Nation & World Glance
Think tank: Russian advance stalls in Ukraine’s Bakhmut
KYIV, Ukraine – Russia’s advance seems to have stalled in Moscow’s campaign to capture the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a leading think tank said in an assessment of the longest ground battle of the war.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said there were no confirmed advances by Russian forces in Bakhmut. Russian forces and units from the Kremlin-controlled paramilitary Wagner Group continued to launch ground attacks in the city, but there was no evidence that they were able to make any progress, the ISW said.
The founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Sunday on the Telegram messaging app that the situation in Bakhmut was “difficult, very difficult, with the enemy fighting for each meter.”
The ISW report issued Saturday cited the spokesperson of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Eastern Group, Serhii Cherevaty, who said that fighting in the Bakhmut area had been more intense this week than the previous one. According to Cherevaty, there were 23 clashes in the city over the previous 24 hours.
The ISW’S report comes following claims of Russian progress earlier this week. The U.K. Defense Ministry said Saturday that paramilitary units from the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group had seized most of eastern Bakhmut, with a river flowing through the city now marking the front line of the fighting. The assessment highlighted that Russia’s assault will be difficult to sustain without more significant personnel losses.
Moldova police say they foiled Russia-backed unrest plot
CHISINAU, Moldova — Police in Moldova said they foiled a plot by groups of Russia-backed actors who were trained to cause mass unrest during a Sunday protest against the country’s new pro-western government.
The head of Moldova’s police, Viorel Cernauteanu, said in a news conference that an undercover agent had infiltrated groups of “diversionists,” some Russian citizens, who allegedly were promised $10,000 to organize “mass disorder” during the protest in the capital, Chisinau. Seven people were detained, he said.
Separately, police said they arrested 54 protesters, including 21 minors, who exhibited “questionable behavior” or were found to be carrying prohibited items, including at least one knife.
The protest Sunday is one of several held in recent weeks organized by a group calling itself Movement for the People, which is backed by Moldova’s Russia-friendly Shor Party, which holds six seats in the country’s 101-seat legislature.
The demonstrators are demanding that the government fully cover the costs of winter energy bills and to “not involve the country in war.” They have repeatedly called on President Maia Sandu to step down.
Police said that four bomb threats on Sunday, including one at the capital’s international airport, had been registered, which they called “an ongoing part of the destabilization measures” against Moldova, a former Soviet republic with a population of about 2.6 million.
Moldova’s border police also said Sunday that 182 foreign nationals in the last week have been denied entry into Moldova, including a “possible representative” of Russia’s Wagner Group, the private military company that is fighting in Ukraine, Moldova’s wartorn neighbor.
The police announcement Sunday comes just days after U.S. intelligence officials said they have determined that actors with ties to Russian intelligence are planning to use protests in Moldova, a European Union candidate since last June, as a basis to foment an insurrection against the country’s government.
Police: Stalker kills woman, husband in Wash. home
REDMOND, Wash. — A longhaul truck driver from Texas who became obsessed with a software engineer in Washington state after meeting her through a social media chatroom app killed her, her husband and himself after stalking them for months, police said.
Zohreh Sadeghi, 33, and her husband, Mohammad Milad Naseri, 35, were shot to death in their suburban Seattle home by Ramin Khodakaramrezaei, 38, according to Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe. He said officers spent a week trying to serve a protection order on Khodakaramrezaei but had not been able to find him before the killings.
“This is the absolute worst outcome for a stalking case,” Lowe said at a media briefing Friday afternoon. “This is every victim, every detective, every police chief’s worst nightmare.”
In a written statement, the police department said Friday that the suspect began communicating with Sadeghi after listening to her podcasts. Lowe clarified that the two became acquainted because he heard her in an audio chatroom on the app Clubhouse, where he said she facilitated a discussion for Farsi speakers seeking work in the tech industry.
Sadeghi’s mother called police around 1:45 a.m. Friday after escaping the home and running to a neighbor’s house.
Arriving officers saw Naseri collapse in the doorway of the home and pulled him outside, discovering he had been shot, Lowe said. They performed CPR, but he died at the scene. Inside the home, officers found Sadeghi and the suspect dead.