Category Archives: News

worldwide news

EU Warns of Escalating Serbia, Kosovo Car Plates Dispute

The European Union on Monday warned of “escalation and violence” after emergency talks between Kosovo and Serbia failed to resolve their long-running dispute over car license plates used by the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo.

“After many hours of discussion … the two parties did not agree to a solution today,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement to the media.

“I think that there is an important responsibility on the sides of both leaders for the failure of the talks today and for any escalation and violence that might occur on the ground in the following days.”

Borrell later discussed the matter with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said in a tweet that the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo was “vigilant.”

“Now is the time for responsibility & pragmatic solutions. Escalation must be avoided,” he said.

Kosovo has attempted this year to require its Serb minority to change their old car plates that date before 1999 when Kosovo was still part of Serbia.

This move has been met with strong and sometimes violent resistance by Serbs living in the northern part of the country, but Kosovo has said it will start issuing fines beginning Tuesday.

Borrell said an EU proposal could have avoided increased tensions, but the proposal, which was accepted by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, was not accepted by Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

Borrell said he would inform the EU member states of the two countries’ “lack of respect for their international legal obligations” and warned that, given their commitment to joining the bloc, they should act accordingly.

“The Serbian side was completely constructive, and we were accepting the texts that were changed 10 times, but the Albanian side did not want to accept anything, not for a second, they would always add something that was clearly not possible,” Vucic told reporters after the meeting.

Kurti said he was ready to hold further meetings to normalize relations between Belgrade and Pristina, not just to deal with one issue.

“We cannot be irresponsible and not treat the actual issues. … We cannot turn ourselves into state leaders that are dealing only with car plates and are not talking [about] how to normalize their relations,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Speaking in Belgrade after the meeting in Brussels, Vucic said he would meet Kosovo Serbs late on Monday to ask them to remain calm.

“We received the latest intelligence a little while ago, the situation is very difficult and it is on the verge of conflict,” Vucic told reporters. “We will do everything to preserve peace.”

He also said Serbia would stop issuing and renewing its own car number plates for Northern Kosovo.

The dispute over license plates has stoked tensions for almost two years between Serbia and its former breakaway province, which declared independence in 2008 and is home to a Serb minority in the north backed by Belgrade.

Around 50,000 ethnic Serbs who live there refuse to recognize Pristina’s authority and still consider themselves a part of Serbia.

Hundreds of police officers, judges, prosecutors and other state workers from the Serb minority quit their jobs this month after the government in Pristina ruled that local Serbs must finally replace car plates issued by Northern Kosovo Serb municipal authorities loyal to Belgrade, with Kosovo state ones.

Borrell called on Kosovo to immediately suspend the re-registration of vehicles in north Kosovo, and asked Serbia to suspend issuing new number plates, allowing both parties “space and time” to find a resolution.

Turkey Vows More Retaliation After 2 Killed in Cross-Border Kurdish Strikes

Turkey said a Kurdish militia killed two people in mortar attacks from northern Syria on Monday, in an escalation of cross-border retaliation following Turkish air operations over the weekend and a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul a week ago.

Turkey’s armed forces said it was responding, and a senior security official told Reuters that Turkish jets had again started hitting targets in northern Syria.

In the latest in a series of tit-for-tat attacks, several mortar shells hit a border district in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, leaving a child and a teacher among the dead and at least six wounded, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.

A pregnant woman initially reported as killed was badly wounded and is under treatment in a hospital, Soylu said later.

Local governor Davut Gul said five rockets had hit a school, two houses and a truck near the Karkamis border area. Broadcaster CNN Turk said the attack was launched from Syria’s Kobani area, controlled by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkish warplanes had carried out strikes in Syria and Iraq on Sunday, destroying 89 targets linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the YPG, which Ankara says is a wing of the PKK.

In a statement, the Turkish defense ministry said 184 militants were killed in operations on Sunday and Monday. It said the operations had included air strikes and land-fired weapons.

Turkey said its weekend operation was in retaliation for the bomb attack in Istanbul last week that killed six people, and which authorities blamed on Kurdish militants. The PKK and YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have denied involvement in the November 13 bombing on a busy pedestrian avenue.

Washington has allied with the SDF in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, causing a deep and lasting rift with NATO ally Turkey.

An SDF spokesman had said the weekend Turkish strikes destroyed grain silos, a power station and a hospital, killing 11 civilians, an SDF fighter and two guards. It also said it would retaliate.

Ground forces possible

During the weekend violence, eight Turkish security personnel were wounded in YPG rocket attacks from Syria’s Tal Rifat on a police post near a border gate in Kilis province, Ankara said.

On Monday, Turkey struck a Syrian army outpost west of Kobani where a YPG army barrack is located, an SDF source said. The outpost is one of several where the Syrian army was brought in to prevent the Turks from attacking the SDF.

Turkey has backed rebels fighting to topple Syria’s President Bashar Assad and cut diplomatic relations with Damascus early in the 11-year conflict.

Turkey’s armed forces have conducted several large-scale military operations in recent years in northern Iraq and northern Syria against the YPG, PKK and Islamic State.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey’s operations would not be limited to an air campaign and could involve ground forces.

“Our defense ministry and our general staff decide together how much of the land forces should take part. We make our consultations, and then we take our steps accordingly,” he was quoted by Turkish media as saying on a flight from Qatar.

The PKK launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

British Teenager Who Joined IS Likely Trafficking Victim, Court Told

A British-born woman who went to Syria as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State (IS) is challenging the U.K. government’s decision to take away her citizenship, with her lawyers telling a London court that she was likely “a child victim of trafficking.”

Shamima Begum left London in 2015 aged 15 and traveled with two school friends to Syria, where she married an IS fighter and gave birth to three children, all of whom died as infants.

She was stripped of her British citizenship on national security grounds in 2019, shortly after she was found in a detention camp in Syria.

Begum, now 23, is appealing that decision at a five-day hearing at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a specialist tribunal that hears appeals of decisions to remove citizenship on national security grounds.

Samantha Knights, representing Begum, said on Monday that the decision to remove her citizenship made Begum “effectively an exile for life.”

“This case concerns a British child aged 15 who was persuaded, influenced and affected with her friends by a determined and effective ISIS propaganda machine,” she said, using another acronym for the militant Islamist group.

Begum’s lawyers said in written arguments that the British Home Office (interior ministry) had revoked her citizenship “without seeking to investigate and determine, still less consider, whether she was a child victim of trafficking.”

They also argued there was overwhelming evidence that Begum was “recruited, transported, transferred, harbored and received in Syria for the purposes of sexual exploitation.”

Her lawyers also said that Begum and her friends’ entry into Syria was “facilitated by a Canadian agent working for ISIS.”

But lawyers representing the Home Office said Begum’s case was about national security rather than trafficking. 

James Eadie, representing the British government, said in written arguments that Begum had aligned with IS and stayed in Syria for four years until 2019.

Eadie said Begum left IS territory “only as the caliphate collapsed,” adding: “Even at that stage, the evidence demonstrates that she left only for safety and not because of a genuine disengagement from the group.”

A British intelligence officer known only as Witness E, who gave evidence from behind a screen, said it was “inconceivable” that someone traveling to Syria to join IS in 2015 “would not know what [IS] was doing as a terrorist organization.”

“In some respects, she would have known what she was doing and had agency in doing so,” Witness E said.

Spain to Repatriate Wives, Children of IS Fighters From Syria

Spain has decided to repatriate several Spanish wives and children of Islamic State fighters from jihadist detention camps in Syria, the government said Monday. 

The return of relatives of captured or killed jihadist fighters from Syria and Iraq has been a thorny issue for European countries since the fall of the Islamic State group’s so-called “caliphate” in 2019. 

Thousands of extremists in Europe decided to join the group as fighters, often taking their wives and children to live in the “caliphate” declared in territory conquered in Iraq and Syria. 

Spain plans to repatriate three women and 13 children before the end of the year, a government source told AFP, confirming a report in top-selling Spanish daily El Pais. 

One of the women is married to an Islamic State fighter and the other two are widows of jihadist fighters.  

Previously, Spain has refused to repatriate such family members of jihadist fighters. 

The women face charges of cooperating with a terrorist organization for allegedly aiding the Islamic State group. If convicted, they face jail terms of up to five years. 

The women have been in the detention camps since 2019. They say they were tricked by their husbands to go to Syria and did not take part in any jihadist activities, according to El Pais. 

Spain has also agreed to repatriate a Moroccan woman who is the widow of a Spanish fighter and the couple’s three children, but they fled from a detention camp near Iraq in 2020 and their whereabouts is unknown. 

France, Germany and the Netherlands are among the other European nations which have repatriated relatives of jihadist fighters this year or announced plans to do so. 

 

EU Sets Out Mediterranean Migrant Plan Ahead of Emergency Meeting

The European Commission set out a 20-point action plan on Monday designed to address surging migration in the central Mediterranean ahead of an emergency meeting of interior ministers.

Over 90,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in the European Union this year via the central Mediterranean route, such as across the sea from North Africa to Italy or Malta, a 50% increase from 2021. Interior ministers will hold talks on Friday.

European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told a news conference that one focus of the EU plan was to strengthen cooperation with third countries, including actions to prevent departures from North Africa.

The Commission says the majority of migrants depart from Libya and Tunisia and come primarily from Egypt, Tunisia and Bangladesh. The EU aims to have spent 580 million euros ($594 million) between 2021 and 2023 to support North African countries and help foster economic growth and jobs in the region.

The issue came to a head earlier this month as Paris and Rome clashed over France’s acceptance of a boat carrying 234 rescued migrants that Italy had turned away.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi called the proposal a “solid start”, welcoming the focus on more cooperation with countries of origin and transit and more coordination of sea rescue activities.

Johansson said there needed to be greater EU coordination of search and rescue, including among coastal and flag states, and stressed that providing assistance to people found in distress at sea was a legal obligation.

She also highlighted an EU deal reached in June on voluntary relocation of migrants and financial contributions from EU countries not in the front line.

Spain’s New Rape Law Under Fire

A landmark new Spanish law on sexual violence is the target of protests after at least 15 convicted offenders used the legislation to secure reductions to their jail terms while others were released.

Known as the “only yes means yes” law in Spain, it reformed the criminal code to define all non-consensual sex as rape.

Before this, rape convictions could only be secured if prosecutors could prove that violence or intimidation had been used. Often, a lesser charge of sexual abuse was alleged if these factors could not be proved.

The new law, enacted in October, also made wolf-whistling at women an offense and ordered sex offenders to take re-education courses.

Ana I. Bernal, a journalist who specializes in writing about feminism, told VOA: “This law has left a legal loophole. There are many victims who are scared about what could happen because the people who abused them could be let out of prison earlier. They are worried about their safety.”  

The law raises the sentences for gang rape or chemical submission, but it reduces both the maximum and minimum sentences in cases where there are no aggravating circumstances like violence or intimidation.

In Spain, a jail term can be retroactively modified if changes to the penal code benefits the convicted offender.

Hundreds of convicted offenders have applied to have their sentences revised since the law came into effect.

The legislation was brought in after a group of five men, known as the Wolf Pack, raped an 18-year-old woman at Pamplona at the world-famous bull running festival in 2016.

In a politically embarrassing reverse for Spain’s leftist government, which has made feminism a central part of its policies, the offenders whose crimes inspired the new rape law could benefit from the legislation.

Augustín Martínez, a lawyer for one member of the Wolf Pack, whose name came from the WhatsApp social media group which the attackers used, said he intends to use the law to try to reduce the offender’s sentence.

The ‘Wolf Pack’ are not the only ones who could benefit.

One man who sexually assaulted his 13-year-old stepdaughter had his sentence reduced from eight years to six years.

In another case, a teacher who paid for sex with his pupils was released after his sentence was reduced.

Victims have gone public to express their anger that they may come face to face with the men who abused them sooner than they believed.

Antonia’s former partner was jailed for 13 years for raping her, but he has had his sentence cut to 11 years.

“It is like a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. This makes me very scared and angry,” she told RTVE, the Spanish state television network. She consented to appear on television but did not give her full name.

With the lesser charge of ‘sexual abuse’ dropped from the criminal code and wider range of offences grouped under ‘sexual assault’, a broader range of penalties was required to ensure proportionality.

This means anyone who was previously convicted of sexual assault who was jailed for the minimum sentence of eight years, can now benefit from the minimum being reduced to six.

Accusations of chauvinism

Spain’s Equality Minister, Irene Montero of the far-left Unidas Podemos party, which is the junior partner in Spain’s coalition government, accused judges who have cut sentences of “breaking the law” on the grounds of “male chauvinism” – remarks which angered the judges’ organizations.

The General Council of the Judiciary, the body responsible for ensuring the judiciary’s independence, hit back in a statement, saying these were “intolerable attacks.”

A female judge, who did not want to disclose her name, told VOA: “Clearly, we are not all machos! This is nonsense.”

Carlos Flores, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Valencia, told VOA that the minister’s claims about judges ‘male chauvinism’ did not make sense.

“At least 55% of Spanish judges are women so you cannot accuse them of machismo. Also, all the judges sitting today trained in the period after the death of (the dictator) General Franco (in 1975) and most receive education in gender politics,” he said.

Flores said that the row over the law which was designed to give more protection to victims has proved embarrassing for the Spanish government.

“All this is happening in an area which this government has made one of its dearest concerns – feminism. This is the most feminist government in Spanish history with the largest number of women ministers. It is a major failure in a major area of interest for this government,” he noted.

Amid calls for Montero to resign, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has come under pressure to act.

Political Cornerstone

“It is unlikely that Sanchez will sack Montero over this. It would be the end of the coalition,” Pablo Simón, a political expert from the University Carlos III in Madrid, told VOA.

This week, the Supreme Court will review a number of cases.

“Let’s wait to see what the courts and prosecutors say about this,” Sanchez said last week.

Opposition parties have exploited the political crisis.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the opposition conservative People’s Party, said: “The effect is that there are rapists who have committed sexual abuse who, thanks to this law, are now more protected because of the president of the government.”

Flores said it was unlikely that the new law would be modified.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.

Shelling Renews Safety Concerns at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it planned to carry out inspections Monday at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after two days of shelling in the area renewed concerns about the potential disaster at the site.

The latest round of attacks near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant included what the IAEA said were more than a dozen blasts Sunday.

“Even though there was no direct impact on key nuclear safety and security systems at the plant, the shelling came dangerously close to them. We are talking meters, not kilometers,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said. “Whoever is shelling at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is taking huge risks and gambling with many people’s lives.”

Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly blamed each other for shelling near the power plant amid the war Russia launched in late February with its invasion of Ukraine.

A Kremlin spokesman told reporters Monday other countries need to use their influence to help end attacks at the site.

As bitter winter weather hits Ukraine, Russia has been attacking the Ukrainian power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians. In the Zaporizhzhia region alone, the Ukrainian presidency said, Russian forces shelled civilian infrastructure in about a dozen communities, destroying 30 homes.

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

Ukrainian Village in Ruins After Months of Russian Shelling

Russian tanks lumbered into Kherson on the first day of the war last February. Its liberation this week was a significant victory for Ukrainian forces. But nearly nine months of war have had a devastating effect on this region. Yelyzaveta Krotyk has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice.

As British Voters Cool on Brexit, UK Softens Tone Toward EU

The British government Sunday denied a report that it is seeking a “Swiss-style” relationship with the European Union that would remove many of the economic barriers erected by Brexit — even as it tries to improve ties with the bloc after years of acrimony.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay told Sky News “I don’t recognize” the Sunday Times report, insisting the U.K. was still determined to “use the Brexit freedoms we have” by diverging from the EU’s rules in key areas.

Switzerland has a close economic relationship with the 27-nation EU in return for accepting the bloc’s rules and paying into its coffers.

The U.K. government said, “Brexit means we will never again have to accept a relationship with Europe that would see a return to freedom of movement, unnecessary payments to the European Union or jeopardize the full benefit of trade deals we are now able to strike around the world.”

But despite the denials, the new Conservative government led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to restore relations with the EU, acknowledging that Brexit has brought an economic cost for Britain. Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt last week expressed optimism that trade barriers between the U.K. and the EU would be removed in the coming years.

The shift comes as public opposition grows to the hard form of Brexit pursued by successive Conservative governments since British voters opted by a 52%-48% margin to leave the bloc in a 2016 referendum.

Now, according to polling expert John Curtice, 57% of people would vote to rejoin the bloc and 43% to stay out.

When the U.K. was negotiating its divorce from the EU, Conservative governments under Prime Ministers Theresa May and her successor Boris Johnson ruled out remaining inside the EU’s borderless single market or its tariff-free customs union. Politicians who wanted closer ties were ignored or pushed aside.

The divorce deal struck by the two sides in 2020 has brought customs checks and other border hurdles for goods, and passport checks and other annoyances for travelers. Britons can no longer live and work freely across Europe, and EU citizens can’t move to the U.K. at will.

The British government’s fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, said last week that leaving the EU has had “a significant adverse effect on U.K. trade.”

Yet only recently have members of the government begun acknowledging Brexit’s downsides. Hunt, who last week announced a 55 billion-pound ($65 billion) package of tax increases and spending cuts to shore up an economy battered by soaring inflation, acknowledged Brexit had caused “trade barriers” with the U.K.’s nearest neighbors.

“Unfettered trade with our neighbors is very beneficial to growth,” he told the BBC, and predicted that the “vast majority” of barriers would be removed – although it would take years.

Any move to rebuild ties with the EU will face opposition from the powerful euroskeptic wing of the Conservative Party. Even the opposition Labour Party — reluctant to reopen a debate that split the country in half and poisoned politics — says it won’t seek to rejoin the bloc, or even the EU’s single market, if it takes power after the next election.

Sunak, who took office last month, is a longtime Brexit supporter, but also a pragmatist who has made repairing the economy his top priority. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has rocked European security and sent energy prices soaring, has put Brexit squabbles into perspective for politicians on both sides of the English Channel.

Sunak wants to solve a festering feud with the EU over trade rules that have caused a political crisis in Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member nation. When Britain left the bloc, the two sides agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of the peace process that ended 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.

Instead, there are checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That angered pro-British unionist politicians, who say the new checks undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. They are boycotting Belfast’s power-sharing government, leaving Northern Ireland without a functioning administration.

The U.K. government is pinning its hopes on striking a deal with the EU that would ease the checks and coax Northern Ireland’s unionists back into the government.

Months of talks when Johnson was in office proved fruitless, but the mood has improved since Sunak took over, though as yet there has been no breakthrough. 

 Turkey Launches Air Strikes on PPK, YPG After Istambul Bombing 

Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that it has launched airstrikes over the northern regions of Syria and Iraq where the ministry is targeting Kurdish groups that it believes are responsible for an attack last week in Istanbul.

The ministry said the strikes hit the bases of the Kurdistan Wokers’ Party, or PKK, and the Syrian People’s Protection Units or YPG.

A bomb hit central Istanbul last week, killing six people and wounding over 80.

Turkey blames the PKK and the YPG for the attack, but both groups have denied the charges.

Washington backs the YPG in its war against the Islamic State terrorist group.

Explosions Shake Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant 

Powerful explosions shook the area around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant Saturday evening and again Sunday morning, the U.N. said, abruptly ending a period of relative calm at the facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency team at Zaporizhzhia said there was damage to some buildings, systems and equipment at the plant, but none threatened nuclear safety and security. There have been no casualty reports.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement Sunday that the explosions further underlined the urgent need for measures to help prevent a nuclear accident there.

“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely disturbing,” Grossi said. “Explosions occurred at the site of this major nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” he added.

The director-general renewed his urgent appeal to both sides in the conflict to agree and implement a nuclear safety and security zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible. In recent months, he has engaged in intense consultations with Ukraine and Russia about establishing such a zone, but so far without an agreement.

Meanwhile, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Sunday that Russia’s recent withdrawal from Kherson “was conducted in relatively good order” and its success “is likely partially due to a more effective, single operational command under General Sergei Surovikin.”

The ministry said Russian vehicle losses were likely in the tens rather than the hundreds, while any left behind equipment was “successfully destroyed by Russian forces to deny it to Ukraine.”

The report warned, however, the Russian force “remains riven by poor junior and mid-level leadership and cover-up culture.”

Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine’s defense has global implications. At the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, he warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations.

“Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching,” Austin said. “And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation,” he added.

Austin also said Moscow’s efforts to gain support from countries such as Iran and North Korea create new security challenges for the United States and its allies.

Earlier, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, Colin Kahl, said Russia is trying to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses and achieve dominance over Ukrainian skies.

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with missile strikes throughout the past week, the heaviest wave since Moscow invaded nine months ago.

In Kyiv people woke up Saturday to several inches of snow. Ukrainian authorities in the capital are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“They are determined to destroy our power grids,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in a speech at the Halifax forum.

“The calculation is simple: a humanitarian catastrophe. Moscow always considers frost and darkness as its allies. It always uses the deprivation of basic life needs as a war tool. It always despises humanitarian law. Russia is a terrorist state,” Yermak said.

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist throughout Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, in his nightly video address.

“Energy workers are doing everything possible to give people a normal life,” he said.

He added transport connections are being restored in Kherson.

“There is the first train from Kyiv. We create new opportunities for people every day,” Zelenskyy said.

In message earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax meeting.

“The end of the war doesn’t guarantee peace. Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength… such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

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

 

UK: Russian General Likely Responsible for Good Withdrawal From Ukraine’s Kherson

Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Sunday that Russia’s recent withdrawal from Kherson “was conducted in relatively good order” and its success “is likely partially due to a more effective, single operational command under General Sergei Surovikin.”

The ministry said Russian vehicle losses were likely in the tens rather than the hundreds, while any left behind equipment was “successfully destroyed by Russian forces to deny it to Ukraine.”

The report warned, however, the Russian force “remains riven by poor junior and mid-level leadership and cover-up culture.”

Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine’s defense has global implications. At the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, he warned that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations.

“Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching,” Austin said. “And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation,” he added.

Austin also said Moscow’s efforts to gain support from countries such as Iran and North Korea create new security challenges for the United States and its allies.

Earlier, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser, Colin Kahl, said Russia is trying to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses and achieve dominance over Ukrainian skies.

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with missile strikes throughout the past week, the heaviest wave since Moscow invaded nine months ago.

“They’re really trying to overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems,” Kahl, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters Saturday during a trip to the Middle East.

Kahl said that, so far, Russia has not succeeded in breaking the Ukrainian air force and air defenses.

“I think one of the things that probably surprised the Russians the most is how resilient Ukraine’s air defenses have been since the beginning of this conflict,” he said.

He attributed Ukraine’s resilience to the “ingenuity and cleverness of the Ukrainians themselves in keeping their air defense systems viable,” but he noted that “the United States and other allies and partners have provided a tremendous amount of support.”

Britain pledged a $59.4 million air defense package Saturday for Ukraine, including anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones to Russia. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the announcement on his first trip to Kyiv, posting a video of his visit on Twitter and pledging “We are with you all the way.”

In Kyiv people woke up Saturday to several inches of snow. Ukrainian authorities in the capital are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“They are determined to destroy our power grids,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, in a speech at the Halifax forum.

“The calculation is simple: a humanitarian catastrophe. Moscow always considers frost and darkness as its allies. It always uses the deprivation of basic life needs as a war tool. It always despises humanitarian law. Russia is a terrorist state,” Yermak said.

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist throughout Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday, in his nightly video address.

“Energy workers are doing everything possible to give people a normal life,” he said.

He added transport connections are being restored in Kherson.

“There is the first train from Kyiv. We create new opportunities for people every day,” Zelenskyy said.

In message earlier Saturday, Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax meeting.

“The end of the war doesn’t guarantee peace. Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength … such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Hundreds detained, missing in Kherson

A Yale University report backed by the U.S. State Department reveals that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October, during Russia’s occupation of Kherson.

The Conflict Observatory, a Yale university research program supported by the department, released its independent report Friday. It describes numerous instances of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson.

“Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end a needless war that it cannot and will not win — no matter how despicable and desperate its tactics,” a State Department statement said Friday.

Investigators in liberated areas of the Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies bearing marks of what appeared to have been torture, Ukraine Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying.

VOA has not been able to independently verify those claims.

Russia denies its troops have targeted civilians or have committed atrocities during the war in Ukraine.

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

Bulgaria Charges 5 People in Connection with Istanbul Blast

Bulgarian prosecutors have charged five people for supporting terrorist acts in connection with an explosion in central Istanbul that killed six people on Nov. 13, chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev said Saturday.

Bulgarian special police forces detained three men of Moldovan origin and a man and woman of Syrian Kurdish descent this week following investigations and close cooperation with prosecutors in neighboring Turkey, Geshev told Reuters.

“Five people have been charged. The charges are in two groups — for supporting terrorist acts in another country, namely the attack in Istanbul and for human trafficking,” Geshev said, adding they were mainly involved in human trafficking through Turkey and smuggling.

A Bulgarian court ruled in a closed hearing Saturday that the four men could be kept in pre-trial detention on the human trafficking charges, saying it lacked enough evidence to keep them behind bars on the charges of supporting terrorist activities.

The prosecutors did not ask the court to keep the woman in custody because of a health condition.

In Chisinau, the Moldovan foreign ministry confirmed three citizens had been detained.

“Our country strongly condemns any terrorist acts, including those in Istanbul,” said ministry representative Daniel Voda.

Turkish prosecutors have already asked for some of the suspected accomplices in the blast to be extradited, Geshev added.

On Friday, a Turkish court ordered the pre-trial detention of 17 people suspected of being involved in the explosion, including the suspected bomber, who police identified as Syrian national Ahlam Albashir.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, which also injured more than 80 people on Istiklal Avenue, a busy and historic pedestrian strip.

The Turkish government swiftly blamed Kurdish militants for the blast and police have said the suspected bomber was trained by Kurdish militants in Syria. 

Musk Restores Trump’s Twitter Account After Online Poll

Elon Musk reinstated Donald Trump’s account on Twitter on Saturday, reversing a ban that has kept the former president off the social media site since a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was poised to certify Joe Biden’s election victory.

Musk made the announcement in the evening after holding a poll that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be restored. The “yes” vote won, with 51.8%.

“The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted, using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

Shortly afterward, Trump’s account, which had earlier appeared as suspended, reappeared on the platform complete with his former tweets, more than 59,000 of them. His followers were gone, at least initially.

It is not clear whether Trump would return to Twitter. An irrepressible tweeter before he was banned, Trump has said in the past that he would not rejoin even if his account was reinstated. He has been relying on his own, much smaller social media site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.

And on Saturday, during a video speech to a Republican Jewish group meeting in Las Vegas, Trump said that he was aware of Musk’s poll but that he saw “a lot of problems at Twitter,” according to Bloomberg.

“I hear we’re getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don’t see it because I don’t see any reason for it,” Trump was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. “It may make it, it may not make it,” he added, apparently referring to Twitter’s recent internal upheavals.

The prospect of restoring Trump’s presence to the platform follows Musk’s purchase last month of Twitter — an acquisition that has fanned widespread concern that the billionaire owner will allow purveyors of lies and misinformation to flourish on the site. Musk has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive of freewheeling speech.

His efforts to reshape the site have been both swift and chaotic. Musk has fired many of the company’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors who are responsible for content moderation and other crucial responsibilities. His demand that remaining employees pledge to “extremely hardcore” work triggered a wave of resignations, including hundreds of software engineers.

Users have reported seeing increased spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages, among other glitches, in the aftermath of the mass layoffs and worker exodus. Some programmers who were fired or resigned this week warned that Twitter may soon fray so badly it could crash.

Musk’s online survey, which ran for 24 hours before ending Saturday evening, concluded with 51.8% of more than 15 million votes favoring the restoration of Trump’s Twitter’ account. It comes four days after Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.

Trump lost his access to Twitter two days after his supporters stormed the Capitol, soon after the former president had exhorted them to “fight like hell.” Twitter dropped his account after Trump wrote a pair of tweets that the company said cast further doubts on the legitimacy of the presidential election and raised risks for the Biden presidential inauguration.

After the Jan. 6 attack, Trump was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta Platforms, and Snapchat. His ability to post videos to his YouTube channel was also suspended. Facebook is set to reconsider Trump’s account suspension in January.

Throughout his tenure as president, Trump’s use of social media posed a significant challenge to major social media platforms that sought to balance the public’s interest in hearing from public officials with worries about misinformation, bigotry, harassment and incitement of violence.

But in a speech at an auto conference in May, Musk asserted that Twitter’s ban of Trump was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”

Earlier this month, Musk, who completed the $44 billion takeover of Twitter in late October, declared that the company wouldn’t let anyone who had been kicked off the site return until Twitter had established procedures on how to do so, including forming a “content moderation council.”

On Friday, Musk tweeted that the suspended Twitter accounts for the comedian Kathy Griffin, the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and the conservative Christian news satire website Babylon Bee had been reinstated. He added that a decision on Trump had not yet been made. He also responded “no” when someone on Twitter asked him to reinstate the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ account.

In a tweet Friday, the Tesla CEO described the company’s new content policy as “freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.”

He explained that a tweet deemed to be “negative” or to include “hate” would be allowed on the site but would be visible only to users who specifically searched for it. Such tweets also would be “demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter,” Musk said.

China, Russia Seek ‘Might Makes Right’ World, Says US Official

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Saturday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations and said Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where “might makes right.” 

Austin made the remarks at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which attracts defense and security officials from Western democracies. 

“Russia’s invasion offers a preview of a possible world of tyranny and turmoil that none of us would want to live in. And it’s an invitation to an increasingly insecure world haunted by the shadow of nuclear proliferation,” Austin said in a speech. 

“Because Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching. And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation.” 

Austin dismissed Putin’s claims that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia,” calling it a vision of “a world in which autocrats decide which countries are real and which countries can be snuffed out.” 

He added that the war “shows the whole world the dangers of disorder. That’s the security challenge that we face. It’s urgent, and it’s historic,” he said. 

Basic principles of democracy are under siege around the world, he added. 

U.S. President Joe Biden last month declared that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis; Russian officials have raised using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in their nearly nine-month invasion of Ukraine. 

While U.S. officials for months have warned of the prospect that Russia could use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine in the face of battlefield setbacks, Biden administration officials have repeatedly said nothing has changed in U.S. intelligence assessments to suggest Putin has imminent plans to deploy nuclear weapons. 

CIA Director Bill Burns recently met with his Russian intelligence counterpart to warn of consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. 

Austin said nuclear weapons need to be responsibly controlled and not used to threaten the world. 

“Ukraine faces a harsh winter. And as Russia’s position on the battlefield erodes, Putin may resort again to profoundly irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling,” he said.

Compares Moscow to China

Austin also compared Russia to China, saying Beijing is trying to refashion both the region and the international system to suit its authoritarian preferences. He noted China’s increasing military activities in the Taiwan Strait. 

“Beijing, like Moscow, seeks a world where might makes right, where disputes are resolved by force, and where autocrats can stamp out the flame of freedom,” he said. 

Austin called Putin’s invasion the worst crisis in security since the end of World War II and said the outcome “will help determine the course of global security in this young century.” 

Austin said the deadly missile explosion in Poland this week is a consequence of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war of choice” against Ukraine. 

“The tragic and troubling explosion in Poland this week reminded the whole world of the recklessness of Putin’s war of choice,” Austin said. 

Russia blamed for deaths in Poland

On Tuesday, two workers were killed when a projectile hit a grain-drying facility close to Poland’s border with Ukraine. While the source of the missile is under investigation, NATO officials have said they suspect it was fired from a Ukrainian missile battery in self-defense. 

Officials from Poland, NATO and the United States have blamed Russia for the deaths in any case, saying a Ukrainian missile would not have misfired had the country not been forced to defend itself against heavy Russian attacks that day. 

Russian officials have cast the conflict as a struggle against NATO — though Ukraine is not a NATO member even if it has been receiving aid from NATO member states. 

Austin said NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia. 

“Make no mistake: We will not be dragged into Putin’s war of choice. But we will stand by Ukraine as it fights to defend itself. And we will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Austin said. 

A Polish investigation to determine the source of the missile and the circumstances of the explosion was launched with support from the U.S. and Ukrainian investigators joined the probe on Friday. 

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in an interview broadcast live at the forum that “It’s not right to say it’s a Ukrainian rocket, or a Russian rocket, before the investigation is over.” 

In its 14th year, about 300 people gather each year at Halifax International Security Forum held at Halifax’s Westin hotel, where about 13 Ukrainian refugees now work. 

Pentagon: Russia Aiming for Air Dominance Over Ukraine

Russia is trying to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses and achieve dominance over Ukrainian skies, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser has warned.

Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with missile strikes throughout the past week, the heaviest wave since Moscow invaded nine months ago.

“They’re really trying to overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems,” Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for policy, told reporters Saturday during a trip to the Middle East. He said that so far, Russia has not succeeded in breaking Ukrainian air force and air defenses.

“I think one of the things that probably surprised the Russians the most is how resilient Ukraine’s air defenses have been since the beginning of this conflict,” Kahl said.

He attributed Ukraine’s resilience to the “ingenuity and cleverness of the Ukrainians themselves in keeping their air defense systems viable,” but he noted that “it’s also the United States and other allies and partners have provided a tremendous amount of support.”

Britain pledged a $59.4 million air defense package Saturday for Ukraine, including anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones to Russia. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made the announcement on his first trip to Kyiv, posting a video of his visit on Twitter and pledging “We are with you all the way.”

In its intelligence update Saturday, Britain’s Defense Ministry said that on Wednesday, Russia held its “largest ever debt issuance in a single day.”

The issuance, the ministry said, “is a key mechanism to sustain defense spending, which has increased significantly since the invasion of Ukraine.”

The issuance raised $13.6 billion, according to the update posted on Twitter.

Russia has announced a 2023 defense budget of approximately $84 billion, more than 40% higher than its initial 2023 budget announced in 2021.

“The size of this auction,” the Defense Ministry said, “highly likely indicates the Russian Ministry of Finance perceives current conditions as relatively favorable but is anticipating an increasingly uncertain fiscal environment over the next year.”

Ukraine bracing for cold

In Kyiv people woke up Saturday to several inches of snow. Authorities in the capital are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist in 17 regions of Ukraine as well as the capital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in his nightly video address.

He said energy companies worked throughout the day Friday to restore the electricity supply and said there were already significantly fewer emergency shutdowns. In the areas where outages continue, he said, “stabilization hourly schedules were in effect.”

Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna, said Friday that Russia’s tactics of cutting electricity, water and gas supplies “massively demoralize civilian population.”

The chief executive of state utility operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian state television, “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

On Friday, Zelenskyy also met with Executive Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis in Kyiv and thanked him for the EU’s planned financial assistance program of more than $18.5 billion in 2023.

Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together defense and security officials from Western democracies, in a recorded message Friday.

“Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength … such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Hundreds detained, missing in Kherson

A Yale University report backed by the U.S. State Department reveals that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October, during Russia’s occupation of Kherson.

The Conflict Observatory, a Yale university research program supported by the U.S. State Department, released its independent report Friday. It describes numerous instances of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson. “Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end a needless war that it cannot and will not win — no matter how despicable and desperate its tactics,” a State Department statement announced Friday.

Investigators in liberated areas of the Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies bearing marks of what appeared to have been torture, Ukraine Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying.

The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, released a video of what he said was a torture chamber used by Russian forces in the Kherson region.

Lubinets said Russians tortured Ukrainians with electric current, broke their bones, beat them with metal pipes and killed them. He noted the invaders recorded all their crimes on video.

Reuters was unable to verify the allegations made by Lubinets and others in the video. Russia denies its troops deliberately attack civilians or have committed atrocities.

Meanwhile, Russia claimed Friday that Ukrainian soldiers executed more than 10 Russian prisoners of war, accusing Kyiv of war crimes and the West of ignoring them.

The Russian defense ministry cited a video circulating on Russian social media that it alleged showed the execution of Russian prisoners of war. Reuters was unable to immediately verify either the video or the defense ministry’s assertions.

Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.

Pope Visits His Father’s Italian Hometown for Birthday Party

Pope Francis returned to his father’s birthplace in northern Italy Saturday for the first time since ascending the papacy to celebrate the 90th birthday of a second cousin who long knew him as simply “Giorgio.”

The two-day visit to Francis’ ancestral homeland to renew family ties touched on keystones of his papacy, including the importance of honoring the elderly and the human toll of migration. Francis’ private visit Saturday will be followed by a public one Sunday to celebrate Mass for the local faithful, where he could well reflect on his family’s experience migrating to Argentina.

The pope’s father, Mario Jose Francisco Bergoglio, and his paternal grandparents arrived in Buenos Aires on Jan. 25, 1929, to reach other relatives at the tail end of a mass decadeslong emigration from Italy that the pope has honored with two recent saints: St. Giovanni Batista Scalabrini and St. Artemide Zatti.

The future pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was born nearly eight years later in Buenos Aires, after the elder Bergoglio met and married Regina Maria Sivori, whose family was also of Italian immigrant stock, hailing from the Liguria region. Francis grew up speaking the Piedmont dialect of his paternal grandmother Rosa, who cared for him most days.

The elder Bergoglio was born in the town of Portacomaro, 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Asti, an agricultural town that lost population not only to emigration abroad but also to nearby Turin as it became an industrial center.

Today, the town has 2,000 residents, but it numbered more than 2,700 a century ago, and dropped as low as 1,680 in the 1980s.

The pope’s family emigrated after the peak, which saw 14 million Italians leave from 1876 to 1915 — a movement that made Italy the biggest voluntary diaspora in the world, according to Lauren Braun-Strumfels, an associate professor of history at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Often citing his own family story, Francis, now 85, has made the welcoming and integration of migrants a hallmark of his papacy, often facing criticism as Europe in general, and Italy in particular, are consumed with the debate over how to manage mass migration.

The pope has recognized the historic significance of the emigrant experience with the recent canonizations of St. Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, an Italian bishop who founded an order to help Italian emigrants at the end of the 19th century, and Artemide Zatti, an Italian who emigrated to Argentina in the same period and dedicated his work to helping the sick.

He used the occasion to again denounce Europe’s indifference toward migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea and what they hope will be better futures.

Francis began his visit to Portacomaro Saturday with lunch at the home of a cousin, Carla Rabezzana. Photographs released by the Vatican showed Francis clearly enjoying himself, hugging Rabezzana and sitting at the head of the table.

“We have known each other forever,” Rabezzana told the Corriere della Sera newspaper in the run-up to the visit. “When I lived in Turin, Giorgio — I always called him that — came to stay because I had an extra room. That is how we maintained our relationship.

“We always would joke. When he told me he would come to celebrate my 90th birthday, I said it made my heart race. And in response I was told: ‘Try not to die.’ We burst out laughing.’’

The pope has many more third and fourth cousins still in the area.

“It was a large family, and in the area, there are still many distant cousins,” said Carlo Cerrato a former mayor of Portacomaro. He said it was a “big surprise” for everyone in the town when Francis was elected pope nearly a decade ago.

“Everyone knew there was a prelate who had become the cardinal of Buenos Aires, but it was something that the relatives knew, not everyone in town,” Cerrato said.

After nearly 10 years as pope, Francis has yet to return to his own birthplace in Argentina. He hasn’t really explained his reasons for staying away. He recently confirmed that if he were to resign as pope, he wouldn’t go back to Buenos Aires to live but would remain in Rome.

Eastern Russia Blast Kills 9

An explosion at a five-story apartment building in eastern Russia has killed at least nine people, four of them children, officials said Saturday.

The blast on the Russian Pacific island of Sakhalin was apparently caused by a gas cylinder hooked up to a cooking stove, according to Russian news agencies.

Emergency workers are continuing to look for survivors under the rubble, officials said.

Russia Raises $13 Billion for 2023 Defense Spending

In its intelligence update Saturday, Britain’s defense ministry said that on Wednesday, Russia held its “largest ever debt issuance in a single day.”

The issuance, the ministry said, “is a key mechanism to sustain defense spending, which has increased significantly since the invasion of Ukraine.”

The issuance raised $13.6 billion, according to the update posted on Twitter.

Russia has announced a 2023 defense budget of approximately $84 billion, more than 40% higher than its initial 2023 budget announced in 2021.

“The size of this auction,” the defense ministry said, “highly likely indicates the Russian Ministry of Finance perceives current conditions as relatively favorable but is anticipating an increasingly uncertain fiscal environment over the next year.”

Ukrainian authorities in the capital, Kyiv, are warning of a “complete shutdown,” as subzero temperatures grip the country.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said authorities are attempting to restore the city’s power grid.

Russian airstrikes have inflicted heavy damage on the energy grid of the Ukrainian capital while they continue to pound Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — crushing almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

“Unfortunately, Russia continues missile strikes against the civilian critical infrastructure of Ukraine, fighting against the civilian population and depriving them of light, water supply, heat and communications during the winter.” His comments came during talks with European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian prime minister added, “On November 15, Russia fired about 100 missiles at Ukrainian cities. Almost half of our energy systems have been disabled.”

Amid freezing temperatures, difficulties with energy supplies persist in 17 regions of Ukraine as well as the capital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday in his nightly video address.

He said energy companies worked throughout the day Friday to restore the electricity supply and said there were already significantly fewer emergency shutdowns. In the areas where outages continue, he said, “stabilization hourly schedules were in effect.”

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna, said Friday that Russia’s tactics of cutting electricity, water and gas supplies “massively demoralize civilian population.”

The chief executive of state utility operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian state television, “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

On Friday, Zelenskyy also met with Dombrovskis in Kyiv and thanked him for the EU’s planned financial assistance program of more than $18.5 billion in 2023.

Zelenskyy also addressed the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together defense and security officials from Western democracies, in a recorded message Friday.

“Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength … such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.

Zelenskyy added, “A truly real and long-lasting peace can only be the result of complete demolition of Russian aggression.”

Hundreds detained, missing in Kherson

A Yale University report backed by the U.S. State Department reveals that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October, during Russia’s occupation of Kherson.

The Conflict Observatory, a Yale university research program supported by the U.S. State Department, released its independent report Friday. It describes numerous instances of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson. “Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end a needless war that it cannot and will not win — no matter how despicable and desperate its tactics,” a State Department statement announced Friday.

Investigators in liberated areas of the Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies bearing marks of what appeared to have been torture, Ukraine Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was quoted as saying.

The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, released a video of what he said was a torture chamber used by Russian forces in the Kherson region.

Lubinets said Russians tortured Ukrainians with electric current, broke their bones, beat them with metal pipes and killed them. He noted the invaders recorded all their crimes on video.

Reuters was unable to verify the allegations made by Lubinets and others in the video. Russia denies its troops deliberately attack civilians or have committed atrocities.

Meanwhile, Russia claimed Friday that Ukrainian soldiers executed more than 10 Russian prisoners of war, accusing Kyiv of war crimes and the West of ignoring them.

The Russian defense ministry cited a video circulating on Russian social media that it alleged showed the execution of Russian prisoners of war. Reuters was unable to immediately verify either the video or the defense ministry’s assertions.

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

Russia’s Independent Journalists on ‘Brink of Survival’, Awardee Says

The founder of one of Russia’s leading independent news websites has been recognized for her “extraordinary and sustained” efforts to protect press freedom.

Galina Timchenko, co-founder of independent media outlet Meduza, was presented with the Gwen Ifill award at an event in New York City on Thursday.

The award is presented by the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists in honor of American broadcaster Ifill, who was an adviser to the media freedom nonprofit.

Timchenko and her team have run Meduza from exile for several years. After the invasion in Ukraine, authorities blocked access to the website inside Russia.

Despite that, Timchenko said, her team has still been able to reach millions in Russia “who need the truth more than ever.”

“Our duty, our mission, stays the same,” she said in her acceptance speech. “To provide independent, objective information to our readers and not to leave them alone at the darkest hour.”

In an interview with VOA Russian, Timchenko said she was shocked to receive the recognition, saying that when CPJ first contacted her, she “thought it was a prank.”

Receiving an award in Ifill’s name is an honor, Timchenko said, as she discussed the challenges for media in wartime.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: Some people are talking about weariness of news about the war in Ukraine. What can journalists do to let the world know they should continue to help Ukraine?

GT: At such times, journalists should remember that they are the fourth power. We are not service staff. We have to say, “Come and see. This is how the war looks.”

True information now saves lives, including lives of those people who are being mobilized in Russia, including lives of those people who’ve been trying to leave the country because of military call-up. I’m talking now about the Russian people who are in Europe or in America now, who think that the war is somewhere far away.

And we should remember that our readers must receive all this information. They should not be left out.

In recent years, it has been considered good practice not to hurt the readers. And I understand and respect the right of readers not to be traumatized. And of course, we can warn prior [to that] there are scenes of violence. But it seems that at such moments, you need to honestly say, “Come and see. Your future and the future of your children depends on it.”

VOA: Journalism should be unbiased. How is it for Russian journalists to be open-minded when Russia started the war?

GT: There is nothing complicated about it. Do not hide the facts. Get to the bottom of the facts, expose the lies.

First of all, do not forget that journalism gives a voice to those who are deprived of it, who are now the victim. We must be on the side of the weak, on the side of those who are offended.

VOA: As you have already said, some people do not want heavy information, they want information that is easier to understand. How can media work in a situation where disinformation or fake news is spreading?

GT: It doesn’t seem to me that there is a request for fakes. There is, of course, a request to stay in the comfort zone. Because as soon as you release this information into your life, you have to decide something, and it is always quite difficult to decide.

This is a situation of choice. You must make a choice and be responsible for the consequences of that choice.

Therefore, it seems to me that the most obvious thing that journalism can do is not to shout. Talk the way you talk to a person close to you, dear to you, whom you are afraid of losing.

It seems to me that now there is a shortage of this calm tone, explanatory, explaining … step by step, bring them closer to the realization that, in general, you need to interact with reality.

VOA: The war has changed everything. Journalism is also transforming. What future do you see for the media?

GT: It’s too early to talk about a distant future. Now all independent journalists in Russia are on the brink of survival. They are fighting for their lives and for their audience.

The most important thing is not to lose the audience. There are many millions of people inside Russia, and we show them that they are not alone, and that we are still with them, we are in touch. The internet is big, the world is small, we are all together.

And when the media survive, they can keep their audience, then everything will flourish.

Russian journalism is like the dandelion that sprouts through three layers of asphalt. Everything will bloom. No one has given up the profession. People who are now engaged in journalism are aware of the risks. So, everything will be in blossom. But let’s survive first.

Swedish Military Chief Pledges Support for NATO Efforts

Sweden is committed to NATO’s globe-spanning 360-degree approach to confronting both today’s and tomorrow’s challenges, and that includes both Russia and China, the top Swedish military official told an audience in Washington this week.

“As of today, we see no alarming Russian movements along our borders,” Micael Byden, the supreme commander of Swedish armed forces, said Thursday during an event at the Swedish Embassy in Washington. “Not the least in the ground domain, [Russian] capabilities have diminished considerably due to the war in Ukraine.”

However, Russia still possesses significant capabilities, and Sweden does not “exclude anything, we stay alert,” Byden said, noting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a “completely new security order in Europe.”

Byden named the joint applications to join NATO by Sweden and Finland last spring among the most notable features of that new order.

Since then, support for NATO membership in his country has grown “even stronger in the summer and autumn,” Byden said.

“We have been warmly welcomed” by countries that joined the alliance earlier, he said. “Warmer than I could have imagined.”

Byden said he initially thought to himself: “When you enter a new organization, a new family, you need to prove yourself. That has not been the case.”

But he pledged that “Sweden will be a net contributor from day one” and “will contribute in strategic depth, increased situational awareness and strong interoperable capabilities.”

Maintaining ‘situational awareness’

Byden said he has submitted recommendations to his government to strengthen the country’s military with additional standing units, new equipment and platforms, and a greater number of conscript soldiers.

“Maintaining a high-degree of situational awareness has been a key priority,” he said, emphasizing that “we fully embrace [NATO’s] 360-degree perspective.”

NATO documents describe that 360-degree approach as applying to defense in “the land, air, maritime, cyber and space domains, and against all threats and challenges.”

“We have always kept our eyes and ears towards Russia. We know Russia as our opponent,” Byden said. “We realize now that there are other countries we also need to know more about, because of [their] ambitions, and that would be China.”

Speaking to VOA after the embassy event, Byden said that as his country enters NATO, “we need to understand that things are happening — we need to be able to support other countries within the alliance, and that means that what would be a challenge for them would [also] be a challenge for us.”

He also said Sweden needs to expand its knowledge about some of those challenges facing the alliance.

“First of all, we still need to learn about China and what China is doing, that’s where we are. By ‘we,’ I mean Sweden,” he said.

Eager to participate in NATO

The Nordic region appears to be going through a major shift in its relations with Beijing, as are other regions of the world.

In 2013, Chinese official media reported that “Nordic countries have joined an international race to team up with China in exploring science and technology opportunities.”

But earlier this year, an analyst at the Danish Institute for International Studies wrote in the publication The Diplomat that Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland “are looking instead to limit China’s presence and influence.”

In the same article, its author, Andreas Forsby, wrote, “In the past few years … perceptions of the People’s Republic of China have fundamentally changed in the Nordic countries as security-related concerns and sensitive political issues have come to the fore.”

Forsby noted that both Denmark and Finland have officially adopted the term “systemic rival,” first used by the EU Commission in March 2019, to describe their view of Beijing.

Byden, a trained fighter pilot whose career has included an assignment as defense attache at the Swedish Embassy in Washington and chief of staff of the Swedish Air Force, said Sweden is eager to participate in NATO joint activities, including air policing and participating in an enhanced forward presence along NATO’s eastern border as soon as it becomes a full member.

Botswana Records Surge in Lithium Batteries Theft as Global Demand Soars

Authorities in Botswana are reporting increased thefts of lithium batteries from mobile phone towers amid a surge in global demand for the battery in electric vehicles. The southern African nation’s biggest mobile network operator says it has lost more than $100,000 worth of lithium batteries in the past week alone.

Botswana police spokesperson Diteko Motube said most of the stolen batteries are being smuggled across the border to Zimbabwe.

Motube said five suspects from Zimbabwe and a Botswanan national were arrested this week while in possession of batteries worth more than $100,000.

The batteries were stolen from Botswana’s leading mobile network service provider, Mascom.

Company spokesperson Tebogo Lebotse-Sebego said the thefts are derailing their service delivery.

“This issue is certainly a crisis and it is affecting our quality of services ambitions,” said Lebotse-Sebego. “We are working closely with the relevant law enforcement offices and other administrators, including the community to find sustainable solutions to arrest the situation.”

Electric cars fuel demand

There is a surge in global demand for lithium batteries – and their components – due to their use in electric cars.

However, Zimbabwean-born UK based economic and political analyst Zenzo Moyo said the thefts in Botswana could be the result of the frequent power outages experienced in some southern African countries.

“It is not surprising that these lithium batteries are in high demand now mainly because of the load shedding that is being experienced in southern Africa especially in Zimbabwe and South Africa,” said Moyo.

Some households use lithium batteries for solar lighting, while light industries also rely on them.

Moyo said there is a huge market for the batteries in countries — such as Zimbabwe — that are turning to alternative energy sources.

“The economic hardships that Zimbabwe face cannot be used as an excuse for any kind of theft whether these are batteries or not,” he said. “If you look at the numbers that (the police) intercepted — these are huge numbers — it indicates that the people who were carrying these batteries are either runners or were selling them. There is a huge market for them understandably but the people that were carrying these batteries cannot be people who are starving but selling because there is a market.”

Demand greater than supply

Lithium’s price has risen 13-fold in the last two years, with global demand for the metal rapidly outpacing supply.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London-based price reporting agency, projects, that the lithium mining market will almost double in the next eight years to nearly $6.4 billion in 2030.

UN: Shipment of Russian Fertilizer Bound for Malawi

The U.N. top trade official said Friday a shipment of Russian fertilizer is scheduled to leave a Norwegian port Monday bound for Malawi, helping to ease a backlog of 300,000 tons of the agricultural products currently in European ports.

Speaking at a news briefing in Geneva, U.N. Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan said the shipment is good news as it will help address global food shortages and comes a day after it was announced the Black Sea Grain deal would be extended.

The original deal, agreed to on July 22, unblocked shipments of 11 million tons of grain and foodstuffs from Ukraine and helped ease rising global food prices. The initiative set up a safe shipping corridor in the Black Sea and inspection procedures to address concerns that cargo vessels might carry weapons or launch attacks.

The deal was set to expire Saturday but now will be extended by four months.

Grynspan said as part of the grain deal, the United Nations made an agreement with Russia to free up its shipments of food and fertilizer stuck in European ports. She said the backlog has created shortages and driven up the global price of fertilizer.

She explained that while those shipments were not directly targeted by Western sanctions, many countries have been reluctant to deal with Russia, leaving the shipments stranded.

Grynspan said as part of that deal the Russian company Uralchem-Uralkali donated the backlogged fertilizer to U.N. humanitarian efforts. She said, “A lot needed to be done for this to be possible, but now we have a model that is working. It’s a humanitarian activity.”

Grynspan said the U.N. World Food Program is taking charge of getting the fertilizer from the European ports to the countries that need it. She said she hopes the next shipment goes to West Africa, which, she said, “has been very affected by the affordability crisis of fertilizers.”

Grynspan also said the U.N. would be aiming for a longer renewal period of the Black Sea Grain deal beyond the 120 days agreed to Thursday.

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

Russia Pounding Ukraine’s Energy Infrastructure

Russian forces continue to barrage Ukraine in multiple parts of the country — from the capital city Kyiv in the north to Odesa in the south — and target the country’s energy facilities.

Amid freezing temperatures, about 10 million people have been left without power and heat, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday in his nightly video address.

The Ukrainian president said people are experiencing blackouts and outages in 18 regions, as well as in Kyiv, and he added that utility workers are doing “everything to restore electricity.”

The chief executive of state utility operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Ukrainian state television, “We need to prepare for possible long outages, but at the moment we are introducing schedules that are planned and will do everything to ensure that the outages are not very long.”

The capital also is facing “a huge deficit in electricity” according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, who told The Associated Press that about 2 million people, half the city’s population, are plunged into darkness periodically as authorities try to restore the city’s power grid.

A United Nations agency said it feared a humanitarian crisis this winter if the power outages continued.

Russia’s defense ministry said its strikes in Ukraine on Thursday were aimed at military and energy infrastructure, Russian news agencies reported.

Reuters reports that in its daily briefing, the defense ministry said that it used long-range weapons to hit defense and industrial targets, including “missile manufacturing facilities.”

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy met in Kyiv with the executive vice president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis. The president thanked him for the EU’s planned financial assistance program of 18 billion euros in 2023. He expressed hope Ukraine will be able to receive the first tranche as early as January.

“Ukraine’s ability to continue to withstand Russia’s aggression, the ability of our budget to withstand financial challenges, the energy crisis caused by the war is extremely important,” said Zelenskyy.

Ukraine reports shelling, missiles nationwide

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, overnight shelling and missile strikes targeted “critical infrastructure” and damaged energy equipment, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov. Eight people, including energy company crews and police officers, were injured while trying to clear some of the debris, he said.

Russian forces employed drones, rockets, heavy artillery and warplanes in Ukraine’s southeast, resulting in the death of at least six civilians and wounding an equal number in the past 24 hours, the office of the president reported.

In the Zaporizhzhia region, part of which remains under Russian control, heavy fire targeted 10 towns and villages. The death toll from a rocket attack Thursday on a residential building in the city of Vilniansk climbed to nine people, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, posted on Telegram.

In Nikopol, located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, 40 Russian missiles damaged several high-rise buildings, private houses, and a power line.

In the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Russia was using troops pulled from Kherson to unleash heavy attacks. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired artillery on the towns of Bakhmut and nearby Soledar, among others. 

They were also shelling Balakliya in the Kharkiv region and Nikopol, a city on the opposite bank of the Kakhovka reservoir from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the statement said. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports. 

In Luch, a village that sits on the border between the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, months of Russian shelling have turned the locality into a virtual ghost town. Before February 24, about 1,000 people lived in the village. Now, there are only 38 who remain.

Luch has been shelled from the side of the Russian-occupied Kherson region almost every day since the start of the war. No buildings remain intact in the village at present.   

“It’s tough. We are constantly hiding; we can’t figure out what side the missiles are coming from,” said Galyna, a resident of the village. “We had such a lovely village, and now there’s nothing left. Everything is in ruins.”

Yelyzaveta Krotyk contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.