washington — Beijing is unlikely to help Washington disrupt military cooperation between North Korea and Russia because China sees that move as undermining itself while bolstering U.S. goals in Europe and Asia, analysts said.

“Given U.S. policy in Asia and Washington’s ongoing effort to contain Chinese power in the region, Beijing has no reason to assist the U.S., even indirectly, on one of its most top foreign policy priorities – a Russian defeat in Ukraine,” said Daniel DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities.

“For China, North Korea is not a problem to be solved but rather a card to play in its competition with Washington,” continued DePetris in an email to VOA on Tuesday.

The U.S. has turned to China to help rein in North Korea’s threatening missile activities that have now extended beyond East Asia into Europe, where Russia’s war in Ukraine rages on for the third year.

North Korean missiles have killed and injured civilians in the Ukrainian cities of Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Donetsk and Kharkiv since December, the Security Service of Ukraine said on February 22.

The following day, the State Department announced that its senior official for North Korea, Jung Pak, held talks with China’s special representative on Korean Peninsula affairs, Liu Xiaoming.

The two discussed North Korea’s “increasing destabilizing and escalatory behavior and its deepening military cooperation with Russia” on February 21 via videoconferencing, said the U.S. statement.

The U.S. said North Korea has sent more than 10,000 containers of weapons to Russia since September as it announced a sanctions package targeting Moscow on February 23.

The Pak-Xiaoming talks followed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s discussion of North Korea with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 16.

In response to last week’s talks, Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Wednesday via email that “China has no intention to interfere with the cooperation between two sovereign countries” of North Korea and Russia. He called the two nations “China’s friendly neighbors.”

Pengyu continued, “We hope the U.S. will play a positive and constructive role in maintaining peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea seemingly has been accelerating arms transfers to replenish weapons that Russia needs to fight Ukraine since its leader Kim Jong Un visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September. Kim, in return, was seeking Russia’s technology to enhance his weapons.

Susan Thornton, a senior fellow at Yale University’s Paul Tsai China Center who served as acting assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the Trump administration, said Beijing might be willing to persuade Moscow to break its ties with Pyongyang once the war in Ukraine is over.

But even then, “China will not be eager to help” if its “relations with the U.S. are still deteriorating,” she said via email on Tuesday.

China views North Korea, which straddles its border, as a buffer zone countering the U.S. and its military bases with 28,500 troops in South Korea. Beijing prefers that Pyongyang maintain stability to continue serving that role.

China has been providing economic aid to sustain heavily sanctioned and isolated North Korea since the 1990s.

Although Beijing is “very uncomfortable” losing leverage over Pyongyang as Moscow now provides alternative sources of food and fuel, that apparent loss is offset by benefits Beijing gains from Moscow’s reliance on China’s economy, said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Project.

Russia has faced heavy sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“China has been an economic life raft for Russia, boosting its energy ties, filling Russian markets with its autos and consumer goods,” said Manning. Beijing will not change its stance on Pyongyang-Moscow ties as it generally continues “to coordinate much of its foreign policy with Russia where it opposes U.S. policy,” he said via email on Wednesday.

However, Michael Swaine, senior research fellow at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said, “Working strenuously with Moscow and Pyongyang to oppose the U.S. poses certain risks for Beijing.”

Swaine said via email on Wednesday that “Right now, it wants to maintain workable relations with Washington, not worsen them. Beijing faces serious domestic problems that demand a relatively stable external environment.”
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washington — Civil liberties declined globally for the 18th consecutive year in 2023, with conflict and flawed elections the biggest factors, a new report has found.  

Political rights and civil liberties deteriorated for more than one-fifth of the population, the non-profit group Freedom House found. And only one-fifth of the 210 countries and territories the research group analyzed was found to be “free.” 

Released on Thursday, the Freedom in the World report assesses political rights and civil liberties, then ranks countries or territories as “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.”  

Researchers looked at issues including how effectively governments work, political pluralism, freedom of expression, religious freedom, and whether marginalized groups are given full rights.  

Much of the decline in 2023 is attributed to cases of election manipulation, according to report co-author Cathryn Grothe. The report found electoral issues in almost half of the countries designated as being in decline.  

“While the findings of the report are certainly grim, they are coming at an especially important moment in time,” said Grothe, noting 2024 will be a critical year with national elections scheduled in about 40 countries.  

Report finds manipulation, intimidation

Grothe told VOA her group’s research found widespread election manipulation and intimidation before, during and after elections.  

She noted that “billions of people around the world are going to be heading to the polls.”  

The report highlighted Cambodia, Guatemala, Poland, Turkey and Zimbabwe as places that experienced attempts to control, hinder or interfere with elections. 

And in Ecuador, Nigeria, and Taiwan, elections were disrupted by either violence or interference by foreign regimes.  

In Guatemala, however, attempts to block a peaceful transfer of power failed. Bernardo Arevalo assumed office in early 2024 after the country’s Supreme Court ruled that Congress must accept his inauguration, despite its previous refusal to acknowledge elected members.  

Group watches US races

The United States — which Freedom House ranks as free — is among the countries holding significant elections.  

Grothe said that Freedom House is paying attention to issues in the U.S., including congressional dysfunction such as delayed appropriations bills and internal disputes over the speakership of the House of Representatives.  

Freedom House is also watching closely for intimidation and threats of violence as tools of political influence in the U.S, especially during the last few months before the election.  

Reports of threats against elected officials and local election administrators have “proliferated “in recent years, Grothe said. 

“When a democracy such as the U.S., those with kind of large influence on the world stage grow weaker internally, it makes it a lot more difficult to counter this kind of global authoritarianism,” said Grothe. “It makes it very imperative that we at home in the United States need to address our own domestic shortcomings.” 

The Freedom House report includes several recommendations, including calls for governments and other actors in civil society to “immediately” and “publicly” condemn manipulation efforts, coups and refusals to honor electoral outcomes.

“Democracies need to commit to free and fair elections, both at home and need to stand up for the same abroad,” said Grothe. 

The biggest decline in freedom was registered in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory which sparked conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. 

The region saw an overall 40-point reduction. The decline follows a mass displacement of over 100,000 ethnic Armenians amid fighting in September 2023. 

The second-largest point reduction came in Niger, where military forces ousted the government in July 2023.  

Conflict resulted in major declines in other areas too. Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to affect basic rights for those in occupied parts of Ukraine and brings a rise in repression inside Russia. The report also notes the effect on civilians of the Israel-Hamas conflict and Myanmar military rule. 

Other countries saw improvements. Fiji gained seven points due to a “smooth” transfer of power after elections in 2022. And Nepal is recognized in the report for amendments to its Citizenship Act, which allowed 400,000 stateless people born in the country to receive citizenship.  

While the past year faced obstacles, Grothe said there are “beacons of hope” in the countries pushing back against those declines.  

“It’s important to remember that people in every sort of political environment, from the most-free countries to the most repressive, are continuing to fight to uphold their rights, their dignity and this offers some kind of level of hope even in these very kind of discouraging times.” 

She added that the report should serve as a reminder of the stakes for democracy and as a call to reverse the decline of global freedoms.  
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France is poised to become the first country to inscribe the freedom for women to have abortions in its constitution. Lawmakers from the Senate and lower house will meet at Versailles Palace on March 4 for a final vote on the measure. Lisa Bryant reports.
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A lunar landing more than 50 years in the making is a partial success. Plus, the U.S. says Russia may launch a nuclear weapon into orbit. The Kremlin calls it spin. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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BRUSSELS — The European Union took a major step in ending its standoff with member state Poland on Thursday by announcing it will begin releasing billions of euros to it that were frozen over the previous government’s policies that the bloc said amounted to widespread backsliding on fundamental democratic principles.

The move is an important reward for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who has sought relentlessly since taking office in December to overturn measures imposed by the previous conservative government. Beyond its political significance, it opens the way for up to 135 billion euros ($145 billion) in EU aid to go to Poland over the coming few years.

The decision cements a sea change in relations. Both sides had openly clashed after the stridently nationalist Law and Justice party came to power in 2015 and implemented reforms that critics said placed Poland’s judiciary under political control. The EU threatened to suspend Poland’s EU voting rights and also blocked its access to EU funds.

“Today is a landmark day for Poland,” said EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis. “Thanks to its efforts to restore the rule of law, we are now able to unlock access” to a slew of funds that help EU nations recover from the COVID-19 crisis and help their economies rise to the standards of wealthier member nations.

Under complicated EU bookkeeping rules, Poland could receive over the next weeks the first 600 million euros ($650 million) in real cash from a 75 billion euro ($80 billion) aid pot that had been blocked. More funds will be transferred once Poland sends in outstanding paperwork from projects. A 6.3 billion euro ($6.8 billion) disbursement from a 60 billion euro ($65 billion) program to boost the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic downturn should also be released soon.

Tusk’s election victory last October was essential in achieving the change. The Commission has now acknowledged that sufficient efforts to resolve the issues have been made for it to start releasing the funds. If there is no full follow-through by Poland, restrictive measures could be reimposed.

EU Vice President Vera Jourova showed confidence in Tusk’s policies, saying, “Today we turn a page on the rule of law issues with Poland as we recognize the important strides made by the government.”

Poland’s pro-European coalition of three center-left parties led by Tusk won parliamentary elections on Oct. 15 and took over in December, succeeding the Law and Justice party that had ruled for eight years and introduced changes to the justice system, reproductive rights and the media that put Poland increasingly on a collision course with the EU.

The breakthrough in the standoff came after Polish Justice Minister Adam Bodnar presented an “action plan” to European officials which outlined draft legislation. EU officials also stressed that some of the proposals in the Polish plan can’t become law without the approval of President Andrzej Duda, who is a staunch ally of the Law and Justice party. His term runs until 2025.

Despite such domestic political challenges, the EU decided there was enough positive legal thrust to start releasing the funds.

The money will be coming from the EU’s Next Generation fund meant to help the bloc’s members recover from the COVID-19 pandemic downturn and also from a cohesion fund that supports infrastructure development.
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OSLO, Norway — One person died and five were injured when a helicopter crash-landed in the ocean off western Norway, police said on Thursday, leading to a temporary halt in transport to and from the country’s offshore oil and gas platforms.

The Sikorsky S-92 aircraft operated by Bristow Norway was on a search and rescue training mission on Wednesday when the accident occurred, officials have said.

The six crew members were all hoisted from the sea by rescue workers, but one was later declared dead in hospital, police said in a statement.

One of the surviving crew members was in a critical condition on Thursday and one was severely injured while the remaining three suffered lighter injuries, the hospital treating them said in an update on social media platform X.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known.

“We have sent crash inspectors to Stavanger and Bergen to investigate the accident,” Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority head William Bertheussen told Reuters.

The two cities are the busiest hubs for Norway’s extensive oil and gas industry, which produces around 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Bristow Group said in a statement it was fully cooperating with authorities responding to the incident and that the company was collecting relevant information.

Lockheed Martin company Sikorsky, which manufactured the helicopter, said on Wednesday that safety was its top priority and that it stood ready to support the investigation.

Energy group Equinor said the helicopter was a search and rescue aircraft normally serving platforms at the company’s Oseberg oil and gas field in the North Sea.

“We have confidence both in the type of helicopter and in the operators,” Equinor CEO Anders Opedal told public broadcaster NRK.

Still, Equinor halted all regular helicopter flights to its oil and gas platforms in Norway out of consideration for those affected and to get an overview of the situation.

“The company aims to get the helicopters back to normal operation quickly and is now making the necessary preparations to achieve this safely,” the company said in a statement.
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London — Prince Harry was not improperly stripped of his publicly funded security detail during visits to Britain after he gave up his status as a working member of the royal family and moved to the U.S., a London judge ruled Wednesday.

Justice Peter Lane said in the High Court that the decision to provide security to Harry on a case-by-case basis was not unlawful, irrational or unjustified.

The Duke of Sussex claimed he and his family were endangered when visiting the U.K. because of hostility toward him and his wife on social media and relentless hounding by news media.

His lawyer argued that the government group that evaluated Harry’s security needs acted irrationally and failed to follow its own policies that should have required a risk analysis of the duke’s safety.

A government lawyer said Harry had been treated fairly and was still provided protection on some visits, citing a security detail that guarded him in June 2021 when he was chased by photographers after attending an event with seriously ill children at Kew Gardens in west London.

The committee that made the decision to reject his security request considered the wider impact that the “tragic death” of his mother, the late Princess Diana, had on the nation, and in making its decision gave greater weight to the “likely significant public upset were a successful attack” on her son to happen, attorney James Eadie said. 

Harry, 39, the younger son of King Charles III, has broken ranks with royal family tradition in his willingness to go to court to challenge both the government and take on tabloids in his effort to hold publishers accountable for hounding him throughout his life.

The lawsuit was one of six cases Harry has brought in the High Court. Three were related to his security arrangements and three have been against tabloid publishers for allegedly hacking phones and using private investigators to snoop on his life for news stories.

In his first case to go to trial, Harry won a big victory last year against the publisher of the Daily Mirror over phone hacking allegations, winning a judgment in court and ultimately settling remaining allegations that were due to go to trial. While the settlement was undisclosed, he was to be reimbursed for all his legal fees and was due to receive an interim payment of 400,000 pounds ($505,000).

He recently withdrew a libel case against the Daily Mail over an article that said he tried to hide his efforts to continue receiving government-funded security. Harry dropped the case after a judge ruled he was more likely to lose at trial because the publisher could show that statements issued on his behalf were misleading and that the February 2022 article reflected an “honest opinion” and wasn’t libelous.

Harry failed to persuade a different judge last year that he should be able to privately pay for London’s police force to guard him when he comes to town. A judge denied that offer after a government lawyer argued that officers shouldn’t be used as “private bodyguards for the wealthy.” 
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Vatican City — Pope Francis, who has been suffering from the flu, was brought to a hospital in central Rome after the papal audience on Wednesday, arriving at the Gemelli Hospital on Tiber Island in a small white Fiat 500 and leaving again under escort in the same car after a short period. The Vatican had no immediate comment.

The 86-year-old pope was pushed in a wheelchair into the audience hall at the Vatican earlier in the day, appearing weary as he dropped heavily into his seat. In recent weeks he has walked the short distance to his chair, but he has been struggling with mild flu symptoms the past week.

The pope also canceled appointments Saturday and Monday due to the flu, but appeared as usual for the Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

Last week, Francis coughed repeatedly during Ash Wednesday services that he presided over at a Roman church, and opted not to participate in the traditional procession that inaugurates the church’s Lenten season.

This time of year in 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was starting to hit Italy, Francis also suffered a bad cold that forced him to cancel several days of official audiences and his participation in the Vatican’s annual spiritual retreat. The Vatican had already scrubbed the retreat for this year in favor of personal spiritual exercises.

The Argentine pope had part of one lung removed as a young man because of a respiratory infection, and in 2021 had a chunk of his colon removed because of an intestinal inflammation. He has been using a wheelchair and cane since last year because of strained knee ligaments and a small knee fracture that have made walking and standing difficult.

The Pope used his brief words at the end of Wednesday’s audience to mark the 25th anniversary of the ratification of the Anti-Personnel Mines Convention, expressing his “closeness to the numerous victims of these insidious devices that remind us of the dramatic cruelty of war.”

He also appealed for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and prayed for the victims of attacks in Burkina Faso and Haiti.

At the end of the audience, the pope spent about an hour greeting the faithful from his wheelchair, stopping to talk, bless babies and exchange gifts.
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Washington — The discovery of a North Korean missile in Ukraine that had more than 200 components from U.S. and European companies revealed loopholes that North Korea uses to evade sanctions, said analysts.

North Korea is operating its arms factories at full capacity to supply Russia with weapons needed to fight Ukraine, said South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik at a news briefing on Monday.

South Korea estimates Pyongyang sent about 6,700 containers to Russia since September, Shin said, according to South Korean media.

The U.S. puts the number even higher, estimating that North Korea delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munition-related materials to Russia since September.

The U.S. announced the estimates on Friday as it issued sanctions against more than 500 individuals and entities in Russia.

North Korean weapons have been turning up on the Ukraine battlefield since December, according to the Security Service of Ukraine. It said on Thursday that Russia has fired at least 20 North Korean missiles at Ukraine since then, adding that the missiles had killed or injured civilians.

Russia denied any military or technical cooperation with North Korea during a Jan. 26 news briefing conducted by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

VOA contacted the North Korean mission at the United Nations in New York City for comment but received no response.

Investigators determined a missile recovered on Jan. 2 in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was made with components from U.S. and European companies, according to a report by the U.K.-based investigative group Conflict Armament Research (CAR), first reported by CNN on Feb. 20.

The CAR report found that of the 290 components from the North Korean missile that were examined, about 75% originated with U.S.-based companies. About 16% of the components were linked to European companies.

The report said more than three quarters of the components were produced between 2021 and 2023 and that the missile could not have been made before March 2023. The report said, however, CAR “will not identify the companies linked to their production.”

U.N. member states have been banned from exporting materials and technologies that North Korea could use to make ballistic missiles since the Security Council passed Resolution 1718 in 2006.

Experts said U.S. companies whose parts ended up in the North Korean missile probably did not know the identity of the end user.

Aaron Arnold, a former member of the U.N. Panel of Experts for North Korea’s sanctions, said, however, that the discoveries show “how porous Western export control systems can be.”

Arnold, who is currently a senior associate fellow at Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Service Institute, told VOA via email on Friday that some of the items that ended up in the North Korean missile are items that can be used to make weapons as well as commercial goods.

“While I can’t say for sure in this particular case, some of the micro-electronics are dual use, meaning, they could be commonplace and used in other commercial applications,” Arnold said. “Some of the Western micro-electronics found in Russian drones, for example, are also used in refrigerators.”

Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, emailed VOA on Monday that in addition to dual-use items, “the focus on sanctions enforcement should be on more important components.”

Such components could include “non-domestic electronic components” that the CAR report said were found in the North Korean missile.

Arnold and other experts said North Korea’s practice of using third-party countries to smuggle banned items makes it difficult to detect components headed into the country. But they said it is possible to use established procurement networks to track components back from the missile to identify intermediaries.

Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow and sanctions expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a telephone interview with VOA on Friday, “Part of the biggest challenge is going after those who help North Korean sanctions evasion.”

He continued, “China, Russia, North Korea, Iran — these countries are experts in avoiding U.N. and U.S. sanctions. They are smart enough not to use their names and avoid any suggestion that it’s Russia or North Korea or Iran or China trying to buy these items. Part of the challenge is to lift that veil.”

Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington who helped draft the Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016, said via email these discoveries could be “an opportunity for the Commerce Department to trace North Korea’s procurement networks from each component through its supply chain and put the middlemen on its entity list.”
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MOSCOW — Veteran human rights activist Oleg Orlov was sentenced on Tuesday by a Moscow court to two and a half years in prison after he was found guilty of discrediting Russian’s armed forces in a trial that has been condemned by international observers as politically motivated.

Orlov, 70, has served for more than two decades as one of the leaders of rights group Memorial. It won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, a year after being banned and dissolved in Russia.

Memorial said Orlov was handcuffed after the verdict, and the court ordered him to be taken immediately into custody.

In his closing remarks to the trial on Monday, Orlov decried the “strangulation of freedom” in Russia, which he referred to as a “dystopia.”

The case against him stemmed from an article he wrote in 2022 in which he said Russia under President Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism.

He was initially fined $1,628 by a district court last year, but a retrial was ordered and prosecutors sought a jail sentence of two years and 11 months.

The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, called Orlov’s trial “an orchestrated attempt to silence the voices of human rights defenders in Russia.”

Memorial, founded in 1989, has documented human rights abuses from the time of Soviet leader Josef Stalin to the present and defended freedom of speech, with a focus on identifying and honoring individual victims.
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The U.S. military has been forced to dip into its own funding to cover American training of Ukrainian forces, a strategy that could leave the Army short on finances in Europe as the Russian war on Ukraine enters its third year. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
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ATHENS, Greece — Greece on Monday formally agreed to participate in and lead a European Union maritime security operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen.

A security committee led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ordered the participation of a Greek frigate in the Aspides operation — named for the Greek word for “shield” — that was launched last week.

The mission will be run from a military base in Larissa, in central Greece, under the command of Greek navy Commodore Vasilios Griparis.

Greece, a major commercial shipping power, has been directly affected by the Houthi attacks. The port of Piraeus, near Athens, reported a 12.7% drop in activity at its container terminal in January, on an annual basis.

“We all understand that participation in this operation involves risks, significant risks,” Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said Monday while on a visit to the navy frigate Hydra at a naval base near Athens.

The frigate departed on the mission late Monday. 

“Greece, as a maritime power with a leading role in global shipping, attaches great importance to the need to safeguard the freedom of navigation, as well as the life of Greek seafarers,” Dendias said.

Germany, Italy and France will also provide warships for the mission, joining the Hydra, while Italy will assume tactical command, according to Greek officials.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius visited the German navy frigate Hessen that is taking part in Aspides, while on a trip to the Greek island of Crete last week. The vessel has since sailed southward to the Red Sea, German authorities said.

Officials in Athens have described the Aspides mission as defensive, adding that Greece would not take part in U.S.-led attacks against Houthi military targets in Yemen.

The Iranian-backed Houthis say their attacks on commercial ships with drones and missiles are a response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas, which began in October.

At a parliamentary committee hearing last week, Dendias said keeping the lines of maritime trade open was an “existential necessity for Greece.”

“We do not take a position on the Houthi issue,” Dendias told lawmakers at the hearing. “But we do challenge the right of anyone to fire at our ships, at European ships, and at ships that sail the region and come to our ports.”
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London — Sweden is set to officially join NATO after Hungary finally gave its approval Monday, the last member of the Western alliance to ratify the bid.

Analysts say the addition of the Nordic nation to NATO as its 32nd member will bring significant military capabilities to the Western alliance.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was a “historic day” for his country.

“Sweden is now leaving 200 years of neutrality and nonalignment behind us. It is a big step. We must take that seriously. But it is also a very natural step that we are taking,” Kristersson said at a news conference in Stockholm on Monday, following the Hungarian approval.

“Membership of NATO means that we now join a large number of democracies that work together for peace and freedom. A new home where neighbors cooperate for safety and a group of countries that, in practice, we have belonged for a very long time,” he added.

Hungary vote

Hungarian lawmakers passed the vote with an overwhelming margin of 188 in favor of Sweden’s accession and only six against the motion.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had urged MPs to approve the bid.

“The Swedish-Hungarian military cooperation and Sweden’s accession to NATO will strengthen Hungary’s security,” Orban said ahead of the vote.

Sweden’s submitted its application to join NATO along with Finland in May 2022, three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Finland’s application was ratified relatively quickly, and it joined the alliance in April 2023. However, Sweden’s bid was held up by Turkey and Hungary. Ankara claimed that Sweden was harboring Kurdish groups, which it considers terrorists. Turkey eventually approved the NATO bid in January after Sweden introduced new anti-terror laws.

Hungary’s objections to Sweden’s NATO accession were less clear.

Orban had voiced anger over Sweden’s criticism of a perceived democratic backsliding in his country.

A visit by Kristersson to Budapest last Friday – and the purchase by Hungary of four Swedish Gripen fighter jets – appear to have helped overcome the tensions.

US ambassador

The U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who has been critical of Budapest’s delaying the ratification, welcomed the vote.

“Sweden’s accession to NATO will advance the security of the United States, the security of Hungary and the security of the alliance, and this has been a decision that has taken some time and we look forward to it,” Pressman told reporters outside the Hungarian parliament.

“Sweden has been waiting to join the alliance for now almost two years and a step forward has [been] taken, and this process should conclude rapidly,” he added.

Swedish forces have been training alongside NATO forces for decades, but formal membership will allow far deeper coordination of deployment and defense planning.

Sweden is expected to officially join NATO in the coming days or weeks, breaking its long-held policy of military non-alignment.

“The final piece of the puzzle falling into place, making NATO’s position in the Nordic-Baltic region whole. Sweden gains security in a crowd and supported by American nuclear deterrence,” said Robert Dalsjo, a senior analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, adding that valuable military capabilities will be added to the alliance.

“We have a modern air force, with Gripen planes. We have excellent submarines, especially adapted to the conditions in the Baltic Sea. We have a small but high-tech navy and we have, on the ground, we have sub-arctic capabilities,” Dalsjo told Reuters.

Baltic defense

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are widely seen as among the most vulnerable NATO member states to a potential attack by Russia. Having Finland and Sweden in the alliance creates a powerful deterrence, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

“Enabling the defense of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from different angles. It will be possible to do very large, combined, air operations looking at directions from north Finland, and northwest to western Sweden, with both of those countries as NATO members, something that was not possible to plan as little as a year ago,” Salonius-Pasternak told VOA.

Swedish public opinion swung dramatically in favor of joining NATO after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The latest opinion polls suggest around two-thirds of Swedes approve of its membership.

Stockholm residents largely welcomed Hungary’s ratification of the bid.

“Finally, it’s been a long wait until Hungary to get the acceptance in the Parliament and what’s behind the scenes for it taking this long. But it’s good to finally be here. We have been preparing for a bit of time for this,” Jimmy Dahllof, a boat captain from Stockholm, told Agence France-Presse.

Finland’s experience of joining NATO has lessons for Sweden, said Helsinki-based Salonius-Pasternak.

“It’s the first steps of an ongoing process – a cultural change at the highest political level, societal level – that we are now responsible for our own defense but together and as part of an alliance, rather than solely ‘we alone’ thinking. And this I honestly think will be a generational shift,” he told VOA.

An accession ceremony is expected in the coming days after final formalities of Sweden’s membership are completed. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, NATO’s secretary-general said Monday that Sweden’s accession “will make us all stronger and safer.”

Russia response

Russia did not immediately respond to Hungary’s ratification. In the past Moscow has said that NATO membership would make Sweden “a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures.”

Kristersson said Monday that Moscow had itself to blame.

“As far as Russia is concerned, the only thing we can safely expect is that they do not like Sweden becoming a NATO member. They didn’t like Finland becoming a NATO member either,” Kristersson said. “The whole purpose was to emphasize that a country like Ukraine would not be allowed to choose its own path. Instead of accepting that Russia had veto rights over Ukraine’s way forward, NATO has now, soon instead gained two new members.”

He added, “Russia does not like it. What else they do, we cannot know. We are prepared for all sorts of things. What we see all the time are disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and that sort of thing. I think our whole part of the world is on its toes to face many different things.”
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More than 20,000 people gathered at a rally in Warsaw Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite a difficult situation on the Polish-Ukrainian border, where Polish farmers, complaining about unfair competition, have almost completely blocked the export of some Ukrainian goods, Polish politicians reassured demonstrators that their support of Ukraine is unchanged. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Warsaw. Camera: Daniil Batushchak
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During two years of war, Ukrainians have supported their army financially. Despite the tough economic situation in the country, the level of donations remains high, and volunteers find new ways to raise funds. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Kyiv. Video: Evgenii Shynkar
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Moscow — Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko said he would run for president again in 2025, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported Sunday.

Lukashenko made his comments after voting in parliamentary and local council elections, denounced by the United States as a sham. The ex-Soviet state’s top election official dismissed the criticism and told Washington to look after its own affairs.

BelTA said Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, told journalists: “Tell them (the exiled opposition) that I’ll run. No one, no responsible president would abandon his people who followed him into battle.”

Lukashenko, 69, is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and allowed the Kremlin to use his country’s territory to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“We’re still a year away from the presidential election. A lot of things can change,” he said in response to a follow-up question, BelTA reported.

“Naturally, I and all of us, society, will react to the changes that will take place in our society and the situation in which we will approach the elections in a year’s time,” Lukashenko said.

The U.S. State Department condemned what it called the “sham” elections in Belarus Sunday.

“The elections were held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic,” department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.

The chairman of Belarus’ Central Election Commission, in comments quoted by BelTA, said it was not up to the United States to comment on the election.

“We don’t denounce their elections. We make no statements, even if they had over  

there a lot of questions for all to see, even in their last presidential election,” Igor Karpenko was quoted as saying.

“They work according to the principle that we are bigger and can therefore tell everyone what to do. I think we can manage quite nicely conducting elections in our own country,” Karpenko said.

Election commission officials said voter turnout stood at just below 73% by mid-evening.

Lukashenko’s reelection to a sixth term in 2020 sparked unprecedented protests by opponents alleging mass vote-rigging. Putin offered support to Lukashenko and the demonstrations died out after mass roundups and detentions of protesters by police.

Lukashenko told reporters the role of parliament would be bolstered in his country.

“People are beginning to understand that in Belarus, for example, a president is not a tsar or a god. It is very hard work,” BelTA quoted him as saying. “Parliament’s role will be expanded, every month, every year.”
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