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WARSAW, Poland — Poland is investing about $2.5 billion to step up security and deterrence on its border with Russia and its ally Belarus, the prime minister said Saturday.

Donald Tusk said work on the Shield-East project, which includes building military fortifications, has already begun. Poland is on the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union, and Tusk stressed it bears additional responsibility for Europe’s security.

“We have taken the decision to invest into our safety and first of all, into a safe eastern border, some 10 billion zlotys,” Tusk said.

“We are opening a great project of the construction of a safe border, including a system of fortifications and of the shaping of terrain, [of] environmental decisions that will make this border impenetrable by a potential enemy,” Tusk said.

“We have begun these works to make Poland’s border a safe one in times of peace and impenetrable for an enemy in times of war,” he said.

He was addressing Polish troops in Krakow, in the south, to mark 80 years since the allied victory in the Battle of Monte Cassino against the Nazis during World War II.

Poland’s previous right-wing government built a $400 million wall on the border with Belarus to halt massive inflow of migrants that began to be pushed from that direction in 2021, but the current pro-EU government says it needs to be strengthened.

Poland is a staunch ally of Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia’s invasion.
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TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s president on Saturday vetoed the so-called “Russian law” targeting media that has sparked weeks of mass protests.

The law would require media and nongovernmental organizations to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad. Critics of the bill say that it closely resembles legislation used by the Kremlin to silence opponents and that it will obstruct Georgia’s bid to join the EU.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who is increasingly at odds with Georgia’s ruling party, said Saturday that the law contradicts Georgia’s constitution and “all European standards” and added that it “must be abolished.”

The ruling party, Georgian Dream, has a majority sufficient to override Zourabichvili’s veto and is widely expected to do so in the coming days. The Georgian government insists that the law is intended to promote transparency and curb what it deems harmful foreign influence in the country of 3.7 million. 
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Friday overhauled its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena that have marked church history, putting the brakes on making definitive declarations unless the event is obviously fabricated.

The Vatican’s doctrine office revised norms first issued in 1978, arguing that they were no longer useful or viable in the internet age. Nowadays, word about apparitions or weeping Madonnas travels quickly and can harm the faithful if hoaxers are trying to make money off people’s beliefs or manipulate them, the Vatican said.

The new norms make clear that such an abuse of people’s faith can be punishable canonically, saying, “The use of purported supernatural experiences or recognized mystical elements as a means of or a pretext for exerting control over people or carrying out abuses is to be considered of particular moral gravity.”

The Catholic Church has had a long and controversial history of the faithful claiming to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, of statues purportedly weeping tears of blood and stigmata erupting on hands and feet evoking the wounds of Christ.

When confirmed as authentic by church authorities, these otherwise inexplicable signs have led to a flourishing of the faith, with new religious vocations and conversions. That has been the case for the purported apparitions of Mary that turned Fatima, Portugal, and Lourdes, France, into enormously popular pilgrimage destinations.

Church figures who claimed to have experienced the stigmata wounds, including Padre Pio and Pope Francis’ namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, have inspired millions of Catholics even if decisions about their authenticity have been elusive.

Francis himself has weighed in on the phenomenon, making clear that he is devoted to the main church-approved Marian apparitions, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe, who believers say appeared to an Indigenous man in Mexico in 1531.

But Francis has expressed skepticism about more recent events, including claims of repeated messages from Mary to “seers” at the shrine of Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, even while allowing pilgrimages to take place there.

“I prefer the Madonna as mother, our mother, and not a woman who’s the head of a telegraphic office, who sends a message every day at a certain time,” Francis told reporters in 2017.

The new norms reframe the Catholic Church’s evaluation process by essentially taking off the table whether church authorities will declare a particular vision, stigmata or other seemingly divinely inspired event supernatural.

Instead, the new criteria envisages six main outcomes, with the most favorable being that the church issues a noncommittal doctrinal green light, a so-called “nihil obstat.” Such a declaration means there is nothing about the event that is contrary to the faith, and therefore Catholics can express devotion to it.

The bishop can take more cautious approaches if there are doctrinal red flags about the reported event. The most serious envisages a declaration that the event isn’t supernatural or that there are enough red flags to warrant a public statement “that adherence to this phenomenon is not allowed.”

The aim is to avoid scandal, manipulation and confusion, and the Vatican fully acknowledged the hierarchy’s own guilt in confusing the faithful with the way it evaluated and authenticated alleged visions over the centuries.

The most egregious case was the flip-flopping determinations of authenticity by a succession of bishops over 70 years in Amsterdam about the purported visions of the Madonna at the Our Lady of All Nations shrine.

Another similar case prompted the Vatican in 2007 to excommunicate the members of a Quebec-based group, the Army of Mary, after its founder claimed to have had Marian visions and declared herself the reincarnation of the mother of Christ.

The revised norms acknowledge the real potential for such abuses and warn that hoaxers will be held accountable, including with canonical penalties.

The norms also allow that an event might at some point be declared “supernatural,” and that the pope can intervene in the process. But “as a rule,” the church is no longer in the business of authenticating inexplicable events or making definitive decisions about their supernatural origin.

And at no point are the faithful ever obliged to believe in the particular events, said Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Vatican doctrine office.

“The church gives the faithful the freedom to pay attention” or not, he said at a news conference.

Despite the new criteria, he said the church’s past decision-making on alleged supernatural events — such as at Fatima, Guadalupe or Lourdes — remains valid.

“What was decided in the past has its value,” he said. “What was done remains.”

To date, fewer than 20 apparitions have been approved by the Vatican over its 2,000-year history, according to Michael O’Neill, who runs the online apparition resource The Miracle Hunter.

Neomi De Anda, executive director of the International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton, said the new guidelines represent a significant and welcome change to the current practice, while restating important principles.

“The faithful are able to engage with these phenomena as members of the faithful in popular practices of religion, while not feeling the need to believe everything offered to them as supernatural as well as the caution against being deceived and beguiled,” she said in an email.

Whereas in the past the bishop often had the last word unless Vatican help was requested, now the Vatican must sign off on every recommendation proposed by a bishop.

Robert Fastiggi, who teaches Marian theology at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan and is an expert on apparitions, said at first glance that requirement might seem to take authority away from the local bishop.

“But I think it’s intended to avoid cases in which the Holy See might feel prompted to overrule a decision of the local bishop,” he said.

“What is positive in the new document is the recognition that the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother are present and active in human history,” he said. “We must appreciate these supernatural interventions but realize that they must be discerned properly.”

He cited the biblical phrase that best applies: “Test everything, retain what is good.”
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Diyarbakir, Turkey / Washington — A Turkish court gave several lengthy prison sentences to pro-Kurdish politicians for instigating protests in southeastern Turkey in 2014 when the Islamic State group attacked the Syrian border town of Kobani.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the former co-leaders of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), on Thursday received the longest sentences among the 108 defendants, 18 of whom had been in pretrial detention.

Demirtas was sentenced to 42 years for a total of 47 crimes, including “disrupting the unity and the integrity of the state,” while Yuksekdag received just over 30 years in prison for “attempts to challenge the unity of the state, of inciting criminal acts, and of engaging in propaganda on behalf of a terror organization.”

The trial stemmed from the 2014 Kobani protests, in which hundreds of pro-Kurdish protesters took to the streets in predominantly Kurdish provinces of Turkey over the government’s inaction toward IS militants who were advancing to capture Kobani in October 2014.

HDP, which initiated the call for protests, demanded the opening of a corridor to Kobani through Turkey so that military aid from other parts of Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan could reach the IS-besieged town.

During the protests, in which 37 people died and 761 people were injured, clashes occurred between the security forces and protesters and between the Islamist Kurdish groups and protesters. HDP later called for de-escalation.

At the time of the protests, Ankara was involved in a peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. However, the peace process ended in 2015, and Ankara accused the HDP in connection with the deaths in the 2014 protests. The party denies any involvement.

Convictions

The first hearing in the Kobani trial was held in 2021. In the more than 3,000-page indictment, senior HDP members were listed as defendants and charged with 29 offenses, including “homicide and harming the unity of the state.”

In the end, 12 defendants were acquitted of all charges and 24 defendants were convicted. The other 72 defendants at large are to be tried in the future.

The defendants’ lawyers and the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the HDP’s successor, view the trial as political. Lawyer Nahit Eren, the head of the Diyarbakir Bar Association and a member of the legal team, told VOA Turkish that they would appeal the verdict.

On Friday, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said, “There is no place for calls for violence in democracies.”

“Therefore, in this sense, it is a decision made by our independent and impartial judiciary. This is the decision of the first level court, there are the first and second level of appeal processes. We will wait for the result of these processes together,” he added.

Turkish Deputy Minister of Interior Bulent Turan noted that there were acquittals and sentences in the verdict.

“Although it did not please some people, justice was served,” Turan said in a post on X.

Following the verdict on Thursday, local governors imposed a four-day ban on protests in the predominantly Kurdish cities of Diyarbakir, Siirt, Tunceli and Batman. On Friday, police officers did not let DEM Party members gather for a demonstration in Diyarbakir but allowed them to make a media statement.

Reactions

Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday that the trial was “manifestly political and unjust.”

“The conviction of Selahattin Demirtaş, Figen Yuksekdag and other leading Kurdish opposition politicians in a mass trial is the latest move in a campaign of persecution that has robbed mainly Kurdish voters of their chosen representatives, undermined the democratic process and criminalized lawful political speech,” Hugh Williamson, HRW’s Europe and Central Asia director, said in the statement.

The convictions of pro-Kurdish politicians come at a time when “normalization” between the ruling Justice and Development Party and the opposition is a hot topic on the Turkish political agenda.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met main opposition Republican People’s Party leader Ozgur Ozel on May 2, and both leaders have been vocal about ending Turkey’s polarized political environment.

Some experts think that the convictions are causing the Kurdish public to question the statements on normalization.

“While the normalization is talked about so much, the fact that such a normalization was not reflected in the judiciary will cause serious damage to the Kurdish public,” Roj Girasun, the director of Diyarbakir-based Rawest Research, told VOA Turkish.

“Is this final verdict a postponement of normalization or a complete shelving? It is too early to answer,” Girasun said.

Another expert and political scientist, Vedat Kacal, thinks that the verdict is a bureaucratic move to try to discourage Kurdish voters from hoping for a solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey through elections.

“[The verdict] can be interpreted as a psychological method of pushing Kurdish voters back into the narrow patterns of the Kurdish right by making them despair about the ballot box and the future of Turkish politics,” Kacal told VOA Turkish.
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washington — Hundreds of Syrian mercenaries have been sent by Turkey to Niger in recent months to protect Ankara’s economic and military interests in the West African nation, a rights group and experts said. 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has researchers throughout Syria, reports that recruitment of Syrian fighters for deployment to Niger has been going on for several months. 

“We have confirmed that about 1,100 Syrian fighters have already been deployed to Niger since September of last year,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory. 

Syrian nationals are being recruited from areas under the control of Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups in northwest Syria, Abdulrahman told VOA. 

Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), a France-based advocacy group, said it has also documented such recruitments. 

“These Syrian fighters are being transported from Syria into Turkey, and then using Turkish airports, they are sent [to Niger] by Turkish military airplanes,” Bassam Alahmad, executive director of STJ, told VOA. 

Turkey has in the past deployed Syrian fighters to other conflict zones, including Azerbaijan and Libya, through SADAT International Defense Consultancy, a private military company that reportedly has close ties with the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

“It’s very clear that in Niger, Turkey is just extending a policy that views Africa as clear area of growth for Turkey in terms of commercial and military interests, and in terms of extending Turkey’s power in the world,” says Nicholas Heras, a Middle East expert at the New Lines Institute, a research organization in Washington. 

Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory also said that SADAT was behind the recruitment of Syrian nationals from areas under the control of Turkey. 

The Istanbul-based company declined to comment. VOA also contacted Turkey’s Foreign Ministry but has received no response. 

A Syrian fighter, who went by the name Ahmed, told AFP this week that a Turkey-backed Syrian militia called the Sultan Murad Division was involved in recruiting him for the Niger deployment. 

The Syrian fighter, who was in Aleppo province, said new recruits will be trained at camps before participating in battles in Niger. 

“The first two batches of fighters have already gone, and a third batch will follow soon,” he said. 

Another Syrian fighter told AFP that he was recruited for duty in Niger “on a six-month contract with a salary of $1,500.” 

A third Syrian fighter said that after two weeks of military training, he was tasked with guarding a site near a mine in Niger, according to AFP. 

Syrian fighters have cited economic incentives as the main motive for accepting such job offers. 

The Syrian Observatory said the Turkey-backed Syrian mercenaries have been stationed in the tri-border area between Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. 

“For those getting wounded in battle, they receive up to $30,000 in compensation,” Abdulrahman said. “For those getting killed, their families receive up to $60,000.” 

The United Nations says the tri-border region in recent years has become a major hotspot for insecurity, including terror activities carried out by militant groups. 

This comes at a time when Nigerien and U.S. defense officials are discussing plans to withdraw all American forces from the country. Niger’s military junta, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected president in July of last year, has demanded an end to U.S. military presence in the country.

In December 2023, France also ended its military presence in Niger after a similar demand was made by the junta leaders. 

Experts say Niger’s junta recognizes a continued need for security support, so they are increasingly relying on mercenaries deployed by Russia and Turkey. 

“France and the United States were security partners that were there supporting Nigerien forces through cooperation and agreements that didn’t cost the Nigerien public significant tax dollars,” said Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Washington. “Now upon their departure you have smaller contingents of Russian mercenaries, or these reports of Syrian mercenaries being sent by Turkey.” 

“You’re just witnessing this very strange rhetoric around the reclaiming of national sovereignty by Niger’s junta, which has no legitimate claim to popular political support, and then them ceding that sovereignty to these mercenaries and spending Nigerien tax dollars on hiring these groups whether they be Russian or Turkish,” he told VOA. 

Eizenga said the number of fatalities linked to attacks by Islamist militant groups in Niger has increased significantly since the junta took power in July 2023, arguing that coup leaders’ interests are not aligned with national interests in Niger. 

“The fact that they are inviting and courting these mercenary groups to come in is another example of exactly that,” he said. 

This story originated in VOA’s Kurdish Service with some information from AFP. 
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Washington — Two figures dressed in black and with their faces covered are caught on security camera vandalizing the Media Development Foundation office in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.  

The video, taken in the early hours of May 9, shows the individuals putting up posters that falsely claim the nongovernmental organization’s executive director, Tamar Kintsurashvili, is a foreign agent.  

Kintsurashvili told VOA the attack didn’t come as a big surprise. The goal is “to present us as enemies of this country,” she said. 

The vandalism came amid large-scale protests in Georgia over a “foreign agent” law that passed its third and final reading in parliament Tuesday.  

WATCH: Georgia riled by new protests after parliament passes ‘foreign agent’ law

If enacted, the law will require nonprofits and news outlets that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “organizations pursuing the interests of a foreign power.” They would also be required to submit detailed annual financial accounts. Groups that don’t comply would face fines.  

Kintsurashvili’s organization, the Media Development Foundation, receives some foreign funding to support its work. But, said Kintsurashvili, “Being labeled as foreign agent undermines trust in our activities.”  

Last week, hundreds of critics of the law — including around 30 journalists who covered the protests — received threatening phone calls, according to media reports and watchdogs. Numerous offices faced similar vandalism to the Media Development Foundation, and at least six opposition politicians and activists were beaten.

Kintsurashvili worries the harassment will become more common in Georgia now that the law’s enactment appears imminent.  

“The purpose of this legislation is not transparency,” she said. “They want to silence unwanted voices, critical voices,” she continued, referring to the government.  

Georgia’s Washington embassy did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment. As of publication, a VOA request for comment sent Friday via the web portal for the prime minister, who is part of the ruling Georgian Dream party, has received no response. 

President Salome Zourabichvili said she would veto the bill, but the Georgian Dream party — which reintroduced the law last month after protests prompted its withdrawal last year — controls a big enough majority to override her. 

The law’s supporters say it will help bolster transparency and protect Georgian sovereignty. Its opponents say it will be used to silence and intimidate critics of the government.  

“It’s not just about supporting Georgia. It’s about supporting democracy,” said Mamuka Andguladze, chair of the Media Advocacy Coalition group in Tbilisi.  

Nika Gvaramia, a former journalist and the founder of the opposition Ahali political party, told VOA he believes Georgian Dream may use the foreign agent law to try to influence the October elections in its favor.  

Others say the law could also harm Georgia’s bid to join the European Union, which the majority of Georgians support.   

Dubbed the “Russian law” for its resemblance to a similar piece of legislation that the Kremlin has used for years to stamp out dissent, critics worry the law bodes poorly for Georgia’s democratic future and risks pushing Tbilisi squarely into Moscow’s hold. 

“This law will be used to implement some Soviet-style repression in Georgia, and to target critical voices,” said Eto Buziashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Based in Tbilisi, Buziashvili researches propaganda from Russia and the South Caucasus region.  

Buziashvili and other analysts have documented a barrage of Russian propaganda about the bill.  

“We’re seeing a lot of other overlap between the government’s arguments about why the bill is needed and what is being said in Russian and pro-Russian sources,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, told VOA. 

One of the primary narratives is that the Tbilisi protests were organized by the West. 

“The idea that the West is funding and coordinating these protests is something that’s being shared pretty explicitly by Russian channels,” said Kyle Walter, who heads global research at Logically, a British tech startup that fights disinformation. 

Other propaganda narratives attempt to distance the Georgian law from its Russian counterpart by falsely claiming the Georgian one is similar to the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. Another false narrative depicts the law as necessary to stop the West from coercing Georgia into going to war with Russia as a second front of the war in Ukraine.  

Russia’s Washington embassy did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.  

Many, if not all, of these narratives are not necessarily new, according to Walter and Buziashvili. But they do highlight the Kremlin’s apparent support for Georgia’s foreign agent law. 

The narratives also underscore what’s at stake for a country that was once lauded as a bastion of democracy among former Soviet states but in recent years has found itself increasingly wobbling between the West and the Kremlin.  

“It’s another stage of Russia’s conflict with the West more broadly,” Walter said. 

Journalists and political leaders who spoke with VOA, however, said most Georgians can see through the propaganda. 

“They recognize Russian propaganda very easily. For us, it’s at first sight,” said Eka Kvesitadze, a journalist at the pro-opposition Georgian broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi. 
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LONDON — Paul McCartney is a billionaire Beatle.

According to figures released Friday, the former member of the Fab Four is the first British musician to be worth 1 billion pounds ($1.27 billion).

The annual Sunday Times Rich List calculated that the wealth of the 81-year-old musician and his wife, Nancy Shevell, had grown by 50 million pounds since last year thanks to McCartney’s 2023 Got Back tour, the rising value of his back catalogue and Beyonce’s cover of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” on her “Cowboy Carter” album.

A “final” Beatles song, “Now and Then,” was also released in November and topped music charts in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. Surviving Beatles McCartney and Ringo Starr completed a demo track recorded in 1977 by the late John Lennon, adding in a guitar recording by George Harrison, who died in 2001.

The newspaper estimated 50 million pounds of the couple’s wealth is due to Shevell, daughter of the late U.S. trucking tycoon Mike Shevell.

McCartney ranked 165th overall on the newspaper’s respected and widely perused list of the U.K.’s 350 richest people. The top spot went to Gopi Hinduja and his family, who own the banking, media and entertainment conglomerate Hinduja Group and are worth an estimated 37 billion pounds ($47 billion).

Other entertainment figures on the list include “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, whose fortune is estimated at 945 million pounds ($1.2 billion), and singer Elton John, estimated to be worth 470 million pounds ($597 million).

King Charles III ranked 258th with an estimated wealth of 610 million pounds ($775 million). The king’s fortune includes the large inherited private estates of Sandringham in England and Balmoral in Scotland. The total does not include items held in trust by the monarch for the nation, such as the Crown Jewels.
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HALIFAX. Canada — China’s effort to establish itself as a “near-Arctic power” have become increasingly confined to the territory of its close ally Russia as other nations lose interest in cooperating with Beijing, according to Canadian security experts. 

The degree in which China poses a serious geopolitical threat in the Arctic region is debatable among experts. 

Chinese efforts to establish research stations in up to half a dozen Arctic nations ground to a halt because of travel restrictions during the COVID pandemic. Mounting concerns over China’s human rights record and its aggressive actions elsewhere have made several of those countries reluctant to see operations resume, said experts. 

“In many ways our fear of China and the Arctic dates back to five or six years ago when China’s power and influence seemed very much to be on the uptick in the region,” said Adam Lajeunesse, a professor focusing on Arctic issues at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. “Its political, economic and soft power influence in the Arctic outside of Russia has collapsed. 

“Our fears of China are still lagging events. A lot from pre-COVID era when there was a lot of fears that China was going to dominate Arctic infrastructure. … That didn’t happen,” Lajeunesse said.  

VOA reported in December 2022 that China had sent or announced plans to send several people to its two most important scientific outposts in Norway and Iceland after lengthy absences of Chinese scientists from both sites.

But there were no signs of China trying to renew two other scientific projects in Sweden and Finland, where national organizations told VOA that Chinese activity was set to end or had ended. 

An earlier plan to set up a research base in Denmark’s autonomous island of Greenland was shelved in the face of opposition in Copenhagen, according to Marc Lanteigne, a social studies professor at the Arctic University of Norway. 

That has left Beijing — which has no direct access to Arctic waters — to focus its Arctic ambitions on Russia, with which it established a “no limits” partnership days before Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

China’s interests in the region are believed to include fisheries, extraction of minerals and other resources, and a shorter sea route to Europe — all of which become more viable as the Arctic ice pack recedes in the face of climate change. 

“China respects the sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction rights of Arctic countries,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA in an emailed statement. “Issues related to the Arctic not only affect Arctic countries but also have global significance.” 

“China will work with all parties in getting to know more about the Arctic, as well as in its protection, exploration and management, with the view of greater peace, stability and sustainable development in the region,” Liu added. 

Many experts are watching China’s arctic activities and national security professionals told VOA on the sidelines of an April 30 conference sponsored by the Canadian Military Intelligence Association there are still limits to how much cooperation China can expect from Russia. 

“There is little doubt among Western nations that China will continue to seek research, infrastructure, and increased military engagement through direct and indirect means in support of its Belt and Road Initiatives,” said Al Dillon, co-founder and CEO of Sapper Labs, a company that supports the intelligence and cyber defense needs of Canada and other English-speaking countries. 

“The collaboration with Russia is concerning in this regard, while Russia will surely want to retain its own sovereignty and independence in the Arctic. The extent of this collaboration remains to be seen; however, we can be assured it will occur.” 

Artur Wilczynski, a former Canadian ambassador to Norway and retired senior official in several intelligence-related agencies, told VOA that Russia “was originally skeptical with non-Arctic state involvement in the region.” 

“Given Western sanctions and the Russian need for investment, China may exert more pressure on Russia rather than other Arctic states,” Wilczynski said. “It may be easier for them to meet their Arctic interests through closer collaboration with Russia in the short term than try to address increasing Western skepticism of their engagement in either the North American or Western European Arctic.” 

Despite the focus on Russia, Samuel Jardine, head of research at London Politica, said Beijing is interested in acquiring access to the Canadian Arctic — a goal that may have led to a scandal over Chinese interference in the past two Canadian elections. 

“In effect Canada is a doorway for China to not being seen to be isolated merely in the ‘Russian Arctic’ and maintaining influence and access to the whole region,” Jardine told VOA in an email. “Something fundamental for a “Polar Great Power” which claims to be a “near-Arctic” state.” 

Michel Lipin contributed to this article.
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PARIS — French police on Friday shot dead an armed man who was trying to set fire to a synagogue in the northern city of Rouen.

“National police in Rouen neutralized early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6:45 am (0445 GMT) to reports of “fire near the synagogue,” a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died.”

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism.”

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.
…

BEIJING — Russian President Vladimir Putin focused on trade and cultural exchanges Friday during his state visit to China that started with bonhomie in Beijing and a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that deepened their “no limits” partnership as both countries face rising tensions with the West.

Putin praised China at a China-Russia Expo in the northeastern city of Harbin, hailing the growth in bilateral trade. He will also meet with students at Harbin Institute of Technology later Friday. Harbin, capital of China’s Heilongjiang province, was once home to many Russian expatriates and retains some of those historical ties in its architecture, such as the central Saint Sophia Cathedral, a former Russian Orthodox church.

Though Putin’s visit is more symbolic and is short on concrete proposals, the two countries nonetheless are sending a clear message.

“At this moment, they’re reminding the West that they can be defiant when they want to,” said Joseph Torigian, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute.

At the exhibition in Harbin, Putin emphasized the importance of Russia-China cooperation in jointly developing new technologies.

“Relying on traditions of friendship and cooperation, we can look into the future with confidence,” he said. “The Russian-Chinese partnership helps our countries’ economic growth, ensures energy security, helps develop production and create new jobs.”

Putin started the second day of his visit to China on Friday by laying flowers at a monument to fallen Soviet soldiers in Harbin who had fought for China against the Japanese during the second Sino-Japanese war, when Japan occupied parts of China.

At their summit Thursday, Putin thanked Xi for China’s proposals for ending the war in Ukraine, while Xi said China hopes for the early return of Europe to peace and stability and will continue to play a constructive role toward this. Their joint statement described their world view and expounded on criticism of U.S. military alliances in Asia and the Pacific.

The meeting was yet another affirmation of the friendly “no limits” relationship China and Russia signed in 2022, just before Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Putin has become isolated globally for his invasion of Ukraine. China has a tense relationship with the U.S., which has labeled it a competitor, and faces pressure for continuing to supply key components to Russia needed for weapons production.

Talks of peacefully resolving the Ukraine crisis featured frequently in Thursday’s remarks, though Russia just last week opened a new front in the Ukraine war by launching attacks at its northeastern border area. The war is at a critical point for Ukraine, which had faced delays in getting weapons from the U.S.

China offered a broad plan for peace last year that was rejected by both Ukraine and the West for failing to call for Russia to leave occupied parts of Ukraine.

In a smaller meeting Thursday night at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leaders’ residential compound, Putin thanked Xi for his peace plan and said he welcomed China continuing to play a constructive role in a political solution to the problem, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. They also attended events to celebrate 75 years of bilateral relations.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia has increasingly depended on China as Western sanctions have taken a bite. Trade between the two countries increased to $240 billion last year, as China helped its neighbor defray the worst of Western sanctions.

European leaders have pressed China to ask Russia to end its invasion in Ukraine, to little avail. Experts say China and Russia’s relationship with each other offer strategic benefits, particularly at a time when both have tensions with Europe and the U.S.

“Even if China compromises on a range of issues, including cutting back support on Russia, it’s unlikely that the U.S. or the West will drastically change their attitude to China as a competitor,” said Hoo Tiang Boon, who researches Chinese foreign policy at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. “They see very little incentive for compromise.”

Xi and Putin have a longstanding agreement to visit each other’s countries once a year, and Xi was welcomed at the Kremlin last year. 
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Washington — Aleksander Dugin, a Russian nationalist ideologue and strong supporter of President Vladimir Putin, has been bombarded with attacks on Chinese social media, where netizens criticized and mocked his Russian expansionist views that had once included the dismembering of China.

Two years after Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine, pro-Russia sentiment has been prevalent on Chinese internet.

But the backlash against Dugin has revealed a less mentioned side of what has so far appeared to be a cozy alliance between Beijing and Moscow — hostility between Chinese nationalists and their Russian counterparts, the result of centuries of territorial disputes and political confrontations that Beijing has been reticent about displaying publicly in recent decades.

On May 6, Dugin opened an account on two of the most popular Chinese social media apps Weibo, China’s X, formerly known as Twitter, and Bilibili, a YouTube-like video site.

In the first video posted on both Weibo and Bilibili, Dugin greeted the Chinese audience and praised Beijing’s economic and political achievements in recent decades.

In the same video, he also criticized an article published in April in The Economist by Feng Yujun, director of Russian and Central Asian studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. Feng said in the article that Russia will inevitably lose the Ukraine war.

Dugin countered that Feng and some Chinese people underestimated Russia’s “tenacity and perseverance.”

The video was quickly condemned by Chinese citizens, who posted comments such as “Russia must lose,” which received thousands of likes.

“This is an extremist who is extremely unfriendly to China and has made plans to dismember China,” another message posted by a Weibo user named “Zhixingbenyiti” said.

Dugin, 62, was born in Moscow. In the 1980s, he became an anti-communist dissident.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he began to promote Russian expansionism. He believes that Moscow’s territorial expansion in Eurasia will allow it to counter Western forces led by the United States.

In his 1997 book, Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin wrote that dismembering China was a necessary step for Russia to become strong. People within Putin’s inner circle have reportedly shown interest in Dugin’s writing, which gave rise to his nickname “Putin’s brain.”

However, Dugin’s attitude toward China has changed significantly in recent years. In 2018, he visited China for the first time. In a speech at Fudan University, he praised China’s economy, culture and leadership in the fight against colonialism.

He also changed his previous support for containing China and said in a speech that China and Russia could work together to “form a very important and non-negligible containment/pull effect” on Western powers.

Dugin is now a senior fellow at Fudan University’s China Institute and one of the columnists for China’s nationalist news organization, Guancha.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Dugin said in a column that the alliance between China and Russia would “mean the irreversible end of Western hegemony.”

Philipp Ivanov, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told VOA that “Dugin is an opportunist. As the Ukraine war dramatically accelerated the alignment between China and Russia, his position started to change, resulting in his current attempt to engage with China’s intellectual and broader community.”

Ivanov also thinks Dugin’s influence on the Kremlin has been exaggerated.

Since joining Chinese social media, Dugin has gained more than 100,000 followers on Weibo and 25,000 followers on BiliBili. He has published fewer than five posts on Weibo, but nearly every one of them has more than 1,000 comments, most of which criticized him.

Under a post in which Dugin supported Putin on his fifth presidential term, people responded with comments such as “Russia is about to lose the war” and “The gates of hell are waiting for you.”

Wang Xiaodong, China’s most influential nationalist scholar, shared a Weibo post he made two years ago criticizing Dugin and Chinese pro-Russian groups.

“Introducing Dugin’s ideas is not because I worry that the Kremlin will implement his ideas; He has the intention but not the strength! I just want to tell the Chinese people how some Russians, including elites in the powerful departments, view China. Do we Chinese need to risk our lives for them?” the post read.

Ivanov was not surprised by the attacks on Dugin on the Chinese internet.

“While Chinese netizens may support Putin’s anti-Western/anti-US agenda, they are skeptical or outright negative about Russia’s assault on an independent country’s sovereignty and Russian expansionism, nationalism and chauvinism (which Dugin represents),” he told VOA in an email.

He said the history of China-Russia relations is predominantly about confrontation, competition and mistrust.

Among the attacks on Dugin, many netizens also brought up former Chinese territories that Russia occupied in the past 200 years.

“For the sake of ever-lasting friendship between China and Russia, please return Sakhalin and Vladivostok,” one Weibo comment posted by “lovejxcecil” read.

Although China has not been involved in the war, the Russia-Ukraine war has been a hot topic on the Chinese internet.

According to Eric Liu, a former Weibo censor, Dugin’s joining the platform undoubtedly brought more traffic to Weibo. However, it also means that Weibo needs to invest more resources in censorship to prevent him from making remarks that Beijing considers sensitive.

“He is a foreigner. He has no idea about China’s ‘political correctness’ or where the boundaries are,” Liu said. “This risk will have to be taken care of by Weibo, which brought him in.”

On Thursday, Dugin posted on Weibo that China and Russia could achieve “anything” together. His comment section has been turned off. 
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LONDON — Russian forces are expanding their attacks on Ukrainian border settlements close to the northeastern city of Kharkiv, opening up a new front in the war, as Kyiv struggles to hold off a renewed Russian offensive. 

Speaking Thursday on a visit to Kharkiv, where he held a meeting with senior military leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the situation remained “extremely difficult” and that his forces were strengthening their presence in the region.

With U.S. and European weapons finally due to arrive on the front lines in the coming weeks, can Ukraine hold back Moscow’s invading troops? 

Kharkiv offensive

Mobile units of Russian troops are attempting to capture Ukrainian villages including Vovchansk and Lyptsi, which lies 30 kilometers north of Kharkiv.

Ukraine has fired missiles from the border region into Russia, including deadly strikes on the Russian city of Belgorod. Moscow wants to stop the attacks, said defense analyst Patrick Bury of Britain’s Bath University.

“There’s multiple reasons, I think, why Russia would try something here: obviously to create a buffer zone, but also to test the defenses and see what’s going on. But the way (Russian forces) are set up — and the amount of troops that they have, maybe 30,000 to 40,000, not that much armor, attacking in small groups of infantry — it doesn’t really suggest that they’re trying to sort of encircle Kharkiv or anything like that,” Bury told VOA.

Russian advance

Kyiv said Thursday its defensive moves had slowed the speed of Moscow’s advance. Russian attacks are likely to continue, said analyst Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“Russia’s aim is not to achieve a grand breakthrough, but rather to convince Ukraine that it can keep up an inexorable advance, kilometer by kilometer, along the front,” Watling wrote in an email to VOA.

“Having stretched the Ukrainians out, the contours of the Russian summer offensive are easy to discern. First, there will be the push against Kharkiv. Ukraine must commit troops to defend its second largest city and given the size of the Russian group of forces in the area, this will draw in reserves of critical material, from air defenses to artillery.”

“Second, Russia will apply pressure on the other end of the line, initially threatening to reverse Ukraine’s gains from its 2023 offensive, and secondly putting at risk the city of Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine should be able to blunt this attack, but this will require the commitment of reserve units,” Watling added.

Western weapons

Ukrainian forces are still waiting for the bulk of the weapons deliveries under the United States’ $60 billion aid package that was finally passed last month, after a six-month delay.

“The United States aid is crucial, so the unfortunate pause in the delivery of arms had a significant impact on the situation at the front and this is what we are seeing now,” said Ukrainian lawmaker Serhii Rakhmanin, a member of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security.

Ukraine says Russian jets and missiles are easily able to attack their positions, before infantry move in. Kyiv has repeatedly asked for more air defense systems, especially U.S.-made Patriot missiles. Germany has agreed to supply two Patriot batteries to Ukraine, and it’s reported that the U.S. is also working on supplying another unit.

The weapons will start to arrive in the coming weeks, analyst Patrick Bury said.

“The U.S. has pre-positioned stocks of stuff in Germany, for example, and also has strategic airlift so it can move stuff quickly over (from the US) should it need to,” he said.

“But it will take some time to be producing the number of shells that Ukraine needs at the moment, and they’re outgunned at about at least five or six to one at the moment by Russian shells,” he added.

Mobilization

Last month, Ukraine passed a mobilization bill to address a shortage of personnel. RUSI’s Watling said Russia had amassed a force of 510,000 troops.

“This means that Russia has established significant numerical superiority over the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” he said.

The next three months will be crucial for Ukraine, according to lawmaker Rakhmanin.

“The Russians currently have a window of opportunity. The power of Ukrainian Armed Forces has decreased, and Russians feel it. They have amassed quite a sufficient amount of resources — weapons, ammunition, manpower and now they are trying to use up a maximum of their reserves. They are trying to spread our forces thin across the entire front line,” Rakhmanin told Reuters Wednesday.

Bleak outlook

Can Ukraine and its Western allies turn the tide of the war?

“The chances of them taking back significant territory now in the medium term seem to be slipping away,” said analyst Bury. “Unless there’s some sort of step change in Western support — a large force-generation package and a long-term strategy for what success looks like — none of which at the moment are forthcoming, then I think Ukraine stays on the defensive and holds what it has,” he said.

RUSI’s Watling agrees: “The outlook in Ukraine is bleak. However, if Ukraine’s allies engage now to replenish Ukrainian munitions stockpiles, help to establish a robust training pipeline, and make the industrial investments to sustain the effort, then Russia’s summer offensive can be blunted, and Ukraine will receive the breathing space it needs to regain the initiative.”
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Russian forces are expanding their attacks on Ukrainian border settlements close to the northeastern city of Kharkiv, opening up a new front in the war. With U.S. and European weapons finally due to arrive on the front lines in the coming weeks following delays, can Ukraine hold back Moscow’s invading troops? Henry Ridgwell has more
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s naming of an economist as his new defense chief is a sign he is preparing for his costly war in Ukraine to go even longer, analysts say. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina.
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Caen, France — French police Wednesday were hunting for a group of gunmen who killed two prison officers in an attack at a motorway toll booth that freed a convict linked to gangland drug killings.

The killings and dramatic getaway by the perpetrators have shocked France, with authorities under pressure to catch those responsible, who all remain at large.

“We have put a lot of resources into finding not only the person who escaped”, but also “the gang that released him under such despicable circumstances,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told the RTL broadcaster.

“We are putting in considerable resources, we are making a lot of progress,” he added.

On Tuesday, more than 450 police officers and gendarmes were mobilized just for the search in the northern department of Eure where the attack took place, he said.

‘We will be uncompromising’

Two prison officers were killed in the attack and three others wounded, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said late on Tuesday.

One of the injured men was fighting for his life in hospital and two more were receiving critical care, she said.

The incident took place late on Tuesday morning at a road toll in Incarville in the Eure region of northern France.

The inmate was being transported back to his prison in the town of Evreux after he was questioned by a judge in the regional center of Rouen in Normandy.

The prosecutor said the prison van was rammed head-on by a stolen Peugeot vehicle as it went through the toll crossing.

But the van and another vehicle in the prison convoy were also followed by an Audi.

Gunman emerged from the two cars and shot at both prison vehicles.

“We will be uncompromising,” President Emmanuel Macron said on X, describing the attack as a “shock.”

French television channels broadcast footage of the attack taken by surveillance cameras at the toll, showing the Peugeot colliding head on with the prison van.

In the video, several gunmen dressed in black emerge from both attack vehicles. A firefight ensues and one individual appears to be guided away from the van by the gunmen.

A vehicle believed to have been used by the attackers was later found as a burned-out wreck at a different location.

‘Never have imagined ‘

The prison officers who died, both men, were the first to be killed in the line of duty since 1992, according to Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.

One of them was married and had twin children while the other “left a wife who is five months pregnant,” he said.

Prison officer unions announced a day of minimum service on Wednesday and asked for urgent measures to improve the safety of staff.

Dupond-Moretti said he would meet union representatives on Wednesday.

“We are in mourning,” Vanessa Lefaivre, of the FO union at the Fleury-Merogis prison outside Paris told AFP.

“We would never have imagined that prison staff would be killed like this.”

‘Kills more than terrorism’

Prosecutor Beccuau named the inmate as Mohamed Amra, born in 1994, saying that last week he had been convicted of aggravated robbery and charged in a case of abduction leading to death.

But a source close to the case said that Amra was suspected of involvement in drug trafficking and of ordering gangland killings.

Another source said he is suspected of being at the head of a criminal network. Some media said he had the nickname “La Mouche” (the fly).

His lawyer Hugues Vigier said Amra had already made an escape attempt at the weekend by sawing the bars of his cell and said he was shocked by the “inexcusable” and “insane” violence.

“This does not correspond to the impression that I had of him,” the lawyer told BFMTV.

The incident came on the same day as the French Senate published a damning report warning that government measures had been unable to prevent the flourishing of the narcotics industry in France.

“Narco-banditry kills many people, much more than terrorism,” said Darmanin, also pointing to the responsibility of drug users.

“One cannot at the same time cry for the widows and orphans of the Eure toll booth attack and then smoke a joint… this is called schizophrenia.”

Law and order is a major issue in French politics ahead of next month’s European elections and the prison van ambush sparked fierce reactions from politicians, especially the far right.

“It is real savagery that hits France every day,” said Jordan Bardella, the top candidate for the far-right National Rally (RN), which is leading opinion polls for the elections.
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