protests that call it a war. At one point, Kirill and Katya found themselves finally discussing marriage in case one of them got arrested.
"So the spouse can get visits," Kirill explains. It was a grim joke, he says, except not really a joke.
Other couples mention rumors that Russia's military could mobilize all men in a nationwide draft. Wives get more access than girlfriends to hospital visitation, military hotlines, financial support and to morgues, as Tatyana noted in passing.
Kirill and Katya joined tens of thousands of Russians who fled to neighboring Armenia and Georgia. Then, Katya's international employer shuttered its Russian office and offered her a new job in Dubai. Kirill could reside there only as her husband.
The two rushed to marry in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. On the way to register, by pure chance, they ran into some friends, who got recruited as witnesses. Six guests joined for dinner to toast their unexpected matrimony. Given the circumstances, Kirill says, it was a perfect wedding.
Tatyana and Pyotr, too, did not plan to invite anyone to their surprise wedding. But, as these things go, friends found out and the event, as Pyotr put it, began sprouting its usual accouterments of bouquets and champagne bottles.
On a city portal, the couple picked an available location for their Tuesday evening registration: incidentally, St. Petersburg's most historic, palatial marriage hall. They wed under its soaring ornate ceilings, surrounded by ancient marble and a handful of closest friends, Tatyana in white linen, Pyotr in jeans, giggling.
"I guess we're coping with the help of love," Tatyana says. Amid despair, disorder and discord, "at least we'll know that we are a family."
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The Ukraine war is spurring more Russian couples to marry - NPR
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Yulia Tymoshenko on war in Ukraine: ‘It’s a chance for the free world to kill this evil’ – The Guardian
Posted: at 4:54 am
Ukraines former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has described Vladimir Putin as absolutely rational, cold, cruel, black evil and claimed he is determined to go down in Russian history alongside Stalin and Peter the Great.
In an exclusive interview, Tymoshenko dismissed the suggestion that the Russian president was crazy. He acts according to his own dark logic, she said. Hes driven by this idea of historic mission and wants to create an empire. Thats his hyper-goal. It comes from a deep inner desire and belief.
Tymoshenko, a leader of the 2004 Orange revolution and twice prime minister, had several one-on-one meetings with Putin. They held negotiations in 2009 after Putin, then prime minister, turned off the gas supply to Ukraine. Tymoshenko stood for president in 2010, 2014 and 2019, finishing second twice and then third.
Close up, Putin was always cautious in what he said and always suspicious that he might be being taped, she said. He is from a KGB school, she said. Before Russias full-scale invasion in February, he made no secret of his belief that there was no such nation as Ukraine, and no such people as Ukrainians, she said.
His ambitions went beyond seizing Ukrainian territory and toppling its pro-western, pro-Nato government, Tymoshenko suggested. His geopolitical aim was to take over Belarus, Georgia and Moldova as well, and to control central and eastern Europe including the Baltic states, just as Moscow did in Soviet times, she said.
Tymoshenko was in Kyiv on 24 February when Russia launched a multi-pronged attack in the early hours. She said peacetime political rivalries and grudges immediately vanished. That morning she went to the presidential administration together with other senior opposition figures and met Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whom she ran against in 2019.
We hugged each other and shook hands. Everyone was shocked, pale and afraid. None of us planned to leave Kyiv, she said. Everyone knew we should stand until the last. We agreed to support our president and our army and to work for victory. Zelenskiys decision to remain in the capital and to overcome his fear was important, she said.
As Russian bombs fell, Tymoshenko took refuge in the basement of the modern office building belonging to her Batkivshchyna political party in Kyivs Podil district, which was hit several times by missiles. Asked if she was ready to shoot Russian soldiers, she said: Yes. I have legal weapons. The Kremlin put me on a kill list, according to sources. We were prepared.
The Russian government had always considered her an enemy, Tymoshenko said. She pointed to her support for Ukraines membership of the EU and Nato. In the 2010 presidential election she stood against Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by Moscow. She blamed her defeat on the outgoing president at the time, Viktor Yushchenko, a one-time Orange revolution ally.
The following year Yanukovych had Tymoshenko jailed in a case widely seen as politically motivated. Putin and Yanukovych imprisoned me. Yanukovych was never an independent player. He was always Putins puppet, she said. She got out of prison in 2014 when Yanukovych fled to Moscow after the Maidan anti-corruption protests. Weeks later Putin annexed Crimea and instigated a separatist uprising in the east of Ukraine.
Tymoshenko spoke in her downtown office decorated with the Ukrainian flag and photos showing her with western leaders including Margaret Thatcher. She praised the unbelievable unity of the anti-Putin coalition and singled out the UK and Boris Johnson for special mention, as well as the US, Canada and Poland. We see Britain as a part of the broader Ukrainian family, she said.
Last weekend Frances president, Emmanuel Macron, said it was important not to humiliate Putin a phrase interpreted as meaning Ukraine should sacrifice some of its territory in exchange for a realpolitik deal with Moscow. Tymoshenko said France and Germany criticised for slow-pedalling on arms deliveries should not be ostracised as Europe grappled with its worst security crisis in decades.
But she said Ukraines international partners had to understand that the only way to end the war was to crush Russian forces on the battlefield. Without naming anybody, she said they should not become co-conspirators with evil. She added: There is no such thing as a peace agreement with Putin because it doesnt lead to peace. It would lead to a new war several years later.
The stakes for her country were existential, she said. The Kremlins objective was to depersonify Ukraine, stripping it of its language and culture, and leaving it weak and atomised. The civilised world had a unique opportunity to stop Russia and to prevent it from spreading war, corruption, blackmail, disinformation and unfreedom, she said.
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Russia had largely given up on the pretence that it was only targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure, Tymoshenko said. The murder of civilians in cities in the Kyiv region such as Bucha and Irpin, as well as in other areas was cruel and deliberate, she said, with Russian soldiers following Moscows instructions.
Its an inseparable part of their genocide against the Ukrainian nation, she said. What happened in Mariupol was even worse than in Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel. Im convinced we will be able to take back Mariupol and to uncover the scale of the horrible killings there. It was a tragedy, a human catastrophe of an unthinkable scale.
Considering her words, the veteran politician concluded: This is a great battle for our territory and our freedom. Its a historic chance for the free world to kill this evil.
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War rap: In Ukraine, an angry voice for a furious generation – The Associated Press
Posted: at 4:54 am
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) From the battlefronts of Ukraine comes rap music filled with the anger and indignation of a young generation that, once the fighting is done, will certainly never forget and may never forgive.
Ukrainian rapper-turned-volunteer soldier Otoy is putting the war into words and thumping baselines, tapping out lyrics under Russian shelling on his phone, with the light turned low to avoid becoming a target. It helps numb the nerve-shredding stress of combat.
Russian soldiers drink vodka, we are making music, says the rapper, whose real name is Viacheslav Drofa, a sad-eyed 23-year-old who hadnt known he could kill until he had a Russian soldier in his sights and pulled the trigger in the wars opening weeks.
One of the ironies of the Feb. 24 invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin is that in ordering the destruction of Ukrainian towns and cities, he is fueling one of the very things he wanted to extinguish: a rising tide of fierce Ukrainian nationalism, forged in the blood of tens of thousands of Ukrainian dead and the misery of millions who have lost loved ones, homes, livelihoods and peace.
Just as many people in France found it impossible to absolve Germany after two invasions a quarter-century apart in World Wars I and II, young Ukrainians say three-plus months of brutality have filled them with burning hatred for Russia.
In France, antipathy for all things German lasted a generation or more. Only in 1984 four decades after Nazi Germanys capitulation were French and German leaders Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl able to stand hand-in-hand in reconciliation at a WWI monument in France filled with bones of the dead.
In Ukraine, the young generation born after the countrys declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 likewise say they cannot imagine feeling anything but disgust for Russia for the duration of their lifetimes.
Otoys lyrics, with choice expletives directed at Russia and stark descriptions of Russian war dead, speak from the heart he lost his older brother, a soldier, in the siege of the Azovstal steel mill in the devastated port city of Mariupol.
But they also give voice to the cold fury shared by many of his peers, now pouring out in song, in art and tattoos, online in hashtags proclaiming, death to the enemies, and memes targeting Putin, and in fundraising activism for the war effort.
In Enemy, one of four new tracks that Otoy penned between and during stints on the battlefield driving ammunition and weaponry to front-line troops, he snarls of Russian soldiers: Were not scared but we are nauseous, because you smell stale even when your heart still beats. Bullets await you, you sinners.
He imagines a taunting conversation with the widow of a dead Russian soldier, singing: Well, Natasha, where is your husband? Hes a layer in a swamp, face-down. Natasha, he wont come home.
Others are riffing off the war, too.
In the furious heavy metal track We will kill you all, the band Surface Tension screams: We will dance on your bones. Your mom wont come for you. The expletive-laced track has accumulated more than 59,000 views since its April 5 release on Youtube.
Iryna Osypenko, 25, was among concertgoers at a fundraising music festival last weekend in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, where Otoy gave a fiery performance. She broke down in tears as she explained how the growing reservations shed had about Russia before the invasion have scaled up into rage.
I hate them and, Im sorry, it will never change, she said. I will explain it to my children and I hope that my children will explain to their children.
Otoy says that if he has kids, hell do likewise, telling them, the Russians were killing my family, killing my brothers, my sisters, bombing our theaters, hospitals.
Its not just that I dont like Russia, I hate this country, and I hate Russian people as much as I can, he said in an interview in his Kyiv apartment, where he records and stores his guns and combat gear.
If I had the ability to save the life of a dog or the ability to save the life of a Russian soldier, I would pick the dog.
His older brother, Dmitry Lisen, is missing, believed dead in the bombed-out ruins of Mariupols Azovstal steelworks. He was a fighter with the Azov Regiment, among the units that clung doggedly to the surrounded plant for nearly three months, becoming an enduring symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Otoy dedicated his song, Find My Country, to Azovstals defenders rapping in English with the aim, he says, of reaching people all around the world.
This is my lands, you boys should leave, he sings, holding a rifle and dressed in combat gear in the tracks video on YouTube. Miss those Fridays we used to have, kisses, twilights, refuse to sleep. Now we soldiers.
His duties of late have included helping at a military hospital with the triage of bodies from Azovstal, turned over by Russian forces in an exchange. His brothers remains are still missing.
Hes also working on his collection of songs largely penned during repeated ammunition runs to troops in the east, where fighting has raged since Russian forces were pushed back in their initial assault on Kyiv.
Themes include life on the front and the camaraderie of soldiers, war-time life for civilians, enmity and fighting for Ukrainian freedom. He says the mini-album reeks of the smell of war dust.
I was actually lying on the ground under the airstrikes and bomb shelling, he said. You can actually the feel the smell of, you know, like bombs, dead bodies, and dust, blood and other stuff.
This is the best way to show your hate, I think.
___
Hanna Arhirova contributed to this report.
___
Follow APs coverage of the Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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War rap: In Ukraine, an angry voice for a furious generation - The Associated Press
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‘Everything is gone’: Eastern Ukraine residents say Russia is wiping their towns off the map – POLITICO
Posted: at 4:54 am
Under constant, heavy shelling, thousands of civilians in Ukraines east have been confined to the tenuous safety of basements and garden cellars for weeks or months. Time spent in the open means exposing oneself to weapons of war that figuratively and literally tear people apart.
Life under Russian assault is measured in minutes, steps and millimeters; the difference between life and death here has narrowed to a sliver. Those who try to flee do so at great risk to their personal safety; some interviewed by POLITICO during a week of reporting along the frontline described being forced to dash down contested roads while under fire or crawl through fields littered with landmines.
Others, like Tykhomirova, are too fragile to leave under their own power. Many more lack the means, whether money or a vehicle, to flee. Though disenchanted with the Ukrainian government for what some say is a lack of respect and attention paid to the eastern regions, almost no one wants to take their chance with the Russians.
Thousands have died while contemplating their meager options.
To be precise, between Feb. 24 and May 30, at least 4,149 civilians were killed, including 267 children, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office. The true numbers of civilian casualties are much higher but cant yet be fully counted because of active fighting and lack of access to areas under the control of Russian forces, the organization added.
The deaths bring the total number of civilians killed as a result of Russian military aggression in Ukraine to more than 7,500 over the course of eight years. Prior to Feb. 24, 3,404 civilians had been killed in the war in the Donbas, which broke out in April 2014. A vast majority of those casualties occurred in the first nine months of the war, when the fighting was at its peak. Several ceasefire agreements that never fully materialized kept the fighting at a simmer, with each side trading pot shots from well-worn trenches.
Lyman, a once-quiet town surrounded by a forested nature reserve and the bone-white chalk mountains, was once home to 20,000 residents more than 43 percent of which were ethnic Russians, according to local data until people began spilling out in recent weeks. It had largely avoided hostilities, save for some street fighting with automatic rifles and grenade launchers in 2014.
Now its synonymous with Russias brutal new military campaign in the Donbas, demolished homes and shattered lives.
We can never go back. There is nothing left there for us, cried a woman brought to the Raihorodok staging area carrying several bags of clothing and possessions, her two young children in tow. They are bombing everything. Our city is dying.
Her husband interjected: No, the city is already dead.
The family, who declined to be identified, said their home had been partially destroyed in mid-May. They spent nearly two weeks living in a neighbors basement with little food and water, no toilet, electricity and gas until Holtsyev and the other rescuers came to pick them up. Everything they had to begin their new lives fit into four duffel bags. Asked about what they would do next and where they would go, the husband tried to speak but no words came out of his mouth; he just shook his head and shrugged.
Days later, on May 27, Russian forces declared Lyman captured.
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Ukraine agonizes over Russian culture and language in its social fabric – NPR
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Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, ordered the removal of a Soviet monument in April, after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. The monument was erected in 1982 as a symbol of unification and friendship between Ukraine and Russia under the Soviet government. Officials have also ordered some streets linked to Russia to be renamed. Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, ordered the removal of a Soviet monument in April, after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. The monument was erected in 1982 as a symbol of unification and friendship between Ukraine and Russia under the Soviet government. Officials have also ordered some streets linked to Russia to be renamed.
LVIV and ODESA, Ukraine In prewar Ukraine, Svitlana Panova spoke her native Russian without giving it much thought. But now, she has lost her home to Russia twice fleeing Crimea after Russia's 2014 annexation of it and then fleeing eastern Ukraine after Russia's invasion this year and the Russian language no longer feels quite right.
"It's hard for me to switch to Ukrainian, but I will learn it for sure," says Panova, one of millions of Ukrainians displaced by Russia's war, as she makes her way through the train station in the western city of Lviv.
On the streets and on social media, at family gatherings and at work, in interviews and in political journals, people across Ukraine are having a tense conversation over the place of Russian language and culture in Ukraine's social fabric. Can they even have a place now? Is this inescapable part of the country's history inherently toxic?
About a third of Ukrainians have named Russian as their mother tongue in the last census, in 2001, and in more recent surveys and the majority of Ukrainians say they speak it. Conversations often combine both languages, and some people even speak a Spanglish-type mashup called Surzhyk. Russian and Ukrainian are closely related but not enough for speakers to fully understand each other. Ukraine was Russified for centuries, under the Russian Empire and then under the Soviet Union, when Russian was the lingua franca mandated in schools.
Interest in speaking Russian has been declining, particularly after Ukraine's pivotal 2014 pro-Western revolution. The Ukrainian language emerged as a cornerstone of the nation's push toward a strong post-Soviet self-identity. After Russia commenced its violent invasion this Feb. 24, many began viewing language as a matter of national survival.
"It is a question of our existence," says Oleh Myrhorodskyy, 57, a Russian-speaker from the southern city of Odesa, who quickly signed up for a Ukrainian-language class. "That's why everyone needs to put some effort into building a national foundation. And the language is that national foundation."
The remote class, launched online from Lviv shortly after the invasion started, filled up instantly. More than 800 people signed up within three days, organizers said.
Ihor and Olha Lysenko fled to western Ukraine when the war began. Olha initially ditched the Russian language in anger, but weeks later, she resumed using it. Russian is the language of her children and her family. "For me, language is not attached to a nation. It's not attached to certain territory," she says. Elissa Nadworny/NPR hide caption
For example, a large share of the interviews with Ukrainian refugees that foreign viewers might see on TV or hear on the radio are in Russian. Ihor Lysenko, who fled west when the war began, points out it's the shared language with millions of people elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Lysenko's wife, Olha Lysenko, ditched Russian in anger after Russia attacked Ukraine. Weeks later, she returned to using it. Russian is the language of her children and her family it does not belong to the Russian government or its leader, Vladimir Putin, she says.
"For me, language is not attached to a nation. It's not attached to certain territory," she says. "And so the Russian language, like English, doesn't make me feel disgust. In the first week of the war, it did, and I switched entirely to Ukrainian. But over time, that first anger has passed, and as my relative says, whatever it may be, it's the language of the heart."
At a cafe in Odesa, Artyom Dorokhov voices another common view that Ukraine's cosmopolitan diversity of languages and cultures is a strength. He says he has always celebrated his Russian roots, never feeling anti-Russian bias, but the war brought a shift: He feels new pressure to speak Ukrainian and signal to friends and co-workers that his loyalties lie here, not with Russia.
"Silence is very close right now to a hostile act," Dorokhov says. "All the good stuff that we know about Russian art and literature, it's been wiped out by the current deeds of [Putin's] regime."
Oleksandr Babich, a historian from Odesa, Ukraine, sits on a commission that's considering the future of city landmarks that honor Russian figures, including the possible removal of statues and monuments. Brian Mann/NPR hide caption
Some cities, including the capital city of Kyiv, have begun removing Russian-related monuments, markers and even road signs. Odesa once a key port in imperial Russia has created a commission to consider the future of some of the city's most significant landmarks.
"My own mother tongue is Russian," says historian Oleksandr Babich, an Odesa native who sits on the monument commission. "But the war makes us want to become more Ukrainian. We don't want to have anything in common with the Russians who are killing us."
The city's Russian history is rich and won't be easy to disentangle. Walking past sandbag barricades and soldiers with assault rifles, Babich points to a house where Ukrainian-born Nikolai Gogol wrote the Russian literary classic Dead Souls and then a house where Russia's most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin, once lived.
Local landmarks now in question include the Potemkin Stairs featured in a classic Soviet silent film about a 1905 mutiny on an eponymous Russian battleship in the Odesa harbor. Then there's the giant statue to Russian Empress Catherine the Great, who ordered the founding of modern Odesa in 1794 but who also eroded Ukraine's autonomy with oppressive imperial politics.
Dorokhov compared this debate to the reckoning over Confederate statues and monuments in the American South: a cultural reckoning over a history of oppression. Except this one is happening amid a brutal war, with missile strikes erasing neighborhoods and cities and with Russian troops facing accusations of mass killings of civilians and other war crimes.
A Ukrainian tank sits near the Potemkin Stairs in the center of Odesa after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24. Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images hide caption
In 2014, Moscow claimed persecution of Russian-speakers to justify its annexation of Crimea. Similar claims have factored heavily into the eight years of bloody conflict between Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and the Ukrainian army.
In the late 2010s, Ukraine's government passed new mandates and quotas to boost the use of Ukrainian in education, the media and professional communication. The Kremlin launched a wave of propaganda, claiming Western anti-Russian forces were pushing ethnocentric mandatory Ukrainization.
In July 2021, Putin penned a now-infamous historical screed claiming that Russians and Ukrainians were "one people a single whole," bound by the shared language and culture of the Russian World (Russkiy Mir). With the war, the concept has taken on a sinister meaning and is loathed in Ukraine.
"Russia itself is doing everything to ensure that de-Russification takes place on the territory of our state," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, himself a native Russian-speaker, said in a March address. "You are doing it. In one generation. And forever."
A statue of a Soviet soldier lies facedown in Chervonohrad, in western Ukraine. The monument from the city's Eternal Flame memorial complex is among those that were dismantled following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Pavlo Palamarchuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption
A statue of a Soviet soldier lies facedown in Chervonohrad, in western Ukraine. The monument from the city's Eternal Flame memorial complex is among those that were dismantled following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Many here call Russian soldiers "orcs" or "Rushists," the latter a twist on "fascists." Ukrainian officials frequently warn that there is a threat from Russian-speakers in Ukraine who sympathize with Moscow.
"It's hard to say, but the [Russians] aren't people for us anymore," says Julia Bragina, a Russian-speaker who co-owns a jazz club and theater in Odesa. She adds: "Yeah, that's mean that's gross to say."
Before the war, Bragina regularly hosted performances by Russian musicians and counted many of them as her friends. Now, she says she views their cultural influence as tainted, in part because many Russian artists have been silent about the invasion or support it publicly.
Moscow has passed new laws that criminalize even referring to Russia's presence in Ukraine as a "war" or "invasion." The Kremlin insists it's engaged in a "special military operation" to "denazify" Ukrainian leadership and protect the Russian-speakers of the eastern Donbas region.
At the same time, Bragina and many others say they believe the difficult conversation about undoing centuries of Russification in Ukrainian culture can unfold peacefully and with nuance. Babich says it's a sign that Ukrainian society is free and capable of wrestling with complicated problems the kind of open debate that would be instantly stifled by Putin's regime.
Ievgen Afanasiev reported from Lviv; Brian Mann reported from Odesa; Alina Selyukh is based in Washington, D.C.; Elissa Nadworny reported from Chervonohrad. Tim Mak contributed reporting from Odesa.
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‘In this war, the ordinary infantryman is nothing’: Ukrainian soldiers in Donbas feel abandoned and outgunned – CBC News
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Throughout more than three months of war, Ukrainian troops have largely held Russian forces at bay. With skilful tactics and grim determination, Ukrainian defenders have pushed Moscow's troops away from the capital, Kyiv, and forced them to abandon designs for capturing the entire country.
But in the country's east, where Russian forces are intensifying efforts on the embattled Donbas region, weeks of brutal combat have pushed the defenders to a breaking point.
Now, under ceaseless bombardment and after immense casualties, some Ukrainian troops say they are feeling abandoned by their leadership left to die in hopeless conditions.
On a sunny day last week in Bakhmut, the Eastern Ukrainian city was preparing for a seemingly imminent siege. Buses streamed out of the city heading west, carrying loads of the most vulnerable: the elderly and mothers with children. Heavy military equipment passed them in the other direction, with a pair of BM-27 Uragan rocket launchers carrying deadly cargo toward the front lines with Russia.
The region is no stranger to war. Ukrainian forces have been battling Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas since 2014, long before this most recent invasion.
At one of the city's few open businesses, a shawarma stand, a steady stream of exhausted soldiers and emergency workers returning from the front paused for a quick break, as artillery boomed in the near distance.
Alexey, a 28-year-old paramedic, had just returned from his latest journey. He and a colleague spent most of the day dashing to and from the town of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, which is under direct Russian shelling.
"There were 23 shells that hit Soledar in the last day alone," recalled Alexey. "We were bringing a wounded civilian back he didn't make it."
(As active-duty servicemen, none of the soldiers or emergency workers CBC spoke with were authorized to give their last names.)
Despite worsening conditions in the region, some people who had fled earlier in the fighting have since returned to the area, driven by simple economic necessity.
Alexey estimates that about 30 per cent of Bakhmut'spre-war population of about 75,000 remains, before mentioning a nine-storey building that was recently hit by a missile.
"At least 10 apartments are inhabited the people came back and just patched up their flats as best they could," he said. "They're afraid, but they've got no money."
Despite the war around him, Alexey's spirits seem high enough. It's a different story for other soldiers and volunteers returning from the front.
Two fighters Nikita, 35, and his companion, Mikhail, 56, both members of a Ukrainian army unit stationed nearby just returned from the front line east of Bakhmut, about five kilometres from the city.
"The front just comes closer and closer," said Nikita. "We keep getting pushed back, further and further."
Nikita has been fighting in this region for more than a month now, pushing back against a Russian assault that broke through Ukrainian lines in mid-May and continues to close in on Bakhmut.
His colleague, Mikhail, had also fought in 2014, against the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine. This time, he says, is different.
"[In 2014], I could fight well enough with my rifle," said Mikhail. "Now, I can't. They hit us with planes, helicopters, mortars, tanks, GRADs [rocket artillery]."
"In this war, the ordinary infantryman is nothing," said Nikita. "Now it's all artillery and heavy weapons. The average soldier, he can't do anything."
"We are just cannon fodder," Mikhail interjects.
Ukraine's forces are taking massive casualties in the region. In a May 31 interview, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine was losing between 60 to 100 soldiers every day on the eastern front, with about another 500 people wounded daily.
On June 5, he met with some of the soldiersin Bakhmutduring a visit to the eastern front and thanked them for their service. "I am grateful to everyone," he said, according to Agence France-Presse. "Take care of yourselves."
While Russian forces are likely suffering heavy losses as well roughly 10,000 Russian soldiers are believed to have been killed in the war to date this has not yet blunted their assault in the Donbas.
Despite the thousands of pieces of Western military aid delivered to Ukraine, Nikita said he and his men have seen nothing of them.
"We have just our rifles. Maybe an RPG [launcher] or two. Against a tank or an armoured vehicle? What am I supposed to do?" he said rhetorically.
In his view, the leadership in Kyiv cares little for those fighting out here.
"[Kyiv] has not sent us any new weapons and they're not going to," said Nikita.
"Everything new and fancy has been reserved for those other places: Kyiv, Kharkiv, the big cities. Headquarters thinks, 'Well, you [in the east] have been fighting the Russians for eight years already. You'll be fine.'"
Nikita shakes his head, before turning to even harsher words for his superiors.
"You have to understand that there are two castes in this country," he said. "There's the upper caste, and then there's us: the lower caste. We are just pawns. Nothing more. The upper caste gets the money, and we get the command: 'Forward!'
"That's how it's always worked here [in Ukraine]," he said, before emphasizing that he doesn't expect anyone to believe him.
"No one here wants to hear the truth," said Nikita. "They just want the beautiful story of how Ukraine is united. But here, we're f--ked."
Other soldiers filtering through the shawarma stand also tell dire tales of being outgunned and outnumbered as fighting in the region intensifies.
Two scouts with Ukraine's naval infantry, both in their early 20s and both named Sergei, have been fighting since the first days of the war.
They arrived in the Donbas after escaping the most difficult battle of Ukraine's war to date: Mariupol, the port city destroyed during a brutal two-month siege.
"We've been [fighting] along the entire eastern front line," said the younger Sergei, 21.
"We were sent all over in the Mariupol area, in Nikolne, Rozivka, Zachativka," he said, listing villages north of the port city.
One of their assignments involved being sent to cover the retreat of Ukrainian forces pulling out of Mariupol a task they say nearly saw them killed as they were overwhelmed by a Russian force they were not equipped to fight.
"Our guys [in Mariupol] were almost encircled, so we were sent there to guard the exodus," said the younger Sergei. "The Russians put out 200 vehicles against us. They caught us and surrounded us in a village. [It was] just 70 of us against all that."
The only weapons on hand for that fight, said the older Sergei, 24, were machine guns and a few N-LAWs, British-made anti-tank missiles.
"We held out for six days. We managed to destroy the first tank in their column and that held them up, as the others were stuck behind it," he said.
"But they brought up their artillery. We had almost nothing to fight them with. Finally, we managed to escape at night we snuck out on foot."
Ukraine's Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment about the soldiers' allegations, including the claims that at least some units were not receiving the donated weapons.
Over the course of the war, Zelensky has repeatedly called on allies to supply Ukraine with more and better weapons, at times accusing the West of moving too slowly.
The U.S., the U.K. and Germany recently pledged some of the most advanced weapons yet, including helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapon systems, anti-aircraft systems and heavy artillery pieces.
The U.S. military has also begun training Ukrainian forces on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), a sophisticated medium-range multiple rocket launcher though officials have said it would take about three weeks of training before they could go to the battlefront.
WATCH |Canada committed to supporting Ukraine 'as long as it takes,' defence minister says:
There is evidence that some of the new weaponry has made it to Eastern Ukraine. Reports show American-made M777 advanced howitzers in use at Lysychansk, at the northern edge of the Donbas front. A Politico report further describes M777s at Kramatorsk, about 30 kilometres northwest of Bakhmut.
Still, for these soldiers, the fight is not getting any easier.
Dmitry, a 41-year-old member of Ukraine's Territorial Defence, uses a little humour to confront the grim reality of the situation. "Bakhmut, it's like Monte Carlo," he said, laughing. "Russian roulette on every corner!"
Then his eyes darken, and his smile fades.
"I can describe the situation here in a few short words," Dmitry said. "Very f--king awful."
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No Longer Sure Bets: Tech Giants Are Dropping Bad News Daily
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(Bloomberg) -- From Seattle to Silicon Valley to Austin, a grim new reality is setting in across the tech landscape: a heady, decades-long era of rapid sales gains, boundless jobs growth and ever-soaring stock prices is coming to an end.
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Whats emerging in its place is an age of diminished expectations marked by job cuts and hiring slowdowns, slashed growth projections and shelved expansion plans. The malaise is damaging employee morale, affecting the industrys ability to attract talent, and has wide-ranging implications for US economic growth and innovation.
Illustrations of a dour new business climate surface daily against the backdrop of a prolonged economic slowdown, a grinding war in Europe, rising interest rates and inflation, and a global pandemic dragging into its third year. In the past two weeks, a parade of big names joined the crowd. Social media app Snap Inc. on May 23 pruned sales and profit forecasts and said it will slow hiring. The next day, Lyft Inc. said it will bring on fewer people and look for other cost cuts. Days later, Microsoft Corp. tapped the brakes on hiring in several key divisions, and Instacart Inc. said it will dial back hiring plans to nip costs ahead of a planned initial public offering.
The drumbeat continued yesterday, as Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk told employees the electric-vehicle maker needs to reduce its salaried workforce by 10% and pause hiring worldwide. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. also said it will extend a hiring freeze and rescind a number of accepted job offers, citing market conditions.
Similarly gloomy pronouncements had already been dribbling out for weeks. Amazon.com Inc. has too many workers and too much warehouse space, and its business is hurting from rapidly rising inflation costs. Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is easing hiring and paring expenses, and Twitter Inc. instituted a hiring freeze and withdrew some job offers ahead of a planned takeover by Musk. Apple Inc. warned in April that restrictions related to Covid-19 lockdowns in China will shave as much as $8 billion from revenue in the current quarter.
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The humbled corporate ambitions signify a vibe shift for an industry that had seemed invulnerable, once offering workers and investors protection from the instability of the larger economy.
They are no longer sure bets, said Tom Forte, a tech analyst at D.A. Davidson, of the technology industrys behemoths. They arent sure bets because there are a number of fundamental things working against them.
The Nasdaq Composite Index has lost a quarter of its value since Nov. 19, when it reached an all-time high. Thats even taking into account the indexs 5.8% rebound in the past two weeks.
Read more: The Tech Rout Isnt Just CyclicalIts Well-Earned, and Overdue
The specter of job cuts has begun to haunt the Silicon Valley psyche. On Blind, an app that employees can use to talk anonymously about their employers, discussions about hiring freezes increased by 13 times from April 19 to May 19 compared with a year earlier. Layoff discussions increased by five times, and talk about a recession is up by 50 times. Unfounded speculation that Meta was gearing up for a round of firings ripped through social media in May, resulting in the creation of the hashtag #metalayoff, which began trending on LinkedIn. Dozens of recruiters and employers began using the hashtag to offer alternative job openings. A Meta spokesperson says the company has no current plans for staff reductions.
Still, what was once an engine of growth for the US economy has sputtered of late. More than 126,000 tech workers have lost their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic, according to Layoffs.fyi. Netflix Inc. said last month its laying off about 150 workers after reporting an unexpected subscriber loss; the streaming giants shares have tumbled 71% since mid-November. At Meta, managers are slowing hiring for many mid-to-senior level positions companywide, and in April cut back on adding engineers with limited experience.
Twitter employees, meanwhile, are bracing for potential layoffs as the company awaits the arrival of new owner Musk, whose pitch to bankers included cost cuts. CEO Parag Agrawal jumped ahead in early May, sending Twitters 7,500-plus employees a note explaining the social network would start with reductions in travel, marketing and event costs, with leaders told to manage tightly to your budgets, prioritizing what matters most.
Likewise Ubers Dara Khosrowshahi said in a memo to staff that the ride-hailing giant would treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate about when and where we add headcount. The sentiment is taking a toll on morale internally, said an Uber employee who asked not to be identified.
Read more: Big Tech Loses Luster as Talent Magnet After $2 Trillion Wipeout
The shock is probably the biggest at companies like Meta, Twitter and Uber, which were still in relative infancy the last time the tech industry was hit, during the financial crisis in 2008. Things were worse still when the dot-com bubble burst at the turn of the century. The difference this time is that the pandemic reinforced how important and necessary many of these tech products are, giving them some cushion against the initial economic ravages of the Covid-19 shutdowns.
Everybody discovered that tech was not only nice, it was indispensable, said Russell Hancock, CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit that studies Silicon Valley and its economy. Whats happening now appears to be a market correction, Hancock added, though he also worries that some of the shine and innovation of the tech industry is going away as products like streaming services and social networking become more of a utility.
Its possible well start to think about [tech] sort of like the gas lines going into our homes, or electricity, he said. Thats kind of a new thing for Silicon Valley. Its sort of a Detroit kind of existence where cars just became the backdrop, the furniture of the region.
Read more: High-Flying Startups Feel the Pain of a Long-Predicted Downturn
With the companies preparing for a long season of uncertainty about their business, theyre having to make hard choices about investments beyond hiring and marketing. Amazon, which in 2020 invested heavily in the staffing and warehouse space it needed to meet a pandemic-related surge in delivery demand, now finds itself with too many warehouses and too many workers.
The Seattle-based companys announcement that it has more space than it needs spooked hundreds of employees in its real-estate division, according to a person familiar with the situation. Employees who previously juggled multiple construction projects suddenly have little to do, and have been advised by their managers to use extra time to focus on learning and development, which hasnt been reassuring, the person said.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said in February that the company was prioritizing some product efforts like its TikTok competitor Reels, private messaging, and the metaverse. Were shifting the bulk of the energy inside the company towards those high-priority areas, Zuckerberg said in April. The company said it was scaling back expenses by $3 billion for 2022, the first signal that its becoming more judicious with its investments.
The aura of invincibility might be wearing off, but Silicon Valley is far from dead. Unemployment in the California region is just 2% -- the lowest its been since 1999, according to Joint Venture. Additional data from the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy found Bay Area job growth over the past year of 5.8%, brisker than the national and state averages.
Any slowdown in hiring needs to be framed within the context of techs meteoric rise, says Stephen Levy, director and senior economist at CCSCE. Does the world want more of the goods and services that tech produces, and is that a growth sector over time? Levy said. The answer is yes.
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Meta, other tech giants flock to Raleigh and Durham – Axios
Posted: at 4:52 am
On Monday, WRAL reported that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was looking at opening an office in Durham.
Yes, but: Meta said last month it would reduce its hiring after posting slowing revenue growth in the first quarter of the year. Its possible that could impact the reported plans.
Why it matters: Even if Meta doesn't expand to the Triangle, companies from Apple to Amazon are already hiring here whether remotely or for a planned office.
What theyre saying: "I think what you are seeing in the Triangle is a maturation," former N.C. Commerce Secretary Anthony Copeland, who helped recruit many tech companies, told Axios.
The growth has really accelerated since the pandemic, which has caused a reshuffling of workers from the country's largest cities to cheaper markets.
Apple, for example, just recently started hiring for the first jobs at its new East Coast HQ in Research Triangle Park, and sublet space in Cary.
The big picture: The Triangle has been identified as a place for future growth by the countrys largest tech firms. The growth brings a lot of new opportunities to the region, but also many challenges, most noticeably rising housing and rental prices.
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Tech giants IBM and Microsoft lay off hundreds of employees in Russia – Business Insider
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Tech giants IBM and Microsoft are laying off hundreds of employees in Russia as companies continue to leave or scale down businesses in the country.
IBM suspended its Russian operations in March after the country invaded Ukraine, but employees were kept on the payroll.In a memo to staff on Tuesday, chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna announced an "orderly wind-down" of business in Russia. The local workforce will be laid off, he said.
"Our colleagues in Russia have, through no fault of their own, endured months of stress and uncertainty," said Krishna. "We recognize that this news is difficult, and I want to assure them that IBM will continue to stand by them and take all reasonable steps to provide support and make their transition as orderly as possible," he continued.
IBM did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment but told Reuters it employs several hundred people in Russia.
Krishna said during IBM's first-quarter earnings call in April that the company's business in Russia is "not large" and concentrated on high-end infrastructure and software, according to an official copy of his remarks.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is significantly scaling down its business in Russia, a company spokesperson told Insider on Thursday.Microsoft suspended new sales and services in Russia in March, but is still servicing existing customers.
"As a result of the changes to the economic outlook and the impact on our business in Russia, we have made the decision to significantly scale down our operations in Russia," the Microsoft spokesperson told Insider. "We will continue to fulfill our existing contractual obligations with Russian customers while the suspension of new sales remains in effect."
Microsoft is laying off 400 employees in Russia, a spokesperson told Bloomberg, which first reported the news.
"We are working closely with impacted employees to ensure they are treated with respect and have our full support during this difficult time," the tech giant told Insider.
Microsoft and IBM now number among the major US and European companies including Goldman Sachs, McDonald's, and Disney that have announced they'd be ending their operations in Russia.
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