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Category: Ukraine

  • Russian Drone Forces Germany’s Baerbock To Cut Short Waterworks Plant Visit In Ukraine

    Polls have closed for Belarus’s tightly controlled parliamentary elections, which were held under heavy security at polling stations and amid calls for a boycott by the country’s beleaguered opposition.

    The February 25 elections were widely expected to solidify the position of the country’s authoritarian leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Only four parties, all of which support Lukashenka’s policies, were officially registered to compete in the polls — Belaya Rus, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Party of Labor and Justice. About a dozen parties were denied registration last year.

    Polls opened for the general elections at 8 a.m. local time and closed at 8 p.m.

    According to the Central Election Commission, as of 6 p.m., voter turnout was 70.3 percent.

    Results are expected to be announced on February 26, the commission said.

    Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has claimed her victory over Lukashenka in the 2020 presidential election was stolen, described the elections as a “farce” and called for a boycott.

    “There are no people on the ballot who would offer real changes because the regime only has allowed puppets convenient for it to take part,” Tsikhanouskaya said in a video statement from her exile in Lithuania, where she moved following a brutal crackdown on protests against the 2020 election results. “We are calling to boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice.”

    In a separate message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Tsikhanouskaya said on February 25 that her video address to the Belarusian people about the elections and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had been displayed on 2,000 screens in public spaces throughout Belarus. The action, she said, was organized by a coalition of former police and security forces officers.

    The U.S. State Department blasted what it called a “sham” election, held amid a “climate of fear.”

    “The United States condemns the Lukashenka regime’s sham parliamentary and local elections that concluded today in Belarus,” it said in a statement.

    “The elections were held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic. The regime continues to hold more than 1,400 political prisoners. All independent political figures have either been detained or exiled. All independent political parties were denied registration.”

    “The Belarusian people deserve better,” it said.

    The general elections were the first to be held in Belarus since the 2020 presidential election, which handed Lukashenka a sixth term in office. More than 35,000 people were arrested in the monthslong mass protests that followed the controversial election.

    Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on people to "boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice."
    Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on people to “boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice.”

    On the occasion, Lukashenka told journalists after voting that he plans to run again for president in 2025.

    “Tell them (the exiled opposition) that I’ll run,” the state news agency BelTa quoted Lukashenka as saying.

    Ahead of the voting in parliamentary and local council elections, the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced a record amount of early voting, which began on February 20. Nearly 48 percent of registered voters had already voted by February 24, according to the CEC, eclipsing the nearly 42 percent of early voting recorded for the contentious 2020 presidential election.

    Early voting is widely seen by observers as a mechanism employed by the Belarusian authorities to falsify elections. The Belarusian opposition has said the early voting process allows for voting manipulation, with ballot boxes unprotected for a five-day period.

    The Vyasna Human Rights Center alleged that many voters were forced to participate in early voting, including students, soldiers, teachers, and other civil servants.

    “Authorities are using all available means to ensure the result they need — from airing TV propaganda to forcing voters to cast ballots early,” said Vyasna representative Pavel Sapelka. “Detentions, arrests, and searches are taking place during the vote.”

    The Belarusian authorities stepped up security on the streets and at polling stations around the country, with Interior Ministry police conducting drills on how to deal with voters who might try to violate restrictive rules imposed for the elections.

    For the first time, curtains were removed from voting booths, and voters were barred from taking pictures of their ballots — a practice encouraged by activists in previous elections in an effort to prevent authorities from manipulating vote counts.

    Polling stations were guarded by police, along with members of a youth law-enforcement organization and retired security personnel. Armed rapid-response teams were also formed to deal with potential disturbances.

    Lukashenka this week alleged without offering proof that Western countries were considering ways to stage a coup and ordered police to boost armed patrols across the country in order to ensure “law and order.”

    For the first time, election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were denied access to monitor the vote in OSCE-member Belarus.

    In the run-up to the vote, rights organizations uncovered violations pertaining to how local election committees were formed. An expert mission organized by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and Viasna said in late January that the lower number of local election committees and their compositions could indicate higher control by the authorities over the election process and an effort to stack the committees with government loyalists.

    Following the vote, Belarus is expected to form a new, 1,200-seat All-Belarus Popular Assembly that will have broad powers to appoint judges and election officials and to consider amendments to the constitution. The new body will include elected local legislators, as well as top officials, union members, and pro-government activists.


    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.

  • The Russian “Path of Redemption


    The Author (left) with the Head of the Crimean Republic, Sergei Aksyanov (right)

    Deliberate neglect, followed by a blockade and now war have failed to break the resolve of the peninsula’s inhabitants.

    As the Russian military operation against Ukraine approaches its third year, the focus on the ongoing conflict has allowed another anniversary to go relatively unnoticed – it’s now around ten years since the violent events in Kiev’s Maidan Square that put in motion the circumstances which precipitated the current conflict.

    Over the course of five days, from February 18 to 23, 2014, neo-Nazi provocateurs from the Svoboda (All Ukrainian Union ‘Freedom’) Party and the Right Sector, a coalition of far-right Ukrainian nationalists who follow the political teachings of Stepan Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, engaged in targeted violence against the government of President Viktor Yanukovich. It was designed to remove him from power and replace him with a new, US-backed government. They were successful; Yanukovich fled to Russia on February 23, 2014.

    Soon thereafter, the predominantly Russian-speaking population of Crimea undertook actions to separate from the new Ukrainian nationalist government in Kiev. On March 16, 2014, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, both of which at that time were legally considered to be part of Ukraine, held a referendum on whether to join Russia or remain part of Ukraine. Over 97% of the votes cast were in favor of joining Russia. Five days later, on March 21, Crimea formally became part of the Russian Federation.


    The Northern Crimea Canal after Ukraine blocked the water supply.

    Shortly afterwards, Ukraine built a concrete dam on the North Crimean Canal, a Soviet-era conduit transporting water from the Dnieper River that provided around 85% of the peninsula’s water supply. In doing so, Ukraine effectively destroyed Crimea’s agricultural industry. Then, in November 2015, Ukrainian nationalists blew up pylons carrying power lines from Ukraine to Crimea, thrusting the peninsula into a blackout that prompted a declaration of emergency by the regional government.

    The Ukrainian assault on Crimea’s water and electricity was merely an extension of the lack of regard shown to the Crimean population during the two-plus decades that Kiev ruled the peninsula. The local economy was stagnant, and the pro-Russian locals were subjected to a policy of total Ukrainization. In general, the Gross Regional Product (GRP) of Crimea was well below the average of Ukraine (43.6% less in 2000, and 29.5% less in 2013). In short, the Kiev government made no meaningful attempt to develop Crimea culturally or infrastructurally. The Crimean Peninsula was in a state of decay perpetrated by Ukrainian governments.

    The damming of the North Crimean Canal and the destruction of the electrical transmission lines were simply the radical expression of the indifference shown by Kiev.

    Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Ep. 138 of Ask the Inspector.

    In the years that followed the return of the peninsula to Russian control, there has been a gradual improvement in the economy of Crimea. The Russian government undertook a $680 million program to bolster water supplies which involved repairing long-neglected infrastructure, drilling wells, adding storage capacity, and building desalination plants. While this effort wasn’t sufficient to save much of Crimea’s agriculture, it did provide for the basic needs of the population. The Russian government also constructed the Crimean ‘Energy Bridge,’ laying down several undersea energy cables across the Kerch Strait that effectively compensated for the loss of power brought on by the destruction of the Ukrainian power lines.


    The Crimean Bridge at night.

    But the greatest symbol of Russia’s commitment to the people of Crimea was the construction of a $3.7 billion, 19-kilometer-long road-and-rail bridge connecting Krasnodar Region in southern Russia with the Crimean Peninsula. The bridge is the longest in Europe. Construction began in 2016, and it was opened for car traffic in a little more than two years. It has become a symbol of pride for the Russian people and their leadership; President Vladimir Putin personally drove across the bridge during its formal opening ceremony in 2018. The rail line was opened to passenger traffic in 2019, and freight traffic in 2020. The construction of the Crimean Bridge coincided with the building of the Tavrida Highway, a 250-kilometer, $2.5 billion four-lane road connecting the Crimean Bridge with the cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol. Construction of the road began in 2017 and is still ongoing.

    From 2014 to 2022, Crimea saw its population grow by more than 200,000 (from 2.28 million to nearly 2.5 million) as families forced to flee from Ukrainian oppression arrived, and other Russians were attracted by the business opportunities that came with Crimea’s economic revival. With the population surge came new investments by the Russian government in schools, roads, hospitals, and power stations. Tourism flourished as Russians flocked to the beaches of the Crimean coast. A modern airport was built in Simferopol to help manage the flow of visitors.

    Life in Crimea was looking up.

    And then came the war.

    The drive across the Crimea Bridge is an awe-inspiring experience. Coming in from the southern Russian region of Krasnodar at night, one is struck by the lights that line the highway leading to the bridge, a seemingly never-ending line of illumination. However, since the twin attacks on the bridge by the Ukrainian government (the first on October 8, 2022, involving a truck bomb, the second on July 17, 2023, involving unmanned sea drones), the transit now involves an element of risk manifested in the heightened security procedures put in place – barges and nets blocking the water approaches, and extensive physical inspections of vehicles entering the bridge.

    I was aware of the attacks against the Crimean Bridge when I drove across it on the night on January 14, taking note of the moment when we crossed the sites of the two attacks, which had dropped a span of the highway each time, and scanning the skies for any evidence of an attack by Kiev’s British-made Storm Shadow missiles. I must admit to breathing a slight sigh of relief when we crossed over onto Crimean soil, cognizant for the first time of the daily reality of Crimeans who look to it as their lifeline.

    Coming off the bridge, one enters the Tavrida Highway where, after a bit of a drive, the city of Feodosia appears on the horizon. It has a rich history spanning over two millennia, over the course of which it had been an ancient Greek colony, a Genoese trading port, an Ottoman fortress, and part of the Russian Empire. Now, Feodosia is one of the prime destinations for Russian tourists, and its coast is lined with hotels and restaurants. Like much of Crimea, Feodosia bears the scars of the years of neglect at the hands of the Ukrainian authorities – crumbling buildings, abandoned structures painted in graffiti, and roads in need of repair. But it is a vibrant city nonetheless, and the people are getting on with their daily lives.

    War has not escaped Feodosia. On December 26, 2023, the Ukrainian air force launched several Storm Shadow cruise missiles at Feodosia, some of which penetrated Russian air defenses, hitting the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship, and lighting up the night sky in a dramatic fireball. And anyone driving in and around Feodosia cannot help but notice the presence of Russian defenses.

    The Black Sea beachfront at Feodosia.

    This reality touches the lives of all who live there. Driving northeast out of Feodosia along the Black Sea coast, one comes to the tiny village of Batalnoye. This was the birthplace of my host, Aleksandr Zyryanov, the director general of the Novosibirsk Region Development Corporation. Aleksandr’s family left Batalnoye in 2007, following a new wave of Ukrainian nationalist oppression brought on by the so-called Orange Revolution of 2004-2005, which saw Viktor Yushchenko installed as Ukraine’s president. When Aleksandr returned to Batalnoye in 2014, after Crimea rejoined Russia, he didn’t know what he would find – his family home had been abandoned. Instead of ruins, however, he found a building painted in immaculate white, its contents preserved intact. Alexander’s neighbors, a Crimean Tatar family whose matriarch, Fatima, had helped raise him as a child, had made it a point every year to paint the house in anticipation of the return of its rightful owners.

    The loving bond between Aleksandr and Fatima’s family was evident to anyone who bore witness, as I did, to their reunion. Fatima, her husband, and her two sons were gracious hosts, laying out a table typical of Tatar hospitality. Life was not easy for Fatima and her family – they made a living off the land, and the war had suppressed the demand for the milk Fatima brought forth from her cows, and the vegetables she grew in her garden. Her sons were able to find work helping build the Tavrida Highway, but the construction had moved on closer to Simferopol, making the commute prohibitive.

    They had felt their house shake when Ukrainian missiles struck the Novocherkassk, and their nights were often interrupted by the sounds of Ukrainian drones flying overhead, and the launch of Russian air defense missiles in response. It’s a hard life, made even more so by the neglect shown the village during the time of Ukrainian rule.

    Gas lines being installed outside Fatima’s home in Batalnoye, January 2024

    Since the Russians took over, improvements have been incremental – a new school, and some road work. But when I visited Fatima in May of last year, they had no gas, no sewage, and their water came from the initiative of the villagers, who dug their own well despite a water line existing on the village boundary. Now, in January 2024, Batalnoye had been connected to the water line, and the infrastructure for bringing gas to the homes in the village was being installed.

    But still no sewage lines.

    There are hundreds of Batalnoyes across Crimea, small villages and towns which lack the priority of the big cities when it comes to infrastructure repair and development. But they have not been forgotten – the work in Batalnoye is evidence of that. It’s just that progress takes time, especially when trying to undo years of Ukrainian neglect and the ongoing consequences of the present conflict. This was one of the many points made to me by the head of the Crimean Republic, Sergey Aksyonov, during our meeting on January 15, 2024.

    Sergey Aksyonov, who had been a thorn in the side of Ukrainian authorities during Ukraine’s 22-year rule over the Crimean Peninsula, is a man on a mission. To say that Crimea is his passion would be an understatement – Crimea is his life. Even before he was picked by Putin to serve as the head of the Crimean Republic, Aksyonov worked hard to protect the Russian character of Crimea, working to prevent Ukrainian nationalists from erasing the history, culture, language, and religion.

    Sevastopol at night, January 15, 2024.

    Today, with Crimea returned to Russia, Aksyonov has turned his attention to the task of improving the lives of the citizens of Crimea – Russian, Tatar, and Ukrainian alike. Undoing two decades of neglect is a tall order. Doing so under a veritable economic siege imposed by Ukraine and the West in the aftermath of 2014 verges on the impossible. But Aksyonov is in the business of doing the impossible, a task made somewhat more bearable given the high priority that the Russian government has placed on restoring Crimea to its rightful status as the jewel of the Black Sea. Aksyonov was proud – rightly so – of all he had accomplished. Before we ended our meeting, he issued an invitation for a group of Americans to come to Crimea, all expenses paid, to see for themselves the miracle that he and the Russian government had created.

    Russia is at war with Ukraine and the Collective West, and Crimea has found itself on the front lines of this conflict. As Aleksandr and I drove out of Crimea, north toward Kherson and the New Territories (a collective name used in Russia to denoted the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye after they officially became part of Russia), I was struck by the reality of this conflict, manifested in the form of Russian military vehicles which crowded the highway in both directions. The highway itself was a mess. In 2022, it was freshly paved. But in the two years that have passed since Russia started the military operation, the heavy military traffic has taken its toll, the road buckling under the weight of the trucks, tanks, artillery pieces, and armored fighting vehicles that plied its asphalt surface.

    We crossed the Northern Crimean Canal, its channel filled with water in the aftermath of the Russian military blowing up the dam Ukraine had built for the express purpose of choking off the Crimean people and their economy. Now, the life-sustaining liquid flows freely. Crimea is coming back to life. We paused at the border between Crimea and Kherson to make sure our personal protective equipment (flak vests and helmets) fit properly and was readily available. We were about to enter an active war zone and had to be prepared for all eventualities.

    But even as Aleksandr adjusted the straps of my flak vest, my mind kept drifting back to Crimea, and the offer Sergey Aksyonov had made. I thought of Fatima, her family, and the citizens of Batalnoye. I thought of the men and women I met on the streets of Feodosia, Sevastopol, and Simferopol, both last May, and in January of this year. I thought of the pride in Sergey’s eyes, a pride that was shared by everyone I met.

    Crimea is their home. Crimea is Russian. Crimea is Tatar. Crimea is.

    And it was important for all these people to make sure that the rest of the world knew and understood this fact, this reality.

    The Russian ‘Path of Redemption’ through Crimea may have some potholes in it, but it exists nonetheless. The people of Crimea have been redeemed from the sin of more than two decades of Ukrainian misrule, and the further sins on the part of the Collective West and the Ukrainian nationalists in trying to violently suppress the desire of the majority of the Crimean people to live as part of the Russian Federation.

    I don’t know if I will be able to take advantage of Sergey Aksyonov’s kind offer – the reality of Western sanctions has a chilling effect on initiatives of this sort. But I will never shirk from my status as an eyewitness to the reality of Crimea today, from telling the truth about what I experienced during my visits to the remarkable land. Fatima and all the people I met in Crimea deserve nothing less.

    Fatima (left) with the author’s daughter, Victoria. May 2024.

    Note: This article was firstlished on the RT website, on February 18, 2024. It is part of a three-part series. It is republished here because censorship undertaken by various online platforms has limited the audience for such a far-ranging and important subject.

    The post The Russian “Path of Redemption first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Ukraine Signs Bilateral Security Agreement With Canada, Zelenskiy Says

    EU and other Western leaders and dignitaries arrived in Kyiv early on February 24 eager to send a defiant message on the second anniversary of Russia’s launch of its all-out invasion of Ukraine, while Moscow sought to capitalize on its recent gains by announcing a visit by Russia’s defense minister to occupied Ukrainian territory.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zeleinskiy told his countrymen in a recorded video address from a Kyiv-area airport that was a scene of intense fighting early in the invasion that two years of bitter fighting means “we are 730 days closer to victory.”

    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.

    “Two years ago, we met an enemy landing force here with fire,” Zelenskiy said, before adding in a reference to the array of foreign leaders in Ukraine and at Hostomel Airport to mark the anniversary that “two years later, we meet here our friends, our partners.”

    He added that it was important that the war end “on our terms.”

    European Commission President Von der Leyen reportedly traveled to the Ukrainian capital from Poland by train along with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency.

    Meloni is scheduled to host a videoconference involving Group of Seven (G7) democracy leaders during which Zelenskiy is expected to encourage ongoing support to beat back Europe’s first full-scale military invasion since World War II.

    On her arrival, von der Leyen said alongside a photo of herself on a train platform in Kyiv that she was there to mark the grim anniversary “and to celebrate the extraordinary resistance of the Ukrainian people.”

    “More than ever, we stand firmly by Ukraine,” she said, “Financially, economically, militarily, morally…[u]ntil the country is finally free.”

    Before arriving in Ukraine, Trudeau shared his Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s sentiment via X, formerly Twitter, that Canada and its allies were “sending a clear message to [Russia]: Ukraine will not be defeated in the face of Putin’s illegal war.”

    Words of support have been pouring in from Western leaders.

    U.S. President Joe Biden praised the determination of Ukrainians and said “the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition in support of Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical assistance to Ukraine and holding Russia accountable for its aggression.”

    “The American people and people around the world understand that the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine,” he said.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Germans and all Europeans to “do even more — so that we can defend ourselves effectively.”

    Scholz said that Germany was completely fulfilling its NATO target of 2 percent investment of total economic output into its military for the first time in decades.

    Recently installed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cited “Two years of Ukrainian heroism. Two years of Russian barbarism. Two years of disgrace of those who remain indifferent.”

    Maia Sandu, the president of Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova, where concerns are high and a long-standing contingent of Russian troops has refused to depart, thanked “Ukrainians for their tireless fight for freedom and for protecting peace in Moldova too.”

    “In these two years, the free world has shown unprecedented solidarity, yet the war persists; our support must endure fiercely,” she said on X.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “We must renew our determination…on this grim anniversary. This is the moment to show that tyranny will never triumph and to say once again that we will stand with Ukraine today and tomorrow.”

    The anniversary falls one day after the United States and European Union announced new rounds of hundreds of sanctions targeting Russia and officials responsible for the war, but with Ukrainian officials desperately pleading with the international community to avoid cutoffs in support or a “depletion of empathy.”

    Ukrainians have battled fiercely since a Russian invasion of hundreds of thousands of troops began on February 24, 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to cast doubt on Ukrainian nationhood and eventually said Moscow’s goal was the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine’s government.

    It was a new phase in a land grab that had begun eight years earlier in 2014, when Russia covertly invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine and began intensive support of armed Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

    The United Nations has overwhelmingly voted to back Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

    WATCH: Current Time correspondents Borys Sachalko, Andriy Kuzakov, and Oleksiy Prodayvod reflect on their wartime experiences together with the cameramen and drivers who form a critical part of their reporting teams.

    But a massive assistance package proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has been blocked primarily by Republicans in Congress.

    The European Union managed to pass its own $54 billion aid package for Ukraine earlier this month despite reluctance from member Hungary and talk of Ukraine fatigue.

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a recorded statement for the anniversary that “the situation on the battlefield remains extremely serious” and “President Putin’s aim to dominate Ukraine has not changed, and there are no indications that he is preparing for peace. But we must not lose heart.”

    Earlier this week, Stoltenberg told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that the alliance was an advantage that neither Russia nor China could match.

    At the UN General Assembly on February 23, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “Russia’s aim is to destroy Ukraine and they are quite outspoken about it,” adding that “The only reason for this war has been and remains Russia’s denial of Ukraine’s right to exist and its continued colonial conquest.”

    Russian forces last week captured the mostly destroyed eastern city of Avdiyivka as remaining Ukrainian troops withdrew amid reported ammunition shortages to hand Moscow its first significant gain of territory in nearly a year.

    The Russian military said on February 24 that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited troops in occupied Ukraine in a clear effort to send a message to Ukraine and its defenders, as well as to a Russian public subjected to heavy censorship and punishments for anti-war dissenters as the “special military operation” has ground on.

    “Today, in terms of the ratio of forces, the advantage is on our side,” officials quoted Shoigu as telling troops at a Russian command center.

    The Russian military further said its troops were on the offensive after having taken Avdiyivka, in the Donetsk region.

    Zelenskiy used an interview on the conservative Fox News channel this week to urge the U.S. Congress to pass a $60 billion aid package to help his country defend itself, saying it is cheaper than the consequences of a Russian victory.

    Zelenskiy echoed warnings among Russia’s other neighbors that Putin will push further into Eastern Europe if he conquers Ukraine.

    “Will Ukraine survive without Congress’s support? Of course. But not all of us,” Zelenskiy said.

    On February 24, senior Zelenskiy aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine was auditing its “available resources” and said it’s impossible to predict when the war might end without a good idea of the amount of weapons and ammunition Kyiv will have at its disposal.

    He also suggested the Ukrainian president’s office is not currently in favor of peace talks with Russia as it would mean the “gradual death of Ukraine.”

    Separately, Swiss President Viola Amherd was quoted as telling the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper that Russia was unlikely to participate at the start of a senior-level peace conference that neutral Switzerland hopes to host in the next few months.

    The remarks followed Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis telling the United Nations that the idea was broached in January and Bern hoped for such a conference “by this summer.”

    Russia currently is thought to control around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

    The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft after a new round of Russian drone and missile strikes on several Ukrainian regions on February 23, which if confirmed would mark the loss of the second A-50 in just over a month.

    The general appointed recently by Zelenskiy as commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on February 24 that he is “convinced that unity is our victory.”

    “And it will definitely happen,” he said, “because light always conquers darkness!”

    Noting the two-year mark in the invasion, Ukraine’s General Staff asserted that Russia had suffered troop casualties of around 409,000 since February 24, 2022.

    Both sides classify casualty figures, and RFE/RL cannot confirm the accuracy of accounts by either side of battlefield developments in areas of heavy fighting or of casualty claims.

    With reporting by dpa, AFP, and 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.

  • Ukraine And Italy Sign Bilateral Security Agreement, Zelenskiy Says

    EU and other Western leaders and dignitaries arrived in Kyiv early on February 24 eager to send a defiant message on the second anniversary of Russia’s launch of its all-out invasion of Ukraine, while Moscow sought to capitalize on its recent gains by announcing a visit by Russia’s defense minister to occupied Ukrainian territory.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zeleinskiy told his countrymen in a recorded video address from a Kyiv-area airport that was a scene of intense fighting early in the invasion that two years of bitter fighting means “we are 730 days closer to victory.”

    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.

    “Two years ago, we met an enemy landing force here with fire,” Zelenskiy said, before adding in a reference to the array of foreign leaders in Ukraine and at Hostomel Airport to mark the anniversary that “two years later, we meet here our friends, our partners.”

    He added that it was important that the war end “on our terms.”

    European Commission President Von der Leyen reportedly traveled to the Ukrainian capital from Poland by train along with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency.

    Meloni is scheduled to host a videoconference involving Group of Seven (G7) democracy leaders during which Zelenskiy is expected to encourage ongoing support to beat back Europe’s first full-scale military invasion since World War II.

    On her arrival, von der Leyen said alongside a photo of herself on a train platform in Kyiv that she was there to mark the grim anniversary “and to celebrate the extraordinary resistance of the Ukrainian people.”

    “More than ever, we stand firmly by Ukraine,” she said, “Financially, economically, militarily, morally…[u]ntil the country is finally free.”

    Before arriving in Ukraine, Trudeau shared his Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s sentiment via X, formerly Twitter, that Canada and its allies were “sending a clear message to [Russia]: Ukraine will not be defeated in the face of Putin’s illegal war.”

    Words of support have been pouring in from Western leaders.

    U.S. President Joe Biden praised the determination of Ukrainians and said “the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition in support of Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical assistance to Ukraine and holding Russia accountable for its aggression.”

    “The American people and people around the world understand that the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine,” he said.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Germans and all Europeans to “do even more — so that we can defend ourselves effectively.”

    Scholz said that Germany was completely fulfilling its NATO target of 2 percent investment of total economic output into its military for the first time in decades.

    Recently installed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cited “Two years of Ukrainian heroism. Two years of Russian barbarism. Two years of disgrace of those who remain indifferent.”

    Maia Sandu, the president of Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova, where concerns are high and a long-standing contingent of Russian troops has refused to depart, thanked “Ukrainians for their tireless fight for freedom and for protecting peace in Moldova too.”

    “In these two years, the free world has shown unprecedented solidarity, yet the war persists; our support must endure fiercely,” she said on X.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “We must renew our determination…on this grim anniversary. This is the moment to show that tyranny will never triumph and to say once again that we will stand with Ukraine today and tomorrow.”

    The anniversary falls one day after the United States and European Union announced new rounds of hundreds of sanctions targeting Russia and officials responsible for the war, but with Ukrainian officials desperately pleading with the international community to avoid cutoffs in support or a “depletion of empathy.”

    Ukrainians have battled fiercely since a Russian invasion of hundreds of thousands of troops began on February 24, 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to cast doubt on Ukrainian nationhood and eventually said Moscow’s goal was the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine’s government.

    It was a new phase in a land grab that had begun eight years earlier in 2014, when Russia covertly invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine and began intensive support of armed Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

    The United Nations has overwhelmingly voted to back Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

    WATCH: Current Time correspondents Borys Sachalko, Andriy Kuzakov, and Oleksiy Prodayvod reflect on their wartime experiences together with the cameramen and drivers who form a critical part of their reporting teams.

    But a massive assistance package proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has been blocked primarily by Republicans in Congress.

    The European Union managed to pass its own $54 billion aid package for Ukraine earlier this month despite reluctance from member Hungary and talk of Ukraine fatigue.

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a recorded statement for the anniversary that “the situation on the battlefield remains extremely serious” and “President Putin’s aim to dominate Ukraine has not changed, and there are no indications that he is preparing for peace. But we must not lose heart.”

    Earlier this week, Stoltenberg told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that the alliance was an advantage that neither Russia nor China could match.

    At the UN General Assembly on February 23, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “Russia’s aim is to destroy Ukraine and they are quite outspoken about it,” adding that “The only reason for this war has been and remains Russia’s denial of Ukraine’s right to exist and its continued colonial conquest.”

    Russian forces last week captured the mostly destroyed eastern city of Avdiyivka as remaining Ukrainian troops withdrew amid reported ammunition shortages to hand Moscow its first significant gain of territory in nearly a year.

    The Russian military said on February 24 that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited troops in occupied Ukraine in a clear effort to send a message to Ukraine and its defenders, as well as to a Russian public subjected to heavy censorship and punishments for anti-war dissenters as the “special military operation” has ground on.

    “Today, in terms of the ratio of forces, the advantage is on our side,” officials quoted Shoigu as telling troops at a Russian command center.

    The Russian military further said its troops were on the offensive after having taken Avdiyivka, in the Donetsk region.

    Zelenskiy used an interview on the conservative Fox News channel this week to urge the U.S. Congress to pass a $60 billion aid package to help his country defend itself, saying it is cheaper than the consequences of a Russian victory.

    Zelenskiy echoed warnings among Russia’s other neighbors that Putin will push further into Eastern Europe if he conquers Ukraine.

    “Will Ukraine survive without Congress’s support? Of course. But not all of us,” Zelenskiy said.

    On February 24, senior Zelenskiy aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine was auditing its “available resources” and said it’s impossible to predict when the war might end without a good idea of the amount of weapons and ammunition Kyiv will have at its disposal.

    He also suggested the Ukrainian president’s office is not currently in favor of peace talks with Russia as it would mean the “gradual death of Ukraine.”

    Separately, Swiss President Viola Amherd was quoted as telling the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper that Russia was unlikely to participate at the start of a senior-level peace conference that neutral Switzerland hopes to host in the next few months.

    The remarks followed Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis telling the United Nations that the idea was broached in January and Bern hoped for such a conference “by this summer.”

    Russia currently is thought to control around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

    The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft after a new round of Russian drone and missile strikes on several Ukrainian regions on February 23, which if confirmed would mark the loss of the second A-50 in just over a month.

    The general appointed recently by Zelenskiy as commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on February 24 that he is “convinced that unity is our victory.”

    “And it will definitely happen,” he said, “because light always conquers darkness!”

    Noting the two-year mark in the invasion, Ukraine’s General Staff asserted that Russia had suffered troop casualties of around 409,000 since February 24, 2022.

    Both sides classify casualty figures, and RFE/RL cannot confirm the accuracy of accounts by either side of battlefield developments in areas of heavy fighting or of casualty claims.

    With reporting by dpa, AFP, and 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.

  • Zelenskiy Aide Downplays Prospect Of Early Peace Talks, Swiss Say Russia Unlikely At Start

    EU and other Western leaders and dignitaries arrived in Kyiv early on February 24 eager to send a defiant message on the second anniversary of Russia’s launch of its all-out invasion of Ukraine, while Moscow sought to capitalize on its recent gains by announcing a visit by Russia’s defense minister to occupied Ukrainian territory.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zeleinskiy told his countrymen in a recorded video address from a Kyiv-area airport that was a scene of intense fighting early in the invasion that two years of bitter fighting means “we are 730 days closer to victory.”

    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.

    “Two years ago, we met an enemy landing force here with fire,” Zelenskiy said, before adding in a reference to the array of foreign leaders in Ukraine and at Hostomel Airport to mark the anniversary that “two years later, we meet here our friends, our partners.”

    He added that it was important that the war end “on our terms.”

    European Commission President Von der Leyen reportedly traveled to the Ukrainian capital from Poland by train along with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency.

    Meloni is scheduled to host a videoconference involving Group of Seven (G7) democracy leaders during which Zelenskiy is expected to encourage ongoing support to beat back Europe’s first full-scale military invasion since World War II.

    On her arrival, von der Leyen said alongside a photo of herself on a train platform in Kyiv that she was there to mark the grim anniversary “and to celebrate the extraordinary resistance of the Ukrainian people.”

    “More than ever, we stand firmly by Ukraine,” she said, “Financially, economically, militarily, morally…[u]ntil the country is finally free.”

    Before arriving in Ukraine, Trudeau shared his Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s sentiment via X, formerly Twitter, that Canada and its allies were “sending a clear message to [Russia]: Ukraine will not be defeated in the face of Putin’s illegal war.”

    Words of support have been pouring in from Western leaders.

    U.S. President Joe Biden praised the determination of Ukrainians and said “the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition in support of Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical assistance to Ukraine and holding Russia accountable for its aggression.”

    “The American people and people around the world understand that the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine,” he said.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Germans and all Europeans to “do even more — so that we can defend ourselves effectively.”

    Scholz said that Germany was completely fulfilling its NATO target of 2 percent investment of total economic output into its military for the first time in decades.

    Recently installed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cited “Two years of Ukrainian heroism. Two years of Russian barbarism. Two years of disgrace of those who remain indifferent.”

    Maia Sandu, the president of Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova, where concerns are high and a long-standing contingent of Russian troops has refused to depart, thanked “Ukrainians for their tireless fight for freedom and for protecting peace in Moldova too.”

    “In these two years, the free world has shown unprecedented solidarity, yet the war persists; our support must endure fiercely,” she said on X.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “We must renew our determination…on this grim anniversary. This is the moment to show that tyranny will never triumph and to say once again that we will stand with Ukraine today and tomorrow.”

    The anniversary falls one day after the United States and European Union announced new rounds of hundreds of sanctions targeting Russia and officials responsible for the war, but with Ukrainian officials desperately pleading with the international community to avoid cutoffs in support or a “depletion of empathy.”

    Ukrainians have battled fiercely since a Russian invasion of hundreds of thousands of troops began on February 24, 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to cast doubt on Ukrainian nationhood and eventually said Moscow’s goal was the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine’s government.

    It was a new phase in a land grab that had begun eight years earlier in 2014, when Russia covertly invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine and began intensive support of armed Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

    The United Nations has overwhelmingly voted to back Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

    WATCH: Current Time correspondents Borys Sachalko, Andriy Kuzakov, and Oleksiy Prodayvod reflect on their wartime experiences together with the cameramen and drivers who form a critical part of their reporting teams.

    But a massive assistance package proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has been blocked primarily by Republicans in Congress.

    The European Union managed to pass its own $54 billion aid package for Ukraine earlier this month despite reluctance from member Hungary and talk of Ukraine fatigue.

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a recorded statement for the anniversary that “the situation on the battlefield remains extremely serious” and “President Putin’s aim to dominate Ukraine has not changed, and there are no indications that he is preparing for peace. But we must not lose heart.”

    Earlier this week, Stoltenberg told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that the alliance was an advantage that neither Russia nor China could match.

    At the UN General Assembly on February 23, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “Russia’s aim is to destroy Ukraine and they are quite outspoken about it,” adding that “The only reason for this war has been and remains Russia’s denial of Ukraine’s right to exist and its continued colonial conquest.”

    Russian forces last week captured the mostly destroyed eastern city of Avdiyivka as remaining Ukrainian troops withdrew amid reported ammunition shortages to hand Moscow its first significant gain of territory in nearly a year.

    The Russian military said on February 24 that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited troops in occupied Ukraine in a clear effort to send a message to Ukraine and its defenders, as well as to a Russian public subjected to heavy censorship and punishments for anti-war dissenters as the “special military operation” has ground on.

    “Today, in terms of the ratio of forces, the advantage is on our side,” officials quoted Shoigu as telling troops at a Russian command center.

    The Russian military further said its troops were on the offensive after having taken Avdiyivka, in the Donetsk region.

    Zelenskiy used an interview on the conservative Fox News channel this week to urge the U.S. Congress to pass a $60 billion aid package to help his country defend itself, saying it is cheaper than the consequences of a Russian victory.

    Zelenskiy echoed warnings among Russia’s other neighbors that Putin will push further into Eastern Europe if he conquers Ukraine.

    “Will Ukraine survive without Congress’s support? Of course. But not all of us,” Zelenskiy said.

    On February 24, senior Zelenskiy aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine was auditing its “available resources” and said it’s impossible to predict when the war might end without a good idea of the amount of weapons and ammunition Kyiv will have at its disposal.

    He also suggested the Ukrainian president’s office is not currently in favor of peace talks with Russia as it would mean the “gradual death of Ukraine.”

    Separately, Swiss President Viola Amherd was quoted as telling the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper that Russia was unlikely to participate at the start of a senior-level peace conference that neutral Switzerland hopes to host in the next few months.

    The remarks followed Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis telling the United Nations that the idea was broached in January and Bern hoped for such a conference “by this summer.”

    Russia currently is thought to control around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

    The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft after a new round of Russian drone and missile strikes on several Ukrainian regions on February 23, which if confirmed would mark the loss of the second A-50 in just over a month.

    The general appointed recently by Zelenskiy as commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on February 24 that he is “convinced that unity is our victory.”

    “And it will definitely happen,” he said, “because light always conquers darkness!”

    Noting the two-year mark in the invasion, Ukraine’s General Staff asserted that Russia had suffered troop casualties of around 409,000 since February 24, 2022.

    Both sides classify casualty figures, and RFE/RL cannot confirm the accuracy of accounts by either side of battlefield developments in areas of heavy fighting or of casualty claims.

    With reporting by dpa, AFP, and 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.

  • Ex-President Medvedev Says Moscow Will Seek ‘Revenge’ For Western Sanctions

    EU and other Western leaders and dignitaries arrived in Kyiv early on February 24 eager to send a defiant message on the second anniversary of Russia’s launch of its all-out invasion of Ukraine, while Moscow sought to capitalize on its recent gains by announcing a visit by Russia’s defense minister to occupied Ukrainian territory.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zeleinskiy told his countrymen in a recorded video address from a Kyiv-area airport that was a scene of intense fighting early in the invasion that two years of bitter fighting means “we are 730 days closer to victory.”

    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.

    “Two years ago, we met an enemy landing force here with fire,” Zelenskiy said, before adding in a reference to the array of foreign leaders in Ukraine and at Hostomel Airport to mark the anniversary that “two years later, we meet here our friends, our partners.”

    He added that it was important that the war end “on our terms.”

    European Commission President Von der Leyen reportedly traveled to the Ukrainian capital from Poland by train along with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency.

    Meloni is scheduled to host a videoconference involving Group of Seven (G7) democracy leaders during which Zelenskiy is expected to encourage ongoing support to beat back Europe’s first full-scale military invasion since World War II.

    On her arrival, von der Leyen said alongside a photo of herself on a train platform in Kyiv that she was there to mark the grim anniversary “and to celebrate the extraordinary resistance of the Ukrainian people.”

    “More than ever, we stand firmly by Ukraine,” she said, “Financially, economically, militarily, morally…[u]ntil the country is finally free.”

    Before arriving in Ukraine, Trudeau shared his Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s sentiment via X, formerly Twitter, that Canada and its allies were “sending a clear message to [Russia]: Ukraine will not be defeated in the face of Putin’s illegal war.”

    Words of support have been pouring in from Western leaders.

    U.S. President Joe Biden praised the determination of Ukrainians and said “the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition in support of Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical assistance to Ukraine and holding Russia accountable for its aggression.”

    “The American people and people around the world understand that the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine,” he said.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Germans and all Europeans to “do even more — so that we can defend ourselves effectively.”

    Scholz said that Germany was completely fulfilling its NATO target of 2 percent investment of total economic output into its military for the first time in decades.

    Recently installed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cited “Two years of Ukrainian heroism. Two years of Russian barbarism. Two years of disgrace of those who remain indifferent.”

    Maia Sandu, the president of Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova, where concerns are high and a long-standing contingent of Russian troops has refused to depart, thanked “Ukrainians for their tireless fight for freedom and for protecting peace in Moldova too.”

    “In these two years, the free world has shown unprecedented solidarity, yet the war persists; our support must endure fiercely,” she said on X.

    British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “We must renew our determination…on this grim anniversary. This is the moment to show that tyranny will never triumph and to say once again that we will stand with Ukraine today and tomorrow.”

    The anniversary falls one day after the United States and European Union announced new rounds of hundreds of sanctions targeting Russia and officials responsible for the war, but with Ukrainian officials desperately pleading with the international community to avoid cutoffs in support or a “depletion of empathy.”

    Ukrainians have battled fiercely since a Russian invasion of hundreds of thousands of troops began on February 24, 2022, after Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to cast doubt on Ukrainian nationhood and eventually said Moscow’s goal was the “denazification” and demilitarization of Ukraine’s government.

    It was a new phase in a land grab that had begun eight years earlier in 2014, when Russia covertly invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine and began intensive support of armed Ukrainian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

    The United Nations has overwhelmingly voted to back Ukrainian territorial integrity and sovereignty.

    WATCH: Current Time correspondents Borys Sachalko, Andriy Kuzakov, and Oleksiy Prodayvod reflect on their wartime experiences together with the cameramen and drivers who form a critical part of their reporting teams.

    But a massive assistance package proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has been blocked primarily by Republicans in Congress.

    The European Union managed to pass its own $54 billion aid package for Ukraine earlier this month despite reluctance from member Hungary and talk of Ukraine fatigue.

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a recorded statement for the anniversary that “the situation on the battlefield remains extremely serious” and “President Putin’s aim to dominate Ukraine has not changed, and there are no indications that he is preparing for peace. But we must not lose heart.”

    Earlier this week, Stoltenberg told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that the alliance was an advantage that neither Russia nor China could match.

    At the UN General Assembly on February 23, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “Russia’s aim is to destroy Ukraine and they are quite outspoken about it,” adding that “The only reason for this war has been and remains Russia’s denial of Ukraine’s right to exist and its continued colonial conquest.”

    Russian forces last week captured the mostly destroyed eastern city of Avdiyivka as remaining Ukrainian troops withdrew amid reported ammunition shortages to hand Moscow its first significant gain of territory in nearly a year.

    The Russian military said on February 24 that Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited troops in occupied Ukraine in a clear effort to send a message to Ukraine and its defenders, as well as to a Russian public subjected to heavy censorship and punishments for anti-war dissenters as the “special military operation” has ground on.

    “Today, in terms of the ratio of forces, the advantage is on our side,” officials quoted Shoigu as telling troops at a Russian command center.

    The Russian military further said its troops were on the offensive after having taken Avdiyivka, in the Donetsk region.

    Zelenskiy used an interview on the conservative Fox News channel this week to urge the U.S. Congress to pass a $60 billion aid package to help his country defend itself, saying it is cheaper than the consequences of a Russian victory.

    Zelenskiy echoed warnings among Russia’s other neighbors that Putin will push further into Eastern Europe if he conquers Ukraine.

    “Will Ukraine survive without Congress’s support? Of course. But not all of us,” Zelenskiy said.

    On February 24, senior Zelenskiy aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said Ukraine was auditing its “available resources” and said it’s impossible to predict when the war might end without a good idea of the amount of weapons and ammunition Kyiv will have at its disposal.

    He also suggested the Ukrainian president’s office is not currently in favor of peace talks with Russia as it would mean the “gradual death of Ukraine.”

    Separately, Swiss President Viola Amherd was quoted as telling the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper that Russia was unlikely to participate at the start of a senior-level peace conference that neutral Switzerland hopes to host in the next few months.

    The remarks followed Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis telling the United Nations that the idea was broached in January and Bern hoped for such a conference “by this summer.”

    Russia currently is thought to control around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory.

    The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed a Russian A-50 surveillance aircraft after a new round of Russian drone and missile strikes on several Ukrainian regions on February 23, which if confirmed would mark the loss of the second A-50 in just over a month.

    The general appointed recently by Zelenskiy as commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskiy, said on February 24 that he is “convinced that unity is our victory.”

    “And it will definitely happen,” he said, “because light always conquers darkness!”

    Noting the two-year mark in the invasion, Ukraine’s General Staff asserted that Russia had suffered troop casualties of around 409,000 since February 24, 2022.

    Both sides classify casualty figures, and RFE/RL cannot confirm the accuracy of accounts by either side of battlefield developments in areas of heavy fighting or of casualty claims.

    With reporting by dpa, AFP, and 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.

  • Listening in on Russia’s War in Ukraine

    In this week’s episode, produced in collaboration with the Associated Press, reporters on the front lines take us inside Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and share never-before-heard recordings of Russian soldiers. 

    The day President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion, Feb. 24, 2022, Russia unleashed a brutal assault on the strategic port city of Mariupol. That same day, a team of AP reporters arrived in the city. Vasilisa Stepanenko, Evgeniy Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov kept their cameras and tape recorders rolling throughout the onslaught. Together, they captured some of the defining images of the war in Ukraine. Stepanenko and Maloletka talk with guest host Michael Montgomery about risking their lives to document blasted buildings, enormous bomb craters and the daily life of traumatized civilians. As Russian troops advanced on Mariupol, the journalists managed to escape with hours of their own material and recordings from the body camera of a noted Ukrainian medic, Yuliia Paievska. The powerful footage went viral and showed the world the brutalities of the war, as well as remarkable acts of courage by journalists, doctors and ordinary citizens.  

    Next, we listen to audio that’s never been publicly shared before: phone calls Russian soldiers made during the first weeks of the invasion, secretly recorded by the Ukrainian government. AP reporter Erika Kinetz obtained more than 2,000 of these calls. Using social media and other tools, she explores the lives of two soldiers whose calls home capture intimate moments with friends and family. The intercepted calls reveal the fear-mongering and patriotism that led some of the men to go from living regular lives as husbands, sons and fathers to talking about killing civilians. 

    In Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, Russian soldiers left streets strewn with the bodies of civilians killed during their brief occupation. Kinetz shares her experiences visiting Bucha and speaking with survivors soon after Russian troops retreated. In the secret intercepts, Russian soldiers speak of “cleansing operations.” One soldier tells his mother: “We don’t imprison them. We kill them all.” 

    Will Russian soldiers and political leaders be prosecuted for war crimes? Montgomery talks with Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian human rights lawyer who received a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. She runs the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv, which has been gathering evidence of human rights abuses and war crimes in Ukraine since Russia’s first invasion in 2014. Matviichuk says it’s important for war crimes to be handled by Ukrainian courts, but the country’s legal system is overwhelmed and notoriously corrupt. She says there is an important role for the international community in creating a system that can bring justice for all Ukrainians.  

    Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Reporters Say What It’s Like To Cover The War In Ukraine On Its Second Anniversary


    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.

  • Hungary Blocks Common EU Statement To Mark Second Anniversary Of Ukraine Invasion — Sources

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO allies are committed to doing more to ensure that Ukraine “prevails” in its battle to repel invading Russian forces, with the alliance having “significantly changed” its stance on providing more advanced weapons to Kyiv.

    Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL to mark the second anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the NATO chief said solidarity with Ukraine was not only correct, it’s also “in our own security interests.”

    “We can expect that the NATO allies will do more to ensure that Ukraine prevails, because this has been so clearly stated by NATO allies,” Stoltenberg said.

    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.

    “I always stress that this is not charity. This is an investment in our own security and and that our support makes a difference on the battlefield every day,” he added.

    Ukraine is in desperate need of financial and military assistance amid signs of political fatigue in the West as the war kicked off by Russia’s unprovoked invasion nears the two-year mark on February 24.

    In excerpts from the interview released earlier in the week, Stoltenberg said the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the first Russian gains on the battlefield in months should help focus the attention of NATO and its allies on the urgent need to support Ukraine.

    The death of Navalny in an Arctic prison on February 16 under suspicious circumstances — authorities say it will be another two weeks before the body may be released to the family — adds to the need to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule does not go unchecked.

    “I strongly believe that the best way to honor the memory of Aleksei Navalny is to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win on the battlefield, but that Ukraine prevails,” Stoltenberg said.

    Stoltenberg said the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the city of Avdiyivka last week after months of intense fighting demonstrated the need for more military aid, “to ensure that Russia doesn’t make further gains.”

    “We don’t believe that the fact that the Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Avdiyivka in in itself will significantly change the strategic situation,” he said.

    “But it reminds us of that Russia is willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers. It also just makes minor territorial gains and also that Russia has received significant military support supplies from Iran, from North Korea and have been able to ramp up their own production.”

    Ukraine’s allies have been focused on a $61 billion U.S. military aid package, but while that remains stalled in the House of Representatives, other countries, including Sweden, Canada, and Japan, have stepped up their aid.

    “Of course, we are focused on the United States, but we also see how other allies are really stepping up and delivering significant support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in the interview.

    On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16 fighter jets, Stoltenberg said it was not possible to say. He reiterated that Ukraine’s allies all want them to be there as early as possible but said the effect of the F-16s will be stronger if pilots are well trained and maintenance crews and other support personnel are well-prepared.

    “So, I think we have to listen to the military experts exactly when we will be ready to or when allies will be ready to start sending and to delivering the F-16s,” he said. “The sooner the better.”

    Ukraine has actively sought U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority. The United States in August approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

    It will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, and allies have different policies, Stoltenberg said. But at the same time the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression, and Ukraine has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.

    Asked about the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House, Stoltenberg said that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, the United States will remain a committed NATO ally because it is in the security interest of the United States.

    Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, drew sharp rebukes from President Joe Biden, European leaders, and NATO after suggesting at a campaign rally on February 10 that the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don’t pay enough toward their own defense.

    Stoltenberg said the United States was safer and stronger together with more than 30 allies — something that neither China nor Russia has.

    The criticism of NATO has been aimed at allies underspending on defense, he said.

    But Stoltenberg said new data shows that more and more NATO allies are meeting the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and this demonstrates that the alliance has come a long way since it pledged in 2014 to meet the target.

    At that time three members of NATO spent 2 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s 18, he said.

    “If you add together what all European allies do and compare that to the GDP in total in Europe, it’s actually 2 percent today,” he said. “That’s good, but it’s not enough because we want [each NATO member] to spend 2 percent. And we also make sure that 2 percent is a minimum.”


    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.

  • EU Announces 13th Russia Sanctions Package On Eve Of Second Anniversary Of Ukraine Invasion

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO allies are committed to doing more to ensure that Ukraine “prevails” in its battle to repel invading Russian forces, with the alliance having “significantly changed” its stance on providing more advanced weapons to Kyiv.

    Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL to mark the second anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the NATO chief said solidarity with Ukraine was not only correct, it’s also “in our own security interests.”

    “We can expect that the NATO allies will do more to ensure that Ukraine prevails, because this has been so clearly stated by NATO allies,” Stoltenberg said.

    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.

    “I always stress that this is not charity. This is an investment in our own security and and that our support makes a difference on the battlefield every day,” he added.

    Ukraine is in desperate need of financial and military assistance amid signs of political fatigue in the West as the war kicked off by Russia’s unprovoked invasion nears the two-year mark on February 24.

    In excerpts from the interview released earlier in the week, Stoltenberg said the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the first Russian gains on the battlefield in months should help focus the attention of NATO and its allies on the urgent need to support Ukraine.

    The death of Navalny in an Arctic prison on February 16 under suspicious circumstances — authorities say it will be another two weeks before the body may be released to the family — adds to the need to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule does not go unchecked.

    “I strongly believe that the best way to honor the memory of Aleksei Navalny is to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win on the battlefield, but that Ukraine prevails,” Stoltenberg said.

    Stoltenberg said the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the city of Avdiyivka last week after months of intense fighting demonstrated the need for more military aid, “to ensure that Russia doesn’t make further gains.”

    “We don’t believe that the fact that the Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Avdiyivka in in itself will significantly change the strategic situation,” he said.

    “But it reminds us of that Russia is willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers. It also just makes minor territorial gains and also that Russia has received significant military support supplies from Iran, from North Korea and have been able to ramp up their own production.”

    Ukraine’s allies have been focused on a $61 billion U.S. military aid package, but while that remains stalled in the House of Representatives, other countries, including Sweden, Canada, and Japan, have stepped up their aid.

    “Of course, we are focused on the United States, but we also see how other allies are really stepping up and delivering significant support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in the interview.

    On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16 fighter jets, Stoltenberg said it was not possible to say. He reiterated that Ukraine’s allies all want them to be there as early as possible but said the effect of the F-16s will be stronger if pilots are well trained and maintenance crews and other support personnel are well-prepared.

    “So, I think we have to listen to the military experts exactly when we will be ready to or when allies will be ready to start sending and to delivering the F-16s,” he said. “The sooner the better.”

    Ukraine has actively sought U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority. The United States in August approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

    It will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, and allies have different policies, Stoltenberg said. But at the same time the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression, and Ukraine has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.

    Asked about the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House, Stoltenberg said that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, the United States will remain a committed NATO ally because it is in the security interest of the United States.

    Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, drew sharp rebukes from President Joe Biden, European leaders, and NATO after suggesting at a campaign rally on February 10 that the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don’t pay enough toward their own defense.

    Stoltenberg said the United States was safer and stronger together with more than 30 allies — something that neither China nor Russia has.

    The criticism of NATO has been aimed at allies underspending on defense, he said.

    But Stoltenberg said new data shows that more and more NATO allies are meeting the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and this demonstrates that the alliance has come a long way since it pledged in 2014 to meet the target.

    At that time three members of NATO spent 2 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s 18, he said.

    “If you add together what all European allies do and compare that to the GDP in total in Europe, it’s actually 2 percent today,” he said. “That’s good, but it’s not enough because we want [each NATO member] to spend 2 percent. And we also make sure that 2 percent is a minimum.”


    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.

  • Russian Appeal Against Olympic Suspension Rejected

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO allies are committed to doing more to ensure that Ukraine “prevails” in its battle to repel invading Russian forces, with the alliance having “significantly changed” its stance on providing more advanced weapons to Kyiv.

    Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL to mark the second anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the NATO chief said solidarity with Ukraine was not only correct, it’s also “in our own security interests.”

    “We can expect that the NATO allies will do more to ensure that Ukraine prevails, because this has been so clearly stated by NATO allies,” Stoltenberg said.

    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.

    “I always stress that this is not charity. This is an investment in our own security and and that our support makes a difference on the battlefield every day,” he added.

    Ukraine is in desperate need of financial and military assistance amid signs of political fatigue in the West as the war kicked off by Russia’s unprovoked invasion nears the two-year mark on February 24.

    In excerpts from the interview released earlier in the week, Stoltenberg said the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the first Russian gains on the battlefield in months should help focus the attention of NATO and its allies on the urgent need to support Ukraine.

    The death of Navalny in an Arctic prison on February 16 under suspicious circumstances — authorities say it will be another two weeks before the body may be released to the family — adds to the need to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule does not go unchecked.

    “I strongly believe that the best way to honor the memory of Aleksei Navalny is to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win on the battlefield, but that Ukraine prevails,” Stoltenberg said.

    Stoltenberg said the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the city of Avdiyivka last week after months of intense fighting demonstrated the need for more military aid, “to ensure that Russia doesn’t make further gains.”

    “We don’t believe that the fact that the Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Avdiyivka in in itself will significantly change the strategic situation,” he said.

    “But it reminds us of that Russia is willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers. It also just makes minor territorial gains and also that Russia has received significant military support supplies from Iran, from North Korea and have been able to ramp up their own production.”

    Ukraine’s allies have been focused on a $61 billion U.S. military aid package, but while that remains stalled in the House of Representatives, other countries, including Sweden, Canada, and Japan, have stepped up their aid.

    “Of course, we are focused on the United States, but we also see how other allies are really stepping up and delivering significant support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in the interview.

    On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16 fighter jets, Stoltenberg said it was not possible to say. He reiterated that Ukraine’s allies all want them to be there as early as possible but said the effect of the F-16s will be stronger if pilots are well trained and maintenance crews and other support personnel are well-prepared.

    “So, I think we have to listen to the military experts exactly when we will be ready to or when allies will be ready to start sending and to delivering the F-16s,” he said. “The sooner the better.”

    Ukraine has actively sought U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority. The United States in August approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

    It will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, and allies have different policies, Stoltenberg said. But at the same time the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression, and Ukraine has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.

    Asked about the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House, Stoltenberg said that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, the United States will remain a committed NATO ally because it is in the security interest of the United States.

    Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, drew sharp rebukes from President Joe Biden, European leaders, and NATO after suggesting at a campaign rally on February 10 that the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don’t pay enough toward their own defense.

    Stoltenberg said the United States was safer and stronger together with more than 30 allies — something that neither China nor Russia has.

    The criticism of NATO has been aimed at allies underspending on defense, he said.

    But Stoltenberg said new data shows that more and more NATO allies are meeting the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and this demonstrates that the alliance has come a long way since it pledged in 2014 to meet the target.

    At that time three members of NATO spent 2 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s 18, he said.

    “If you add together what all European allies do and compare that to the GDP in total in Europe, it’s actually 2 percent today,” he said. “That’s good, but it’s not enough because we want [each NATO member] to spend 2 percent. And we also make sure that 2 percent is a minimum.”


    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.

  • Russians Against The War In Ukraine Face Torture, Terrorism Charges


    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.

  • Biden Announces More Than 500 Fresh Russia Sanctions, Warns House ‘History Is Watching’

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO allies are committed to doing more to ensure that Ukraine “prevails” in its battle to repel invading Russian forces, with the alliance having “significantly changed” its stance on providing more advanced weapons to Kyiv.

    Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL to mark the second anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the NATO chief said solidarity with Ukraine was not only correct, it’s also “in our own security interests.”

    “We can expect that the NATO allies will do more to ensure that Ukraine prevails, because this has been so clearly stated by NATO allies,” Stoltenberg said.

    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.

    “I always stress that this is not charity. This is an investment in our own security and and that our support makes a difference on the battlefield every day,” he added.

    Ukraine is in desperate need of financial and military assistance amid signs of political fatigue in the West as the war kicked off by Russia’s unprovoked invasion nears the two-year mark on February 24.

    In excerpts from the interview released earlier in the week, Stoltenberg said the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the first Russian gains on the battlefield in months should help focus the attention of NATO and its allies on the urgent need to support Ukraine.

    The death of Navalny in an Arctic prison on February 16 under suspicious circumstances — authorities say it will be another two weeks before the body may be released to the family — adds to the need to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule does not go unchecked.

    “I strongly believe that the best way to honor the memory of Aleksei Navalny is to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win on the battlefield, but that Ukraine prevails,” Stoltenberg said.

    Stoltenberg said the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the city of Avdiyivka last week after months of intense fighting demonstrated the need for more military aid, “to ensure that Russia doesn’t make further gains.”

    “We don’t believe that the fact that the Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Avdiyivka in in itself will significantly change the strategic situation,” he said.

    “But it reminds us of that Russia is willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers. It also just makes minor territorial gains and also that Russia has received significant military support supplies from Iran, from North Korea and have been able to ramp up their own production.”

    Ukraine’s allies have been focused on a $61 billion U.S. military aid package, but while that remains stalled in the House of Representatives, other countries, including Sweden, Canada, and Japan, have stepped up their aid.

    “Of course, we are focused on the United States, but we also see how other allies are really stepping up and delivering significant support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in the interview.

    On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16 fighter jets, Stoltenberg said it was not possible to say. He reiterated that Ukraine’s allies all want them to be there as early as possible but said the effect of the F-16s will be stronger if pilots are well trained and maintenance crews and other support personnel are well-prepared.

    “So, I think we have to listen to the military experts exactly when we will be ready to or when allies will be ready to start sending and to delivering the F-16s,” he said. “The sooner the better.”

    Ukraine has actively sought U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority. The United States in August approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

    It will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, and allies have different policies, Stoltenberg said. But at the same time the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression, and Ukraine has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.

    Asked about the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House, Stoltenberg said that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, the United States will remain a committed NATO ally because it is in the security interest of the United States.

    Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, drew sharp rebukes from President Joe Biden, European leaders, and NATO after suggesting at a campaign rally on February 10 that the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don’t pay enough toward their own defense.

    Stoltenberg said the United States was safer and stronger together with more than 30 allies — something that neither China nor Russia has.

    The criticism of NATO has been aimed at allies underspending on defense, he said.

    But Stoltenberg said new data shows that more and more NATO allies are meeting the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and this demonstrates that the alliance has come a long way since it pledged in 2014 to meet the target.

    At that time three members of NATO spent 2 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s 18, he said.

    “If you add together what all European allies do and compare that to the GDP in total in Europe, it’s actually 2 percent today,” he said. “That’s good, but it’s not enough because we want [each NATO member] to spend 2 percent. And we also make sure that 2 percent is a minimum.”


    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.

  • After Two Years of War in Ukraine, It’s Time for Peace

    The ruins of Avdiivka. Photo Credit: Russian Defense Ministry

    As we mark two full years since Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian government forces have withdrawn from Avdiivka, a town they first captured from the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in July 2014. Situated only 10 miles from Donetsk city, Avdiivka gave Ukrainian government forces a base from which their artillery bombarded Donetsk for nearly ten years. From a pre-war population of about 31,000, the town has been depopulated and left in ruins.

    The mass slaughter on both sides in this long battle was a measure of the strategic value of the city to both sides, but it is also emblematic of the shocking human cost of this war, which has degenerated into a brutal and bloody war of attrition along a nearly static front line. Neither side made significant territorial gains in the entire 2023 year of fighting, with a net gain to Russia of a mere 188 square miles, or 0.1% of Ukraine.

    And while it is the Ukrainians and Russians fighting and dying in this war of attrition with over half a million casualties, it is the United States, with some its Western allies, that has stood in the way of peace talks. This was true of talks between Russia and Ukraine that took place in March 2022, one month after the Russian invasion, and it is true of talks that Russia tried to initiate with the United States as recently as January 2024.

    In March 2022, Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey and negotiated a peace agreement that should have ended the war. Ukraine agreed to become a neutral country between east and west, on the model of Austria or Switzerland, giving up its controversial ambition for NATO membership. Territorial questions over Crimea and the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk would be resolved peacefully, based on self-determination for the people of those regions.

    But then the U.S. and U.K. intervened to persuade Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to abandon the neutrality agreement in favor of a long war to militarily drive Russia out of Ukraine and recover Crimea and Donbas by force. U.S. and U.K. leaders have never admitted to their own people what they did, nor tried to explain why they did it.

    So it has been left to everyone else involved to reveal details of the agreement and the U.S. and U.K.’s roles in torpedoing it: President Zelenskyy’s advisers; Ukrainian negotiators; Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Turkish diplomats; Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who was another mediator; and former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who mediated with Russian President Vladimir Putin for Ukraine.

    The U.S. sabotage of peace talks should come as no surprise. So much of U.S. foreign policy follows what should by now be an easily recognizable and predictable pattern, in which our leaders systematically lie to us about their decisions and actions in crisis situations, and, by the time the truth is widely known, it is too late to reverse the catastrophic effects of those decisions. Thousands of people have paid with their lives, nobody is held accountable, and the world’s attention has moved on to the next crisis, the next series of lies and the next bloodbath, which in this case is Gaza.

    But the war grinds on in Ukraine, whether we pay attention to it or not. Once the U.S. and U.K. succeeded in killing peace talks and prolonging the war, it fell into an intractable pattern common to many wars, in which Ukraine, the United States and the leading members of the NATO military alliance were encouraged, or we might say deluded, by limited successes at different times into continually prolonging and escalating the war and rejecting diplomacy, in spite of ever-mounting, appalling human costs for the people of Ukraine.

    U.S. and NATO leaders have repeated ad nauseam that they are arming Ukraine to put it in a stronger position at the “negotiating table,” even as they keep rejecting negotiations. After Ukraine gained ground with its much celebrated offensives in the fall of 2022, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley went public with a call to “seize the moment” and get back to the negotiating table from the position of strength that NATO leaders said they were waiting for. French and German military leaders were reportedly even more adamant that that moment would be short-lived if they failed to seize it.

    They were right. President Biden rejected his military advisers’ calls for renewed diplomacy, and Ukraine’s failed 2023 offensive wasted its chance to negotiate from a position of strength, sacrificing many more lives to leave it weaker than before.

    On February 13, 2024, Reuters Moscow bureau broke the story that the United States had recently rejected a new Russian proposal to reopen peace negotiations. Multiple Russian sources involved in the initiative told Reuters that Russia proposed direct talks with the United States to call a ceasefire along the current front lines of the war.

    After Russia’s March 2022 peace agreement with Ukraine was vetoed by the U.S., this time Russia approached the United States directly before involving Ukraine. There was a meeting of intermediaries in Turkey, and a meeting between Secretary of State Blinken, CIA Director Burns and National Security Adviser Sullivan in Washington, but the result was a message from Sullivan that the U.S. was willing to discuss other aspects of U.S.-Russian relations, but not peace in Ukraine.

    And so the war grinds on. Russia is still firing 10,000 artillery shells per day along the front line, while Ukraine can only fire 2,000. In a microcosm of the larger war, some Ukrainian gunners told reporters they were only allowed to fire 3 shells per night. As Sam Cranny-Evans of the U.K.’s RUSI military think-tank told the Guardian, “What that means is that Ukrainians can’t suppress Russian artillery any more, and if the Ukrainians can’t fire back, all they can do is try to survive.”

    A March 2023 European initiative to produce a million shells for Ukraine in a year fell far short, only producing about 600,000. U.S. monthly shell production in October 2023 was 28,000 shells, with a target of 37,000 per month by April 2024. The United States plans to increase production to 100,000 shells per month, but that will take until October 2025.

    Meanwhile, Russia is already producing 4.5 million artillery shells per year. After spending less than one tenth of the Pentagon budget over the past 20 years, how is Russia able to produce 5 times more artillery shells than the United States and its NATO allies combined?

    RUSI’s Richard Connolly explained to the Guardian that, while Western countries privatized their weapons production and dismantled “surplus” productive capacity after the end of the Cold War in the interest of corporate profits, “The Russians have been… subsidizing the defense industry, and many would have said wasting money for the event that one day they need to be able to scale it up. So it was economically inefficient until 2022, and then suddenly it looks like a very shrewd bit of planning.”

    President Biden has been anxious to send more money to Ukraine–a whopping $61 billion—but disagreements in the U.S. Congress between bipartisan Ukraine supporters and a Republican faction opposed to U.S. involvement have held up the funds. But even if Ukraine had endless infusions of Western weapons, it has a more serious problem: Many of the troops it recruited to fight this war in 2022 have been killed, wounded or captured, and its recruitment system has been plagued by corruption and a lack of enthusiasm for the war among most of its people.

    In August 2023, the government fired the heads of military recruitment in all 24 regions of the country after it became widely known that they were systematically soliciting bribes to allow men to avoid recruitment and gain safe passage out of the country. The Open Ukraine Telegram channel reported, “The military registration and enlistment offices have never seen such money before, and the revenues are being evenly distributed vertically to the top.”

    The Ukrainian parliament is debating a new conscription law, with an online registration system that includes people living abroad and with penalties for failure to register or enlist. Parliament already voted down a previous bill that members found too draconian, and many fear that forced conscription will lead to more widespread draft resistance, or even bring down the government.

    Oleksiy Arestovych, President Zelenskyy’s former spokesman, told the Unherd website that the root of Ukraine’s recruitment problem is that only 20% of Ukrainians believe in the anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism that has controlled Ukrainian governments since the overthrow of the Yanukovych government in 2014. “What about the remaining 80%?” the interviewer asked.

    “I think for most of them, their idea is of a multinational and poly-cultural country,” Arestovych replied. “And when Zelenskyy came into power in 2019, they voted for this idea. He did not articulate it specifically but it was what he meant when he said, ‘I don’t see a difference in the Ukrainian-Russian language conflict, we are all Ukrainians even if we speak different languages.’”

    “And you know,” Arestovych continued, “my great criticism of what has happened in Ukraine over the last years, during the emotional trauma of the war, is this idea of Ukrainian nationalism which has divided Ukraine into different people: the Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers as a second class of people. It’s the main dangerous idea and a worse danger than Russian military aggression, because nobody from this 80% of people wants to die for a system in which they are people of a second class.”

    If Ukrainians are reluctant to fight, imagine how Americans would resist being shipped off to fight in Ukraine. A 2023 U.S. Army War College study of “Lessons from Ukraine” found that the U.S. ground war with Russia that the United States ispreparing to fight would involve an estimated 3,600 U.S. casualties per day, killing and maiming as many U.S. troops every two weeks as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did in twenty years. Echoing Ukraine’s military recruitment crisis, the authors concluded, “Large-scale combat operations troop requirements may well require a reconceptualization of the 1970s and 1980s volunteer force and a move toward partial conscription.”

    U.S. war policy in Ukraine is predicated on just such a gradual escalation from proxy war to full-scale war between Russia and the United States, which is unavoidably overshadowed by the risk of nuclear war. This has not changed in two years, and it will not change unless and until our leaders take a radically different approach. That would involve serious diplomacy to end the war on terms on which Russia and Ukraine can agree, as they did on the March 2022 neutrality agreement.

    The post After Two Years of War in Ukraine, It’s Time for Peace first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Stoltenberg: Best Way To Honor Navalny Is To Make Sure Russia Does Not Win In Ukraine


    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.

  • Ukrainian Air Defense Repels Fresh Russian Drone Attack, Says Military

    European Union foreign ministers in Brussels provided strong public backing to the exiled widow of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny, vowing additional sanctions against Moscow to hold it responsible for the death of her husband in a remote Arctic prison.

    “The EU will spare no efforts to hold Russia’s political leadership and authorities to account, in close coordination with our partners; and impose further costs for their actions, including through sanctions,” the EU’s top diplomats said in a joint statement following their meeting with Yulia Navalnaya on February 19.

    Navalnaya, who has become a vocal Kremlin critic in her own right over recent years, vowed to “continue our fight for our country” as she traveled to Brussels to seek backing from the 27-member bloc, whose leaders have expressed outrage over Navalny’s death in custody last week and Russian authorities’ refusal to allow his mother and lawyers to see his body.

    “Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband, Aleksei Navalny,” Yulia Navalnaya said in a two-minute video post on X, formerly Twitter.

    Navalnaya, who along with their two children lives abroad, was already in Munich for a major international security conference when reports emerged on February 16 that Navalny had died at a harsh Arctic prison known as Polar Wolf, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for alleged extremism that Navalny and Kremlin critics say was heaped atop other convictions to punish him for his anti-corruption and political activities.

    “I will continue the work of Aleksei Navalny,” Navalnaya said. “Continue to fight for our country. And I invite you to stand beside me.”

    She called for supporters to battle the Kremlin with “more fury than ever before” and said she longed to live in “a free Russia.”

    EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell emerged from that meeting expressing “the EU’s deepest condolences” and confidence that Russian President “Vladimir Putin & his regime will be held accountable for the death of [Aleksei Navalny].”

    “As [Navalnaya] said, Putin is not Russia. Russia is not Putin,” Borrell said, adding that the bloc’s support is assured “to Russia’s civil society & independent media.”

    An ally of Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, said in a post on Telegram that an investigator had stated that tests on Navalny’s body will take 14 days to complete.

    Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis insisted earlier that the EU must “at least” sharpen sanctions against Russia following Navalny’s death.

    The EU has already passed 12 rounds of Russian sanctions and is working on a 13th with the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaching later this week, with member Germany pressing for more.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had said Berlin would propose new sanctions on Moscow at the meeting with Navalnaya, but the outcome remained unclear.

    The German Foreign Office said it was summoning the Russian ambassador over Navalny’s death to “condemn this in the strongest possible terms and expressly call for the release of all those imprisoned in Russia for political reasons.”

    Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office called separately for clarification on the circumstances and for Russian authorities to release Navalny’s body to the family.

    The Kremlin — which for years avoided mention of Navalny by name — broke its official silence on February 19 by saying an investigation was ongoing and would be carried out according to Russian law. It said the question of when his body would be handed over was not for the Kremlin to decide.

    It called Western outcry over the February 16 announcement of Navalny’s death “absolutely unacceptable.”

    The Latvia-based Novaya Gazeta Europe said on February 18 that police were securing a local morgue in the Siberian city of Salekhard as speculation swirled around the location of the 47-year-old Navalny’s body and whether it showed signs of abuse.

    Navalny is the latest on a significant list of Putin foes who have ended up dead under suspicious circumstances abroad or at home, where the Kremlin has clamped down ruthlessly on dissent and free speech since the Ukraine invasion began.

    Political analyst Yekaterina Shulman told Current Time that Navalny “possessed incomparable moral capital” in Russia but also well beyond its borders.

    “He possessed fame — all Russian and worldwide,” Shulman said. “He had moral authority [and] he had a long political biography. These are all things that cannot be handed down to anyone and cannot be acquired quickly.”

    She cited Navalny’s crucial credibility and “political capital” built up through years of investigations of corruption, campaigning for elections, and organizing politically.

    “Perhaps this apparent political assassination will become a rallying point not for the opposition — the opposition is people who run for office to acquire mandates [and] we are not in that situation — but for the anti-war community…inside Russia,” Shulman said.

    Navalny’s family and close associates have confirmed his death in prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but authorities have refused to release it pending an investigation.

    Mediazona and Novaya.gazeta Europe said Navalny’s body was being held at the district morgue in Salekhard, although officials reportedly told Navalny’s mother otherwise after she traveled to the remote prison on February 17 and was denied access.

    A former spokeswoman for Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, claimed Navalny’s mother had been turned away again early on February 19.

    Yarmysh tweeted that Russia’s federal Investigative Committee had told his mother and lawyers that “the investigation into Navalny’s death had been extended. How much longer she will go is unknown. The cause of death is still ‘undetermined.’”

    “They lie, stall for time, and don’t even hide it,” she added.

    The OVD-Info human rights group website showed more than 57,000 signatories demanding that the Investigative Committee return Navalny’s body to his family.

    WATCH: Court documents examined by RFE/RL reveal that medical care was repeatedly denied to inmates at the prison where Aleksei Navalny was held. In one case, this resulted in the death of an inmate. The revelation comes amid questions over how Navalny died and as his body has still not been handed over to his family.

    The group noted that a procedural review process could allow authorities to keep the body for at least 30 days, or longer if a criminal case was opened.

    Since the announcement of his death on February 16, Russian police have cordoned off memorial sites where people were laying flowers and candles to honor Navalny, and dispersed and arrested more than 430 suspected violators in dozens of locations.

    Closely watched by police, mourners on February 19 continued to leave flowers at tributes in Moscow to honor Navalny. Initial reports suggested police in the capital did not intervene in the latest actions.

    The Western response has been to condemn Putin and his administration, with U.S. President Joe Biden saying there is “no doubt” that Putin is to blame for Navalny’s death.

    The British and U.S. ambassadors laid tributes over the weekend at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument to repression that has emerged as a site to honor Navalny.

    U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy said she was honoring “Navalny and other victims of political repression in Russia,” adding, “His strength is an inspiring example. We honor his memory.”

    The French ambassador also visited one of the memorials.

    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.

  • The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – February 19, 2024 President Biden says he’s willing to discuss Ukraine aid bill with House Speaker and Congressional leaders.

    Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

     

    The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – February 19, 2024 President Biden says he’s willing to discuss Ukraine aid bill with House Speaker and Congressional leaders. appeared first on KPFA.


    This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Germany to propose new sanctions against Russia after death of Alexei Navalny

    Death of Russian opposition leader imbues EU summit with renewed nervousness over war in Ukraine

    Germany is to propose a new batch of sanctions against Russia over the death of Alexei Navalny as EU ministers meet his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in Brussels.

    “We have seen the brutal force with which the Russian president represses his own citizens who take to the streets to demonstrate for freedom or write about it in newspapers,” the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said on Monday. “We will propose new sanctions in light of the death of Alexei Navalny.”

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • EU’s Top Diplomat: Ukraine Receives ‘Intense Flow Of Our Ammunition’


    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.

  • Family Of Four Feared Dead In Russian Missile Strike On Kramatorsk, Ukrainian Officials Say

    Aleksei Navalny’s family and close associates have confirmed the Russian opposition politician’s death in an Arctic prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but officials have refused to release it, telling his lawyers and mother that an “investigation” of the causes would only be completed next week.

    “Aleksei’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the morgue in Salekhard,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, referring to the capital of the region of Yamalo-Nenets, where Navalny’s prison is located.

    “It’s closed. However, the [prison] has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Aleksei’s body is not in the morgue,” she added.

    Yarmysh then said in a new message: “An hour ago, the lawyers were told that the check was completed and no crime had been found. They literally lie every time, drive in circles and cover their tracks.”

    But in a third message, she said, “Now the Investigative Committee directly says that until the check is completed, Aleksei’s body will not be given to relatives.”

    Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said that Navalny’s mother was told her son had died of a cardiac-arrest illness.

    “When the lawyer and Aleksei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Zhdanov said.

    Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, who traveled to the Yamalo-Nenets region some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, was earlier informed that the Kremlin critic died at the “Arctic Wolf” prison on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to Yarmish.

    Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer who has represented Russian human rights activists, told Current Time that “what is happening is not accidental.”

    “The Russian authorities will do everything not to turn over the body in time or certainly not to conduct a forensic medical examination,” Prokhorov told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

    The penitentiary service said in a statement on February 16 that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and subsequently lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him but he died, the statement added.

    Navalny, a longtime anti-corruption fighter and Russia’s most-prominent opposition politician for over a decade, was 47.

    His death sparked an immediate outpouring of grief among many Russians, while leaders around the world condenmed the death of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic, blaming the Russian president directly for the death.

    Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers meeting in Munich on the sidelines of a security conference held a minute’s silence for Navalny on February 17. The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

    In a joint statement released by Italy, the ministers expressed their “outrage at the death in detention of Aleksei Navalny, unjustly sentenced for legitimate political activities and his fight against corruption.”

    Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “for his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death.”

    “Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent,” he added.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death of Navalny showed that it is impossible to see Putin as a legitimate leader.

    “Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target to him,” Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference on February 17.

    Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in Munich that Navalny will be remembered as someone who sacrificed his life for his country.

    “Putin wants to be remembered as a ruler of Russia. But Navalny will be remembered in a different way because Navalny died for his country rather than for killing other people.”

    “He tried to show that other things are possible [in Russia] and we’ll never know what kind of leader he would have been,” he added.

    Navalny’s vision for change in Russia will be kept alive by his team, his spokeswoman Yarmysh said. “We lost our leader, but we didn’t lose our ideas and our beliefs,” Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.

    Navalny’s death was a “very sad day” for Russia, and must lead to international action, the wife of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning said on February 17.

    Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Aleksandr died of radiation poisoning in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium at a meeting with Russian agents at a London hotel, told AFP she had sympathy for Navalny’s wife, Yulia.

    The Kremlin, which Navalny said was behind a poison attack that almost killed him in 2020, has angrily denied it played any role in Navalny’s death and rejected the “absolutely rabid” reaction of Western leaders.

    Inside Russia, people continued to mourn the death of the anti-corruption crusader despite official media paying little attention to his death and efforts to remove any tributes to him.

    At least 340 people have been detained in 30 cities and towns in Russia on February 16 and 17 after they came to pay tribute, include laying flowers, to the memory of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

    On February 17, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

    In Moscow, people came to lay flowers at the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov on February 17. Riot police immediately moved in and more than 15 people were arrested, the Sota news outlet reported.

    In St. Petersburg, an Orthodox priest was detained on February 17 after he announced he would hold a memorial service for Navalny.

    Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko was detained near his home as he was going to the Solovetsky Stone memorial dedicated to Soviet victims of political repression.

    He was remanded in custody and was to be presented to a judge on February 19, the site 24liveblog.com reported.

    However, a memorial service was performed by a different Orthodox priest at the site, in the presence of several people, some of whom were detained after the service was completed.


    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.

  • Ukraine Warns Of Border Crossing Shutdown Amid Polish Farmers’ Protest

    Aleksei Navalny’s family and close associates have confirmed the Russian opposition politician’s death in an Arctic prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but officials have refused to release it, telling his lawyers and mother that an “investigation” of the causes would only be completed next week.

    “Aleksei’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the morgue in Salekhard,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, referring to the capital of the region of Yamalo-Nenets, where Navalny’s prison is located.

    “It’s closed. However, the [prison] has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Aleksei’s body is not in the morgue,” she added.

    Yarmysh then said in a new message: “An hour ago, the lawyers were told that the check was completed and no crime had been found. They literally lie every time, drive in circles and cover their tracks.”

    But in a third message, she said, “Now the Investigative Committee directly says that until the check is completed, Aleksei’s body will not be given to relatives.”

    Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said that Navalny’s mother was told her son had died of a cardiac-arrest illness.

    “When the lawyer and Aleksei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Zhdanov said.

    Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, who traveled to the Yamalo-Nenets region some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, was earlier informed that the Kremlin critic died at the “Arctic Wolf” prison on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to Yarmish.

    Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer who has represented Russian human rights activists, told Current Time that “what is happening is not accidental.”

    “The Russian authorities will do everything not to turn over the body in time or certainly not to conduct a forensic medical examination,” Prokhorov told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

    The penitentiary service said in a statement on February 16 that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and subsequently lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him but he died, the statement added.

    Navalny, a longtime anti-corruption fighter and Russia’s most-prominent opposition politician for over a decade, was 47.

    His death sparked an immediate outpouring of grief among many Russians, while leaders around the world condenmed the death of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic, blaming the Russian president directly for the death.

    Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers meeting in Munich on the sidelines of a security conference held a minute’s silence for Navalny on February 17. The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

    In a joint statement released by Italy, the ministers expressed their “outrage at the death in detention of Aleksei Navalny, unjustly sentenced for legitimate political activities and his fight against corruption.”

    Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “for his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death.”

    “Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent,” he added.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death of Navalny showed that it is impossible to see Putin as a legitimate leader.

    “Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target to him,” Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference on February 17.

    Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in Munich that Navalny will be remembered as someone who sacrificed his life for his country.

    “Putin wants to be remembered as a ruler of Russia. But Navalny will be remembered in a different way because Navalny died for his country rather than for killing other people.”

    “He tried to show that other things are possible [in Russia] and we’ll never know what kind of leader he would have been,” he added.

    Navalny’s vision for change in Russia will be kept alive by his team, his spokeswoman Yarmysh said. “We lost our leader, but we didn’t lose our ideas and our beliefs,” Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.

    Navalny’s death was a “very sad day” for Russia, and must lead to international action, the wife of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning said on February 17.

    Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Aleksandr died of radiation poisoning in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium at a meeting with Russian agents at a London hotel, told AFP she had sympathy for Navalny’s wife, Yulia.

    The Kremlin, which Navalny said was behind a poison attack that almost killed him in 2020, has angrily denied it played any role in Navalny’s death and rejected the “absolutely rabid” reaction of Western leaders.

    Inside Russia, people continued to mourn the death of the anti-corruption crusader despite official media paying little attention to his death and efforts to remove any tributes to him.

    At least 340 people have been detained in 30 cities and towns in Russia on February 16 and 17 after they came to pay tribute, include laying flowers, to the memory of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

    On February 17, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

    In Moscow, people came to lay flowers at the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov on February 17. Riot police immediately moved in and more than 15 people were arrested, the Sota news outlet reported.

    In St. Petersburg, an Orthodox priest was detained on February 17 after he announced he would hold a memorial service for Navalny.

    Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko was detained near his home as he was going to the Solovetsky Stone memorial dedicated to Soviet victims of political repression.

    He was remanded in custody and was to be presented to a judge on February 19, the site 24liveblog.com reported.

    However, a memorial service was performed by a different Orthodox priest at the site, in the presence of several people, some of whom were detained after the service was completed.


    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.

  • A Word Like Peace Is Faster Than the Bullet of War


    Erik Bulatov (USSR), Horizon, 1971–72.

    On 26 January, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) announced the start of a massive military exercise called Steadfast Defender 2024 that will continue until the end of May. Over 90,000 troops from NATO countries (and one partner country, Sweden), including fifty naval groups and more than eighty air platforms, will deploy in thirteen countries to demonstrate the alliance’s capacity and ‘send a robust message about its readiness to protect all Allies in the face of emerging threats’. Of the thirty-one NATO member states, six share borders with Russia (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Norway). This NATO exercise comes just as the European Union announced that it will provide Ukraine with €50 billion in financial support between now and 2027, a reduction compared to the North Atlantic support over the past two years. As public support for the war in Ukraine declines in the Global North states, governments have decided to ramp up tensions along the Russian border through NATO.

    Following the announcement of the Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg travelled to the United States and met US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. Interestingly, their public comments did not express a shred of concern for the Ukrainian people. Stoltenberg referred instead to the Global North’s anxiety about Russia and China, saying that support for Ukraine is ‘an investment in our own security because the world will become more dangerous if President Putin wins in Ukraine’, warning that the result of this conflict ‘is also closely watched in China’. So, it is not the Ukrainians and their wellbeing that matters but the geostrategic necessity for the Global North to see Russia (and by implication, China) ‘weakened’, as Austin said in Kyiv two years earlier.

    To shed light on this conflict, its global implications, and the possibility of peace, the rest of this newsletter is dedicated to No Cold War’s briefing no. 12: The War in Ukraine Must End.

    Two years ago, on 24 February 2022, Russian forces entered Ukraine. This act was not the start of the war in Ukraine. Rather, it was the acceleration of a conflict that dates back to at least 2014. That year, at the behest of the United States, a new government was imposed on Ukraine, aiming to bring the country closer to the European Union. This initiated the sustained persecution of the country’s Russian-speaking population. The conflict moved swiftly, with Crimea de facto becoming part of Russia once again and the Donbass region of Ukraine becoming a frontline in the conflict between Ukrainian far-right nationalists and Russian speakers. In May 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took office and pledged to end the battle in the Donbass. Instead, due to pressure from NATO, the conflict intensified, eventually leading to the Russian intervention three years later. It is imperative for the people of Ukraine, Russia, and the world that the war be halted and that the issues be transferred from the battlefield to the negotiating table.


    Tuyo (Germany), Elephant, 2021.

    What has been the impact of the war?

    In any conflict, casualty figures become a matter of dispute. However, there is little disagreement that over 500,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have died or been injured in this war, that over six million Ukrainians have fled the country, and that over seven million Ukrainians have been internally displaced (out of a pre-war population of nearly 44 million). If the war is not brought to a halt, tens of thousands more will be killed and tens of millions more will suffer.

    Ukraine’s economy has been devastated, shrinking by 29% in 2022 alone, according to the World Bank. The impact of the war ricocheted across the globe, causing wheat prices to rise by 21% and some fertilisers to rise by 40% within the first month of the conflict. Global South countries were hit particularly hard by sharp increases in food and energy prices in many regions while the European economy inches towards a recession. In other countries, astronomic amounts of resources have been diverted to the war which instead could have been used for social and economic spending. The US and Europe have already spent well over $200 billion on the war. In December 2023, the head of the Ukrainian armed forces asked US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin for a further $350–400 billion to pursue ‘victory’.

    In reality, no amount of money will lead to a military triumph. It is clear, particularly after the failure of the Ukrainian ‘counter-offensive’, that there has been no significant change in the military situation, nor is there a credible prospect of one. The continued payment of such huge human and economic costs would be purposeless.


    Alexey Kryukov (Russia), Безмолвие. Саур-Могила (‘Silence – Saur-Mogila’), 2017.

    What issues need to be resolved?

    1) The position of Ukraine regarding military blocs. At the end of the Cold War, Europe had an opportunity to pursue peaceful economic development. A coherent and balanced economy with enormous potential could have been formed by reducing military spending while combining Western Europe’s high value-added manufacturing and service industries with the former Soviet Union’s energy, raw materials, agriculture, and high-technology industries such as space. In East Asia, which overcame a period of even greater Cold War division and conflict (as seen in the Korean and successive Vietnam and Indochina wars), a focus on mutually beneficial economic development and an avoidance of military and political blocs led it to become the world’s most rapidly growing economic region. This is evidenced by the fact that, since 1990, the GDP of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has grown by more than 400%. However, in Europe, the US insisted that such policies not be followed and that, instead, the region was to expand the NATO military bloc into Eastern Europe, breaking the commitment it had made at the time of German reunification that NATO would not advance ‘one inch eastward’ towards Russia. The US was fully aware that NATO’s expansion would greatly inflame tensions with Russia and across Europe. Of particular sensitivity was the possibility of Ukraine’s entry into NATO, which would bring the nuclear-armed bloc within immediate striking range of Moscow. Numerous experts on Eastern Europe and Russia strongly and repeatedly advised against such expansion of NATO. Most famously, George Kennan, the original architect of US Cold War policy, predicted in 1997 that, ‘expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era’. In December 2021, Russia proposed an agreement that Ukraine would not become a NATO member. In negotiations in March 2022, Ukraine proposed adopting a neutral status in exchange for security guarantees, inspired by NATO’s collective defence clause, which could have involved Poland, Israel, Turkey, and Canada as guarantors. This was blocked by NATO, directly conveyed by way of an urgent visit from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to Ukraine in May 2022, thereby preventing a rapid end of the war.

    2) The position of the Russian-speaking minority in the territory of the Ukrainian state (as it was formed in 1991). A 2001 census found that nearly 30% of Ukraine’s population considered Russian to be their native language. States with large linguistic and ethnic minority populations can only maintain their unity if the rights of such minorities are respected. The policies of the Ukrainian government after 2014, which included suppressing the official use of the Russian language in numerous spheres, were therefore bound to lead to an explosive crisis within the Ukrainian state. As the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, which certainly cannot be accused of being pro-Russian, stated: ‘the current Law on National Minorities is far from providing adequate guarantees for the protection of minorities… many other provisions which restrict the use of minority languages have already been in force since 16 July 2019’. There are only two ways to resolve this situation: restoration of the full linguistic and other rights of the Russian-speaking minority within the borders of the old Ukrainian state or the secession of these regions from Ukraine. Which outcome is realised will be a key subject of the negotiations. Nonetheless, it is clear that any attempt to maintain the Russian-speaking minority within the Ukrainian state while continuing to deprive them of their rights will not succeed, nor will any attempt by Russia to impose another state on the Ukrainian-speaking population of western and northern Ukraine.

    All efforts to resolve these issues by military means will continue to be futile and will only result in further intense suffering, above all for the Ukrainian people. These realities will become increasingly obvious if the war continues – which is why it must be brought to a halt as rapidly as possible and negotiations must commence.


    Mahamoudou Zinkone ‘Babs’ (Burkina Faso), Maquis Las Palmas, 2015.

    In 1961, the Soviet poet Volodymyr Mikolayovich Sosiura wrote a song on the power of words. Sosiura was born in Debaltseve (which is today in Donetsk) in 1898 within the Tsarist empire and died as a member of the communist party in Kyiv in 1965. He wrote several poems that oscillated between his patriotic love for Ukraine and his commitment to the Soviet Union and to the communist struggle. Above all else, Sosiura – who fought in World War I in Bakhmut and then later joined the Red Army – had a great disdain for war. He recognised the importance of the war against the Nazis, but – like many of his generation – bemoaned the terrible loss of life incurred by this war, such as the 27 million Soviet citizens who died in the fight to defeat the Nazi armies, amongst them 19 million civilians. This was the context of Sosiura’s beautiful poem about words:

    I know the power of the word.
    It is sharper than a bayonet
    and faster than even a bullet,
    Faster than an airplane.

    …

    Oh, weapon of happiness: word!
    I am used to living beside you.
    You are a flower in love,
    you are a bayonet in hate.

    The post A Word Like Peace Is Faster Than the Bullet of War first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Hungary Can Soon Ratify Sweden’s NATO Bid, Orban Says

    Aleksei Navalny’s family and close associates have confirmed the Russian opposition politician’s death in an Arctic prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but officials have refused to release it, telling his lawyers and mother that an “investigation” of the causes would only be completed next week.

    “Aleksei’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the morgue in Salekhard,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, referring to the capital of the region of Yamalo-Nenets, where Navalny’s prison is located.

    “It’s closed. However, the [prison] has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Aleksei’s body is not in the morgue,” she added.

    Yarmysh then said in a new message: “An hour ago, the lawyers were told that the check was completed and no crime had been found. They literally lie every time, drive in circles and cover their tracks.”

    But in a third message, she said, “Now the Investigative Committee directly says that until the check is completed, Aleksei’s body will not be given to relatives.”

    Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said that Navalny’s mother was told her son had died of a cardiac-arrest illness.

    “When the lawyer and Aleksei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Zhdanov said.

    Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, who traveled to the Yamalo-Nenets region some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, was earlier informed that the Kremlin critic died at the “Arctic Wolf” prison on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to Yarmish.

    Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer who has represented Russian human rights activists, told Current Time that “what is happening is not accidental.”

    “The Russian authorities will do everything not to turn over the body in time or certainly not to conduct a forensic medical examination,” Prokhorov told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

    The penitentiary service said in a statement on February 16 that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and subsequently lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him but he died, the statement added.

    Navalny, a longtime anti-corruption fighter and Russia’s most-prominent opposition politician for over a decade, was 47.

    His death sparked an immediate outpouring of grief among many Russians, while leaders around the world condenmed the death of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic, blaming the Russian president directly for the death.

    Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers meeting in Munich on the sidelines of a security conference held a minute’s silence for Navalny on February 17. The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

    In a joint statement released by Italy, the ministers expressed their “outrage at the death in detention of Aleksei Navalny, unjustly sentenced for legitimate political activities and his fight against corruption.”

    Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “for his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death.”

    “Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent,” he added.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death of Navalny showed that it is impossible to see Putin as a legitimate leader.

    “Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target to him,” Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference on February 17.

    Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in Munich that Navalny will be remembered as someone who sacrificed his life for his country.

    “Putin wants to be remembered as a ruler of Russia. But Navalny will be remembered in a different way because Navalny died for his country rather than for killing other people.”

    “He tried to show that other things are possible [in Russia] and we’ll never know what kind of leader he would have been,” he added.

    Navalny’s vision for change in Russia will be kept alive by his team, his spokeswoman Yarmysh said. “We lost our leader, but we didn’t lose our ideas and our beliefs,” Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.

    Navalny’s death was a “very sad day” for Russia, and must lead to international action, the wife of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning said on February 17.

    Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Aleksandr died of radiation poisoning in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium at a meeting with Russian agents at a London hotel, told AFP she had sympathy for Navalny’s wife, Yulia.

    The Kremlin, which Navalny said was behind a poison attack that almost killed him in 2020, has angrily denied it played any role in Navalny’s death and rejected the “absolutely rabid” reaction of Western leaders.

    Inside Russia, people continued to mourn the death of the anti-corruption crusader despite official media paying little attention to his death and efforts to remove any tributes to him.

    At least 340 people have been detained in 30 cities and towns in Russia on February 16 and 17 after they came to pay tribute, include laying flowers, to the memory of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

    On February 17, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

    In Moscow, people came to lay flowers at the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov on February 17. Riot police immediately moved in and more than 15 people were arrested, the Sota news outlet reported.

    In St. Petersburg, an Orthodox priest was detained on February 17 after he announced he would hold a memorial service for Navalny.

    Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko was detained near his home as he was going to the Solovetsky Stone memorial dedicated to Soviet victims of political repression.

    He was remanded in custody and was to be presented to a judge on February 19, the site 24liveblog.com reported.

    However, a memorial service was performed by a different Orthodox priest at the site, in the presence of several people, some of whom were detained after the service was completed.


    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.

  • Dutch PM ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ Military Aid For Ukraine Coming ‘Soon’

    Aleksei Navalny’s family and close associates have confirmed the Russian opposition politician’s death in an Arctic prison and have demanded his body be handed over, but officials have refused to release it, telling his lawyers and mother that an “investigation” of the causes would only be completed next week.

    “Aleksei’s lawyer and his mother have arrived at the morgue in Salekhard,” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, referring to the capital of the region of Yamalo-Nenets, where Navalny’s prison is located.

    “It’s closed. However, the [prison] has assured them it’s working and Navalny’s body is there. The lawyer called the phone number which was on the door. He was told he was the seventh caller today. Aleksei’s body is not in the morgue,” she added.

    Yarmysh then said in a new message: “An hour ago, the lawyers were told that the check was completed and no crime had been found. They literally lie every time, drive in circles and cover their tracks.”

    But in a third message, she said, “Now the Investigative Committee directly says that until the check is completed, Aleksei’s body will not be given to relatives.”

    Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov, who currently resides abroad, said that Navalny’s mother was told her son had died of a cardiac-arrest illness.

    “When the lawyer and Aleksei’s mother arrived at the colony this morning, they were told that the cause of Navalny’s death was sudden death syndrome,” Zhdanov said.

    Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, who traveled to the Yamalo-Nenets region some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, was earlier informed that the Kremlin critic died at the “Arctic Wolf” prison on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to Yarmish.

    Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer who has represented Russian human rights activists, told Current Time that “what is happening is not accidental.”

    “The Russian authorities will do everything not to turn over the body in time or certainly not to conduct a forensic medical examination,” Prokhorov told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

    The penitentiary service said in a statement on February 16 that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and subsequently lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to revive him but he died, the statement added.

    Navalny, a longtime anti-corruption fighter and Russia’s most-prominent opposition politician for over a decade, was 47.

    His death sparked an immediate outpouring of grief among many Russians, while leaders around the world condenmed the death of Vladimir Putin’s staunchest critic, blaming the Russian president directly for the death.

    Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers meeting in Munich on the sidelines of a security conference held a minute’s silence for Navalny on February 17. The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

    In a joint statement released by Italy, the ministers expressed their “outrage at the death in detention of Aleksei Navalny, unjustly sentenced for legitimate political activities and his fight against corruption.”

    Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “for his ideas and his fight for freedom and against corruption in Russia, Navalny was in fact led to his death.”

    “Russia must shed light on his death and stop the unacceptable repression of political dissent,” he added.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the death of Navalny showed that it is impossible to see Putin as a legitimate leader.

    “Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target to him,” Zelenskiy told the Munich Security Conference on February 17.

    Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, told RFE/RL in Munich that Navalny will be remembered as someone who sacrificed his life for his country.

    “Putin wants to be remembered as a ruler of Russia. But Navalny will be remembered in a different way because Navalny died for his country rather than for killing other people.”

    “He tried to show that other things are possible [in Russia] and we’ll never know what kind of leader he would have been,” he added.

    Navalny’s vision for change in Russia will be kept alive by his team, his spokeswoman Yarmysh said. “We lost our leader, but we didn’t lose our ideas and our beliefs,” Yarmysh told Reuters via Zoom, speaking from an undisclosed location.

    Navalny’s death was a “very sad day” for Russia, and must lead to international action, the wife of a former Russian agent killed by radiation poisoning said on February 17.

    Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Aleksandr died of radiation poisoning in 2006, three weeks after drinking tea laced with polonium at a meeting with Russian agents at a London hotel, told AFP she had sympathy for Navalny’s wife, Yulia.

    The Kremlin, which Navalny said was behind a poison attack that almost killed him in 2020, has angrily denied it played any role in Navalny’s death and rejected the “absolutely rabid” reaction of Western leaders.

    Inside Russia, people continued to mourn the death of the anti-corruption crusader despite official media paying little attention to his death and efforts to remove any tributes to him.

    At least 340 people have been detained in 30 cities and towns in Russia on February 16 and 17 after they came to pay tribute, include laying flowers, to the memory of Navalny, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

    On February 17, police blocked access to a memorial in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and detained several people there as well as in another Siberian city, Surgut, OVD-Info said.

    In Moscow, people came to lay flowers at the “Wall of Sorrow” memorial on the avenue named after Soviet physicist and dissent Andrei Sakharov on February 17. Riot police immediately moved in and more than 15 people were arrested, the Sota news outlet reported.

    In St. Petersburg, an Orthodox priest was detained on February 17 after he announced he would hold a memorial service for Navalny.

    Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko was detained near his home as he was going to the Solovetsky Stone memorial dedicated to Soviet victims of political repression.

    He was remanded in custody and was to be presented to a judge on February 19, the site 24liveblog.com reported.

    However, a memorial service was performed by a different Orthodox priest at the site, in the presence of several people, some of whom were detained after the service was completed.


    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.

  • Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine Has Probably Cost Up To $211 Billion, U.S. Official Says

    Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has died while in prison, according to a statement from the local department of the Federal Penitentiary Service, triggering outrage and condemnation from world leaders who said the Kremlin critic paid the “ultimate price” for his courage to speak out against the country’s leadership.

    “On February 16, 2024, in penal colony No. 3, convict Aleksei Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. The medical staff of the institution arrived immediately, and an ambulance team was called,” the statement said.

    “All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results. Doctors from the ambulance declared the convict dead. The causes of death are being established.”

    Russian state-controlled media also quoted the statement as saying Navalny, 47, had died.

    There was no immediate confirmation of Navalny’s death from his team. According to Russian law, family must be notified within 24 hours if a prisoner dies.


    “I don’t know if we should believe the terrible news, the news we get only from official media because for many years we have been in the situation where we cannot believe Putin and his government as they are lying constantly,” his wife, Yulia, said in a brief statement from Germany where she was attending the Munich Security Conference.

    “But if it is the truth, Putin and all his staff and everyone around him need to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our patriot, with my family, and with my husband. They will be brought to justice and this day will come soon,” she added.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying President Vladimir Putin had been informed of the report of Navalny’s death but that he has no official information on the cause of death.

    “It’s very complicated to confirm the news that comes from a country like Russia,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte also told RFE/RL as she attended the Munich Security Conference. “But, if you asked me whether I would be surprised if that’s true, of course I would not, unfortunately, because we know that the regime in the Kremlin is an assassin regime, basically, who would go after their enemies as they understand it, after people with different opinions on the development of Russia and their relations to the rest of the world.”

    A day earlier, Navalny did not appear to have any health issues when speaking by video link to a court hearing.

    Navalny spokeswoman Kyra Yarmysh said on X, formerly Twitter, that “we don’t have any confirmation of [his death] yet.” She added that Navalny’s lawyer is now flying to the prison.

    “Most likely it is true. Navalny was murdered,” said Ivan Zhdanov, blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It is a political murder which will for sure be investigated.”

    As the reports reverberated around the country and around the world, some people laid flowers at the buildings where Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) was headquartered before the government shut it down after labeling the organization “extremist.”

    Others gathered in front of Russian embassies in countries such as Georgia and Armenia, while vigils were being planned in many cities across Europe.

    “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power, to not give up, to remember we are an enormous power that is being oppressed by these bad people. We don’t realize how strong we actually are. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. So don’t be inactive,” Navalny said at the end of the Oscar-winning documentary that carried his name.

    U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told NPR in an interview just after the news broke that, if confirmed, Navalny’s death would be a “terrible tragedy.”

    “The Russian government’s long and sordid history of doing harm to its opponents raises real and obvious questions here…. We are actively seeking confirmation,” he added.

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Navalny “paid for his courage with his life,” while French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said in a post on X that the Kremlin critic’s “death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime.”

    European Council President Charles Michel said Navalny had made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting for the “values of freedom and democracy.”

    Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told RFE/RL that Navalny’s only crime was to root out “the corruption [and] the thievery of the current Russian elite” and to have a dream of a better Russia that abides by the rule of law, lives in peace with its neighbors, and invests in its people.

    “That proved to be an unforgivable crime,” Sikorski said, speaking with RFE/RL at the Munich Security Conference. He said the Russian state was responsible for Navalny’s life and welfare “and therefore his death is the legal responsibility of the Russian state.”

    Navalny, who last month marked the third anniversary of his incarceration on charges widely believed to be politically motivated, nearly died from a poisoning with a Novichok-type nerve agent in 2020, which he blamed on Russian security operatives acting at the behest of Putin.

    The man who once blasted Putin as “corrupt, cynical” in an interview with RFE/RL was detained on January 17, 2021, at a Moscow airport upon his arrival from Germany, where he was treated for the poisoning.

    He was then handed a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for violating the terms of an earlier parole during his convalescence abroad. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in Navalny’s poisoning.

    In March 2022, Navalny was handed a nine-year prison term on charges of contempt and embezzlement through fraud that he and his supporters have repeatedly rejected as politically motivated.

    Later, Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and his network of regional offices were designated “extremist” organizations and banned after his arrest, which led to another probe against him on extremism charges.

    In August last year, a court extended Navalny’s prison term to 19 years and sent him to a harsher “special regime” facility from the maximum-security prison where he was held.

    Last month, Navalny was transferred to Polar Wolf, which is a “special regime” prison in Russia’s Arctic region.

    Navalny’s death, if confirmed, comes as Putin, who publicly has long refused to actually say Navalny’s name, runs for another term facing no real opposition as those who were expected to be his main challengers — including Navalny — currently are either incarcerated or have fled the country, fearing for their safety.

    Russian elections are tightly controlled by the Kremlin and are neither free nor fair but are viewed by the government as necessary to convey a sense of legitimacy.

    They are mangled by the exclusion of opposition candidates, voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, and other means of manipulation.

    Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s tight grip on politics, media, law enforcement, and other levers means Putin, who has ruled Russia as president or prime minister since 1999, is certain to win, barring a very big, unexpected development.

    Navalny married his wife, Yulia, in 2000. The couple has a son and a daughter.

    With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak and Vazha Tavberidze in Munich


    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.

  • Munich Security Conference Opens With Europe On Edge Over War In Ukraine, Trump’s View Of NATO

    The Munich Security Conference kicks off on February 16 at a critical time, as the U.S. presidential election campaign heats up with a rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden looking likely and with a major U.S. military aid package bogged down in Congress.

    U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to address the conference on its opening day to be followed on February 17 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who will make his first in-person appearance at the conference since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    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.

    He addressed the 2023 conference virtually.

    An estimated 50 world leaders are expected to attend the annual event that bills itself as the world’s leading forum for debating international security policy. The governments of Russia and Iran have not been invited.

    It will be an encore for Harris, who spoke at the conference in 2022 and 2023, but the stakes are different this year.

    She faces the task of reassuring allies that Washington remains committed to defending their security after Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, questioned defending NATO allies who failed to spend enough on defense from a potential Russia invasion.

    Harris plans to pledge that the United States will never retreat from its NATO obligations, and contrast Biden’s commitment to global engagement with Trump’s isolationist views, a White House official was quoted by Reuters as saying.

    “The vice president will recommit to defeat the failed ideologies of isolationism, authoritarianism, and unilateralism…[and] denounce these approaches to foreign policy as short-sighted, dangerous, and destabilizing,” the official said.

    Harris is expected to meet with Zelenskiy during the conference, according to the White House.

    She will be joined by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who just completed a visit to Albania, where he reinforced what he called an “extraordinary partnership” between Washington and Tirana.

    The U.S. vice president will also express confidence that the American people will continue to support the Biden administration’s approach to Ukraine.

    Ukraine, which is heavily dependent on economic and military aid from its Western allies, has been facing a shortage of ammunition and military equipment on the battlefield and is now facing intense fighting for the eastern city of Avdiyivka.

    Kyiv also is desperate for a replenishment of supplies of air-defense systems to protect its civilians and infrastructure, which are hit almost daily by Russian shelling and drone attacks.

    Harris is certain to be asked about a $95.34 billion military-aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that the Senate, led by Democrats, approved on February 13 but that may never be put up for a vote in the Republican-controlled House of Representative because of Trump’s opposition to it.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine’s European allies have begun increasing their support for Ukraine.

    Ahead of his arrival in Munich, Zelenskiy was scheduled to travel on February 16 first to Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then to Paris to sign a security pact with French President Emmanuel Macron, his office in Kyiv and the Elysee Palace in Paris said.

    Berlin did not release any details about Zelenskiy’s meeting with Scholz, but Germany is also negotiating a security agreement with Kyiv.

    With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and dpa


    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.

  • Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism Collide in Ukraine (Part 4)

    The relentless campaign promoting the inevitability of a direct war with Russia is proceeding without challenge. That does not mean that war could erupt at any moment, or it could never happen. First, war is not based on a timetable. Second, war has no deterministic quality of any sort—it can be avoided. Third, but most important, war is contingent upon deliberation and subsequent decision—without decision, there is no war. For the record, neither the United States nor Russia has ever publically declared that they intend to go to war at some point in the future. So far, we only hear dire threats flying around.

    When American think tanks, opinion-makers, and the omnipresent “experts” talk about going to war with Russia, they often disclose the inner workings of the system. Of importance are the ideological processes used to implement agendas and related tactics. World domination themes (our leadership, our national interests, our allies, free world, our values, our democracy, our resolve, state sponsor of terrorism, our sanctions, defending liberty, our this and our that, and all that empty jargon) appear at every turn.

    Processes need avenues to formulate. The climax is reached when those avenues become both overlapped and interconnected. As a result, propaganda, fake diplomacy, false reporting, exaggeration, naked lies, vilification, accusation, crocodile tears for Ukraine, and military “assessments” move in unison with the plans of U.S. ruling circles.

    As stated early on, since the dismantlement of the Soviet Union, the sole remaining superpower (as the United States likes to call itself) has been obsessively pursuing the goal for world control by any means—including war. The countless wars that the United States has been launching against any country that actively dares pursuing its own policie are testimony. War, of course, is easy on paper. Among powerful nuclear states, war is terra incognita. This fact alone, confirms the reasons why the United States, Britain, and other imperialist states treat the project for war with Russia in theatrical ways while depending on rhetorical bravados, sanctions, seizing of assets, and the arming of Ukraine to elicit concessions.

    Now that Russia’s limited military operation in Ukraine has transformed into a wider war involving NATO countries indirectly, what comes next? First, that transformation begs an old-new argument. Do wars have any validity? Posing this argument brings to mind the anti-colonialist wars in the period 1950-1975. Second, although the scope of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine differs from those wars, the basics are the same. Explanation: the struggle for independence, sovereignty, and security can take many forms and transcends time and circumstances. This applies to Russia to a tee. How so?

    Discussion: the charge that the anti-colonialist struggle posed challenge to and imperiled peace (as Petra Goedde opined, retrospectively, in her book, The Politics of Peace: A Global Cold War History) is bogus. Discussion: what peace are we debating? Is it peace of mind for occupiers, colonizers, and imperialists or is it pacification by sanctions, blockades, and death and destruction to the occupied and the threatened? By analogy, the argument that Russia should not have disturbed the peace with its intervention in Ukraine is bogus too. For instance, considering that Ukraine has become a powerful American tool to destabilize and attack Russia, was it feasible for Russia to assure its survival from U.S. nuclear encirclement without intervening in Ukraine?

    About the principle of armed struggle against all forms of neocolonialism and imperialism: how if not by war could have Algeria, Viet Nam (before U.S. intervention), and Angola, for examples, ended French and Portuguese colonialisms in their respective lands? About Viet Nam: does anyone think that the United States would have left South Viet Nam without being defeated in battle first? Further, because the U.S. and vassals are effectively waging war on Russia while pretending to be defending peace and principles, should Russia smile and wave its arms in jubilation?

    The wider argument: The United States and satellites couch their wars under the rubric, “just and unjust wars”. They deem their wars just and wars by others unjust. U.S. think tanks go further by invoking the concept of legality as if the lawless hyper‑empire is the guardian and depositary of legality. On such think tank is the Brookings Institution, the voice of Zionist academia. The hyper-imperialist Michael O’Hanlon (director of research and senior fellow of the foreign policy program at Brookings) wrote a specious article full with inaccuracies and distorted facts on the American invasion of Iraq, and named it as such: “Why the War Wasn’t Illegal”.

    O’Hanlon starts his article as follows, “United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was wrong in recently terming the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq “illegal”. So, now we know that the warmongering Zionist O’Hanlon thinks that he knows what is right and what is wrong! Aside from that, not only did he distort facts, but also erased the entire body of evidence confirming that Iraq had been abiding by all so-called U.N. resolutions on the matter of disarmament.

    Setting the Record Straight on War and Peace

    At present, only one concept can pass the test of rationality thus it is irrefutable. Wars can be either legitimate or illegitimate based on the tenets of the Natural Law, not the laws of the imperialist west and its institutions. The statement leads to an implacable consequence that could never be ignored or dismissed. Opposing legitimate wars (e.g., Russia’s in Ukraine, and the Palestine people resistance’s against the Zionist settler state of Israel, or the improbable but potential war by China for Taiwan) just because we advocate peace is antithetical to the anti-imperialist cause.

    For one, wars fought to defend national independence from imperialist or occupying powers are an exclusive category. Consequently, the implication of selling antiwar agendas to aggressed, squeezed, occupied, or threatened states in the name of western-defined peace and goodwill could not be more obvious. It means that the collective chauvinist west would continue trampling on the natural rights of all nations resisting subjugation. Seeing the magnitude of restrictions, sanctions, and destruction heaped upon them, those nations are left with no choice but to resist and fight back to preserve their very existence.

    In sum, and as far as it concerns Ukraine, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, it does not matter if the U.S. and European imperialisms define their ongoing wars in any context. The fact remains, no matter what contexts and laws they invent in support of their aims, the targeted countries would not acknowledge them—effectively they have no validity. The implication resulting from rejecting western rules of domination is unambiguous. Legitimate states (not installed by colonialist powers) threatened by marauding imperialists have every right to resort to any form of resistance to preserve their security, improve social welfare, and defend their freedom from the fascist clique that is ruling the world today.

    Discussion      

    The western intelligentsia obliquely calls it the “Suez Crisis”. It wasn’t. By all attributes, it was a standard colonialist war. Briefly, Britain and France (in collusion with the then 8-year old Zionist settler state (Israel) attacked Egypt in July 1956 because it nationalized the Suez Canal Company—English, French, and other European shareholders owned the operating enterprise; Egypt owned the waterway itself. Remark: during that time, no one suggested that war with Britain, France, and Israel had become inevitable because of their war against Egypt.

    When the United States intervened in Somalia, then invaded and occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, and then attacked Libya, Syria, and Yemen, no one suggested that going to war with the United States is inevitable to stop its Zionist wars. Pay attention: but when Russia intervened in Ukraine, the uproar reached the moon. The United States and major western powers repeatedly spoke of the inevitability of war with Russia. Are we missing something?

    These few facts are enough to corroborate an important assertion. The notion positing the inevitability of war with this or that country is a U.S. stratagem to intimidate all independent nations. Manifest intent: to enforce or induce compliance under the threat of violence. At this stage, do we need to prove that the U.S. obsession for war with Russia goes beyond “Russophobia”, “Russophrenia”, and similar hazy terms? Said obsession is now an ideologically and objectively developed strategic purpose meant as a mechanism to impose the American order on Russia.

    Observation: the old paradigm that governed the relation between capitalist America and communist Russia fell in disuse today. Although vanished in its old form, that paradigm (U.S. ideological enmity toward Russia) morphed into something new: strategic hostility. The core of this new anti-Russian stance is not the intervention in Ukraine, but a set of revamped U.S. geostrategic objectives. Accordingly, something very big has pushed the U.S. into chaotic frenzy. This cannot be but the U.S. certainty that Russia had come out into the open, re-asserted its role on the international arena, and challenged the American plan for world domination.

    Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, stated the fixed purpose of the American empire unequivocally. He declared, “The United States must remain the most powerful nation on Earth if peace is to continue between the U.S., China, and Russia.” In other words, the United States is opposing to maintaining peace—meaning it would go to war—with Russia and China should it conclude that either country or both pose threat to its military domination over the planet. By stating that, Milley has implicitly confirmed that war with Russia and China is inevitable under the condition he outlined.

    The British Sky News of Rupert Murdock is a gigantic factory of lies, tabloid news, and journalistic prostitution. Armed with such “credentials”, Sky News joins the American crowds in discussing the inevitability of war with Russia. Pretending serious journalism, the online tabloid asks, “Are we heading for World War Three?”

    Sky News then provides “verdicts” by its so-called panel of experts. Not surprising was that such experts recycled superficial opinions spread by the American media. Of interest, is the view presented by Sky News’ “military analysist”, Simon Diggins. Using shallow “analysis” and language, Diggins reproduced simplistic clichés taken from Fox News of Murdoch and from worthless stories taken from Microsoft Network (MSN) of Bill Gates.

    I’m not going to comment on Diggins’ quote (below) except for putting the “important” stuff in Italics. Purpose: to stress that the italicized text is nearly identical to the phraseology and lingo employed by American imperialists and Zionists in their daily shows. He writes,

    In one sense, we are always in a ‘pre-war’ world, as wars can start from miscalculation, from hubris, or misunderstandings as well as deliberate design.

    However, the last months have seen some loud rumblings, and the sense that the inevitable tensions of a complex world may only be resolvable by war.

    Nothing is inevitable, but the Ukraine invasion in particular has shown that Russia sees war as an instrument of policy, as a tool to change the world order in its favour, and not simply as a means of defence.”

    China likewise seeks reunification with Taiwan, and Iran, in its region, wants its ‘place in the sun’.

    Josep Borrell, European Union foreign policy chief, never ceases to amaze. His colonialist mindset is closed for reformation, and the bizarre statements he often makes keep getting worse from one to the next. Claiming that Russian influence causing dilemma in Africa’s Sahel, he stated,

    Russia’s “very strong” influence in Ouagadougou, Bamako, and Niamey “creates a new geopolitical configuration” in the Sahel. France has had to leave; we have left our military mission – an incipient military mission – in Niger. We have now been invited to abandon Niger with our civilian mission,” he said, adding that EU member states “will have to decide if they want to stay” and extend Mali’s EUTM [European Union Trade Mark], which is set to expire in May. [Italics added]

    Comment: Can Borrell explain to us why Russia’s influence on Africa’s Sahel is bad, but the European influence on the same is good? Another issue: does he think that war with Russia has become inevitable because Russia is breaking the “sacred” European colonialist legacy in Africa?

    Commenting on article written by the anti-Russian British journalist Gideon Rachman (Financial Times: “How to stop a war between America and China“), American economist Scott B. Sumner made this important remark. He said, “Unfortunately, the article doesn’t tell us how to stop a war between the US and China.  …” In fact, all what Rachman tried to do is upholding the U.S. notion of deterrence against China’s legitimate claims on Taiwan. (Before I forget, Rachman won a few prizes and awards for his superficial analyses.)

    The Zionist-controlled publication of The Atlantic published an article written by Eric Schmidt and Robert O. Work. The title is intriguing: “How to Stop the Next World War.” You would expect a convincing proposal, or at least a generic idea as how to stop the U.S. mad race for war with everyone. After attentively reading the article, I realized that the authors had already “suggested” how to stop the next war in the subtitle: “A strategy to restore America’s military deterrence”. So, now we know the answer to their question: in order to stop the next world war, the United States should not engage in negotiation or something like that, but it must protect and expand its imperialistic spheres of influence through increased military deterrence.

    Comment: U.S. and British imperialist and Zionists are not in the business of stopping wars. On the contrary, they incite for wars and justify them. Their favorite methods are open belligerency and swamping verbosity. In both cases (Rachman’s article and the Atlantic piece), the march toward the inevitable wars with Russia and China was not only hypothesized and marketed, but also rationalized to give the impression of unarguable conclusion.

    To sum it up, western governments (especially the U.S. government) and legions of war promotors have been tirelessly theorizing on the inevitability of war with Russia. Conspicuously absent from their coordinated scripts, however, is the postscript—the aftermath of war. That absence is neither lapsus nor negligence. It is a calculated strategy to advance the abstract notion of war without addressing its concrete consequences on their societies.

    U.S. post-WWII foreign and domestic policies need no introduction. Summary: in building consensus and silence for its wars around the world, the imperialist state relied on indoctrination, concealment, deception, and propaganda. Aside from being the pillars of control, these four categories form a specialized school of thought. Accordingly, those who govern the direction of domestic affairs (finance, Congress, weapons manufacturing, legislation, executive orders, etc.) will also govern the conduct of foreign policy and wars.

    What did the system do to insure that the American people remain passive toward its wars? It relied on a formidable psychological tool: desensitization. Desensitization such as this leads to emotional inebriation. For some (without quantifying), this type of emotions is rewarding whereby the scenes of mass destruction act as psychedelic narcotic. Arguably, the images of victory over a designated enemy are the experience.

    Desensitization has another function. In the hands of warmongers and war planners, it is a contraption to eradicate critical thinking vis-à-vis the plethora of factors and actors pushing for war. The odd thing is that visualizing the destruction of enemy while not contemplating own destruction by retaliatory strikes is not normal and raises myriad questions. For instance, could this behavior equate to sedation? Materially though, it lays the emotional foundation for the acceptance of war by protracted induction.

    Consider the Newsweek article, “Nuclear Bomb Map Shows Impact if Biden’s New Weapon Dropped on Russia,” published on November 3, 2023. The Zionist-imperialist weekly reports on “A nuclear bomb being developed by the Biden administration could wreak havoc in Moscow’. Newsweek broadcasts the bomb’s destructiveness by including a visualization map made by NUKEMAP. Newsweek continues by saying that with its “360 kilotons TNT, the bomb is 24 times the explosive power of the 15-kiloton bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.”.

    Newsweek editors are cynically leaving to the readers the burden of calculating the human cost to Russia. In the case of Hiroshima, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists put the number of dead and injured between (200,000 and 340,000); the average therefore is 270,000. Now, 270,000 x 24 = 6,480,000. Effectively, therefore, the United States is telling Russia that it can and has all means to kill or injure about 6.5 million Russians in one single strike. [Note: those will die— consequent to radiation and other causes related to the blast—in the successive six months to the detonation are not included.] No doubt, the U.S. wants to intimidate Russia as if this is incapable of returning the gift of death to selected U.S. cities.

    Pay attention: Newsweek did not give details on who divulged the news about this new bomb. Skepticism is warranted;  for example, the whole thing could be fiction to scare Russia. But this is unimportant. At this point, we need to learn how the process of indoctrination to war works.

    To start, we know that NUKEMAP was created by Alex Wellerstein. A question: did the Pentagon ask Alex Wellerstein to talk about the 360 kiloton bomb, or did Wellerstein, knowing about it from other sources, decide to open the secret? This hypothesis cannot be true—it is unfathomable that the Pentagon allows its most secret weapons to be known to the enemy. Most likely, the Pentagon ordered the divulgence of information to intimidate Russia. Either way, this whole episode casts light on the multi-pronged interactions between the war apparatuses of the United States and its civilian contributors like Wellerstein.

    Expanded Discussion

    First, NUKEMAP is visualization software designed to help those who covet seeing real nuclear and missile wars. Second, the Pentagon and Wellerstein well know that the program can be used effectively to garner support for war by prospecting a “joyous” outcome, which is visualizing the incineration of Moscow.

    Now, could it be that the Pentagon is offering Wellerstein’s visualization to the public as a form of ideological catharsis to release their “repressed violent emotions”? Can this be true? It implies that the American people at large are addicted to visceral violence. But violence, as philosophy and practice, is acquired. In addition, no nation is uniform in its feelings and reactions to wars initiated by their country. With regard to the U.S. wars on foreign nations in the name of “security” and nominal values, indoctrination targeting the American people has worked on two levels: (a) countless Americans see their foreign wars as patriotic, or (b) they are indifferent to the magnitude of death, destruction, and consequences that their country has been inflicting on foreign nations.

    Pay attention: Wellerstein did not create NUKEMAP to warn against nuclear annihilation or to bring attention to its horrors. His article NUKEMAP is explicit. Not even once does he refer to the consequences of his concept. His focus was on the praise of his software and the awards it obtained.

    Remarks

    • First, Newsweek says that the Pentagon is developing a B61-13 nuclear device to give Biden options to hit large area military target. We understand, therefore, that the Pentagon is actually instigating Biden to consider the option for hitting Russia if he and his associates choose to do so.
    • Second: in turn, Newsweek takes upon itself the responsibility to send a message to Russia by showing what this bomb can do by publishing a simulation by NUKEMAP. Meaning, Newsweek is threating Russia directly on behalf of Biden—as if it is seeking an irrational Russian response to the U.S. visual provocation.
    • Third: of relevance to the process of desensitization is what Alex Wellerstein has done. He gave online users a tool that “Lets you to detonate nuclear weapons over an interactive map of the world”. In a sense, he created an online army of volunteers ready to push the button and wait to see the simulated cataclysmic result. To close, those who love the idea of war and the annihilation of their perceived enemy are now being geared to the idea of vaporizing Russia, China, and any other nation that stands in the U.S. trajectory for world domination.

    To summarize, because the ideological devotion to war with Russia has become a vast cult with unpredictable consequences, how many still remember Russell J. Oakes’ book, The Day After, and how many still recall the eponymous adapted film starring Jason Robards?

    Next: Part 5

    The post Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism Collide in Ukraine (Part 4) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • From Local to Global: Singaporean Anti-Drone Pioneer TRD Protects Against the Rising Threat in Over 30 Countries

    As the world witnesses an increasing deployment of drones in asymmetric warfare, exemplified by recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Red Sea, the need for innovative countermeasures has never been more pressing. Enter TRD, a Singaporean anti-drone company, which is making headlines for its ground-breaking solutions in this burgeoning field. TRD’s journey from a homegrown […]

    The post From Local to Global: Singaporean Anti-Drone Pioneer TRD Protects Against the Rising Threat in Over 30 Countries appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Germany’s Siemens To Close Business In Russia

    EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and other European defense and foreign ministers on February 12 joined a torrent of criticism over former U.S. President Donald Trump’s comment downplaying the U.S. commitment to NATO’s security umbrella in Europe.

    “Let’s be serious. NATO cannot be an a la carte military alliance, it cannot be a military alliance that works depending on the humor of the president of the U.S.” day to day, Borrell said after Trump suggested that under his administration the United States might not defend NATO allies that failed to spend enough on defense.

    Borrell added that he would not keep commenting on “any silly idea” emerging from the U.S. presidential election campaign.

    Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race, sent a chill through European allies when he said at a campaign rally on February 10 he would “encourage” Russia to attack any NATO country that does not meet financial obligations.

    U.S. President Joe Biden called Trump’s comments “appalling and dangerous” in a statement on February 11, joining several European defense and foreign ministers responding over the weekend.

    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.

    The reactions continued on February 12, with Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren saying Trump’s comment was “exactly what Putin loves to hear.”

    Ollongren called the comment “worrying” and said it was not the first time that Trump has made a comment along these lines.

    While in office, Trump — who was defeated by Biden in the 2020 election — often expressed doubts about the need for NATO and repeatedly threatened to pull out of the alliance if members did not pay what he considered their fair share for their defense.

    Ollongren rebuffed Trump, stressing that NATO’s strength is in its unity.

    “If we’re not united, it makes us weaker. And we know that that is what Putin is looking for,” he told Reuters on February 12.

    The principle of collective defense — the idea that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all and would trigger collective self-defense action — is enshrined in Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty. It is considered the hallmark of the NATO alliance.

    Ollongren also noted that most NATO allies were close to or had reached the target budget spending on defense of 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2024. NATO allies agreed to the goal in 2014.

    German Finance Minister Christian Lindner also reacted to Trump’s comment. Speaking in London on February 12, Lindner said the transatlantic partnership will continue.

    “Regardless of who is in the White House, we have an overriding interest in continuing to cooperate across the Atlantic, economically, politically, and also in matters of security,” he said.

    Lindner said Britain and Germany shared similar challenges when it came to strengthening free-trade capabilities.

    The dialogue “is of particular importance” after Trump’s statements, Lindner said before going into a meeting with British counterpart Jeremy Hunt.

    “We are facing major challenges as European members of NATO,” Lindner said, adding that Europe’s peace and free-trade order had been put at risk by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed other EU leaders, saying the statements “are irresponsible and even play into Russia’s hands.”

    Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on February 12 discussed ramping up security cooperation in Europe with the leaders of Germany and France as fears grow that Trump’s possible return to the White House might threaten Western solidarity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Tusk said the philosophy at the heart of relations between the European Union and NATO was based on “one for all, all for one.”

    Speaking in Paris, he said Poland was “ready to fight for this security.” Later in Berlin, Tusk hailed a “clear declaration that we are ready to cooperate” on Europe’s defense.

    With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP


    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.

  • EU Takes Significant Step Toward Using Profits From Frozen Russian Assets For Ukraine

    EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and other European defense and foreign ministers on February 12 joined a torrent of criticism over former U.S. President Donald Trump’s comment downplaying the U.S. commitment to NATO’s security umbrella in Europe.

    “Let’s be serious. NATO cannot be an a la carte military alliance, it cannot be a military alliance that works depending on the humor of the president of the U.S.” day to day, Borrell said after Trump suggested that under his administration the United States might not defend NATO allies that failed to spend enough on defense.

    Borrell added that he would not keep commenting on “any silly idea” emerging from the U.S. presidential election campaign.

    Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 race, sent a chill through European allies when he said at a campaign rally on February 10 he would “encourage” Russia to attack any NATO country that does not meet financial obligations.

    U.S. President Joe Biden called Trump’s comments “appalling and dangerous” in a statement on February 11, joining several European defense and foreign ministers responding over the weekend.

    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.

    The reactions continued on February 12, with Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren saying Trump’s comment was “exactly what Putin loves to hear.”

    Ollongren called the comment “worrying” and said it was not the first time that Trump has made a comment along these lines.

    While in office, Trump — who was defeated by Biden in the 2020 election — often expressed doubts about the need for NATO and repeatedly threatened to pull out of the alliance if members did not pay what he considered their fair share for their defense.

    Ollongren rebuffed Trump, stressing that NATO’s strength is in its unity.

    “If we’re not united, it makes us weaker. And we know that that is what Putin is looking for,” he told Reuters on February 12.

    The principle of collective defense — the idea that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all and would trigger collective self-defense action — is enshrined in Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty. It is considered the hallmark of the NATO alliance.

    Ollongren also noted that most NATO allies were close to or had reached the target budget spending on defense of 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2024. NATO allies agreed to the goal in 2014.

    German Finance Minister Christian Lindner also reacted to Trump’s comment. Speaking in London on February 12, Lindner said the transatlantic partnership will continue.

    “Regardless of who is in the White House, we have an overriding interest in continuing to cooperate across the Atlantic, economically, politically, and also in matters of security,” he said.

    Lindner said Britain and Germany shared similar challenges when it came to strengthening free-trade capabilities.

    The dialogue “is of particular importance” after Trump’s statements, Lindner said before going into a meeting with British counterpart Jeremy Hunt.

    “We are facing major challenges as European members of NATO,” Lindner said, adding that Europe’s peace and free-trade order had been put at risk by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

    German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed other EU leaders, saying the statements “are irresponsible and even play into Russia’s hands.”

    Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on February 12 discussed ramping up security cooperation in Europe with the leaders of Germany and France as fears grow that Trump’s possible return to the White House might threaten Western solidarity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Tusk said the philosophy at the heart of relations between the European Union and NATO was based on “one for all, all for one.”

    Speaking in Paris, he said Poland was “ready to fight for this security.” Later in Berlin, Tusk hailed a “clear declaration that we are ready to cooperate” on Europe’s defense.

    With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP


    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.