Month: May 2022

Ambassadors from the 27 European Union member states on Sunday examined a compromise that could enable them to break the deadlock on a Russian oil embargo ahead of an emergency summit in Brussels this week.

The bloc’s officials fear the absence of an agreement will cast a shadow over the two-day meeting starting Monday between European leaders.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address the gathering by video link to press the bloc to “kill Russian exports” three months after the invasion of Ukraine.

The latest round of proposed sanctions by the EU has been blocked by landlocked Hungary, which has no access to seafaring oil cargo ships.

Hungary is dependent for 65% of its oil needs on Russian crude supplied via the Druzhba pipeline, which runs from Russia to various points in eastern and central Europe.

Budapest has rejected as inadequate a proposal to allow it two years longer than other EU states to wean itself off Russian oil. 

It wants at least four years and at least $860 million in EU funds to adapt its refineries to process non-Russian crude and boost pipeline capacity to neighboring Croatia.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic, also supplied by the Druzhba pipeline, accepted exemptions of two and half years, diplomatic sources said.

The compromise solution put to national negotiators on Sunday consists of excluding the Druzhba pipeline from a future oil embargo and only imposing sanctions on oil shipped to the EU by tanker vessel, European sources said.

The Druzhba pipeline accounts for a third of all EU oil supplies from Russia. Maritime cargos account for the remaining two-thirds.

The compromise was tabled by France, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, and by the European Council, which represents the governments of the EU nations. 

Its aim is to break a stalemate that has, since early May, prevented the EU from imposing a sixth round of sanctions on Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

This embargo on sea deliveries would involve stopping purchases of oil within six months and of petroleum products by the end of the year.

It would also impose additional sanctions on Russian banks and expand the list of Russian individuals blacklisted by the bloc.

Another option under consideration would be to postpone the entire package of new sanctions until a solution can be found to provide Hungary with alternative oil supplies, the sources said.

“A limited embargo that excludes pipelines will be much less painful for Putin’s Russia, because finding new clients for oil supply by tankers is much less difficult,” said Thomas Pellerin-Carlin of the Jacques Delors Institute think tank.

The EU wants to cut funding for the Kremlin’s war effort. Last year’s bill for Russian oil imports was $86 billion, four times greater than that for natural gas.

If the EU ambassadors succeed on Sunday in reaching a compromise on an oil embargo, it will still need to be approved by their governments before it can be put to the summit.
…

Chaotic scenes at the French national stadium before and during Saturday night’s Champions League final were branded a national embarrassment, while French ministers blamed Liverpool fans for the trouble.

The final between Liverpool and Real Madrid kicked off with a 35-minute delay after police tried to hold back people attempting to force their way into the Stade de France without tickets, while some ticket holders complained they were not let in.

Television footage showed images of young men, who did not appear to be wearing the red Liverpool jerseys, jumping the gates of the stadium and running away. Other people outside, including children, were tear-gassed by riot police, a Reuters witness said.

Some riot police officers stormed into the stadium while others charged at people trying to knock down stadium gates.

European soccer’s governing body UEFA blamed fake tickets for causing the issue and said it would review the events together with the French authorities and the French Football Federation, in a statement welcomed by the British ambassador in Paris, Menna Rawlings.

“We need to establish the facts,” Rawlings tweeted, adding her “commiserations” to Liverpool after a “valiant performance” in their 1-0 defeat by Real.

France’s Interior and Sports ministers squarely put the blame on “British” supporters.

“Thousands of British ‘supporters’, without any ticket or with fake ones have forced their way in and, at times, used violence again stadium staff,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter, thanking French police.

“The attempts at intrusion and fraud by thousands of English supporters complicated the work of the stadium staff and police but will not tarnish this victory,” Sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera tweeted.

Some 68 people had been arrested by 1.20 local time on Sunday while there were 238 interventions by medics for people who were very lightly injured, Paris police said in a statement.

UEFA issued a statement late on Saturday saying: “In the lead-up to the game, the turnstiles at the Liverpool end became blocked by thousands of fans who had purchased fake tickets which did not work in the turnstiles.”

Liverpool Football Club also issued a statement, saying: “We are hugely disappointed at the stadium entry issues and breakdown of the security perimeter that Liverpool fans faced.

“We have officially requested a formal investigation into the causes of these unacceptable issues.”

The scenes at the stadium caused outrage in France, with politicians of all sides calling it a national disgrace.

“This a shame for France!”, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a hard-right former presidential candidate, said on Twitter.

Even some in French President Emmanuel Macron’s camp lamented the events, which occurred two years before Paris hosts the Olympic Games.

“Scuffles at the Stade de France, brawls in bars, green spaces turned into trash… One observation: we are not ready for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” Nathalie Loiseau, a European lawmaker in Macron’s party said on Twitter.

 
…

Louis Bloomsfield inspects the kegs of beer at his brewery in north London, eagerly awaiting June, when he will get an extra day off every week.

The 36-year-old brewer plans to use the time to get involved in charity work, start a long-overdue course in particle physics and spend more time with family.

He and colleagues at the Pressure Drop brewery are taking part in a six-month trial of a four-day working week, with 3,000 others from 60 U.K. companies.

The pilot — touted as the world’s biggest so far — aims to help companies shorten their working hours without cutting salaries or sacrificing revenues.

Similar trials have also taken place in Spain, Iceland, the United States and Canada. Australia and New Zealand are scheduled to start theirs in August.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a program manager at 4 Day Week Global, the campaign group behind the trial, said it will give firms “more time” to work through challenges, experiment with new practices and gather data.

Smaller organizations should find it easier to adapt, as they can make big changes more readily, he told AFP.

Pressure Drop, based in Tottenham Hale, is hoping the experiment will not only improve their employees’ productivity but also their well-being.

At the same time, it will reduce their carbon footprint.

The Royal Society of Biology, another participant in the trial, says it wants to give employees “more autonomy over their time and working patterns.”

Both hope a shorter working week could help them retain employees, at a time when U.K. businesses are confronted with severe staff shortages, and job vacancies hitting a record 1.3 million.

Not all rosy

Pressure Drop brewery’s co-founder Sam Smith said the new way of working would be a learning process.

“It will be difficult for a company like us which needs to be kept running all the time, but that’s what we will experiment with in this trial,” he said.

Smith is mulling giving different days off in the week to his employees and deploying them into two teams to keep the brewery functioning throughout.

When Unilever trialed a shorter working week for its 81 employees in New Zealand, it was able to do so only because no manufacturing takes place in its Auckland office and all staff work in sales or marketing.

The service industry plays a huge role in the UK economy, contributing 80% to the country’s GDP.

A shorter working week is therefore easier to adopt, said Jonathan Boys, a labor economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

But for sectors such as retail, food and beverage, health care and education, it’s more problematic.

Boys said the biggest challenge will be how to measure productivity, especially in an economy where a lot of work is qualitative, as opposed to that in a factory.

Indeed, since salaries will stay the same in this trial, for a company to not lose out, employees will have to be as productive in four days as they are five.

Yet Aidan Harper, author of The Case for a Four Day Week, said countries working fewer hours tend to have higher productivity.

“Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands work fewer hours than the U.K., yet have higher levels of productivity,” he told AFP.

“Within Europe, Greece works more hours than anyone, and yet have the lowest levels of productivity.”

‘Hiring superpower’

Employees in the U.K. work roughly 36.5 hours every week, against counterparts in Greece who clock in upward of 40 hours, according to database company Statista.

Phil McParlane, founder of Glasgow-based recruitment company 4dayweek.io, says offering a shorter workweek is a win-win, and even calls it “a hiring superpower.”

His company only advertises four-day week and flexible jobs.

They have seen the number of companies looking to hire through the platform rise from 30 to 120 in the past two years, as many workers reconsidered their priorities and work-life balance in the pandemic.
…

Standing in the middle of a stretch of land surrounded by dunes and pine forest, Juan Romero examines the cracked ground then stares at the dusty horizon.

“It’s dry… really dry,” the retired teacher said at the huge Donana National Park in southern Spain, home to one of Europe’s largest wetlands, which is threatened by intensive farming.

“At this time of the year this should be covered with water and full of flamingos,” added Romero, a member of Save Donana, a group that has been fighting for years to protect the park.

Water supplies to the park have declined dramatically due to climate change and the over-extraction of water by neighboring strawberry farms, often through illegal wells, scientists say.

The situation could soon get worse as the regional government of Andalusia, where Donana is located, has proposed expanding irrigation rights for strawberry farmers near the park.

It’s a battle pitting environmentalists against politicians and farmers, and the proposal to widen irrigation rights has drawn backlash from the EU, the UN and major European grocery store chains.

The proposal would regularize nearly 1,900 hectares (4,700 acres) of berry farmland currently irrigated by illegal wells, said Juanjo Carmona of the local branch of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF).

“For Donana it would be a disaster,” he added.

The park, whose diverse ecosystem of lagoons, marshes, forests and dunes stretch across 100,000 hectares, is on the migratory route of millions of birds each year and is home to many rare species such as the Iberian lynx.

“Donana is a paradise for migrating birds. But this ecosystem is threatened,” said Romero.

The driving force behind the plan to extend irrigation rights is the conservative Popular Party (PP), which governs the southern region of Andalusia with the support of far-right party Vox.

The plan’s fate will be decided after a snap poll in Andalusia on June 19 but with both parties riding high in the polls the controversial proposal looks set to go head.

‘Red gold’

Defenders of the proposal argue it will aid those who unfairly missed out during a previous regularization of farms in the area put in place in 2014 under a Socialist government.

About 9,000 hectares of farms were regularized but another 2,000 hectares that started being farmed after 2004 were deemed illegal.

“This plan was badly done. It should have used 2014 as the cut-off date,” said Rafael Segovia, a lawmaker with Vox in Andalusia’s outgoing regional parliament.

The proposed amnesty “does not present any danger for Donana”, Segovia said, adding people should take into account the “economic importance of the sector”.

Huelva, the drought-prone province where the park is located, produces 300,000 tonnes of strawberries a year, 90 percent of Spain’s output.

Known locally as “red gold”, strawberry farming employs some 100,000 people and accounts for nearly eight percent of Andalusia’s economic output.

UNESCO, the UN’s cultural agency, has designated the park one of its World Heritage sites and has called for illegal farms near Donana to be dismantled.

It has warned that the regional government’s plan would have an impact that would be “difficult to reverse”.

The European Commission has also weighed in.

It has threatened to impose “hefty fines” if any steps were taken to extract more water from Donana park after a European court ruling last year scolded Spain for not protecting its ecosystem.

And around 20 European supermarket chains, including Lidl, Aldi and Sainsbury’s, sent the regional government a letter urging it to abandon the plan.

‘Ruin us’

Consumers may get the impression that all strawberries in Huelva come from illegal farms, said Manuel Delgado, the spokesman of an association that represents some 300 local farms.

“This situation will likely cause a major reputational problem,” he said.

The group, the association of farmers Puerta de Donana, argues the plan to extend irrigation rights would “only serve the interests of a minority”.

“Water resources are limited,” said Delgado, who fears farms will be forced to drastically reduce the amount of land they cultivate due to a lack of water.

“That would ruin us,” he said.

Backers of the plan, including other larger farmers’ associations, reject these concerns.

“There is no water problem in Huelva, it’s a lie,” said Segovia, the Vox lawmaker.

He said water could be diverted to the province’s farms from the Guadiana River on the border with Portugal, a solution rejected as “not sustainable” by the WWF.

“When there is no rain, there is no rain everywhere,” said the WWF’s Carmona, adding Spain should instead rethink its agricultural model.

Passions are running high. Romero said ecologists who oppose the plan have received death threats.

“Without radical changes to curb the overexploitation of water resources, Donana will be a desert,” he said.
…

As Russian forces press their offensive to take the eastern Ukrainian cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, civilians who have managed to flee say intensified shelling over the past week left them unable to even venture out from basement bomb shelters.

Despite the attacks, some managed to make it to the town of Pokrovsk, 130 kilometers to the south, and boarded an evacuation train Saturday heading west, away from the fighting.

Fighting has raged around Lysychansk and neighboring Sievierodonetsk, the last major cities under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region. Luhansk and the Donetsk region to its south make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland which is the focus of Russia’s current offensive. Moscow-backed separatists have controlled parts of the Donbas for eight years and Russian forces are now trying to capture at least the whole Donbas.

Bouncing her 18-month-old son on her lap, Yana Skakova choked back tears as she described living in a basement under relentless bombing and having to leave her husband behind when she fled with her baby and 4-year-old son.

Initially after the war broke out, there were quiet times when they could come out of the basement to cook in the street and let the children play outdoors. But about a week ago, the bombing intensified. For the past five days, they hadn’t been able to venture out of the basement at all.

“Now the situation is bad, it’s scary to go out,” she said.

It was the police who came to evacuate them Friday from the basement where 18 people, including nine children, had been living for the past two and a half months.

“We were sitting there, then the traffic police came and they said: ‘You should evacuate as fast as possible, since it is dangerous to stay in Lysychansk now,’” Skakova said.

Despite the bombings and the lack of electricity, gas and water, nobody really wanted to go.

“None of us wanted to leave our native city,” she said. “But for the sake of these small children, we decided to leave.”

She broke down in tears as she described how her husband stayed behind to take care of their house and animals.

“Yehor is 1 1/2-years old, and now he’s without a father,” Skakova said.

Oksana, 74, who was too afraid to give her surname, said she was evacuated from Lysychansk on Friday by a team of foreign volunteers along with her 86-year-old husband. There were still other people left behind in the city, she said, including young children.

Sitting on the same evacuation train as Skakova, she broke down and cried. The tears came hard and fast as she described leaving her home for an uncertain future.

“I’m going somewhere, not knowing where,” she wept. “Now I am a beggar without happiness. Now I have to ask for charity. It would be better to kill me.”

She had worked for 36 years as an accountant, a civil servant, she said, and the thought of now having to rely on others was unbearable.

“God forbid anyone else suffers this. It’s a tragedy. It’s a horror,” she cried. “Who knew I would end up in such a hell?”
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Europe’s frantic search for alternatives to Russian energy has dramatically increased the demand — and price — for Norway’s oil and gas. 

As the money pours in, Europe’s second-biggest natural gas supplier is fending off accusations that it’s profiting from the war in Ukraine. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who is looking to the Scandinavian country to replace some of the gas Poland used to get from Russia, said Norway’s “gigantic” oil and gas profits are “indirectly preying on the war.”

He urged Norway to use that windfall to support the hardest-hit countries, mainly Ukraine.

The comments last week touched a nerve, even as some Norwegians wonder whether they’re doing enough to combat Russia’s war by increasing economic aid to Ukraine and helping neighboring countries end their dependence on Russian energy to power industry, generate electricity and fuel vehicles. 

Taxes on the windfall profits of oil and gas companies have been common in Europe to help people cope with soaring energy bills, now exacerbated by the war. Spain and Italy both approved them, while the United Kingdom’s government plans to introduce one. Morawiecki is asking Norway to go further by sending oil and profits to other nations. 

Norway, one of Europe’s richest countries, committed 1.09% of its national income to overseas development — one of the highest percentages worldwide — including more than $200 million in aid to Ukraine. With oil and gas coffers bulging, some would like to see even more money earmarked to ease the effects of the war — and not skimmed from the funding for agencies that support people elsewhere. 

“Norway has made dramatic cuts into most of the U.N. institutions and support for human rights projects in order to finance the cost of receiving Ukrainian refugees,” said Berit Lindeman, policy director of the human rights group, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. 

She helped organize a protest Wednesday outside Parliament in Oslo, criticizing government priorities and saying the Polish remarks had “some merits.” 

“It looks really ugly when we know the incomes have skyrocketed this year,” Lindeman said. 

Oil and gas prices were already high amid an energy crunch and have spiked because of the war. Natural gas is trading at three to four times what it was at the same time last year. International benchmark Brent crude oil burst through $100 a barrel after the invasion three months ago and has rarely dipped below since. 

Norwegian energy giant Equinor, which is majority owned by the state, earned four times more in the first quarter compared with the same period last year. 

The bounty led the government to revise its forecast of income from petroleum activities to 933 billion Norwegian kroner ($97 billion) this year — more than three times what it earned in 2021. The vast bulk will be funneled into Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund — the world’s largest — to support the nation when oil runs dry. The government isn’t considering diverting it elsewhere. 

Norway has “contributed substantial support to Ukraine since the first week of the war, and we are preparing to do more,” State Secretary Eivind Vad Petersson said by email. 

He said the country has sent financial support, weapons and over 2 billion kroner in humanitarian aid “independently of oil and gas prices.” 

European countries, meanwhile, have helped inflate Norwegian energy prices by scrambling to diversify their supply away from Russia. They have been accused of helping fund the war by continuing to pay for Russian fossil fuels. 

That energy reliance “provides Russia with a tool to intimidate and to use against us, and that has been clearly demonstrated now,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. 

Russia has halted natural gas to Finland, Poland and Bulgaria for refusing a demand to pay in rubles. 

The 27-nation European Union is aiming to reduce reliance on Russian natural gas by two-thirds by year’s end through conservation, renewable development and alternative supplies. 

Europe is pleading with Norway, along with countries like Qatar and Algeria, for help with the shortfall. Norway delivers 20% to 25% of Europe’s natural gas, versus Russia’s 40% before the war. 

It is important for Norway to “be a stable, long-term provider of oil and gas to the European markets,” Deputy Energy Minister Amund Vik said. But companies are selling on volatile energy markets, and “with the high oil and gas prices seen since last fall, the companies have daily produced near maximum of what their fields can deliver,” he said. 

Even so, Oslo has responded to European calls for more gas by providing permits to operators to produce more this year. Tax incentives mean the companies are investing in new offshore projects, with a new pipeline to Poland opening this fall. 

“We are doing whatever we can to be a reliable supplier of gas and energy to Europe in difficult times. It was a tight market last fall and is even more pressing now,” said Ola Morten Aanestad, a Equinor spokesman. 

The situation is a far cry from June 2020, when prices crashed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Norway’s previous government issued tax incentives for oil companies to spur investment and protect jobs. 

Combined with high energy prices, the incentives that run out at the end of the year have prompted companies in Norway to issue a slew of development plans for new oil and gas projects. 

Yet those projects will not produce oil and gas until later this decade or even further in the future, when the political situation may be different, and many European countries are hoping to have shifted most of their energy use to renewables. 

By then, Norway is likely to face the more familiar criticism — that it is contributing to climate change. 
…

For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:

1:04 p.m.: Released Ukrainian POWs say Russian troops tortured them, according to reporting from “The Kyiv Independent,” which quoted Ukraine’s top human rights official. Lyudmyla Denisova said the former prisoners of war reported being detained in basements and outbuildings before being transferred to a Donetsk detention center. “During the transfer, Ukrainian soldiers were blindfolded, wearing a sack over their heads, and their hands were tied with ropes. They were tortured, threatened with murder, beaten and humiliated in captivity,”

12:33 p.m.: Ukraine is accusing Russia of stealing metal from the port city of Mariupol, “The Kyiv Independent” reports. Ukraine’s top human rights official, Lyudmyla Denisova, says Russia has started shipping the stolen metal, transporting 3,000 tons on the first ship to Rostov-on-Don, a port city in southern Russia. About 200,000 tons of metal and cast iron worth $170 million were housed at the port before Russia occupied the city, Denisova said, according to the English-language newspaper.

12:20 p.m.:

12:03 p.m.: Russia is pounding the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk after announcing its capture of Lyman, a rail hub nearby, Reuters reported. The Russian gains signal a shift in momentum in the war, which is now in its fourth month. Russian forces appear closer to seizing all of the Luhansk region of Donbas, which is a major goal of the Kremlin. Sievierodonetsk is the largest Donbas city still held by Ukraine.

10:38 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s willing to talk about resuming grain shipments from Ukraine. In a Saturday phone call, Putin told the leaders of France and Germany that shipments of grain might be able to leave Black Sea ports if sanctions against Russia are lifted, Reuters reported. Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies. The war in Ukraine, as well as Western sanctions against Russia, have disrupted supplies of wheat, fertilizer and other commodities from both countries, triggering concerns about world hunger.

10:06 a.m.: Ukraine’s defense minister says his country has started receiving anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the United States. Oleksiy Reznikov said Saturday that the weapons will help Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion, Reuters reported.

9:29 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Germany and France Saturday that continuing weapons supplies to Ukraine is “dangerous.” Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that sending arms to Ukraine could lead to the “further destabilization of the situation and aggravation of the humanitarian crisis,” the Kremlin said, according to Agence France-Presse.

8:37 a.m.: Russia said it has successfully tested hypersonic missiles in the Arctic, according to Agence France-Presse. The defense ministry said the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile traveled 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) and “successfully hit” a target in the Arctic.

7:50 a.m.: Russia says it has seized Lyman, a strategic town in eastern Ukraine.

“Following the joint actions of the units of the militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Russian armed forces, the town of Krasny Liman has been entirely liberated from Ukrainian nationalists,” the defense ministry said in a statement, Agence France-Presse reported. Lyman is a railway hub in the Donetsk region and its capture signals a potential momentum shift in the war, helping Russia prepare for the next phase of Moscow’s offensive in the eastern Donbas, Reuters reported.

5:29 a.m.: In early May, VOA Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze spoke with Mark Brzezinski, the U.S. ambassador to Poland. He says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has united Europe.

“What’s happened in Ukraine alarms everyone — with the genocide that is occurring there, the attacks on civilians, the mass destruction of villages, apartments, old people’s homes, hospitals — it defies any kind of human belief. And I think there is unity among all the allies in Europe about how bad this is and that something needs to be done. ​So, I don’t want to assess who’s taking it most seriously, because I don’t know anyone who’s not taking this seriously.”

4:15 a.m.: Reuters reports that Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian peace talks negotiator, said on Telegram that any agreement with Russia “isn’t worth a broken penny.”

“Is it possible to negotiate with a country that always lies cynically and propagandistically?” he wrote.

3:12 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry says most of the strategically important Ukrainian town of Lyman has likely fallen to the Russians. Lyman’s the site of a major rail junction and offers access to rail and road bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River.

That’ll be a key point as Russian troops aim to cross the river as part of the next stage of Russia’s Donbas offensive.

2:20 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region insists that Russian forces have not surrounded the city of Severodonetsk.

They have, he says, taken control of a hotel and a bus station. He said it was still possible that Ukrainian forces would have to retreat from the area.

1:13 a.m.: The Associated Press reports that a Communist Party leader in Russia’s Far East has called for an end to the war with Ukraine.

“We understand that if our country doesn’t stop the military operation, we’ll have more orphans in our country,” Legislative Deputy Leonid Vasyukevich said at a meeting of the Primorsk regional Legislative Assembly in the Pacific port of Vladivostok on Friday.

12:02 a.m.: Al Jazeera reports that Lithuanians have raised more than $3 million to buy a military drone for Ukraine. They’re aiming to raise a total of $5.4 million to purchase the Bayraktar TB2 armed drone.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a once-powerful Italian prelate who long served as the Vatican’s No. 2 official but whose legacy was tarnished by his support for the pedophile found of an influential religious order, has died. He was 94.

The Vatican in its Saturday announcement of his death said the Sodano had died on Friday. Italian state radio said that Sodano recently had contracted COVID-19, complicating his already frail health. Corriere della Sera said he died in a Rome clinic where he had been admitted a few weeks ago.

Pope Francis in a condolence telegram Saturday to Maria Sodano, the retired prelate’s sister, noted that Sodano had held many roles in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps, culminating in his being named secretary of state on June 28, 1991, by the then-pontiff, John Paul II. A day later, John Paul, who later was made a saint, elevated Sodano to the rank of cardinal.

In the condolence message, Francis expressed “sentiments of gratitude to the Lord for the gift of this esteemed man of the church” and paid tribute to his long service as a Vatican diplomat in Ecuador, Uruguay and Chile in South America, Francis’ native continent.

But late in his Vatican career, Sodano’s church legacy was tarnished by his staunch championing of the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the deceased Mexican founder of the Legion of Christ, a religious order, who was later revealed to be a pedophile. Maciel’s clerical career was discredited by the cult-like practices he imposed on the order’s members. An internal investigation eventually identified 33 priests and 71 seminarians in the order who sexually abused minors over some eight decades.

Sodano for years, while secretary of state under John Paul, had prevented the Vatican from investigating sex abuse allegations against Maciel. The Holy See had evidence dating back decades that the founder of the religious order — an organization that was a favorite of John Paul’s for producing so many priests — was a drug addict and a pedophile.

The Vatican’s biography, issued after Sodano died, made no mention of the scandals. Instead, it noted Sodano’s accomplishment as a top Vatican diplomat, including his work for “the peaceful solution to the controversy of the sovereignty of 2 states,” a reference to the territorial dispute that erupted in the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and Britain.

Speaking of Sodano’s career at the Vatican, which saw him serve until 2006 as the Holy See’s No. 2 official in the role of secretary of state, Francis said the prelate had carried out his mission with “exemplary dedication.”

In December 2019, Francis accepted Sodano’s resignation as Dean of the College of Cardinals, an influential role, especially in preparing for conclaves, the closed-door election of pontiffs. Sodano had held that position from 2005.

Sodano was born in Isola d’Asti, a town in the Piedmont region of northern Italy, on Nov. 23, 1927. He was ordained a priest in 1950 and obtained a doctorate in theology at the prestigious Pontifical Gregorian University and in canon law from the Pontifical Lateral University, both in Rome.

He joined the Vatican’s diplomatic corps in 1959, eventually representing the Holy See at foreign ministers’ meetings across Europe.

In 2000, Sodano played a role in ending an enduring mystery at the Vatican by disclosing the so-called third secret of Fatima.

In 1917, three Portuguese shepherd children said they saw the Virgin Mary appear above an olive tree and she told them three secrets. The first two were said to have foretold the end of World War I and the start of World War II and the rise and fall of Soviet communism. Some speculated that the third, unrevealed secret, was a doomsday prophecy.

While the pope was visiting the popular shrine in Fatima, Portugal, Sodano said that the “interpretations” of the children spoke of a “bishop clothed in white,” who “falls to the ground, apparently dead, under a burst of gunfire.” That description evoked the assassination attempt on John Paul in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981, in which the pope was gravely wounded. 

Sodano’s funeral is to take place on Tuesday in St Peter’s Basilica. It will be celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Giovanni Battista Re, while Pope Francis will perform a traditional funeral rite at the end of the ceremony.
…

To a threatening soundtrack of air raid sirens and booming artillery, civilians are fleeing towns and cities in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces advance.

Negotiating narrow apartment building staircases, volunteers carry the elderly and infirm in their arms, in stretchers or in wheelchairs to waiting minibuses, which then drive them to central staging areas and eventually to evacuation trains in other cities.

“The Russians are right over there, and they’re closing in on this location,” Mark Poppert, an American volunteer working with British charity RefugEase, said during an evacuation in the town of Bakhmut on Friday.

“Bakhmut is a high-risk area right now,” he said. “We’re trying to get as many people out as we can in case the Ukrainians have to fall back.”

He and other Ukrainian and foreign volunteers working with the Ukrainian charity Vostok SOS, which was coordinating the evacuation effort, were hoping to get about 100 people out of Bakhmut on Friday, Poppert said.

A few hours earlier, the thud of artillery sounded and black smoke rose from the northern fringes of the town, which is in the Donetsk region in Ukraine’s industrial east. Donetsk and the neighboring region of Luhansk makes up the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have controlled some territory for eight years.

The evacuation process is painstaking, physically arduous and fraught with emotion.

Many of the evacuees are elderly, ill or have serious mobility problems, meaning volunteers have to bundle them into soft stretchers and slowly negotiate their way through narrow corridors and down flights of stairs in apartment buildings.

Most people have already fled Bakhmut: only around 30,000 remain from a pre-war population of 85,000. And more are leaving each day.

Fighting has raged north of Bakhmut as Russian forces intensify their efforts to seize the key eastern cities of Sieverodonetsk and Lysychansk, 50 kilometers to the northeast. The two cities are the last areas under Ukrainian control in the Luhansk region.

Northwest of Bakhmut in Donetsk, Russia-backed rebels said Friday they had taken over the town of Lyman, a large railway hub near the cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, both which are still under Ukrainian control. On Thursday, smoke rising from the direction of Lyman could be seen clearly from Slovyansk.

But even when faced with shelling, missiles and an advancing Russian army, leaving isn’t easy.

Svetlana Lvova, the 66-year-old manager for two apartment buildings in Bakhmut, huffed and rolled her eyes in exasperation upon hearing that yet another one of her residents was refusing to leave.

“I can’t convince them to go,” she said. “I told them several times if something lands here, I will be carrying them — injured — to the same buses” that have come to evacuate them now.

She’s tried to persuade the holdouts every way she can, she says, but nearly two dozen people just won’t budge. They’re more afraid to leave their homes and belongings for an uncertain future than to stay and face the bombs.

She herself will stay in Bakhmut with her husband, she said. But not because they fear leaving their property. They are waiting for their son, who is still in Sieverodonetsk, to come home.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I have to know he is alive. That’s why I’m staying here.”

Lvova plays the last video her son sent her, where he tells his mother that he is fine, and that they still have electricity in the city but no longer running water.

“I baked him a big cake,” she said, wiping away tears.

Poppert, the American volunteer, said it was not unusual to receive a request to pick people up for evacuation, only for them to change their minds once the van arrives.

“It’s an incredibly difficult decision for these people to leave the only world that they know,” he said.

He described one man in his late 90s evacuated from the only home he had ever known.

“We were taking this man out of his world,” Poppert said. “He was terrified of the bombs and the missiles, and he was terrified to leave.”

In nearby Pokrovsk, ambulances pulled up to offload elderly women in stretchers and wheelchairs for the evacuation train heading west, away from the fighting. Families clustered around, dragging suitcases and carrying pets as they boarded the train.

The train slowly pulled out of the station, and a woman drew back the curtain in one of the train carriages. As the familiar landscape slipped away, her face crumpled in grief and the tears began to flow.
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Ukrainian presidential adviser and peace talks negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Saturday that any agreement with Russia cannot be trusted and Moscow can only be stopped in its invasion by force.

“Any agreement with Russia isn’t worth a broken penny,” Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Is it possible to negotiate with a country that always lies cynically and propagandistically?”

Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other after peace talk stalled, with the last known face-to-face negotiations on March 29. The Kremlin said earlier this month Ukraine was showing no willingness to continue peace talks, while officials in Kyiv blamed Russia for the lack of progress.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that President Vladimir Putin was the only Russian official he was willing to meet with to discuss how to end the war.

Putin says Russian forces are on a special operation to demilitarize Ukraine and rid it of radical anti-Russian nationalists. Ukraine and its allies call that a false pretext to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24.

“Russia has proved that it is a barbarian country that threatens world security,” Podolyak said. “A barbarian can only be stopped by force.”
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In mid-May, VOA Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze spoke with Alexandra Vasylenko, special envoy on coordination of humanitarian assistance to the minister for foreign affairs of Ukraine. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: The devastation of the war (in Ukraine) is affecting food security in the world. How can we estimate and assess what’s going on and how it would affect Ukrainian agricultural business and world business?

Vasylenko: Given that Ukraine is one of the main exporters of grain — of wheat, corn, buckwheat and sunflower oil — the implications of this war will be really hard, and we will feel it not only this year but also in coming years, three to five years at least. We already started sowing campaigns in almost all regions of Ukraine, but because of a huge mine decontamination mission there, it is very insecure for our farmers to perform sowing campaigns. But they already started doing this, even in the Zaporizhzhia region close to the front line. They’re performing their duty in helmets and vests.

The problem is not only with the sowing campaigns. We have an acute shortage of fuel, which is required for sowing campaigns, and it will be required for harvesting. Russian troops are trying to shell our railway stations, and they are focusing on the main railway complex. They destroyed a lot of grain storage as well, so we need to find out how we can store grain before we export it.

We also have very limited logistics capacity right now from the south and southeast because our Black Sea ports are blocked by Russian troops and mines. And to be figuring out alternative logistics routes can be really different from looking at the south in Romania. You’re looking at Poland, and you’re trying to figure out alternative routes with the European Union, using multimodal connections such as grain cargo lorries and, of course, seaports.

We get what we can see. If COVID-19 worsens world hunger, this war will have even more effects. According to the first quarterly report of FAO (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization) for crops and production for harvest, already 44 countries in the world are experiencing hunger; almost plus seven countries have been added to this list.

Projections for the harvest season in Ukraine are still very high. But as I said before, this situation is really complex with logistics, and we do not know how it will unfold and how we can harvest. So, sowing campaigns have started, and we will try to do our best to provide the world with the grain and to keep the world food security on the same and stable level, but we need help — and need to see how we can solve our problems.

VOA: There is a lot of talk about Ukraine entering the European Union. Is Ukraine ready for it? Do you see this as an opportunity and possibility?

Vasylenko: Ukraine is already a part of the huge and complex logistic partnership of Europe, and we are already one of the biggest trading partners of the European Union. And I think this situation is an opportunity to simplify procedures for both partners. And this is an opportunity.

VOA: What do you mean, “this situation”?

Vasylenko: I mean, it’s a given situation. Because, you know, their integration into the European Union, and the trade agreement with the European Union, it took us years to proceed with it, and we were very, like, step by step integration with different types of quotas for different types of trade commodities, even in terms of food production. Yes, it’s for the grain, for oil, for poultry. For example, two years ago, we started this quarter to increase it for, for Ukrainian poultry.

VOA: That was a big issue, right?

Vasylenko: It was a big issue, but we made it. And I think that both partners benefited from it. If we take a look at Ukrainian production in terms of European legislation and in terms of European expectation, even in terms of the European Green Deal, our production is already much, much more sustainable than European because we are not using so many different types of plant protection for our crops.

Ukraine is a transit country. It’s always been a transit country. And this is the moment when we can really use all these transport corridors, and Europe can really see how Ukraine can add value to the trades and to different types of economies.

Food system production is very complex. It’s logistics. It’s production, produce and manufacturing, growing, harvesting, planting, everything. And it’s really important for communities, for the environment.

VOA: When we are talking about storing the grain and maybe helping to demine the fields and give more technical support, my understanding is that the Russians are stealing a lot of equipment from Ukraine. What are your expectations, and what is the relationship you have right now with the world’s biggest companies that provide equipment for agriculture? 

Vasylenko: Well, I would say in terms of demining, the problem is really huge. And we are working on the demining problem on different levels with our international organizations and with the government on a bilateral level. And EU and NATO countries, they are already providing help. They are sending teams for demining. And I think this process already started, and it will unfold very rapidly.

You’re absolutely right, a lot of our equipment was stolen, and things for information technology. We can identify where it is and, if we can, switch it off.

Private foundations — for example, Howard G. Buffett Foundation — really are focused on food security and resolving military conflict. They are working hard to provide us with different types of equipment for planting and harvesting — for combines, for tractors, for drilling machines. So we can use it, and we can help.

I’m not talking about the big companies in Ukraine; I’m talking about small and medium farmers who have around 150 to 300 hectares. They can really benefit from all the stuff that can be provided by private donors or by private companies.

VOA: One more issue you’re working on is humanitarian work for Ukraine, coordination. How is it going? What exactly does Ukraine need?

Vasylenko: We established a working mechanism of communication and coordination between the Ukrainian government and our partners on multilateral and bilateral levels, of course. We established effective logistics to the Ukrainian border and within Ukrainian borders. On a weekly basis, we are providing our partners with updates on what Ukraine needs in terms of general needs for civilians and specific needs.

Each government party provides us with a list of needs. We clarify it with them and then provide it as a request for our partner countries through different types of mechanisms — for example, the civil protection mechanism, which works within the EU’s borders and through EADRCC (Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre). It’s a NATO mechanism. They provide more specific help.

In terms of priorities and in terms of help, I would like to divide it into two groups. I mean, like goods, it can be medicine, equipment — generators, etc. — and services. In terms of goods, we, on a very constant and a systematic basis, are providing our needs. We provide an exact consignee who receives these needs, so we can definitely deliver tracking information for our partners when they request it. So we are working hard to make this process more transparent.

Already we have several logistic hubs in the cross-border countries — Slovakia, Romania and Poland, of course. Poland is the biggest one. Where they are, all the operations are performed by the government of the cross-border country, which is really effective, and we can easily make customs clearance, we can sort everything. For example, in Romania, we already established a mechanism, thanks to our Israeli and American partners, with QR codes, so you can track where a pallet is going. It’s good information for our partners so they can see that the assistance is really delivered to those in need. So we are working really hard to make the system effective.

Nobody expected war in the center of Europe in the 21st century, and this is a huge crisis for all institutions. Even for U.N. system institutions, this is a huge crisis. And we can see how they are struggling with the bureaucracy, but struggling to help us. Ukraine is absolutely different from where they have worked before.

Ukraine is a developed country. We have an operating government, we have established logistics within our borders so we can deliver goods by ourselves, and we can work as an equal partners. And I would say that on the 17th day of war, we already reached this point where they understood the situation, and they are willing and they are collaborating.

VOA: Are you getting what you need?

Vasylenko: Definitely, in different volumes, we’re receiving different types of goods. Yes, we have certain problems with the clearing of proposals of the donor countries, but we are trying hard with this communication process to deliver accurate information about our needs and to help them clear those proposals for help.

But we need more because the war, unfortunately, is continuing, and we still have a lot of problems with food for civilians, with medicine. As the summer is approaching, we also need to start working, and we already started to, again, for the water purification systems and water purification tools, because we need to provide fresh water, clean water to our citizens so we can avoid this communicable disease spread.

VOA: The United States government is sending additional money to help Ukraine. A lot of that money will go through USAID (United States Agency for International Development). How is your relationship with American humanitarian assistance and U.N. humanitarian assistance? Are you getting what you need?

Vasylenko: Well, we are in close collaboration with USAID. We have a constant conversation on what is needed and how it can be provided. They are providing us with different types of services.

I think that this support can be and could be and should be increased because the humanitarian catastrophe that we already experienced will be much bigger. Because this is not only about how they can help during the war. We also need to think how they can help postwar. And this is something that we need to start building like already.

In terms of U.N., yes, I see that they started the process of providing what is needed, and they started this communication and consultation with the Ukrainian government to be more precise about the help that they providing. For example, WFP (World Food Program).

VOA: Are you saying it’s on the developing level?

Vasylenko: I would say it’s on a development level because they were not prepared for the Ukrainian war. This is a huge difference from all of the conflicts that they were involved in before. And they really needed to adjust. And because it’s a huge system, very bureaucratic, it really took time, but they started coping with this problem.

And WFP also now started delivering bigger amounts of help for those people in need. They are focusing on the south and southeast regions, and they are trying to reach those regions, and they are succeeding. And this is a huge help because under the flag of the U.N., it’s much easier to provide humanitarian assistance for those in need in the occupied territories.

And this is something that we need. We need to show the people of Ukraine that the government of Ukraine is working hard to help them and support them, and that they cannot be victims to Russian propaganda and cannot be used by Russian troops as a living shield.

So for us this is the highest priority: that the people of Ukraine will understand that the government is caring and trying to find solutions to help and support and advocate.

I really appreciate the work of U.N. agencies on establishing humanitarian corridors. We can see the recent success, and hopefully it will be a very sustainable process. And we definitely hope that we can provide help, together with them, to our civilians who are stuck in occupied cities.

VOA: In terms of corridors and delivering goods, do you see enough workers on the ground? I heard a lot of concerns about the security situation, obviously, and maybe there is a way to hire Ukrainians to work for those agencies, maybe. What kind of cooperation are you looking for to better assist each other?

Vasylenko: I think that you are absolutely right. We need to increase the number of people on the ground, and international agencies need to work with local people because local people know better. This is something that we are thinking not only in terms of the people on the ground, for minor work, like sorting and delivering goods. But this is something that we’re thinking in terms of the greater scale. We’re thinking that we definitely need to use resources of U.N. to train Ukrainian people so they can run the process and build the processes because Ukrainians know their country better and they can adjust accordingly.

But using the high standards of training of U.N. personnel and NATO will be a great benefit for U.N. and for Ukraine, because if we have high-profile employees trained accordingly to those high standards, and they can deliver, I will say it will be a huge success. Not only for something specialized, like demining training and training for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) helpers, but also something high-profile: managers that can really manage the situation.

VOA: This crisis will not be over soon, and the war is ongoing. The Russians have started bombarding delivery facilities and train railway stations and so on — logistics hubs. How long do you think the international community should be ready to help? And should they be ready for the long run?

Vasylenko: Well, definitely they should be prepared for the long run. So this is a marathon.

I would say it’s an ultramarathon for all of us. We cannot predict how the enemy will behave. We cannot predict what they will do. But what we definitely can predict is that Ukraine will win, and Ukraine is standing for all the democratic values of the world, and the world should be ready to run this marathon for Ukraine. And this is not only about humanitarian assistance. And this is not only about a humanitarian catastrophe. This is also — we are a huge economy.

We are an integrated part of the world economy. And if we are suffering, the world will also feel the implication of this suffering.

Yes, the world needs to think, as I said before, in terms of humanitarian assistance. This is not only about delivering the goods but also about helping the people of Ukraine regain what was lost. And this is something that we need to think not only in terms of mental health support, because all people are under a huge stress.

We need to think about how to help Ukrainians start small businesses and microbusinesses so they can support the economy, how to train them, how to encourage them. The small and micro entrepreneurs are a backbone of the big economy. Small entrepreneurs can provide help for their local communities, and we need to help them to source it and to establish their small and micro enterprises. And this is something that the world can help with.

A lot of countries that were working before with Ukraine — Sweden, U.K., Canada —were focusing on the support of small entrepreneurs.

A project of Canada, supported by SURGe Victory Gardens, is working with small local communities to provide them with vegetables and berries so they can eat something that they’ve grown on their land. And they can serve it and share it with the community and then hire people who lost their jobs.

And this is not only about the money. This is also about gaining dignity because you can provide for yourself. You’re feeling like an established person. Because a lot, a lot, a lot of people lost their homes. They lost everything. They lost families; they lost businesses. Some lost not only a family business, but they left their homes barefoot. And this is something that can help them regain dignity.

VOA: Thank you.
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Looping in the air at lightning speed, Turkish drones like those used against Russian forces in Ukraine draw cheers from the crowd at an air show in Azerbaijan.

Turkey is showcasing its defence technology at the aerospace and technology festival Teknofest that started in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku this week.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to attend Saturday.

Turkey’s TB2 drones are manufactured by aerospace company Baykar Defence, where Erdogan’s increasingly prominent son-in-law Selcuk Bayraktar is chief technology officer.

On Wednesday, Bayraktar flew over Baku aboard an Azerbaijani air force Mikoyan MiG-29 plane. One of his combat drones, the Akinci, accompanied the flight.

A video showing Bayraktar in command of the warplane, dressed in a pilot’s uniform decorated with Turkish and Azerbaijani flag patches, went viral on social media.

“This has been a childhood dream for me,” Bayraktar told reporters after the flight.

Proximity to ‘threats’

Turkey’s drones first attracted attention in 2019 when they were used during the war in Libya to thwart an advance by rebel commander, General Khalifa Haftar, against the government in Tripoli.

They were then again put into action the following year when Turkey-backed Azerbaijan in recapturing most of the land it lost to separatist Armenian forces in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Azerbaijani audience members at the aviation festival applauded during a display of TB2 drones, which are now playing a prominent role against invading Russian forces in Ukraine.

A senior official from the Turkish defense industry said his country was facing a wide spectrum of “threats,” including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Islamic State group jihadists.

The PKK is listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But with NATO allies — including the United States — having imposed embargoes on Turkey, Ankara was forced to take matters into its own hands to build defense equipment, the official told AFP.

“The situation is changing now with the war in Ukraine,” the official said.

Turkey has been looking to modernize its air force after it was kicked out of the F-35 fighter jet program because of its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system.

But Ankara’s role in trying to mediate an end to the Ukraine conflict through direct negotiations may have helped improve its relations with Washington in the past months.

In April, US President Joe Biden’s administration said it now believed that supplying Turkey with F-16 fighter jets would serve Washington’s strategic interests.

Exports to 25 countries

Michael Boyle, of Rutgers University-Camden in the United States, said Turkish drones such as Bayraktar TB2 drones were “increasingly important to modern conflicts because they have spread so widely.”

For years, leading exporters like the United States and Israel limited the number of countries they would sell to, and also limited the models they were willing to sell, he told AFP.

“This created an opening in the export market which other countries, notably Turkey and China, have been willing to fill,” added the author of the book The Drone Age: How Drone Technology Will Change War and Peace.

The Turkish official said Turkey has been investing in the defense industry since the 2000s, but the real leap came in 2014 after serious investments in advanced technologies and a shift towards using locally made goods.

While Turkey’s export of defense technologies amounted to $248 million in early 2000, it surpassed $3 billion in 2021 and was expected to reach $4 billion in 2022, he said.

Today Turkey exports its relatively cheap and effective drones to more than 25 countries.

Boyle said these drones could be used “for direct strikes, particularly against insurgent and terrorist forces, but also for battlefield reconnaissance to increase the accuracy and lethality of strikes.”

“So they are an enabler of ground forces, and this makes them particularly useful for countries like Ukraine which are fighting a militarily superior enemy,” he said.  
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