VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has canceled an audience scheduled for Saturday as a precaution after coming down with a mild case of the flu, the Vatican press office said in a short statement without adding further details.

Francis was scheduled to meet with Rome deacons in the morning.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said later Saturday that the pope’s weekly Sunday Angelus address was still to be confirmed and that no further health updates were expected for the day.

The 87-year-old pontiff has had several health problems in recent years. In late November, he was forced to cancel some of his activities and an international trip because of breathing problems. A scan at the time ruled out lung complications. Francis had a part of one lung removed when he was young and still living in his native Argentina.

In April, the pope spent three days at Rome’s Gemelli hospital for what the Vatican said was bronchitis. He was discharged after receiving intravenous antibiotics.

Francis also spent 10 days at the same hospital in July 2021 following intestinal surgery for narrowing of the bowel. He was readmitted in June 2023 for an operation to repair an abdominal hernia and remove scarring from previous surgeries.

When asked about his health in a recent television interview, Francis quipped what has become his standard line: “Still alive, you know.”

Over the past two years, Francis has indicated several times that he would be ready to step down, following the example of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, if his health deteriorates to the point that it becomes an impediment to him leading the Catholic Church. However, in a TV interview last month, he said he felt in good health and denied immediate plans to resign.

Speculation about Francis’ health and the future of his pontificate has increased following Benedict’s death in late 2022. Benedict’s resignation in 2013 marked a turning point for the church, as he became the first pontiff in six centuries to step down.
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Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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TALLINN, Estonia — Earlier this month, when Tucker Carlson asked Vladimir Putin about his reasons for invading Ukraine two years ago, Putin gave him a lecture on Russian history. The 71-year-old Russian leader spent more than 20 minutes showering a baffled Carlson with dates and names going back to the ninth century.

Putin even gave him a folder containing what he said were copies of historical documents proving his points: that Ukrainians and Russians historically have always been one people, and that Ukraine’s sovereignty is merely an illegitimate holdover from the Soviet era.

Carlson said he was “shocked” at being on the receiving end of the history lesson. But for those familiar with Putin’s government, it was not surprising in the least: In Russia, history has long been a propaganda tool used to advance the Kremlin’s political goals. And the last two years have been entirely in keeping with that ethos.

In an effort to rally people around their world view, Russian authorities have tried to magnify the country’s past victories while glossing over the more sordid chapters of its history. They have rewritten textbooks, funded sprawling historical exhibitions and suppressed — sometimes harshly — voices that contradict their narrative.

Russian officials have also regularly bristled at Ukraine and other European countries for pulling down Soviet monuments, widely seen there as an unwanted legacy of past oppression, and even put scores of European officials on a wanted list over that in a move that made headlines this month.

“In the hands of the authorities,” says Oleg Orlov, co-founder of Memorial, Russia’s oldest and most prominent rights group, “history has become a hammer — or even an axe.”

The glorifying

From the early years of his quarter-century rule, Putin has repeatedly contended that studying their history should make Russians proud. Even controversial figures, such as Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, contributed to Russia’s greatness, Putin argues. (Russian media have counted over 100 monuments to Stalin in Russia, most of which were installed during Putin’s rule.)

The Russian president has said that there should be one “fundamental state narrative” instead of different textbooks that contradict each other. And he has called for a “universal” history textbook that would convey that narrative. But that idea, criticized heavily by historians, didn’t gain much traction for quite a while — until Russia invaded Ukraine.

Last year, the government rolled out a series of four new “universal” history textbooks for 10th- and 11th-graders. One featured a chapter on Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, blamed the West for the Cold War and described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

Some historians derided it as blatant propaganda. “The Soviet Union, and later Russia, is (depicted in the textbook as) always a besieged fortress, which constantly lives surrounded by enemies. These hostile circles are trying to weaken Russia in every conceivable way and seize its resources,” says historian Nikita Sokolov.

The Kremlin-friendly vision of Russian history is also dominating a chain of sprawling, state-funded “history parks” – venues that host history-themed exhibitions in 24 cities across the country.

Those venues were opened after a series of historical exhibitions in the early 2010s drew hundreds of thousands of Russians and received praise from Putin. Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov), a Russian Orthodox bishop reported to be Putin’s personal confessor, was the driving force behind them.

Packed with animations, touch-screen displays and other flashy elements, those widely popular expositions were criticized by historians for inaccurate claims and deliberate glorification of Russian rulers and their conquests.

One exhibition described Ivan the Terrible, a 16th-century Russian czar known for his violent purges of Russian nobility, as a victim of “an information war.” Another was widely advertised with a quote falsely attributed to Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German Empire in the 19th century, that was removed swiftly after sparking outcry: “It is impossible to defeat the Russians. We have seen this ourselves over hundreds of years. But Russians can be instilled with false values, and then they will defeat themselves.”

Central to this narrative of an invincible Russia is the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Marked on May 9 — Germany officially capitulated after midnight Moscow time on May 9, 1945 — the Soviet victory has become integral to Russian identity.

The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people in the war, pushing German forces from Stalingrad, deep inside Russia, all the way to Berlin. The suffering and valor that went into the German defeat have been touchstones ever since, and under Putin Victory Day has become the country’s primary secular holiday.

For the authorities, “Russia’s history is a road from one victory to the next,” sums up Orlov, whose group won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. “And more beautiful victories lie ahead. And (the Kremlin says that) we must be proud of our history; history is a means of instilling patriotism. Of course in their view, patriotism is appreciation of the leadership – be it the leadership of the czarist Russia, the leadership of the Soviet Russia or the current leadership.”

The silencing

As celebrations of Victory Day over the years grew more imperious, Putin’s government grew less tolerant of any questioning or criticism of the Soviet Union’s actions in that war — or generally.

In 2014, Russian cable networks dropped Dozhd, the county’s sole independent TV channel, after it hosted a history program on the 1941-44 Siege of Leningrad and asked viewers to vote on whether Soviet authorities should have surrendered Leningrad to save lives. Famine in the city, now called St. Petersburg, killed more than 500,000 people during the siege. The question caused an uproar, with officials accusing the channel of crossing moral and ethical lines. 

That same year, the Russian government adopted a law that made “rehabilitating Nazism” – or “spreading knowingly false information about the actions of the USSR during World War II” – a criminal offense.

The first conviction on those charges was reported in 2016. A man was fined 200,000 rubles (about $3,000 at the time) for a social media post saying that “the Communists and Germany attacked Poland together, unleashing World War II.” In the years that followed, the number of convictions on the charge only grew.

Research and public debate about mass repressions by Stalin also have faced significant resistance in recent years. Historians and rights advocates cite the inevitable parallels to the current crackdown against dissent that has already landed hundreds of people behind bars.

Two historians involved in researching Stalin’s mass executions in northwestern Russia were jailed in recent years – prosecutions on unrelated charges many link to their work. Memorial, Russia’s oldest and most prominent human rights group that drew international acclaim for its studies of political repression in the Soviet Union, has been shut down. It continues to work, but its activities in Russia have been significantly curtailed.

And a queue of people waiting for their turn to read out the names of victims of Soviet repressions no longer snakes through central Moscow streets in late October. The tradition to read them aloud once a year in front of a monument to victims of Soviet repressions — called “Returning the Names” — was started in 2007 and once attracted thousands of people. In 2020, Moscow authorities stopped authorizing it, citing COVID-19.

The authorities are threatened by efforts to preserve historical memory, and it has gotten worse since the war in Ukraine began, says Natalya Baryshnikova, producer of last year’s “Returning the Names,” which in 2023 went ahead in dozens of cities abroad and online.

“We see this very clearly” since the Ukraine war began, says Baryshnikova. “Any grassroots civil movement or statement about the memory of Soviet terror is inconvenient.”

The justifying

According to prominent history teacher Tamara Eidelman, the historical narrative the Kremlin is trying to impose on society contains several main elements: the primacy of the state, the affairs of which are always more important than individual lives; the cult of self-sacrifice and readiness to give up one’s life for a greater cause; and the cult of war.

“Of course, (the latter) is never explicitly spelled out,” Eidelman says. Instead, the narrative is: “`We have always strived for peace … We have always been attacked and merely fought back.'”

That laid the perfect ideological groundwork for the invasion of Ukraine, she says, and points out how the “Never again!” sentiment about World War II for some in Russia in recent years became “We can do it again” — a popular slogan after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 as the Kremlin adopted increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward the West.

Indeed, in the years before the Ukraine war, Putin cited history increasingly often. In 2020, during a reform that reset the limits on his presidential terms, a reference to history was even added to the country’s constitution — a new clause that stipulated Russia is “united by a thousand-year history” and “enforces protection of the historical truth.”

In 2020-21, Putin published two lengthy articles on history — one criticizing the West for actions leading up to World War II, another arguing that Ukrainians and Russians have always been one people. In an address to the nation days before sending troops into Ukraine, he once again invoked history, claiming Ukraine as a state was created artificially by Soviet leaders.

History “has been used to legitimize the regime essentially since the beginning of Putin’s rule,” Ivan Kurilla, a historian at Wellesley College, said in a recent article. And with the war in Ukraine, it “finally took a central place in the state ideology next to geopolitical talk about sovereignty, the ‘decline of the West’ and the protection of traditional values.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — The future looks bleak for war-weary Ukraine: It is beset by shortages in soldiers and ammunition, as well as doubts about the supply of Western aid. Ukrainian forces also face a Russian enemy that has recently seized the initiative on the battlefield.

Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion captured nearly a quarter of the country, the stakes could not be higher for Kyiv. After a string of victories in the first year of the war, fortunes have turned for the Ukrainian military, which is dug in, outgunned and outnumbered against a more powerful opponent.

As the war enters its third year, here is a look at the situation on the ground, the challenges ahead and some of the potential consequences if Ukraine does not acquire the people, ammunition and assistance it needs to sustain the fight.

What is the state of play?

Triumphs have turned to attrition for Ukraine along the snaking front line in the country’s east. With Russia gaining advantages, shortages mounting and a major military shake-up still fresh, questions abound about whether Kyiv can keep going.

“As things stand, neither side has won. Neither side has lost. Neither side is anywhere near giving up. And both sides have pretty much exhausted the manpower and equipment that they started the war with,” said Gen. Richard Barrons, a British military officer who is co-chair of a defense consultancy.

Ukraine suffered setbacks after the much-anticipated summer counteroffensive failed to produce any breakthroughs. The armed forces switched to a defensive posture in the fall to repel new advances from Moscow.

On February 17, Russian forces took control of the embattled city of Avdiivka, where Kyiv’s troops were under constant fire with Russians approaching from three directions. Ukrainian commanders had complained for weeks of personnel and ammunition shortages. It was the biggest battlefield victory for Russia since the fight for Bakhmut, and it confirmed that Moscow’s offensive was gaining steam.

Away from the battlefield, Ukraine has proven successful in the Black Sea, where it has used long-range weapons to strike military installations in Crimea and maritime drones to sink Russian warships. Ukraine has disabled a third of the Black Sea Fleet, according to the Atlantic Council.

Ukraine is looking to acquire more long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian-occupied territory, a move that some European countries fear may spark escalation from Moscow.

How many people have been killed?

Both Russia and Ukraine have sought to keep casualty figures under wraps.

Few details about Ukrainian military deaths have emerged since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. But it’s clear that tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed.

In 2023, the first independent statistical analysis of Russia’s war dead concluded that nearly 50,000 Russian men had died in the war. Two independent Russian media outlets, Mediazona and Meduza, worked with a data scientist from Germany’s Tubingen University to analyze Russian government data.

What happens if Ukraine can’t find more troops?

Without more soldiers, Ukraine’s defensive lines will be overstretched and more vulnerable to Russian attack, especially if Moscow launches intense multi-pronged assaults along the 1,000-kilometer front line.

The Ukrainian military has an average personnel shortage of 25% across brigades, according to lawmakers. Military commanders are unable to give their soldiers enough rest, and Russia has recently increased the tempo of attacks. As a result, soldiers are tired — and more easily injured — exacerbating the effects of the shortage.

Ukraine’s military command has said 450,000 to 500,000 additional recruits are needed for the next phase of the war. Even if Ukraine succeeds in mobilizing that number, which is unlikely, it still would not be able to match the manpower of Russia, which has more than three times Ukraine’s population.

Lawmakers have spent months mulling over a controversial proposal to increase the conscription pool, as many Ukrainian men continue to evade the war in Ukrainian cities.

Commanders say they don’t have enough men to dig trenches or carry out offensive operations. Shortages have also required them to switch tactics and focus on preserving the lives of the soldiers they do have, sometimes at the expense of holding territory.

What about weapons and ammunition?

If they continue, ammunition shortages will jeopardize Ukraine’s ability to hold territory and keep soldiers alive.

Military leaders appear to be rationing shells, sending trickles of ammunition to firing positions to preserve stockpiles, while promises for more ammunition from Western allies have gone unfulfilled. The European Union failed on its promise to deliver 1 million rounds by the start of the year, delivering only a few hundred thousand.

At the same time, Russia is mobilizing its defense industry and may soon be able to fire 5,000 artillery rounds a day, Barrons said. Ukraine is building up its domestic arms production but will not be able to match Moscow in scale in the short-term.

Military commanders have complained for months of ammunition shortages for infantry fighting vehicles, machine guns, artillery and multiple rocket launch systems. Those shortages grew particularly acute by the end of 2023, with some artillery commanders saying they can meet only 10% of ammunition needs.

Commanders say long-range artillery in particular serves two important purposes: First, it acts as a protective umbrella to cover infantry, allowing them to hold territory and prepare for offensive operations. Second, by striking Russian troops and heavy weaponry from a distance, artillery prevents planned assaults by seriously degrading Moscow’s capabilities.

Without it, Ukraine will increasingly come under the pressure of Russia’s relentless artillery barrages. Commanders say their soldiers have no choice but to dig in deeper to hold their lines.

Is Western support waning, and what if it does?

Ukraine is reliant on Western allies and international organizations not just for military aid but also for financial support and humanitarian help.

Without Western assistance, Ukraine will not have the weapons, ammunition and training it needs to sustain the war effort, nor will it be able to keep its battered economy afloat or reach Ukrainians trapped in the crossfire of battles.

Between divisions about the future of aid within the EU and $60 billion in military aid languishing in the United States Congress, Western countries have not been as forthcoming with money this year.

Kyiv breathed a sigh of relief in February when the EU approved extending a 50 billion-euro ($54 billion) aid package for Ukraine after resistance from Hungary. That money is meant to support the economy and rebuild the country, not to fight Russia.

But it’s the U.S. funding that many Ukrainian leaders are waiting for. The funds will enable Ukraine to purchase weapons and equipment from American firms, access more military training and intelligence sharing, and bolster air and sea defenses. The money will also provide direct budget support for Kyiv.

Ukrainian leaders also need Western help to cover the salaries of public servants and medical workers.

On the humanitarian side, the United Nations and its partner agencies said if an appeal for $3.1 billion in new funding for the year is not fulfilled, the U.N. won’t be able to meet the basic needs of 8.5 million Ukrainians living on the front line. 
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PARIS — Angry farmers were back in Paris on their tractors in a new protest Friday demanding more government support and simpler regulations, on the eve of a major agricultural fair in the French capital.

Dozens of tractors drove peacefully into Paris carrying flags from Rural Coordination, the farmers’ union that staged the protest. The protesters then posed with their tractors on a bridge over the Seine River with the Eiffel Tower in the background, before heading towards the Vauban plaza in central Paris, where they all gathered for the demonstration.

The latest protest comes three weeks after farmers lifted roadblocks around Paris and elsewhere in the country after the government offered over 400 million euros ($433 million) to address their grievances over low earnings, heavy regulation and what they describe as unfair competition from abroad.

“Save our agriculture,” the Rural Coordination said on X, formerly Twitter. One tractor was carrying a poster reading: “Death is in the field.”

The convoy temporarily slowed traffic on the A4 highway, east of the capital, and on the Paris ring-road earlier on Friday morning.

French farmers’ actions are part of a broader protest movement in Europe against EU agriculture policies, bureaucracy and overall business conditions.

Farmers complain that the 27-nation bloc’s environmental policies, such as the Green Deal, which calls for limits on the use of chemicals and on greenhouse gas emissions, limit their business and make their products more expensive than non-EU imports.

Other protests are being staged across France as farmers seek to put pressure on the government to implement its promises.

Government officials have held a series of meetings with farmers unions in recent weeks to discuss a new bill meant to defend France’s “agricultural sovereignty,” and which will be debated in parliament this spring.

The government’s plan also includes hundreds of millions of euros in aid, tax breaks and a promise not to ban pesticides in France that are allowed elsewhere in Europe. French farmers say such bans put them at an unfair disadvantage.

Cyril Hoffman, a cereal producer in the Burgundy region and a member of the Rural Coordination, said farmers now want the government to “take action.”

He said his union is advocating for exempting the farming industry from free trade agreements.

“They can make free trade agreements but agriculture should not be part of them, so we can remain sovereign regarding our food,” Hoffman said. “Only in France do we let our farming disappear.”

French President Emmanuel Macron planned to visit the Paris Agricultural Fair on Saturday, though his office appeared to have removed from his agenda a previously scheduled “big debate” with farmers and members of environmental groups at the event.

The president will meet with farmers’ unions before the fair’s opening, his office said late Friday.

Yet France’s major farmer’s union, the FNSEA, said Friday its board decided not to participate in the debate because “conditions for a peaceful dialogue are not met.” The FNSEA staged another protest in Paris, near the site of the fair, on Friday afternoon.

The Paris Agricultural Fair is one of the world’s largest farm fairs, drawing crowds every year.
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BUDAPEST, Hungary — The prime ministers of Hungary and Sweden concluded a defense industry agreement Friday that will expand Budapest’s fleet of Swedish-built fighter jets, paving the way for Hungary’s likely ratification of Sweden’s long-delayed NATO bid.

The meeting in Budapest between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, came after months of heightened tensions between the two countries over Hungary’s refusal to give its backing for Sweden to join NATO.

Kristersson made the trip to Hungary after repeated invitations to do so by the Hungarian government, something Orban had hinted would be a precondition for his government’s endorsement of Sweden’s NATO bid.

Friday’s defense agreement appeared to be a decisive point of reconciliation between the two governments, and Orban has indicated that his party is ready to approve Sweden’s bid Monday.

In a news conference following their bilateral meeting, Kristersson said Sweden would sell four Swedish-made JAS 39 Gripen jets to Hungary, expanding its current fleet of 14 jets. Sweden will also extend support systems and service provision for the jets.

“I strongly welcome this deepened cooperation on advanced fighting capabilities,” Kristersson said, adding that the Gripen jets are “a pride of Sweden.”

Orban said the additional fighters “will significantly increase our military capabilities and further strengthen our role abroad,” and will expand Hungary’s ability to participate in joint NATO operations.

The agreement paved the way for Hungary’s likely ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid Monday, when a vote on the matter is scheduled in parliament. Unanimous support among all NATO members is required to admit new countries, and Hungary is the last of the alliance’s 31 members that has still not given its backing.

During Hungary’s more than 18 months of delays in scheduling a vote, Orban had said his government was in favor of bringing Sweden into NATO, but that lawmakers in his governing Fidesz party were unconvinced — offended by “blatant lies” from some Swedish politicians that he said had cast doubt on Hungary’s democratic credentials.

Hungary’s allies in NATO and the European Union had put increasing pressure on Budapest to drop its opposition to Sweden’s membership. Last weekend, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators visited Hungary and announced they would submit a joint resolution to Congress condemning alleged democratic backsliding and urging Orban’s government to immediately lift its block on Sweden’s trans-Atlantic integration.

Orban’s critics in the EU have alleged that he has stalled on Sweden’s NATO bid to extract concessions from the bloc, which has frozen billions in funding to Hungary over alleged breaches of rule-of-law and democracy standards. The EU has demanded that Budapest take steps to safeguard judicial independence and human rights and tackle corruption.

Hungary’s government has railed against Swedish officials who supported freezing the funds and blamed them for a breakdown in trust between the two countries.

On Friday, Orban said that while Hungary and Sweden don’t agree on all issues, building trust was essential to his country’s support for Sweden’s admission to the alliance.

“To be a member of NATO together with another country means we are ready to die for each other,” he said. “A deal on defense and military capacities helps to reconstruct the trust between the two countries.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden has announced 500 new sanctions on Russia as the world marks two years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Biden said the sanctions will target Russia’s “war machine,” including weapons procurement, and will also target individuals involved in the imprisonment and death of prominent Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny one week ago. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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vienna — Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was convicted Friday of making false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his first government. He was given an eight-month suspended sentence.

The verdict at the Vienna criminal court followed a four-month trial. The case marked the first time in more than 30 years that a former Austrian chancellor had stood trial.

The case centered on Kurz’s testimony to an inquiry that focused on the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative Austrian People’s Party formed a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019.

Prosecutors accused the 37-year-old of having given false evidence in June 2020 regarding his role in the setup of a holding company, OeBAG, which administers the state’s role in some companies, and the appointment of his former close confidant, Thomas Schmid, to its leadership.

Judge Michael Radasztics found Kurz guilty of making false statements about the appointment of the company’s supervisory board, though not about that of Schmid.

Kurz stood motionless as Radasztics announced the verdict to a packed courtroom. His lawyer later said he would appeal the verdict.

Once a rising star among conservatives in Europe, Kurz resigned in 2021 after a separate corruption probe opened and has since left politics.

However, his People’s Party continues to lead the government under current Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The party is currently trailing in polls ahead of a national election expected in September, and the Kurz verdict could put it under more pressure.

In his closing statement, prosecutor Gregor Adamovic said Kurz had “actively” supported Schmid with the aim of handing OeBAG’s leadership to his preferred candidate, and contended that it was clear the then-chancellor signed off on all the candidates for the company’s board.

Kurz has repeatedly stated that he was only “informed” about but not actively involved in the decision.

The prosecution also contended that Kurz made false statements in order to avoid public criticism of cronyism which he had himself declared to be fighting in the Austrian political system.

In their indictment, which wasn’t released to the public but was obtained by The Associated Press, prosecutors reference potentially incriminating chat messages found on Schmid’s phone. Schmid, who is cooperating with prosecutors, testified extensively.

In an emotional closing statement to a court session that stretched into the evening, Kurz said it made him feel “helpless” to see that the trial was mainly about how prosecutors interpreted his statement to the inquiry and not what he had actually meant.

“What I said during the parliamentary inquiry does not correspond to the interpretation of the prosecution,” he said.

Kurz rose to power with an anti-immigration platform and was only 31 when he became the leader of the People’s Party and then chancellor in 2017.

Kurz pulled the plug on his first government after a video surfaced that showed the vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader at the time, Heinz-Christian Strache, appearing to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.

A few months later, Kurz returned to power in a new coalition with the environmentalist Greens in early 2020 but resigned in October 2021. The Greens had demanded his replacement after prosecutors announced that he was a target of a second investigation into suspected bribery and breach of trust. Kurz also denied any wrongdoing in that case.

His former chief of staff, Bernhard Bonelli, was tried along with Kurz and was convicted Friday of making a false statement to the parliamentary inquiry about his own involvement and that of Kurz in the selection of OeBAG supervisory board members.

He was given a six-month suspended sentence. Bonelli’s lawyer also plans to appeal.
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Gaborone, Botswana   — Botswana says it will use next week’s U.N. Environment Assembly to lobby against a proposed European ban on importing wildlife trophies from Africa.

This comes as Botswana’s former president visits the U.K. to lobby in favor of the ban, defying his country’s position.

Botswana’s acting minister of environment and tourism, Machana Shamukuni, told Parliament that he would be present when the U.N. Environment Assembly convenes Monday in Nairobi. He said he would be reminding like-minded delegates to continue to lobby against Europe’s efforts to ban trophy hunting.

Trophy hunting is the practice of killing large animals such as elephants, lions and tigers for sport. Hunters often keep the heads or other parts of the animals for display.

In 2022, the European Parliament announced plans to introduce a ban on the import of wildlife trophies. Conservationists are concerned that continued hunting will further deplete wildlife populations, which are declining in many areas from loss of habitat and poaching.

However, Botswana has the world’s largest elephant population at more than 130,000, and the giant animals are often in conflict with humans.

Investigation urged

Siyoka Simasiku is director of the Ngamiland Council of Nongovernmental Organizations, a conservation coalition, and has been involved in the campaign against the proposed wildlife trophy import bans. He said authorities in Europe needed to travel to southern Africa to get firsthand information about how limited elephant hunting helps Botswana.

“This has been the call of the community — to invite European countries, including the U.K., to come directly to their areas to witness what the benefits from this wildlife have actually provided them, and also to see the damages that are also brought about by wildlife within their areas in terms of crop damage, competition for water holes and loss of lives,” Simasiku said. “These are things that are dear to our communities.”

Currently, Botswana issues about 300 elephant hunting licenses per year, generating approximately $3 million for the country, separate from the other revenues the hunters generate.

Meanwhile, former Botswana President Ian Khama this week arrived in the United Kingdom to drum up support for the hunting ban.

While in office, Khama enacted a hunting ban in 2014, but his successor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, lifted the moratorium in 2019.

Simasiku said wildlife communities in Botswana oppose Khama’s recent actions.

“The Botswana communities strongly oppose this move where the former president advocates for a trophy hunting ban in London,” he said. “They have expressed concerns about the negative impact on their livelihoods and conservation efforts. They argue that a blanket ban overlooks their role in sustainable wildlife management and urge for a more inclusive approach that considers their perspectives and needs.”

No European Union ban on wildlife trophy imports has materialized so far, but the U.K. House of Lords considered a ban that failed to pass, while Germany and France are considering similar prohibitions.

Last month, Belgium succeeded in introducing a ban, amid calls for the rest of Europe to follow suit.
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Budapest — Hungary continues to buy billions of dollars of Russian oil and gas annually, despite most other Western nations’ cutting of economic ties with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. Budapest also has sought to strengthen ties with Beijing, bucking Western efforts to reduce dependence on China. 

It has led some to label the country as Russia and China’s “Trojan Horse” in the West. What’s behind Hungary’s warm relations with Moscow and Beijing? Many analysts say Hungary is seeking to exploit global tensions to its own advantage.

Russian oil    

The southern branch of the Druzhba or “Friendship” pipeline brings thousands of metric tons of Russian oil across Ukraine and directly to the state-controlled MOL refinery on the outskirts of Budapest daily.  

Russia was once the European Union’s largest energy supplier, but the bloc banned Russian oil imports after the Ukraine invasion. Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic demanded exemptions, however, claiming that as landlocked countries they cannot quickly diversify supply. 

While Slovakia and the Czech Republic have sought to reduce dependency on Russian energy since the ban came into effect, Hungary has struck new preferential deals to boost supplies from Russia. It is now Moscow’s biggest energy customer in the EU, purchasing $343 million worth of oil and gas in January of this year alone. It is also building a new pipeline to take the Russian oil products into Serbia.

In addition, Russia is building the new Paks II nuclear power plant in Hungary, on the bank of the Danube River, south of Budapest.

Ukraine anger

Ukraine says Russia spends its energy revenue on weapons to kill Ukrainians. An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy even accused Hungary of being complicit in alleged Russian war crimes through their energy deals with Moscow. “If you’ve seen the video where Russians cut the head off a Ukrainian soldier — the Hungarians are paying for the knife,” Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Zelenskyy, told the Politico website last April, after Hungary signed a deal to boost gas imports from Russia. 

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto rejected criticism of the deals with Moscow.

“The security of Hungary’s energy supply requires uninterrupted transportation of gas, oil and nuclear fuel. To meet these three conditions, Hungarian-Russian energy cooperation must be uninterrupted. It has nothing to do with political preferences,” Szijjarto said at a press conference in April following the agreement.

Moscow ties

Hungary’s links with Moscow go far deeper than oil and gas. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has repeatedly rejected Western calls to sever economic ties with Moscow. 

“Brussels’ strategy for Ukraine has failed spectacularly. Not only on the battlefield, where the situation is catastrophic, but also in international politics. We have said in vain that this war is a brotherly war of two Slavic nations, and not ours,” Orban said in his annual televised address February 17.  

Orban has criticized EU sanctions on Russia, blocked European Union financial assistance for Ukraine, and delayed ratifying Sweden’s accession to NATO. He has made Hungary the outcast of Europe, said analyst Peter Kreko.      

“No one has gone so far in demolishing democratic institutions, turning against the Western institution system and cultivating relationships with Russia and China,” Kreko told VOA.    

Chinese investment

China is financing a $3.8 billon high-speed railway from Budapest to the Serbian capital Belgrade, a flagship project of its Belt and Road Initiative. Hungary was among the largest global recipients of Chinese BRI investment in 2022.  

Critics say the government has prevented any oversight of the deals.

“There are arbitrarily designed and swiftly adopted regulations by parliament to prevent any insight or oversight in and over the Russian investment in the nuclear power plant or the Chinese investment into the railway track that is being developed from Belgrade to Budapest. These are major investments. In the Hungarian context these are unprecedented investments,” Miklos Ligeti, of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International, told VOA.  

The Hungarian government rejects claims of corruption and says details of the investments were kept secret to secure a loan from the Chinese Export-Import Bank. Some 85% of the financing comes from China, according to Reuters.

Orban worldview

Hungary’s warm relations with Moscow and Beijing are based on a geopolitical assumption, Kreko said.    

“Where there is a new Cold War-type conflict emerging between China and the West. And Orban wants to play this bridge role between the two. And it’s also increasingly about a notion that the Western liberal democratic order is about to collapse, and we have to look for new models, be them in Russia, be them in China,” Kreko told VOA.

Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party have a large majority in parliament and are well ahead in the polls. 

“The chance of any governmental change is miniscule. It means that he really has a lot of time to deal with foreign policy. And he does not want only to be the prime minister of Hungary – he wants to be a world class player,” Kreko said, adding that Orban relishes being in the center of world attention.

“And this is partially one goal of his game. But the other goal of his game is — through veto, through obstruction — to have an influence on the processes, and he wants to be around the important negotiation tables.”

“He’s quite open about his negative attitude towards the EU, but I think it is increasingly [against] NATO, as well. So, he wants to weaken these institutions from within because he feels they pose a threat to his sovereign decision making,” Kreko said.
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Buenos Aires, Argentina — Two years after Russia’s war on Ukraine, the United States is doubling down pressure on the Kremlin by rolling out sanctions on Russia targeting banks and the weapons industry, as described by a senior U.S. official.

A day before the U.S. plan to announce new sanctions packages imposed on Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there’s a strong desire among the Group of 20 for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to end.

“If you were in that room, as (Russian) Foreign Minister Lavrov was, you heard a very strong chorus coming from not just the G7 countries within the G20, but from many others as well, about the imperative of ending the Russian aggression, restoring peace,” Blinken told reporters during a press conference after attending G20 foreign ministers’ meetings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Some of the U.S. sanctions will target those responsible for the detention death of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

“The fact that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin saw it necessary to persecute, poison, and imprison one man speaks volumes not about Russia’s strength under Putin, but its weakness,” Blinken added.

In Washington, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said during a Thursday event hosted by the Center for Security and International Studies, or CSIS, that the U.S. will impose “a crushing new package of sanctions, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, in the next couple of days.”

Some of these sanctions will be targeted at individuals directly involved in Navalny’s death, but the vast majority are designed to further impact “Putin’s war machine” and close gaps in existing sanctions, according to Nuland.

Despite the efforts of the United States and other countries to isolate Moscow, it remains actively engaged in diplomatic activities, as demonstrated by the presence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at this week’s G20 ministerial meeting.

During the meeting, Lavrov held talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, where they discussed “diplomatic solutions” to the Ukraine war.

U.S. officials have said they don’t see the conditions for diplomatic negotiations to end the Ukraine war, as there’s skepticism that Russia is not motivated to negotiate and that Putin would never accept an independent Ukraine.

“Two years. We are all here,” wrote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, indicating that representatives from dozens of countries and various international organizations have gathered to show solidarity with Ukraine.
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As the United States is set to announce sanctions against Moscow following Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death, President Joe Biden met with his widow in San Francisco on Thursday. VOA Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
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While many Western nations have cut economic ties with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Hungary continues to buy billions of dollars of Russian oil and gas. It also has sought to strengthen ties with Beijing, bucking Western efforts to reduce dependence on China. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Budapest, analysts say Hungary’s leader is seeking to exploit global tensions.
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PARIS — For years, French President Emmanuel Macron has argued for a stronger, more independent European defense. “What Europe, Defense Europe, lacks most today is a common strategic culture,” he said in a 2017 speech at Sorbonne University in Paris.

His address, just months after taking office, called for such unity in countering a raft of threats, including climate change. “Our inability to work together convincingly undermines our credibility as Europeans,” Macron said.

Today, it seems, other European Union countries are finally listening. Not necessarily because of Macron, but because of events taking place far from the French capital: a menacing Russia and struggling Kyiv as the war in Ukraine heads into its third year; and fears of waning U.S. support for both the conflict and the Atlantic alliance, especially if former president Donald Trump returns to power.

“The Europeans will have to get their act together on defense no matter what — and that requires a sustained effort for five, 10 years,” says Camille Grand, who leads defense issues at the European Council on Foreign Relations policy institute. While some European Union members had already begun moving in that direction, he said, “it took the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to get that massive shift.”

Recent weeks have seen Europe’s defense take center stage in meetings and commitments. At the Munich Security Conference that wrapped up Sunday, Denmark announced it would send its entire ammunition stock to Ukraine, calling on other European countries to also step up. During back-to-back visits to Berlin and Paris, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy secured fresh security pacts from both countries and billions of dollars more in aid.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has called for the European Union to become a military power in its own right, while the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia agreed last month to set up a common defense zone on their borders with Russia and Belarus. Last week, too, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that Europe, for the first time, had collectively met the alliance’s 2% GDP target for defense spending.

But whether Europe’s wakeup call will translate into a common defense strategy remains uncertain, observers say, as doing so would entail moving beyond the EU’s traditional glue of France and Germany to include central and eastern member states — and working together in new ways.

“All we’ve been able to construct since the beginning of this century were specific cooperations to manage peripheral crises — in the Middle East, Africa or the Balkans,” said Dominique David, defense specialist at the French Institute of International Relations. “Not to make war or defend against a threat on our territory.”

Others warn against going it alone.

“We should not pursue any path that indicates that we are trying to divide Europe from North America,” the alliance’s Stoltenberg said.

Challenges ahead

While their aims may differ, the wave of recent European defense commitments reflects an old French argument.

“The idea that the Europeans, even within NATO, should represent a more autonomous and independent force vis-a-vis the United States was always a French idea,” analyst David said — one also taken up by Macron’s predecessors.

“The other Europeans thought the real security guarantee came from the United States,” he added, “and constructing a more-or-less autonomous European defense would weaken the American guarantee.”

Those beliefs are crumbling as a $60 billion aid package for Ukraine gathers dust in Congress — and after former President Donald Trump’s suggestion he may not protect a NATO member “delinquent” on its military spending, and instead encourage Russia to attack if back in office.

“The French, like other Europeans, are faced with a situation in which Ukraine has become their exclusive responsibility, a situation which nobody was expecting,” said French defense analyst Francois Heisbourg.

“We’re not in a point-scoring situation anymore,” he added, referring to earlier debates over how autonomous Europe’s defense should be. “We are now in a more existential world.”

What’s clear, analysts say, is Europe has serious catchup to do, after years of spending little on defense. Some fear it may be just a few years before Russia sets it sights beyond Ukraine. While the bloc has earmarked billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, including $54 billion earlier this month, it is lagging behind in other areas. The EU has moved a March deadline to deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine, for example, to year’s end.

“It’s astonishing that the European abilities to supply Ukraine are not either physically strong enough or don’t exist,” said Judy Dempsey, a defense specialist at Carnegie Europe policy institute. “This is the tragedy of the post-Cold war era; that the defense structures were downsized.”

France, too, hasn’t always walked its security talk. It ranks 14th, behind Germany and the Netherlands, in terms of defense commitments to Ukraine, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute research group, although French government figures are higher. It’s fallen just shy of NATO’s 2% spending target in recent years — compared to Poland’s nearly 4% last year — although French authorities say that spending goal will be met this year and rise after that.

“The Poles, the Balts and the Nordics have been investing more rapidly and more significantly in defense than many of Europe’s more western and southern countries,” said analyst Grand. “They have become high-profile defense players,” which traditional EU heavyweights France and Germany “need to account for.”

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, who hopes to win another term this year, has called for creating a new post of EU defense commissioner. Some suggest the job should go to an eastern European country like Poland, with a focused understanding of Russia’s threat.

The bigger goal of forging a common European defense strategy and bloc within NATO will be a key challenge, some say.

“I would say the answer is no,” said analyst David, referring to the prospect of that happening anytime soon. “We’re many, we’re divided, we’re in a situation that’s very complicated — we don’t know how to emerge from the war in Ukraine.”

What Europe can do now, he said, “is open these discussions, and hope to progress fairly quickly.”
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As Israeli forces close in on the Gaza Strip’s last main population center and international pressure grows for cease-fire, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is eyeing a key role in the postwar future of the Palestinian enclave. Analysts warn, though, that Erdogan’s staunch support for Hamas will spur Israeli resistance. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Lisbon — Guinness World Records has ruled against a Portuguese dog that died last year keeping the title of oldest canine ever.

Following a review, GWR said Thursday it “no longer has the evidence it needs to support Bobi’s claim as the record holder.”

Bobi, a reportedly 31-year-old guard dog, had lived on a farm in the village of Conqueiros in Portugal with its owner, Leonel Costa. He was proclaimed as the world’s oldest living dog and oldest dog ever in February 2023. Said to have been born on May 11, 1992, he died last October.

GWR said it opened an investigation following concerns raised by veterinarians and other experts, both privately and publicly, and media investigations.

“We take tremendous pride in ensuring as best we can the accuracy and integrity of all our record titles,” Mark McKinley, GWR’s Director of Records, who conducted the review, said in a statement.

The group had suspended the title pending the review announced last month.

“We of course require evidence for all Guinness World Records titles we monitor, often a minimum of two statements from witnesses and subject experts,” McKinley said.

He said they also considered pictures, video and, where appropriate, data provided by technology relevant to the achievement.

GWR said they found that a lack of evidence from Bobi’s microchip data left them with no conclusive evidence of Bobi’s date of birth.

McKinley said that it was too early to speak about a new record holder.

“It’s going to take a long time for microchip uptake around the world to catch up with pet ownership, especially of older pets,” he said.

“Until that time, we’ll require documentary evidence for all years of a pet’s life,” he said.

Bobi was a purebred Rafeiro do Alentejo, a breed that has an average life expectancy of about 10 to 14 years.

In an emailed statement in January, his owner defended the title, saying Guinness World Records had spent a year checking the record claim.
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RIO DE JANEIRO — Western foreign ministers from the G20 group of nations meeting in Brazil on Wednesday attacked Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov listened, diplomats said.

“Russia must be made to pay for its aggression,” British Foreign Minister David Cameron told the closed session, according to his office.

The top diplomats from the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and Norway made similar remarks on the first day of a two-day meeting.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told reporters that Lavrov calmly replied to Cameron’s remarks with “a set of alternative facts” about events in Ukraine.

Lavrov did not speak to reporters. Russia’s justification of its “special military operation” in Ukraine, which began two years ago, initially was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. More recently, Moscow has emphasized that it needs to defend against Western aggression.

The meeting was set to prepare the agenda for a G20 summit in November. At a summit in September, G20 leaders adopted a declaration that avoided condemning Russia for the war in Ukraine but called on all states not to use force to grab territory.

Cameron also noted the death of dissident Alexey Navalny in a Russian prison last week.

Eide said the G20 session in Rio focused mainly on conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. “We have to support Ukraine until it emerges as a free and independent sovereign country without another army on its soil,” the Norwegian minister said he told the meeting.

Eide said the ministers who spoke at the meeting agreed with the need for a two-state solution in the Middle East but there was no consensus on how to achieve it.

Brazil, this year’s president of the G20, opened the foreign ministers’ meeting by blaming the United Nations and other multinational bodies for failing to stop conflicts that are killing innocent people.

Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira called for “profound reform” of global governance as Brazil’s top priority this year.

“Multilateral institutions are not adequately equipped to deal with current challenges, as demonstrated by the Security Council’s unacceptable paralysis in relation to ongoing conflicts,” Vieira said at the meeting.

“This state of inaction results in the loss of innocent lives,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia on his way to the Rio meeting and expressed U.S. support for Brazil’s agenda to make global governance more effective.

The top U.S. diplomat discussed Israel’s war in Gaza with Lula amid a diplomatic spat after the Brazilian leader likened Israel’s war to the Nazi genocide during World War Two, a U.S. spokesperson told reporters.

Lula’s accusations last week of atrocities by Israel in Gaza triggered a diplomatic crisis with an Israeli reprimand and Brazil recalling its ambassador.
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Baku, Azerbaijan  — The prison death last week of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has elevated fears for the welfare of politically active prisoners in neighboring Azerbaijan, including economist Gubad Ibadoglu.

“As his family, we are worried that my brother may be physically destroyed in the conditions of the detention center,” Ibadoglu’s brother, Qalib Toghrul, told VOA.

Toghrul said he last saw Ibadoglu on February 17 and that his health had significantly deteriorated.

“Now, I am unequivocally convinced that they are carrying out the process of purposefully destroying my brother’s body, part by part,” Toghrul said. “Of course, after Navalny’s death, we are under great tension and anxiety that the level of danger, the risk of danger to my brother’s life, has increased even more.”

Ibadoglu, chairman of the Democracy and Prosperity Party, has been in pretrial detention since July 2023, charged with the acquisition or sale of counterfeit money or foreign currency by an organized group and the preparation, storage, or distribution of religious extremist materials.

Ibadoglu denies the accusations and says his arrest is a political order related to his political activism.

Bahruz Maharramov, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament, told VOA that neither Ibadoglu nor any other person is subjected to any illegal or unnecessary procedural coercive measures.

“In this sense, it should be noted once again that the arrest of Ibadoglu is not a political issue,” he said. “A criminal prosecution has been initiated on specific facts, and the main goal of the state structures during the investigation is to ensure the implementation of this process on the basis of equality of rights before the law and the court in the criminal process.”

According to Toghrul, Ibadoglu suffers from several health issues. Ibadoglu receives IV treatment at the medical unit of the Baku Pre-Trial Detention Center, “but after the IV is done, they immediately take him to his cell without allowing him to lie down and rest for even a minute,” said Toghrul.

He said that though the Penitentiary Service has a specialized treatment facility for IV therapy and “other complex inpatient treatments,” authorities refuse to transfer Ibadoglu there.

VOA sought comment from the Penitentiary Service, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Baku Detention Center and the investigative body conducting the criminal case but have yet to receive a response.

Opposition leader’s family concerned

The family of opposition leader Tofiq Yagublu is also voicing concern about his deteriorating health.

“We are very worried about his weight loss. Now, he is being examined at the initiative of the Penitentiary Service,” his daughter, Nigar Hezi, told VOA.

Hezi believes the deaths of Navalny and other political prisoners in Russia and neighboring countries warrant extra attention to be paid to political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

“Navalny’s death in Russia has created a trend in the post-Soviet countries,” she said. “After Navalny, a journalist died in Belarus. All this is cause for concern.”

Yagublu has been arrested numerous times and is being held in pretrial detention on charges of “massive fraud.”

International organizations have recognized him as a prisoner of conscience.

International calls

“If [President Ilham] Aliyev attends, other leaders must press him to release Gubad Ibadoglu from illegal detention,” former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Kauzlarich wrote on X, before the Munich Security Conference. “Otherwise, like Navalny, Gubad may die in prison.”

A number of countries and international organizations, including the U.S. State Department and U.S. senators and representatives, have called for Ibadoglu’s release.

U.S. Representative David Rouzer introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives last week condemning Ibadoglu’s treatment.

The resolution also urges the secretary of state to “continue prioritizing Dr. Ibadoglu’s well-being and release in all engagements with the Government of Azerbaijan.”

On February 15, Ibadoglu’s pretrial detention was extended by three months.

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service.
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Kyiv — U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink is reassuring Ukrainians that Washington intends to help them finish the job as the country enters another year of war against Russian invaders. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale assault on Feb. 24, 2022, Brink said the U.S. has earmarked billions of dollars to Ukraine’s war effort, all under what she says is strict oversight.

In an interview with VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze, the U.S. diplomat reaffirmed that the U.S. remains committed to supporting Ukraine, despite the growing debate in Washington and in European capitals about the future of funding for military aid to the country.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

VOA: You arrived in Ukraine as a U.S. ambassador a few months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. How did you find Ukraine back then? And how do you find Ukraine now?

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink: I found Ukraine and Ukrainians tough and resilient. And I find it exactly the same today. And I’m really proud we have supported Ukraine. We just have to help you finish the job.

VOA: Today, Ukraine is in dire need of military support. There are delays in Congress for this support. How are you explaining to Ukrainians why it’s taken so long for the U.S. to decide when and how they will support Ukraine?

Brink: Well, what I’ve been explaining to Ukrainians is that there’s bipartisan support for Ukraine in America and in our Congress. I have been doing and the president and everyone in the administration has been doing everything possible to communicate to Congress and also to the American people why it’s important to support Ukraine. And we will continue to do that.

VOA: Despite Congressional inaction to send much needed support, Pew Research Institute had research [showing] 73% of Americans supporting Ukraine as a national security interest for the United States. There is bipartisan, as you said, support in Congress as well. Is Ukraine winning in the U.S. national interest

Brink: Absolutely, yes. As President [Joe] Biden said, we support Ukraine winning this war, making sure that it’s a strategic defeat for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. And I think there’s broad support for that in the Congress and among the American people.

VOA: Conservative voices in [the U.S.] Congress are asking about accountability on U.S. aid for Ukraine. U.S. inspectors recently visited Kyiv. Can you give us some insight [into how their audits went]? How [does] the accountability process work here in Ukraine?

Brink: I can tell you we’re watching like a hawk from the Embassy. About a third of my team is devoted to oversight. We also have three inspectors general who are at the Embassy, as well. And they have a staff of 400 people around the world. So, there is oversight happening, both with the Ukrainians, with us at the Embassy, and also just generally.

VOA: Do they have access to the facilities where those weapons and other ammunition are held?

Brink: They have access to every place that we can get to physically, and to places where they can’t have access, for example, on the front lines, we have developed some alternative means to account for things like weapons.

VOA: What are [those] alternative means?

Brink: I probably can’t say specifically, but we have found ways that we can adhere to the policies and the law, without putting people at risk.

VOA: In the last two years, the United States helped Ukraine a lot militarily, but a lot of money actually stays in the United States. In the rural [communities] that produce those weapons. Do you have some insights into how the money is spent?

Brink: Actually, the money that we are allocating to Ukraine is spent in 31 states across the nation, and that includes Patriot missiles in Arizona. It includes artillery in Pennsylvania. It includes even vehicles from my home state of Michigan. So, this is actually also very important to Americans and American jobs while it also supports Ukraine.

VOA: [The] Ukrainian economy, despite the war and significant downturn, [has] survived. The U.S. helped a lot. What is the outlook for the next year for [the] Ukrainian economy, from your perspective? And what new mechanism are you planning to use to help Ukraine to survive economically?

Brink: This is actually, maybe, one of the biggest successes that Ukraine has had outside of the military sphere. Your economy, the Ukrainian economy, has grown by 5% in the last year. It’s phenomenal. [A] big part of that is Ukrainian ability to continue exports. And that was done even though Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain initiative. Through incredibly brave and creative efforts, a new corridor was created out of the Black Sea ports. And now 760 ships and over 23 million metric tons of goods have set sail safely. And that’s important to the world because it’s getting grain and other supplies out, but also very important to Ukraine’s economy.

VOA: I talked to Ukrainian business, and they are really appreciative of, especially, [the] insurance mechanism the Western financial institutions are using. Are you planning to expand that effort?

Brink: Yes. We’re working together with Ukrainian government as well as other partners to support in every way we can. Increasing exports out of the Black Sea ports, out of the Danube ports, and also improving border crossings and other things to facilitate these exports and ultimately bring money back into state coffers. This is a big part of our assistance, and it’s supporting Ukraine’s ability to sustain itself.

VOA: What is your outlook for the next year, for Ukraine, and for the region?

Brink: It’s the same as when I started. Ukraine must win. The United States, together with partners and allies, are going to continue to support Ukrainians in this objective. And what that means is to reclaim their territories, to move closer to Europe, to the EU and ultimately to NATO; to move toward what Ukrainians want, which is a sovereign, independent, prosperous country that’s integrated into Euro-Atlantic institutions, that will be a strong and important partner for the United States. And that’s what we support.

Anna Chernikova contributed to this report.
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