In Mariupol, Ukrainians vow to ‘fight to the end’
After weeks of shelling and bombings, Russia gave Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol till yesterday morning to put down their weapons or be “eliminated.” When Ukrainian officers vowed that they’d not give up, Russian forces intensified their assault on the southeastern metropolis, together with on the Azovstal metal plant, close to Mariupol’s port. Follow the newest updates.
The plant has change into the final line of Ukraine’s protection in stopping Russia from securing a strategically necessary land bridge between its stronghold in Crimea and japanese Ukraine. Ukrainian officers stated yesterday that the battle for Mariupol was not over and that its army forces would “fight to the end,” based on Denys Shmyhal, the prime minister.
Taking Mariupol could be one of many first main victories for Russia over the previous weeks, a interval by which it withdrew from the realm round Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, and misplaced certainly one of its most necessary warships, the Moskva. The Moskva’s sinking drew fierce response in some corners of the Russian information media, which known as for harsh retaliation.
By the numbers: It was unclear what number of Ukrainian troops had been nonetheless combating in Mariupol. Russian officers stated there have been 2,500 troopers aligned with Ukraine on the metal plant, together with “400 foreign mercenaries.” Ukrainians officers say Russian troops outnumber the Ukrainian forces within the metropolis by six to at least one.
In different information from the warfare:
Tensions rise in Israel amid intersecting holidays
Israel’s authorities disaster deepened final evening because the small Islamist social gathering Raam introduced it was freezing its participation within the coalition. The choice got here after the Israeli police, looking for to stop contact between Muslims and Jews, blocked Muslim worshipers for hours from coming into the Aqsa Mosque compound. See footage of the clashes.
The choice has no rapid influence on the federal government however has the potential to ship Israel to its fifth election in three years if the social gathering chooses to make it everlasting. The transfer highlights the fraying tightrope that Naftali Bennett, the prime minister, should stroll in an effort to preserve his ideologically numerous coalition collectively.
For the previous week, Israeli forces have raided cities and cities throughout the West Bank in response to latest Palestinian assaults in Israel that cumulatively killed 14 folks. Palestinians say the operation quantities to collective punishment and can solely additional stoke the cycle of hatred and bloodshed. Israelis say it’s a essential effort to counter terrorism.
Profile: Wassim Razzouk is a Palestinian Christian tattoo artist whose parlor is in Jerusalem’s Old City, which has lengthy been a crucible of friction within the area. “I have tattooed Christians, Palestinians, Ethiopians, Israelis — believe it or not, I’ve tattooed an Orthodox Jew with sidelocks,” he stated.
From Jerusalem: For the primary time since 1991, Passover, Easter and Ramadan have coincided, intensifying the spiritual synergies and tensions which have outlined Jerusalem for millenniums. Read a dispatch from our Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley.
Chipping away on the proper to hunt asylum
After World War II, the proper to hunt asylum was seen as each an ethical and a sensible crucial to rebuild shattered societies for the widespread good. But the Western powers that championed this perfect have steadily eroded it in recent times, reaching a brand new excessive final week when the British authorities introduced a plan to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Europe’s seeming double normal — as its governments welcome Ukrainians however proceed to maintain out migrants from the Middle East — has laid the unwritten norms of the worldwide refugee system particularly naked. Britain’s personal coverage highlights how this method, as soon as held up as an obligation, is now handled as successfully voluntary, writes Max Fisher in The Interpreter column.
Still, Britain didn’t invent the observe of shutting refugees and asylum seekers in faraway amenities. European governments have been paying international despots and warlords to detain migrants on their behalf for years. And the U.S. successfully pioneered the observe in 1991, when it diverted boats filled with Haitians to Guantánamo Bay.
Quotable: “It’s pretty bold to, within a month, offer housing to Ukrainians and then announce you’re sending all the other migrants 4,000 miles away,” stated Stephanie Schwartz, a scholar of migration politics on the University of Pennsylvania.
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When classical music was an alibi
What does politics need to do with classical music? The argument involves the fore repeatedly when artists come below scrutiny for his or her involvement in present occasions. Most lately, musicians whose ties to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, have been questioned.
Yet performing classical music, or listening to it, has by no means been an apolitical act, based on Emily Richmond Pollock of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Kira Thurman of the University of Michigan.
The concept that it is perhaps apolitical flourished within the wake of World War II, they write in The Times, thanks partially to the method of denazification, the Allied initiative to purge German-speaking Europe of Nazi political, social and cultural affect.
Almost all working Austrian and German musicians had been implicated within the Third Reich. Many rank-and-file artists had been required to hitch Nazi organizations in an effort to remained employed, and the correlation of such membership to ideological dedication was typically ambiguous. And the truth that classical music was the trade they labored in doesn’t imply they transcended politics.
Read extra concerning the complicated relationship between politics and classical music.
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The newest episode of “The Daily” is a few Supreme Court case introduced by a prisoner who spent a long time in solitary confinement.
You can attain Natasha and the workforce at briefing@nytimes.com.