Evacuation of civilians begins in besieged Ukrainian city of Oleshky

By: Peter Beaumont Senior international correspondent

30 October 2026 at 20:13

Humanitarian convoy brings food and medicine to Russian-held city where people have suffered severe shortages

People living in the besieged Russian-held city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine were evacuated on Friday as part of a joint relief operation, the first of its kind in four years and eight months of war.

The city, which lies on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, opposite Kherson, has suffered months of serious food and medical shortages, leading to warnings of starvation for the few thousand people remaining there, including about 50 children.

Evacuation of civilians begins in besieged Ukrainian city of Oleshky

The Guardian

By: Peter Beaumont Senior international correspondent

30 October 2026 at 20:13

Humanitarian convoy brings food and medicine to Russian-held city where people have suffered severe shortages

People living in the besieged Russian-held city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine were evacuated on Friday as part of a joint relief operation, the first of its kind in four years and eight months of war.

The city, which lies on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River, opposite Kherson, has suffered months of serious food and medical shortages, leading to warnings of starvation for the few thousand people remaining there, including about 50 children.

Russian News Outlet That Defied Kremlin Will Shut Down: ‘They Killed Us’

NYT > Top Stories

By: Valerie Hopkins

30 October 2026 at 20:19

Journalists at the fiercely independent Novaya Gazeta, whose co-founder received the Nobel Peace Prize, said the government had orchestrated its demise.

The Nobel laureate Dmitri Muratov, second from left, with colleagues at Novaya Gazeta’s offices in Moscow last year. “We no longer have a home or money,” he said on Friday.

Aid operation and evacuations in Oleshky amid brief truce agreed to by Russia and Ukraine

PBS News Hour - The Latest

By: Hanna Arhirova · Associated Press

30 October 2026 at 16:31

A humanitarian mission entered the devastated city of Oleshky on Friday, officials said, as Russia and Ukraine observed the most significant truce of the 4½-year war that began with Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

U.S. Oil Industry Earned Over $130 Billion in Profit During Iran War

NYT > Top Stories

By: Rebecca F. Elliott and Keith Collins

30 October 2026 at 13:35

That was almost three times as much as what businesses producing and refining oil in the United States made in the same period in 2025.

Oh to Believe in Another World review – William Kentridge’s amazing animated ballet of black comic pain

The Guardian

By: Peter Bradshaw

30 October 2026 at 12:29

Kentridge’s cine-musical creation, made to accompany Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, is a marvel of puppetry, dance and humour, exploring humanity, grief and idealism

The Baku international arts festival in Azerbaijan is showcasing an amazing cine-musical creation, perhaps the most amazing animation I have ever seen. Oh to Believe in Another World is an hour-long collage animation with live-action choreography by the 71-year-old South African artist and film-maker William Kentridge. It is shown with the live orchestral accompaniment of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, and this event is partly in honour of the 120th anniversary of Shostakovich’s birth this year, and partly to honour Shostakovich’s reportedly unrequited love (and lifelong friendship) for his student, Azerbaijani pianist and composer Elmira Nazirova.

The 10th symphony was inspired by Stalin and premiered shortly after his death, so it seems probable that Shostakovich had been at work on it for some time before this, long enough beforehand for at least some of the composition to have been conceived without any sense of Stalin’s death. Could part of it perhaps have been originally intended as an obediently dramatic tribute to Stalin? Yet the music arguably combines fear, awe, revulsion, and a hysterical reaction to the mad energy of Stalin’s genocidal tyranny, a darkly ambiguous respect for the great dictator whose victory in 1945 was a mainstay of the postwar dispensation; perhaps there is also a feeling in the music’s swirl that a great and terrible era has passed away, and with it a kind of grief at all that had been sacrificed to it.

Russian society being ‘systematically crushed’ says Novaya Gazeta as newspaper announces closure

World news | The Guardian

By: Shaun Walker

30 October 2026 at 18:52

Independent outlet, whose former editor Dmitry Muratov won Nobel prize, cites intolerable pressure from authorities

Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known independent media outlets, has announced it will permanently close next month. The newspaper, whose former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel peace prize in 2021, cited intolerable pressure, including being stripped of its newsroom, its donation platforms and its legal right to publish.

“This is not just our own story; it is the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed,” wrote its editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, on the newspaper’s website.

Russian society being ‘systematically crushed’ says Novaya Gazeta as newspaper announces closure

The Guardian

By: Shaun Walker

30 October 2026 at 18:52

Independent outlet, whose former editor Dmitry Muratov won Nobel prize, cites intolerable pressure from authorities

Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known independent media outlets, has announced it will permanently close next month. The newspaper, whose former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel peace prize in 2021, cited intolerable pressure, including being stripped of its newsroom, its donation platforms and its legal right to publish.

“This is not just our own story; it is the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed,” wrote its editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, on the newspaper’s website.

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