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Russia a No-show at Court Hearing on Ukraine Conflict 

Russia did not show up to a key international court hearing aimed at putting a legal stop to fighting in Ukraine that is creating Europe’s biggest refugee crisis in years. At issue is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim of “genocide” to justify his invasion of Ukraine.

The empty seats allocated to Russia’s legal team at the International Court of Justice were telling. They gave ammunition to Ukraine’s envoy, Anton Korynevych, as he laid out his country’s arguments against Moscow to The Hague-based body.

“The fact that Russia’s seats are empty speaks loudly. They are not here in this court of law: they are on a battlefield waging an aggressive war against my country,” he said.

The ICJ is the world’s highest court for resolving legal disputes between states. Russia was supposed to present arguments Tuesday, but that won’t be happening.

President Vladimir Putin claims he invaded Ukraine to protect people facing bullying and genocide in the eastern part of the country. Both Russia and Ukraine have signed onto an international genocide treaty. Genocide scholars say Putin’s claim is baseless. And a French member of Russia’s legal team has resigned, accusing Moscow of “cynically” abusing the law.

Ukraine wants the ICJ to use so-called “provisional measures” at its disposal as a way to end the fighting. The measures aim to prevent a situation from becoming worse.

“Russia must be stopped and the court has a role to play in stopping it. That is why the people of Ukraine, the government of Ukraine, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ask you respectfully but urgently to grant our request for provisional measures,” said Korynevych.

Predicting horrific and long-term human and environmental consequences from the conflict, Ukraine’s legal team also warned that the court’s ruling carried broader repercussions.

“Members of the court, in less than two weeks this case has become much bigger than Ukraine versus Russia. It has become a test of who will prevail — Russia, or the post-war international legal order,” said a Ukrainian team lawyer.

Besides the ICJ, other international bodies are weighing in on the conflict. The International Criminal Court is investigating Putin for possible war crimes. The Council of Europe, the region’s largest rights body based in Strasbourg France, has suspended Russia’s membership.

The International Court of Justice is expected to respond to Ukraine’s request within days.

 

Russia’s Vaunted Influence Operations Bogged Down with Ukraine

Russia’s efforts to sway the opinions of people across the world about the righteousness of its invasion of Ukraine appears to be mirroring the effort of some of its forces on the ground – despite bringing lots of firepower, the Kremlin’s influence operations seem to be stalling, unable to penetrate key audiences.

Much of Moscow’s influence operation has been carried out in plain sight, with Russian-backed media outlets like RT, Sputnik, Ria Novosti, Izvestia and others pumping out stories and social media posts in Russian, English, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic.

But research by Omelas, a Washington-based firm that tracks influence operations in the digital environment, finds that as Russian forces started moving into Ukraine, these media operations began to lose traction with their target audiences.

“Up until February 24, Russian media outlets were dominating the narrative around Ukraine in all languages and a lot of the content was getting a lot of engagements, as well,” Omelas Chief Executive Officer Evanna Hu told VOA.

In the weeks since, however, it has been a different story.

Russian media’s reach

According to Omelas, Russian-supported media published 12,300 posts on social media in the span, garnering 1.3 million engagements.

In contrast, Western media outlets published 116,000 posts related to Ukraine during that span, attracting 44.8 million engagements.

“Russian media is still dominant in content published in the Russian language, but it has definitely ceded information dominance to Western media outlets in the English language,” Hu said.

That space is also shrinking.

The 27-member European Union last week banned Russian state-controlled media outlets like RT and Sputnik, suspending broadcasting licenses for the Russian companies and their European affiliates.

Social media block

Social media companies like Meta, which owns Facebook, Google, YouTube and TikTok are also blocking RT and Sputnik in the EU.

RT’s U.S.-based network, RT America, announced last Thursday it was ceasing operations immediately and laying off almost all of its staff due to what it called “unforeseen business interruption events” in a memo first obtained by CNN.

Meta also announced earlier it had also taken down a network of about 40 accounts, groups and pages on Facebook and Instagram that targeted people in Ukraine.

“This network used fake accounts and operated fictitious personas and brands across the internet — including on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, Odnoklassniki and VK — to appear more authentic in an apparent attempt to withstand scrutiny by platforms and researchers,” Meta said in a blog post.

For its part, Google said it was “taking extraordinary measures to stop the spread of misinformation and disrupt disinformation campaigns online.”

“We have also significantly limited recommendations globally for a number of Russian state-funded media outlets across our platforms,” Google’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, wrote in a blog post. “And in the past few days, YouTube has removed hundreds of channels and thousands of videos for violating its Community Guidelines, including a number of channels engaging in coordinated deceptive practices.”

Still, questions remain as to how much the crackdown by social media companies will ultimately dent Russia’s disinformation efforts.

“It’s too early to tell,” Bret Schafer, a digital disinformation fellow with the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, told VOA via email.

“Currently, RT and Sputnik’s subscriber numbers and interactions are remaining pretty constant across Facebook/Twitter, but again, it’s a very, very small sample size,” he said. “Over time you’d have to think it will take a toll, but … a lot of the messaging will shift to their influencers, who I do not believe will be restricted.”

Influencers

In some cases, those influencers have built and maintained substantial followings, going all the way back to the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

One such personality is Rania Khalek with more than 246,000 followers on Twitter.

In 2020, Khalek posted videos for a Russian-backed media outlet called InTheNow. Currently, Khalek is affiliated with an organization called BreakThrough News, which describes itself as “independent journalism for and by working-class people.”

Khalek’s accounts and those of BreakThrough News, do not carry any alerts about connections to Russia.

“As you know, Russia invaded Ukraine and the Western response has been to escalate and escalate some more while ignoring the NATO role in provoking this war,” Khalek said during a March 1 episode of her show, Dispatches, on the BreakThrough News website and on YouTube, which has so far racked up almost 73,000 views.

Another influencer who rose to prominence during the 2020 U.S. presidential elections is Lee Camp, who hosted “Redacted Tonight” for RT, which he described on Twitter as venue for “anti-war, anti-corporate comedy.”

Yet despite being cancelled as part of RT America’s sudden shutdown, episodes of Camp’s shows are still available on YouTube, including a February 28 episode about Ukraine, during which Camp was critical of those calling out Russia without what he said was context and historical perspective.

“Basically, you have to be ignorant to get the true virtue signalling, stamp of approval,” he said. “You just have to act like Russia invaded Ukraine in a void.”

That type of take from Camp and others is becoming commonplace, according to some observers.

“There is a lot of whataboutism happening,” the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Schafer told VOA. “The influencer crowd—especially those targeting the left—have really struggled to message around this, as it’s tough to maintain a posture as an anti-war/anti-imperialist while the people signing your checks are attacking Ukrainian cities.”

U.S. far-right media

Some of the same sentiments are also making their way into far-right-leaning social media in the United States.

“I’m not taking a stance on war,” Joe Oltmann, one of the hosts of the Conservative Daily Podcast said on his show Friday, after playing a YouTube video titled purportedly from a Ukrainian man.

VOA could not independently confirm the authenticity or origin of the video, titled, “Save the Crocodile Tears for Ukraine,” which called out Western hypocrisy and echoed Russian talking points about NATO expansionism and Nazi influences in Ukraine.

But a VOA analysis found that the video, which has now been labeled with a warning that it “may be inappropriate for some users,” had been modified to erase data on when it was made. It also found that the Ukrainian man talking in the video bears a close resemblance to a man with an online profile that says he is an actor from Moscow.

Regardless of the video’s origin, Oltmann used it to segue to his views on Russia’s actions.

“There’s no part of me that wants Russia to go in and invade Ukraine,” Oltmann said on his podcast in response to the video. “But when you have military installations and biolabs, and by the way let’s talk about Zelenskyy jailing his opposition leaders. Let’s talk about him shutting down nationalized TV stations.”

“Are you going to find people in Ukraine who actually believe that Russia is bad? The answer is yes,” Oltmann added. “Are you also going to find people in Ukraine that say that Russia is doing what Russia should do, and that they’re ending the corruption within their own state environment?”

Researchers have also seen Russian propaganda find its way onto far-right websites such as ZeroHedge or The Duran. And narratives sympathetic to Russia have also appeared on websites like The Grayzone, described by researchers as an outlet favored by both Russian and Chinese propagandists for its willingness to push anti-American and “anti-imperialist” views.”

VOA has reached out to both Rania Khalek and Joe Oltmann for comment on their roles in promoting what appear to be Russian narratives but has not yet heard back from either of them.

VOA also reached out to Meta, Google and Twitter about how the social media companies plan to handle Russian propaganda and disinformation coming from influencers who may not have direct connections to Russia or Russian-affiliated media.

Meta and Google have not responded as of publication of this article. Twitter shared a list of steps it has already taken to address disinformation and influence operations linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the suspension of more than a dozen accounts and the blocking of several links.

“Our investigation is ongoing; however, our initial findings indicate that the accounts and links originated in Russia and were attempting to disrupt the public conversation around the ongoing conflict in Ukraine,” Twitter said in the statement.

Other Russia-affiliated media, however, remain active, including Redfish, which bills itself as a “digital content creator” with accounts on Twitter and Instagram.

Redfish’s Twitter account, with almost 151,000 followers, pushed back against being banned from YouTube in Europe, tweeting it expected “a full ban on all platforms soon,” while promoting its accounts on TikTok and Telegram.

How much influence Russian-affiliated media will be able to have going forward and the degree to which Russia’s social media influencers will be able to sway the information environment is uncertain.

But researchers say it is unlikely Russia will give up on trying to weaponize the information space and will likely learn from the way its influence operations have been outflanked, at least so far, by Western governments and independent media.

“Any IO [information operation] campaign you put out has to be matched by the truth on the ground,” Omelas’ Evanna Hu told VOA. “This is something that the U.S. military learned the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Now in Ukraine, where its military advances have stalled, “Russia is starting to see that consequence,” she said.

Fatima Tlis contributed to this story.

‘It’s Home Now’: Defiant US Couple Stick in Kyiv

In the deserted center of Kyiv where the blasts of war echo, an American couple quietly walk their dogs after deciding to stay put in the city they call home.

John and Natasha Sennett heard the war sirens for the first time in their old district of Kyiv after Russian forces invaded Ukraine last month.

Panic ensued. “We threw things into backpacks, we took the dogs and rushed to the basement,” said Natasha, 42.

A false alarm, the first in this part of Kyiv which remains spared from bombardments by Russian forces, 10 days after the invasion began. But they are at the gates of the capital, around 20 kilometers (12 miles) away

The bombardments, deafening and regular, often disturb the couple’s peaceful two-room apartment which has a New York style with American photos, exposed bricks and glass interior.

Elsewhere in the city, thousands of people fled by train or by car, fearing Russia will turn Kyiv into a new Aleppo or Grozny.

But John and Natasha decided to stay.

“You hear explosions, but they’re far away. After a while you get used to it,” said 57-year-old John, wearing a T-shirt with tattoos underneath, crew-cut hair and a trimmed beard.

On this weekend afternoon, John and Natasha take their dogs, Samantha, 7, and Philly, 6, for a walk. They brought the dogs over from the United States when they moved to Kyiv in late 2020.

They put a small black winter jacket on each canine to protect them from the biting cold and walk them on a leash in the deserted streets, where the war thunders from afar.

The couple give several reasons for wanting to stay.

In Kyiv, they say they feel “at home” for the first time in their lives. They initially moved to the city to be close to the family of Natasha, who was born in Belarus.

‘It’s all we have’

“We fell in love with this city, it feels like freedom here,” said John, who like his wife, says he feels “more Ukrainian than anything else” today.

Here he can also truly live his Orthodox faith which he converted to eight years ago.

The couple said they had found balance in Kyiv, far from the United States, where they felt like they spent all their lives working without being able to save much.

They bought their run-down apartment on the top floor and entirely renovated it. “We put all our savings into it. These 54 square meters are all we have,” John said.

“This is where we came to establish our lives,” he added, “and if it is our destiny to die, then I guess it is.”

Both work remotely. John runs a taxi-limousine service in his native city of Philadelphia and Natasha is an English teacher.

“We don’t have huge salaries, but it’s enough for us to live well here,” John said.

Inspiration

Other factors played a role in their decision to stay.

“We don’t have kids, we don’t have a car,” Natasha said, and one of the dogs, Samantha, is “very sick and cannot travel easily”.

The two Americans are more supportive than ever of the Ukrainian forces.

John, who was in the army between the ages of 19 to 21, publishes poems on social media glorifying the struggle of local fighters in their blue and gold national colors.

“These people are ready to die for their country, they’re an inspiration,” John said. He said he was ready, like his wife, “to use a weapon” if necessary.

But they do not rule out fleeing with their dogs, “if things go very badly”.

At the entrance to their apartment, they keep two small backpacks ready just in case.

In his bag, John put a laptop, chargers and blanket — as well as a crowbar and hammer, to “force doors (open) or break windows” to find shelter.

In the meantime, John looks to his faith. He goes once a week to the nearby church, to pray for Ukrainian soldiers and to confess.

Because when “death is close,” he said, “it’s best to go with a clean soul.”

Ghanaian Students Say Flight from Ukraine Hampered by Discrimination

It took two days for Janet and some other Ghanaian students to reach Lviv from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Then they spent another 13 hours waiting to cross the border, the third-year engineering student explains.

Even her mask couldn’t hide the agitation and fear she felt traveling across war-wracked Ukraine last week. Nor did it shield the surprise and anguish she felt as she recalled being segregated from white women and their children at Lviv’s railway station and blocked from boarding a train to Poland.

VOA interviewed half-a-dozen Ghanaian students Friday after they had reached the safety of Budapest, Hungary, and another dozen African students, Ghanaian and Nigerian, in Lviv and in Uzhhorod, a Ukrainian town near the border with Slovakia. Four students said they hadn’t encountered any discrimination in their frantic journeys west from Kharkiv, Sumy or Kyiv, where they had been studying mainly medicine and engineering.

The others said racism had hindered their flight and endangered them — although without exception they all said they looked on Ukraine as their second home and reported acts of kindness toward them.

Last week, Ukraine’s government set up a special hotline for Africans and other foreign students trying to flee the country, after reports mounted they were being blocked from boarding trains and buses. Representatives from several African countries — including Gabon, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria – said they were disturbed by what they were hearing from the students they helped to flee.

Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, told a news conference, “There should be absolutely no discrimination between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, Europeans and non-Europeans. Everybody is fleeing from the same risks.” He cautioned any unfair treatment Africans experienced wasn’t the result of any Ukrainian government policies.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, stressed in a tweet that everyone regardless of origin must be treated fairly. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has affected Ukrainians and non-citizens in many devastating ways. Africans seeking evacuation are our friends and need to have equal opportunities to return to their home countries safely. Ukraine’s government spares no effort to solve the problem,” he said.

His ministry has been urging all government agencies to assist foreigners, emphasizing there must be no discrimination at the borders against Africans, while blaming Russian disinformation for exaggerating reports of color discrimination.

Nonetheless, for all of the Ukrainian government’s efforts, the Ghanaians whom VOA interviewed said they did experience harassment and aggression, creating more stress and fear as they tried to escape the shelling and blasts.

Janet and her friends say they left Kyiv two days after the invasion started. They slept in shelters as they plotted their exits assisted by a network that was quickly set up by the National Union of Ghana Students-Ukraine, led by its president, Philip Ansah.

The association also helped to fund the dash to safety of some of the students. Additionally, the Ghanaian government quickly swung into action, too, trying to find ways to get funds into Ukraine, dispatching diplomats from other European cities to border crossings with Ukraine to coordinate with the student association to be ready to assist Ghanaians once they had reached Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.

Ukraine’s education ministry calculates there were some 16,000 African students in Ukraine when Russia invaded. Nine hundred were Ghanaians, and among them, Janet, a PhD engineering student, who, with some other Ghanaians drove to Lviv. It was a hair-raising and exhausting drive, she said, made worse by some abuse she says they experienced when stopping at gas stations for fuel and food.

Janet was clearly sad to narrate her experience. “Ukraine is like my second home. I came as a teenager and it’s unfortunate. I never thought it [skin color] would be a problem as we ran for our lives.” On one occasion they were blocked at the pumps. But it was worse at Lviv railway station where they were shoved aside “even when the police came in to check what was going on.”

That was Nana’s experience, too, at the railway stations at Lviv and Kharkiv, where she was just months away from finishing her medical degree. When the bombing started, she headed to the train station and took refuge in a subway nearby, remaining there for three days, where people shared their food and water with her. As the explosions and blasts intensified, she and another Ghanaian student realized they had try to leave the city.

“Everybody was trying to get on the train as well and we had to wait outside,” she said. She then added, “And as I was waiting, I could hear the shelling and the explosions, but you couldn’t run to take cover because if the train arrived it would leave without you. So even though I was scared out of my mind, I had to stand there and when the time came, try to force my way through with the others,” she explains. “I was crying and tearing away to get on to the train and so were other women, crying and pushing and the kids were crying.”

The 29-year-old said preference was given to Ukrainian women and their children and she kept telling people, “But I’m a woman as well.” She and some other African students grouped together to try to board the train, but a Ukrainian man appeared with a shotgun and ordered the African men to go back to the end of the line. “He scared … everybody before four policemen pinned him down and took him away.”

A lanky Nigerian footballer, Golden, whom VOA interviewed last week just after he had crossed into Slovakia, said much of what he had seen was due to general chaos and fear, downplaying color discrimination. “Look, everyone was being aggressive to catch trains and cross borders. Everyone was scared and pushing and shoving and trying to get to the front of lines,” he said.

Other Africans disagree. Nana said at the Lviv station, “I was standing for hours and they kept putting Ukrainian women on the trains and not us and they were even laughing,” she said. “They even tried to use the language as a barrier to get rid of me and ignore me,” she said.

One Ghanaian student, Philip, says his most terrifying moments were when he came face-to-face with Russian soldiers as he worked his way out of Sumy, where was studying medicine. “There were a lot of Russians and they scared us and pointed their guns at us and threatened to shoot us,” he said.

The joint effort by the student association and the Ghanaian government has paid off — of the 900 students in Ukraine when war erupted, only 39 still remain inside, according to a Ghanaian official.

Macron Keeps an Open Line to Putin as War in Ukraine Rages 

NICE, FRANCE— While most of the world is shunning President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the few leaders keeping an open line of communication is French President Emmanuel Macron. 

Macron’s diplomatic efforts to prevent the war failed, but he’s not giving up: the two men have spoken four times since Russian forces attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24, and 11 times over the past month. 

The French leader, whose country holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, is now one of the few outsiders with a view into Putin’s mindset at the time of the largest military invasion in Europe since World War II. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is also becoming a mediator, meeting Putin on a surprise visit to Moscow on Saturday and speaking with him again by phone on Sunday. 

Macron’s relentless push for dialogue reflects France’s post-World War II tradition of carving out its own geopolitical path and its refusal to blindly follow the United States. 

After Russian troops pushed deep into Ukraine, Macron’s resolve to maintain communication channels with Putin is providing Western allies with insight into the Russian leader’s state of mind, his intentions on the battlefield and at home in Russia as the Kremlin cracks down on opponents. 

“He is keeping a diplomatic channel open for the West in case Putin might want to de-escalate and look for a way out of this crisis,” said Benjamin Haddad, a senior director for Europe at the Atlantic Council in Paris and a member of Macron’s party. 

Macron has also spoken to Putin on behalf of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Haddad said, trying to extract some mercy from Putin: local cease-fires, safe passage for trapped civilians and access to humanitarian aid. 

During their most recent call on Sunday that came at Macron’s request, the French leader and Putin focused for nearly two hours on the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear plants. 

Putin said he doesn’t intend to attack them and agreed on the principle of “dialogue” between the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ukraine and Russia on the issue, according to a French official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the French presidency’s practices. 

There is “absolutely no illusion at the Elysee that Putin will keep his word on anything he promises,” Haddad said, or that Putin will change his mind about the invasion. But Haddad said that it’s important that Macron keeps trying to engage Putin even as the West punishes Russia and strengthens Ukraine’s defenses. 

And breaking with the diplomatic norm of keeping such conversations secret, the French presidency has widely shared the content of Macron’s talks with Putin. Macron’s advisers and the president himself detailed the excruciating efforts to prevent the war and then laid bare Putin’s broken promises of peace. 

That helped Macron galvanize support for the toughest sanctions against Russia, uniting the notoriously divided 27-member EU and revive NATO’s geopolitical role. 

Macron has played the dual role of admonishing Putin, but also lending him a diplomatic ear. 

The French president has been clear from the start: Putin alone is to blame for the death and destruction in Ukraine and the major consequences of the war for France and Europe. But on the other hand if Putin wants to talk, he will listen. 

Putin called on Thursday. The number of refugees fleeing Ukraine had already topped 1 million and several towns in the east were in ruins. Macron picked up and they talked for 90 minutes. 

An official in the French presidency rushed to brief reporters on the conversation. Putin told Macron the military operation in Ukraine is “going according to plan” and he will continue “until the end,” the official said. 

Putin claimed that “war crimes” were being committed by Ukrainians. He called them “Nazis,” the official said. There’s no need to negotiate, Putin said. He will achieve the “neutralization and disarmament of Ukraine” with his army. The official couldn’t be named in keeping with Elysee practices. 

Macron “spoke the truth” to Putin, the official said, and explained how his war on Ukraine is perceived by the West. “I spoke to President Putin. I asked him to stop attacks on Ukraine. At this point, he refuses,” Macron tweeted. 

He said dialogue will continue. “We must prevent the worst from happening.” 

Since he was elected president in 2017, Macron has shown a keen interest in forging personal relationships with world leaders, including those who value a degree of pragmatism when discussing democracy and human rights while pursing business opportunities. 

His business-friendly diplomacy paid off in the Persian Gulf in December when he signed a multi-billion euro weapons contract with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nayhan. Macron drew fierce criticism on that trip for traveling to Saudi Arabia to become the first Western leader to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 

“Macron stands out among European Union leaders with his willingness to be in the spotlight, to drive the foreign policy and push things ahead,” said Silvia Colombo, an expert on EU foreign relations at the International Institute in Rome. 

There is no other foreign leader that Macron has tried to bring closer to his corner than Putin. Macron, a staunch European, was confident that a mixture of personal charm and the splendor of France’s past would convince Putin to keep Russia within the European security habitat. 

Macron first hosted Putin in the sumptuous Place of Versailles in 2017. Two years later they discussed stalled Ukraine peace talks in Macron’s summer residence at the Fort de Bregancon on the French Riviera as Macron tried to build on European diplomacy that had helped ease hostilities in the past. 

It’s become clear over the past several weeks that Putin was on the war path even as he denied it, sitting across from Macron at a very long table during his last visit to Moscow. 

Macron wanted to believe him, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said after critics claimed the French president has fallen into the old European trap of appeasing Putin’s Russia. 

“The president is not naive,” Le Drian said on the eve of Russia’s invasion. “He knows the methods, the character and the cynical nature of Putin.”  

UN: 1.5 Million Refugees From Ukraine Worst Post-WWII Crisis

The Ukrainian father of two took off with a sprint when he saw the GPS coordinates from his wife’s cellphone draw nearer to the border crossing into Poland.

Yevgen Chornomordenko had been waiting for 11 days on the Polish side of the border for his wife, Alina, and two children to arrive from the Ukrainian capital, which had woken up to Russian shelling Feb. 24.

War had broken out at home just days after his arrival in the Polish city of Wroclow, near Germany, for a job installing solar panels.

“I never believed war would start,” Chornomordenko said, as he checked the GPS position of his arriving family.

Nearby, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, visited the same Medyka border crossing, proclaiming the number of refugees leaving Ukraine the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. In just 11 days, 1.5 million people had sought safety in neighboring countries.

Just moments after the U.N. official spoke, Chornomordenko’s wife and two children made the crossing themselves, in a small white Kia, which Alina had driven across Ukraine from Kyiv, in normal times an eight-hour drive.

He lifted 4-year-old son David onto his shoulders, and cradled the baby, 8-month-old Sofia, in his arms, looking lovingly at the tiny face, murmuring, “so beautiful.”

“I am so grateful,” he said.

Asked if he would return to Ukraine to fight, Chornomordenko said that for now his priority was to find a safe place for his family to stay. He remains worried about his brother, a charity worker, and retired parents back in Kyiv, trading frequent messages with them as he awaited his family.

“I feel pity for the situation. I know it is very difficult for the people that are still there,” he said.

The flow of refugees continued unabated Sunday, even as humanitarian corridors meant to ease the flight of refugees collapsed as quickly as they were agreed upon inside Ukraine.

Grandi said the humanitarian corridors also were critical to allowing basic goods to arrive to those in need and to evacuate the most vulnerable.

“But what is needed really is a cease-fire, the end of hostilities, because that’s the only way to stop this tragedy,” Grandi said.

The sentiments were echoed by Pope Francis, who made a powerful appeal for peace at the Vatican Sunday, imploring “an end to the armed attacks, and that negotiations prevail.”

In a highly unusual move, the pontiff said he had dispatched two cardinals to the war-ravaged country, signaling that the “Holy See is ready to do everything in the service of this peace.”

“In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing,” the pope said during his traditional Sunday blessing. “This is not just a military operation, but a war that is spreading a lot of destruction and misery. The victims continue to become more numerous, just like the people who are fleeing.”

One 11-year-old boy made it all the way to Slovakia from the city of Zaporizhzhia, the site of Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant taken by Russian troops that caught fire after a building was hit with a projectile. The boy’s frightened mother sent him on the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) journey alone by train to find relatives, staying behind to care for her sick mother who can’t be moved.

“He came with a plastic bag, passport and a telephone number written on his hand, all alone,” according to a statement by Slovakia’s Interior Ministry, who hailed the boy as “a true hero.”

Volunteers took care of him, took him to a warm shelter and gave him food and drinks, and later reunited him with family in Bratislava.

In a video provided by Slovak police, the mother thanked the Slovak government and police for taking care of her son.

“People with big hearts live in your small country. Please, save our Ukrainian children,” said the mother, identified as Yulia Volodymyrivna Pisecka.

In Romania, Ukrainian refugees gathered at the Saints Peter and Paul Christian Orthodox Church in Suceava, to pray for peace. They were welcomed by Rev. Mihai Maghiar who is himself, Ukrainian-Romanian.

“The first thing that we do as servants of the Church is talk to them, help them trust again, and understand that life doesn’t end at the Ukrainian border, or any other border,” said Maghiar, who has seen many refugees come by his church since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Oksana Oliinykova sought strength in the church. She is bringing her daughter to the Netherlands, where friends have offered her a place to say. But a journalist who has covered the brutalities of war, Oliinykova is planning to go back to Ukraine, where her father and son remained to fight.

“And we can’t help with anything. It’s scary. It’s scary to understand that our boys, who go to fight have nothing. We can’t provide bulletproof vests and helmet(s),” she said.

Text messages from friends tell her just how desperate the situation at home has become. “Please help!” they ask. “We are without electricity for three days. The (Russians) are close, we can’t leave, we don’t even have blankets, we can’t feed our children,” they write.

For now, Oliinykova prays.

“As a Christian it’s very hard for me to hate,” said Oliinykova, who said she has relatives in Russia.

“And I know that they are also shocked. I don’t know how could I hate them. They are also sending young boys (to the war). How to get through all of this?” she asked. “I think we need less hate and more love.”

Ukraine Set to Get More Military, Humanitarian Aid from US 

A day after many of them spoke with Ukraine’s president, U.S. lawmakers are pledging to provide additional military aid to Kyiv as the government there continues to fight for its survival amid the invasion by Russia.

Congress will soon approve emergency funding, putting “$10 billion into both defensive equipment for Ukraine, but also humanitarian assistance to get civilians out,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, on Fox News Sunday.

Despite generally bipartisan and robust support for Kyiv, members of Congress are drawing the line at another Ukrainian request: a no-fly zone for the country’s airspace to deter Russian aerial attacks.

That would mean “World War III,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told ABC’s “This Week” program Sunday. “I think there are a lot of things we can do to help Ukraine protect itself… but I think people need to understand what a no-fly zone means.”

Another senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat, expressed a less strict stance.

“I would take nothing off the table,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Murphy, a Democrat, commented on Fox News: “If I were President Zelenskyy, I would be asking for a no-fly zone. The problem is, there is no such thing as a no-fly zone over Ukraine.”

U.S. President Joe Biden is in regular contact with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about Ukraine’s request for more fighter jets, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“Yes, we’re talking very actively about this, looking at what we could do to backfill Poland, if it chooses to send the MiGs and the SU planes that it has to Ukraine, how we can help by backfilling what they’re giving to the Ukrainians,” Blinken, in Moldova, told “Meet the Press.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, renewed her nation’s appeal for the United States to provide it with anti-aircraft weapons and other military aid, saying, “We should treat Russia as a terrorist state.”

Zelenskyy said Russia is planning to bombard the port city of Odessa. Zelenskyy said in a televised statement Sunday that if that occurs, it “will be a war crime … a historic crime.”

Zelenskyy spoke in Russian for part of the statement, urging Russians to choose between life and slavery in “the time when it is still possible to defeat evil without irreparable losses.”

The United States has “seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians which would constitute a war crime,” Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “We’ve seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons.”

There must be an investigation into whether Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a CNN interview Sunday.

“Putin must be tried for war crimes — and I urge my colleagues to support my resolution to hold him accountable for the crimes he’s committed against humanity,” tweeted Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York, a Democrat. “History will remember.”  

“We assess that the Russians have now committed inside Ukraine somewhere near 95% of the combat power they had amassed along the border,” a senior U.S. defense official said on Sunday. “As of today, we assess that approximately 600 Russian missile launches have occurred since the invasion began.”  

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday contended his military campaign in Ukraine was proceeding as planned and will not end until the Ukrainians stop fighting.

In a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who appealed for a cease-fire, Putin expressed readiness for dialogue with Ukraine and foreign partners but any attempt to draw out negotiations would fail, according to a Kremlin statement.

Putin’s remarks came as efforts at an evacuation effort for the bombarded port city of Mariupol failed for a second consecutive day.

“Amid devastating scenes of human suffering in Mariupol, a second attempt today to start evacuating an estimated 200,000 people out of the city came to a halt. The failed attempts yesterday and today underscore the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross in a statement.

Pope Francis made his strongest statement yet on Sunday about the conflict.

“In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing. This is not just a military operation but a war which sows death, destruction and misery,” the pontiff said in his weekly address to a crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.  

Along with its European partners, Washington is considering a ban on Russian oil, confirmed the U.S. secretary of state.

“We are now in very active discussions with our European partners about banning the import of Russian oil to our countries, while of course, at the same time, maintaining a steady global supply of oil,” Blinken said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Some lawmakers want the White House to do more to increase domestic production as oil prices surge and Americans pay more to fuel their vehicles.  

U.S. gasoline prices jumped 11% over the past week to the highest since 2008, according to AAA.    

“President Biden would rather import oil from our adversaries in Russia, Iran and Venezuela than increase U.S. energy production at home,” tweeted Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina, a Republican, saying the energy security for the country equates to national security.  

Meanwhile, another social media platform announced restrictions on Russia-related content.   

TikTok, known for short user-generated videos, said Sunday that it is blocking users in Russia from posting new content.  

“In light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law,” read a tweet Sunday from TikTok’s communications team.   

An increasing number of corporate entities, including financial services, energy and technology companies, has cut ties to Russia in response to economic sanctions and outrage since the invasion of Ukraine.

VOA State Department Bureau chief Nike Ching, National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin, Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, Istanbul foreign correspondent Heather Murdock, White House correspondent Anita Powell, and senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine contributed to this report.

Some information for this report came from The Associate Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

 

Crisis in Ukraine Drives Food Prices Higher Around World

The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a country long known as the “breadbasket of Europe” because of the prodigious amounts of wheat, corn and other cereal grains that it produces — will extend far beyond Europe, wreaking havoc on global food supplies, experts from aid agencies say.

Ukraine produces 16% of the world’s corn, and Ukraine and Russia combined produce 29% of the wheat sold on world markets. Much of what they export goes to Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and with virtually no cargo moving out of either county’s Black Sea ports, prices for the staple foods are spiking. Still unknown is whether an enduring war in Ukraine will damage this year’s harvest or prevent the sowing of crops for the next growing season.

Preexisting food crisis

Globally, food prices were already at a 10-year high before Russia invaded Ukraine, according to the United Nations World Food Program. Since Feb. 25, the day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, wheat futures have risen by as much as 40% and corn futures by as much as 16%.

Because the war is already disrupting global fuel supplies — a problem that will worsen dramatically if sanctions on Russia are expanded to cover its energy exports — higher transportation costs are contributing to the rise in prices.

“We’re already facing a hunger crisis globally that we haven’t seen, at least this century,” Jordan Teague, an interim director for the charity group Bread for the World, told VOA.

“This is yet one more example of conflict generating hunger around the world, and the world just can’t sustain this,” said Steve Taravella, a senior spokesperson for the U.N. WFP. “We’ve got Yemen, we’ve got South Sudan, we’ve got Afghanistan. A significant amount of WFP resources is devoted to addressing hunger caused by man-made conflicts around the world, and this is just one more on top of that,” he told VOA.

Areas of concern

Teague said that while multiple countries are facing serious food shortages, her group is particularly concerned about several in the Middle East and East Africa, all of which rely on imports from Ukraine and Russia.

In Yemen, she said, tens of thousands of people are experiencing famine and another 16 million are facing a food crisis and in danger of famine. Even before the current crisis, she said, price inflation, currency depreciation and depleted foreign reserves had left Yemen struggling to import food.

Similarly, Lebanon, which, Teague said, imports about 60% of its wheat from Ukraine, is having difficulty buying enough food. More than one-third of the population there is already food insecure, and that doesn’t count the thousands of refugees displaced by the conflict in Syria, who are largely dependent on humanitarian assistance.

Ethiopia, currently locked in a brutal civil war, also faces a hunger crisis that the Ukraine conflict is likely to make worse. The country relies on imports for about 25% of its wheat, Teague said.

UN to continue aid

Ukraine is the WFP’s largest supplier of wheat and split peas, two key staples it uses to feed the hungry, Taravella said. However, while the shortages caused by the Ukraine conflict will increasingly strain his organization’s ability to deliver food to the more than 135 million people it serves around the world, the WFP’s programs will continue to operate.

“Because we have supply chain expertise and we have, for years, developed strategies for making sure we can get commodities into hard-to-reach countries in difficult times, we have other sources,” he said. “I’m not concerned that WFP won’t be able to find wheat or split peas or other things that we rely on Ukraine for. What we’re concerned about is what we and others will have to pay for them, because prices are going to go up.”

The agency might be forced to reduce the per-person ration of food it provides, he said. “It will cost us more, which will mean we may have to cut rations. Those are very real implications,” he said.

Ukraine food situation shaky

Within Ukraine, the fighting appears not to not have cut off food supplies, but media reports indicate that stores are finding it increasingly difficult to remain open.

Fozzy Group, the country’s largest supermarket chain, continued to operate most of its stores this week, even in cities such as Kharkiv and Kyiv, which are facing direct attacks from Russian troops. Stores have had to close on an ad hoc basis, sometimes with little notice, when managers determine that the risks of remaining open are too great.

According to the news agency Interfax-Ukraine, a group of retail outlets and the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation have created an online map that indicates whether a grocery store is open and its hours of operation.

Sanctioning Russia Curtails North Korea’s Hard Currency Intake

As international sanctions on Moscow have triggered a decrease in the ruble’s value, North Korean workers in Russia are struggling to meet the remittance quotas set by Pyongyang, according to multiple sources in Russia and official North Korean documents obtained by VOA’s Korean Service.

North Korea is believed to use the hard currency to fund development of its weapons.

North Koreans working at Pyongyang’s entities and front companies contracted with enterprises in Russia are paid in rubles. As of 2020, there were 1,000 North Koreans working in Russia, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Because the regime prefers dollars to rubles, the North Koreans convert their rubles before remitting them to Pyongyang. The sharp drop of the ruble has slashed the amount of dollars North Korean workers can send back to Pyongyang. When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, $1 was worth 84.05 rubles. On March 4, $1 was worth 106.47 rubles.

VOA’s Korean Service is in regular contact with several sources in Russia who are familiar with the situation of North Korean workers there. Only the most trusted North Koreans are allowed to work in Russia and elsewhere outside their country.

Workers are “feeling extreme pressure from their supervisors” at North Korean enterprises operating in Russia, said one source who said the workers fear further devaluation of the ruble and are in a panic-driven rush to convert rubles to dollars.

The service has verified the credibility of the sources in Russia and to protect their identities, cannot reveal further information about them.  The sources provided several documents including the list of monthly remittance quotas and instructions for meeting them.

Devalued ruble

The ruble plunged below $0.01 in value this week after the U.S. and European countries imposed sanctions against Russia on Feb. 26 to financially isolate and punish Moscow for invading Ukraine.

Included in the sanctions was a ban on several Russian banks from accessing the SWIFT global bank payment system.

Eager for foreign currency, Pyongyang has long dispatched North Korean workers to Russia to make money. The U.S. estimated 30,000 were in Russia before the U.N. issued sanctions in December 2017 banning countries from authorizing work permits to North Koreans. Many remain in Russia and work using student or travel visas.

North Koreans work in various sectors but most are employed on construction or logging projects.

From January to August 2022, each North Korean construction worker was expected to remit $6,500 in dollars, according to a monthly list of quotas set by Pyongyang and obtained by VOA’s Korean Service.

That was equivalent to 710,000 rubles using the current exchange rate of 110 rubles per dollar. In October 2021, $6,500 was equivalent to 460,000 rubles when the exchange rate was 70 rubles per dollar.

This means North Koreans must now earn 30% to 40% more to fulfill the required remittance quotas.

North Korea “doesn’t need rubles and requires the payments in dollars only,” said a source.  “It won’t reduce the quota amounts that were ordered to be submitted unconditionally” despite the ruble’s fall.

A copy of a document obtained by VOA’s Korean Service included instructions for workers to meet quotas “unconditionally.”

In addition to the money destined for Pyongyang, each worker must earn approximately 30,000 rubles per year to pay to Russian universities to obtain a student visa.

Financial pressure

In December, the U.S. ostracized Moscow-based university European Institute Justo and its provost for sponsoring student visas for North Korean workers whose income the Treasury Department said supported Pyongyang’s weapons program.

Additionally, the SWIFT ban on Russian banks restricted North Korean workers from sending money to Pyongyang. The dollar-based SWIFT global messaging network is used by more than 11,000 financial institutions in 200 plus countries to send and receive information about cross-border transactions.

North Korean workers in Russia now “can’t send money” using their old method, said Heo Kang Il, a former manager of a North Korean restaurant in China, who spoke with VOA’s Korean Service.

Heo said North Korean entities in Russia used to deposit their earnings to North Korean banks operating secretly in Russia. Then the banks would wire the money to a global online payments system using online accounts created under pseudonyms in China. From there, the money was sent to Pyongyang.

VOA’s Korean Service contacted the North Korean mission to the U.N. to obtain Pyongyang’s position on the economic impact the drop in the ruble’s value is expected to have on Pyongyang but did not get a reply.

William Brown, a former CIA analyst who closely monitors the North Korean economy, said difficulties faced by heavily sanctioned countries like North Korea and now Russia could lead them to forge closer trade and financial relations.

“They are going to create a sort of an island of sanctioned countries – North Korea, Russia now, and Iran,” said Brown.

“So the more this island gets bigger, the more they’ll trade and invest within that group,” he said. “In the Cold War era, we didn’t do much business with any of the bloc [made of] China, Russia, Eastern Europe, all those countries. There were essentially two separate financial systems. They did a lot of trade finance amongst themselves.”

Bradley Babson, a former World Bank adviser and current advisory council member of the Korea Economic Institute of America, said Pyongyang will now forge even closer economic ties with its top trading partner China.

The North Koreans “are going to have to rely almost entirely on China for whatever economic benefits that they can get out of opening up their trade relationship and whatever remittances they might be able to receive from North Koreans working in China as opposed to Russia.” 

Blinken Pledges US Support to Moldova Amid Refugee Influx from Ukraine

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged Washington’s support to Moldova, a small, Western-leaning former Soviet republic that is contending with an influx of refugees from neighboring Ukraine.

Moldova says that more than 230,000 refugees have crossed its border with Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on February 24. At least 120,000 of them remain in the country, officials said.

Moldova is appealing for international assistance in dealing with the refugees, while also seeking security reassurances against potential Russian aggression.

Speaking alongside Moldovan President Maia Sandu in Chisinau on March 6, Blinken said that the United States supported Moldova’s aspirations to join the European Union but that the process would be decided by the EU.

Moldova formally applied to join the European Union on March 3. The move was likely to anger Russia, which has an estimated 1,500 troops based in the breakaway region of Transdniester in Moldova’s east. 

Sandu said that there had not yet been any indication that the Russian soldiers in Transdniester had changed posture but stressed that it was a concern given what is happening in Ukraine.

“This is a subject of high vulnerability and we watch it carefully,” Sandu said. “In this region now there is no possibility for us to feel safe.”

Blinken said the United States was providing $18 million over the next few years to “strengthen and diversify” Moldova’s energy sector. Moldova depends heavily on Russian gas.

Information from AFP and AP was used in this report. 

 

UN Agency Calls for End to Discrimination Against Third-Country Nationals Fleeing Ukraine

The International Organization for Migration or IOM is calling on governments to stop discriminating against third-country nationals trying to flee conflict in Ukraine to neighboring countries.

Nearly 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees have so far reached Poland, Moldova, Hungary, and other European countries, this according to the latest figures from the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Among them are more than 78,800 third-country nationals — migrant workers and students in Ukraine when Russia invaded.

Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the U.N. migration agency, says these third-country nationals, from dozens of countries, face discrimination and other problems as they try to escape.

“We are, of course, deeply concerned about the plight of these people and the verified reports we have received of discrimination, violence and xenophobia directed at them in the course of their journeys both on the Ukrainian side and on the other sides of the borders,” he said.

Dillon said IOM is in touch with the authorities in Ukraine and in other countries about these allegations. He calls on governments to investigate reports of discrimination, physical assaults, and other misconduct.

He also calls on countries to act to ensure those fleeing conflict, including third-country nationals, are treated humanely, and granted access to, and protection on, their territories.

“We are now looking at roughly 138 countries represented amongst those who have left Ukraine. So, clearly this issue of the third-country nationals and their ongoing needs and their continuing needs is going to be one of the things that we will be addressing in the weeks to come,” he said.

Dillon said dozens of countries have contacted IOM asking for help in returning their people home safely.

The U.N. migration agency is appealing for $350 million to respond to the accelerating needs of the Ukrainian crisis on both sides of the border. It says the money will assist thousands of people displaced inside Ukraine, as well as those who have fled to neighboring countries.

Pakistan Vows Neutrality in Ukraine Crisis, Insists Ties with US on Track

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi dismissed suggestions his country’s “neutral” stance in the Russia-Ukraine conflict is straining Islamabad’s relationship with the United States or the West at large, in an interview Sunday with VOA.

The South Asian nuclear-armed Muslim country has resisted Western pressure to condemn Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, instead advocating dialogue and diplomacy to end the crisis.

Pakistan has argued that it needs to step back from global bloc politics to improve ties with all countries, including Russia, and to tackle its own domestic economic challenges.

“We do not want to be part of any camp. We have paid a price for being in camps. That is why we are very carefully treading. We don’t want to compromise our neutrality, and that’s why we abstained,” Qureshi told VOA.

“The only sensible course is a diplomatic solution,” Qureshi stressed, while speaking by phone from southern Sindh province, where he was attending a political rally of his ruling Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaaf party.

Pakistan, a key non-NATO ally of Washington, abstained last week from voting from both a U.N. Security Council resolution “deploring” Russia’s aggression against its neighbor and a General Assembly vote condemning the invasion. So did 34 other nations, including India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Western diplomatic missions in Pakistan on the eve of the General Assembly vote had collectively urged the host country to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and support international calls for Moscow to immediately stop the war.

Qureshi said that claims that his country has put itself in “Russia camp” were “false” and “misreading” of Islamabad’s stated neutrality in respect to the Ukraine crisis.

“I think our relationship with the United States is a good one. We consider the United States an important partner and we would like continued support from the U.S.,” he noted.

“I have asked for a call with [U.S.] Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken and I was told that he is traveling for the next seven days. But I would be more than happy explain Pakistan’s perspective [on Ukraine] to him,” Qureshi added.

He also contradicted reports that Pakistan’s diplomatic tensions with Washington have increased in the wake of last month’s visit by Prime Minister Imran Khan to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Khan was already in Moscow when Putin ordered his military to attack Ukraine. But the trip reportedly did not go down well in Washington.

“We have briefed the government of Pakistan on the impact that Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine could have on regional and global security,” a State Department spokesperson was quoted on Saturday as telling Pakistani English-language Dawn newspaper. 

 

Qureshi-Lavrov talk

Qureshi said he spoke to Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov by telephone Saturday and “underlined” Islamabad’s “concern at the latest situation in Ukraine.” He told VOA Lavrov conveyed to him that Moscow was not “averse to the idea of negotiations” with Kyiv “on reaching some sort of a conclusion.”

The chief Pakistani diplomat said his Russian counterpart had “noted” that a “positive outcome” of two rounds of talks with Ukrainian officials was the agreement on establishing a “humanitarian corridor” to allow residents from two Ukrainian cities that were surrounded by Russian forces to evacuate. Qureshi and Lavrov spoke before Russian forces attacked the evacuation corridors.

“We are ready for the third round of talks. Our people are there. In fact, we are waiting for the Ukrainian representatives to come and begin the talks,” Qureshi quoted Lavrov as telling him.

Khan has defended his trip to Moscow, the first by a Pakistani prime minister in 23 years, saying his country’s economic interests required him to do so.

The Pakistani leader avoided criticizing Putin in a statement issued after his meeting with the Russian president. The statement said Khan “regretted the latest situation between Russia and Ukraine and that Pakistan had hoped diplomacy could avert a military conflict.”

Islamabad sided with Washington during the Cold War and played an instrumental role in arming and training U.S.-funded Afghan resistance in the 1980s to the decade-long Soviet occupation of neighboring Afghanistan.

However, Pakistan’s traditionally uneasy relationship with the United States has lately come under increased pressure over allegations that covert support from the Pakistani military helped the Taliban to sustain their insurgency against U.S.-led international forces in neighboring Afghanistan for 20 years and retake power last August. Pakistan rejects those allegations.

Russia and Pakistan, once bitter adversaries, have in recent years moved to restore ties, that analysts say is an outcome of the South Asia country’s frosty relations with the United States.

“A leader of lesser mettle would have thought of abandoning the visit and plunging back into a past of adversity,” Raoof Hasan, a special assistant to Khan on Information, wrote in an article published Friday on the prime minister’s landmark visit to Moscow.

“Instead of backing off, Prime Minister Khan used the opportunity to reiterate his deep belief in peaceful resolution of conflicts,” Hasan said in the commentary published by The News, a local newspaper.

For their part, U.S. officials maintain they view their “partnership with a prosperous, with a democratic Pakistan as critical” to Washington’s interests. They say the United States is Pakistan’s largest trade partner and it considers the South Asian nation “an important regional” country.

U.S. officials acknowledge that Pakistan continues to play a crucial role in assisting international efforts aimed at evacuating Afghans at risk since the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan. A dialogue between Washington and Islamabad is also taking place on how to jointly counter terrorism threats emanating from Afghan soil.

Pakistani officials say Khan is preparing to make “important visits” to Western countries after hosting a meeting of foreign ministers of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Islamabad later this month. But they have not yet disclosed further details about the expected visits.

Moldova Asks US for More Support as Refugee Numbers Surge

Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita urged the United States on Sunday to provide more humanitarian support as the number of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine to the small European country hit 120,000.

At the beginning of a meeting with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, she said her country of 2.6 million, one of Europe’s poorest, was straining under the weight of those fleeing Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

“As of this morning, we had more than 230,000 people who have crossed the border from Ukraine, and 120,000 stayed in Moldova. 96,000 of them are Ukrainian citizens. For a small country like Moldova, proportionately, this is a very large number,” she told Blinken.

“Everybody has come together to host, to provide shelter, to provide food, to provide assistance to those who are fleeing war,” she said.

“But we will need assistance to deal with this influx, and we need this quickly,” she added.

Blinken, on the third stop of a trip in Europe to shore up unity against the Russian attack, said Moldova “can count on us across the board” for support.

“We admire the generosity, the hospitality, the willingness to be such good friends to people who are in distress. And indeed we want to do everything we can to help you deal with the burden this is imposing.”

In Poland on Saturday, Blinken said the White House was seeking $2.75 billion in funds for humanitarian support related to the war, which has already driven more than one million people from Ukraine. 

Ukrainian Woman Weds Chicago Fiancé Ahead Of Return Home

When Russia invaded her home country of Ukraine, Maria decided she had to get there and help defend it — even if it meant leaving her fiancé behind in Chicago days after getting married.

Maria and her fiancé, David, married Saturday before about 20 people in the backyard of an Oak Park home — the venue offered last minute after Maria asked for advice in a neighborhood Facebook group. The couple met last year and got engaged in October.

On Monday, she plans to fly to Poland, then make her way to the Ukrainian border, ultimately aiming to volunteer to fight for her home country.

“People are running out of there and she is running in,” said a friend at the wedding, Pamela Chinchilla of Lombard.

Seven guests at the wedding brought medical supplies, masks and other items for Maria to take to Ukraine. People hugged each other, and Maria at one point spoke with family members in Odesa.

Maria, who asked that her last name not be published because she fears for her family’s safety in Ukraine and the U.S., said she lived with her parents in Kyiv until 1991 when the family moved to Poland.

For Maria, a previous marriage ended in divorce. She met her ex-husband while studying music in Austria and more than 20 years ago they moved to his hometown of Chicago — which has the second-largest Ukrainian-born population among U.S. cities.

Since the war began, she used messages and calls through Facebook to keep in touch with her parents, who have been sheltering in a parking garage during attacks on Ukraine’s largest port city of Odesa. But she said she has been unable to reach cousins in Kyiv in recent days.

Three days into the invasion, Maria made up her mind to return to Ukraine, determined to find some way to be useful. She said she doesn’t have medical or military training but worries that a Russian takeover of Ukraine will embolden the country to threaten more places around the world.

“I have to go,” Maria, 44, said. “I can’t do protests or fundraising or wave flags. We’ve done this since 2015, Ukrainians, and I just can’t do it anymore.”

Her fiancé refused to stay behind despite Maria’s resistance to him accompanying her. But since David first needs to apply for a passport, she plans to leave Monday and wait in Poland before crossing the border.

“He knows how stubborn I am and knew he’d have no chance to convince me otherwise,” Maria said.

David, 42, said he feels a responsibility to do what he can to keep her safe.

“Because complacency and compliance are pretty much the same thing,” he said. “And you can only turn a blind eye to people being bullied for so long. And if it happens to them, it might be you next.”

He also asked that his last name not be published to avoid endangering Maria’s family.

Ukraine’s forces are outnumbered and outgunned, but their resistance did prevent a swift Russian victory. Ukrainian leaders called on citizens to join in guerrilla war this week as Russian forces gained ground on the coast and took over one major port city.

Associated Press reporters at the border checkpoint in Medyka in southeastern Poland found Ukrainians lining up to return from other countries in Europe in recent days in response to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for volunteers to come assist the country’s military.

The White House has since urged Americans not to travel to Ukraine, but Maria and David said that didn’t change their plans.

The couple had planned to be married at a courthouse on March 5, a nod to Maria’s grandmother’s birthday.

After deciding they would try to reach Ukraine, they accepted the offer to hold a backyard celebration. They also asked people to purchase items needed by Ukrainian troops through an Amazon list that includes rain ponchos, medical supplies and boots rather than wedding gifts.

Maria said she’s not certain what she will have to do after arriving at the Polish border with Ukraine; friends who live near border crossings have told her it’s taking days to get through. Her parents also questioned her decision to volunteer, she said, because they don’t want to be worried about her safety on top of their own.

“If the army doesn’t take us, we’ll be as close as possible,” Maria said Wednesday. “There’s always a need for volunteers. I’m pretty strong, I’m not afraid of blood, I’m good under pressure.”

Natalia Blauvelt, a Chicago immigration attorney who has assisted dozens of clients trying to help family leave Ukraine and Russia in recent weeks, said she hasn’t heard of others seeking to get into Ukraine in order to join the country’s defense.

But she advised that anyone considering it contact the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. and speak with an immigration attorney to talk through plans for returning to the U.S. 

American Basketball Star Brittney Griner Arrested in Russia on Drug Charges

WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner was arrested last month at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges.

The Russian Customs Service said Saturday that the cartridges were identified as containing oil derived from cannabis, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The customs service identified the person arrested as a player for the U.S. women’s team and did not specify the date of her arrest. Russian media reported the player was Griner, and her agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, did not dispute those reports.

“We are aware of the situation with Brittney Griner in Russia and are in close contact with her, her legal representation in Russia, her family, her teams, and the WNBA and NBA,” Kagawa Colas said Saturday. “As this is an ongoing legal matter, we are not able to comment further on the specifics of her case but can confirm that as we work to get her home, her mental and physical health remain our primary concern.”

On Saturday, the State Department issued a “do not travel” advisory for Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine and urged all U.S. citizens to depart immediately, citing factors including “the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens by Russian government security officials” and “the Embassy’s limited ability to assist” Americans in Russia.

Griner, who plays for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, has played in Russia for the last seven years in the winter, earning over $1 million per season — more than quadruple her WNBA salary. She last played for her Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg on Jan. 29 before the league took a two-week break in early February for the FIBA World Cup qualifying tournaments.

More than a dozen WNBA players were playing in Russia and Ukraine this winter, including league MVP Jonquel Jones and Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley of the champion Chicago Sky. The WNBA confirmed Saturday that all players besides Griner had left both countries.

The 31-year-old Griner has won two Olympic gold medals with the U.S., a WNBA championship with the Mercury and a national championship at Baylor. She is a seven-time All-Star.

“Brittney Griner has the WNBA’s full support and our main priority is her swift and safe return to the United States,” the league said in a statement.

China Boosts Military Spending Amid Ukraine Uncertainties

China has decided to raise its defense spending by 7.1%, which is the largest increase since 2019. The rise is significant because the country’s economy is expected to grow this year at the lowest level in decades at 5.5%.

China’s defense spending is being carefully watched around the world in view of the atmosphere of political uncertainties caused by the Ukraine war. China has refused to pick sides or condemn the Russian attack. Some experts believe China will look for opportunities to invade Taiwan. Beijing regards Taiwan as a rogue province and has often indicated plans to take it over by force.

“While the world’s attention is diverted to Ukraine, an escalation across the Taiwan Straits, in the South China Sea and along the disputed Himalayan borders with India cannot be ruled out,” Mohan Malik, visiting fellow at the Washington-based Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) told VOA.  

“For the Indo-Pacific, this is indeed the decade of living dangerously,” he said.

China will spend $229.47 billion on defense this year, according to estimates presented to the National People’s Congress, the Chinese parliament, by the country’s premier, Li Keqiang. Its defense budget rose 6.8% in 2021 and 6.6% in 2020.

Analysts said that the actual expenditure will be in the region of $270 billion, and a lot more would be spent on military-related infrastructure, like border roads that are shown under non-defense headings in the budget.

“We will enhance military training and combat readiness, stay firm and flexible in carrying out our military struggle, and safeguard China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” Li said.  

Making a strong case for the higher defense expenditure, Li said, “Government at all levels must give strong support to the development of national defense and the armed forces, so unity between the military and government and between the military and the people will remain rock solid.” He emphasizes the need to modernize the military’s logistics and build a modern weaponry and equipment management system.

China, which has two aircraft carriers, plans to invest in two more. It has engaged in a sea rivalry with the U.S. Navy, which has 11 of them. The U.S.-China rivalry is evident because the U.S. sent aircraft carrier strike groups and amphibious groups into the South China Sea 13 times last year, according to Beijing-based research group the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative.

The Reuters news agency quoted Fu Qianshao, a retired Chinese air force equipment specialist, as saying, “Equipment is needed to fill performance gaps, and aircraft carriers, large warships, stealth fighters, third and fourth generations of tanks are expensive.”

Analysts said China is now forced to spend more on defense-related research and development because the U.S. is cutting off the flow of technology and there are similar actions in some European countries.

China may also reconsider planned arms purchases from Russia, including the proposed acquisition of Ka-52 attack helicopters, because the performance of Russian weapons in Ukraine has reportedly disappointed many arms experts.  

A major area of focus is China’s military behavior in its neighborhood. Most of the country’s neighbors, including countries around the South China Sea, feel threatened by the rise in the strength of the People’s Liberation Army, which represents the land army, the navy and the air force.

Malik said China now spends more on its military than the combined military expenditures of Russia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, India and Australia. That is significant because China is engaged in military disputes with Japan and India and wants to take over Taiwan.  

“The growing power gap and military buildup in Asia doesn’t bode well for regional peace and stability at a time of heightened tensions over unresolved territorial and maritime disputes,” he said.

Humanitarian Crisis Deepens in Ukraine

U.N. aid agencies are calling for unimpeded access to all areas of Ukraine in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. The call comes amid reported efforts to establish humanitarian corridors in Ukraine.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, welcomes a reported agreement between Ukraine and Russia to facilitate safe passage for civilians out of conflict areas. Delegates from the opposing sides proposed the agreement Monday in Belarus.

However, OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke says U.N. officials have not yet received anything in writing from the two sides on the establishment of humanitarian corridors.  He says people are terrified by the violence unfolding around them across Ukraine, and millions urgently need safe passage and life-saving aid.

“We look to both sides to ensure the passage is organized in a manner that allows for safety, dignity, and protection of those civilians. Humanitarian organizations stand ready to work with the parties to protect and care for the civilians, whether they choose to stay or to leave the concerned areas,” Laerke said.  

The U.N. children’s fund says escalating violence over the past week has forced half-a-million children to flee their homes. UNICEF spokesman James Elder, who is in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, some 60 kilometers from the Polish border, says the scale and speed of the forced displacement is unprecedented.  

“And if the violence, the explosive munitions do not stop, many, many more children will be forced to flee their country in a very short space of time. And we fear many more will be killed. We must also remember those who cannot escape the bombardment currently rocking Ukraine. Tens of thousands of children are in child-care institutions; many of these are disabled,”  Elder said.

U.N. refugee agency media chief Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, who is in the Moldovan city of Palanca, describes the rate of the ongoing refugee exodus from Ukraine as without comparison.

“We have seen the numbers increase not only day on day, but hourly, and I think that …what we are seeing is the devastating toll that over a week of just unabated tragedy is having on people,” Ghedini-Williams said.  

The latest UNHCR figures show more than 1.3 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, and other European countries. The agency is preparing to assist up to 4 million Ukrainian refugees, making this the biggest refugee crisis this century.

From China to Turkey, Ukraine: 2 Men’s Search for Safety

Two men originally from China are among the 1 million refugees fleeing Ukraine into neighboring countries this week after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.

VOA chronicled the journeys of Ibrahim Abliz, a Uyghur, and Ersin Erkinuly, a Kazakh.

Abliz and Erkinuly were among thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs who fled China because of its “anti-terrorism” policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where rights groups and some Western countries accuse China of crimes against humanity and arbitrarily detaining more than 1 million people in internment camps in recent years.

Beijing denies the mistreatment as lies and fabrication and says China’s policy in Xinjiang is about fighting extremism and that the facilities are vocational training centers.

Abliz and Erkinuly each found his way to Ukraine and had lived there for several years until everything changed on the day Russian troops entered Ukraine.

Ibrahim Abliz’s story

Abliz, a 31-year-old father, has lived with his toddler son in Ukraine since 2018, with the hope of reuniting with his wife, who has been living in Germany.

Abliz is no stranger to a nomadic life. He said he left China in 2013 and ever since had been looking for a safe place to live, away from China’s reach.

“I first spent almost one and half years in Pakistan and later safely arrived in Turkey where I studied and worked,” Abliz told VOA.

In 2016, he met and married a Uyghur woman living in Turkey who was also originally from China.

Two years later, Abliz lost hope of getting Turkish citizenship. He decided to leave Turkey for Europe in pursuit of a safer country where he could raise his family.

Many Uyghurs in Turkey live in constant fear of being sent back to China. In recent months, Turkey has rejected some Uyghur applications for citizenship citing “national security” and “public order.” Uyghurs see this as an attempt by China to persecute them outside its borders.

“In November 2018, my pregnant wife was able to fly to Germany from Ukraine and seek asylum,” Abliz said.

His 11-month-old son was not allowed to leave Ukraine because the boy had a Turkish ID. Abliz had no choice but to stay behind with his child.

“I had to be with my son in Ukraine and find a way to reunite with my wife,” Abliz said.

After Ukraine denied applications for refugee status for Abliz and his son, he tried to cross the border three times before the war broke out.

“I had to run away from Ukraine after my application was denied,” Abliz said. “But each time we were handed over to Ukraine from neighboring countries like Poland and Slovakia.”

Abliz said over the past three years he and his son have spent four months in detention in a Ukraine facility and two months in a refugee camp because of crossing borders to other countries without permits.

“In November 2021, my application for refugee status was approved thanks to Ukrainian authorities,” Abliz said.

On March 1, Abliz and his son were able to cross the border to Poland. They were reunited with his wife and other son, now 3 years old, who came from Germany to meet them.

“I am so happy that my son and I have met my wife and my second son I had never seen in person,” Abliz said.

Abliz said he is applying for entry into Germany because he is eligible to get a family reunification visa.

Ersin Erkinuly’s story

Erkinuly, a 25-year-old Kazakh refugee from China, arrived in Ukraine from Turkey in 2020.  He too applied for refugee status but did not get it.

“I fled China to Kazakhstan in late 2019 after I had witnessed some people around me disappeared into internment camps,” Erkinuly told VOA.

But in Kazakhstan, according to Erkinuly, he didn’t feel safe and worried about possible deportation to China.

“Kazakhstan has very close relation with China, and I felt insecure and decided to leave for Turkey,” Erkinuly said.

Erkinuly was still not able to secure refugee status in Turkey, so he decided to go to Europe.

“I came to Ukraine and lost my passport and faced deportation to China,” Erkinuly told VOA. “I pleaded on the social media, and after Ukraine got pressured by democratic countries like the U.S. government, the authorities didn’t (deport) me.”

When the fighting started, Erkinuly left Kyiv and traveled for days. He reached the Polish border and was able to cross on March 3.

“I now feel that I am free,” Erkinuly told VOA from Poland. “They gave me a document which states I am allowed to remain in Poland until May.”

What happens after May is still uncertain.  Erkinuly said he’s reached out to human rights group and the U.S. for help, as his search for a permanent safe haven continues.

US Embassy in Ukraine Calls Nuclear Power Plant Attack ‘War Crime’

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said that attacking a nuclear power plant is a war crime, after Russia on Friday seized a Ukrainian nuclear facility that is the biggest in Europe.

The statement on the embassy’s Twitter account went further than any U.S. characterization of Russia’s actions in Ukraine since it launched its invasion Feb. 24.

“It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further,” U.S. Embassy Kyiv said in its post.

Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in heavy fighting in southeastern Ukraine, triggering global alarm, but a blaze in a training building was extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.

Russia’s defense ministry blamed a fire at the plant on a “monstrous attack” by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.

The State Department sent a message to all U.S. embassies in Europe telling them not to retweet the Kyiv Embassy’s tweet calling the attack a war crime, according to CNN, which said it reviewed the message.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters asking if the Kyiv Embassy’s tweet reflects the position of the entire U.S. government.

Rights groups have alleged violations of international war crimes law in Ukraine, including the targeting of civilians, as well as indiscriminate attacks on schools and hospitals.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden stopped short of calling Russia’s actions war crimes, saying, “It’s too early to say that.”

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Friday declined to answer the question, saying he would leave that determination to the International Criminal Court.

“This just underscores how reckless the Russian invasion has been and how indiscriminate their targeting seems to be. It just raises the level of potential catastrophe to a level that nobody wants to see,” Kirby said in an interview with CNN.

“It is certainly not the behavior of a responsible nuclear power.”

Britain has publicly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government of war crimes.

The ICC, the world’s top war crimes prosecutor, on the request of 39 member states, is investigating reports of cluster bombs and artillery strikes on Ukrainian cities.

Karim Khan, a British lawyer named as the chief prosecutor of the ICC last year, said the crisis in Ukraine is a chance to demonstrate that those committing war crimes would be held to account.

Intentionally targeting civilians and civilian objects is a war crime, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters, adding that it is backing the investigation, particularly Khan’s efforts to preserve evidence of possible atrocity crimes.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has strongly denied claims that Russian forces have struck civilian infrastructure targets or residential complexes.

Ukraine Digital Army Brews Cyberattacks, Intel and Infowar

Formed in a fury to counter Russia’s blitzkrieg attack, Ukraine’s hundreds-strong volunteer “hacker” corps is much more than a paramilitary cyberattack force in Europe’s first major war of the internet age. It is crucial to information combat and to crowdsourcing intelligence.

“We are really a swarm. A self-organizing swarm,” said Roman Zakharov, a 37-year-old IT executive at the center of Ukraine’s bootstrap digital army.

Inventions of the volunteer hackers range from software tools that let smartphone and computer owners anywhere participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks on official Russian websites to bots on the Telegram messaging platform that block disinformation, let people report Russian troop locations and offer instructions on assembling Molotov cocktails and basic first aid.

Zahkarov ran research at an automation startup before joining Ukraine’s digital self-defense corps. His group is StandForUkraine. Its ranks include software engineers, marketing managers, graphic designers and online ad buyers, he said.

The movement is global, drawing on IT professionals in the Ukrainian diaspora whose handiwork includes web defacements with antiwar messaging and graphic images of death and destruction in the hopes of mobilizing Russians against the invasion.

“Both our nations are scared of a single man — (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” said Zakharov. “He’s just out of his mind.” Volunteers reach out person-to-person to Russians with phone calls, emails and text messages, he said, and send videos and pictures of dead soldiers from the invading force from virtual call centers.

Some build websites, such as a “site where Russian mothers can look through (photos of) captured Russian guys to find their sons,” Zakharov said by phone from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

The cyber volunteers’ effectiveness is difficult to gauge. Russian government websites have been repeatedly knocked offline, if briefly, by the DDoS attacks, but generally weather them with countermeasures.

It’s impossible to say how much of the disruption — including more damaging hacks — is caused by freelancers working independently of but in solidarity with Ukrainian hackers.

A tool called “Liberator” lets anyone in the world with a digital device become part of a DDoS attack network, or botnet. The tool’s programmers code in new targets as priorities change.

But is it legal? Some analysts say it violates international cyber norms. Its Estonian developers say they acted “in coordination with the Ministry of Digital Transformation” of Ukraine.

A top Ukrainian cybersecurity official, Victor Zhora, insisted at his first online news conference of the war Friday that homegrown volunteers were attacking only what they deem military targets, in which he included the financial sector, Kremlin-controlled media and railways. He did not discuss specific targets.

Zakharov did. He said Russia’s banking sector was well fortified against attack but that some telecommunications networks and rail services were not. He said Ukrainian-organized cyberattacks had briefly interrupted rail ticket sales in western Russia around Rostov and Voronezh and knocked out telephone service for a time in the region of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. The claims could not be independently confirmed.

A group of Belarusian hacktivists calling themselves the Cyber Partisans also apparently disrupted rail service in neighboring Belarus this week seeking to frustrate transiting Russian troops. A spokeswoman said Friday that electronic ticket sales were still down after their malware attack froze up railway IT servers.

Over the weekend, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced the creation of an volunteer cyber army. The IT Army of Ukraine now counts 290,000 followers on Telegram.

Zhora, deputy chair of the state special communications service, said one job of Ukrainian volunteers is to obtain intelligence that can be used to attack Russian military systems.

Some cybersecurity experts have expressed concern that soliciting help from freelancers who violate cyber norms could have dangerous escalatory consequences. One shadowy group claimed to have hacked Russian satellites; Dmitry Rogozin, the director general of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, called the claim false but was also quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying such a cyberattack would be considered an act of war.

Asked if he endorsed the kind of hostile hacking being done under the umbrella of the Anonymous hacktivist brand — which anyone can claim — Zhora said, “We do not welcome any illegal activity in cyberspace.”

“But the world order changed on the 24th of February,” he added, when Russia invaded.

The overall effort was spurred by the creation of a group called the Ukrainian Cyber Volunteers by a civilian cybersecurity executive, Yegor Aushev, in coordination with Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. Aushev said it numbers more than 1,000 volunteers.

On Friday, most of Ukraine’s telecommunications and internet were fully operational despite outages in areas captured by invading Russian forces, said Zhora. He reported about 10 hostile hijackings of local government websites in Ukraine to spread false propaganda saying Ukraine’s government had capitulated.

Zhora said presumed Russian hackers continued trying to spread destructive malware in targeted email attacks on Ukrainian officials and — in what he considers a new tactic — to infect the devices of individual citizens. Three instances of such malware were discovered in the runup to the invasion.

U.S. Cyber Command has been assisting Ukraine since well before the invasion. Ukraine does not have a dedicated military cyber unit. It was standing one up when Russia attacked.

Zhora anticipates an escalation in Russia’s cyber aggression — many experts believe far worse is yet to come.

Meantime, donations from the global IT community continue to pour in. A few examples: NameCheap has donated internet domains while Amazon has been generous with cloud services, said Zakharov.