EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday the bloc must act to address “distortions” created by Washington’s $430-billion plan to spur climate-friendly technologies in the United States.

The European Union must “take action to rebalance the playing field where the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] or other measures create distortions,” von der Leyen said in a speech at the College of Europe in the Belgian city of Bruges.

EU countries have poured criticism on Washington’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act, seeing it as anti-competitive and a threat to European jobs, especially in the energy and auto sectors.

The act, designed to accelerate the U.S. transition to a low-carbon economy, contains around $370 billion in subsidies for green energy as well as tax cuts for U.S.-made electric cars and batteries.

Von der Leyen said the EU had to work with the U.S. “to address some of the most concerning aspects of the law.”

She said that Brussels must also “adjust” its own rules to facilitate public investment in the environmental transition and “reassess the need for further European funding of the transition.”

French President Emmanuel Macron seized an opportunity on a state visit to Washington for talks with U.S. President Joe Biden last week to air deep grievances over U.S.-EU trade.

The White House touts the IRA as a groundbreaking effort to reignite US manufacturing and promote renewable technologies.
…

The British Defense Ministry says a recent poll shows Russian public support for the war on Ukraine is dropping.

In its Sunday morning intelligence update the ministry said an independent Russian media outlet has claimed access to data collected by Russia’s Federal Protective Service that indicates 55% of Russians favor peace talks with Ukraine, while only 25% say they support continuing the war. In April 2022 some 80% of Russians were reported as supporting the invasion of Ukraine.

The ministry says that, “With Russia unlikely to achieve major battlefield successes in the next several months, maintaining even tacit approval of the war amongst the population is likely to be increasingly difficult for the Kremlin.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said capping the price of Russian seaborne oil at $60 a barrel is not aggressive enough to squeeze the Russian economy that funds its invasion in Ukraine.

The price cap was agreed to by Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, the United States and the European Union, but the Ukrainian leader called Saturday for a much lower one.

“The logic is obvious,” he said. “If the price limit for Russian oil is $60 instead of, for example, $30, which Poland and the Baltic countries talked about, then the Russian budget will receive about $100 billion a year.”

“This money,” he said, “will go not only to the war and not only to Russia’s further sponsoring of other terrorist regimes and organizations. This money will also be used to further destabilize precisely those countries that are now trying to avoid big decisions.”

The West believes such a significant reduction in price could undercut the cost of Russian oil production.

“We think the number at $60 a barrel is appropriate” to balance limiting Moscow’s ability to profit and ensuring supply meets demand, said John Kirby, U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, on Friday, adding that the cap can be adjusted.

The cap proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aims to reduce Russia’s oil earnings, which support its military and the invasion of Ukraine.

The price cap takes effect on Monday, which coincides with the European Union’s embargo on most Russian oil shipments. It’s uncertain how all of this will affect oil markets, which are swinging between fears of lost Russian supply and weakening demand caused by the lagging global economy. Russia could retaliate by halting shipments, and Europe may struggle to replace imports of Russian diesel fuel.

OPEC+, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, meets Sunday to review its production targets. Reuters says four OPEC+ sources have told it there will be no change in planned oil supplies.

For its part, Russia rejected the price cap and threatened to turn off the oil spigot on the coalition of Western countries that endorsed the cap.

“We will not accept this ceiling,” Tass quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Saturday.

The Russian embassy in Washington said Saturday it will continue to find buyers for its oil, despite what it called “dangerous” attempts by the West to introduce a price cap on its oil exports.

“Steps like these will inevitably result in increasing uncertainty and imposing higher costs for raw materials to consumers,” it said.

Shelling resumes

Russia has resumed shelling the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. And officials warned of a tough winter as Russian strikes target energy infrastructure.

“Russian invaders shelled Kherson — damaged power grids. The city was left without electricity again,” Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said on Telegram, adding that technicians were already working to restore power to the recently liberated city on the west bank of the Dnipro River.

Officials in Kherson have announced they will help citizens evacuate parts of Russian-occupied territory on the east bank of the Dnipro River amid concerns of intensified fighting in the area.

Since Russia’s retreat from Kherson, Ukrainian forces could advance south through the fields of the Zaporizhzhia region to recapture occupied territory and repel the invaders, according to The Washington Post.

Their aim would be to control the land bridge that connects Russia to Crimea. Their counteroffensive must wait, though, until the cold sets in and the muddy ground freezes.

Meanwhile, the world should expect “the reduced tempo in fighting in Ukraine to continue in coming months,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, noting she sees no evidence of a reduced will to resist on the part of the Ukrainian forces.

Assessing Putin

In Kyiv Saturday, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said Russian President Vladimir Putin is not serious about peace talks with Ukraine at this time. She commented after meeting with Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials.

“Whether it’s the energy attacks, whether it’s the rhetoric out of the Kremlin and the general attitude, Putin is not sincere or ready for that,” she said.

Russia and the United States have both said this week they are open to talks in principle, though U.S. President Joe Biden said he would only talk to Putin if he showed true interest in ending the war.

Ukraine says negotiations are possible only if Russia stops attacking and pulls out its troops.

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

 
…

British authorities have arrested a wealthy Russian businessman on suspicion of money laundering, amid efforts to disrupt potential criminal activity by oligarchs and others linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The National Crime Agency said more than 50 officers from a specialized unit raided the suspect’s multimillion-pound home in London on Thursday, seizing several digital devices and a “significant” amount of cash. The man was not named.

“The NCA’s Combatting Kleptocracy Cell, only established this year, is having significant success investigating potential criminal activity by oligarchs, the professional service providers that support and enable them and those linked to the Russian regime,” agency director general Graeme Biggar said in a statement Saturday. “We will continue to use all the powers and tactics available to us to disrupt this threat.”

The arrest comes as Britain works with the United States, European Union and other countries to choke off the flow of money to Putin’s regime following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.K. has imposed sanctions on more than 1,300 individuals and entities, including 120 wealthy business leaders known as oligarchs, with worldwide assets estimated at more than $160 billion, according to the British government.

The businessman targeted in Thursday’s raid was arrested on suspicion of money laundering, conspiracy to commit perjury and conspiracy to defraud the Home Office, the government agency responsible for immigration and law enforcement.

A 35-year-old man who works at the suspect’s residence was also arrested after he was seen leaving the property with a bag containing thousands of dollars in cash, the agency said. A third man, 39, who is the former boyfriend of the businessman’s current partner, was arrested at his home in the Pimlico area of west London on suspicion of offenses including money laundering and conspiracy to defraud.

The NCA said the operation was part of its effort to disrupt the activities of corrupt international business figures and their enablers. Some 100 operations that remove or reduce a criminal threat have been carried out against elites linked to Putin, the agency said.

“The cell has also investigated and taken discreet action against a significant number of elites who impact directly on the U.K., as well as targeting less conventional routes used to disguise movements of significant wealth, such as high-value asset sales via auction houses,” the agency said.

In October, the NCA said it arrested another London-based businessman on suspicion of assisting a sanctioned Russian oligarch conceal his ownership of properties in the U.K.

The agency said that it has worked with law enforcement agencies around the world to “target illicit wealth held abroad,” helping them freeze assets including numerous properties, eight yachts and four aircraft. 
…

U.S. intelligence expects the reduced tempo in fighting in Ukraine to continue in the next several months and sees no evidence of a reduced Ukrainian will to resist, despite attacks on its power grid and other critical winter infrastructure, the director of national intelligence said Saturday.

“We’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict … and we expect that’s likely to be what we see in the coming months,” Avril Haines told the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.

She said both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries would be looking to try to refit and resupply to prepare for a counteroffensive in after the winter, but there was a question as to what that would look like, and added:

“We actually have a fair amount of skepticism as to whether or not the Russians will be in fact prepared to do that. I think more optimistically for the Ukrainians in that timeframe.”

Asked about the effects of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and other civilian infrastructure, Haines said Moscow’s aim was partly to undermine the will of Ukrainians to resist and added: “I think we’re not seeing any evidence of that being undermined right now at this point.”

She said Russia was also looking to affect Ukraine’s capacity to prosecute conflict and added that Kyiv’s economy had been suffering very badly.

“It can over time, obviously, have an impact. How much of an impact will be dependent on how much they go after, what they’re capable of doing, the resilience of that critical infrastructure, our capacity to help them defend it,” she said.

“Ukraine’s economy is suffering very badly. It’s been devastating, and … obviously taking down the grid will have an impact on that as well,” she added.

Haines said she thought Russian President Vladimir Putin had been surprised that his military had not accomplished more.

“I do think he is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia. But it’s still not clear to us that he has a full picture at this stage of just how challenged they are … we see shortages of ammunition, for morale, supply issues, logistics, a whole series of concerns that they’re facing.”

Haines said Putin’s political objectives in Ukraine did not appear to have changed, but U.S. intelligence analysts thought he may be willing to scale back his near-term military objectives “on a temporary basis with the idea that he might then come back at this issue at a later time.”

She said Russia appeared to be using up its military stockpiles “quite quickly.”

“It’s really pretty extraordinary, and our own sense is that they are not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage,” she said.

“That’s why you see them going to other countries effectively to try to get ammunition … and we’ve indicated that their precision munitions are running out much faster in many respects,” she added.

Haines said the United States had “seen some movement” in supplies of munitions from North Korea, “but it’s not been a lot at this stage.”

She said Iran had supplied Russia with drones and Moscow was looking for other types of precision munitions from Tehran, something that would be “very concerning in terms of their capacity.”
…

NATO member and Russia’s neighbor Estonia is boosting its defense capabilities by acquiring an advanced U.S. rocket artillery system in the Baltic country’s largest arms procurement project ever, defense officials said Saturday.

The deal signed Friday for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System is worth more than $200 million and includes equipment such as ammunition and rockets, as well as training.

The package includes HIMARS rockets with ranges of 70-300 kilometers (43-186 miles), the Estonian Center for Defense Investment said in a statement. Lockheed Martin Corp. is expected to make the first deliveries in 2024. Estonian officials didn’t disclose the number of rocket launchers, but local media outlets said the purchase consists of six HIMARS.

“The HIMARS multiple rocket launchers are a new important step in the development of Estonia’s defense capabilities,” Lt. Col. Kaarel Mäesalu, head of the capability development department at the Estonian Defense Forces said in a statement. “This makes it possible to decisively influence the enemy even before coming into contact with our infantry units.”

Estonia’s Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania either have or are currently in the process of acquiring their own HIMARS.

Washington has provided Ukraine with the rocket launchers during Russia’s invasion of the country. The Estonian Defense Ministry said the HIMARS systems “have helped to destroy Russian military ammunition warehouses, transport nodes, and command and control centers with pinpoint accuracy beyond the range of the howitzers Ukraine has been using.”
…

Russia is rejecting a price cap of $60 a barrel on Russian oil imposed by the Group of Seven and its allies, TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Saturday. “We will not accept this ceiling.”

Russia threatened to turn off the oil spigot on the coalition of Western countries that endorsed the cap.

Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, the United States and the 27-nation European Union agreed Friday to set the price for Russian oil at $60-per-barrel. The limit will take effect Monday.

The Russian Embassy in Washington said Saturday it will continue to find buyers for its oil, despite what is called “dangerous” attempts by the West to introduce a price cap on its oil exports.

“Steps like these will inevitably result in increasing uncertainty and imposing higher costs for raw materials to consumers,” it said.

The cap proposed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aims to reduce Russia’s oil earnings that support its military and the invasion of Ukraine. But there are questions about how effective the cap will be.

The Monday start date coincides with the European Union’s embargo on most Russian oil shipments. There’s uncertainty about how all this will affect oil markets, which are swinging between fears of lost Russian supply and weakening demand caused by the lagging global economy. Russia could retaliate by halting shipments, and Europe may struggle to replace imports of Russian diesel fuel.

Ukraine calls for lower price cap

The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, called Saturday for an even lower price cap.

“It would be necessary to lower it to $30 [per barrel] in order to destroy the enemy’s economy faster,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office, wrote on Telegram, staking out a position also favored by Poland — a leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The West feels that such a reduction in price could undercut the cost of Russian oil production.

“We think the number at $60 a barrel is appropriate” to balance limiting Moscow’s ability to profit and ensuring supply meets demand, John Kirby, U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, said Friday, adding that the cap can be adjusted going forward.

Russia has resumed shelling the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Officials warned that Ukraine faces a tough winter because of the Russian strikes on its energy infrastructure.

“Russian invaders shelled Kherson — damaged power grids. The city was left without electricity again,” Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said on Telegram, adding that technicians were already working to restore power to the recently liberated city on the right bank of the Dnipro River.

Officials in Kherson announced they will help citizens evacuate parts of Russian-occupied territory on the east bank of the Dnipro River amid concerns of intensified fighting in the area.

After Russia’s retreat from Kherson, Ukrainian forces may consider advancing south through the fields of the Zaporizhzhia region to recapture occupied territory and repel the invaders, according to The Washington Post.

Their aim would be to control the land bridge that connects Russia to Crimea. Their counteroffensive must wait, though, until the cold sets in and the muddy ground freezes.

A hardened ground would allow their military vehicles to gain more traction. It’s common for some heavy artillery vehicles to get stuck in mud during warmer weather.

Russia prioritizes Bakhmut

Meanwhile, Russia is investing a large amount of its “over all military effort and firepower,” the British Defense Ministry said Saturday, along a “15-kilometer sector of entrenched front line around the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut” in Ukraine.

“Russia has prioritized Bakhmut as its main offensive effort since early August 2022,” the ministry said in its daily update posted on Twitter. “The capture of the town would have limited operational value although it would potentially allow Russia to threaten the larger urban areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk,” according to the report.

However, the defense ministry said, “The campaign has been disproportionately costly” and “Bakhmut’s capture has become a symbolic, political objective for Russia.”

Zelenskyy said in his daily address Friday he and his staff have been working all week “at various levels in European capitals in order to gain a critical mass of support for the launch of a special tribunal – a tribunal on Russian aggression … I am sure that there will be a tribunal, there will be justice” for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden has “no intentions” at present of holding negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, a day after Biden appeared to make a conditional offer to talk to his Russian counterpart.

“We’re just not at a point now where talks seem to be a fruitful avenue to approach right now,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday.

When asked about those comments Friday, Kirby noted that Biden said Putin has yet to show any interest in talking.

“Putin has shown absolutely no inclination to be interested in dialogue of any kind. In fact, quite the contrary,” Kirby said.

“The president wasn’t at all indicating that now is the time for talks,” said Kirby. “In fact, he has been consistent that only [Ukrainian] President Zelenskyy can determine if and when there’s going to be a negotiated settlement and what the circumstances around that settlement would look like.”

The Kremlin said Friday that Putin is ready for negotiations with the West — provided the West recognizes Russia’s “new territories” taken from Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The president of the Russian Federation has always been, is and remains open to negotiations in order to ensure our interests.”

Also Friday, Putin spoke on the phone with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Scholz is quoted as telling Putin “there must be a diplomatic solution as quickly as possible, which includes a withdrawal of Russian troops.”

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden has “no intentions” at present of holding negotiations with President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, a day after Biden appeared to make a conditional offer to talk to his Russian counterpart.

“We’re just not at a point now where talks seem to be a fruitful avenue to approach right now,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Friday.

At a news conference Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Biden said, “I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. He hasn’t done that yet.”

Biden’s comments appeared to be a cautious diplomatic overture from the White House.

When asked about those comments Friday, Kirby noted that Biden said Putin has yet to show any interest in talking.

“Putin has shown absolutely no inclination to be interested in dialogue of any kind. In fact, quite the contrary,” Kirby said.

“The president wasn’t at all indicating that now is the time for talks. In fact, he has been consistent that only (Ukrainian) President Zelenskyy can determine if and when there’s going to be a negotiated settlement and what the circumstances around that settlement would look like,” Kirby said.

The Kremlin said Friday that Putin is ready for negotiations with the West — provided the West recognizes Russia’s “new territories” taken from Ukraine.

In a statement, the Kremlin said the West must accept Putin’s proclamation that the southern region of Kherson and three other partly occupied regions of Ukraine now belong to Russia, before any talks can take place. Russia’s invasion has been condemned as illegal by most countries.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The president of the Russian Federation has always been, is and remains open to negotiations in order to ensure our interests.”

Also Friday, Putin spoke on the phone with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Scholz is quoted as telling Putin “there must be a diplomatic solution as quickly as possible, which includes a withdrawal of Russian troops.”

For his part, Putin accused “Western states, including Germany,” of making it possible for Kyiv to refuse to negotiate with Russia.

“Attention was drawn to the destructive line of Western states, including Germany, which are pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and training the Ukrainian military,” the Kremlin said.

In a written statement, Scholz’s spokesperson said, “the chancellor condemned in particular the Russian airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and stressed Germany’s determination to support Ukraine ensuring its defense capability against Russian aggression.”

Speculation about negotiations to end the war has increased as Moscow’s military advances in Ukraine have stalled and in some cases been turned back. Russia’s missile strikes against Ukraine’s power infrastructure have left millions of Ukrainians without power, heat and water as winter sets in.

President Biden has not spoken with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last March, Biden called Putin “a war criminal.”

On Thursday, France announced its support for creating a special tribunal to try those accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry said Friday it was “outraged” by France’s position.

“We demand that French diplomats, who are so attentive to human rights issues, not divide people into ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ ‘ours’ and ‘not ours,'” the foreign ministry said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the EU would try to set up a specialized court, backed by the United Nations, to investigate and prosecute possible war crimes committed by Russia during its invasion.

Russia has denied targeting civilians and other war crimes.

U.N.-appointed investigators are examining whether Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, leaving millions without heating as temperatures plummet, amount to war crimes, a member of the inspection team said Friday.

Fierce fighting continued Friday in Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Ukraine’s military said it fought off wave after wave of Russian attacks.

Kyiv said Russian troops attacked Ukrainian positions in 14 settlements, while carrying out 30 airstrikes and 35 multiple-rocket attacks on civilian areas.

The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

The British Defense Ministry’s intelligence update Friday on Ukraine said, “Russia’s withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro River last month has provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with opportunities to strike additional Russian logistics nodes and lines of communication.”

“This threat has highly likely prompted Russian logisticians to relocate supply nodes, including rail transfer points, further south and east,” according to the report posted on Twitter. “Russian logistics units will need to conduct extra labor-intensive loading and unloading from rail to road transport. Road moves will subsequently still be vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery as they move on to supply Russian forward defensive positions.”

The ministry said, “Russia’s shortage of munitions [exacerbated by these logistics challenges] is likely one of the main factors currently limiting Russia’s potential to restart effective, large scale offensive ground operations.”

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

The United States on Friday designated China, Iran and Russia, among others, as countries of particular concern under the Religious Freedom Act over severe violations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

In a statement, Blinken said those designated as countries of particular concern, which also include North Korea and Myanmar, engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom.

Algeria, the Central African Republic, Comoros and Vietnam were placed on the watch list.

Several groups, including the Kremlin-aligned Wagner Group, a private paramilitary organization that is active in Syria, Africa and Ukraine, also were designated as entities of particular concern. The Wagner Group was designated over its activities in the Central African Republic, Blinken said.

“Around the world, governments and non-state actors harass, threaten, jail, and even kill individuals on account of their beliefs,” Blinken said in the statement. “The United States will not stand by in the face of these abuses.”

He added that Washington would welcome the opportunity to meet with all governments to outline concrete steps for removal from the lists.

Washington has increased pressure on Iran over the brutal crackdown on protesters. Women have waved and burned headscarves, which are mandatory under Iran’s conservative dress codes, during the demonstrations that mark one of the boldest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution.

The United Nations says more than 300 people have been killed so far and 14,000 arrested in protests that began after the September 16 death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was detained for “inappropriate attire.”

U.N. experts also have called on majority Shiite Muslim Iran to stop persecution and harassment of religious minorities and to end the use of religion to curtail the exercise of fundamental rights.

The Baha’i community is among the most severely persecuted religious minorities in Iran, with a marked increase in arrests and targeting this year, part of what U.N. experts called a broader policy of targeting dissenting beliefs or religious practices, including Christian converts and atheists.

The United States has expressed grave concerns about human rights in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, which is home to 10 million Uyghurs.

Rights groups and Western governments have long accused Beijing of abuses against the mainly Muslim ethnic minority, including forced labor in internment camps.

The United States has accused China of genocide. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.

The other countries designated as countries of particular concern were Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

The U.S. Religious Freedom Act of 1998 requires the president, who assigns the function to the secretary of state, to designate as countries of particular concern states that are deemed to violate religious freedom on a systematic and ongoing basis.

The act gives Blinken a range of policy responses, including sanctions or waivers, but they are not automatic.
…

A security organization born in the Cold War to maintain peace in Europe ended a high-level meeting Friday without a final resolution, underlining the existential crisis it is facing amid Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The war launched by one member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe against another has created hurdles for the 57-nation group. It makes decisions based on the consensus of all members, which rendered it impossible for the vast majority that condemn the war to get through a final resolution opposing Russia’s aggression.

Running through the two-day meeting of foreign ministers and other representatives, the OSCE’s first such high-level meeting since the Feb. 24 invasion, was the question of how it can continue to function without consensus from Russia and its ally Belarus, which say they have been unfairly isolated.

“I have no doubts that in the next few years it will be extremely difficult for this organization to deliver on its mandate,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said at a concluding news conference. Poland currently holds the organization’s rotating chair.

The problems facing the organization predate the war. Russia has hampered decisions on budgets, senior appointments and other critical work for years.

The Vienna-based OSCE has a wide-ranging mission to protect peace, with a strong emphasis placed on human rights in addition to arms control and other military security issues. The organization is best known to the public for its role in monitoring elections.

But it has struggled amid a real war. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the organization evacuated its staff members working on a peace mission in Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists in the east had fought Ukrainian forces for the previous eight years.

Three Ukrainian employees remain “unlawfully detained” by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine since April, OSCE Secretary-General Helga Schmid said Friday.

Still, Schmid argued that the organization was “not paralyzed” and said it was finding ways to work around Russia’s obstruction, for instance by using a donor-funded program to do demining work and to help survivors of sexual violence in Ukraine.

Notably absent from the conference was Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was banned from entering Poland because he is on a European Union sanctions list. Lavrov spent 40 minutes of a news conference in Moscow on Thursday complaining about his exclusion as the meeting opened in Lodz, Poland.

North Macedonia is set to take over chairing the OSCE in 2023. Bujar Osmani, the country’s foreign minister, said that despite all the obstacles he would not declare this week’s meeting a failure.

It “took place against the backdrop of an all-out war in Europe, unprecedented circumstances since this organization has been established,” Osmani said, adding that many participants agreed the OSCE was needed, especially now.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the OSCE’s recent meeting had been vital for showing a united front against Russia, and that the organization was finding “creative ways” to get around Russian vetoes.

“Of course, this has been the most difficult year for the OSCE since it was founded, but in my view, it was also the most important year,” she told reporters in Berlin Friday, after returning from Poland.

The OSCE was established in 1975 and became a platform for dialogue during the Cold War.

Some members were critical of Poland for banning Lavrov from the meeting in Lodz and voiced hope that North Macedonia’s chairmanship next year will create new openings for dialogue in the organization.
…

 Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he is ready for negotiations with the West — provided the West recognizes Russia’s “new territories” taken from Ukraine.

The statement from the Kremlin came after what appeared to be a cautious diplomatic overture from the White House.

At a news conference Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Joe Biden said, “I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. He hasn’t done that yet.”

The Kremlin shot back that Putin is “open to negotiations,” but the West must accept his proclamation that the southern region of Kherson and three other partly occupied regions of Ukraine now belong to Russia. Russia’s invasion has been condemned as illegal by most countries.

In his daily address Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled a referendum held 31 years ago on December 1 “that united the entire territory of our state. … Everyone expressed their support.” 

“People confirmed the Act of Proclamation of Independence of Ukraine — freely and legally. It was a real referendum …  an honest referendum, and that is why it was recognized by the world. …  Ukrainian rules will prevail,” the president said.  

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The president of the Russian Federation has always been, is and remains open to negotiations in order to ensure our interests.”

The comments came as Putin spoke on the phone with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday morning. Scholz is quoted as telling Putin “There must be a diplomatic solution as quickly as possible, which includes a withdrawal of Russian troops.”

For his part, Putin accused “Western states, including Germany,” of making it possible for Kyiv to refuse to negotiate with Russia.

“Attention was drawn to the destructive line of Western states, including Germany, which are pumping the Kyiv regime with weapons and training the Ukrainian military,” the Kremlin said.

In a written statement, Scholz’s spokesperson said, “the chancellor condemned in particular the Russian airstrikes against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and stressed Germany’s determination to support Ukraine ensuring its defense capability against Russian aggression.”

Speculation about negotiations to end the war has increased as Moscow’s military advances in Ukraine have stalled and in some cases been turned back. Russia’s missile strikes against Ukraine’s power infrastructure have left millions of Ukrainians without power, heat and water as winter sets in.

Biden, who has spoken frequently with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, has said whether or not to negotiate with Russia is a decision for Ukraine to make.

U.S. National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby underscored the point in a statement Friday, saying only Zelenskyy can determine if and when there can be a negotiated settlement.

President Biden has not spoken with Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last March, Biden called Putin “a war criminal.”

On Thursday, France announced its support for creating a special tribunal to try those accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Russia’s foreign ministry said Friday it was “outraged” by France’s position.

“We demand that French diplomats, who are so attentive to human rights issues, not divide people into ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’,” the foreign ministry said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the EU would try to set up a specialized court, backed by the United Nations, to investigate and prosecute possible war crimes committed by Russia during its invasion.

Russia has denied targeting civilians and other war crimes.

U.N.-appointed investigators are examining whether Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, leaving millions without heating as temperatures plummet, amount to war crimes, a member of the inspection team said Friday.

Fierce fighting continued Friday in Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Ukraine’s military said it fought off wave after wave of Russian attacks.

Kyiv said Russian troops attacked Ukrainian positions in 14 settlements, while carrying out 30 airstrikes and 35 multiple-rocket attacks on civilian areas.

The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

The British Defense Ministry’s intelligence update Friday on Ukraine said, “Russia’s withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro River last month has provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with opportunities to strike additional Russian logistics nodes and lines of communication.” 

“This threat has highly likely prompted Russian logisticians to relocate supply nodes, including rail transfer points, further south and east,” according to the report posted on Twitter. “Russian logistics units will need to conduct extra labor-intensive loading and unloading from rail to road transport. Road moves will subsequently still be vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery as they move on to supply Russian forward defensive positions.” 

The ministry said, “Russia’s shortage of munitions [exacerbated bv these logistics challenges] is likely one of the main factors currently limiting Russia’s potential to restart effective, large scale offensive ground operations.” 

Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine, told the Kanel 24 television channel Thursday that between 10,000 to 13,000 soldiers have been killed in the conflict. 

Reuters is reporting that three people were killed and seven were wounded overnight in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson region.
…

Despite the missile strikes and power cuts that have become a regular occurrence in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv’s 190,000 remaining school children are still expected to attend classes, whether online or in person.

“If there is no light, it’s sometimes hard to see when you are writing,” said Yulia, 13, sitting in the front row of an English lesson with around a dozen classmates in a western suburb of the city.

Though her school, like most buildings in Ukraine’s embattled capital, experiences regular electricity cuts caused by Russian missiles that have been targeting the power grid since October, city officials insist pupils will at least be able to finish the current semester, which ends December 23.

“We really need to hold on for these three weeks,” Oleksiy Kurpas, an adviser to the deputy head of Kyiv’s city administration, told Reuters in one of the airy yet warm corridors of the Soviet-era school.

Kurpas expressed hope that the school year would run until the summer, but the wider situation is bleak: nearly half of Ukraine’s power grid has been wrecked and Kyiv has said it expects further attacks.

The official said that about 85% of Kyiv’s prewar school staff remained in the city, compared with 60% of pupils. The other students have moved to safer regions or abroad.

As a result, schools have been working in hybrid mode both in person and online since the start of the academic year.

Online classes are attended by many students still in Kyiv, as there is still a citywide shortfall of 35,000 places in school bomb shelters where students and staff must take refuge during air raid sirens.

Lessons lost with power loss

When power goes out across the city, life is difficult for teachers and pupils alike.

Sixteen-year-old Masha, studiously taking notes during her geometry lesson, described the kind of disruption she faced.

“If the internet doesn’t work, when they give us tests, sometimes they don’t load,” she said.

The school’s head teacher, Olena Roman, said staff were sometimes unable to set homework if the power suddenly went down, and pupils learning remotely often struggled during power cuts in their homes.

Kyiv’s mobile coverage drops significantly during outages, as base stations are forced to use backup batteries with limited power reserves.

Kurpas acknowledged this was a problem and said his own child had been affected by it, but added that “all possible measures,” such as passing material through several messaging apps at once, were being taken to minimize the impact on learning.

Despite the city’s precarious situation, Roman remained confident that the school would keep teaching.

“We will continue working, without question … we have a generator, it will allow us to work in any situation, and that is what we will do,” she said.

Private schools become refuges

Kyiv’s private schools, many of which opened in the years preceding the invasion, have been able to use their greater financial resources to prepare extensively for the disruptions.

A small private school in north Kyiv has even established a heated and powered hub for parents who want to find refuge from cold, dark homes.

“After November 23, the most recent blackouts, I was able to charge my devices and get in touch with my relatives, because there was no mobile connection at home,” said Daria, a parent of one of the children at the school. “I spent all morning here … There were quite a few parents, at least 15, who used the opportunity to work, hold meetings.” 

However, nothing can completely shield children from the most basic reality of war – fear.

“(During air raid sirens) I get scared because you don’t know what’s going on,” 9-year-old Daria Kosova told Reuters. “Some kids start screaming and running around, those who are more terrified, and I don’t know what to do.”
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The quiet Canadian port city of Halifax is looking forward to a high-tech future after having been chosen as the North American host for NATO’s latest effort to spur the development of cutting-edge technologies seen as crucial to 21st century warfare.

The selection was announced at last month’s Halifax International Security Forum, an annual event in which top politicians, military leadership and experts from around the world meet to discuss the defense of democracies.

It had already been decided that one of the program’s two offices would be located in Canada. A European regional office was selected from a joint Estonian-United Kingdom bid, according to a NATO announcement earlier this year.

The initiative, known as the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), was unveiled during an April 6-7 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

The alliance said then that DIANA “will concentrate on deep technologies – those emerging and disruptive technologies that NATO has identified as priorities including: artificial intelligence, big-data processing, quantum-enabled technologies, autonomy, biotechnology, novel materials and space.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg added that NATO would work with the private sector and academia to “ensure that we can harness the best of new technology for transatlantic security.”

The ministers also agreed to establish a 1 billion euro ($1.05 billion) venture capital fund to invest in “early-stage start-ups and other deep tech funds aligned with [NATO’s] strategic objectives,” according to the April announcement.

The selection appears to be a good fit for Halifax, which despite its relatively small population of 431,000 is Canada’s most important Atlantic seaport and home to the nation’s largest military base. More than 40 percent of Canada’s military assets are located in the surrounding province, according to the Nova Scotia government.

The city also features the regional headquarters of Canada’s civilian intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and the Nova Scotia headquarters of the national police service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Halifax’s harbor is the site of a major shipbuilding industry for the Canadian Navy and its naval dockyard features a processing center for the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing countries — Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. It also has one of Canada’s three regional Marine Security Operations Centres (MSOCs), designed to coordinate the nation’s response to any maritime threat.

“Halifax is a great fit for DIANA and its priorities of NATO working more closely with industry and academia,” said Emily Smits, CEO of Modest Tree, a Canadian defense contractor considered one of the rising stars in the industry.

“Halifax is growing rapidly as a tech hub and has many major universities in Halifax and throughout the province. Having DIANA come to Halifax would further position the city as a place of innovation in emerging technologies and demonstrate this on a global scale.”

Asked by VOA what the establishment of DIANA in Halifax would mean for her company, Smits said, “It will allow further collaboration in academia, global industry and potential contracts and partnership discussions. Innovation hubs and networking opportunities that include global players in your backyard are always great for continued discussions.”
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Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who exposed the scale of secret surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA), has sworn an oath of allegiance to Russia and received a Russian passport, TASS reported Friday. 

“Yes, he got [a passport], he took the oath,” Anatoly Kucherena, Snowden’s lawyer, told the state news agency TASS.  

Snowden, 39, did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment on the report. 

President Vladimir Putin in September granted Russian citizenship to Snowden, who fled the United States after leaking secret files that revealed the extensive eavesdropping activities of the United States and its allies. 

Defenders of Snowden hail him as a modern-day dissident for exposing the extent of U.S. spying. Opponents say he is a traitor who endangered lives by exposing the secret methods that Western spies use to listen in on hostile states and militants. 

 
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A special court could be set up to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin, his ministers and top generals for the crime of aggression, following the invasion of Ukraine. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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The British Defense Ministry’s intelligence update Friday on Ukraine said, “Russia’s withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro River last month has provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with opportunities to strike additional Russian logistics nodes and lines of communication.”

“This threat has highly likely prompted Russian logisticians to relocate supply nodes, including rail transfer points, further south and east,” according to the report posted on Twitter. “Russian logistics units will need to conduct extra labor-intensive loading and unloading from rail to road transport. Road moves will subsequently still be vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery as they move on to supply Russian forward defensive positions.”

The ministry said, “Russia’s shortage of munitions (exacerbated bv these logistics challenges) is likely one of the main factors currently limiting Russia’s potential to restart effective, large scale offensive ground operations.”

In his daily address Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recalled a referendum held 31 years ago on Dec. 1 ”that united the entire territory of our state … Everyone expressed their support.”

“People confirmed the Act of Proclamation of Independence of Ukraine — freely and legally. It was a real referendum … an honest referendum, and that is why it was recognized by the world … Ukrainian rules will prevail,” the president said in a swipe at the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The president also said in his speech that he wants to ensure Ukraine’s spiritual independence, in a likely reference to a recent raid on Ukraine’s Russian-affiliated Monastery of the Caves, a 1,000-year-old Eastern Orthodox monastery in Kyiv, where security forces were looking to flush out spies housed among the clerics.
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With Ukraine scrambling to keep communication lines open during the war, an army of engineers from the country’s phone companies has mobilized to help the public and policymakers stay in touch during repeated Russian missile and drone strikes.

The engineers, who typically go unseen and unsung in peacetime, often work around the clock to maintain or restore phone service, sometimes braving minefields to do so. After Russian strikes took out the electricity that cellphone towers usually run on, they revved up generators to keep the towers on.

“I know our guys – my colleagues – are very exhausted, but they’re motivated by the fact that we are doing an important thing,” Yuriy Dugnist, an engineer with Ukrainian telecommunications company Kyivstar, said after crunching through 15 centimeters of fresh snow to reach a fenced-in mobile phone tower on the western fringe of Kyiv, the capital.

Dugrist and his coworkers offered a glimpse of their new daily routines, which involve using an app on their own phones to monitor which of the scores of phone towers in the capital area were receiving electricity, either during breaks from the controlled blackouts being used to conserve energy or from the generators that kick in to provide backup power.

One entry ominously read, in English, “Low Fuel.”

Stopping off at a service station before their rounds, the team members filled up eight 20-liter jerrycans with diesel fuel for a vast tank under a generator that relays power up a 50-meter cell tower in a suburban village that has had no electricity for days.

It’s one of many Ukrainian towns that have had intermittent power, or none at all, in the wake of multiple rounds of devastating Russian strikes in recent weeks targeting the country’s infrastructure – power plants in particular.

Kyivstar is the largest of Ukraine’s three main mobile phone companies, with some 26 million customers – or the equivalent of about two-thirds of the country’s population before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion drove millions of people abroad, even if many have since returned.

The diesel generators were installed at the foot of the cell phone towers since long before the invasion, but they were rarely needed. Many Western countries have offered up similar generators and transformers to help Ukraine keep electricity running as well as possible after Russia’s blitz.

After emergency blackouts prompted by a round of Russian strikes on Nov. 23, Kyivstar deployed 15 teams of engineers simultaneously and called in “all our reserves” to troubleshoot the 2,500 mobile stations in their service area, Dugrist said.

He recalled rushing to the site of a destroyed cell tower when Russian forces pulled out of Irpin, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, earlier this year and getting there before Ukrainian minesweepers had arrived to give the all-clear signal.

The strain the war is putting on Ukraine’s mobile phone networks has reportedly driven up prices for satellite phone alternatives like Elon Musk’s Starlink system, which Ukraine’s military has used during the conflict, now in its 10th month.

After widespread infrastructure strikes last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy convened top officials to discuss the restoration work and supplies needed to safeguard the country’s energy and communication systems.

“Special attention is paid to the communication system,” he said, adding that no matter what the Russia has in mind, “we must maintain communication.”
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US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed that they would never pressure Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, saying the US and France stand as united as ever with their NATO allies against Moscow’s invasion. VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Russian-made helicopters and weapons were used in an airstrike in September that left 12 people dead — half of them children — at a Myanmar school, according to a human rights group that monitors violations in the Southeast Asian country.

Russia, which has diplomatic ties with Myanmar, denies the accusation.

The group, Myanmar Witness, made its allegations in a recent report detailing what it says happened at the Let Yet Kone school located on the compound of a Buddhist monastery in Let Yet Kone village in Tabayin township. The report says Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters were used in the attack that lasted several hours, along with Russian-made S-5 rockets.

“The remnants allegedly found at the location in Tabayin were confirmed to be S-5 rockets by our arms team,” Myanmar Witness said in an email to VOA.

According to Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for the military junta, the troops were flown to the village after the government received word that fighters from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and a local anti-coup group known as the People’s Defense Forces were moving weapons into the village.

The junta accuses the KIA of supporting groups that oppose the military government. The KIA is seeking autonomy for the Kachin ethnic group.

There has been no response from the KIA or the People’s Defense Forces.

VOA spoke to villagers who say no weapons were in the area.

Children were victims

One of the children killed was 14-year-old Zin Ko Oo. In an interview with VOA, his father said the teenager did not want to go to school “because it was unsafe for students at school, and he feared soldiers would come to the school and shoot them.”

The father declined to be named for fear of retribution.

The school had an enrollment of around 300 elementary and middle school students. Locals told VOA that parents and volunteer teachers set up the school in secret after a February 2021 coup saw the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The coup triggered a civil disobedience movement, known as CDM, around the country.

On September 16, the day the two army helicopters attacked the school, Zin Ko Oo was attending class. When the helicopter gunships opened fire with machine guns and heavy weapons, he ran to a classroom where his niece and nephew sought shelter, his father told VOA.

“He helped to hide them under a wooden cot and covered them with his body and hands, but he was hit on the back of his head and legs by the bullets that came through the school’s roof.”

The grieving father said four small children were also struck in the hail of bullets and their bodies shredded. The father said he was told the four youngsters died on the spot, but Zin Ko Oo was brought to Ye-U hospital, 11 kilometers away from the village, where he later died.

The soldiers put the remains of the four children in garbage bags and took the bodies to their military post, Zin Ko Oo’s father said. From there, he said, the bodies were taken to a hospital for cremation.

“The military also did not allow the parents to see the bodies or have their children’s ashes back after the Ye-U hospital cremated them,” the father said. The father also said he was told the parents did not know the bodies would be cremated.

Zin Ko Oo’s father also told VOA he was the only parent who had a chance to view his son’s body at the hospital. The father said he was able to do so only because he begged a military officer on duty to let him see his son one last time. Zin Ko Oo had already died by the time his father saw him.

“I asked a doctor to allow me to take my son’s body, but they refused because they were afraid of the army,” Zin Ko Oo’s father said, adding, “They finally gave me his ashes.”

Zin Ko Oo’s father said no one from the People’s Defense Forces had been in their village or the school as the regime’s spokesperson, Zaw Min Tun, alleged at a press briefing in the Myanmar capital, Naypyidaw, on September 20. The military spokesperson also accused the government’s opponents of using the villagers as human shields.

Running scared

“We have never ever seen this kind of brutal attack targeting a school and us. We were civilians and did not have any weapons. We were so terrified and running as much as we could,” Zin Ko Oo’s father said, in describing the attack.

After the helicopters fired rockets and machine guns, the junta soldiers who were inside the helicopters raided the village.

Zin Ko Oo’s father told VOA his house and truck were burned by the soldiers. He said he lived five houses away from the west side of the monastery, where classes were in session. He said soldiers set fire to some of the motorcycles in a repair shop he owns.

Myanmar Witness stated, “The attack on Let Yet Kone school is part of an emerging trend that shows the Myanmar military’s pattern of increasing recklessness towards the safety of children, especially around schools.”

The Let Yet Kone school is in Sagaing, one of seven regions in the country.

There are thought to be 27 community schools, 4,000 students and 380 CDM teachers in Sagaing region, according to Myanmar Witness. The junta has outlawed such schools, arresting teachers as well as support staff.

“Another spot report was done on a school where a teacher was beheaded and fingers [were] mutilated so that one was definitely a killing with a message against CDM/NUG supported schools,” Myanmar Witness wrote in its email to VOA. The NUG refers to members of Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government. It was established in opposition to the junta.

Separately, a group established in 2018 by the U.N. Human Rights Council said the school attack in Let Yet Kone village might be considered a war crime, with commanders criminally liable.

According to a September 27 statement by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), “Armed attacks that target civilians are prohibited by international laws of war and can be punished as war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
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A new European Union proposal for an international tribunal to try Russian aggression in Ukraine has received mixed reviews — prompting a thumbs up from Kyiv and rights advocates but doubts from experts about its feasibility and whether it will receive broad-based acceptance.

“Russia must pay for its horrific crimes, including for its crime of aggression against a sovereign state,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Wednesday, laying out arguments for establishing a new, United Nations-backed court. “We are ready to start working with the international community to get the broadest international support possible for this specialized court.”

The United Nations-backed International Criminal Court — also known as the ICC — in the Netherlands is already looking into alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, as well as possible Ukrainian atrocities. Russia has denied committing war crimes and accused the international community of ignoring abuses by Ukrainian forces.

Special U.N.-backed tribunals aren’t new. The body proposed by von der Leyen, if ever realized, would focus on Russian aggression in Ukraine.  

First lady points to thousands of crimes

The Ukrainian government has been quick to support the idea. Visiting a London exhibition this week on alleged Russian war crimes, Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska called for justice.

She said more than 40,000 Russian crimes had been registered in Ukraine. Look at the photos at the exhibition, she told her audience, and abstract ideas of war in Ukraine will become real.

Moscow has dismissed the idea of a new war crimes tribunal as having no legitimacy. Experts suggest it would be challenging to establish one.

“My reading of what Ursula von der Leyen said is that the EU doesn’t take for granted that there would be overwhelming international support — and that it recognizes there has to be a sort of campaign to win support for the idea,” said Anthony Dworkin, a policy fellow specializing in human rights and justice at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.

Proposal needs support from developing nations

Brussels will especially need backing from developing countries in Africa and elsewhere, said Dworkin.

“I think it’s very important that that should be done, rather than European countries kind of short-circuiting the attempt to win international legitimacy for the idea by just setting it up themselves,” he said.

Even if it’s up and running, such a tribunal could face obstacles if, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin or other Russian officials face war crimes charges yet are still welcome to visit some nations. That was the case with Sudan’s former leader, Omar al-Bashir, who traveled to multiple countries despite ICC arrest warrants.

Charges against high-level Russian officials may also complicate any future Western efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

“A court is supposed to be politically independent,” said Dworkin. “And therefore, you wouldn’t for instance expect — if there is a kind of negotiation at the end of the conflict — that the charges would be somehow dropped as part of the negotiation. The charges will persist.”
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The Russian-American Science Association’s annual conference was held November 18-20 in Los Angeles, California. The event had a different tone this year because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian
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Ukraine’s foreign minister said Thursday a letter bomb sent to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid was act of terror and pledged to ensure that those responsible receive the maximum punishment.

Authorities in Spain say the bomb was one of several that went to various addresses around the Spanish capital, including that of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and intercepted. The one that arrived at the Ukrainian embassy exploded Wednesday, injuring an employee.

Speaking on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Romania, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the letter bomb was a very serious matter, and they were carefully following it.

He said, “This is an attack against the diplomatic establishment that is defended by international law,” and he had ordered all foreign diplomatic Ukrainian establishments to immediately increase security measures.   

Kuleba pledged to “defend each Ukrainian not only in Ukraine, but also abroad with all available means.”  

Spanish officials said packages also arrived Thursday at Spain’s defense ministry and the Torrejon de Ardoz air base. Another package arrived Wednesday at Instalaza, a company that makes grenade launchers Spain has sent to Ukraine.

The investigation into who sent the packages is continuing.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to host French leader Emmanuel Macron for talks Thursday at the White House that are expected to cover a range of topics including Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region. 

U.S. and French officials said Iran’s nuclear program and security in the Sahel region of Africa would also be on the agenda. 

Macron is the first world leader Biden is hosting on a state visit since becoming president. 

“If you look at what’s going on in Ukraine, look at what’s going on in the Indo-Pacific and the tensions with China, France is really at the center of all those things,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said ahead of Macron’s visit. “And so the president felt that this was exactly the right and the most appropriate country to start with for state visits.” 

Biden and his wife, Jill, had dinner with Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at a Washington restaurant Wednesday. 

Earlier Wednesday, Macron brought up one source of tensions between his country and the United States and he spoke in a meeting with U.S. lawmakers about Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. 

Macron cited provisions in the legislation that provide subsidies for U.S.-made products, saying the measure was “super aggressive” toward European companies. 

“I don’t want to become a market to sell American products because I have exactly the same products as you,” Macron said. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters 
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The United States is deeply concerned about American Paul Whelan, who is in a Russian jail, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday after Whelan’s family said they had not heard from him for a week.

U.S. diplomats have been trying to get more information about Whelan’s condition and his whereabouts, Kirby said.

“As we speak this morning, regrettably, we do not have an update specifically about where he is or what condition he’s in,” Kirby told reporters in a telephone briefing. “That deeply concerns us, and we certainly share the anxiety and the concern of the land and family.”

Kirby addressed the issue after Whelan’s brother, David Whelan, said the family had become concerned about his whereabouts.

David Whelan said in an e-mail on November 29 that it was unusual that the family did not know the whereabouts of the former U.S. Marine and corporate security executive, who is serving 16 years in the Russian region of Mordovia on charges of espionage, which he denies.

The U.S. State Department has said it has been negotiating with Russia on a potential prisoner swap that would involve Whelan and U.S. women’s basketball star Brittney Griner, who is serving nine years in Russia after being convicted on drug charges.

The negotiations appear to be stalled as the Russian side has not provided a “serious response” to any of the U.S. proposals on a prisoner swap, a senior U.S. diplomat said on November 28.

The penal colony’s staff said Paul Whelan was moved to the prison hospital on November 17, a day after a visit by U.S. and Irish diplomats, David Whelan said in the e-mail.

Paul had spoken to his parents every day from the 17th to the 23rd and did not mention the move and had appeared healthy and well to the diplomats, David Whelan said in the e-mail.

“Paul has always mentioned when he’s been transferred to the prison hospital,” said David Whelan, adding that the transfers usually have occurred without his request or need for medical attention.

“And he spoke to our parents a number of times after the [penal colony] staff say he was moved, at least as recently as November 23, and never mentioned it,” David Whelan said, questioning why his brother has been prohibited from making calls if he is at the prison hospital.

“Is he unable to make calls? Or is he really still at [prison colony] IK-17 but he’s been put in solitary and the prison is hiding that fact?” David Whelan asked.

David Whelan added that it was highly unusual that the family did not hear from him on November 24, the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday.

Some information for this report came from by Reuters.
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Australia upset Denmark 1-0 on Wednesday to qualify for the World Cup knockout phase for the first time in 16 years thanks to a fine solo goal from Mathew Leckie.

Australia contained Denmark at the Al Janoub Stadium before stinging the Scandinavians on a counter-attack in the 60th minute when Leckie burst into space, wrong-footed defender Joakim Maehle and fired low past goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.

Denmark coach Kasper Hjulmand brought on all the attacking firepower he could muster as he desperately sought the goals that have eluded his side in Qatar.

But Australia held on to claim second place in Group D, behind France but ahead of Tunisia who were leading the French 1-0 in the dying stages of Wednesday’s other game. Denmark finished bottom with one point.

Tunisa 1, France 0

French-born Wahbi Khazri scored the only goal of the game as Tunisia upset World Cup holder France 1-0 at the Education City Stadium on Wednesday, but the shock victory was not enough for them to join the defending champions in the last 16 of the tournament.

Khazri steered home a 58th-minute winner amid a cluster of defenders for only a third victory at six World Cup tournaments for Tunisia but they were still eliminated.

France, which made nine changes for this match from the team that beat Denmark and had already booked their place in the knockout stages, finished top of Group D on goal difference from runners-up Australia.
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