As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its third month, questions have swirled about whether a negotiated solution with Russian President Vladimir Putin is possible.

Kenneth Dekleva, a psychiatrist who previously worked with the U.S. State Department, dismisses any speculation that Putin is unstable and therefore impossible to deal with.

“He’s not crazy. He’s a rational actor, and in his mind, he knows exactly what he’s doing,” says Dekleva. “He is an extremely savvy, highly intelligent and ruthless longtime leader who’s now been in power for over 22 years.”

Dekleva, a senior fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations in Texas, has studied the former Russian intelligence agent for 20 years. He describes Putin as single-minded, resilient, a master manipulator of people, and hyperfocused, due to his training as a KGB officer.

Putin, however, is 69 and his recent actions could suggest a less flexible style of leadership that is sometimes seen in aging leaders.

“You’re more rigid. You see things more in black and white, and you have less tolerance for nuance and ambiguity,” Dekleva says. “That’s certainly a possibility, although I don’t know that we can say that just from his current decision-making regarding the Ukraine war. That being said, he appears to be very, very deliberately focused and a bit of a man in a hurry.”

The key to negotiating with someone like Putin, Dekleva says, is to try to understand his mindset and be empathetic, even when you don’t agree with him.

For Jason Pack, a senior analyst at the NATO Defense College Foundation in Italy, reaching an agreement with Putin requires decisive action.

“I do think we need to be extremely bold, right up to the threshold of things that we might think would cause a big escalation … like engaging in bold cyberwarfare,” Pack says. “Like, ‘Hey, we’re going to make the lights go off in St. Petersburg for two hours and then negotiate after that. … The next time, it’s going to be two days if you don’t meet our demands.'”

Pack says Putin had every reason to believe the West would back down if he invaded Ukraine, despite the West having “more discretionary military and economic power.”

He points to Russia’s 2008 incursion in Georgia, formerly a part of the Soviet Union and now an independent republic, which resulted in Russia occupying 20% of that country. And Putin seized the southern region of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

“He seems to respect force, and he doesn’t respect just talking. I don’t even think that he thought that we would do the sanctions that were threatened if he invaded, because it was like, ‘This is just talk, talk, talk,'” says Pack, adding that he doesn’t believe Putin will take catastrophic nuclear action.

“He wants to live. He’s terrified of COVID. He’s 20 feet (6 meters) away from his advisers (in pictures). So, I don’t think that there is a risk of his blowing the world up so long as we stick to the rules of there not being NATO personnel fighting in Ukraine.”

Putin is adamantly against Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, joining NATO. He has complained about the West edging too close to Russian borders.

“His primary goal was to take Kyiv, and he didn’t use tactical nuclear (weapons) to try to take Kyiv,” Pack says. “He’s been exposed to be a degree of the paper tiger. He thought we would back down. He wants to live. He doesn’t want to be overthrown inside Russia. He has had horrible coordination with his generals. They had no battle plans.”

Dekleva says negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine must simultaneously address Ukraine’s security needs and sovereignty while addressing Putin’s perception of threat in terms of the expansion of NATO to Russian borders. He thinks a very senior third- party mediator that both Putin and the West can trust — possibly from China, India or Israel — could be useful to the process. And he’s very clear on what should not happen.

“Name-calling — calling Putin crazy or calling him a thug, or a murderer, or a war criminal — by senior leaders in the West, including (U.S.) President (Joe) Biden, is not helpful,” Dekleva says. “That’s not how you get your negotiating partner to come to the table.”
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After nearly three years in a Russian prison, former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed is back in the United States on Thursday after a swap with a Russian held in the U.S. 

Reed had been convicted of endangering the lives of two Moscow police officers while drunk. The U.S. called the trial a “theater of the absurd.” 

Reed arrived in his native Texas and will spend a few days in a military hospital to monitor his health. 

A Texas congressman posted photos on Twitter of Reed’s arrival.  

“It’s been (a) very exciting day for The Reed family. Trevor is back in the USA,” Reed’s mother, Paula Reed, tweeted early Thursday. 

Reed was exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been convicted of trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S. He had been arrested by U.S. special forces in Liberia in 2010. 

The official swap reportedly took place at an airport in Turkey. 

“The American plane pulled up next to the Russian plane, and they walked both prisoners across at the same time, like you see in the movies,” said Trevor’s father, Joey Reed. 

The U.S. is also trying to secure the release of another American, former Marine Paul Whelan, who was sentenced to 16 years in June 2020 for espionage.  

Some information in this report comes from Reuters. 

 
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  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hosting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for talks Thursday, while Ukraine calls for an embargo on Russian energy supplies and U.S. President Joe Biden prepares a proposal for military, economic and humanitarian aid.    

Guterres toured areas outside Kyiv, including Bucha, where the bodies of civilians were found after Russian forces withdrew from the area.  Those discoveries prompted calls for investigations of possible war crimes, and Guterres on Thursday encouraged Russia to cooperate with probes by the International Criminal Court. 

“I fully support the ICC and I appeal to the Russian Federation to accept, to cooperate with the ICC,” Guterres said.  “But when we talk about war crimes, we cannot forget that the worst of crimes is war itself.” 

The U.N. chief said after arriving in Ukraine that he wanted to “expand humanitarian support and secure the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones,” topics that were part of his talks earlier this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.        

“The sooner this war ends, the better — for the sake of Ukraine, Russia, and the world,” Guterres tweeted.           

Russian energy

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Thursday “it’s a matter of time” before an embargo is imposed on Russia’s key energy industry.

While European nations have taken steps to reduce or eliminate their reliance on Russian oil and gas, replacing those supplies and potential economic hits at home have made some leaders express caution about how quickly to proceed down that path as Ukrainian officials called for an embargo.

Podolyak tweeted that avoiding Russian energy supplies is both a moral issue and a matter of Russia ceasing “to be a reliable and predictable partner in the eyes of the world.”

“Switching to alternative supply channels quickly will be expensive, but not as expensive as not doing so,” Podolyak tweeted. “In the medium term, Moscow will face total economic and political isolation. As a result, poverty, the scale of which Russia has not seen yet.”

His comments came a day after Russia’s Gazprom halted natural gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.

Gazprom said Wednesday that Poland and Bulgaria had not met Russia’s demand to pay for natural gas in rubles. The company said four unnamed natural gas buyers have paid Russia in rubles, and 10 European companies have created ruble accounts to make payments in the Russian currency, Bloomberg News reported.

The White House said Wednesday this move by Russia was anticipated.

“That is why we, of course, had been in touch with Europe, including with these countries … over the last 24 hours, with leaders in Poland and Bulgaria,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “We have been working for some time now, for months with partners around the world to diversify natural gas supply to Europe in anticipation of, and to also address, near-term needs and replace volumes that would otherwise come from Russia.”

Polish President Andrzej Duda said the Russian gas cutoff violated “basic legal principles,” while Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said gas was being used as a “political and economic weapon.”

U.S. aid

The White House said Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks Thursday “on support for Ukrainians defending their country and their freedom against Russia’s brutal war.”

Psaki told reporters Wednesday that Biden would send to Congress this week a proposed package similar in focus to those already carried out to help Ukraine, with security, humanitarian and economic assistance to “help address a range of the needs the Ukrainians have.”

The U.S. Congress could also send “lend-lease” legislation further freeing up the flow of weapons to Biden’s desk for a signature as early as the end of this week.

The U.S. Department of Defense said Wednesday more than half of the 90 U.S. howitzers have reached Ukraine, and a first round of training on the long-range weapons has already wrapped up.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby cited the ongoing flow of weapons and aid in the success Ukraine has maintained in the battle against Putin’s unprovoked invasion.

“He’s concentrating all his firing forces in the east and in the south of Ukraine. So, he has achieved none of his strategic objectives,” Kirby said. “I think that’s proof right there that the kinds of systems that are being provided to Ukraine have had an effect … on their self-defense needs.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned against Western intervention in Ukraine as he spoke to lawmakers in St. Petersburg on Wednesday.

“If someone intends to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside, and create strategic threats for Russia that are unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast,” Putin said. “We have all the tools for this, things no one else can boast of having now. And we will not boast, we will use them if necessary. And I want everyone to know that.”

Support reaches $8 billion

Military support for Ukraine, either pledged or provided already by NATO allies, has reached $8 billion, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed Finland and Sweden to consider applying to be members of the NATO military alliance, and Stoltenberg said if they do choose to take that step, the process could be completed quickly.

“It is, of course, for Finland and Sweden to decide whether they would like to apply for membership in NATO or not. But if they decide to apply, Finland and Sweden would be welcomed with open arms to NATO,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

Russia has expressed opposition to prospective NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, saying if they do join, Russia will deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles to Kaliningrad.

“This is fundamentally about the right of every nation in Europe to decide its own future,” Stoltenberg said. “So when Russia tries to threaten, to intimidate Finland and Sweden from not applying, it just demonstrates how Russia is not respecting the basic right of every nation to choose its own path.”

National security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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This week’s French presidential contest boiled down to a debate between nationalism and globalism — and globalism prevailed in the victory of President Emmanuel Macron, an ally of President Joe Biden. What can the U.S. learn from this as Biden’s party faces elections? VOA’s Anita Powell reports.
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Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister said Wednesday that the list of war crimes committed by Russian troops in her country grows daily and accountability is critical.

“The city of Mariupol has turned into dust,” Emine Dzhaparova told an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “Thousands of civilians live in blockade without water, electricity, communications and basic things that all people need.”

She said that new mass graves and buried bodies are found daily in Ukrainian cities and that Russian soldiers carry out crimes on civilians, including torture, rape and murder.

“Russia must be [held] accountable for its crimes as a state,” she said, adding that the individuals who carried out the crimes must be prosecuted, too.

“The one who raped a girl, kicking out her teeth; who killed a man riding a bicycle; who fusilladed a queue of people waiting for bread; who shot humanitarian convoys, maternity hospitals, ambulances, cars,” Dzhaparova said. “These people have names and faces, and they are to be brought to criminal liability.”

8,000 investigations

Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said from Kyiv that her office has opened 8,000 cases to probe allegations of violations and the list continues to grow.

Several governments have offered Ukraine assistance in carrying out investigations and documenting abuses.

In an unprecedented move, more than 40 states have referred the situation in Ukraine to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan has made two trips to Ukraine and has an investigative team on the ground that includes experts, lawyers and anthropologists.

He said he sent three communications to Russia but had not received a reply. He urged Moscow to cooperate with his office, saying if it wants to expose accusations against it as fake, the best way to do so is to hold them up to scrutiny.

“My office and myself have no political agenda other than to get to the truth,” he assured member states.

But Russia’s representative dismissed the ICC as an institution susceptible to political pressure and financial leverage exerted by such countries as the United States and Britain.

“ICC is merely a political instrument and has nothing in common with justice,” Russian legal adviser Sergey Leonidchenko said. He said Russia would have its own meeting on accountability with its own briefers on May 6.

In terms of new crimes, the U.S. representative said Washington now had credible information that a Russian military unit operating near the eastern city of Donetsk had executed Ukrainians who were attempting to surrender, rather than take them into custody.

‘Deeply disturbing pattern’

Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack said that, if true, this would violate a core principle of war prohibiting the summary execution of civilians who surrender.

“These images and reports suggest that these atrocities are not the act of rogue units or individuals; rather, they reveal a deeply disturbing pattern of systematic abuse across all areas where Russia’s forces are engaged,” she said.

Russia has a record of abuses, including in Syria, where its troops have backed President Bashar al-Assad’s forces since 2015.

“The pattern of abuse we are seeing in Ukraine is consistent with well-documented grave crimes by Russian forces in other places such as Syria,” Human Rights Watch’s Ida Sawyer said from Kyiv. “The lack of accountability for those violations has regrettably opened the door for what is occurring today.”

Human rights lawyer and activist Amal Clooney said the horrific scenes from the Kyiv suburb of Bucha reminded her of the 2012 massacre of 108 civilians, many of them children, in the northwestern Syrian town of Houla.

“This Security Council met in an emergency session to decry the killings, and people thought it would be a turning point for accountability. It wasn’t,” Clooney said. “And now the same Russian general known as “the butcher,” who mounted a brutal attack on civilians in Aleppo, is massacring innocent families in Mariupol.”

She urged the diplomats not to grow numb to the violence as the war grinds on and merely call for justice that is never delivered.
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Ukraine’s sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, puts new scrutiny on Ankara’s policy of banning most Russian warships from entering the Black Sea. Analysts suggest the Ukraine conflict is changing the balance of power in Turkish-Russian relations. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. Camera: VOA/Courtesy
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The nations of Central Asia find themselves walking a tightrope over the war in Ukraine, unhappy over Moscow’s unprovoked attack on another former Soviet republic but economically dependent on Russia and fearful of angering its leader.

The response, in Uzbekistan and elsewhere, has been a carefully guarded policy of neutrality as laid out last month in remarks to the Uzbek Senate by then-Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.

“We recognize the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine” and consider the breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk to be Ukrainian territory, he said. Yet, he added, Tashkent values its deep political and economic ties with Russia.

Kamilov echoed President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s insistence that Uzbekistan will not join military blocs or deploy its forces abroad. Others in Mirziyoyev’s administration say Tashkent’s “stand on the war is firm” and that neutrality is its mantra. Any mention of the war brings a reminder of the nation’s neutrality.

U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Daniel Rosenblum said Washington understands why Tashkent will not explicitly denounce Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

WATCH: Ambassador Daniel Rosenblum speaks with VOA’s Navbahor Imamova:

Among the pressures it faces is the nation’s reliance on remittances from citizens who work in Russia, which accounted for 11.6% of Uzbekistan’s gross domestic product in 2020. The figures for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were even higher, at 31% and 27% respectively.

“We deeply respect the fact that due to geography and history, Uzbekistan has to balance a lot of interests and get along with its neighbors, who are also trading partners and important sources of investment,” Rosenblum told VOA.

But, he said, the United States expects real neutrality.

“We understand you’re not going to be criticizing the invasion or providing the kind of aid that many countries in Europe are to Ukraine, military aid and things of that nature,” he said. “But you’re also not going to be cheering on or aiding and abetting the other side.”

Uzbek officials told VOA they hear the American ambassador but fear Moscow.

“We are obviously afraid of Russia,” confessed one policymaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We don’t agree with them, but we see what becomes of a country if you get on the nerves of the Kremlin and President Putin.”

“Who will defend us if we are attacked?” a veteran Uzbek lawmaker pointedly asked. “We must take care of ourselves.”

That fear has led the government to maintain a tight rein on public reporting about the war. State media do not attempt independent coverage but simply repeat official positions. Private outlets in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, meanwhile, have faced official scrutiny when they attempted to analyze the conflict objectively or question the war.

Officials at several major news sites and channels told VOA they prefer self-censorship to dealing with angry authorities. In Uzbekistan, VOA found that nearly a dozen reporters, editors and bloggers were called in by the State Security Service in March because of their coverage of Ukraine.

Government officials say such measures are necessary to combat misinformation and disinformation but deny that independent media are being silenced.

“Uzbek media are covering Ukraine,” said Komil Allamjonov, a former presidential press secretary and head of Uzbekistan’s media regulator. “No one is banned from touching the topic, but we must be neutral and unbiased. This is not ‘our’ war. Uzbekistan has no journalists on the ground. Relying on foreign media requires caution and responsibility.”

Allamjonov, who owns a TV channel in Tashkent, co-chairs the Public Foundation for Support and Development of National Mass Media in Uzbekistan, together with Mirziyoyev’s eldest daughter, Saida Mirziyoyeva.

Talking to VOA from Geneva, where they were meeting U.N. agencies, Allamjonov said Uzbekistan deserves a robust media, capable of representing the public interest at home and abroad.

“Media freedom is key, and the way forward,” said Allamjonov. “We need international assistance in promoting accountability, capacity building and media literacy. Our fund is open for cooperation with development agencies, watchdogs and advocacy groups.”

But one Uzbek TV news director in Tashkent, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that most Uzbek outlets shy away from analyzing the conflict in Ukraine.

“It’s not like we are reporting live from Ukraine or Russia,” the news director said. “We pick up international sources like yours. The most we can do is engage the public, experts and officials. But since we can’t control what people say, we choose not to touch the topic.”

That leaves most Central Asians to get their information about the war from digital and foreign media, including Kremlin-funded outlets.

“There’s a lot of Russian media penetration here,” Rosenblum said. He said Uzbeks value media in their own language but find it hard to avoid Russia’s “false and distorted picture of Ukraine and the rest of the world.”

“The volume of voices we’re hearing from the Russian media drowns out others. It’s so loud, so vehement, so aggressive that it makes it seem that’s what everyone is thinking and saying,” he said.

Rosenblum is sympathetic to the Uzbek fear of provoking Russia but worries this will yield an information blockade and promote misleading content.

“I’m unaware of any effort to block the falsehoods that are coming out of the Russian media. … That’s also not ‘neutral’ and ‘balanced,’ right? So, if you’re going to be balanced and neutral, it must be on both sides,” he said. “It helps to give a fully rounded picture of what’s happening, so the media should be allowed to do its job.”

It is hard to verify reports about the war, the diplomat admitted. “But at the end, there is truth and there are facts. And I deeply believe that the facts of what is happening in Ukraine are coming out to the world. And it’s revealing a tragedy, a human tragedy.”

Noting that Mirziyoyev has repeatedly cited the need for vocal and critical media as a watchdog, he said, “If you’re going to have a principle that professional, truthful, aggressive reporting is important to the health of a society, then that should apply all the time. It shouldn’t just be, you know, when it’s convenient.”
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A hands-off approach to moderating content at Elon Musk’s Twitter could clash with ambitious new laws in Europe meant to protect users from disinformation, hate speech and other harmful material. 

Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” pledged to buy Twitter for $44 billion this week, with European Union officials and digital campaigners quick to say that any focus on free speech to the detriment of online safety would not fly after the 27-nation bloc solidified its status as a global leader in the effort to rein in the power of tech giants.

“If his approach will be ‘just stop moderating it,’ he will likely find himself in a lot of legal trouble in the EU,” said Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at digital rights group EDRi.

Musk will soon be confronted with Europe’s Digital Services Act, which will require big tech companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook parent Meta to police their platforms more strictly or face billions in fines.

Other crackdowns

Officials agreed just days ago on the landmark legislation, expected to take effect by 2024. It’s unclear how soon it could spark a similar crackdown elsewhere, with U.S. lawmakers divided on efforts to address competition, online privacy, disinformation and more.

That means the job of reining in a Musk-led Twitter could fall to Europe — something officials signaled they’re ready for.

“Be it cars or social media, any company operating in Europe needs to comply with our rules — regardless of their shareholding,” Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, tweeted Tuesday. “Mr Musk knows this well. He is familiar with European rules on automotive, and will quickly adapt to the Digital Services Act.”

Musk’s plans for Twitter haven’t been fleshed out beyond a few ideas for new features, opening its algorithm to public inspection and defeating “bots” posing as real users.

France’s digital minister, Cedric O, said Musk has “interesting things” that he wants to push for Twitter, “but let’s remember that #DigitalServicesAct — and therefore the obligation to fight misinformation, online hate, etc. — will apply regardless of the ideology of its owner.” 

EU Green Party lawmaker Alexandra Geese, who was involved in negotiating the law, said, “Elon Musk’s idea of free speech without content moderation would exclude large parts of the population from public discourse,” such as women and people of color. 

Twitter declined to comment. Musk tweeted that “the extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.” He added that by free speech, he means “that which matches the law” and that he’s against censorship going “far beyond the law.” 

The United Kingdom also has an online safety law in the works that threatens senior managers at tech companies with prison if they don’t comply. Users would get more power to block anonymous trolls, and tech companies would be forced to proactively take down illegal content. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office stressed the need for Twitter to remain “responsible” and protect users. 

“Regardless of ownership, all social media platforms must be responsible,” Johnson spokesman Max Blain said Tuesday. 

Need seen for cleanup

Damian Collins, a British lawmaker who led a parliamentary committee working on the bill, said that if Musk really wants to make Twitter a free speech haven, “he will need to clean up the digital town square.” 

Collins said Twitter has become a place where users are drowned out by coordinated armies of “bot” accounts spreading disinformation and division and that users refrain from expressing themselves “because of the hate and abuse they will receive.” 

The laws in the U.K. and EU target such abuse. Under the EU’s Digital Services Act, tech companies must put in place systems so illegal content can be easily flagged for swift removal. 

Experts said Twitter will have to go beyond taking down clearly defined illegal content like hate speech, terrorism and child sexual abuse and grapple with material that falls into a gray zone. 

The law includes requirements for big tech platforms to carry out annual risk assessments to determine how much their products and design choices contribute to the spread of divisive material that can affect issues like health or public debate. 

“This is all about assessing to what extent your users are seeing, for example, Russian propaganda in the context of the Ukraine war,” online harassment or COVID-19 misinformation, said Mathias Vermeulen, public policy director at data rights agency AWO. 

Violations would incur fines of up to 6% of a company’s global annual revenue. Repeat offenders can be banned from the EU.

More openness 

The Digital Services Act also requires tech companies to be more transparent by giving regulators and researchers access to data on how their systems recommend content to users. 

Musk has similar thoughts, saying his plans include “making the algorithms open source to increase trust.” 

Penfrat said it’s a great idea that could pave the way to a new ecosystem of ranking and recommendation options. 

But he panned another Musk idea — “authenticating all humans” — saying that taking away anonymity or pseudonyms from people, including society’s most marginalized, was the dream of every autocrat.
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The World Health Organization says the war in Ukraine has interrupted lifesaving immunizations in Ukraine, setting back years of progress in countering vaccine preventable diseases.

This is World Immunization Week, a time to celebrate the marvel of vaccines that have saved the lives of countless millions. WHO spokesman Bhanu Bhatnagar spoke about vaccinations at an immunization center in Rivne Oblast, a Ukrainian province near the border with Belarus.

The center is in a technical college that has been repurposed into a home for some 100 internally displaced people. Bhatnagar says he has come here to support the Ukrainian Health Ministry’s rollout of routine and catch-up immunizations for children, adolescents and adults.

“There are many children streaming through. Parents are bringing their children to catch-up on really important lifesaving, potentially life-saving immunizations from measles, to polio, to diphtheria, tetanus, and, as well the COVID-19 vaccine. … Internally displaced people are vulnerable. They have been forced from their homes. The health system is in crisis mode and many of them do not have access to health care.”

Bhatnagar says health needs do not stop in a time of war and it is important to keep up immunization activities, especially during the pandemic. Before the war, he says Ukraine was a poster child when it came to health care reform – and was making great strides in preventing vaccine preventable diseases.

Unfortunately, he says this progress has been derailed. He notes there was a polio outbreak in the country just before the war started. He says a rollout of polio vaccines that began February first was disrupted due to the conflict.

“So, that is why again it is really important that we get a polio vaccine into children’s arms. Even one child with polio means that every child is threatened, any under or unvaccinated child…But at this time only 44 percent of the targeted children have been reached with a polio vaccine and that is approximately 69,000 children.”

The WHO spokesman says COVID-19 vaccines continue to be rolled out despite the challenges of the war. However, the country only has 40 percent coverage across the board, which, he says, is lower than average for the rest of the European region.

Latest reports put the number of coronavirus cases at nearly five million, including more than 108,000 deaths.
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The United States and Russia exchanged high-profile prisoners on Wednesday even as the two countries remain sharply at odds over Moscow’s two-month invasion of Ukraine.

Russia freed Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since 2019 after Russian authorities said he assaulted a police officer when he was detained after a heavy night of drinking and later sentenced to nine years in prison.

Reed’s family had maintained his innocence.

In turn, the U.S. released Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year sentence in Connecticut for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the U.S.

While the prisoner swap was unusual, a senior U.S. official described it as a unilateral piece of diplomacy.

“The discussions with the Russians that led to this exchange were strictly limited to these topics, not a broader diplomatic conversation,” the official said.

“It (Reed’s release) represents no change, zero, to our approach to the appalling violence in Ukraine” being carried out by Russia.

Officials would not say where the prisoner exchange occurred, but in the hours before it took place, news accounts identified a plane belonging to Russia’s federal security service as flying to the Turkish capital Ankara. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons also updated its website to reflect that Yaroshenko was no longer imprisoned.

Reed’s parents, Joey and Paula Reed, had long pursued the release of their son, with newspaper ads and signs outside the White House. Their campaign caught the eye of White House officials and they met late last month with President Joe Biden.

“Our family has been living a nightmare. Today, our prayers have been answered and Trevor is safely on his way back to the United States,” Reed’s family said in a statement.

As the release of the two prisoners was announced in Moscow and Washington, Biden said in a statement, “I heard in the voices of Trevor’s parents how much they’ve worried about his health and missed his presence. And I was delighted to be able to share with them the good news about Trevor’s freedom.”

The U.S. leader added, “His safe return is a testament to the priority my administration places on bringing home Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained abroad. We won’t stop until Paul Whelan and others join Trevor in the loving arms of family and friends.”

Other Americans are still being jailed by Russia, including Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive being held on espionage-related charges that his family contends are bogus, and professional basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained in February after authorities said a search of her bag revealed a cannabis derivative.

Biden said in his statement that the “negotiations that allowed us to bring Trevor home required difficult decisions that I do not take lightly,” although he did not elaborate.

U.S. officials over the years have warily reviewed prisoner swaps for fear that they may encourage more hostage-taking overseas of Americans in hopes of securing the release of foreigners convicted of crimes in the U.S.

VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this story.
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Russia’s Gazprom halted gas supplies Wednesday to Poland and Bulgaria, the latest step in the economic fight linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has demanded that European nations, many of which rely on Russia for large portions of energy supplies, pay for natural gas in Russia’s currency, the ruble.

Gazprom said Wednesday that Poland and Bulgaria had not done so and would therefore have their gas supplies suspended.

Polish and Bulgarian officials said the Gazprom move amounted to breach of contract.

A number of European Union members have moved to lessen or eliminate their dependence on Russian energy, including by seeking other sources and boosting their use of renewable energy.

“Gazprom’s announcement is another attempt by Russia to blackmail us with gas,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday. “We are prepared for this scenario. We are mapping out our coordinated EU response.”

Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday its forces carried out missile strikes overnight that destroyed 59 targets in Ukraine, including “hangars with a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition” sent by the United States and European countries to aid Ukraine’s military.

The United States and its allies signaled Tuesday they are moving swiftly and powerfully to support Ukrainian forces and escalate pressure on Russia’s economy.

The United States at first “needed weeks” to move military equipment and munitions to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but it now often dispatches new armaments to the Ukrainians within three days.

Blinken said since he and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv over the weekend, the two countries were “largely aligned in what they say they need and what we think we’re able to provide.”

Heavy weapons

Germany’s government said Tuesday it would send heavy weapons to Ukraine for the first time. Austin, meeting at a U.S. air base in Germany with officials from 40 countries, including NATO members, said Russian President Vladimir Putin “never imagined the whole world would rally behind Ukraine so swiftly and surely.”

“We’re seeing more support every day” to combat the Russian invasion, he said Tuesday. “We don’t have any time to waste. We’ve got to move at the speed of war.”

The White House said Germany’s decision signaled unprecedented unity in the face of Russian aggression.

“The announcement by Germany is in line with announcements we’ve seen by a number of European countries in providing assistance they have never before provided, which is part of the significance here,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “So, this is an unprecedented change to provide lethal aid to another country, and that’s the significance here from Germany. But I’d also note that Norway provided Mistral anti-aircraft missiles, that a number of countries have provided types of assistance that they have never done in the past, and that really speaks to the significant unity of NATO.”

The U.S. defense secretary also said allies supporting Ukraine would meet monthly to coordinate further aid. As he opened the talks, he said the aim was to “help Ukraine to win the fight against Russia’s unjust invasion and to help build up Ukraine for tomorrow’s challenges.”

Austin also rebuked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for suggesting that the war could evolve into a nuclear conflict between Russia and the West.

“We certainly will do everything in our power … to make sure it doesn’t spin out of control,” Austin said. “Nobody wants to see a nuclear war. Nobody can win it,” he said, adding that “it’s unhelpful and dangerous to rattle sabers” over a nuclear threat.

Austin’s appeal to allies for more help for Ukraine came a day after he said the U.S. objective in supporting Ukraine was to leave Russia with a “weakened” military. He described Russian casualties so far as “pretty substantial,” with some military analysts saying as many as 20,000 Russian troops have died.

Moscow accused the West of carrying out a proxy war against Russia by sending more munitions to Ukraine and warned of a “considerable” risk that the fighting could evolve into a nuclear conflict.

Diplomatic efforts

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met Tuesday in Moscow with Putin and Lavrov in an attempt to broker a cease-fire agreement, even as Russia launched new attacks on eastern and southern Ukraine. Guterres then headed to Ukraine, stopping first in Poland to meet with that nation’s president in a city along the Ukrainian border used as a base for American troops and humanitarian efforts.

During the two-hour meeting with Guterres in the Russian capital, Putin agreed “in principle” to allow the U.N. and the International Committee of the Red Cross to assist with the evacuation of civilians from the Azovstal iron and steel plant in Mariupol, said Stephane Dujarric, Guterres’ spokesman.

The U.N. chief said that while Russia and the U.N. had “different interpretations of what’s happening in Ukraine,” there was still the possibility for a serious conversation about working to minimize suffering and “end the war as soon as possible.”

Guterres said he wanted to further address the wider impacts of the conflict on the world’s most vulnerable populations amid rising food and energy prices.

Lavrov welcomed Guterres and the U.N.’s desire for dialogue, while accusing Western governments of flouting principles of multilateralism and instead undertaking a unilateral approach to the world.

Russia’s “goals are primarily to protect the civilian population, and here we are ready to cooperate with our colleagues from the U.N. to alleviate the plight of the civilian population,” Lavrov said.

But Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have repeatedly blocked the attempted creation of humanitarian corridors to let civilians escape from the devastation of Mariupol.

Also on Tuesday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said American diplomats have taken concrete steps to reestablish a U.S. diplomatic presence in Ukraine.

“I can confirm that the deputy chief of mission and members of the embassy team traveled to Lviv, Ukraine, today, where they were able to continue our close collaboration with key Ukrainian partners,” he said. “Today, they met with interlocutors from the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

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

The road toward Chernobyl is littered with Russian soldiers’ discarded ration boxes and occasional empty bullet shells in a subtle but harrowing warning of the invasion’s terrible risk for the infamous nuclear site. 

Tuesday marked the 36th anniversary of what is considered the worst ever nuclear disaster, and there was relief the hulking so-called sarcophagus covering the reactor’s radioactivity remains was back under Ukrainian control. 

Soldiers cradling their assault rifles watched over checkpoints, including one with an effigy dressed in Russian fatigues and a gas mask, that guard the way from Kyiv to the sprawling site near the border with Belarus. 

Yet concerns are far from dissipated for nuclear sites in Ukraine because Russia’s invasion of its neighbor is grinding on. 

Authorities said Tuesday that missiles had flown low over a nuclear power station in a close call in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.  

“They (Chernobyl staff) carried on their work, in spite (of) all of the difficulties. … They got the situation stable, so to speak, in this sense the worst was of course avoided,” U.N. atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told reporters upon his arrival at Chernobyl. 

“We don’t have peace yet, so we have to continue. The situation is not stable. We have to be on alert,” he added, noting the invasion was “very, very dangerous.” 

The plant, which fell into Russian hands on the day Moscow’s troops began their invasion in February, suffered a power and communications outage that stirred fears of a possible new calamity at the site. 

Those worries stretch back to the events of April 26, 1986, when Chernobyl’s number four reactor exploded, causing the world’s worst nuclear accident that killed hundreds and spread radioactive contamination west across Europe. 

‘Ice Cream Chernobyl’ 

The reactor number four building is now encased in a massive double sarcophagus to limit radioactive contamination, and an area spanning 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) around the plant is considered the exclusion zone that is essentially uninhabited, nuclear authorities say. 

Rows of aging and abandoned-looking apartment buildings dot the road into the site and yet some have bright curtains and plants in the windows, while a kiosk labeled “Chernobyl Tour Info” greets people on their way to the plant. 

The bullet hole-shattered glass of the nuclear-yellow painted hut bears the signs of the war launched on February 24 that has prompted international condemnation of Russia and backing for Ukraine. 

In a sign from a more tourist-friendly time, “Ice Cream Chernobyl” is emblazoned on the side of a refrigerator at the kiosk, with a graphic of a vanilla cone and the radiation warning symbol side-by-side. 

Planned to stay 

The Russian troops that could easily have rolled past the stand on their way south toward Kyiv had planned to stay in Chernobyl, Ukrainian officials said. 

The soldiers dug trenches and set up camps, but in areas like the so-called “Red Forest,” named for the color its trees turned after being hit by a heavy dose of radiation in Chernobyl’s 1986 meltdown.

“Areas with high radiation levels remain here still, but the contamination was moved around due to the actions of Russian occupiers who were using heavy military vehicles,” Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky told journalists visiting Chernobyl. 

It’s a site that has drawn significant international interest because of the scale of the disaster. The original Soviet-era sarcophagus deteriorated over the years so a new one was built over it and was completed in 2019. 

But for some in the area, risk is just a fact of life. 

“If they (the Russians) wanted to blow it up, they could blow it up when they ran away,” noted Valeriy Slutsky, 75, who said he was present for the power station’s 1986 disaster. 

“Maybe I’m used to it (radiation),” he added with a shrug.
…

He is not low key or known for listening, key attributes of his former German counterpart, Angela Merkel.  

But with his reelection Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron has arguably cemented another role, some say: succeeding Merkel as the European Union’s de-facto leader, with his call for a stronger, closer EU resonating, especially with the war in Ukraine.  

“Merkel was more of a crisis manager but with no vision,” said Sebastien Maillard, director of the Paris-based Jacques Delors Institute think tank. “Macron has a clear vision of what kind of European integration he wants.” 

Not surprisingly, most European leaders cheered Macron’s win against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who called for drastically overhauling and downgrading the 27-member bloc.  

“In this turbulent period, we need a solid Europe and a France totally committed to a more sovereign and more strategic European Union,” tweeted European Council President Charles Michel.  

Macron’s second and final five-year term as French president may help push those goals forward. How far will depend not only on getting other EU leaders on board, but also on what happens in France, starting with the outcome of June parliamentary elections.  

Additionally, the next two months, when France wraps up the rotating EU presidency, will offer an immediate test.  

Three areas are particularly key, analyst Maillard said: pushing through EU energy sanctions against Moscow — a sticking point for Germany, which is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas, and possibly for Poland, after Russia’s announcement it would halt gas supplies; moving forward on Macron’s call for a closer and stronger European defense; and deciding on EU membership bids, starting with Ukraine. 

Next month, Macron is expected to present his vision of Europe’s future at a conference in Strasbourg, France. It’s not the first to be laid out by the 44-year-old leader, whose reelection celebrations were accompanied by the EU anthem, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” 

Pro-Europe winds  

Macron may benefit from the tailwinds of multiple recent challenges, from euroskeptic U.S. President Donald Trump to the COVID-19 crisis and now Russia’s war in Ukraine, which helped to reshape European citizens’ sentiments about Brussels.  

“We wouldn’t be vaccinated without Europe, our economy wouldn’t have recovered without European support and our sanctions against Russia would be senseless if they weren’t on this (EU-wide) scale,” Maillard said.  

Even in French elections, dominated by domestic concerns, the EU helped determine some voting choices. Macron himself called the runoff against Le Pen a “referendum” on Europe. 

“I’m very frightened about what would happen to France, in Europe and in the world, if we had Marine Le Pen as president,” said Paris-area senior Benedicte Tardivo, who cast her ballot for Macron.  

Public opinion also appears to have softened Le Pen’s once staunchly anti-Europe platform.  

“Now, Marine Le Pen is not advocating to leave the EU, because she saw the French are actually attached to it,” said expert Mathilde Ciulla, of the European Council on Foreign Relations policy institute. “So, she talks about changing it from within, which I think is a kind of victory for Macron.”  

Such wins aren’t happening everywhere.  

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, who embraces an “illiberal democracy” and flouts EU rule-of-law principles, recently won a fourth term in office. But he appears increasingly alone.  

Besides Le Pen, another euroskeptic ally, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, lost her election bid this past week. Another EU dissident, Poland, has earned marks for taking in millions of Ukrainian refugees and, unlike Hungary, is hostile to Moscow.  

“Orban is weakened,” said analyst Maillard. “He’s been reelected in his own country. But he’s isolated among the 27 other member states. While Macron, right now, is the most prominent leader within the European Council” of EU heads of state.  

Team player?  

Macron’s bigger challenge, some say, may not be leadership, but rather becoming a better team player, adopting the kind of consensus-building skills that Merkel excelled at. Not just for Europe, but also for France, where critics say he fails to listen and accept other viewpoints. 

“Macron has the faults of his virtues,” wrote historian Timothy Garden Ash in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper. “I have never seen a human being with more drive, ambition, energy and self-belief. But he can often seem arrogant, Jupiterian, neo-Napoleonic – and therefore rubs a great many of his compatriots and fellow Europeans the wrong way.” 

Analyst Ciulla suggests another approach. 

“I think it would be a mistake for him to position himself as the leader of Europe,” she said. “France is not the best at building coalitions, but France should try to build coalitions.”  

Rather than going it alone, she and others say, Macron should make key state visits early in his second term — to Moscow and to Kyiv — with other European leaders.  

While Macron has carried on the traditional French-German partnership considered an EU linchpin — first with Merkel and now her successor Olaf Scholz — he went solo in February to see President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, hoping to secure a peace commitment days before the Ukraine war.  

Last year, he surprised some by announcing that France’s Barkhane military operation in the Sahel would end and be folded into a broader EU one, called Takuba.  

“It was an effort to Europeanize France’s presence in the Sahel,” Ciulla said, “but it’s not very nice, not very collaborative, not to let your allies know.”    

But Macron’s long-held vision of “strategic autonomy” — strengthening the EU’s economic, technological and military independence — is gaining ground among one-time skeptics. This is especially true since the war in Ukraine began, with Germany, in particular, spectacularly boosting its military spending.  

“The way Germany changed its policy, the way sanctions [against Russia] were decided very quickly, it’s all about strategic autonomy at the end,” Ciulla said. “It’s about sovereignty and the capacity to act, and very quickly react.”  

June legislative elections in France may determine just how much leeway Macron has to continue pushing his European agenda. Both far-right Le Pen and far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, another EU critic, hope to score significantly.  

More importantly, perhaps, will be how Macron fares in pushing through unpopular reforms, including boosting the retirement age from 62 to 65.  

“If he gets another yellow vest movement, that would be damaging” for Macron’s EU credentials, said Maillard of Jacques Delors, referring to massive popular protests that marked the president’s first term in office. “If you’re not able to manage your own backyard, obviously your leadership is decreased.” 

Macron is betting on another outcome.  

“This is his last term, and he wants to leave something to history,” Maillard added. “I think it will probably be on his European contribution.”
…

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that the Biden administration supports legislation that calls for some of the proceeds being seized from Russian oligarchs to go “directly to Ukraine.”  

“That’s not the current circumstance,” Garland told the Senate Appropriations Committee as lawmakers questioned him about the property and assets the Justice Department is seizing from close wealthy associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin after his February 24 invasion of Ukraine.  

The Justice Department, headed by Garland, launched a new unit, called KleptoCapture, to help enforce sanctions against Russian government officials and oligarchs, targeting their yachts, jets, real estate and other assets. 

The expressed U.S. hope was that the Putin allies might pressure him to end his war against Ukraine. Some key Russian figures have voiced opposition to the invasion, but the Russian attacks continue, now concentrated in eastern Ukraine after Moscow failed to topple Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or seize the capital of Kyiv. 

The Justice Department said earlier this month that its first seizure was a $90 million, 77-meter luxury yacht that Spanish law enforcement took control of at Washington’s request.  

Garland condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine during his testimony, saying that the “horrible atrocities” that are being seen in videos and photos from the country “are the kinds of things anybody growing up in the 20th century never expected to see in the 21st again.” 

 
…

Turkey faces growing domestic and international backlash over the conviction of Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala, who was imprisoned for life without parole on Monday on charges of seeking to overthrow the government. The case, widely condemned as politically motivated, could strain ties with Turkey’s Western allies.

Seven co-defendants were sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Emma Sinclair-Webb, Turkey representative of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, criticized the sentencing.

“There is nothing in this trial that bears any semblance to evidence. It’s a trial built on wild assertions. And it’s really a warning not just to human rights defenders and to civil society, but to the whole society that criticism and oppositional statements and activities will be targeted,” she said. “It’s a warning to everyone that this government will come after you if it wants to.”

Many of Turkey’s Western allies also condemned the conviction. In a statement, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price called for Kavala’s release, saying the verdict was “deeply troubling” and “unjust.”

France and Germany also criticized the decision, calling for Kavala’s immediate release.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag responded, saying the countries had no right to criticize Turkey’s judiciary. The 64-year-old Kavala, a Paris-born Turkish businessman, is one of Turkey’s most important philanthropists, supporting civil society, backing projects including seeking to heal ethnic divides in Turkish society, and advocating human rights.

Kavala’s prosecution has become a symbol of what critics say is Turkey’s authoritarian slide under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule, an accusation the president strongly rejects.

In 2019, Kavala’s prosecution was ruled politically motivated by the European Court of Human Rights, which called for his immediate release. Meanwhile, the Council of Europe has opened a rare disciplinary case against Turkey over Kavala’s prosecution. But with Erdogan playing a pivotal role in seeking to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Sezin Oney, a columnist for the Politikyol news portal, said pragmatism may prevent any serious consequences for Turkey.

“Well, at this time, the Ukraine invasion and the war in Ukraine is such a serious issue, that I don’t think any Western government, neither the U.S. nor the EU countries, can be able to take really viable action against Turkey, such as sanctions or something else. This is a period when the government feels strong vis-a-vis the West,” Oney said.

Underscoring Turkey’s role in peace efforts Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met with Erdogan in Ankara to discuss Ukraine. Analysts suggest Erdogan, who strongly backed his judiciary in the Kavala case, is likely calculating that the diplomatic fallout will be confined to angry rhetoric but, with Kavala and his co-defendants expected to appeal their convictions, the controversy is likely to continue.
…

Russian state news agencies say a gunman opened fire in a kindergarten in the nation’s western Ulyanovsk region, killing two students and a teacher before killing himself.

The Tass news agency, citing a regional law enforcement official, said the attack occurred in the village of Veshkayma. They said the gunman burst in during “quiet time,” when the children were sleeping. From his Telegram account, regional State Duma deputy Sergei Morozov said the two children were 5 and 6 years old.

The regional Ministry of Health said another kindergarten employee was wounded in the hand and was being treated. The law enforcement officials suggest a domestic conflict may have been the motive for the shooting. They said the identity of the attacker has been difficult to establish.

Rosgvardia, Russia’s national guard, said the shooter was not the owner of the weapon and the rightful owner of the gun had obtained it legally.

Tass reported regional that Governor Aleksey Russkikh is flying to the site of the shooting and has ordered regional officials to provide emergency assistance to the families of the victims.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

A Turkish court sentenced Osman Kavala, a prominent Turkish civil rights activist and philanthropist, to life in prison without parole Monday after convicting him of trying to overthrow the government by financing protests.

Kavala, 64, has been in jail for the past 4½ years on charges that he helped finance and organize protests that began as small demonstrations in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in 2013 and morphed into mass anti-government protests.

Human rights groups say the case is politically motivated. Ten Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, called for Kavala’s release in October on the fourth anniversary of his arrest.

The European Court of Human Rights has also demanded that Kavala be released, saying that his rights were violated. Turkey’s failure to comply with that order has led to proceedings that could see Turkey expelled from the Council of Europe.

The court in Istanbul on Monday also sentenced seven other defendants to 18 years each for aiding an attempt to overthrow of Turkey’s government. It acquitted Kavala on charges relating to a 2016 alleged coup attempt that the Turkish government blames on the network of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Kavala denies he was involved in any anti-government activity related to the protests in 2013. In defense statements Friday, Kavala said he only took food and face masks to peaceful protesters.

“The fact that I spent 4½ years of my life in prison is an irreparable loss for me. My only consolation is the possibility that my experience will contribute to a better understanding of the grave problems of the judiciary,” Kavala told the court by videoconference from Silivri Prison.

Supporters of Kavala and the other defendants sentenced Monday packed the courtroom in anticipation of the verdict and yelled out in protest after the sentences were announced.

Rights group Amnesty International called the conviction a “devastating blow.”

“Today, we have witnessed a travesty of justice of spectacular proportions. This verdict deals a devastating blow not only to Osman Kavala, his co-defendants and their families, but to everyone who believes in justice and human rights activism in Turkey and beyond,” Nils Muiznieks, Amnesty International’s Europe director, said in a statement.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Kavala of working with U.S. billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who the Turkish leader alleges has financed insurrections in many countries.

Kavala told the court Friday via video link that ties between Soros and him are “fictional.”

He said the protests in Gezi Park were “unplanned and unexpected.”

“An attempt is being made to criminalize the Gezi Park events and to discredit the will of hundreds of thousands of citizens who participated in the events,” he said.

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

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is headed to Moscow for a meeting Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a renewed bid to try to get him to agree to a pause or end to his two-month assault on Ukraine.

Guterres’ spokesperson said the U.N. chief is later going to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Thursday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, because Guterres feels there is a “concrete opportunity” for progress.

En route to Moscow, Guterres met Monday in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has attempted, but failed so far, to mediate an end to the fighting between Turkey’s two maritime neighbors.

“You can see that even the willingness of the parties to meet with him, to discuss things with him, is an opening,” Guterres spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters. “We will see what we can do, whether we can get a concrete improvement in the humanitarian situation. Whether we can get the fighting to stop for any period of time.”

Guterres has made repeated calls for a humanitarian cease-fire or a brief pause in fighting but has been unsuccessful.

Haq said he didn’t want to “oversell the possibility” that either of these could happen, cautioning that diplomacy is neither quick nor a magic wand. But he said Guterres is willing to take a chance to try to improve the situation.

“Because ultimately, if we can move ahead, even in small way, it will mean a tremendous amount to tens, even hundreds of thousands of people,” Haq said.

But Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador said Monday that a humanitarian cease-fire is unnecessary.

“We don’t think that a cease-fire is a good option right now, because the only advantage it will give — it will give possibility for Ukrainian forces to regroup and to stage more provocations like Bucha,” Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told reporters, referring to the Ukrainian town where Russian soldiers are accused of committing atrocities.
…

A Gambian man went on trial in Germany Monday, accused of belonging to a death squad that assassinated opponents of former dictator Yahya Jammeh, including an AFP journalist.

The suspect, identified by media as Bai Lowe, is accused of crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder, including the 2004 killing of AFP correspondent Deyda Hydara.

Lowe, 46, wore a black hooded coat and hid his face behind a green folder as he arrived in court in the northern town of Celle.

The trial is “the first to prosecute human rights violations committed in Gambia during the Jammeh era on the basis of universal jurisdiction”, according to Human Rights Watch.

Universal jurisdiction allows a foreign country to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, regardless of where they were committed.

Outside the courtroom, activists held a placard demanding that Jammeh “and his accomplices be brought to justice”.

Lowe is accused of being involved in two murders and one attempted murder while working as a driver for the hit squad known as the Junglers between December 2003 and December 2006.

“This unit was used by the then-president of Gambia to carry out illegal killing orders, among other things” with the aim of “intimidating the Gambian population and suppressing the opposition”, according to federal prosecutors.

Hydara, 58, was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of the Gambian capital Banjul on December 16, 2004.

Lowe is accused of helping to stop Hydara’s car and driving one of the killers in his own vehicle.

Controversial column

Hydara was an editor and co-founder of the independent daily The Point and a correspondent for AFP for over 30 years.

The father-of-four also worked as a Gambia correspondent for the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and was considered a doyen among journalists in the tiny West African state.

In his newspaper The Point, he had a widely read column, “Good morning, Mr President”, in which he expressed his views on Gambian politics.

According to investigations by RSF, Hydara was being spied on by Gambian intelligence services just before his death.

Hydara was a tenacious and “really stubborn” journalist, according to his son Baba Hydara, 45.

“This is a day we have been waiting for for 18 years,” Baba Hydara told AFP outside the court.

“It’s an important day for justice but it is just the beginning of a long journey,” he said, expressing a hope that Jammeh will also “be judged”.

Prosecutors also accuse Lowe of driving members of the Junglers to a location in Banjul in 2003 to assassinate lawyer Ousman Sillah, who survived the attack with serious injuries. 

‘Important day for justice’

In a third incident in 2006, Lowe is accused of driving members of the unit to a site near Banjul airport where they shot and killed Dawda Nyassi, a suspected opponent of the president.  

The court heard that he arrived in Europe via Senegal in December 2012, seeking asylum as a political refugee who feared for his life under president Jammeh.

The evidence against him includes a telephone interview he gave in 2013 to a US-based Gambian radio station, in which he described his participation in the attacks, according to police.

Jammeh ruled Gambia with an iron fist for 22 years but fled the country in January 2017 after losing a presidential election to relative unknown Adama Barrow. 

He refused to acknowledge the results but was forced out by a popular uprising and fled to Equatorial Guinea.

Lowe is the third alleged accomplice of Jammeh to be detained abroad. 

The other suspects are Gambia’s former interior minister, Ousman Sonko, under investigation in Switzerland since 2017, and another former Jungler, Michael Sang Correa, indicted in June 2020 in the United States.

Patrick Kroker, a lawyer for Baba Hydara, told AFP outside the court that the opening of the trial was “an important day for justice”. 

“We hope it will be a signal to… Switzerland and the United States, but also Gambia”, he said.
…

Moscow said Monday it had arrested members of a “neo-Nazi terrorist” group in Russia who allegedly planned to assassinate pro-Kremlin TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov on orders from Ukraine.

“The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation detained a group of members of the neo-Nazi terrorist organization National Socialism/White Power, which is banned in Russia,” Russia’s FSB security agency said in a statement carried by news agencies, adding that those arrested are Russian citizens.

The FSB claimed the group was planning the “murder” of Russian TV and radio journalist Solovyov “on the instructions of the Security Service of Ukraine”.

It added that the group “confessed to preparing the murder of Solovyov, after which they planned to flee abroad”.

According to the FSB, “fake” Ukrainian passports, arms, drugs and an improvised explosive device were found during a search of the detainees’ homes.

Speaking at a meeting of Russian prosecutors, President Vladimir Putin suggested Washington was involved in planning the “murder of a famous Russian TV journalist”, without naming him.

“They have resorted to terror! To preparing the murders of our journalists. We know by name the curators of Western secret services, primarily, of course, from the CIA, who work with the security agencies of Ukraine,” Putin said in televised remarks.

“Apparently they give such advice (to kill journalists). So much for their attitude towards the rights of journalists… (and) human rights in general,” Putin added.

A staunch supporter of Putin and Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, Solovyov is under EU sanctions for spreading state “propaganda”.
…

American diplomats will start returning to Ukraine this week, first to the western city of Lviv and then eventually to the capital, Kyiv.

The United States is also providing further foreign military financing to Ukraine to help the country obtain more advanced weapons and air defense systems to fend off Russian attacks, according to senior U.S. officials.

U.S. President Joe Biden will formally nominate Bridget Brink, currently U.S. ambassador to the Slovak Republic, to be U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

“This would be to underscore our commitments (to Ukraine). We will seek to have our diplomats returned to our embassy in Kyiv as soon as possible,” a senior State Department official said.

Several European Union and NATO member countries are sending their diplomats back to Kyiv, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia. The U.K. government announced Friday that it would shortly reopen the British Embassy in Kyiv.

The return of foreign diplomats is seen as a sign of some semblance of safety in Ukraine after almost two months of Russia’s shelling and bombing.

“We intend to obligate more than $713 million in foreign military financing,” the State official said. “This includes funding for Ukraine and 15 other allies and partner nations in Central and Eastern Europe, in the Balkans. … And it will provide support for capabilities Ukraine needs, especially for the fight in the Donbas.”

With the new assistance in foreign military financing, the U.S. would have committed about $3.4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began, and more than $4.3 billion since the start of the Biden administration.

Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov in Kyiv.

Blinken and Austin’s visit to Ukraine is the highest-level visit by an American delegation since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine on February 24.

It also came ahead of Tuesday’s consultations between the U.S. and dozens of allies at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, where Austin will discuss Ukraine’s long-term defense needs.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov will attend Tuesday’s meetings.

On Tuesday’s agenda: an update on battlefield conditions, Ukraine’s resistance amid Russia’s attacks, upcoming security assistance to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s willingness and ability to move away from Russian-made systems.

“This isn’t about (Ukraine’s appeal to) NATO membership. It’s about helping them with their long-term defense needs going forward with a potential migration away from Soviet systems,” a senior defense official said.

“One of the things we expect to talk about in Ramstein on Tuesday is additional contributions by allies and partners on the systems, weapons and ammunition that the Ukrainians need the most,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing in Poland on Sunday.

Kirby said the U.S. has accelerated major security assistance package deliveries to Ukraine in the past 10 days, and some of them are already arriving. The U.S. is not seeing any indication that those shipments are being interdicted by Russian forces.

Sunday, Ukrainian officials said Russian forces launched a new airstrike on the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces have been holed up and defiantly refusing Russian demands to surrender.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a tight blockade of the facility that Russian forces have struggled to take over from perhaps thousands of Ukraine fighters and civilians who have remained in control of the plant with its labyrinth of tunnels and passageways.

In a lengthy Saturday night news conference in a Kyiv subway station, Zelenskyy said he was looking for the Americans to produce results, both in terms of arms and security guarantees.

“You can’t come to us empty-handed today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,” he said.

In each of the past two weeks, President Biden has approved $800 million in shipments of more arms for Ukraine, along with $500 million in economic assistance.

With congressional approval for military assistance for Ukraine nearly exhausted, Biden said he would seek approval for more aid, part of the West’s arming of Ukraine in its fight against Russia that falls short of sending troops to fight alongside Ukrainian forces.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly pleaded for more heavy weapons, including long-range air defense systems, as well as warplanes.

Zelenskyy’s meeting with Austin and Blinken was set to take place as Ukrainians and Russians observed Orthodox Easter. Zelenskyy is Jewish, but speaking from Kyiv’s ancient St. Sophia Cathedral, he cited Ukrainians’ wishes for the holiday.

“The great holiday today gives us great hope and unwavering faith that light will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome death, and, therefore, Ukraine will surely win!” he said.

But the Russian bombardment remains a constant threat for Ukraine. The Russian military reported that it hit 423 Ukrainian targets overnight, mostly in the eastern Donbas industrial region, and destroyed 26 Ukrainian military sites, including an explosives factory and several artillery depots.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement Sunday that it is “deeply alarmed by the situation in Mariupol, where the population is in dire need of assistance.” The ICRC said, “Immediate and unimpeded humanitarian access is urgently required to allow for the voluntary safe passage of thousands of civilians and hundreds of wounded out of the city, including from the Azovstal plant area.”

After the Blinken-Austin visit, Zelenskyy is set to meet Thursday with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.N. chief is scheduled to meet with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara Monday and Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.

British officials said Saturday that Russian troops haven’t gained significant new ground despite announcing a renewed offensive along the eastern front, while Ukraine declared a nationwide curfew ahead of Orthodox Easter on Sunday.

Ukraine said Russian forces obstructed attempts to evacuate civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol.

“The evacuation was thwarted,” Mariupol city official Petro Andryushchenko said on Telegram, adding that about 200 people gathered at the government-appointed evacuation meeting point, but that Russian forces “dispersed” them.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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An opposition liberal party convincingly won Sunday’s parliamentary election in Slovenia, according to early official results, in a major defeat for populist Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who was accused of pushing the small European Union country to the right while in office.

The Freedom Movement won nearly 34% of the votes, compared with around 24% for the governing conservative Slovenian Democratic Party, state election authorities said after counting over 97% of the ballots.

Trailing behind the top two contenders were the New Slovenia party with 7%, followed by the Social Democrats with more than 6% and the Left party with 4%.

The results mean that the Freedom Movement, a newcomer in the election, appears set to form the next government in a coalition with smaller leftist groups. The party leader addressed supporters via a video message from his home because he has COVID-19.

“Tonight people dance,” Robert Golob told the cheering crowd at the party headquarters. “Tomorrow is a new day and serious work lies ahead.”

Jansa, an ally of right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, congratulated the “relative winner” of the election in a speech.

“The results are as they are,” Jansa said, praising his government’s work. “Many challenges lie ahead for the new government, whatever it may look like, but the foundations are solid.”

A veteran politician, Jansa became prime minister a little over two years ago after the previous liberal premier resigned. An admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, Jansa had pushed the country toward right-wing populism since taking over at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reflecting strong interest in Sunday’s election, turnout was higher than usual — around 67% of Slovenia’s 1.7 million voters cast their ballot, compared with 52% in the previous election in 2018.

Golob, a U.S.-educated former business executive, came out as a frontrunner shortly after entering the political scene. The Freedom Movement party has advocated a green energy transition and sustainable development over Jansa’s nation-centered narrative.

Liberals had described Sunday’s election as a referendum on Slovenia’s future. They argued that Jansa, if reelected, would push the traditionally moderate nation further away from “core” EU democratic values and toward other populist regimes.

Opinion polls ahead of the vote had predicted that the leading parties would be locked in a tight race.

Jansa’s SDS won the most votes in an election four years ago but couldn’t initially find partners for a coalition government. He took over after lawmakers from centrist and left-leaning groups switched sides following the resignation in 2020 of liberal Prime Minister Marjan Sarec.

Jansa, in power, faced accusations of sliding toward authoritarian rule in the Orban style, drawing EU scrutiny amid reports that he pressured opponents and public media, and installed loyalists in key positions for control over state institutions.

The Freedom House democracy watchdog recently said that “while political rights and civil liberties are generally respected (in Slovenia), the current right-wing government has continued attempts to undermine the rule of law and democratic institutions, including the media and judiciary.
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The world’s largest security body on Sunday called for the “immediate release” of four of its Ukrainian members detained in pro-Russian separatist territories in the country’s east.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) evacuated many of its staff from the country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 

Many had been in the east to observe a cease-fire after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and several Ukrainian members have stayed on.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, whose country currently chairs the OSCE, said the detention of four members “for engaging in administrative activities that fall within their official functions as OSCE staff” was “unacceptable.”

“We call for their immediate release,” he said. “They have been held without charge for a period of time now and the OSCE and their families have not been sufficiently informed of the situation.”

Earlier Sunday, the OSCE said on Twitter it was “extremely concerned” that several members had been “deprived of their liberty,” in line with Russian media reports they had been arrested.

It added that it was “using all available channels to facilitate their release.”

The security services of the Lugansk separatists said this month they had arrested two members of the OSCE mission, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. 

TASS said one of them had “confessed” to passing “confidential military information to representatives of foreign special services” and that a high treason investigation had been opened against him.

The Donetsk separatist prosecutor’s office confirmed he had opened espionage probes against several OSCE employees suspected of having collected and transmitted “information constituting state secrets” to the Ukrainian secret services.

The prosecutor’s office said this included videos, revealing the position of separatist military units. 

On Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter, also called for the members of the body’s Ukraine Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to be released. 

“Russia’s lies claiming Ukrainian OSCE_SMM staff spied for the Ukrainian government are reprehensible,” he said on Twitter. 

The OSCE international observation mission in Ukraine was not renewed at the end of March, after Moscow blocked the proposal.

Authorities in Ukraine’s separatist regions have given OSCE staff until the end of April to cease all activities. 

The Vienna-based OSCE has 57 member states on three continents — including Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
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