Dec31,2019: Several thousand protesters attacked the US embassy in the Iraqi capital on Tuesday in anger at US air strikes that killed more than two dozen pro-Iran fighters at the weekend.
A stream of men in military fatigues, as well as some women, marched through checkpoints that usually restrict access to Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone.
They waved flags in support of the Hashed al-Shaabi, a network of armed groups that has been largely incorporated into the security forces.
On Sunday, at least 25 fighters from a hardline Hashed faction known as Kataeb Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades) were killed in US air strikes on a base in western Iraq.
The strikes were in response to escalating rocket attacks on Iraqi bases where US forces are deployed.
The attacks have not been claimed but US security assessments have largely blamed them on Kataeb Hezbollah.
The demonstrators on Tuesday reached the US embassy walls, chanting “Death to America” and burning US flags.
They held up posters calling for the embassy to be shut down and for parliament to order US forces to leave the country.
“Parliament should oust US troops, or else we will,” one poster said.
They pulled security cameras off the wall as Iraqi security forces tried to keep them back.
Russian and Ukrainian gas companies say they have finalised a slew of contracts ensuring uninterrupted transit of Russian natural gas to Europe.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the agreements that were signed late Monday, saying they will allow Ukraine to get at least $7 billion in transit payments from Russia over the next five years.
Mr. Zelenskiy said on Facebook the documents ensured Ukraine’s “energy security and well-being” and let “Europe know that we won’t fail it when it comes to energy security.”
The deal that comes just 24 hours before the current transit contract expires on Tuesday will ease European fears of an interruption in Russian gas supplies. Russia ships about 40% of its European gas deliveries through pipelines that cross Ukraine.
Russia’s Gazprom state-controlled gas giant and Ukraine’s Naftogaz energy company described the agreements signed in Vienna late Monday as a hard-won compromise that followed five days of strenuous talks.
The agreements formalized a tentative deal reached earlier this month that envisaged shipments of 65 billion cubic metres of natural gas through Ukraine in 2020 and annual shipments of 40 billion cubic metres thereafter.
Those amounts are smaller than what Russia has sent through Ukraine in previous years. Russia has been working intensively to build new delivery networks that bypass Ukraine.
They include the prospective Nord Stream 2 undersea pipeline between Russia and Germany. Russian officials vowed that it would be completed next year despite the US sanctions that forced a Swiss company laying sections of the pipeline to suspend work. They said that Gazprom has its own assets to complete the construction.
The Russia-Ukraine gas agreements come as the two neighbours remain locked in a tug-of-war that followed Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
It follows the December 9 talks in Paris between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany on settling the conflict in the east. The negotiations marked Zelenskiy’s first encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which they talked about the gas issue, paving way for the deal.
The Ukraine-Russia gas deal envisaged payment by Russia of $2.9 billion to settle an arbitration claim resulting from previous transit disputes and waived any other claims related to the 2009 transit contract.