This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State, has claimed responsibility for an attack on a popular concert hall in Moscow that killed at least 137. Authorities say gunmen opened fire inside the Crocus City Hall building during a sold-out rock concert and then set part of the venue on fire. More than 100 people were injured in the attack, and many remain in critical condition. Authorities have detained 11 suspects, four of whom, all reportedly citizens of Tajikistan, are charged with terrorism and face life sentences. As more details emerge about the attack, we speak with professor of international affairs at The New School Nina Khrushcheva about the history of Muslim fundamentalist attacks in Russia and Putin’s “unfortunate” decision to ignore Western intelligence warnings about terrorist attacks. We’re also joined by longtime Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker Joshua Yaffa, who details possible motivations for ISIS-K and how Putin is attempting to fit this attack into his narrative opposing Ukraine and the West. “First and foremost, he cares about preserving his own power and the continued stability of his ruling system,” says Yaffa, who explains how Putin tries to control political blowback by equating ISIS-K with any group he opposes, including Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption network and the so-called worldwide LGBT movement. “This is important to understand both in trying to determine how this attack happened in the first place and also what might Putin’s response be moving forward.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Many parts of Ukraine were experiencing blackouts after a massive wave of Russian strikes on March 22 targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, killing at least four people, hitting the country’s largest dam, and temporarily severing a power line at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assault involved 150 drones and missiles and appealed again to Ukraine’s allies to speed up deliveries of critically needed ammunition and weapons systems.
As the full-scale invasion neared the 25-month mark, Zelenskiy aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied recent reports that the United States had demanded that its ally Kyiv stop any attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure as “fictitious information.”
“After two years of full-scale war, no one will dictate to Ukraine the conditions for conducting this war,” Podolyak told the Dozhd TV channel. “Within the framework of international law, Ukraine can ‘degrease’ Russian instruments of war. Fuel is the main tool of warfare. Ukraine will destroy the [Russian] fuel infrastructure.”
The Financial Times quoted anonymous sources as saying that Washington had given “repeated warnings” to Ukraine’s state security service and its military intelligence agency to stop attacking Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure. It said officials cited such attacks’ effect on global oil prices and the risk of retaliation.
The southern Zaporizhzhya region bore the brunt of the Russian assault that hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure particularly hard on March 22, with at least three people killed, including a man and his 8-year-old daughter. There were at least 20 dead and injured, in all.
Ukraine’s state hydropower company, Ukrhydroenerho, said the DniproHES hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper in Zaporizhzhya was hit by two Russian missiles that damaged HPP-2, one of the plant’s two power stations, although there was no immediate risk of a breach.
“There is currently a fire at the dam. Emergency services are working at the site, eliminating the consequences of numerous air strikes,” Ukrhydroenerho said in a statement, adding that the situation at the dam “is under control.”
However, Ihor Syrota, the director of national grid operator Ukrenerho, told RFE/RL that currently it was not known if power station HPP-2 could be repaired.
Transport across the dam has been suspended after a missile struck a trolleybus, killing the 62-year-old driver. The vehicle was not carrying any passengers.
“This night, Russia launched over 60 ‘Shahed’ drones and nearly 90 missiles of various types at Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The world sees the Russian terrorists’ targets as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, and even a trolleybus,” Zelenskiy wrote.
![Devastation In Zaporizhzhya Following Russian Missile Attack]()
Photo Gallery: Devastation In Zaporizhzhya Following Russian Missile Attack
Ukrainian rescuers were combing the wreckage of homes in Zaporizhzhya following a deadly Russian missile strike on March 22.
Ukraine’s power generating company Enerhoatom later said it has repaired a power line at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, Europe’s largest.
“Currently, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP is connected to the unified energy system of Ukraine by two power transmission lines, thanks to which the plant’s own needs are fulfilled,” the state’s nuclear-energy operator wrote on Telegram.
Besides Zaporizhzhya, strikes were also reported in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskiy, Kryviy Rih, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Odesa, and Lviv regions.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been left completely without electricity by intense Russian strikes that also caused water shortages.
“The occupiers carried out more than 15 strikes on energy facilities. The city is virtually completely without light,” Oleh Synyehubov, the head of Kharkiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.
In the Odesa region, more than 50,000 households have been left without electricity, regional officials reported. Odesa, Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port, has been frequently attacked by Russia in recent months.
In the Khmelnitskiy region, the local administration reported that one person had been killed and several wounded during the Russian strikes, without giving details.
![Scenes Of Destruction After Russian Strike Hits Ukrainian Residential Area]()
Photo Gallery: Scenes Of Destruction After Russian Strike Hits Ukrainian Residential Area
Local authorities reported one person had been killed and several wounded during Russian strikes on a residential area in Khmelnitskiy in central Ukraine. RFE/RL journalists were on the scene and captured the aftermath.
Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called it “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy industry in recent times.”
Despite the widespread damage, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the situation remained under control, and there was no need to switch off electricity throughout the country.
“There are problems with the electricity supply in some areas, but in general, the situation in the energy sector is under control, there is no need for blackouts throughout the country,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.
Ukrenerho also said that it was receiving emergency assistance from its European Union neighbors Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Ukraine linked its power grid with that of the EU in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s air force said its air defenses downed 92 of 151 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine by Russia in the overnight attack.
“Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine. ‘Shahed’ drones have no indecision, unlike some politicians. It is critical to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions,” Zelenskiy wrote, appealing to the West to do more for his country.
“Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. These are necessary decisions. Life must be protected from these savages from Moscow.”
Zelenskiy’s message came as EU leaders were wrapping up a summit in Brussels where they discussed ways to speed up ammunition and weapons deliveries for the embattled Ukrainian forces struggling to stave off an increasingly intense assault by more numerous and better-equipped Russian troops.
A critical $60 billion military aid package from the United States, Ukraine’s main backer, remains stuck in the House of Representatives due to Republican opposition, prompting Kyiv to rely more on aid from its European allies.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Many parts of Ukraine were experiencing blackouts after a massive wave of Russian strikes on March 22 targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, killing at least four people, hitting the country’s largest dam, and temporarily severing a power line at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assault involved 150 drones and missiles and appealed again to Ukraine’s allies to speed up deliveries of critically needed ammunition and weapons systems.
As the full-scale invasion neared the 25-month mark, Zelenskiy aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied recent reports that the United States had demanded that its ally Kyiv stop any attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure as “fictitious information.”
“After two years of full-scale war, no one will dictate to Ukraine the conditions for conducting this war,” Podolyak told the Dozhd TV channel. “Within the framework of international law, Ukraine can ‘degrease’ Russian instruments of war. Fuel is the main tool of warfare. Ukraine will destroy the [Russian] fuel infrastructure.”
The Financial Times quoted anonymous sources as saying that Washington had given “repeated warnings” to Ukraine’s state security service and its military intelligence agency to stop attacking Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure. It said officials cited such attacks’ effect on global oil prices and the risk of retaliation.
The southern Zaporizhzhya region bore the brunt of the Russian assault that hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure particularly hard on March 22, with at least three people killed, including a man and his 8-year-old daughter. There were at least 20 dead and injured, in all.
Ukraine’s state hydropower company, Ukrhydroenerho, said the DniproHES hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper in Zaporizhzhya was hit by two Russian missiles that damaged HPP-2, one of the plant’s two power stations, although there was no immediate risk of a breach.
“There is currently a fire at the dam. Emergency services are working at the site, eliminating the consequences of numerous air strikes,” Ukrhydroenerho said in a statement, adding that the situation at the dam “is under control.”
However, Ihor Syrota, the director of national grid operator Ukrenerho, told RFE/RL that currently it was not known if power station HPP-2 could be repaired.
Transport across the dam has been suspended after a missile struck a trolleybus, killing the 62-year-old driver. The vehicle was not carrying any passengers.
“This night, Russia launched over 60 ‘Shahed’ drones and nearly 90 missiles of various types at Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The world sees the Russian terrorists’ targets as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, and even a trolleybus,” Zelenskiy wrote.
![Devastation In Zaporizhzhya Following Russian Missile Attack]()
Photo Gallery: Devastation In Zaporizhzhya Following Russian Missile Attack
Ukrainian rescuers were combing the wreckage of homes in Zaporizhzhya following a deadly Russian missile strike on March 22.
Ukraine’s power generating company Enerhoatom later said it has repaired a power line at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, Europe’s largest.
“Currently, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP is connected to the unified energy system of Ukraine by two power transmission lines, thanks to which the plant’s own needs are fulfilled,” the state’s nuclear-energy operator wrote on Telegram.
Besides Zaporizhzhya, strikes were also reported in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskiy, Kryviy Rih, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Odesa, and Lviv regions.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been left completely without electricity by intense Russian strikes that also caused water shortages.
“The occupiers carried out more than 15 strikes on energy facilities. The city is virtually completely without light,” Oleh Synyehubov, the head of Kharkiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.
In the Odesa region, more than 50,000 households have been left without electricity, regional officials reported. Odesa, Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port, has been frequently attacked by Russia in recent months.
In the Khmelnitskiy region, the local administration reported that one person had been killed and several wounded during the Russian strikes, without giving details.
![Scenes Of Destruction After Russian Strike Hits Ukrainian Residential Area]()
Photo Gallery: Scenes Of Destruction After Russian Strike Hits Ukrainian Residential Area
Local authorities reported one person had been killed and several wounded during Russian strikes on a residential area in Khmelnitskiy in central Ukraine. RFE/RL journalists were on the scene and captured the aftermath.
Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called it “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy industry in recent times.”
Despite the widespread damage, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the situation remained under control, and there was no need to switch off electricity throughout the country.
“There are problems with the electricity supply in some areas, but in general, the situation in the energy sector is under control, there is no need for blackouts throughout the country,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.
Ukrenerho also said that it was receiving emergency assistance from its European Union neighbors Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Ukraine linked its power grid with that of the EU in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s air force said its air defenses downed 92 of 151 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine by Russia in the overnight attack.
“Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine. ‘Shahed’ drones have no indecision, unlike some politicians. It is critical to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions,” Zelenskiy wrote, appealing to the West to do more for his country.
“Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. These are necessary decisions. Life must be protected from these savages from Moscow.”
Zelenskiy’s message came as EU leaders were wrapping up a summit in Brussels where they discussed ways to speed up ammunition and weapons deliveries for the embattled Ukrainian forces struggling to stave off an increasingly intense assault by more numerous and better-equipped Russian troops.
A critical $60 billion military aid package from the United States, Ukraine’s main backer, remains stuck in the House of Representatives due to Republican opposition, prompting Kyiv to rely more on aid from its European allies.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Many parts of Ukraine were experiencing blackouts after a massive wave of Russian strikes on March 22 targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, killing at least four people, hitting the country’s largest dam, and temporarily severing a power line at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assault involved 150 drones and missiles and appealed again to Ukraine’s allies to speed up deliveries of critically needed ammunition and weapons systems.
As the full-scale invasion neared the 25-month mark, Zelenskiy aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied recent reports that the United States had demanded that its ally Kyiv stop any attacks on Russia’s oil infrastructure as “fictitious information.”
“After two years of full-scale war, no one will dictate to Ukraine the conditions for conducting this war,” Podolyak told the Dozhd TV channel. “Within the framework of international law, Ukraine can ‘degrease’ Russian instruments of war. Fuel is the main tool of warfare. Ukraine will destroy the [Russian] fuel infrastructure.”
The Financial Times quoted anonymous sources as saying that Washington had given “repeated warnings” to Ukraine’s state security service and its military intelligence agency to stop attacking Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure. It said officials cited such attacks’ effect on global oil prices and the risk of retaliation.
The southern Zaporizhzhya region bore the brunt of the Russian assault that hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure particularly hard on March 22, with at least three people killed, including a man and his 8-year-old daughter. There were at least 20 dead and injured, in all.
Ukraine’s state hydropower company, Ukrhydroenerho, said the DniproHES hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper in Zaporizhzhya was hit by two Russian missiles that damaged HPP-2, one of the plant’s two power stations, although there was no immediate risk of a breach.
“There is currently a fire at the dam. Emergency services are working at the site, eliminating the consequences of numerous air strikes,” Ukrhydroenerho said in a statement, adding that the situation at the dam “is under control.”
However, Ihor Syrota, the director of national grid operator Ukrenerho, told RFE/RL that currently it was not known if power station HPP-2 could be repaired.
Transport across the dam has been suspended after a missile struck a trolleybus, killing the 62-year-old driver. The vehicle was not carrying any passengers.
“This night, Russia launched over 60 ‘Shahed’ drones and nearly 90 missiles of various types at Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“The world sees the Russian terrorists’ targets as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, and even a trolleybus,” Zelenskiy wrote.
![Devastation In Zaporizhzhya Following Russian Missile Attack]()
Photo Gallery: Devastation In Zaporizhzhya Following Russian Missile Attack
Ukrainian rescuers were combing the wreckage of homes in Zaporizhzhya following a deadly Russian missile strike on March 22.
Ukraine’s power generating company Enerhoatom later said it has repaired a power line at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, Europe’s largest.
“Currently, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP is connected to the unified energy system of Ukraine by two power transmission lines, thanks to which the plant’s own needs are fulfilled,” the state’s nuclear-energy operator wrote on Telegram.
Besides Zaporizhzhya, strikes were also reported in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskiy, Kryviy Rih, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Odesa, and Lviv regions.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been left completely without electricity by intense Russian strikes that also caused water shortages.
“The occupiers carried out more than 15 strikes on energy facilities. The city is virtually completely without light,” Oleh Synyehubov, the head of Kharkiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.
In the Odesa region, more than 50,000 households have been left without electricity, regional officials reported. Odesa, Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port, has been frequently attacked by Russia in recent months.
In the Khmelnitskiy region, the local administration reported that one person had been killed and several wounded during the Russian strikes, without giving details.
![Scenes Of Destruction After Russian Strike Hits Ukrainian Residential Area]()
Photo Gallery: Scenes Of Destruction After Russian Strike Hits Ukrainian Residential Area
Local authorities reported one person had been killed and several wounded during Russian strikes on a residential area in Khmelnitskiy in central Ukraine. RFE/RL journalists were on the scene and captured the aftermath.
Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called it “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy industry in recent times.”
Despite the widespread damage, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the situation remained under control, and there was no need to switch off electricity throughout the country.
“There are problems with the electricity supply in some areas, but in general, the situation in the energy sector is under control, there is no need for blackouts throughout the country,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.
Ukrenerho also said that it was receiving emergency assistance from its European Union neighbors Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Ukraine linked its power grid with that of the EU in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s air force said its air defenses downed 92 of 151 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine by Russia in the overnight attack.
“Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine. ‘Shahed’ drones have no indecision, unlike some politicians. It is critical to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions,” Zelenskiy wrote, appealing to the West to do more for his country.
“Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. These are necessary decisions. Life must be protected from these savages from Moscow.”
Zelenskiy’s message came as EU leaders were wrapping up a summit in Brussels where they discussed ways to speed up ammunition and weapons deliveries for the embattled Ukrainian forces struggling to stave off an increasingly intense assault by more numerous and better-equipped Russian troops.
A critical $60 billion military aid package from the United States, Ukraine’s main backer, remains stuck in the House of Representatives due to Republican opposition, prompting Kyiv to rely more on aid from its European allies.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Russian authorities said at least 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured after gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, on March 22 in an attack reportedly claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
The Baza website quoted unnamed sources as saying the number of dead was at least 62 and could rise, although that report could not be independently confirmed.
The Moscow Regional Health Ministry published a list of names of 145 victims who’d been taken to hospitals. The list includes children.
Hours after the incident began and with Russian media warning the perpetrators were still thought to be at large, Reuters and other agencies said Islamic State had claimed responsibility via its affiliated Telegram channels.
The IS statement said the attackers had “retreated to their bases safely.”
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin leader had been informed “in the first minutes” of the attack and was “constantly receiving information about what’s happening and about measures being taken through all relevant services.”
RIA Novosti has reported that at least three gunmen were involved, while Interfax reported there were at least five attackers. The whereabouts or fate of the attackers was still unclear.
The Investigative Committee of Russia announced it had opened a criminal case.
The New York Times quoted unnamed officials as saying that U.S. intelligence gatherers received information in March that an Afghanistan-based branch of IS known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, was planning an attack in Moscow.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on the international community “to condemn this bloody terrorist attack.”
Shared videos showed attackers storming into the venue before the start of a concert by the musical group Piknik, with at least one firing an assault weapon as they moved through the building.
Russian law enforcement officers stand guard near the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue late on March 22. “According to preliminary information, 40 people were killed and more than 100 were injured as a result of a terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall,” the Federal Security Service (FSB) said.
Later, Russian media said 28 of the injured were in the Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Care in the capital.
An assistant to the head of the Russian Health Ministry said at one point that more than 50 ambulance teams and disaster medicine services were working at the scene.
Interfax reported that the blaze had spread to 12,900 square meters of the building. The roof of the building is said to have partially collapsed.
Shared video showed massive flames and smoke visible from a distance as it poured from the upper floors of the building, which is a popular concert venue in a high-end district on the edge of Moscow.
“A terrible tragedy occurred in the shopping center Crocus City today,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. “I am sorry for the loved ones of the victims.”
Some Telegram and other social media accounts shared accounts of purported eyewitnesses, one of whom reported “shooting from all sides.”
A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on March 22 that Kyiv was not involved and had “never used terrorist methods” as it continues to fight a 2-year-old full-scale Russian invasion. But Mykhaylo Podolyak warned the deadly incident would “contribute to a sharp increase in military propaganda, accelerated militarization, expanded mobilization, and, ultimately, the scaling up of the war.”
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, which has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion for nearly 25 months, quickly alleged — without providing any evidence — that Russia’s own special services had orchestrated it as “a deliberate provocation of the Putin regime” that foreign governments had warned about.
It alleged that the aim was to “further escalate and expand the war.”
Foreign governments were said to have warned Russia in recent weeks of the risk of an incident.
The Crocus City Hall concert venue is seen burning following the attack on March 22. The U.S. Embassy said on March 7 that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”
“The U.S. Embassy in Moscow is horrified by reports coming from the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow,” the U.S. Mission said in a statement. “We offer our sincere condolences to the Russian people for the lives lost and to those injured in tonight’s attack.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said through a spokesperson that he condemns the attack “in the strongest possible terms.” The United States, France, Turkey, Italy, and other countries also condemned the incident.
The European Union said through a spokesman that it was “shocked and appalled by the reports” and that it “condemns any attacks against civilians,” adding, “Our thoughts are with all those Russian citizens affected.”
France’s Foreign Ministry called the images from Moscow “horrifying.”
“Our thoughts go to the victims and to those injured as well as to the Russian people,” the ministry said, addingthat “all effort” must be made to “determine the causes of these heinous acts.”
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the March 22 attack as an “odious act of terrorism.”
With reporting by Reuters
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Russian authorities said at least 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured after gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, on March 22 in an attack reportedly claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
The Baza website quoted unnamed sources as saying the number of dead was at least 62 and could rise, although that report could not be independently confirmed.
The Moscow Regional Health Ministry published a list of names of 145 victims who’d been taken to hospitals. The list includes children.
Hours after the incident began and with Russian media warning the perpetrators were still thought to be at large, Reuters and other agencies said Islamic State had claimed responsibility via its affiliated Telegram channels.
The IS statement said the attackers had “retreated to their bases safely.”
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin leader had been informed “in the first minutes” of the attack and was “constantly receiving information about what’s happening and about measures being taken through all relevant services.”
RIA Novosti has reported that at least three gunmen were involved, while Interfax reported there were at least five attackers. The whereabouts or fate of the attackers was still unclear.
The Investigative Committee of Russia announced it had opened a criminal case.
The New York Times quoted unnamed officials as saying that U.S. intelligence gatherers received information in March that an Afghanistan-based branch of IS known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, was planning an attack in Moscow.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on the international community “to condemn this bloody terrorist attack.”
Shared videos showed attackers storming into the venue before the start of a concert by the musical group Piknik, with at least one firing an assault weapon as they moved through the building.
Russian law enforcement officers stand guard near the burning Crocus City Hall concert venue late on March 22. “According to preliminary information, 40 people were killed and more than 100 were injured as a result of a terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall,” the Federal Security Service (FSB) said.
Later, Russian media said 28 of the injured were in the Sklifosovsky Institute of Emergency Care in the capital.
An assistant to the head of the Russian Health Ministry said at one point that more than 50 ambulance teams and disaster medicine services were working at the scene.
Interfax reported that the blaze had spread to 12,900 square meters of the building. The roof of the building is said to have partially collapsed.
Shared video showed massive flames and smoke visible from a distance as it poured from the upper floors of the building, which is a popular concert venue in a high-end district on the edge of Moscow.
“A terrible tragedy occurred in the shopping center Crocus City today,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. “I am sorry for the loved ones of the victims.”
Some Telegram and other social media accounts shared accounts of purported eyewitnesses, one of whom reported “shooting from all sides.”
A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on March 22 that Kyiv was not involved and had “never used terrorist methods” as it continues to fight a 2-year-old full-scale Russian invasion. But Mykhaylo Podolyak warned the deadly incident would “contribute to a sharp increase in military propaganda, accelerated militarization, expanded mobilization, and, ultimately, the scaling up of the war.”
The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, which has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion for nearly 25 months, quickly alleged — without providing any evidence — that Russia’s own special services had orchestrated it as “a deliberate provocation of the Putin regime” that foreign governments had warned about.
It alleged that the aim was to “further escalate and expand the war.”
Foreign governments were said to have warned Russia in recent weeks of the risk of an incident.
The Crocus City Hall concert venue is seen burning following the attack on March 22. The U.S. Embassy said on March 7 that it was “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”
“The U.S. Embassy in Moscow is horrified by reports coming from the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow,” the U.S. Mission said in a statement. “We offer our sincere condolences to the Russian people for the lives lost and to those injured in tonight’s attack.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said through a spokesperson that he condemns the attack “in the strongest possible terms.” The United States, France, Turkey, Italy, and other countries also condemned the incident.
The European Union said through a spokesman that it was “shocked and appalled by the reports” and that it “condemns any attacks against civilians,” adding, “Our thoughts are with all those Russian citizens affected.”
France’s Foreign Ministry called the images from Moscow “horrifying.”
“Our thoughts go to the victims and to those injured as well as to the Russian people,” the ministry said, addingthat “all effort” must be made to “determine the causes of these heinous acts.”
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the March 22 attack as an “odious act of terrorism.”
With reporting by Reuters
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The US rulers and their national security state foisted two major campaigns of lies on us to win our support for their planned wars. The first that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This bogus story was rejected by the progressive and anti-war movements. The second that Trump colluded with Putin to steal the 2016 election; this, progressives fell for. It remains a shocking example of manipulation of supposedly well-educated progressive people – many of whom do not hesitate to ridicule MAGA people for their bigotry and ignorance.
Russiagate, packaged as a tale of Putin and Trump collusion, was a plot against the government elected by the people. Russiagate, first leaked to the media in mid-2016 by CIA Director Brennan, sought to sabotage a presidential campaign and then delegitimize the Trump presidency. It was an essential tool for legitimizing the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
Yet, no evidence was ever presented that Trump colluded with Putin. No evidence was presented that the Russians hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers. No evidence was presented that any votes in 2016 were switched.
Origin of anti-Russian campaign and the Russiagate Story
In 2014 Washington instigated an anti-Russian coup in Ukraine. Then when Russia aided Syria in the US-provoked “civil war,” Russia bashing intensified. As General Wesley Clark revealed, the US had targeted Syria for overthrow at least since 2001 and was in a favorable position to accomplish this goal until Moscow began significant military aid to Damascus in 2015.
CIA’s Brennan aimed to manipulate the public to prepare for a showdown with Russia. Mike Whitney wrote, “After Putin blocked Brennan’s operations in both Ukraine and Syria, Brennan had every reason to retaliate and to use the tools at his disposal to demonize Putin and try to isolate Russia.” Meanwhile, Trump was gaining ground in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries when he called for US troops to get out Syria and the Middle East and said the “deep state” lied to us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Whitney adds, “It provided him [Brennan] the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, to deliver a withering blow to Putin and Trump at the very same time.”
In Whose Bright Idea Was RussiaGate, Paul Craig Roberts elaborated:
Russiagate was created by CIA director John Brennan. The CIA started what is called Russiagate in order to prevent Trump from being able to normalize relations with Russia. The CIA and the military/security complex need an enemy in order to justify their huge budgets and unaccountable power. Russia has been assigned that role. The Democrats joined in as a way of attacking Trump. They hoped to have him tarnished as cooperating with Russia to steal the presidential election from Hillary and to have him impeached.
Russian expert Stephen Cohen concurred, reporting that Brennan was collecting material for the collusion story in late 2015 or early 2016 and instigated the FBI investigation into the Trump-Putin hoax. “Brennan played a central role in promoting the Russiagate narrative thereafter.” Cohen, in “Russiagate’s ‘Core Narrative’ Has Always Lacked Actual Evidence,” said the story was based on two documents: an “Intelligence Community Assessment” and the Steele dossier, compiled by a retired UK intelligence officer. The core narrative of both claimed Putin intervened in the 2016 presidential campaign to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy to help Trump. Journalist Aaron Mate further detailed CIA Director Brennan’s role as “a prime mover of Russiagate.”
Steele Dossier
“The Dossier” asserted Trump colluded with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton, claiming that Russia hacked the DNC computer servers. Mike Whitney and others point out the Steele Dossier was paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. While the Dossier is now discredited, the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s connections to Russia was launched based on “information” gathered from this paid-for report. Steele “was a former M16 agent who was paid $160,000 for composing the dubious set of reports that make up the dossier. We don’t even know if Steele’s alleged contacts or intermediaries in Russia actually exist or not.”
The “Intelligence Community Assessment” (ICA)
CIA boss Brennan, along with the FBI and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Clapper, finally released the ICA report in January 2017, which concluded that Putin “ordered” a campaign aimed at influencing the election. The Assessment claimed:
“Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order… We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency…We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump…Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards…. We have high confidence in these judgments.”
The Assessment contained no evidence of Russia’s role but asserted Russia’s actions included hacking into the email accounts of the DNC along with intermediaries such as WikiLeaks to release the hacked information.
Stephen Cohen adds, “Clapper subsequently admitted he had personally selected for the ICA analysts from the three agencies, but we still do not know who. No doubt these were analysts who would conform to the ‘core narrative’ of Kremlin-Trump collusion…. the ICA provided almost no facts for its ‘assessment.’”
National Security State Directors Perpetuate their Trump-Putin collusion hoax
CIA’s Brennan deceived Congress and the public by claiming sufficient evidence existed to investigate Trump’s campaign. The BBC 2017 article Ex-CIA chief Brennan says Trump-Russia inquiry ‘well-founded’ stated Brennan “told the House Intelligence Committee he was aware of intelligence showing contact between Russian officials and ‘US persons involved in the Trump campaign’.” Brennan said the Russians ‘brazenly interfered’ in the 2016 US elections and were ‘very aggressive.’”
21st Century Wire reported that Clapper, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), had “leaked information on the ‘Trump dossier’ to CNN’s Jake Tapper, lied about it to Congress, and then was hired by CNN just a few months later.” Clapper later asserted that Putin “knows how to handle an asset and that’s what he’s doing with the President”.
The third national security state boss, FBI Director Comey, proclaimed in Congressional hearings that Putin:
hated Secretary Clinton so much that the flip side of that coin was that he had a clear preference for the person running against the person he hated so much. They engaged in a multifaceted campaign to undermine our democracy. They were unusually loud in their intervention. It’s almost as if they didn’t care that we knew, that they wanted us to see what they were doing. Their number one mission is to undermine the credibility of our entire democracy enterprise of this nation. They’ll be back. They’ll be back, in 2020. They may be back in 2018.
Mike Whitney remarked, “So among his other talents, Comey also knows how to read minds. He knows that Putin hates Hillary and favors Trump. He knows the Russians ‘engaged in a multifaceted campaign to undermine our democracy’, even though he hasn’t produced a lick of proof to verify his claims.”
Whitney adds later, “The FBI made a “concerted effort to conceal information from the court” in order to get a warrant to spy on a member of a rival political campaign. The FBI failed to mention that the dossier was paid for by the Hillary campaign and the DNC.”
The fourth national police state boss, NSA Director Michael Rogers, when asked on November 15, 2016, about the WikiLeaks release of DNC emails during the 2016 presidential campaign, declared, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state [Russia] to attempt to achieve a specific effect.” He added, “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance.”
Thus, the Trump-Putin collusion and Russia hacking story was propagated by the CIA, NSA, FBI, and DNI, the backbone of the national security police state.
The story that Russia “hacked” DNC-Hillary Clinton computers
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity pointed out that the “NSA is able to identify both the sender and recipient when hacking is involved…The bottom line is that the NSA would know where and how any “hacked” emails from the DNC, HRClinton or any other servers were routed through the network.” Given that this hacking was allegedly by a foreign power, which the US considered an enemy, it would make sense to conclude the NSA knew Russia did not do it, but stayed mum.
Instead of asking the NSA or FBI, the DNC hired CrowdStrike to investigate the “hacking” of their computers, despite the claimed significant US national security threat that a foreign power hacked presidential campaign computers to alter the election. CrowdStrike became the only actual source for “information” on the Russian hacking of DNC computers and Russia’s providing the scoop to WikiLeaks. FBI Director Comey never insisted on access to the DNC computers, nor was the FBI given an unredacted report. The only evidence of a hack comes from this company paid by the DNC.
CrowdStrike’s chief technical officer was Dmitri Alperovich, a senior fellow with the Saudi and Rockefeller Foundation funded think tank, the neocon Atlantic Council. It has several former CIA directors on its board and considered to be NATO’s “think tank.”
Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, knew from the head of CrowdStrike, Shawn Henry in December 5, 2017, that CrowdStrike had no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked by Russia or anyone else. However, Schiff kept this from the public until May 7, 2020, two and a half years later.
National Police State Directors admit they made up the Trump-Putin collusion Story
After the 2016 election, the DNI, CIA, NSA, and FBI bosses admitted they made up the collusion story and that the Intelligence Community Assessment they released to the public contained no evidence. CIA boss Brennan when asked on May 23, 2017 in a Congressional hearing into Russian collusion declared, “I don’t do evidence…I don’t know whether such collusion existed.”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted to the House Intelligence Committee on July 17, 2017, “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.” Clapper also owned up, in July 5, 2017 testimony that “17 intelligence agencies” had confirmed Russian interference in the 2016 election has been false all along.
For his part, FBI Director Comey, in Congressional testimony on March 20, 2017, “stated there is no evidence to support collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia.” In a June 8, 2017 hearing, when asked “Are you confident that no votes cast in the 2016 presidential election were altered?” Comey answered, “I’m confident.”
Brennan, Clapper, and Comey, the three chief national security state bosses behind the Russiagate story admitted they made it up, that no evidence substantiates their hoax on the public.
Too many progressives swallow the CIA invented Trump-Putin collusion story
Thus, we have the heads of the national security state police agencies concocting a story to sway a US presidential election and incite anger at Russia. Progressives recognize the NSA, CIA and FBI as enemies of human rights and liberties. Most progressives also view Trump as fascist or “neo-fascist.” But here we have the curiosity of the national police state agencies interfering in a US election to stop a “fascist” from being elected. Progressives might reflect on why they have ended up opposing the same candidate the national security state opposes, how they put themselves in the position of voting for the candidates (Hillary and Biden) that the national security state preferred.
We now have evidence to know the US national security state systematically interfered in a presidential election. They made up a story and convinced most of the US public of it. They even surveilled and wire-tapped members of the presidential campaign they opposed. This testifies to the colossal reach of the national security state over us, their ability to make us believe a falsehood is reality. And get away with it unpunished. It attests to their power over US society that no dared indict them for trying to fix our elections.
That the national police agencies undertook this vast operation against the Republican Party, considered the more reactionary enforcer of the status quo of the two corporate parties, warns us what they have in store when an actual popular revolt against their status quo arises.
Considerable information has existed for some years that the Russiagate hoax was no more true than Saddam Hussein’s WMDs, which few progressives swallowed. The opposite case here. Progressives drank the anti-Trump “Kool-Aid.” A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 90% of Democratic voters bought the Russia interference story compared to 67% of Republican voters. On whether Russia changed the election outcome, 78% of Democratic voters agreed. without evidence ever presented. Ironically, these voters include those who proclaim, “follow the science” and consider the MAGA crowd as uneducated and prejudiced.
Many progressives had just supported Bernie in 2015-16 only to see Hillary Clinton’s dirty tricks snatch the Democratic nomination from him. Yet they welcomed this Clinton/DNC/national security state propagated hoax – the very people they just repudiated; a testimony of how the ruling class can manage consent.
The police state agencies whipped up such a Russiagate hysteria that if you questioned it in a public forum, you were sure to be attacked as being a Putin stooge, disloyal, a MAGA bigot.
This Putin-Trump collusion hoax and consequent hysteria laid the foundation for the later propaganda campaign to provoke the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. And we see in the 2018 poll that Democratic voters were more welcoming of aggressive action. Likewise, a poll revealed ten months into the Ukraine war that, “33% of Republicans agreed with that prolonged support, compared to 61% of Democrats and 46% of independents.” Remarkedly, Democratic voters have become more war-friendly.
In addition, Russiagate gave impetus to the campaign of smearing independent, anti-war media as agents of Russian disinformation. Even articles in progressive media such as Counterpunch propagated this nonsense, labeling those who did not support the US attempts to overthrow the Syrian government or defend the Ukrainian coup regime as “Assadists” and “Putinists.” This shows the continuing threat to the anti-war movement, given that US national security police state disinformation operations still hold considerable sway, permitting them to repress and marginalize voices for peace more easily.
The post The Russiagate Hoax illustrates the Power the National Security Police State first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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New York, March 22, 2024—Russian authorities must reconsider their decision to not renew the visa of Spanish journalist Xavier Colás and allow him to work freely in the country, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
On Wednesday, Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo reported that Russian authorities refused to renew Colás’ visa, the outlet’s longtime correspondent in Moscow, and gave him 24 hours to leave Russia after working in the country for 12 years.
“The hasty and unceremonious treatment Spanish journalist Xavier Colás received when being expelled from Russia demonstrates how keen the Russian authorities are to silence independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Russian authorities should renew Colás’ visa and let him return and work in the country unless they are afraid of journalists.”
According to the outlet, late on Tuesday, March 19, a Russian official told Colás when he went to collect his visa that he would “have problems” if he did not leave before his visa expired. The journalist left Russia the next day, according to media reports.
“It’s hard to suddenly put 12 years of your life in three suitcases overnight and close the door knowing that that apartment will also be forbidden territory for you the next day,” Colás told El Mundo.
In a Twitter post, Colás wrote that the refusal to renew his visa happened “at the last minute.”
He added, “I don’t regret anything. I have simply done my job: I have told what is happening, I have talked to the people who are suffering because of it, and I have explained who is responsible for what is happening.”
Colás, who recently reported on presidential elections in Russia, has also been covering the war in Ukraine. In February, he published Putinistan, a book critical of Putin’s regime.
“The refusal to renew a journalist’s visa is one of the usual tools used by certain regimes to harm freedom of expression and prevent international coverage with autocracies such as Vladimir Putin’s, obsessed with controlling information,” El Mundo said, adding that Colás had remained in Moscow “to date” and “despite the regime’s hostility toward independent journalism.”
Russia tightened visa and accreditation rules for foreign correspondents after its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with renewals required every three months, rather than once a year as previously required, according to mediareports.
Russia has a history of expelling foreign reporters, including The Guardian’s Luke Harding in 2011 and the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford and Tom Vennink of the Dutch daily de Volkskrant in 2021. Since the start of Ukraine’s full-scale invasion, Russian authorities have failed to renew the visas and accreditations of Finnish journalists Arja Paananen and Anna-Lena Laurén, and of Dutch journalist Eva Hartog.
In March 2023, The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges, the first American journalist to face such accusations by Russia since the end of the Cold War. Russia has also detained Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S-Russian dual citizen and an editor with the Tatar-Bashkir service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) since October 2023 on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army.
CPJ emailed the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment but did not receive any reply.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The post Putin Officially Declared Russia’s President-elect first appeared on Dissident Voice.Vladimir Putin has won a landslide victory in the presidential election, Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has officially announced. The inauguration of the president-elect is scheduled for May 7.
The CEC head, Ella Pamfilova, revealed on Thursday that more than 76.2 million Russian voters cast ballots for Putin, giving him 87.28% of the vote.
Meanwhile, Putin’s opponents in the race, Communist Party candidate Nikolay Kharitonov, Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democrats, received 4.31%, 3.85%, and 3.2%, respectively, Pamfilova added.
Russia has a total of 112 million eligible voters out of a total population of 146.2 million people, according to official data. The last figure, however, does not take into account the four former Ukrainian territories that joined Russia in the fall of 2022.
The presidential election in Russia, held between March 15 and 17, was marked by record-high voter turnout, surpassing 77%.
A KGB agent during the Soviet era, Putin was first elected president in 2000, remaining in office for two four-year terms until 2008. Between 2008 and 2012, he served as prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev.
During Medvedev’s tenure, the Russian constitution was amended to extend the presidential term from four to six years. Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 and was reelected in 2018. A constitutional reform in 2020 established a two-term limit but “nullified” Putin’s previous terms, enabling him to run once more for the highest office.
The inauguration of the president-elect is scheduled for early May, to coincide with the resignation of the Russian government. The constitutional deadline for forming a new government is one month.
On Thursday, Putin thanked all those who went to the polling stations regardless of what candidate they voted for, adding that the election showed that Russia is “one big and tightly-knit family.”
He also noted that the results “demand even more commitment and efficiency” from him and his team, promising to do his best to meet public expectations.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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…What we see at work is not an expression of the sentiments of the American people; rather it reflects the will of a powerful minority which uses its economic power to control the organs of political life.
— Albert Einstein, Einstein on Peace, p. 343.
We entered the massive marketplace labeled “our democracy” as always long before any election and at this date hundreds of millions have already been spent both officially and off the books to insure that ruling power maintains control over American capitalism no matter who or what may be elected sheriff, mayor, animal control officer or president of the United States. Given that, the spending and consciousness brutality have already exceeded past experience and, as befitting a system verging on complete collapse and involving much more of humanity than American voters, the time for global as well as national focus on the status of an American empire making more people rich than ever before while making multitudes far more poor and continuing mass murders in other subject nations is not only at hand but at all parts of the international political economic organism.
As the fading rulers of western capitalism act more like a crazed rat on a sinking ship but instead of leaping into the deeps it promotes the entire world into more warfare, mass murder, incredible profits for those who feed on bloodshed and a mental condition that might make homicidal maniacs seem critically thinking human beings, the natural and especially political environmental reality approaches the worst fantasy of religious fanatics: eternal damnation in the fires of hell. This joyful futuristic vision was born of a brilliant past that might make the present seem docile since none of the modern weapons existed in biblical times when spears, lances and demented religious leaders operated as ruling wealth as opposed to the lethally armed with weapons of mass murder political and media servants of rulers do today.
The continuing since 1917 American imperial attacks on Russia have reached a point in the current war using Ukrainians to kill Russians while they die by the thousands with no hope of winning and American and foreign munitions makers make billions. Various of the NATO lapdog leaders sound even more crazed than Americans and urge broadening of the war to stop the eternal threat of Russia which exists in their fevered minds, said fever having been planted by America since the end of the second world war.
Meanwhile, the center of global anti-Semitism, Israel, has exploded as never before with such bloody horror that many of the innocent and previously comatose have awakened and expressed anger and hostility about a situation that has prevailed since 1948 when Palestine was engulfed and devoured by the new nation said to have been a haven for those suffering horror during the second world war. This would be like Japan getting even for the American atrocities at Hiroshima and Nagasaki by invading Mexico, throwing the natives out when possible and making all others second class citizens once they took over, changed the language and culture to Japanese and proceeded to treat Mexicans worse than Americans ever had.
In only one of thousands of contradictions of logic, language and morality, the European Jews who stole the land continue calling themselves Semites and screaming anti-Semitism whenever real Semites commit an act of aggression in retaliation and millions in the western world have their brains sunk deeper into an ocean of mental sewage. Like everything else in a radically changing world in which previous western dominance is nearing an end and hopefully global freedom is nearer than ever, the radical changes underway that can spell revolution for the human future can be made to seem more dismal than ever under the consciousness control of purveyors of the imperial lies now fantastically more powerful than any past relatively tin-pot dictatorial regime of later made to seem glorious royals and other past murderers.
While it seems that the horrible choice offered voters by capital’s two parties back in 2020 will be the same in 2024 the only difference is that the divisions among Americans have grown even worse than before. But as the frustration and anger at both parties increase alternate choices, usually written off as foreign plots or national disorders, may finally have space to speak to radical change favoring democracy in substance rather than the bogus brain disease foisted on innocent people who are told it is freedom and democracy. Of course, and rape is simply an economic form of dating and hundreds of thousands of Americans living in the street are merely getting close to nature.
While political madness depicts Putin as a menace to humanity for reacting to an American owned and operated insurrection in Ukraine and fill voters heads with alleged crimes committed by Trump which are the everyday reality of political pimps and hustlers who own and operate “our” democracy, especially Congress and the white house, Palestinians will continue to be murdered by Israelis financed by American taxpayers proving that our peace loving democracy is just what the world needs to bring on a nuclear destruction of humanity which is in the planning stages of our Mass Murder Inc. at the pentagon. This will come to pass if Americans do not rise up and create real democracy before it is too late. Among other things that will mean voting against the supposed lesser evil of the two party combo of economic cancer and political polio to bring about the end of capitalism and the beginning of a future for the human race that does not involve growing poverty for hundreds of millions while a relative handful become billionaires.
The opening quote is from someone long admired for something called the theory of relativity, a term not even vaguely understood by billions of humans, but far more relevant, easily understandable and important is the fact that he was an anti-capitalist, a socialist and an anti-war pacifist, easily understandable by those same billions and hardly known by most. That and many other hidden facts about people, nations and political economics should become clearer while we adjust and work to transform a dreadful social reality into a hopeful future by ending warfare capitalism and bringing about a democratic world such as our pre-historic beginnings in social and communistic cooperation. And after we clear up some reality about Einstein, we’d all do well by checking out Marx in his own words and not those of his simplistic and far too often murderous detractors. He can help us learn more about what we need to understand about why our reality is crumbling and what we need to do to rebuild it.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Russian authorities have initiated the country’s first-ever criminal case into “LGBT extremism,” according to Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the Kremlin-aligned Safe Internet League. Mizulina asserted that criminal charges were filed “in connection with the activities of the LGBT club Pose.” Russian media reported that visitors of the club informed law enforcement that the establishment was…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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You’ve read, heard and seen countless stories about supposed Chinese interference in Canada, but how many times has the dominant media mentioned Canadian subversion in other countries?Don’t believe that Canada does that? Here are a few examples of Canada contributing to leading international stories:
- There is a direct line between the downward spiral in Haiti’s security situation and Canadian interference. In 2004 the US, France and Canada invaded to overthrow Haiti’s elected government. René Préval’s election two years later partly reversed the coup, but the US and Canada reasserted their control after the 2010 earthquake by intervening to make Michel Martelly president. That set-in motion more than a decade of rule by the criminal PHTK party. After president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in mid 2021 the US- and Canada-led Core Group selected Ariel Henry to lead against the wishes of civil society. In a sign of Haiti’s political descent, 7,000 officials were in elected positions in 2004 while today there are none.
- Last Friday former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) was convicted of drug charges by a jury in New York. Pursued by the Southern District of New York against the wishes of US diplomats, the case documented JOH’s role in a murderous criminal enterprise that began under his predecessor. JOH became president after Ottawa tacitly supported the military’s removal of the social democratic president Manuel Zelaya. Before his 2009 ouster Canadian officials criticized Zelaya and afterwards condemned his attempts to return to the country. Failing to suspend its military training program with Honduras, Canada was also the only major donor to Honduras—the largest recipient of Canadian assistance in Central America—that failed to announce it would sever aid to the military government. Six months later Ottawa endorsed an electoral farce and JOH’s subsequent election marred by substantial human rights violations. JOH then defied the Honduran constitution to run for a second term, which Canada backed.
- There’s also a direct line between the 2014 Canadian-backed coup in Ukraine and Russia’s devastating invasion. As Owen Schalk and I detail in Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy, Ottawa played a significant role in destabilizing Victor Yanukovich and pushing the elected president out. Yanukovich’s ouster propelled Moscow’s seizure of Crimea and a civil war in the east, which Russia massively expanded two years ago.
- In an episode symbolic of Canadian influence and interference, Peru’s Prime Minister Alberto Otárola Peñaranda cut short his trip to the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada conference in Toronto last week to resign. Implicated in a love affair/corruption scandal, Peñaranda became prime minister after the December 2022 ouster of elected leftist president Pedro Castillo. Ottawa supported the ‘usurper’ government that suspended civil liberties and deployed troops to the streets. Global Affairs and Canada’s ambassador to Peru Louis Marcotte worked hard to shore up support for the replacement government through a series of diplomatic meetings and statements.
- Canada’s intervention to undermine Palestinian democracy has also enabled Israel’s mass slaughter and starvation campaign in Gaza. After Hamas won legislative elections in 2006, Canada was the first country to impose sanctions against the Palestinians. Ottawa’s aid cut-off and refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government was designed to sow division within Palestinian society. It helped spur fighting between Hamas and Fatah. When Hamas took control of Gaza, Israel used that to justify its siege of the 360 square kilometre coastal strip and series of deadly campaigns that left 6,000 Palestinians dead before October 7.
While the media reported the above-mentioned stories, they refuse to discuss Ottawa’s negative role. Instead of holding our governments to account and describing Canadian subversion the media sphere focuses on foreign interference by our designated ‘enemies’ that’s had little demonstratable negative impact. In war and politics this is called distraction.
Starting Thursday in Ottawa I’ll be speaking on Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy in Ottawa, Waterloo, Hamilton and Toronto.The information is here.
The post Please Ignore Our Subversion There first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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PRISTINA — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.
The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.
Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.
Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province’s 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.
“Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo’s central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year,” Kurti told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.
“We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism,” Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.
The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.
“The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment,” Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank’s line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.
Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.
“We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose,” Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.
“Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid,” Kurti added.
However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo’s controversial decision on the dinar was “an issue that we need to address immediately.”
Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo’s most reliable ally.
The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.
“It’s not me as prime minister to decide about this thing,” Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar’s solutions.
“We’re a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition,” Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar’s proposals.
“Let those who made the proposals speak,” he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.
“No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution,” he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.
Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: “I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers.”
Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.
“I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.
“The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade,” Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal “because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country.”
Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government’s statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.
“What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic’s letter explained,” Kurti said.
“I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia’s quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia,” he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.
“In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I’m there, it’s the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.
“This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It’s not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year,” he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.
Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.
“I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department…they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history,” Kurti said.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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PRISTINA — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.
The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.
Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.
Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province’s 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.
“Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo’s central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year,” Kurti told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.
“We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism,” Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.
The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.
“The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment,” Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank’s line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.
Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.
“We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose,” Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.
“Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid,” Kurti added.
However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo’s controversial decision on the dinar was “an issue that we need to address immediately.”
Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo’s most reliable ally.
The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.
“It’s not me as prime minister to decide about this thing,” Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar’s solutions.
“We’re a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition,” Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar’s proposals.
“Let those who made the proposals speak,” he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.
“No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution,” he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.
Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: “I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers.”
Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.
“I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.
“The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade,” Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal “because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country.”
Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government’s statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.
“What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic’s letter explained,” Kurti said.
“I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia’s quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia,” he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.
“In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I’m there, it’s the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.
“This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It’s not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year,” he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.
Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.
“I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department…they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history,” Kurti said.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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PRISTINA — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.
The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.
Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.
Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province’s 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.
“Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo’s central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year,” Kurti told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.
“We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism,” Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.
The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.
“The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment,” Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank’s line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.
Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.
“We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose,” Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.
“Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid,” Kurti added.
However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo’s controversial decision on the dinar was “an issue that we need to address immediately.”
Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo’s most reliable ally.
The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.
“It’s not me as prime minister to decide about this thing,” Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar’s solutions.
“We’re a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition,” Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar’s proposals.
“Let those who made the proposals speak,” he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.
“No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution,” he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.
Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: “I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers.”
Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.
“I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.
“The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade,” Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal “because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country.”
Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government’s statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.
“What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic’s letter explained,” Kurti said.
“I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia’s quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia,” he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.
“In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I’m there, it’s the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.
“This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It’s not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year,” he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.
Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.
“I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department…they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history,” Kurti said.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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PRISTINA — Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he will not suspend a move by the central bank to ban the circulation of the Serbian dinar in parts of the country with Serbian majorities but will accept the forming of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities once Belgrade agrees to sign a basic agreement on bilateral relations.
The basic agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia was reached in February 2023, and includes the formation of the association, which is expected to more adequately represent predominantly ethnic Serb areas in Kosovo.
Kosovo is not a member of the European Union or its common currency area, the eurozone, but it unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 to help bring monetary stability and to simplify and reduce transaction costs inside and outside the country.
Serbia, which has never acknowledged its former province’s 2008 declaration of independence, still pays many ethnic Serbs at institutions in Serb-dominated parts of Kosovo in dinars. Many also hold their pensions and get child allowances in dinars.
“Regarding the Serbian-dinar-versus-euro issue, it is Kosovo’s central bank that decides and they have already decided on December 27 last year,” Kurti told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service in an interview on March 19, arguing that the ban, which came into force on February 1, was meant to fight financial crime and terrorism.
“We have, thanks to them, a new regulation that is going to enhance the integrity of the financial system to fight illicit activities financing terrorism,” Kurti said in Pristina on the same day top Serbian and Kosovar negotiators were holding bilateral meeting in Brussels with EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
The Serbian dinar ban was reported to be high on the agenda, although no joint trilateral meeting has been confirmed so far.
The ban ratcheted up already high tensions between Serbia and Kosovo and threatened to scupper efforts by Washington and Brussels to get the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade back on track.
“The dinar is not banned in Kosovo, but the euro is the only means of payment,” Kurti told RFE/RL, echoing the central bank’s line that the ban doesn’t stop anyone from accepting money from any country, it just means the money is converted into euros.
Still, the conversion adds a layer of cost and complication to the daily lives of ethnic Serbs still tied to the dinar.
“We cannot allow bagfuls of dinars in cash to enter our country. (It can happen) only through official financial channels with full transparency, who sends money to whom and for what purpose,” Kurti said, adding that any disparities on the ground would have time to be smoothed out over the three-month transition period.
“Serbia can send dinars, we will exchange them into euros and Serbs in Kosovo can benefit from that financial aid,” Kurti added.
However, the U.S. envoy to the Western Balkans last week warned that the ban had caused problems for some citizens in the region and challenges for the U.S.-Kosovo relationship.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar told RFE/RL on March 14 that Kosovo’s controversial decision on the dinar was “an issue that we need to address immediately.”
Escobar said that the issue had presented challenges in the bilateral relationship, although Washington remains Kosovo’s most reliable ally.
The U.S. envoy also said that his proposals for resolving the issue had been rejected by Kurti during their meeting.
“It’s not me as prime minister to decide about this thing,” Kurti told RFE/RL when asked about why he refused Escobar’s solutions.
“We’re a democracy where powers and duties are separated. Therefore, I can only help the central bank to affect a smooth transition,” Kurti said, declining to elaborate on Escobar’s proposals.
“Let those who made the proposals speak,” he added, reiterating that he cannot cancel the decision of an independent institution.
“No suspension will come out of talking to me, because the bank is an independent institution,” he said, adding that its governor reports only to parliament, not the government.
Asked whether he would at least advise the bank to extend the transition period, Kurti replied: “I cannot also advise the central bank of Kosovo. The governor has his own advisers.”
Referring to the basic agreement, Kurti said it was Belgrade that was hampering its implementation.
“I want the normalization of relations and I think that the signing of the basic agreement and its implementation annex can certainly cancel previous violations on one hand and, on the other hand can bring legal certainty for the future.
“The problem is that eight out of 11 articles of the basic agreement have been violated by Belgrade,” Kurti said, mentioning a letter sent by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to the European Union, in which, according to him, her government said they were withdrawing their pledge to the deal “because they will never recognize independence of Kosovo, never accept Kosovo’s membership in the United Nations, and likewise they are not going to respect the territorial integrity of our country.”
Referring to the forming of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, which is mentioned in Article 7 of the basic agreement, Kurti reiterated his government’s statement from October 27, which blamed Serbia for refusing to sign the document endorsed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Germany.
“What more can I do? We are leaders who are supposed to turn the text that we have agreed upon into signed agreements. Obviously, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic initially said yes to the agreement without intending to sign it and then regretted saying yes, as Mrs. Brnabic’s letter explained,” Kurti said.
“I believe that whoever mentions an association of Serbian-majority municipalities outside the basic agreement or before it serving Serbia’s quest to turn Kosovo into Bosnia,” he said, adding that such an association has to be established withing the framework of the Kosovar Constitution.
“In Brussels I said one cannot serve coffee without a cup. If you ask for coffee without a cup, I will show you an empty cup. The cup is the Republic of Kosovo. What is the legal framework of the association? Is it the constitution of the Republic of Kosova or that of Serbia? If I’m there, it’s the constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. No coffee without a cup.
“This is crucial to understand. Belgrade wants to put the cart before the horses. It’s not possible. There will be no movement as we have seen since February and March last year,” he said, adding that he was ready to go to Brussels again together with Vucic.
Referring to the frustration voiced by the United States and the European Union because of the lack of progress toward the Serbian dinar and the municipalities association, Kurti said that while they are indispensable partners, sometimes differences may arise.
“I consider United States an indispensable ally, friend, and partner. But this does not mean that we have an identical stance toward official Belgrade. As the prime minister of Kosovo, I cannot regard Belgrade through the eyes of the State Department…they do not see Belgrade as I see them. We do not have an identical stance. We have a different experience and history,” Kurti said.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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President Biden used the bully pulpit of the annual State of the Union Address to describe a world that significantly differed from the picture presented just a month earlier in the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community.
Information fed to the general public is deliberately spun to sell the imperial project. In contrast, intelligence assessments for elite policy makers are designed to sustain the endeavor. That the president’s pronouncements diverge from the conclusions reached by his own intelligence community highlights the chasm between what is foisted on the public compared to what is understood within the bowels of the state.
Unlike Biden’s bullish and bellicose pronouncements about “our leadership in the world,” the Assessment’s view was less triumphal. It states: “The United States faces an increasingly fragile global order.”
The fraying US-imposed “rules based order” and its discredited neoliberal economic system are more and more being challenged by “states engaging in competitive behavior,” according to the Assessment. The report adds, fallout from the Gaza crisis, in particular, serves to “undermine” the US.
Both pronouncements, however, have similar biases. Biden’s address to the nation was overtly political, accusing Trump of “bowing down” to Putin. But the supposedly neutral and objective “collective insights of the Intelligence Community” were likewise predisposed in favor of Democratic Party memes. Both blame Russian electoral interference for Trump’s ascension to the Oval Office in 2016. As proof, the so-called intelligence community again offered nothing more than its own assessment, lacking better evidence.
“Ambitious” China
Biden bragged in this address: “For years, all I’ve heard from my Republican friends…is China’s on the rise and America is falling behind. They’ve got it backward!” Contrary to his bravado about “we’re in a stronger position to win the competition for the 21st Century against China,” the World Bank predicts 4.5% GDP growth in China compared to 1.6% for the US in 2024.
China has surpassed the US as the largest world economy by purchasing power parity. The Assessment forecasts slowed – but still greater than for the US – economic growth in what it labels as an “ambitious” China.
The Assessment reports that China “now rivals” the US in DNA-sequencing and is the “world leader” in voice and image recognition and video analytics. Biden’s claim that, “I’ve made sure that the most advanced American technologies can’t be used in China,” is contradicted by the Assessment’s finding that China is “making progress” in producing advanced chips on its own.
The Assessment notes: “China views Washington’s competitive measures against Beijing as part of a broader US…effort to contain its rise.” In this context, the Chinese perceive an increased likelihood of a US first-strike nuclear attack, according to the Assessment. Nevertheless, China has shown growing “confidence” in its nuclear deterrent capabilities against US aggression, also according to the Assessment.
China is disadvantaged militarily, according to the Assessment, because it “lacks recent warfighting experience,” something the US has in excess. US intelligence estimates that China will only “fully modernize” its national defense by 2035 and will not become a “world-class military” until 2049.
The Assessment anticipates increased Chinese push-back over Taiwan. Although Biden claimed that the US is “standing up for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the US has done the opposite by continuing to destabilize and militarize the region. To wit, Biden said in his address, “I’ve revitalized our partnerships and alliances in the Pacific.”
“Confrontational” Russia
The Assessment labels Russia “confrontational,” projecting Washington’s own posture. In a fit of made-for-popular-consumption Russophobia, Biden warned in his address: “Putin of Russia is on the march…If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not!”
While the Assessment warns of many threats, Russian expansionism – as Biden fear mongered – is not one of them. In fact, the Assessment notes that Russia stepped down from intervening in neighboring Azerbaijan regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. The Assessment assures us: “Russia almost certainly does not want a direct military conflict with US and NATO forces.”
The Assessment notes that Russia “maintains the largest and most diverse nuclear weapons stockpile.” But it adds that Russia sees its stockpile as “necessary for maintaining deterrence” (presumably from a US first strike). The Assessment, while describing Russia as a “capable and resilient adversary,” takes the contrary view to Biden’s, seeing Russia’s posture as mainly “defensive.”
As the US proxy war against Russia drags on, Biden continues to campaign for expanding the US funding for Ukraine with no hint of a peace. For its part, the Assessment does not contest what it describes as Putin’s belief that Russia is winning the war in Ukraine.
Rather, the Assessment sees no victory in sight for the US: “This deadlock plays to Russia’s strategic military advantages and is increasingly shifting the momentum in Moscow’s favor.” Not surprisingly, this huge admission of the futility of the US war effort in Ukraine coming from its own intelligence institutions has not been prominently reported by the follow-the-flag corporate press.
The Assessment describes how Russia is strengthening and leveraging ties with China, Iran, and North Korea. Russia is mitigating the impacts of US-led sanctions, while “rebuild[ing] its credibility as a great power.” Russia’s deepening ties with China in particular have afforded it significant “protection from future sanctions.”
Despite US-led coercive economic measures, the Assessment projects “modest” Russian GDP growth. Moscow has “successfully diverted” its oil exports and largely evaded the US/G7 price caps, retaining “significant energy leverage” as the second-largest supplier of liquefied natural gas to Europe. In short, Russia is “offsetting its decline in relations with the West” with a pivot to the Global South.
Other global flashpoints
Biden’s policy of “containing the threat posed by Iran” is elaborated in the Assessment. US-led sanctions are credited with putting “brakes on” Iran’s economy. In response, the Assessment reports, Tehran has “expanded its diplomatic influence” by improving ties with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
The Assessment correctly notes that Iran uses its nuclear program “to build negotiating leverage and respond to perceived international pressure,” pointing out that Iran would “restore JCPOA limits if the United States fulfilled its JCPOA commitments [emphasis added].”
On the one hand, the Assessment preposterously accuses Iran of seeking to “block a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.” On the other, Iran is absolved of orchestrating or having any foreknowledge of the Hamas attack on Israel. This is a notable admission.
The Gaza conflict, according to the Assessment, poses the “risk of escalation” into regional interstate war. Uncle Sam’s “key Arab partners,” the Assessment laments, face hostile domestic sentiment because their citizens (correctly) see the US and Israel as responsible for “the death and destruction.” Although the US is recognized as the “power broker” that could “end the conflict,” the Assessment (also correctly) implies that the US has not played that role.
The Assessment foresees Israel needing to confront “armed resistance from Hamas for years to come.” While acknowledging that Hamas enjoys “broad support,” the Assessment questions Israeli President Netanyahu’s “viability” and “ability of rule.”
Similar to the case of Iran, the Assessment explains, North Korea’s nuclear program is pursued as a “guarantor of regime security” and to “deter outside intervention.” North Korea’s missile launches, the Assessment admits, are responses to counter hostile US-South Korea military exercises. North Korea’s development of nuclear capabilities, the Assessment further acknowledges, are defensive to “enhance second-strike capabilities” in the contingency of a first strike by the US and its allies.
In regard to immigration, Biden touts his “comprehensive plan to fix” our system. Given the current dysfunction on the US border, claiming credit there sounds more like a Republican talking point than one favoring the incumbent. Largely ignored in Biden’s address, the Assessment is concerned with global warming and its potentially destabilizing effect on the US-imposed global order by generating climate refugees.
“Poor socioeconomic conditions and insecurity” further drive cross-border migration, warns the Assessment. While admitting that “lack of economic opportunities” are among the factors that drive Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan emigration, the Assessment incredulously rejects blaming US sanctions for driving people away from their homelands.
Conclusion
Unlike the upbeat “greatest comeback story never told” of the State of the Union address, the Assessment cautions:
“Strains in US alliances and challenges to international norms have made it more difficult…to tackle global issues…. The world that emerges from this tumultuous period will be shaped by whoever… [is] most effective at advancing economic growth and providing benefits for more people, and by the powers…that are most able and willing to act on solutions to transnational issues and regional crises.”
Meanwhile, the Assessment reports that Putin’s “Russia has increased social spending…and increased corporate taxes.” Also reported, Xi’s China is prioritizing “a more equitable distribution of wealth – replacing the focus on maximizing GDP growth.” Back home, Biden promised in his address “to end cancer as we know it” and prophesized that he will “save the planet from the climate crisis.” (For starters, I would settle for just stopping the genocide in Palestine and a negotiated peace in Ukraine.)
The post Biden’s State of the Union Address Exposed by US Intelligence Threat Assessment first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Vladimir Putin has claimed a fifth presidential term with a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election that has been condemned by the West as neither free nor fair as the Russian leader seeks to prove overwhelming popular support for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and increasingly repressive policies.
With 99.75 percent of ballots counted, Putin won another six-year term with a post-Soviet record of 87.29 percent of the vote, the Central Elections Committee (TsIK) said on March 18, adding that turnout was also at a “record” level, with 77.44 percent of eligible voters casting ballots.
The 71-year old Putin — who has ruled as either president or prime minister since 2000 — is now set to surpass Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s nearly 30-year reign to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries.
“This election has been based on repression and intimidation,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told journalists in Brussels on March 18 as the bloc’s foreign ministers gathered to discuss the election, among other issues.
The March 15-17 vote is the first for Putin since he launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that has killed tens of thousands of Russians and led to a clear break in relations with the West. In holding what has widely been viewed as faux elections, Putin wants to show that he has the nation’s full support, experts said.
The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located. Moscow illegally annexed the regions since launching the invasion, though it remains unclear how much of the territory it controls.
The Kremlin’s goal “is to get as many people as possible to sign off on Russia’s war against Ukraine. The idea is to get millions of Russian citizens to retroactively approve the decision Putin single-handedly made two years ago,” Maksim Trudolyubov, a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute, wrote in a note ahead of the vote.
In remarks shortly after he was declared the winner, Putin said the election showed that the nation was “one team.”
But Western leaders condemned the vote, with the White House National Security Council spokesperson saying they “are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said “this is not what free and fair elections look like,” adding in his message on X, formerly Twitter, that illegal elections have also been held on occupied Ukrainian territory.
The French Foreign Ministry said Putin’s reelection came amid a wave of repression against civil society. It also praised in a statement the courage of “the many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rights.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin has become “sick with power” and he is just “simulating” elections.
“This imitation of ‘elections’ has no legitimacy and cannot have any. This person must end up in the dock in The Hague [at the International UN Tribunal for War Crimes],” Zelenskiy said on X.
Putin’s allies were quick to heap praise on the Russian leader for his election success.
China, one of Russia’s most importants allies, congratulated Putin, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying President Xi Jinping and the Russian leader “will continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold long-standing good-neighborly friendship, deepen comprehensive strategic coordination.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Putin’s victory “decisive,” the state news agency IRNA reported.
WATCH: Leading psychiatrists discuss how excessive power can impact brain functioning and what the impulse for total control reveals about the mind and personality traits of authority figures.
Putin was opposed by three relatively unknown, Kremlin-friendly politicians whose campaign was barely noticeable. The main intrigue was whether Russians would heed opposition calls to gather at polling stations at noon on March 17 to silently protest against Putin’s rule.
Russian media had reported in the months leading up to the election that the Kremlin was determined to engineer a victory for Putin that would surpass the 2018 results, when he won 77.5 percent of the vote with a turnout of 67.5 percent.
The Kremlin banned anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin from the ballot after tens of thousands of voters lined up in the cold to support his candidacy. Nadezhdin threatened to undermine the narrative of overwhelming support for Putin and his war, experts said.
Independent election observers were barred from working at this year’s presidential election for the first time in post-Soviet history, experts said. Russian elections have been notorious for ballot stuffing and other irregularities.
The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located.
The United States called the elections neither fair nor free.
‘Noon Against Putin’
With options to express resistance severely limited by the lack of competition and repressive laws, opposition leaders called on voters opposed to Putin to gather near polls at noon to show the Kremlin and the country that they were still a force.
Russia’s opposition movement suffered a serious blow last month when Aleksei Navalny, Putin’s fiercest and most popular critic, died in unclear circumstances in a maximum-security prison in the Arctic where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated.
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones at the designated time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest, including in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“We’re not really expecting anything, but I’d somehow like to make a record of this election for myself, tick the box for myself, so, when talking about it later, I could say that I didn’t just sit at home, but came and tried to do something,” said one Russian who came to vote at noon.
“The action has achieved its goals,” Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, said in a YouTube video. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The Moscow prosecutor’s office had earlier warned of criminal prosecution against those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there were “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
Russians living abroad also took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, with hundreds of people lining up at 12 p.m. outside the Russian embassies in Sidney, Tokyo, Phuket, Dubai, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, and Yerevan among other capitals.
“It’s not an election. It’s just a fake. And so we’re here to show that not Russians elect the current leader of Russia, that we [are] against him very severely, and that lots of people had to flee their country to be free,” said Anna, a Russian citizen living in Berlin and who gathered outside the embassy in the German capital.
Putin was challenged by Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, none of whom opposed the war.
The Russian leader had the full resources of the state behind him, including the media, police, state-owned companies, and election officials.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Vladimir Putin has claimed a fifth presidential term with a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election that has been condemned by the West as neither free nor fair as the Russian leader seeks to prove overwhelming popular support for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and increasingly repressive policies.
With 99.75 percent of ballots counted, Putin won another six-year term with a post-Soviet record of 87.29 percent of the vote, the Central Elections Committee (TsIK) said on March 18, adding that turnout was also at a “record” level, with 77.44 percent of eligible voters casting ballots.
The 71-year old Putin — who has ruled as either president or prime minister since 2000 — is now set to surpass Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s nearly 30-year reign to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries.
“This election has been based on repression and intimidation,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told journalists in Brussels on March 18 as the bloc’s foreign ministers gathered to discuss the election, among other issues.
The March 15-17 vote is the first for Putin since he launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that has killed tens of thousands of Russians and led to a clear break in relations with the West. In holding what has widely been viewed as faux elections, Putin wants to show that he has the nation’s full support, experts said.
The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located. Moscow illegally annexed the regions since launching the invasion, though it remains unclear how much of the territory it controls.
The Kremlin’s goal “is to get as many people as possible to sign off on Russia’s war against Ukraine. The idea is to get millions of Russian citizens to retroactively approve the decision Putin single-handedly made two years ago,” Maksim Trudolyubov, a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute, wrote in a note ahead of the vote.
In remarks shortly after he was declared the winner, Putin said the election showed that the nation was “one team.”
But Western leaders condemned the vote, with the White House National Security Council spokesperson saying they “are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said “this is not what free and fair elections look like,” adding in his message on X, formerly Twitter, that illegal elections have also been held on occupied Ukrainian territory.
The French Foreign Ministry said Putin’s reelection came amid a wave of repression against civil society. It also praised in a statement the courage of “the many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rights.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin has become “sick with power” and he is just “simulating” elections.
“This imitation of ‘elections’ has no legitimacy and cannot have any. This person must end up in the dock in The Hague [at the International UN Tribunal for War Crimes],” Zelenskiy said on X.
Putin’s allies were quick to heap praise on the Russian leader for his election success.
China, one of Russia’s most importants allies, congratulated Putin, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying President Xi Jinping and the Russian leader “will continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold long-standing good-neighborly friendship, deepen comprehensive strategic coordination.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Putin’s victory “decisive,” the state news agency IRNA reported.
WATCH: Leading psychiatrists discuss how excessive power can impact brain functioning and what the impulse for total control reveals about the mind and personality traits of authority figures.
Putin was opposed by three relatively unknown, Kremlin-friendly politicians whose campaign was barely noticeable. The main intrigue was whether Russians would heed opposition calls to gather at polling stations at noon on March 17 to silently protest against Putin’s rule.
Russian media had reported in the months leading up to the election that the Kremlin was determined to engineer a victory for Putin that would surpass the 2018 results, when he won 77.5 percent of the vote with a turnout of 67.5 percent.
The Kremlin banned anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin from the ballot after tens of thousands of voters lined up in the cold to support his candidacy. Nadezhdin threatened to undermine the narrative of overwhelming support for Putin and his war, experts said.
Independent election observers were barred from working at this year’s presidential election for the first time in post-Soviet history, experts said. Russian elections have been notorious for ballot stuffing and other irregularities.
The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located.
The United States called the elections neither fair nor free.
‘Noon Against Putin’
With options to express resistance severely limited by the lack of competition and repressive laws, opposition leaders called on voters opposed to Putin to gather near polls at noon to show the Kremlin and the country that they were still a force.
Russia’s opposition movement suffered a serious blow last month when Aleksei Navalny, Putin’s fiercest and most popular critic, died in unclear circumstances in a maximum-security prison in the Arctic where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated.
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones at the designated time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest, including in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“We’re not really expecting anything, but I’d somehow like to make a record of this election for myself, tick the box for myself, so, when talking about it later, I could say that I didn’t just sit at home, but came and tried to do something,” said one Russian who came to vote at noon.
“The action has achieved its goals,” Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, said in a YouTube video. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The Moscow prosecutor’s office had earlier warned of criminal prosecution against those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there were “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
Russians living abroad also took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, with hundreds of people lining up at 12 p.m. outside the Russian embassies in Sidney, Tokyo, Phuket, Dubai, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, and Yerevan among other capitals.
“It’s not an election. It’s just a fake. And so we’re here to show that not Russians elect the current leader of Russia, that we [are] against him very severely, and that lots of people had to flee their country to be free,” said Anna, a Russian citizen living in Berlin and who gathered outside the embassy in the German capital.
Putin was challenged by Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, none of whom opposed the war.
The Russian leader had the full resources of the state behind him, including the media, police, state-owned companies, and election officials.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Vladimir Putin has claimed a fifth presidential term with a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election that has been condemned by the West as neither free nor fair as the Russian leader seeks to prove overwhelming popular support for his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and increasingly repressive policies.
With 99.75 percent of ballots counted, Putin won another six-year term with a post-Soviet record of 87.29 percent of the vote, the Central Elections Committee (TsIK) said on March 18, adding that turnout was also at a “record” level, with 77.44 percent of eligible voters casting ballots.
The 71-year old Putin — who has ruled as either president or prime minister since 2000 — is now set to surpass Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s nearly 30-year reign to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than two centuries.
“This election has been based on repression and intimidation,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told journalists in Brussels on March 18 as the bloc’s foreign ministers gathered to discuss the election, among other issues.
The March 15-17 vote is the first for Putin since he launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that has killed tens of thousands of Russians and led to a clear break in relations with the West. In holding what has widely been viewed as faux elections, Putin wants to show that he has the nation’s full support, experts said.
The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located. Moscow illegally annexed the regions since launching the invasion, though it remains unclear how much of the territory it controls.
The Kremlin’s goal “is to get as many people as possible to sign off on Russia’s war against Ukraine. The idea is to get millions of Russian citizens to retroactively approve the decision Putin single-handedly made two years ago,” Maksim Trudolyubov, a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute, wrote in a note ahead of the vote.
In remarks shortly after he was declared the winner, Putin said the election showed that the nation was “one team.”
But Western leaders condemned the vote, with the White House National Security Council spokesperson saying they “are obviously not free nor fair given how Mr. Putin has imprisoned political opponents and prevented others from running against him.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said “this is not what free and fair elections look like,” adding in his message on X, formerly Twitter, that illegal elections have also been held on occupied Ukrainian territory.
The French Foreign Ministry said Putin’s reelection came amid a wave of repression against civil society. It also praised in a statement the courage of “the many Russian citizens who peacefully protested against this attack on their fundamental political rights.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin has become “sick with power” and he is just “simulating” elections.
“This imitation of ‘elections’ has no legitimacy and cannot have any. This person must end up in the dock in The Hague [at the International UN Tribunal for War Crimes],” Zelenskiy said on X.
Putin’s allies were quick to heap praise on the Russian leader for his election success.
China, one of Russia’s most importants allies, congratulated Putin, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying President Xi Jinping and the Russian leader “will continue to maintain close exchanges, lead the two countries to continue to uphold long-standing good-neighborly friendship, deepen comprehensive strategic coordination.”
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Putin’s victory “decisive,” the state news agency IRNA reported.
WATCH: Leading psychiatrists discuss how excessive power can impact brain functioning and what the impulse for total control reveals about the mind and personality traits of authority figures.
Putin was opposed by three relatively unknown, Kremlin-friendly politicians whose campaign was barely noticeable. The main intrigue was whether Russians would heed opposition calls to gather at polling stations at noon on March 17 to silently protest against Putin’s rule.
Russian media had reported in the months leading up to the election that the Kremlin was determined to engineer a victory for Putin that would surpass the 2018 results, when he won 77.5 percent of the vote with a turnout of 67.5 percent.
The Kremlin banned anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin from the ballot after tens of thousands of voters lined up in the cold to support his candidacy. Nadezhdin threatened to undermine the narrative of overwhelming support for Putin and his war, experts said.
Independent election observers were barred from working at this year’s presidential election for the first time in post-Soviet history, experts said. Russian elections have been notorious for ballot stuffing and other irregularities.
The vote was also held in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers are located.
The United States called the elections neither fair nor free.
‘Noon Against Putin’
With options to express resistance severely limited by the lack of competition and repressive laws, opposition leaders called on voters opposed to Putin to gather near polls at noon to show the Kremlin and the country that they were still a force.
Russia’s opposition movement suffered a serious blow last month when Aleksei Navalny, Putin’s fiercest and most popular critic, died in unclear circumstances in a maximum-security prison in the Arctic where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism widely seen as politically motivated.
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones at the designated time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest, including in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“We’re not really expecting anything, but I’d somehow like to make a record of this election for myself, tick the box for myself, so, when talking about it later, I could say that I didn’t just sit at home, but came and tried to do something,” said one Russian who came to vote at noon.
“The action has achieved its goals,” Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, said in a YouTube video. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The Moscow prosecutor’s office had earlier warned of criminal prosecution against those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there were “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
Russians living abroad also took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, with hundreds of people lining up at 12 p.m. outside the Russian embassies in Sidney, Tokyo, Phuket, Dubai, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, and Yerevan among other capitals.
“It’s not an election. It’s just a fake. And so we’re here to show that not Russians elect the current leader of Russia, that we [are] against him very severely, and that lots of people had to flee their country to be free,” said Anna, a Russian citizen living in Berlin and who gathered outside the embassy in the German capital.
Putin was challenged by Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party, none of whom opposed the war.
The Russian leader had the full resources of the state behind him, including the media, police, state-owned companies, and election officials.
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.
Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.
Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.
Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.
Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.
Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.
Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.
While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.
The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.
Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.
Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.
Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”
Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.
Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.
Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.
Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.
“This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.
Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.
On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.
On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.
The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.
Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.
“The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.
Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.
Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.
Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.
Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.
Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.
Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.
Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.
While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.
The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.
Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.
Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.
Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”
Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.
Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.
Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.
Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.
“This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.
Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.
On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.
On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.
The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.
Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.
“The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.
Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.
Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.
Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.
Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.
Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.
Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.
Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.
While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.
The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.
Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.
Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.
Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”
Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.
Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.
Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.
Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.
“This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.
Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.
On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.
On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.
The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.
Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.
“The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.
Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
-
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.
Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.
Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.
Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.
Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.
Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.
Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.
While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.
The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.
Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.
Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.
Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”
Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.
Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.
Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.
Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.
“This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.
Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.
On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.
On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.
The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.
Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.
“The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.
Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP
This content originally appeared on News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News – Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
