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The U.S. military has been forced to dip into its own funding to cover American training of Ukrainian forces, a strategy that could leave the Army short on finances in Europe as the Russian war on Ukraine enters its third year. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece on Monday formally agreed to participate in and lead a European Union maritime security operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen.

A security committee led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ordered the participation of a Greek frigate in the Aspides operation — named for the Greek word for “shield” — that was launched last week.

The mission will be run from a military base in Larissa, in central Greece, under the command of Greek navy Commodore Vasilios Griparis.

Greece, a major commercial shipping power, has been directly affected by the Houthi attacks. The port of Piraeus, near Athens, reported a 12.7% drop in activity at its container terminal in January, on an annual basis.

“We all understand that participation in this operation involves risks, significant risks,” Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said Monday while on a visit to the navy frigate Hydra at a naval base near Athens.

The frigate departed on the mission late Monday. 

“Greece, as a maritime power with a leading role in global shipping, attaches great importance to the need to safeguard the freedom of navigation, as well as the life of Greek seafarers,” Dendias said.

Germany, Italy and France will also provide warships for the mission, joining the Hydra, while Italy will assume tactical command, according to Greek officials.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius visited the German navy frigate Hessen that is taking part in Aspides, while on a trip to the Greek island of Crete last week. The vessel has since sailed southward to the Red Sea, German authorities said.

Officials in Athens have described the Aspides mission as defensive, adding that Greece would not take part in U.S.-led attacks against Houthi military targets in Yemen.

The Iranian-backed Houthis say their attacks on commercial ships with drones and missiles are a response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas, which began in October.

At a parliamentary committee hearing last week, Dendias said keeping the lines of maritime trade open was an “existential necessity for Greece.”

“We do not take a position on the Houthi issue,” Dendias told lawmakers at the hearing. “But we do challenge the right of anyone to fire at our ships, at European ships, and at ships that sail the region and come to our ports.”
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London — Sweden is set to officially join NATO after Hungary finally gave its approval Monday, the last member of the Western alliance to ratify the bid.

Analysts say the addition of the Nordic nation to NATO as its 32nd member will bring significant military capabilities to the Western alliance.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was a “historic day” for his country.

“Sweden is now leaving 200 years of neutrality and nonalignment behind us. It is a big step. We must take that seriously. But it is also a very natural step that we are taking,” Kristersson said at a news conference in Stockholm on Monday, following the Hungarian approval.

“Membership of NATO means that we now join a large number of democracies that work together for peace and freedom. A new home where neighbors cooperate for safety and a group of countries that, in practice, we have belonged for a very long time,” he added.

Hungary vote

Hungarian lawmakers passed the vote with an overwhelming margin of 188 in favor of Sweden’s accession and only six against the motion.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had urged MPs to approve the bid.

“The Swedish-Hungarian military cooperation and Sweden’s accession to NATO will strengthen Hungary’s security,” Orban said ahead of the vote.

Sweden’s submitted its application to join NATO along with Finland in May 2022, three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Finland’s application was ratified relatively quickly, and it joined the alliance in April 2023. However, Sweden’s bid was held up by Turkey and Hungary. Ankara claimed that Sweden was harboring Kurdish groups, which it considers terrorists. Turkey eventually approved the NATO bid in January after Sweden introduced new anti-terror laws.

Hungary’s objections to Sweden’s NATO accession were less clear.

Orban had voiced anger over Sweden’s criticism of a perceived democratic backsliding in his country.

A visit by Kristersson to Budapest last Friday – and the purchase by Hungary of four Swedish Gripen fighter jets – appear to have helped overcome the tensions.

US ambassador

The U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who has been critical of Budapest’s delaying the ratification, welcomed the vote.

“Sweden’s accession to NATO will advance the security of the United States, the security of Hungary and the security of the alliance, and this has been a decision that has taken some time and we look forward to it,” Pressman told reporters outside the Hungarian parliament.

“Sweden has been waiting to join the alliance for now almost two years and a step forward has [been] taken, and this process should conclude rapidly,” he added.

Swedish forces have been training alongside NATO forces for decades, but formal membership will allow far deeper coordination of deployment and defense planning.

Sweden is expected to officially join NATO in the coming days or weeks, breaking its long-held policy of military non-alignment.

“The final piece of the puzzle falling into place, making NATO’s position in the Nordic-Baltic region whole. Sweden gains security in a crowd and supported by American nuclear deterrence,” said Robert Dalsjo, a senior analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, adding that valuable military capabilities will be added to the alliance.

“We have a modern air force, with Gripen planes. We have excellent submarines, especially adapted to the conditions in the Baltic Sea. We have a small but high-tech navy and we have, on the ground, we have sub-arctic capabilities,” Dalsjo told Reuters.

Baltic defense

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are widely seen as among the most vulnerable NATO member states to a potential attack by Russia. Having Finland and Sweden in the alliance creates a powerful deterrence, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

“Enabling the defense of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from different angles. It will be possible to do very large, combined, air operations looking at directions from north Finland, and northwest to western Sweden, with both of those countries as NATO members, something that was not possible to plan as little as a year ago,” Salonius-Pasternak told VOA.

Swedish public opinion swung dramatically in favor of joining NATO after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The latest opinion polls suggest around two-thirds of Swedes approve of its membership.

Stockholm residents largely welcomed Hungary’s ratification of the bid.

“Finally, it’s been a long wait until Hungary to get the acceptance in the Parliament and what’s behind the scenes for it taking this long. But it’s good to finally be here. We have been preparing for a bit of time for this,” Jimmy Dahllof, a boat captain from Stockholm, told Agence France-Presse.

Finland’s experience of joining NATO has lessons for Sweden, said Helsinki-based Salonius-Pasternak.

“It’s the first steps of an ongoing process – a cultural change at the highest political level, societal level – that we are now responsible for our own defense but together and as part of an alliance, rather than solely ‘we alone’ thinking. And this I honestly think will be a generational shift,” he told VOA.

An accession ceremony is expected in the coming days after final formalities of Sweden’s membership are completed. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, NATO’s secretary-general said Monday that Sweden’s accession “will make us all stronger and safer.”

Russia response

Russia did not immediately respond to Hungary’s ratification. In the past Moscow has said that NATO membership would make Sweden “a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures.”

Kristersson said Monday that Moscow had itself to blame.

“As far as Russia is concerned, the only thing we can safely expect is that they do not like Sweden becoming a NATO member. They didn’t like Finland becoming a NATO member either,” Kristersson said. “The whole purpose was to emphasize that a country like Ukraine would not be allowed to choose its own path. Instead of accepting that Russia had veto rights over Ukraine’s way forward, NATO has now, soon instead gained two new members.”

He added, “Russia does not like it. What else they do, we cannot know. We are prepared for all sorts of things. What we see all the time are disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and that sort of thing. I think our whole part of the world is on its toes to face many different things.”
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More than 20,000 people gathered at a rally in Warsaw Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite a difficult situation on the Polish-Ukrainian border, where Polish farmers, complaining about unfair competition, have almost completely blocked the export of some Ukrainian goods, Polish politicians reassured demonstrators that their support of Ukraine is unchanged. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Warsaw. Camera: Daniil Batushchak
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During two years of war, Ukrainians have supported their army financially. Despite the tough economic situation in the country, the level of donations remains high, and volunteers find new ways to raise funds. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Kyiv. Video: Evgenii Shynkar
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Moscow — Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko said he would run for president again in 2025, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported Sunday.

Lukashenko made his comments after voting in parliamentary and local council elections, denounced by the United States as a sham. The ex-Soviet state’s top election official dismissed the criticism and told Washington to look after its own affairs.

BelTA said Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, told journalists: “Tell them (the exiled opposition) that I’ll run. No one, no responsible president would abandon his people who followed him into battle.”

Lukashenko, 69, is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and allowed the Kremlin to use his country’s territory to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“We’re still a year away from the presidential election. A lot of things can change,” he said in response to a follow-up question, BelTA reported.

“Naturally, I and all of us, society, will react to the changes that will take place in our society and the situation in which we will approach the elections in a year’s time,” Lukashenko said.

The U.S. State Department condemned what it called the “sham” elections in Belarus Sunday.

“The elections were held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic,” department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

The chairman of Belarus’ Central Election Commission, in comments quoted by BelTA, said it was not up to the United States to comment on the election.

“We don’t denounce their elections. We make no statements, even if they had over  

there a lot of questions for all to see, even in their last presidential election,” Igor Karpenko was quoted as saying.

“They work according to the principle that we are bigger and can therefore tell everyone what to do. I think we can manage quite nicely conducting elections in our own country,” Karpenko said.

Election commission officials said voter turnout stood at just below 73% by mid-evening.

Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in 2020 sparked unprecedented protests by opponents alleging mass vote-rigging. Putin offered support to Lukashenko and the demonstrations died out after mass roundups and detentions of protesters by police.

Lukashenko told reporters the role of parliament would be bolstered in his country.

“People are beginning to understand that in Belarus, for example, a president is not a tsar or a god. It is very hard work,” BelTA quoted him as saying. “Parliament’s role will be expanded, every month, every year.”
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London — Europe’s automakers and their already-stretched suppliers face a tough year as they race to cut costs for electric models to counter leaner Chinese rivals which are bringing cheaper vehicles to challenge them on their home turf.

A big question is how much more Europe’s automakers can squeeze out of suppliers that have already started laying off workers, with many smaller companies hard hit by supply chain issues during the pandemic.

The difference between Europe’s legacy automakers and more EV-focused Chinese manufacturers will be on stark display this week at the Geneva car show, which is returning after a four-year hiatus due to the pandemic.

The only major companies holding media events are France’s Renault and China’s SAIC Motors and the BYD Company — two of several of the country’s automakers that have set their sights on Europe.

Renault is launching its electric R5 and SAIC’s MG brand will unveil its M3 hybrid. Meanwhile, BYD’s Seal sedan is shortlisted for the Car of the Year award. If it wins, it would be the first Chinese model to get the prestigious award.

“They really are like chalk and cheese,” Nick Parker, a partner and managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners, said of the legacy European automakers and their Chinese rivals.

Unlike European automakers that are reliant on external suppliers with separate supply chains for fossil-fuel and electric, their Chinese rivals are highly vertically integrated, producing almost everything in-house and keeping costs down.

That helps them undercut their European rivals. In Britain, BYD’s electric Dolphin hatchback starts at 25,490 pounds ($32,300), about 27% less than Volkswagen’s equivalent ID.3 model. Tesla works in the same way.

Chasing those rivals means European automakers’ profit margins could be “heavily challenged” moving forward because there is only so much they can squeeze out of external suppliers, AlixPartners’ Parker said.

The challenge has been made more difficult by a slower-than-expected shift to EVs, leaving legacy automakers stuck with their dual supply chains. Data this week showed EU fully-electric car sales in January fell 42.3% from December.

Both Renault and Stellantis have stressed their EV cost-cutting efforts this month while Mercedes toned down expectations for EV demand and said it will update its traditional lineup well into the next decade.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has gone further, telling suppliers that with 85% of EV costs related to purchased materials, they need to bear a proportionate burden in reducing costs.

“I am translating that reality to my partners: If you don’t do your part of the job, then you exclude yourself,” he said.

Nickel and aluminum prices have also risen this week as Western countries expanded sanctions lists against Moscow, highlighting the lingering risks to raw materials prices even though there was no mention of the two metals.

Job cuts

Many legacy suppliers are already feeling the strain of cost cuts with FORVIA, Continental and Bosch all recently announcing or warning of layoffs, with more expected.

To preserve their profits, automakers focused production on higher-margin models during the recent semi-conductor shortage, but that meant less revenue and less upside for their suppliers.

Now industry experts say well-capitalized larger suppliers can adapt to the new reality but warn that plenty of smaller ones are teetering on the edge, like Germany’s Allgaier which filed for insolvency in July.

That means Europe’s automakers face a delicate balancing act between cutting costs to fend off Chinese rivals and avoiding pushing their suppliers too far. Philip Nothard, insight director at dealer services firm Cox Automotive, says automakers may even have to step in to bailout struggling suppliers.

“The risk is if (European automakers) try and screw those suppliers down too much, they’ll either push them into administration or they’ll push them into seeking different markets,” he said.
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LISBON, Portugal — The official two-week campaign period before Portugal’s early general election began Sunday, with the country’s two moderate mainstream parties once again expected to collect the most votes but with the expected rise of a populist party potentially adding momentum to Europe’s drift to the right.

The center-left Socialist Party and center-right Social Democratic Party have alternated in power for decades. But they are unsure of how much support they might need from smaller rival parties for the parliamentary votes needed to form a government after the March 10 vote.

Corruption scandals have cast a shadow over the ballot. They have also fed public disenchantment with the country’s political class as Portugal prepares to celebrate 50 years of democracy, following the Carnation Revolution that toppled a rightist dictatorship on April 25, 1974.

The election is being held after a Socialist government collapsed last November following a corruption investigation. That case brought a police search of Prime Minister António Costa’s official residence and the arrest of his chief of staff. Costa hasn’t been accused of any crime.

Also in recent weeks, a Lisbon court decided that a former Socialist prime minister should stand trial for corruption. Prosecutors allege that José Sócrates, prime minister between 2005-2011, pocketed around 34 million euros ($36.7 million) during his time in power from graft, fraud and money laundering.

The Social Democratic Party has also been tainted by corruption allegations.

During the recent weeks of unofficial campaigning, a graft investigation in Portugal’s Madeira Islands triggered the resignation of two prominent Social Democrat officials.

The scandal erupted on the same day the Social Democratic Party unveiled an anti-corruption billboard in Lisbon that said, “It can’t go on like this.”

A housing crisis, persistent levels of low pay and unreliable public health services are other areas where the records of the two main parties are at issue.

Hot-button topics that have driven political debate and encouraged populist parties elsewhere in Europe, such as climate change, migration and religious differences, have largely been absent in Portugal’s campaign.

A five-year-old populist and nationalist party called Chega! (in English, Enough!) has made the fight against corruption one of its political banners. “Portugal needs cleaning out,” one of its billboards declares.

The party’s leader, 41-year-old lawyer André Ventura, has been riding in third place in opinion polls and could become a kingmaker if his political influence grows. His party got just 1.3% of votes in the 2019 election but jumped to 7.3% in 2022. It could collect more than double that this time, polls suggest, if a protest vote materializes.

A key question is whether the Social Democrats will end up needing the votes of Chega! to make up a parliamentary majority after eight years in opposition.

The Socialist Party could, as in the past, forge parliamentary alliances with the Portuguese Communist Party or Left Bloc party to take power.

Socialist leader Pedro Nuno Santos, his party’s candidate for prime minister, is a lawmaker and a former minister for housing and infrastructure. Santos, 46, quit the previous government under a cloud over his handling of bailed-out flag carrier TAP Air Portugal and a dispute over the site of a new Lisbon airport.

Luís Montenegro, the 51-year-old Social Democrat leader aiming to become prime minister, has been a lawmaker for more than 20 years. He heads the Democratic Alliance, a grouping with two smaller right-of-center parties formed for the election.
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Warsaw, Poland — Polish farmers on Sunday blocked a major highway into Germany in the latest such protest against EU regulations and taxes.

Farmers across Europe have been protesting for weeks over what they say are excessively restrictive environmental rules, competition from cheap imports from outside the European Union and low incomes.

On Sunday, farmers from Poland blocked the A2 motorway near Slubice, in the east on the border with Germany.

“The blockade began at 1:00 pm (1200 GMT). Both sides of the A2 motorway have been stopped,” Ewa Murmylo, a spokeswoman for local police, told AFP.

Initially the farmers had been planning a 25-day blockade but reduced it following talks with local representatives, businesses and transporters.

They have decided “to unblock the road probably tomorrow,” Monday, said Dariusz Wrobel, one of the Polish farmer organizers.

“This will depend on things that we can’t predict,” he told AFP. “We need to start taking ourselves seriously”.

On Monday, EU agriculture ministers are due to meet in Brussels.

They are to discuss new European Commission proposals aiming to change regulations at the heart of the discontent, for example reducing the number of checks on produce.

Polish farmers say they are targeting the European Union’s so-called Green Deal on energy, transportation and taxation, which is an element of the 27-nation’s bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

They say they have been especially hit by increased taxes and other rules.

The farmers have also blocked crossing points at Poland’s border with non-EU member Ukraine border to denounce what they say is unfair competition from their war-torn neighbor’s cheaper produce.

On Friday, Polish officials snubbed a delegation led by Ukraine’s prime minister seeking to resolve tensions caused by weeks-long Polish farmer protests at the shared border.

Polish authorities said they had never agreed to a border meeting over the demonstrations, which Ukraine says threaten its exports and are holding up deliveries of crucial weapons for its war against Russia, now entering its third year.
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TALLINN, Estonia — Polls opened Sunday in Belarus’ tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections that are set to cement the steely rule of the country’s authoritarian leader, despite calls for a boycott from the opposition, which dismissed the balloting as a “senseless farce.”

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for nearly 30 years, accuses the West of trying to use the vote to undermine his government and “destabilize” the nation of 9.5 million people.

Most candidates belong to the four officially registered parties: Belaya Rus, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Party of Labor and Justice. Those parties all support Lukashenko’s policies. About a dozen other parties were denied registration last year.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is in exile in neighboring Lithuania after challenging Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, urged voters to boycott the elections.

“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. “We are calling to boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice.”

Sunday’s balloting is the first election in Belarus since the contentious 2020 vote that handed Lukashenko his sixth term in office and triggered an unprecedented wave of mass demonstrations.

Protests swept the country for months, bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets. More than 35,000 people were arrested. Thousands were beaten in police custody, and hundreds of independent media outlets and nongovernmental organizations were shut down and outlawed.

Lukashenko has relied on subsidies and political support from his main ally, Russia, to survive the protests. He allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The election takes place amid a relentless crackdown on dissent. Over 1,400 political prisoners remain behind bars, including leaders of opposition parties and renowned human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

The opposition says the early balloting that began Tuesday offers fertile ground for the vote to be manipulated, with ballot boxes unprotected for five days. Election officials said Sunday that over 40% of the country’s voters cast ballots during the five days of early voting. Turnout stood at 43.64% by 9 a.m. on Sunday, an hour after polls formally opened, according to the Belarusian Central Election Commission.

The Viasna Human Rights Center said students, soldiers, teachers and other civil servants were forced to participate in early voting.

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

Speaking during Tuesday’s meeting with top Belarusian law enforcement officials, Lukashenko alleged without offering evidence that Western countries were pondering plans to stage a coup in the country or to try to seize power by force. He ordered police to beef up armed patrols across Belarus, declaring that “it’s the most important element of ensuring law and order.”

After the vote, Belarus is set to form a new state body — the 1,200-seat All-Belarus Popular Assembly that will include top officials, local legislators, union members, pro-government activists and others. It will have broad powers, including the authority to consider constitutional amendments and to appoint election officials and judges.

Lukashenko was believed a few years ago to be considering whether to lead the new body after stepping down, but his calculus has apparently changed, and now few observers expect him to step down after his current term ends next year.

For the first time, curtains were removed from voting booths at polling stations, and voters were banned from taking pictures of their ballots. During the 2020 election, activists encouraged voters to photograph their ballots in a bid to prevent authorities from manipulating the vote in Lukashenko’s favor.

Belarusian state TV aired footage of Interior Ministry drills in which police detained a purported offender who was photographing his ballot and others who created an artificial queue outside a polling station.

Belarus for the first time also refused to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the election. Belarus is a member of the OSCE, a top trans-Atlantic security and rights group, and its monitors have been the only international observers at Belarusian elections for decades.

Since 1995, not a single election in Belarus has been recognized as free and fair by the OSCE.

The OSCE said the decision not to allow the agency’s monitors deprived the country of a “comprehensive assessment by an international body.”

“The human rights situation in Belarus continues to deteriorate as those who voice dissent or stand up for the human rights of others are subject to investigation, persecution and frequently prosecution,” it said in a statement.

Observers noted that authorities have not even tried to pretend that the vote is democratic.

The election offers the government an opportunity to run a “systems test after massive protests and a serious shock of the last presidential election and see whether it works,” said Artyom Shraibman, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “The parliament will be sterile after the opposition and all alternative voices were barred from campaigning. It’s important for authorities to erase any memory of the protests.”
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VALENCIA, Spain — The death toll from a dramatic fire that left two residential buildings charred in the Spanish city of Valencia rose to 10 Saturday after authorities announced they had located the remains of what they believed was the last missing person.

Forensic police found the 10th victim inside the scorched building, national government delegate in Valencia Pilar Bernabé told journalists. Police will proceed with DNA testing to confirm the identities of all the victims, she said.

While there were no other missing persons reported, Bernabé stressed that police and firefighters would continue the “complex” work of combing through the building debris in search of any other possible victim.

It was not immediately known how many people were in the two buildings when the fire broke out, but the complex had some 140 apartments.

The blaze that appeared to begin in one home Thursday afternoon engulfed the rest of the 14-story apartment block in less than an hour, raising questions about whether construction materials used on the façade may have contributed to the fire spreading so furiously.

Neighbors described seeing the rapid evolution of the flames, with residents stuck on balconies and children screaming. Those left homeless from the fire, including many Ukrainian refugees who lived in the large residential complex, were initially given refuge in city hotels but were expected to be moved to other accommodation over the weekend.

Experts suggested that a type of cladding might have made the blaze spread faster. However, Valencia Mayor María José Catalá said the fire’s cause was still unknown and that it was too early to comment on whether some materials used in the construction of the modern complex might have worsened it.
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london — The U.K.’s governing Conservative Party has suspended ties with one if its lawmakers after he accused London Mayor Sadiq Khan of being controlled by Islamists, as tensions over the Israel-Hamas war roil British politics. 

The party said Saturday that Lee Anderson was suspended after he refused to apologize for remarks made about Khan in a television interview Friday. The action means that Anderson, a deputy chairman of the Conservatives until last month, will sit in Parliament as an independent. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other senior Conservative leaders had come under increasing pressure to reject the comments, which the chairwoman of the opposition Labor Party called “unambiguously racist and Islamophobic.” 

The controversy comes as the Israel-Hamas war fuels tensions in British society. Pro-Palestinian marches in London have regularly drawn hundreds of thousands of demonstrators calling for an immediate cease-fire, even as critics describe the events as “antisemitic hate marches.” Figures released over the last week show that both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim incidents have risen sharply since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. 

That anger has spilled over into Parliament, where some lawmakers say they fear for their safety after receiving threats over their positions on the conflict in Gaza. 

In his interview with GB News, Anderson criticized the police response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London, leveling the blame on Khan. 

Anderson said he didn’t “actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country, but what I do believe is they’ve got control of Khan and they’ve got control of London.” 

Khan flatly rejected the allegations, telling the BBC that all forms of hatred need to be rejected, including antisemitism, Islamophobia and misogyny. 

“My concern is there’ll be people across the country, people who are Muslim, or look like Muslims, who’ll be really concerned about entering into politics because they know if these are the sorts of comments that are said against me by a senior Conservative, what chance do they have?” he said. 
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has canceled an audience scheduled for Saturday as a precaution after coming down with a mild case of the flu, the Vatican press office said in a short statement without adding further details.

Francis was scheduled to meet with Rome deacons in the morning.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said later Saturday that the pope’s weekly Sunday Angelus address was still to be confirmed and that no further health updates were expected for the day.

The 87-year-old pontiff has had several health problems in recent years. In late November, he was forced to cancel some of his activities and an international trip because of breathing problems. A scan at the time ruled out lung complications. Francis had a part of one lung removed when he was young and still living in his native Argentina.

In April, the pope spent three days at Rome’s Gemelli hospital for what the Vatican said was bronchitis. He was discharged after receiving intravenous antibiotics.

Francis also spent 10 days at the same hospital in July 2021 following intestinal surgery for narrowing of the bowel. He was readmitted in June 2023 for an operation to repair an abdominal hernia and remove scarring from previous surgeries.

When asked about his health in a recent television interview, Francis quipped what has become his standard line: “Still alive, you know.”

Over the past two years, Francis has indicated several times that he would be ready to step down, following the example of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, if his health deteriorates to the point that it becomes an impediment to him leading the Catholic Church. However, in a TV interview last month, he said he felt in good health and denied immediate plans to resign.

Speculation about Francis’ health and the future of his pontificate has increased following Benedict’s death in late 2022. Benedict’s resignation in 2013 marked a turning point for the church, as he became the first pontiff in six centuries to step down.
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Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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TALLINN, Estonia — Earlier this month, when Tucker Carlson asked Vladimir Putin about his reasons for invading Ukraine two years ago, Putin gave him a lecture on Russian history. The 71-year-old Russian leader spent more than 20 minutes showering a baffled Carlson with dates and names going back to the ninth century.

Putin even gave him a folder containing what he said were copies of historical documents proving his points: that Ukrainians and Russians historically have always been one people, and that Ukraine’s sovereignty is merely an illegitimate holdover from the Soviet era.

Carlson said he was “shocked” at being on the receiving end of the history lesson. But for those familiar with Putin’s government, it was not surprising in the least: In Russia, history has long been a propaganda tool used to advance the Kremlin’s political goals. And the last two years have been entirely in keeping with that ethos.

In an effort to rally people around their world view, Russian authorities have tried to magnify the country’s past victories while glossing over the more sordid chapters of its history. They have rewritten textbooks, funded sprawling historical exhibitions and suppressed — sometimes harshly — voices that contradict their narrative.

Russian officials have also regularly bristled at Ukraine and other European countries for pulling down Soviet monuments, widely seen there as an unwanted legacy of past oppression, and even put scores of European officials on a wanted list over that in a move that made headlines this month.

“In the hands of the authorities,” says Oleg Orlov, co-founder of Memorial, Russia’s oldest and most prominent rights group, “history has become a hammer — or even an axe.”

The glorifying

From the early years of his quarter-century rule, Putin has repeatedly contended that studying their history should make Russians proud. Even controversial figures, such as Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, contributed to Russia’s greatness, Putin argues. (Russian media have counted over 100 monuments to Stalin in Russia, most of which were installed during Putin’s rule.)

The Russian president has said that there should be one “fundamental state narrative” instead of different textbooks that contradict each other. And he has called for a “universal” history textbook that would convey that narrative. But that idea, criticized heavily by historians, didn’t gain much traction for quite a while — until Russia invaded Ukraine.

Last year, the government rolled out a series of four new “universal” history textbooks for 10th- and 11th-graders. One featured a chapter on Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, blamed the West for the Cold War and described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

Some historians derided it as blatant propaganda. “The Soviet Union, and later Russia, is (depicted in the textbook as) always a besieged fortress, which constantly lives surrounded by enemies. These hostile circles are trying to weaken Russia in every conceivable way and seize its resources,” says historian Nikita Sokolov.

The Kremlin-friendly vision of Russian history is also dominating a chain of sprawling, state-funded “history parks” – venues that host history-themed exhibitions in 24 cities across the country.

Those venues were opened after a series of historical exhibitions in the early 2010s drew hundreds of thousands of Russians and received praise from Putin. Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov), a Russian Orthodox bishop reported to be Putin’s personal confessor, was the driving force behind them.

Packed with animations, touch-screen displays and other flashy elements, those widely popular expositions were criticized by historians for inaccurate claims and deliberate glorification of Russian rulers and their conquests.

One exhibition described Ivan the Terrible, a 16th-century Russian czar known for his violent purges of Russian nobility, as a victim of “an information war.” Another was widely advertised with a quote falsely attributed to Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German Empire in the 19th century, that was removed swiftly after sparking outcry: “It is impossible to defeat the Russians. We have seen this ourselves over hundreds of years. But Russians can be instilled with false values, and then they will defeat themselves.”

Central to this narrative of an invincible Russia is the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Marked on May 9 — Germany officially capitulated after midnight Moscow time on May 9, 1945 — the Soviet victory has become integral to Russian identity.

The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people in the war, pushing German forces from Stalingrad, deep inside Russia, all the way to Berlin. The suffering and valor that went into the German defeat have been touchstones ever since, and under Putin Victory Day has become the country’s primary secular holiday.

For the authorities, “Russia’s history is a road from one victory to the next,” sums up Orlov, whose group won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. “And more beautiful victories lie ahead. And (the Kremlin says that) we must be proud of our history; history is a means of instilling patriotism. Of course in their view, patriotism is appreciation of the leadership – be it the leadership of the czarist Russia, the leadership of the Soviet Russia or the current leadership.”

The silencing

As celebrations of Victory Day over the years grew more imperious, Putin’s government grew less tolerant of any questioning or criticism of the Soviet Union’s actions in that war — or generally.

In 2014, Russian cable networks dropped Dozhd, the county’s sole independent TV channel, after it hosted a history program on the 1941-44 Siege of Leningrad and asked viewers to vote on whether Soviet authorities should have surrendered Leningrad to save lives. Famine in the city, now called St. Petersburg, killed more than 500,000 people during the siege. The question caused an uproar, with officials accusing the channel of crossing moral and ethical lines. 

That same year, the Russian government adopted a law that made “rehabilitating Nazism” – or “spreading knowingly false information about the actions of the USSR during World War II” – a criminal offense.

The first conviction on those charges was reported in 2016. A man was fined 200,000 rubles (about $3,000 at the time) for a social media post saying that “the Communists and Germany attacked Poland together, unleashing World War II.” In the years that followed, the number of convictions on the charge only grew.

Research and public debate about mass repressions by Stalin also have faced significant resistance in recent years. Historians and rights advocates cite the inevitable parallels to the current crackdown against dissent that has already landed hundreds of people behind bars.

Two historians involved in researching Stalin’s mass executions in northwestern Russia were jailed in recent years – prosecutions on unrelated charges many link to their work. Memorial, Russia’s oldest and most prominent human rights group that drew international acclaim for its studies of political repression in the Soviet Union, has been shut down. It continues to work, but its activities in Russia have been significantly curtailed.

And a queue of people waiting for their turn to read out the names of victims of Soviet repressions no longer snakes through central Moscow streets in late October. The tradition to read them aloud once a year in front of a monument to victims of Soviet repressions — called “Returning the Names” — was started in 2007 and once attracted thousands of people. In 2020, Moscow authorities stopped authorizing it, citing COVID-19.

The authorities are threatened by efforts to preserve historical memory, and it has gotten worse since the war in Ukraine began, says Natalya Baryshnikova, producer of last year’s “Returning the Names,” which in 2023 went ahead in dozens of cities abroad and online.

“We see this very clearly” since the Ukraine war began, says Baryshnikova. “Any grassroots civil movement or statement about the memory of Soviet terror is inconvenient.”

The justifying

According to prominent history teacher Tamara Eidelman, the historical narrative the Kremlin is trying to impose on society contains several main elements: the primacy of the state, the affairs of which are always more important than individual lives; the cult of self-sacrifice and readiness to give up one’s life for a greater cause; and the cult of war.

“Of course, (the latter) is never explicitly spelled out,” Eidelman says. Instead, the narrative is: “`We have always strived for peace … We have always been attacked and merely fought back.'”

That laid the perfect ideological groundwork for the invasion of Ukraine, she says, and points out how the “Never again!” sentiment about World War II for some in Russia in recent years became “We can do it again” — a popular slogan after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 as the Kremlin adopted increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward the West.

Indeed, in the years before the Ukraine war, Putin cited history increasingly often. In 2020, during a reform that reset the limits on his presidential terms, a reference to history was even added to the country’s constitution — a new clause that stipulated Russia is “united by a thousand-year history” and “enforces protection of the historical truth.”

In 2020-21, Putin published two lengthy articles on history — one criticizing the West for actions leading up to World War II, another arguing that Ukrainians and Russians have always been one people. In an address to the nation days before sending troops into Ukraine, he once again invoked history, claiming Ukraine as a state was created artificially by Soviet leaders.

History “has been used to legitimize the regime essentially since the beginning of Putin’s rule,” Ivan Kurilla, a historian at Wellesley College, said in a recent article. And with the war in Ukraine, it “finally took a central place in the state ideology next to geopolitical talk about sovereignty, the ‘decline of the West’ and the protection of traditional values.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — The future looks bleak for war-weary Ukraine: It is beset by shortages in soldiers and ammunition, as well as doubts about the supply of Western aid. Ukrainian forces also face a Russian enemy that has recently seized the initiative on the battlefield.

Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion captured nearly a quarter of the country, the stakes could not be higher for Kyiv. After a string of victories in the first year of the war, fortunes have turned for the Ukrainian military, which is dug in, outgunned and outnumbered against a more powerful opponent.

As the war enters its third year, here is a look at the situation on the ground, the challenges ahead and some of the potential consequences if Ukraine does not acquire the people, ammunition and assistance it needs to sustain the fight.

What is the state of play?

Triumphs have turned to attrition for Ukraine along the snaking front line in the country’s east. With Russia gaining advantages, shortages mounting and a major military shake-up still fresh, questions abound about whether Kyiv can keep going.

“As things stand, neither side has won. Neither side has lost. Neither side is anywhere near giving up. And both sides have pretty much exhausted the manpower and equipment that they started the war with,” said Gen. Richard Barrons, a British military officer who is co-chair of a defense consultancy.

Ukraine suffered setbacks after the much-anticipated summer counteroffensive failed to produce any breakthroughs. The armed forces switched to a defensive posture in the fall to repel new advances from Moscow.

On February 17, Russian forces took control of the embattled city of Avdiivka, where Kyiv’s troops were under constant fire with Russians approaching from three directions. Ukrainian commanders had complained for weeks of personnel and ammunition shortages. It was the biggest battlefield victory for Russia since the fight for Bakhmut, and it confirmed that Moscow’s offensive was gaining steam.

Away from the battlefield, Ukraine has proven successful in the Black Sea, where it has used long-range weapons to strike military installations in Crimea and maritime drones to sink Russian warships. Ukraine has disabled a third of the Black Sea Fleet, according to the Atlantic Council.

Ukraine is looking to acquire more long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian-occupied territory, a move that some European countries fear may spark escalation from Moscow.

How many people have been killed?

Both Russia and Ukraine have sought to keep casualty figures under wraps.

Few details about Ukrainian military deaths have emerged since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. But it’s clear that tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed.

In 2023, the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead concluded that nearly 50,000 Russian men had died in the war. Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, worked with a data scientist from Germany’s Tubingen University to analyze Russian government data.

What happens if Ukraine can’t find more troops?

Without more soldiers, Ukraine’s defensive lines will be overstretched and more vulnerable to Russian attack, especially if Moscow launches intense multi-pronged assaults along the 1,000-kilometer front line.

The Ukrainian military has an average personnel shortage of 25% across brigades, according to lawmakers. Military commanders are unable to give their soldiers enough rest, and Russia has recently increased the tempo of attacks. As a result, soldiers are tired — and more easily injured — exacerbating the effects of the shortage.

Ukraine’s military command has said 450,000 to 500,000 additional recruits are needed for the next phase of the war. Even if Ukraine succeeds in mobilizing that number, which is unlikely, it still would not be able to match the manpower of Russia, which has more than three times Ukraine’s population.

Lawmakers have spent months mulling over a controversial proposal to increase the conscription pool, as many Ukrainian men continue to evade the war in Ukrainian cities.

Commanders say they don’t have enough men to dig trenches or carry out offensive operations. Shortages have also required them to switch tactics and focus on preserving the lives of the soldiers they do have, sometimes at the expense of holding territory.

What about weapons and ammunition?

If they continue, ammunition shortages will jeopardize Ukraine’s ability to hold territory and keep soldiers alive.

Military leaders appear to be rationing shells, sending trickles of ammunition to firing positions to preserve stockpiles, while promises for more ammunition from Western allies have gone unfulfilled. The European Union failed on its promise to deliver 1 million rounds by the start of the year, delivering only a few hundred thousand.

At the same time, Russia is mobilizing its defense industry and may soon be able to fire 5,000 artillery rounds a day, Barrons said. Ukraine is building up its domestic arms production but will not be able to match Moscow in scale in the short-term.

Military commanders have complained for months of ammunition shortages for infantry fighting vehicles, machine guns, artillery and multiple rocket launch systems. Those shortages grew particularly acute by the end of 2023, with some artillery commanders saying they can meet only 10% of ammunition needs.

Commanders say long-range artillery in particular serves two important purposes: First, it acts as a protective umbrella to cover infantry, allowing them to hold territory and prepare for offensive operations. Second, by striking Russian troops and heavy weaponry from a distance, artillery prevents planned assaults by seriously degrading Moscow’s capabilities.

Without it, Ukraine will increasingly come under the pressure of Russia’s relentless artillery barrages. Commanders say their soldiers have no choice but to dig in deeper to hold their lines.

Is Western support waning, and what if it does?

Ukraine is reliant on Western allies and international organizations not just for military aid but also for financial support and humanitarian help.

Without Western assistance, Ukraine will not have the weapons, ammunition and training it needs to sustain the war effort, nor will it be able to keep its battered economy afloat or reach Ukrainians trapped in the crossfire of battles.

Between divisions about the future of aid within the EU and $60 billion in military aid languishing in the United States Congress, Western countries have not been as forthcoming with money this year.

Kyiv breathed a sigh of relief in February when the EU approved extending a 50 billion-euro ($54 billion) aid package for Ukraine after resistance from Hungary. That money is meant to support the economy and rebuild the country, not to fight Russia.

But it’s the U.S. funding that many Ukrainian leaders are waiting for. The funds will enable Ukraine to purchase weapons and equipment from American firms, access more military training and intelligence sharing, and bolster air and sea defenses. The money will also provide direct budget support for Kyiv.

Ukrainian leaders also need Western help to cover the salaries of public servants and medical workers.

On the humanitarian side, the United Nations and its partner agencies said if an appeal for $3.1 billion in new funding for the year is not fulfilled, the U.N. won’t be able to meet the basic needs of 8.5 million Ukrainians living on the front line. 
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