When US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink resigned her post two days ago, she was both under pressure from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office in Kyiv, and feeling the strain of working for her ultimate boss in Washington, President Donald Trump, according to people who knew her.

At the same time, she was almost three years into a posting in a war zone away from her family – a situation that had also taken an inevitable toll, people said. An “extraordinary performance,” said a State Department spokesperson, paying tribute.

Her sudden departure marks the latest upheaval in Washington’s relations with Kyiv since the Trump administration took office and began a dramatic re-orientation of US policy away from Ukraine and toward Russia.

“She was a very systematic supporter of Ukraine during her three years (in Kyiv). She did everything her position allowed her to do in order for Ukraine to succeed. Her principles would not allow her to do the opposite,” the former official said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said he had communicated with the ambassador following her decision to leave and stressed it was not an emotional decision she had taken, but one that was carefully considered.

“She took a very rational decision about what she can do right now, in a new environment, under new circumstances,” the official said.

Brink began her stint in May 2022, just a few months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While Kyiv’s key interlocutors were inside the White House – National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in particular played a central role during the Biden era – Brink maintained a high visibility in country and on social media, promoting the Biden administration’s policy of military and humanitarian aid transfers.

Western ambassadors who worked alongside her in Ukraine spoke of her work ethic and professionalism.

The new administration has opened multiple channels to Moscow, following three years of diplomatic isolation. It has switched from supporting Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to NATO membership to all but ruling it out completely. And at one point last month, the US even paused all military aid and intelligence-sharing to force Kyiv to commit to talks to end the war.

The difficulties in dealing with such a pronounced shift in US policy came to a head for Brink in two of her social media posts.

The first was a retweet of a posting by Secretary of State Marco Rubio just hours after Zelensky was publicly assailed by Trump and his deputy JD Vance at a meeting in the White House at the end of February.

“Thank you @POTUS for standing up for America in a way that no president has ever had the courage to do before. Thank you for putting America first. America is with you!” read Rubio’s tweet, which Brink separately sent out translated into Ukrainian.

Seventeen hundred people piled into the comments expressing astonishment that someone who had previously been so vocal in support of Ukraine was now apparently cheering the humiliation of its leader.

“Resign and maintain your dignity,” was one of the more polite responses. Many showed considerably less restraint.

The second was a tweet sent just a week ago, following a Russian attack on the southern city of Kryvyi Rih which resulted in the heaviest loss of civilian life in a single strike this year.

“Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant in Kryvyi Rih. More than 50 people injured and 16 killed, including six children. This is why the war must end,” she wrote.

Zelensky himself issued a withering response in his nightly address, drawing attention to her failure to name check Russia.

“Such a strong country, such a strong people – and such a weak reaction. They are even afraid to say the word ‘Russian’ when talking about the missile that killed children,” he said.

Brink did mention Russia in subsequent references to the attack, and the former Ukrainian official expresses sympathy over the predicament she found herself in.

Confirming Brink’s departure to reporters on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce ducked a suggestion the ambassador had been expressly instructed to reduce public references to Russia, saying she was “not aware of anything like that,” adding that she “wouldn’t speak to anything regarding … a diplomat and the internal dynamics that might occur.”

It was not just relations with her own government that deteriorated as the Trump team took over at the White House, people who know her say. Relations with Zelensky’s office had also long since become difficult.

The Ukrainian president’s office had grown ever more frustrated by what it saw as the Biden administration’s excessive caution over transfer of weapons such as longer-range tactical missiles known as ATACMs, or F-16 fighter jets, and as the ranking US official in Ukraine, she often bore the brunt, people who knew her said. Her relationship with Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, was particularly strained.

In addition, she advocated hard for the introduction of anti-corruption measures and reforms aimed at increasing transparency. Back home, these were seen as crucial in winning round skeptics in Congress reluctant to approve Ukraine spending bills for fear the money would be syphoned off. In Kyiv, says Andy Hunder of the American Chamber of Commerce, it made her unpopular.

“She’s been very good for the business community in Ukraine … with a focus on the shadow economy … but (too often) there wasn’t the political will to do anything about it,” Hunder says.

A former ambassador from Europe who was in Kyiv at the same time as Brink is more blunt.

“She never sugar-coated things … she was always very clear with them as to the kind of standards against which they would be met in Washington … and I think that kind of pissed them off.”

Hunder says he believes by the end Brink was simply exhausted from the political pressures from both governments she had to deal with.

“We were lucky, we had a great supporter. Right now, we have uncertainty,” he said.

Tanzania’s main opposition party CHADEMA has been disqualified from elections due later this year, a senior election commission official said on Saturday, days after the party’s leader was charged with treason for allegedly seeking to disrupt the vote.

Ramadhani Kailima, director of elections at the Independent National Elections Commission, said CHADEMA had failed to sign a code of conduct document due on Saturday, thereby nullifying its participation in the presidential and parliamentary elections expected to take place in October.

“Any party that did not sign the code of conduct will not participate in the general election,” he said, adding that the ban would also cover all by-elections until 2030.

CHADEMA leader Tundu Lissu, a former presidential candidate, was charged with treason on Thursday.

The decision to disqualify his party will intensify scrutiny of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s record on rights as she seeks re-election.

Rights campaigners and opposition parties have accused Hassan’s government of a growing crackdown on political opponents, citing a string of unexplained abductions and killings.

The government has denied the allegations and has opened an investigation into reported abductions.

Hassan’s party Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has said in the past that the government respects human rights and has denied any involvement in human rights violations.

CHADEMA did not immediately comment on the election commission’s decision.

Earlier on Saturday, the party said it would not participate in the election code of conduct signing ceremony, as part of a push it is making for reforms.

Prosecutors accused Lissu on Thursday of calling on the public to launch a rebellion and prevent the election from taking place.

He was not allowed to enter a plea on the treason charge, which carries a death penalty.

CHADEMA had previously threatened to boycott the elections unless significant reforms are made to an electoral process it says favors the ruling party.

Asked why she and other Ukrainian people choose to keep living under Russian occupation instead of fleeing, the woman paused for a moment.

“I don’t know how to explain the feeling,” she said. “It’s like you just can’t believe that evil could win. Even after three years, people can’t believe that this is it. They still believe that the occupation will end. That’s why they are still staying here and not running away.”

The woman, a member of the all-female resistance group Zla Mavka, lives in a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell under Russian control just days after Moscow launched its full-scale, unprovoked invasion of the country in February 2022.

“You can be arrested for anything. You have to worry about everything. You have to check your phone, you have to check what you have in your apartment, you have to hide a lot of things, you can’t say what you’re thinking and you cannot trust anyone,” she said.

US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants the war in Ukraine to end, even if it means further territorial loses for Kyiv. Trump has said it was “unlikely” Ukraine would get all of its pre-war territory back, saying: “(Russia) took a lot of land, and they fought for that land, and they lost a lot of soldiers.”

This could include the Zla Mavka woman’s hometown.

“People abroad always talk about territories, and they forget, maybe, that it’s not only about territories. It’s about people. And people here are still waiting. People have not moved, and they don’t want to move. And why (should) they have to move from their homes?” the woman said.

Russian forces currently occupy nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, home to about 6 million people, including 1 million children, who are living in what the United Nations has described as a “bleak human rights situation.”

Stepan, a 22-year-old Ukrainian man who recently escaped from an occupied area in southern Ukraine to Kherson, which is under Kyiv’s control, has experienced firsthand what the occupying forces are capable of.

Stepan and his parents were detained by Russian troops in summer 2022. He was held for two weeks and repeatedly beaten and tortured with electricity. His parents were held for several more months.

None of the family was ever told why they were being detained. They have never been convicted or charged with any crimes.

When Stepan was released, he was separated from the rest of his family. He ended up on the left bank of the Dnipro River, which is still occupied by Russia. His mother Olha managed to escape to a government-controlled area after she was released in spring 2023.

Stepan was lucky – he managed to escape and was reunited with his family last month. He was brought back thanks to a “coordinated effort” that involved the “Angels,” a Ukrainian special forces unit that rescues vulnerable people from occupied territories, according to Roman Mrochko, the head of Kherson City Military Administration. Stepan and his family said they were not allowed to share details of the operation.

Dire consequences

Both Stepan and the Zla Mavka member said that even the slightest suspicion of being “pro-Ukrainian” can have dire consequences for people living under occupation.

“My friends and acquaintances were often taken away because they did not want to get a Russian passport or for not registering for military service. They were taken away and brought back a week later with broken arms and legs, sometime heads. There were many, we are talking about dozens of people,” Stepan said.

Human rights groups say that Moscow has intensified its campaign to “Russify” occupied Ukraine in recent months, likely to stake claim to the areas in any future peace negotiation.

“They try to remove anything Ukrainian from our city, from the language to traditions,” the Zla Mavka woman said, adding that the group has made it one of its missions to keep Ukrainian culture alive under occupation.

“We are spreading Ukrainian poems and the works of Ukrainian authors, and (celebrating) Ukrainian holidays, the traditional ones, just to remind to everybody that this is not Russia, and never was, and never will be,” she said.

She described living in the city like “getting into a time machine and going back to the USSR.”

“There’s propaganda and Soviet-style monuments, and Soviet holidays, and we are always waiting in lines, like in Soviet times, to get help, or to go to the doctor, or to get some documents, you have to wait in these long lines and there are no normal shops and no brands… just stuff you can get in the street markets and some strange Chinese products.”

Russian authorities have been meticulously erasing Ukrainian national identity, religion and language in occupied Ukraine. They have staged sham referenda on joining Russia and have been forcing the local population to become Russian citizens.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new decree ordering Ukrainian citizens living in these areas to “regulate their legal status” by adopting Russian citizenship. According to the decree, those who don’t do so by September will become foreigners and will only be allowed to stay for limited time.

But Moscow has already effectively coerced many Ukrainian people into accepting Russian passports because life is nearly impossible and very dangerous without them.

Those who don’t have Russian documents face the daily threat of arrest and deportation to Russia, have no right to work, no access to even the most basic health services or pensions and are barred from owning property.

“You can’t even call an ambulance without (a Russian passport). If you don’t have a Russian passport, the ambulance will not come,” the resistance woman said.

Human rights watchdogs have repeatedly said that Moscow is breaking international law by forcing the Ukrainian population to adopt Russian passports.

“And then the big problem for men, the men who (were forced to get) Russian passports, they are now trying to mobilize them into the Russian Army. They want to force them to fight against their own people,” the woman added.

The risk of trying to leave

Millions of Ukrainians are refusing to leave their homes in occupied territories – most because they still believe that Kyiv, with the help of its Western allies, will eventually liberate all its land.

There are also some who sympathize with Russia and are happy with the new regime – although both the Zla Mavka woman and Stepan said they believe this is only a small minority.

“These are often people who did not have a very good life before. For example, they didn’t have education and didn’t have a good job, but now, if they cry out loud ‘I love Russia,’ they will get a job in the government, they will get help and money from Russia,” the Zla Mavka member said.

SOS Donbas, a Ukrainian helpline for people living in occupied territories and combat zones, received more than 57,500 calls last year. Violeta Artemchuk, the director of the organization, said most people are asking for advice on how to leave safely, how to access help and what are the implications of staying and being forced to take a Russian passport.

The Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly told people in occupied areas to do whatever they need to stay safe.

“If you need to get some documents, get them. This does not change your status,” Heorhii Tykhyi, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said after the decree requiring Ukrainians in occupied territories to become Russian citizens was announced.

Tykhyi said that “the best solution, if possible, is to leave for the controlled territory of Ukraine.”

But for many, leaving is impossible because it’s too dangerous, too expensive and too treacherous.

“Theoretically, it’s possible to leave, but you have to go through filtration,” the Zla Mavka woman said, referring to a security screening process conducted by Russian forces on all exits from the occupied areas.

“They’re checking everything there, so… let’s say there is a woman whose husband was a soldier in 2014, and if they find out, she will have a huge problem, so for her, it is safer not to try. But this could be anything, like a comment on social media, something on your phone, they can just arrest you and deport you to Russia,” she said.

It is impossible to cross directly from occupied Ukraine into government-controlled areas, which means that anyone wishing to flee must travel through Russia, get out of Russia and then travel through Europe back to Ukraine.

“It’s not easy to leave everything and become a refugee. You can’t sell your apartment, you cannot cross the border with a large amount of money, you can’t take much… so it is possible, but not for everyone,” the woman said.

So, for now, she and millions of others are staying and watching the news coming from the White House and elsewhere in horror.

“People are very nervous and they’re very afraid to hear about a negotiation, and how our cities will become Russia, this is the biggest fear. But I can tell you that even if this happens, resistance won’t stop.”

Russian missiles hit the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy in the deadliest attack this year, killing at least 24 people, including one child, as residents gathered for Sunday church services, local officials said.

At least 84 people, including seven children, have also been wounded in the strike on the city’s center, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, making it the worst single attack on Ukrainian civilians since 2023.

Last week, a Russian missile attack killed 20 people in the central city of Kryvyi Rih.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deadly strikes were carried out by ballistic missiles and called for a “strong response from the world” in a statement.

“Russia wants exactly this kind of terror and is dragging out this war,” Zelensky said. “Without pressure on the aggressor, peace is impossible. Talking has never stopped ballistic missiles and bombs. We need to treat Russia as a terrorist deserves.”

The strikes hit the city center on Palm Sunday as residents were attending church services on one of the busiest church-going days of the year, according to Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

Two ballistic missiles were fired by Russia into the city center, said Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the military administration in the region. “At that time, a lot of people were on the street,” he said.

“The enemy was hoping to inflict the greatest damage on people in the city of Sumy.”

Artem Kobzar, acting mayor of Sumy, confirmed the death toll, saying, “Many people were killed today as a result of the missile strike.”

A video posted by Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko shows firefighters responding at the scene, putting out cars on fire and evacuating a woman from her home. Among the destruction seen in the city center are destroyed buildings, blown-out windows and piles of rubble. Bodies covered in emergency blankets can be seen on the ground.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called it “absolute evil” to launch the attacks on a Christian holiday and noted that the missiles hit a residential area of the city.

“We urge partners to provide Ukraine with additional air defense capabilities and increase pressure on Moscow,” Sybiha said in a statement posted to X. “Strength is the only language they can understand and the only way to put an end to the horrific terror.”

Unverified photos and video from the scene show bodies lying on the street and rescue efforts underway. Footage posted to Telegram shows the moment strikes hit the city, registering a loud noise and a large cloud of black smoke billowing into the air.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, called the incident a “horrific example of Russia intensifying attacks while Ukraine has accepted an unconditional ceasefire.”

Russia has increased air attacks and missile strikes on the Sumy region in recent weeks as it has pushed Ukrainian forces out of much of the adjoining Russian territory of Kursk. Its forces have also occupied a few small settlements just inside Sumy region.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

An Israeli air strike early on Sunday destroyed part of the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City as the military expands and intensifies its campaign across the territory.

No casualties were reported from the strike but the Anglican church in Jerusalem – which runs the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital – said a boy with a head injury died in the rushed evacuation of patients. It said that the hospital had received only 20 minutes warning ahead of the strike and were forced to take patients into the streets.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that they had struck “a command-and-control center used by Hamas” in attack, without offering proof. They said steps had been taken ahead of the strike to mitigate harm to civilians. Hamas denied the allegation the hospital was being used for military purposes.

The Israeli military is extending its ground operations deep into Gaza, creating a large buffer zone between the Strip and Israeli territory and pushing hundreds of thousands of civilians into an ever-smaller area on the Mediterranean coast. In the south, the military announced it seized the Morag corridor, cutting off Rafah from the rest of Gaza

In all, according to the United Nations, some 400,000 people have been told to move over the past three weeks, with hospitals often used as a place of shelter throughout the conflict.

“We expected that we would all die inside the hospital… I have no treatment or anything right now. We have no option but to travel abroad for treatment,” Abu Naser added.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that the hospital was temporarily closed and directed people to three other hospitals.

The Jerusalem diocese condemned the strike and said that in addition to the damage to the emergency department the two-storey Genetic Laboratory was demolished. The diocese said it was the fifth time the hospital had been struck since October 2023.

As health facilities across Gaza come under pressure for lack of medicine and equipment, the World Health Organization said that two missions – to Al-Ahli and the Indonesian hospital – had been denied by the Israeli authorities.

In a post on X, WHO said that hospitals in Gaza are “in dire need, yet the shrinking humanitarian access is obstructing WHO’s ability to resupply them and preventing patients from safely receiving life-saving care.”

“The people here are exhausted, they’re hungry, they’re tired, they’re wounded, not just physically but also psychically,” he said.

Al-Ahli is one of the few functioning hospitals across Gaza, treating up to 1,000 patients a day. An Israeli siege left Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City – the largest in the territory – in ruins last year. It began accepting some patients months later.

Video showed another airstrike on a building in the area of Deir al Balah in central Gaza on Sunday.

The IDF said the building was another Hamas control center and at the time it was struck “numerous Hamas terrorists were operating from within the compound.”

Israel say it is expanding its campaign in Gaza as part of efforts to force Hamas to free the remaining hostages it is holding.

One of them – American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander – appealed directly to President Donald Trump in the second proof-of-life video of the captive released by Hamas Saturday.

Alexander – who is almost certainly speaking under duress in the three-minute propaganda video – says he believed Trump would succeed in bringing him out of Gaza.

It’s unclear when the video was shot, but Alexander references being in Gaza for 551 days, which would indicate the video was recorded quite recently. The video was released on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum asked Jewish families to leave an empty place setting for the hostages to mark their time in captivity.

Alexander’s family asked the media not to share the video. Instead, they requested the publication of a screenshot of the 21-year-old from the video.

The United Nations’ emergency and disaster response agency will reduce its global workforce by 20% and scale back operations in nine countries, as it confronts a severe funding crisis and escalating global needs, it announced on Friday.

In sobering letter to staff shared on the agency’s website, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head Tom Fletcher outlined “brutal cuts” driven by a nearly $60 million funding shortfall for 2025, compounded by rising humanitarian demands.

OCHA will withdraw or adjust operations in Cameroon, Colombia, Eritrea, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, and aim to prioritize “dynamic and full responses” in remaining locations where it operates.

OCHA plans to lay off approximately 500 staff members from its workforce of about 2,600 employees across over 60 countries with a more concentrated presence in fewer locations, according to Najwa Mekki, Director of Communications at OCHA citing a separate letter Fletcher wrote.

The cuts follow months of austerity measures, including a hiring freeze and travel restrictions, which saved $3.7 million.

“The humanitarian community was already underfunded, overstretched and literally, under attack. Now, we face a wave of brutal cuts,” Fletcher wrote, emphasizing that the reductions stem from financial constraints rather than diminished needs.

Fletcher stressed the agency’s pivot toward a “lighter, faster” model focused on core priorities: crisis response, sector reform, and humanitarian leadership. The moves align with the UN’s broader “Humanitarian Reset” – a ten-point plan agreed upon in February by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) – and Secretary-General António Guterres’ UN80 reform initiative.

Fletcher defended the decisions, insisting OCHA must “coordinate, not replicate” efforts to preserve lifesaving work. “We believe passionately in what we do,” Fletcher wrote, “but we cannot continue to do it all.”

“Women and dried pollock need to be beaten every three days for better taste” – so goes an old saying that was common in South Korea in the 1960s when Choi Mal-ja was growing up in a small city in the country’s southeast.

Back then, male violence against women was widely accepted. So when Choi bit off part of the tongue of a man who allegedly tried to rape her, it was she who was labeled the aggressor and jailed for grievous bodily harm.

At the time, Choi was 18 and living at home with her family. Now 78, she’s trying to clear her name in the hope that vindication will pave the way for other victims of sexual crime in South Korea, one of the world’s most advanced economies but one where society remains deeply patriarchal.

After Choi’s push for a retrial was rejected by courts in the city of Busan, she took her case to the Supreme Court. The top court ruled in her favor, sending the case back to Busan, where evidence will be called in coming months.

Experts say the verdict could rewrite the legal precedent set by her original trial, with far-reaching consequences for other women.

“The court must admit the fact that its unfair ruling has turned one person’s life upside down, and take responsibility with just judgement now,” Choi wrote.

‘Like I’d been hit with a hammer’

One spring evening in 1964, Choi, then a teenager, stopped to help a man who was asking for directions in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang province.

After walking with him for a few meters, Choi gave him further directions and turned around to go back home, but he tackled her to the ground.

“I was feeling woozy, like I’d been hit on the head with a hammer,” Choi told a local TV show in 2020.

Choi lost consciousness for a short while, but she remembers the man climbing on top of her and trying to force his tongue inside her mouth. She was only able to escape by biting 1.5cm (0.6 inch) of his tongue off, she said.

More than two weeks later, the man, who is not named in court documents, and his friends forced their way into Choi’s house and threatened to kill her father for what Choi had done.

Ignoring her claims of sexual assault, the man sued Choi for grievous bodily harm, leading her to sue him for attempted rape, trespassing and intimidation.

The police deemed Choi’s argument of self-defense reasonable; however, prosecutors in Busan thought otherwise.

They dropped the attempted rape charge against her assailant and accused Choi of grievous bodily harm, according to court documents.

In 1965, Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years of probation, a harsher punishment than that of the aggressor, who was sentenced to six months of prison and one year of probation for trespassing and threatening.

“It didn’t take a long time for the victim of a sexual crime to be turned into a perpetrator, nor did it take the strength of many people,” Choi wrote in a letter to the Supreme Court last year, as part of her application for a retrial.

Choi also claimed that her rights were infringed upon during the investigation and trial process, during which she and her supporters say she was handcuffed at one point and later made to undergo a test to prove her virginity, the result of which was made public.

No word for domestic violence

Until recent times, the social norm in South Korea was for women to support the men in their family. For example, when the country was developing rapidly after the 1950-53 Korean War, daughters were commonly sent to work at factories to financially support their brothers’ education.

And until the 1980s, South Korea was so focused on rebuilding from the devastation of the war and Japan’s brutal occupation before that, that fighting for women’s rights was considered “a luxury,” according to Chung.

In 1983 the Korea Women’s Hot-Line counseling center opened to campaign against “all institutions, customs and conventions that impose inhumane lives on women,” and establish a “just and peaceful family and society,” according to its statement.

At the time, there was no word for domestic violence.

“This is the 1980s. So, imagine what Choi Mal-ja had to go through for her case, in the 1960s,” said Kim.

According to Choi’s testimonies, prosecutors and judges asked her during the investigation and trial whether she would like to marry the aggressor to conclude the case.

Becoming his wife, so the theory went, might make amends for his injuries, as no other woman would want to marry a man with half a tongue.

Wang Mi-yang, the president of the Korea Women Lawyers Association, said the 1965 ruling reflected the “social prejudice and distorted views on victims of sexual violence that remained deeply rooted in our society.”

Ending decades of silence

Anti-sexual violence movements flourished in the 1990s and even included campaigns seeking justice for “comfort women,” a euphemism for the victims of sexual slavery enforced by the Japanese military in Korea during and before World War II.

For many years, “comfort women” kept their trauma secret to avoid shame and humiliation, but they finally spoke out, becoming what Chung calls South Korea’s “first MeToo movement.”

“These people lived 70 years, unable to talk about what they’ve experienced, because they would get blamed… but them revealing themselves to the world means society has changed that much,” Chung said.

The global #MeToo movement properly took hold in South Korea in 2018, holding powerful men to account and pushing the government to enforce harsher punishments for crimes of sexual violence.

Changing attitudes motivated Choi Mal-ja to seek a retrial.

“The girl’s life, which couldn’t even blossom, was forever unfair and in resentment… the country must compensate for my human rights,” Choi wrote in her letter to the Supreme Court.

Kim, from the Korea Women’s Hot-Line counseling center, said while there’s still work to be done, attitudes toward victims of sexual violence have changed dramatically.

“The perception that the sexual aggressor is at fault, not the victim, that women are more vulnerable to sexual crimes, and it’s the government’s responsibility to punish the perpetrator and protect the victim is so widely spread out among the people now,” she said.

Protests in solidarity

With the help of the Korea Women’s Hot-Line, Choi requested a retrial in 2020, but the court denied her application, calling the original ruling “inevitable” due to the “circumstances of the time.”

Choi condemned that decision as “truly embarrassing.”

“I was so tired, having come such a long way, that I wanted to lay everything down,” she wrote in her letter last year to the Supreme Court.

But she persisted, driven by the thought of “women of future generations.”

A petition by the Korea Women’s Hot-Line gathered more than 15,000 signatures and Choi started a one-person relay protest in front of the Supreme Court for a month to pressure the highest court to annul the original decision to deny a retrial.

In total, 42 people including Choi took part, swapping out after each day of protest, to show their solidarity with her cause.

The Supreme Court granted her request, calling Choi’s testimonies about unfair treatment during investigation by the prosecutors “consistent” and “credible,” adding that there was no evidence that contradicted her claims.

“Every drop of water pierced the rock. When I heard the news, I shouted hooray!” Choi said in a live-streamed press conference after the Supreme Court’s ruling in December.

The retrial will be held at the Busan District Court, which originally dismissed Choi’s retrial application in 2021.

The right to self-defense

Choi’s long fight for justice is well known in South Korea.

Her case is even cited in the Criminal Procedure Act textbook – used to educate generations of student lawyers – as an example of using excessive force in defense.

A successful retrial could expand the definition of self-defense and set new protections for future victims of sexual violence, said Kim from the Korea Women’s Hot-Line.

“I think it will become a very important case in getting women’s rights to defense, their responses against domestic or sexual violence, acknowledged more widely,” she said.

In 2017, a woman was found guilty of grievous bodily harm, like Choi, for biting the tongue of a man who allegedly tried to rape her.

The Incheon District Court partially acknowledged the man’s fault, but sentenced the woman to six months of imprisonment and two years on probation, citing the severity of the injury and “the failure to reach a settlement.”

Kim said there’s still a perception among investigators and the courts that victims are responsible for sexual violence, particularly in cases involving “the victim going to the aggressor’s house, drinking together or going to a place where they’re left alone.”

According to police statistics, more than 22,000 rapes and indecent assaults occurred in 2023 in South Korea.

It’s unclear how many victims were charged after trying to defend themselves.

Kim said there were still “many cases of women’s right to defense not being recognized.”

In her letter to the Supreme Court, Choi said old, victim-blaming beliefs must change if women’s rights are to improve in South Korea.

“I believe that women will only be able to protect themselves from sexual abuse and make a world without sexual violence when the court indisputably redefines victim and perpetrator, recognizes self-defense, and changes the outdated law,” she wrote.

Survival guides, stockpiling and mass evacuation drills. Europe is scrambling to prepare its citizens for the growing threat of conflict arriving on its doorstep.

Several European nations have been offering sobering guidance in recent months – envisioning garages and subway stations transformed into bunkers and promoting psychological resilience.

One overarching message is the need for a change in the population’s mentality to become war ready. As NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told security experts in Brussels in December: “It is time to shift to a wartime mindset.”

It comes as European leaders fear that Russian President Vladimir Putin, emboldened by gains in Ukraine, could try to push further into the continent, while Europe’s longtime and powerful ally, the United States, adopts a more hostile stance to maintaining European security, raising doubts over how far it would be willing to intervene should a NATO country be invaded.

But questions remain over how effective these contingency plans would really be, and – moreover – whether civilians will take the guidance seriously.

‘Go indoors, close all windows and doors’

The European Commission has urged all citizens to stockpile enough food and other essential supplies to sustain them for at least 72 hours in the event of a crisis. In guidance released in March, the commission stressed the need for Europe to foster a culture of “preparedness” and “resilience.”

It came as individual countries have also been putting their own guidance in place for emergencies, including conflict.

Last June, Germany updated its Framework Directive for Overall Defense, giving directions on what to do should conflict break out in Europe. The document envisions the complete transformation of daily life for German citizens in the event of war.

Sweden has issued a survival guide titled, “If Crisis or War Comes.” The pamphlet was distributed to millions of households in November, after being updated for the first time in six years due to increasing military threat levels.

That leaflet instructs Swedes on how warnings would be issued in the event of war, including an outdoor alert system which it says is operational in most areas. “Go indoors, close all windows and doors and, if possible, switch off the ventilation. Listen to Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio, channel P4 for more information,” the pamphlet instructs.

It offers advice on where to seek shelter during an air raid, including cellars, garages and underground metro stations. If caught outside with no immediate cover, it advises to lie on the ground, “preferably in a small pit or ditch.”

Specific advice is given to Swedish citizens regarding attacks using nuclear weapons, telling them to “take cover as you would during an air raid. Civil defense shelters provide the best protection.” It adds: “Radiation levels will lower drastically after a couple of days.”

It also includes tips on evacuation, how to stop bleeding, dealing with anxiety, and how to speak to children about crisis and war.

For Finland – which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia, the longest of all NATO member states – the defense of its sovereignty against Moscow has long been part of the country’s psyche.

The country has been preparing for the possibility of a conflict with Russia for decades. Since the 1950s, the construction of bomb shelters under apartment blocks and office buildings has been mandatory.

But certainly, the Nordic state, which joined NATO in 2023 after decades of nonalignment, has been accelerating its state of readiness since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Two years ago, prompted by Russia’s war, the Finnish government took stock of its available emergency shelters, finding it had a total of 50,500 – which could shelter a possible 4.8 million people in a country of 5.6 million.

Helsinki’s interior ministry also issued new crisis guidance in November, giving readers advice on how to prepare for long power cuts, water outages, telecommunications disruptions, extreme weather events and military conflict.

Will people listen?

While nations have updated their civilian protection guidance, there remains no guarantee on how much attention individuals will pay to it.

However, she added: “The fine line to walk obviously is to increase preparedness without going into alarmism and catastrophizing. We want people to be aware, we don’t want them to be freaked out.”

For some countries, particularly those caught in Moscow’s sphere of influence, the threat from Russia feels more tangible. For others, it’s harder to grasp.

Major points to Finland – which lost territory to Russia during the Winter War in 1939-40 – and the Baltic nations, which were annexed by the Soviet Union between 1940 and 1991, as countries where the threat from Russia is more embedded in what she called the countries’ “DNA.”

“The existential threat, the fear of being overrun, of disappearing from the map, is very real in the Baltic states. They wonder why other countries don’t get it,” she said.

“The Finns, for the entire Cold War period, took defense seriously,” Major added. “Why are we all going to Finland now and looking at their bunker system and their stocks of medication and their reservist system? They learned from history; nobody is going to help us. We have to do it on our own.”

Major named Portugal, Italy and the United Kingdom as countries where the threat from Russia is less present in the national consciousness. Italy, she says, is more concerned with the threat from terrorism and instability from fragile states close to the country’s southern border. “It’s far closer to them,” she said. “It’s more of a problem for their stability, prosperity, domestic politics.”

The mainland UK, an island nation, was last invaded by a foreign power in 1066, while for many countries in Western Europe, they were invaded during the Second World War. This means living generations have less experience from which to draw on and its civilians may be less likely to take heed of any government advice.

“The question is how do you change the DNA of a country, that’s the crucial question,” Major said.

‘Protect and survive’

The effectiveness of such civilian protection plans also remains unclear. In the past, they have even been met with ridicule.

For decades during the Cold War era, the British government provided official information for its citizens to protect themselves against the nuclear Soviet threat.

The most prominent British public information source was known as the “Protect and Survive’” campaign, produced between 1974 and 1980. The series offered information on the dangers of nuclear fallout, instructions to follow in the hours and days after a nuclear attack, and a plan for survival.

A pamphlet published in May 1980 included tips on how to build a makeshift fallout room in your home, including a so-called inner refuge to protect from radioactive dust.

The campaign became the subject of criticism for offering unrealistic advice and presenting a false sense of optimism in the face of nuclear annihilation. It was long satirized in British popular culture.

However, after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain’s The Times newspaper demanded the government publish the booklets. “As a result, it was published at a time when there wasn’t an imminent threat of attack, so people looked at it through a different lens,” Young said. For that reason, he believes, there was more of a “cultural backlash” against it, adding that it was even ridiculed in popular British sitcoms.

Young pointed to the UK government’s advice to whitewash windows to help stop the spread of heat from a nuclear blast as one of the more comical suggestions. Civilians were instructed to “coat windows inside with diluted emulsion paint of a light color so that they will reflect away much of the heat flash, even if the blast which will follow is to shatter them.”

In comparison, Young sees Europe’s modern-day advice – including the UK’s guidance on preparing for emergencies – as more realistic, and incorporating more of the important psychological aspects, such as how to deal with trauma.

For Major, the need to prepare civilians for external threats – particularly in the “grey zone” area – can’t be stressed enough.

“We tend to look at the military (aspect), but we are terribly vulnerable in the grey zone. So what we have to think about is deterrence, defense and resilience. And this particularly implies a greater preparedness of society.”

She adds, “If the society is not willing and not ready to support a war like the Ukrainian society is doing at the moment, we will not prevail.”

An explosion occurred outside the offices of Hellenic Train in Athens, Greek police said on Friday, adding there were no immediate reports of injuries.

Police cordoned off the area after two Greek media organizations received warning calls that an explosive device would go off within 35 minutes, police officials said. A suspicious-looking bag was spotted outside the building which was evacuated.

An investigation is under way. A police official said the cause was likely a makeshift bomb.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Hellenic Train is a unit of Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato IPO-FERRO.MI, which operates passenger and freight routes in Greece.

A deadly 2023 train crash, Greece’s worst rail disaster, killed 57 people, mostly students, and injured dozens.

Many Greeks view the crash as emblematic of the neglect of the country’s railways in recent decades and also of a persistent failure by the state to address safety concerns. The crash has prompted angry protests, fueled further by a lack of trust in institutions.