Aid groups, meanwhile, have been told by Israel that they will need to re-register with the government and provide personal information about their staffers. They say Israel has told them that, going forward, it could bar organizations for various reasons, including criticism of Israel, or any activities it says promote the “delegitimization” of Israel.
Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia and its Kaliningrad exclave, announced plans to close their airspace to the planes carrying Serbia’s and Slovakia’s leaders to Moscow this week for the celebrations out of safety concerns, officials there said.“Who could deny that in such a quite active cyber background … that somebody will not use this as a possible provocation to create problems and risks for the flight of these people through the Republic of Lithuania,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said Wednesday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in comments to Russian state TV, called the move “a disgrace.”Flight restrictions across Russia because of Ukrainian drone threats, including temporary closures at airports in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi and elsewhere, affected at least 350 flights and at least 60,000 passengers, the Russian Tour Operators Association said.Russian public holidays in early May, including the days around Victory Day, is a popular time for many Russians to go on vacation and travel abroad.
Xi’s visit to Russia is his third since the Kremlin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.in March 2023 on a trip that offered an important political boost to Putin just days after the International Criminal Court
for the Russian leader on charges of alleged involvement in abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine. He also traveled to the Russian city of Kazan in September 2024 for a
bloc of developing economies.Huckabee called on U.N. agencies and aid groups to join the new mechanism.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office, said Friday that U.N. concerns have not been addressed in multiple meetings with Israeli officials. He dismissed claims that theft of aid was significant in scale.“The problem is the blockage of hundreds of aid trucks that should go into the Gaza Strip every single day. That is the root cause of the humanitarian crisis.”
El Deeb reported from Beirut, and Keaten from Geneva.This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the family name of the executive director of the aid group Medglobal to Belliveau instead of Belleveau.