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Category: Picks

  • Afghanistan’s Abdullah Pushes Regional Support For Peace Talks In Tajikistan

    DUSHANBE — The chairman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah, has held talks with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and other top officials in the Tajik capital as he looks to drum up regional support for peace talks with the Taliban.

    Abdullah, who is an ethnic Tajik, said on December 22 that he and Rahmon had discussed peace in Afghanistan for two hours, as the country looks forward to a second round of peace talks with militants to end almost two decades of deadly violence in the war-torn country.

    Abdullah, who is on the final day of a two-day visit to Dushanbe, added his side will defend “two of the most important goals of the Afghan people: stability in the country and securing the rights of all of the Afghan people” that have been achieved in the past 19 years.

    Abdullah, along with members of the Loya Jirga, also met with other Tajik officials, government members, and lawmakers.

    Tajikistan’s presidential press service said that Rahmon expressed “his support” for the peace process in Afghanistan and stressed that “constructive results from the peace talks will have a positive impact not only on Afghanistan but for the wider region and the world in general.”

    Last week during an online summit of leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russia-led grouping of several former Soviet republics, Rahmon expressed concerns over a reported concentration of armed militants along the Afghan side of the 1,400-kilometer Tajik-Afghan border.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Thousands Protest As Armenian Opposition Presses For Pashinian To Resign As Prime Minister

    YEREVAN — Thousands of people have poured into the Armenian capital’s main square as the opposition continues its campaign to pressure Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to quit over last month’s cease-fire deal with Azerbaijan.

    The protesters gathered in Republic Square on December 22 and chanted slogans such as, “Nikol, traitor” as riot police guarded the prime minister’s offices nearby.

    Another group of demonstrators walked into another building that houses several government ministries and briefly scuffled with security forces there, while a major highway was reportedly blocked by opposition supporters in the afternoon.

    Leaders of a coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties have vowed to hold daily demonstrations until Pashinian agrees to hand over power to a “transitional” government tasked with organizing snap parliamentary elections within a year.

    Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads

    Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads Photo Gallery:

    Armenia Mourns As Political Unrest Spreads

    Scenes of grief and political upheaval across Armenia through three days of mourning for those killed during the recent conflict with Azerbaijan

    Vazgen Manukian, who has been nominated by the opposition National Salvation Movement to head such a government, urged Armenian armed forces and police to stop carrying out Pashinian’s orders and “join the people.”

    “Switch to our side so that we solve the issue today,” Manukian told the crowd on Republic Square.

    Pashinian earlier on December 22 made clear that he has no intention to leave office and portrayed the anti-government protests as a revolt by the country’s “elites” who had lost their “privileges” when he swept to power amid nationwide protests in 2018.

    The prime minister has come under fire since agreeing to a Moscow-brokered deal with Azerbaijan that took effect on November 10, ending six weeks of fierce fighting in and around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    His opponents want him to quit over what they say was his disastrous handling of the conflict that handed Azerbaijan swaths of territory that ethnic Armenians had controlled since the 1990s.

    They also say Pashinian is uncapable of dealing with the new security challenges Armenia is facing.

    Calls for his resignation have been backed by President Armen Sarkisian, the head of Armenia’s Apostolic Church, as well as other prominent public figures in the country and the Armenian diaspora.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bulldozers Roll Into Georgian Shantytown As Residents Look On

    The authorities in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, have ordered a clampdown on what they say are illegally constructed homes on state-owned land, demolishing over a dozen houses in a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital. Nugzar Aluashvili and his six children live in the settlement and watched as the bulldozers moved in. Their plight caught the attention of their fellow Georgians on social media.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russia Hits EU Officials, Entities With Tit-For-Tat Navalny Sanctions

    Russia says it has expanded its list of European Union officials barred from the country in response to the bloc’s “unacceptable” decision to place travel bans on Russian officials over the poisoning of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny.

    The Foreign Ministry in Moscow “decided to expand the list of representatives of EU member states and institutions who will be denied entry to the Russian Federation,” the ministry said in a statement on December 22, adding that those targeted are held “responsible for promoting anti-Russian sanctions initiatives within the framework of the European Union.”

    It did not name the officials but said it had called in the heads of the diplomatic missions of Germany, France, and Sweden, as well as to the EU delegation in Moscow to inform them of the decision.

    Navalny was airlifted to Germany for treatment in August after collapsing on a plane in Russia.

    Laboratories in Germany, France, and Sweden later concluded that the leading Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent.

    The EU and Britain in mid-October imposed asset freezes and travel bans against six senior Russian officials and a state scientific research center for the “attempted assassination.”

    Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have denied involvement in the poisoning.

    However, on December 21, Navalny released a 49-minute phone call with a Russian agent who was apparently duped into revealing how the country’s Federal Security Service (FSB) committed the attack.

    The agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, inadvertently made the admission during the call with Navalny, who was posing as a high-ranking security official conducting a debriefing on the August attack in the Siberian city of Tomsk.

    During the call, which used software to make it appear it originated from an FSB phone line, Kudryavtsev admits that Russian security officials put the Novichok chemical nerve agent in Navalny’s underwear, expecting it would kill the 44-year-old while on a flight to Moscow from Tomsk.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on December 22 said Navalny’s attempts to “discredit” the FSB will fail.

    Peskov said that the opposition leader is a “sick” man who exhibited clear “traits of megalomania” and has “delusions of persecution.”

    Navalny fell violently ill on the flight shortly after takeoff, prompting the crew to make an emergency landing in the city of Omsk. He was hospitalized for days before being flown to Berlin, where doctors concluded that he had been poisoned with a nerve agent.

    He is still in Germany recovering from the attack.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Senate Approves Law Expanding Scope Of Sanctions To Use Against Belarus

    The U.S. Senate has approved the Belarus Democracy, Human Rights, and Sovereignty Act, expanding the scope of who can be subjected to U.S. sanctions and providing support to independent media.

    U.S. Senator Jim Risch (Republican-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hailed the passage of the act late on December 21 as a sign that U.S. support for a democratic Belarus remains strong.

    “The violent and ongoing crackdown against peaceful citizens protesting [Alyaksandr] Lukashenka’s dictatorial rule in Belarus is unconscionable. The legislation passed today reaffirms U.S. support for the Belarusian people and their desire for a more free and democratic future,” Risch said in the statement.

    The act was approved by the House of Representatives in November and takes force once President Donald Trump signs it.

    According to the document, “the United States should increase its assistance to promote civil society in Belarus” and “appropriations of $11 million each year in 2021 and 2022” will be allocated for that purpose.

    The act also expands the U.S. president’s authority to impose sanctions to include activities surrounding the disputed 2020 Belarusian presidential election and a subsequent government crackdown.

    Belarus has been roiled by nearly daily protests since early August when Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, was declared victor of a presidential election that opposition leaders say was rigged.

    Police have violently cracked down on the demonstrators, with more than 27,000 detentions, according to the United Nations. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

    Protesters continue to call for Lukashenka to resign, an end to the crackdown, the release of political prisoners, and new elections.

    Many of Belarus’s opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, while Lukashenka has refused to negotiate with the opposition.

    The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed sanctions on Lukashenka and his allies, citing election irregularities and the police crackdown.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RFE/RL Investigation: Nazarbaev Relatives Have Invested $785 Million In Luxury Properties In Six Countries

    An RFE/RL investigation shows the relatives of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev have invested nearly $785 million in luxury properties in at least six countries over a 20-year time span.

    The investigation, published on December 22, is not a comprehensive accounting of all the real estate investments made by Nazarbaev’s children, grandchildren, in-laws, or other politically connected Kazakh elite, but for the first time attempts to document and value those investments, some of which have drawn media and legal scrutiny over the years or been the source of controversy.

    SPECIAL REPORT: Big Houses, Deep Pockets

    A luxury hillside villa in Cannes, France, figured into a bitter, multiyear lawsuit between Nazarbaev’s brother, Bolat, and his ex-wife Maira Kurmangalieva, as did posh apartments on New York City’s Wall Street and overlooking Central Park.

    A palatial, ocean-side estate on Spain’s Costa Brava owned by Timur Kulibaev, the husband of Nazarbaev’s second daughter, Dinara, has been a regular source of controversy, as local environmentalists have fought the estate’s efforts to close an access road. Nazarbaev has reportedly visited the property, known as Can Juncadella.

    Several U.K. properties linked to Nazarbaev’s eldest daughter, Darigha, and her son Nurali have been the target of Britain’s National Crime Agency, which charged that the funds used to purchase the properties may have come from illicit sources. A court in April, however, dismissed those allegations.

    Darigha also owns part of a block of townhouses on London’s famous Baker Street, whose acquisition was made using anonymous shell companies.

    The father-in-law of Darigha’s other son, Aisultan, owns a luxury estate southwest of London, near a famous golf course, and hotels in the Czech Republic.

    And Kulibaev’s purchase and renovations of the U.K. mansion once owned by Prince Andrew have drawn scrutiny from British newspapers.

    In Switzerland, Nazarbaev’s second daughter, Dinara, owns two chateau-type mansions on the shores of Lake Geneva.

    And Kulibaev has also been tied to a historic property in Lugano, in southern Switzerland, and a semi-dilapidated spa on a hilltop overlooking the historic Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary.

    Between 1991 and 2019, Nazarbaev was Kazakhstan’s singular political leader, holding an iron grip over the country’s political life and stamping out any rival attempts to challenge him.

    The country’s prosperity grew substantially during that period, fueled by its large oil and gas reserves, but corruption and nepotism in the country became entrenched.

    Anti-corruption activists and Central Asian researchers have said a clan-type system benefiting a narrowing group of elites poses a long-term danger.

    Kazakhstan ranked 113th of 198 countries on Transparency International’s corruption index in 2019 and was 157th on Reporters Without Borders 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Lifestyles Of Kazakhstan’s Rich And Politically Connected

    A villa in Cannes, a Swiss chateau, an entire block in central London: those are just a few of the investments made by relatives of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who resigned in 2019. In an extensive investigation, RFE/RL journalists have documented the vast wealth acquired by the former first family during nearly three decades of Nazarbaev’s rule.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Big Houses, Deep Pockets: The Nazarbaev Family’s Opulent Offshore Real Estate Empire

    GENEVA – In the gentle dawn of Switzerland’s late summer, Lake Geneva’s ripples lap against the properties on the eastern shore in the suburb of Anières, home to diplomats, bankers, and well-to-do Swiss.

    Some of the buildings are understated in their wealth, with slate shingles or mansard roofs or Corinthian columns. Some have gazebos on manicured lawns looking west to the Jura Mountains, or docks where motorboats and kayaks are parked. Many have gates and surveillance cameras to protect from curious passersby.

    And then there’s the property at No. 399 Route D’Hermance: a 3,200-square-meter three-level villa with a butterfly staircase, a 25-meter indoor-outdoor swimming pool, spa, guest quarters, and terraced landscaping.

    In an area known for having some of the most expensive housing in the region, it’s an exceptional property.

    The owner of the estate, according to Swiss property records, is Dinara Kulibaeva, the daughter of Kazakhstan’s longtime ruler, Nursultan Nazarbaev. She and her husband, Timur Kulibaev, who are among Kazakhstan’s wealthiest people, purchased the villa in 2009 for a reported $75 million.

    And they are among several immediate and extended relatives of Nazarbaev who own lavish real estate in the West.

    Over the past two decades, relatives of Nazarbaev have purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in posh real estate in Europe and the United States, a string of high-end properties on luxurious lakesides, amid Manhattan’s skyscrapers, London’s tony suburbs, and overlooking the azure waters of Spain’s Costa Brava.

    A new RFE/RL investigation provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the properties in this sprawling real estate network linked to Nazarbaev’s relatives, including two of his daughters, his grandsons, and his brother.

    The findings are not an exhaustive record of every foreign property owned by a relative of the former Kazakh president, who was officially granted the title “Leader of the Nation” in 2010 and currently serves as chairman of the country’s powerful Security Council and heads its ruling political party.


    Nursultan Nazarbaev

    But they offer an unprecedented window into the scale of the real estate investments by Nazarbaev’s relatives, and how many in close proximity to Kazakhstan’s ruling family ended up with luxury assets in exclusive locations.

    RFE/RL identified at least $785 million in European and U.S. real estate purchases made by Nazarbaev’s family members and their in-laws in six countries over a 20-year span. This figure includes a handful of properties that have since been sold, including multimillion-dollar apartments in the United States bought by Nazarbaev’s brother, Bolat. It does not include a sprawling Spanish estate owned by Kulibaev, for which a purchase price could not be found.

    These acquisitions have been funded by the vast fortunes Nazarbaev’s relatives have amassed in the oil-rich nation’s energy, banking, and other sectors, while at various times also serving in official government posts.

    Nazarbaev’s patronage is widely seen as crucial to the wealth built by his relatives, who have repeatedly and vehemently insisted they are successful businesspeople independent of their family and political connections.

    Prominent among those is Kulibaev, who has been dogged for years by accusations that his wealth, mainly from his work in the oil-and-gas industry, derives from his familial relations. The Financial Times on December 2 said it had uncovered a secret scheme that allegedly channeled tens of millions of dollars from contracts related to a massive gas pipeline to China to Kulibaev. His lawyers denied specifics of the report to the Financial Times and did not respond to queries from RFE/RL.

    Several of these properties documented by RFE/RL have been the subject of legal challenges, including permitting disputes, an acrimonious divorce, and British freezing orders on three London residences that were later overturned by a court.

    The investments in pricey foreign properties also come against the backdrop of the country’s overall increase in national wealth since the Soviet collapse. This increased prosperity has lifted livelihoods for many average Kazakhs — but it has also helped the politically connected elite transform into jet-setting tycoons and fodder for newspaper gossip pages.

    And with 80-year-old Nazarbaev in his twilight, there’s a growing uncertainty about what, and who, will succeed him when he fully departs from Kazakh politics — and what might happen to the fortunes of those closest to him.

    “The system is so brittle. The political economy that Nazarbaev has built, it’s built on one man,” said Kate Mallinson, a London-based consultant and researcher of Central Asian politics.

    His relatives and closest allies have “hedged the bets on the future, not knowing what will happen — and so they’ve had to put assets outside the country,” Mallinson told RFE/RL.

    Yevgeniy Zhovtis, the head of Kazakhstan’s oldest and largest human-rights organization, said “it is hard to separate the government from the [Nazarbaev] family” and “hard to say how it will be in Kazakhstan” after Nazarbaev dies.

    “You cannot rely on protection from the rule of law when you live in such political systems,” Zhovtis said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Very Grim Existence’: Ex-U.S. Marine Whelan Speaks Of Life In Russian Labor Camp

    A former U.S. Marine convicted earlier this year by Russia as a spy has told the BBC of his “very, very grim existence” as he prepares to spend Christmas alongside murderers and thieves in a labor camp.

    “I get up in the morning and try to be as positive as I can,” Paul Whelan told the BBC from Correctional Colony No. 17 in the region of Mordovia, some 350 kilometers east of Moscow.

    The 50-year-old Whelan, giving his first detailed interview since his arrest in December 2018, said he was spending his days sewing prison uniforms in the camp “workhouse” and is taking “one day at a time” — not focusing on his 16-year sentence on espionage charges that he has always rejected.

    Prison guards are waking him at night every two hours to take his photograph, he said.

    Part of the camp has also been quarantined for a suspected coronavirus outbreak.

    “I’m being patient and waiting. I’m not the only pebble on the beach, I know. But I also don’t want to be here too long,” Whelan said. “They’ve abducted a tourist. And I want to come home, see my family, and live my life.”

    Whelan, who also holds British, Canadian, and Irish passports, is a former U.S. Marine who worked global security at a U.S.-based supplier of automotive parts and components.

    He was arrested in Moscow and sentenced in June after prosecutors claimed that a flash memory stick found in his possession contained classified information.

    Whelan has insisted he had come to Russia to attend a wedding and that he was framed when he took the memory stick from an acquaintance, thinking it contained holiday photos.

    The United States has rejected the spy case as “outrageous.”

    Whelan told the BBC that the entire “ludicrous” case against him was based on the testimony of a Russian friend.

    “The story was that the [U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency] sent me to Moscow to pick up a flash drive with the names and photos of students from the border guard school,” Whelan said.

    He had supposedly paid for the secret data by wire transfer four months earlier, but Whelan said that money was a loan so his friend could buy his wife a new phone.

    Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) “just came up with a random story that doesn’t make any sense,” Whelan said, adding that no concrete evidence was ever presented.

    The court hearings in Whelan’s case were closed, and defense lawyers here have to sign a nondisclosure agreement in spy trials.

    With reporting by the BBC

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Reprisal Murders Targeting Journalists Doubled In 2020, New Report Finds

    The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says 21 journalists worldwide were singled out for murder in reprisal for their work in 2020, more than double the previous year’s figure of 10.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Wife Of Jailed Azerbaijani Banker Loses Final Appeal Against Britain’s ‘Unexplained Wealth Order’

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Senators Urge Response To Cyberattack Blamed On Russian Hackers

    Two U.S. senators say the United States must respond to a widespread cyberattack that U.S. officials say was carried out by Russian hackers who managed to break into the computer networks of multiple U.S. government agencies.

    Senator Mitt Romney (Republican-Utah) said the intrusion “demands a response” and what would be expected is a “cyber-response.” But he said he was not sure the United States had the “capability to do that in a way that would be of the same scale or even a greater scale than Russia has applied to us.”

    Speaking on December 20 on U.S. broadcaster NBC, Romney also said he was disappointed in President Donald Trump’s reaction to the data breach.

    In his first public comments on the incident, Trump on December 19 downplayed the seriousness and impact of the intrusion and cast doubt on whether Russia was to blame.

    Romney said Trump “has a blind spot when it comes to Russia” and doesn’t want to recognize Russia as the “extraordinarily bad actor they are on the world stage.”

    He added that Russia goes against the United States “on every front” and the administration has “not been serious enough about how damaging an adversary Russia can be.”

    ‘Russia Acted With Impunity’

    Romney said experts on U.S. cybersecurity have determined that the intrusion came from Russia and was very serious and damaging, noting that the hackers got into the agency that’s responsible for U.S. nuclear capacity and research into nuclear weapons.

    He also called for a “rethink” at the Department of Defense and other agencies about U.S. cybercabilities — offensive and defensive.

    “What this invasion underscores is that Russia acted with impunity,” Romney said. “They didn’t fear what we would be able to do from a cybercapacity. They didn’t think that our defenses were particularly adequate and they apparently didn’t think that we would respond in a very aggressive way.”

    Trump’s response to the cyberattack came in a tweet in which he said it was “far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality” and indicated that the perpetrators may be the Chinese.

    The assertion ran counter to comments by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said in an interview on December 18 that the United States “can say pretty clearly” that it was the Russians.

    The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

    U.S. Senator Mark Warner (file photo)

    U.S. Senator Mark Warner (file photo)

    U.S. Senator Mark Warner (Democrat-Virginia) said on December 20 on ABC that the hack could still be going on and that officials had yet to determine its full scope. He backed Romney’s call for retaliation, but he called the hack an invasion “in that gray area between espionage and an attack.”

    Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Washington needed to make clear to adversaries “that if you take this kind of action we and others will strike back.”

    President-elect Joe Biden is deliberating how to respond, incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain said.

    “It’s not just sanctions, it’s steps and things we could do to degrade the capacity of foreign actors to engage in these attacks,” he said on CBS.

    But he cautioned that there were still “a lot of unanswered questions about the purpose, nature, and extent of these specific attacks.”

    Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, NBC, CBS, ABC, and The Washington Post

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iconic Bosnian City Holds First Local Polls In 12 Years

    Ballots were cast on December 20 in local elections in Mostar, a historic city in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Among early voters was Irma Baralija, a local politician who has won a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights against the Bosnian state for failing to hold municipal polls in Mostar. Disputes over the city’s power-sharing structure had been stuck in a stalemate since 2008.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Demonstrators Rally In Belarus Demanding Lukashenka Step Down

    Demonstrators marched in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, on December 20, calling on strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka to step down.

    Belarus has been roiled by nearly daily protests since early August when Lukashenka was declared victor of a presidential election that opposition leaders said was flawed.

    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.

    Police have violently cracked down on the postelection protests, with more than 27,000 detentions, according to the United Nations. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

    Many of Belarus’s opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, while Lukashenka, who has ruled the country with an iron fist for almost three decades, has refused to negotiate with the opposition.

    The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote, and imposed sanctions on Lukashenka and his allies, citing election rigging and the police crackdown.

    Crowd numbers at protests in Minsk and elsewhere have dropped amid fatigue, repression, and the cold weather. Protests organizers have also switched tactics, calling for smaller gatherings to evade arrest and stretch the riot police.

    On December 20, small marches were reported in several districts of Minsk, according to RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, with many carrying the opposition’s red-and-white flag or banners.

    So far, there have been no reports of demonstrators being detained by riot police.

    Small marches and rallies were also reported on December 19 in Minsk and elsewhere, including the western city of Hrodna.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Mostar Holds First Local Elections In 12 Years

    Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ethnically divided southern city of Mostar is holding its first local election in 12 years on December 20, amid concerns that a surge in coronavirus infections could keep many voters away.

    Thirty-five city councilors will be elected under the city’s new election rules. Those city councilors will then vote to determine Mostar’s next mayor.

    Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time and will close 7 p.m. Preliminary results are expected around midnight.

    The number of coronavirus cases and related deaths in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been rising sharply in recent weeks, with health authorities now reporting over 105,000 infections, including more than 3,600 fatalities.

    In order to mitigate the risk of infection, voters at polling stations are required to observe strict physical distancing, wear face masks, and wash their hands. Voter temperatures are also being taken and polling stations are regularly disinfected.

    Local elections were held on November 15 across the rest of the country, with opposition parties winning contests in the Balkan country’s two largest cities.

    The results dealt a blow to long-ruling nationalists amid a wave of dissatisfaction with the handling the coronavirus pandemic.

    Bridging The Divide? Local Elections In Mostar Aim To End Years Of Impasse

    Bridging The Divide? Local Elections In Mostar Aim To End Years Of Impasse Photo Gallery:

    Bridging The Divide? Local Elections In Mostar Aim To End Years Of Impasse

    After 12 years of dysfunctional democracy, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s iconic city of Mostar is preparing for local elections.

    The long-delayed vote in Mostar came after Bosnia-Herzegovina’s main Bosniak and Croat parties in June reached a last-minute agreement on a new statute for the city.

    The deal was signed by Bakir Izetbegovic and Dragan Covic, the leaders of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), respectively, following lengthy negotiations on the issue.

    Mostar has not held municipal polls since 2008 because of the authorities’ failure to enforce a 2010 ruling by the Bosnia’s Constitutional Court that said the city’s power-sharing structure was unconstitutional and needed reform.

    Ljubo Beslic, of the HDZ, has served as mayor of Mostar without a mandate since his term expired in 2013.

    Last October, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Bosnia for its failure to change its election law and enable municipal elections in Mostar.

    Mostar is a city of 100,000 people with a divided population, comprising mostly Catholic Bosnian Croats in its west and mainly Muslim Bosniaks in its east.

    Bosnia’s Croats and Bosniaks were allied against ethnic Serbs during much of the 1992-95 Bosnian War. But the two communities also fought fierce battles over Mostar and other areas.

    The city has reflected a tense situation throughout the country after the Dayton peace accord of 1995, which left Bosnia divided into two autonomous regions — the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the mainly ethnic Serb Republika Srpska — united under a weak central government in Sarajevo.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Southeast Europe Hit By Traffic Jams Despite COVID-19 Travel Restrictions

    Despite travel restrictions, huge traffic jams have been reported on the borders between Slovenia and Croatia as well as Hungary and Serbia.

    Reports on December 19 spoke of thousands of people waiting for hours to cross.

    Many people from countries like Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia work and live in Western Europe. They traditionally travel home by car for holidays, both in the winter and in the summer.

    Some European Union nations with big migrant worker communities have imposed obligatory coronavirus tests and isolation upon their return, hoping to dissuade people from holiday travel to countries with high infection rates.

    Countries throughout the Balkans have reported thousands of new virus infections daily and hospitals across the region are full.

    Aside from the regular holiday traffic, the current border rush could be linked to Serbia’s decision to demand mandatory negative coronavirus tests for foreigners coming in starting on December 21. Serbian citizens without negative tests will have to isolate for 10 days upon arrival.

    Croatia, a member of the EU, is also demanding mandatory negative virus tests for its citizens coming in from abroad, which has slowed down the usual border checks.

    The Croatian state television station, HRT, reported on December 19 that lines of cars had formed on Croatia’s borders with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.

    Serbia’s RTS television said travelers waited for at least four hours to enter Hungary overnight. It said some 16,000 people had entered Serbia in the previous 24 hours.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Armenian Prime Minister Heckled During March To Mourn War Victims

    Thousands of Armenians marched through the capital, Yerevan, on December 19 to commemorate the soldiers killed in a six-week conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in which Azerbaijan made significant territorial gains. The conflict and the fatalities on the Armenian side have increased pressure on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian who is facing calls to resign after being accused by the opposition of mishandling the conflict by accepting a Russian-brokered cease-fire last month. Pashinian led the march to the Erablur military cemetery on the first of three days of mourning. Although he was flanked by his supporters, shouts of “Nikol is a traitor!” could be heard along the way and outside the cemetery.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Protests Continue In Belarus Demanding End To Authoritarian Lukashenka Rule

    People marched and rallied in Minsk and elsewhere in Belarus on December 19 as demonstrations demanding that Alyaksandr Lukashenka step down entered day 133.

    Belarus has been rocked by protests since August 9 when Lukashenka, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of the country’s presidential election, a vote many Belarusians and others charge was rigged and actually won by opposition challenger Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

    Since then, some 28,000 Belarusians have been detained, hundreds beaten on the streets and in detention — with many cases considered torture — and several killed in the regime’s crackdown.

    The United States and European Union refuse to recognize Lukashenka, 66, as the legitimate ruler and have slapped sanctions on him and other officials held responsible for the voter fraud and post-election crackdown.

    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.

    Tsikhanouskaya, who left for Lithuania shortly after the election amid threats to her and her family, has become the face of the Belarusian protests abroad.

    Crowd numbers at protests in Minsk and elsewhere have dropped amid fatigue, repression, and the cold weather. Protests organizers have also switched tactics, calling for smaller gatherings to evade arrest and stretch the riot police.

    On December 19, small marches were reported in several districts of Minsk, RFE/RL’s Belarus Service reported, with many carrying the opposition’s red-and-white flag or banners.

    Small marches and rallies were also reported elsewhere, including the western city of Hrodna.

    So far, there have been no reports of demonstrators being detained by riot police.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • UN Agency Pushes Back Closure Deadline On Overfilled Bosnian Migrant Camp

    The UN’s top agency on migration has further postponed, for at least two days, the closure of a major camp for thousands of migrants in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina where international watchdogs have warned that a humanitarian disaster is unfolding.

    The International Organization for Migration (IOM) told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service on December 19 that a weekend deadline to shut down the Lipa reception facility was moved to December 21 after a request from the relevant Bosnian authorities.

    It had already been moved back once.

    There are estimated to be up to 10,000 migrants in Bosnia, a quarter of whom sleep rough in the woods, abandoned buildings, or by roadsides.

    The IOM, which oversees all migrant facilities in Bosnia, stopped funding the Lipa facility earlier this month because it said authorities had failed to ensure the necessary conditions to make it suitable for winter.

    Many migrants in Bosnia have been living rough rather than in reception camps. (file photo)

    Many migrants in Bosnia have been living rough rather than in reception camps. (file photo)

    In October, authorities 75 kilometers away in the town of Bihac closed a migrant center there and moved hundreds of people to the already full Lipa camp.

    The Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic warned in a letter to Bosnian officials on December 11 that a lack of action and coordination between the country’s various governments risks having grave consequences for migrants and asylum seekers left without housing, food, and medical care.

    Bosnia’s Council of Ministers — the executive branch of an ethnically divided governing structure imposed to stop an ethnically fueled war 25 years ago — is responsible for a final decision on finding accommodation for around 1,200 migrants at the Lipa camp.

    Bosnia has become a transit route for migrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa since European Union countries shut their borders to new arrivals in 2015, but it has few resources to provide for the inflow.

    Many have made their way to Bosnia’s northwest hoping to cross into EU member Croatia to the west.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russia To ‘Return’ Icon Gifted To Lavrov In Balkans Amid Signs It’s Stolen Ukrainian Heritage

    Russia announced on December 19 that it is returning a centuries-old Orthodox icon that was given to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a visit this week to the Balkans after revelations that it might have been a protected cultural treasure stolen from Ukraine.

    The embarrassing episode began when Milorad Dodik, the Republika Srpska representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency, presented Moscow’s top diplomat with the artwork on December 14.

    “The icon will be returned to its donors for further clarification on its history via Interpol,” the Russian Foreign Ministry told journalists five days later.

    A shared image of the artifact and its seal had suggested it might be from the Ukrainian city of Luhansk, which has been mostly controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

    Its seal appeared to clearly state that it was Ukrainian “cultural heritage” under protection of authorities in the Odesa region.

    The Ukrainian Embassy in Sarajevo quickly sent a letter to the Bosnian Foreign Ministry demanding a “public, immediate, and unambiguous denial by the state leadership” of the reports that suggested it had possessed or transferred an important cultural, historic, and religious artefact originating in Ukraine.

    The Bosnian ministry redirected the Ukrainian request to the Bosnian Presidency, which is a frequently awkward, ethnically based power-sharing arrangement stemming from the Dayton Agreement to end the Bosnian War in 1995.

    Problematic Visit

    Bosnian Serb leader Dodik has repeatedly threatened to try and secure independence for the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, which along with the Bosniak and Croat federation composes Bosnia.

    Lavrov’s visit this week proved problematic in other ways, too.

    He cut out planned events after the Bosniak and Croat members of the Bosnian Presidency declined to meet with him over his choice to begin his visit on December 14 at Dodik’s offices outside Sarajeva and because of Lavrov’s reported suggestion that the Dayton terms should remain in place. He also was said to have supported Dodik’s rejection of Bosnia’s NATO aspirations.

    The statements were seen by joint presidents Sefik Dzaferovic, a Bosnian Muslim, and Zeljko Komsic, a Croat, as “disrespectful” toward Bosnia.

    The Dayton agreement, which turned 25 last week, salvaged Bosnia’s statehood and saved many lives by ending bitter fighting between Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs.

    But its ethnically based divisions and decentralization of power parceled up authority normally vested in a central government.

    Republika Srpska’s threats to secede from Bosnia and Serbia’s reluctance to recognize its former province of Kosovo as an independent country are two of the key issues hindering some Balkan countries’ ambitions to join the European Union and, in some cases, NATO, along with rampant corruption and threats to the rule of law.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Media Watchdog Calls For Release Of Turkmen Reportedly Jailed For Online Photo Post

    Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on December 18 urged the OSCE’s new representative on freedom of the media to press for the release of a journalist jailed in Turkmenistan for posting a photo on a news website.

    Nurgeldy Halikov’s conviction “exemplifies the absurdity of the trumped-up charges used by the authorities to gag the free press’s few remaining representatives. He risks being tortured in prison,” Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said in a statement on December 18.

    Turkmen.news, a website based in the Netherlands for which Halikov works, reported earlier this week that its editors had learned that the journalist was found guilty of fraud and handed the prison sentence in mid-September.

    The 26-year-old Halikov has been in custody since July 13, a day after he reposted a photo of a visiting World Health Organization delegation on Turkmen.news, which specializes in covering human rights in Turkmenistan.

    The delegation was in Turkmenistan to evaluate the possible spread of COVID-19 in the country, where officials have insisted that there are no coronavirus cases.

    Turkmenistan is led by authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who heads one of the world’s most oppressive governments.

    Halikov’s family had been reluctant to talk about the case amid hopes — ultimately dashed — that he would be amnestied on International Day of Neutrality, which is celebrated on December 12.

    “Turkmenistan is a black hole for news and information. The media are completely controlled by the state and few journalists take the risk of doing independent reporting,” according to Cavelier.

    “We urge the authorities to free him at once and we ask Teresa Ribeiro, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s representative on freedom of the media, to firmly condemn his arbitrary detention,” he said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Shots Ring Out: On The Front Line In A Divided Karabakh Village

    TAGHAVARD, Nagorno-Karabakh — The war in Nagorno-Karabakh may be over, but the gunfights are not.

    The village of Taghavard lies at the end of a winding road 45 minutes southeast of Stepanakert, the main city in Nagorno-Karabakh and the capital of the ethnic Armenians’ self-declared Republic of Artsakh.

    Taghavard is a sprawling place that had about 1,300 inhabitants before the war started in September. The rickety village’s houses stretch out for 4 kilometers along either side of the main road that defines the hamlet.

    Before one has traveled even half that distance, however, the tranquil rural scenery is interrupted.

    The road is suddenly cut off by a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the “Artsakh Defense Army” (as the self-proclaimed republic’s armed forces are known), and a sign indicating a minefield ahead.

    Just beyond the checkpoint lies the other half of the village — and the Azerbaijani soldiers who control it.

    “On October 27, a huge number of Azerbaijani soldiers entered the village,” says Oleg Harutiunian, 61, the mayor of the village. “We couldn’t hold our positions. We had to pull back.”

    Taghavard and its surroundings witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the war. The nearby town of Karmir Shuka changed hands multiple times, as Azerbaijani soldiers entered the settlement only to be pushed back by spirited counterattacks by the ethnic Armenians (the town is still in Armenian hands).

    Hills just south of Taghavard that are held by Azerbaijani forces.

    Hills just south of Taghavard that are held by Azerbaijani forces.

    While Taghavard itself is nothing special, its position is: it lies astride the axis where Azerbaijani troops punched northwest towards Susa (Shushi in Armenian), the key central Karabakh city which overlooks Stepanakert. Susa’s capture on November 9 effectively marked the end of the war.

    Harutiunian reckons this singular Azerbaijani focus — to take Susa — is what enabled Armenian forces to retain control of the half of Taghavard they still hold. “[Azerbaijan] didn’t want this village,” he says. “They just needed the road to Shushi.”

    The corridor seized by Azerbaijani forces as part of their drive to Susa is indeed quite narrow. Near the entrance to Taghavard one can see an Azerbaijani camp, its blue-red-and-green flag waving conspicuously less than a kilometer away in the fields to the northwest.

    ‘I Could See My Own House On Fire’

    The November 10 truce deal that officially ended the fighting has had little meaning for the people of Taghavard.

    Harutiunian estimates the homes of some 600 of the village’s roughly 1,300 inhabitants are located in the Azerbaijani-held portion of the settlement. Many of them are likely no longer standing.

    “[The Azerbaijanis] burned the houses after they entered [the village],” Harutiunian says. “From over here, I could see my own house on fire.”

    The village head now lives in Stepanakert, from where he commutes to Taghavard daily to work on what’s left of the village.

    Very few of Taghavard’s residents have been able to return. The only people visible on the road or at the village administration are men, volunteers in the local militia.

    Oleg Harutiunian, the mayor of Taghavard

    Oleg Harutiunian, the mayor of Taghavard

    “Almost none of the women and children have been able to come back,” says Harutiunian. “How can they be safe? The Azerbaijanis are right there,” he says, pointing to a hillside barely 500 meters away. Two Azerbaijani soldiers are visible there, standing in front of a ruined building.

    The danger Harutiunian speaks of is not speculative. Several times while talking during his interview, cracks of gunshot can be heard.

    Ethnic Armenian soldiers in the village are billeted in an abandoned house near the checkpoint on the front line. In a brief conversation before their superiors arrive and forbid them from saying more, they confirm that the cease-fire is not holding here.

    “The Azerbaijanis have been firing at us all day,” says Artur, 20. “We have not returned fire but we have suffered casualties.”

    “It’s a sniper war now,” says another young soldier who does not want to give his name.

    Russia’s peacekeeping contingent, stretched thin along a line of contact that extends for roughly 300 kilometers around the remainder of Armenian-held territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, is not present in Taghavard.

    The Russians’ nearest position — a small checkpoint with a dozen soldiers and two BTR infantry fighting vehicles — is more than 5 kilometers away.

    “The Russians aren’t here,” Harutiunian confirms. “I don’t know why. There is just the flag,” he says, gesturing to a Russian tricolor hanging across the middle of the no-man’s-land minefield that marks where Armenian control ends and the Azerbaijani presence begins.

    Confusion reigns over where the lines of control throughout southern Karabakh are supposed to be.

    The tripartite agreement signed on November 10 stipulates in its first clause that both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces “shall stop in their current positions.” But this has not stopped the more numerous and better equipped Azerbaijan troops from attempting to seize additional land.

    On December 12, Azerbaijani troops attacked the villages of Hin Tagher (Kohne Taglar in Azeri) and Khtsaberd (Caylaqqala), two Armenian-held settlements about 30 kilometers south of Stepanakert that were not captured during the war. An estimated 73 ethnic Armenian servicemen were taken prisoner as a result, and the head of Hin Tagher later confirmed that Azerbaijan had taken control of the village.

    Russian peacekeepers were not in the area before the attack. While a contingent of Russians later arrived and negotiations are ongoing over the final status of the villages, the incident poses a major challenge to the effectiveness of the Russian peacekeeping mission.

    Harutiunian, meanwhile, remains confident that negotiations will resolve the situation in his village in Armenia’s favor.

    “I talked to the head of the Martuni region,” he says, referring to the Artsakh “province” to which Taghavard belongs. “He is in close contact with the Russians and he assures me we will get the rest [of the village] back.”

    If this does not occur and the village remains split, it is difficult to see how ethnic Armenian civilians will be able to return to it.

    “Of course no one will live here with the enemy right there,” scoffs Harutiunian. “No one will return to Karmir Shuka either,” he adds, referring to the nearby town of 2,000 prewar inhabitants that was heavily damaged in the fighting.

    Harutiunian’s remark is punctuated but yet another gunshot ringing out in the distance.

    The village of Taghavard appears to merely be part of the latest front line in this more than 30-year old conflict.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Week In Russia: Something Old, Something New, Something Not So Fluffy

    At his annual press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin rehearsed grievances he has aired about Washington and the West since the early years of this century.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Backer Of Kosovar War Veterans Declines To Enter Plea At Hague Hearing

    The deputy leader of an association of Kosovar war veterans declined to enter a plea before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on December 18.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • After Long Delays, Kyrgyzstan Announces New Biometric Passports

    BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan has announced the introduction of long-awaited biometric passports for its citizens — passports embedded with a microchip containing information that can be read and authenticated electronically.

    The move comes after months of speculation that Kyrgyzstan’s inclusion on a U.S. partial travel ban list may have been linked to delays in fully switching to a biometric system.

    The State Registration Service (MKK) in Bishkek said on December 18 that new biometric passports made by a German company — Muhlbauer ID Services GmbH — will be available starting on January 1.

    According to the MKK, the passports will consist of 34 pages and cost citizens just under $5. It says those who frequently travel can obtain a 52-page biometric passport at a cost of about $5.30.

    The White House announced in late January that it was suspending the issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for citizens of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.

    It said the move would not impact nonimmigrant visas for visitors to the United States from the listed countries.

    U.S. officials said the six countries had failed to meet U.S. security and information-sharing standards.

    Without specifying concerns about each country, Washington noted issues ranging from substandard passport technology to the failure of governments to adequately exchange information about terrorist suspects and convicted criminals.

    Weeks before the White House’s announcement, media reports said that the United States was planning a total travel ban against citizens from Kyrgyzstan.

    At the time, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Chyngyz Aidarbekov said the lack of biometric passports could have been the reason Kyrgyzstan was included on the list.

    Kyrgyzstan had planned to start issuing biometric passports in 2019. But the introduction of the technology was delayed after the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (UKMK) canceled the results of a tender on who would produce the documents.

    In February 2019, the MKK announced that a Lithuanian company, Garsu Pasaulis, had won the tender.

    But in April 2019, the UKMK annulled the decision and launched an investigation into alleged irregularities that bolstered the bid by the Lithuanian firm.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Putin’s Press Conference: What He Said And Didn’t Quite Say

    At his year-end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated long-standing complaints about the West and avoided direct answers to several questions, steering clear of even uttering the name of poisoned Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny.

    But he did address that issue and others, including a report that chipped away at the secrecy surrounding his own family, the future of ties with the incoming U.S. administration, and prospects for arms control.

    He also gave a full-throated defense of his man in Chechnya, accused rights abuser Ramzan Kadyrov, and fielded questions ranging from “are we in a new cold war” to “what is the secret of family happiness?”

    Here are some of the most telling — or bewildering — moments in the four and a half hour marathon.

    ‘The Patient In The Berlin Clinic’

    Putin’s appearance before the press corps came three days after a bombshell investigation by the open-source research group Bellingcat about the poisoning in August of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. Among other things, the report — which was done jointly with The Insider, Der Spiegel, and CNN — found that Federal Security Service (FSB) agents with training in chemical weapons and toxins had trailed Navalny to the Siberian city of Tomsk and had tried to poison him at least twice previously.

    After Navalny was medically evacuated from Siberia to Berlin, German authorities identified a substance from the Novichok nerve agent family as being the culprit — a substance similar to one that was created by Soviet scientists and used previously in 2018 in England against former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

    Given how the Kremlin has tried to choreograph these events in the past, it was unclear at the start whether any reporters would be allowed to ask him about it at all. But the opportunity did arise in a question from a reporter with the Kremlin-friendly media outlet Life News.

    WATCH: Putin Responds To Navalny Poisoning Investigation With Baseless Claims Of U.S. Involvement

    As he has in the past, Putin first asserted, without evidence, that Bellingcat was a tool of U.S. intelligence agencies, saying it was “legalizing” information — meaning “laundering” it, airing it out in public through Bellingcat, its partners, and the other media reporting the story.

    “Listen, we know very well what this is…not some investigation, but the legalization of the materials of American special services,” Putin said.

    Putin, as has been his habit for years now, took great pains not to utter Navalny’s name: calling him “the patient in a Berlin clinic” and a “blogger” as he appeared to defend the surveillance of Navalny by Russian authorities in the first place.

    “What, we don’t know that [Western intelligence agencies] are tracking locations? Our intelligence services know this perfectly well: FSB officers and officers of other agencies know it. They use their phones where they deem it unnecessary to conceal their location. And if it’s like that — and it is — it means this patient in a Berlin clinic is enjoying the support of the U.S. intelligence services in this,” Putin said.

    “And if that’s correct, then that’s interesting, then, of course, the [Russian intelligence] services certainly should track him. But that doesn’t mean he needs to be poisoned. Who needs him?”

    Still, he added: “If they wanted to, they would have finished the job.”

    ‘It’s The Entourage That Makes The King’

    In 2016, Putin congratulated Donald Trump on winning the U.S. presidency just hours after polls closed in the United States, and after Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conceded the race.

    This year, Putin waited six weeks to congratulate former Vice President Joe Biden on his victory, waiting instead until the Electoral College had formalized his win.

    The contrast wasn’t missed by anyone. Particularly because during that six-week interval, Putin offered commentary on the U.S. election process, claiming it was flawed.

    Now Putin and the Kremlin are bracing for a Biden administration that is expected to take a far harder approach in its relations with Moscow.

    Asked how he expected Moscow would get along with the Biden administration, Putin offered scant praise for Biden, who traveled to Moscow many times over his career as a senator and then as vice president.

    “This depends to a significant degree on the new administration,” Putin said.

    “I’ll repeat once again, he is a very experienced man; he’s been in politics all his life. But, you know, there’s a well-known saying: it’s the entourage that makes the king,” he said.

    Putin also stated again that Moscow was interested in extending the last arms control treaty currently capping the U.S and Russian nuclear arsenals, New START, which expires in February 2021.

    So far, the United States has given mixed messages on the agreement.

    The Trump administration, which pulled out of two other major arms control and arms transparency treaties, initially wanted to bring China into the treaty. But when that appeared unrealistic, it proposed prolonging New START while also capping nonstrategic nuclear weapons, of which Russia has a larger number.

    That was a nonstarter for Moscow, which made an offer to not deploy a class of missiles to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, a bargaining chip that went nowhere.

    At this point, it appears the talks are on hold, given the results of the U.S. presidential election, though Biden has signaled a willingness to extend the treaty without conditions.

    “We’re not expecting any surprises here, but after all, everyone’s heard the statement from the president-elect that it would be reasonable to extend the New START treaty, but let’s see what this leads to in practice,” Putin said.

    Putin, however, also lashed out at the United States for pulling out of an arms pact nearly two decades ago, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. That, he said, had forced Moscow to push forward and develop new weapons, including hypersonic glide missiles.

    Outing Putin’s Daughter

    Putin was asked about a recent investigative report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Russian website iStories about Kirill Shamalov, who purportedly married Putin’s youngest daughter, Yekaterina, in 2013 and proceeded to use his connections to amass a fortune worth billions of dollars within a few years.

    His response was particularly interesting because information about Putin’s daughters has been one of the Kremlin’s most closely guarded secrets throughout his decades in power. Putin rarely speaks of them except in the most general terms.

    Putin responded with a rhetorical question that he proceeded to answer: “Do you know what I noticed immediately? It is constantly written [in the report] ‘the president’s son-in-law.’ But at the end they write ‘former son-in-law.’ That is the first thing. During the entire course of the play, though, they constantly screw into the reader’s mind that he was a ‘son-in-law.’”

    What was missing was any hint of denial that Putin had been related to Shamalov or that the woman he was married to, Yekaterina Tikhonova — who goes by Katerina — is indeed his daughter. Putin’s youngest daughter, Yekaterina, was born on August 31, 1986, in Dresden, East Germany.

    In January 2015, Russian blogger Oleg Kashin identified Tikhonova as Putin’s daughter. Asked about the report at the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “I don’t know who she is.” He added that his job was to “deal with the president, not with his children.”

    Tikhonova is an acrobatic dancer and is the director of a $1.7 billion publicly funded innovation center at Moscow State University. She separated from Shamalov, whose father is a friend of Putin’s and a co-owner of Rossiya Bank, in 2018.

    Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, has been identified as Maria Vorontsova, a medical researcher who has been connected to a $624 million state-funded oncology center that is expected to open near St. Petersburg in 2021.

    Kadyrov’s Got A Friend In Putin

    A journalist from the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya asked Putin about Western allegations of human rights abuses by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, wondering why the West keeps “coming up” with sanctions targeting Kadyrov.

    Putin responded with one of the most full-throated defenses of the Chechen strongman in recent memory. He said that Kadyrov is targeted by the West because he defends “not only the interests of the Chechen people, but of all Russia.” Putin said that Kadyrov accepts the attacks against him “philosophically” and added that many of Putin’s colleagues get offended if they are not targeted by Western sanctions.

    Putin added that he knows Kadyrov “well” and that “his entire life is devoted to Chechnya and the Chechen people.”

    Kadyrov, 44, has been the head of Chechnya since Putin appointed him in 2007. He has been accused by Russian and international rights groups of massive human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnapping, and the persecution of LGBT people.

    He has also been accused of involvement in numerous targeted killings of political and personal opponents both in Russia and abroad.

    None of the allegations has ever been investigated by authorities in Russia.

    Wait, Iceland?!?!?

    One of the odder moments of the spectacle came toward the end of the event when Peskov called on a foreign reporter.

    At that point, a BBC correspondent had been the only other international reporter to get a chance to question Putin. He asked a punchy question of Putin that elicited a punchy Putin response.

    But the second question went to a man who identified himself as Haukur Hauksson from Iceland and proceeded to not ask a question at all.

    “This is a unique event anywhere in the world, when journalists are able to ask leaders questions,” he said. “This is direct democracy.”

    He then wished Putin and his family a happy upcoming New Year, and told Putin that people love him in the West.

    “We sincerely love Russia. It’s only the media of power — BBC, CNN, and others — that blame you for bad things, and also media in Iceland, our channels…. But there is a big war ongoing against you directly. They’re afraid of you. But to say that there is hatred in the West for you, there’s nothing of the sort,” he said.

    It wasn’t immediately clear what media outlet Hauksson represented. Hauksson did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via his Facebook page.

    He has printed columns for a news outlet owned by the St. Petersburg businessman behind the notorious Russian troll factory. In 2018, Hauksson produced a first-person video feature about his long experience living in Russia that was shown on Moscow municipal TV channel Moskva 24.

    Putin responded by saying: “Thank you, I rarely hear such warm words.” He then went on to discuss the United Nations, Russia’s relations with Iceland, and the potential for developing hydroelectric projects.

    Putin then concluded, “The secret of a happy family is love. But it’s no secret. Everyone knows it; this is a universal thing. It must be the basis of all family relations, and, as you’ve mentioned, also international relations, in ties between nations.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Senate Sources Say Trump Pick For Ukraine Ambassador Unlikely To Get Vote

    WASHINGTON — The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote and is therefore unlikely to green-light the Trump administration’s choice of a retired Army lieutenant general to be the next U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to Senate and other sources.

    A failure to vote would leave the naming of someone for a posting that has been vacant for around 18 months to President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.

    Career foreign service officer Marie Yovanovitch was dismissed as the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv in 2019 and later testified to Congress claiming she had been the target of a campaign to discredit her by surrogates of President Donald Trump.

    The White House announced on May 1 that it had nominated Keith Dayton, who currently serves as the senior U.S. defense adviser to Ukraine and as director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany, as Washington’s next ambassador to Kyiv.

    Nominees for ambassadorships must be confirmed by a Senate vote.

    Dayton and Julie Fisher, a career civil servant who was nominated to become the next U.S. ambassador to Belarus, had their Senate confirmation hearings in early August. The Senate approved Fisher’s nomination on December 15.

    But there are currently no plans to vote on Dayton’s appointment before the current congressional session ends later this month, a spokesperson for one senator told RFE/RL.

    “While Dayton wasn’t particularly controversial, there is no point in confirming him this late in the term when Biden will want the opportunity to nominate his own ambassador to Ukraine,” a spokesperson for another senator said.

    A former U.S. career foreign service officer who is still active with Ukraine also predicted Dayton’s nomination would not move forward before Biden’s inauguration on January 20.

    Biden has extensive Ukraine experience, having served as the point man to Kyiv when he was vice president during Barack Obama’s 2009-17 presidency.

    Biden made six trips to Ukraine during his eight years in the White House.

    Though Dayton served four decades in the Army, he is considered a political appointee as he is not a career foreign service officer. Political appointees frequently step down from their ambassadorial posts when a new administration enters the White House.

    Analysts initially expected the 71-year old Dayton to be approved because he possessed significant experience in the former Soviet region, having served as U.S. defense attache in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow before being appointed in 2018 as senior U.S. defense adviser to Ukraine.

    The United States has been without an ambassador to Ukraine since May 2019, when the Trump administration recalled Yovanovitch shortly before alleged efforts to pressure officials in Kyiv into investigating Biden and his son that were at the center of Trump’s impeachment, which concluded with an acquittal by the Senate in February.

    Former Ukrainian Ambassador Bill Taylor served six months as charge d’affaires while the Trump administration sought a replacement until returning to the United States early this year.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Second Pussy Riot Member Punished For Moscow Performance

    A second member of the Russian protest collective Pussy Riot has been punished by a Moscow court for her part in a performance last month.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bridging The Divide? Local Elections In Mostar Aim To End Years Of Impasse

    This is Mostar, a city in southern Bosnia famous for its stone bridge (center right) across the Neretva River.    

    1 This is Mostar, a city in southern Bosnia famous for its stone bridge (center right) across the Neretva River.  
     

    A building scarred by war in central Mostar. Mostar was ravaged by conflict during the early 1990s, culminating in a 1993-1994 war that saw Bosnian Croats fighting mainly Muslim Bosniaks for control of the city.
    2 A building scarred by war in central Mostar.

    Mostar was ravaged by conflict during the early 1990s, culminating in a 1993-1994 war that saw Bosnian Croats fighting mainly Muslim Bosniaks for control of the city.

    A viewpoint above Mostar dominated by a 33-meter high cross. Since the end of the conflict in 1994, Mostar has been divided with Croats mostly living on the west side of the Neretva River (left side of photo) and Bosniaks to the east.    
    3 A viewpoint above Mostar dominated by a 33-meter high cross.

    Since the end of the conflict in 1994, Mostar has been divided with Croats mostly living on the west side of the Neretva River (left side of photo) and Bosniaks to the east.
     
     

    A political poster for upcoming elections in Mostar’s city center.   Mostar is due to hold municipal elections on December 20 after more than 12 years of political impasse that left the city without a functioning local council.  

    4 A political poster for upcoming elections in Mostar’s city center.
     
    Mostar is due to hold municipal elections on December 20 after more than 12 years of political impasse that left the city without a functioning local council.
     

    An elderly couple stop to discuss a political poster in central Mostar.   The breakdown of democracy -- largely due to Bosnia’s complex postwar governing system, a ruling from Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, and political impasse between Bosnian-Croat and Bosniak parties -- has left Mostar’s mayor holding onto the office as “interim mayor” long after his original mandate expired in 2012.

    5 An elderly couple stop to discuss a political poster in central Mostar.
     
    The breakdown of democracy — largely due to Bosnia’s complex postwar governing system, a ruling from Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, and political impasse between Bosnian-Croat and Bosniak parties — has left Mostar’s mayor holding onto the office as “interim mayor” long after his original mandate expired in 2012.

    A woman in Mostar’s Bosniak suburbs bakes rolled Burek, a traditional filled pastry.   Irman, a worker in central Mostar, told RFE/RL he was “excited” to be able to vote in local elections for the first time in more than a decade. He says the most pressing issue after improving the economy is to combat nationalism: “We can’t work on the other side of the city. You might get a simple job as a waiter, but for a better job a lot of the bigger companies want to know if you are Muslim or Croat.”   

    6 A woman in Mostar’s Bosniak suburbs bakes rolled Burek, a traditional filled pastry.
     
    Irman, a worker in central Mostar, told RFE/RL he was “excited” to be able to vote in local elections for the first time in more than a decade. He says the most pressing issue after improving the economy is to combat nationalism: “We can’t work on the other side of the city. You might get a simple job as a waiter, but for a better job a lot of the bigger companies want to know if you are Muslim or Croat.” 
     

    One of several murals on the Bosniak side of Mostar to the “Red Army” -- hard-core supporters of the mostly Bosniak Velez Mostar soccer team.  

    7 One of several murals on the Bosniak side of Mostar to the “Red Army” — hard-core supporters of the mostly Bosniak Velez Mostar soccer team.
     

    A stone at the entrance to Mostar’s iconic Old Bridge references the year when the 16th-century Ottoman structure was destroyed by Croatian fighters. The bridge was rebuilt in the 2000s.  

    8 A stone at the entrance to Mostar’s iconic Old Bridge references the year when the 16th-century Ottoman structure was destroyed by Croatian fighters. The bridge was rebuilt in the 2000s.
     

    Emina Voloder, a candidate in the upcoming elections, says she decided to enter politics for the first time because of the real-world consequences she witnessed from Mostar’s political stagnation. “I left to study in Sarajevo for six years, and when I came back nothing had changed. There are still the same buildings ruined by the war. Last year the rubbish wasn’t being collected and was just piling up on the street.” A dentist by trade, she says: “Just a few people [in local government] are spending the money that belongs to everyone.”
    9 Emina Voloder, a candidate in the upcoming elections, says she decided to enter politics for the first time because of the real-world consequences she witnessed from Mostar’s political stagnation.

    “I left to study in Sarajevo for six years, and when I came back nothing had changed. There are still the same buildings ruined by the war. Last year the rubbish wasn’t being collected and was just piling up on the street.” A dentist by trade, she says: “Just a few people [in local government] are spending the money that belongs to everyone.”

    Two elderly women walk into oncoming traffic around a building damaged by war during the early 1990s.    

    10 Two elderly women walk into oncoming traffic around a building damaged by war during the early 1990s.
     
     

    Cars parked in front of a ruined building near a popular cafe in Mostar’s city center.

    11 Cars parked in front of a ruined building near a popular cafe in Mostar’s city center.

    Shuttered stalls next to Mostar’s old bridge in the early afternoon. The graffiti says "Of all my quirks, I most despise indifference."     Bosnia’s new government will also be tasked with the fixing the enormous damage done to Mostar’s once bustling tourist trade as a result of the COVID pandemic.  

    12 Shuttered stalls next to Mostar’s old bridge in the early afternoon. The graffiti says “Of all my quirks, I most despise indifference.”  
     
    Bosnia’s new government will also be tasked with the fixing the enormous damage done to Mostar’s once bustling tourist trade as a result of the COVID pandemic.
     

    An empty tourist area next to Mostar’s famous bridge.   Enisa Basic, who runs a historic cafe next to the bridge, told RFE/RL her business employed 10 staff last year when it was thriving. She says the lack of tourism due to the pandemic has forced her to fire all of them. She is cautiously optimistic that the winners of the upcoming elections will help businesses like hers survive: “This is a very good city, but the people who have run it just put the money in their own pockets. They don’t care about regular people like me. After the elections, we hope things will change for the better.”    
    13 An empty tourist area next to Mostar’s famous bridge.
     
    Enisa Basic, who runs a historic cafe next to the bridge, told RFE/RL her business employed 10 staff last year when it was thriving. She says the lack of tourism due to the pandemic has forced her to fire all of them. She is cautiously optimistic that the winners of the upcoming elections will help businesses like hers survive: “This is a very good city, but the people who have run it just put the money in their own pockets. They don’t care about regular people like me. After the elections, we hope things will change for the better.”
     
     

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • EU Officially Slaps More Economic Sanctions On Belarus Over Crackdown

    The European Union on December 17 imposed a third round of economic sanctions on dozens of Belarusian individuals and entities over their suspected involvement in a crackdown on ongoing pro-democracy protests.

    The latest round of sanctions was initially announced on December 16 and officially adopted during a meeting the next day of the European Council.

    They include restrictive measures imposed on the head of Belarusian state television, Ivan Eismant, Deputy Prime Minister Anatol Sivak, Information Minister Ihar Lutsky, and 26 other individuals.

    The sanctions package also includes asset freezes on seven Belarusian companies, including arms exporter CJSC Beltechexport.

    The punitive measures follow similar steps in October and last month in which the 27-member bloc slapped asset freezes and visa bans on 55 people, including Alyaksandr Lukashenka, following the violent crackdown on demonstrators in the wake of a presidential election on August 9 that the opposition says was stolen through massive fraud.

    Belarusian authorities have carried out mass arrests, forced expulsions, and jailings, including of senior opposition figures, along with a muzzling of the press that helped fuel a record number of journalist arrests worldwide.

    But weekly protests involving tens of thousands of people have continued in Minsk and many other cities despite the risk from police batons, tear gas, and water cannons.

    Exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who entered the presidential race against Lukashenka after authorities jailed her candidate-husband, this week predicted it was just “a matter of time” until Lukashenka, who has run the country since 1994, steps aside.

    Sivak was sanctioned because in his previous capacity as chairman of the Minsk City Executive Committee, he was responsible for “arbitrary arrests and the ill-treatment, including torture, of peaceful demonstrators as well as intimidation and violence against journalists.”

    Eismant was targeted for “the dissemination of state propaganda in public media” and the firing of striking employees.

    Other people listed include the businessmen Alyaksandr Shakutsin and Mikalay Varabei, who the bloc claims are benefiting from their support for the Lukashenka regime, former health minister and current governor of Hrodna Uladzimer Karanik, and Prosecutor-General Andrey Shved, as well as a number of senior police officers and judges.

    Arms exporter Belechexport is closely associated with the Belarusian Defense Ministry, “benefiting from and supporting the Lukashenka regime, by bringing benefits to the presidential administration,” the EU said.

    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.

    AGAT Electromechanical Plant OJSC was placed on the sanctions list because it is “responsible for implementing the military-technical policy of the state and is subordinate to the Council of Ministers and President of Belarus,” as is the OJSC 140 Repair Plant, which has manufactured transport vehicles and armored vehicles that have been deployed against peaceful demonstrations.

    Another inclusion on the list is VOLAT, a Minsk tractor-wheel plant that Lukashenka visited shortly after the August election. The EU noted that employees of the plant who protested during his visit and went on strike were fired, making the company “responsible for the violation of human rights.”

    Other targeted companies include the real-estate developer Dana Holdings/Dana Astra, which employs Lukashenka’s daughter-in-law Lilia and whose owners the EU says maintain close relations with Lukashenka.

    GHU company, described as “the largest operator on the nonresidential real estate market in Belarus and a supervisor of numerous companies,” is also included, as is LLC Synesis, a tech company.

    LLC Synesis is used both by the Interior Ministry and the Belarusian KGB, being accused of providing “the Belarusian authorities with a surveillance platform, which can search through and analyze video footage and employ facial-recognition software, making the company responsible for the repression of civil society and democratic opposition by the state apparatus in Belarus.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.