International Glance
In Melekino, near Russian-occupied Mariupol, Russian soldiers who refuse to fight (refusniks) have reportedly been held for months in a basement.
The independent Russian outlet Astra, citing sources, reports that a soldier from Buryatia – identified under the assumed name “Yegor Kharin” for safety – arrived in Melekino in June 2025 and was immediately taken to the basement of an abandoned construction site.
Melekino, a resort village on the Sea of Azov about 20 kilometers from Mariupol, has been under Russian control since 2022. Astra says the unfinished building is the 24th such detention site it has identified since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion.
“Darkness, gloom, no air, damp, cardboard boxes, pallets, bottles,” is how Kharin described the basement.
According to him, soldiers there said they had been held for eight months, sometimes a year.
“Those who left their unit without leave (AWOL), deserters, and non-deserters – they put all them there,” he said.
In one of the last remaining cities under Ukrainian control in the country's eastern Donetsk region, once a powerhouse of industry, life gets more difficult — and dangerous — as Russian forces inch closer.
In a sort-of ceasefire, the killings – including of children – have slowed, not stopped. Israeli military operations continue to displace hundreds of families in Gaza. Aid has increased but Israel is still blocking vital supplies. Palestinians desperately require security, humanitarian relief and reconstruction. But they need and expect a political horizon too.
Russia unleashed a major missile and drone barrage on Ukraine overnight into Saturday, after U.S. and Ukrainian officials said they’ll meet Saturday for a third day of talks aimed at ending the nearly 4-year-old war.
A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 12 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
