Ukraine's parliament passes a controversial law to boost much-needed conscripts as war drags on

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Ukraine's parliament passes a controversial law to boost much-needed conscripts as war drags on

2024-04-11 19:58 Last Updated At：20:00

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s parliament passed a controversial law Thursday that will govern how the country recruits new soldiers to replenish depleted forces who are increasingly struggling to fend off Russian troops.

Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion captured nearly a quarter of the country, the stakes could not be higher for Kyiv. After a string of victories in the first year of the war, fortunes have turned for the Ukrainian military, which is dug in, outgunned and outnumbered. Troops are beset by shortages in soldiers and ammunition, as well as doubts about the supply of Western aid.

Lawmakers dragged their feet for months over the new law, and it is expected to be unpopular. It comes about a week after Ukraine lowered the draft-eligible age for men from 27 to 25.

The law will become effective a month after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs it — and it was not clear when he would. It took him months to sign the law reducing conscription age.

It was passed Thursday against a backdrop of an escalating Russian campaign that has devastated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks. Authorities said Russian overnight missile and drone attacks again struck infrastructure and power facilities across several regions and completely destroyed the Trypilska thermal power plant, the largest power-generating facility in Kyiv region.

With Russia increasingly seizing the initiative, the law came in response to a request from Ukraine’s military, which wants to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops, Zelenskyy said in December. Incumbent army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Zelenskyy have since revised that figure down because soldiers can be rotated from the rear. But officials haven't said how many are needed.

The law — which was watered down from its original form — will make it easier to identify every draft-eligible man in the country, where even in war many have dodged conscription by avoiding contact with authorities.

But it’s unclear that Ukraine, with its ongoing ammunition shortages, has the ability to arm large numbers of recruits without a fresh injection of Western aid.

Earlier this month, Volodymyr Fesenko, an analyst at the Center for Applied Political Studies Penta, said the law is crucial for Ukraine’s ability to keep up the fight against Russia, even though it is painful for Ukrainian society.

“A large part of the people do not want their loved ones to go to the front, but at the same time they want Ukraine to win,” he said.

Thursday's vote came after the parliamentary defense committee removed a key provision from the bill that would rotate out troops who served 36 months of combat — a key promise of the Ukrainian leadership. Lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said in a Telegram post that he was shocked by the move to remove the provision.

The committee instructed the Defense Ministry to draft a separate bill on demobilization within several months, news reports cited ministry spokesperson Dmytro Lazutkin as saying.

Exhausted soldiers, on the front lines since Russia invaded in February 2022, have no means of rotating out for rest. But considering the scale and intensity of the war against Russia, coming up with a system of rest will prove difficult to implement.

Ukraine already suffers from a lack of trained recruits capable of fighting, and demobilizing soldiers on the front lines now would deprive Ukrainian forces of their most capable fighters.

In nighttime missile and drone attacks, at least 10 of the strikes damaged energy infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said more than 200,000 people in the region were without power and Russia “is trying to destroy Kharkiv's infrastructure and leave the city in darkness.”

Ukraine’s leaders have pleaded for more air defense systems — aid that has been slow in coming.

Four people were killed and five injured in an attack on the city of Mykolaiv on Thursday, the regional governor, Vitalii Kim, said. In the Odesa region, four people were killed and 14 injured in Russian missile strikes Wednesday evening, said Gov. Oleh Kiper.

Energy facilities were also hit in the Zaporizhzhia and Lviv regions.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

At least 2,000 people arrested in pro-Palestinian protests on US campuses, AP tally shows

2024-05-03 04:17 Last Updated At：04:21

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police have arrested more than 2,000 people during pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the United States in recent weeks, according to an Associated Press tally Thursday.

Demonstrations — and arrests — have occurred in almost every corner of the nation. But in the last 24 hours, they’ve drawn the most attention at the University of California, Los Angeles, where chaotic scenes played out early Thursday when officers in riot gear surged against a crowd of demonstrators.

Hundreds of protesters at UCLA defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds.

At least 200 people were arrested, said Sgt. Alejandro Rubio of the California Highway Patrol, citing data from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Rubio said they were being booked at the county jails complex near downtown Los Angeles. UCLA police will determine what charges to bring.

Later Thursday morning, workers removed barricades and dismantled the protesters’ fortified encampment. Bulldozers scooped up bags of trash and tents. Some buildings were covered in graffiti.

Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.

The demonstrations began at Columbia University on April 17, with students calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.

California Highway Patrol officers poured into the UCLA campus by the hundreds early Thursday. Wearing face shields and protective vests, they held their batons out to separate themselves from demonstrators, who wore helmets and gas masks and chanted: “You want peace. We want justice.”

For hours, officers warned over loud speakers that there would be arrests if the crowd of more than 1,000 people did not disperse. Protesters and police shoved and scuffled. Police helicopters hovered and the sound of flash-bangs pierced the air. Police pulled off protesters’ helmets and goggles as they made arrests.

Police methodically tore apart the encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and dumpsters, then pulled down dozens of canopies and tents. The number of protesters diminished through the morning, some leaving voluntarily with their hands up and others detained by police.

The law enforcement presence and continued warnings contrasted with the scene Tuesday night, when counterdemonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment, throwing traffic cones, releasing pepper spray and tearing down barriers. Fighting between the two sides continued for hours before police stepped in. No one was arrested, but at least 15 protesters were injured. Authorities’ tepid response drew criticism from political leaders, Muslim students and advocacy groups.

By Wednesday afternoon, a small city sprang up inside the reenforced encampment, with hundreds of people and tents on the quad. Demonstrators rebuilt the makeshift barriers around their tents while state and campus police watched.

Some protesters said Muslim prayers as the sun set, while others chanted “we’re not leaving” or passed out goggles and surgical masks. They wore helmets and headscarves, and discussed the best ways to handle pepper spray or tear gas.

The crowd grew as the night wore on and as more officers poured onto campus.

Ray Wiliani, who lives nearby, said he went to UCLA on Wednesday evening to support the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

“We need to take a stand for it,” he said. “Enough is enough.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the delayed law enforcement response on Tuesday and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block promised to investigate. The head of the University of California system, Michael Drake, ordered an “independent review of the university’s planning, its actions and the response by law enforcement.”

“The community needs to feel the police are protecting them, not enabling others to harm them,” Rebecca Husaini, chief of staff for the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said during a news conference Wednesday.

Iranian state television carried live images of the police action at UCLA, as did Qatar’s pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite network. Live images of Los Angeles also played across Israeli television networks.

Israel has branded the protests antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.

President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the students’ right to peaceful protest but decried the disorder of recent days.

California Republican leaders blasted university administrations for failing to protect Jewish students and allowing protests to escalate into “lawlessness and violence.” They called for the firing of leaders at UCLA and Cal Poly Humboldt and pushed for a proposal that would cut pay for university administrators.

“We’ve got a whole lot of people in these universities drawing six figure salaries and they stood by and did nothing,” Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher told reporters. “There does need to be accountability.”

Meanwhile, protest encampments at schools across the U.S., were cleared by police — resulting in more arrests — or closed up voluntarily. In New York, those included the City College of New York, Fordham University, Stony Brook University and the University of Buffalo. Others nationwide included the University of New Hampshire in Durham, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, and Tulane University in New Orleans.

A college professor from Illinois said he suffered multiple broken ribs and a broken hand during a pro-Palestine protest on Saturday at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Bystander video shows the arrest of Steve Tamari, a history professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He seems to be moving in to take video or photos of protesters being detained when multiple officers roughly take him down.

In a post on the social platform X, Sandra Tamari said her husband needed surgery on his hand and has nine broken ribs.

Tamari said in a statement Thursday that it was “a small price to pay for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.” Campus police referred questions to the university’s communications department, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Upcoming graduations have become a concern.

Florida’s state university chancellor ordered campus presidents to take whatever steps necessary to prevent disruption of ceremonies. At the same time, University of Minnesota officials reached agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencements. Similar agreements have been made at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago and Brown University in Rhode Island.

Meanwhile, a professors group at Columbia University condemned school leadership on Thursday for asking police to remove protesters in what the group called a “horrific police attack on our students.” Officers burst into a building Tuesday, breaking up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school.

U.S. college campuses have become a flashpoint, with school leaders facing intense scrutiny over their handling of allegations of antisemitism and the right to free speech. The presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned following questions at a congressional hearing about whether calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.

Offenhartz and Frederick reported from New York. Associated Press journalists around the country contributed to this report, including Julie Watson, Krysta Fauria, John Antczak, Christopher L. Keller, Lisa Baumann, Stefanie Dazio, Jae C. Hong, Colleen Long, Karen Matthews, Sarah Brumfield, Carolyn Thompson, Philip Marcelo, Steve Karnowski and Eugene Johnson.