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La Palma volcano eruption declared over after three months of destruction

Scientists declared the eruption on Spain’s La Palma officially over on Saturday, allowing islanders to breathe a sigh of relief nearly 100 days after the Cumbre Vieja volcano began to spew out lava, rock and ash and upended the lives of thousands.

After bursting into action on Sept. 19, the volcano suddenly went quiet on Monday Dec. 13 but the authorities, wary of raising false hope, held off until Christmas Day to give the all-clear.

“What I want to say today can be said with just four words: The eruption is over,” Canary Islands regional security chief Julio Perez told a news conference on Saturday.

During the eruption, lava had poured down the mountainside, swallowing up houses, churches and many of the banana plantations that account for nearly half the island’s economy.

Although property was destroyed, no one was killed. Maria Jose Blanco, director of the National Geographic Institute on the Canaries, said all indicators suggested the eruption had run out of energy but she did not rule out a future reactivation.

Some 3,000 properties were destroyed by lava that now covers 1,219 hectares – equivalent to roughly 1,500 soccer pitches – according to the final tally by the emergency services.

Of the 7,000 people evacuated, most have returned home but many houses that remain standing are uninhabitable due to ash damage. With many roads blocked, some plantations are now only accessible by sea.

German couple Jacqueline Rehm and Juergen Doelz were among those forced to evacuate, fleeing their rented house in the village of Todoque and moving to their small sail boat for seven weeks.

“We couldn’t save anything, none of the furniture, none of my paintings, it’s all under the lava now,” said Rehm, 49, adding that they would move to nearby Tenerife after Christmas. “I’m not sure it’s really over. I don’t trust this beast at all,” she said.

The volcanic roar that served as a constant reminder of the eruption may have subsided and islanders no longer have to carry umbrellas and goggles to protect against ash, but a mammoth cleanup operation is only just getting underway.

The government has pledged more than $453 million (400 million euros) for reconstruction but some residents and businesses have complained that funds are slow to arrive.

($1 = 0.8836 euros)

Pope: World Must Be Open to Dialogue to Resolve Conflicts

On Christmas Day, in his message to the city and the world, Pope Francis stressed the importance of being open to dialogue to resolve the large number of conflicts, crises and disagreements that exist in today’s world. He mentioned Syria, Iraq and Yemen as examples of countries where longstanding conflicts have caused endless suffering.

As customary on Christmas Day, Pope Francis appeared at the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica overlooking the square to deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” message and blessing to the city and to the world, a tradition he had to make a break from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing those gathered at the Vatican on this rainy, wintry day and the millions watching him live on television, Francis said the need for patient dialogue at this time of pandemic is even more necessary in the world.  

The pope said that “our capacity for social relationships is sorely tried; there is a growing tendency to withdraw, to do it all by ourselves, to stop making an effort to encounter others and do things together.”

He also turned his comments to the international situation, where “we continue to witness a great number of conflicts, crises and disagreements.” These, he added, never seem to end and people hardly notice them.

We have become so used to them, Francis said, that immense tragedies are now being passed over in silence: we risk not hearing the cry of pain and distress of so many of our brothers and sisters.

Francis said the risk is that of avoiding dialogue, and that the complex crisis of the world pandemic will lead to taking of shortcuts rather than the longer paths of dialogue, which, he stressed, are the way to the resolution of conflicts and lasting benefits for all.  

Among the nations that the pope singled out were Syria, where for more than a decade the war has resulted in many victims and an untold number of displaced people, Iraq, still struggling to recover from a lengthy conflict, and Yemen.

Let us listen to the cry of children arising from Yemen, Francis said, where an enormous tragedy, overlooked by everyone, has silently gone on for years, causing deaths every day.  

Francis mentioned other conflict areas in the world, including the Middle East, where the continuing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians drag on without a resolution. He also spoke of the Afghan people, tested by more than 40 years of conflict, and the people of Myanmar, where intolerance and violence have targeted Christian communities.

He did not forget Africa, mentioning Ethiopia, the Sahel region and Sudan.

The pope prayed for the peoples of the countries of North Africa, tormented by divisions, unemployment and economic inequality.

At this time of pandemic, Francis also reminded the world and asked for prayers for the victims of violence against women, for young children and adolescents suffering from bullying and abuse, and for the elderly. He prayed that the current health crisis be overcome and that the necessary health care and vaccines in particular be provided to those who need them most. 

Paris’ Notre-Dame Rector Offers Hope to Virus-Weary Worshippers

Worshippers in face masks filed into Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois Church across from the Louvre Museum on Friday for Christmas Eve Mass and were greeted by the rector of the closed Notre-Dame Cathedral. 

It was the second year that holiday services were held under the shadow of the coronavirus. 

Everyone was masked, and members of the congregation sprayed people’s hands with disinfectant as they entered. Children in the choir sang while masked and spaced out across the podium. They had to produce negative coronavirus tests to participate.

“We have very strict rules in place,” said Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, rector of Notre-Dame, which has been closed since a devastating fire nearly three years ago. “The communion wafer is placed into worshippers’ hands, and there is no kiss of peace. There is no contact whatsoever.” 

Chauvet has been leading the congregation at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois while the cathedral is being repaired. 

In the lead-up to Christmas, France has recorded its highest number of daily coronavirus infections so far, and hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been rising. But the government has held off on imposing curfews, closures or other restrictions for the festivities.

‘We have to live’

Maria Valdes, a dual Mexican-French citizen at Mass, said she was resigned to the restrictions of the pandemic. She has gotten used to the ever-changing rules and regulations in her private and public life.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have to live because this is a virus that isn’t just going to go away,” Valdes said. “Respect the rules, but we have to live.” 

Chauvet said before celebrating the Mass that much as the fire ravaged Notre-Dame, the pandemic has devastated communities, whole towns and families. The lockdowns and isolation have left people disoriented, tired and emotionally exhausted, he said.

“I meet with people who wonder if they are going to manage to get out of this situation, people who are sometimes losing hope,” he said.

“Christmas is hope,” Chauvet added. “We have to continue to fight, to reach the point where we can try to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

In September, the famed medieval cathedral was finally deemed stable and secure enough to start reconstruction from the blaze in April 2019 that tore through its roof and toppled its spire. Work on the spire started a few days ago, and authorities hope to have Notre-Dame open to visitors and religious services in 2024, the year Paris hosts the Olympics.

Carpenters, scaffolding experts, professional climbers, organ mechanics and others are taking part in the effort, which includes special temporary structures to secure the iconic towers, vaults and walls of the huge, roofless structure, and a special “umbrella” to protect it from the weather.

“It’s not simple,” Chauvet said of the work. But, he said, like people in his congregation will recover from the pandemic, the cathedral will recover its past glory. 

“The spire will be the same. The roof will be the same,” he said.

More Than a Dozen Dead in Greece Migrant Boat Accidents

At least three people died when a migrant boat sank in the Aegean Sea on Friday, just hours after similar sinking claimed 11 lives, Greece’s coast guard said.

The latest tragedy, the third since Wednesday, came amid high smuggler activity not seen in Greek waters in months.

The coast guard said it found three bodies and rescued 57 people from a boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros.

Hours earlier, 11 bodies were recovered from a boat that ran aground on an islet north of the Greek island of Antikythera on Thursday evening.

Ninety people stranded on the islet were rescued, including 27 children and 11 women, the coast guard said.

On Wednesday, a dinghy carrying migrants capsized off the island of Folegandros, killing at least three people.

Thirteen people were rescued, while dozens remain missing, Greek authorities said.

Survivors gave conflicting accounts: Some said there had been 32 people on board, while others put the number around 50, a coast guard official told AFP.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said the Folegandros accident was the worst in the Aegean Sea this year.

“This shipwreck is a painful reminder that people continue to embark on perilous voyages in search of safety,” said Adriano Silvestri, the UNHCR’s assistant representative in Greece.

Earlier Friday, the coast guard intercepted another boat with 92 men and boys on board after it ran aground on the coast of the Peloponnese peninsula.

Three suspected smugglers who fled the boat on foot were later arrested.

The UNHCR estimates that more than 2,500 people have died or gone missing at sea in their attempt to reach Europe from January through November this year.

Nearly 1 million people, mainly Syrian refugees, arrived in the European Union in 2015 after crossing to Greek islands close to Turkey. 

Pope Holds Early Christmas Eve Service to Limit St. Peter’s Crowd

It may be known as midnight Mass, but for the second year running, Pope Francis chose to celebrate the service marking the birth of Jesus Christ in the early evening.

Although conditions at the Vatican this year differed from last year, when Italy was in near-total lockdown, authorities did step up restrictions this Christmas season as well, as COVID-19 infections, particularly of the omicron variant, continued to rise fast.

Last year, a very limited number attended the pope’s Christmas Eve Mass, while this year St. Peter’s Basilica was filled with faithful, although all were wearing masks, including all the Mass concelebrants. The Vatican on Thursday tightened restrictions to enter all Vatican offices. Employees must now show they are fully vaccinated or show evidence they have recovered from COVID-19.

At the start of his homily, Pope Francis told the faithful of the message the night Jesus was born. To you is born this day a saviour, who is Christ the Lord, the pope said — a poor child, wrapped in swaddling cloth, a baby lying in the dire poverty of a manger, with shepherds standing by. The pope said God is in littleness, adding that the message is that God does not rise up in grandeur but lowers himself into littleness.

Littleness, Francis said, is what God chose to draw near to us, to touch our hearts, to save us and to bring us back to what really matters. God does not seek power and might, the pope added; he asks for tender love and interior littleness. And that grace of littleness, he said, is what we should be asking for at Christmas.

The pope urged the faithful to put aside complaints, gloomy faces and greed that never satisfies. Accepting littleness, the pontiff added, also means honoring the poor. Jesus is born close to the shepherds who were there to work because they were poor.

God came to fill with dignity the austerity of labor, the pope said; he reminds us of granting dignity to men and women through labor. On the day of life, he added, let us repeat: No more deaths at the workplace!

On Christmas Day, Francis is expected to deliver his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” message and blessing to the city and to the world.

Ukraine Lawmaker Says Prosecutor Seeks Arrest of Former President Poroshenko

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office has asked a court to arrest former President Petro Poroshenko on suspicion of high treason and financing pro-Russian separatists, a lawmaker from Poroshenko’s faction in parliament said Friday.

“On Christmas Eve, the prosecutor general office confirmed the information … that the prosecutor general had approved a motion to arrest Poroshenko with the possibility of bail set at 1 billion hryvnia [$37 million],” Iryna Gerashchenko said on Facebook.

The prosecutor general’s office declined to confirm Gerashchenko’s claim.

On Monday, the state investigative bureau said Poroshenko, who is visiting Poland, was suspected of “facilitating the activities” of terrorist organizations in a preliminary conspiracy with an unnamed group of people, including some top officials in Russia.

The next day, Poroshenko dismissed as unacceptable a decision by authorities to investigate him for high treason. His party said the accusation was fabricated on the instructions of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“Our political team views the recent actions [of the presidential office] and its fully controlled security forces as political repression against the opposition and its leader, selective justice, intimidation and pressure,” Gerashchenko said.

Ukraine has been at war with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region since 2014. Moscow has unnerved the West with a troop buildup near Ukraine in recent months.

Satellite Images Show Russia Still Building Up Forces Near Ukraine

New satellite images captured by a private U.S. company show that Russia has continued to build up its forces in annexed Crimea and near Ukraine in recent weeks while pressing the United States for talks over security guarantees it is seeking.

Reuters could not independently verify the latest images from U.S.-based Maxar Technologies. The Kremlin reiterated on Friday that it reserves the right to move its own forces on Russian territory as it sees fit and that Western countries were carrying out provocative military maneuvers near its borders.

U.S., European and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of building up troops again near Ukraine’s border since October after an earlier brief buildup in April, when Maxar also released images. U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders say Moscow appears to be weighing an attack on Ukraine as soon as next month, something Moscow has repeatedly denied.

The images released late on Thursday showed a base in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, packed with hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks as of Dec. 13. A Maxar satellite image of the same base in October showed the base was half empty.

 

Maxar said a new brigade-level unit, comprised of several hundred armored vehicles that include BMP-series infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, self-propelled artillery and air defense equipment, had arrived at the Russian garrison.

“Over the past month, our high-resolution satellite imagery has observed a number of new Russian deployments in Crimea as well as in several training areas in western Russia along the periphery of the Ukraine border,” Maxar said in a statement.

It cited increased activity at three sites in Crimea and at five sites in western Russia.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia wanted to avoid conflict, but needed an “immediate” response from the United States and its allies to its demands for security guarantees. Moscow has said it expects talks with U.S. officials on the subject to start in January in Geneva.

 

When asked on Friday about the build-up of Russian troops near Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was acting to defend its own security.

“Russia is moving its own troops around on its own territory against the backdrop of highly unfriendly actions by our opponents in NATO, the United States and various European countries who are carrying out highly unambiguous maneuvers near our borders,” said Peskov.

“This forces us to take certain measures to guarantee our own security.”

Biden has threatened strong economic and other measures if Russia invades Ukraine, building on sanctions imposed over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and backing for an ongoing separatist rebellion by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. A U.S. official has said new retaliatory measures could include tough export controls.

Russia says it wants NATO to halt its eastwards expansion and is seeking guarantees that the Western military alliance will not deploy certain offensive weapons to Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

Other Maxar images showed a build-up at the Soloti staging ground in Russia close to the Ukrainian border, with photos shot at the start of December showing a larger concentration of military hardware than in September.

Other pictures showed continuing build-ups at Yelnya, a Russian town around 160 miles (260 km) north of the Ukrainian border, and at the Pogonovo training ground near the southern Russian city of Voronezh.

White House Vows Diplomacy as Russia’s Putin Ratchets Up Rhetoric 

The White House said Thursday that Washington is keeping a keen eye on Moscow and remains committed to diplomacy during upcoming high-level talks. This comes amid increasingly heated rhetoric from Russia’s leader, who on Thursday accused U.S. and NATO allies of undermining his country as he continues to mass troops near Russia’s border with Ukraine.

“You expanded NATO to the east,” President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, during his customary marathon end-of-year press conference, where he also accused Western intelligence services of trying to break up the Russian federation by using terrorist groups. “Of course, we asked you not to do it, as you promised you wouldn’t. 

 

“But we were told: ‘Where is this written on paper? It isn’t, so you can buzz off. We don’t give a damn about your concerns.’ This happened year after year, and every time we pushed back and tried to prevent something or express our concern, [we were told], ‘No, buzz off with your concerns, we’ll do as we please.’ ” 

“Facts are a funny thing,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, responding to reporters’ questions about Putin’s accusations. “And facts make clear that the only aggression we’re seeing at the border of Russia and Ukraine is the military buildup by the Russians and the bellicose rhetoric from the leader of Russia.”

Psaki said the U.S. will hold high-level talks with the Russian government in early January, but she did not give further details on when the talks may happen, where they will take place or who will be involved. Administration officials have declined to respond publicly to Moscow’s demands, which include that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and that the security alliance reduce its deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. 

 

“However Russia has chosen to handle things, we don’t plan to negotiate in public,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday. “It does not strike us as constructive or the way that progress has been made in such diplomatic conversations in the past. We are not going to respond to every proposal or comment that is made, including from the Russian president.” 

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden held a virtual call with Putin. During that call, the two men discussed the estimated 100,000 troops gathered on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine.

 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops in the eastern Donetsk region earlier this month and said his forces are capable of fending off a Russian offensive.

 

Biden hosted Zelenskiy at the White House in September, and he assured him then that the U.S. was “firmly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression.” 

 

The White House also has made clear there will be “significant consequences” if Russia invades. These include harsh economic sanctions and increased security support for Ukraine.

 

“All that planning is well underway on our side, and we are ready to act if and when we need to,” the administration official said. 

 

But does Putin plan to cross that border? Analyst Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute doesn’t think the Russian president does: For one thing, Kagan wrote, it would be “by far the largest, boldest and riskiest military operation Moscow has launched since the 1979 inva­sion of Afghanistan.” 

 

“It would be a marked departure from the approaches Putin has relied on since 2015, and a major step-change in his willing­ness to use Russian conventional military power overtly,” he wrote, in an assessment published earlier this month. “It would cost Russia enormous sums of money and likely many thousands of casualties and destroyed vehicles and aircraft.” 

AP Exclusive: Polish Opposition Senator Hacked With Spyware 

Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found.

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV in the heat of that race, which the ruling party narrowly won. With the hacking revelation, Brejza now questions whether the election was fair. 

It’s the third finding by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that a Polish opposition figure was hacked with Pegasus spyware from the Israeli hacking tools firm NSO Group. Brejza’s phone was digitally broken into 33 times from April 26, 2019, to October 23, 2019, said Citizen Lab researchers, who have been tracking government abuses of NSO malware for years. 

The other two hacks were identified earlier this week after a joint Citizen Lab-Associated Press investigation. All three victims blame Poland’s government, which has refused to confirm or deny whether it ordered the hacks or is a client of NSO Group. State security services spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn insisted Thursday that the government does not wiretap illegally and obtains court orders in “justified cases.” He said any suggestions the Polish government surveils for political ends were false. 

NSO, which was blacklisted by the U.S. government last month, says it sells its spyware only to legitimate government law enforcement and intelligence agencies vetted by Israel’s Defense Ministry for use against terrorists and criminals. It does not name its clients and would not say if Poland is among them.

Citizen Lab said it believes NSO keeps logs of intrusions so an investigation could determine who was behind the Polish hacks.

EU response 

In response to the revelations, European Union lawmakers said they would hasten efforts to investigate allegations that member nations such as Poland have abused Pegasus spyware.

The other two Polish victims are Ewa Wrzosek, an outspoken prosecutor fighting the increasingly hardline government’s undermining of judicial independence, and Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented senior leaders of Brejza’s party, Civic Platform, in sensitive cases. 

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday dismissed revelations that Giertych and Wrzosek were hacked as “fake news.” Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said he had no knowledge of “illegal actions aimed at the surveillance of citizens” but also said Poland was “not helpless” in taking action against people suspected of crimes. 

Giertych was hacked 18 times, also in the run-up to 2019 parliamentary elections that the ruling Law and Justice party won by a razor-thin margin. That victory has continued an erosion of democracy in the nation where the popular 1980s protest movement Solidarity presaged the eventual collapse of the Soviet empire. 

The intense tempo of the hacks of Brejza and Giertych “indicates an extreme level of monitoring” that raises pressing questions about abuses of power, Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton said. Pegasus gives its operators complete access to a mobile device: They can extract passwords, photos, messages, contacts and browsing history, and activate the microphone and camera for real-time eavesdropping. 

“My heart sinks with each case we find,” Scott-Railton added. “This seems to be confirming our worst fear: Even when used in a democracy, this kind of spyware has an almost immutable abuse potential.”

Other confirmed victims have included Mexican and Saudi journalists, British attorneys, Palestinian human rights activists, heads of state and Uganda-based U.S. diplomats. 

An NSO spokesperson said Thursday that “the company does not and cannot know who the targets of its customers are, yet implements measures to ensure that these systems are used solely for the authorized uses.” The spokesperson said there is zero tolerance for governments that abuse the software; NSO says it has terminated multiple contracts of governments that have abused Pegasus, although it has not named any publicly. 

Despite any measures NSO might be taking, Citizen Lab notes, the list of abuse cases continues to grow. 

Doctored texts

Brejza, a 38-year-old attorney, told the AP that he has no doubt data stolen from his phone while he was chief of staff of the opposition coalition’s parliamentary campaign provided critical strategy insights. Combined with the smear effort against him, he said, it prevented “a fair electoral process.”

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored to make it appear as if he created an online group that spread hateful anti-government propaganda; reports in state-controlled media cited the altered texts. But the group didn’t exist. 

Brejza says he now understands where TVP state television got them. 

“This operation wrecked the work of staff and destabilized my campaign,” he said. “I don’t know how many votes it took from me and the entire coalition.” 

Brejza won his Senate seat in that October 2019 race. But since the ruling party held on to the more powerful lower house of parliament, it has steered Poland further away from EU standards of liberal democracy. 

Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said at the time that control of state media gave the ruling party an unfair advantage but called the elections essentially free. They were unaware of the hacking. 

Brejza has been a Law and Justice party critic since it won power in 2015. For example, he has exposed large bonuses paid to senior government officials. In another case, he revealed that the postal service sent tens of thousands of dollars to a company tied to ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Brejza fears the hacking could have compromised whistleblowers who had reached out to him with evidence. 

NSO Group is facing daunting financial and legal challenges — including the threat of default on more than $300 million in debt — after governments used Pegasus spyware to spy on dissidents, journalists, diplomats and human rights activists from countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and the United States. The U.S. blacklisting of NSO has effectively barred U.S. companies from supplying technology to the Israeli firm.

Jailed Belarusian Journalist Kuznechyk Faces Criminal Charges

A freelance journalist, who has worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service, remains in jail on unspecified charges, despite serving two 10-day sentences on controversial hooliganism charges, his relatives said Thursday.

Andrey Kuznechyk’s family told RFE/RL that they were officially informed that the journalist was being transferred from the notorious Akrestsina detention center, where many inmates have said they were tortured, to another facility in Minsk. 

The family was also told that a criminal case on unspecified charges had been launched against Kuznechyk.

Kuznechyk has been held by authorities since late November.

After going for a bike ride on the 25th of last month, Kuznechyk returned to his apartment, accompanied by four men in civilian clothes, according to his wife, Alesya Rak. 

The men, who did not show any identification, then searched their apartment, Rak said, only avoiding the rooms of their two young children.

Kuznechyk was then led away by the group, who did not give a reason for his detention.

The journalist was sentenced to 10 days in jail the following day, after a trial in which he refused to accept a guilty verdict on hooliganism charges.

On December 6, when his initial sentence ended, he was not released, but handed another 10-day jail term, also on a hooliganism charge.

Kuznechyk’s relatives told RFE/RL at the time that the journalist continues to maintain his innocence.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has said the extension of Kuznechyk’s sentence “on absurdly fabricated charges” should be considered a crime in itself.

“Andrey’s state-sponsored kidnapping continues, all in furtherance of the Lukashenko regime’s efforts to block independent information from reaching the Belarusian people. Andrey should be allowed to return to his family immediately,” Fly said in a statement on December 6, referring to authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko.

Tensions have been running high in Belarus since Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of an August 2020 presidential election that opponents and the West say was rigged.

Many Western nations have since refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus, leaving him more reliant than ever on Russia, which analysts say is using his weakened position to strengthen its hold over its smaller neighbor.

Tens of thousands of people have been detained, and human rights activists say more than 800 people are now in jail as political prisoners.

Independent media and opposition social media channels have been targeted as well.

The group Reporters Without Borders has described Belarus as the most dangerous country in Europe for media personnel. 

Minsk Labels RFE/RL’s Belarus Service as ‘Extremist’

Belarus’s Interior Ministry has added RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, to its registry of extremist organizations, in a continued clampdown on independent media and civil society sparked by an eruption of protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko’s claim he won a presidential election last year that the opposition says was rigged.

According to the statement issued by the ministry on December 23, “a group of citizens associated via Radio Svaboda’s internet resources were determined to be an extremist group.”

The move means that Belarusians who subscribe to Radio Svaboda online could face up to six years in prison.

The move comes almost three weeks after a court in Minsk designated Radio Svaboda’s official Telegram channel and some of the broadcaster’s social media accounts as extremist.

Authorities in Belarus have declared hundreds of Telegram channels, blogs and chatrooms as “extremist” since the country was engulfed by protests since the August 2020 presidential election, which handed Lukashenko a sixth consecutive term.

In response, the government has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement, arresting thousands of people and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

Dozens of news websites have been blocked in Belarus and independent media shuttered as part of a sweeping crackdown on information in the wake of the unprecedented protests.

The website of RFE/RL’s Belarus Service has been blocked within Belarus since August 21, 2020, while the accreditation of all locally based journalists working for foreign media, including RFE/RL, were annulled by the Belarusian authorities in October 2020.

Lukashenko, who has run the country since 1994, has denied any fraud in the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on a political transition and new elections.

The West has refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus and in response has imposed several waves of sanctions against the government and other officials accused of aiding and benefiting from the crackdown.

Putin Repeats Demands That West Provide Security Guarantees 

President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the West provide Russia with security guarantees “immediately” amid spiraling tensions involving a massive deployment of Russian troops toward Ukraine. 

Speaking at his annual news conference on December 23, Putin responded testily to a reporter’s question about Russia’s intentions, listing off a litany of grievances about Ukraine and about NATO. 

He also referred to a list of demands that Russian officials released publicly earlier this month that amounted to a major restructuring of European security and NATO’s policies. 

“You should give us guarantees. You! And without any delay! Now!” he said, responding to a question from a Sky News reporter. 

Putin repeated past Kremlin assertions that the United States had placed missile systems on Russia’s border. 

He appeared to be referring to the anti-missile Aegis Ashore systems that the United States has deployed to NATO allies Romania and Poland in recent years. Washington has insisted that the systems are needed to defend Europe against threats from Iran’s missiles, and are ineffective against Russia’s arsenal. 

“Is it us who placed missiles next to the U.S. borders?” Putin said, responding to another question. “No. It is the U.S. with its missiles who came to our home and are on the threshold of our home….Is it an unusual demand? Do not place any more assault systems next to our home? What is unusual about it?” 

Responding to an earlier question, Putin appeared to give a positive signal regarding proposed upcoming talks between Russia, the United States, and possibly other Western allies. 

U.S. and Russian diplomats are tentatively scheduled to meet for new talks, reportedly in Geneva, sometime after the New Year. 

“We have so far seen a positive reaction,” he said. “Our U.S. partners told us that they are ready to begin this discussion, these talks, at the very start of next year.” 

“I hope that’s how it will all play out,” he said. 

The Russian demands, released publicly on December 17, call for prohibiting NATO from expanding further to the east and leaving Ukraine and several other countries as buffer states with limited sovereignty when it comes to military affairs. 

In recent weeks, the United States, NATO, and Kyiv have raised the alarm over around 100,000 Russian troops deployed near the border with Ukraine and in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. 

U.S. officials have said Moscow is planning for a possible military offensive that, if it happens, could come within weeks. 

The new military buildup has become the backdrop for Putin’s push for the United States and NATO to give Russia sweeping “security guarantees” that would drastically alter the post-Cold War order in Europe. 

 

Putin has said he does not want a war but has been adamant that if new fighting breaks out, it will be the fault of Kyiv and the West. 

During the news conference, he also repeated past accusations against Ukraine, asserting that Kyiv was preparing a new military offensive in the eastern regions where war has been ongoing for more than 7 years now. 

“Now they tell us, war, war, war. It seems they are preparing another operation [in Donbas] and are warning us not to get in the way, or there’ll be sanctions,” Putin said. He also accused the West of creating “anti-Russia” sentiment in Ukraine by arming it and “brainwashing the population.” 

“We are doing our best to establish good-neighborly ties with Ukraine. But it is impossible to do so with the current leadership. People in Ukraine who want to work with us are facing pressure or even being killed,” he said. 

The news conference is one of three carefully orchestrated, nationally televised public events that Putin holds almost every year, as part of an effort to showcase his dominance of Russia’s political life. 

In past years, press conferences have gone more than three hours; the longest was last year, at 4 1/2 hours. 

Because of pandemic restrictions, journalists were required to submit three negative PCR tests in order to enter the hall. Organizers also set up “disinfection tunnels” — a unproven technology that sprays individuals with a disinfectant as they walk through. 

Earlier in the news conference, Putin extolled his government’s efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and bolstering the country’s economic growth. 

Like many countries, Russia has struggled to get its COVID-19 infections under control — an effort that has been hampered by widespread vaccine hesitancy. 

Less than 50% of the country’s 146 million people have been fully vaccinated so far, even though Russia was the first in the world to approve and release a coronavirus vaccine a year ago. As of December 23, Russia has reported 10.2 million cases, and 300,000 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. 

“After facing the coronavirus infection’s challenges and the necessary restrictions caused by it in the economy, as well as in the social sphere, our economy, turned out to be more mobilized and better prepared for such shocks than the world’s other developed economies,” he said. 

French Kids Line up to Get Vaccine Shots as Omicron Spreads

French schoolchildren clung nervously to their parents as they entered a vast vaccine center west of Paris on Wednesday — then walked excitedly away with a decorated “vaccination diploma,” as France kicked off mass COVID-19 inoculations for children age 5 to 11.

It’s not a moment too soon for the French government, which is facing the highest recorded infection rates since the pandemic began but trying to avoid a new lockdown.

The health minister said Wednesday that the swiftly-spreading omicron variant is expected to be dominant in France by next week, but ruled out additional restrictions on public life for now. Officials are hoping that a surge in vaccinations will be enough to limit the mounting pressure on hospitals, where COVID-19 patients occupy more than 60% of beds.

At a “vaccinodrome” in the Paris suburb of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, children lined up for first-day jabs Wednesday wearing masks adorned with puppies, flowers or Marvel superheros. 

One worked out his nerves by rolling his toy car on any surface he could find. Another played games on his mom’s phone. Eight-year-old Alvin Yin cried, while his 9-year-old sister Noemie tried to comfort him. 

Dimitri Marck, 8, admitted, “It’s a little weird. I heard about this on TV, and now I’m here.” But he said he’s glad to get vaccinated so he can see grandparents for the holidays.

France started vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds with health risks earlier this month and expanded it to all children in that age group Wednesday as part of accelerated vaccination efforts. Children need the consent of at least one parent, and one parent has to be present when they get a shot.

As of early December, more than 1,000 in every 100,000 children in France aged 6-10 were infected with coronavirus, according to government figures. Currently, 145 children are hospitalized for severe illness due to COVID-19 and 27 children are receiving medical treatment in intensive care units, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Wednesday on BFM television.

France registered 72,832 new cases Tuesday and has 16,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19, among the highest numbers in Europe.

In a radio interview Wednesday, Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne asked companies to let employees work remotely wherever possible for at least three if not four days a week. French businesses largely returned to in-person work in 2020.

France has shut down nightclubs and banned New Year’s Eve fireworks and other mass end-of-year celebrations, including concerts.

“It’s an evening sacrificed for a good cause,” Veran said.

But his main message was to urge more vaccination. More than 89% of people 12 and over in France have had two doses, and about a third have had a booster shot.

Hugo, 8, was the last member of his family to get the shot and felt left out. His father, Benoit Chappaz, said they got him vaccinated “not because the government wants us to,” but for their family’s peace of mind and for general public health.

Nearby, American-born Evan, 7, squirmed in his chair. His great-uncle died with COVID-19, and his family knows several people who have been hospitalized with the virus.

Asked how he would face the injection, he said, “I’m going to scream. And then maybe if Mommy agrees, I can get an ice cream or something sweet, because I got a vaccine.”

As the doctor glided the needle into his arm, Evan didn’t scream. Instead, he wrapped himself around his mother and buried his head in her jacket.

Then as he left, he proudly held up his “diplome de vaccination.”

US and Russia to Hold Talks on Ukraine

Russian and U.S. negotiators will hold talks in January to discuss Moscow’s demand that NATO halt its eastward expansion into the countries of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said Wednesday.

“We don’t want a war,” Lavrov said. “We don’t want to take the path of confrontation. But we will firmly ensure our security using the means we consider necessary,” he said in an interview with Russian RT television.

The foreign minister’s remarks came as Russian energy giant Gazprom continued to restrict natural gas supplies to Europe, prompting renewed accusations the Kremlin is using energy exports as a political weapon.

Lavrov also said Russia would hold separate discussions with NATO, but that talks should not be dragged out. “I hope that they will take us seriously given the moves we take to ensure our defense capability,” he added.

Amid soaring geopolitical tensions over Ukraine, Russia last week presented the United States with draft treaties outlining a set of “security guarantees” the Kremlin is demanding, including a halt to any further enlargement of NATO and a commitment by the alliance not to deploy additional troops to countries that did not already have NATO ground forces present before 1997. That includes Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, which are all NATO members.

 

U.S. and Western officials fear Russian President Vladimir Putin is contemplating a repeat of 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and Russia used armed proxies to seize a large part of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. The White House believes it only has a “four-week window” to stave off a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Monday dismissed claims Moscow is planning to attack Ukraine. But Russian officials have sounded increasingly belligerent. Putin on Tuesday used some of his most direct language so far about the escalating Ukraine standoff with the U.S. and NATO, telling top military officers in Moscow that if NATO does not stop what he says is aggressive behavior in Ukraine, Russia would respond in a “retaliatory military” manner.

“If the obviously aggressive line of our Western colleagues continues, we will take adequate, retaliatory military-technical measures [and] react toughly to unfriendly steps,” Putin said in comments broadcast by Russian media.

While the United States and its NATO allies have said they’re willing to enter talks with Russia, Western diplomats have warned the Russian proposals aren’t acceptable in their current form. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried said talks would have better prospects if Russia deescalated its military buildup along its border with Ukraine.

“Any dialogue with Russia must address NATO’s and others’ concerns about Russia’s continued threatening behavior and be based on the core principles and foundational documents of European security. We will not compromise the key principles on which European security is built, including that all countries have the right to decide their own foreign and security policy course free from outside interference,” she said.

U.S. and NATO officials have been adamant that it is unreasonable for Moscow to seek a veto over the foreign policy direction chosen by Kyiv.   

Lavrov’s remarks Wednesday came after the Kremlin denied restricting natural gas exports to Europe and using energy supplies as a tool of coercive diplomacy.

Already high gas prices in Europe climbed once again midweek when flows through the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Germany stopped on Tuesday. The halt came after days of restricted supplies, which Gazprom, the state-owned energy giant, said had been necessary because of cold weather and high demand in Russia. The wholesale Dutch gas price, the benchmark for European prices, rose more than 20 percent midweek.

Gas supplies from Russia have fallen far short of pre-pandemic levels for months and this year have been almost a quarter below those in 2019. Western politicians have accused the Kremlin of using Russia’s vast gas reserves as a political weapon, aimed at cajoling the Europeans to accept Russian security demands.

In September, Gazprom also cut supplies by one-third to the former Soviet republic of Moldova, sparking a state of emergency in the country. Moldova aspires to join the European Union and has told Moscow it should not interfere in its efforts to do so.

The White House has said it will discuss Russia’s proposed “security guarantees” with European allies but has emphasized for days that Moscow would not be allowed to interfere in the foreign policy and security decisions of sovereign states. U.S. officials have also emphasized that there can be no separate bilateral deals made between Washington and Moscow over European security arrangements. NATO allies have to be fully involved, they say.

The unusual decision of the Russian Foreign Ministry to publish their draft treaties shortly after handing them to American officials has added to questions about the Kremlin’s sincerity in negotiating.

“The substance of the drafts and the way the Russians publicized them do not suggest a serious negotiating bid,” says Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and now senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based research group.

“The unacceptable provisions in the two draft agreements, their quick publication by the Russian government, and the peremptory terms used by Russian officials to describe Moscow’s demands raise concern that the Kremlin may want rejection. With large forces near Ukraine, Moscow could then cite that as another pretext for military action against its neighbor,” he said in a Brookings commentary.

Pifer added that if the draft agreements are part of “an opening bid,” and Moscow is seeking a serious exchange, some draft provisions, including a proposed ban on the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and consultative mechanisms, could offer a basis for negotiation.

Azerbaijani Journalists React to Draft Media Bill

A media bill presented to Azerbaijan’s parliament has been criticized by some journalists who warn that it could restrict their ability to work independently.

The About the Media bill was introduced in parliament on December 10. It is scheduled for a third and final hearing in the coming weeks, after which President Ilham Aliyev is likely to sign it into law.

The proposed bill includes measures such as the establishment of a centralized media registry, licensing of online TV and accreditation of journalists. Other provisions focus on reporting on religious extremism or under martial or emergency law.

Critics say the proposal would give the government leverage over determining who works as a journalist, and that regulating online TV — a medium that has gained popularity because of restrictions on more traditional broadcasting — could undermine the free flow of information.

Concerns were also raised that clauses on martial law and religious extremism could further expand the government’s powers to interfere with content.

The bill stems from a decree that the president signed in January “on deepening media reforms.”

Natiq Javadli, a journalist who works for Berlin-based Meydan TV, believes the law would introduce new restrictions on journalists.

“We are not going to be able to independently call government officials and receive response, because we will be asked if we have been registered as journalists, or not,” Javadli said.

Media expert Alasgar Mammadli told VOA the bill does not appear to have taken into account public opinion or international input.

“This bill envisages the regulation of all journalists in a singular manner, particularly when it comes to their accreditation and the licensing of internet TV. These seriously contravene international legal norms,” Mammadli said.

Media watchdogs and analysts in Azerbaijan say the proposed bill has not been approved by the Venice Commission — the Council of Europe’s independent advisory body that looks at constitutional matters — or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s media body, both of which Baku is supposed to collaborate with.

Analysts also say the draft bill may contravene protections for freedom of expression in the Azerbaijan Constitution.

Parliamentarian Fazil Mustafa rejected the idea that the draft bill would amount to censorship. He said that many provisions, including for the centralized registry and journalist licensing, are not obligatory.

“[The] media registry is voluntary. Those who register are considered journalists, as are those who do not. Simply, those who register may find it beneficial,” Mustafa told VOA, adding that it could help in “utilizing certain privileges.”

Mustafa said the licensing of online television was necessary “because journalists, any media outlets, cannot function outside the legal framework.”

Baku’s Media Development Agency, which played a significant role in the preparation of the bill, has said that it corresponds with international norms.

Mushfig Alasgarli, head of the Journalists Trade Union of Azerbaijan, was also more optimistic. He said he believes the bill will clarify some of the issues around regulation of online media and said that it recognizes “the rights of freelance journalists.”

“They exist de-facto and they work. Until now, their status has not been recognized in the legal sphere,” he said.

Establishing a media registry could remedy the haphazard ways in which media outlets have been registered by the Justice Ministry until now, Alasgarli added.

Investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova disagreed, saying it will be nearly impossible for freelancers to work if they are not considered journalists under the law.

“There is a provision that requires a special registry for journalism and if you are not in registry, then you are not a journalist,” Ismayilova said.

In her view, the law will, in effect, place journalism under direct state control.

She also raised concerns about the draft bill’s language regarding reporting on law enforcement operations against extremism or terrorism.

The award-winning journalist has previously been imprisoned in what rights groups say was retaliation for her coverage of corruption. Ismayilova, who worked for the Azeri service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was arrested in 2014 and spent over 530 days in prison on charges of libel, tax evasion and illegal business activities.

RFE/RL is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which also oversees VOA.

Ismayilova said that rather than helping independent journalists, the new law seeks to convert reporters into government spokespersons, because authorities will be able to define who is or is not a journalist.

Azerbaijan has a poor media freedom record, ranking 167 out of 180 countries where 1 is freest, according to Reporters Without Borders. The watchdog said that journalists “are jailed on absurd grounds if they do not first yield to harassment, blackmail or bribes,” and that access to several news websites is blocked.

As of December 1, two journalists were in prison on what the press freedom organization the Committee to Protect Journalists says are charges in retaliation for their work. 

This story originated in VOA’s Azeri Service. Asgar Asgarov contributed to this report.

Prosecutors Push for Life Sentences in Downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 

Dutch prosecutors have demanded life sentences for four suspects on trial for the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people. 

The prosecution closed three days of final arguments Wednesday by saying Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Igor Pulatov, along with Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, collaborated to get a Buk missile system from Russia to support separatists in Ukraine. 

An international investigation in 2018 concluded a missile launcher used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 came from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade.

Prosecutors said the missile was brought to its launch site “by orders of and under guidance of the suspects.” 

Most of those on board the plane were Dutch nationals, and the Netherlands holds Russia responsible for the downing of the aircraft.Russia has denied any involvement. 

All of the suspects are being tried in absentia. Only Pulatov has legal representation at the proceedings, and his lawyers are expected to give their closing arguments in March. 

A verdict in the trial is not expected until late next year. 

Greece: Migrant Boat Sinks, 1 Dead, Dozens Feared Missing

Greece’s coast guard says one migrant has died and dozens are feared missing after a boat sank off the coast of the island of Folegandros. 

The body of the unidentified man was recovered during an ongoing search and rescue operation launched early Wednesday after the boat sank some 180 kilometers (112 miles) southeast of Athens. The coast guard said 12 people, all believed to be from Iraq, had been rescued and transported to the nearby island of Santorini. 

Most survivors said there were originally 32 people on the boat, but one told authorities there were about 50. 

The coast guard said four coast guard vessels, two helicopters from the navy and air force, a military transport plane, five passing ships and three private vessels were participating in the search and rescue operation. 

“The survivors made it onto a dinghy that was tethered to the boat. Only two of them were wearing life jackets,” Coast Guard spokesman Nikos Kokkalas told state-run ERT television. 

“We always presume the worst-case scenario, in this case that 50 people were on the boat.” 

The coast guard said the operation began Tuesday night after it received information that a vessel carrying migrants had suffered engine failure and later began taking on water south of Folegandros. 

Greece is one of the most popular routes into the European Union for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Most attempt to cross in dinghies from the Turkish shore to the nearby eastern Aegean Greek islands. 

But with increased patrols and allegations of summary deportations back to Turkey for those who arrive, many have been attempting lengthier routes on larger vessels. Folegandros, one of the southern islands in the Cyclades, is not along a usual route for migrant smugglers. 

Other vessels have bypassed the Greek islands and headed directly from the Turkish coast to Italy. 

Germany Moves to Scrap Ban on ‘Advertising’ Abortions

Germany’s justice minister says he will present legislation next month to remove from the country’s criminal code a ban on doctors “advertising” abortions, one of several more liberal social policies that the new government plans. 

The three parties that form Chancellor Olaf Scholz ’s government have long opposed the current rules, but they were defended by the center-right Union bloc of ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, which is now in opposition. 

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said in comments to the Funke newspaper group published Wednesday that there is a “huge reform backlog” on social policy. He said the first step will be to scrap a paragraph in Germany’s criminal code that bans “advertising” abortions, and which carries a fine or a prison sentence of up to two years. 

Under a compromise in 2019, Merkel’s government left the ban formally in place but allowed doctors and hospitals for the first time to say on their websites that they perform abortions. They were not, however, allowed to give more detailed information. 

Buschmann said the so-called paragraph 219a constitutes a “penal risk” for doctors performing legal abortions who give factual information on the internet, and that is “absurd.” 

“Many women who wrestle with themselves on the question of an abortion look for advice on the internet,” he said. “It cannot be that, of all people, the doctors who are professionally best qualified to inform them aren’t allowed to provide information there.” 

Other changes to social policy planned by the new governing coalition of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, the Greens and Buschmann’s Free Democrats include scrapping a 40-year-old law that requires transsexual people to get a psychological assessment and a court decision before officially changing gender, a process that often involves intimate questions. 

The coalition has pledged to replace that with a new “self-determination law.” 

Sanctions on Russia Still Being Debated as Europeans Fear Costs

Poland and Lithuania have backed Ukraine in urging Western powers to immediately impose sanctions on Russia over its military buildup along the Ukrainian border.

As fears mount of a Russian invasion, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday “called upon the international community to step up sanctions on the Russian Federation over its ongoing aggression against Ukraine.”

In a statement issued after the leaders met in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains, they “once again urged the Kremlin to de-escalate the situation by withdrawing its troops from the Ukrainian borders.”

Despite U.S. President Joe Biden warning Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month that Russia would pay a “terrible price” in the event it invades Ukraine, the forward-deployment of hundreds of tanks, howitzers, self-propelled artillery and tens of thousands of troops has not been reversed, say Western security sources.

U.S. and Western officials fear Putin is contemplating a replay of 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and used armed proxies to seize a large part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. The White House believes it has only a “four-week window” to stave off a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, dismissed reports Monday of the West having a “four-week window” to stop an invasion. “There was nothing to defend [Ukraine] from,” he said.

But Russian officials have said relations with NATO were reaching a “moment of truth” and have called on the West to respond to their demands that the Western alliance bar former Soviet states such as Ukraine from joining the bloc.

Zelenskiy’s repeated calls for “powerful preventative actions, powerful serious sanctions to exclude any thought about escalation” so far have been ignored by the U.S. and NATO’s Western European members. But they have continued their drumbeat of warnings of severe economic penalties if Russia invades Ukraine.

Speaking Tuesday to reporters on a conference call, Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried, who for the past week has been holding talks in Moscow, Kyiv and Brussels, said: “The United States has been working very closely with our European counterparts on specific packages of severe consequences for Russia. Should it move forward with military escalation in Ukraine, together with our allies, we have been clear that we would respond with strong economic measures that we have not considered in the past and that would inflict significant costs on the Russian economy and financial system.”

Asked if Western powers are ready to act if there is further Russian aggression against Ukraine today, tomorrow or next week, Donfried said: “There’s clarity about what we will do.”

But current and former diplomats say while there’s broad agreement among Western powers about sanctioning Russia in the event of an incursion, there’s as yet no final accord on the details. Some European governments have less appetite than others, they say. “There is still discussion,” said a British diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It is not all signed and sealed.”

Russia is the European Union’s fifth largest trading partner, and European assets in Russia are valued at about $350 billion.  

Much speculation on what Western powers might do has focused on whether they would cut Russia off from the SWIFT global money-transfer system, which is used by more than 11,000 banks and financial institutions to make and receive cross-border payments. Some commentators have suggested this would be a nuclear option, but others disagree, saying Russia would adapt and could use email, telex and phone calls to arrange money transfers.

“One of the things that I imagine is being considered is more restrictions on the Russian financial infrastructure, which might include SWIFT,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute, Britain’s leading defense think tank.

“I’m not convinced it is necessarily the nuclear option,” he told VOA. “You can perfectly well do cross-border payments without using the system. I’m not saying that there wouldn’t be an impact. There would be, because it would throw a ton of grit into Russia’s ability to trade internationally. But I’m not convinced it is the sort of threat that’s going to make Vladimir Putin quake in his boots.”

When disconnecting Russia from SWIFT was first broached in 2014, the impact would have been greater, Keatinge explained. But since then, Russia has clearly given much thought to what workarounds it would use. And, like China, it has been developing its own financial transfer system, known as SPFS, which 400 institutions—mostly banks—are already using.

“The Russian Central Bank has for a long time been developing a playbook,” Keatinge added. Some other analysts fear unplugging Russia from SWIFT would encourage Russia and China to develop a more ubiquitous global payment system of their own.

Keatinge and others suspect potential sanctions would focus on blacklisting more Russian banks and financial institutions and making it harder for Russia to raise capital overseas. But Western countries have different pain thresholds and “the Europeans have significantly more [economically] at stake,” says Adam Smith, a former senior sanctions adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department who later served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

He cites the risk the Kremlin would retaliate by cutting off natural gas exports to Europe, which sources 35% of its gas supplies from Russia.

“Going after Russia, like going after China, is not the same as going after Iran,” he told VOA. “Collateral consequences would be meaningful. The question is: What degree of self-harm is the West willing to tolerate in order to give Putin a bloody nose?”

US: Talks with Russia Could Occur in January

The United States believes bilateral talks with Russia over its massive troop buildup along the Ukrainian border could start in January, the State Department’s top diplomat for Europe said Tuesday, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the U.S. and its allies for tensions in the region.

Karen Donfried, assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters that the U.S. and Russia would agree on a specific date to begin talks on Moscow’s demands that NATO give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.

But she warned, “We have made clear that any dialogue must be based on reciprocity, address our concerns about Russia’s actions, and take place in full coordination with our European allies and partners.”

“Let me be clear, there will be no talks on European security without Europe,” Donfried said.

Russia has deployed 100,000 troops along its border with eastern Ukraine, according to Western estimates, after unilaterally annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The U.S. has expressed concern that Russia could invade Ukraine early next year but does not believe Putin has decided whether to launch an attack.

U.S. President Joe Biden warned Putin two weeks ago during a virtual summit that the U.S. and its allies would impose devastating economic sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine.

 

Biden has ruled out a ground deployment of U.S. troops in the event of a Russian attack on Ukraine, but Washington has been sending small arms and ammunition to the Kyiv government, along with Javelin missiles the U.S. says Ukraine should use only for defensive purposes.

Putin, speaking to a meeting of Russia’s top military leaders, blamed the West for “tensions that are building up in Europe.”

As part of the upcoming bilateral talks with the U.S., Putin is demanding that NATO, the post-World War II Western military alliance, deny possible membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet satellite countries, while curbing its military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.

Putin said the Kremlin wants “long-term, legally binding guarantees” from the West, as opposed to “verbal assurances, words and promises” that it says it can’t trust.

The Russian leader contended that if the U.S. and NATO place missile systems in Ukraine, it will take only minutes for them to reach Moscow.

“For us, it is the most serious challenge—a challenge to our security,” he said,

“What is happening now, tensions that are building up in Europe, is [the U.S. and NATO’s] fault every step of the way,” the Russian leader said, ignoring Moscow’s takeover of Crimea.

“Russia has been forced to respond at every step,” Putin contended. “The situation kept worsening and worsening, deteriorating and deteriorating. And here we are today, in a situation when we’re forced to resolve it somehow.”

Putin said Moscow hopes for “constructive, meaningful talks with a visible end result—and within a certain time frame—that would ensure equal security for all.”

“Armed conflicts, bloodshed is not our choice, and we don’t want such developments,” Putin said. “We want to resolve issues by political and diplomatic means.”

Some material in this report came from Reuters and the Associated Press.

Belarusian Blogger Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for ‘Insulting’ Lukashenko

A Belarusian blogger has been sentenced to three years in prison on charge of “insulting” Alexander Lukashenko by writing in a post that the country’s authoritarian ruler was “illegitimate” amid a wave of protests against the results of a presidential election last year that opposition figures say was rigged.

A court in the western town of Shchuchyn pronounced its ruling against Vadzim Ermashuk, also known in his posts on social media as Vadimati, on December 21.

The 36-year-old blogger, who was also charged with desecrating the flag for a post in which he called it a “rag,” rejected the charges and refused to testify in the courtroom or answer questions from the judge.

Ermashuk was initially detained in August of this year and sentenced to several days in jail on hooliganism charges for protesting. He was not released after serving his sentence as prosecutors brought new charges against him for his posts.

Ermashuk is one of dozens in Belarus who have faced trials in recent months as authorities brutally suppress dissent in any form since the disputed presidential election in August 2020.

Rights activists and opposition politicians say the poll was rigged to extend Lukashenko’s 26-year rule. Thousands have been detained during countrywide protests and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.

Many of Belarus’s opposition leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country, while Lukashenko has refused to negotiate with the opposition.

The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenko as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the police crackdown.

Children of Detained Uyghurs Find Refuge in Istanbul School

In Turkey, Uyghur refugees who fled Chinese detention centers and other alleged rights abuses say they fear the Turkish government is under increased pressure to prosecute or deport activists. But as VOA’s Heather Murdock finds at one school in Istanbul, some Uyghur children say their parents sent them here to find safety, when there was no one to care for them at home.

Camera: Umut Colak

Russia Expels 2 German Diplomats in Retaliatory Move

Russia expelled two German diplomats on Monday in response to Germany’s expulsion of two Russian diplomats last week. 

The dispute between the two nations started when a German court said last week that Russia had ordered the assassination of a former Chechen militant Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019. 

A German court convicted Russian Vadim Krasikov of murder and sentenced him to life in prison, calling the slaying a “grave breach of German law and the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

After the conviction, Russia called the notion of Russian involvement “absurd.” 

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the German ambassador to announce the expulsions. 

Russian officials said the move was reciprocal, the German Foreign Ministry said. 

“This move comes as no surprise, but it is completely unwarranted from the federal government’s perspective,” it said in a statement. “Today’s decision by Russia’s foreign ministry puts renewed strain on the relationship.” 

“It was noted that the Russian side categorically rejects unfounded and detached-from-reality accusations that Russian public structures are accessory to this crime,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

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