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 President Mohammed Shahabuddin today asked the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to be more vigil in stopping border killings, smuggling and drug abuse.

The President came up with directive when BGB Director General (DG) Major General AKM Nazmul Hasan paid a courtesy call on him at Bangabhaban here this afternoon.

“During the meeting, the BGB chief apprised the President of the overall activities, including the development and operational ones of the force,” President’s press secretary Md Joynal Abedin told BSS after the meeting.

The Head of the State also appreciated the responsible role of BGB in defending the country’s 4,427 km frontiers.

President Shahabuddin also directed this paramilitary force, responsible for border security of the country, to work sincerely in line with the “Zero Tolerance Policy” to prevent drug infiltration.

Referring to the upcoming Jatiya Sangsad polls, the President said, “The BGB must stay in maximum alert to stop any kind of intrusion to ensure holding of a free, fair, neutral and peaceful elections.”

President’s Office Secretary Sampad Barua, President’s Military Secretary Major General SM Salah Uddin Islam, President’s Press Secretary Md Joynal Abedin and Secretary (Attachment) Wahidul Islam Khan were present during the meeting.

 Ukraine fought off a fresh Russian assault on the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, its leaders said Saturday, as it endured a fresh wave of shelling in the disputed Donetsk region.

Officials meanwhile recovered the bodies of two British volunteers, killed trying to help evacuate people from the eastern warzone.

And the southern city of Odesa suffered a massive power cut affecting half a million households after an accident at a war-damaged electrical substation.

“This week, the Russian occupation forces threw all their efforts into breaking through our defence and encircling Bakhmut, and launched a powerful offensive in the Lyman sector,” said Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar.

“But thanks to the resilience of our soldiers, they did not succeed.”

Ukraine’s border guard service reported that its soldiers had stopped the latest attack, killing four and wounding seven of the opposing forces.

Russia unleashed a fresh wave of bombardment across the eastern front lines Saturday morning. Ukrainian officials reported shelling in the Chernigiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv Lugansk, Donetsk and Mykolaiv regions.

In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation was getting tougher.

Russia, he said, was “throwing more and more of its forces at breaking down our defence”.

“It is very difficult now in Bakhmut, Vugledar, Lyman and other areas,” he added, referring to the frontline cities in the east of the country.

France, Italy and the United States on Friday all promised fresh deliveries of weapons to Ukraine.

Germany’s leader said in an interview Sunday there was agreement that weapons supplied by the West would not be used to attack Russian territory.

“There is a consensus on this point,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview with the weekly Bild am Sonntag.

Kyiv, while expressing its gratitude for the pledged weapons, is already pressing for more, including fighter jets.

– Foreign casualties –

Officials in Kyiv said Saturday that the bodies of the two Britons killed while trying to help people evacuate from the eastern warzone had been recovered in a prisoner swap.

Chris Parry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 47, were undertaking voluntary work in Soledar, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, when their vehicle was reportedly hit by a shell.

Their bodies were returned to Ukraine authorities as part of a wider exchange, in which Kyiv got 116 prisoners and Russia 63.

“We managed to return the bodies of the dead foreign volunteers,” said Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, naming them as the two British men.

Concern had grown about their fates after the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which helped capture Soledar from Ukrainian forces, said on January 11 that one of the missing men’s bodies had been found there.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had also published online photographs of passports that appeared to belong to Parry and Bagshaw, which he claimed were found with the corpses.

On Friday, news emerged of the death of an American medic killed in Bakhmut when his evacuation vehicle was hit by a missile.

Global Outreach Doctors, with whom he was working, said 33-year-old Pete Reed was a former US Marine Corps rifleman who also worked as a paramedic.

The Odesa power cut hit hundreds of thousands of people.

“As of today, almost 500,000 customers have no electricity supply,” said Maksym Marchenko, of the Odesa regional administration. Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said that came to “about a third of consumers” there.

“The situation is complex, the scale of the accident is significant,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on messaging app Telegram.

Ukrenergo, the country’s energy operator, reported an accident at a substation supplying both the city and the region of Odesa.

The power network there had been gradually degraded by repeated Russian bombardment in recent months, it added: “As a result, the reliability of power supply in the region has decreased.”

– Fresh embargo –

On Sunday, Russia faces a fresh turn of the sanctions screw, with an embargo on ship deliveries of its refined oil products.

The European Union, the Group of Seven industrialised nations and Australia will cap the price of Moscow’s refined oil products.

Already in December, the EU imposed an embargo on Russian crude oil coming into the bloc by sea and — with its G7 partners — imposed a $60-per-barrel cap on Russian crude exports to other parts of the world.

The new embargo and price caps starting Sunday will target Russian refined oil products such as petrol, diesel and heating fuel arriving on ships.

The Kremlin has warned that the measures will destabilise world markets.

 Countries around the world have mobilised rapidly to send aid and rescue workers after a massive earthquake killed more than 5,000 people in Turkey and Syria.

Offers of assistance came from countries across the world. Here are some of the chief pledges of support.

– European Union –

The European Union has mobilised 27 search and rescue and medical teams from 19 countries to help Turkey, together over 1,150 rescuers and 70 rescue dogs, EU crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarcic confirmed Tuesday.

– United States –

President Joe Biden said that US teams were “deploying quickly to begin to support Turkish search and rescue efforts”.

National security spokesman John Kirby said the United States was sending two search-and-rescue teams of 79 people each, while the Pentagon and USAID were coordinating with their Turkish counterparts.

– China –

China said the first Chinese rescue teams started work in Turkey on Tuesday and that it was sending $5.9 million in emergency aid to the country, including rescue and medical teams, state media reported.

Deng Boqing, vice director of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, told state broadcaster CCTV that Beijing would also coordinate “urgently needed disaster relief materials” for Syria but did not say how much would be sent.

– Britain –

Foreign minister James Cleverly said the UK was sending a team of 76 search and rescue specialists, equipment and rescue dogs. Britain was also sending an emergency medical team to assess the situation on the ground.

– Russia –

President Vladimir Putin promised to send Russian teams to both countries in telephone calls with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The defence ministry said 300 military personnel deployed in Syria were helping with the clear-up effort.

– United Nations –

“Our teams are on the ground assessing the needs and providing assistance. We count on the international community to help the thousands of families hit by this disaster, many of whom were already in dire need of humanitarian aid in areas where access is a challenge,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said.

– India –

Two of India’s National Disaster Response Force teams comprising 100 personnel with dog squads and equipment were ready to be flown to the affected area, the foreign ministry said. Doctors and paramedics with medicines were also being readied.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “anguished” and “deeply pained” by the deaths in Turkey — with whom India has frosty relations — and Syria.

– Germany –

Germany — home to about three million people of Turkish origin — will “mobilise all the assistance we can activate”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.

– Ukraine –

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his war-torn country was “ready to provide the necessary assistance to overcome the consequences of the disaster.”

– Greece –

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Turkey’s historic rival Greece, whose relations with Ankara have suffered from a spate of border and cultural disputes, pledged to make “every force available” to aid its neighbour.

– Israel –

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had approved the sending of aid to Syria — whose government does not recognise Israel — after receiving a request through diplomatic channels. A Damascus official denied they had requested help.

The government will also send humanitarian assistance to Turkey, Netanyahu said.

– Gulf states –

Qatar said it would send 120 rescue workers to Turkey, alongside “a field hospital, relief aid, tents and winter supplies”.

The United Arab Emirates pledged assistance worth around $13.6 million to Syria, including search and rescue teams, urgent relief supplies and emergency aid.

Official news agency WAM said the UAE had already dispatched a first plane to southern Turkey, where it is planning to establish a field hospital.

– Iran –

Iran is ready to provide “immediate relief aid to these two friendly nations”, President Ebrahim Raisi said, offering condolences on the “heartbreaking incident”.

– Algeria –

The country sent a 89-member risk-management team, including medics, to Turkey with 17 tonnes of equipment, and another team will go to Syria, civil defence said.

– Tunisia –

President Kais Saied ordered “humanitarian aid” for both Turkey and Syria, including 14 tonnes of blankets and food, officials said. Tunis also appealed for volunteer medics to be flown out on Tunisian military aircraft.

– Japan –

The government in Japan — which frequently suffers earthquakes — is dispatching the Japan Disaster Relief Rescue Team to Turkey.

 North Korea rejected on Wednesday condemnation by the United Nations chief of its recent ballistic missile launches, saying it was “unfair and unbalanced” and ignored Pyongyang’s right to self-defence.

The nuclear-armed North has fired three banned missiles in the past five days, including an intercontinental ballistic missile test Pyongyang said
showed its capacity for a “fatal nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres responded to Saturday’s ICBM launch with a statement calling for Pyongyang to “immediately desist from taking any further provocative actions”.

North Korea’s vice foreign minister expressed “strong discontent and protest against the extremely unfair and imbalanced attitude” of Guterres, according to a statement carried by KCNA state media.

Kim Son Gyong said Guterres’ assessment ignored “dangerous” joint military drills by Washington and Seoul and that he should “adopt a fair and balanced attitude”.

Kim described North Korea’s missile launches as a justified “countermeasure” to the recent US deployment of strategic bombers to the Korean peninsula.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had already said Pyongyang was closely monitoring moves by Washington and Seoul to deploy more US strategic assets to the region.

“The frequency of using the Pacific as our firing range depends upon the US forces’ action character,” she said in a statement on KCNA on Monday.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in decades. North Korea declared itself last year an “irreversible” nuclear power and Kim Jong Un called for an “exponential” increase in weapons production, including tactical nuclear weapons.

 US President Joe Biden on Wednesday offered fresh criticism of Russia’s suspension of a key nuclear treaty, but stressed there was no indication Moscow was moving closer to actually using an atomic weapon.

“It’s a big mistake to do that, not very responsible,” Biden told ABC News in an interview in Poland, expanding on brief comments he made before meeting NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and eastern European leaders in Warsaw.

“But I don’t read into that that he’s thinking of using nuclear weapons or anything like that,” the US president added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday announced the suspension of Moscow’s participation in the New START arms treaty during a state of the nation address — a decision that was approved by Russian lawmakers on Wednesday.

The 2010 deal, the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the two rival nuclear powers, commits them to limiting their stockpile of nuclear warheads.

Putin’s treaty announcement was met with widespread international condemnation, though Russia’s foreign ministry later said Moscow would continue to comply with the treaty’s restrictions in a “responsible” way until it expires in February 2026.

Biden told ABC News he was “confident that we’ll be able to work it out,” without elaborating.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Russia’s decision “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible” but said Washington was still willing to talk about the issue.

 French President Emmanuel Macron and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping both called on Thursday for Russia-Ukraine peace talks to take place “as soon as possible”.

The pair, who held talks in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, also reaffirmed their opposition to the use of nuclear weapons during the conflict.

 Russian strikes battered cities across Ukraine on Friday, killing 26 people including five children, as Kyiv said preparations for a counter-offensive against Moscow’s forces were nearly complete.

The deadly new attacks included a strike on a residential block in the historic city of Uman in central Ukraine, where AFP journalists saw rescue workers extracting victims’ remains from a destroyed residential building.

The barrage of almost two dozen missiles ended a weeks-long pause following the repeated Russian strikes that had aimed to paralyse Ukraine’s energy grid during the winter months.

On Friday evening, workers in Uman, the site of an annual Hasidic pilgrimage, pulled the body of another child from under the rubble. Authorities said Russian cruise missiles killed 23 people — including four children — in Uman.

Earlier in the day, Dmitry, a 33-year-old resident from Lugansk, an eastern city under Russian control, was looking for his children.

“I want to see my children, they are under the rubble,” he said.

Rescuers were using cranes to search for survivors among the remains of the multi-storey housing block in the city of 80,000 inhabitants.

“I’ve seen a lot, but I haven’t lost my children before. Now I want to see my children, alive or dead,” Dmitry said.

Russian missiles also hit the central city of Dnipro, already grief-stricken after a January strike on a tower block that killed more than 40 people.

Authorities said the strikes in Dnipro killed a 31-year-old woman and her two-year-old daughter while they slept.

The young woman’s parents were hospitalised.

“Neighbours say that it was a quiet and kind family,” regional authorities said.

Separately, authorities in the southern region of Kherson said on Friday evening that Russian forces shelled the village of Bilozerka, killing a 57-year-old woman and wounding another three people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the latest barrage and vowed a response.

“Only absolute evil can unleash such terror against Ukraine,” he said in his evening address.

His advisor Mykhaylo Podolyak tweeted: “If you don’t want THIS spread around the world, then give us weapons. Lots of weapons. And add sanctions.”

Moscow said it had targeted reserve units of the Ukrainian military and that “all assigned objects were hit”.

Moscow-installed officials in eastern Ukraine said Ukrainian shelling had killed nine people, including an eight-year-old girl in the city of Donetsk.

– ‘We are ready’ –

There were no reported casualties in Kyiv, which was among the cities targeted Friday.

The capital had not been hit by missiles in more than 50 days, although last week it was attacked by 12 Iranian-made drones, eight of which were shot down without causing any casualties.

Ukraine said overall it had downed 21 of 23 Russian missiles and two attack drones.

The country’s air defence system has been bolstered in recent months by the delivery of Western equipment crucial to the country’s war effort.

The new strikes came as Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said his country’s preparations to push back against entrenched Russian positions were almost complete.

NATO allies and partners have provided Ukraine with 1,550 armoured vehicles and 230 tanks to form units and help it retake territory from Russian forces, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.

“Equipment has been promised, prepared and partially delivered. In a global sense, we’re ready,” Reznikov said.

Kyiv has said throughout the war launched by Russia in February 2022 that it is intent on repelling Moscow’s forces from territory they control in eastern and southern Ukraine.

“Preparations are coming to an end,” Reznikov added of the planned offensive.

– ‘Only way to survive’ –

“As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and the decision of the commanders — we will do it.”

But he added that Washington’s promised Abrams tanks “will not have time to take part in this counteroffensive”.

Last month the Pentagon said the Abrams vehicles — one of the most powerful and sophisticated weapons in the US army — would arrive in Ukraine in late 2023.

Most of the fighting has been focused on the eastern Donbas region, particularly the city of Bakhmut, which has been almost completely destroyed.

Several Ukrainian soldiers told AFP that tough clashes in Bakhmut involved not only members of mercenary group Wagner but also Russian special forces.

Not far from Bakhmut, Alex, 34, said the situation was difficult.

“We lack soldiers, we have many wounded, and also dead,” he said.

“Sometimes in the trenches, you have to hide behind a corpse. It’s the only way to survive.”

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on Friday he had paid a rare visit to the embattled city and vowed Moscow would rebuild it.

In need of allies to support its drawn-out war effort, Moscow has cultivated its relationship with China.

The leaders of Ukraine and China spoke by telephone this week, with Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly advocating peace talks.

Xi and Zelensky’s discussion on Wednesday was met by Russian accusations that Ukraine was undermining efforts to end the fighting.

Zelensky said Friday he had asked Xi to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia.