Belarusians in Ukraine gathered in the cities of Kyiv and Lviv on February 28 in support of compatriots back home to demand that Alyaksandr Lukashenka resign. In Kyiv, protesters marched through the streets and in Lviv, they expressed their support for Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Anti-government protesters were detained on February 28 in Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan, and the country’s largest city, Almaty. Security forces tried to surround smaller groups of protesters and push them into police buses. Rallies were called across Kazakhstan by two opposition groups — the Democratic Party and Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan. Protesters demanded the release of political prisoners and decried the continuing authoritarian influence of former President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
People have taken to the streets in cities and town across Kazakhstan to press for democratic reforms.
Police were reported to have detained dozens of people at the rallies on February 28, nearly all of which were not officially sanctioned by authorities.
The ruling Nur Otan party has dominated the political scene in Kazakhstan for almost three decades while opposition movements, sidelined and with no seats in parliament, mostly make themselves heard through public protests.
Rallies were held in several cities including the capital, Nur-Sultan; Almaty, the country’s biggest city; as well as Atyrau, Aqtobe, Semey, Oral, and Shymkent.
Several hundred people gathered in Oral, which was the only demonstration permitted by authorities.
Elsewhere, police detained many who turned out. A Reuters correspondent reported seeing police detain at least 50 people near a park in central Almaty.
Dozens of people who rallied in another location in Almaty could be seen completely surrounded by police in black balaclavas and riot gear.
“Nazarbaev, go away,” chanted some protesters, referring to influential ex-President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has retained sweeping powers after resigning almost two years ago and helped to ensure the election of a hand-picked successor.
The rallies were organized by two opposition groups, the Democratic Party and Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan, who said among their demands would be land reforms.
President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev on February 25 proposed a ban on the purchase and renting of farmland by foreigners ahead of the expiration of a moratorium on land sales.
Toqaev said that “in order to stop rumors” he had ordered the drawing up of an outline of a law “banning the buying and renting of Kazakhstan’s farmlands by foreign persons and companies.”
“The land issue has always been very important for our nation. It is a fundamental and sacred symbol of our statehood…. I also ordered to form a commission on land reform by March 25,” Toqaev said.
The government’s moratorium on farmland sales to foreigners is set to expire later this year.
The five-year moratorium was introduced in 2016 after thousands demonstrated in unprecedented rallies across the tightly controlled Central Asian state, protesting the government’s plan to attract foreign investment into agriculture by opening up the farmland market.
The protests stopped after the government withdrew the plan, but two men who organized the largest rally in the western city of Atyrau, Talghat Ayan and Maks Boqaev, were sentenced to five years in prison each after being found guilty of inciting social discord, knowingly spreading false information, and violating the law on public assembly.
Ayan was released on parole in April 2018, and Boqaev was released earlier this month.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Anti-government protests took place across Kazakhstan on February 28. Police detained protesters in Aqtobe, while a rally in Oral that had been sanctioned by local authorities took place without detentions. Protesters demanded political freedoms and slammed the enduring power grab by former President Nursultan Nazarbaev. The rallies were organized by two opposition groups — the Democratic Party and the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service recently released a detailed report about a new resort that was secretly built about 100 kilometers southeast of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.
Allegedly it is the luxurious hideaway of President Shavkat Mirziyoev, which would seem to undercut Mirziyoev’s promises for a more responsible and transparent government than the one he inherited in September 2016 when his predecessor, Islam Karimov, died.
On this week’s Majlis Podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on the new complex, who it belongs to, and what is now being said about it inside Uzbekistan.
This week’s guests are: from Tashkent, Mira Matyakubowa, co-founder of the anti-corruption organization UzInvestigations and a fellow at the U.K.-based Foreign Policy Center; from Prague, Carl Schreck, RFE/RL enterprise editor; and Bruce Pannier, author of the Qishloq Ovozi blog.
Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes or on Google Podcasts.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Over 1,000 supporters of Ukrainian activist Serhiy Sternenko marched through central Kyiv and rallied at the Prosecutor-General’s Office calling for his and the interior minister’s resignation on February 27. Earlier this week, Sternenko, a former leader of the ultranationalist Right Sector in Odesa, was convicted of kidnapping and beating a newly elected local council member in 2015. He has been handed down a seven-year prison sentence and is a suspect in a murder investigation. His supporters claim he has been convicted for speaking out against corruption and that he is a political prisoner. Opposition politicians, including former President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as several regional councils, have called for a review of the sentence.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Several thousand opposition supporters rallied in the capital, Yerevan, on February 27 demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s resignation over his handling of last year’s war with Azerbaijan that ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement that many see as a national humiliation. The latest demonstrations come in the wake of a letter by the country’s chief of the general staff urging Pashinian to step down. The prime minister called it a coup attempt and dismissed General Onik Gasparian. President Armen Sarkisian, however, has refused to sign off on the dismissal, considering it unconstitutional.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
YEREVAN — Armenian President Armen Sarkisian has refused to sign off on the dismissal of the head of the country’s general staff whose firing by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on February 25 prompted a political crisis.
According to a February 27 statement posted on Sarkisian’s website, the president considered the firing of General Onik Gasparian unconstitutional.
The president’s move gave Pashinian five days during which to resubmit the dismissal order. However, Pashinian announced immediately that he had already sent it back to the president.
Pashinian wrote on Facebook that Sarkisian’s decision “is by no means conducive to the resolution of the situation.”
Sarkisian now has three days to either sign the order or submit it to the Constitutional Court for review.
WATCH: What’s Next After Pashinian Denounces ‘Attempted Coup’?
In his statement, Sarkisian stressed that he was not supporting either side in the dispute over Gasparian’s firing and that “the armed forces should maintain political neutrality.”
At an opposition rally in Yerevan, former Prime Minister Vazgen Manukian, who has been put forward as a replacement for Pashinian, said with the decision, “the president has proved that he stands by the army.”
“I hope we will see statements from the police and the national security service that they too have sided with the army,” he added.
Pashinian has said he fired Gasparian after what he called an attempted coup aimed at removing him. Gasparian and other top military officials had issued an open letter calling for the resignations of Pashinian and his cabinet over their handling of a six-week conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.
Pashinian, whose My Step alliance holds a majority in parliament, has rejected opposition demands for early elections.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Thousands of people laid flowers on February 27 at the site where Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin six years ago. An ardent critic of President Vladimir Putin, Nemtsov had been working on a report examining Russia’s role in the conflict in Ukraine at the time of his killing on the night of February 27, 2015. Municipal authorities turned down a request to put up a plaque there in his honor and city workers have taken down makeshift memorials on several occasions over the years. Two people were sentenced in 2017 for their involvement in Nemtsov’s murder, but the late politician’s allies said at the time that the people who had ordered his killing remained at large. Thousands of people laid flowers on February 27 at the site where Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin six years ago. An ardent critic of President Vladimir Putin, Nemtsov had been working on a report examining Russia’s role in the conflict in Ukraine at the time of his killing on the night of February 27, 2015. Municipal authorities turned down a request to put up a plaque there in his honor and city workers have taken down makeshift memorials on several occasions over the years. Two people were sentenced in 2017 for their involvement in Nemtsov’s murder, but the late politician’s allies said at the time that the people who had ordered his killing remained at large.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Faced with a struggling economy and few financial lifelines, Kyrgyzstan is feeling the weight of its swelling state debt — a significant proportion of which is owed to China — and considering some drastic measures to meet its obligations.
Kyrgyzstan’s foreign debt is reportedly as much as $5 billion and more than 40 percent of that ($1.8 billion) is owed to the Export-Import Bank of China for a series of infrastructure projects over the last decade under the guise of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy project.
Bishkek, however, is grappling with a contracting economy whose gross domestic product dropped 8.6 percent in 2020, prompting fears the country will be unable to pay off its loans or even meet interest payments, especially on the Central Asian country’s commitments owed to Beijing.
With deadlines approaching, there has been discussion by Kyrgyz officials of potentially forfeiting assets as a form of repayment.
“If we do not pay some of [the debt] on time we will lose many of our properties,” new Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov told the state Kabar news agency during an interview on February 13. “Agreements with such conditions were signed by [President Almazbek] Atambaev. But, God willing, we will get rid of all debts in time. There are plans.”
What exactly those plans are remains to be seen.
While Japarov’s comments refrained from mentioning China directly, the national conversation has since shifted to how the country of 6.4 million people can repay its loans to Beijing, its largest creditor and a major political force in Central Asia.
This debt impasse highlights the difficult bind that many countries — including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan — have with Chinese-owed debts from large BRI infrastructure projects as they deal with the economic crunch caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Beijing has so far shown a willingness to defer some loans, but not offer outright relief, pointing toward a difficult negotiating environment for countries like Kyrgyzstan that are under such difficult financial strain.
“China has shown many times in Latin America and Africa that it is not a charity and that it is a very pragmatic partner in terms of getting back its debts,” Temur Umarov, an expert on China-Central Asia relations at the Carnegie Moscow Center, told RFE/RL. “For Kyrgyzstan, it’s a challenging situation with no clear way out.”
Kyrgyzstan has been considering options for the development of its Jetim-Too iron-ore mine in recent months, and some government critics have raised the prospect that the authorities might sell off or surrender mining rights to the lucrative deposit to pay off its loans to Beijing.
As a presidential candidate, Japarov himself floated the idea of using Jetim-Too to pay down state debt owed to China, although Kyrgyzstan’s National Bank has said the government planned to retain ownership.
Beyond mineral and mining concessions, some lawmakers have also mentioned the possibility of the government surrendering partial management of the country’s energy sector.
A protest outside the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek over the treatment of the Uyghur minority in China.
This outcome to resolve the country’s debts was raised by parliamentarian Akyl Japarov (no relation to the president) on February 22, if Kyrgyzstan could not meet its interest payments on the controversial, Chinese-financed reconstruction of Bishkek’s main power plant, the cost of which was grossly inflated before breaking down and continues to have shortfalls in production.
“Kyrgyzstan has no leverage and few ways to manage this crisis,” Niva Yau, a researcher at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, told RFE/RL. “A lot will depend if Japarov is able to follow through on his reforms for the economy and bring in anti-corruption measures.”
In Search Of Goodwill
Japarov and Xi had their first phone call on February 22, during which the Kyrgyz president voiced support for more Chinese projects in the country and praised Xi’s handling of a range of international issues.
The phone call comes after strained relations between Bishkek and Beijing around the events that brought Japarov to power and plunged Kyrgyzstan into a political crisis in October.
The nationalist Japarov rode into power on protests triggered over parliamentary elections that toppled the government and saw the resignation of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.
But in the wake of those events, Chinese businesses and citizens in Kyrgyzstan reportedly faced attacks and shakedowns, which led to Kyrgyz Ambassador to China Kanayym Baktygulova being summoned in Beijing as Chinese officials expressed their displeasure and concern for the safety of its citizens.
WATCH: Countries On China’s ‘New Silk Road’ Face Coronavirus Fears
“Beijing has lots of concerns over a populist leader like Japarov,” said Yau. “China has been waiting for the domestic political situation to stabilize and there is still lots of hesitancy.”
Anti-China protests have grown across Central Asia in recent years, with many such demonstrations taking place in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Concerns about land ownership, state debt, Chinese labor practices, and the internment camps in the neighboring Chinese province of Xinjiang — which have also held ethnic Kyrgyz and Kazakhs in addition to Uyghurs — have been rallying calls in the country. Vandalism and several attacks on Chinese workers have also occurred in recent years in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Japarov — whose parents lived for many years in China — must now persuade Beijing that he can be a reliable partner without alienating himself from the nationalist, anti-corruption rhetoric that helped bring him to power.
On both fronts, the Kyrgyz leader faces tremendous obstacles.
Popular anger over corruption remains high in Kyrgyzstan and many details over past loan contracts signed with Chinese entities are unknown, sparking further speculation among the public about how the government will settle its debt with Beijing.
Moreover, Japarov is also dealing with the fallout of revelations around Raimbek Matraimov, the former deputy customs chief and influential power broker, who was arrested for a second time on February 18 over suspicion of money-laundering following public backlash over a lenient fine. The allegations against Matraimov were first revealed by a joint RFE/RL investigation.
With limited international experience, Japarov is also looking to shore up Russian support to help navigate his problems, with a visit to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin and other top officials taking place on February 24-25.
Playing The Long Game
Even before the political upheaval that brought Japarov into office, Bishkek had been asking China for debt forgiveness.
Prior to the pandemic, Kyrgyzstan was making progress in paying down its outstanding loans, but the financial problems caused by COVID-19 broke down the country’s economy, which remains reliant on cross-border shuttle trade with China, and derailed Bishkek’s schedule.
In November 2020, some relief did come from Beijing in the form of debt deferment, allowing $35 million owed for that year to be delayed until 2022-2024, at 2 percent interest.
Kyrgyzstan also secured help from international creditors through a Paris Club agreement in June, suspending $11 million worth of debt until the end of the year. Bishkek collectively owes more than $300 million to Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
But those deals only offer temporary relief and do not address wider structural issues over Kyrgyzstan’s inability to service its debt obligations. With Bishkek exploring various drastic options to repay its Chinese loans, what sort of concessions Beijing is willing to offer could be the deciding factor.
“The pattern is that China is willing to defer debt, but only in a handful of cases has it actually written it down,” Jonathan Hillman, the director of the Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFE/RL. “Examples of asset seizures have been extremely rare.”
China holds many of the cards in debt talks, with contracts signed with Kyrgyzstan stipulating that any disputes over repayment are to be settled in Chinese arbitration courts, rather than international ones, and could contain other clauses to Beijing’s advantage.
“A lot of the issues facing Kyrgyzstan stem from a lack of due diligence and mismanagement from Kyrgyz officials over the years,” said Hillman. “But I think this is a lesson on the risks of doing business with China. This is what happens when you have a lack of transparency around lending.”
Still, China remains concerned about its reputation in Kyrgyzstan, and the wider region as a whole, and will likely be mindful of the optics and sensitivities in taking control of any assets in the Central Asian country.
“Taking an asset is not a good political move,” said Hillman. “It will confirm everyone’s worst fears about China and Belt and Road.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Russian opposition activists plan to pay tribute to slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow on February 27.
The sixth anniversary of Nemtsov’s death comes after Russia’s jailing of opposition political leader Aleksei Navalny and a crackdown on his allies.
Navalny’s allies have called on his supporters to observe a minute of silence and lay flowers on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge — a short walk from the Kremlin — where Nemtsov was gunned down on February 27, 2015.
Navalny’s allies have declared a pause on protests until spring after authorities responded forcefully to a wave of national demonstrations, detaining more than 10,000 people in dozens of cities and filing administrative and criminal cases against many of them.
Last week, a Moscow court upheld a 2 1/2 year prison sentence imposed on Navalny earlier in February for a parole violation related to a previous embezzlement conviction.
The opposition said it planned a “memorial event,” not a rally, to pay tribute to Nemtsov on February 27.
WATCH: Battle Goes On For ‘Nemtsov Bridge’ Memorial
Moscow authorities rejected a request for opposition supporters to hold a commemorative march due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Supporters of Nemtsov have maintained a memorial on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge ever since his death despite police, city workers, and others regularly destroying or removing it. A volunteer died in August 2017 after he was beaten on the bridge.
Nemtsov was an ardent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Five Chechens have been found guilty of involvement in his killing, but critics, including relatives and colleagues of Nemtsov, say Russian authorities failed to determine who ordered it.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
KYIV — Ukraine has announced a fresh set of sanctions against 10 individuals close to ousted pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych, the latest in a series of moves by incumbent President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s administration against actors with ties to Russia.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council on February 26 announced sanctions against former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, former Security Service Chief Oleksandr Yakymenko, and eight other individuals.
Zakharchenko was accused of unleashing deadly force against anti-government protesters in Kyiv in 2014. He later fled to Russia along with Yanukovych.
Zelenskiy’s administration has now announced three sets of sanctions this month alone against individuals, including lawmakers, with close ties to Russia.
The moves come after a sharp drop in Zelenskiy’s popularity and as he seeks to build strong relations with the new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden.
The Security and Defense Council on February 19 announced sanctions against tycoon and political heavyweight Viktor Medvedchuk, his wife Oksana Marchenko, as well as several individuals and companies connected to him.
Medvedchuk is the chairman of the political council for the second-largest party in the Ukrainian parliament after Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People.
Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform-For Life party has its base in Ukraine’s eastern provinces and advocates a pro-Russia policy. He has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Crackdown On TV Stations
Earlier in the month, Zelenskiy’s administration sanctioned Taras Kozak, a close associate of Medvedchuk, and three television stations that he owns.
Zelenskiy’s administration justified the sanctions, claiming the stations receive money from mining activities in regions of Ukraine not controlled by the central government.
Russia is backing separatists in parts of two regions in eastern Ukraine that Kyiv is seeking to re-exert control over. The war, now heading into its eighth year, has killed more than 13,000 people.
Ukrainian media claim the stations are actually owned by Medvedchuk, who uses them to promote his pro-Russia agenda and slam Zelenskiy’s leadership.
A former comic with no political experience, Zelenskiy won a landslide victory in April 2019, garnering about 73 percent of the vote on promises to fight corruption and take on the tycoons who control Ukrainian politics from behind the scenes.
However, Zelenskiy has failed to make significant progress to date, leading to a sharp decline in his ratings to around 25 percent. Servant of the People stands at just 22 percent versus 17 percent for Medvedchuk’s Opposition Platform-For Life.
Mykhailo Minakov, the Kennan Institute’s senior adviser on Ukraine, told RFE/RL on February 24 the moves to impose sanctions on Medvedchuk and others was driven by Zelenskiy’s desire to boost his ratings and that it appeared to be working.
Zelenskiy’s bold moves against prominent individuals have come as a surprise to many in Ukraine. Oleksandr Danylyuk, Ukraine’s former national-security chief, on January 27 said Zelenskiy’s government looked weak.
Danylyuk also said that Zelenskiy would have to get rid of people from the government that were involved in U.S. election interference if he wanted to build strong ties with the Biden administration.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has welcomed the sanctions against the television stations and Medvedchuk, whom Washington sanctioned in 2014 for undermining democracy in Ukraine.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Hey, you’re busy! We know rferl.org isn’t the only website you read. And that it’s just possible you may have missed some of our most compelling journalism this week. To make sure you’re up-to-date, here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL’s team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.
When a Czech archaeology student happened to notice some unusual markings on a bone fragment she was washing after a routine excavation, she had little idea she had stumbled across a stunning artifact that could shed new light on a murky period in Europe’s past. By Coilin O’Connor
An opaquely financed resort, including a new reservoir, was built in the Uzbek highlands and is protected by guards and a no-fly zone. A new investigation reveals its links to President Shavkat Mirziyoev, who has spoken publicly about the need for government transparency. By RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service
An assassination attempt made Aleksei Navalny into a globally celebrated dissident. But the man who has challenged President Vladimir Putin for more than a decade and deftly exposed corruption among his officials has also faced criticism in the country and abroad for past nationalist comments that he has repeatedly declined to disavow. By Matthew Luxmoore
A murky, mostly unregulated online sub-culture where people perform lewd, alcohol-fueled challenges for viewer donations has gained fans and notoriety in Russia. But a spate of recent deaths and violent assaults on air has prompted Russian authorities to rein the practice in. Experts, and the streamers themselves, say it will never succeed. By Matthew Luxmoore
Armenia is in the midst of a political crisis amid calls for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to step down. After top military officers called for him to resign, Pashinian described the move as “an attempted coup.” One political analyst says if early elections are called, the prime minister might be able to stay in power. But others say disappointment with his leadership is running deep. By RFE/RL’s Armenian Service and Current Time
A look at the Japanese military enthusiasts recreating Ukrainian and Russian battledress with astonishing realism. By Amos Chapple
Despite U.S. sanctions that halted construction for a year, Russian ships are now getting closer to completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. What is it and why do the United States and other countries want to stop it from being built? By Ivan Gutterman
With a new website and a campaign of cultural diplomacy, seeking to raise its profile, improve its image, and shed the long shadow of Moscow. Will domestic developments diminish the challenge or raise higher hurdles to Kyiv’s latest effort to attract attention, investment, and support? By Mark Raczkiewycz
More than 100 men and women have been barred from competitive sports in Belarus since signing an open letter calling for an end to police violence against peaceful anti-government protesters. “To put it bluntly, I’m no longer a sportsman,” says Ivan Ganin, who has been removed from the national kickboxing teams. By Ray Furlong, Current Time, and RFE/RL’s Belarus Service
In a rare move, environmental authorities in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, have fined dozens of citizens and businesses for disposing of plastic and other waste in the city’s rivers and canals and along their banks. They’ve also promised to beef up the monitoring of waterways in an effort to deter polluters. RFE/RL’s Tajik Service
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The United States is offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Kremlin-friendly Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin in connection with alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The FBI’s announcement said that Prigozhin is wanted for alleged “involvement in a conspiracy to defraud the United States…for the purposes of interfering with the United States political system, including the 2016 President Election.”
Prigozhin was one of 13 Russians added to the FBI’s wanted list in connection with the alleged election interference.
A U.S. arrest warrant was issued in February 2018.
Prigozhin responded on Telegram on February 26 by saying he was being used as a “scapegoat” to “cover up the colossal gap between the deep state and the people” in the United States.
Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s chef” because he owns a company that provides catering for events in President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, controls the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency. That firm is a so-called troll factory that allegedly carried out a massive online campaign aimed at influencing politics in the United States and other countries.
Prigozhin also controls private security firms that have recruited mercenaries to advance Putin’s interests in places like Ukraine, Syria, and several African countries.
The Russian government has denied interfering in the domestic politics of other countries.
However, a U.S. joint intelligence assessment in January 2017 concluded that “Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect [Donald] Trump’s election chances when possible.”
The FBI also added Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik to its wanted list and offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
An arrest warrant was issued for Kilimnik in June 2018 on charges of obstruction of justice.
Kilimnik was a former assistant to U.S. political consultant Paul Manafort when Manafort was working in Ukraine for pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort later served as Trump’s campaign manager.
Kilimnik, who is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence services, was accused of carrying out illegal lobbying efforts in the United States on behalf of the Yanukovych government.
According to a 2020 U.S. Senate report on the alleged interference in the 2016 election, “Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services, and that those services likely sought to exploit Manafort’s access to gain insight into the [Trump] campaign.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States will continue to back Ukraine against Russian aggression and will never recognize the Kremlin’s annexation of its neighbor’s territory.
Biden made the comments of support on February 26 as Ukrainians mark the seventh anniversary of Moscow’s steps to seize Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
“The United States does not, and will never, recognize Russia’s purported annexation of the peninsula, and we will stand with Ukraine against Russia’s aggressive acts. We will continue to work to hold Russia accountable for its abuses and aggression in Ukraine,” Biden said.
Russia in 2014 seized Crimea and backed separatists in two provinces in eastern Ukraine after protesters in Kyiv overthrew pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych. The war in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 13,000 people to date and continues to simmer.
Key Biden Role
Biden played a key role in mobilizing U.S. support for Ukraine against the Kremlin’s aggression while serving as vice president in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2017, making at least five visits to the region after the outbreak of hostilities.
Biden last week reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine in his first foreign policy speech directed at a foreign audience. The U.S. president told the Munich Security Conference on February 19 that Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty was of “vital importance” to Washington and Brussels.
The U.S. president, however, has yet to speak with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, since taking power on January 20.
Zelenskiy has said he hopes for a close relationship with the Biden administration following tense ties with his predecessor, Donald Trump.
In a move viewed as an attempt to improve the relationship, Zelenskiy yesterday appointed Oksana Markarova as his new ambassador to Washington.
Markarova, a former finance minister, is highly regarded in the United States for her pro-reform views.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
A week before the sixth anniversary of the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a makeshift memorial on the bridge where he was killed was cleared again by authorities. Volunteers who maintained the photos and flowers on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge were detained. The place where he was assassinated has come to be known as “Nemtsov Bridge.” The Moscow mayor’s office called the incident a misunderstanding.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Georgian prosecutors have charged three people for an attack on investigative television journalist Vakho Sanaia, who believes his assailants targeted him over his work.
The Interior Ministry said on February 26 that the suspects, who are said to have been drinking before the attack, were charged with violence committed by a group against two or more individuals.
Sanaia says he and a relative were returning from the airport in Tbilisi at night when they were approached by the three suspects in “an aggressive manner” after their car broke down.
“They were directly aggressive toward me as a representative of the media,” he said.
“They started provoking me, started swearing at us, at TV Pirveli, they were aggressive toward media in general,” he added, blaming general anti-media “propaganda” pushed by the ruling Georgia Dream party against outlets critical of the government.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili condemned the attack saying “the response from the state will be adequate and the perpetrators will be held accountable with the full severity of the law.”
Georgia has been rocked by political turmoil in recent months amid repeated opposition claims that fall elections were rigged even though international observers said the October 31, 2020 vote, which triggered protests, was broadly free and fair.
The election campaign itself was marred by violent attacks against at least five journalists during clashes between pro-government and pro-opposition activists.
Opposition activists gathered on February 26 outside parliament demanding fresh elections and the release of all political prisoners, a reference to a raid on the headquarters of a major opposition party this week and the arrest of the party’s leader, Nika Melia.
Melia was arrested over allegations that he incited violence at protests nearly two years ago. He has dismissed the allegations as politically motivated.
International rights group Amnesty International called the heavy use of force to take Melia into custody before a court has heard his appeal against pretrial detention a troubling indicator.
The South Caucasus country is ranked 60th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2020 World Press Freedom Index.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
MOSCOW — German Vasilyenko, an ex-porn actor and reality TV show contestant, was working a run-of-the-mill sales job in early 2020 when he quit for a career on YouTube.
The impetus was a series of messages he got after some tipsy revelry at a party hosted by a YouTuber who streamed the event live on the video-hosting platform.
Vasilyenko was used to guilt-ridden hangovers and regrets about the night before. But suddenly, he was being showered with praise.
“Everyone was writing to me saying I’m great, and asking me to set up a channel. I was shocked,” he said in an interview.
Vasilyenko had unwittingly tapped into a murky online subculture called “trash-streaming,” an extreme take on YouTube livestreams that has gained fans and notoriety in Russia.
It has also led to death, injury, and an effort by legislators to curb a practice that has highlighted the state’s limited power to rein in the Internet.
Fiendishly Simple
The idea is fiendishly simple: Invite some friends over, get drunk on whatever is at hand, and broadcast the ensuing debauchery live through a computer webcam or smartphone.
But what sets trash-streams apart are the lewd challenges carried out in exchange for small donations from viewers — sometimes humorous but often harmful dares that earn performers instant credit exchangeable for cash, or the digital equivalent of coins dropped in a busker’s guitar case.
Vasilyenko launched his own channel in January 2020, moving to capitalize on the interest in his persona. When much of Russia went into lockdown in April, he left his job and began streaming full-time, playing video games during the day and inviting friends for alcohol-fueled dares at night. “It was easy money,” he said.
However, there’s a dark side to trash-streams. An activity that overwhelmingly attracts residents of Russia’s hardscrabble provinces offers a social lift and the chance of riches to streamers who make it big — but it also rewards and incentivizes those who are most willing to push the boundaries of what’s considered legal and safe.
“The competition is fierce — you have to do something radical to stand out,” said Konstantin Gabov, a sociologist at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “And in Russia, perhaps due to a low quality of life, people are ready to do it, and others are ready to pay for it.”
A spate of recent deaths and violent assaults on air has now prompted a clampdown on trash-streaming. But as Russian lawmakers advance legislation aimed at banning them altogether, experts — and the streamers themselves — are skeptical about their chances of putting the genie back in the bottle.
‘Just A Line Of Work’
The trend of “trash-streaming” — a Russian term that uses English loanwords — gained traction in the mid-2010s as a marginal spin-off from the world of video game broadcasts, which comprise the lion’s share of online livestreams.
On platforms like YouTube and Twitch, a livestreaming site, some gamers sought to push the envelope in a bid for more subscribers. When Twitch began banning users for vulgar acts and comments, thousands in the Russian-speaking world migrated to the relatively unbridled ecosystem of YouTube.
Fast-forward to 2020 and the growing but still marginal milieu of trash-streaming was given a boost by the coronavirus lockdown, which expanded streamers’ base of bored and often lonely viewers seeking a sense of community — however bawdy, boisterous, or base. The appeal came from the hosts’ interaction with viewers, whose messages and challenges they read out live on air.
“Everyone’s stuck at home. And here you can sign on and take part in something real,” said Ekaterina Kolpinets, a lecturer on digital culture also based at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. “No matter how wild it is, it will find an audience.”
For Vasilyenko, it’s been a win-win deal. He can have fun with friends without venturing out, and viewers pay him for it. The 34-year-old streams as German Yagodka, the name he used as a porn actor and during his stint as a contestant on the TV show Dom 2, Russia’s Big Brother equivalent. On a good day, he says he makes 8,000 rubles on YouTube, half a supermarket cashier’s monthly wage, despite having a mere 4,500 subscribers.
The pioneers of trash-streaming include a Russian gamer called VJ Link, who in 2013 invited a hairdresser to his apartment and kept his livestream rolling when her husband stormed in and assaulted him for allegedly harassing his wife. VJ Link was accused of staging the scene, but he was credited for helping spawn a new genre.
“This is just a line of work. People do it for money,” VJ Link, whose real name is Kirill Zyryanov, told RFE/RL. “And ultimately the masses like it. Where there’s demand, there’s supply.”
Zyryanov has run his YouTube channel for almost a decade, and has 435,000 subscribers. In 2017, he began appearing on trash-streams with Stas Reshetnyak, aka Reeflay, who went to extreme lengths for viewer donations. He roughed up his girlfriend on camera, humiliated his guests, and tattooed one participant’s arm with the name of a paying subscriber. A box in the corner of Reelfay’s screen listed the cost of various obscene stunts.
Reshetnyak eventually introduced Zyryanov to Andrei Burim, a teenager from Belarus streaming under the name Mellstroy and amassing a large following. Burim began inviting Zyryanov to parties at his luxury rented apartment inside Moscow’s Federation Tower, Europe’s second-tallest skyscraper, and Zyryanov would engage in drunken fights with other guests and complete challenges – usually taking home 50 percent of the money his stunt earned, with the rest going to the host.
Last year Zyryanov joined 21-year-old Burim for a two week-long trash-stream from a rented house in St. Petersburg. “It was all-inclusive. We drank every day, there was food, and a nice place to sleep,” he said. Burim paid him $900 for his troubles, but the biggest reward was the exposure he got as a YouTuber, including brand deals and new followers who help finance a lifestyle far removed from that of his working-class parents.
Losing Control
Trash-streaming reached a sort of zenith this past summer, when businessman Aleksandr Timartsev launched a reality show called Sosed.tv. At the height of the pandemic he placed a bunch of strangers in a shabby house with cameras overlooking every nook and cranny, and published a price list online for challenges including “drink a bottle of hard liquor” and “smoke a pack of cigs” – and whatever else viewers wanted if they were ready to pay the price.
The concept never took off, though it continues despite low viewership and reports of sexual harassment and a rape allegation by one participant that was widely reported in September, the first in a series of shocking incidents that would thrust trash-streams into the spotlight and prompt a clampdown by the Russian government.
In October, police launched a criminal investigation after Burim violently assaulted 21-year-old Instagram model Alyona Yefremova during one of his parties at the Federation Tower, a scene he broadcast live to his 700,000 subscribers. In December, Reshetnyak was arrested on charges of causing the death of his girlfriend, Valentina Grigoryeva, whom he locked out in sub-zero temperatures wearing only her underwear. “I swear she doesn’t even have a pulse,” he said to the camera as he carried her dead body back into the house.
All of this — Reshetnyak’s tears as her body lay on a sofa behind him, his conversation with the ambulance crew and the police officers who soon arrived – was streamed live to thousands of viewers on YouTube. The trash streamer faces 15 years in prison if convicted. He denies the charges, but investigators have said Grigoryeva’s heart stopped under the influence of drugs and the searing cold.
Authorities have also begun investigating the case of Valentin Ganichev, a handicapped man who was passed among seven different YouTubers over a period of several years, living in their homes as they humiliated and beat him on camera for viewer donations. In one stream he was buried alive in the back garden of a house in Bryansk, southwest of Moscow. “You’ll be famous!” one tells him as he bawls uncontrollably. https://batenka.ru/unity/thrash-streams/
In October, in a video response to Burim’s arrest, popular YouTuber Yury Khovansky called trash-streamers “a zeitgeist, a spirit of the times, of the fact that we are ready to part with our human dignity for easy money.”
“Listen carefully: Easy money is great, but in the long run it’ll bury you,” Khovansky said in an obscenity-filled monologue viewed by 2.3 million people. “The house always wins.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGe34sqhVds&ab_channel=%D0%AE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B9%D0%A5%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9
The legislation being debated in Russia’s Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, would mandate punishment of up to six years in prison for those who violate a proposed ban on trash-streaming. But experts say the initiative, which comes at a time of increasing state censorship in Russia, is doomed to failure.
Russia sought to ban the Telegram messaging app but after an unsuccessful effort lasting two years, it officially abandoned the idea last June. Gabov and Kolpinets say the ban on trash-streams is likely to suffer a similar fate. They point to the alt-right exodus to Telegram after Twitter banned Donald Trump, or the migration to TikTok after Instagram stopped displaying the numbers of “likes” on posts.
“These days you can’t ban something and expect people to say ‘ok, it’s over.’ They simply move to another platform,” says Kolpinets. Gabov says the legislation will most likely be powerless unless a specific crime is committed.
Vasilyenko says the trash-streaming community is waiting for more details on the law, and especially how lawmakers will define the activity. But he asks, “if a person consents to something, why shouldn’t it be allowed?”
‘Just Getting Started’
In the meantime, fatal accidents keep happening. On January 28, 60-year-old Yury Dushechkin died after drinking a liter and a half of vodka in exchange for viewer donations during a trash-stream in the western city of Smolensk that was watched by some 300 people. Russian media reported that Dushechkin was one of several homeless men who were regularly invited to a channel run by a local entrepreneur and paid with alcohol for completing viewer challenges.
YouTube, which did not respond to a request for comment, has banned Burim and Reshetnyak’s channels and removed various trash-streams from its site. But the streamers find a way to keep working. Burim continues to broadcast his parties, opening new YouTube channels that get blocked as soon as his face appears on air.
Vasilyenko is planning to team up with another St Petersburg-based YouTuber to purchase a bus and drive around the Russian city with friends while they broadcast online everything that happens on-board.
Zyryanov, who continues to attend Burim’s streams, says he will rent a large country house for four months starting in May and stream 24/7 throughout the summer on his channel — a “trash” reality TV show, just like Sosed.tv.
He says he’s just getting started.
“This is a profession. I live off this, and can’t imagine life without it,” he said. “I might disappear from the web for a week. But I will never stop broadcasting.”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s time as an Amnesty International “prisoner of conscience” was short-lived — but not because he was released from detention.
Navalny received the designation on January 17 following his arrest at a Moscow airport by Russian authorities who said he had violated the terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction. Navalny and his supporters say that both the conviction and the alleged violation are unfounded, politically motivated, and absurd.
The subsequent conversion of the suspended sentence into more than 30 months of real prison time promised to keep the ardent Kremlin critic away from street protests for the near-term, even as he stayed in the focus of anti-government demonstrators and human rights groups such as Amnesty.
But on February 23, Amnesty withdrew the designation, citing what it said were past comments by the 44-year old anti-corruption activist that “reach the threshold of advocacy of hatred.”
The term “prisoner of conscience” is widely attributed to the founder of Amnesty International, Peter Benenson, who used it in 1961 to describe two Portuguese students who had each been sentenced to seven years in prison simply for making a toast to freedom under a dictatorial government.
The label initially came to apply mainly to dissidents in the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc satellites, but over the years expanded to include hundreds of religious, political opposition, and media figures around the world, including countries of the former Soviet Union and others in RFE/RL’s immediate coverage region.
According to Amnesty’s current criteria for the designation, prisoners of conscience are people who have “not used or advocated violence but are imprisoned because of who they are (sexual orientation, ethnic, national, or social origin, language, birth, color, sex or economic status) or what they believe (religious, political or other conscientiously held beliefs).”
Navalny’s delisting has been tied by Amnesty to comments he made in the mid-2000s, as his star as a challenger to President Vladimir Putin and as an anti-corruption crusader in Russia was on the rise, but also as he came under criticism for his association with ethnic Russian nationalists and for statements seen as racist and dangerously inflammatory.
And while the rights watchdog acknowledged that the flood of requests it received to review Navalny’s past statements appeared to originate from pro-Kremlin critics of Navalny, Amnesty ultimately determined that he no longer fit the bill for the designation, even as the organization continued to call for his immediate release from prison as he was being “persecuted for purely political reasons.”
The “prisoner of conscience” designation is a powerful tool in advocating for the humane treatment of people who hold different religious, political, and sexual views than the powers that be — in some cases helping to lead to the release of prisoners.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest names who have been or remain on the list.
Russia is a virtual cornucopia of prisoners of conscience, with formidable political opposition figures, journalists, LGBT rights activists, and advocates for ethno-national rights gracing the list.
Political Opposition
Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov, the opposition politician who was shot dead in 2015, received the designation in 2011, along with activists Ilya Yashin and Eduard Limonov, after they attended a rally in Moscow in support of free assembly.
Big Business
Former Yukos owners Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s and Platon Lebedev’s listing the same year relating to what Amnesty called “deeply flawed and politically motivated” charges that led to their imprisonment years earlier drew sharp condemnation from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
‘Terror Network’
In February 2020, Amnesty applied the designation to seven men standing trial in central Russia on what it called “absurd” charges relating to membership in a “nonexistent ‘terrorist’ organization.”
Days later, all seven members were convicted and sentenced to prison for belonging to a “terrorist cell” labeled by authorities as “Network” that the authorities claimed planned to carry out a series of explosions in Russia during the 2018 presidential election and World Cup soccer tournament.
Religious Persecution
Aleksandr Gabyshev — a shaman in the Siberian region of Yakutia who has made several attempts to march on foot to Moscow “to drive President Vladimir Putin out of the Kremlin” — was briefly placed in a psychiatric hospital in September 2019 after he called Putin “evil” and marched for 2,000 kilometers in an attempt to reach the capital.
“The Russian authorities’ response to the shaman’s actions is grotesque,” Amnesty said. “Gabyshev should be free to express his political views and exercise his religion and beliefs just like anyone else.”
In May 2020, riot police raided Gabyshev’s home and took him to a psychiatric hospital because he allegedly refused to be tested for COVID-19. Amnesty called for his immediate release.
But in January, Gabyshev was again forcibly taken to a psychiatric clinic after announcing he planned to resume his trek to Moscow to oust Putin.
Prominent Ukrainian filmmaker and activist Oleh Sentsov made the list after he was arrested in Crimea in May 2014 after the peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia.
Oleh Sentsov
Amnesty repeatedly called for the release of Sentsov after he was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a “terrorism” conviction in what the rights watchdog declared was an “unfair trial on politically motivated charges.”
After five years in prison in Russia, Sentsov was released in a prisoner swap between Kyiv and pro-Russia separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Sentsov was far from the only Ukrainian to be taken down for criticizing Russia’s seizure of Crimea, prompting Amnesty to call for the release of all “all Ukrainian political prisoners” being held in Russia.
Among them is the first Jehovah’s Witness to be sentenced by Russian authorities in the annexed territory, Sergei Filatov. The father of four was handed a sentence of six years in prison last year for being a member of an extremist group in what Amesty called “the latest example of the wholesale export of Russia’s brutally repressive policies.”
In Belarus, some of the biggest names to be declared “prisoners of conscience” are in the opposition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian leader whose claim to have won a sixth-straight presidential term in August has led to months of anti-government protests.
Viktar Babaryka
Viktar Babaryka, a former banker whose bid to challenge Lukashenka was halted by his arrest as part of what Amnesty called a “full-scale attack on human rights” ahead of the vote, went on trial on February 17 on charges of money laundering, bribery, and tax evasion.
Fellow opposition member Paval Sevyarynets, who has been in custody since June, was charged with taking part in mass disorder related to his participation in rallies during which demonstrators attempted to collect signatures necessary to register presidential candidates other than Lukashenka.
Syarhey Tsikhanouski
The popular blogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski was jailed after expressing interest in running against Lukashenka and remains in prison. Three of his associates went on trial in January on charges of organizing mass disorder in relation to the mass protests that broke out after the election.
Tsikhanouski’s wife, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, took his place as a candidate and considers herself the rightful winner of the election.
Aigul Otepova
Aigul Otepova, a Kazakh blogger and journalist accused of involvement in a banned organization, was forcibly placed by a court in a psychiatric clinic in November, prompting Amnesty to declare her a “a prisoner of conscience who is being prosecuted solely for the peaceful expression of her views.”
Otepova has denied any affiliation with the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) opposition movement, which has been labeled an extremist group by the Kazkakh authorities, and Otepova’s daughter told RFE/RL that the authorities were trying to silence her ahead of Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections in January.
Otepova was released from the facility in December.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarves, was arrested in 2018 and charged with spying, spreading propaganda, and insulting Iran’s supreme leader.
She found herself back in prison in December, less than a month after she was granted a temporary release from her sentence to a total of 38 1/2 years in prison and 148 lashes.
Amnesty has called Sotoudeh’s case “shocking” and considers her a “prisoner of conscience.” In its most recent action regarding Sotoudeh, the rights watchdog called for her to be released “immediately and unconditionally.”
Amnesty International in August 2019 called the life sentence handed down to Kyrgyz rights defender Azimjan Askarov a “triumph of injustice.”
Azimjan Askarov
The ethnic Uzbek Askarov was convicted of creating a mass disturbance and of involvement in the murder of a police officer during deadly interethnic clashes between local Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in June 2010 when more than 450 people, mainly Uzbeks, were killed and tens of thousands more were displaced.
Askarov has said the charges against him are politically motivated, and the UN Human Rights Committed has determined that he was not given a fair trial and was tortured in detention.
In May, after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision to not review Askarov’s sentence, Amnesty said the ruling “compounds 10 years of deep injustice inflicted on a brave human rights defender who should never have been jailed.”
Junaid Hafeez
Amnesty has called the case of Junaid Hafeez “a travesty” and in 2019 called on Pakistan’s authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release the university lecturer charged with blasphemy over Facebook uploads.
Hafeez was charged under the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which Amnesty has called on the country to repeal, describing them as “overly broad, vague, and coercive” and saying they were “used to target religious minorities, pursue personal vendettas, and carry out vigilante violence.”
Hafeez has been in solitary confinement since June 2014.
Leyla and Arif Yunus
Human rights activists Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus were arrested separately in 2014 and convicted of economic crimes in August 2015 after a trial Amnesty denounced as “shockingly unjust.”
After Leyla Yunus was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison, and her husband to seven years, Amnesty said that the rulings showed the “continuous criminalization of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan.”
After the two were released on health grounds in late 2015 and their prison sentences reduced to suspended sentences, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Azerbaijan to pay them approximately $45,660 for violating their basic rights.
In April 2016, they were allowed to leave the country and settled in the Netherlands.
Azam Farmonov
In 2009, Amnesty called for the immediate release of rights activists Azam Farmonov and Alisher Karamatov, who were detained in 2006 while defending the rights of farmers in Uzbekistan who had accused local officials of extortion and corruption.
Amnesty said the two men had allegedly been tortured and declared them “prisoners of conscience.”
In 2012, Karamatov was released after serving nearly two-thirds of a nine-year prison sentence.
Farmonov served 10 years before his release in 2017, but reemerged in March when his U.S.-based NGO representing prisoners’ rights in Uzbekistan, Huquiqiy Tayanch, was successfully registered by the country’s Justice Ministry.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has told lawmakers that the “biggest geopolitical test” the United States faces comes from China but said Russia remains a familiar threat.
William Burns, a former ambassador to Russia and Jordan, spoke on February 24 during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
He called China “a formidable, authoritarian adversary” that is strengthening its ability to steal intellectual property, repress its people, expand its reach, and build influence within the United States.
But he said there may be room for cooperation with Beijing in areas such as climate change and nuclear nonproliferation.
He said Russia remained a disruptive and potent threat, although it is in many ways a declining world power.
“As long as Vladimir Putin is the leader of Russia, we’re going to be operating within a pretty narrow band of possibilities, from the very sharply competitive to the very nastily adversarial,” he said.
A recent hack of corporations and U.S. government departments believed to have been the work of Russians laid bare the perils of underestimating the Kremlin and served as a “very harsh wake-up” call about the vulnerabilities of supply chains and critical infrastructure, he said.
Burns said the Biden administration would soon produce an assessment of Russian-related issues, including the hack. Russia has denied involvement.
“I think it’s essential for the CIA in particular to work even harder to develop our capabilities to help detect these kind of attacks when they come from external players from foreign players,” he told the committee.
Burns, who was a lead negotiator in the secret talks that paved the way to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal under former President Barack Obama, also commented on Iran, saying it can never be trusted with a nuclear weapon.
Burns has said he would restore the nuclear deal with other major global powers that former President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of in 2018.
Burns, 64, is expected to win confirmation and become the first career diplomat to lead the CIA. He has been confirmed by the Senate five times for his stints as ambassador to Jordan and Russia and three senior State Department positions.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The editor in chief of a Kyrgyz investigative website and a former Ukrainian prosecutor-general are among 12 people who have been recognized by the U.S. State Department as anti-corruption champions.
The winners of the new International Anti-Corruption Champions Award were announced on February 23 by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said in a statement that the award recognizes people who have worked tirelessly, often in the face of adversity, to combat corruption in their own countries.
Bolot Temirov, editor in chief of the Kyrgyz investigative website FactCheck, and Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who was forced out of his job as Ukraine’s prosecutor-general last year in a parliamentary no-confidence vote, were among the recipients.
FactCheck and open-source investigative organization Bellingcat probed Raimbek Matraimov, the controversial former deputy chief of the Customs Service, and his relatives, who are at the center of an alleged corruption scandal involving the funneling of close to a billion dollars out of Kyrgyzstan.
Matraimov was rearrested this month on corruption charges and is currently in pretrial detention.
Temirov was attacked near his website’s office in Bishkek in January 2020 after the investigation was published, prompting the United States and several media freedom watchdogs to call on Kyrgyz authorities to conduct a swift and thorough investigation.
Then-Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Ruslan Ryaboshapka speaks to lawmakers during an extraordinary session of the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv to consider his dismissal on March 5, 2020.
Ryaboshapka was well-regarded by anti-corruption activists for his efforts to streamline and professionalize the scandal-ridden Prosecutor-General’s Office in Ukraine. He served as prosecutor-general from August 29, 2019, until he left the post on March 5, 2020.
Blinken said in the statement announcing the awards that corruption threatens security, hinders economic growth, undermines democracy and human rights, destroys trust in public institutions, facilitates transnational crime, and siphons away public and private resources.
“The Biden administration recognizes that we will only be successful in combating these issues by working in concert with committed partners, including courageous individuals who champion anti-corruption efforts and countries working to fulfill their commitments to international anti-corruption standards,” Blinken said.
The other honorees are Ardian Dvorani of Albania; Diana Salazar of Ecuador; Sophia Pretrick of Micronesia; Juan Francisco Sandoval Alfaro of Guatemala; Ibrahima Kalil Gueye of Guinea; Anjali Bhardwaj of India; Dhuha Mohammed of Iraq; Mustafa Abdullah Sanalla of Libya; Victor Sotto of the Philippines; and Francis Ben Kaifala of Sierra Leone.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
NIZHNEVARTOVSK, Russia — “Sign up quickly,” read an announcement that appeared on a closed social-media chat group for university students in this oil-rich Siberian city earlier this month. “11,000 rubles aren’t just lying around on the road. This is a good opportunity to earn references.”
Several students studying at Nizhnevartovsk State University, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, have told RFE/RL they have been offered money and academic benefits in exchange for helping to promote the ruling United Russia party through scripted social-media posts and other activities.
“It isn’t right,” one student said, “because they are influencing assessments. I study on my own, using my abilities, and suddenly someone makes some phone calls and not only do they get money but also good references. It is not fair.”
The revelations come as the government of longtime authoritarian President Vladimir Putin prepares for national elections to the State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, that must be held by September 19. United Russia, which maintains a stranglehold on all levels of political power, enters the campaign with its popularity rating depressed by the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the party’s support for an unpopular pension reform in 2018, and the widespread perception that it is, as opposition leader Aleksei Navalny has branded it, “the party of crooks and thieves.”
During a virtual chat on the social-media site VK among representatives of some 60 university groups on February 8, Kristina Chernopiskaya, the university’s deputy dean of educational work, made the announcement that United Russia was seeking student volunteers.
Interested students were instructed to download an app called Agitator that distributes news about United Russia’s activities around the country. They were told that the app would also distribute texts that students could copy and post on their social-media accounts. After publication, students were told to send a report to Chernopiskaya in order to be remunerated.
The instructions came in the form of a voice message posted under Chernopiskaya’s name to the university chat group. The students who spoke to RFE/RL said they recognized Chernopiskaya’s voice. “There is no doubt that this is a voice message from Kristina Aleksandrovna,” one student said, using Chernopiskaya’s first name and patronymic. “She has sent voice posts in the past and the voice is the same.”
Yekaterina Dolgina, dean of the humanities faculty at the university, denied that any university employee was engaged in promoting United Russia. “It’s all a lie,” Dolgina told RFE/RL. “I do not know where you got this information from.”
Chernopiskaya could not be reached for comment.
In the message attributed by students to Chernopiskaya, students are given further details about how they might participate in the initiative.
“I can give you this loophole,” the message states. “If you don’t want to publish these on your own accounts, you can open a separate account, add a few friends to it, and publish the messages there. But there is nothing to be worried about in them. Just notices of some amendments or new laws. It is all purely informational.”
The post was accompanied by two “examples.” One directed readers to a December 14 report on state Channel One television that was headlined: “During A United Russia Virtual Social Forum, Vladimir Putin Spoke With Volunteers.” The second text described how a United Russia deputy in the regional legislature, Sergei Veliky, was distributing food parcels to doctors at a Nizhnevartovsk COVID-19 hospital. That text appeared widely in local social media in the first half of December.
Students were promised an “analytical reference” for each time they posted one of United Russia’s texts.
“An analytical reference is a sort of thank-you letter for participating in a university project,” one student explained. “Like welcoming first-year students or Science Day or attending various conferences. It gives students an advantage in getting stipend bonuses or when completing a term.”
‘Aggressive Party Promotion’
“For example,” the student added, “if I have problems with my grades, but I have several analytical references, then I take them to the instructor and…they might give me a break. And for these promotional posts, they are promising a heap of references.”
A second post to the same VK chat under Chernopiskaya’s name promises students 11,000 rubles ($150) and three “analytical references” for one day of work at a United Russia call center.
The students who spoke to RFE/RL said they feared that the pressure could increase if not enough students volunteer to assist United Russia. Some said those who refuse could even face expulsion.
“Of course, not everyone is willing, and people are complaining,” one student said. “I’m afraid that people like that could have academic problems. In the group, one girl made a negative comment along the lines of, ‘What has United Russia done for us?’ And, really, students are not really very eager to do this stuff.”
The students also said instructors had been warning students orally not to participate in unsanctioned opposition demonstrations or they might face problems with the university.
“Inside the university, the election campaign is already going full steam,” one student said. “I have never seen a political party before that was promoting itself so aggressively.”
According to Russian law, “the creation or activity of organized structures of political parties” is illegal at any state educational institution.
Chernopiskaya is also a co-founder of the Project Center for Youth Initiatives, which applies for grants from the regional government of the Khanty-Mansi region. Last year, the organization submitted an unsuccessful application for a grant to hold a shooting competition for schoolchildren. According to the application, the project was “aimed at working out a complex approach to working with children and teenagers that is oriented toward patriotic upbringing by means of developing physical fitness and the practice of safe use of weaponry.”
Nizhevartovsk, a city of about 250,000 over 3,000 kilometers east of Moscow, made headlines earlier this month when it was reported that a group of riot police demonstrated to schoolchildren how to detain protesters during a riot. In a video posted to social media, students pelted officers with balls as they huddled behind riot shields. The February 16 event came in the wake of a series of mass demonstrations across the country during which the authorities detained — often brutally — more than 11,000 people.
In 2018, a journalist in Nizhnevartovsk was fired after she complained on social media about a kindergarten program in which 4- and 5-year-old children sang a song expressing fealty to Putin. Called Uncle Vova, We Are With You — Vova is a diminutive of Vladimir — the song contains lyrics such as: “While there should be peace on Earth, if the commander in chief calls us to the final battle, Uncle Vova, we are with you!”
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Britain, France, and Germany on February 23 criticized Iran’s decision to abandon a snap-inspections regime and reduce transparency as part of a mounting standoff over the fate of a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers.
Iran confirmed a day earlier that it had ended its implementation of the Additional Protocol allowing for surprise inspections of nuclear-related sites.
That move signaled a further disintegration of the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) among Iran and world powers that the previous U.S. administration abandoned in 2018.
“We…deeply regret that Iran has started, as of today, to suspend the Additional Protocol and the transparency measures under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” the British, French, and German foreign ministers said in a joint statement.
“We urge Iran to stop and reverse all measures that reduce transparency and to ensure full and timely cooperation with the IAEA,” they added.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also vowed “not to back down on the nuclear issue” and floated the possibility of dramatically escalating uranium enrichment.
Washington and its Western partners have been scrambling to salvage the JCPOA since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January vowing a return to the deal while preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability.
Meanwhile, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on February 23 laid out details of a deal he worked out with Iranian officials last weekend to preserve some monitoring for up to three months beyond Tehran’s deadline for nixing the snap inspections.
Rafael Grossi described a system whereby data and “key activities” would be monitored and stored but not made available until after the period in question.
“In other words, we will know exactly what happened, exactly how many components were fabricated, exactly how much material was processed or treated or enriched and so on and so forth,” Grossi told an event hosted by the U.S. think tank called the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
In a sign that the nuclear issue is further pitting hard-liners against President Hassan Rohani’s administration, lawmakers in Iran’s parliament on February 22 objected to the government’s decision to allow the continued IAEA monitoring.
The state-run newspaper Iran countered on February 23 by suggesting that the parliamentarians’ tough line could leave Iran “alone as in the past” on the international stage.
The White House has said that its European allies are awaiting a response from Iran on an offer to host an informal meeting of current members of the JCPOA.
The United States and other governments have accused Iran of secretly trying to build a nuclear-weapons capability, a charge that Tehran has consistently rejected despite years of what the IAEA said was obfuscation and deception.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
YEREVAN — Several thousand people marched in Armenia’s capital again on February 22 to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over his handling of the war over Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijan.
The protesters marched to France Square in central Yerevan and blocked several adjacent streets, temporarily paralyzing traffic in the city center.
The crowd soon dispersed. But opposition politicians say they plan to hold another demonstration on February 23 as part of what they say is a plan for “non-stop” protests and acts of civil disobedience.
A coalition uniting 16 opposition parties has been holding anti-government demonstrations in Yerevan and other parts of the country in a bid to force Pashinian to hand over power to an interim government.
Opposition forces want their joint candidate, Vazgen Manukian, to become transitional prime minister to oversee fresh elections.
Protests broke out in Armenia last November after Pashinian signed a Russian-brokered cease-fire deal that brought an end to 44 days of fierce fighting over Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian forces had been largely defeated by Azerbaijan’s Turkish-backed military in the recent fighting.
Under the terms of the cease-fire, Pashinian ceded control over some territory in Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven surrounding districts of Azerbaijan that had been occupied by Armenian forces since the early 1990s.
Pashinian has refused to step down under pressure from the protesters. He has defended the cease-fire deal as a painful but necessary move to prevent Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The opposition protests had stopped in the midst of winter. But demonstrations resumed on February 20 with thousands taking to the streets of Yerevan once again.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau have appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden to prevent the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, which they called a “dangerous, divisive project.”
The pipeline would affect Ukraine by depriving it of transit fees from existing pipelines that transverse its territory.
The U.S. Congress last year passed the Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Clarification Act (PEESCA) to widen the list of sanctionable services against the project to include providing insurance, reinsurance, pipeline testing, inspection, and certification services. PEESCA became law on January 1.
“Poland and Ukraine have long warned against the dangers associated with the construction of Nord Stream 2. Our calls for vigilance and boldness were heard in the U.S. Congress, which pressed on with measures designed to stop this dangerous, divisive project,” Kuleba and Rau said in a joint article published in Politico on February 22.
“We call on U.S. President Joe Biden to use all means at his disposal to prevent the project from completion,” the two ministers said.
Some 150 kilometers of pipe under Danish and German waters in the Baltic Sea must be laid to complete the pipeline, controlled by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. It is expected to carry 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Russia to Germany.
“On this issue, the U.S. continues to be critically important. It needs to dismiss claims that Nord Stream 2 has become ‘too big to fail’ and that it simply needs to be finished,” they wrote in the article.
“If the project is successful, Russia could try to convince the Ukrainian public that the West doesn’t care about its own principles, and ultimately, about the security and prosperity of Ukraine.”
Nord Stream 2 is “not about the energy security of Germany, our close ally and partner,” Kuleba and Rau said.
“We respect Germany’s right to express their point of view. But we also strongly believe that these kinds of projects cannot be viewed narrowly through the lens of bilateral relations, but should instead be approached from a broader perspective of Europe’s interests and security as a whole,” they said.
The Biden administration on February 19 imposed additional sanctions on a Russian vessel and the ship’s owner for their work on the pipeline.
However, the move was immediately criticized as inadequate by Republican lawmakers, who denounced the administration for failing to impose sanctions on additional targets and demanded the administration explain what it is doing to oppose the completion of the pipeline.
The two foreign ministers warned that “a lot remains at stake” in the project.
“Autocratic rulers in the Kremlin and elsewhere can and should be held accountable. The West, led by the United States, cannot afford to cower in the face of blackmail that runs counter to everything that we stand for,” they concluded.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
HOMEL, Belarus — A court in the southeastern Belarusian city of Homel has sentenced a 16-year-old youngster with a medical condition to five years in prison for participating in protests demanding the resignation of the authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Judge Dzmitry Deboy of the Chyhunachny district court on February 22 sentenced Mikita Zalatarou, along with two other defendants — 25-year-old Dzmitry Karneyeu and 28-year-old Leanid Kavalyou — after finding them guilty of taking part in “mass civil disobedience.”
Karneyeu and Kavalyou were sentenced to eight years and six years, respectively.
After the judge pronounced the sentences, Zalatarou, who has epilepsy, began throwing himself against the bars in the courtroom cage he and the other defendants were placed in, shouting “Let me out of here!”
His father said earlier that police had severely beaten his son right after his arrest in August 2020, and again while in pretrial detention.
Read our coverage as Belarusians take to the streets to demand the resignation of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and call for new elections after official results from the August 9 presidential poll gave Lukashenka a landslide victory.
During the trial, the teenager also said that he had been beaten while in custody and deprived of the pills he needed to use on a daily basis to treat his medical condition.
“A prison guard told me when I asked for my medicine that ‘you are political and therefore you will turn away,’” the boy said at the trial.
The three were arrested in the wake of nationwide protests that started after Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, was declared the victor of an August 9 presidential election.
The country’s political opposition and many people in the country have said the poll was rigged.
Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies, and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country.
Several protesters have been killed in the violence, some were handed prison terms, and some rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used by security officials against some of those detained.
Lukashenka has denied any wrongdoing with regard to the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on stepping down and holding a new vote.
The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka, 66, as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the “falsification” of the vote and postelection crackdown.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has called on Iran to fully comply with the 2015 nuclear pact with world powers which he said was in Tehran’s interest.
Addressing the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on February 22, Maas noted U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration’s stated readiness to rejoin the pact, adding: “It is in Iran’s best interest to change course now, before the agreement is damaged beyond repair.”
Maas said that Germany expected “full compliance, full transparency, and full cooperation” from Iran with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose chief Rafael Grossi returned on February 21 from a trip to Tehran.
Iran on February 22 hailed the outcome of Grossi’s visit and a temporary agreement the two sides reached on site inspections as a “significant achievement.”
That deal effectively bought time as all sides try to salvage the agreement, which was pushed to the brink of collapse when former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2018.
Tehran is demanding that Washington remove punishing sanctions Trump reimposed in 2018, while Washington has called on Iran to first return to all of its nuclear commitments.
In the standoff, Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament has demanded that the country limit some inspections by the IAEA from February 23.
Grossi hammered out a temporary technical deal with Tehran during his visit, whereby Iran will continue to allow access to UN inspectors to its nuclear sites — but will for three months bar inspections of other, non-nuclear sites.
Grossi said afterwards that the “temporary solution” enables the IAEA to retain “a necessary degree of monitoring and verification work.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said on February 22 that the talks had “resulted in a very significant diplomatic achievement and a very significant technical achievement.”
Khatibzadeh stressed that the outcome was “within the framework of parliament’s binding law.”
Under the agreement reached over the weekend with the IAEA, Iran will temporarily suspend so-called “voluntary transparency measures” — notably inspections of non-nuclear sites, including military sites suspected of nuclear-related activity.
Tehran will for “three months record and keep the information of some activities and monitoring equipment” at such sites, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said.
This means that cameras will keep running at those sites, “but no footage will be given to the IAEA,” Khatibzadeh said.
The footage will be deleted after three months if the U.S. sanctions are not lifted, Iran’s atomic body has said.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
The candidate of Bosnian Serb parties says he has won a repeat of local elections in the town of Srebrenica despite a boycott of the vote by Bosnian Muslims.
Mladen Grujicic declared victory in his mayoral reelection bid in the eastern town that was the scene of the Bosnian war’s worst atrocity when 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Serb forces in July 1995.
Elections in Srebrenica and Doboj, in the north of the country, were repeated after numerous irregularities had been reported in the November 2020 local elections, dominated by Bosnian Serbs.
Grujicic told RFE/RL that “even if there had been no boycott by Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) parties,” the difference in the number of votes in his favor “would have been large” and he would have won reelection anyway.
Grujicic won the previous election in 2016, becoming the first Bosnian Serb to become mayor of Srebrenica since 1999.
In Doboj, where Bosnian Serbs make up about 70 percent of the population, incumbent Boris Jerinic of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) also declared a “convincing” victory.
The SNSD said Jerinic won almost 70 percent of the vote.
In a news conference at midnight, Bosnia’s Central Election Commission confirmed Grujicic and Jerinic’s victories.
The turnout was almost 43 percent in Srebrenica and more than 55 percent in Doboj, the election commission announced.
The results of the February 21 repeat elections were almost certain to be challenged and exacerbate already high political tensions in the area.
Bosnian Muslims vowed to boycott the rerun in Srebrenica because, they said, officials haven’t done enough to rectify the problems that marred first elections in November 2020 such as multiple voting and the discovery of caches of pre-marked ballots before voting began.
Moreover, the Bosniak parties complained, officials weren’t including mail-in voters in the new elections.
Bosnia comprises two entities, the Muslim and Croat federation and the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska.
Srebrenica is regarded by some as a potential flashpoint for ethnic tensions because of the massacre, the worst mass killing in post-World War II Europe.
The massacre was labeled as genocide by international courts, but Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials refuse to accept that wording.
The episode came at the end of the 1992-95 Bosnian War pitting the Serbs against Bosniaks and Croats that claimed some 100,000 lives.
The country continues to struggle domestically and internationally under an ethnically based deal — known as the Dayton Agreement — that ended fighting among the sides.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
ALMATY, Kazakhstan — About a dozen people, mainly women, have picketed the Chinese Consulate in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, to continue to push their demands for the release of relatives held in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.
The demonstrators on February 22 held pictures of their relatives detained in China and large posters with slogans urging the Chinese government to “end genocide” and release all “innocent people from reeducation camps” in Xinjiang.
“I came here to demand the immediate release of my younger brother, Qalypbek Babam…. He was arrested after he publicly performed a verse called Kazakhs’ Sorrow in 2019 and has been held incommunicado ever since. Authorities in Xinjiang have not given any information about the charges against my brother, while his trial has yet to be held. I am deeply concerned for his life,” one of the protesters, Kumisqan Babam, told RFE/RL.
Another protester, Gulnur Qosdauletqyzy, told RFE/RL that she and some other protesters have been picketing the consulate almost daily for more than two weeks, but no Chinese Consulate officials have come out of the building to meet with them.
Over the weekend, one of the protesters, Baibolat Kunbolatuly, was released from a detention center in Almaty after he served a 10-day prison term he received for “violating the law on mass gatherings” after picketing the consulate earlier.
In recent years, many similar protests have taken place in Kazakhstan, with demonstrators demanding Kazakh authorities officially intervene in the situation faced by ethnic Kazakhs in Xinjiang.
The U.S. State Department has said as many as 2 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and members of Xinjiang’s other indigenous, mostly Muslim, ethnic groups have been taken to detention centers.
China denies that the facilities are internment camps.
People who have fled the province say that thousands of ethnic Kazakhs, Uyghurs, and other Muslims in Xinjiang are undergoing “political indoctrination” at a network of facilities known officially as reeducation camps.
Kazakhs are the second-largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in Xinjiang after Uyghurs. The region is also home to ethnic Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and Hui, also known as Dungans. Han, China’s largest ethnicity, is the second-largest community in Xinjiang.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.