Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Russia’s admission that a warship was hit by Ukraine, nearly 2 million people crowding into the south of Gaza while Israel vows months more of war, and a controversy over stained glass windows in France.
Russian Warship Damaged in Black Sea
Russia said Tuesday that one of its warships was damaged by a Ukrainian attack on a Black Sea port in Crimea. The Ukrainian Air Force said previously that it had destroyed the ship, the 360-foot-long Novocherkassk; Ukrainian Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk shared footage of what appeared to be an explosion at the port.
One person was killed in the attack and several others injured, the Russian-backed head of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov told the BBC. Several buildings were damaged, but port transport operations are apparently functioning normally. According to the BBC, there is speculation that the ship was used to carry Iranian-made Shahed drones, used by Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Oleshchuk wrote on Telegram that the Novocherkassk “went the way” of the Moskva, another Russian Black Sea ship that sank last year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “grateful” to the Ukrainian air force “for the impressive replenishment of the Russian submarine Black Sea fleet with another vessel,” and he pledged that the “occupiers will not have a single peaceful place in Ukraine.”
Ukraine said last month that it had destroyed 15 Russian navy ships and damaged 12 more in the Black Sea since the war began in February 2022. However, Russia has been able to hold much of the territory it occupied this year, and Ukraine’s Western partners have described Kyiv’s attempted counteroffensive as “sobering.”
The U.S. Congress recessed for the holidays without approving billions of dollars more in lethal and economic aid for Ukraine, even though previous assistance had almost run out. Many Republican lawmakers, particularly allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump, are openly questioning why they should continue to support Kyiv. The European Union did not provide another aid package for Ukraine, either; Hungary vetoed a 50 billion euro package this month.
And despite the destruction of the Novocherkassk, the week did not bring only good tidings for Ukraine: After battling for months to defend the eastern city of Marinka, Ukrainian officials conceded they had stepped back to the city’s outskirts. “The situation is exactly the same as it was in Bakhmut,” Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny said. “Street by street, block by block, and our soldiers were being targeted. And the result is what it is.”
What We’re Following
2 million people squeeze into southern Gaza. Almost 2 million people are crowded into the south of Gaza as of Tuesday: 1.7 million are registered to shelters, and a few hundred thousand are sleeping out in the open, on roads, or otherwise exposed. The Israeli military ordered still more people to evacuate south last Friday, this time from central Gaza, where at least 60,000 people were already displaced.
Israel’s army chief, Herzi Halevi, vowed that the Israel-Hamas war would continue for “many more months,” while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the conflict on Monday as “not close to being over.” Netanyahu also said he did not believe the remaining hostages held by Hamas would be freed from Gaza without military pressure. Israeli forces accidentally killed three Israeli hostages earlier this month.
The war has already killed an estimated 20,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry. A United Nations official told the BBC that there is no reprieve in Gaza from Israeli air strikes, and that people who are severely injured cannot receive treatment as the hospitals are “overloaded.”
Throwing tradition out the window? A plan endorsed by French President Emmanuel Macron to replace the stained glass windows of Notre-Dame with more contemporary art has been decried as “vandalism.” More than 120,000 people have signed a petition calling for the retention of the original windows; the building is being restored after devastation in an April 2019 fire.
The window innovation detractors say new designs would ruin the cathedral’s architectural harmony. “The stained glass windows in Notre Dame designed by Viollet-le-Duc were created as a coherent whole,” reads the petition, created by Didier Rykner, founder and editor of La Tribune de l’Art magazine. “It is a genuine creation that the architect wanted to be faithful to the cathedral’s gothic origins.”
The Macron-backed plan was to have six of the seven windows replaced by contemporary stained-glass windows, which would be chosen in a competition. Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich reportedly wrote to the Élysée to encourage the state to commission new windows. The six windows that would be taken out of the building were unharmed by the fire and would be on display in the new Notre Dame Museum.
Attack in Nigeria. At least 160 people were killed and 300 people wounded in attacks on villages in central Nigeria, local officials said Monday. The army initially reported just 16 people dead. Monday Kassah, head of the local government in Bokkos, Plateau State, told the AFP that armed groups locally known as bandits launched attacks on at least 20 communities.
Plateau State Gov. Caleb Mutfwang condemned the violence as “barbaric, brutal, and unjustified,” and governor’s office spokesperson Gyang Bere vowed to take proactive measures to protect civilians. However, Amnesty International criticized the government following the attacks, writing on X that “the Nigerian authorities have been failing to end frequent deadly attacks on rural communities of Plateau State.”
Odds and Ends
Oh, rats! According to the Royal Automobile Club, breakdowns by animals entering vehicles have reached record levels in the United Kingdom, with the club being summoned for 303 animal damage incidents in the first 11 months of 2023, more than during the same period for any other year on record.
In more than half the cases the culprits were rats, which proved adept at causing damage by chewing fuel hoses and breaking headlights, although foxes and squirrels were also to blame on occasion.