- Can an ambitious Milei make Argentina an AI giant?
- Haiti, its suffering growing, in 'race against time': UN expert
- Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah elite unit commander wanted by the US
- Chinese forward Cui signs NBA contract with Brooklyn Nets
- US Fed dissenter calls for 'measured' pace of rate cuts
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload as Kompany demands cap on games
- Norway limits wild salmon fishing as stocks hit new lows
- Top Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
- Rotterdam fatal knife attacker suspected of 'terrorist motive'
- First early votes cast in knife-edge US presidential election
- Top-ranked Swiatek out of Beijing due to 'personal matters'
- Hard-right Reform UK looks to the future after vote success
- Embiid agrees to NBA contract extension with 76ers
- Joshua aims to complete road to redemption in Dubois bout
- World champion Bagnaia sets pace with lap record at Misano
- Biden says 'working' to get people back to homes on Israel-Lebanon border
- Pope criticises Argentina's crackdown on protesters
- Court limits screenings of videos in France mass rape case
- Gurbaz century takes Afghanistan to 311-4 in 2nd ODI
- Central banks face 'difficult balancing act': IMF chief
- McLaren's Norris sets Singapore pace as struggling Verstappen 15th
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload fears
- Paris Olympics sports equipment moves to new homes
- 'Happy' Kinghorn relishing life at Toulouse
- Norris sets Singapore pace as Verstappen only 15th
- 8 dead in Israeli strike, source says Hezbollah commander killed
- Germany to bid to host women's Euro 2029
- Portugal brings deadly forest fires under control
- Postecoglou defends Solanke after slow start to Spurs career
- US nuclear plant Three Mile Island to reopen to power Microsoft
- Arteta urges Arsenal to take next step in Man City showdown
- Stock markets fall after Fed-fuelled rally
- Top Hezbollah commander 'killed' in Israel strike
- Poland charges Russian over attack on Navalny ally: prosecutors
- Man City have rest 'advantage' in Arsenal showdown: Guardiola
- Maresca has 'no doubt' in Jackson as Chelsea's number nine
- EU chief announces 35 bn euro loan plan for Ukraine before winter
- From TikTok to Hollywood, the irresistible rise of Italy's Khaby Lame
- Verstappen punished for swearing in Singapore press conference
- Sri Lanka lead by 202 in first New Zealand Test
- Brook 'not too fussed' by England's batting in heavy Australia loss
- India's Ashwin 'happy' to embrace pressure
- A modern 'Trojan Horse': two days of mayhem in Lebanon
- Third of Burundi mpox cases in children under five: UN
- Man Utd appoint Foster + Partners to develop Old Trafford 'masterplan'
- Israel-Hezbollah exchanges intensify on Lebanon border
- French mayor sorry for 'no one died' remark over mass rape trial
- Mohamed Al-Fayed, outsider shunned by British high society
- Lawyers say 'monster' late Harrods owner abused dozens of women
- India in box seat after Bumrah takes four against Bangladesh
CMSC | 0.06% | 25.135 | $ | |
SCS | -3.02% | 12.92 | $ | |
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
RIO | -2.36% | 63.675 | $ | |
RYCEF | 0.14% | 6.96 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.16% | 25.05 | $ | |
NGG | 1.25% | 69.7 | $ | |
BCC | -2.08% | 141.74 | $ | |
RELX | -0.31% | 47.98 | $ | |
VOD | -0.45% | 10.015 | $ | |
BCE | -0.9% | 34.875 | $ | |
JRI | -0.56% | 13.325 | $ | |
BTI | -0.36% | 37.435 | $ | |
BP | -0.23% | 32.685 | $ | |
GSK | -1.87% | 40.855 | $ | |
AZN | -0.64% | 78.395 | $ |
Romania becomes refuge for Ukrainians on NATO's frontline
Stepping off a ferry onto Romanian soil, Olga was relieved to have whisked her three children across the Danube river to safety after Russia invaded her country Ukraine.
"My husband came with us as far as the border, before returning to Kyiv to fight," said the 36-year-old marketing employee, who did not give her surname.
The young Ukrainian was one of hundreds arriving at the border crossing in the town of Isaccea on the Romanian side of the river on Saturday.
Romania, a former member of the communist bloc now part of NATO and the European Union, fears it could find itself on the frontline against Russia if Moscow overruns neighbouring Ukraine.
Since the beginning of Russia's invasion on Thursday, Romanian border guards have counted more than 25,000 Ukranians crossing into the country.
In the small riverside port of Isaccea, Olga said she intended to spend a few days in Romania, before making her way on to next-door Bulgaria.
Not far off, 40-year-old lawyer Andrey said he feared he had been forced to flee his country for good.
"We will never be able to return to Ukraine," he said bitterly, after crossing the river with his wife and three children.
He said his family had already been forced to flee their home in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region due to the conflict there in 2014, finding refuge in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa.
But now they had been uprooted all over again.
- Russians offshore -
Romania, which shares some 650 km (400 miles) of border with Ukraine, feels for the moment that its NATO membership will protect it from any more serious military consequences.
"Given the regional security dynamic, there is a minimal possibility of the country becoming the target of a conventional offensive action by Russia," the Chief of Defence Staff General Daniel Petrescu said on Saturday.
But, over the past months of growing tensions in the region, Romania has repeatedly demanded reinforcements be sent to NATO's eastern flank.
Its allies have responded.
The United States has sent a squadron of Stryker armoured vehicles and some 1,000 troops in recent weeks to a Romanian base near the Black Sea, adding to the 900 personnel already stationed in the country.
And over the past month, six Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft from German's airforce have joined four similar planes Italy dispatched before the crisis.
France's army chief of staff said on Friday that 500 soldiers would be dispatched to the eastern European country.
The situation has been complicated by Russia's seizure from Ukraine on Thursday of Snake Island, an uninhabited but strategic rocky outcrop in the Black Sea just 45 km (27 miles) from Romania's coastline.
Bucharest and Kyiv both claimed the island, before the International Court of Justice awarded it to Ukraine in 2009.
"We will have to get used to living with the Russians on our border," Defence Minister Vasile Dancu said on Friday, following the island's capture.
"But these are NATO borders. Romania will not be alone in handling this, it will have support if necessary."
- Silver lining -
Romania is however concerned that hydrocarbon companies it has contracted to look for natural gas deposits off its shores might be put off by Russian troops so close to Romanian territorial waters.
Exploration has not yet started, but any findings would be a huge source of gas for the country.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday stressed the Kremlin's objectives were not limited to Ukraine, as it has demanded the military alliance remove all forces and infrastructure from countries that have joined since 1997.
Among those, Russia wants to see an end to the presence of a NATO anti-missile system at the Deveselu military base in southern Romania.
NATO insists the system serves a purely defensive purpose, but Moscow says it considers it a threat.
Beyond the current tensions, sociologist Remus Ioan Stefureac says there is, however, at least one silver lining to the crisis for Romania.
"Since the aggression against Ukraine, Romanians' trust in the EU and NATO has soared to more than 80 percent," he said.
Many Romanians had lost faith in both institutions in recent years, not least because of disinformation originating in Russia.
I.Meyer--BTB