KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It’s grape season in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar, and the harvest this year is plentiful. But that’s small comfort for the region’s grape producers and workers, who say fighting between Afghanistan and Pakistan has left them unable to access their primary market.
For months, the two countries have traded fire sporadically across their long, mountainous border, leaving hundreds of people dead. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan's Taliban government of harboring militants who carry out attacks inside Pakistan — a charge Kabul denies.
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An Afghan worker collects grapes to be dried into raisins at a vineyard in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Green grapes are hung on wooden racks to dry at a warehouse in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Afghan workers collect grapes to be dried into raisins at a vineyard in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Ahmad Shah arranges green grapes to dry into raisins at a warehouse in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Green grapes are hung on wooden racks to dry at a warehouse in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
With the fighting have come border closures, severing a critical trade route and preventing Afghan producers from reaching what is the primary export market for many goods.
Unable to export their fresh fruit, Afghan grape producers have turned to the domestic market, where the increased supply has sent prices tumbling. To adapt, many producers are now drying their grapes and turning them into raisins — a cheaper product that sells for less.
In a long warehouse in Kandahar’s Zhari district, fans whirl overhead, stirring the hot summer air around bunches of plump, green grapes draped over sticks set up in rows to dry.
But even for raisins, prices have tanked.
Sakhi Jan, who owns a grape orchard in Zhari, says that with 10 people in his household to feed, he's barely getting by. Seven kilograms (15.5 pounds) of raisins used to sell for around 1,000 to 1,200 afghanis ($13 to $16), he says. Now, the same amount sells for just 400-450 afghanis ($5-$6).
In a country where poverty is rife and malnutrition strikes the most vulnerable, such income losses can be critical.
“We are grateful, but things aren’t like they used to be, the struggle is much harder now,” Jan said. “In the past, work was steady, we used to sell some grapes, and people generally had good work but now the hardship is immense.”
Opening the border crossings and allowing trade to flow once more is critical, he stressed.
“We urge both our government and Pakistan to open these routes and reach an agreement,” he said. “The current situation is causing great hardship.”
Abdul Baqi Bina, the deputy director of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said the border closure has dealt a severe blow to Afghanistan's fruit exports — not just grapes, but also pomegranates.
In 2025, five southern Afghan provinces that make up the country’s main grape-producing region exported 44,225 tons — $13.8 million worth of grapes. Nearly all — 43,000 tons — went to Pakistan and the remainder headed to Bangladesh, Iraq and India, Bina said. So far this year, only 256 tons have been exported, at a value of $100,000.
For grape exporter Haji Abdul Hai, it has been a disaster.
“In my 50 years of life, I have never seen these roads closed to the extent they are now,” he said, adding that previous border closures would usually last for a few days, or one crossing would close while another remained open.
“But now, we are facing truly major difficulties,” he said.
Last year, the orchard where Qudratullah Popal worked picking grapes employed about 1,500 workers. This year, Popal said the number has plummeted to around 15.
“There have been good harvests. Grapes turned out well, but the issue is they cannot be exported to other countries. They are being sent to domestic locations … where there is already an abundance of grapes,” he said.
“When routes are blocked and trade halts, everyone’s livelihood is paralyzed, traders, laborers and orchard owners alike,” Popal said.
An Afghan worker collects grapes to be dried into raisins at a vineyard in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Green grapes are hung on wooden racks to dry at a warehouse in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Afghan workers collect grapes to be dried into raisins at a vineyard in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Ahmad Shah arranges green grapes to dry into raisins at a warehouse in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
Green grapes are hung on wooden racks to dry at a warehouse in Zhari district, Kandahar province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Sibghatullah)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies announced Wednesday that they are investigating senior officials in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, a day after the country’s recently fired defense minister called for national elections despite the ongoing fight against Russia’s invasion.
The revelation brought another test of Zelenskyy’s political resilience as Ukraine’s war with its bigger neighbor stretches into its fifth year.
Investigators are conducting an operation to expose a criminal organization allegedly led by a sitting and a former lawmaker, involving senior officials from the presidential office and other individuals, according to a joint statement from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Further details would be released later, the agencies said in a joint statement.
Zelenskyy made no public comment on the investigation but issued a decree dismissing Iryna Mudra from the position of deputy head of the Office of the President.
Zelenskyy remains dogged by high-level graft investigations.
Last year, his chief of staff Andriy Yermak resigned and was later named as a suspect in a major graft probe involving a luxury construction project in the biggest threat to Zelenskyy’s government since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Also last year, a major embezzlement and kickbacks scandal involving the state-owned nuclear power company brought the resignations of Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers.
The European Union has identified deep-seated corruption as one of the major hurdles to Ukraine's desired membership in the bloc.
Zelenskyy is already under pressure over his firing last month of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, one of the longest-standing members of his team and a close ally since he helped Zelenskyy win the 2019 presidential election.
Zelenskyy, seeking to reconcile tensions between the defense ministry's young and tech-savvy innovators and Ukraine's seasoned, Soviet-trained battlefield leaders, risked angering both sides by reshuffling his wartime leadership. He ousted both Fedorov, whose changes to military procurement aimed to stamp out corruption, and commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
That sparked days of street protests in support of Fedorov. For Zelenskyy, it was the second time in a year that a wartime decision triggered a strong public backlash, after he moved in mid-2025 to curb the powers of anti-corruption agencies.
Fedorov, in a video address posted to YouTube late Tuesday, called for elections to be held in Ukraine in a bombshell statement that appeared to directly confront Zelenskyy, who says a ballot can't be held under the martial law in place due to the war.
“We must find a legal, safe and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even amid a prolonged war,” Fedorov said.
He said Ukraine is facing a systemic crisis in how it is governed, arguing that the current system is oriented toward protecting itself and resisting change. He also condemned corruption among officials without naming anyone, saying it had weakened Ukraine’s ability to fight the war.
Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately comment on Fedorov’s address. It was not immediately clear whether Fedorov's appeal for a ballot would resonate with Ukrainians.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has balked at negotiating a peace deal directly with Zelenskyy, asserts that the Ukrainian president is an illegitimate leader because his term expired in 2024.
Ukraine’s Parliament approved Zelenskyy's candidate, Yevhenii Khmara, as the new defense minister in a vote Wednesday, a move that effectively closes the door to Fedorov’s return to the post, which he has sought, any time soon.
Lawmakers also gave their consent for Andrii Sybiha to stay on as foreign minister after holding the post in an interim role.
The political disarray comes after recent successes in the war for Ukraine. Using its innovative drone technology, it has repeatedly hit Russian oil facilities, causing fuel shortages. It has also shocked the Russian public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, Russia's biggest online retailer, and stalled front-line advances by Russia's bigger army.
But Zelenskyy has been unable to get traction in U.S.-led peace efforts, and Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia's ballistic missiles because more U.S.-made Patriot interceptors aren't available due to low international stockpiles.
In its latest strike on oil facilities, a drone hit an oil refinery in Ufa in Russia's Bashkortostan, its Gov. Radiy Khabirov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
The city of Ufa is located roughly 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of the border with Ukraine. There are three oil refineries in Ufa, and all three have been attacked before.
Russian air defenses overnight intercepted 453 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Wednesday.
The Defense Ministry said Russian forces on Tuesday evening hit a bulk carrier in the Black Sea, southeast of Odesa, that was carrying military equipment. On Wednesday, the Russian military struck what it said were fuel and lubricant storage tanks for the Ukrainian armed forces in the southern port of Chornomorsk.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, a Russian drone attacked a minibus in the southern Kherson region on Wednesday morning, killing four people, said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration. Four women were also wounded in the strike and were hospitalized, he said.
Also, a Russian drone struck a civilian car in Kherson city, the region's capital, on Wednesday, killing a woman, Prokudin said.
Amid the fighting, Russia and Ukraine each sent home 103 prisoners of war Wednesday, according to Zelenskyy and the Russian Defense Ministry.
Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
People sing and hold up their cell phone flashlights during a rally to protest the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's Defense Minister in Kyiv, late Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People stand still for a minute of silence during a rally to protest against the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's Defense Minister in Kyiv, Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
People march during a rally to protest the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine's Defense Minister in Kyiv, late Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
FILE - Ukraine's Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov speaks to journalists during a joint press conference with Sweden's Defense Minister Pal Jonson in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, file)
