Bangladesh mourns slain activist as tensions rise ahead of elections

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral Saturday of a leading Bangladeshi activist who died of gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, as political tensions gripped the country ahead of elections.

Sharif Osman Hadi, who took part in last year’s political uprising that ended former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, died in a hospital in Singapore on Thursday after being shot Dec. 12 in Dhaka.

Police said they had identified suspects and that the shooter had most probably fled to India, where Hasina has been in exile. The development sparked a new diplomatic squabble with India and prompted New Delhi this week to summon Bangladesh’s envoy. Bangladesh also summoned the Indian envoy to Dhaka.

Security was tight in Dhaka on Saturday as the funeral prayers were held outside the nation’s Parliament complex.

Hadi’s body returned on Friday night, and Saturday was declared a national mourning day.

Hadi was a spokesperson for the Inqilab Moncho culture group, which said he would be buried on the Dhaka University campus beside the country’s national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.

Mourners carried Bangladesh flags and chanted slogans, such as “We will be Hadi, we will be fighting decades after decades,” and “We will not let Hadi’s blood go in vain.”

The news of his death on Thursday evening triggered violence, with groups of protesters attacking and torching the offices of two leading national dailies. The country’s interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has urged the people to stay calm.

Hadi was a fierce critic of both neighboring India and Hasina, who has been in exile since Aug. 5, 2024, when she fled Bangladesh. Hadi had planned to run as an independent candidate in a major constituency in Dhaka in the next national elections in February.

Bangladesh has been going through a critical transition under Yunus in a bid to return to democracy through the upcoming elections. But the government has been Hasina’s Awami League party, which is one of two major political parties. ,

Hasina’s archrival, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party is the other key party, which hopes to forms the next government. The Jamaat-e-Islami party, the country’s largest Islamist party with a dark history involving the nation’s independence war in 1971, is leading an alliance to carve out a bigger political space in the absence of Hasina’s party and its allies.

Hasina has been sentenced to death on charges of crimes against humanity, but India's has not responded to repeated requests by the Yunus-led government for her extradition.

Security forces stand guard at the entrance of nation's Parliament complex as people arrive to perform funeral prayers for leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Security forces control a group of people who arrived to participate in the funeral prayers for leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, in Dhaka, outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

People gather around an ambulance carrying the body of leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, following his funeral prayers outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

People react as they gather to perform funeral prayers for leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

People offer funeral prayers for leading Bangladeshi activist Sharif Osman Hadi, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in an attack in Dhaka earlier this month, outside the nation's Parliament complex in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Protesters shout slogans and block an intersection following overnight attacks and vandalism after the death of a prominent activist, who was shot by an assailant a week ago, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine’s emergency service said Saturday, as a a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war,

The discussions are part of the Trump administration's monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week. Ukraine's chief negotiator said late Friday that his delegation had completed separate meetings in the U.S. with American and European partners.

Meanwhile, European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said much will depend on the U.S. posture after discussions with the Russians.

Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv with Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, Zelenskyy said that “the key question remains how the United States responds after consultations with the Russians. At this point, I honestly don’t know, but I will know later today.”

Some of those wounded in Odesa were on a bus at the center of the strike late Friday, the emergency service said in a Telegram post. Trucks caught fire in the parking lot and cars were also damaged.

The port was struck with ballistic missiles, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the Odesa region.

Moscow did not immediately acknowledge reports of the attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that over the previous day, it had struck unspecified “transport and storage infrastructure used by the Ukrainian armed forces,” along with energy facilities and those supplying Kyiv's war effort.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian drones hit a Russian oil rig, the military patrol ship Okhotnik and other facilities, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement Saturday. It said the ship was patrolling in the Caspian Sea near an oil and gas production platform. The extent of the damage was still being clarified, it said.

The drilling platform at the Filanovsky oil and gas field as also hit. The facility is operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil. Ukrainian drones also struck a radar system in the Krasnosilske area of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian government or Lukoil. The company is one of two Russian oil majors — alongside state-owned Gazprom — targeted by recent U.S. sanctions that aim to deprive Moscow of oil export revenue that helps it sustain the war.

Kyiv has used similar arguments to justify months of long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, which it says both funds and directly fuels the Kremlin's all-out invasion, soon to enter its fifth year.

U.S. President Donald Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signaled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow's troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.

On Friday, Putin voiced confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.

EU leaders have agreed to provide 90 billion euros ($106 billion) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed on capital markets.

After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need 137 billion euros ($161 billion) in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needs the money by spring.

Meanwhile, Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, is set to meet with Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on Saturday, according to a U.S. official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview a meeting that hasn’t yet been publicly announced.

The official said Witkoff and Kushner will sit down with Dmitriev, after meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin for talks on U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv, territorial concessions and other aspects of the American-authored plan.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said late Friday that a Ukrainian delegation had met with American and European partners in the U.S. He gave few details, but said they agreed to continue “joint work in the near future.”

Asked about the meeting in Miami, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that Moscow was preparing for contacts with the U.S. to learn about the results of the meetings in Berlin, but he didn’t give details.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

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

A rescue worker walks in front of a residential house damaged after a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)