A senior U.S. envoy expressed strong concern Thursday about the activities of the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group and its alleged attempts to recruit soldiers in Serbia and elsewhere in the world.

U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet said he voiced these concerns during talks in Belgrade with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

“We have seen that the Wagner Group is seeking to recruit soldiers from Serbia and elsewhere, and that’s something we think cannot stand,” he told reporters after the meeting.

“I don’t know if there are concerns [in Serbia], we talked about our concerns and we are looking forward to working with the government here in Belgrade and elsewhere where Wagner is active to put an end to their activities,” he added.

Wagner Group, owned by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, reportedly has been active in dozens of mostly African states, working with governments on pro-Russian propaganda and other military and political projects.

The group has boasted about its presence in Serbia, the only European state besides Belarus that has not joined international sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine. The group has reportedly announced the opening of its offices in Belgrade, something that was later denied.

Moscow’s propaganda portal RT, which recently started its Serbian-language online news site in Serbia, has published Wagner’s recruitment advertisement seeking fighters in Ukraine, saying the group offers “more than attractive” incentives.

Chollet said Wagner Group is “in action in terrible ways throughout the world, whether it is in Libya, the Central African Republic or right now in Ukraine.”

The group, which reportedly includes a large contingent of convicts recruited in Russian prisons, has spearheaded the attacks in eastern Ukraine, including the fierce battles in Soledar and Bakhmut.

Prigozhin and his group have been under U.S. sanctions for years, and the U.S. has recently taken additional steps to try to control Wagner’s access to weapons.

Wagner Group mercenaries have also been accused by Western countries and United Nations experts of numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali. Earlier this month U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced he has designated the Wagner Group as an “entity of particular concern” for its activities in the Central African Republic.

Chollet also urged Serbia to introduce sanctions against its traditional Slavic ally Russia.

“We believe that countries should sign on to the sanctions, and the reason why we believe that is because Russia’s actions do not only have to be condemned, they have to be punished,” he said. “Russia every day is prosecuting a brutal, unjustified war against Ukraine. We need to stand together, to ensure that this behavior, it’s clear that this behavior is unacceptable.”

The U.S. envoy this week launched a tour of several Balkan nations in a visit focused on international efforts to help normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia after weeks of heightened tension. The former Serbian province declared independence in 2008, something Serbia and Russia don’t recognize.
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Iranian state media published a video on Thursday that they said showed British Iranian national Alireza Akbari, who is facing the death penalty for spying, played a role in the 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist.

The video was aired a day after state media said a death sentence had been given to Akbari, who previously served as Iran’s deputy defense minister, on charges of spying for Britain, which has demanded he be released.

Iran has not said when Akbari’s sentence will be carried out. One hard-line news website said Akbari had been executed on Thursday, but there has been no official confirmation. A source told Reuters he had been transferred to a solitary cell typically used for those about to executed.

In the video of Akbari published by state media, he did not confess to involvement in the assassination of scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in a 2020 attack outside Tehran, but said a British agent had asked for information about him.

In a separate recording broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, Akbari said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.

Britain’s foreign office declined to comment on the videos. Speaking in parliament on Thursday afternoon about the Akbari case, British Foreign Office Minister Leo Docherty said: “We have no news today, and it would be wrong of me to speculate about any future activities.”

On Wednesday, British Foreign Minister James Cleverly said the planned execution was politically motivated and called for his immediate release. The foreign office also said Wednesday that its priority was securing his immediate release.

“Akbari was transferred to the isolation section of the prison on Tuesday night and his first-degree relatives had been asked yesterday to have the final visit with him,” the source in Tehran told Reuters.

Akbari’s wife also said authorities had told the family to make a last visit to see him in prison, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Spying charges

Fakhrizadeh was widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of clandestine Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denied that.

In the video, Akbari did not say what information, if any, he shared or with whom.

“They wanted to know about high-ranking officials depending on the major developments. … For example, he [the British agent] asked me whether Fakhrizadeh could be involved in such and such projects, and I said, ‘Why not’” Akbari said in the video broadcast by Iran’s state news agency IRNA, one of several clips broadcast on Thursday.

In the audio recording broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, Akbari said he confessed to crimes he had not committed during months of torture in detention.

“I was interrogated and tortured for over 3,500 hours in 10 months. All of that were recorded on camera. … By using the force of gun and making death threats, they made me confess to false and baseless claims,” Akbari said in the audio message.

Iran’s state media often airs purported confessions by suspects in politically charged cases.

Reuters could not immediately establish the authenticity of the video and audio or when or where they were recorded.

Ties between London and Tehran have deteriorated in recent months as efforts have stalled to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, to which Britain is one of the parties.

Britain has also been critical of the Islamic Republic’s violent crackdown on anti-government protests sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in September.

Akbari was sentenced on charges of “corruption on earth and extensive action against Iran’s internal and external security through the transmission of information to Britain,” the judiciary’s Mizan news agency said.

It said the supreme court had rejected his appeal.

Ally of security official

Akbari was a close ally of Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who served as defense minister from 1997 to 2005, when Akbari was his deputy.

“I was accused of obtaining top secret information from Shamkhani in exchange for a bottle of perfume and a shirt during [former President Hassan] Rouhani’s presidency,” Akbari said in the audio message.

In another video, aired by IRNA, a caption read, “Akbari moved to Britain after being briefly detained and released on bail in 2008.” Another video showed Akbari blindfolded in a car.

Reuters could not immediately verify if Akbari had moved to Britain in 2008 or when he returned to Iran.

In his audio message, Akbari said he had returned to Tehran following an invitation by a senior Iranian diplomat involved in Tehran’s nuclear talks with world powers.
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Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister said Thursday that Kyiv will pursue adoption of a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly that would enshrine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula.

“The Ukrainian leadership decided that the priority number one that will be considered in February is the resolution dedicated to the peace formula,” Emine Dzhaparova told reporters at the United Nations, where she attended a Security Council meeting on the rule of law.

February 24 marks one year since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

At the Group of 20 Summit in November, Zelenskyy addressed the meeting by video and presented his 10-point vision for ending Russia’s war against his country.

It includes the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities, as well as nuclear safety, food and energy security, releasing prisoners of war and deported persons.

“[U.N.] Ambassador [Sergiy] Kyslytsya will now keep on pushing for the modality of consideration of this resolution because we might call for a special session to adopt this resolution,” Dzhaparova said.

She emphasized that the peace formula is the basis for a discussion, but it does not mean that Kyiv is ready to sign up to any agreement that goes against its interests.

“We are very much committed to any peace negotiation that comes and brings us to one result: territorial integrity, sovereignty, peace for our people,” she said. “But as my president has been constantly saying, we aren’t going to trade any inch of Ukrainian soil, and without having Russia’s army out of Ukraine, we will not discuss any peace negotiation.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, however, has said Kremlin officials would refuse to use Zelenskyy’s “peace formula” as a basis for negotiations, calling Kyiv’s intention to drive Russia out of eastern Ukraine and Crimea “an illusion,” according to Russia’s state-run RIA news agency.

The Kremlin on January 5 said Putin had told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow was ready for peace talks only under the condition that Ukraine “take into account the new territorial realities,” a reference to Kyiv acknowledging annexed territories.

Dzhaparova said that Ukraine may also seek a second General Assembly resolution later in the year for setting up a special international tribunal to hold Russia’s leadership accountable for its invasion — the crime of aggression.

The International Criminal Court at The Hague is already investigating potential war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on Ukrainian territory since Russia’s invasion.
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China criticized a defense pact signed Wednesday between Britain and Japan that could see troops deployed on each other’s territory. Both London and Tokyo have described China as a “challenge” in the Asia-Pacific region.

“The Asia-Pacific is a pacesetter for peace and development, not a wrestling ground for geopolitical games. China is a partner for cooperation for all countries instead of a challenge,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Beijing.

“Defense cooperation between the relevant countries should be conducive to enhancing mutual understanding, trust and cooperation among countries and should not create imaginary enemies or introduce the outdated mindset of bloc confrontation into the Asia-Pacific region,” Wang said.

Reciprocal pact

The defense deal was signed by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his British counterpart Rishi Sunak in the Tower of London, a medieval fortress that houses the crown jewels. The two leaders were shown a set of Japanese samurai armor that was presented to Britain’s King James in 1613 by Shogun Tokugawa to mark the first trade agreement between England and Japan.

The pact is officially called the Reciprocal Access Agreement and was agreed to in principle last May. It is the first time that Japan has signed such a deal with a European ally. Thousands of American troops are stationed in Japan as part of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

In a statement, Sunak’s office said, “In this increasingly competitive world, it is more important than ever that democratic societies continue to stand shoulder to shoulder as we navigate the unprecedented global challenges of our time.”

Fighter jet

The two countries also agreed to work, alongside Italy, on the development of a new sixth-generation fighter jet. The British firm BAE Systems is already working on a prototype known as Tempest. It would be the biggest Japanese-European defense cooperation program ever undertaken.

Joint exercises

Japan is seeking to shore up defense ties in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s military expansion, analyst Jonathan Eyal of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute said.

“It’s an open secret that [British] special forces have been training on Japanese territory. The reality is that the militaries of the two countries have been training for a number of years now. This will be easier in to do in Japan because the legal framework will be in place,” Eyal told VOA.

“There is every intention of helping the Japanese in terms of training. And the key element is training for rapid response. The fear of Japan is that they may be confronted with a fait accompli with, let’s say, the Chinese seizure of some uninhabited Japanese island, to which the Japanese at the moment are unable to respond adequately,” Eyal added.

Asia-Pacific tilt

For Britain, the defense pact is part of a geopolitical tilt toward the Asia-Pacific region.

“The only influence that Britain can have — on what is becoming the center of gravity of world security concerns — is through a system of alliances. There is a view in London that the Europeans cannot continue to ask for U.S. protection in Europe without helping the U.S. with the security provision in Asia,” Eyal told VOA.

Sunak and Kishida also discussed Britain’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal signed by 11 countries. Britain is seeking new trade agreements following its exit from the European Union.

US-Japan security

The Japanese prime minister is visiting European and North American allies from the Group of Seven, including France, Italy, Canada and the United States. Japan currently holds the G-7 presidency.

Following talks between foreign and defense ministers in Washington on Thursday, the United States and Japan agreed to further strengthen security cooperation. In a joint statement, the two countries said China presented an “unprecedented” threat to the international order.
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A Turkish court has convicted the head of Turkey’s Medical Association of terrorism propaganda, as rights groups warn of an intensifying legal crackdown on civil society ahead of elections this year. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Police in riot gear began evicting climate activists Wednesday from a condemned village in western Germany that is due to be demolished for the expansion of a coal mine.

Some stones and fireworks were thrown as officers entered the tiny hamlet of Luetzerath, which has become a flashpoint of debate over the country’s climate efforts, Wednesday morning.

Police spokesperson Andreas Mueller said the attacks on officers were “not nice” but noted that most of the protest so far had been peaceful.

He said police would stick to their tactic of trying to avoid any escalation by offering to let any activists who leave on their own accord to do so without facing further police measures or prosecution.

Still, some protesters complained of undue force by police and others said the scale of the police response — with officers brought in from across the country and water cannons on standby — was itself a form of escalation not justified by the peaceful protest. At least one woman screamed in apparent pain as officers used force to remove her from a roadblock outside the village.

By Wednesday afternoon dozens of activists remained camped out in Luetzerath, some in elaborate tree houses, as police slowly moved through the village clearing barricades and a communal soup kitchen.

Some activists read books or played the accordion while perched atop 3-meter tripods. A few sat or stood on the roofs of Luetzerath’s remaining buildings despite the chilly wind.

“I’m really afraid today,” Petra Schumann, a 53-year-old local who had been at the site for several days, said from a top-floor window of one of the few remaining houses. Schumann said she still held out hope of preserving what’s left of Luetzerath “until nothing is left standing; hope dies last.”

Environmentalists say bulldozing the village to expand the nearby Garzweiler coal mine would result in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. The government and utility company RWE argue the coal is needed to ensure Germany’s energy security.

However, a study by the German Institute for Economic Research calls into question the government’s stance. Its authors found other existing coal fields could be used instead, though the cost to RWE would be greater.

Another alternative would be for Germany to increase production of renewable power, cut demand through energy efficiency measures, or import more coal or gas from abroad, the study found.

Citing the study and the urgent need to curb global carbon emissions, protesters refused to heed a court ruling Monday that effectively banned them from the area.

Some activists expressed particular anger at the environmentalist Green party, which is part of both the regional and national governments that reached a deal with RWE last year allowing it to destroy the village in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038.

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, a Green who is Germany’s economy and climate minister, defended the agreement as a “good decision for climate protection” that fulfills many of the environmentalists’ demands and saves five other villages from demolition.

“I think climate protection and protests need symbols but the empty hamlet of Luetzerath, where no one lives any more, is the wrong symbol from my point of view,” Habeck told reporters in Berlin.

Climate campaigners counter that expanding a massive open-cast coal mine goes against Germany’s international commitments to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The country is expected to miss its ambitious targets for the second year in a row.

Luetzerath “is now the European place of crystallization for the climate movement,” said Lakshmi Thevasagayam, a spokesperson for the Luetzerath Lives activist group. “We know that the coal under Luetzerath isn’t needed for energy security — it must remain in the ground so that we can achieve climate justice.”

“Now we can do something against the climate catastrophe, but at some point we won’t be able to anymore,” Thevasagayam said. She accused police of engaging in “a complete escalation” by moving ahead with the eviction Wednesday.

RWE said in a statement that a 1.5-kilometer fence will be built around the site. It appealed to activists to peacefully “end the illegal occupation” of the site it legally owns.

Andreas Mueller, the police spokesperson, said authorities were prepared for the eviction operation to last weeks, if necessary.

The heads of several environmental organizations planned to visit Luetzerath on Thursday to express solidarity with the activists there. A large protest was also scheduled near the site Saturday, attended by prominent Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.

 
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A town in France has decided to hide from public view a sign noting its brief connection to the former supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The sign, which includes a portrait of Khomeini, stands on private land in Neauphle-Le-Chateau, outside of Paris, but it is visible from the street.

Khomeini stayed there for several months in late 1978 and early 1979 before returning to Iran.

Amid the current protests in Iran sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a collection of 40 groups asked the town government to take several steps to distance itself from its links to Khomeini, including hiding the sign.

International Women’s Law League posted on Facebook that its representatives met Wednesday with the town’s mayor, Elisabeth Sandjivy, to discuss their requests.

Agence France-Presse reported that Sandjivy told the news agency the sign “will be hidden,” probably by way of a large panel installed on the sidewalk to block it.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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The past year has seen human rights crises worsening around the world, from Ukraine to China to Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said in its latest annual report, released Thursday.

But new voices of leadership for championing human rights have emerged, according to the report.

World Report 2023 looks at the state of human rights in nearly 100 countries where the New York-based organization works.

“The obvious conclusion to draw from the litany of human rights crises in 2022 —from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s open-air prison for the Uyghurs in China to the Taliban’s putting millions of Afghans at risk of starvation — is that unchecked authoritarian power leaves behind a sea of human suffering,” the report says.

“But 2022 also revealed a fundamental shift in power in the world that opens the way for all concerned governments to push back against these abuses by protecting and strengthening the global human rights system,” says the report.

Ukraine

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the report’s authors say the global community deserves credit for unleashing what it calls the “full arsenal” of the human rights system, including an investigation by the International Criminal Court.

“We saw immediate responses from the international community to mobilize around key human rights supports, including establishing international justice mechanisms [and] evidence gathering for war crimes,” Tirana Hassan, acting executive director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

In towns such as Bucha and Izyum, there is widespread evidence of the torture, execution and rape of Ukrainian civilians by occupying Russian soldiers. The United Nations Human Rights Council has documented several hundred civilian killings, thought to be a fraction of the total.

Following a visit to Ukraine in December, Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said the war “continues to be marked by gross violations of international human rights law.”

“In some cases, Russian soldiers executed civilians in makeshift places of detention. Others were summarily executed on the spot following security checks — in their houses, yards and doorways. Even where the victim had shown clearly that they were not a threat, for example, by holding their hands in the air. There are strong indications that the summary executions documented in the report may constitute the war crime of willful killing,” Türk told reporters Dec. 15.

Human Rights Watch said the West could have acted against Russia before its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“Putin’s brazenness has been made possible largely because of his long-standing free hand to operate with impunity,” the report says. “The loss of civilian life in Ukraine comes as no surprise to Syrians who suffered grave abuses from airstrikes following Russia’s intervention to support Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad in 2015.”

China

Human Rights Watch highlights ongoing abuses in China, including the mass detention, torture and forced labor of as many as a million Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Beijing denies the accusations.

In October, a U.N. resolution to open a debate on abuses by Beijing against the Uyghurs fell short by two votes. However, the report says the closeness of the vote “shows the potential in cross-regional alliances and fresh coalitions to come together to challenge the Chinese government’s expectation of impunity.”

Hassan said the U.N. vote was an important moment.

“What we have seen for the first time in a very long time is cracks in the authoritarian armor,” she told VOA.

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed numerous laws violating the fundamental rights of women and girls, including freedom of movement, right to work and a livelihood, and access to education and health care.

“Taliban security forces throughout the year carried out arbitrary detentions, torture, and summary executions of former security officers and perceived enemies,” the reports says.

Iran

In Iran, protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini after she was detained by morality police have grown into nationwide anti-government demonstrations.

Human Rights Watch said the execution of at least four protesters in recent weeks must trigger a stronger global response.

“We need to move beyond international solidarity for protesters and need to make sure that governments all over the world are holding Iranian officials to account,” Hassan told VOA.

Myanmar

The report cites increasing human rights abuses in Myanmar, where the authors say the regime is launching assaults on communities across the country that oppose the 2021 military coup.

“The junta security forces have carried out mass killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, and other abuses that amount to crimes against humanity,” the report says. “Freedom of speech and assembly face severe restrictions. Expanded military operations have resulted in numerous war crimes against ethnic minority populations in Kachin, Karen, Karenni, and Shan States.”

Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, Human Rights Watch says the recent African Union-led peace process has resulted in a fragile truce.

“Ensuring that there is accountability for the egregious crimes that took place in the Tigray region, for example, is going to be critical for this cease-fire and this truce to actually hold,” Hassan said.

Climate change

Human Rights Watch says climate change is having an increasing impact on basic rights in every corner of the world, from devastating floods in Pakistan to wildfires in the United States. It says governments have a legal and moral obligation to regulate industries such as fossil fuel extraction that are incompatible with protecting basic rights.

“Governments should act with urgency in upholding human rights in their responses to climate extremes and slow-onset changes that are already inevitable, protecting those populations most at risk, including Indigenous peoples, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty,” the report says.
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The past year has seen a litany of human rights crises across the world, from Ukraine to China to Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch says in its latest annual report, released Thursday. The authors also say, however, that new champions of human rights have emerged. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Russia said Wednesday that it will send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station next month to bring home three astronauts whose planned return vehicle was damaged by a strike from a tiny meteorite.

The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, made the announcement after examining the flight worthiness of the Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule at the space station, which sprang a radiator coolant leak in December.

Roscosmos and NASA officials said at a joint press briefing that an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, would be sent to the station February 20 to bring Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.

“We’re not calling it a rescue Soyuz,” said Joel Montalbano, the space station program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I’m calling it a replacement Soyuz.

“Right now, the crew is safe onboard the space station,” he added.

MS-22 flew Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio to the space station in September. They were scheduled to return home in the same spacecraft in mid-March.

But MS-22 began leaking coolant on December 14 after being hit by what U.S. and Russian space officials said they believed was a micrometeorite.

“Everything does point to a micrometeorite,” Montalbano said.

Sergei Krikalev, executive director of human space flight programs at Roscosmos, said the “current theory is that this damage was caused by a small particle about 1 millimeter in diameter.”

Krikalev said the decision to use MS-23 to fly the crew home was made because of concern over high temperatures in MS-22 during reentry. 

“The main problem to land the current Soyuz with crew would be thermal conditions because we lost heat rejection capability,” he said. “We may have a high temperature situation on Soyuz in the equipment compartment and in the crew compartment.”

Montalbano said discussions were also underway with SpaceX officials about potentially returning one or more crew members on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule currently docked with the space station.

Four astronauts were flown to the station by a SpaceX rocket in October for a mission expected to last about six months.

“We could safely secure the crew members in the area that the cargo normally returns on the Dragon,” Montalbano said.

“All that is only for an emergency, only if we have to evacuate ISS,” he stressed. “That’s not the nominal plan or anything like that.”

Krikalev said MS-22 would return to Earth after the two cosmonauts and the NASA astronaut leave on MS-23. It would bring back equipment and experiments that are not “temperature sensitive,” he said.

Soyuz MS-23 had been initially scheduled to fly Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA’s Loral O’Hara to the space station on March 16.

Space has remained a rare venue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia.

The space station was launched in 1998 at a time of increased U.S.-Russia cooperation following the Cold War space race.

Russia has been using the aging but reliable Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts into space since the 1960s.
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Russia’s top military officer was put in charge of troops fighting in Ukraine on Wednesday, a move that appears to reflect the Kremlin’s dissatisfaction with the current leadership and flaws in the military’s performance. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was named the new commander of the unified group of forces in Ukraine. 

The previous commander, General Sergei Surovikin, was demoted to become Gerasimov’s deputy along with two other generals. 

The reshuffle, which was formally ordered by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, came with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval, signaling that he still has trust in his top military leaders who have faced broad criticism for the troops’ performance in the conflict. 

It also suggests a recognition of flaws in carrying out what Putin called “the special military operation” in Ukraine. 

While announcing Gerasimov’s appointment, the Defense Ministry said it was aimed at improving coordination between various forces fighting in Ukraine. 

“Raising the level of leadership of the special military operation is linked to the expansion of the scale of the tasks being fulfilled as part of it and the need to organize closer interaction between branches of the military and to increase the quality of supplies and the efficiency of directing groups of forces,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. 

Surovikin was credited with strengthening coordination and reinforcing control over Russian forces in Ukraine after his appointment in October. His demotion to the No. 2 role signaled that while Putin wasn’t quite happy with his performance, he still trusts the general’s expertise. 

Soon after Surovikin was appointed in October, Russian troops pulled back from the southern city of Kherson under the brunt of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The retreat from the only regional center captured by Russia since it sent troops into Ukraine on February 24 came weeks after its annexation by Moscow and dealt a painful blow to the Kremlin. 

In his turn, Gerasimov, who was seen as the top architect of the Russian action in Ukraine as the country’s top military officer in charge of strategic military planning, was also widely blamed for Moscow’s military setbacks. 

His critics included Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman with close ties to Putin. Prigozhin, whose Wagner Group military contractor has played an increasingly prominent role in the fighting, has accused Gerasimov of incompetence and blamed him for a string of Russian military setbacks. 

Such criticism was shared by Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who deployed troops from his region to fight in Ukraine and repeatedly urged the Kremlin to up the ante in the conflict. 

The criticism of Gerasimov from Prigozhin and Kadyrov rose to a high pitch in September, when Russian troops were forced to pull back from Ukraine’s northeastern region of Kharkiv by a swift Ukrainian counteroffensive. 

Kadyrov particularly accused Gerasimov of covering up for his protege, Col. Gen. Alexander Lapin, who was in charge of the troops that retreated from the Kharkiv region. 

Despite such attacks, Lapin was promoted to become the chief of staff of ground forces earlier this week. His promotion along with Gerasimov’s new appointment appear to signal that Prigozhin and Kadyrov have little influence over the Kremlin’s decision-making despite their increasing public activity. 

Putin on Wednesday also gave a televised dressing down to Denis Manturov, a deputy prime minister in charge of aviation and other high-tech industries. 

Putin demanded that Manturov act more quickly in contracting new aircraft and cut him short during a televised video call with Cabinet members when he tried to defend his performance. 

When Manturov said he would try to make sure it’s done during the first quarter, Putin angrily snapped that it should be done within a month. “You don’t try to do all you can, you do it within a month, no later than that,” Putin said. 

 
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Iran has sentenced a former senior defense official to death after convicting him on charges of spying for Britain, state-linked media reported Wednesday. 

The judiciary said Ali Reza Akbari, who was deputy defense minister until 2001, was a “key spy” for British intelligence, the semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported. It said Iranian intelligence unmasked the spying by feeding him false information. 

Tasnim also reported that he had spied on past nuclear talks between Iran and Western powers. Akbari had served as deputy defense minister under President Mohammad Khatami, a reformist who had pushed for improved relations with the West. 

Britain called for the execution to be halted and for Akbari’s immediate release. 

“This is a politically motivated act by a barbaric regime that has total disregard for human life,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement. 

For several years, Iran has been locked in a shadow war with the United States and Israel, marked by covert attacks on its disputed nuclear program. The killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist in 2020, which Iran blamed on Israel, indicated foreign intelligence services had made major inroads. 

Akbari, who ran a private think tank, has not been seen in public since 2019, when he apparently was arrested. 

Authorities have not released any details about his trial. Those accused of espionage and other crimes related to national security are usually tried behind closed doors, where rights groups say they do not choose their own lawyers and are not allowed to see evidence against them. 

Tasnim said the Supreme Court upheld his sentence and that he had access to an attorney. There was no word on when the execution might be carried out. 

Akbari had previously led the implementation of a 1988 cease-fire between Iran and Iraq following their devastating eight-year war, working closely with U.N. observers.
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Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian shells have been a part of daily life in the city of Odesa. But a determined set of locals is fighting back, from hairdressers to police officers who are part of a territorial defense effort. Anna  Kosstutschenko reports. Camera: Pavel Suhodolskiy
…

Authorities in France say an attacker armed with a knife wounded six people Wednesday morning at a busy train station in Paris. 

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters police shot the attacker, who was “between life and death” after being taken to a hospital. 

The attack happened at the Gare du Nord station, one of the busiest in Europe. 

The motive for the attack was unclear, and authorities say they have opened a criminal investigation. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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Australian Cardinal George Pell, a leading Roman Catholic conservative and former top Vatican official who in 2020 was acquitted of sexual abuse allegations, died Tuesday at the age of 81, his private secretary said.  

Father Joseph Hamilton told Reuters that Pell died in Rome on Tuesday night.  

Archbishop Peter Comensoli, the archbishop of Melbourne, said Pell had died from heart complications following hip surgery.  

“Cardinal Pell was a very significant and influential Church leader, both in Australia and internationally, deeply committed to Christian discipleship,” he said in a statement on Facebook. 

An Australian appeals court ruling in 2020 quashed convictions that Pell sexually assaulted two choir boys in the 1990s. He spent 13 months in jail. 

The ruling allowed the then-78-year-old Pell to walk free, ending the case of the most senior figure accused in the global scandal of historical sex abuse that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. 

Pell, a former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, served as Vatican economy minister from 2014 until he took a leave of absence in 2017 to return to Australia to face the charges. 

He had been living in Rome since his acquittal in 2020 and had several meetings with Pope Francis. Pell often attended the pontiff’s Masses, and Francis praised him publicly after his return. 

Even before the sexual assault allegations, Pell was a polarizing figure in the two decades that he dominated the Australian Catholic hierarchy, revered by conservative Catholics but scorned by liberals for his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion and women’s ordination. 

In May 2018, Pell was committed to stand trial on multiple historical sexual offense charges relating to alleged incidents at a pool in his hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s and at Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the 1990s. The so-called swimmers case was dropped after a judge did not allow certain evidence. 

Returning from Rome where he had been tasked with cleaning up the Vatican’s finances, Pell denied the allegations but did not take the stand at two trials, the first of which ended with a hung jury. At the retrial, a jury unanimously convicted him on five charges of assaulting two teenage choirboys at the cathedral when he was archbishop of Melbourne. 

Pell was sentenced to six years in jail, becoming the most senior Catholic official worldwide to go to prison for child sex assault. He lost his first appeal and was in solitary confinement for 404 days until Australia’s seven High Court judges unanimously overturned his conviction, saying it was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. 

“Look, it was bad, it wasn’t like a holiday, but I don’t want to exaggerate how difficult that was. But there were many dark moments,” Pell said of his jail time in a Reuters interview after returning to Rome in 2020. 

The former choirboy who accused Pell at his trial and was known as Witness J said he understood it was difficult to satisfy a criminal court beyond the shadow of a doubt that child sexual assault offenses occurred. The other former choirboy died before Pell was charged. 

Gold miner’s son   

The high-profile case was one of the Australia’s most divisive, and some media organizations went so far as to breach a court suppression order barring coverage of the trial. 

The son of an Anglican gold miner father and a devout Irish Catholic mother, Pell was talented both academically and at sports. At 18, he landed a contract to play professional Australian Rules football and played in the reserves for a club, but later chose to enter the seminary. 

He went on to earn a doctorate in church history from Oxford and then became a parish priest in Ballarat. 

A burly and imposing figure at 1.9 meters, Pell rose to prominence in the mid-1990s first as archbishop of Melbourne, then archbishop of Sydney in 2001. 

Through the 1990s, the church increasingly came under attack for protecting priests and other church personnel who had committed sexual offenses and for failing to support their victims. 

Pell took pride in having set up one of the world’s first schemes to compensate victims of child sexual abuse in Melbourne. Critics, however, later told a government-appointed inquiry that the scheme was designed to persuade victims not to pursue legal action. 

The inquiry, known as a Royal Commission, began in 2013, a five-year investigation into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and other institutions. 

It found the church and other institutions had repeatedly failed to keep children safe with cultures of secrecy and cover-ups. It also found that Pell was aware of child sex abuse by at least two priests in the 1970s and 1980s and had failed to take steps to get the priests removed. 

The commission also said Pell should have looked into why Gerard Ridsdale, a priest who was subsequently convicted on more than 130 charges of sexually abusing children, was being moved from one parish to another during the 1970s and 1980s. 

Pell told the commission he was unaware of Ridsdale’s offenses until his 1993 conviction. 

“It’s a sad story, and it wasn’t of much interest to me,” he said. 
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Constantine, the former and last king of Greece who spent decades in exile, died Tuesday. He was 82.

Doctors at the private Hygeia Hospital in Athens confirmed to The Associated Press that Constantine died late Tuesday after treatment in an intensive care unit but had no further details pending an official announcement.

When he rose to the throne as Constantine II 1964 at the age of 23, the youthful monarch who had achieved glory as an Olympic gold medalist in sailing was hugely popular. By the following year he had squandered much of that support with his active involvement in the machinations that brought down the elected Center Union government of Prime Minister George Papandreou.

The episode involving the defection from the ruling party of several lawmakers, still widely known in Greece as the “apostasy,” destabilized the constitutional order and led to a military coup in 1967. Constantine eventually clashed with the military rulers and was forced into exile.

The dictatorship abolished the monarchy in 1973; a referendum after democracy was restored in 1974 dashed any hopes that Constantine had of ever reigning again.

Reduced in the following decades to only fleeting visits to Greece that raised a political and media storm each time, he was able to settle again in his home country in his waning years when opposing his presence no longer held currency as a badge of vigilant republicanism. With minimal nostalgia for the monarchy in Greece, Constantine became a relatively uncontroversial figure.

Constantine was born June 2, 1940, in Athens, to Prince Paul, younger brother to King George II and heir presumptive to the throne, and Princess Frederica of Hanover. His older sister Sophia is the wife of former King Juan Carlos I of Spain. The Greek-born Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh and husband of the late Queen Elizabeth II, was a relative.

The family, which had ruled in Greece from 1863 apart from a 12-year republican interlude in 1922-1935, was descended from Prince Christian, later Christian IX of Denmark, of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg branch of the Danish ruling family.

Before Constantine’s first birthday, the royal family was forced to flee Greece during the German invasion in World War II, moving to Alexandria in Egypt, South Africa and back to Alexandria. King George II returned to Greece in 1946, following a disputed referendum, but died a few months later, making Constantine the heir to King Paul I.

Constantine was educated at a boarding school and then attended three military academies as well as Athens Law School classes as preparation for his future role. He also competed in various sports, including sailing and karate, in which he held a black belt.

In 1960, at age 20, he and two other Greek sailors won a gold medal in the Dragon Class — now no longer an Olympic class — at the Rome Olympics. While still a prince, Constantine was elected a member of the International Olympic Committee and became an honorary member for life in 1974.

King Paul I died of cancer on March 6, 1964, and Constantine succeeded him, weeks after the Center Union party had triumphed over the conservatives with 53% of the vote.

The prime minister, George Papandreou, and Constantine initially had a very close relationship, but it soon soured over Constantine’s insistence that control of the armed forces was the monarch’s prerogative.

With many officers toying with the idea of a dictatorship and viewing any non-conservative government as soft on communism, Papandreou wanted to control the ministry of defense and eventually demanded to be appointed defense minister. After an acrimonious exchange of letters with Constantine, Papandreou resigned in July 1965.

Constantine’s insistence on appointing a government composed of centrist defectors that won a narrow parliamentary majority on the third try was hugely unpopular. Many viewed him as being manipulated by his scheming mother, dowager Queen Frederica.

“The people don’t want you, take your mother and go!” became the rallying cry in the protests that rocked Greece in the summer of 1965.

Eventually, Constantine made a truce of sorts with Papandreou and, with his agreement, appointed a government of technocrats and then a conservative-led government to hold an election in May 1967.

But, with the polls heavily favoring the Center Union and with Papandreou’s left-leaning son, Andreas, gaining in popularity, Constantine and his courtiers feared revenge and prepared a coup. They were instead surprised by a coup led by a group of lower-ranking officers who proclaimed a dictatorship on April 21, 1967.

On Dec. 13, 1967, Constantine and his family flew to the northern city of Kavala with the intention of marching on Thessaloniki and setting up a government there. His counter coup, badly managed and infiltrated, collapsed and Constantine was forced to flee to Rome the following day. He would never return as reigning king.

To his final days, Constantine, while accepting that Greece was now a republic, continued to style himself King of Greece and his children as princes and princesses even though Greece no longer recognized titles of nobility.

For most of his years in exile he lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, and was said to be especially close to his second cousin Charles, the Prince of Wales and now King Charles III.

While it took Constantine 14 years to return to his country briefly to bury his mother, Queen Frederica in 1981, his visits increased and, from 2010, made his home there.

He is survived by his wife, the former Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, youngest sister of Queen Margrethe II; five children, Alexia, Pavlos, Nikolaos, Theodora and Philippos; and nine grandchildren.
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French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo doubled down on its ridicule of Iran’s religious rulers on Tuesday, with fresh cartoons of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, despite protests from Iran and its allies.

“The mullahs aren’t happy. The caricatures of their supreme leader … do not seem to have made them laugh,” the paper’s editor, known as Riss, writes in the latest edition, which hits newsstands on Wednesday.

“Laughing at themselves has never been a strong point of tyrants,” he added.

The paper was hit by a cyberattack after publishing cartoons of Khamenei in last week’s special edition, which marked the anniversary of the 2015 attack on its Paris offices that left 12 dead.

“A digital attack doesn’t leave anyone dead, but it sets the tone. The mullah’s regime feels in such danger that it considers it vital to its existence to hack the website of a French newspaper,” Riss wrote.

“It is an honour in one sense, but above all proves that they feel their power is very fragile.”

There have been months of protests in Iran sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a woman arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code.

Iran issued an official warning to France over the “insulting and indecent” cartoons in last week’s Charlie Hebdo.

Earlier on Tuesday, Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian movement in Lebanon, also condemned the cartoons, saying Khamenei was not just a ruler but “a religious symbol for tens of millions of believers.”
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French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Tuesday unveiled a contentious pension overhaul aimed at raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030, which has prompted vigorous criticism and calls for protests from leftist opponents and worker unions. 

Speaking in a news conference in Paris, Borne said the minimum retirement age to be entitled to a full pension will be gradually increased by three months every year, starting this year, in line with a longstanding pledge by President Emmanuel Macron. 

In addition, people will need to have worked for at least 43 years to get a full pension, starting from 2027, she said. 

“Working more will allow future retirees to get higher pensions,” Borne said. 

“By 2030, our system will be financially balanced,” she added. 

Those who started working before the age of 20 will be able to get early retirement, Borne added. Specific categories of workers such as police officers and firefighters will also be able to retire earlier. 

The government argues that French people live longer than they used to and therefore need to work longer to make the pension system financially sustainable. All French workers receive a state pension. 

Center-left and hard-left worker unions unanimously expressed their disapproval of the proposed changes after talks with Borne last week. 

Some are in favor of an increase in payroll contributions paid by employers instead. 

The country’s eight main worker unions are gathering on Tuesday evening to set the date of a first protest day against the pension changes. 

A heated debate at parliament also is to be expected. 

Macron’s centrist alliance lost its parliamentary majority last year — and most opposition parties are opposed to the changes. 

Macron’s lawmakers hope to be able to ally with members of the conservative The Republicans party to pass the measure. Otherwise, the government may use a special power to force the law through parliament without a vote — at the price of much criticism. 

The pension reform is an electoral promise from Macron, who failed to implement a similar measure during his first term. The proposal at that time sparked nationwide strikes and protests, before the COVID-19 crisis led the government to postpone the changes. Macron was reelected for a second term last year. 

France’s Retirement Guidance Council issued a report last year showing that the pension system is expected to have a deficit over the next decade, with the government having to compensate. 

The minimum retirement age applies to people who have worked enough years to qualify. Those who do not fulfil the conditions, like many women who interrupt their career to raise their children and people who did long studies and started their career late, must work until 67 to retire without penalty. 

The average pension this year stands at 1,400 euros per month ($1,500 per month) once taxes are deducted. But that average masks differences across pension schemes depending on professions. 

Over the past three decades, French governments have made numerous changes to the system but each reform has been met with massive demonstrations. 
…

Military support for Ukraine and relations with Russia and China are among the key issues as Czech voters prepare to choose a new president Friday, with three candidates neck-and-neck in the polls.

Among them is Andrej Babiš, the billionaire former prime minister who received a boost after he was acquitted of fraud Monday.

Babiš was charged in 2022 for taking his “Stork Nest” farm out of his giant Agrofert holding company, in order to make it eligible for a $2 million European Union subsidy for small companies.

Prague Municipal Court Judge Jan Sott said it had not been proven that his actions constituted a crime. State prosecutors are considering an appeal.

The 68-year-old Babiš described the prosecution as a “political process.” 

“I think it is good news for the whole Czech Republic, for all citizens of the Czech Republic, that we live in the rule of law,” he told reporters following the verdict Monday.

Babiš, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021, is seen as a populist and a political ally of the outgoing president, Miloš Zeman. Babiš has criticized government and European Union policies on issues like migration and support for Ukraine. That has won him support – but also energized his critics.

Rivals

Babiš’ main rivals include Petr Pavel, a retired Czech general, and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee. His campaign slogan is, “Bring order and calm.’”

The third leading candidate is Danuše Nerudová, a former economist and university rector who promises a progressive, pro-European presidency. She would become her country’s first female president if elected.

“Both Petr Pavel and Danuše Nerudová are highly committed to the Czech Republic as a liberal democracy and also to its role in the liberal order more widely,” said Benjamin Tallis, an analyst with the German Council on Foreign Relations.

“That’s really the clear choice facing Czechs. Do they seize the chance to go back towards the liberal democratic mainstream, or is it a time that they would prefer to actually go back to the recent times of the Zeman-Babiš period and more towards this populist nationalist and authoritarian politics?” Tallis told VOA.

Ukraine

The president does not have executive powers; however, analysts say a Babiš victory could make life difficult for the current government under Prime Minister Petr Fiala, which has taken a strongly pro-Ukrainian stance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“In his (Babiš’) view it’s too much support, too much help to Ukraine and also to Ukrainian refugees,” said Lubomír Kopeček, a professor of political science at Masaryk University. “But I don’t think that Babiš would be somebody like Zeman in the past – a pro-Russian and pro-Chinese president. Because his business interests are connected to western and central Europe.”

Velvet divorce

The Czech Republic and Slovakia have just marked the 30-year anniversary of the so-called ‘velvet divorce’ – the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia following the fall of communism. For some voters, the historical resonance is significant, says Tallis.

“Lessons the Czech Republic has learned from history about how to stand up to autocracy, things about what is worthwhile about democracy, about how Ukrainians have revived memories of why freedoms and rights are worth fighting and dying for. What is actually liberty all about and where is the hope of that progressive future?” Tallis told VOA.

If no candidate secures an outright majority in Friday’s election, the top two go through to a second round two weeks later.

According to the Financial Times newspaper, recent surveys indicate the three candidates each have between 20 and 30 percent of the vote, with six other contenders splitting the remaining votes.

Some of the information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Iran has sentenced a Belgian aid worker to a lengthy prison term and 74 lashes after convicting him of espionage charges in a closed-door trial, state media reported Tuesday.

The website of Iran’s judiciary said a Revolutionary Court sentenced 41-year-old Olivier Vandecasteele to 12.5 years in prison for espionage, 12.5 years for collaboration with hostile governments and 12.5 years for money laundering. He was also fined $1 million and sentenced to 2.5 years for currency smuggling.

Under Iranian law, Vandecasteele would be eligible for release after 12.5 years. The judiciary website said the verdicts can be appealed.

Iran has detained a number of foreigners and dual nationals over the years, accusing them of espionage or other state security offenses and sentencing them after secretive trials in which rights groups say they are denied due process. Critics accuse Iran of using such prisoners as bargaining chips with the West, something Iranian officials deny.

Iran has not released any details about the charges against Vandecasteele. It is unclear if they are related to anti-government protests that have convulsed Iran for months or a long-running shadow war with Israel and the U.S. marked by covert attacks on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

The nationwide protests began after the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code. Rallying under the slogan “Women, life, freedom,” the protesters say they are fed up with decades of social and political repression. Iran has blamed the protests on foreign powers, without providing evidence.

Vandecasteele’s family said last month that he has been detained in an Iranian prison for months and has been on a hunger strike. They said he was deprived of access to a lawyer of his choice and is suffering from serious health problems.

Belgium has urged its nationals to leave Iran, warning that they face the risk of arbitrary arrest or unfair trial. There was no immediate comment on the verdict.

At least 520 protesters have been killed and more than 19,300 people have been arrested since the demonstrations began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided official figures on deaths or arrests.

Iran has executed four people after convicting them of charges linked to the protests, including attacks on security forces. They were also convicted in Revolutionary Courts, which do not allow those on trial to pick their own lawyers or see the evidence against them.

London-based Amnesty International has said such trials bear “no resemblance to a meaningful judicial proceeding.”

The protests, which have continued for nearly four months with no sign of ending, mark one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution that brought it to power.
…

Czech voters are preparing to choose a new president — with support for Ukraine and relations with Russia and China among the key issues. As Henry Ridgwell reports, three candidates are neck and neck in the polls.
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A mission to launch the first satellites into orbit from Western Europe suffered an “anomaly” Tuesday, Virgin Orbit said.  

The U.S.-based company attempted its first international launch on Monday, using a modified jumbo jet to carry one of its rockets from Cornwall in southwestern England to the Atlantic Ocean where the rocket was released. The rocket was supposed to take nine small satellites for mixed civil and defense use into orbit.  

But about two hours after the plane took off, the company reported that the mission encountered a problem. 

“We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information,” Virgin Orbit said on Twitter.  

Virgin Orbit, which is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange, was founded by British billionaire Richard Branson. It has previously completed four similar launches from California. 

Hundreds gathered for the launch cheered earlier as a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named “Cosmic Girl,” took off from Cornwall late Monday. Around an hour into the flight, the plane released the rocket at around 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland.  

The plane, piloted by a Royal Air Force pilot, returned to Cornwall after releasing the rocket. 

Some of the satellites are meant for U.K. defense monitoring, while others are for businesses such as those working in navigational technology. One Welsh company is looking to manufacture materials such as electronic components in space.  

U.K. officials had high hopes for the mission. Ian Annett, deputy chief executive at the U.K. Space Agency, said Monday it marked a “new era” for his country’s space industry. There was strong market demand for small satellite launches, Annett said, and the U.K. has ambitions to be “the hub of European launches.”  

In the past, satellites produced in the U.K. had to be sent to spaceports in other countries to make their journey into space. 

The mission was a collaboration between the U.K. Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, Virgin Orbit and Cornwall Council.  

The launch was originally planned for late last year, but it was postponed because of technical and regulatory issues. 
…