The Biden administration continues to push for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and de-escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Europe, the administration has revealed intelligence that North Korean troops are being trained in Russia to help its war efforts.

VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara spoke with White House national security communications adviser John Kirby on the latest developments in the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: [U.S.] Secretary [of State] Antony Blinken today warned Israel against a protracted campaign in Lebanon. He warned Israel to avoid civilian casualties, not to endanger U.N. peacekeepers and the Lebanese army. The only way Israel can do that is by operating a targeted campaign. Is it operating a targeted campaign?

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby: We would like to see no civilian casualties and no damage to civilian infrastructure to the maximum extent possible. We have told the Israelis that we don’t support near daily strikes in densely populated areas, and that’s part of the message that [Blinken] delivered when he was there. We believe that there’s still a diplomatic path to be found here to bring this conflict with Hezbollah and Lebanon to a close. That was one of the reasons that Secretary Blinken traveled there.

VOA: Do you support Israeli demands for an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force to include north of the Litani River?

Kirby: I’m not going to get into any specific proposals one way or the other. I don’t think we’re at that point right now. … What we support is de-escalation. What we support is minimization of civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure. We also continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself.

VOA: What about Israel’s efforts to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon? How far can you accept the cost of that?

Kirby: Look, they have done an extraordinary amount of work towards already dismantling Hezbollah’s capability, including the killing of [Hassan Nasrallah], their leader. Hezbollah is not Hamas. They are in many ways superior in terms of military capability and resources. So, it’s a different kind of a fight. It’s a different kind of enemy that they face.

And I would remind that even just in the last 24 hours, more than 100 rockets and drones [were] launched by Hezbollah towards Israeli citizens who are just trying to live their lives on that side of the Blue Line, as well. So, it remains a viable threat to the Israeli people, and we’re going to continue to talk to the Israelis about how they go after that threat, because how they do that matters significantly.

VOA: Ten days ago, the administration set a 30-day deadline for Israel to improve Palestinian access to aid. Can you update us on the progress?

Kirby: There has been some progress, and as you heard Secretary Blinken say during his travels, more needs to be done. But there has been an increase of trucks flowing into North Gaza; specifically, the Erez Crossing is back open. We want to see more.

VOA: Israel announced that Mossad chief David Barnea will meet with CIA Director Bill Burns and the Qatari prime minister in Doha. Is there anything about that meeting that you can tell us?

Kirby: Without talking to the CIA director’s travel or meetings, I won’t do that. But you saw the prime minister already announced that there’s another meeting in Doha of negotiators, and we’re grateful to see this progress continue. We’re grateful to see yet another meeting here, and we’re hopeful that now, with Mr. Sinwar gone, Hamas might be more willing to sit down and negotiate in good faith and come up with a solution that gets a cease-fire of at least some duration, and gets those hostages home with their families where they belong, as well as to your earlier question, gives us a pause in the fighting that can help us all work towards a more dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance.

I’m not suggesting that more can’t be done now. Even while Gaza remains an active combat zone, more can be done, more should be done. But if you can end the fighting, then you can definitely make it easier to get humanitarian assistance.

VOA: Does the administration see [Yahya Sinwar’s brother] Mohamed Sinwar as somebody with influence on the negotiations?

Kirby: I think it’s unclear right now where the leadership of Hamas goes, and I would just say that we’re watching this very, very closely, as you might imagine, monitoring it.

Regardless of how Hamas tries to fill the vacuum left by Sinwar, they have an opportunity before them right now to help end this war, to get those hostages home and to do the right thing.

VOA: Let’s move on to North Korea and Russia. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin appears to have implicitly acknowledged what you laid out yesterday, that North Korean troops are in Russia to help their war efforts. How do you see this?

Kirby: We see it the same way as we laid out yesterday. We know that there are at least several thousand North Korean soldiers in three military training bases in eastern Russia. Now, exactly what they’re being trained to do, we don’t know. Whether and how they’ll be deployed in this war against Ukraine, we don’t know that either. But it is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that, I would remind you, Russia themselves signed up to. The procurement of arms and ammunition from North Korea is a violation of U.N. Security Council existing resolutions that Russia signed up to. We’re going to watch this very, very closely.

VOA: What is the geopolitical implication for Kim Jong Un now that he’s willing to send his troops to die for Putin? Are you concerned that in return, Russia could help North Korea improve the reach of their ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] to hit American cities, for example?

Kirby: That’s what we’re watching closely to see. We don’t know exactly what Mr. Kim thinks he’s getting out of this arrangement. And it’s worrisome. As you heard the secretary of defense say the other day, this potential move here by the North Koreans to put soldiers on the ground, literally skin in the game when it comes to fighting Ukraine, is not only going to have implications in Ukraine and on that battlefield, but it’s going to have implications in the Indo-Pacific.

What we don’t know right now is exactly what that looks like. What does Kim think he’s getting out of this? It is possible that there could be some provision by Russia to enhance and improve North Korean military capabilities? Again, that would just further destabilize a very tense region.

VOA: You said these North Korean soldiers are legitimate military targets. But would you consider taking direct military action against them as the head of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Mike Turner, suggested?

Kirby: The United States is not directly involved in combat operations in or around Ukraine. The president has been clear about that. We are providing Ukraine with the kinds of tools, capabilities and weapons that they need to defend themselves. And when we say they’re legitimate military targets, these North Korean soldiers, we mean they would become legitimate military targets of the Ukrainian Armed Forces should they be involved in operations against Ukraine.

VOA: China has said that they have no information on these North Korean troops. Do you believe them?

Kirby: I’ll let the Chinese speak to what they see or they don’t see. What I said yesterday stands today. We’re going to certainly be communicating with our PRC [People’s Republic of China] counterparts about this.

VOA: Last month you also confirmed that Iran transferred shipments of domestic missiles to Russia. Now we have these North Korean troops fighting for Russia. What is your assessment of this trilateral cooperation?

Kirby: Number one, it certainly shows Mr. Putin’s increasing desperation, and quite frankly, his weakness, that he has to reach out to the likes of Kim Jong Un and the supreme leader in Tehran for assistance to fight Ukraine. Clearly, he’s under a lot of military pressure. We know he’s losing 1,200 soldiers a day. He suffered more than 530,000 casualties in the time he’s been fighting in Ukraine. So, he’s clearly under pressure, and he’s not … being honest with the Russian people about what he’s doing and what he’s losing and how bloody and lethal this war has been on his own armed forces.

Number two, I think it certainly speaks to worrisome defense relationships between these countries that are now growing and deepening. They’re worrying not just because of what might be the effects in Ukraine, they’re worrying because of what might be the effects in other parts of the world. You and I were just talking about what Kim Jong Un might be getting out of this. Let’s talk about Iran, because Iran, certainly we know, is interested in advanced aviation capabilities, for instance, from Russia. Now, again, I don’t know that we’ve seen it all consummated yet, but Iran being able to benefit from Russian military technology is also not good for the Middle East region.
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A $50 billion loan to Ukraine from the G7 major industrialized nations is moving forward after months of negotiations, with countries announcing their contributions to the package this week. 

The loan package is aimed at providing Ukraine with an economic lifeline from $280 billion worth of Russian assets frozen since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. According to the plan, the loan will be repaid with interest accumulating on the frozen Russian assets rather than confiscating the frozen assets themselves.

This “creative” solution is intended to provide Ukraine with the economic assistance it urgently needs “without burdening American taxpayers,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement, adding that “these loans will support the people of Ukraine as they defend and rebuild their country. And our efforts make it clear: Tyrants will be responsible for the damages they cause.”

“This will really support us,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement thanking allies for the decision.

The United States will contribute $20 billion to the loan, while Canada and Britain announced contributions of $3.7 billion and $2.94 billion, respectively. The European Parliament on Tuesday approved a European Union decision to provide up to $38 billion as part of the loan.

While the details of the loan are still being worked out, donors announced the funding will cover Ukraine’s economic and defense needs. U.S. deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh told reporters if the U.S. Congress approves the loan contribution, the Biden administration plans to allocate half of the $20 billion to support Ukraine’s economy and the other half for defense support.

The United Kingdom’s $2.94 billion is to be used solely for Ukraine’s military, British Defense Minister John Healey announced this week.

“With this decision, Ukraine is confident that it will have money to fully fund the critically important expenditures next year, including wages to teachers, doctors, pensions,” Roman Kachur, alternate executive director for Ukraine at the World Bank, told VOA.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the loan is crucial if Ukraine is to meet its financing needs.

“We have talked with [the] Ukrainian government about the ways to close the financing gap, which has opened up because the war takes longer than everybody expected and therefore more budget financing will be needed,” Alfred Kammer, director of the IMF’s European Department, told VOA.

The fund, which has a four-year program for Ukraine, expects the multiyear financing through the loan will help the country cover a financing gap that now exceeds $150 billion, Kammer added.

Washington economist Anders Aslund called the loan plan “excellent,” posting on X: “Finally, Ukraine is about to get relevant financial support.”

The G7 decision has been criticized for falling short of an outright seizure of the frozen Russian assets.

“I don’t think we should be celebrating this as Ukraine is not going to get the underlying $330bn,” economist Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management said in an email to VOA. Ash blamed “the vested interests in Europe” for blocking a decision to seize the assets. 

The plan to divide funding from the loan between economic and military support worries some observers in Ukraine.

“Previously, the discussion was that the funding will go to fund economic stability. Now, we are under the impression that the funding will also be used for defense support,” Oleksandra Betliy, chief researcher at the Institute of Economic Research in Kyiv, told VOA. “This is fine for the next year, where the budget deficit is $38 billion, but the issue is with the 2026 budget.”

She added that Ukraine’s funding needs will remain high for years to come.

“Even if 2026 will be victorious, we will further need to fund the military for it to be strong, and social payments will be even higher than today,”  she said.

To ensure transparency and accountability, funding from the loan will be distributed via an intermediary fund set up by the World Bank, which according to Singh is “subject to robust accountability and transparency measures.”

Kachur agreed, saying the World Bank’s control over the funding will eliminate any perception of misuse. In addition, according to Ukrainian officials, the money will not be repurposed once it is in the World Bank’s fund.

“Even if there is a change in the political will, this funding will still remain available to Ukraine and will be transferred only to Ukraine,” Kachur said.

The details of the loan package have not yet been finalized. G7 finance ministers plan to discuss the loan on the margins of this week’s annual IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington. 
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kazan, russia — Russian President Vladimir Putin told BRICS leaders on Thursday that the Middle East was on the brink of a full-scale war after a sharp rise in tension between Israel and Iran, though the Kremlin chief also faced calls to end the war in Ukraine.

The BRICS summit, attended by more than 20 leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan, has shown the depth of Russia’s relations beyond the Western world.

Much discussion at the summit in the Russian city of Kazan was dedicated to the war in Ukraine and the violence in the Middle East, though there were no sign that anything specific would be done to end either conflict.

“The degree of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply increased. All this resembles a chain reaction and puts the entire Middle East on the brink of a full-scale war,” Putin, sitting beside Chinese President Xi Jinping, said.

Xi, speaking after Putin, said that China wanted a political settlement in Ukraine, and suggested joint efforts by Beijing and Brasilia offered the best chance of peace.

“We need to work for an early de-escalation of the situation and pave the way for a political settlement,” Xi said.

On the Middle East, Xi said that there should be a comprehensive cease-fire in Gaza, a halt to the spread of war in Lebanon, and a return to the two-state solution under which states for both Israel and Palestine would be established.

Flames of war

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian criticized international organizations, particularly the United Nations, for failing to end the conflict.

“The flames of war continue to rage in the Gaza Strip and cities of Lebanon, and international institutions, particularly the U.N. Security Council as a driver of international peace and security, lack the necessary effectiveness to extinguish the fire of this crisis,” Pezeshkian told the BRICS.

Putin said that unless Palestinians got their state, they would feel the burden of “historical injustice” and the region would remain in “an atmosphere of permanent crisis with inevitable relapses of large-scale violence.”

In their summit declaration, BRICS leaders called for the establishment of a sovereign, independent and viable Palestinian state within the borders of 1967. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attended the summit.

At one of the BRICS+ meetings on Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar sat in for Modi who also missed one of the group photographs. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he could not travel to Russia due to a head injury.

China, which together with India buys about 90% of Russia’s oil, supported more Global South countries joining the BRICS grouping in various formats, Xi said.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was criticized by Kyiv for attending the meeting in Russia, said peace was needed in Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine.

“We need peace in Ukraine,” Guterres told the BRICS+ meeting that was chaired by Putin. “A just peace in line with the U.N. Charter, international law and U.N. General Assembly resolutions.”
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CHISINAU, Moldova — Moldova’s pro-European president said on Thursday that mass bribery had affected a presidential election and a referendum on joining the European Union. However, Maia Sandu vowed to press on with a Nov. 3 runoff vote to win a second term, instead of ordering a new election.

Sandu issued her pledge, saying it was up to the people to determine Moldova’s future, after police said pro-Russian fugitive businessman Ilan Shor had channeled $39 million to voters in September and October.

Moldovan authorities have said the campaign for last Sunday’s dual poll was overshadowed by a massive Russia-linked election-meddling scheme aimed at defeating the pro-Europe side.

“Without the buying of votes, the outcome today would have been different. We would have had a convincing victory in the presidential election and the referendum!” Sandu wrote on social media.

She said she had rejected suggestions of ordering a rerun of the ex-Soviet republic’s election as “no one has the right to deny our citizens a mass, sincere and free expression of their will.”

“Let’s go forward to the second round. We count strictly on our people as has always been the case when the fate of the country was on the line,” she said. It was up to the judiciary to “wake up” and tackle the issue of bribery, she added.

Sandu came in first in the presidential election but failed to secure 50% of votes and now faces a runoff against former prosecutor-general Alexandr Stoianoglo, who is backed by a traditionally pro-Russian party.

Sandu has singled out Russia as one of the biggest threats facing Moldova and made EU integration the cornerstone of her administration.

In the referendum, a surprisingly slim majority compared with opinion polls, 50.46% of voters, supported EU accession.  

The police have accused Shor of an attempt to bribe 130,000 voters. He denies wrongdoing, and the Kremlin has denied interfering. It questioned the vote count, in which votes from Moldovans abroad pushed the “yes” vote over 50%.

Moldova’s police chief, Viorel Cernauteanu, told a briefing on Thursday that Shor used Russia’s Promsvyazbank to transfer $24 million in October, in addition to $15 million channeled in September, to pay off voters.  

During the campaign, Shor openly offered to pay Moldovans to persuade others to vote “no” in the referendum and to support a specific candidate, who he did not name publicly. He launched a bot on the Telegram messaging platform for this means.  

Cernauteanu said the police had blocked 97 chatbots before the vote explaining to people how to use the Promsvyazbank banking app and get the money.  

On Monday, Sandu called the campaign “an unfair fight” and claimed victory in the referendum designed to enshrine Moldova’s EU path in the constitution. She said there was “clear evidence” that criminal groups backed by “foreign forces hostile to our national interests” had aimed to buy off 300,000 votes.

Moscow has denounced the vote as not free. On Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the United States and European Union had meddled in the campaign.
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Paris — A Lebanon donors’ conference in Paris on Thursday has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the war-battered country — but ending the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah that has devastated the country seems unlikely anytime soon.

The pledges rolled in at the Paris conference. Early on, both Germany and France earmarked around $100 million apiece for Lebanon. The funds will support humanitarian aid in the country, where fighting sparked by Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israel has killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.  

Conference host, French President Emmanuel Macron, said families need shelter, children need nourishment and schooling, the wounded need care. Solutions must be found quickly, he said, especially to avoid further population displacements, which could create new divisions in the country. 

Acting Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati wanted more.

“What we as Lebanese expect from the international community is the following: solidarity and cease-fire,” he said. “Lebanon calls on the international community to come together and support efforts that will end the ongoing aggressions and enforce an immediate cease-fire.” 

But experts doubt there will be a swift ending to the conflict. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not attend the Paris conference. He was in the Middle East, although Washington sent a lower-level delegation. Israel and Iran were not invited.

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu earlier warned that Lebanon could descend into civil war. 

But analyst Antoine Basbous told Europe 1 radio that the more likely scenario was Lebanon descending into chaos.

Former colonial power France hopes parties in Lebanon will move on electing a new president, after a two-year power gap. 

The Paris meeting additionally aimed to find ways to support the Lebanese army and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country, which includes a large number of European troops. Both the army and the peacekeeping mission say they have come under attack by Israel. 
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Strasbourg, France — The EU parliament awarded the bloc’s top rights Sakharov prize on Thursday to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and her ally, former presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

They won the prestigious award for their fight for democracy under President Nicolas Maduro’s iron-fisted rule.

Machado, 57, played a key role in Venezuela’s presidential election in July. Although the authorities proclaimed Maduro the winner, the opposition believes its candidate Gonzalez Urrutia won.

Gonzalez Urrutia, 75, went into exile in Spain in September.

European Parliament chief Roberta Metsola said the two figures represented “all Venezuelans inside and outside the country fighting to restore freedom and democracy”, as she announced the award in the parliament in Strasbourg, France.

“Edmundo and Maria have continued to fight for the fair, free and peaceful transition of power and have fearlessly upheld those values that millions of Venezuelans and this parliament hold so dear: justice, democracy and the rule of law,” Metsola added.

“This parliament stands with the people of Venezuela and with Maria and Edmundo in their struggle for the democratic future of their country,” Metsola said.

“We are confident that Venezuela and democracy, will ultimately prevail,” she added.

There will be an award ceremony in Strasbourg in December. The winner receives a $54,000 prize.

Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia were named for the award by the center-right European People’s Party, the largest political grouping in the EU parliament.

The two other finalists were jailed Azerbaijani activist Gubad Ibadoghlu — backed by the Greens — and Israeli and Palestinian organizations working together for peace, proposed by the Socialists and Democrats group.

Metsola paid tribute to the finalists, saying they “all are bravely standing up for human rights and for freedom of thought in the face of unimaginable challenges”.

She said that the health of Ibadoghlu — under house arrest — was “currently deteriorating significantly” and called on “Azerbaijani authorities to drop all charges against Doctor Ibadoghlu and lift his travel ban”.

Far-right lawmakers had nominated US tech billionaire Elon Musk as a champion of “free speech”, but their eyebrow-raising choice was not accepted.

Named after Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, previous recipients of the award include South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

For Machado, it is her second prize in as many months as she won the top European rights prize awarded by the Council of Europe, which is not an EU institution.
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NEW DELHI — While U.S. officials express the view that the BRICS grouping meeting in the Russian city of Kazan is not evolving into a geopolitical rival, analysts say BRICS members are working on issues that could further decouple them from Western influences.

Among the topics discussed between members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are ways to establish an alternative payment system that would not be dependent on the U.S. dollar, a BRICS digital currency and an alternative to Western financial institutions like the International Monetary fund. 

China, Russia and Iran – countries that face severe trade restrictions imposed by the United States – have been particularly keen about advancing BRICS’ stated goals and circumventing what they regard as illegal sanctions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicated at the BRICS meeting that he was equally interested. “We welcome efforts to increase financial integration among BRICS countries. Trade in local currencies and smooth cross-border payments will strengthen our economic cooperation,” Modi said.

Russian State Duma Speaker Vyachaslav Volodin, writing ahead of the two-day meeting on the cloud-based messaging app Telegram, said the BRICS’ priorities reflect the divide between the West and the South. “The time of the hegemony of Washington and Brussels is passing. Countries choose the path of equal dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation in the interests of people, and not to please the US and its minions,” he said.

U.S. officials say they are not concerned.

“We’re not looking at BRICS evolving into some kind of geopolitical rival. That’s not how we look at it … to the U.S. or anyone else,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday at a press briefing.

Meanwhile, India’s Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting, signaling a thaw in relations between the two sometimes-adversarial nations that some analysts suggest could have geopolitical implications.

Two days before the BRICS meeting, Indian and Chinese officials agreed to resolve the vexing issue of their militaries patrolling along the India-China border. The goal is to ensure that both sides pull back troops from advanced positions in disputed areas and return to the situation that existed before the last border conflict in 2020.

“We welcome the consensus reached on the issues that have arisen in the last 4 years along the border. It should be our priority to ensure there is peace and stability along our border,” Modi told Xi during the initial minutes of the meeting, which was telecast live. Xi responded saying that the rapprochement was “in the fundamental interests of both countries.”

Analysts are trying to gauge what prompted India to seek rapprochement with Beijing when it is closely tied to U.S.-led arrangements meant to counter China’s influence. 

India plays a key role in the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy and the Washington-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) involving Japan, India, Australia and the United States. China views the QUAD, which regularly holds exercises among the militaries of the four member countries, as a group bent on hurting its interests. 

“Being a part of the QUAD is not helping India, which needs support in countering China’s military challenge in the Himalayan Mountain region. Besides, the U.S. is developing a relationship with Pakistan, which is against India’s interest,” P. Stobdan, former Indian diplomat and author, told VOA. 

The Chinese media quoted Lin Minwang, a professor at the Institute of Strategic Studies and International Security in Fudan University, as saying that India is seeking reconciliation with China because the United States has not supported its efforts to develop its manufacturing sector. 

“India’s policy that aims at decoupling from China has failed to attract meaningful support from the US-led West to help ‘Made in India’ and the country’s modernization and industrialization,” Lin said. “This proves that India can’t profit from being hostile to or decoupling from China, and it is even making it difficult for India to realize its own development,” he added. 

Some experts believe the United States would not be surprised at the turn of events.  

“The U.S. knew all along that India and China would connect at some point. There are strong political and economic reasons for them to engage with each other,” said Manoranjan Mohanty, a China expert based in New Delhi.
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APIA, SAMOA — The leaders of the Commonwealth group of nations will meet at a welcome banquet in Samoa in the South Pacific on Thursday, with climate change and reparations for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade on the agenda of summit discussions.

Leaders and officials from 56 countries with roots in Britain’s empire, as well as Britain’s King Charles, are in the small island nation and attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which began Monday. The countries’ foreign ministers also began a day of discussions on Thursday.

More than half of the Commonwealth’s members are small states, many of which are low-lying island nations at risk from rising sea levels due to climate change.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said ocean temperatures are rising in the Pacific Islands at three times the rate worldwide, and its population is “uniquely exposed” to the impact of rising sea levels.

“Climate change is an existential threat. It is the number one national security threat. It is the number one economic threat to the peoples of the Pacific and to many members of the Commonwealth,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a news conference after a meeting with counterparts.

A number of African countries, including Zambia, warned the meeting about the escalating impacts of climate change, including the effects on food security, she added.

On Thursday, Charles will be shown the impact of rising sea levels that are forcing people to move inland, a Samoan chief said.

Island leaders are expected to issue a declaration on ocean protection at the summit, with climate change being a central topic of discussion.

Reparations push

Also on the agenda is a push for Britain to pay reparations for transatlantic slavery, a long-standing issue that has recently been gaining momentum worldwide, particularly those part of the Caribbean Community and more recently the African Union.

British Prime Minister Kier Starmer said on Monday the UK will not bring the issue of reparations for historical transatlantic slavery to the table at the summit, but is open to engage with leaders who want to discuss it.

CARICOM has set up a commission to seek reparations from former colonial powers such as the UK, France and Portugal.

Those opposed to paying reparations say countries shouldn’t be held responsible for historical wrongs, while those in favor say the legacy of slavery has resulted in persistent and vast racial inequalities today.

A CARICOM source familiar with the matter told Reuters CHOGM presents an “important opportunity” for dialogue on reparations and the region will be tabling the issue there.

“It is a priority for many of the Commonwealth’s member countries and whenever those affected by atrocities ask to talk, there should always be a willingness to sit down and listen,” said Kingsley Abbott, director of the University of London’s Institute of Commonwealth Studies, who is attending the summit.

From the 15th to the 19th century, at least 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported by European ships and merchants and sold into slavery. Those who survived the brutal voyage ended up toiling on plantations under inhumane conditions in the Americas, mostly in Brazil and the Caribbean, while others profited from their labor.
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WASHINGTON — Gathered Wednesday at a summit in the Russian city of Kazan, the members of BRICS adopted a joint declaration calling for the creation of an independent payment system based on their national currencies, a move in response to what they regard as illegal sanctions that are damaging the global economy.

BRICS member countries, which account for about 35% of the global economy, issued the Kazan Declaration, which calls for the “elimination” of “unilateral economic sanctions and secondary sanctions that are contrary to international law.”

The BRICS membership includes the initial five — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — and expanded when several countries joined this year, including Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates.

Expressing concerns over “unilateral coercive” sanctions that have “disruptive effects” on the world economy, the BRICS members agreed to examine the “establishment of an independent cross-border settlement and depository infrastructure, BRICS Clear.”

In supporting “inclusive cross-border payment instruments,” they encouraged the “use of local currencies in financial transactions between BRICS countries and their trading partners.”

Edward Fishman, senior research scholar at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming book “Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare,” said, “The BRICS have finally found a unifying mission: circumventing American financial dominance.”

“For BRICS members under U.S. sanctions, namely Russia and Iran, this mission is already a top national priority,” he said. “Others such as China see it as a handy way to insulate themselves from potential sanctions in the future.”

Fishman said the United States should take BRICS initiatives “seriously and move to further solidify the dollar’s advantages” as they “could well bear fruit over the next decade,” although “it’s unlikely that any of these initiatives will make a dent in the dollar’s global role in the near future.”

Circumventing US dollar

In his speech at the summit Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said “the reform of the international financial architecture” is “pressing,” and he called for “the connectivity” of financial infrastructure among BRICS members and the expansion of the New Development Bank, or NDB. 

Headquartered in Shanghai, the NDB was established by the initial five BRICS members in 2015. It serves as an alternative financial institution to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 

Tom Keatinge, the founding director of the Center for Finance and Security at the Royal United Services Institute, said China would be inclined to join the new financial system that Russia is advocating.

He said Beijing’s reasons are twofold: “to influence its design to ensure it can benefit” and “to add to its desire to provide counterbalance to the historically unipolar financial system dominated by the United States.”

Keatinge added, however, that the new infrastructure would not be able to easily replicate “the stability, liquidity and convertibility of the U.S. dollar” that a number of other existing bilateral and multilateral payment systems experience.

VOA asked the Chinese Embassy in Washington whether and why Beijing is interested in joining and using the proposed BRICS financial system but did not get a reply.

Citing unnamed experts, China’s state-run Global Times on October 17 said an alternative payment system “may help reduce excessive reliance on the U.S. dollar.”

Sanctions evasion

BRICS’ efforts to increase the use of local currencies are seen as a bid to challenge the global financial system dominated by the U.S. dollar, which accounts for 90% of all currency trading and more than half of international payments. 

At the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “The dollar is being used as a weapon.” He also said the increased use of BRICS national currencies for transactions will “minimize geopolitical risks.”

During a meeting with Putin at the summit on Tuesday, NDB President Dilma Rousseff said the bank was committed to financing the countries of the Global South in their national currencies.

Russian state development corporation and investment company VER.RF signed agreements with China and South Africa to extend credit lines in national currencies, Russian news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

BRICS Clear, the international payment and deposit platform to ensure increased circulation of national currencies, was proposed by Russia ahead of the summit.

The Russian Financial Ministry, central bank and consulting firm Yakov and Partners earlier in October issued a document proposing BRICS Clear as a platform that would utilize national depository systems “independent of third-party influence.”

Also ahead of the summit, a new cross-border payment system called BRICS Pay was introduced at the BRICS Business Forum held in Moscow on October 17 and 18.

A statement released Tuesday by the American Action Forum, citing an analysis by Jacob Jensen, a data analyst at the think tank, said there are concerns that BRICS Pay would allow participating countries to “circumvent USD as a payment intermediary by replacing it with blockchain technology and an alternative to the SWIFT financial payment system.”

Several Russian banks were banned from the SWIFT messaging system that facilitates global financial transfers shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskovsaid on Wednesday that the BRICS is not trying to create a system as an alternative to SWIFT, according to Russian TASS. 

Despite BRICS’ efforts, no country using an alternative system like BRICS Pay will be immune from sanctions, as such a payment system can be subject to sanctions, said David Asher, a Hudson Institute senior fellow who advised the U.S. government over several years on sanctions evasion schemes.

Ultimately, Asher said, national and digital currencies will end up being swapped into U.S. dollars at the Clearing House Automated Transfer System based in Hong Kong, which he believes should be sanctioned.
…

The president of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has announced the establishment of the Red Family Fund to honor humanitarian aid workers who have died in the line of duty.

Kate Forbes told the organization’s general assembly in Geneva that aid workers find themselves working under “increasingly difficult” conditions that include not only an escalation in conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere but also a decrease in observance of international law.

“Global conflicts have escalated, endangering civilians and our volunteers, making it even more difficult to deliver humanitarian aid,” Forbes said.

So far this year, 30 of the group’s 16 million humanitarian aid workers worldwide have died in the line of duty, she said.

“The surge in violence against humanitarian workers underscores a decline in the adherence to international humanitarian law and poses a direct threat to our mission,” the IFRC president said. She described each loss as a deep wound but said the deaths would not weaken the organization’s “resolve to directly address these crises.”

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told the gathering that humanitarian workers find themselves doing their jobs across the globe amid a world shaped by “armed conflicts and political turmoil.”

The Red Family Fund, according to the IFRC’s website, honors volunteers and staff from the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies “who die in the line of duty and provides a mechanism for one-time financial assistance to the families they leave behind.”

“This is a tangible step that demonstrates our commitment to honor those who care for others,” Forbes said. 

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
…

The United States said there is evidence that North Korean troops are in Russia, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv had learned that two North Korean military units were training in Russia for potential combat in Ukraine. VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb reports.
…

Washington — Ukraine will receive $50 billion in loans, backed by frozen Russian assets, from Group of Seven allies, the White House said Wednesday. Distribution of the money will begin by year’s end, according to American officials who said the United States is providing $20 billion of the total.

Leaders of the wealthy democracies agreed earlier this year to engineer the mammoth loan to help Ukraine in its fight for survival after Russia’s invasion. Interest earned on profits from Russia’s frozen central bank assets would be used as collateral.

“To be clear, nothing like this has ever been done before,” said Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser on international economics.

“Never before has a multilateral coalition frozen the assets of an aggressor country and then harnessed the value of those assets to fund the defense of the aggrieved party all while respecting the rule of law and maintaining solidarity.”

At a ceremony Wednesday in Washington, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Ukraine’s finance minister, Sergii Marchenko, planned to put in writing assurances that the U.S. loan will be paid for by the windfall proceeds of the immobilized Russian sovereign assets, not by American taxpayer dollars.

“Russia is paying for this support,” Yellen said at a news conference Monday where she said the loan package was close to being finalized.

Singh said the Biden administration intends to divide the U.S. share of $20 billion between aiding Ukraine’s economy and military. It will require congressional action to send military aid, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that weapons and equipment being promised now can take weeks or months to get to Ukraine.

The additional $30 billion will come from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, among others.

The idea of using Russia’s frozen assets to help Ukraine faced resistance at first from European officials who cited legal and financial stability concerns.

The move gained momentum after more than a year of negotiations between finance officials and after President Joe Biden in April signed legislation that let the government seize the roughly $5 billion in Russian state assets in the U.S.

The G7 announced in June that most of the loan would be backed by profits being earned on roughly $260 billion in immobilized Russian assets. The vast majority of that money is held in EU nations. 

The U.S. and its allies immediately froze whatever Russian central bank assets they had access to when Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The timing of the loan’s disbursement has been called into question, coming about two weeks before the presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. The candidates have taken opposing views on the threat from Russia.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dismissed suggestions that military aid to Ukraine approved by the Biden administration now could be negated by any new team in power.

“I think we’re pretty sure that these materials will continue to flow,” Austin said, adding that he is confident it all will be delivered “on the timeline that we’ve outlined.”

The World Bank’s latest damage assessment of Ukraine, released in February, estimates that costs for reconstruction and recovery of the nation stand at $486 billion over the next 10 years.
…

Ankara — A deadly attack was carried out at the Turkish Aerospace Industries’ headquarters near Ankara on Wednesday, the government said, as broadcasters showed footage of several armed assailants entering the building amid reports of gunfire and a loud explosion.

“A terrorist attack was carried out against the TUSAS facilities in Kahramankazan, Ankara. Unfortunately, we have martyrs and injured people,” Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social media X, referring to the Aerospace Industries.

The cause and perpetrators of the blast and subsequent gunfire remained unclear. Some media reports claimed a suicide attack had occurred and that there were hostages inside the building. Officials have not confirmed this.

Witnesses told Reuters that employees inside the building were taken by authorities to shelters and no one was permitted to leave. They said bombings may have taken place at different exits as employees were leaving work for the day.

The state-owned Anadolu Agency said emergency services were dispatched to the site, while television images showed a damaged gate and an exchange of gunfire in a parking lot. The images showed the attackers carrying assault rifles and backpacks as they entered the building.

Anadolu also said prosecutors had launched an investigation into the attack.

TUSAS is one of Turkey’s most important defense and aviation companies. It produces KAAN, the country’s first national combat aircraft, among other projects, and has over 10,000 employees. 
…

Athens — Wildfire-plagued Greece has suffered its worst year in terms of climate conditions in four decades in 2024, its prime minister told parliament on Wednesday.

The already sun-baked Mediterranean region has been designated by scientists as a climate change “hotspot”, with warming higher than the global average, according to United Nations reports. 

Greece has been perennially struck by scorching heatwaves and destructive wildfires every summer, with conditions worsening in recent years.

“We were expecting a very difficult year in terms of climate, it was objectively the most difficult in the past 40 years according to data by all scientists, including those from the national climate monitor,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament.

He pointed to “temperatures constantly higher than average”, “prolonged drought”, “strong winds”, adding that Greece needed to face the consequences of climate change.

The number of wildfires so far this year has reached 9,101, up from 7,163 last year, with 44,000 hectares (109,000 acres) burnt, the premier said during a parliamentary debate on the matter.  

Forest blazes began earlier than normal this year, with one igniting at the end of March in the country’s north.

Greece experienced its hottest summer ever, Athens’s climate monitor said in September, with premature heatwaves in June, and record-high summer temperatures.

June and July were the warmest months since records began in 1960, while August was the second hottest after August 2021, the observatory said on its meteo.gr website.

More than 20 people died in Greek forest fires last year, with a massive blaze in Dadia national park dubbed the most destructive ever recorded in the European Union.

Rising temperatures are leading to extended wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt by the blazes, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 
…

London — Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday played down allegations made by Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump’s team of “blatant foreign interference” by his Labour Party in the U.S. election, saying it was normal for its volunteers to campaign.   

Starmer also insisted that he maintained “a good relationship” with Trump, having met him for talks last month.   

The former president’s legal team filed a complaint to the U.S. Federal Election Commission alleging the “British Labour Party made, and the [Kamala] Harris campaign accepted, illegal foreign national contributions.”   

The filing cited media reports that Labour officials, including the prime minister’s new chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, traveled to the United States to advise the Harris campaign.   

Trump’s team also submitted a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Labour director of operations Sofia Patel calling for volunteers to travel to North Carolina, saying “we will sort out your housing.”   

Foreign nationals are allowed to volunteer in U.S. elections but may not be compensated.   

Starmer told media traveling with him to a Commonwealth meeting on the Pacific island of Samoa that his party had done nothing wrong, and that the volunteers had paid for themselves.   

“The Labour party has volunteers, who have gone over pretty much every election,” he said.   

“They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying, I think, with other volunteers over there.”   

“That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”   

He also denied suggestions that it could damage relations with Britain’s most important ally should Republican party candidate Trump beat Democrat Harris and secure a return to the White House.   

Starmer said he had “established a good relationship” with the former president, having met him last month for a two-hour dinner at the former real estate tycoon’s Trump Tower residence in New York.   

Adding to the dispute, Trump surrogate Elon Musk wrote on his X site on Tuesday that “this is war” after leaked documents from campaign group Center for Countering Digital Hate appeared to show that one of its objectives was to “kill Musk’s Twitter,” X’s former name.   

The campaign group and think-tank is led by a former Labour adviser and McSweeney is a former director. 
…

The European Union’s next foreign policy chief has told lawmakers that strengthening security must be a priority, warning that Europe must be prepared as Russia and “partly China” exploit the continent’s open societies.

“European security is deeply personal to me as a native of a country that has long told others that Russia’s imperialistic dream never died,” Kaja Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, said in written replies to members of the European Parliament published late on Tuesday.

“My short-term priority must be to address the pressing global concerns: Russia’s war against Ukraine and strengthening the EU’s security and defense,” she wrote.

Kallas, nominated by European leaders in June to serve as the bloc’s new high representative for foreign affairs, is set to succeed incumbent Josep Borrell.

The European Parliament will hold hearings in November for members of the next European Commission.

In 21 pages of answers to questions posed by the lawmakers ahead of the hearings, the Estonian politician outlined her vision for Europe’s foreign policy at a time when the bloc faces an increasingly complex geopolitical environment.

The EU must stay at “the forefront of humanitarian efforts” in the Middle East,” Kallas said, and work “with all actors to support the pursuit of a just and comprehensive peace” while also pointing to challenges such as China’s support for Russia.

“Actors such as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and partly China, aim at weaponizing interdependencies and exploiting the openness of our societies against us,” she added. “For this, we must be prepared.”
…

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday it destroyed 14 Ukrainian aerial drones in areas along the Ukraine-Russia border as well as four uncrewed Ukrainian boats in the Black Sea.

The ministry said Russian air defenses destroyed 10 drones over Russia-occupied Crimea, and another four over the Rostov region.

Russian forces carried out a second consecutive night of heavy drone attacks targeting the Sumy region in southern Ukraine.

The Sumy regional military administration said Wednesday that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 19 Russian drones, a night after Ukraine downed 25 drones in the same area.

Officials in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv regions also reported drones being shot down overnight.

North Korean involvement

Ukraine has “information that two units of military personnel from North Korea are being trained — potentially even two brigades of 6,000 people each” — for combat in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday. 

“This is a challenge,” the president said in his daily address. “But we know how to respond to this challenge. And it is important that our partners do not shy away from this challenge, as well.” 

“If North Korea can intervene in the war in Europe, then the pressure on this regime is definitely not strong enough,” Zelenskyy said. “And if Russia is still able to expand and prolong this war, it means that everyone in the world who is still not helping to force Russia into peace is actually helping Putin to wage war.” 

“We expect a firm, concrete response from the world,” he added. “Hopefully, not only in words.” 

Also Tuesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement that Russia is playing with lives beyond Ukraine. 

“Russia’s indiscriminate strikes on ports in the Black Sea underscore that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is willing to gamble on global food security in his attempts to force Ukraine into submission. … In doing so, he is harming millions of vulnerable people across Africa, Asia and the Middle East to try and gain the upper hand in his barbaric war.”  

Starmer said Russia’s conduct in the conflict has shown “no respect for human life or the consequences of their invasion across the world.”

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

Ukraine’s prosecutor general announced his resignation Tuesday amid charges that his office provided exemptions to the military draft for government officials.  

“Many shameful facts of abuse have been established within the system of the prosecutor’s offices of Ukraine,” Andriy Kostin said in a statement.  

Kostin’s resignation followed a meeting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held with senior officials concerning the issuance of disability certificates. The certificates allowed officials throughout the government to avoid military service at a time when the country is struggling to recruit soldiers for its fight against Russia. 

“The prosecutor general must take political responsibility for the situation in the prosecution bodies of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a statement after the meeting.  

“The problem is not only that officials use their connections to obtain disability status,” the president said in his daily address. “The problem is also that people with real disabilities, in particular those disabled in combat, are often unable to get proper status and fair payments.” 

Zelenskyy said a full audit has been conducted on “the pensions and other accruals” that government officials were able to acquire with the faulty disability exemptions.  

Sixty-four officials within the Medical and Social Expert Commission have been notified that they are being investigated for illegally issuing disability certificates, according to the SBU, Ukraine’s domestic security service. Nine have been tried and found guilty.  

The president has ordered an overhaul of the disability assessment system. 

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

The war in Ukraine is reshaping the strategic landscape of Europe. While Western and Eastern European nations within the NATO alliance recognize the Russian threat, each day, NATO nations bordering Belarus and Russia feel the immediacy of the threat.

In an exclusive interview with VOA’s Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze, Lieutenant General Charles Costanza, commander of the U.S. Army’s V Corps (also known as the Fifth Corps) in Poland, discusses how NATO adapts to Russia’s evolving tactics while defending its members’ borders.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Can you explain the different threat assessments from Eastern and Western European partners of NATO regarding Russia?

Charles Costanza, commanding general of the U.S. Army’s V Corps: Clearly, in the eastern flank of Europe, the threat is real. They’re on the border with Belarus and Russia, and so, they see that threat every day differently. You see recent open-source reporting on the Russian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones] coming over Romanian territory and Lithuanian territory. Those incursions have increased. You see the sabotage operations going on throughout eastern flank countries and Eastern European countries. So, Russia is increasing that, short of … challenges and interference [that would trigger the NATO mutual defense clause].

VOA: Do you think Russia is doing it deliberately?

Costanza: Of course, they are. They weaponize immigration — I say “weaponize” deliberately. This weaponized immigration is happening in Poland, it’s all been driven from Russia to interfere in Eastern Europe. Moldova is a near-term example with their elections. Russia is actively interfering in those elections to try and shape them in a pro-Russian way. So, all that is going on right now. So, that’s part of this threat assessment piece that isn’t necessarily impacting the Western European countries as much as Eastern Europe.

VOA: How threatening is Russia’s military?

Costanza: I think there’s a view that Russia is going to take three to 10 years to reconstitute, and I think that we need to look at that a little differently. Russian armed forces, ground forces right now, are actually bigger than they were before the war with Ukraine started 2½ years ago, despite the losses of open-source reporting [of] 600,000 casualties that they’ve incurred during the course of the war.

They may not be as well trained, but they’re bigger. Their industrial base is on a wartime footing. Their mobilization base is on a wartime footing. They know they’re fighting a Western-trained, West-equipped country with Ukraine. They’re learning how to defeat those capabilities and those systems over the last 2½ years. So, they’re modernizing their force based on the lessons that they’re learning, and I think that’s something we should be concerned about. They’re modernizing their equipment. They’re changing the way that they fight based on learning how to fight against Western-trained forces in Ukraine. And I think that should be a concern for all of us. It clearly is to our Eastern European allies.

VOA: How are you preparing to defend and deter?

Costanza: First of all, to maintain a high stance on readiness from a U.S. forces standpoint but also the NATO standpoint. At the Fifth Corps, one of the key things we do as partners with our multinational corps and multinational divisions across the eastern flank of Europe [is] just to help build their war-fighting capability as they field new capabilities. HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket System], for example. Apaches [helicopters] — with Poland just purchasing 96 Apaches from the United States. So, we help them to employ those things, those capabilities. But how you employ them at the corps level, and how you employ them at the division level, we can help, and we do.

VOA: General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and now ambassador to the United Kingdom, recently gave a speech at Chatham House in London in which he talked about the technological advancements of this war, and how this is a different war than NATO was prepared to fight. How would you assess NATO’s capabilities today?

Costanza: I think you’re exactly right. And those are some of the comments that were made by our NATO partners in this event. I think that the United States is kind of setting the standard on that with a new program that our chief of staff of the Army [General Randy George] has talked about, which is transformation in contact. So, for the U.S. forces that are rotating over here to Europe, we’re modernizing them with equipment that’s available right now. So, instead of going through our normal four-year acquisition process to get new equipment, we’re taking things that are available based on what we’re watching happen in Ukraine. … So maybe that can be a model for our partners and allies.

VOA: We talked about NATO capabilities. Now I want to go back to Russian capabilities. How advanced do you think they are right now?

Costanza: I think the biggest concern is what I said before: They know they’re fighting Western-trained and -equipped forces. And so, as they modernize based on the lessons that they’re learning — not just their equipment, but how they fight — they’re really sharpening their ability to fight us in the future. And I think that’s something we need to be concerned about.

So, those things I just talked about that we’re trying to rapidly introduce into our brigade to execute the transformation, contact — the UAS [Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or drones], the border, ammunition, the counter UAS, the EW [electronic warfare] capability. And how do you synchronize all of that capability so that you can really, rapidly strike and kill targets? They’ve learned how to do that. And so, we need to be able to do that and do it better than they do.

VOA: Russia is gaining support from China and North Korea right now. Are we ready to face this threat?

Costanza: The lessons that I was talking about, the reasons we should be concerned about Russia — they’re sharing those lessons with China, with Iran, and vice versa, the capabilities that Iran and China are providing. And now you see the North Koreans, as well. North Korea is now providing, I think it’s an initial batch [of] open-source reporting, of 4,000 North Korean soldiers. I think that could potentially just be a starting point for what they provide in terms of manpower to Russia. And I think that’s a problem near-term here in Eastern Europe, because as we talked about before we started, the challenge for Ukrainians is people. It’s the amount of people that they have to put into this fight. And Russia doesn’t care how many losses it takes. I mean, 600,000 [casualties], and they’re still throwing more manpower at it and don’t even blink. Ukrainians can’t afford to take those losses. I think that’s going to be the limiting factor for that as we move forward, watch this war continue into this third period.

VOA: There are different assessments of threats between, let’s say, the political part of the NATO alliance and the military part of the alliance. How are you finding that common ground?

Costanza: Yeah, I think it’s just constant dialogue, right? And so, I know we do that at different levels. So, the combatant commander, the U.S. combat commander, has those discussions at the national levels with our NATO partners and allies. We all live in Eastern Europe, including myself — in Poland. We all see that threat the same way. It can be near term.

VOA: What do you mean by the near term?

Costanza: I think, one year, two years, three years.

VOA: And you’re trying to be ready for that?

Costanza: U.S. forces are ready, and I can tell you, our NATO partners and allies are ready. And we’re just continuing to build capabilities.
…

WASHINGTON — Efforts by U.S. adversaries to divide Americans and sow growing distrust in the upcoming presidential election have already begun to intensify, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials, who warn some countries appear to be leaning toward additional measures to spark election-related violence.

The latest declassified assessment, issued Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, comes just two weeks before voters head to the polls November 5 to choose a new president and vote on a series of statewide and local races and initiatives.

“Foreign actors — particularly Russia, Iran and China — remain intent on fanning divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans’ confidence in the U.S. democratic system consistent with what they perceive to be in their interests,” according to the assessment.

But it warns U.S. intelligence agencies are “increasingly confident” that Russia is starting to engage in plans “aimed at inciting violence.”

It further assesses Iran also “may try to incite violence.”

Post-poll closing concerns

Of particular concern is what appears to be a growing focus on the hours, days and weeks after the polls close, when state and local election officials begin to tally and certify the results.

U.S. adversaries “probably will be quick to create false narratives or amplify content they think will create confusion about the election, such as posting claims of election irregularities,” said a U.S. intelligence official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss the assessment in additional detail.

The official said Russia, Iran and China “may perceive a window of vulnerability to push disinformation or foment or amplify protests and threats” starting with the moment polling centers close and extending to January 6, when the presidential results are certified by a joint session of Congress.

“Foreign driven or amplified violent protests, violence or physical threats to election workers or state and local officials could challenge state and local officials’ ability to conduct elements of the certification and Electoral College process,” the official said. “Particularly if they prevent necessary physical access to facilities or venues.”

U.S. intelligence officials have previously warned that Russia and Iran have been especially active, running a variety of influence operations targeting U.S. voters, with a high likelihood that these efforts would extend beyond the November 5 election.

Russia, they said, has been working to boost the chances of former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump, while Iran has been working to hurt Trump’s reelection bid and instead buoy the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

China, according to U.S. intelligence officials, has so far stayed out of the presidential race, focusing its efforts on congressional and state and local candidates perceived to be promoting policies detrimental to Beijing’s interests, including those voicing support for Taiwan.

Officials said Tuesday that new intelligence streams have raised concerns that Moscow, especially, will try to foment violence once the polls close.

“We expect Russia will be more aggressive in this period if the vice president [Kamala Harris] wins the election,” the intelligence official said. “Russia would prefer the former president to win, and they would seek to more aggressively undermine the presidency of the then-president-elect.”

Russia, China and Iran have all rejected previous U.S. accusations of election meddling.

Russia and Iran have yet to respond to requests from VOA for comment, but China on Tuesday again rejected the latest U.S. intelligence findings.

“The presidential elections are the United States’ own affairs,” Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA in an email. “China has no intention and will not interfere.”

U.S. intelligence officials, though, point to what they describe as growing examples of malign intent, especially by Russia and Iran.

Influence operations

In one example, the officials said Russian-linked actors were responsible for a post on the X social media platform earlier this month that contained false allegations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

“There are several indicators of manipulation that are consistent with the influence, efforts and tactics of Russian influence actors this cycle,” the U.S. intelligence official said.

In another case, U.S. officials said a Russian intelligence unit sought to recruit what they assess to likely be an unwitting American to organize protests.

They also point to actions taken last month by multiple U.S. agencies to counter several Russian influence efforts, including the use of fake websites and the creation of a shell company to funnel $10 million to a U.S. media company to push pro-Russian propaganda.

Also last month, the U.S. placed bounties and lodged criminal charges against three Iranian hackers, all accused of seeking to undermine the Trump reelection campaign.

And there are fears that even these types of ongoing influence operations, which often seek to exploit divisive political issues, could lead to problems.

“Even if these disinformation campaigns are not specifically calling for violence, the tactics used to undermine confidence in the democratic institutions can lead to violence, even if not deliberately called for,” said a senior official with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, who, like the U.S. intelligence official, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

‘Expect disruptions’

And while U.S. officials express confidence that safeguards are in place to prevent U.S. adversaries from attacking or hacking systems used to record and tally votes, there is concern that they will target other U.S. infrastructure to try to induce panic or violence.

“That is a real possibility,” said the CISA official, adding the U.S. public should “expect disruptions.”

“We’re going to see a voting location lose power,” the official said. “We’re going to see potentially some type of impact on a transportation system. We’re going to see a potential ransomware attack against a local election office.”

CISA officials say they have been working with state and local election officials to make sure they are prepared to handle sudden disruptions. And state officials say they are prepared.

“All states consider their election infrastructure and IT [information technology] systems a potential target for threats,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s secretary of state and the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, during a call with reporters Monday.

“Chief elections officials throughout the United States have worked really tirelessly and consistently to mitigate risks to our election systems and processes,” said Simon.
…

The United Nations says the war in Ukraine has displaced more than 6 million people and forced many of them to register as refugees across Europe. More than 60,000 of them — mostly women and children — are living in Hungary. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze reports from Budapest on a new bilingual school for refugee children from Ukraine. VOA footage and video editing by Daniil Batushchak.
…

MELBOURNE, Australia — King Charles III ends the first visit to Australia by a reigning British monarch in 13 years Tuesday as anti-monarchists hope the debate surrounding his journey is a step toward an Australian citizen becoming head of state.  

Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla, watched dancers perform at a Sydney Indigenous community center. The couple used tongs to cook sausages at a community barbecue lunch at the central suburb of Parramatta and later shook the hands of well-wishers for the last time during their visit outside the Sydney Opera House. Their final engagement was an inspection of navy ships on Sydney Harbor in an event known as a fleet review.  

Charles’s trip to Australia was scaled down because he is undergoing cancer treatment. He arrives in Samoa on Wednesday.  

Indigenous activist Wayne Wharton, 60, was arrested outside the opera house early Tuesday afternoon before the royals greeted the crowd.   

“It will be alleged the man was acting in an abusive and threatening manner and had failed to comply with two previous move-on directions,” a police statement said. He was charged with failing to comply with a police direction and will appear in court on Nov. 5.  

Wharton said he intended to serve Charles with a summons to appear in court on war crimes and for genocide but never got close to the couple.  

The royal visit was “a slap in the face to every decent Aboriginal person and fair-minded person in Australia that’s tried to make a go of their lives,” Wharton told the AP after his arrest.  

On Monday, Indigenous independent senator Lidia Thorpe yelled at Charles during a reception that he was not her king and Australia was not his land.  

Wharton said he backed Thorpe “absolutely 100%.” He had protested with a small group of demonstrators outside a Sydney church service the couple attended on Sunday under a banner “Empire Built on Genocide.”  

Esther Anatolitis, co-chair of the Australian Republic Movement, which campaigns for an Australian citizen to replace the British monarch as Australia’s head of state, said while thousands turned out to see the king and Camilla at their public engagements, the numbers were larger when his mother Queen Elizabeth II first visited Australia 70 years ago.  

An estimated 75% of Australia’s population saw the queen in person during the first visit by a reigning British monarch in 1954.  

“It’s understandable that Australians would be welcoming the king and queen, we also welcome them,” Anatolitis said. “But it doesn’t make any sense to continue to have a head of state appointed by birth right from another country.” 

Anatolitis acknowledged that getting a majority of Australians in a majority of states to vote to change the constitution would be difficult. Australians haven’t changed their constitution since 1977.  

Constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey said an Australian republic is not something that Charles, 75, need worry about in his lifetime.  

She said the failure of a referendum last year to create an “utterly innocuous” Indigenous representative body to advise government demonstrated the difficulty.   

“It’s just that on the whole people aren’t prepared to change the constitution,” Twomey said.  

“So a republic, which would be a much more complex constitutional question than the one last year, would be far more vulnerable to a scare campaign and to opposition,” she said.  

“So unless you had absolutely unanimous support across the board and a strong reason for doing it, it would fail,” she added.  

Philip Benwell, national chair of the Australian Monarchist League, which wants to maintain Australia’s constitutional link to Britain, said he was standing near Thorpe at the Canberra reception when she started yelling at the king and demanding a treaty with Indigenous Australians.  

“I think she alienated a lot of sympathy. If anything, she’s helped to strengthen our support,” Benwell said.  

Thorpe has been criticized, including by some Indigenous leaders, for shouting at the king and failing to show respect.  

Thorpe was unrepentant. She rejected criticism that her aggressive approach toward the monarch was violent.  

“I think what was unacceptable is the violence in that room, of the King of England praising himself, dripping in stolen wealth, that’s what’s violent,” Thorpe told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “The violence is from the colonizer being in that room asserting his authority, being paid for by every taxpayer in this country.”  

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants Australia to become a republic but has ruled out a referendum during his first three-year term. A vote remains a possibility if his center-left Labor Party wins elections due by May next year.  

Australians decided in a referendum in 1999 to retain Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. That result is widely regarded as having been the consequence of disagreement about how a president would be chosen rather than majority support for a monarch.  

Sydney University royal historian Cindy McCreery suspects Australia is not yet ready to make the change.  

“There’s interest in becoming a republic, but I think what we may forget is that logistically speaking we’re not going to have a referendum on that issue any time soon,” McCreery said.  

“I, as a historian, think that it’s probably not realistic to expect a successful referendum on a republic until we’ve done more work on acknowledging our … complicated history,” she said.  

“Becoming a republic doesn’t mean that we’ve somehow thrown off British colonialism. It hopefully has meant that we’re engaging with our own history in an honest and thoughtful way,” she added. 
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LONDON — Two passenger trains collided in Wales, killing a man and injuring 15 people, transport police said Tuesday.

The low-speed crash on Monday evening happened near the village of Llanbrynmair in central Wales.

“We can sadly confirm a man has died following this evening’s incident,” said British Transport Police superintendent Andrew Morgan.

Those taken to hospital were not believed to have suffered serious injuries.

Morgan said transport police were working “to understand the circumstances leading up to this collision.”
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SYDNEY — Britain’s King Charles was embraced by an Indigenous elder after a welcome smoking ceremony on Tuesday in the birthplace of Australia’s urban Aboriginal civil rights movement in Sydney, a day after being heckled by an Indigenous senator in Canberra.

Charles met with Indigenous elders at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence in inner-city Redfern, including “bush tucker” – or native food – chef Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo, who served kangaroo pies.

The king was embraced by elder Michael Welsh, and a woman introduced herself as a member of the Stolen Generation – a reference to Aboriginal children systematically removed from their families decades earlier. “Welcome to this country,” she said.

A day earlier, Charles was heckled at Parliament House in Canberra by independent senator and Indigenous activist Lidia Thorpe who shouted that she did not accept his sovereignty over Australia, and demanded a treaty for Indigenous people.

While the atmosphere at Redfern on Tuesday was respectful, some people who came to see the king expressed sympathy for Thorpe’s actions.

“We’ve got stories to tell and I think you witnessed that story yesterday,” Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council Chairperson Allan Murray said.

In a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday, Thorpe said she “wanted the world to know the plight of our people.”

Former Olympic athlete Nova Peris, who was the first Indigenous woman elected to federal parliament, wrote in a social media post she was “deeply disappointed” by Thorpe’s actions, which “do not reflect the manners, or approach to reconciliation, of Aboriginal Australians at large.”

Emotions around Indigenous rights and Australia’s colonial history are raw after a national referendum on whether to alter Australia’s constitution to recognize Aboriginal people was rejected last year.

Charles referred to Australia’s “long and sometimes difficult journey towards reconciliation” in a speech on Monday before he was heckled by Thorpe.

Under glorious spring skies, the king later visited a social housing project designed with the support of his King’s Trust Australia charity in the inner suburb of Glebe.

He toured the construction site with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who grew up on a public housing estate, and met Indigenous actor Wes Patten, one of three apprentice construction workers on the project.

Patten played the son of an Indigenous politician in TV political drama “Total Control,” depicting the imagined first Indigenous prime minister of Australia.

Claude Tighe, an Indigenous man in Glebe who saw the Lidia Thorpe protest on social media, said: “I want him to talk to real traditional owners. There’s a lot of us here.”

“She spoke for Aboriginal people,” he added, referring to Thorpe.

Charles and Queen Camilla are visiting Sydney and Canberra over six days before traveling to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.

The public will have an opportunity to meet the royal couple at the Opera House later on Tuesday.
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