Category World News

‘Church has changed’: Will the next pope allow women to become priests?

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Rome, Italy: When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, he was criticized for enlarging the Roman Catholic Church’s role for women.

He did, at least, deliver. Women were given access to important meetings by Francis, who also appointed the first woman to the Vatican governorate. These were significant accomplishments for a deeply conservative institution for some. However, Francis’s actions were insufficient to fulfill the requirements for a truly inclusive Church, according to many others.

The role of women in the Church continues to be a divisive issue as cardinals convene daily meetings before voting on his death on April 21. Will the cardinals have chosen a pope who can build on Francis’ changes, or someone who might reverse them, when they finally leave their cocoon in the Vatican?

Women’s Ordination Conference, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting women’s rights in Church institutions, is led by Kate McElwee, the executive director. Because there is a real desire for the [women’s] inclusion project to continue, there is some concern about whether the next papacy will experience some backsliding in the progress.

The project isn’t finished.

When it comes to women in the Church, Francis’ legacy is still up for debate.

At the Synod of Bishops, he gave women the authority to cast ballots on matters relating to the Church. Additionally, he appointed a dozen women to high-ranking positions, including Sister Simona Brambilla as the first female prefect of a Vatican office overseeing religious orders for both men and women, as well as Sister Raffaella Petrini as the head of the powerful Vatican City State and Barbara Jatta as the director of the Vatican Museums. Across Pope Francis’ papacy, according to Vatican figures, the percentage of women in the Church’s workforce increased from about 19% to 23.4% overall.

These were merely cosmetic changes, some people thought. The pope did not address the contentious subject of women ordination, particularly as priests and deacons.

The deacon’s position in the Catholic Church includes a few religious duties, including assisting with mass and assisting with baptism, but it does not permit the carrying out of the most sacraments.

By examining whether women could serve as deacons in the Church’s early years, Pope Francis established two commissions: the first in 2016 and the second in 2020. The commission could not reach an agreement on the subject, according to Francis, and the second group’s report never came to an end, while the third group’s work was never finished. Pope Francis vehemently opposed the ordination of women deacons in an interview with US broadcaster CBS in 2024. However, he approved the synod’s final document a few months later, saying the matter should remain an “open” question.

According to McElwee, “it seems like he unlocked the door but didn’t completely unlock it.”

And Pope John Paul II, who prohibited women from becoming priests in 1994, has since been repeatedly refuted.

On April 27, 2025, Cardinals of the Vatican City observe the Holy Mass on Divine Mercy.

Men’s All-Star Club

Members of an all-male body are currently debating the Church’s future. This underrepresentation is on full display in this context. Cardinals are addressing the main issues and priorities that a future pope should be able to address at pre-conclave meetings in Rome, including the Church’s sexual and financial scandals, the global crisis of faith, China’s relations, and the significance of canon law.

The majority of the cardinals who will cast ballots for the new pontiff inside the Sistine Chapel this week have been chosen by Pope Francis and support his goals in many ways, including climate change, migration, and social justice. However, some observers claim that they haven’t made a clear statement about the status of women in the Church.

The Stockholm, Sweden bishop, Cardinal Anders Arborelius, said it was “important to see that there are other ways” for women to serve the Church “than ordained ministry.” And Beniamino Stella, an Italian cardinal who is close to the late pope, surprised fellow clergymen by accusing Francis of opening the Vatican offices to non-clerical figures in a speech at a pre-conclave meeting this week.

Sister Marie, a nun waiting for the new pope’s election, greeted the Vatican from Marseille, France.

She said, “Everyone has their role, and we are happy to remain in our current position, which is not within the Church’s hierarchy,” when she asked for her surname to be kept secret. Women serving as deacons or priests “would denaturalize” the Church’s foundation and the transmission of the faith,” she said.

The conservative guard also criticized Francis’s choice to appoint nonclerical people to positions of authority. Leading conservative Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller from Germany described the Roman Curia as an ecclesiastical body that should not be run by lay people in an interview with Repubblica last week. This was likely a criticism of Sister Brambilla’s appointment last year.

conclave
Cardinals march through the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on April 18, 2005 [Photo by AP Photo]

A reality that is already present

Sabina Pavone, a professor of history of Christianity at the University of Naples L’Orientale and a member of the Italian Society of Historians, claimed that the Church cannot afford to ignore the role and status of women.

“There is a realization that this topic needs to be addressed because it continues to be one of the hot topics,” Pavone said. “How to address it is not yet understood.

She noted that the inclusion of women in the Church is becoming increasingly important to the operation of Catholic institutions. Women are already taking the lead in many places around the world, from running parishes to providing local healthcare to teaching, while the majority of men are pursuing priesthood.

Ex-leader Khaleda Zia returns to Bangladesh at ‘crucial time for democracy’

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After four months of receiving medical care in the British capital, London, former prime minister of Bangladesh Khaleda Zia has returned to Dhaka, putting pressure on the interim government to set a date for national elections.

Since Sheikh Hasina was ousted in a student-led uprising in August of last year, Zia’s return on Tuesday marked a crucial moment for Bangladesh, which has been under an interim government.

Despite Hasina’s exile in India, Zia’s presence in the nation has a significant symbolic significance for her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) party.

“We and the country are delighted at this.” Her presence marks a significant day for the nation at this crucial time for democracy. We think Khaleda Zia’s return will pave the way for a democratic transition, according to BNP Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

Zia, who has spent recent years in and out of hospital, was welcomed by thousands of supporters gathered outside Dhaka’s main airport and along the road leading to her home. At the airport, she was seen using a wheelchair. The 78-year-old BNP leader grinned as she repeatedly raised her right to receive greetings.

Former prime minister Khaleda Zia leaves the airport on May 6, 2025, escorting her car as she leaves.

Hasina’s main political rival, a three-time prime minister, twice for five-year terms and once for a short period, was found guilty in 2018 and given a total sentence of 17 years in prison for allegedly stealing money from charitable trusts. The BNP saw the allegations as politically motivated and were brought during Hasina’s rule.

The Supreme Court of Bangladesh acquitted Zia in January, overturning her 10-year sentence and releasing her from any charges. In a separate, well-known case in November 2024, Zia was charged with misappropriating more than $ 260, 000 from a second trust during her most recent term in office.

Date of the election

Although Zia has already been freed from jail, her arrival in Bangladesh will stoke calls for the interim government to set a date for national elections.

Depending on the pace of reforms, Bangladesh’s government has committed to holding elections by December of this year or June of that year.

Ziaur Rahman, who was killed in 1981, became the nation’s first female prime minister and one of the first women to lead South Asia as a woman, leaving her husband.

Tarique Rahman, Zia’s elder son, serves as the BNP’s acting director from exile in London.

‘We are suffering’: Displaced families bear burden of South Sudan conflict

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In Mat town, in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, Nyandeng Meeth was fetching water from a borehole one morning in the middle of April before heading home to cook for her nine children and open her small street stall.

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire and shelling tore through the familiarity and routine of the 50-year-old mother’s everyday life. She recalls how people frantically searched for their belongings, including their families, in a town that was thrown into chaos.

Meeth fled home without a trace because of her children. “I]had] left the children at home when I went to fetch water”, she said. When I returned home, there was no one I ran into. The nine siblings, ages 7 to 15, had fled along with the rest of the population.

The attacks, reportedly by Sudan People’s Liberation Army-in-Opposition forces (SPLA-IO), were part of a broader escalation in fighting between government forces – the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) – and opposition troops, including the White Army group aligned with First Vice President Riek Machar.

More than 130, 000 people have been displaced by violence since late February in the Jonglei and Upper Nile states. Since then, aerial bombardments and fighter raids have emptied entire towns, hampered aid, and blocked important trade routes from neighboring Ethiopia.

The fighting is also prompting the country’s worst cholera outbreak in two decades, aid groups say, as patients fled medical centres where they were receiving treatment when the conflict broke out, spreading the disease in the process.

However, Meeth’s terror was rekindled by recent events, which occurred almost ten years ago when her husband was killed in a previous conflict.

A civil war broke out between Machar-aligned forces loyal to President Salva Kiir in South Sudan in 2013, just two years after the country’s independence. The war killed an estimated 400, 000 people and displaced 2.5 million – more than a fifth of the population.

In 2015, Meeth’s husband, a soldier, was killed.

Although there was a peace deal reached between the conflicting factions in 2018, disagreements over how to carry out it, including delayed elections, have persisted.

Unresolved political disputes have driven cycles of violence over the years. However, things got worse this year, with Machar’s arrest and clashes between government forces and opposition fighter groups. The country may be in danger of waging a full-fledged civil war, according to a warning from the UN.

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar during a meeting in Juba, South Sudan, in October 2019 after a peace agreement was signed]File: Jok Solomun/Reuters]

“My life in Mat was better,” said one participant.

More explosions rang out in Mat town on that mid-April day as Meeth, who had not yet located her children, rang out. She ran towards the Sobat River, where panicked residents scrambled to flee across to neighbouring Upper Nile State.

She noticed her 7th-year-old daughter running alone toward the riverbank in the crowd. Without knowing whether her eight other children, who were younger than her, had survived, she grabbed her hand and leapt into a canoe.

They landed in Panam, a town in Panyikang County in Upper Nile, about 2km (1.2 miles) from their home, where thousands of displaced families who have fled bouts of conflict from previous years are gathered, with little access to food, water, or medical care.

Meeth claimed that she was unable to eat or sleep there for two anxious nights. She remarked, “If your child is lost, you can’t be happy, even when I get food,” while sat beneath a coconut tree, which has since become her refuge.

Volunteers from the Panam community searched along the riverbanks and through the surrounding bushes for missing people. Eight of Meeth’s children were discovered after two days.

According to Meeth, “some of them hid in the river, while others hid under the shade of trees,” pointing out that her children could still hear gunfire from their locations, so they hid out of fear.

The ordeal had taken a toll on them. They had lost weight from hunger and exposure, and their bodies had become mosquito-bite-covered, she claimed.

Due to fighting that is still preventing aid access, she and her children are now sleeping under the coconut trees along the river. They are surviving on the roots of yellow water lilies and other wild plants.

Before the latest wave of violence, Meeth supported her family in Mat by selling tea, sugar, and other household essentials from an informal stall. When drought or floods caused the family to lose money, relatives who had been fishing would sometimes share their catch.

But what little she had has been taken away by the conflict. “My life in Mat was better because I had shelter, I had a mosquito net and shoes, and access to a hospital”, she said. She continued, “I had two goats but had to leave them,” citing Mat’s fugitives’ relatives who had informed her that the rebels had taken her livestock.

South Sudan
People who were recently displaced by a recent conflict in Mat, Jonglei State.

‘ Life is very difficult ‘

Before the most recent upheaval of fighting, there was hardship in South Sudan.

According to a recent World Bank report, nearly 7.7 million people are in crisis, emergency, or catastrophic levels of hunger, and 92 percent of the population is considered to be in poverty.

Not far from the Meeth family in Panam, 70-year-old Nyankhor Ayuel sat under the shade of another coconut tree with her seven children.

In Pigi County in Jonglei, they eluded Khorfulus in April.

“We and the kids were at home. We had already prepared food, and as we started eating, the shelling started”, she said. We didn’t have any food or luggage on our run.

Although they avoided the initial hostility, Ayuel claimed that hunger and illness now pose a different threat. Pregnant and nursing mothers, she said, are suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting due to lack of access to clean water and food.

She told Al Jazeera, “Life is very difficult. Our lodging lacks any amenities, such as food or medicine.

For families like Zechariah Monywut Chuol’s, who also fled Khorfulus, hardship has only deepened.

When the shelling started, the 57-year-old father of 12 was just beginning to build a permanent home for his family. When the foundation started to fall, I was at home digging it. We ran to the riverbank and got into canoes”, he said.

Chuol and his family now rely on coconut water and whatever fruits they can find along the Sobat River to survive, just like so many others in Panam.

He claimed that “many people would have already died if hunger could kill like sickness.”

South Sudan army
South Sudan soldiers patrol the street in Juba, in February 2025]Brian Inganga/AP]

A flimsy future

More than 9.3 million people in South Sudan, or three-quarters of the population, need humanitarian aid, according to the UN. Nearly half of them are children.

All aid efforts have come to an end because of the conflicts in Upper Nile and Jonglei. Aid organizations were forced to resign from their positions due to airborne bombardment and danger, shut down cholera treatment centers, and halt aid deliveries.

This weekend, the “deliberate bombing of]a Doctors Without Borders] hospital in Old Fangak” in Jonglei killed several people, the medical charity known by its French initials, MSF, said.

Due to limited access, the World Food Programme (WFP) stopped operations in a number of areas last month.

WFP’s South Sudan country director, Mary-Ellen McGroarty, said physically accessible places can be challenging at times. “But with active conflict, WFP cannot go up, we cannot go down the river. And these are the places where there are no cars, trucks, and roads, she claimed at the time of the UN press briefing.

More than 30 000 people who fled violence in Pigi County are now sheltering in displacement camps like Panam, where aid has yet to be found, according to Peter Matai, director of the government-run Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, which collaborates with international organizations to support internally displaced people.

“We’ve reported the situation to both the state government and international organisations”, said Matai. However, “aid organizations are still waiting for clearance from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to access displacement sites and deliver aid,” according to a statement released a few weeks after the fighting.

Thousands of displaced families are still living in limbo, caught between conflict, disease, and hunger; they are unsure when or if they will be safe to return home because the violence is still ongoing and access to humanitarian aid is limited.

For Meeth, who also serves as a deacon in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, all she can do now is pray for her children’s safety, and hope that others will step in to help.

She claimed that “we are suffering.” We must hear that we are in a bad place from our neighbors who live abroad. They should help us provide for our needs”.

Gordon, Jokic lead Nuggets past Thunder in Game 1 of NBA playoffs

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The Denver Nuggets defeated the No. 1 seeded Oklahoma City Thunder 121-119 in a thrilling NBA Western Conference second-round series opener with Aaron Gordon’s stunning 3-point performance and Nikola Jokic’s stunning 42-point masterpiece.

With four seconds left, Nuggets forward Gordon drained a 25-foot effort from outside the arc to take the win on Monday against a Thunder lineup that had already scored up to 14 points in the third quarter at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.

The Thunder held on to a double-digit lead for the majority of the fourth quarter, but their advantage came to an end when Jokic scored 18 points.

In addition to his 42-point tally, the towering three-time NBA MVP finished with 22 rebounds, six assists, two blocks, and a steal.

With 10 seconds left, Chet Holmgren’s team were defending a slim 119-118 lead before conceding two missed free throws.

Denver rebounded and launched the final offensive offensive exercise that culminated with Gordon’s impressive 3-pointer.

The all-around power of Gordon, who finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds, was praised by interim Denver coach David Adelman.

He is a Denver Nugget, the soul of our team, Adelman said, “I’m looking at ball-handling, responsibilities, leadership.” It’s cool to see him in that kind of a situation.

Gordon claimed that the Nuggets’ unflinching resolve had helped them win the game.

He claimed that “many guys stepped up.” No matter what the circumstances were, we had the conviction that we would prevail.

Jamal Murray scored 21 points for Gordon and Russell Westbrook, who added 18 points for Jokic.

With eight rebounds and eight assists, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led Oklahoma City with 33 points, five three-pointers, and 20-point scoring from the bench.

On Wednesday, the second game of the best-of-seven series will take place.

In Game 1 of their Western Conference, second-round series, Denver Nuggets relegated NBA MVP Nikola Jokic #15 to the line with 42 points. [Sam Hodde /Getty Images via AFP]

What is a conclave? How will next pope be chosen and the challenges ahead

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EXPLAINER

As the formal mourning period for Pope Francis has ended, attention now shifts to the papal conclave in Vatican City, where powerful members of the Catholic Church are converging to elect the next pontiff.

At a ceremony of spiritual, political, and global significance, Cardinals from all over the world will elect the 267th pope, the leader of the 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide. After serving for 12 years in the papacy, Francis passed away on April 21 at the age of 88.

The conclave, which will kick off on Wednesday, will be held behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel. It lasts typically for several days and, occasionally, for weeks.

What we know is as follows:

What is a papal conclave?

  • Conclave is a term that derives from the Latin word “con clavis,” which means “with a key,” and is a reference to the custom of keeping the cardinals locked up until a new pope is elected.
  • A papal conclave is a solemn, secret election of the College of Cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Known as the “princes of the church”, the cardinals follow an intricate and centuries-old process rooted in the Middle Ages.
  • Although the customs have changed, Pope John Paul II’s 1996 apostolic constitution, Universi Dominici Gregis, and subsequent modifications by Pope Benedict XVI, form the foundation of the current procedures.
  • Despite being under the age of 80, all cardinals are able to attend the meetings. There are currently 135 eligible voters.

A pope is what?

  • The pope is regarded as the first leader of the early Christian church and the follower of St. Peter, the head of Jesus’ apostles.
  • As such, the pope holds supreme authority over the worldwide Catholic Church in matters of faith, morals, governance and discipline.
  • 252 cardinals support the pope, who is the spiritual leader of Catholics all over the world.
  • The pope is undeniably a powerful global figure, according to Father Francis Lucas, a Catholic priest and executive director of the Catholic Media Network, while Pope Francis stressed that Jesus Christ possesses real power and that he is merely a disciple.
  • The pope typically presides over major church celebrations held at St Peter’s Basilica throughout the year. At least once every five years, he is expected to meet with more than 5, 000 bishops from all over the world. He is also in charge of overseeing and administering the Vatican in his capacity as the bishop of Rome.

INTERACTIVE-What is a Pope?-MAY5-2025-1746451996

When will the conclave start?

  • The Apostolic Palace, or Papal Palace, at the Vatican, is where the papal conclave is scheduled to take place on Wednesday.
  • This comes in addition to Francis’ customary nine-day mourning period.

What happens on the first day of the conclave?

Mass at 10:00 AM (08:00 GMT) to elect a pope

  • The day’s opening mass is “Pro Eligendo Pontifice,” a public ceremony led by the College of Cardinals dean, in St. Peter’s Basilica.
  • It’s a solemn liturgy asking the Holy Spirit to guide the church in selecting a new pope.

Procession into the Sistine Chapel at 4:30 p.m. (14:30 GMT).

  • The 135 cardinal electors chant the Litany of the Saints in the Pauline Chapel near the Sistine Chapel in the afternoon.
  • “This is an ancient prayer of the Catholic Church that names the saints in a sort of a roll call, one by one by one”, said Steven P Millies, professor of public theology at the Catholic Theological Union, a Catholic graduate school of theology in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.
  • St. Peter, please pray for us. “St. James, pray for us,” Millies said, “seeing the intercession of all the holy men and women who have come before us for the success of the conclave.”
  • They then chant Veni Creator Spiritus and process into the Sistine Chapel.
  • The Holy Spirit, fully God as well as the Father and the Son, but the Spirit who guides the church, is also a prayer, Millies said.

Locking the conclave is “Extra Omnes”:

  • After taking an oath of secrecy, the phrase “Extra omnes”! (“Everyone out”) The chapel is sealed, and the declaration is made. Only the electors and essential staff remain, cut off from the outside world.

First vote

  • The cardinals have the option of casting just one ballot in the first day.

Return to residence

  • They return to their secured Vatican residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where they spend the rest of the conclave in solitude.
  • Millies claimed that “this is a little different from what it was in the past.”
  • “In the old days, what they did was they converted the salons of the Apostolic Palace with very uncomfortable cots and pitchers of water. They built this hotel because it was very uncomfortable for a room full of very old men to have to sleep in such conditions, he continued.

What is the procedure for voting?

  • Voting after the first day occurs a maximum of four times: twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon.
  • Each cardinal chooses a candidate on the ballot that reads “Eligo in Summum Pontificem” (“I elect as Supreme Pontiff”) and writes in their name.
  • Before Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, they take the oath and place their votes in a chalice.
Vatican
In this photo from April 18, 2005, cardinals walk to the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican at the beginning of the conclave that elected Benedict XVI a day later]File: Osservatore Romano/AP]
  • Voting is suspended on the fifth day to allow for prayer, quiet reflection, and informal discussions if a pope is not chosen within the first four days of the conclave.
  • A pope must be chosen with a two-thirds majority. If no one reaches that threshold, another vote is held. Votes are burned after each round.
  • No pope has been chosen, as evidenced by the black smoke coming from a chimney above the Sistine Chapel. White smoke signals the Catholic Church has a new pontiff.
  • A mixture of potassium perchlorate, anthracene, and sulphur produces white smoke, while potassium chlorate, lactose, and a conifer resin known as rosin are combined to create the latter.
  • By the end of the second day of voting, the last two conclaves, held in 2005 and 2013, had come to an end.

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What challenges does the conclave face?

  • During his papacy, Francis significantly altered the College of Cardinals, focusing on pastoral issues and global representation. That presents its own set of difficulties.
  • “]The Catholic Church] is a church that has to understand how to be one church globally which is united on fundamental things but has to do things differently in different contexts”, said Massimo Faggioli, a professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.
  • Because there is one canon law for every church, whether it be in Alaska or Indonesia, making that the most challenging aspect of Catholicism, he continued.
Cardinals Peter Ebere Okpaleke and Charles Maung
Before the conclave, Nigerian Cardinals Peter Ebere Okpaleke, left, and Myanmar’s Charles Maung attend a general congregation meeting [Dylan Martinez / Reuters]
  • According to experts, each cardinal brings a distinct vision. Global South cardinals may seek a pope who supports interfaith dialogue while those from the Global South are likely to prioritize globalization and poverty.
  • According to Mills, “I believe what Francis was doing very intentionally was inviting those various concerns from various places to engage in dialogue.”
  • “And one thing, I think, that was very much on his mind was the church in parts of the world where Catholicism is a minority – where there are Muslim majorities or other majorities too. He made these decisions, he said, considering the Catholics’ experiences there, and I believe that was very important to him when he made those choices.

What are the church’s principal difficulties?

  • The Catholic Church today faces multiple challenges. In addition to declining attendance, growing secularism, and rising numbers of people who claim to be religiously unaffiliated, there are some other factors.
  • According to The Washington Post, which cited the Vatican in reporting, “The Holy See is receiving a steady 800 cases per year from places like Poland, Italy, Latin America, and Asia,” trust is still being eroded by widespread sexual abuse scandals.
  • Internally, tensions between modernising reforms (on issues like LGBTQ+ rights and women’s roles) and traditionalist values are growing.
  • However, creating a global church is regarded as one of the biggest challenges, according to experts.
  • According to Mills, “the Roman Catholic Church of the 21st century is getting to know what it means to be a global church.”
  • “And what it means to be a global church in the end is that the archbishop of New York City is every bit as much a Roman Catholic as the poor baptised worker in East Timor”, he added.

What transpires following the election of the pope?

  • He first accepts the position and chooses a papal name that best captures his vision or inspiration after being elected. The previous pope, whose real name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose Francis as his papal name to honor St Francis of Assisi.
  • The “Room of Tears” then transforms the new pope into white papal vestments. The Room of Tears is reportedly named because many newly elected popes experience emotional shock as they first put on a white cassock and grasp the magnitude of their new responsibilities.
  • Shortly after, the senior cardinal announces “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum, HabemusPapam”! () “I tell you that we have a pope! The new pope issues his first official blessing from St. Peter’s Basilica balcony.
  • ” The installation of the new pope will complete that cycle of events. Then, according to Mills, we will begin looking into the appointments that a new pope will make within the Vatican administration.
  • What new appointments does the pope make, who sacks, and who stays. That will be very interesting to watch, as will the statements the new pope gives, “he added.

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,167

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On Tuesday, May 6, 2018, this is the situation:

Fighting

  • At least three people were killed on Monday in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Sumy, according to Ukrainian authorities.
  • Two women were killed in a car attack by Ukrainian drones in the Kursk region of Russia, according to a post on Telegram by Governor Alexander Khinstein.
    He claimed that an explosive device was dropped onto a 53-year-old man’s car, killing him as well.
  • According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, 105 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight by Russian forces, according to RIA Novosti news agency.
  • As a result of the city’s repeated night-long strike, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that at least 19 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed, leading to the closure of all airports for several hours. There were no casualties reported.
  • At least 18 drones were also destroyed by Russian forces in the southwest of Voronezh and ten drones over the southern Pena region, according to regional authorities.
  • According to the governor of the region, Ukrainian forces attacked a power substation in Kursk, Russia.
  • Alexander Sladkov, a war correspondent for the Russian state television, and a number of Russian war bloggers reported a recent Ukrainian land-based invasion of Kursk supported by armored vehicles. The reported advance was not made public by Kyiv.

diplomacy and politics

  • On Tuesday, the European Union will release a “roadmap” on how to reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027.
  • Olaf Scholz, the incoming German Chancellor, stated to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine would continue to support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. According to spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, Scholz “reaffirmed Germany’s continued and unwavering solidarity with Ukraine.”
  • Friedrich Merz, Germany’s currently elected leader, will take office on Tuesday with a lengthy list of to-dos that include continuing to support Kyiv. Without a doubt, he said last month, “Germany will stand with Ukraine without any ifs or buts.”