Rich Russians are trying to shift some of their wealth from Europe to Dubai to shield assets from a tightening wave of Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, financial and legal sources said.

Dubai, the Gulf’s freewheeling financial and business hub, has long been a magnet for the globe’s ultra-rich and the United Arab Emirates’ refusal to take sides between Western allies and Moscow has signaled to Russians that their money is safe there.

The UAE, which over the years has deepened its ties with Russia, has not matched sanctions imposed by Western nations and its central bank has so far not issued guidance regarding Western sanctions.

In many cases, wealthy Russians are seeking to shift funds to Dubai that are now in Switzerland or London — which have both sanctioned Russian individuals and organizations, a senior banker at a large Swiss private bank and a lawyer familiar with the matter said.

The lawyer, who is based in Dubai, said his firm had received inquiries from Russian entities on how quickly they could move “very significant funds” worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Gulf Arab state.

“The UAE is a nice medium — a few hours away by flight and doesn’t have a regulator completely in cahoots with Western regulators,” an investment management professional said.

The Dubai Media Office, UAE foreign ministry and central bank did not immediately respond to a query about the scale of Russian funds flowing into Dubai.

The senior private banker said in some cases, Russian clients with accounts at private banks were opening accounts with that same bank’s UAE branch. Others were opening accounts with local banks, the banker added.

Russians, facing a crumbling economy at home, are also looking to put their money in investments including real estate and buying into funds which do not disclose ownership information, another financial source said.

Dubai, a global tourism destination, has long been popular with Russians, who were among the top visitors to the emirate and purchasers of real estate even before the war and ensuing sanctions threw its economy into turmoil and its currency tumbled to record lows.

The UAE in 2018 introduced a “golden” visa program — which grants 10-year residency — to investors and other professionals.

Banks cautious

The UAE’s decision to abstain in a United Nations Security Council vote condemning the invasion, coupled with Gulf sovereign wealth funds maintaining their exposure to Russia, was taken as reassurance to wealthy Russians, the sources said.

There is no indication that the Russian wealth flowing to Dubai is subject to Western sanctions. However, bankers said there was a risk of reputational harm to institutions receiving Russian funds as multinationals around the world cut ties with Moscow.

Some major UAE banks are taking a cautious approach. Banks operating in the Gulf state have in the past been penalized for non-compliance with sanctions on countries including Iran and Sudan.

And global financial crime watchdog The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) last week put the UAE on a “grey list” of jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring.

“Being on the grey list, they (UAE) probably have to be more careful than normal. Now, the last thing they want is for Europe to use this as a further reason to keep them on this list,” the lawyer said.

The Dubai Media Office, UAE foreign ministry and central bank did not immediately respond to questions regarding guidance to banks and businesses on how to comply with sanctions on Russia, or on what protocols are in place should other countries request the seizure of any sanctioned assets, should they be in the UAE.

Two sources familiar with the matter said businesses in the UAE would spend more time looking into the origins of their funds through a so-called Know-Your-Customer process.

Wealth management

A source at a Dubai bank said that funds from Russians are not being accepted for wealth management, though they could set up deposit accounts.

“In principle, they can do it,” but the bank has high compliance hurdles to clear internally to accept Russian money, including evidence of where it came from, the source said.

The UAE’s nascent private wealth industry has not yet reached the scale or sophistication to fully absorb wealth stored in Switzerland and other traditional money shelters, sources said.

“They might take some, but I find it hard to imagine that they would take it all,” the investment management professional said. “It’s not just the servicing element, but the investment management which most of these banks lack.”
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Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
…

While soaring oil prices hit consumers worldwide, their misfortune means a fortune for others.

There will certainly be a “significant boost in government revenue” for some oil-producing African countries as oil prices hit their highest levels since 2008 after the U.S bans imports of Russian oil, the African Energy Chamber tells VOA.

“Nigeria, Angola, Libya, South Sudan, Gabon, the Congo and Ghana are going to see a significant boost in government revenue,” said Verner Ayukegba, senior vice president at Johannesburg-based African Energy Chamber.

However, he said, despite the economic breather for these African economies, most of the countries on the continent are heavily dependent on imports of refined products and will see their expenditures balloon.

“Countries like South Africa who are not producers but major economies who import crude oil to be able to refine for their industries, countries are going to see an increase in their import bills,” he said.

Skyrocketing crude oil prices and the rising cost of living on the continent also threaten to increase inflation, says Bala Zakka, a petroleum engineer based in Lagos, Nigeria.

“In Nigeria today, diesel has been deregulated. A liter of diesel goes for 450 Nigerian Naira ($1.08), and this is where you will appreciate the pains that Nigerians are going through,” Zakka said.

The oil analyst was unhappy that Africa’s most populous nation of 200 million people relies on imported refined products despite having the capacity to locally refine oil for domestic use like gas, diesel and kerosene.

Nigeria is the main oil producer in Africa and the largest crude oil exporter on the continent.

According to data from Statista, in 2020, Nigeria led the exports of crude oil from Africa. Overall, those exports amounted to about 5.4 million barrels per day in that year.

Meanwhile, the African Energy Chamber’s Ayukegba said that because of the uptick in oil prices globally, most African nations are likely to see more exploration for new oil and gas sources.

“Exploration spend is going to lead to much more oil and gas activities off the coast of Africa. The Gulf of Guinea for instance, and also in onshore locations,” he told VOA.

”There’s drilling going on in places like Namibia at the moment, where Total and Shell have come up with significant discoveries,” he added.
…

Against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a European Union summit later this week aims to assert the bloc’s energy independence from Russia — and strengthen its collective defense. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.

Camera: Lisa Bryant Produced by: Rob Raffaele
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A French court on Wednesday sentenced to jail terms of up to 13 years three men charged with connections to the brutal 2016 jihadi killing of an 85-year-old priest. 

Father Jacques Hamel was found with his throat slit at the foot of the altar on July 26, 2016, at his small church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class suburb of Rouen in northwest France. 

Two 19-year-old assailants, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, also seriously wounded a worshipper after bursting in during Mass and taking hostages before being killed by police as they tried to leave the church. 

They claimed in a video to be members of the Islamic State group, which later called them its soldiers retaliating for France’s fight against jihadis in Syria and Iraq. 

With the assailants dead, the three suspects on trial — Jean-Philippe Jean Louis, Farid Khelil and Yassine Sebaihia — were charged with “association in a terrorist act.”  

They had all been in contact with the assailants, and Jean Louis traveled with Petitjean to Turkey just weeks before the attack in an attempt to reach Syria. 

The Paris court sentenced Sebaihia to eight years in prison, Khelil to 10 years and Jean Louis to 13 years. 

The court ruled that even if they did not know the details of the plot, they were “perfectly aware that Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean belonged to an association of criminals and were preparing a violent action.” 

The fourth defendant, Rachid Kassim, presumed dead in Iraq, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for complicity in the killing.  

Defendants are tried in France even if they are presumed, but not confirmed, to be dead. 

Jean Louis, 25, was found to have run a Telegram channel in the area, which played a central role in spreading jihadi ideas among youth. 

Khelil, 36, was told he had consistently reinforced the determination of Petitjean, his cousin, to carry out an act of terror. 

Sebaihia, 27, meanwhile, had visited Kermiche two days before the killing and was found to have been aware of the killers’ intentions. 

The trial was marked by scenes of reconciliation between the accused and relatives of the victim, which have been almost unheard of in the legal processes over the spate of jihadi killings in France since 2015. 

Khelil had earlier on Wednesday asked for forgiveness from the family, a move that the priest’s sister Roseline Hamel said “had done a lot of good.” 

Ahead of the verdict, Roseline Hamel had also reached out to the four sisters of Jean Louis to comfort them and had given a photo of her brother to each of the three accused.

Hamel’s murder came as the country was on high alert over a series of jihadist attacks that began with a massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and that have claimed more than 250 lives. 
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that a Russian airstrike had destroyed a maternity hospital in the southeastern port city of Mariupol and that children were among those “under the wreckage.”

Russia has not commented on the allegation. It has denied targeting civilians in its invasion of Ukraine.

A senior Ukrainian official, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said authorities were trying to determine the number of people who might have been killed or wounded.

The hospital attack led Zelenskyy to again call on NATO to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine, declaring, “You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”

A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday that the United States was in talks with Ukraine and other “allies and partners” to provide Kyiv with defensive weapons that do not involve more air defense capabilities.

The U.S., however, has deployed two Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries in Poland, according to Marine Captain Adam Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command. Miller said in a statement Wednesday the missile batteries, normally stationed in Germany, had been repositioned at Poland’s “invitation.”

“This defensive deployment is being conducted proactively to counter any potential threat to U.S. and Allied forces and NATO territory,” Miller said.

Discussions about jets

One day after the U.S. rejected Poland’s offer to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany as a way of helping Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to reporters from Washington along with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, was asked whether it was possible for Ukraine to get the Russian fighter jets.

“We are consulting very closely with Poland and other allies to address the considerable logistical challenges,” Blinken said.

Russia criticized Poland’s offer to send the jets to Germany, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday calling it a “potentially dangerous scenario.”

Poland said Tuesday that its air force was “ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all” of its MiG-29 jets to Ramstein, placing them “at the disposal of the government of the United States of America.”

In exchange, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked that the U.S. send Poland aircraft with similar operational capabilities.

Earlier Wednesday, Russia announced plans for new cease-fires to allow civilians to leave several parts of Ukraine besieged by Russian forces, despite Ukrainian officials’ accusations that Moscow had shelled another evacuation route in the southern part of the country.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russia had confirmed evacuation routes would lead out of Sumy, Mariupol, Enerhodar, Volnovakha, Izyum and several towns near the capital, Kyiv.  Vereshchuk said 5,000 people were able to evacuate Sumy on Tuesday. 

‘Apocalyptic’ situation

But in Mariupol, where a Russian siege has left the southeastern port city with dwindling supplies of electricity, heat, food and water, efforts to get people out Tuesday failed, with Vereshchuk saying Russian forces had fired on a humanitarian cargo convoy.

“The situation in Mariupol is apocalyptic,” Red Cross spokesperson Ewan Watson said.

Blinken also said Wednesday that Russia’s proposals to create humanitarian corridors from Ukraine to Russia were “absurd” as he called for Moscow to allow civilians in Ukraine to leave safely.

“It’s offensive to suggest the Ukrainian people should seek refuge from the very government that has demonstrated such disregard for their lives,” Blinken said.

In other developments Wednesday, the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe nearly 36 years ago, lost power after its power grid source was damaged, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Kuleba tweeted that the plant was relying on reserve diesel generators with the capacity to power it for 48 hours, after which the cooling of spent nuclear fuel would halt, raising the possibility of “imminent” radiation leaks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “barbaric war puts entire Europe in danger. He must stop it immediately,” tweeted Kuleba, who also called on the global community to demand that Russia impose a cease-fire to allow for repairs.

‘Economic war’

Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters Wednesday that the United States was waging an “economic war on Russia.” His comments came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a ban on Russian oil and other energy imports. 

The United Nations’ refugee agency said Wednesday that more than 2.2 million people had fled Ukraine. More than half have gone to Poland.

Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are scheduled to meet Thursday in Turkey to discuss the situation. Kuleba said he would propose a direct meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin.

Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.  Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Poland’s capital, Warsaw, Wednesday as the Biden administration and its NATO allies debated the best ways to fortify Ukraine while avoiding being drawn directly into the fighting, which would risk a wider European war.

U.S. officials say Harris will be carrying a message to Poland that the United States stands “firmly and resolutely” with NATO allies and will continue to provide aid to Ukraine.

Her visit, however, coincides with diplomatic turbulence over a Polish offer, which caught Washington by surprise, to donate its Soviet-era MiG-29 warplanes to the U.S. for the fighter jets to be transferred to Ukraine. In turn, Warsaw wants Washington to replenish its air force with American-made planes.

The Polish government didn’t get the green light from the Biden administration before going public with the plan, and the Pentagon Tuesday rejected the idea as not “a tenable one.” Victoria Nuland, the third most senior U.S. State Department official, only learned the scheme had been made public by the Poles as she was giving testimony before a Capitol Hill committee and was questioned about it by senators.

Polish officials say they were only taking up a suggestion made by the Biden administration. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was considering providing planes to Poland, if Warsaw decided to donate the MiG-29s.

And they emphasize no final decision has been made, saying the final responsibility for the move would need the backing of the entire NATO alliance. In his statement Tuesday about the scheme, Poland’s foreign minister said the Polish government is “ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the government of the United States of America.”

They say international press coverage suggesting the U.S. dismissal of the plan is an indication of a fracture in NATO’s common front against Russia is an overstatement.

“There might have been some miscommunication between us and Washington,” a senior Polish official told VOA on the condition of anonymity. “But all alliance partners are trying to plot a way forward to assist Ukraine while at the same time reducing the risk of a wider war. The transfer of the planes would have to be part of a NATO initiative.”

Earlier, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said a decision about providing to Ukraine 28 MiG-29s, planes which are familiar to Ukrainian pilots, needed to be a joint decision made by all NATO members. “We did not agree to supply planes by ourselves because it must be the decision of the whole of NATO,” he said during a press conference in Warsaw.

News about a possible transfer of MiG-29s had been greeted in Kyiv with jubilation. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his aides have lobbied NATO for additional jets to help it battle Russia in the skies over Ukraine. They have also been urging NATO to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine to protect the country from Russian airstrikes.  

Zelenskyy, who has accused the West of failing to fulfill “promises,” said Wednesday the international community would be responsible for a mass “humanitarian catastrophe” if it did not impose a no-fly zone to protect his country. “When will there be a decision? Look, we’re at war!” Zelenskyy said in a video posted on his Telegram channel. “We ask you again to decide as soon as possible. Send us planes.”

But the U.S. is not the only NATO partner wary of being sucked into the war. A senior U.K. minister, Grant Shapps, told British broadcasters Wednesday NATO allies must be sure they are “not inadvertently doing something which escalates this war” with their actions in Ukraine and risk sparking a wider European conflict. All NATO partners “work together” in their efforts to help Ukraine defend itself but as part of “a defensive organization.”

While some NATO partners are more bullish, like the Poles, others, including Italy, fear a transfer of warplanes or an imposition of a no-fly zone would be viewed by Moscow as a casus belli (provocation of war). Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that any move by the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be akin to “participating in the armed conflict” against Moscow.

The Russian leader has previously threatened NATO with consequences if it involves itself in the war and has put his nuclear forces on standby.

Nonetheless, as Russian forces bombard Ukrainian towns and shell-fleeing civilians, political pressure is mounting on Western leaders to consider imposing the no-fly zone, prohibiting Russian planes from flying over Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO officials say there would be logistical problems, especially with moving in sufficient anti-missile batteries to intercept Russian missiles and air defense systems to protect patrolling NATO warplanes. And there would be a high likelihood of coming into direct conflict with the Russian military.

Still, some former NATO generals have broken with the current consensus against imposing a no-fly zone. Retired British General Chris Deverell said this week NATO faces a stark choice between fighting Putin now or facing war later. Deverell told British reporters he had changed his mind about a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Deverell, who was in charge of military intelligence, cyber and special forces and retired in 2019, said, “I have been against the imposition of a no-fly zone by NATO in Ukraine, believing that it would surely escalate the conflict. But Putin seems hell-bent on escalation. So, the question is becoming: does NATO fight him now or fight him later?”

And a former U.S. NATO supreme commander in Europe is also calling for a no-fly zone. General Philip Breedlove said the move could be carried out without the “bellicose rules of engagement” that could spark a wider conflict with Russia. “How many casualties does it take before we take a different approach to this war?” he asked.

More than two dozen U.S. foreign policy experts, several former diplomats and White House advisers, have issued an open letter to President Biden urging that a “limited” no-fly zone be established over Ukraine to deter Russia’s aerial attacks. Notable co-signers include Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration and George W. Bush-era ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst.

Some current serving generals disagree. Admiral Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of the defense staff, said this week a no-fly zone wouldn’t help as most of the destruction and civilian deaths are being caused by artillery bombardments. “It’s not coming from Russian aircraft,” he argued.

“NATO has been very careful to keep itself out of a direct conflict with Russia,” former U.K. representative to NATO Nicholas Williams said this week. He said in London that NATO is focused on bolstering the defenses of its members. “And so, I don’t think NATO will change its view.”

But, he says, as in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, public pressure and outrage may well force NATO to act.
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In an impassioned video speech earlier this week, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the Russian shelling of fleeing civilians from a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, saying there can be no forgiveness for the shooting of unarmed people.

“Instead of forgiveness, there will be a day of judgment,” he intoned.

Germany and Britain are among European countries that want to ensure there is judgment and are in the process of setting up war crimes units to gather evidence to be used later for war crime prosecutions.

Lists of incidents are already being drawn up amid rising international outrage over attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure, say European officials. As of Monday, the United Nations had recorded 474 civilian deaths and 861 civilians injured as a direct result of the conflict triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

But U.N. and Ukrainian officials say the death toll could be much higher.

Germany’s justice minister, Marco Buschmann, told a German newspaper Tuesday that the country’s federal prosecutor has started to collect evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine is “a serious violation of international law that cannot be justified by anything,” Buschmann said. “Possible violations of international criminal law must be consistently prosecuted,” he added.

Spain’s public prosecutor’s office has also opened a probe into possible “serious violations of international humanitarian law by Russia in Ukraine.” The aim is to “determine the criminal nature” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the office said in a statement.

And Britain is in the process of assembling a war crimes unit based in Poland, U.K. officials say. It will also collaborate with investigators from the Metropolitan Police in London who are gathering evidence of alleged war crimes stretching back to 2014 as part of a broader investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police have appealed for anyone who may have been a victim of a war crime in Ukraine, or witnessed one, to contact them. The ICC probe could include the slaughter by snipers of 53 protesters in Kyiv’s Maidan square on February 20, 2014, during the final days of the uprising which toppled then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced last week that he was going ahead with an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion. The announcement came after 39 countries requested a probe.

Separately, Ukraine Monday urged the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, to order Russia to stop its devastating invasion, saying Moscow is already committing widespread war crimes and “resorting to tactics reminiscent of medieval siege warfare.” The ICJ is the U.N.’s top court and has the authority to settle disputes between states in accordance with international law. It can give advisory opinions on international legal issues.

According to Der Spiegel magazine, the decision to launch a German probe was spurred by mounting reports of the Russian use of cluster bombs, air-dropped or ground-launched explosives that release smaller submunitions. German investigators say the use of cluster bombs will figure prominently in the initial stages of the inquiry.

They are also investigating reports that Russia has drawn up lists of Ukrainian politicians and activists marked for execution by Russian forces. They also will examine whether any war crimes were committed in the Russian shelling of a nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia. World leaders accused Russia of endangering the safety of an entire continent with the shelling. Ukraine’s president dubbed it “nuclear terror.”

The German investigation will begin as a structural probe which will focus on specific alleged war crimes and seek to identify the chain of command behind them before pinpointing individual suspects, say German prosecutors.

One German official told VOA the probe will almost certainly cover Russia’s use of a 500-kilogram bomb on a residential area in the Sumy area, in what the Ukrainian parliament dubbed a “crime against humanity.”

In a statement, the parliament said, “Russian planes dropped bombs on Sumy, Ukraine. There are civilian casualties. The bombs hit residential areas of the city. Houses of civilians were demolished and damaged. This is a targeted attack on civilians. The Russian occupants saw what they were attacking.” At least 21 people, including two children, were killed in the airstrike on the northeastern city, according to regional authorities.

Prosecutors from Germany and other European nations are also likely to focus on the shelling and shooting of civilians Sunday in Irpin, a satellite town on the outskirts of Kyiv, when Russian troops opened fire on them as they made their way to a fleet of yellow buses local authorities had arranged for an evacuation. A total of eight people died, including a family with two children, who were killed by mortar fire.

The scene was captured on video by independent news organizations, including by reporters of The New York Times, with the footage showing civilians throwing aside suitcases and plastic bags and diving for any cover they could find as mortars landed.

Ukrainian officials have accused the Russians of purposefully shelling the civilians. Kyiv says Russian commanders knew the victims were non-combatants trying to escape as Russian drones had been flying over the area just moments before the thump and crump of mortars turned a road leading from a buckled bridge into a killing zone.

“They are shelling us without mercy,” a shell-shocked Marina Starodubtseva told reporters on the scene as she dragged her young daughter into a bus while Ukrainian territorial defense force volunteers assisted the elderly and infirm over a nearby guardrail.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denies the accusation of deliberately targeting Irpin’s civilians.

Other possible war crimes likely to figure in the probes include attacks on health care facilities, leading to the deaths of at least nine people, according to the World Health Organization.

The agency has documented 16 attacks on such facilities since the launch of the Russian invasion. There has been a significant increase in attacks on these facilities as well as ambulances. On Saturday, the agency recorded half a dozen attacks. Catherine Smallwood, a WHO manager for Europe, said during a press briefing Tuesday the attacks have been “increasing quite rapidly over the past few days.”

Hans Henri Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said the agency “strongly condemns” the attacks, adding, “Health workers, hospitals and other medical facilities must never be a target at any time, including during crisis and conflicts.” The agency has called for safe passage for medical supplies.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says it managed earlier this week to intercept a Russian cruise missile as it was bearing down on the country’s most important children’s medical center, the Okhmatdyt Hospital in Kyiv.

The ICC likely will face daunting challenges to filing prosecutions for alleged Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine, say legal analysts. “It is extremely difficult to prove intent to commit war crimes. So difficult, that only six people have been convicted by the ICC and served sentences,” according to Catherine Gegout, an analyst at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (the Institute for Advanced Study) in Bremen, Germany.

The greater and more immediate legal threat may come from the German courts, which are less constricted by bureaucracy and procedure.

Germany observes the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute crimes against international law that take place outside the country, regardless of whether the victims or perpetrators are German nationals. Germany has recently used the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by members of the Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq. In January, a German court handed a former Syrian colonel a lifetime prison sentence for his role in overseeing the murder of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others 10 years ago.
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The European Union has agreed to expand its third round of sanctions being imposed on Russia to target a larger number of oligarchs and officials close to President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The French Presidency of the European Council said in a series of tweets on March 9 that the new sanctions added would apply to “Russian leaders and oligarchs and their family members implicated in the Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

The third round of sanctions being imposed on Russia, the largest EU package agreed since the invasion began on February 24, includes a freeze on the Russian central bank’s assets in the bloc and a ban on Kremlin media in the European Union.

The French Presidency said the new sanctions approved on March 9 also include targeting the maritime sector and measures aim at excluding three Belarusian banks from the SWIFT financial payment messaging system, while also clarifying the issue of cryptocurrencies and giving a complete list of technologies and goods that cannot be sold between Russia and the bloc.

It did not detail which banks in Belarus, which has assisted Moscow in the invasion, are affected or which technologies and goods are included in the sanctions.

“These sanctions will be formally adopted by the Council by written procedure with a view to their rapid publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,” it said.

The EU has now sanctioned 680 people and 53 entities since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, recognized the independence of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, and invaded the country in February.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will collaborate with Poland and Romania on next steps to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and reassure them of Washington’s support during her meetings with leaders of both countries starting Thursday. 

The countries have been increasingly anxious about Russia’s aggression in the region and are NATO’s easternmost members. They share a border with Ukraine, where thousands of refugees are flooding in.

Harris will focus on ways NATO members can implement the economic sanctions put in place and how they can stay aligned and move forward together, senior administration officials said. 

She will also engage with Ukrainian refugees in Poland, discuss continuing humanitarian and security assistance to Ukraine and the region, they said. The number of refugees created by the invasion has surpassed 2 million.

The vice president will discuss the issues in Warsaw with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also visiting the region, they said. 

“A lot of our discussions in these two capitals will be about establishing next steps… and how we move the ball forward,” said one of the officials. 

The Eastern Europe visit comes on the heels of Harris’ trip to Germany for a security conference, where she met U.S. allies and partners including Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy in an effort to keep European allies unified as the Russian invasion of Ukraine became imminent. 

The trip is a sign of President Joe Biden’s increasing faith in Harris’s skills to carry out high-stakes diplomacy. It is also an effort by the administration to manage nervous allies, continue its campaign to isolate Moscow internationally even as the U.S. tries to avoid direct conflict with Russia. 

On Tuesday, the United States rejected a surprise offer by Poland to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany as a way to replenish Ukraine’s air force in its defense against invading Russian forces.

The U.S. administration officials said a dialog on how best to provide security assistance to Ukraine will continue but did not offer details on how the vice president plans to address the situation with Poland.

Harris will use the trip to reiterate the message that “Putin has made a mistake that will result in resounding strategic defeat for Russia,” one of the administration officials said.

The Kremlin describes its actions as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and unseat leaders it calls neo-Nazis. 
…

A look at the latest situation on Day 14 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
…

Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
…

With Russia intensifying its war on Ukraine, killing civilians and triggering a mass refugee crisis, President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a U.S. ban on imported Russian oil. Critics of Russia have said that sanctioning its energy exports would be the best — perhaps only — way to force Moscow to pull back.

A full embargo would be most effective if it included European allies, which are also desperate to stop the violence in Ukraine and the danger Moscow poses to the continent. Yet it’s far from clear that all of Europe would take part in an embargo, though Britain announced Tuesday that it would phase out Russian oil imports by year’s end.

Unlike the United States, Europe is deeply reliant on energy it imports from Russia, the world’s second-largest crude oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia. While the U.S. could replace the relatively small amount of fuel it receives from Moscow, Europe could not, at least not anytime soon.

What’s more, any curbs on Russian oil exports could send already skyrocketing oil and gasoline prices ever higher on both continents and further squeeze consumers, businesses, financial markets and the global economy.

Here is a deeper look:

What will happen with a U.S. ban on Russian oil?

Amid rising gasoline prices in the U.S. — the average price reached a record $4.17 a gallon on Tuesday — the Biden administration has faced growing pressure to impose further sanctions on Russia, including a ban on oil imports.

For now, a broad U.S.-European ban appears elusive. On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear that his country, Europe’s single-largest consumer of Russian energy, has no plans to join in any ban. In response, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman hinted that the U.S. could act alone or with a smaller group of allies.

“Not every country has done exactly the same thing,” Sherman said, “but we have all reached a threshold that is necessary to impose the severe costs that we have all agreed to.”

Even with a ban on Russian oil, the Biden administration and Congress “remain laser-focused on bringing down the higher energy costs for American families and our partners stemming from Putin’s invasion,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

Pelosi, who has expressed support for a U.S. ban on Russian oil, nevertheless also cited Biden’s action in leading U.S. allies to release 60 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves, including 30 million barrels from U.S. reserves, to try to stabilize global markets.

Would a U.S.-only ban on Russian oil hurt Moscow?

The impact on Russia would likely be minimal. The United States imports a small share of Russia’s oil exports and doesn’t buy any of its natural gas.

Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Together, the imports totaled the equivalent of 245 million barrels in 2021, which was roughly 672,000 barrels of oil and petroleum products a day. But imports of Russian oil have been declining rapidly as buyers shunned the fuel.

Because the amount of oil the U.S. imports from Russia is modest, Russia could potentially sell that oil elsewhere, perhaps in China or India. Still, it would probably have to sell it at a steep discount, because fewer and fewer buyers are accepting Russian oil.

If Russia were eventually shut off from the global market, rogue countries such as Iran and Venezuela might be “welcomed back” as sources of oil, said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at Rystad Energy. Such additional sources could, in turn, potentially stabilize prices.

A team of Biden administration officials were in Venezuela over the weekend to discuss energy and other issues, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. She said officials discussed a range of issues, including energy security.

“By eliminating some of the demand, we’re forcing the price of Russian oil down, and that does reduce revenue to Russia,” said Kevin Book, managing director at Clearview Energy Partners. “In theory, it is a way of reducing how much Russia earns on every barrel it sells, maybe not by a lot, but by some. The most important question is whether there’s going to be more pressure on the other side of the Atlantic.”

How could a Russian oil ban affect prices?

The news of the looming U.S. oil ban sent gasoline prices to their highest level ever recorded, with a gallon of regular selling for an average of $4.17 Tuesday.

A month ago, oil was selling for about $90 a barrel. Now, prices are surging around $130 a barrel as buyers shun Russian crude. Refiners had already feared being left with oil they couldn’t resell if sanctions were imposed.

Shell said Tuesday that it would stop buying Russian oil and natural gas and shut down its service stations, aviation fuels and other operations there, days after Ukraine’s foreign minister criticized the energy giant for continuing to buy Russian oil.

Energy analysts warn that prices could go as high to $160 or even $200 a barrel if buyers continue shunning Russian crude. That trend could send U.S. gasoline prices past $5 a gallon, a scenario that Biden and other political figures are desperate to avoid.

Are Russian imports already falling?

The U.S. oil industry has said it shares the goal of reducing reliance on foreign energy sources and is committed to working with the Biden administration and Congress. Even without sanctions, some U.S. refiners have severed contracts with Russian companies. Imports of Russian crude oil and products have tumbled.

“Our industry has taken significant and meaningful steps to unwind relationships” with Russia and voluntarily limit Russian imports, said Frank Macchiarola, senior vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s largest lobbying group.

Preliminary data from the U.S. Energy Department shows imports of Russian crude dropped to zero in the last week in February.

The petroleum institute hasn’t taken a formal stance on legislation to ban Russian oil imports. But it says it would comply with any restrictions imposed.

Will Europe go along?

A ban on Russian oil and natural gas would be painful for Europe. Russia provides about 40% of Europe’s natural gas for home heating, electricity and industry uses and about a quarter of Europe’s oil. European officials are looking for ways to reduce their dependence, but it’s going to take time.

Britain’s business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said his country will use the rest of the year to phase out its imports of oil and petroleum products to “give the market, businesses and supply chains more than enough time to replace Russian imports,” which account for 8% of U.K. demand.

Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, on Tuesday defended the European decision so far to exempt Russian energy from sanctions.

“The sanctions have been chosen deliberately so that they impact the Russian economy and the Putin regime seriously, but they also have been chosen deliberately so that we as an economy and a nation can keep them up for a long time,” Habeck said. “Ill-considered behavior could lead to exactly the opposite.”

“We have maneuvered ourselves into an ever-greater dependency on fossil energy imports from Russia in the last 20 years,” Habeck said. “That is not a good state of affairs.”

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak underlined that urgency, saying Russia would have “every right” to halt natural gas shipments to Europe through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in retaliation for Germany halting the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was not yet operating. He added that “we have not taken this decision” and that “no one would benefit from this.” It was a change from earlier Russian assurances that they had no intention of cutting off gas to Europe.

Oil is easier to replace than natural gas. Other countries could increase production of oil and ship it to Europe. But much oil would have to be replaced, and this would drive up prices even more because the oil would likely have to travel farther.

Replacing the natural gas that Russia provides to Europe is likely impossible in the short term. Most of the natural gas Russia provides to Europe travels through pipelines. To replace it, Europe would mostly import liquefied natural gas, known as LNG. The continent doesn’t have enough pipelines to distribute gas from coastal import facilities to farther reaches of the continent.

In January, two-thirds of American LNG exports went to Europe. Some ships filled with LNG had been heading to Asia but turned around to go to Europe because buyers there offered to pay higher prices, according to S&P Global Platts.

While U.S. oil and gas producers could drill for more natural gas, its export facilities are already operating at capacity. Expanding those facilities would take years and billions of dollars.
…

The Russian Football Union (RFU) has appealed FIFA and UEFA bans on its football teams.

The football governing bodies suspended Russia from competition on February 28 following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The RFU will demand the restoration of all men’s and women’s national teams of Russia in all types of football in the tournaments in which they took part (including in the qualifying round of the World Cup in Qatar), as well as compensation for damage,” the RFU said last week.

“In order to ensure the possibility of the participation of Russian teams in the next scheduled matches, the RFU will insist on an expedited procedure for considering the case.”

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said a decision on the appeal could come in the next few days.

Russia’s men’s national team had a scheduled World Cup qualifying match against Poland on March 24. Poland has refused to play.

The winner of the match would play either Sweden or the Czech Republic, both of which have refused to play Russia.

Polish, Swedish and Czech soccer federations and federations from other nations will participate in the appeal process.

A wide range of sporting bodies have taken steps to ban or limit the participation of Russian athletes.

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

U.N. and international aid agencies are calling for an end to hostilities in Ukraine as the number of civilian casualties grows and more people flee in terror to safety in neighboring countries.  The latest U.N. figures put the number of civilian casualties at 1,335, including 474 people killed and 861 injured.

The U.N. office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which compiles the figures, believes the true number of casualties is much higher than what is recorded. That has led U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet to reiterate her call for a quick and peaceful end to the conflict, which she says has triggered a humanitarian crisis.

Her spokeswoman, Liz Throssell, says it is not possible to verify cases of civilian deaths and injuries in many parts of Ukraine because of ongoing hostilities. 

She says most of the casualties are from airstrikes and explosive weapons used by Russian forces. She says heavy artillery and multiple rocket systems used in many cities have damaged and destroyed hundreds of residential buildings.

“We are alarmed by numerous reports of threats and actual harm against journalists…We are also concerned by reports of arbitrary detention of perceived pro-Ukrainian people in areas that have recently come under the control of armed groups in the east, and by reports of violence against those considered to be pro-Russian in Ukrainian government-controlled territories,” Throssell said.  

The U.N. refugee agency says more than two million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and other European countries.  However, Ewan Watson, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, says hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the port city of Mariupol are unable to escape.

“We stand ready to act in terms of our neutral intermediary role to facilitate the safe passage of civilians out of the city. But the bottom line today is that this situation is really apocalyptic for people. It is getting worse. They are running out of essential supplies.  And so, our call today is for life-saving aid to reach these people, Watson said.”

A Russian proposal to create “humanitarian corridors” to allow people to safely leave Mariupol failed after a cease-fire agreement was not honored. 

Aid agencies say priority needs include emergency shelter, health care, food, water and sanitation, and psychosocial support to help people deal with what aid groups call an epidemic of trauma and grief.
…

It’s a global day to celebrate women, but many fleeing Ukraine feel only the stress of finding a new life for their children as husbands, brothers and fathers stay behind to defend their country from Russia’s invasion.

The number of refugees fleeing Ukraine reached 2 million on Tuesday, according to the United Nations, the fastest exodus Europe has seen since World War II. One million of them are children, UNICEF spokesman James Elder tweeted, calling it “a dark historical first.”

Polina Shulga tried to ease the journey for her 3-year-old daughter by hiding the truth.

“Of course it’s hard to travel with a child, but I explained to her that we’re going on vacation and that we’ll definitely come home one day when the war is over,” Shulga said.

She didn’t know what would come next after arriving in Hungary from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, but believed the experience would make her stronger. “I feel like I’m responsible for my child, so it was easier for me to take this step and leave,” she said, as her little girl tugged at the hem of her coat.

Nataliya Levchenko, from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, felt much the same.

“I’m generally in some kind of a terrible dream which keeps going on,” the retired teacher said. “I would be in some kind of abstraction if it wasn’t for my daughter. I wouldn’t be able to come to my senses.”

A decree by Ukraine’s government that prohibits men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country means that most of those fleeing Ukraine are women and children. The policy is meant to encourage men to sign up to fight against Russia’s invasion or to keep them available for military conscription.

That has led to heartbreaking scenes of separation, and growing worry as some encircled, battered parts of Ukraine slip out of reach.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke of International Women’s Day in a video address: “Ukrainians, we usually celebrate this holiday, the holiday of spring. We congratulate our women, our daughters, wives, mothers. Usually. But not today. Today I cannot say the traditional words. I just can’t congratulate you. I can’t, when there are so many deaths. When there is so much grief, when there is so much suffering. When the war continues.”

Women normally receive flowers and chocolates and kisses and speeches. But this time, sugary messages were tinged with sorrow or pleas for peace.

In a refugee camp in Moldova, Elena Shapoval apologized for her tears. She doesn’t hide them from her two children, one 4 and one 8, while recalling their journey from Odesa. The younger one doesn’t understand what’s happening, Shapoval said. The older one tries to calm her, saying, ‘Mom, everything will be all right.'”

She cannot collapse as she thinks about the life they left behind. “I realize that we’ll have to work a lot now,” she said. “I need to get myself together because I have two children and I need to ball up my will like a fist.”

In Romania, Alina Rudakova began to cry as the realized she had forgotten about the holiday. Last year, the 19-year-old from Melitopol received a bouquet of flowers from her father and gifts from other relatives.

“This year, I didn’t even think about this day,” she said. “This day was really awful.”

In a theater at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in the Polish city of Przemysl near the border, women filled makeshift beds. Some checked their phones yet again for news.

“It was difficult to prepare myself for traveling,” said one refugee from near Kyiv who gave only her first name, Natalia. “My sister said that I am very brave, but in my opinion I am a coward. I want to go home.”

And at the Medyka border crossing in Poland, Yelena Makarova said her hurried flight from Kremenchuk with her mother and teenage daughter marked the end of her life as she knew it. Her father, husband and brother all stayed behind.

“I wish that (the war) it would finish as soon as possible, because do you know, for every mother, what can be worse?” she said. “I can’t understand why our children are dying. I don’t know.”
…

Previous efforts to establish humanitarian corridors in areas hit by Russian forces have collapsed
…

Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine     
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
…

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

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

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

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

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

Russian media’s reach

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

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

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

That space is also shrinking.

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

Social media block

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Influencers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. far-right media

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fatima Tlis contributed to this story.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

But John and Natasha decided to stay.

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

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

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

The couple give several reasons for wanting to stay.

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

‘It’s all we have’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inspiration

Other factors played a role in their decision to stay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The joint effort by the student association and the Ghanaian government has paid off — of the 900 students in Ukraine when war erupted, only 39 still remain inside, according to a Ghanaian official.
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NICE, FRANCE— While most of the world is shunning President Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the few leaders keeping an open line of communication is French President Emmanuel Macron. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The president is not naive,” Le Drian said on the eve of Russia’s invasion. “He knows the methods, the character and the cynical nature of Putin.”  
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The message from Mariupol, Ukraine’s besieged port city on the Sea of Azov, was stark. “We’re still holding on,” a resident, Ihor, concluded his brief 34-word message
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