As a second wartime winter arrives in Ukraine, the country is working to ensure this one will not be as difficult as last year’s, when Russian attacks caused severe damage to the power grid and heat delivery systems. Anna Chernikova reports from Kyiv. VOA footage by Eugene Shynkar. Video editor: Rod James.
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Ukraine’s military said Monday that Russia attacked the country overnight with 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones along with a cruise missile.

The Ukrainian air force reported on Telegram that the military’s air defenses shot down 18 of the 23 drones and destroyed the missile.

The air force said the air defenses operated in at least nine regions in Ukraine, but did not specify which ones.

The governor of the Mykolaiv region said six of the drones were shot down there, with the debris from one downed drone damaging an agricultural building.

Officials in Lviv also reported at least one drone in that part of the country, but no damage or injuries.

In Kherson, the regional governor said early Monday that Russian shelling during the past 24 hours had killed two people and injured eight others.  The governor also reported damage to a kindergarten, as well as a medical building and an engineering facility.

Also Monday, the governor of Russia’s Voronezh region said Major General Vladimir Zavadsky, the deputy commander of Russia’s 14th Army Corps, was killed in Ukraine.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters

 
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Ukraine and Poland will open an additional border crossing for empty freight trucks Monday to free up a much-needed route for Kyiv, with some crossings blocked by weeks of protests by Polish drivers, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday.

Those protests, over what Polish truckers see as unfair competition from their Ukrainian peers, started on Nov. 6, with four border crossings now under blockade. Polish haulers’ main demand is to stop Ukrainian truckers having permit-free access to the EU, something that Kyiv and Brussels say is impossible.

Ukrainian border service said Uhryniv checkpoint, currently operating only for passenger cars and buses, would be opened from 1 a.m. (midnight GMT) Monday for empty heavy vehicles with a total permissible weight of more than 7.5 metric tons.

“The opening of Uhryniv is the first point on the list of measures implemented to unblock the border, reduce queues and increase the capacity of the Ukrainian-Polish border,” the border service said.

Ukraine said last week it had agreed to some measures with Poland that could ease the pressure at the blockaded border crossings, but that they had not discussed the main demands of the protests; that Ukrainian truckers be required to have entry permits for transport to EU countries. That permit rule was waived for Ukrainian truck drivers after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
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Many Western arms companies failed to ramp up production in 2022 despite a strong increase in demand for weapons and military equipment, a watchdog group said Monday, adding that labor shortages, soaring costs and supply chain disruptions had been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In its Top 100 of such firms, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, said the arms revenue of the world’s largest arms-producing and military services companies last year stood at $597 billion — a 3.5% drop from 2021.

“Many arms companies faced obstacles in adjusting to production for high-intensity warfare,” said Lucie Beraud-Sudreau, director of the independent institute’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program.

SIPRI said the revenues of the 42 U.S. companies on the list — accounting for 51% of total arms sales — fell by 7.9% to $302 billion in 2022. Of those, 32 recorded a fall in year-on-year arms revenue, most of them citing ongoing supply chain issues and labor shortages stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nan Tian, a senior researcher with SIPRI, said that “we are beginning to see an influx of new orders linked to the war in Ukraine.”

He cited some major U.S. companies, including Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, and said that because of “existing order backlogs and difficulties in ramping up production capacity, the revenue from these orders will probably only be reflected in company accounts in two to three years’ time.”

Companies in Asia and the Middle East saw their arms revenues grow significantly in 2022, the institute said in its assessment, saying it demonstrated “their ability to respond to increased demand within a shorter time frame.” SIPRI singled out Israel and South Korea.

“However, despite the year-on-year drop, the total Top 100 arms revenue was still 14% higher in 2022 than in 2015 — the first year for which SIPRI included Chinese companies in its ranking.

SIPRI also said that countries placed new orders late in the year and the time lag between orders and production meant that the surge in demand was not reflected in these companies’ 2022 revenues.

“However, new contracts were signed, notably for ammunition, which could be expected to translate into higher revenue in 2023 and beyond,” Beraud-Sudreau said.
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U.S. funding for Ukraine may soon come to an end. A divided Congress has so far failed to approve a long-term budget for the U.S. government, let alone new money for aiding allies mired in conflicts abroad. The country’s top defense official says that’s a mistake. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Ukrainian officials launched an investigation Sunday into allegations that Russian forces killed surrendering Ukrainian soldiers after grainy footage on social media appeared to show two uniformed men being shot at close range after emerging from a dugout.

“The video shows a group in Russian uniforms shooting at point-blank range, two unarmed servicemen in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who were surrendering,” the prosecutor’s office said in a Telegram update Sunday.

The video first appeared Saturday on DeepState, a popular Ukrainian Telegram channel covering the war.  It shows the surrendering soldiers, one of them with his hands up, walking out at gunpoint and lying down on the ground before a group of Russian troops appears to open fire. There has been no response from Russia.

It was not immediately possible to verify the video’s authenticity or the circumstances in which it was filmed, and it was not clear when the incident took place. If the incident is confirmed, it would be a war crime, according to the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s office.

Kyiv, its Western allies, and international human rights organizations, have repeatedly accused Moscow of breaching international humanitarian law since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Kremlin denies these allegations.

In a statement posted to Telegram, Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets described the incident as “yet another glaring example of Russia’s violations of international humanitarian law.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s commissioner for human rights, Tatiana Moskalkova, and Lubinets plan on making several mutual visits to prisoners of war, Russia’s RIA news agency reported Sunday.

“Russian military personnel will be visited on the Ukrainian side. Ukrainian military personnel will be visited on the Russian side. There will be several of these visits; we have a schedule,” RIA cited Moskalkova as saying.

In a post on the social platform X, previously known as Twitter, Lubinets said, “119 Ukrainian defenders who are currently held in captivity in Russia received a visit. This was made possible through mutual arrangements between the Offices of the Commissioners of Ukraine and of the Russian Federation.”

Battlefield reports

Russian forces say they hit Ukraine’s air defense headquarters and alert center in the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, the Russian defense ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said that it inflicted combined strikes using operational-tactical and army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery.

Earlier Sunday, Ukraine said its air defense systems destroyed 10 out of 12 Russian drones before reaching their targets in Ukraine. In its daily dispatch, Russia said it launched 12 drones and a cruise missile at Ukraine overnight and that it hit fuel depots in the areas of Myrhorod, Poltava region and the city of Khmelnytskyi, an ammunition arsenal in the Mykolaiv region. It also said it hit manpower and equipment in 107 various districts.

The Reuters news agency was not immediately able to corroborate the battlefield reports.

An elderly man was killed during Russian shelling of Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson Sunday, regional officials said.

“The occupants attacked the (Sadove) village. One of the hits was to a private garage, where a 78-year-old man was at the time. He died on the spot from the explosive injury,” the Kherson military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters could not independently confirm the report.

Since Russian troops have retreated from Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro River late last year, they regularly shell those areas from their positions on the eastern bank of the river.

Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun told national television that Russian attacks on Avdiivka had halved over the past 24 hours, largely because of Russian heavy losses.

“The coking plant is controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Shtupun said. “Enemy forces are trying to make their way inside but are suffering losses in infantry and equipment.”

Fighting was still intense, he said, in an area outside the town center known as the “industrial zone.” Russia’s popular war blog Rybar said the zone had fallen under Russian control.

Reuters could not verify accounts from either side.

Vitaliy Barabash, head of the town’s military administration, told Channel 24 television that Avdiivka was “starting to look like Maryinka, a settlement that basically no longer exists. It has been razed to its foundations,” he said.

Once a city of 10,000, Mariinka, southwest of the Russian-held regional center of Donetsk, is now a ghost town, after almost a year of Russian efforts to seize it. No civilians are left there

Earlier Saturday, power was restored at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was lost Friday, according to a statement by Ukraine’s Energy Ministry on Telegram.

“This is the eighth blackout which occurred at the [Zaporizhzhia plant] and could have led to nuclear catastrophe,” the statement said. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the outage and restoration of power.

The plant was occupied by Russia in March of last year and is no longer generating power but needs a supply of electricity to cool one of its four reactors, which is in a state of hot conservation, meaning it has not fully been shut down.

The ministry said that after losing grid connection, the plant turned on 20 backup generators to supply its electricity needs.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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A bloodstain by a bridge over the Seine river was the only remaining sign on Sunday of a fatal knife attack 12 hours earlier on a German tourist, allegedly carried out by a young man under watch for suspected Islamic radicalization.

The random attack near the Eiffel Tower has drawn special concern for the French capital less than a year before it hosts the Olympic Games, with the opening ceremony due to take place along the river in an unprecedented scenic start in the heart of Paris.

After killing the tourist, the suspect crossed the bridge to the city’s Right Bank and wounded two people with a hammer, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Saturday night. The suspect, who apparently cried “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), was arrested.

Video circulating on the internet showed police officers, weapons drawn, cornering a man dressed in black, his face covered and what appeared to be a knife in his right hand. They twice tasered the suspect before arresting him, Darmanin said.

Questioned by police, the suspect expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, Darmanin said.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on X, formerly Twitter, that the news from Paris was “shocking.”

“My thoughts are with the friends and family of the young German man,” she wrote. “Almost his entire life was before him. … Hate and terror have no place in Europe.”

The French interior minister said the suspect was born in 1997 in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, outside Paris. He had been convicted and jailed for four years, until 2020, for planning violence, was under psychiatric treatment, tracked for suspected Islamic radicalization and was on a special list for feared radicals.

The French media widely reported that the man, who lived with his parents in the Essonne region, outside Paris, was of Iranian origin.

The case was turned over to the anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office.

“This person was ready to kill others,” Darmanin told reporters, who along with other government members and President Emmanuel Macron praised police officers for their response.

Well-known emergency doctor Patrick Pelloux, who was among the first at the scene, told BFM-TV there was blood everywhere. Pelloux said he was told by the victim’s entourage that the suspect stopped them to ask for a cigarette, then plunged his knife into the victim. “He aimed at the head, then the back. He knew where to strike,” Pelloux said.

The daily Le Parisien, in an in-depth report published Sunday, said the suspect had a history of contacts via social networks with two men notorious for the gruesome killing of a priest during Mass in 2016 in Saint-Etienne du Rouvray and the man who killed a police couple at their home in Yvelines, west of Paris, a month earlier.

France has been under a heightened terror alert since the fatal stabbing in October of a teacher in the northern city of Arras by a former student originally from the Ingushetia region in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains and suspected of Islamic radicalization. That came three years after another teacher was killed outside Paris, beheaded by a radicalized Chechen later killed by police.

The attack brought into sharp focus authorities’ concern for potential terrorist violence during the 2024 Games.

Just days earlier, the Paris police chief had unveiled detailed plans for the Olympic Games’ security in Paris, with zones where traffic will be restricted and people will be searched. The police chief, Laurent Nunez, said one of their concerns is that vehicles could be used as battering rams to plow through Olympic crowds.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday thanked everyone who has helped Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, including soldiers, workers of the Emergency Service of Ukraine, the National Police, the National Guard and more.

“It is important that everyone remains committed to the common cause,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address.  “It is important that every week one can say, “I have contributed something of my own to the common defense.”

Earlier Saturday, power was restored at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was lost on Friday, averting again a “nuclear catastrophe,” according to a statement by Ukraine’s Energy Ministry on Telegram.

“This is the eighth blackout which occurred at the [Zaporizhzhia plant] and could have led to nuclear catastrophe,” the statement said. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the outage and restoration of power.

The plant was occupied by Russia in March of last year and is no longer generating power but needs a supply of electricity to cool one of its four reactors, which is in a state of hot conservation, meaning it has not fully been shut down.

The ministry said that after losing grid connection the plant turned on 20 backup generators to supply its electricity needs.

At 7 a.m. local time, it said, Ukrainian specialists repaired the 750-kilowatt line that is again bringing power to the plant.

Eastern front lines

Fighting continues around the eastern Ukrainian towns of Avdiivka and Marinka, with both Russia and Ukraine claiming advances. Ukraine’s General Staff said Saturday that Russian forces had been unsuccessful in their attempts to advance on villages near Marinka but said nothing of troop movements in the town.

Once a city of 10,000 Marinka, southwest of the Russian-held regional center of Donetsk, is now a ghost town, after almost a year of Russian efforts to seize it. There are no civilians left there.

For almost two months, Russian forces have been attacking the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, 40 kilometers north of Marinka. Ukraine says its forces control Avdiivka, though not a single building remains intact.

Ukrainian troops regained swaths of territory last year in a sweep through the northeast, but a counteroffensive launched in the east and south in June has made only incremental gains.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called on the U.S. Congress on Friday to act swiftly to provide aid to Ukraine before the end of the month, after which it will become difficult to provide Kyiv with assistance it needs.

“We need that assistance immediately so we can provide them assistance in an uninterrupted way,” Kirby told a news briefing.

Kirby said the United States expects that Russia will try to destroy critical Ukrainian energy infrastructure this winter as it did last year.

Zelenskyy acknowledges that the advance has been slow but rejects any notion that the war is slipping into a stalemate.

He met with his military command Friday to discuss ways to produce “concrete results” in the war next year.

In his nightly video address, he spoke about improvements in mobilization methods.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

To his followers, he was “Grieg,” their guide through tantra yoga toward enlightenment and a higher state of consciousness. For European police, Gregorian Bivolaru represents a far more sinister figure: a master manipulator accused of sexual abuse and exploitation. 

The arrest this week in the Paris region of the 71-year-old Romanian yoga guru and 40 others marked the culmination of a six-year manhunt involving Interpol.

The raid, led by 175 officers of a French police unit that combats sect-related crime, also freed 26 people, who were described by authorities as sect victims who had been housed in dirty and cramped conditions. 

Bivolaru went before a judge on Friday and could be handed preliminary charges, along with 14 other suspects. French police have for months been investigating a range of suspected crimes, including rape, human trafficking, illegal confinement and preying on followers as part of a sect. 

It wasn’t possible to reach Bivolaru, who remains in custody, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he had legal representation. 

Allegations include grooming, entrapment

Accounts from alleged victims detailed in the French media portray Bivolaru as a guru who coerced women into sexual relationships under the guise of spiritual elevation spanning decades and continents. 

A German woman recounted her alleged entrapment aged 21 when she was in the Indian city of Rishikesh in 2019 in search of spiritual enlightenment. She described to Liberation newspaper a grooming process that allegedly included being photographed and filmed naked before her abduction and coerced sexual encounters in a Parisian house. 

The group also fostered deep mistrust among its followers against the external world, especially the medical community, urging them to reject COVID-19 vaccinations and other medical procedures, according to her account.

Another victim, a French woman, told France Info about a five-year ordeal where tantra yoga was fused with astrology and parapsychology to allegedly manipulate members into non-consensual sex under the pretext of spiritual practices. 

Bivolaru’s group, initially known as MISA (“Mouvement pour l’Intégration Spirituelle vers l’Absolu”) and later as the Atman yoga federation, allegedly engaged in non-consensual sexual activities under the facade of tantra yoga teachings, according to a French judicial official who spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. 

Despite expulsion from international yoga federations and legal scrutiny for prostitution, sexual slavery and human trafficking, the group’s “ashrams” were centers for indoctrination and sexual exploitation disguised as spiritual enlightenment, according to the official. 

One of these supposed ashram’s appeared to be exclusively dedicated to satisfying his desires, with women transported there from other places, the official added. 

MISA said in a statement on its website in Romanian that Bivolaru had been targeted by media campaigns since the 1990s to “discredit and slander” him, calling any charges against him in France “absurd accusations.” 

The Atman federation meanwhile described the situation to The Associated Press in an email as a “witch hunt,” disclaiming responsibility for the private lives of students and teachers at its member schools. They also highlighted that some member schools had successfully won cases at the European Court of Human Rights, demonstrating human rights violations against them. 

However, a 2018 ruling by the court, as seen by the AP, seems more to underscore how Bivolaru’s multinational activities have served to hamper efforts to actually apprehend him. He had obtained political refugee status in Sweden, thereby delaying legal proceedings in Romania. 

Media reports systematic exploitation

The scope of the alleged abuses spanned across Europe, entrapping young women in a web of sexual and psychological control. Finnish media reported systematic sexual exploitation at Bivolaru’s Helsinki yoga school, and in 2017, Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation issued an international arrest warrant for him for alleged aggravated human trafficking. 

In Sweden, despite being granted asylum in 2005, his alleged activities continued unchecked. Investigations by TV2 and the BT newspaper in Denmark in 2013 further exposed alleged exploitation within yoga centers run by Bivolaru and an associate, where young women were sexually exploited and filmed without their knowledge in purported tantra and sex rituals. 

A former member of the Natha Yoga Center in Denmark, in an account to the BT newspaper, described women being treated like slaves, overburdened with chores, and sworn to silence. The woman revealed that the alleged exploitation and sexual abuse extended to the distribution of films, including one sold at gas stations across Denmark and another shot on a ship in the Black Sea. 

In France, similar yoga retreats held in and around Paris and in southern France’s Alpes-Maritimes region sought to make followers take part in sexual activities, the French judicial official said. Attendees testified that women were forced to pay for the stays by doing video sex-chats and that men were made to perform manual labor, she added. 

Obtained asylum in Sweden

Bivolaru’s transition from respected yoga guru to international fugitive is a narrative laced with legal twists. 

After fleeing Romania in 2004 amid charges of sexual misconduct with minors, he obtained asylum in Sweden, evading extradition. Romanian authorities later accused him of leading a criminal network within MISA, exploiting followers through extortion and sexual abuse, and using his spiritual influence to control and isolate them. 

He was sentenced in absentia in Romania in 2013 for sexual relations with a minor, but wasn’t imprisoned until his extradition from France in 2016, leading to a brief imprisonment followed by release on probation. In a twist of irony, the Romanian state was later mandated to compensate Bivolaru with 50,000 euros for delays in his trial. 
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French police arrested a man who targeted passersby in Paris on Saturday night, killing a German tourist with a knife and injuring two others, France’s interior minister said.

Police subdued the man, a 25-year-old French citizen who had spent four years in prison for planning a violent offense. After his arrest, he expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, and claimed that France was an accomplice, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said.

The anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office confirmed it has opened an investigation.

The attacker went after a German couple with a knife, killing the man and then used a hammer to injure two others.

The attacker, who was not identified by name, left prison after four years in 2020 and was under surveillance and undergoing psychiatric treatment, the minister said, painting a brief portrait of the assailant, who was born in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, a Paris suburb. He was most recently living with his parents in the Essonne region, south of Paris.

The fatal attack occurred in the 15th district of the French capital with the assailant using a knife to kill the German tourist, who was not identified. He then crossed the Seine to the Right Bank and used a hammer to attack the injured. Details about the victims were not immediately known.

The attacker was stopped by police, the minister said, praising the officers for their quick response.

France has been under a heightened terror alert since the fatal stabbing in October of a teacher in the northern city of Arras by a former student originally from the Ingushetia region in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains and suspected of Islamic radicalization. That fatal attack came three years after another teacher was killed outside Paris, beheaded by a radicalized Chechen later killed by police.

The Saturday attack raised the fear level in the French capital, still marked by the 2015 attacks of cafes and a music hall by Islamist radicals that killed 130 people.

“We will cede nothing in the face of terrorism. Never,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X, formerly Twitter, sending her condolences to the victims and their families.
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Ukraine’s ex-President Petro Poroshenko said he had been stopped from leaving the country Friday morning in what he described as a politically motivated bid to disrupt his work.

Poroshenko, who led Ukraine from 2014 to 2019 and is now an opposition lawmaker, posted a video of himself at a border crossing with Poland, saying he had been turned away and holding up papers that he said showed he had official permission to cross.

Under martial law, Ukrainian officials must get special approval to travel abroad.

The Ukrainian parliament’s deputy speaker, Oleksandr Korniyenko, later confirmed he had cancelled Poroshenko’s permission to leave the country.

Korniyenko said that while lawmakers were allowed to travel for party political events, he had received a letter, which he could not comment on, that led him to cancel the permission for Poroshenko’s trip.

The dispute comes amid slowly growing tensions between government and opposition — mostly over internal matters such as budgets and appointments — as the war against invading Russian troops grinds on, in contrast to the near-total unity at the start of the conflict.

Poroshenko said he had planned to travel to Poland to help negotiate an end to a truckers’ blockade and then to the United States to build support for Ukraine’s war effort.

Alongside his video post, he wrote a message accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration of cancelling the permission and playing politics ahead of elections.

“This is an anti-Ukrainian diversion,” Poroshenko wrote. “It is not just the hampering of my entire team’s diplomatic work, but unfortunately a blow to Ukraine’s defense capabilities.”

Zelenskyy’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Poroshenko, who leads the European Solidarity opposition party, is a prominent critic of Zelenskyy’s administration.

The two men fought a bitter, often deeply personal, battle in the 2019 presidential election when Zelenskyy defeated the incumbent Poroshenko in a landslide.

Zelenskyy told Ukrainians last month that it was “not the time” to hold a presidential election, which under normal circumstances would be scheduled for March 2024 but is prohibited under martial law.
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Power was restored Saturday at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was lost on Friday, averting again a “nuclear catastrophe,” according to a statement by Ukraine’s energy ministry on the Telegram messaging app.  

“This is the eighth blackout which occurred at the [Zaporizhzhia plant] and could have led to nuclear catastrophe,” the statement said Saturday. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the outage and restoration of power. 

The plant was occupied by Russia in March 2022 and is no longer generating power but needs a supply of electricity to cool one of its four reactors, which is in a state of hot conservation, meaning it has not fully been shut down. 

The energy ministry said that after losing grid connection the plant turned on 20 backup generators to supply its electricity needs. 

At 7 a.m. local time (0500 GMT), it said, Ukrainian specialists repaired the 750-kW line that is again bringing power to the plant. 

Eastern front lines 

Fighting continues around the eastern Ukrainian towns of Avdiivka and Marinka with both Russia and Ukraine claiming advances. Ukraine’s General Staff said Saturday that Russian forces had been unsuccessful in their attempts to advance on villages near Marinka but said nothing of troop movements in the town. 

Once a city of 10,000, Marinka — which is southwest of the Russian-held regional center of Donetsk — is a ghost town after almost a year of Russian efforts to seize it. There are no civilians left. 

For almost two months, Russian forces have been attacking the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Marinka. Ukraine says its forces control Avdiivka, though not a single building remains intact. 

Ukrainian troops regained swaths of territory last year in a sweep through the northeast, but a counteroffensive launched in the east and south in June has made only incremental gains. 

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called on the U.S. Congress Friday to act swiftly to provide aid to Ukraine before the end of the month, after which it will become difficult to provide Kyiv with the assistance it needs.  

“We need that assistance immediately so we can provide them assistance in an uninterrupted way,” Kirby said during a news briefing.   

Kirby said the United States expects that Russia will try to destroy critical Ukrainian energy infrastructure this winter as it did last year.   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledges that the advance has been slow but rejects any notion that the war is slipping into a stalemate.  

The president met with his military command Friday to discuss ways to produce “concrete results” next year in the country’s war with Russia.   

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy spoke about improvements in mobilization methods.   

“This is not simply a question of numbers, of who can be mobilized,” he said. “It’s a question of a time frame for each person who is now in the military, for demobilization and for those who will join the military. And it’s about conditions.”   

 Zelenskyy said these issues had to be examined by commanders and the defense ministry.  

 ”There were several proposals today and I am awaiting comprehensive solutions,” he said.  

Russian troops  

Zelenskyy’s comments came as Russia President Vladimir Putin signed a decree increasing the number of members of the Russian armed forces by 170,000, to a total of 1.32 million, the Kremlin and the defense ministry said Friday.   

“The increase in the full-time strength of the armed forces is due to the growing threats to our country associated with the special military operation and the ongoing expansion of NATO,” the ministry said.   

The ministry also said it has no plans to significantly increase conscription or carry out a new wave of mobilization, and that the increase in the number of troops will happen gradually by recruiting more volunteers.   

The wives of deployed Russian soldiers are not happy with their spouses’ “indefinite mobilization,” and have expressed their dismay in public protests and online.  The British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily report on Ukraine that Russian authorities are attempting “to quash public dissent” by paying the women off and discrediting them online.    

Russian officials are “likely particularly sensitive,” the report said, to any protests about troops who have been mobilized since September 2022 and have been on the front line for more than a year.    

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered a blunt message to Western leaders Friday and declared at an international security conference that his government was not prepared to “review its goals” in Ukraine. 

“We aren’t seeing any signals from Kyiv or its masters about their readiness to seek any kind of political settlement,” Lavrov told reporters while attending an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe conference in North Macedonia. 

“We see no reason to review our goals,” he said. 

Some diplomats protest

North Macedonia, which joined NATO in 2020, waived a flight ban on Russian officials so Lavrov could attend the two-day meeting of the OSCE’s Ministerial Council, prompting the top diplomats of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to skip the event in protest. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a brief stop in North Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, before Lavrov arrived. 

Participants at the meeting accused Moscow of undermining the OSCE with its war in Ukraine. The Vienna, Austria-based organization — which was created to ease Cold War tensions — includes 57 member countries from North America, Europe and the former Soviet Union. 

“It is Russia that is waging an unprovoked and unlawful war against Ukraine, and it is Russia that is obstructing the OSCE agenda,” Ambassador Katrina Kaktina, Latvia’s representative to the organization, said Friday. 

‘They just chickened out’ 

Lavrov held several bilateral meetings while in Skopje, including talks with the foreign ministers of meeting host North Macedonia, Armenia and Hungary; the latter has maintained close ties with Moscow despite European Union sanctions on Russia. 

Lavrov later accused diplomats from other Western countries of showing cowardice by refusing to meet with him. 

“They probably want to emphasize their intention to isolate Russia, but I think they just chickened out,” Lavrov said during a Friday news conference that lasted over an hour. 

“They’re afraid of any honest conversation,” he said. “It’s cowardice, simple cowardice.” 

At the close of the OSCE meeting, North Macedonia said it had overcome Russian objections that had threatened to stall the organization’s activities. 

Participants voted to pass the OSCE’s rotating presidency from North Macedonia to Malta, sidestepping objections from Moscow that had blocked an earlier bid by Estonia. Malta will assume the presidency on January 1. 

“Let me break the news that the OSCE is saved. We have saved the organization and its functionality,” North Macedonia’s foreign minister, Bujar Osmani, said. 

OSCE Secretary-General Helga Schmid also had her term extended for nine months, along with two other senior executives at the organization. A third executive was newly appointed, also for a nine-month term.  
…

French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday that France was “very concerned” by the resumption of violence in Gaza and that he was heading to Qatar to help in efforts to kickstart a new truce ahead of a cease-fire. 

Macron also told a news conference at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai that the situation required the doubling down on efforts to obtain a lasting cease-fire and the freeing of all hostages. 

A temporary truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed Friday after mediators were unable to extend the pause. Israel and Hamas have traded blame over the collapse. 

Macron also urged Israel to clarify its goals toward Hamas. 

“We are at a moment when Israeli authorities must more precisely define their objectives and their final goal: the total destruction of Hamas. Does anyone think it is possible?” he asked. “If this is the case, the war will last 10 years.” 

“There is no lasting security for Israel in the region if its security is achieved at the cost of Palestinian lives and thus of the resentment of public opinions in the region,” he said. “Let’s be collectively lucid.”  

Asked for a response to that remark, Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told reporters Israel does not want to see Palestinian civilians in Gaza caught in the crossfire as battles resume. 

“Israel is targeting Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization that has committed the most horrific violence against innocent civilians,” said Regev. “Israel is making a maximum effort to safeguard Gaza’s civilians.”
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France and the Philippines are considering a defense pact that would allow them to send military forces to each other’s territory for joint exercises, the Philippine defense chief said Saturday after holding talks with his French counterpart.

Gilberto Teodoro Jr. said in a joint news conference with French Minister for the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu that they were seeking authorization from their heads of state to begin negotiations.

“We intend to take concrete steps into leveling up and making more comprehensive our defense cooperation, principally by working to get authorization from our respective heads of state and relevant agencies to begin negotiations for a status of visiting forces agreement,” Teodoro said.

“The first goal is to create interoperability or a strategic closeness between both armed forces, see how both navies work together, how air forces work together,” Lecornu said through an interpreter.

The Philippines has such an agreement — which provides a legal framework for visits of foreign troops — only with the United States, its longtime treaty ally, and with Australia. Negotiations between the Philippines and Japan are also underway for a reciprocal access agreement that would allow Japanese and Philippine troop deployments to one another for military exercises and other security activities.

The Philippine and French defense chiefs agreed to deepen defense cooperation, including by boosting intelligence and information exchanges to address security threats, Teodoro said.

They agreed to sustain Philippine and French ship visits and underscored the importance of upholding international law, including the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, he said.

That language has often been used by the U.S. and the Philippines, along with their allies, in their criticism of China for its increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea.

France has deployed its navy ships to the South China Sea to promote freedom of navigation and push back against Chinese expansionism. China claims virtually the entire waterway and has constructed island bases protected by a missile system in the past decade, alarming smaller claimant states, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Washington has repeatedly warned that it is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

The Philippines recently staged joint air and naval patrols separately with the U.S. and Australia in the South China Sea, provoking an angry reaction from China, which warned that the joint patrols should not harm its sovereignty and territorial interests.
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The giant waves form in the storm belts of the Southern Ocean, off Antarctica, where whales roam. Supercharged by intense winds, the swells then roll on an ocean journey of thousands of kilometers to crash into Tahiti in the South Pacific.

There, in the waters of the volcanic island that will host next year’s Olympic surfing events, surfer Kauli Vaast waits.

If the Tahitian-born 21-year-old catches one of the waves just right, he’ll harness its awesome power as it rears up to become a furious, frothing wall of water. If he stays upright, he’ll zip through the crystal-blue tunnel that forms around him as the wave breaks, emerging unscathed and whooping, with a grin on his face.

“Just the most perfect wave in the world,” says Vaast, who hopes the island’s legendary surfing conditions are his ticket to a gold medal.

The decision to hold Olympic surfing in French Polynesia next July will require competitors to brave some of the world’s biggest waves. The location promises more dramatic television images than when the sport made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games in 2021. Then, the waves on Tsurigasaki Beach were sometimes modest, and COVID-19 dented the atmosphere.

But the faraway venue has also raised pointed logistical and environmental questions because the rest of the Summer Games are focused in the host city, Paris, nearly 16,000 kilometers [10,000 miles] and 10 time zones away.

The need to fly 48 surfers, judges, journalists and others that far looks awkward against Paris organizers’ stated ambition of reducing the Olympics’ carbon footprint by half. Four other surf spots that also bid were dotted along France’s Atlantic coast and could easily have been reached by train and bus from the French capital.

But for big-wave enthusiasts such as Vaast, Tahiti makes sense because it has Teahupo’o, a village on the southern shore with lagoons that get the full force of the swells, generating dream surf for the courageous.

“If the conditions are really good, it’s going to be a great contest to watch,” Vaast says. The Olympics “are going to be like crazy.”

Teahupo’o translates from Tahitian as “wall of heads.” The name refers to a tribal battle where heads were severed, but it’s also appropriate for such fearsome waves. The deep ocean bed rises steeply on final approach to Teahupo’o’s offshore reefs, forcing the water into towering walls and huge, rolling tubes.

They are perilous. Surfers who fall risk being body-slammed onto the sharp and shallow corals, which tore chunks off the face of Hawaiian surfer Keala Kennelly when she tumbled in 2011.

Because Teahupo’o’s surf breaks offshore, the Olympic judges have to be out in the lagoon, too. Organizers intend to install them and television cameras on an aluminum tower that will be attached to the reef. That plan has sparked protests in Tahiti. Its critics fear for coral and other marine life.

Tahitian surfer Matahi Drollet is one of the most vocal opponents. His protest videos on Instagram have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.

Vaast acknowledges widespread concern about the Olympics’ footprint in the Teahupo’o lagoon, saying: “We [are] all scared if they’re doing something big.”

But he also expects the Olympic spotlight to boost the tourism industry, which underpins the Tahitian economy.

“It’s going to be great to see a lot of people getting interested in French Polynesia,” he says. “And with the construction for the Olympics and stuff, it creates a lot of work for the local people.”

Vaast is one of only two French Polynesian surfers qualified so far. The other is Vahine Fierro in the women’s competition. Growing up surrounded by the vast Pacific, Vaast swam, fished and surfed as a kid and was just 8 when he first tackled Teahupo’o waves.

He remembers being terrified of their reputation, but he was hooked by their beauty and power. Tahitians say the waves have “Mana,” life-affirming spiritual energy. Vaast believes that his intimate knowledge of Teahupo’o gives him home-field advantage and the “chance of a lifetime” in July.

“I feel this energy nowhere [else] in the world, only in Tahiti, at Teahupo’o,” says Vaast, who often travels on the surfing circuit. “When you go there, you need to be respectful because if you respect [it], like the ocean is going to respect you.”

For France, the Tahitian venue will allow the host country to highlight its long historical ties to the Pacific and involve its far-off overseas territories in the Summer Games.

Teahupo’o, Tahiti’s jewel, is primed to wow.

“When you’re in the barrel, you see the mountains” and colors that are “super clear,” Vaast says. “You can see the corals underneath. … Beautiful. The most beautiful place in the world.”
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Russian security forces raided gay clubs and bars across Moscow Friday night, less than 48 hours after the country’s top court banned what it called the “global LGBTQ+ movement” as an extremist organization.

Police searched venues across the Russian capital, including a nightclub, a male sauna, and a bar that hosted LGBTQ+ parties, under the pretext of a drug raid, local media reported.

Eyewitnesses told journalists that clubgoers’ documents were checked and photographed by the security services. They also said that managers had been able to warn patrons before police arrived.

The raids follow a decision by Russia’s Supreme Court to label the country’s LGBTQ+ “movement” as an extremist organization.

The ruling, which was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the Justice Ministry, is the latest step in a decadelong crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights under President Vladimir Putin, who has emphasized “traditional family values” during his 24 years in power.

Activists have noted the lawsuit was lodged against a movement that is not an official entity, and that under its broad and vague definition authorities could crack down on any individuals or groups deemed to be part of it.

Several LGBTQ+ venues have already closed following the decision, including St. Petersburg’s gay club Central Station. It wrote on social media Friday that the owner would no longer allow the bar to operate with the law in effect.

Max Olenichev, a human rights lawyer who works with the Russian LGBTQ+ community, told The Associated Press before the ruling that it effectively bans organized activity to defend the rights of LGBTQ+ people.

“In practice, it could happen that the Russian authorities, with this court ruling in hand, will enforce (the ruling) against LGBTQ+ initiatives that work in Russia, considering them a part of this civic movement,” Olenichev said.

Before the ruling, leading Russian human rights groups had filed a document with the Supreme Court that called the Justice Ministry lawsuit discriminatory and a violation of Russia’s constitution. Some LGBTQ+ activists tried to become a party in the case but were rebuffed by the court.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law, banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, constitutional reforms pushed through by Putin to extend his rule by two more terms also included a provision to outlaw same-sex marriage.

After sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin ramped up a campaign against what it called the West’s “degrading” influence. Rights advocates saw it as an attempt to legitimize the war. That same year, a law was passed banning propaganda of “nontraditional sexual relations” among adults, also, effectively outlawing any public endorsement of LGBTQ+ people.

Another law passed this year prohibited gender transitioning procedures and gender-affirming care for transgender people. The legislation prohibited any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records.

Russian authorities reject accusations of LGBTQ+ discrimination. Earlier this month, Russian media quoted Deputy Justice Minister Andrei Loginov as saying that “the rights of LGBT people in Russia are protected” legally. He was presenting a report on human rights in Russia to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, arguing that “restraining public demonstration of nontraditional sexual relationships or preferences is not a form of censure for them.”

The Supreme Court case is classified and it remains unclear how LGBTQ+ activists and symbols will be restricted.

Many people will consider leaving Russia before they become targeted, said Olga Baranova, director of the Moscow Community Center for LGBTQ+ Initiatives.

“It is clear for us that they’re once again making us out as a domestic enemy to shift the focus from all the other problems that are in abundance in Russia,” Baranova told the AP.
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From underwater drones to electronic warfare, the U.S. is expanding its high-tech military cooperation with Australia and the United Kingdom as part of a broader effort to counter China’s rapidly growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with defense chiefs from Australia and the United Kingdom at the U.S. military’s defense technology hub in Silicon Valley on Friday to forge a new agreement to increase technology cooperation and information sharing. The goal, according to a joint statement, is to be able to better address global security challenges, ensure each can defend against rapidly evolving threats and to “contribute to stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.”

Austin met with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles and Grant Shapps, the British secretary of state for defense, at the Defense Innovation Unit headquarters.

Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, Austin said the effort will, for example, rapidly accelerate the sophistication of the drone systems, and prove that “we are stronger together.”

The new technology agreement is the next step in a widening military cooperation with Australia that was first announced in 2021. The three nations have laid out plans for the so-called AUKUS partnership to help equip Australia with a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS is an acronym for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Under the deal, Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the United States and build five of a new AUKUS-class submarine in cooperation with Britain. The subs, powered by U.S. nuclear technology, would not carry nuclear weapons and would be built in Adelaide, Australia with the first one finished around 2040.

Marles said there has been an enormous amount of progress in the submarine program. He added that as an island nation, Australia has a need for improved maritime drones and precision strike capabilities.

And Shapps said that with China “undermining the freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, we’ve never had a greater need for more innovation.” He said that open navigation of the seas, including in the Pacific and the South China Sea is critical.

According to officials, Australian Navy officers have already started to go through nuclear power training at U.S. military schools.

Also, earlier this year the U.S. announced it would expand its military industrial base by helping Australia manufacture guided missiles and rockets for both countries within two years. Under that agreement, they would cooperate on Australia’s production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems by 2025.

The enhanced cooperation between the nations has been driven by growing concerns about China’s burgeoning defense spending and rapidly expanding military presence in the region. Last year Beijing signed a security pact with Solomon Islands and raised the prospect of a Chinese naval base being established there.

The U.S. has increased U.S. troop presence, military exercises and other activities in the region. U.S. relations with China have been strained in recent years, over trade, U.S. support for self-governing Taiwan, Beijing’s military buildup on a series of manmade islands, and a numbers of aggressive aircraft and ship encounters.

High-tech demonstrations were set up across a large parking area at DIU and inside the headquarters, allowing Austin to take a few minutes before the start of the meeting to see a number of projects being developed, including a virtual training device that will help Ukrainian pilots learn to fly F-16 fighter jets and swarming drones being developed for warfighters. The projects aren’t tied to the Australian agreement, but reflect the ongoing effort by the three nations to improve technology — an area where China often has the lead.

As Austin walked through the exhibits, he was able to watch a swarm of five drones lift off from the pavement and hover over the onlookers — all controlled by a single worker with a small handheld module. The short range reconnaissance drones — called the Skydio X2D — are already in use in combat, but the swarming technology and ability to control them all from a single device is still in development, said Skydio CEO Adam Bry.

Inside the DIU offices, Air Force Maj. Alex Horn demonstrated a new portable, pilot training module that will allow instructors in the United States to remotely coach trainees overseas using a virtual reality headset. Four of the so-called “Immersive Training Devices” will be delivered to Morris Air National Guard Base in Arizona next month and will be used to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s.

Horn said the devices, which are cheaper than other systems, will help accelerate the training for Ukrainian pilots who are used to flying Soviet aircraft and need schooling on F-16 basics before moving to cockpit training.
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Finland closed its entire 1,340-kilometer-long border with Russia this week, accusing Moscow of sending asylum-seekers across the frontier in a hybrid attack in retaliation for its decision to join NATO. Russia denies the accusation. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell has more.
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A Russian court on Friday ordered American Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva to remain in custody until February 5.

The editor for the Tatar-Bashkir Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL, has spent 45 days in prison on accusations that she failed to register as a foreign agent. Kurmasheva denies the charge.

RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said in a statement that Kurmasheva’s “unjust, politically motivated detention has been extended,” and he called for Russia to free the journalist and grant her consular access under her rights as a U.S. citizen.

Kurmasheva had traveled to Russia in May for a family emergency. When she tried to leave, authorities confiscated her passports. Then, on October 18, she was arrested and accused of failing to register as a foreign agent.

Earlier this week, Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, spoke with VOA about her case and why he believes Russia is detaining his wife.

Butorin is the director of Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.

He has called on the U.S. to designate Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, saying doing so will release other resources to help free her.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: There are a lot of repressions now against Russian journalists in Russia. What makes Alsu Kurmasheva’s case unique?

Pavel Butorin, Director of Current Time TV: It is no secret that reporting [on] Russia independently has become an endangered profession. But I think it’s especially dangerous now for American journalists to work inside Russia. I’m convinced that Alsu’s being targeted because she’s an American citizen and because she is a journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

She is held in a cold prison cell exactly for that reason – because she had the courage to report on what’s going on inside Russia, what’s going on with ethnic minorities inside Russia.

VOA: What do you know about the conditions in the prison?

Butorin: Communication that we receive from Alsu is censored, so we cannot be certain that she receives the attention and the treatment that she deserves. We know that her prison cell is cold. Sometimes it gets overcrowded. It isn’t a pretrial detention facility, but it is a Russian jail.

She does send us letters that are upbeat and optimistic. Make no mistake. She is held by a penitentiary system that is notorious for its mistreatment of political prisoners. She shouldn’t be in that jail.

VOA: When she was first detained in June, she was released but then detained again. Why did they need such a scenario?

Butorin: Well, I can’t get into their heads, but I can only speculate that they were building a bigger case against Alsu.

She was first detained and charged for failure to report her American citizenship, which is now a criminal offense in Russia. They dragged this case out for several months, and eventually, in early October, a judge issued a relatively small fine.

But before she was able to pay the fine, they came after [her], arrested her and charged her for now with a more serious offense, with failure to register as a so-called foreign agent, an absurd charge that she denies.

VOA: In your opinion, is Alsu’s coverage of ethnic minorities and culture and language related to her case?

Butorin: I don’t have the details of her case, but it’s quite likely that her coverage of the plight of ethnic minorities in Russia has played a role in this.

Alsu is primarily a journalist, not necessarily an activist, but she has been a very strong proponent of and enthusiast for culture and the Tatar language. Honestly, I can’t think of another person who is as passionate about a culture as Alsu. She has been involved in, and you know, spreading awareness about her Tatar culture.

VOA: What is the most important thing to do to help Alsu right now?

Butorin: Right now, letters are really the biggest lifeline for Alsu in detention. She very much appreciates the support that she’s been receiving.

She receives a lot of letters from people that she doesn’t know, from complete strangers, who share their life stories with her and even recount movie plots. So that’s a big help.

But on the diplomatic front, we would like to see more involvement from the United States government and from other parties, as well from the European Union and from human rights organizations.

There is no doubt in my mind that the reason for her detention is her American citizenship and her work for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

I think Alsu must be designated as a wrongfully detained person. I think she meets most, if not all, of the criteria.

This interview originated in VOA’s Russian Service.
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Media covering Kremlin activity are facing pressure as Russia jails American journalists and lists a Spanish journalist as an enemy of the state. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit reports.
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Ukraine’s domestic spy agency has detonated explosives on a Russian railway line deep in Siberia, the second attack this week on military supply routes in the area, a Ukrainian source told Reuters on Friday.

The incidents appear to show Kyiv’s readiness and ability to conduct sabotage attacks deep inside Russia and disrupt Russian logistics far from the front lines of Moscow’s 21-month-old war in Ukraine.

The source, who declined to be identified, said the explosives were detonated as a freight train crossed the Chertov Bridge in Siberia’s Buryatia region, which borders Mongolia and is thousands of kilometers from Ukraine.

The train had been using a backup railway line after an attack on a nearby tunnel a day earlier caused trains to be diverted, the source said.

Baza, a Russian media outlet with security sources, said diesel fuel tanks had ignited on a train using the backup route and that six goods wagons had caught fire. It reported no casualties and said the cause of the explosions was unknown.

The Ukrainian source, who said both operations were conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, gave a similar assessment of the damage, citing Russian Telegram channels.

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts or assess whether the route is used for military supplies. Russian Railways declined to comment on the latest incident. The regional branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee did not immediately respond to a written request for comment.

The Ukrainian source said Thursday the SBU had detonated explosives in the earlier attack as a cargo train moved through the Severomuysky tunnel in Buryatia.

Russian investigators have concluded that train was blown up in a “terrorist act” by unidentified individuals, the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper cited unnamed sources as saying.

Russian Railways, the state company that operates the vast rail network, said traffic had been diverted along a new route after the first attack, slightly increasing journey times but not interrupting transport.

The Ukrainian source said the second attack had anticipated the diversion of rail traffic and targeted the backup route at Chertov Bridge, which is on Russia’s Baikal-Amur Mainline traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East.

Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railway is widely seen as more important for Russian freight transport than the Baikal-Amur Mainline.

A Russian industry source who declined to be identified said the backup route was functioning and being used by trains carrying freight on Friday afternoon.
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Developers at the University of Maryland are using a holographic camera to capture people’s movements in three dimensions for what could be high-impact training, education and entertainment. It is technology with the power to transform how we learn and entertain ourselves. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more. VOA footage by Adam Greenbaum.
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A BBC Channel 4 documentary, “Secrets and Power: China in the UK,” claims the Chinese government is interfering with academic freedom and spying on Hong Kong activists in the United Kingdom.

The 49-minute film released Wednesday alleges that the University of Nottingham used a Beijing-approved curriculum in classes taught on a satellite campus in Ningbo and closed its School of Contemporary Chinese Studies under pressure from Beijing. 

The program also claims a professor at the Imperial College London collaborated with researchers at a Chinese university on the use of artificial intelligence weaponry that could be used to benefit the Chinese military. Both institutions deny the allegations. 

The film also alleges that Chinese government agents pretending to be journalists used fake profiles and avatars to target Hong Kong activists now living in the U.K. 

VOA Mandarin sent an email to the Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom seeking comments on the claims in the documentary but has not received a response.  

Nations track China’s influence

The documentary comes as other nations, including the U.S., are monitoring China’s influence on campuses (( https://www.voanews.com/a/us-officials-warn-of-chinese-influence-in-american-higher-education/4600204.html )) and its so-called “overseas police centers,” purportedly intended to help Chinese diaspora and tourists with everyday problems. 

VOA has previously quoted human rights groups saying the outposts are in fact part of a complex global surveillance and control web that gives Beijing reach far beyond China’s borders. 

The University of Nottingham was approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education to open a campus in Ningbo, China, in 2004. On the China campus, all courses are taught in English and students are awarded the same degrees as on the U.K. campus.  

Professor Stephen Morgan, the former vice provost for planning at the Ningbo campus, said in the documentary that books and articles on campus are censored by local Communist Party officials.  

According to Morgan, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also encouraged students to spy on their teachers. He said he was forced to resign from his management position after writing a blog criticizing constitutional changes that enabled President Xi Jinping to serve a third term. The CCP secretary at the Ningbo campus deemed the blog “totally unacceptable,” he said. 

Steve Tsang is director of the China Institute at SOAS London and a former director of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, which closed in 2016. 

Tsang, an outspoken critic of the CCP, said in the documentary that University of Nottingham administrators told him not to speak with media when Xi visited the U.K. in 2015. Tsang also said the university did not allow him to host a senior Taiwanese politician who planned to deliver a speech in 2014.  

School denies taking political action

The University of Nottingham has denied that the closure of its Institute of Contemporary China was for political reasons and denied Channel 4’s allegations about Nottingham’s Ningbo campus. 

“We do not recognize the description of the University of Nottingham’s Ningbo campus. Any U.K. organization operating overseas … must comply with the laws and customs of the host country.”  

The documentary alleges that Imperial College London’s collaboration with researchers from Shanghai University included the publication of several papers on the military applications of artificial intelligence. The work was overseen by Guo Yike, director of Imperial College’s Institute of Data Science. 

According to a report in the English newspaper The Telegraph, Imperial College said staff have a “clear code of research” and insisted that due diligence and regular reviews of partners have been done. 

The Chinese Embassy in London also denied to The Telegraph in the same article that it had interfered in the running of British universities, saying the allegation was “aimed at discrediting and smearing China.”  

Film alleges China targets activists

A study prepared by the British think tank Civitas and released this month in parliament found that a number of British universities have received significant funding from organizations linked to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) over the past five years. 

The documentary alleges Hong Kong activists who have taken refuge in Britain appear to be the targets of sophisticated Chinese government espionage. 

It follows the case of Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Finn Lau, who said he had been repeatedly approached by fake journalists and feared being followed. In July, Hong Kong offered a bounty equal to $128,000 for Lau’s arrest. Seven others were also targeted.

According to the documentary, an American man who taught English in Shanghai pretended to be a journalist working for a Canadian media outlet and used a false avatar and profile to ask Lau for information about pro-democracy activities. When the American was asked by a Channel 4 reporter for his real name and those of his superiors, he hung up the video call.  
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