Zelenskyy pays visit to hard-hit troops
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Wednesday visited troops in the eastern Donetsk region who have weathered fierce Russian ground and air assaults in recent months.
The Kremlin’s army has escalated its efforts to dislodge exhausted and outgunned Ukrainian forces holding eastern and northeastern areas. It aims to capture more land during spring and summer as muddy fields have dried out, allowing heavy military equipment to roll into key positions across the countryside.
Civilians have also felt the force of Russia’s onslaught. Ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit, Russian forces dropped a powerful glide bomb on the Donetsk city of Selydove, causing extensive damage to 37 homes, six multistory buildings and administrative infrastructure, regional authorities said Wednesday. They reported no injuries.
Over the previous 24 hours, the Russian military shelled 20 Donetsk region settlements, killing one person and injuring at least nine, regional head Vadym Filashkin said.
Zelenskyy said his trip to the Donetsk region was to introduce the new commander of the Joint Forces Command, Andrii Hnatov.
Hnatov replaced Yurii Sodol, who had held the position since February 2023.
Missile misses ship off Yemen’s coast
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A suspected missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels early Wednesday targeted a ship in the Gulf of Aden, while a separate drone attack claimed by Iraqi militants allied with the rebels targeted the southern Israeli port city of Eilat, authorities said.
The attacks follow the departure of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower after an eight-month deployment in which the aircraft carrier led the American response to the Houthi assaults. Those attacks have reduced shipping drastically through the route crucial to Asian, Middle East and European markets in a campaign the Houthis say will continue as long as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip.
The ship attack happened off the coast of Aden, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. The captain “of a merchant vessel reported a missile impacted the water in close proximity to the vessel,” the center said.
The Joint Maritime Information Center, which is overseen by the US Navy, later identified the vessel as the Saint Kitts- and Nevis-flagged bulk carrier Lila Lisbon.
“The vessel was not hit and all crew on board are safe,” the center said.
Dutch premier named next NATO leader
BRUSSELS — NATO appointed Mark Rutte as its next secretary-general on Wednesday, putting the outgoing Dutch prime minister in charge of the world’s biggest security organization at a critical time for European security as war rages in Ukraine.
Rutte’s appointment was sealed by NATO ambassadors during a meeting at the 32-nation alliance’s headquarters in Brussels. U.S. President Joe Biden and his counterparts will formally welcome him to their table at a summit in Washington on July 9-11.
The outgoing Dutch premier will take over from the current secretary general, Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, on Oct. 1. Stoltenberg spent more than a decade at the helm. His mandate was repeatedly extended, in part to provide continuity after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
“I warmly welcome NATO allies’ choice of Mark Rutte as my successor,” Stoltenberg said.
“Mark is a true trans-Atlanticist, a strong leader, and a consensus-builder. I wish him every success as we continue to strengthen NATO for the challenges of today and tomorrow. I know I am leaving NATO in good hands,” he added.
Swiss cleaning up after major storms
GENEVA — Clean-up crews and business owners were inspecting the damage Wednesday after sudden storms lashed southwestern Switzerland the previous night, sending torrents of water through roads and temporarily halting air traffic at Geneva’s airport.
In the lakeside town of Morges, a creek overflowed, inundating downtown streets with tan-colored floodwater.
The town said no one was injured but that water flows hit 1,518 cubic feet per second, well above the 100-year record of 1,200 cubic feet per second.
Ignace Jeannerat, a spokesperson for Geneva’s airport, said strong and violent storms, including lightning strikes, pounded an area near the airport and more than 50 inbound or outbound flights were canceled late Tuesday. A dozen flights were diverted to other airports.
Air navigation service provider SkyGuide said the basement of its Geneva offices was flooded, causing the failure of a cooling system that forced a temporary shutdown of its operations shortly after 10 p.m.
Olivier Duding of Swiss weather forecaster MeteoSuisse said the French border town of Auberson received nearly 4.5 inches of rain in two hours, the third-most precipitation over such a period in Switzerland since detailed record-keeping began in 1981.
