Ukrainian stabs Ukrainian at bar, thinking he's Russian
New York(AP): Anger over Russia's invasion of Ukraine turned bloody in a Brooklyn karaoke bar, with one Ukrainian patron stabbing another Ukrainian man in the face and neck after wrongly insisting the man was Russian, authorities said.
Prosecutors are pursuing hate crime charges because of his mistaken belief about the victim's nationality.
Oleg Sulyma, 31, is accused of slashing a fellow Ukrainian immigrant with two broken beer bottles after hearing him speaking Russian and demanding proof of his ethnicity, including asking him to say a hard-to-pronounce Ukrainian word.
I will show you what a real Ukrainian is!" Sulyma said just before attacking, according to prosecutors.
Sulyma pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges including attempted murder and assault as a hate crime in connection with the April 25 attack, which took place at the Signature Restaurant and Falada Lounge in Sheepshead Bay.
The neighbourhood is home to many people with ties to Russia and Ukraine.
Sulyma was released under supervision following his arraignment on Wednesday and ordered to return to court on August 8. The man he's accused of stabbing, Andrii Meleshkov, required 17 stitches to repair his wounds, prosecutors said.
A message seeking comment was left with Sulyma's lawyer.
At a previous court appearance, lawyer Arthur Gershfeld described the clash as a disputed argument between people and said Sulyma is the one who bore the brunt of it.
Gershfeld alleged Meleshkov, 36, and his friends fought Sulyma, resulting in a collapsed lung and requiring multiple stitches to his lip and eye.
Meleshkov told The New York Post he took Sulyma to the ground and sat on him after Sulyma stabbed him.
Under New York state law, prosecutors can charge a person with a hate crime if theres evidence they were motivated to act because of what they believed or perceived to be true about a person's heritage or background, even if they're really members of the same group and those beliefs or perceptions are incorrect.
According to prosecutors, Sulyma confronted Meleshkov and two of his friends around 3.45 am, just before closing time, because they were speaking Russian.
You look Russian, he said according to prosecutors, and demanded they prove they were actually Ukrainian. He continued insisting they were Russian, even when they said otherwise.
We switched to Ukrainian in order to calm him down, but it was getting him more and more agitated and he started asking us to translate words to prove that we're Ukrainian, Meleshkov told the Post.
Meleshkov told the Post that Sulyma asked him and his friends to pronounce the name of a type of Ukrainian bread, Palianytsia , because Russians typically have trouble saying it correctly.
According to Meleshkov, the assailant told him: If you get it wrong, I'll have my way with you.
Sulyma then smashed two beer bottles against a table, said I'm going to cut you , and used the jagged edges to stab Meleshkov on the left side of his neck and the right side of his face, prosecutors said.
Sulyma continued to hurl insults at Meleshkov and call him Russian after police arrived, prosecutors said.
Meleshkov, a truck driver, said he was born and raised in Eastern Ukraine, where many people speak Russian, and that his mother is Russian.
He moved to Brooklyn in 2015. Sulyma, a construction worker, has lived in Brooklyn for more than a decade.
This defendant allegedly attempted to murder an innocent Ukrainian man who he believed to be Russian in a hateful and violent rage, Brooklyn District Attorney Gonzalez said in a written statement.
Brooklyn's diversity makes our borough so vibrant, and hate-motivated violence will never be tolerated here, Gonzalez added.
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Iran reimposes restrictions on Strait of Hormuz, accusing US of violating deal to reopen it
Cairo (AP): Iran swiftly reversed course on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, reimposing restrictions on the critical waterway on Saturday after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iran-linked shipping.
Iran's joint military command said on Saturday that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state ... under strict management and control of the armed forces.” It warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the US blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
The announcement came the morning after US President Donald Trump said that even after Iran announced the strait's reopening on Friday, the American blockade “will remain in full force” until Tehran reaches a deal with the US, including on its nuclear programme.
The conflict over the chokepoint threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy after oil prices began to fall again on Friday on hopes the US and Iran were drawing closer to an agreement. Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passes through the strait, and further limits would squeeze already constrained supply, driving prices higher once again.
Control over the strait has proven to be one of Iran's main points of leverage and prompted the United States to deploy forces and initiate a blockade on Iranian ports as part of an effort to force Iran to accept a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire to end almost seven weeks of war that has raged between Israel, the US and Iran.
Iran said it fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels after a 10-day truce was announced between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. But after Trump said the blockade would continue, top Iranian officials said his announcement violated last week's ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US and warned the strait would not stay open if the US blockade remained in effect.
A data firm, Kpler, said movement through the strait remained confined to corridors requiring Iran's approval.
US forces have sent 21 ships back to Iran since the blockade began on Monday, US Central Command said on X.
Truce in Lebanon could help US-Iran peace efforts
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The ceasefire in Lebanon could clear one major obstacle to an agreement. But it was unclear to what extent Hezbollah would abide by a deal it did not play a role in negotiating, and which will leave Israeli troops occupying a stretch of southern Lebanon.
Trump said in another post that Israel is “prohibited” by the US from further strikes on Lebanon and that “enough is enough” in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The State Department said the prohibition applies only to offensive attacks and not to actions taken in self-defence.
Shortly before Trump's post, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel agreed to the ceasefire in Lebanon “at the request of my friend President Trump,” but that the campaign against Hezbollah is not complete.
He claimed Israel had destroyed about 90 per cent of Hezbollah's missile and rocket stockpiles and added that Israeli forces “have not finished yet” with the dismantling of the group.
In Beirut, displaced families began moving toward southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs despite warnings by officials not to return to their homes until it became clear whether the ceasefire would hold.
The Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon reported sporadic artillery shelling in some parts of southern Lebanon in the hours after the ceasefire took effect.
An end to Israel's war with Hezbollah was a key demand of Iranian negotiators, who previously accused Israel of breaking last week's ceasefire with strikes on Lebanon. Israel had said that the deal did not cover Lebanon.
The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, more than 2,290 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states. Thirteen US service members have also been killed.
