Month: July 2022

Russian-backed separatists say Ukrainian shelling in eastern Ukraine has killed at least 40 Ukrainian prisoners of war captured during the fighting in Mariupol.  The separatists said at least 75 prisoners were wounded.   

The Ukrainian POWs had been among those who had taken refuge in the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol where they were able to hold off Russian troops for nearly three months.  

The British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update on Twitter Friday that Russia, “in a significant change,” has handed over responsibility for portions of its frontline activities to the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company.  

The move makes it difficult, the post said, for Russia to deny links between such companies and the Russian state.  The measure was undertaken, according to the ministry, because Russia likely has “a major shortage of combat infantry.” 

“Since March, Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group has operated in eastern Ukraine in coordination with the Russian military,” the British ministry posted.  “Wagner has likely been allocated responsibility for specific sectors of the front line, in a similar manner to normal army units.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Thursday, “No one in the world invests in terrorism more than Russia.” 

He said, “This really needs a legal response at the global level.  And there is no rational reason why such a reaction should not occur, particularly in the United States.”

Zelenskyy thanked U.S. senators who have “unanimously approved the resolution calling on the U.S. Department of State to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.”  Russia would join Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria.

For the first time in weeks, Russia launched missile attacks Thursday on Ukraine’s capital area, Kyiv, and the northern Chernihiv region, in what Ukraine alleged was retaliation for its continued resistance to Moscow’s invasion. 

Russia attacked the Kyiv region with six missiles launched from the Black Sea, wounding 15 people, five of them civilians, a Ukrainian regional governor said. Ukraine said it shot down one of the missiles, but that Moscow’s forces hit a military compound in the village of Liutizh outside the capital city, destroying one building and damaging two others.

Kyiv regional Governor Oleksiy Kuleba linked the attacks to the Day of Statehood commemoration that Zelenskyy instituted last year, and that Ukraine marked on Thursday for the first time.

“Russia, with the help of missiles, is mounting revenge for the widespread popular resistance, which the Ukrainians were able to organize precisely because of their statehood,” Kuleba told Ukrainian television. “Ukraine has already broken Russia’s plans and will continue to defend itself.” 

Chernihiv regional Governor Vyacheslav Chaus reported that Russia also fired missiles from neighboring Belarus at the village of Honcharivska. The Chernihiv region had not been targeted in weeks.

Russia withdrew from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas months ago after failing to capture either region or to topple Zelenskyy’s government. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had launched an offensive to recapture the Kherson region that Russia took control of earlier in the war, on Wednesday knocking out of commission a key bridge over the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych as saying Kyiv’s forces are planning to isolate Russian troops and leave them with three options — “retreat, if possible, surrender or be destroyed.”

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, warned that the Russians are augmenting their forces in the Kherson region, saying, “A very large-scale movement of their troops has begun.”

The British military assessed that Ukraine has used its new, Western-supplied long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges across the Dnieper that Russia relies on to supply its forces.

The daily assessment from the British Defense Ministry said the city of Kherson “is now virtually cut off from other occupied territories.”  

Russian officials said their forces would use other ways to cross areas with damaged bridges, including pontoon bridges and ferries. 

Zelenskyy adviser Arestovych acknowledged that Russian forces have taken over Ukraine’s second-biggest power plant. He characterized the development, however, as only a “tiny tactical advantage” for the Russians. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Towed away gleefully as if it were parked illegally, the Soviet-era armored personnel carrier doesn’t look so intimidating as it is paraded before the delighted Ukrainians gathered to celebrate its seizure.

Theoretically, the 1970s MT-LB belongs to the Russian forces, but they abandoned it in Ukraine’s northeast, around 30 kilometers from the warring neighbors’ shared border.

It was found by tractor driver Vitaliy Denysenko, who grins, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, as he pulls his prize around a field in the village of Mala Rogan, where it was left during a hasty withdrawal at the end of March.

“We needed two tractors to pull it out, which we were able to do after the military demined the field,” the 44-year-old tells a group of reporters gathered to cover the spectacle.

Footage of Russian tanks and other military vehicles being towed away by plucky Ukrainian tractors has appeared regularly on social media since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and quickly became a defining image of the country’s resistance.

Denysenko followed the example of farmers across the country by donating his quarry to the military.

“We could not use it for ourselves. What could we do with it? Drive it to the village disco?” he said.

Ukrainian farmers have commandeered so many Russian vehicles in areas occupied and then abandoned by Moscow’s withdrawing forces that wags on the internet began calling them Europe’s “fifth-largest army.”

Craze

Now their chutzpah is being celebrated by the country’s national postal service, which had representatives in Mala Rogan on Thursday to launch a new stamp depicting one of the infamous heists.

Tetyana Fomenko, manager of the Kharkiv regional postal service’s stamp-collection store, said it was the fourth military-themed stamp issued during the war, with 5 million due to go on sale.

It is unclear which Ukrainian first towed a Russian tank but the craze really took hold when Viktor Kychuk and his friends took charge of a Soviet T-80 on March 1 in Slatyne, a northeastern town of 6,000, just 13 kilometers from Russia.

“We found a lot of vehicles and equipment in our village once it was liberated… This one was really stuck,” the 44-year-old told AFP, recalling shell fire raining down as they carried out the daring operation.

“There was a lot of discarded equipment, but the local team made the best of it,” he added.

“They cut out all the wiring, punched through all the optics and everything that remained. Four units were taken out. And four pieces of equipment were taken away by our guys from the village.”

Symbol of defiance

Kychuk sent a clip of him and his friends riding the tank away to regional military head Volodymyr Usov, who uploaded it to YouTube, where it went viral, quickly clocking 350,000 views.

The Ukrposhta postal service has become something of a symbol of Ukrainian defiance after issuing a stamp in April depicting a soldier making giving the middle finger to the Russian Black Sea flagship Moskva.

The warship had been sunk days earlier by an explosion and fire that Ukraine claimed was caused by a missile strike — while Russia said the damage was due to an explosion of munitions on board.

In Kyiv on Thursday there was a huge queue of people outside the central post office waiting to snap up the latest stamp.

Those in line were told there was a three-hour wait to get their hands on the prized memento.

“This is how we support the struggle of our people against the Russian aggressor,” lifelong stamp collector Vitaliy, 60, told AFP.

“But now there is a war going on, we, as patriots, support our country. A part of the money from the sale of these stamps will go to the armed forces of Ukraine.”
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Exiled Belarusian sources say recent Russian military activities inside Belarus, a key Moscow ally, show Russia is trying to maintain a threat of attack from Belarus against northern Ukraine after failing in a land-based assault on the region housing Ukraine’s capital Kyiv earlier this year.

While the Belarusian journalists, analysts and dissidents say another Russian invasion of northern Ukraine from Belarus does not appear imminent, that prospect has sparked a debate among them about whether the forces of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko would join such a Russian offensive.

Belarus-based Russian forces pushed into northern Ukraine at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in late February in a bid to capture Kyiv, a 150-kilometer drive from the Belarusian border. Lukashenko kept his forces out of direct involvement in the invasion, while publicly supporting it and allowing Russia’s military to use Belarusian territory and infrastructure.

Ukrainian forces supplied with Western weapons stopped the Russian assault outside Kyiv and counterattacked, prompting a Russian withdrawal from northern Ukrainian areas around Kyiv and a retreat into Belarus by early April.

Russia had deployed tens of thousands of troops in Belarus by the start of its all-out war on Ukraine. Now, the Russian troop presence in Belarus is in the hundreds, according to Franak Viacorka, a senior adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

“There are only up to 1,000 Russian troops, but a lot of Russian military equipment remains,” Viacorka told VOA in a July 21 interview from the Latvian capital, Riga. “If the Russians decide to come back to Belarus [in greater numbers] to attack Ukraine from Belarus territory, it’s still possible,” he said.

Lithuania-based independent Belarusian foreign policy analyst Katsiaryna Shmatsina, who has worked for several U.S. and European research organizations, told VOA by phone that Russia would have two main goals in any new assault on northern Ukraine via Belarus.

“Russia would be interested to block or undermine the shipment of Western military aid through northern Ukraine, and also to distract attention” from eastern and southern Ukraine, where the nation’s forces are concentrated against the main Russian offensive, Shmatsina said.

A news outlet called the Belarusian Hajun project, founded by Lithuania-based exiled Belarusian dissident Anton Motolko, has been posting reports on Telegram and Twitter of almost daily sightings of Russian military movements in Belarus in recent weeks.

Those reports by citizen journalists inside the country, some with photographs, include apparent sightings of Russian troops and military vehicles on roads and Russian military planes landing at and taking off from Belarusian airfields. Those citizen journalists also have reported seeing Russian Iskander-M mobile short range ballistic missile units and Russian S-400 mobile surface-to-air missile units at an airfield in the Gomel district of southeastern Belarus.

Ukrainian officials said Russia fired missiles from Belarus at the nearby Chernihiv district of Ukraine on Thursday.

The Belarusian Hajun project tweeted what is said were photos of the Russian missiles being launched from a Belarusian airfield in Gomel.

VOA cannot independently verify the photos or the other reported sightings of Russian military activities inside Belarus.

Shmatsina said Motolko’s news outlet is the main Belarusian source of information on those Russian activities, although she said the accuracy of citizen journalist reports is unclear.

Open-source intelligence assessments from this month concluded that Belarus still is granting Russia access to its airspace. Those assessments pointed to Ukrainian intelligence sources that found Belarus likely transferred the use of its Pribytki airfield in Gomel to Russia.

Viacorka said most of the Russian forces in Belarus are maintaining equipment, collecting intelligence and communicating with Belarusian officials and military personnel. “But these are not troops that usually are used for [land-based] operations in a war,” he said.

In a Thursday tweet, the Belarusian Hajun project said it does not see Russian forces in Belarus having the right conditions for another invasion of northern Ukraine in the near future.

Some exiled Belarusian commentators see a longer-term threat of a Russian reinvasion and a potential for Belarusian military forces to join such an assault on Ukraine for the first time.

In a July 12 audio program produced by VOA sister network RFE/RL’s Russian Service, Belarusian political scientist Pavel Usov said the latest concentrations of Russian military equipment and personnel in Belarus indicate a “rather high probability that the northern front [of Russia’s war on Ukraine] will be opened again.”

Usov, head of the Centre for Analysis and Political Forecast in Warsaw, said mutual defense agreements between Belarus and Russia, which exercises strong military and economic influence over its smaller neighbor, create “prerequisites” for the direct involvement of Lukashenko’s armed forces in the Ukraine war.

Speaking to the same July 12 RFE/RL audio program, Belarusian journalist Natalya Radina also said the Belarusian military’s participation in another Russian assault on Ukraine is possible, citing recent statements by Lukashenko and his deputy chief of the general staff Ruslan Kosygin.

In a July 2 speech reported by Belarusian state news agency BelTA, Lukashenko said his armed forces “will fight” if “the enemy” invades Belarusian territory, without naming any nation. Four days later, BelTA cited Kosygin as saying Belarus’ response to “any kind of armed provocation will definitely be adequate and tough.”

“Of course, [Lukashenko] wants to participate in this [Ukraine war],” said Radina, a Warsaw-based chief editor for the Charter-97 news outlet. “Even more aggressive statements are heard from his side than from the lips of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin … It is clear that politically and economically he is absolutely dependent on Putin, but he himself enjoys his participation in this monstrous war,” she said.

Other Belarusian commentators were skeptical that either Lukashenko or Putin would want Belarusian forces to join a Russian reinvasion of northern Ukraine.

Shmatsina said many Belarusian soldiers lack experience in offensive operations and there is little public support for them fighting against Ukraine. She also noted that Lukashenko has faced a domestic legitimacy crisis since declaring himself the winner of a sixth presidential term in a disputed 2020 election that the opposition, the United States and European Union allege was rigged and that triggered weeks of public anti-Lukashenko protests.

“If we see Belarusian deaths in Ukraine, coffins returning home, this would create even more instability in Belarus. Would the Russians want this additional instability at their border?” Shmatsina said. “Belarusian infrastructure seems to be much more useful for the Russian military in Belarus [than Belarusian personnel],” she added.

Viacorka said it is possible that some Belarusian military officers would desert and resist orders to join Russia in fighting Ukraine. He also said Russia may again prepare an invasion of northern Ukraine without involving Belarusian officers, in which case he said those officers “would not even know about it.”

Latvian military analyst Igors Rajevs, a reserve colonel of the Latvian Land Forces, said in an interview with VOA’s Russian Service that he also sees no motivation for Russia or Belarus to change their posture regarding involvement in the war against Ukraine. The most likely scenario is for them to maintain the status quo, he said.

National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report from Washington and VOA Russian stringer Anna Plotnikova contributed from Vilnius.
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Human-caused climate change made last week’s deadly heat wave in England and Wales at least 10 times more likely and added a few degrees to how brutally hot it got, a study said.

A team of international scientists found that the heat wave that set a new national record high at 40.3 degrees Celsius was made stronger and more likely by the buildup of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. They said Thursday that temperatures were 2 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer in the heat wave than they would have been without climate change, depending on which method scientists used.

The study has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal yet but follows scientifically accepted techniques, and past such studies have been published months later.

“We would not have seen temperatures above 40 degrees in the U.K. without climate change,” study senior author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London, said in an interview. “The fingerprint is super strong.”

World Weather Attribution, a collection of scientists across the globe who do real-time studies of extreme weather to see whether climate change played a role in an extreme weather event and if so how much of one, looked at two-day average temperatures for July 18 and 19 in much of England and Wales and the highest temperature reached in that time.

The daily highest temperatures were the most unusual, a one-in-1,000-year event in the current warmer world, but “almost impossible in a world without climate change,” the study said. Last week’s heat smashed the old national record by 1.6 degrees Celsius. The average over two hot days and nights is a once a century event now but is “nearly impossible” without climate change.

When the scientists used the long history of temperatures in England to determine the impact of global warming, they saw a stronger climate change influence than when they used simulations from climate models. For some reason that scientists aren’t quite certain about, climate models have long underestimated extreme weather signals in the summer in Western Europe, Otto said.

With climate models, the scientists simulate a world without the 1.2 degrees Celsius of warming since pre-industrial times and see how likely this heat would have been in that cooler world without fossil fuel-charged warming. With observations they look at history and calculate the chances of such a heat wave that way.

“The methodology seems sound, but candidly, I didn’t need a study to tell me this was climate change,” said University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, who wasn’t on this study team but was on a U.S. National Academy of Sciences panel that said these types of studies are scientifically valid. “This new era of heat is particularly dangerous because most homes are not equipped for it there.”

The World Weather Attribution study refers to another analysis that estimates a heat wave like this would kill at least 800 people in England and Wales, where there is less air conditioning than in warmer climates.

Otto, who had to sleep and work in the basement because of the heat, said as the world warms, these record-smashing heat waves will continue to come more frequently and be hotter.

In addition to spurring people to cut greenhouse gas emissions, study co-author Gabe Vecchi said, “this heat wave and heat waves like it should be a reminder that we have to adapt to a warmer world. We are not living in our parents’ world anymore.”
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French President Emmanuel Macron hosts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday as part of increased Western efforts to court the major oil-producing state amid the war in Ukraine and faltering talks to revive a nuclear deal with Iran.

French opposition figures and human rights groups have criticized Macron’s decision to invite to dinner at the Elysee Palace a man Western leaders believe ordered the murder in 2018 of prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The visit to Paris by the de facto Saudi ruler, comes two weeks after he held talks in Saudi Arabia with U.S. President Joe Biden. The West is keen to reset relations with the Gulf Arab oil giant as it seeks to counter the rising regional influence of Iran, Russia and China.

“The rehabilitation of the murderous prince will be justified in France as in the United States by arguments of realpolitik. But it’s actually bargaining that predominates, let’s face it,” Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said on Twitter ahead of the crown prince’s visit.

France and other European countries are looking to diversify their sources of energy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has seen Moscow cut gas supplies to Europe. Macron wants Riyadh, the world’s largest oil exporter, to raise production.

A French presidency official told reporters Macron would bring up human rights questions, including individual cases, as well as discussing oil production and the Iran nuclear deal.

France is one of Riyadh’s main arms suppliers but has faced growing pressure to review its sales because of the humanitarian crisis, the world’s worst, in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Iran-aligned Houthi rebels since 2015.

Macron, who last December became the first Western leader to visit Saudi Arabia since the Khashoggi affair, has dismissed criticism of his efforts to engage the crown prince by saying the kingdom was too important to be ignored.

The killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sparked an international furor. U.S. intelligence concluded the crown prince had directly approved the murder of the Washington Post columnist. The crown prince denied any role in the killing.

French prosecutors are studying complaints filed against the prince over the Saudi role in the Yemen war. Rights groups Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), and TRIAL International said on Thursday they had filed a new complaint asking French authorities to open an investigation into the prince over the torture and killing of Khashoggi.
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For the first time in weeks, Russia launched missiles Thursday at Ukraine’s capital area, Kyiv, and the northern Chernihiv region, in what Ukraine alleged was retaliation for its continued resistance to Moscow’s invasion.

Russia attacked the Kyiv region with six missiles launched from the Black Sea, wounding 15 people, five of them civilians, a Ukrainian regional governor said. Ukraine said it had shot down one of the missiles but that Moscow’s forces had hit a military compound in the village of Liutizh outside the capital, destroying one building and damaging two others.

Kyiv regional Governor Oleksiy Kuleba linked the attacks to the Day of Statehood observance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instituted last year and that Ukraine marked Thursday for the first time.

“Russia, with the help of missiles, is mounting revenge for the widespread popular resistance, which the Ukrainians were able to organize precisely because of their statehood,” Kuleba told Ukrainian television. “Ukraine has already broken Russia’s plans and will continue to defend itself.”

Chernihiv regional Governor Vyacheslav Chaus reported that Russia also had fired missiles from neighboring Belarus at the village of Honcharivska. The Chernihiv region had not been targeted in weeks.

Russia withdrew from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas months ago after failing to capture either region or to topple Zelenskyy’s government.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had launched an offensive to recapture the Kherson region that Russia took control of earlier in the war, on Wednesday knocking out of commission a key bridge over the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian media quoted Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych as saying Kyiv’s forces were planning to isolate Russian troops and leave them with three options — “retreat, if possible, surrender or be destroyed.”

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, warned that the Russians were augmenting their forces in the Kherson region, saying, “A very large-scale movement of their troops has begun.”

The British military assessed that Ukraine had used its new, Western-supplied long-range artillery to damage at least three of the bridges across the Dnieper that Russia has relied on to supply its forces.

The daily assessment from the British Defense Ministry said the city of Kherson “is now virtually cut off from other occupied territories.”

Russian officials said their forces would use other ways to cross areas with damaged bridges, including pontoon bridges and ferries.

Zelenskyy adviser Arestovych acknowledged that Russian forces had taken over Ukraine’s second-biggest power plant. He characterized the development, however, as only a “tiny tactical advantage” for the Russians.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The first rehabilitation center built according to U.S. standards opened in Irpin, Ukraine, three years ago. So far, it has survived the war intact and is once again accepting patients. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. Camera and video editing by Paviel Syhodolskiy.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the United States has offered Russia a “substantial proposal” to free detained American basketball star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. Producer: Henry Hernandez
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The United States said Wednesday it has made a “substantial proposal” to Russia, which people familiar with the matter described as a prisoner swap that would send convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout back to Moscow to secure the release of American professional basketball star Brittney Griner and accused spy Paul Whelan.

The proposal was made several weeks ago, in June, although nothing has come of it to date even as officials from the two governments have discussed it. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, while declining to discuss details of the would-be deal, told reporters in Washington he expects to raise the issue yet again this week in a phone call with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

News of a possible prisoner swap came the same day as Griner, who has admitted arriving in Russia in February with vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage, testified at a court hearing that a language interpreter provided to her translated only a fraction of what was being said as authorities arrested her.

Griner, who faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of transporting drugs, said she was instructed by officials to sign documents at the Moscow airport without them providing an explanation for what she was acknowledging. A Russian court has authorized her detention until Dec. 20.

Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, has been imprisoned in Russia for alleged espionage since 2018, with his family and Griner’s pleading with the White House to expedite efforts to gain their release.

For years, Russia has sought the release of Bout, an arms dealer once labeled the “Merchant of Death.” He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2012 after his conviction in a scheme to illegally sell millions of dollars in weapons.

The possible prisoner swap was approved by U.S. President Joe Biden, CNN reported, with Biden’s support overriding opposition from the Department of Justice, which is generally against prisoner trades for fear they would incentivize other governments to seize Americans overseas in hopes of prisoner swap deals of their own.

At the White House, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to spell out details of the negotiations with Russia at a time the U.S. has led world opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

“But I will say that the president and his team are willing to take extraordinary steps to bring our people home, as we’ve demonstrated with Trevor Reed, and that’s what we’re doing right here,” Kirby said. “It’s actively happening now. This has been the top of the mind for the president and for his whole national security team.”

The U.S. secured the release of Reed in April. He was a former Marine who was held captive in Russia for more than two years after being accused of assaulting a Russian police officer. He was traded for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot then serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for a cocaine smuggling conspiracy.

In the sixth session of her slow-moving trial, Griner testified Wednesday she had no criminal intent in carrying the cannabis oil into Russia. She said she still does not know how the cannabis oil for which she had a doctor’s recommendation ended up in her luggage.

She explained she had packed in haste for the 13-hour flight from the U.S. to Russia, where she was planning to play during the offseason of the Women’s National Basketball Association.

Griner said she was offered neither an explanation of her rights as she was detained nor access to lawyers to explain the documents she signed.

During a Tuesday court session, a Russian neuropsychologist testified about worldwide use of medicinal cannabis, but the drug remains illegal in Russia. Griner’s lawyers have presented a U.S. doctor’s letter recommending that she use medical cannabis to treat pain, which she says she has sustained from her basketball career.

Griner testified Wednesday that cannabis oil is widely used in the U.S. for medicinal purposes and has fewer negative effects than some other painkillers.

But a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said last week that the legalization of cannabis for medical and recreational use in parts of the U.S. had no bearing on what happens in Russia.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
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A Ukrainian official said Wednesday that Russian forces have taken over Ukraine’s second-biggest power plant and are carrying out a “massive redeployment” of troops to three regions in southern Ukraine. 

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, confirmed the capture of the Vuhlehirsk power plant in the eastern Donetsk region. But Arestovych said the development was a “tiny tactical advantage” for the Russians. 

He said Russia’s troop redeployment involved sending forces to the Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas as part of an apparent shift to strategic defense efforts. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he will speak to his Russian counterpart in coming days, with issues of discussion expected to include the implementation of a deal to resume grain exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and Russia’s annexation of the Donbas region. 

Blinken said he will also speak to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov about a “substantial” offer aimed at bringing home American basketball star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, both currently detained in Russia. People familiar with the matter described it as a prisoner swap that would send convicted Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout back to Moscow. 

Blinken and Lavrov last spoke in person on February 15, days before Russia launched its military invasion in Ukraine. 

The tentative deal on grain exports that Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations reached last week is also high on the list of U.S. priorities. U.S. officials urged Moscow to uphold its commitment after Russian missiles struck infrastructure Saturday in Ukraine’s port of Odesa – the day after the deal was signed. 

Blinken said Russia needs to follow through on its pledge to allow the grain vessels to pass through the Black Sea. 

“End this blockade, allow the grain to leave, allow us to feed our people, allow prices to come down. … The test now is whether there’s actual implementation of the agreement. That’s what we’re looking at. We’ll see in the coming days.” 

Turkish officials have opened a joint coordination center for Ukrainian grain exports and say they expect shipments to begin in the coming days. Kyiv said work had resumed at three Black Sea ports in preparation for the shipments. 

At the United Nations, spokesperson Farhan Haq welcomed the opening of the joint coordination center which, he said, will “establish a humanitarian maritime corridor to allow ships to export grain and related foodstuffs” from Ukraine.

Lavrov, wrapping up a four-nation trip to Africa in Addis Ababa, pushed back Wednesday on Western allegations that his country is to blame for the global food crisis. Lavrov said food prices were rising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and what he called “green policies” pursued by the West. 

State Department officials cautioned the expected call between Blinken and Lavrov does not mean business as usual between the U.S. and Russia, but rather is an opportunity to convey Washington’s concerns clearly and directly. 

There is no plan for in-person meetings between the two on the margins of the ASEAN Regional Forum that will be held in Cambodia in early August. 

The chief U.S. diplomat said he will warn Lavrov in the phone conversation that Russia must not annex occupied areas of Ukraine as the war enters its sixth month. 

VOA’s Margaret Besheer contributed to this story. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is on a major tour of Africa, seeking allies amid global anger and isolation over food shortages following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. Tatiana Vorozhko contributed.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says he will speak to his Russian counterpart in the coming days about a “substantial” offer aimed at bringing home American basketball star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, both currently detained in Russia.

Other issues expected to come up between Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov include the implementation of a deal to resume grain exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, and Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

The two top diplomats last spoke in person on February 15, days before Russia launched its military invasion in Ukraine.

At a press conference Wednesday, Blinken said Washington had communicated a “substantial” offer to Moscow in order to bring home Griner and Whelan. He declined to disclose details of the offer.

“With a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate the release [of Whelan and Griner], our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal,” said Blinken, adding that he plans to follow up personally during a phone call with Lavrov.

“My hope would be in speaking to Foreign Minister Lavrov, I can advance the efforts to bring them home,” he said, adding that President Joe Biden has been directly involved and signed off on the U.S. offer.

Griner, who has admitted arriving in Russia in February with vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage, testified at a court hearing Wednesday that a language interpreter provided to her translated only a fraction of what was being said as authorities arrested her.

Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive being held on espionage-related charges that his family contends are bogus, has been held in Russia since late 2018.

Blinken stopped short of confirming media reports speculating that either or both of the Americans could be exchanged for prominent Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, who is jailed in the U.S.

The tentative deal on grain exports that Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations reached last week is also high on the list of U.S. priorities. U.S. officials urged Moscow to uphold its commitment after Russian missiles struck infrastructure Saturday in Ukraine’s port of Odesa – the day after the deal was signed.

Blinken said Russia needs to follow through on its pledge to allow the grain vessels to pass through the Black Sea.

“End this blockade, allow the grain to leave, allow us to feed our people, allow prices to come down. … The test now is whether there’s actual implementation of the agreement. That’s what we’re looking at. We’ll see in the coming days.”

Turkish officials have opened a joint coordination center for Ukrainian grain exports and say they expect shipments to begin in the coming days. Kyiv said work had resumed at three Black Sea ports in preparation for the shipments.

At the United Nations, spokesperson Farhan Haq welcomed the opening of the joint coordination center which, he said, will “establish a humanitarian maritime corridor to allow ships to export grain and related foodstuffs” from Ukraine.

Lavrov, wrapping up a four-nation trip to Africa in Addis Ababa, pushed back Wednesday on Western allegations that his country is to blame for the global food crisis. Lavrov said food prices were rising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and what he called “green policies” pursued by the West.

State Department officials cautioned the expected call between Blinken and Lavrov call does not mean business as usual between the U.S. and Russia, but rather is an opportunity to convey Washington’s concerns clearly and directly.

There is no plan for in-person meetings between the two on the margins of the ASEAN Regional Forum that will be held in Cambodia in early August.

The chief U.S. diplomat said he will warn Lavrov in the phone conversation that Russia must not annex occupied areas of Ukraine as the war enter its sixth month.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces have struck a strategically important bridge in the southern part of the country, using what a Russia-appointed official said were rocket systems supplied by the United States.

The Antonivskyi Bridge crossing the Dnieper River was closed Wednesday following the Ukrainian strike.

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed administration for the Kherson region, said the bridge was still standing after the late Tuesday strike, but the road deck was full of holes.

Stremousov said Ukrainian forces used the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to carry out the strike.

The bridge is a key link allowing Russia to supply its forces in southern Ukraine.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, highlighted the bridge strikes in a tweet Wednesday, saying Russian forces should take them as a warning.

Podolyak said the Russians “should learn how to swim across” the river or “leave Kherson while it is still possible.”

Ken Bredemeier, Chris Hannas and Margaret Besheer contributed to this story. Some information came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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