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Russia ‘losing 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit’

Russia is losing about 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit, western officials have said. While Russia is still acquiring new battlefield recruits at speed, with an estimated rate of 1,000 a day, in the last two months even this has not been sufficient to replace those killed or injured. “We estimate that the gap between the number of people Russia is losing to casualties and the number they’re being able to recruit is around 6,000 a month at the moment,” one western official said. “Putin’s response to this has been to escalate himself and to target civilian infrastructure and civilians in Ukraine, firing over 360 missiles since early July and exploiting Kyiv’s shortage of defence against ballistic missiles. It’s clear that Moscow intends to try and break Ukrainian morale by destroying its energy infrastructure this winter.” Such tactics are in part because Putin has limited options for overcoming the huge losses on the battlefield with more recruitment. Western officials believe further mobilisation would be a big risk both politically and economically, saying the last such event, in autumn 2022, saw about a million – often highly skilled – Russians leave the country, with less than half returning. It is also unclear whether the Russian military could absorb the several hundred thousand new recruits which would result, given a lack of equipment and officers. Ukraine has repeatedly attacked Russian targets connected to oil, creating fuel shortages, but has appealed repeatedly for more help from allies, both with offensive missiles and defence systems. Andy Burnham visited Kyiv on his first overseas trip as prime minister this week. He told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the UK would give Ukraine previously classified information on the British-manufactured components for long-range cruise missiles. Burnham has also urged the international community to do more to protect Ukraine against Russian attacks, particularly with more US-made Patriot interceptor missiles. He is expected to make this argument at next month’s UN general assembly in New York. In response, Russia has made repeated threats of retaliation, including talk of attacks on UK military targets both inside and outside Ukraine. The western officials said that while the threat from Russia remained very real, the situation had not changed, and the assessment was that “Putin absolutely wants to avoid a direct confrontation with Nato”. One official said: “We are seeing a continuation of hostile rhetoric and various accusations against the UK. This is absolutely consistent with longstanding Russian military doctrine, which is to use rhetoric to both exploit fears in adversaries and to influence decision-making. So this is not a new phenomenon.” Officials say Russia still has the capability to target the UK, with cyberattacks or physical attacks on civilian targets by proxies, for example on factories or warehouses. Last year, six men were jailed for their involvement in an attack ordered by Russia against a warehouse in east London housing aid to Ukraine. But officials said their assessment was that Putin would limit any such action to avoid more direct conflict with Nato. Putin’s overall aim in Ukraine, western officials believe, is to maintain a campaign of attrition, hoping that support from Ukraine’s allies will ebb away, particularly if governments are spooked by public alarm over Russian threats. Such threats should be seen, one official said, as attempts to create a “fractured and more vulnerable Europe”. Another said: “It’s important to keep in mind that this is not new. Russia has invoked the threat of the possible use of nuclear weapons numerous times in recent years to try to scare us into ending support for Ukraine.”

Venezuelan opposition up in arms over reports US wants big stake in oil and gas

Reports that the US is preparing to claim a big stake in Venezuela’s massive energy reserves have sparked an outcry, with critics describing the move as “predatory” and “unconstitutional”. Several media outlets this week reported that the Trump administration – which abducted Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, in January and has steered the South American country ever since – hopes to secure long-term access to its oil and gasfields. Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves with an estimated 303bn barrels, compared with Saudi Arabia’s 268bn and Iran’s 208bn. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal said Trump officials were in “advanced talks” with Venezuelan officials to take “a direct stake in more than a dozen oilfields” containing 90bn barrels, nearly a third of Venezuela’s energy reserves. “This is real and being discussed at the highest levels of the US and Venezuelan governments,” a source told Reuters, which said the fields being negotiated were in the Orinoco Belt and Lake Maracaibo regions. Axios claimed the deal would be “a legacy-defining moment for President Trump”, with one unnamed official telling the US outlet: “Calling this deal huge would be an understatement … It is massive.” Citing sources familiar with the negotiations, Bloomberg said one deal under discussion was a 100-year-lease on several oilfields. The reports caused unease and anger among members of Venezuela’s opposition, who are already up in arms about Trump’s failure to bring about genuine political change after capturing Maduro. Since January’s special forces raid on Caracas, Venezuela has been led by an interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice-president and minister of petroleum. Other key members of Maduro’s regime have also retained positions of power, including the interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, who has been collaborating with Trump officials – despite having a $25m US bounty on his head for alleged drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the exiled opposition leader, María Corina Machado, whose movement is believed to have won the 2024 presidential elections, has been sidelined. Ricardo Hausmann, an exiled former minister and opposition supporter, wrote on X: “An illegitimate interim government with an illegitimate hydrocarbons law has no legitimacy to strike this unconstitutional deal. It will be a fiasco for all involved.” The economist Francisco Rodríguez urged Venezuela’s national assembly to reject what he called a “predatory deal”. “Handing over Venezuela’s oil wealth to the US contravenes the constitution and is not in the interest of the Venezuelan people – much more when it is done at gunpoint,” Rodríguez said. Luz Mely Reyes, a prominent journalist and government critic, sarcastically called the “surrender” of Venezuela’s natural riches “the deal of the century”. Gregory Brew, an energy historian and Eurasia Group analyst, anticipated “quite a lot of suspicion and rejection of any deal that would hand the United States government effective control over Venezuelan resources”. Brew said the reported deal reminded him of how BP, then the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, controlled the oil resources of Iraq and Iran at the start of the last century. “Anglo-Persian was given a concession by the Shah of Iran in 1901 … in exchange for what was essentially a bribe to the Persian government, and it gave the company sweeping rights. The company was essentially in total control of any oil it found and would be able to retain virtually all the profits of any other oil it found and exploited and exported,” Brew said. “From Trump’s point of view, the control over oil is something of an end in and of itself,” Brew added. “But if you do try to rationalise it, I think US dominance over Venezuelan oil reserves allows the US to regard Venezuelan reserves as its own reserves: a source of oil from which the United States can draw and that nobody else has access to. I think that’s how the administration is conceiving of this – excluding China, excluding Russia, but I think also excluding other potential customers for Venezuelan oil,” he added. “It sounds colonial, because it is.” Venezuela’s post-Maduro conversion into what many call a US protectorate is the most dramatic play in Trump’s push to reassert Washington’s influence over Latin America as part of the so-called “Donroe Doctrine”. That policy is a 21st-century adaptation of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine by which President James Monroe sought to keep European powers out of the Americas. Trump’s version is about countering China’s growing footprint in the region and imposing US will through economic and military pressure. Maduro’s downfall has brought some change to Venezuela, with hundreds of political prisoners freed under Rodríguez and talks about reforming the regime-controlled supreme court taking place. But no date has been set for a fresh presidential election and Machado has been unable to return from exile. “Delcy’s been doing a fantastic job,” Trump told reporters last month, claiming Venezuela was “not really ready” for a vote.

At least 93,000 ‘in great need’ after Nepal-Tibet flash floods, says Red Cross

The Red Cross has said at least 93,000 people may have been affected by Wednesday’s flash floods on the Nepal-Tibet border, which have killed nearly 600 people, left another 1,900 missing, and triggered a huge rescue operation that is being hampered by fears of new flooding. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the world’s largest humanitarian network, said it feared the death toll would continue to rise as some of the hardest-hit areas remained inaccessible after roads and bridges were destroyed by the torrents. “The trauma of this event is enormous,” David Fisher, the IFRC head of delegation for Nepal, said on Friday. “Thousands of homes have been destroyed or suffered significant damage. We believe that at least 93,000 people have been affected and are in great need. The death toll is very high and unfortunately likely to continue to rise.” The deadly floods occurred on Wednesday morning after an enormous section ⁠of a glacier in the Himalayas broke loose and crashed on to the valley floor in Nepal’s Langtang national park, unleashing a massive surge of water, mud, rock and ice that thundered down rivers and valleys. The resulting floods obliterated villages and destroyed power stations, roads and bridges. Nepal’s steep slopes and the lush valleys below are especially vulnerable to flooding and landslides, and extreme weather events, such as intense monsoons, and melting glaciers have become more common because of warming due to human-caused climate change. “The damage is just incredible,” Lila Pieters Yahia, the UN resident coordinator for Nepal, said on Friday, adding that more than 40 bridges had been destroyed or badly damaged and “over 40km of road completely destroyed”. By Friday afternoon, the death toll stood at 584 people: 579 in Nepal and five across the border in Tibet, China. Authorities in Nepal said 1,942 people were still missing, including hundreds of foreign nationals who were in the area to work, trek with guides or make a pilgrimage. Rescue teams have reported finding bodies hundreds of miles downstream from the disaster zone in the Chitwan district of Nepal, near the Indian border. Dozens of injured people were transported to Kathmandu for advanced medical care and more than 100 people were rescued by Nepali army personnel in helicopters. Rescuers were forced to suspend operations on Friday morning after a dam of debris overflowed on Friday, increasing the risk of further flooding. Residents in Nepal’s Rasuwa district, on the border with Tibet, were seen rushing up hillsides to escape a possible surge in the river, ⁠according to witnesses. The Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported that a lake formed by piles of debris from the mudslide had begun overflowing on Friday, sending water towards the area where rescue teams were headed, and forcing a brief pause in operations. Rescue efforts in Bidur, the capital of the Nuwakot district in Bagmati province, Nepal, were disrupted on Friday morning as the Trishuli River began to rise again after the lake near the border overflowed. Rescue workers were moved from the area and people who had tried to return to what remained of their homes were told to evacuate again immediately. Bidur, once a bustling town on the banks of the Trishuli, now lies in ruins. Most homes were washed away when mud, rocks and debris surged down the river valley early on Wednesday. Survivors described clinging to buildings and trees as the water rushed over them. The mangled concrete remains of a bank, a government office and an ATM booth were among the few structures left standing, although they were submerged in mud. Officials said there were bodies inside the buildings but it was too dangerous to recover them. Nearby, people gathered along the muddy road, calling out for lost relatives and trying to dig out what was left of their belongings. Most areas battered by the flash floods remained accessible only by army helicopter. At the Bidur army camp, from where much of the rescue effort was being coordinated, rescue and military helicopters flew in and out every five minutes, bringing in dozens of traumatised victims. Many said the floods had taken their loved ones, their homes and everything they owned in a matter of minutes. The international community is scrambling to get aid to flood-stricken parts of Nepal and Tibet. Nepal has said it does not yet need foreign assistance as the search and rescue operation – complicated by the destruction of bridges and roads across the mountainous region – continues. “The offer for help is natural,” Lok Bahadur Chhetri, a spokesperson for Nepal’s foreign ministry, said on Friday. “Our security agencies ‌are doing the search and rescue operation. For now we don’t require such help.” The Kathmandu Post reported that India, China, the US, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had asked the government to allow their search and rescue teams to assist in the operation. Dinesh Bhattarai, a former Nepali ⁠ambassador to the UN in Geneva, said the government’s reluctance to accept foreign assistance may be linked to sensitivities over Rasuwa district and its border with Tibet. “They may have thought about the locational sensitivity ‌of the region and decided not to accept foreign teams,” Bhattarai told Reuters. But Chhetri said Nepal’s own rescue teams were handling the operation and the decision to refuse foreign assistance had nothing to do with sensitivities. Scant information has emerged from Chinese authorities about the scale of the destruction in Tibet, the most tightly controlled part of China even under normal circumstances. Only brief, state-controlled media reports about the floods have been allowed to circulate in China and the authorities have confirmed only five deaths there. Chinese reports have focused on rescue efforts. With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

How Nepali diaspora is responding to flood disaster and how Australians can help in relief effort

Australia’s Nepali community plan to host vigils to remember the victims of the Nepal-Tibet flood disaster to coincide with a day of mourning, as the number of people killed continues to rise. As Australia’s Nepali diaspora wait for the full scale of the disaster to become clear, community members are desperately waiting to hear from missing relatives and friends. Nepali authorities said on Friday that the death toll had risen to 579, with the number missing rising sharply to more than 1,900, after massive flash floods and landslides tore through the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river basins on Wednesday. The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, on Friday morning confirmed the number of Australians missing in the floods had increased to 39 as she unveiled a $5m support package. Wong told the ABC that Australians who wished to donate could do so via the Emergency Action Alliance website – run by a group of Australian charities and humanitarian organisations. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email Nepali Australians gathered for candlelight prayers on Thursday night and held a minute’s silence for those lost to the floods. Dr Tilak Pokhrel, president of the Australian Nepalese Multicultural Centre (ANMC), said community organisations in Victoria would host a vigil when the Nepali government announced an upcoming national day of mourning. “Community members just want to say we are with you for those who are affected,” he said. “We want to have an event where we all can gather and show our solidarity to support them. “Let’s work together, let’s pray together, and let’s go through this pain together.” Pokhrel said the centre would extend its opening hours for the next few days so faith leaders could provide support. “People are waiting for the news. They are checking the news every hour,” he said. Chudamani Sapkota, the general secretary of Non-Resident Nepali Association, said its New South Wales branch would host a candlelight vigil on Saturday evening in Sydney. “This is devastating news for all the Nepalese diaspora,” he said. Sapkota said the organisation was trying to support Nepali Australians seeking to locate their missing relatives. “There’s no network, nothing at the moment,” he said. “This is a very tough time.” Melbourne student Rakshya Pandey’s family home and two grocery shops in the Nuwakot district, hit by the flash flooding, have been destroyed. Her father, who was injured after being struck by an object in the flooding, is receiving treatment in a Kathmandu hospital. “Whenever I see the detail of the people missing or the flood or everything, it’s just so scary, and I’m scared … I can’t do anything. I feel so helpless,” she said. Pandey fears there will be future flooding in Nepal. Ashok Bahadur Dhungel, who lives in Canberra, has been trying to reach his nephew who works for the Upper Trishuli hydropower plant, which sat on one of the Nepali rivers that flooded. He said his nephew has not been online for two days. “We hope he is still alive,” he said. Dhungel heard through friends that his mother, who lives in the Nuwakot district, had survived. But he has been unable to speak to her due to power outages. “She is everything to me,” he said. Tenzin Khangsar, co-chair of the Australia Tibet Council, said the Tibetan community was “shocked and devastated” about the flooding. He said prayer events would be planned to commemorate the victims. Diaspora community organisations are also crowdfunding for the Nepali government’s disaster relief fund. Chiran Tiwari, president of the Nepalese Welfare Society based in Sydney, said the organisation had created a GoFundMe page to raise money for the Nepali prime minister’s natural disaster relief fund. Tiwari said one of the welfare society’s executive member’s relatives was missing in Nepal, with the community rallying around to provide support to them. “The situation is very sad for the community,” he said. “Everyone’s eyes is tearing so the situation is very difficult.” On Thursday night, the ANMC hosted a candlelight multi-faith prayer night in Melbourne for people grieving the disaster.

Families of 33 missing Britons rush to Nepal as fears grow of more floods

Families are rushing to Nepal to search for the 33 British nationals who are still missing, as fears mount over the risk of a second wave of flooding in the region. The catastrophic flash floods that hit Nepal and Tibet on Wednesday, thundering down valleys and sweeping away entire villages, have killed at least 538 people, while more than 1,500 remain missing. Among them are hundreds of foreign tourists who were visiting the mountainous region, which is popular with trekkers and pilgrims for its natural beauty and religious significance. Relatives of missing Britons have shared their devastation as they desperately try to reach their loved ones who were last seen in the Rasuwa district, where power and communication lines are down. Many are scrambling to book flights to Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital. On Friday, authorities in Nepal and China issued warnings about the risk of a second wave of flooding. Chinese authorities said an artificial lake had formed after a mudslide hit the Tibet-Nepal border, which risked “sending flood waters downstream”, according to state media. Nepal’s disaster authority said a lake that had formed by debris blocking a river at the site was also rising and ‌at risk of bursting. Rescuers were forced to suspend their search for survivors, while residents who had returned to Rasuwa were told to evacuate their homes, with many seen fleeing up the hillsides to escape a possible surge in the river. In a video on YouTube, Jaggi Vasudev, known as Sadhguru, a spiritual leader who founded the nonprofit Isha Foundation, told followers at the foundation’s camp at Saga in Tibet, China, that 80 members of an Isha group returning from Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in ‌Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists, were missing, including nine British people. Among them is Neetu Goyal Tiwari, 51. Her brother Naresh Goyal told the BBC that completing the pilgrimage was “her dream”. Neetu’s nephew, Anmol Goyal, told the Guardian she had been travelling with a friend, and that her last known location was at the immigration centre on the Tibet-Nepal border. He said she had been added to the Nepalese government’s official list of missing persons. The family have been desperately phoning contacts in Nepal in an attempt to find her, though they increasingly believe her to still be in China. As many of them are based in India, it is difficult for them to obtain visas to search for her. Goyal said her husband and daughter remained in the UK for now. “We’re not sure what the next second holds and what we should do from our end, because we’re trying to reach everyone we can,” he said. “She was a very fun-loving woman [and] really had a great heart. I really hope she comes back soon.” The Telegraph reported that NHS psychiatrist Pravin Atmakur, 54, was leading a group of 77 pilgrims on Isha Foundation’s journey to Mount Kailash. The group’s last known location was an immigration centre in Timure, in the mudslide’s direct path. His wife, Manjula Atmakur, who arrived in Kathmandu to search for him on Friday, told the newspaper she was disappointed by the British government’s response to the disaster. Fishtail Tours and Travels confirmed Leena Bector, 53, from Slough, was among 27 travellers in its group who were unaccounted for. Her husband, Bhupesh Bector, told the Times he was booking the next flight to Kathmandu after the Home Office had failed to confirm whether Leena was on its missing persons list. “Even if they find her today or tomorrow, I need to be there,” he said. “She must be in trauma.” Also missing are an A-level student from Surrey, Spandan Sahu, 18, and his father, Santosh Sahu, 46, the chief executive of the UK pharmaceutical technology company Charac, his mother, Surabhi Manmath Padhy, 44, and sister Syna Kumari Sahu, 13. Also confirmed missing is Sarada Simkhada, a senior nurse from Dartford, Kent, who left for Nepal last Saturday on a religious journey. Deepesh Patel told the Press Association that his parents, Bipin Patel, 66, and Mala Patel, 60, from Coventry, were missing after flying to Nepal on 22 August for a pilgrimage. His brother Anant Patel, told Sky News he was “shocked” at the lack of information on their whereabouts. Vikram Kolagatla, from London, told the BBC he had not heard from his wife, Geetha Reddy. Reddy, who has two daughters aged 12 and 14, had been in Hotel Kailash in Rasuwagadh when the flooding hit. “We’re not sure what to do. I have two little girls, and their schools are starting next week,” Kolagatla added. Tatjana Phillips, from Folkestone in Kent, told the BBC she had not been able to contact her sister, Julija Jakovicka, who was attending a yoga and meditation retreat near the Nepal-Tibet border when flash flooding hit. The tour operator Alpine Eco Trek said it had been unable to make contact with a party of 12 Britons aged 13 to 65 who had booked a tour to Mount Kailash in Tibet, and were in the vicinity when the flash floods hit. Sunil Amin, from Croydon in south London, shared with the Daily Mail the “horrible, horrible feeling” of repeatedly trying to phone his wife, Hema Amin, 63, who was on a pilgrimage with Alpine Eco Trek from Nepal to Tibet with her sister. “I’m devastated,” he said. The Trekkers’ Society, which organises tours across Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, said nine UK nationals on a pilgrimage had gone missing. The organisation confirmed that four males, aged between 14 and 50, and five females aged 40 to 53 were unaccounted for. Himalayan Glacier US said it had lost contact with a group of 47 guests and staff, including two Britons, who were also on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, regarded as the spiritual home of the Hindu god Shiva. The tour operator Kailash Journeys confirmed it had not been able to account for seven UK nationals – five women and two men aged between 18 and 55 – who were travelling with it. Leaf Holidays, which runs Himalayan treks and expeditions from Kathmandu, wrote in a Facebook post that its group of 55 travellers remained missing, including four British citizens, Tara and Babar Gurung and Thaneswar and Tejkumari Gurung, who have not been heard from since Tuesday. Twelve of the missing British citizens were on a tour to Mount Kailash led by Nabhi Nandan Das, a 64-year-old Hindu priest who works at the Sanatan Mandir and community centre in Surrey, the Telegraph reported. He is understood to have been leading 11 Britons on a tour that was due to visit Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, two Hindu holy sites in Tibet. Pramod Poudel, who runs a Nepalese street food company in Sussex, told the Daily Mail his wife, Sumitra, mother, Tulisa, brother Pradip and uncle Madav were all missing. His father, Purusottam, has been found alive. The Non-Resident Nepali Association in the UK launched an emergency fundraising appeal on Thursday and more than £12,000 has been raised. Rajendra Pudasaini, a nurse in Essex who is president of the Non-Resident Nepali Association UK, said Nepal was witnessing an “irreplaceable loss” and Nepal was “paying the price for global warming”. Pudasaini told BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme that many of his family members were missing. “My godson, we found the body yesterday morning, you know, he (was) just buried under the mud at his house, and yes, lots of other dead bodies being found.” He added: “It’s a very difficult situation to describe, actually.”

Chinese control of information hampers assessment of Tibet flood damage

In the days since an enormous glacier in the Himalayas snapped away from a mountaintop and cascaded into the valley below, the true scale of the devastation caused by the flash floods in Nepal and Tibet is still unfolding. But the picture is emerging far more quickly in Nepal than in China, where strict controls on the flow of information from one of its most sensitive regions are hampering the public’s understanding of events. The floods devastated villages along the Himalayan border region that straddles Nepal and the Chinese region of Tibet. On Friday, the official death toll in Nepal rose to 538 people, while in China it was just five, despite the fact that the villages around the Gyirong border crossing are home to several thousand people. In Nepal, journalists rushed to get as close to the disaster zone as possible to interview survivors and rescue workers. Villagers provided minute-by-minute accounts of what happened when the floods, the exact cause of which is still being studied by scientists, tore through their homes. In China, state media carried several broadcasts about the floods and dispatched their own journalists to the area, but reports focused on the rescue efforts rather than the scale of the devastation. In one broadcast from a relief centre in Tibet, the journalist did not speak to any of the people sitting behind him. Tibet, brought under Chinese control in the 1950s, is the most sensitive and tightly controlled region in the country. Sporadic protests, including self-immolations, by Tibetans calling for more autonomy and religious freedom have been cracked down on by the authorities. International journalists cannot visit Tibet apart from on tightly choreographed government tours. Many Tibetans are not allowed passports and have very limited contact with the outside world. Tibetans can be punished for speaking to journalists. Human rights groups have for years criticised Beijing’s policies on Tibetan language and culture, which activists say are under attack. That makes independent assessments of how the flash floods have affected the Tibetan side of the border difficult. “Everything about Tibet is seen through the national security prism. And therefore nobody is going to say anything or report anything that has not been cleared from the very top,” said Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at Soas University of London. For anyone on the ground, “you can’t report a higher figure of deaths, even if you have seen more bodies yourself, until the official statement says that the figure has gone up”. China’s tight controls on information are limiting international coverage of its relief efforts. That may mean China is missing an opportunity to tell its own good news story. Chinese emergency services, including the People’s Liberation Army, are vastly better resourced than their Nepalese counterparts. Navigating the difficult, mountainous terrain where conditions are still unsafe requires specialised expertise. China has dispatched hundreds of emergency service personnel but there is scant detail on what they are doing. “The Chinese have missed a trick,” Tsang said. But “they don’t have that confidence. Their instinct is control.” Still, China has been keen to stress that the disaster is a national priority. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, chaired a meeting on Friday to direct rescue work, according to state media. Xi called on the authorities to “make every effort to search for missing people from China and abroad”. He also dispatched his number two, premier Li Qiang, to visit the affected area. According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, Li “emphasised that General Secretary Xi Jinping is deeply concerned about the people in the disaster-stricken areas”.