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  • Top Biden Adviser Suggests Russia Could See U.S. Response To SolarWinds Hack Within ‘Weeks’

    U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan has warned that the United States will respond within “weeks, not months” to a suspected Russian cyberattack, discovered in December, that targeted branches of the U.S. government and other key institutions.

    Sullivan was talking about the breach — which began with malicious code slipped into updates of the SolarWinds software used by the government and thousands of businesses — on CBS’s Face The Nation program on February 21.

    He said the response was likely to include “a mix of tools seen and unseen” and “it will not simply be sanctions.”

    “We’re in the process of working through that, and we will ensure that Russia understands where the United States draws the line on this kind of activity,” Sullivan said.

    Experts have called the so-called SolarWinds breach one of the biggest and most sophisticated cyberattacks in history and suggested it could only have been pulled off by a state actor.

    It targeted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for border security and protecting the country from online attacks, as well as the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, in addition to thousands of other entities.

    What I have said is that it will be weeks, not months, before we have a response prepared.”

    It was traced back to infiltrated network management software dating back to at least June.

    Intelligence and industry sources have blamed it on Russian hackers.

    Moscow has denied any involvement, saying in a statement on December 14 that Russia “does not conduct offensive operations in the cyberdomain.”

    “First of all, we have asked the intelligence community to do further work to sharpen the attribution that the last administration made about precisely how this hack occurred, what the extent of the damage is, what the scope and scale of the intrusion is, and we are in the process of working through that now,” Sullivan told CBS. “And then what I have said is that it will be weeks, not months, before we have a response prepared.”

    Suspected Russian government hackers behind the massive intrusion of government and private company networks discovered in December were able to gain access into Microsoft’s source code, a key building block for software or operating systems, the tech giant said on December 31.

    Microsoft President Brad Smith in mid-February said the attack was “probably the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen.”

    A rise in U.S.-Russian tensions greeted the new U.S. presidency of Joe Biden but did not prevent his administration and Moscow from successfully negotiating a five-year extension of the New START arms-control treaty, their last remaining arms-control pact.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier this month that he had warned Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a phone call that the new U.S. administration will respond “firmly in defense of U.S. interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies.”

    Blinken cited Russia’s ongoing detention of two former U.S. Marines, Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, but the so-called SolarWinds cyberattack has also cast a long shadow over U.S.-Russian relations amid signals that a state actor like Russia was behind it.

    But a State Department statement said Blinken also raised “Russian interference” in last year’s presidential election that brought Biden to the White House, Moscow’s “military aggression” in Ukraine and Georgia, the poisoning of jailed Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, and the SolarWinds hack of U.S. government systems.

    FireEye, a prominent cybersecurity company that was breached in connection with the SolarWinds incident, said targets included government, technology, and telecommunications companies in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

    France’s cybersecurity watchdog said this month that it had discovered a hack of French organizations that bore similarities to other attacks by a group linked to Russian intelligence.

    In a report released on February 15, the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI) said the hackers had taken advantage of a vulnerability in monitoring software sold by the Paris-based company Centreon.

    The ANSSI said it discovered intrusions dating back to late 2017 and stretching into 2020.

    It stopped short of identifying the hackers but said they had a similar modus operandi as the Russian cyberespionage group often nicknamed Sandworm and thought to have links with Russian military intelligence.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Majlis Podcast: Despite Promises, Are Rights Abuses In Kazakhstan Getting Worse?

    When Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, officially stepped down from office in March 2019 and Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev became president, Toqaev promised changes to a system that had not changed very much in nearly 28 years.

    There were many fair words about reforms, but nearly two years later Kazakhstan’s political system looks to be much the same as it has been.

    On February 10, the European Parliament released a joint motion for a resolution that detailed the many areas where Kazakhstan continues to fall well short of its commitments to respect basic rights.

    Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev (file photo)

    Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev (file photo)

    Kazakh authorities responded with the now-common defense that the criticisms were superficial and failed to take into account all of the changes that are happening in Kazakhstan.

    On this week’s Majlis podcast, RFE/RL media-relations manager Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on Kazakhstan in which some say the situation is actually becoming worse, not better, despite Toqaev’s promises.

    This week’s guests are: from Almaty: Yevgeny Zhovtis, veteran rights defender and director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, and Marius Fossum, the Central Asia representative of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee; and from Prague: Aigerim Toleukhanova, a journalist in RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service, 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.

  • Head Of UN’s Nuclear Watchdog Meets Iranian Nuclear Chief In Tehran

    The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has met with Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the civilian Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, ahead of Tehran’s February 23 deadline to reduce United Nations inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities if U.S. sanctions are not lifted, Iranian media reported on February 21.

    Iran has said that it would stop implementing “voluntary transparency measures” under the 2015 nuclear agreement with major powers, including the so-called Additional Protocol, which allows IAEA inspectors to visit undeclared sites in Iran at short notice. Tehran has said that the steps are reversible.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency said last week that Grossi’s visit to Tehran was aimed at finding “a mutually agreeable solution for the IAEA to continue essential verification activities in the country.”

    Iran has stressed it will not cease working with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or expel its inspectors.

    Iran and six major powers struck a landmark nuclear deal in 2015 that called for curbs on Iran’s uranium-enrichment program in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

    But President Donald Trump in May 2018 pulled his country out of the accord and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran, saying the terms were not strict enough.

    In response, Tehran has gradually breached the deal by building up its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, refining uranium to a higher level of purity, and using advanced centrifuges for enrichment.

    The administration of President Joe Biden is exploring ways to return to the deal.

    The White House said on February 19 that the European Union has floated the idea of a conversation among Iran and the six major powers that signed the deal.

    On the same day, Biden said that Washington is prepared to reengage with the international partners that signed the deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

    Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on February 20 that his country is considering the European Union’s offer to host a meeting between Iran and the other parties to the 2015 nuclear deal.

    “Now we are considering [the offer],and are engaged in consultations with our other friends and partners like China and Russia,” Araqchi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

    “However, we believe a U.S return to the nuclear accord does not require a meeting and the only way for it is to lift the sanctions,” Araqchi said.

    With reporting by AFP, AP, PressTV, and IRNA

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Widow Shares Horror Stories About Life Under Islamic State In Syria

    QARAGHANDY, Kazakhstan — Sabinella Ayazbaeva has her hands full with her five young children, psychology courses at a university, and a part-time job at a youth center in her hometown in central Kazakhstan.

    But she makes time to take part in the state-backed, anti-extremism campaign to warn young people against the dangers of terrorist groups that use religion to recruit new members online.

    A widow of an Islamic State (IS) fighter, Ayazbaeva is one of around 600 Kazakh citizens the government in Nur-Sultan repatriated from Syrian refugee camps in 2019.

    Ayazbaeva, 31, spent five years in Syria, where she says she witnessed brutal killings and “terrible injustices” committed by IS, while living in constant fear of deadly air strikes.

    In media interviews, speeches, and meetings, Ayazbaeva talks about the horrors of life under the IS and her disillusionment, hoping her words will stop others from “making the mistakes” she and her husband made in 2014.

    How It All Started

    Describing her life before Islamic State, Ayazbaeva says that she and her husband had a “happy marriage, successful business, and a private apartment” in Qaraghandy.

    Both were practicing Muslims who attended a local mosque and led a quiet life. That is, until her husband made friends with “untraditional” Islamic groups online, she recalls.

    In 2014, he convinced Ayazbaeva that they should move to Syria to live and raise their children in an Islamic state.

    The couple took their three children — aged between 1 and 6 years — and left Kazakhstan, telling their relatives they were going on “a family vacation.”

    Within weeks, the young family arrived in Raqqa — the main stronghold of the self-styled caliphate — where reality struck the couple almost immediately.

    Her husband was made a fighter and wouldn’t come home for days. There were near-daily air strikes that forced her and others to hide in the basement of the building she lived in, thinking, “Is it my turn to get killed?”

    "The reaction from society [toward me] was mostly positive," says Sabinella Ayazbaeva. "For example, I never heard anyone call me a terrorist. But some of my old friends are afraid of being in touch with me again."

    “The reaction from society [toward me] was mostly positive,” says Sabinella Ayazbaeva. “For example, I never heard anyone call me a terrorist. But some of my old friends are afraid of being in touch with me again.”

    She said she would see “the bodies of women and children without limbs being pulled out from under the rubble after air strikes, or someone’s insides coming out.”

    The couple wanted to leave Syria, but they knew there was no way home anymore, as IS members would “kill anyone who wanted to flee,” she says.

    And from Kazakhstan there was the bad news caused by their decision to move: Ayazbaeva’s mother suffered a stroke after she found out that her daughter had gone to Syria.

    Ayazbaeva went on to have two more children in Raqqa before her husband was killed in an air strike in 2017.

    She and her five children were left at the mercy of IS fighters who were increasingly losing ground to the Syrian Army and Kurdish forces.

    “Then a period of big hunger began in [IS-controlled areas] in 2018. It was difficult to explain to children why we don’t eat. I would make soup from grass,” she says.

    Ayazbaeva and the children eventually ended up in the village of Baghuz, the last area IS still controlled. In early 2019, just weeks before the final defeat of IS in the village, Ayazbaeva made her way to a Kurdish-controlled refugee camp.

    It was a turning point in her life.

    New Beginnings

    In the refugee camp, Ayazbaeva was told by Kurdish officials that Kazakhstan “will send a plane to take its citizens home.” Waiting for the imminent repatriation, Ayazbaeva spent only a few weeks in the camp.

    “It was cold, but we now had food and there were no air strikes. Besides, it was a lot easier to endure because we knew that it’s temporary and we’re going home,” she says.

    “The plane came on May 6, 2019, and took us all back to Kazakhstan,” Ayazbaeva recalls.

    I understand that some people see us as a security time bomb, but it’s not true. I’ve witnessed those horrors firsthand. I understand more than anyone else that we shouldn’t follow [radical] ideas.”

    Ayazbaeva says she felt emotional when a Kazakh woman in “a military uniform” told her at the airport: “Let me carry your baby. You’re barely standing on your feet.”

    The Kazakh government returned nearly 600 of its citizens in the so-called Operation Zhusan that took place in three stages between January and May 2019.

    In a similar operation this year, the government announced on February 4 that 12 more people — four men, one woman, and seven minors — had been brought back from Syria.

    Authorities says at least 800 Kazakh nationals had left for Syria and Iraq to join militant groups there.

    Kazakh officials said in May 2020 that 31 men and 12 women from among the returnees had been jailed on terrorism-related charges after their return, while a handful of others were under investigation.

    Ayazbaeva and other returnees were taken to a rehabilitation center in the city of Aqtau, where they underwent a medical checkup and were offered counseling sessions with psychologists and other specialists.

    The next step was a stint at the Shans rehabilitation center in her hometown, before being told she was free to resume her normal life.

    Mixed Feelings In Society

    “For about two months I would still think it was just a dream,” Ayazbaeva said in one of her public speeches. “It was my dream to sleep on a soft bed, under a roof.”

    As Ayazbaeva began a new chapter in her old home in Qaraghandy, her priority was to ensure her children made a smooth transition to life in Kazakhstan — going to school, making friends, and reconnecting to grandparents and other relatives.

    She hopes her children will eventually overcome the trauma they suffered in their five years in the war zone.

    She lives near her parents and maintains close relationships with her late husband’s relatives, too.

    “The reaction from society [toward me] was mostly positive,” she says. “For example, I never heard anyone call me a terrorist. But some of my old friends are afraid of being in touch with me again.”

    But Kazakhstan — a Central Asian country of some 18.5 million people that is 70 percent Muslim — is wary of the threat of homegrown terrorists.

    The government blamed Islamic extremists for deadly violence in the city of Aqtobe in 2016 when a military unit came under attack. Officials said the assault was carried out by some 20 Islamists who raided two gun stores before targeting the soldiers.

    Ayazbaeva seeks to reassure society that people like her are not security threats.

    “I understand that some people see us as a security time bomb, but it’s not true,” she insists. “I’ve witnessed those horrors firsthand. I understand more than anyone else that we shouldn’t follow [radical] ideas.”

    Ayazbaeva says she is grateful to the Kazakh government for giving her a second chance and believes that all of the countries that have citizens stranded in Syrian camps should do the same. That topic was the focus of a speech she made at the European Parliament in 2019.

    Another planned meeting in Switzerland was canceled because of the pandemic, but she continues to participate in anti-terrorism projects and gatherings at home.

    Asked about religion, Ayazbaeva said she is still a practicing Muslim who goes to mosque and wears the hijab.

    “I’m not disillusioned in my faith,” she says, adding that she doesn’t blame the religion for her “wrong decision to go to Syria.”

    Written by Farangis Najibullah based on an interview conducted by RFE/RL correspondent Yelena Veber

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Navalny Fined, Prison Sentence Upheld In Two Legal Losses

    Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was fined on charges of defamation on February 20 after an earlier sentence on embezzlement charges was upheld by a Moscow court. He now faces more than 2 1/2 years in prison. Navalny was arrested in January as he returned from Germany, where he spent months recuperating from a near-deadly poisoning.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ukraine Marks Seventh Anniversary Of Euromaidan Bloodshed

    KYIV — Ukrainians have marked the seventh anniversary of the shooting deaths of dozens of participants in the Euromaidan anti-government protests that toppled the country’s Russia-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.

    The commemorations honored those who were killed in the capital, Kyiv, during clashes with Yanukovych’s security forces on February 18-20, 2014.

    President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena, laid flowers at the so-called Monument of the Heavenly Hundred in Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) on February 20.

    “Eternal memory to all those who died for the future of Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said at the ceremony.

    Gatherings were held across Ukraine on February 20 to commemorate those killed during the Euromaidan protests.

    Ukrainians Mark Anniversary Of Deadly Shootings Of Euromaidan Protesters

    Ukrainians Mark Anniversary Of Deadly Shootings Of Euromaidan Protesters Photo Gallery:

    Ukrainians Mark Anniversary Of Deadly Shootings Of Euromaidan Protesters

    Ukraine is marking the seventh anniversary of the bloody end of the mass street protests that ousted Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych and in which some 100 people were killed, most of them between February 18-20, 2014.

    Some parts of Ukraine began honoring the slain demonstrators two days earlier, on the day when the shootings started.

    The Euromaidan movement began in November 2013 when protesters gathered on the central square in Kyiv to protest Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a crucial trade accord with the European Union. Instead, he sought closer economic ties with Russia.

    Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured as a result of violent crackdowns by authorities against protesters.

    Shunning a deal backed by the West and Russia to end the standoff, Yanukovych abandoned power and fled Kyiv on February 21, 2014.

    The former president, who was secretly flown to Russia and remains there, denies that he ordered police to fire on protesters, saying that the violence was the result of a “planned operation” to overthrow his government.

    In March 2014, shortly after Yanukovych’s downfall, Russian military forces seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula — a precursor to the Kremlin’s illegal annexation of the territory through a hastily organized and widely discredited referendum.

    Russia also has supported pro-Russia separatists who are fighting Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine.

    More than 13,200 people have been killed in that conflict since April 2014.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Thousands Rally In Armenia To Demand Pashinian’s Resignation

    YEREVAN — Thousands of protesters have rallied in the Armenian capital to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over his handling of a six-week war with Azerbaijan last year.

    Demonstrators gathered on February 20 in Freedom Square in central Yerevan under a heavy police presence shouting, “Armenia without Nikol!” and “Nikol traitor!”

    Pashinian has refused calls to step down but raised the possibility of holding early parliamentary elections.

    Pashinian, who swept to power amid nationwide protests in 2018, has come under fire since agreeing to a Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan that took effect on November 10. The deal ended six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh that saw ethnic Armenian forces suffer battlefield defeat.

    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.

    “It doesn’t matter how many people gather on the square, Nikol Pashinian will not resign voluntarily,” Manukian told a crowd of protesters waving Armenian flags in Freedom Square.

    Despite facing a united opposition front, Pashinian’s My Step bloc maintains an overwhelming majority in parliament.

    Under the Moscow-brokered cease-fire, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by Armenians.

    Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the ethnic Armenians who make up most of the region’s population reject Azerbaijani rule.

    They had been governing their own affairs, with support from Armenia, since Azerbaijan’s troops and Azeri civilians were pushed out of the region and seven adjacent districts in a war that ended in a cease-fire in 1994.

    With reporting by AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Moscow Court Rejects Navalny Appeal, But Reduces Sentence Slightly

    A Moscow court has upheld opposition politician Aleksei Navalny’s prison sentence relating to his embezzlement conviction, but reduced the sentence by about 50 days considering time served. Navalny was in court on February 20 to appeal the sentence handed down earlier this month in relation to the 2014 embezzlement case, which he has said is politically motivated. The prominent anti-corruption activist and Kremlin critic was scheduled to face a second court hearing later in the day relating to charges of defaming a World War II veteran.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In Tajikistan, COVID-19 Patients, Families Scoff At Pledge Of ‘Free Treatment’

    Abdurahmon Rahmonov recalls being admitted to Dushanbe’s Shifobakhsh Hospital in the early summer with high fever, breathing difficulties, and other symptoms attributed to COVID-19.

    It was the apparent height of the epidemic in Tajikistan, where, after initially denying the existence of any coronavirus infections in the country, authorities had pledged that all state-run medical facilities would provide free medical treatment for COVID-19 patients.

    However, Rahmonov — like many others — soon discovered that official promises of free medical care were empty promises.

    “The moment I reached the hospital, I was given a list of medications and was told I must pay for them. I saw that other patients were paying, too, for the medications that were supposed to be free,” Rahmonov, 55, told RFE/RL.

    “When we complained, the doctors told us that ‘free medical treatment’ promised by the government only covers the fee for use of the hospital bed and the services of the medics.”

    Rahmonov said he paid the equivalent of around $500 in medical bills at the beginning of his eight-day hospital stay. It’s a significant sum in Central Asia’s most impoverished country, where the average salary is about $150 a month.

    RFE/RL correspondents in Tajikistan spoke to dozens of former COVID-19 patients or family members of such patients in the capital, Dushanbe, and other cities and villages. Nearly all of them claimed to have been billed for “everything.”

    A man gets his hands disinfected as he enters a mosque in Dushanbe earlier this month. The public appears skeptical of official figures and accusations persist that the government is underreporting COVID-19 numbers.

    A man gets his hands disinfected as he enters a mosque in Dushanbe earlier this month. The public appears skeptical of official figures and accusations persist that the government is underreporting COVID-19 numbers.

    The only exception, they said, was that hospitals hadn’t charged them the “bed fees” that normally run about $50 to $70 per stay in state-run facilities in most cities.

    Most of those who spoke to RFE/RL said they were made to pay between $430 and $600, while at least one person in the capital said he was charged about $1,000 for his COVID-19 treatment.

    ‘Ask People’

    “I can say without any doubt that since I was appointed health minister on May 5, which was the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in Tajikistan, that the government has been providing completely free medical treatment for [COVID-19] patients,” Health Minister Jamoliddin Abdullozoda told reporters on February 12.

    “Heads of hospitals can confirm this,” Abdullozoda added.

    The minister’s comments prompted angry reactions on social media, where many Tajik users accused the him of “lying” and being out of touch with reality.

    “Don’t ask the heads of hospitals. Ask the people if the treatment has been free or not free,” wrote Facebook user Azamat Sattorov.

    “There is not one person in any part of our country who says they received free medical treatment. Whoever you ask, they’ll tell you they had to pay 5,000 to 7,000 somoni” — between $434 and $615 — “for COVID-19 treatment. The minister is telling an outright lie,” wrote Khurshed Saidov.

    Men wearing face masks walk in Dushanbe on February 1 as the country reopened its mosques, which were shuttered for nine months, citing a "normalization" of the coronavirus situation.

    Men wearing face masks walk in Dushanbe on February 1 as the country reopened its mosques, which were shuttered for nine months, citing a “normalization” of the coronavirus situation.

    The minister said Tajikistan has adequate supplies of the same medicines and equipment that “other countries, like Russia” use to treat the disease.

    “Currently, we have a 103 million somoni worth of supplies of such medicines at our disposal,” he told reporters, a figure that corresponds to around $9 million.

    The assurance on the abundance of supplies flies in the face of public complaints at the prices of certain medications rising unexpectedly since May.

    In the village of Navgilem, in the northern Isfara district, a 57-year-old housewife told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that her family had to spend all its savings on medications when her husband was hospitalized with COVID-19 in September.

    She said doctors in Isfara gave her a long list of medicines that cost “several thousand somonis.”

    Her 60-year-old husband did not survive.

    “If the price of some medications was 50 somoni per pack, it rose to up to 350 during the pandemic,” said a Dushanbe resident who sought treatment “for a mild form” of COVID-19. The man didn’t specify which medications he was referring to.

    What Happened To Foreign Aid?

    Many Tajiks have been left to wonder what happened to the foreign aid that the Tajik government has received to help it cope with the pandemic.

    Tajikistan has received significant amounts of financial and humanitarian aid from 18 countries and 16 international and regional organizations since the global outbreak began. Such aid included medical supplies and foodstuffs intended to help Tajikistan’s 9.5 million people withstand the coronavirus and its impact.

    Pledges of financial aid began in early April while the government was still maintaining there were no coronavirus infections in Tajikistan, despite a spike of suspicious “pneumonia” cases all over the country. Dushanbe finally reported its “first” coronavirus infections on April 30.

    The international aid has included $190 million allocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), $53 million from the European Union, and $11.3 million from the World Bank.

    Tajik officials have so far reported a total of 13,308 infections and 90 deaths, remarkably low numbers even in a region that has fared better than many feared.

    "I can say without any doubt that since I was appointed health minister on May 5...the government has been providing completely free medical treatment for [COVID-19] patients," Health Minister Jamoliddin Abdullozoda told reporters on February 12. (file photo)

    “I can say without any doubt that since I was appointed health minister on May 5…the government has been providing completely free medical treatment for [COVID-19] patients,” Health Minister Jamoliddin Abdullozoda told reporters on February 12. (file photo)

    Health Minister Abdullozoda said Tajikistan hasn’t recorded any new infections since December 31.

    The public appears skeptical of official figures and accusations persist that the government is underreporting COVID-19 numbers.

    Even at the apparent peak of the pandemic, when hospitals were running out of beds and the number of patients with COVID-19 symptoms was growing, authorities reported only a small number of infections and even fewer coronavirus-related deaths.

    Many patients with COVID-19 symptoms were routinely given “pneumonia” diagnoses by doctors.

    Independent media reported that the bodies of many “pneumonia” patients were taken to cemeteries in ambulances by medics in hazmat suits. In many cases, relatives were told to keep a safe distance while the bodies — wrapped in plastic — were buried by ambulance crews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘People Just Disappear’: Family Of Missing Russian Man Fears He Was Abducted Into Slavery

    KALININGRAD, Russia — Life fell apart for Sergei Rozhkov, a 41-year-old construction worker from the capital of Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, in the first half of 2020.

    “Everything changed in May when Sergei and his wife divorced,” said Rozhkov’s younger brother, Vladimir. “He took the breakup very hard. Before, he had been cheerful and sociable, but now he closed up. He began drinking.”

    In the autumn, Sergei packed up a few things and left his home.

    “It took us a while to notice,” another brother, Aleksandr Rozhkov, told RFE/RL. “We all have our own lives and families. We talk on the phone once a week or so and get together even less often. But after he didn’t return our calls a few times, we got concerned.”

    Rozhkov’s family has not seen Sergei since. The authorities have been unable to find out anything about his disappearance, but the family’s own investigation has convinced them Sergei was abducted and is likely being forced to work on a farm in the predominantly agricultural Chernyakhovsky district in the heart of the Baltic Sea region.

    “They exploit unpaid labor,” Vladimir said. “We believe Sergei has ended up there.”

    The suspicion is not as outlandish as it might seem at first glance.

    In 2014, law enforcement authorities liberated 36 men who had been listed as “missing” from Kaliningrad from a farm in the Guryevsky district. Most of the men had been homeless or “lived an antisocial lifestyle,” a police spokesman was quoted as saying at the time.

    The enslaved men told police they had been held in primitive conditions against their will and had been beaten frequently.

    “The most common forms of enslavement in the country are for agricultural and construction work,” said Oleg Melnikov, director of the Moscow-based NGO Alternativa, which investigates cases of human trafficking and slave labor in Russia. “Every year, between 80,000 and 100,000 people go missing in Russia. Of them, about 5 to 7 percent end up in some form of slavery — sexual or for physical labor. That would be about 5,000 to 10,000 people a year.”

    Aleksandr and Vladimir Rozhkov: "We talk on the phone once a week or so and get together even less often," Aleksandr said. "But after he didn’t return our calls a few times, we got concerned.”

    Aleksandr and Vladimir Rozhkov: “We talk on the phone once a week or so and get together even less often,” Aleksandr said. “But after he didn’t return our calls a few times, we got concerned.”

    Melnikov added that since 2011, only about 150 criminal cases have been brought under Russia’s laws against labor exploitation.

    “That is because the laws are extremely poorly written,” he said. “They don’t even include a definition of who is the victim in such cases.”

    Elusive Justice

    In Kaliningrad Oblast, Yekaterina Presnyakova of the NGO Zapad, which searches for missing people, said her organization received over 220 appeals for help in 2020, including the Rozhkov case.

    When the Rozhkov brothers began their search for Sergei, they quickly learned that he had spent a lot of time over the summer with a friend named Leonid Artyukh, who is an official with the Association of Evangelical Churches of Kaliningrad Oblast.

    “I met Sergei back in 2003 when he did some construction work at my house,” Artyukh told RFE/RL. “[Last summer] Sergei began having problems with alcohol. I invited him to talk with some of our parishioners. He came only once.

    “Then I decided to try to help him, so I suggested that he go to a monastery for spiritual renewal. It is located in the Chernyakhovsky district. Sergei agreed, and I took him there,” Artyukh said.”

    Artyukh told the Rozhkovs where the monastery was located on October 22 and, the following day, they made the trip there.

    They found a two-story building in the middle of a remote field. It had about 10 bedrooms, each housing three or four men.

    “We were able to enter freely,” Aleksandr said. “No one chased us out. People were friendly. But Sergei was not there.”

    A man who introduced himself as Viktor and said he was the elder at the facility said that Sergei had been there for only two days.

    Sergei Rozhkov has been missing since October.

    Sergei Rozhkov has been missing since October.

    Viktor said Sergei left during the night, leaving his possessions and his mobile phone behind. He added that Sergei had been calm and had not had any conflicts while he was there.

    During this trip, the Rozhkov brothers also learned about the alleged use of slave labor on farms in the district, they said.

    “We believe Sergei ended up there,” Vladimir Rozhkov said, adding that the family suspects he was abducted at some point after leaving what he referred to as the “church shelter.”

    Abductions, the Rozhkovs said they learned, are something of an open secret in the Chernyakovsky district.

    “After 8 p.m., you see almost no one on the streets there,” Aleksandr Rozhkov said. “They are simply afraid to appear outside. There have been very many cases when people walking from one settlement to another just vanished. And no one there is surprised.”

    “I have lived here for 30 years,” says local resident Nikolai Semyonov. “Even before, it was dangerous to walk around in the dark. But now it is even more dangerous."

    “I have lived here for 30 years,” says local resident Nikolai Semyonov. “Even before, it was dangerous to walk around in the dark. But now it is even more dangerous.”

    Local resident Nikolai Semyonov told RFE/RL a similar story.

    “I have lived here for 30 years,” he said. “Even before, it was dangerous to walk around in the dark. But now it is even more dangerous. I haven’t been out at night myself for a long time now. People just disappear.”

    ‘Great Danger’

    Facing a dead end after visiting the monastery, the Rozhkov brothers returned to Kaliningrad the same day. And on that very evening, Sergei suddenly called from an unknown telephone number.

    “Sergei said he’d borrowed the telephone from some woman,” Aleksandr recalled. “He said that he was at a bus stop in a settlement in the Chernyakhovsky district. He said he was lost and asked me to come and get him. He confirmed that he had left the monastery of his own volition. The call came at 19:15. His voice was calm.

    “We had no idea that he was in great danger,” he added.

    Aleksandr arrived at the bus stop in the settlement of Svoboda about three hours later. But Sergei was not there.

    “I asked around whether anyone had seen such a man,” he recalled. “They said that they had. They told me that he was sitting for a long time at the stop. Then two minivans pulled up and stopped in front of him. After a small altercation, they dragged my brother into one of the vans and drove off. I missed him by just 20 minutes.”

    The next day, the Rozhkovs filed a missing-person report with the police.

    “For a long time, the police didn’t give us any information at all,” Aleksandr said. “Now they tell us that they are looking but haven’t found anything.”

    Zapad, the NGO, has also been looking, activist Presnyakova told RFE/RL.

    “Our volunteers searched the whole Svoboda settlement,” she said. “We have gone over the entire area with drones, but without result. The police have checked all the farms in Kaliningrad Oblast. The search for Sergei Rozkhov continues.”

    Rozhkov is now officially listed as missing, and police have opened a murder investigation. His family has hired a lawyer. The prosecutor’s office told RFE/RL that a criminal investigation is ongoing, and the authorities continue to search for the missing man.

    The family’s lawyer, who asked not to be identified out of safety concerns because of her investigation into the alleged use of forced labor, said she has gotten the cold shoulder from farms she has visited seeking information.

    “You show up and the owner comes out and says, ‘I swear by my mother there is no one here.’ But it is impossible to verify what is really going on there.”

    Beatings, No Pay

    After the Rozhkovs went public with their search, other locals came forward with similar stories. One of them, 27-year-old Vladislav Feshchak, even believes he may have seen Sergei.

    In September 2020, Feshchak was searching for work when he was approached by a “foreign-looking” man in a minivan.

    “I told him I was looking for work and he offered a job on a farm,” Feshchak told RFE/RL. “I was a little drunk and I agreed. When we arrived, he suggested that I get some sleep and start working in the morning. But it turned out they had no intention of paying me or letting me leave.

    “There were five other guys there in the same situation. All of them worked without getting paid. I ran off almost immediately, but they caught me after about two hours. They told me that they would make a cripple out of me if I tried it again. I saw them beat several people being held there.”

    Vladislav Feshchak believes he may have seen Rozhkov before he himself escaped captivity.

    Vladislav Feshchak believes he may have seen Rozhkov before he himself escaped captivity.

    Feshchak escaped captivity in December but has been living in hiding with relatives ever since. He said he fears for his life. When he filed a statement with the police, he said, he was told “there are quite a few cases” like his.

    “They took my statement, but it is unlikely they will do anything,” he said.

    While he was in captivity, Feshchak believes he might have seen Sergei Rozhkov.

    “I can’t say for sure, but he looked a lot like the photographs [of Rozhkov],” Feshchak said. “When I was on the farm, some guys came to us from another farm. They took away about 400 rams. The guy in charge had four other guys helping him load the animals. And one of them looked a lot like Sergei.”

    Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting from Kaliningrad by correspondent Anna Krylova of the North Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden Administration’s Additional Sanctions Over Nord Stream 2 ‘Inadequate,’ Republicans Say

    The United States imposed additional sanctions on a Russian vessel and the ship’s owner for their work on the Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, but the move was immediately criticized as inadequate by Republican lawmakers.

    The sanctions were announced in a report submitted to Congress by the State Department late on February 19.

    Two Republican lawmakers immediately 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.

    Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas) said that simply adding a layer of sanctions to previously sanctioned targets was “wholly inadequate” and does not meet lawmakers’ intent to stop the pipeline.

    “Allowing this pipeline to be completed would be nothing short of a victory for Vladimir Putin,” McCaul said.

    Senator Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho) echoed McCaul’s concerns, saying in a statement that Congress has passed multiple bipartisan laws regarding the construction of the pipeline.

    Congress specifically broadened the mandatory sanctions to include the types of pipe-laying activities occurring now, Risch said. But the State Department report ignores these activities, which “demands an immediate explanation.”

    The lawmakers also said the new sanctions duplicate existing penalties that the Trump administration imposed on the pipe-laying ship Fortuna and its owner KVT-RUS in January.

    The United States and several European countries oppose the pipeline, which will reroute Russian natural gas exports under the Baltic Sea, circumventing Ukraine. They say this will deprive Kyiv of billions of dollars in much needed transportation fees while strengthening the Kremlin’s grip on the European energy market.

    “We’ve been clear for some time that Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal and that companies risk sanctions if they are involved,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters just hours before the report was transmitted to Congress.

    “We’ll continue to work with our allies and partners to ensure that Europe has a reliable, diversified energy supply network that doesn’t undermine our collective security. Our goal in all of this is to reinforce European energy security and safeguard against predatory behavior,” he said.

    But Risch and McCaul were unimpressed that the administration failed to impose any sanctions on additional targets, notably people and firms in Germany, which is a strong Nord Stream 2 proponent.

    Opposition to the pipeline in Congress has increased since the poisoning and arrest of Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and a crackdown against demonstrators who have protested in his support.

    A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on February 17 called on the Biden administration to brief Congress on its steps to stop the controversial pipeline, which is believed to be around 90 percent complete.

    The lawmakers also said they wanted to know if Germany had made any proposal to halt or water down U.S. sanctions targeting the pipeline amid news reports that it had.

    A first round of U.S. sanctions specifically targeting vessels laying the pipeline forced a European contractor to halt work, delaying the launch of Nord Stream 2 by at least a year.

    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.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Says It Plans No Additional Steps On Iran Ahead Of EU-Proposed ‘Diplomatic Conversation’

    The United States plans no additional actions in response to pressure from Tehran ahead of proposed talks on a return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the White House said on February 19.

    The White House has “no plan to take additional steps” on Iran in advance of having a “diplomatic conversation” about a possible U.S. return to the deal, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

    Psaki noted the European Union has floated the idea of a conversation among Iran and the six major powers that struck the agreement: Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, known as the P5+1.

    “The Europeans have invited us and…it is simply an invitation to have a conversation, a diplomatic conversation,” she said, speaking to reporters on Air Force One as President Joe Biden flew to Michigan.

    The European Union is working on organizing an informal meeting with all participants, a senior EU official said on February 19.

    In an address the same day to the Munich Security Conference, Biden said that Washington is prepared to reengage with the international partners that signed the deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

    Biden also said his administration is going to work with Europe and “other partners” to address Iran’s “destabilizing activities across the Middle East.”

    In 2015, the P5+1 — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany — signed a landmark agreement with Tehran that called for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions.

    But in 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the accord and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran. In response, Tehran has increasingly breached limits it had agreed to under the pact.

    The United States on February 19 also notified the UN Security Council that it had withdrawn Trump’s September 2020 invocation of the so-called “snap-back” mechanism under which it insisted that all UN sanctions against Iran were to be reimposed.

    The United States said earlier this week that it was ready to talk to Iran about both nations returning to the deal. But the countries have been at odds over which one should make the first step.

    Iran has said the United States must first lift sanctions, while Washington says Tehran must first return to compliance with the deal.

    Iran said on February 19 that it would “immediately reverse” actions that contradict a 2015 nuclear agreement once U.S. sanctions are lifted.

    When sanctions are lifted, “we will then immediately reverse all remedial measures. Simple,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Twitter.

    With reporting by Reuters and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Five Things To Know About Georgia And The Political Crisis It’s Slipping Toward

    The warning lights were blinking after October’s parliamentary elections.

    The political party founded by Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili cemented its grip on power, building on electoral gains from a year earlier despite an undercurrent of discontent dating back at least that long.

    Opposition groups, however, cried foul and refused to even take their seats in the legislature, even though many international observers said the vote was more or less fair and free.

    Now the leader of the country’s main opposition bloc has been ordered arrested, accused of violating bail on charges stemming from one of those protests. That arrest, in turn, has prompted the surprise resignation of the prime minister, who heads the government of Ivanishvili allies.

    Confused?

    Here are five things to know about the latest political crisis to consume the South Caucasus nation of nearly 4 million people.

    So What’s Going On Exactly?

    Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia surprised the country on February 18 when he announced his resignation.

    More unexpected was the rationale: to spare the country political “polarization” following an order by a Tbilisi city court to jail Nika Melia, the chairman of the United National Movement (ENM), the country’s main opposition party.

    Gakharia appeared to have lost an internal debate within the ruling party over the signals that it would send to jail a leading opposition voice like Melia in a fragile post-Soviet democracy.

    Melia has been accused of organizing violent protests that erupted outside parliament nearly two years ago, in the summer of 2019. That unrest was ignited by, among other things, a visiting Russian lawmaker’s decision to sit in the speaker’s chair of the Georgian Parliament during a meeting of politicians from predominantly Eastern Orthodox countries.

    (More on Russia later.)

    But underlying the protests were also opposition accusations that the electoral system was rigged in favor of Georgian Dream, which Ivanishvili founded in 2012.

    And before that, there were other protests

    In March 2020, after months of on-again, off-again negotiations in Tbilisi that included U.S. and EU representatives, Georgian Dream, the United National Movement, and other parties agreed to a deal to reform the system.

    On October 31, saddled with the additional burden of the COVID-19 health crisis and signs of growing political fractiousness, the country held its first national parliamentary elections under the reformed system.

    Again, Georgian Dream won a majority of the 150 seats.

    International observers said the vote was “competitive and, overall, fundamental freedoms were respected” but cited pervasive allegations of pressure on voters.

    Still, the United National Movement and the other, smaller parties cried foul. Since then, they have boycotted parliament, refusing to take part and ratcheting up tensions.

    In announcing his resignation, Gakharia cited the threat of political polarization.
    https://www.rferl.org/a/georgian-opposition-announces-new-election-protests-despite-ongoing-talks/30948925.html

    “Of course, I believe and want to believe that this step will help reduce polarization in the political space of our country, because I am convinced that polarization and confrontation between us is the greatest risk for the future of our country, its economic development, and overcoming all types of crises,” he said.

    A Georgian Dream lawmaker, Nikoloz Samkharadze, then claimed that “as far as I know,” Gakharia had “not only resigned but also left the Georgian Dream” party. https://agenda.ge/en/news/2021/442

    After Gakharia’s announcement, the Interior Ministry said it was postponing Melia’s arrest.

    A few hours later, Georgian Dream announced that it had chosen his replacement: Irakli Garibashvili, a former prime and defense minister who is considered a close confidant of Ivanishvili.

    Why Should I Care?

    In the West, Georgia has been seen as a potential role model for democracy — vibrant and messy — in a region where democracy is sometimes an afterthought or worse. (Armenia’s democracy is definitely vibrant and definitely messy. Azerbaijan is anything but democratic. Turkey’s is an open question. Russia’s is “managed.”)

    That sentiment dates in part back to 2003, when a brash, U.S.-educated lawyer named Mikheil Saakashvili led a popular protest that ousted a long-serving former Soviet apparatchik, Eduard Shevardnadze.

    Heavy on drama and sometimes criticized as lighter on substantive, far-reaching reforms, Saakashvili’s presidency hit a nadir in 2008 when Russia invaded, occupying two breakaway regions and humiliating the NATO-trained units of Georgia’s military in a five-day conflict.

    Saakashvili and his United National Movement held on for another four years until 2012, when Ivanishvili’s newfound party won elections and Saakashvili conceded.

    So far, Georgia hasn’t completely established itself as a full democracy. Politically charged criminal prosecutions of the exiled Saakashvili didn’t help burnish perceptions. But even more recently, Freedom House said Georgia had slipped in its democracy rankings in recent years, and now qualifies as a “transitional or hybrid regime.”
    https://freedomhouse.org/country/georgia/nations-transit/2020

    The instability has undermined Western proponents of fully embracing Georgia and encouraging it on the course toward the EU or even NATO footing that Saakashvili, and many Georgians, desire. Some Western planners still view Georgia as a candidate to be bumped out of Russia’s orbit.

    “Nowhere else in the region do so many aspire to the Western-led, rules-based, liberal world order that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin abhors,” Salome Samadashvili, an opposition lawmaker, wrote in a 2019 opinion article.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/12/georgians-are-taking-stand-against-vladimir-putin-where-is-west/

    Then there are the economic considerations: Georgia sits astride several major trading routes and is crisscrossed with railways and an important pipeline that brings oil from Azerbaijan to Tbilisi then to world markets, via the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

    The political instability has tamped down outsiders’ appetite for investing in the country.

    So What About This Billionaire Guy?

    With a net worth now estimated at nearly $5 billion by Forbes, Ivanishvili made his fortune in the 1990s, in Russia, with investments in metals, real estate, and banking.
    https://www.forbes.com/profile/bidzina-ivanishvili/?sh=4e3a5ef45989

    A Russian citizen, Ivanishvili returned to Tbilisi around the time of the 2003 Rose Revolution, built a palatial mountain-side compound outside the capital, and then, in 2011, hatched a plan to launch his own political party.

    https://gdb.rferl.org/8C86536C-850B-497E-BD02-45C71B8D9258.jpg
    https://gdb.rferl.org/8C86536C-850B-497E-BD02-45C71B8D9258.jpg

    After his Georgian Dream’s electoral victory in 2012, Ivanishvili served as prime minister for just over a year before returning to the private sector, though most believe he still is the godfather of Georgian politics, pulling the strings from offstage.

    In 2018, he returned as chairman of the party, and the following year the party helped spearhead changes to how lawmakers are elected to parliament, a move largely backed by opposition parties.

    Last month, Ivanishvili again announced his retirement from politics, though many Georgians say they doubt his real intentions.

    Ivanishvili, who gives few interviews, is known as an avid art collector: with works by Picasso and Monet among his possessions.

    And he’s built a private zoo.

    His most quixotic endeavor? Uprooting hundreds of massive, century-old trees and moving them, over land and over sea, to a new ecological park owned by his family.

    VIDEO:

    “It’s my hobby and I really love big trees. Giant trees are my entertainment,” he said in one interview.
    https://oc-media.org/features/ivanishvilis-tree-collecting-hobby/

    OK. So Russia’s To Blame, Right?

    Actually, no. At least not directly.

    Many Georgians resent Russia. Or more precisely, they appear to resent Putin’s Kremlin.
    https://gdb.rferl.org/C48E8938-BC28-47A0-AC31-1FD6C56807A7_w1023_r1_s.jpg

    A 2018 survey conducted by the Center for Insights in Survey Research found that 85 percent of Georgians consider Russia to be a “political threat.”
    https://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2018-5-29_georgia_poll_presentation.pdf

    That attitude stems mostly from the 2008 war, which ended with Russian troops occupying Abkhazia and South Ossetia — two regions that already had considerable autonomy dating back to the early 1990s.

    Russia maintains a substantial military presence in both regions; in South Ossetia, the administrative line dividing the region has been shifted several times by Russian forces, resulting in a loss of territory for Georgia proper.
    https://www.rferl.org/a/daily-vertical-georgia-ossetia-border-moved-russian-troops/28609829.html

    In all, one-fifth of Georgia’s territory is now under the control of Russia and the separatist groups it supports.

    Still, Georgia has long been reliant on Russia as its largest export market for things like agriculture products and its famed wines and mineral waters. Moscow has squeezed Tbilisi in the past to block some exports, citing spurious claims of poor quality.

    A ban on wines and mineral waters imposed in 2006, under Saakashvili, lasted until 2013, after Ivanishvili was in power. Getting Russia to lift that ban was a key goal for Georgian Dream.

    The bigger question for some Georgians surrounds Ivanishvili’s loyalties. Opposition groups regularly insinuate that the Russian roots of his business empire make him beholden to interests there: industrial or intelligence. Gakharia himself was a businessman in Moscow before being pulled into Georgian politics by Ivanishvili.

    For his part, Ivanishvili has repeatedly denied any suggestion that he was ever compromised or took orders from Russian interests.

    What Happens Next?

    Gakharia’s resignation, the suspension of Melia’s arrest order, opposition parties calling for snap elections — all point to new turmoil and uncertainty in Georgian politics.

    So it’s anyone’s guess.

    The first step might be parliamentary approval for Georgian Dream’s choice of a successor as prime minister.

    The 39-year-old Garibashvili was defense minister in Gakharia’s cabinet before the latter’s abrupt exit on February 18.

    Paris-educated, Garibashvili’s previous, two-year stint as prime minister could provide some reassurance to Georgians and the international community.

    But the EU’s envoy to Georgia, Carl Hartzell, has warned that the circumstances of Melia’s prosecution are a “dangerous trajectory for Georgia and for Georgian democracy.”

    Washington quickly tried to soothe the diplomatic waters but also warned that there did not appear to be a quick fix to decades of Georgian “problems.”

    “The current dangerous situation following the Melia ruling stems from decades-long problems with the electoral system and the judicial system,” the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi said in a statement. “The way to address the important issues at stake is through peaceful negotiation. We urge all involved to remain calm and avoid violence.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Ambassador Says Navalny Poisoning, Jailing Is Not Just An Internal Russian Matter

    The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, has rejected Moscow’s assertion that last year’s nerve-agent poisoning of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and protests prompted by his recent jailing is a strictly internal Russian affair.

    In an interview with Current Time on February 16 via video link from Moscow, Sullivan said the “United States has no interest in fomenting dispute within Russia or encouraging protests.”

    The envoy also criticized the targeting of media organizations inside Russia, including RFE/RL, under the country’s controversial “foreign agent” law, saying the United States is considering an “appropriate” response.

    A Moscow court on February 2 found Navalny, 44, guilty of violating the terms of his parole while in Germany, where he was recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he and supporters say was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    The Kremlin has denied any role in the poisoning.

    Navalny’s suspended sentence was related to an embezzlement case that he has called politically motivated. The court converted the sentence to 3 1/2 years in prison. Given credit for time already spent in detention, the Kremlin critic would have to serve two years and eight months behind bars, the court said.

    The court’s ruling triggered international condemnation and protests across Russia that were violently dispersed by security forces.

    More than 10,000 people were rounded up by police during rallies in more than 100 Russian cities and towns on January 23 and January 31. Many of Navalny’s political aides and allies were detained, fined, or placed under house arrest for violating sanitary and epidemiological safety precautions during a pandemic.

    Moscow has remained defiant about Western criticism over its jailing of the opposition politician and the crackdown on his supporters, calling it foreign interference in its internal affairs.

    During his interview with Current Time, Sullivan noted that “first, the use of a chemical weapon — which is yet to be explained; a banned chemical weapon prohibited by a treaty to which Russia is a party — that is not a domestic legal issue.”

    “Second, even the case itself that has been continued against Navalny last month — that caused his arrest — is something that the European Court of Human Rights [ECHR] has found an invalid basis for any further judicial action against Navalny. This is a court to which Russia is a party, so I don’t see this as a domestic political issue,” the U.S. ambassador said.

    On February 16, the Strasbourg-based ECHR called for the “immediate” release of Navalny, a demand rejected by the Kremlin as “unlawful” and “inadmissible” meddling in Russia’s affairs.

    ‘An Important Fundamental Right’

    In an interview last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced what he called a broader course “coordinated by the entire collective West, which goes beyond mere deterrence of Russia and evolves into an aggressive deterrence of Russia.”

    “They don’t like us because we have our own idea of what’s going on in the world,” he said.

    Sullivan said he and the United States will continue voicing support for the “fundamental right for people [in any country] to be allowed to express their opinions and to petition the government for redress, and to gather peacefully, to assemble peacefully.”

    “It is something that is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and something that we believe is an important fundamental right for all individuals,” he added.

    In the United States, a bipartisan group of senators has introduced legislation to impose fresh targeted sanctions on Russian officials found to be complicit in Navalny’s poisoning.

    The European Union and Britain have already imposed travel bans and asset freezes against senior Russian officials believed to be responsible for the “attempted assassination.”

    Sullivan’s interview with Current Time also touched upon the “foreign agent” law, which rights group say has been used by Russian authorities to silence dissent and muzzle organizations that have a diverging view from the authorities.

    Russian regulators have hit RFE/RL, one of three foreign news organizations to be labeled as a “foreign agent,” with a series of fines in recent weeks.

    Last month, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers called for new sanctions against Moscow if the Kremlin moves to enforce the fines.

    “I think this is an issue that is under intense scrutiny back home in Washington about how media entities are being treated here in Russia, and I think you will see an appropriate response by the U.S. government to that,” Sullivan said.

    ‘Kafkaesque’ Amendments

    First passed in 2012 and expanded several times since, the “foreign agent” law gives authorities the power to brand nongovernmental organizations, human rights groups, and news media deemed to receive foreign funding for political activity as “foreign agents.”

    The law subjects these organizations to bureaucratic scrutiny and spot checks and requires them to attach the “foreign agent” label to their publications. They must also report on their spending and funding.

    Among other things, the law requires certain news organizations that receive foreign funding to label content inside Russia as being produced by a “foreign agent.”

    “More than objectionable, [the law] is a real disservice to the Russian people, to the extent that media entities like Radio Free Europe or Radio Liberty are burdened by these laws, by — for example — the disclaimer requirements which interfere with content, and subsequent fines which are going to impose reportedly large financial penalties on a media organization that is not controlled by the U.S. government,” Sullivan said.

    On February 16, the Russian Duma, the parliament’s lower house, passed what Reporters Without Borders called “Kafkaesque” amendments to the “foreign agents” law.

    The “nonsensical and incomprehensible” amendments, which include heavier fines, aim to intimidate journalists and get them to censor themselves, the Paris-based media freedom watchdog said in a statement.

    Based on an interview conducted by Current Time’s Egor Maximov

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S., European Diplomats Hold Talks On Iran Nuclear Deal

    The top diplomats from the United States, Germany, France, and Britain are holding talks on ways to revive the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Washington pulled out of in 2018.

    The deal signed by Tehran with the four Western powers, along with China and Russia, called for curbs on Iran’s uranium-enrichment program in return for the lifting of sanctions.

    President Donald Trump in May 2018 pulled his country out of the accord and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran, saying the terms were not strict enough to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

    Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes.

    The other signatories have been attempting to save the accord. But since the U.S. pullout, Tehran has increasingly breached limits it had agreed to under the deal.

    German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab met France’s Jean-Yves Le Drian for talks in Paris on February 18. New U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined through a video link.

    “The recent steps of Iran are not helpful at all, they endanger the return of the Americans” to the deal, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters in Paris.

    “Apparently Iran is not interested in easing the tensions, but in escalation. They are playing with fire,” he said.

    U.S. President Joe Biden has indicated more willingness to deal with Iran than his predecessor did, but he has publicly stated Tehran must adhere to its commitment under the 2015 deal before his administration will discuss the possibility of lifting sanctions.

    Blinken said last month he wants to coordinate with U.S. allies to get to a “longer and stronger agreement” with Iran.

    Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kyiv Begins Marking Anniversary Of Deadly Shootings During Euromaidan Protests

    KYIV — Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has marked the seventh anniversary of the shooting deaths of dozens of participants in the Euromaidan anti-government protests that toppled Ukraine’s Russia-friendly former president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.

    Klitschko laid flowers on February 18 at the sites where the deadly shootings occurred seven years ago and at the so-called Monument of the Heavenly Hundred on Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti).

    “Every day of the fight — from autumn 2013 to February 2014 — was important. No matter how difficult it is now, we will not disown or betray the ideals and principles we fought for at Maidan,” Klitschko said.

    While the official day of nationwide commemorations to honor those who were killed in Kyiv during clashes with Yanukovych’s security forces is February 20, some parts of Ukraine begin honoring the slain protesters two days earlier, on the day when the shootings started.

    The Euromaidan movement began in November 2013 when protesters gathered on the central square in Kyiv to protest Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a crucial trade accord with the European Union. Instead, he sought closer economic ties with Russia.

    Ukrainian prosecutors say 104 people were killed and 2,500 injured as a result of violent crackdowns by authorities against protesters from February 18-20, 2014.

    Shunning a deal backed by the West and Russia to end the standoff, Yanukovych abandoned power and fled Kyiv on February 21, 2014.

    The former president, who was secretly flown to Russia and remains there, denies that he ordered police to fire on protesters, saying that the violence was the result of a “planned operation” to overthrow his government.

    In March 2014, shortly after Yanukovych’s downfall, Russian military forces seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula — a precursor to the Kremlin’s illegal annexation of the territory through a hastily organized and widely discredited referendum.

    Russia also has supported pro-Russia separatists who are fighting Ukrainian government forces in eastern Ukraine.

    More than 13,200 people have been killed in that conflict since April 2014.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Belarusian Journalists Handed Two-Year Prison Sentences For Live Coverage Of Anti-Government Rally

    MINSK — Two journalists for Belsat, the Polish satellite television station aimed at Belarus, have each been sentenced to two years in prison for reporting live from a rally in Minsk in November.

    On February 18, Judge Natallya Buhuk of the Frunze district court in the Belarusian capital, sentenced Katsyaryna Andreyeva and Darya Chultsova after finding them guilty of “organizing public events aimed at disrupting civil order.”

    Andreyeva and Chultsova, in their last statement in the courtroom, again rejected the charges against them, calling them politically motivated.

    Crisis In Belarus

    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.

    Andreyeva also demanded the “immediate release” of herself, Chultsova, and “all political prisoners in Belarus.”

    The two journalists were arrested on November 15 while they were covering a rally in Minsk commemorating Raman Bandarenka.

    Bandarenka died from injuries sustained in a vicious beating by a group of masked assailants — whom rights activists say were affiliated with the authorities — during one of the weekly rallies demanding the resignation of authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

    The two journalists have said they were at the protest solely to do their jobs when they were arrested.

    Belarusian human rights organizations have recognized Andreyeva and Chultsova as political prisoners and demanded their immediate release and the dropping of all charges against them.

    Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, was declared the landslide victor of an August 9 presidential election.

    However, outrage over what was seen by both the opposition forces and the general public as a rigged vote has sparked continuous protests since, bringing tens of thousands onto the streets with demands that the longtime strongman step down and a new election be held.

    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 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, the 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 the postelection crackdown.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Georgian Prime Minister Resigns Over Detention Of Opposition Chairman

    TBILISI — Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia handed in his resignation on February 18 following the detention of the head of the Caucasus country’s main opposition force.

    The Tbilisi City Court on February 17 granted the prosecution’s request to place Nika Melia, chairman of the United National Movement (UNM), in custody, in a case denounced by the opposition as a political witch hunt.

    The court ruling came amid a political crisis in Georgia that followed parliamentary elections in October that independent monitors say were marred by irregularities. All the opposition parties are boycotting parliament, refusing to assume their mandates.

    Nika Melia

    Nika Melia

    Gakharia announced his resignation at a special press briefing in Tbilisi, during which he voiced his disagreement with the ruling coalition regarding the court’s decision against Melia.

    “I made the decision to leave my post. Of course, I believe and want to believe that this step will help reduce polarization in the political space of our country, because I am convinced that polarization and confrontation between us is the greatest risk for the future of our country, its economic development, and overcoming all types of crises,” said Gakharia.

    Melia is accused of organizing “mass violence” during 2019 anti-government protests, a charge he rejects as politically motivated. The ruling Georgian Dream party denies that.

    The 41-year-old politician faces up to nine years behind bars if convicted.

    Following the court decision, leaders of opposition parties and Melia’s supporters gathered at the UNM’s headquarters in Tbilisi on February 17, vowing to obstruct police if they moved to enforce the court’s ruling.

    The U.S. Embassy called on Georgian authorities and the opposition to “exercise maximum restraint in the wake of tonight’s ruling.”

    “Violence serves no one except those who want to undermine Georgia’s stability. This must be resolved peacefully,” it tweeted.

    Ahead of the court decision, the European Union’s envoy to Georgia, Carl Hartzell, described the circumstances surrounding Melia’s prosecution as a “dangerous trajectory for Georgia and for Georgian democracy.”

    Hartzell said the case will definitely have a “wider impact” on the political landscape and on further developments in the country.

    On February 16, parliament voted to suspend Melia’s immunity from prosecution, paving the way for his pretrial detention.

    The prosecution’s motion followed his refusal to pay an increased bail fee of 40,000 lari ($12,000). The opposition leader initially posted bail in 2019 but the amount was increased after he publicly removed his electronic-monitoring bracelet during a postelection rally in November 2020.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Biden, Netanyahu Finally Talk, Discuss ‘Iranian Threat’

    U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have spoken by phone amid reports of a strained relationship between the two countries following Netanyahu’s close ties to the Trump administration.

    A statement released on February 17 by the Israeli leader’s office said the two leaders discussed the “Iranian threat” as well as other issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Netanyahu was one of the last leaders of a U.S. ally to receive a call from Biden since the U.S. president’s January 20 inauguration.

    Netanyahu had close ties with Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who pushed what was seen as a heavily pro-Israel agenda that angered many Arab nations, along with some U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere.

    The prime minister is facing a tough fight in a legislative election scheduled for March 23. The relationship with Washington is of crucial importance to Israeli voters.

    Netanyahu’s office was the first to announce the conversation and released a photo of a smiling prime minister holding a phone to his ear. The one-hour conversation was “warm and friendly,” his office said.

    “The two leaders noted their long-standing personal connection and said that they would work together to continue strengthening the steadfast alliance between Israel and the U.S.,” the statement said.

    It added that topics included “the Iranian threat” of developing nuclear weapons, efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic, and the desire to expand Israel’s new deals establishing relations with Arab nations.

    During his presidential campaign, Biden criticized Trump’s decision to pull out of the landmark 2015 nuclear accord that Iran signed with world powers. Netanyahu adamantly backed Trump’s move, which involved reinstating crushing sanctions on Iran, Israel’s main rival in the region.

    Biden has publicly stated that Iran must adhere to its commitment under the 2015 deal before his administration will discuss the possibility of lifting sanctions.

    Tehran, under the deal with the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain, agreed to curbs on its uranium-enrichment program in return for the lifting of sanctions. Iran has always denied pursuing nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes.

    Since Trump abandoned the agreement and reimposed sanctions, Tehran has gradually breached the deal’s terms.

    With reporting by AP and AFP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Neglecting Western Balkans As China Takes ‘Smart’ Regional Approach, Former Croatian President Says

    WASHINGTON — The United States needs to step up its engagement with the Western Balkans if it wants to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the region, the former president of Croatia said.

    Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, who served as president of the Balkan nation from 2015-20, also criticized Europe for dragging its feet on regional integration.

    “If you want to really prevent others from political interference in a certain area, then you have to be involved yourself,” Grabar-Kitarovic said, referring to the United States, during a discussion hosted on February 17 by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

    “I must say that I’ve been disappointed by the sort of [lack of interest] that I’ve seen in the past years” in the Balkan region from the administrations of both President Donald Trump and his predecessor Barack Obama, she said.

    Washington and Brussels have been seeking to integrate the nations of the Western Balkans into the European Union and NATO to bring stability to a region rocked by ethnic fighting in the 1990s.

    However, Grabar-Kitarovic said the process has been “too slow” and that “it’s creating a vacuum that is being filled by third forces that are not necessarily benevolent at all times,” a possible reference to China and Russia.

    The United States and EU have expressed concerns over investments by Beijing in the Western Balkans as well as Kremlin disinformation and political influence activities in the region.

    As an example, Grabar-Kitarovic called the decision to invite Bosnia-Herzegovina into NATO’s Partnership for Peace program rather than directly into the military alliance “an unnecessary delay” that opens the door for adversaries to claim that the region isn’t “good enough” for Western organizations.

    The former president highlighted the importance of Bosnia’s stability to Croatia’s own security. Bosnia, which borders Croatia, is threatened with secessionist movements.

    Grabar-Kitarovic said the Chinese are taking a “very smart” approach in their relations with the Western Balkans.

    “They show that they value you, that they will talk to you,” she said, pointing out that a Croatian leader hasn’t had a White House meeting since 2006, when George W. Bush was president.

    “The feeling that we are all getting…is if you are not a big country, or if you are not a problem country, or if you are not bringing big money to the table, you don’t have an entrance to the White House,” she said.

    She said Washington has been “dragging its feet” on a double-taxation treaty with the country that would improve trade, and that she could not remember the last time a company from the United States made a big investment in Croatia.

    “What I would like to see is more U.S. engagement, and a lot more active role” in the region, she said.

    The United States has promised to invest up to $1 billion into the Three Seas Initiative Investment Fund, which seeks to back projects that help the 12 EU nations located between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic seas improve their transport, energy, and digital infrastructure connections.

    Grabar-Kitarovic, along with Polish President Andrzej Duda, launched the Three Seas Initiative in 2015.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Blogger Says She Fled Kyrgyzstan Fearing For Her Safety

    A well-known blogger, who left Kyrgyzstan for an unspecified country after her apartment in Bishkek was searched, says she was “pushed out of the country.”

    Yulia Barabina and three members of the election team of presidential candidate Abdil Segizbaev were questioned by officers of the State Committee for National Security (UKMK) after their homes were searched on February 3 and their electronic devices confiscated.

    Segizbaev, a former chief of the UKMK who strongly criticized incumbent President Sadyr Japarov during the recent election, was arrested and placed in pretrial detention on corruption charges two weeks after Japarov was declared the winner on January 10.

    Barabina told the Kaktus news agency on February 15 that UKMK officers had explained to her and members of Segizbaev’s team that the searches and the questioning were linked to a complaint filed by unknown individuals about the content of Barabina’s Facebook blog, Pravdorub, where she and her colleagues publish their journalistic materials.

    According to the UKMK, Barabina said, the complaint alleged that some of the materials in the blog were “inciting ethnic and religious hatred.”

    However, Barabina said the complaint appeared to be politically motivated, as the investigators’ questions were not about her blog’s materials but about comments by unknown individuals posted under them.

    Barabina’s blog was critical of former presidents of the Central Asian state, as well as Japarov.

    The blog’s investigative materials also targeted corruption among officials, including former Customs Service official Raimbek Matraimov, who was placed on the U.S. Magnitsky sanctions list for his involvement in the illegal funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars abroad.

    Barabina said she intended to return to Kyrgyzstan as soon as “it is safe for me to come back.”

    Kyrgyzstan has been in crisis since parliamentary elections in October led to protests that triggered the toppling of the government and the resignation of then-President Sooronbai Jeenbekov.

    Japarov was among several prominent politicians freed from prison by protesters during the unrest.

    He had been serving a 10-year sentence for hostage taking during a protest against a mining operation in northeast Kyrgyzstan in October 2013. He has steadfastly denied the charge.

    The 52-year-old’s landslide victory came in an election that international observers said “generally respected” fundamental freedoms even though the vote was not “fully fair.”

    With reporting by Kaktus

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trial Opens Of Former Belarusian Banker, Would-Be Presidential Candidate

    MINSK — Viktar Babaryka, a former Belarusian banker whose bid to challenge Alyaksandr Lukashenka in last year’s presidential election was halted by his arrest, has gone on trial.

    Babaryka’s Telegram channel on February 17 showed him being brought to the courtroom at the Moscow district court in Minsk.

    After he announced his intention to run for president, Babaryka, a former senior manager at the Russian-owned Belgazprombank, was arrested in June along with his son Eduard on charges of money laundering, bribery, and tax evasion.

    Three days before their arrest, Belarusian authorities took control of the bank and detained more than a dozen top executives on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.

    All of the accused reject the charges as politically motivated.

    Dozens gathered on February 17 outside the court to support Babaryka. People waited in line to get inside the building. They were instructed not to have telephones and tablets with them.

    People wait in line to enter the court on February 17.

    People wait in line to enter the court on February 17.

    The case is being heard by judges from the Belarusian Supreme Court, a move that has been criticized by Babaryka and his defense team, who said that would deny them any chance of appeal in case of a guilty verdict.

    Crisis In Belarus

    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.

    Lukashenka was declared the victor of the August 9 election, triggering protests by tens of thousands of Belarusians who say the vote was rigged. Protests have continued since then to demand Lukashenka, in power since 1994, step down.

    Security officials have cracked down hard on the demonstrators, arresting thousands and pushing most top opposition figures out of the country.

    Several protesters have been killed in the violence and several rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.

    Lukashenka denies voter fraud and has refused to negotiate with the opposition led by Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who supporters say actually won the August election.

    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.

  • Biden Says Kosovo Holds ‘Special Place’ For His Family

    U.S. President Joe Biden has said that Kosovo holds a “special place” for his family because of the time his late son Beau spent in the Balkan country, where he helped to strengthen the rule of law.

    Biden made the remark in a letter sent to acting President Vjosa Osmani on the occasion of Kosovo’s independence day. Osmani made the contents of the letter public on February 16.

    Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, a decade after a 1998-99 war between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian forces. The war ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign drove Serbian troops out and an international peacekeeping force moved in.

    “Kosovo continues to hold a special place for the Biden family in honor of the time our late son Beau Biden spent working to ensure peace, justice, and the rule of law for all the people of Kosovo,” Biden wrote.

    Beau Biden worked in Kosovo after the 1998-99 war with the military forces and also with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe strengthening the rule of law there.

    Biden visited Kosovo in 2016 on his last trip to the region as vice president to attend with his family a ceremony naming a road near a U.S. military base after his son, who died a year earlier of brain cancer at age 46.

    In the letter, Biden said the United States was ready to work with the new government of Kosovo on the path of European integration.

    “There is still a lot of work to be done, including reaching a comprehensive agreement with Serbia focused on mutual recognition, which strengthens the rule of law, tackling the pandemic, and fostering economic growth that enables a prosperous future for all citizens,” he said.

    Biden urged the same in a letter to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic earlier this month.

    Most Western states have recognized Kosovo, but Serbia and its allies Russia and China do not. Tensions over Kosovo remain a source of volatility in the Balkans.

    The United States was among the first countries to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Since 1999, the U.S. government has invested about $2 billion in Kosovo.

    In September, Kosovo and Serbia signed at the White House two documents for the normalization of economic relations, in the presence of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Following the U.S. presidential election, Pristina and Belgrade have pledged to continue implementing the agreements, despite the change in U.S. administration.

    “The United States of America remains a committed partner and friend of Kosovo in these efforts,” Biden wrote in his letter.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that reaching a comprehensive agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, focused on mutual recognition, will require flexibility and a willingness on all sides to compromise.

    With reporting by AP

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bulgaria Says 400 Kilos Of Heroin Found In Cargo From Iran

    Bulgarian authorities say they have confiscated more than 400 kilograms of heroin from a ship traveling from Dubai that was transporting construction materials from Iran.

    Prosecutor Vladimir Chavdarov said on February 16 that the drugs were divided into 487 packages and hidden among asphalt rollers, which the ship was carrying.

    Customs officials in the Black Sea port of Varna valued the seized heroin at about $22 million.

    Prosecutors said the owner of the importing company and a customs official had been detained and charged with drug trafficking.

    The two men could face up to 20 years in prison, if convicted of the charges.

    Bulgarian police believe the heroin was not intended for the domestic market but rather destined to be sold in Western Europe.

    Bulgaria is on the so-called Balkan drug-trafficking route, which is used to supply Western Europe with drugs from Asia and the Middle East.

    With reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China’s Strategic Vaccine Diplomacy Gains A Foothold In The Balkans

    As countries in Europe struggle with shortages of COVID-19 vaccines, China has stepped up its efforts in the Western Balkans, supplying injections and collecting diplomatic wins in the region.

    Serbia has emerged as the tip of the spear for China’s “vaccine diplomacy” in Europe, where Beijing is aiming to build global influence by sending its injections to poorer countries — filling a vacuum left by Western countries who have bought all of the available doses and are facing production delays for their homegrown vaccines.

    While Serbia is a Russian ally and has aspirations to join the European Union, the country’s ties with China have expanded in recent years and deepened further under President Aleksandar Vucic.

    During the pandemic, he has not held back in trumpeting his country’s strong ties with Beijing — holding several high-profile press events to praise China’s assistance and famously kissing the Chinese flag in March after medical aid from China arrived in Belgrade.

    Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (without mask) welcomes Chinese health experts and a planeload of Chinese medical supplies to Belgrade on March 21, 2020.

    Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (without mask) welcomes Chinese health experts and a planeload of Chinese medical supplies to Belgrade on March 21, 2020.

    Vucic’s strategy appears to have worked, as Belgrade has leveraged its relations amid the pandemic to diversify its vaccine sources and inject a greater percentage of its population than any other country in continental Europe. As of February 16, Serbia had given at least the first vaccination to about 11.2 percent of its nearly 7 million people, outpacing the EU, which is led by Denmark, with 6.9 percent of its population having received its first shot.

    The bulk of those doses — some 1.5 million — have come from China’s state-backed Sinopharm, though Serbia is also using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and the U.S.-German Pfizer-BioNTech injection.

    The latest Sinopharm vaccine shipment arrived on February 11 at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport and was welcomed by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic and Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Chen Bo.

    For China, providing vaccines to Serbia serves as an important geopolitical win as it faces stronger headwinds from an increasingly skeptical and disapproving West. Belgrade also becomes an important launching pad for China to gain a foothold in Europe as Beijing seeks greater influence in the region and beyond.

    “Serbia has long been a testing ground for China,” Vuk Vuksanovic, a researcher at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy and a former Serbian diplomat, told RFE/RL. “We’ve seen it with defense, construction, technology, and now with vaccines. It’s where Beijing has tried policies that it hopes to test elsewhere in Europe.”

    From Masks To Vaccines

    For China, the supply of vaccines follows a similar logic to Beijing’s so-called “mask diplomacy.”

    That strategy saw it provide much needed masks and medical equipment to countries along China’s Belt and Road Initiative — from Africa to Southeast Asia and the Middle East — in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic to deflect anger and criticism over Beijing’s handling of the outbreak and to enhance its soft power.

    In Serbia, the Chinese vaccines have helped the country become an inoculation leader. Good access to injections has also provided Vucic with a useful foil to criticize the EU and the inequalities in global access to vaccines.

    In late January, Vucic compared the global scramble for vaccines with the Titanic disaster. “The world has hit an iceberg, like the Titanic: the rich and the richest only save themselves and their loved ones,” Vucic said. “[The EU countries] have prepared expensive lifeboats for them and those of us who aren’t rich, who are small, like the countries of the Western Balkans — we’re drowning together in the Titanic.”

    “For China, it’s a golden opportunity to embarrass the EU and the West more broadly,” Dimitar Bechev, a fellow at the Institute for Human Science in Vienna, told RFE/RL. “This is a chance for Beijing to burnish its global reputation and further its campaign to replace the West as the backbone of international cooperation.”

    The EU pledged to give the six prospective EU members in the Western Balkans — including Serbia — $85 million to buy vaccines, but deliveries have been delayed.

    The powerful bloc, which buys vaccines on behalf of its 27 member states, has not yet approved the Russian and Chinese injections, even though the manufacturers of the three vaccines being produced in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom are struggling to deliver their promised doses to countries.

    Instead of waiting for EU help, Belgrade moved to get doses from China, Russia, and the United States directly — a strategy that other countries may be looking to follow.

    Beijing was quick to offer support to Serbia after it declared a state of emergency in March after finding itself cut off from access to medical equipment due to EU export restrictions. In what was the first rendition of his recent criticism of the vaccines, Vucic called European solidarity “a fairy tale” and emphasized that only China was willing to offer Serbia a helping hand.

    As with the early days of the pandemic when countries were dealing with a shortage of medical equipment, smaller countries on the EU’s periphery are looking elsewhere for help in acquiring vaccines.

    North Macedonia is currently seeking to buy 200,000 Sinopharm doses in the hope of inoculating its population quickly.

    Bosnia-Herzegovina has received 2,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V, with plans for 200,000 more to arrive in the next month. Montenegro is also expecting 100,000 doses of the Russian vaccines — a significant number for its tiny 625,000 population.

    “Those countries outside the EU are left in the cold and have no other choice,” Bechev said.

    Workers unload containers holding 500,000 doses of China's Sinopharm vaccine from a special Air Serbia flight at Belgrade's airport on February 10.

    Workers unload containers holding 500,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine from a special Air Serbia flight at Belgrade’s airport on February 10.

    At least one EU country, Hungary, is following Serbia’s example by procuring Chinese and Russian vaccines. Budapest unilaterally approved the Sinopharm injection for emergency use on January 29 and has ordered 5 million doses, the first of which arrived on February 16.

    Others may also take the same approach.

    Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has expressed an openness to follow the embrace by Hungary and Serbia of Chinese, Russian, and Western vaccines — visiting Budapest and Belgrade on February 5 and February 10, respectively, to meet with leaders and discuss their strategies.

    Pandemic Politics

    Serbia’s growing success in its vaccine strategy is a product of a foreign policy that has looked east and west, which was on full display in the vaccine preferences made by members of the Serbian government.

    Prime Minister Brnabic received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine while Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin and parliament speaker Ivica Dacic took Sputnik V. Not to leave anyone out, Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar posed for his shot of China’s Sinopharm. Vucic has also indicated that he would likely roll up his sleeve for the Chinese injection.

    But despite the clear overtones, the Serbian government has insisted its vaccine strategy is not driven by world politics but rather is focused on rolling back a public health emergency.

    “For us, vaccination is not a geopolitical matter. It is a health-care issue,” Brnabic told the BBC in a February 10 interview.

    According to Vuksanovic from the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, Serbia’s embrace of China’s vaccine diplomacy should be seen in the context of the country’s wider foreign policy balancing act. “It is also a way to provoke and leverage the EU to do more,” he said. “The China factor is an important way to extract as much as you can from Beijing, but also to potentially motivate the Europeans to do more.”

    Following Vucic’s criticism of European solidarity and praise for China in March for its “mask diplomacy,” the EU eventually stepped up and delivered medical equipment to Serbia as part of a $112 million aid package.

    But Beijing’s strategy appears to be making gains: Surveys show that China is viewed overwhelmingly positively in the country, showing that its diplomatic efforts during the pandemic have been fruitful.

    The larger question for China is whether it can build upon its foothold in Serbia and make gains elsewhere in Europe.

    Beijing hosted a virtual summit for a bloc of Central and Eastern European countries on February 9 amid growing pushback toward China and its entities in the region.

    Despite being chaired by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the meeting received the lowest level of representation since it was founded in 2012 — with six European states not sending either a prime minister or a president.

    Despite that mild show of disinterest in a major Beijing event, many countries in the region are looking to keep their ties with Beijing intact amid the uncertainty and gridlock in the EU over the vaccines.

    “Even those countries in Eastern Europe who are becoming disillusioned with China still might keep their China card around to play depending on how things shake out,” Vuksanovic said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Duma OKs Bill To Fine Violators Of Controversial ‘Foreign Agents’ Law

    Russian parliament’s lower chamber, the State Duma, has approved in the last reading a bill that envisages fines for those violating the country’s controversial law on “foreign agents.”

    First passed in 2012 and expanded several times since, the law gives authorities the power to brand nongovernmental organizations, human rights groups, news media, and individuals working for organizations deemed to receive foreign funding for political activity as a “foreign agent,” a label that carries pejorative Soviet-era connotations.

    The law subjects these organizations and individuals to bureaucratic scrutiny and spot checks and requires them to attach the “foreign agent” label to their publications. They must also report on their spending and funding.

    According to the bill approved by lawmakers on February 16, failure to attach the “foreign agent” label could lead to fines of up to 2,500 rubles ($34) for individuals and up to 500,000 rubles ($6,800) for entities.

    In addition, organizations branded as “foreign agents” and working without being registered as such could face fines of up to 5 million rubles ($68,000).

    The bill will come into force after parliament’s upper chamber, the Federation Council, approves it and President Vladimir Putin signs it into law.

    The law, among other things, requires certain news organizations that receive foreign funding, including RFE/RL, to label content within Russia as being produced by a “foreign agent.”

    Since early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency, the Kremlin has steadily tightened the screws on independent media. The country is ranked 149th out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kazakh Activist’s Early Release Canceled At Last Moment

    ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Kazakh activist Kenzhebek Abishev, who was jailed for being linked to a political movement founded by a fugitive tycoon, was not released from prison on February 16 as expected.

    On February 1, the Qapshaghai City Court in southern Kazakhstan’s ruled that Abishev can be released on February 16, more than three years early, for good behavior while in prison, a procedure allowed by Kazakh laws.

    However, the Almaty regional prosecutor’s office appealed the ruling at the very last moment, arguing that the 53-year-old activist’s good behavior in custody is not enough to warrant his early release since he still has more than three years to serve.

    Abishev’s lawyer, Gulnara Zhuaspaeva, told RFE/RL that the prosecutor’s appeal was “baseless,” since all inmates are entitled to benefit from early release for good behavior.

    “Abishev was officially praised five times for his good behavior while in the penal colony, he received several letters of thanks from the colony’s administration. His medical condition is also a serious reason for an earlier release,” Zhuaspaeva said, adding that she will continue to fight for her client to be set free ahead of schedule.

    Abishev was sentenced to seven years in prison in December 2018 after he and two other activists were found guilty of planning a “holy war” because they were spreading the ideas of the banned Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) movement. His prison term was later cut by eight months.

    Abishev, whom Kazakh rights groups have recognized as a political prisoner, pleaded not guilty, calling the case against him politically motivated.

    The DVK was founded by Mukhtar Ablyazov, an outspoken critic of the Kazakh government who has been residing in France for several years.

    Ablyazov has been organizing unsanctioned anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan via the Internet in recent years.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran, Russia Start Naval Drill In Indian Ocean

    Iran and Russia have embarked on a joint naval drill in the northern part of the Indian Ocean that they say has been designed to “enhance the security” of maritime trade in the region, Iranian state media reported.

    State television said on February 16 that the exercise dubbed Maritime Security Belt will cover an area of about 17,000 square kilometers and include units from the Iranian Navy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Navy, and the Russian Navy.

    Iranian Rear Admiral Gholamreza Tahani said its purpose was to “enhance the security of international maritime trade, confront maritime piracy and terrorism, and exchange information.”

    The Indian Navy will also join the exercise, in a message of “peace and friendship for neighboring and regional countries,” Tahani said.

    Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that the drill was scheduled to last three days.

    This is the second joint Russian-Iranian naval exercise since December 2019, when the two countries plus China held a drill in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman.

    Iran and China also participated in military exercises held in Russia in September 2020.

    Tehran has been seeking to step up military cooperation with Beijing and Moscow amid tensions with the United States.

    Iran has also increased its military drills in recent weeks as tensions built during the final days of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Tehran is now trying to pressure U.S. President Joe Biden’s new administration to reenter a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

    Last week, the IRGC conducted a ground forces drill in the southwest of Iran near the Iraqi border.

    Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear pact in 2018 and reimposed crushing sanctions on Iran.

    In response to the U.S. moves, which were accompanied by increased tensions between Iran, the United States, and its allies, Tehran has gradually breached parts of the pact saying it is no longer bound by it.

    The Biden administration has expressed willingness to return to compliance with the accord if Iran does, and then work with U.S. allies and partners on a “longer and stronger” agreement, including other issues such as Iran’s missile program and its support for regional proxy forces.

    Iranian officials insist that the United States should make the first move by returning to the agreement, which eased international sanctions in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

    They also say that the country’s missile program and regional policies are off the table.

    With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Homophobic Hate Speech On The Rise In Europe, Says New Report

    An advocacy group says that homophobic language and hate speech against transgender people is on the rise among European politicians and has warned about a backlash against the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people across the continent.

    The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association said in its annual report published on February 16 that politicians in 17 countries in Europe and Central Asia have verbally attacked LGBT people over the past year.

    The report highlighted Poland, where nationalist politicians from the ruling right-wing PiS party have criticized “LGBT ideology” during election campaigns. It also singled out Hungary, where transgender people last year were banned from legally changing gender.

    The situation for LGBT people in Bulgaria and Romania could worsen this year, while in Turkey, ruling-party politicians have repeatedly attacked LGBT people, Evelyne Paradis, the association’s executive director, warned.

    The trend of politicians verbally attacking LGBT people has also been on the rise in countries such as Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, North Macedonia, and Russia, the report said.

    In Belarus and Ukraine, some religious leaders have blamed LGBT people for the coronavirus pandemic. Hate speech on social media has grown in Montenegro, Russia, and Turkey, in traditional media in Ukraine, and is an ongoing issue in Georgia, North Macedonia, and Romania, the group said.

    “There’s growing hate speech specifically targeting trans people and that is being reported more and more across the region….We have grave concerns that it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Paradis said.

    In Central Asia, LGBT rights are stagnating or backsliding in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the report said, adding that in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, “we see windows of opportunity for advancing LGBT rights.”

    The group said the pandemic has caused difficulties for some young LGBT people at home with homophobic families during lockdowns and given openings to politicians who attack gay and trans people as a way to shift attention from economic problems.

    “LGBT communities are amongst the groups that get scapegoated in particular,” said Paradis.

    With reporting by Reuters

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘A Slap In The Face’: Why Pensioners In Belarus Are Protesting

    They could be enjoying a peaceful retirement, but instead they’re taking to the streets and braving police violence. One Belarusian pensioner says that last year’s presidential election was a “slap in the face” for voters because the result was falsified. Another says it was his generation’s fault for first bringing Alyaksandr Lukashenka to power in 1994.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.