His appeals for an Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine went unheeded. His planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was canceled. A proposed visit to Moscow? Nyet. Even his attempt to showcase Russian-Ukrainian friendship fell flat.

Pope Francis hasn’t made much of a diplomatic mark in Russia’s war in Ukraine, seemingly unable to capitalize on his moral authority, soft power or direct line to Moscow to nudge an end to the bloodshed or at least a cease-fire.

Rather, Francis has found himself in the unusual position of having to explain his refusal to call out Russia or President Vladimir Putin by name — popes don’t do that, he said — and to defend his “very good” relations with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has justified the war on spiritual grounds.

While the long list of dead ends would indicate a certain ineffectiveness, it is par for the course for the Vatican’s unique brand of diplomacy that straddles geopolitical realities with spiritual priorities, even when they conflict. And in the case of Ukraine, they have: Francis has sought to be a pastor to his local flock in Ukraine, incessantly calling for peace, sending cardinals in with humanitarian aid and even reportedly proposing that a Vatican-flagged ship evacuate civilians from the besieged port of Mariupol.

But he has also kept alive the Holy See’s longer-term policy goal of healing relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, which split from Rome along with the rest of Orthodoxy over 1,000 years ago. Up until recently, Francis held out hope that he would secure a second meeting with Russian Patriarch Kirill, even while Moscow bombed Ukrainian civilians.

Francis recently revealed that their planned June meeting in Jerusalem had been called off, because Vatican diplomats thought it would send a “confusing” message. But he also told an Italian newspaper Tuesday that he had offered to go to Moscow to meet with Putin, and wondered aloud if NATO’s eastward expansion hadn’t provoked the war.

To his critics, Francis’ continued outreach to Moscow even amid reported atrocities harks back to the perceived silence of Pope Pius XII, criticized by some Jewish groups for failing to speak out sufficiently against the Holocaust. The Vatican insists Pius’ quiet diplomacy helped save lives.

“Francis is doing what he can, with the right priorities, to stop the war, stop people from suffering,” said Anne Leahy, who was Canada’s ambassador to the Holy See from 2008-12 and ambassador to Russia in the late 1990s.

“But he’s keeping channels of communication open in every way he can. Even if it doesn’t work, I think the idea is to keep trying,” she said.

Leahy noted that a pope must have as a top priority this Gospel-mandated objective to unify Christians, and that relations with the Orthodox therefore must remain at the forefront.

“Diplomacy is at the service of the church’s mission, and not the other way around,” she said in a telephone interview.

At times, Francis’ words and gestures seem contradictory: One day he sits down for a videoconference with Kirill that is prominently featured on the website of the Russian Orthodox Church with a statement saying both sides had expressed hope for a “just peace.” Three weeks later, he kisses a battered Ukrainian flag brought to him from Bucha, where Ukrainian civilians were found shot to death with their hands bound.

The Vatican has a long tradition of this dual-faceted diplomacy. During the Cold War, the policy of “Ostpolitik” meant that the Vatican kept up channels of communication with the same Communist governments that were persecuting the faithful on the ground, often to the dismay of the local church.

Francis’ decision to continue with the “classic Vatican diplomacy of Ostpolitik, of dialoguing with the enemy and not closing the door, is debatable,” said the Rev. Stefano Caprio, professor of church history at the Pontifical Oriental Institute.

“Those who are upset that the pope isn’t defending them more are right, but those from the diplomatic side who say ‘We can’t throw away these relations’ are also right. They are obviously in contradiction,” he said.

“But since we’re not talking about an argument of faith — we aren’t talking about the persons of the Holy Trinity — you can have opinions that differ from the pope,” he added.

In some ways, Francis’ role on the sidelines of the Ukraine conflict can be traced to his position when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and the Holy See appeared at least publicly neutral, despite appeals from Ukrainian Greek Catholics, who are a minority in the majority Orthodox country, for Francis to strongly condemn Moscow.

Instead, Francis described the ensuing conflict as the fruit of “fratricidal violence,” as if both sides were equally to blame and that the conflict was an internal Ukrainian matter.

“My experience in 2014 is that the existence of the (Ukrainian) Greek Catholics was seemingly an embarrassment and a frustration with the Holy Father and the Holy See,” said John McCarthy, who was Australia’s ambassador to the Vatican at the time. “Their priority was the relationship with the Russian Orthodox” and securing a meeting with Kirill.

Francis eventually obtained that long-sought meeting, embracing Kirill in a VIP room of the Havana, Cuba, airport on Feb. 12, 2016, in the first meeting between a pope with the Russian patriarch since the 1054 Schism.

The two men signed a joint statement that was hailed by the Holy See at the time as a breakthrough in ecumenical relations. But it enraged Ukraine’s Greek Catholics because, among other things, it referred to them as an “ecclesial community” as if they were a separate church not in communion with Rome, and didn’t mention Russia’s role in the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Fast forward to 2022, and Francis again upset the local Ukrainian church: The Vatican had proposed that a Ukrainian and Russian woman carry the cross together during the Vatican’s torchlit Good Friday procession at the Colosseum. The gesture, which preceded Francis’ unheeded Easter appeal for a truce, was an attempt to show the possibility of future Russian-Ukrainian reconciliation.

But the Ukrainian ambassador objected, and the head of Ukraine’s Greek Orthodox faithful, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, decried the proposal as “inopportune and ambiguous,” since it didn’t take into consideration the fact that Russia had invaded Ukraine.

In the end, the Vatican compromised: The women carried the cross but instead of reading aloud a meditation that had called for reconciliation, stood together in silent prayer.

Leahy, the former Canadian ambassador, said the outcome was a classic example of papal pastoral care bridging Vatican diplomacy: Francis listened to Shevchuk’s complaint and modified the ritual, while keeping his broader agenda of dialogue with Russia alive.

Recalling the word “pontiff” derives from the Italian word for “bridge,” she said: “It’s the job of a diplomat, and certainly of a supreme pontiff who has the word ‘bridge’ written in his name, to keep the channels open.”

The Rev. Roberto Regoli, a professor of church history and an expert in papal diplomacy at the Pontifical Gregorian University, said those diplomatic channels with the Orthodox are important now, but also in the future when eventually Ukraine will have to be rebuilt.

“The reconstruction of a country … requires the involvement of all forces, even religious ones,” he said. “So, keeping these channels open is useful for the present but even more for the future, because it will take decades to rebuild.”
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Pope Francis said in an interview published on Tuesday that he has asked for a meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to stop the war in Ukraine but had not received a reply.

The pontiff also told the Italian daily Corriere Della Sera that Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has given the war his backing, “cannot become Putin’s altar boy.”

Francis told the newspaper that about three weeks into the war, he asked the Vatican’s top diplomat to send a message to Putin about setting up a meeting.

“We have not yet received a response and we are still insisting,” the pope said.

He added: “I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at this time. But how can you not stop so much brutality?”

Francis also said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had told him that Putin planned to end the war on May 9, which Russia celebrates as Victory Day marking Nazi Germany’s surrender in 1945.

The 85-year-old pontiff made an unprecedented visit to the Russian Embassy in Rome when the war started.

Information from Reuters and AFP was used in this report.
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The mayor of Ukraine’s besieged city of Mariupol said Tuesday 100,000 citizens remained in the city, while Ukrainian officials awaited the arrival of the first group of people who were able to leave a bombed-out steel plant.

Mayor Vadym Boychenko said those still in the city included some civilians trapped in the bunkers and tunnels under the Azovstal iron and steel works.  There are an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops holed up there as well.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Monday that only civilians had so far been able to leave the plant and that Ukraine’s government was continuing to work to negotiate an evacuation for soldiers holed up inside.  Evacuated civilians were heading to Zaporizhzhia, about 200 kilometers away, although their progress was reported to be slow.

Russia’s military said Monday that 69 people who came out of the steel mill chose to be evacuated to Ukraine-controlled territories, while 57 others asked to stay in areas controlled by Russia.  

Ukraine has previously accused Russia of taking Ukrainians to Russia against their will, a charge Moscow denies.  

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Greek state television Monday that the remaining civilians in the steel plant had been afraid to board buses because they believed they would be taken to Russia.  

Economic pressure

As soon as Tuesday the European Union is expected to propose a new package of sanctions on Russia, including limits on Russian oil. German officials indicated Monday that country could support a full EU embargo of Russian oil. 

“We have managed to reach a situation where Germany is able to bear an oil embargo,” German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said. 

Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Monday, “We expect a new package from the European Union soon. This package should include clear steps to block Russia’s revenues from energy resources.”  

Tuesday U.S. President Joe Biden is visiting the state of Alabama where Lockheed Martin manufactures weapons including the Javelin anti-tank missiles that are among the arms the United States is sending to Ukraine.

The White House said Biden will also “deliver remarks highlighting his request to Congress to pass funding quickly to help Ukraine continue to succeed against Russian aggression and make sure the United States and our allies can replenish our own stocks of weapons to replace what we have sent to Ukraine.”

The CIA on Monday released instructions on social media explaining how Russians disaffected by the war could get in touch with U.S. intelligence.  

“We are providing Russian-language instructions on how to safely contact the CIA — via our dark web site or a reputable VPN — for those who feel compelled to reach us because of the Russian government’s unjust war,” a CIA spokesperson said.  

A senior U.S. defense official described continuing problems for Russia’s military, including poor command and control issues and low morale in many units.  

“We continue to see minimal at best progress by the Russians” in capturing the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine,” the official said, adding, “They’ll move in, declare victory and then pull out, allowing the Ukrainians to take it back.”  

The official described Russia’s advances as “very cautious, very tepid, very uneven,” adding that “in some places, quite frankly, the best word to describe it would be ‘anemic.'” 

VOA’s Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Press and Reuters. 
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Spain said Monday that the mobile phones of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defense Minister Margarita Robles were tapped using Pegasus spyware in an “illicit and external” intervention.

Their phones were infected last year by software owned by the Israeli-based firm NSO, which is the target of numerous investigations worldwide, according to a senior official.

“It is not a supposition, they are facts of enormous gravity,” said the minister of the presidency, Felix Bolanos.

“We are absolutely certain that it was an external attack…because in Spain, in a democracy like ours, all such interventions are carried out by official bodies and with judicial authorization,” he said.

“In this case, neither of the two circumstances prevailed, which is why we have no doubt that it was an external intervention. We want the judiciary to investigate,” Bolanos said.

He did not say whether the Spanish authorities had any indication yet where the attack originated from or whether another country was behind it.

Bolanos said that Sanchez’s phone had been tapped in May 2021 and Robles’ in June of the same year.

“A determined amount of data” was extracted from both phones, he added.

“There is no evidence that there was other tapping after those dates.”

Official phones targeted

The El Pais newspaper said the hackers extracted 2.6 gigabytes of information from Sanchez’s phone and nine megabytes from Robles’s phone, but the government still does not know “the nature of the stolen information and the degree of sensitivity.”

The attack targeted their work phones provided by the state, not their private phones.

Bolanos said experts were checking whether other members of the Spanish government were targets of spying involving Pegasus.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also led to another casualty: freedom of the press in Russia, according to a new report by Reporters Without Borders.

The media advocacy group has ranked Russia near the bottom of its 2022 World Press Freedom index, which was issued Tuesday in conjunction with World Press Freedom Day. The annual index classifies a record 28 countries as “having very bad media freedom.”

The Reporters Without Borders, also known as RSF, says Moscow’s assault on a free press ramped up as Russian troops invaded Ukraine through such means as propaganda, laws aimed at discrediting credible media, website bans and arrests.

Russia is just one of several countries highlighted in the updated index whose governments have either curtailed or outright suppressed media freedoms. They include:

– Afghanistan, where the Taliban pledged to uphold press freedom after regaining power last year, but instead imposed restrictive laws and blocked female journalists from the airwaves, and where media outlets are facing financial hardship after bans on entertainment and advertising cut revenue;

– Hong Kong, where pro-democracy news sites have been shut down after a series of raids and arrests since Beijing approved a sweeping national security law in 2020 after massive anti-government protests the year before;

– Ethiopia, which has imposed communications blackouts and restricted access amid the war in the Tigray region;

– and Myanmar, where the 2021 coup that overthrew the civilian government led to journalists being detained, media licenses revoked, and many news outlets driven back into exile, marking a 10-year setback for media rights.

“There is a contagion effect with authoritarian regimes,” said Clayton Weimers, the U.S. deputy director of RSF, “and when we allow a culture of impunity to exist where authoritarians are allowed to go after journalists, harass them, arrest them, beat them in the streets and kill them, it has a knock-on effect. It emboldens that same authoritarian to do it again next time, and it emboldens other authoritarians who are watching to do the same.”

More troubling, Weimars told VOA, is the impact media polarization and disinformation has on society: “In 2022, it’s really undeniable that media polarization and information chaos are really fueling social divisions in ways that are pretty new.”

Democracies play an important role in safeguarding press freedom. But this rise in disinformation and propaganda is having a disastrous effect on independent news, RSF finds.

The 2022 index reveals the United States made a slight improvement compared with 2021, but journalists and media outlets are flagging barriers to coverage, including of state governments and protests.

“We typically find that this is either due to just a blatant disregard for the laws governing open records or meetings, or they’re simply misinterpreting them,” Beth Francesco, the senior director of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, told VOA. “An individual is misinterpreting whether a journalist can be present at a particular event.”

Richard Green contributed to this report.
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Turkey is one of the few countries where Russian airplanes can fly and Russian passport holders can enter without visas, making it a prime destination for Russians seeking to escape both Putin’s crackdowns and the effects of economic sanctions. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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U.S. President Joe Biden has strong bipartisan support in Congress for his latest $33 billion aid request for Ukraine, in addition to the $13.6 billion in economic, humanitarian and military assistance already sent earlier this year.

In recent visits to Ukraine and Poland, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress was working quickly to pass Biden’s request, calling the aid package “an enormous amount of money” that lawmakers were “very proud” to provide.

But a handful of lawmakers on both the right and the left have raised concerns about the expansion of presidential authority to support a conflict in Europe. While Biden has made clear the U.S. will never commit ground forces to Ukraine to openly oppose Russia, the massive amount of support has revived questions about presidential war powers and the scope of American involvement overseas following two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ten of the 206 House Republicans voted against the Ukraine Lend-Lease Act, legislation that eased restrictions on Biden’s ability to transfer U.S. weapons to Ukraine. No Democrats voted against the bill.

Conservative Congressman Thomas Massie explained his vote against Lend-Lease, saying language of the legislation defined defensive weapons too broadly.

“Congress just authorized Biden to transfer virtually any weapon of war, other than a nuclear weapon, to Ukraine,” he tweeted. “Insane!”

Opponents of the Lend-Lease Act also expressed concerns that the flow of weapons to Ukraine could deplete the United States’ own stockpiles. They said the massive assistance to Ukraine should be more carefully considered when there are domestic concerns about rising costs due to inflation.

“President Biden is requesting billions more in aid for Ukraine that could potentially draw our military into another trillion-dollar conflict half a world away,” Rep. Tom Tiffany said in a statement after the vote.

“If the last two decades have taught us anything, it is that it’s always much easier to get our country into a foreign conflict than it is to get out. Intervening in an overseas military engagement — whether through the deployment of U.S. personnel or a blank-check for military assistance — is among the most serious decisions an American leader can make. It is a step that should only be taken when clear, vital national security interests of the United States are at stake,” he added.

Last month, 15 Republicans and two progressive Democrats voted against a ban of Russian oil and energy imports. Both Republicans and Democrats opposed to the ban said the move could not be made without considering the impact on Europe and without developing a better strategy for American energy independence.

Last week, four progressive Democrats and four conservative Republicans also voted against a non-binding resolution that would have given the Biden administration the ability to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, tweeted that oligarchs “should suffer huge financial losses” but said she voted against the legislation because it would give Biden the ability to “violate the 4th Amendment, seize private property and determine where it should go — all without due process.”

The 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects against unreasonable search and seizure of property by the government. Ocasio-Cortez said the bill “sets a risky new precedent in the event of future presidents who may seek to abuse an expansion of power.”

Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives have largely supported Biden’s approach to the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine while continuing to emphasize there can be no military solution to the crisis.

Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee has kept the issue of presidential war powers in public discussion for more than two decades since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the wake of those attacks, Congress passed the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs), authorizing U.S. presidents to take military action.

Lee and other lawmakers have noted that presidents of both parties interpreted AUMFs so broadly they were able to take action against individuals and groups that were not directly involved in the attacks and, in some cases, didn’t even exist.

With the stakes for confrontation with Russia so high, there has been concern with some lawmakers that U.S. aid could escalate the situation. Lee, who strongly condemned the Russian invasion in February, said in a statement, “I am confident in President Biden’s repeated commitment to keep U.S. military personnel out of any conflict in Ukraine itself. Should the ongoing situation compel the President to consider U.S. military intervention in addition to these sanctions, however, Congress must be consulted prior to any authorization as per the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The American people deserve to have a say before we become involved in yet another foreign conflict.”

But in Poland this week, Lee made clear she is in support of U.S. assistance to Ukraine, viewing it as a key tool in maintaining U.S. interests abroad.

“This is a moment in history — it’s a defining moment, quite frankly, whether or not the world goes forward with our democratic principles or moves backwards, which is what Putin is attempting to do,” Lee told reporters.
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The European Union on Monday accused Apple of abusing its dominant Apple Pay market position to prevent other companies from competing in contactless payment technologies. 

“Apple has built a closed ecosystem around its devices and its operating system, iOS. And Apple controls the gates to this ecosystem, setting the rules of the game for anyone who wants to reach consumers using Apple devices,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. “By excluding others from the game, Apple has unfairly shielded its Apple Pay wallets from competition.” 

The 27-nation bloc’s executive arm, the European Commission, said Apple’s practice “has an exclusionary effect on competitors and leads to less innovation and less choice for consumers for mobile wallets on iPhones.”  

The commission has not disclosed what, if any, fines could be levied against Apple should it be found in violation of antitrust laws. 

In response, Apple said it would cooperate with the Commission. 

The company said it “will continue to engage with the Commission to ensure European consumers have access to the payment option of their choice in a safe and secure environment.”  

The Commission has been investigating several aspects of Apple’s business practices in Europe since 2020, including the possibility the company violates European antitrust laws over music streaming and the app store. 

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press. 

 
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Russia’s Bolshoi Theatre has announced it is cancelling the performances directed by Kirill Serebrennikov and Timofey Kulyabin who have spoken out against Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

Late Sunday, Russia’s top theatre announced that instead of the three performances of “Nureev,” a ballet directed by Serebrennikov, the audiences this week will see a production of Aram Khachaturian’s ballet, “Spartacus.”

The prestigious theatre also said that instead of “Don Pasquale,” a comic opera by Gaetano Donizetti directed by Timofey Kulyabin, audiences this week will see a production of Gioachino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.”

The Bolshoi did not give any reason for the cancellations and spokeswoman Katerina Novikova told AFP on Monday that she had no “official” comment.

The Bolshoi performed “Spartacus” in early April, saying that proceeds would be used to help the families of Russian troops who died in Ukraine.

Serebrennikov, 52, was allowed in March to leave Russia, where he had been found guilty in 2020 of embezzling funds at Moscow’s Gogol Centre theatre.

His supporters say the conviction was revenge for his criticism of authoritarianism and homophobia under President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to AFP in Berlin last month, Serebrennikov said he felt “just horror, sadness, shame, pain” about Russia’s military campaign in pro-Western Ukraine.

“Nureev” is based on the life of Russian dance legend Rudolf Nureyev, and its use of onstage nudity and profane language outraged Russian conservatives.

Kulyabin, 37, who is also believed to be now based in Europe, has spoken out against Putin’s decision to send troops to Ukraine.

Several dancers have in recent weeks quit the Bolshoi including prima ballerina Olga Smirnova.
…

Ukrainian officials said they expect more civilians will be able to evacuate from the besieged city of Mariupol on Monday. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message late Sunday that more than 100 civilians were able to leave Sunday, and that they were due to arrive Monday in Zaporizhzhia, about 200 kilometers away. 

With Russian troops taking control of the rest of Mariupol, hundreds of civilians and an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops have been holed up at the Azovstal steel works. Multiple earlier attempts to evacuate civilians from the site fell apart with Ukraine accusing Russia of shelling evacuation routes. 

“For the first time, there were two days of real cease-fire on this territory,” Zelenskyy said. 

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk called the situation at Azovstal “a real humanitarian catastrophe” with people running low on food, water and medicine. 

The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross conducted Sunday’s evacuations, calling it a “safe passage operation.” 

As many as 100,000 other Ukrainian civilians may still be in Mariupol, located on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, after a two-month bombing campaign that has all but leveled it.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who along with six other Democratic lawmakers made an unannounced visit Saturday to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy, held talks Monday in Poland with President Andrzej Duda as she pledges support for NATO allies in their efforts to bolster Ukraine.

“Our meetings will be focused on further strengthening our partnership, offering our gratitude for Poland’s humanitarian leadership, and discussing how we can further work together to support Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement Sunday. 

Duda said at the start of their meeting that they would discuss “the situation in Ukraine, how to help them, what kind of support they need.”  He added that this is a “crucial” and “very difficult moment.”

About 5.5 million refugees have left Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in late February, according to the United Nations, with more than 3 million of them going to Poland. 

Romania has taken in the second most with more than 800,000. 

The White House announced Monday that first lady Jill Biden will begin a trip Thursday to Romania and Slovakia that will include meeting with Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion. Biden will also meet with aid workers, local families supporting Ukrainian refugees and educators who are helping Ukrainian children continue schooling. 

Pelosi was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Ukraine since the February 24 Russian invasion that has killed thousands of fighters on both sides and thousands of Ukrainian civilians.  

Speaking from Poland after leaving Kyiv, Pelosi said she had vowed to Zelenskyy, “We are with you until this fight is won.”    

She said the congressional delegation brought him “message of appreciation from the American people for his leadership” in fighting back against the Russian invasion. Pelosi has promised quick House passage of the new $33 billion aid request for Ukraine U.S. President Joe Biden sent to Congress last week.  

Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC’s “This Week” show that he too expects Congress to approve the new arms and humanitarian aid package, more than double the $13.6 billion in assistance Congress had already approved.  

After early predictions by some military analysts that Russia would quickly overrun Ukraine and topple Zelenskyy, McCaul said he now believes Ukraine “can win it. That should be the goal.”  

“I think the fighting spirit of the Ukrainians is far superior to that of the Russians,” McCaul said.  

Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, told ABC, “None of (the Russians’) objectives are met. They are trying to scare Ukrainians. We have to win and we will.” She described Pelosi’s visit to Kyiv as “yet another sign of the very strong support from the United States.”   

Britain’s defense ministry said more than one-fourth of the 120 battalion tactical groups Russia committed at the start of the conflict in Ukraine have likely “been rendered combat ineffective.”  The ministry added that some of the most elite Russian units “have suffered the highest levels of attrition.”

The Associated Press, Agence France-Press and Reuters provided some information in this report.
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For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. All times EDT:

1:45 a.m.: Ukrainian officials said they expect more civilians will be able to evacuate from the besieged city of Mariupol on Monday. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message late Sunday that more than 100 civilians were able to leave Sunday, and that they were due to arrive Monday in Zaporizhzhia, about 200 kilometers away.

With Russian troops taking control of the rest of Mariupol, hundreds of civilians and an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops have been holed up at the Azovstal steel works. Multiple earlier attempts to evacuate civilians from the site fell apart with Ukraine accusing Russia of shelling evacuation routes. “For the first time, there were two days of real cease-fire on this territory,” Zelenskyy said. 

1:15 a.m.: Britain’s defense ministry said more than one-fourth of the 120 battalion tactical groups Russia committed at the start of the conflict in Ukraine have likely “been rendered combat ineffective.” The ministry added that some of the most elite Russian units “have suffered the highest levels of attrition.”

12:15 a.m.: The White House announced first lady Jill Biden will begin a trip Thursday to Romania and Slovakia that will include meeting with Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion. Biden will also meet with aid workers, local families supporting Ukrainian refugees and also educators who are helping Ukrainian children continue schooling.

12:01 a.m.: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking elected official to visit Ukraine’s president in Kyiv. She led a U.S. congressional delegation that promised more support for Ukraine and unwavering solidarity in its fight against Russian aggression. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.

Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Qantas announced Monday it will launch the world’s first non-stop commercial flights from Sydney to London and New York by the end of 2025, finally conquering the “tyranny of distance.”

After five years of planning, the airline said it was ordering 12 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft to operate the “Project Sunrise” flights to cities including London and New York.

Non-stop flights will start from Sydney by the end of 2025, it said, with the long-haul flights later planned to include Melbourne.

“New types of aircraft make new things possible,” said Qantas chairman Alan Joyce, according to a statement.

“The A350 and Project Sunrise will make any city just one flight away from Australia,” he said. “It’s the final frontier and the final fix for the tyrany of distance.”

Qantas operated research flights for long-haul flights in 2019, including a trial London-Sydney flight of 17,750 kilometers (11,030 miles) that took 19 hours and 19 minutes.

The airline already operates a 14,498-kilometre Perth-London trip that takes 17 hours.

“As you’d expect, the cabin is being specially designed for maximum comfort for long-haul flying,” Joyce said.

Qantas said the new A350 aircraft would be configured for 238 passengers in total with first-class suites offering a separate bed, recliner chair and wardrobe.

It promised spacier economy sections and a “well-being zone” designed for “movement, stretching and hydration.” 

Singapore Airlines currently operates the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight from Singapore to New York, clocking in a time of about 19 hours.

At the same time, Qantas confirmed it was also ordering 40 A321 XLR and A220 aircraft from Airbus. In addition, it bought options for another 94 of these planes until the end of 2034.

“The A320s and A220s will become the backbone of our domestic fleet for the next 20 years, helping to keep this country moving,” Joyce said.

The newer aircraft would reduce emissions by at least 15% if running on fossil fuels, and more if using sustainable aviation fuel, he said.

“We have come through the other side of the pandemic a structurally different company,” the airline boss said. “Our domestic market share is higher and the demand for direct international flights is even stronger than it was before COVID. The business case for Project Sunrise has an internal rate of return in the mid-teens.”

Qantas said the total cost of the deal was a matter of commercial confidence, though it indicated it had obtained a significant discount on the standard price of the aircraft.

The A350-1000 planes will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 turbofan engines, designed to be 25% more fuel efficient than the previous generation of aircraft, Qantas said.
…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking elected official to visit Ukraine’s president in Kyiv. She led a U.S. congressional delegation that promised more support for Ukraine and unwavering solidarity in its fight against Russian aggression. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Harrison Jozefowicz quit his job as a Chicago police officer and headed overseas soon after Russia invaded Ukraine. An Army veteran, he said he couldn’t help but join American volunteers seeking to help Ukrainians in their fight.

Jozefowicz now heads a group called Task Force Yankee, which he said has placed more than 190 volunteers in combat slots and other roles while delivering nearly 15,000 first aid kits, helping relocate more than 80 families and helping deliver dozens of pallets of food and medical supplies to the southern and eastern fronts of the war.

It’s difficult, dangerous work. But Jozefowicz said he felt helpless watching from the United States last year during the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, particularly after a close friend, Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, died in a suicide bombing at Kabul.

“So, I’m just trying to do everything I can to make sure I can help others not go through what I went through,” he said Saturday during an interview conducted through a messaging platform.

A former U.S. Marine who died last week was believed to be the first American citizen killed while fighting in Ukraine. Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, died Monday while working for a military contracting company that sent him to Ukraine, his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN.

An undetermined number of other Americans — many with military backgrounds — are thought to be in the country battling Russian forces beside both Ukrainians and volunteers from other countries even though U.S. forces aren’t directly involved in fighting aside from sending military materiel, humanitarian aid and money.

Russia’s invasion has given Ukraine’s embassy in Washington the task of fielding inquiries from thousands of Americans who want to help in the fight, and Ukraine is using the internet to recruit volunteers for a foreign force, the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine.

“Anyone who wants to join the defense of security in Europe and the world can come and stand side by side with the Ukrainians against the invaders of the 21st century,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a recruitment pitch.

Texan Anja Osmon, who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan while serving in the U.S. Army from 2009 through 2015, said she went to Ukraine on her own. A medic, she said she arrived in Ukraine on March 20 and lived in the woods with other members of the International Legion before a new commander sent her away because he didn’t want female fighters.

Osmon, 30, said her mother wants her home before September. But for now she’s anxious to get out of the hotel where she is staying in Lviv and catch on with another fighting force nearer the action.

“I can’t turn away from injustice,” she said. “No one should be scared.”

U.S. Marine veteran Eddy Etue said he quit his job in the gig economy, found a friend in Colorado to watch his cat and gave up his home four blocks from the beach in San Diego, California, to help out in Ukraine, where he’s been about two weeks. He first worked with an aid organization but now is training with the International Legion.

Etue, 36, said he simply couldn’t stay home. “It’s just the right thing to do,” said Etue, who financed the journey through an online fundraising campaign.

Etue’s family history pulled him toward Ukraine. He said his grandparents left Hungary with nothing but their four children and clothes after the 1956 revolution, which was put down by Soviet forces that killed or wounded thousands.

“What’s happening here will affect not only the people who are experiencing it but their children and grandchildren as well,” he said. “I know that from personal experience.”

Jozefowicz, the former Chicago cop, says thousands of American and other volunteers are in Ukraine. Multiple organizations are operating in the country, and Jozefowicz said his group alone has placed scores of volunteers in positions all over the country, with about 40 of those being combat jobs.

“We do not facilitate a civilian going into any direct-action role. We only guide and connect prior military volunteers,” he said.

But there’s plenty of other work to do. Groups of volunteers are getting medical and food supplies to people in the nation of 44 million people, he said, and others are working with refugees and others who’ve had to flee their homes.

“The closer I got into Ukraine and the more time I spent in Ukraine, the more voids I found that needed to be filled to maximize my group’s volunteer efforts,” he said.

Osmon, who said she’s been in contact with Jozefowicz’s group, said she supplied troops with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medications after days in the woods.

“Most everyone had air raid fever from hiding in the trenches in the snow and cold air,” she said. “Bronchitis was ravaging us.”

Etue said he got a feel for the country after making a 24-hour round trip with another volunteer to pick up a vehicle in Odesa. He said he’s been impressed with the quality of people serving in the International Legion since Ukrainians have done a good job of weeding out the inexperienced and “war tourists” who don’t have much to offer a military unit.

“I think they’re doing amazingly well given that they’re at war with one of the largest standing armies in the world,” he said.
…

Elena Trofimchuk fled Ukraine to Romania more than a month ago. She now sees Bucharest’s North Railway Station as a second home.

She doesn’t live there, but it’s where she spends most of her day welcoming fellow Ukrainian refugees escaping from Russia’s war and helping them sort out tickets, accommodation and onward destinations.

The 26-year-old said that keeping herself busy and useful keeps her from dwelling on Russia’s shelling of her hometown, Odesa, where many of her friends remain.

“If you sit and do nothing, you can just become crazy because you’re always searching for news. It’s very hard. So here I can help people buy tickets and find accommodations. I even help Romanians in the kitchen,” Trofimchuk said.

Before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, she worked as a photographer.

Trofimchuk is just one of many orange-vested Ukrainian volunteers working at the station.

Ukrainian volunteer Vitalii Ivanchuk flew all the way from Sri Lanka where he lived with his Ukrainian girlfriend to help refugees coming into Romania.

The 29-year-old IT developer said that many Ukrainians have a tough time communicating with Romanians, and volunteers who can speak both Ukrainian and English are in high demand.

His girlfriend, Anastasiia Haiduk, quit her investment job shortly after the war started and decided to volunteer at the station until the war ends and she can be reunited with her family in Ukraine.

The Romanian government is currently giving away free train tickets to Ukrainian refugees arriving in Romania that they can use to travel on to Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Slovakia and Bulgaria.

Trofimchuk said she was moved by the warm welcome and the Romanians’ show of solidarity with Ukraine.

“Every Romanian person wants to help. They’re very friendly. And I was shocked about this. I’m so happy that everyone wants to help,” Trofimchuk said.

Nearly 5.5 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war on Feb. 24, according to data from the U.N. refugee agency.

Most have entered countries on Ukraine’s western border: more than 3 million people have fled to Poland, while more than 817,000 others have fled to Romania and around 520,000 have crossed into Hungary, UNHCR statistics show.

For some Ukrainian volunteers, their Saturday evening ritual is to join a weekly demonstration at the Russian embassy in Bucharest along with Ukrainian residents and Romanians.

Station volunteers in Bucharest say they are now seeing an increasing number of arrivals from Odesa following Russian missile attacks on the southern Ukrainian port city on the Black Sea.

But Trofimchuk skipped a recent protest, saying she expected people to arrive from her hometown.

“I will stay at the station as late as I can, because there might be people who need my help,” Trofimchuk said.
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Citizens and trade unions in cities around Europe were taking to the streets on Sunday for May Day marches, and to put out protest messages to their governments, notably in France where the holiday to honor workers was being used as a rallying cry against newly reelected President Emmanuel Macron.

May Day is a time of high emotion for participants and their causes, with police on the ready. Turkish police moved in quickly in Istanbul and encircled protesters near the barred-off Taksim Square — where 34 people were killed In 1977 during a May Day event when shots were fired into the crowd from a nearby building.

On Sunday, police detained 164 people for demonstrating without permits and resisting police at the square, the Istanbul governor’s office said. At a site on the Asian side of Istanbul, a May Day gathering drew thousands, singing, chanting and waving banners, a demonstration organized by the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey.

In Italy, after a two-year pandemic lull, an outdoor mega-concert was set for Rome with rallies and protests in cities across the country. Besides work, peace was an underlying theme with calls for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Italy’s three main labor unions were focusing their main rally in the hilltop town of Assisi, a frequent destination for peace protests. This year’s slogan is “Working for peace.”

“It’s a May Day of social and civil commitment for peace and labor,” said the head of Italy’s CISL union, Daniela Fumarola.

Other protests were planned far and wide in Europe, including in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where students and others planned to rally in support of Ukraine as Communists, anarchists and anti-European Union groups held their own gatherings.

In France, the May Day rallies — a week after the presidential election — are aimed at showing Macron the opposition he could face in his second five-year term and to power up against his centrists before June legislative elections. Opposition parties, notably the far left and far right, are looking to break his government’s majority.

Protests were planned across France with a focus on Paris where the Communist-backed CGT union was leading the main march through eastern Paris, joined by a handful of other unions. All are pressing Macron for policies that put the people first and condemning his plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65.

In a first, far-right leader Marine Le Pen was absent from her party’s traditional wreath-laying at the foot of a statue of Joan of Arc, replaced by the interim president of her National Rally party. Le Pen was defeated by Macron in last Sunday’s runoff of the presidential election, and plans to campaign to keep her seat as a lawmaker.

“I’ve come to tell the French that the voting isn’t over. There is a third round, the legislative elections,” said Jordan Bardella, “and it would be unbelievable to leave full power to Emmanuel Macron.”
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Germany said Sunday it has made progress in sharply reducing its reliance on Russian energy, a strategic shift Europe’s biggest economy has embarked on since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Russian supplies now make up 12 percent of Germany’s oil imports compared to 35 percent previously, the economy ministry said in a statement.

Coal from Russia has also been slashed to eight percent compared to 45 percent of Germany’s purchases previously.

Dependence on gas remains substantial, but Europe’s biggest economy had also reduced its Russian sources to 35 percent of the total compared to 55 percent before Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

The government had in March laid out plans to halve oil imports from Russia by June and to end coal deliveries by the autumn.

Germany is also expected to be able to largely wean itself off Russian gas in mid-2024. 

“All these steps that we have taken require an enormous effect from all players and they also mean costs that are being felt by the economy and consumers,” said Economy Minister Robert Habeck.

“But they are necessary if we no longer want to be blackmailed by Russia,” he stressed. 

The reliance of Europe’s biggest economy on Russian energy has been exposed as an Achilles’ heel as Western allies scramble to penalize Vladimir Putin for his attack on Ukraine.

The export giant has since been racing to find alternative energy suppliers to replace Russian contracts.
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Learning to identify and defuse explosives is something Anastasiia Minchukova never thought she would have to do as an English teacher in Ukraine. Yet there she was wearing a face shield, armed with a landmine detector and venturing into a field dotted with danger warnings.

Russia’s war in Ukraine took Minchukova, 20, and five other women to Kosovo, where they are attending a hands-on course in clearing landmines and other dangers that may remain hidden across their country once combat ends.

“There is a huge demand on people who know how to do demining because the war will be over soon,” Minchukova said. “We believe there is so much work to be done.”

The 18-day training camp takes place at a range in the western town of Peja where a Malta-based company regularly offers courses for job-seekers, firms working in former war zones, humanitarian organizations and government agencies.

Kosovo was the site of a devastating 1998-99 armed conflict between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian forces that killed about 13,000 people and left thousands of unexploded mines in need of clearing. Praedium Consulting Malta’s range includes bombed and derelict buildings as well as expanses of vegetation.

Instructor Artur Tigani, who tailored the curriculum to reflect Ukraine’s environment, said he was glad to share his small Balkan nation’s experience with the Ukrainian women. Though 23 years have passed, “it’s still fresh in our memories, the difficulties we met when we started clearance in Kosovo,” Tigani said.

Tigani is a highly trained and experienced mine operations officer who served as an engineer in the former Yugoslav army during the 1980s. He has been deployed in his native Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Congo, Rwanda and Kenya, and conducted training missions in Syria and Iraq.

During a class last week, he took his trainees through a makeshift minefield before moving to an improvised outdoor classroom featuring a huge board with various samples of explosives and mines.

While it is impossible to assess how littered with mines and unexploded ordnance Ukraine is at the moment, the aftermaths of other conflicts suggest the problem will be huge.

“In many parts of the world, explosive remnants of war continue to kill and maim thousands of civilians each year during and long after active hostilities have ended. The majority of victims are children,” the International Committee of the Red Cross testified at a December U.N. conference.

“Locating (unexploded ordnance) in the midst of rubble and picking them out from among a wide array of everyday objects, many of which are made of similar material is a dangerous, onerous and often extremely time-consuming task,” the Red Cross said.

Mine Action Review, a Norwegian organization that monitors clearance efforts worldwide, reported that 56 countries were contaminated with unexploded ordnance as of October, with Afghanistan, Cambodia and Iraq carrying the heaviest burdens, followed by Angola, Bosnia, Thailand, Turkey and Yemen.

Thousands of civilians are believed to have died in Ukraine since Russia invaded Feb. 24. Russian forces have bombed cities and towns across the country, reducing many to rubble.

Military analysts say it appears Russian forces have employed anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, while Ukraine has used anti-tank mines to try to prevent the Russians from gaining ground.

With Ukrainian men from 18 to 60 years old prohibited from leaving their country and most engaged in defending it, the women wanted to help any way they could despite the risks involved in mine clearing.

“It’s dangerous all over Ukraine, even if you are in a relatively safe region,” said Minchukova, who is from central Ukraine.

Another Ukrainian student, Yuliia Katelik, 38, took her three children to safety in Poland early in the war. She went back to Ukraine and then joined the demining training to help make sure it’s safe for her children when they return home to the eastern city of Kramatorsk, where a rocket attack on a crowded train station killed more than 50 people this month.

Katelik said her only wish is to reunite with her family and see “the end of this nightmare.” Knowing how to spot booby-traps that could shatter their lives again is a necessary skill, she said.

“Acutely, probably as a mother, I do understand that there is a problem and it’s quite serious, especially for the children,” Katelik said.

Minchukova, wearing military-style clothes, said she was doubtful that normal life, as they all knew it before the war, would ever fully return.

“What am I missing? Peace,” she said. “I’m dreaming about peace, about sleeping in my bed not worried about going to bomb shelters all the time. I miss the people I lost.”

The Kosovo training center plans to work with more groups of Ukrainian women, both in Peja and in Ukraine.

“We’re planning as well to go to Ukraine very soon and start with delivery of courses there, on the theater” of war, Tigani said.
…

Prices for Russian credit default swaps — insurance contracts that protect an investor against a default — plunged sharply overnight after Moscow used its precious foreign currency reserves to make a last-minute debt payment Friday.

The cost for a five-year credit default swap on Russian debt was $5.84 million to protect $10 million in debt. That price was nearly half the one on Thursday, which at roughly $11 million for $10 million in debt protection was a signal that investors were certain of an eventual Russian default.

Russia used its foreign currency reserves sitting outside of the country to make the payment, backing down from the Kremlin’s earlier threats that it would use rubles to pay these obligations. In a statement, the Russia Finance Ministry did not say whether future payments would be made in rubles.

Despite the insurance contract plunge, investors remain largely convinced that Russia will eventually default on its debts for the first time since 1917. The major ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s have declared Russia is in “selective default” on its obligations.

Russia has been hit with extensive sanctions by the United States, the EU and others in response to its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and its continuing military operation to take over Ukrainian territory.

The Credit Default Determination Committee — an industry group of 14 banks and investors that determines whether to pay on these swaps — said Friday that they “continue to monitor the situation” after Russia’s payment. Their next meeting is May 3.

At the beginning of April, Russia’s finance ministry said it tried to make a $649 million payment due April 6 toward two bonds to an unnamed U.S. bank — previously reported as JPMorgan Chase.

At that time, tightened sanctions imposed for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prevented the payment from being accepted, so Moscow attempted to make the debt payment in rubles. The Kremlin, which repeatedly said it was financially able and willing to continue to pay on its debts, had argued that extraordinary events gave them the legal footing to pay in rubles, instead of dollars or euros.

Investors and rating agencies, however, disagreed and did not expect Russia to be able to convert the rubles into dollars before a 30-day grace period expired next week.
…

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has driven home the importance of NATO and the European Union for many of their newest members, according to Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, who was in Washington this week for the funeral of Czech emigre and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“The reason we joined these two organizations is that it won’t happen to us,” Lipavsky, said at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council.

The fact that Ukraine did not manage to enter the two Western institutions “created a gray zone” that Russian President Vladimir Putin exploited, said Lipavsky, who had discussed the challenge facing Ukraine, among other topics, in an interview with VOA earlier in the day.

The people of Ukraine “want to be part of the Western society, they want democratic elections, they want freedom of speech,” and they want to enjoy the prosperity that comes with them, he said. “I feel our moral responsibility to help them.”

Lipavsky is part of a newly sworn-in coalition government comprising both conservatives and progressives. Led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala, the new Czech administration is expected to pursue an internationalist foreign policy that promotes democracy and human rights, harkening back to an era when the country was led by playwright-turned political leader Vaclav Havel.

On his limited itinerary in Washington, Lipavsky paid tribute to Havel, who is memorialized in what is known as the “Freedom Foyer” of the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. There, his bust sits in close proximity to those of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

Lipavsky gifted his American hosts with a collection of Havel photographs, including photos of Havel with Albright, who was born in then-Czechoslovakia and whose father was a member of the Czechoslovakian diplomatic corps.

The friendship between Havel and Albright was stressed by Lipavsky and other Czech dignitaries who came to Washington for the funeral. Among them were Czech senate president Milos Vystrcil, the senate foreign affairs committee chairman and three former ambassadors to the United States.

Albright is credited with having played a critical role in ushering the Czech Republic and other Central and Eastern European countries into NATO.

“Madeleine Albright made that possible, because she knew — she had suffered the consequences of policy failures, including American policy failures” in the 1930s and ’40s, said Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland, at the Atlantic Council event alongside Lipavsky.

“Vaclav Havel, along with Poland’s Lech Walesa, pushed [then U.S. President] Bill Clinton on NATO enlargement,” Fried recalled. “One of their arguments was — I was around, I remember — ‘we have a window now to do it, don’t you Americans blow it!’ ”

Fried added that Havel and Walesa might not have “quite put it that way, but that was more or less their way, what they were saying.”

Speaking to VOA earlier by telephone, Fried took issue with widespread reports of “backsliding” on democratic governance in the former Soviet bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe. “Except for Hungary,” he said, he sees the countries in the region “going back to their roots” of fighting for freedom and democracy.

Lipavsky, for his part, said he believes the countries of the region are attracted to the West by its “democratic identity.”

“This identity is built upon the vision that every person can pursue his and her own happiness, and you have very basic values like human rights, rights to own [property], rights to think, freedom of speech,” he said. “Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe, want to be part of that, is part of that.”

The Ukrainian people are “literally fighting and dying” for the very same choice, he said, and the Czech Republic will do its utmost to help them to prevail against Russia and become a member of the club of like-minded nations that is the EU.
…

The continuation of negotiations to end Russia’s war against Ukraine is in doubt, with Ukraine’s president saying it is hard to discuss peace amid public anger over alleged atrocities carried out by Russian troops, while Russia’s foreign minister said Western sanctions and arms shipments were impeding the talks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.  

Ukrainian forces fought Saturday to counter a Russian advance in their country’s south and east, where the Kremlin is seeking to capture the industrial Donbas region. Western military analysts said Moscow’s offensive was going much slower than planned.

While Russia claimed on Saturday to have struck more than 380 targets overnight as it sought to take full control of the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said the Russian military’s efforts to capture targets were “not succeeding — the fighting continues.” Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, reportedly was targeted by mortar and artillery shelling Saturday.  

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a televised address Friday night that Ukrainian forces had recaptured a strategically important village near the city and evacuated hundreds of civilians.  

RFE/RL reported that in a daily briefing Saturday, the Ukrainian military said the greatest enemy losses were taking place in the Izyum area, near Kharkiv.

Appeals in Rome

Meanwhile, the United Nations continued working to negotiate the evacuation of civilians from the increasingly hellish ruins of Mariupol, the southern port city that Russia has sought to capture since it invaded Ukraine more than nine weeks ago.  

Two Ukrainian women whose husbands are defending the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol were in Rome on Friday, calling for any evacuation of civilians to also include an estimated 2,000 soldiers holed up in the plant, the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in the strategic and now bombed-out port city. They cited fears the troops would be tortured and killed if left behind and captured by Russian forces.  

“The lives of soldiers matter, too. We can’t only talk about civilians,” said Yuliia Fedusiuk, the wife of Arseniy Fedusiuk, a member of the Azov Regiment in Mariupol; she was joined by Kateryna Prokopenko, whose husband Denys Prokopenko, is the Azov commander.  

“We are hoping that we can rescue soldiers, too, not only dead, not only injured, but all of them,” Fedusiuk said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Saudi-owned Al Arabiya Television there was no need for anybody to provide help to open up humanitarian corridors out of Ukraine’s besieged cities.  

“We appreciate the interest of the [U.N.] secretary-general to be helpful,” he added. “[We have] explained … what is the mechanism for them to monitor how the humanitarian corridors are announced.”

Lavrov also accused the West of being “Russia phobic,” and he complained that his country never lived a day without being subject to sanctions by the West.  

“So … to believe that this latest wave of sanctions is going to make Russia cry ‘Uncle’ and to beg for being pardoned, those planners are lousy, and of course, they don’t know anything about [the] foreign policy of Russia and they don’t know anything about how to deal with Russia,” Lavrov said.
…

A sandy-colored tower glints in the sunlight and dominates the skyline of the Swedish town of Skelleftea as Scandinavia harnesses its wood resources to lead a global trend towards erecting eco-friendly high-rises.

The Sara Cultural Center is one of the world’s tallest timber buildings, made primarily from spruce and towering 75 meters over rows of snow-dusted houses and surrounding forest.

The 20-story timber structure, which houses a hotel, a library, an exhibition hall and theater stages, opened at the end of 2021 in the northern town of 35,000 people.

Forests cover much of Sweden’s northern regions, most of it spruce, and building timber homes is a longstanding tradition.

Swedish architects now want to spearhead a revolution and steer the industry towards more sustainable construction methods as large wooden buildings sprout up in Sweden and neighboring Nordic nations thanks to advancing industry techniques.

“The pillars together with the beams, the interaction with the steel and wood, that is what carries the 20 stories of the hotel,” Therese Kreisel, a Skelleftea urban planning official, tells AFP during a tour of the cultural center.

Even the lift shafts are made entirely of wood. “There is no plaster, no seal, no isolation on the wood,” she says, adding that this “is unique when it comes to a 20-story building.”

Building materials go green

The main advantage of working with wood is that it is more environmentally friendly, proponents say.

Cement — used to make concrete — and steel, two of the most common construction materials, are among the most polluting industries because they emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.

But wood emits little CO2 during its production and retains the carbon absorbed by the tree even when it is cut and used in a building structure. It is also lighter in weight, requiring less of a foundation.

According to the U.N.’s IPCC climate panel, wood as a construction material can be up to 30 times less carbon intensive than concrete, and hundreds or even thousands of times less than steel.

Global efforts to cut emissions have sparked an upswing in interest for timber structures, according to Jessica Becker, the coordinator of Trastad (City of Wood), an organization lobbying for more timber construction.

Skelleftea’s tower “showcases that is it possible to build this high and complex in timber,” says Robert Schmitz, one of the project’s two architects.

“When you have this as a backdrop for discussions, you can always say, ‘We did this, so how can you say it’s not possible?'”

Only an 85-meter tower recently erected in Brumunddal in neighboring Norway and an 84-meter structure in Vienna are taller than the Sara Cultural Centre.

A building under construction in the U.S. city of Milwaukee and due to be completed soon is expected to clinch the title of the world’s tallest, at a little more than 86 meters.

‘Stacked like Lego’

Building the cultural center in spruce was “much more challenging” but “has also opened doors to really think in new ways,” explains Schmitz’s co-architect Oskar Norelius.

For example, the hotel rooms were made as prefabricated modules that were then “stacked like Lego pieces on site,” he says.

The building has won several wood architecture prizes.

Anders Berensson, another Stockholm architect whose material of choice is wood, says timber has many advantages.

“If you missed something in the cutting you just take the knife and the saw and sort of adjust it on site. So it’s both high tech and low tech at the same time,” he says.

In Stockholm, an apartment complex made of wood, called Cederhusen and featuring distinctive yellow and red cedar shingles on the facade, is in the final stages of completion.

It has already been named the Construction of the Year by Swedish construction industry magazine Byggindustrin. 

“I think we can see things shifting in just the past few years actually,” says Becker.

“We are seeing a huge change right now, it’s kind of the tipping point. And I’m hoping that other countries are going to catch on, we see examples even in England and Canada and other parts of the world.” 
…

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who holds this year’s G-20 presidency, has invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the group’s summit in Bali later this year, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to attend. However, Zelenskyy’s invitation may not be enough to secure the attendance of U.S. and other Western leaders keen on isolating Moscow. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
…

First came a court summons alleging Mikhail Samin had discredited the Russian army. Then came the threatening calls.

Samin, a 22-year-old from Moscow who has been posting commentary about the war in Ukraine on social media, shared details of those chilling calls with VOA.

In one expletive-laden call, a man warned that Samin had 24 hours to delete his posts, saying that only then, “you may sleep peacefully.”

When Samin tried to reason with the caller, saying that people, children, were dying in Ukraine, the caller replied, “If you don’t stop being stupid, we will throw you off the balcony.”

The legal action and threats are becoming the new normal for those in Russia who defy the strict censorship around the war in Ukraine. Moscow in March passed a law to limit coverage of the military and invasion, and a mix of fines and website blocks has resulted in most independent news outlets being forced out.

Risky work

With traditional media limited, citizen journalists and activists like Samin are filling the void, but at great personal risk. Samin and student Ilya Kursov have both faced legal action for posts about the war and protests.

That new law was cited by authorities when Samin was summoned to court for “discrediting” the Russian army.

He had condemned the invasion in a March 6 Facebook post.

“A terrible thing is happening right now on behalf of [Russian] people,” Samin had posted. “My compatriots — brainwashed or following criminal orders — have invaded the territory of a foreign country, destroying houses and killing people. Thousands of people are dying and suffering needlessly. There can be no justification for this. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who started this war, cannot be justified.”

For Samin, the death threats were more concerning than the threat of prison.

The door to his apartment was defaced with the letter Z, a pro-Kremlin symbol of war against Ukraine. Samin’s sister was scared when she saw the mark as she left to walk the dog.

Samin was at a loss for words when describing his view of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

“Nothing discredits the armed forces of the Russian Federation more than the war crimes they commit, like torturing people, killing civilians,” he told VOA.

“There was a feeling of some unreality of what was happening because, before that, I was convinced that Putin would not do this,” said Samin. “It was apparent that this [war] would immediately destroy the future of Russia.”

Police pressure

When Ilya Kursov heard details of an anti-war protest in Barnaul, a city in the Altai Krai region of Siberia, at the end of February, the 24-year-old student shared the information on Instagram.

His post quickly came to the attention of police.

“I was abducted at 8 a.m. by [Russian police], right from my bed in the dormitory,” said Kursov, who was studying at the Altai State Pedagogical University.

At the police station he was questioned about the social media post. The police officers pressured him, threatening him with a prison term, Kursov said. He wasn’t allowed to call either his parents or lawyer and his laptop was confiscated.

The student believes the authorities are reacting so aggressively to any protest activity because, despite what the propaganda suggests, many Russians disapprove of the war.

Although many residents were afraid to join the protest openly, people approached the anti-war activists and spoke out for peace with Ukraine, he said.

Like Samin, Kursov is accused of “discrediting” the Russian army. Under the law, if the offense is repeated within a year, it can result in criminal prosecution, with a maximum punishment of up to 15 years in prison.

But the posts cited by police in Kursov’s case were published before the law was enacted.

“I have two fines for 50,000 rubles [approximately $700],”said Kursov.

The fine is about 1½ times the median monthly income for his city, according to the Federal Service for State Statistics in Russia.

The student said that in court documents he saw, authorities had flagged more of his social media posts on the war.

“I am afraid the prosecutors would have an opportunity to use it against me, which leads to a criminal case,” he said.

Both he and Samin have since left Russia, fearing for their safety.

‘Next to be targeted’

With independent media blocked off in Russia, ordinary citizens like Samin and Kursov have become a key source of war information in Russia, media freedom experts said.

“After this huge blow against independent media, the next to be targeted are the citizen journalists,” said Jeanne Cavelier, head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk at Reporters Without Borders.

“We can draw a parallel with what happened in Belarus, because when all major independent media were blocked and journalists were in prison or exile, the Belarusian authorities started to target citizen journalists,” Cavelier told VOA.

Another factor is the chilling effect. As well as making arrests and blocking platforms, Russia wants to extend its foreign agents law to citizens as well as media.

“It frightens people; it makes them think twice before sharing any information, even if they feel very strong in their opinions or their criticism of the Russian authorities, so that’s always a downside of any crackdown and repressive measures,” said Gulnoza Said, the Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

But while Kursov and Samin have been forced to leave their homes, both are adamant they will keep using social media to inform Russians about the war.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
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