Category: EU

Putin Wins Election with No Effective Opposition

Ukraine Reports Downing 17 of 22 Russian Drones

Putin Says He Supported Prisoner Swap for Opposition Leader Navalny

European Far-Right Firebrand Prevented From Speaking at Swiss Event

Berlin — A prominent European far-right figure was prevented from giving a speech at an event in Switzerland and thrown out of the region where it was taking place.

Martin Sellner of the Identitarian Movement said in a video posted on social media network X, formerly Twitter, that he had been invited by a local group, Junge Tat (Young Deed), to “talk about remigration and the ethnic vote” and what happened at a recent meeting in Germany that prompted a string of large protests there. Remigration refers to the return, sometimes forced, of non-ethnically European immigrants back to their place of racial origin.

Sellner, who comes from neighboring Austria, said that a few minutes after he started speaking at the event Saturday, the electricity was turned off and he was taken to a police station, then told he was thrown out of Aargau canton (state) and escorted to Zurich.

Regional police said in a statement that they tracked down the Junge Tat event in the small town of Tegerfelden on Saturday after receiving several tips. They found some 100 people at the venue and said that, after the landlady found out about the contents of the planned meeting, she canceled the contract for it.

Police said they told organizers to end the event, but they didn’t obey. Without identifying Sellner by name, they said the speaker was held and ordered out of the region “to safeguard public security” and prevent confrontations with opponents.

Germany has seen large protests of the far right following a report that extremists met in Potsdam in November to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship. Sellner presented his “remigration” vision for the deportation of immigrants there.

That meeting has prompted widespread criticism of the Alternative for Germany party, some of whose members reportedly attended. The party has sought to distance itself from the event, while also decrying the reporting of it.

Is the West Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine?

For as long as the U.S. and its Western allies have been sending military assistance to Ukraine, Moscow has accused the West of using Ukraine to fight a proxy war against Russia. But, as Maxim Adams reports, the reality is much more complicated. VOA footage and video editing by Elena Matusovsky.

Protests, Petrol, and Passports Mark Final Day of Russian Elections

An outpouring of international protests marked the third and final day of voting in Russia’s presidential elections, as supporters of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny heeded on of his last calls to action. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.

AFP Journalist Among 50 Detained at Kurdish Event in Turkey

Istanbul — Around 50 people including an AFP journalist were detained by police Sunday in Istanbul on the sidelines of the Kurdish New Year celebrations, witnesses said.  

AFP video journalist Eylul Yasar was preparing to film the celebrations of the Kurdish New Year when she was arrested at a checkpoint, journalists and lawyers at the scene reported.

She was released after being handcuffed and held by police for more than six hours, along with another 14 people locked up in the same van.

Yasar said she had been arrested and taken away in a police van after objecting to an “intrusive” and “brutal” body search.

She and the others being held in her van were insulted by police, she said, who called them “pig droppings, terrorists, traitors.”

Two journalists from the Bianet news site who were filming the arrests said they were beaten and thrown to the ground by police.

A statement from Agence France-Presse said: “AFP deplores the detention of our journalist Eylul Yasar who was just doing her job.

“While it welcomes her release, AFP calls on the Turkish authorities to respect the rights of journalists and to treat them with respect.”

Erol Onderoglu, correspondent with media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Turkey, denounced Yasar’s “arbitrary arrest, which prevented her from doing her job.”

He had earlier said that around 50 people who came to attend the celebrations, which normally include traditional dances and a large bonfire, were also arrested at the site.

An AFP photographer said the bonfire had been canceled.

Many Kurds, who make up about a fifth of Turkey’s estimated 85 million people, say they face significant discrimination in the country.

The former leading figure of the main pro-Kurdish party, Selahattin Demirtas, was imprisoned in 2016 for “terrorist propaganda,” while more than a hundred mayors of Kurdish localities saw elections canceled in the last municipal vote in 2019.

Turkey has repeatedly insisted that it does not discriminate against Kurds as a minority but rather opposes the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization banned by Ankara and its Western allies as a terrorist organization.

According to the RSF, Turkey last year ranked in 164th place out of 180 countries on its index of press freedom.

That marks a drop of 16 places from 2022.

Spanish Farmers Stage Fresh Protests in Madrid 

Madrid — Hundreds of farmers paraded through the Spanish capital on foot and by tractor on Sunday in the latest protest over the crisis facing the agricultural sector.

The farmers marched from the Ministry of Ecological Transition to the Ministry of Agriculture after the European Union proposed legislative changes to drastically ease the environmental rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Friday.

Rallied by their trade union, farmers carried banners proclaiming “We are not delinquents” to the sound of horns and whistles. One decorated his tractor with a mock guillotine.

“It is as if they want to cut off our necks,” said Marcos Baldominos explaining his guillotine.

“We are being suffocated by European rules,” the farmer from Pozo de Guadalajara, 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Madrid, added.

Friday’s concessions in Brussels aimed to loosen compliance with some environment rules, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

While the move was welcomed by Spain’s left-wing government, some environmental NGOs criticized the measures.

“We are faced with a pile of bureaucratic rules that make us feel more like we are at an office than on a farm,” the trade union behind Sunday’s march, Union de Uniones, said with reference to requirements “that many small and medium-sized farms” cannot “cope with”.

Sunday marked the fourth demonstration in Madrid since the start of the wider European farm protest movement in mid-January.

Russian Elections Expected to Extend Putin’s Rule, Despite Some Protests

Greece Alarmed by Rising Tides of Migrants 

Athens — Greece is facing increasing illegal immigration as the Gaza crisis continues. The trend has Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and senior European Union officials heading to Egypt Sunday to sign an aid package worth just over $8 billion intended to help ease migration.

A surge in illegal migration has seen numbers entering Greece swell by more than 400% in the last month alone.

Palestinians rank high in these flows but Egyptians are increasingly following suit.

“There is no doubt, that Egypt has suffered the greatest fallout of the crisis in Gaza,” said Migration and Asylum Minister Dimitris Keridis. “And as if the country and its economy was not strained enough, the Gaza crisis and inflow of Palestinians has exacerbated the situation, setting Egyptians to a massive flight.”

Since the start of the year, Greece’s southernmost islands of Crete and Gavdos have been hardest hit with daily flows of Egyptians landing on their shores, seeking refuge to the West via Libya.

On Sunday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will travel to Cairo with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to finalize an $8.06 billion aid package to shore up the Egyptian economy and help stem the tide of illegal immigration.

Under the planned deal, a first tranche of $1 billion will be dispersed immediately as emergency financial assistance. The rest, will be tied to economic reforms.

Greece has been a favored gateway to the European Union for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia since 2015, when nearly 1 million people landed on its islands, causing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Thousands others have since then died at sea.

The migration crisis has seen Greece take a strong-arm approach to fend off illegal flows, triggering, however, accusations that it is pushing back migrants on rickety rafts, endangering their lives, even torturing them upon arrival.

Authorities have largely refuted the accusations but migrants are increasingly speaking up.

Last week, four Greek bodyguards were arrested for beating a migrant, battering his face and breaking his ribs, according to a migrant’s testimony.

An urgent investigation is underway.

Belgorod, City Where War in Ukraine Came to Russia, Perseveres

BELGOROD, Russia — Air raid sirens wail almost daily in the southern Russian city of Belgorod, sending people rushing for cover and reminding residents the full-scale war in neighboring Ukraine is a reality for them too.

Compared with the destruction across much of Ukraine, Russia’s vast territory has been largely unscathed.

Belgorod, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border, is the main exception, a reminder that not every civilian can be shielded from the conflict.

As Russians began voting early on Friday in a three-day presidential election, a missile alert forced election officials to take shelter at a polling station in Belgorod and voting was briefly halted, according to Russia’s RIA state news agency.

Vladimir Seleznyov, a pensioner who witnessed a missile attack on Plekhanov Street on February 15 in which seven people were killed, said it was hard to grow accustomed to the danger.

“Of course, the situation is difficult, but we live near the border. It would be a stretch to say that we got used to that,” he told Reuters on a recent visit to the city to which international media rarely get access.

“It’s understood that, naturally, we will win, we will prevail, but the people are worried and concerned,” he said.

In the ancient fortress town, now a modern city of 300,000 people that is once again on Russia’s front lines, scores of civilians have been killed in drone and missile strikes from Ukraine since February 2022, including two on Saturday.

Kyiv denies targeting civilians just as Moscow does, despite Russia having launched drones and missiles against Ukraine that have killed thousands of civilians and caused hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

In the worst civilian loss of life from foreign enemy fire in internationally recognized Russian territory since World War II, 25 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in missile attacks on Belgorod on December 30.

As he marches towards all but certain reelection in the March 15-17 vote, President Vladimir Putin nevertheless remains popular in Belgorod as he does across Russia, underlining how the war has galvanized support for him.

He calls it a “special military operation” and casts it as part of a long-running battle with a decadent and declining West that humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Ukraine and its Western allies say the invasion was an aggressive and illegal land grab.

War footing

For Belgorod residents, disruptions are frequent, and the signs of war are in plain view.

Soldiers walk the streets and cement blocks have been positioned at bus stops to protect people from potential blasts.

Primary schools have moved to only online lessons while secondary schools are working on a hybrid model of home and in class, similar to how many Ukrainian institutions operate.

Buses stop running when warnings of a missile threat sound, forcing people to disembark and walk. Shopping can be complicated, and appointments are often canceled. Thousands of people left the surrounding region to escape the danger.

Civilian volunteer groups in Belgorod are supporting soldiers, a phenomenon that is common across Russia and Ukraine.

Galina, who collects everyday hygiene items and tools for digging trenches and sends them to the army, said she helps to try to bring the conflict to an end.

Echoing words used by the Kremlin to describe the leadership in Kyiv, she spoke of the need to “denazify” Ukraine and end “fascism” there. Ukraine and its allies dismiss such language as nonsense, pointing out that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.

“There are no other options,” said Galina, who gave only her first name, as she stood in a warehouse with goods for soldiers.

“I believe that the work that he [Putin] has started in terms of a special military operation, he must complete it,” she said.

Cross-border incursions

Russia’s defense ministry said on Friday its forces had thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to launch a cross-border attack on the Belgorod region the day before.

In a statement, the ministry said Ukraine used helicopters to land up to 30 soldiers close to the border village of Kozinka. It said they were repelled by Russian soldiers and border guards.

Ukrainian officials said earlier on Friday that two Russian border provinces, Belgorod and neighboring Kursk, were under attack by anti-Kremlin Russian armed groups based in Ukraine.

The town of Shebekino, located some 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) from the border in the Belgorod region, was hit by shelling in May and June last year by armed infiltrators. Shell craters mark the roads, and buildings were hit and damaged.

At that time, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov escorted about 600 children from Shebekino and Graivoron districts to the cities of Yaroslavl and Kaluga, far from the Ukrainian border.

Pensioner Valentina said she also left Shebekino temporarily last summer, persuaded to do so by her daughter, before returning.

She said that she hoped the war would end soon and that people who left the town would come back.

“Everyone wants to get back home,” she said, adding that she planned to vote for Putin. “He has to finish off this war.”

Ukraine Launches Far-Ranging Drone Attacks on Final Day of Russia’s Presidential Vote

Putin Poised to Rule Russia for 6 More Years

Russian-Belarusian Band Returns to Stage After Detention in Thailand

Warsaw, Poland — A Russian-Belarusian rock band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion returned to the stage this week, voicing defiance after being detained in Thailand in January and threatened with deportation to Russia. 

The band, Bi-2, formed in the 1980s in Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union, left Russia in protest over the invasion and has been touring ever since in countries with large Russian-speaking communities. 

Ahead of a concert in Vilnius on Thursday, band members met with exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and supporters of late Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month. 

“We have become hostages to Russian history,” Egor Bortnik, one of the band’s two founders, told AFP ahead of a concert in Warsaw on Saturday. 

But 51-year-old Bortnik, who is better known by his stage name “Lyova,” said he was “not against the war.” 

“On the contrary, I’m for the war. I just want Ukraine to liberate its own territory,” he said. 

“Putin has to gather his orcs and get out of Ukraine,” Bortnik said, using a disparaging term for Russian soldiers frequently used by Ukrainians. 

The band was detained in Phuket, Thailand, in January on immigration charges in a case that has alarmed Russians critical of President Vladimir Putin living abroad. 

The organizers of their concerts said all the necessary permits had been obtained, but the band was issued with tourist visas in error, and they accused the Russian consulate of waging a campaign to cancel the concerts. 

After a week in detention, the band members were released and traveled to Israel, where they met with Foreign Minister Israel Katz who said in a statement that the episode showed that “music will win.” 

Several of their concerts in Russia were canceled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left the country. 

“I put my prosperity on the line when the war began, and I had to leave Russia. It was unexpected, it was not a process we had prepared for,” Bortnik said. 

Bortnik, who moved to Israel while still a teenager, said he was more used to emigration than some of his peers who left Russia in the wake of the war. 

“I understand how difficult it is,” he said. 

Bortnik said he was no “geopolitician” and does not write explicitly “political songs” although their lyrics can “hit a nerve that is constantly vibrating.” 

He said Putin’s demise could be sudden and violent and would also bring down Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades. 

“If something happens to Putin then there could be a civil war — the finale for any tyranny,” he said. 

Iceland Volcano Erupts 4th Time, Spewing Lava Into Sky

COPENHAGEN — A volcano in Iceland erupted on Saturday for the fourth time since December, the country’s meteorological office said, spewing smoke and bright orange lava into the air in sharp contrast against the dark night sky. 

In a video shot from a Coast Guard helicopter and shown on public broadcaster RUV, fountains of molten rock soared from a long fissure in the ground, and lava spread rapidly to each side. 

The eruption began at 2023 GMT, and the fissure was estimated to be about 2.9 kilometers (1.8 miles) long, roughly the same size as the last eruption in February, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement. 

Authorities had warned for weeks that an eruption was imminent on the Reykjanes peninsula just south of Iceland’s capital Reykjavik. 

The site of the eruption was between Hagafell and Stora-Skogfell, the same area as the previous outbreak on February 8, the Met Office said. 

“This was definitely expected,” said Rikke Pedersen, head of the Nordic Volcanological Centre.  

“Of course, the exact time of the eruption is impossible to predict. The first cues of this moving towards the surface actually only happened about 15 minutes in advance,” she said. 

Reykjavik’s Keflavik Airport’s website showed it remained open both for departures and arrivals. 

Lava appeared to be flowing rapidly south toward the nearby Grindavik fishing town, where a few of the nearly 4,000 residents had returned following earlier outbreaks, the Met Office said. . 

The town was again being evacuated, public broadcaster RUV reported. An outbreak in January burned several of its homes to the ground. 

“We’re just like, this is business as usual,” Kristin Maria Birgisdottir, who was evacuated from Grindavik in November, told Reuters. 

“My son … just called me and said, ‘Mamma, did you know the eruption has started?’ And I was like, ‘yeah, I did know.’ Oh, my grandma just told me. So it’s like we don’t even bother telling each other anymore,” she said.

Icelandic police said they had declared a state of emergency for the area. 

The nearby Blue Lagoon luxury geothermal spa immediately shut its doors, as it did during previous eruptions. 

Iceland, roughly the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky, boasts more than 30 active volcanoes, making the north European island a prime destination for volcano tourism, a niche segment that attracts thousands of thrill seekers. 

In 2010, ash clouds from eruptions at the Eyafjallajokull volcano in the south of Iceland spread over large parts of Europe, grounding some 100,000 flights and forcing hundreds of Icelanders to evacuate their homes. 

Volcanic outbreaks in the Reykjanes peninsula are so-called fissure eruptions, which do not usually cause large explosions or significant dispersal of ash into the stratosphere. 

Gases from the eruption were traveling westwards out to sea, the meteorological office said.  

Scientists fear the eruptions could continue for decades, and Icelandic authorities have started building dikes to divert burning lava flows away from homes and critical infrastructure. 

The February eruption cut off district heating to more than 20,000 people as lava flows destroyed roads and pipelines. 

Located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, among the largest on the planet, Iceland is a seismic and volcanic hot spot as the two move in opposite directions. 

Latvia Starts Criminal Case Against EU Lawmaker Suspected of Russian Espionage 

HELSINKI — Latvia’s state security service has started criminal proceedings against an European Parliament lawmaker and a citizen of the Baltic country who is suspected of cooperating with Russian intelligence and security services, according to Latvian media reports Saturday. 

Latvian media outlets reported that the security service, known by the abbreviation VDD, has been investigating the activities of Tatjana Ždanoka, 73, and her alleged Russia ties over the past several weeks since reports were published in January by Russian, Nordic and Baltic news sites saying that she has been an agent for the Russian Federal Security Service since at least 2004. 

According to news agency LETA, the Latvian security service decided to start a criminal process against Ždanoka on Feb. 22. The security service couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Ždanoka has denied all of the allegations against her. 

The European Parliament said in late January that it had opened an investigation into news reports that a Latvian member of the assembly, Ždanoka, has been working as a Russian agent for several years. The European Union’s legislative body, based in Strasbourg, France, said it was taking the allegations very seriously. 

Following a joint investigation, the independent Russian investigative journalism site The Insider, its Latvian equivalent Re:Baltica, news portal Delfi Estonia, and Swedish newspaper Expressen published on Jan. 29 emails that they said were leaked and showed Ždanoka’s interactions with her handler. 

Expressen claimed that Ždanoka has been spreading propaganda about alleged violations of the rights of Russians living in Baltic countries and arguing for a pro-Kremlin policy, among other things. She has also refused to condemn Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the paper said. 

Latvia, a Baltic nation of 1.9 million people, and neighboring Estonia are both home to a sizable ethnic Russian minority of about 25% of the population. Both countries are ex-Soviet republics. 

Over the past few years, Moscow has routinely accused Latvia and Estonia of discriminating against their Russian-speaking populations. 

Ždanoka’s resume, which is posted on the European Parliament website, lists her as the president of the EU Russian-Speakers’ Alliance, a nongovernmental organization, since 2007. She was first elected to the European Parliament in 2004.

Russians Cast Ballots in Election Preordained to Extend Putin’s Rule

Germany Calls for More Aid to Gaza as Scholz Heads to Israel

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Israel on Saturday to allow humanitarian aid access to Gaza on a larger scale, ahead of a two-day trip to the Middle East. 

Scholz will travel to the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba on Saturday to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah on Sunday before flying to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

“It is necessary for aid to reach Gaza on a larger scale now. That will be a topic that I also have to talk about,” Scholz told journalists ahead of his trip. 

He also voiced concern about Israel’s planned offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of the Palestinian population of 2.3 million have taken shelter. 

“There is a danger that a comprehensive offensive in Rafah will result in many terrible civilian casualties, which must be strictly prohibited,” he said. 

Germany’s air force said it dropped pallets with 4 tons of relief goods by air into the enclave Saturday. 

“Every package counts. But airdrops are just a drop in the ocean,” the foreign ministry said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ terror attack on October 7, has displaced most of the population and left people in dire need of food and other essentials. 

Russian Officials Say Ukrainian Shelling Kills 2 in Border City

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine, killed two people, Russian officials said Saturday.  

A man and a woman died in the attack and three other people were wounded, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. It was the latest in exchanges of long-range missile and rocket fire in Russia’s war on Ukraine. 

Five people were also wounded when a Ukrainian drone hit a car in the village of Glotovo, some 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Gladkov said. 

Also on Saturday, a Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at an oil refinery belonging to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. He said an attack on another refinery was thwarted. No casualties were reported. 

The attacks come a day after a Russian assault on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa killed at least 20 people. The ballistic missile attack blasted homes in the southern city Friday, followed by a second missile that targeted first responders who arrived at the scene, officials said.  

Forty people are still in the hospital following the attacks, Odesa regional Governor Oleh Kiper said Saturday. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised a “just response” to the attack in a video address Friday evening. 

Saturday’s attacks occurred as Russians entered the second day of voting in a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule by another six years after he crushed dissent. 

Navalny’s Allies Continue Fight to Undermine Putin’s Grip on Power

TALLINN, Estonia — Alexey Navalny’s team is used to working independently. The most potent foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin was frequently absent for long stretches after being arrested, assaulted, poisoned, or imprisoned. 

But when Navalny died suddenly in February at age 47 in a remote Arctic prison, his team was left with a monumental challenge: sustaining an opposition movement against Putin — who is all but certain to be reelected — without the living example of their defiant and charismatic leader. 

After the initial shock wore off, Navalny’s closest allies returned to the work that cost Navalny his freedom and life: undermining Putin’s iron-fisted grip on power. 

A significant test will come Sunday, the last of three days that voters can go to the polls in an election that is widely viewed as more of a formality than an exercise in democracy. 

That’s when Navalny’s team — with the endorsement of his widow, Yulia Navalnaya — is calling for a protest dubbed “Noon Against Putin.” They are asking Russians to flock to polling stations Sunday at noon local time across the country’s 11 time zones to demonstrate their discontent with Putin’s rule and his war against Ukraine. 

“It is a very simple and safe action, it can’t be banned,” Navalnaya said in a video address. “It will help millions of people to see their like-minded allies and to realize that we are not alone, we’re surrounded by people who are also against the war, against corruption and against lawlessness.” 

Navalny’s followers have expressed a wide mix of emotions in the weeks since his death, from renewed inspiration to a sense of defeat. 

Maria Obukhova of Moscow, who paid tribute to Navalny on Wednesday at the Borisovskoye Cemetery, said the crowds she saw at his funeral — which numbered in the thousands — were motivational. 

“It was a huge surprise for me, because it seemed before like everything had died here, that Russia is no longer, that it had died,” said Obukhova, who placed white daisies at Navalny’s gravesite. 

Another Muscovite at the cemetery, a man named Valery who withheld his last name for security reasons, said he had little hope for the future and that after Navalny’s death, “something has really broken” inside of him. 

Just several days after her husband’s death, Navalnaya expressed determination to keep his mission alive. 

In the past month, she has addressed the European Parliament, met with United States President Joe Biden, and urged Western countries not to recognize the results of Russia’s election. She also has called on the West to impose more sanctions on those close to Putin.  

Leading up to the election, Navalny’s team urged supporters to cast their ballots for any candidate other than Putin, or to invalidate them by choosing two or more candidates. They also had dozens of volunteers call ordinary Russians to ask them about their grievances and try to turn them against Putin. 

The phone campaign was announced by Navalny over the summer, and since then “tens of thousands” of calls were made, Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s top strategist, said a video. “We will not stop doing that,” he vowed. 

Volkov also gave a video address shortly after Navalny’s death to rally supporters and perhaps tap into his longtime ally’s spirit of persistence. “It will be a monument to Alexey’s cause if you and I live to see how this regime disintegrates before Putin’s eyes,” he said. 

Still, the Putin opposition’s uphill battle has only gotten steeper with its leaders in exile.  

“(Putin’s) regime pushes people out of the country because it understands very well that the possibilities of influencing political processes in Russia from abroad are minimal,” said Nikolay Petrov, a visiting researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. 

Sunday’s “Noon Against Putin” protest will be a test of how much Navalny’s team can do in Russia from abroad, said Sam Greene, a director at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.  

“One part of what they want to do is to send a message to those who remain in Russia that you’re not alone, that the opposition in exile has their back to a certain extent and will support them,” said Greene. “But then the question is, how do they support them?” 

Efforts are underway to disrupt the protest. Navalny’s team said fake emails have been sent around purporting to be from them telling Putin opponents to show up at the polls at 5 p.m. instead of noon. 

Russia’s independent election watchdog, Golos, reported that officials in at least one region are being instructed to report large gatherings near polling stations to the police.  

On Thursday night, the Prosecutor’s Office in Moscow warned that unauthorized rallies near polling stations “may prevent citizens from freely exercising their voting rights and the work of election commissions,” a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.  

The personal risks for Putin’s opponents remain high. 

On Tuesday, Volkov was attacked near his home in Lithuania. Assailants smashed a window of his car, sprayed tear gas into his face and beat him with a hammer, according to Navalny’s team. 

Volkov was taken to a hospital, and upon release said his arm was broken and his leg was injured so much it was painful to walk. 

He accused “Putin’s henchmen” of the attack and said it was an attempt to intimidate the team ahead of the “Noon Against Putin” protest. 

With Navalny gone, some of his supporters are recalibrating their expectations. 

Valery, one of many people who visited Navalny’s grave in southeastern Moscow in recent weeks, said he is less optimistic about the opposition’s prospects going forward. 

“Even though Yulia, his wife — his widow — has picked up the baton, I’m not sure that it is going to be the same as it was when Alexey was alive,” he said.  

Q&A: Ukraine’s Prosecutor General: ‘Over 20 Countries’ to Investigate Russian War Crimes

At UN, Ukraine Protests Russian Presidential Elections on Its Territory

united nations — Ukraine, joined Friday by more than 55 countries at the United Nations, condemned Russia’s attempts to organize elections on occupied Ukrainian land, saying they were not valid.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the Russian Federation’s illegitimate attempts to organize Russian presidential elections in temporarily occupied areas within the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine,” the group said in a statement read by Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, flanked by his counterparts.

“Holding elections in another U.N. member state’s territory without its consent is in manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said. “Such elections have no validity under international law.”

Starting Friday and continuing through Sunday, Russians are casting votes in polls that international election observers have dismissed as having no chance of being free or fair and are designed to return President Vladimir Putin to power for another six years.

Ukraine, supported by council member Slovenia, requested that the U.N. Security Council meet Friday to discuss Russia’s holding of the vote in areas of Ukraine that Russian forces have seized and occupied, including Crimea and the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

“You convened an entire Security Council meeting to criticize Russia for Russia’s conduct of democratic elections on territories which administratively, politically and economically are part of our country — like it or not,” Russia Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said.

Ukraine’s envoy dismissed the Russian election as a “travesty” and said residents in the occupied areas have been subject to broad intimidation by local authorities to participate in the “sham” election.

“Among them, threats against life, illegal detention, denial of access to health care and social services, threats of deportation and deprivation of property,” Kyslytsya said. “We should not forget that these actions take place at gunpoint.”

“Let’s call this what this is: It’s a blatant propaganda exercise, undertaken in the hopes of somehow strengthening Russia’s false claim to the parts of Ukraine it illegally invaded,” said U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said as the occupying power, Russia is obligated to uphold Ukrainian laws in the occupied territories. She said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned Russia’s intention to conduct presidential elections in these areas as “unacceptable.”

China-Russia-Iran Maritime Drills Send Signal to West

tel aviv, israel — China conducted joint military drills this week with Russia and Iran in the Gulf of Oman, a critical water conduit near the entry to the Persian Gulf.

The five-day exercise, “Maritime Security Belt 2024,” involved both naval and aviation forces, with the primary objective of enhancing the security of maritime economic activities, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

The drills may have been planned long in advance of the current Israel-Hamas war, but their implication and message to regional players and the West are highly significant, analysts say.

More than 20 ships, combat boats, support carriers and navy helicopters participated in the exercise.

Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) debuted new warships in the exercise, including the Shahid Soleimani corvette.

“That’s a game changer,” Wendell Minnick, an arms specialist and “China in Arms” podcaster,  told VOA.

“Pay close attention to anti-ship missiles on ships,” Minnick said. “The U.S. Navy has a real problem with these types of missiles.”

The IRGC-operated Shahid Soleimani corvette is equipped with long- and short-range anti-ship cruise missiles. It’s the first Iranian warship outfitted with advanced VLS, or Vertical Launching Systems, for firing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.

“This gives the U.S. Navy a nightmare scenario of being saturated by multidirectional vectors of attack that they cannot possibly defeat en masse,” Minnick said. “Like being attacked by bees or ants. Eventually they will get you.”

Rear Admiral Mohammad Nozari, the IRGC commander of Iran’s base at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, told the Mehr News Agency the drill’s chief objectives were consolidating regional security, promoting China-Russia-Iran cooperation, and safeguarding global peace and maritime security.

Analysts say Chinese, Russian and Iranian objectives go far beyond the IRGC top naval commander’s stated claims.

“The Chinese and the Russians are using this exercise as a variety of tools disposable to them to show their presence and to pressure the West,” said Meir Javedanfar, who teaches Iranian security studies at Reichman University, in Herzliya, Israel.

“The Chinese are saying these exercises are normal and have nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East,” Javedanfar said in an interview with VOA.

“Nevertheless, the fact that these exercises are taking place against the background of an unprecedented U.S. and Western naval presence in the Middle East shows that the rivalry between the China-Russia-Iran front against the Western front is now heating up, and the Middle East waters are playing an important part in this rivalry.”

The rivalry takes on heightened significance when weighed against the recent uptick in Chinese participation in regional drills.

In November, China collaborated with Pakistan in “Sea Guardian 3” joint naval exercises in the Arabian Sea. It was the biggest joint People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Pakistani Navy drill to date and included land and sea phases.

China’s warships are stationed at a naval base in Djibouti near the Red Sea waters where Iranian-backed Houthis declaring solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas conflict have since last year repeatedly fired drones and missiles at ships. China has not publicly condemned the attacks.

“If China really wanted the Houthis to stop these attacks against Western shipping, they could pressure the Iranians and the Iranians would listen, but they’re not doing this because they want to pressure Western economies and to show that they have influence in the region,” Javedanfar said.

“The drills play a part in the larger strategy led by China and Russia and Iran,” Javedanfar said.

Sophie Kobzantsev, a Russia analyst and research fellow at the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem, says the Gulf of Oman drill is part strategy, part message.

“From the beginning — the Russia-Ukraine war — Russia’s goal was to create a new world order in which it gets a role or a place as super world power,” Kobzantsev told VOA.

“Part of this concept of the new world order is to partially create a military balance vis-a-vis the West. The drill serves Russia — and Iran and China — in creating the image and the message to the West that there is a counterstrategic military coalition.”

Leading the Russian contingent was the missile cruiser Varyag from its Pacific Fleet, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Naval representatives from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Oman, India and South Africa served as observers during the exercises.

The drills come just a week after NATO’s Nordic Response exercises, the most expansive NATO drills since the Cold War ended in 1991. Nordic Response incorporated military participation of NATO’s newest member states Sweden and Finland.

With an increased U.S. foothold in the Middle East due to its role in mediating the Israel-Gulf States Abraham Accords, pursuing the normalization of Israel-Saudi ties and now mediating between Israel and Hamas, the drill also takes on “countermessage” significance, said Kobzantsev.

The area where the joint drills are taking place is also significant.  An estimated 20% of globally traded oil moves through the narrow Strait of Hormuz passage linking the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Since 2019 the Gulf of Oman has seen a series of ship seizures and attacks that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, although Tehran has denied any involvement.

“We actually see a kind of formation of the world that is reminding us of the Cold War and that there is a new clash between superpowers in this world,” said Kobzantsev. “The West vs. Russia, China and Iran.”

Marine Security Belt 2024 is the fourth joint China-Russia-Iran military exercise since 2019. 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

Europe to Use Frozen Russian Profits to Arm Ukraine, Scholz Says

BERLIN — Ukraine’s backers will use windfall profits on frozen Russian assets to finance arms purchases for Kyiv, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said following a meeting with his French and Polish counterparts aimed at showing unity after weeks of friction. 

At a joint news conference in Berlin, Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, whose ammunition-starved troops face their toughest battles since the early days of Russia’s invasion two years ago. 

European support has become increasingly key as U.S. President Joe Biden has been unable to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress and much of his foreign policy energy is focused on the war in Gaza. 

Scholz said the leaders had agreed on the need to procure more weapons for Ukraine on the global market and to boost the production of military gear, including through cooperation with partners in Ukraine. 

“We will use windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in Europe to financially support the purchase of weapons for Ukraine,” Scholz said as he listed European Union efforts to increase support for Ukraine. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called last month for the EU to consider using such profits to “jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine.” 

The Commission is expected to make a concrete proposal in the coming days. 

Some EU member countries such as Hungary have signaled reservations about the idea, according to diplomats in Brussels. But Scholz’s comments suggested he is confident that EU countries will ultimately approve the proposal. 

Scholz said the leaders also agreed on the need for the Ukraine Defense Contact group — a U.S.-led group of some 50 countries that provide military support to Ukraine — to set up a coalition to provide long-distance artillery to Kyiv. 

A proposal to set up a long-range missile coalition had already been agreed to in Paris on February 26. It was unclear whether Scholz’s comments referred to this or how Germany, which has opposed sending its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, would participate. 

Defense ministers from the contact group are set to meet early next week at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany. 

Macron reiterated his warning that it was not just Ukrainian but European security at stake. 

“We will do everything as necessary for as long as needed so that Russia cannot win this war,” Macron said. “This determination is steadfast and implies our unity.” 

He added that the three leaders had agreed on the need to reinforce support for Moldova, which says Russia is trying to destabilize it through a “hybrid war.” 

He said the three leaders had agreed to never initiate an escalation with Russia, a possible way to downplay talk of sending Western ground troops to Ukraine, which has irked Germany. 

The meeting of the so-called Weimar triangle — Germany, France and Poland — came after weeks of tensions, in particular between Scholz and Macron, that had alarmed officials in Kyiv and across the continent. 

A hastily arranged summit in Paris last month had aimed to give fresh impetus to stagnating Western efforts to help Ukraine repel a full-scale Russian invasion that has entered its third year. 

Instead, Macron’s refusal to rule out deploying Western troops to Ukraine triggered a dressing down from Scholz. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Reuters that “indecision and uncoordinated action” among Kyiv’s allies was leading to “grave consequences.” 

“Russia starts to get cocky and begins to believe that it can quantitatively squeeze Ukraine,” he said. “Ukraine, in turn, is experiencing a severe shortage of specific resources, primarily shells, and is partially losing the initiative.” 

Tusk said the meeting on Friday showed “that some malicious rumors that there are differences between European capitals are very exaggerated.” 

Tusk, who is seeking to revitalize the Weimar Triangle after eight years of nationalist rule in Warsaw, said Macron and Scholz had accepted his invitation to meet again in early summer to present their next joint plans. 

UN Investigators Accuse Russia of ‘Horrific Treatment’ of Ukrainian POWs, Civilians

GENEVA — U.N. investigators have accused Russian authorities of disregarding basic human rights principles and causing untold suffering to Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians by subjecting them to appalling treatment.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine submitted its latest report to the U.N. Human Rights Council this week. The investigators presented a blistering account of “violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, and corresponding war crimes,” committed by Russia in Ukrainian areas under its control.

At a news briefing Friday in Geneva, Commission Chair Erik Mose said the report focuses on torture against Ukrainian prisoners of war and describes “horrific treatment” of POWs in several detention facilities in the Russian Federation.

He said new evidence “strengthens the commission’s previous findings that torture used by Russian authorities in Ukraine and the Russian Federation has been widespread and systematic. … Victims’ accounts disclose relentless, brutal treatment inflicting severe pain and suffering during prolonged detention with blatant disregard for human dignity. This has led to long-lasting physical and mental trauma,” he said.

Commission Chair Mose told journalists that the Russian authorities have received the report and have had an opportunity to comment on the draft.

“We have noted with regret that the Russians have not responded to any of the drafts that we have sent them during this reporting period, nor have they done so this time,” he said.

The commission will officially present the report Monday at a U.N. Human Rights Council meeting. Russia has the right to respond but has often boycotted such meetings in the past.

The report covers the period from April 2023 to March 2024. During that period, the commission traveled to Ukraine 16 times, visited 34 settlements in nine provinces and interviewed 816 people.

Allegations of torture

Mose said that the commission examined credible reports concerning torture in 11 detention facilities, seven in areas under Russian control in Ukraine and four in the Russian Federation.

He said the prisoners of war in the centers were subjected “to beatings, verbal abuse, and electronic devices that were used on body parts,” adding that the picture emerging from the way they were treated over long periods of time “enables us to use the word horrific.”

The report documents incidents of rape and other sexual violence committed against women “in circumstances which also amount to torture.” It also details incidents of torture with “a sexualized dimension” and threats of rape against male prisoners of war, under the control of prison guards.

Vrinda Grover, a commission member, said “there also were incidents of touching of certain body parts of male prisoners, which was considered very humiliating.”

She said the commission found that Russian soldiers raped and sexually assaulted girls and women, ages 15 to 83, usually during house searches “in the presence of family members.”

“These are violations of international human rights, as well as the war crime of rape and sexual violence,” she said.

Mariupol

The report also assesses the grave impact on civilians of the fighting in the three-month siege of Mariupol, which began the day Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

“Residents describe unbearable suffering during relentless shelling and aerial bombardments, which caused large-scale death, injury, and destruction,” said Mose.

He said people interviewed recalled seeing large numbers of dead bodies on the streets.

“One woman who fled on foot to a neighboring village called it the road to death, expressing the pervasive feeling of fear,” he said.

For the first time, the commission has documented attacks by Russian authorities affecting cultural property and the seizure of cultural objects. In one case, it says Russian authorities transferred cultural objects from the Kherson Regional Art Museum to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Grover said, “The commission has concluded that Russian authorities violated international humanitarian law relating to cultural property and committed the war crime of seizing the enemy’s property.”

Transfer of children

One of the most emotive issues facing the Ukrainian people is Russia’s forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to areas under its control. The Ukrainian government estimates some 20,000 children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia, given Russian citizenship and put up for adoption by Russian families.

The commission says its investigations found “additional evidence concerning the unlawful transfer of children to areas under Russian control.” In its current report, the commission focuses on the case of a group of 46 Ukrainian children from the Kherson Regional Children’s Home to Crimea, “on orders of Russian authorities, on 21 October 2022.”

Grover said the commission has concluded that the transfer to Crimea “was not temporary and hence amounts to the war crime of unlawful transfer.”

EU Plans More Environmental Concessions to Farmers

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive arm Friday proposed sacrificing even more climate and environmental measures in the bloc’s latest set of concessions to farmers apparently bent on continuing disruptive tractor protests until the June EU elections.

Angering environmentalists across the 27 nations, the Commission proposed to further loosen rules imposed on agriculture that they said, not so long ago, were inherent parts of the bloc’s strategy to become climate neutral by 2050. That iconic challenge put the EU in the global vanguard of fighting climate change.

“The main goal of these legislative proposals is to further ease the administrative burden for EU farmers and give farmers and Member States greater flexibility for complying with certain environmental conditionalities,” said a statement from Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission.

Under the proposals, the conditions to move farming to become more climate friendly were weakened or cut in areas such as crop rotation, soil cover protection and tillage methods. And small farmers, representing some two-thirds of the workforce and the most active within the continentwide protest movement, will be exempt from some controls and penalties under the new rules.

Politically, the bloc has moved rightward over the past year and the plight of farmers has become a rallying cry for populists and conservatives who claim EU climate and farm policies are little more than bureaucratic bungling from elitist politicians who have lost any feeling for soil and land. The Christian Democratic European People’s Party of von der Leyen had been among the most vocal and powerful in defending the farmers’ cause.

Scientists and environmentalists from around the globe have insisted drastic measures are necessary to keep global warming from getting worse and have pointed out Europe as one of the places with the bleakest prospects.

The Commission’s proposals still need to be endorsed by the member states, but considering previous concessions, they stand a good chance of being accepted quickly, observers said.

Friday’s plans were the EU’s latest concessions in reaction to protests that have affected the daily lives of tens of millions of EU citizens and cost businesses tens of millions of euros due to transportation delays. Others have included shelving legislation on tighter pesticide rules and requirements to let some land lie fallow.

On top of the EU itself, member states have also caved in to several of the demands as the tractor protests shot up the political agenda. Complaints have centered on excessive bureaucracy, intrusive environmental rules and unfair competition from third countries, including Ukraine.

The Commission said that even though more-flexibile measures for farmers were now proposed, the overall EU climate goals remained valid.

“We are the first continent to have made a binding legal commitment to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Not only have we done that,” said Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer, “but we actually fixed a roadmap to 2030 with the legal act to ensure that we are on the right path to meet that objective.”

He insisted Friday’s proposals would not veer from that commitment, even though the fact that “we … adapt from time to time to changing circumstances is obvious.”

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