At a youth forum near the Moscow region last week , Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Western media take orders and “professionally prepared falsehoods” from intelligence services.

Aside from the remarks being false, Peskov’s comments are an example of what is known as an “accusation in a mirror” where an aggressor accuses others of taking the actions it instead is taking.

In his remarks, Peskov said that the West has “a lot of talented journalists,” but “since they unleashed this war against us, they absolutely live in a state of military censorship.”

Yet media analysts have documented how it is Russia, not Western governments, that has imposed laws and restrictions, along with a widespread disinformation campaign, as part of its war effort.

And unlike the West — where media are independent and have structures and policies in place to prevent undue political or business influence — independent journalism in Russia has been largely stamped out, data from media watchdogs show.

The country currently ranks 164 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best environment for media.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, which compiles the index, says that since the war “almost all independent media [in Russia] have been banned, blocked and/or declared ‘foreign agents’ or ‘undesirable organizations.’ All others are subject to military censorship.”

Ukraine, meanwhile, ranks at 79 out of 180 countries on the index, with RSF saying that Russia’s war there “threatens the survival of the Ukrainian media” and that the country is “at the frontline of resistance against the expansion of the Kremlin’s propaganda system.”

Years of attacks

Even before the war, independent media in Russia faced harassment, attacks and legal challenges from the state.

Dozens of media outlets and journalists in recent years have been forced to register as “foreign agents,” a designation that forces them to mark all content and social media posts — even personal ones — with a lengthy disclaimer.

Daniel Salaru, a contributor to the Vienna-based International Press Institute, described the foreign agent law as a “key tool for repressing independent media.”

And the European Court of Human Rights in 2022 ruled that the legislation had violated the rights of the groups designated as such.

Investigative journalists in Russia who took on sensitive issues or looked into official corruption have long been targeted with threats, attacks or even killings.

War heightened acrimony

The hostile environment only ramped up when Russian invaded Ukraine. Now, reporting on anything that the Kremlin deems to be false information about the war or the armed forces can be punished by up to 15 years in prison.

Russia’s media regulator has ordered news outlets to use only “information and data” from “official Russian sources.” And access to dozens of websites, including VOA, and social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, have been blocked.

The rash of new laws had an immediate effect, with several prominent independent media outlets shuttering or moving their operations into exile.

Estimates from the legal aid group Setevye Svobody, or Net Freedoms Project, earlier this year estimated that in the first year after the invasion at least 1,000 journalists left Russia “because of the threat of criminal prosecution and a ban on the profession.”

Harassment from afar

But exile is not always a barrier to harassment, as Dozhd TV, which relocated to the Netherlands, has found.

In July, authorities designated the station an “undesirable” organization, meaning that anyone deemed a member of it risks imprisonment.

Already, journalists, social media users and others who are refusing to toe the Kremlin line have faced prosecution.

In April, two Russian journalists from republics in Siberia were arrested on charges of “knowingly publishing false information” about the armed forces. Both could face up to 10 years in prison.

A court in February handed down a six-year sentence to Maria Ponomarenko, another journalist from the Siberian region, over a social media post about Russia’s deadly airstrike on a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in which civilians were sheltering.

She and four others have been recognized with the Boris Nemtsov Award for their “brave defense of democratic rights and freedoms” by speaking out against the war.

The award is named for Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader assassinated near the Kremlin in Moscow in February 2015. Nemtsov was working on a report, published posthumously, about Russian soldiers secretly fighting in Ukraine at that time.

Others have faced more hefty sentences. A court in April sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition politician and columnist, to 25 years in prison, in part for spreading what authorities called “false” information” about the army.

Amnesty International said the charges against Kara-Murza stemmed “solely from his right to freedom of expression.”

And on August 2, a 67-year-old named Takhir Arslanov was sentenced to three years in prison for saying that “Kremlin fascists” were waging a war of aggression in Ukraine, and for calling for the burning of draft offices.

This article originated in VOA’s fact-checking initiative, Polygraph.info.
…

The United States issued new sanctions against Belarus on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said, adding it was designating eight individuals and five entities to a list for allegedly funding the Belarusian government.  

“This action targets several entities involved in the Belarusian regime’s continued civil society repression, complicity in the Russian Federation’s unjustified war in Ukraine, and enrichment of repressive Belarusian regime leader” Alexander Lukashenko, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Lukashenko has repeatedly accused the West of trying to topple him after mass protests against his rule erupted in 2020 in the wake of a presidential election the opposition said he had fraudulently won. Lukashenko said he had won fairly, while conducting a sweeping crackdown on his opponents.  

Western sanctions have been imposed on Belarus over the years in relation to that alleged crackdown and election fraud. Minsk also allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.  

The individuals and entities targeted in the sanctions include three state-owned enterprises and the director and a subsidiary of one of those enterprises, the Treasury Department said.  

It added the sanctions also targeted four employees of a Belarus government agency, three individuals facilitating sanctions evasion in support of Lukashenko’s government, and one aircraft identified as blocked property.

Among the companies targeted was the state-owned Belavia Belarusian Airlines and Byelorussian Steel Works Management Company, which produces steel products and was previously sanctioned by the European Union as well.  

A Florida-based joint venture with Byelorussian Steel Works named BEL-KAP-STEEL LLC was also sanctioned by the Treasury Department, the department said.

Belarus, led by Lukashenko since 1994, is Russia’s staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states. In May, Russia moved ahead with a decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

The Treasury Department on Wednesday also issued two general licenses related to Belarus.
…

Eleven people are missing and feared dead after a fire broke out early Wednesday morning at a vacation cottage in the eastern French town of Wintzenheim.

Authorities say the cottage was rented by an association that assists disabled people. The missing residents, including 10 adults with learning disabilities and a staff member, were from the nearby eastern city of Nancy.

Christopher Marot, the secretary-general of the Haut-Rhin district, told reporters it is likely the 11 missing people were unable to escape the blaze.

The BBC says the bodies of three people have been recovered from the rubble.

The fire was quickly brought under control, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “several casualties are reported” from the scene and that rescue operations were still ongoing.

Seventeen others were evacuated from the blaze, with one person transported to a nearby hospital.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X that she was heading to the site of the fire. “My first thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones,” she wrote.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
…

Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, the Ansa news agency reported on Wednesday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

Ansa said four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers that they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.

The boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying.

The survivors – three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea – said they were rescued by a cargo ship and then transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel.

The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear if the news given by Ansa was linked to the two shipwrecks that the coast guard had reported on Sunday, saying around 30 people were missing from them.

The coast guard had also said they had recovered 57 survivors and two bodies, amid media reports that at least one of the sunken boats had set off from Sfax on Thursday.

Separately, Tunisian authorities said on Monday that they had recovered 11 bodies from a shipwreck near Sfax on Sunday, with 44 migrants still missing from that sinking.

Italy has seen around 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to interior ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022.
…

Russia on Tuesday aligned itself with its ally Iran in rejecting Western attempts to maintain curbs on Iran despite the collapse of a 2015 deal intended to restrain Tehran’s nuclear program in return for relief from sanctions. 

After a meeting between their respective deputy foreign ministers in Tehran, Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow and Tehran were unanimous in believing that the failure to implement the deal stemmed from the “erroneous policy of ‘maximum pressure’ pursued by the United States and those who think similarly.” 

Then-U.S. President Donald Trump quit the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 while leaving economic sanctions in place. Iran’s relations with the West have been deteriorating ever since, as it has accelerated its nuclear program. 

But Russia, which signed the deal alongside the U.S., China, Britain, France, Germany and the European Union, has been deepening ties with Iran since its invasion of Ukraine. 

The war, which Russia calls a “special military operation,” has driven its own relations with the West to their lowest level in decades. 

Sources told Reuters in June that European diplomats had informed Iran that they planned to join the U.S. in retaining sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program that are set to expire in October under the nuclear deal. 

They gave three reasons: Russia’s use of Iranian drones against Ukraine; the possibility that Iran might transfer ballistic missiles to Russia; and depriving Iran of the benefits of the nuclear deal, which it violated after the U.S. withdrew. 

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met his Iranian counterparts Ali Bagheri Kani and Reza Najafi. 

Russia’s foreign ministry said the meeting had emphasized “the unacceptability of any attempts on the part of the West to impose some new schemes and approaches to solving problems related to the JCPOA, which imply damage to legitimate and mutually beneficial Russian-Iranian cooperation in various fields.” 

It said there was still “no reasonable alternative” to implementing the JCPOA, as approved by the U.N. Security Council. 
…

Dozens of second-hand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by another European country for Ukrainian forces fighting Russia’s invasion, the arms trader who did the deal said Tuesday. 

The German-made Leopards were at the center of a public spat earlier this year after Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder said the government had explored buying back tanks to send to Ukraine but had been quoted unreasonable prices. 

The clash highlighted a predicament faced by Western governments trying to find weapons for Ukraine after more than a year of intense warfare — arms they discarded as obsolete are now in high demand, and often owned by private companies. 

‘More than happy to take them’

Freddy Versluys, CEO of defense company OIP Land Systems, bought the tanks from the Belgian government more than five years ago. 

He told Reuters he had now sold all 50 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause. He said he also could not disclose the price. 

Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper reported Tuesday that arms maker Rheinmetall had acquired the tanks and would prepare most of them for export to Ukraine. 

The company declined to comment. 

“The fact that they leave our company proves that we asked for a fair market price, and someone was more than happy to take them,” Versluys said in a post on LinkedIn, accompanied by a picture of tanks next to a bottle of Ukrainian vodka. 

Battlefield ready in months

He said the tanks were now being transported to a factory for a substantial overhaul. Some of the tanks would be used for spare parts, while others would be repaired, he said. He estimated it could be four to six months before they were on the battlefield in Ukraine. 

A defense source told Reuters that the German government was paying for 32 of the Leopard 1 tanks to be restored and sent to Ukraine and that this was part of a support package for Ukraine that Germany announced at the NATO summit July in Vilnius.  

The German Defense Ministry had no immediate comment. 

Several of Kyiv’s Western allies agreed earlier this year to send modern Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and also to send older Leopard 1 models. 

The Leopard 1 was made by German firm Krauss-Maffei starting in the 1960s. It is lighter than the Leopard 2 and has a different type of main gun. The models sold by Versluys were last upgraded in the 1990s. 

A spokesperson for the Belgian Defense Ministry declined to comment on the sale of the tanks. 
…

Paris has recently been shivering under the kind of summer for which it was once infamous — before climate change entered mainstream lexicon and thinking. As temperatures soared in parts of southern Europe, rain has lashed the French capital, sending tourists and locals scrambling for umbrellas and thick sweaters. 

It’s certain to be a short-term reprieve. By 2050, one recent study finds Paris could have the highest number of heat wave-related deaths of any European capital, with temperatures possibly hitting a scorching 50 degrees Celsius. 

“We have to maintain the beauty of Paris, while also finding new tools, new materials to adapt Paris against the heat waves,” said Paris City Councilor Maude Lelievre, who authored a recently released report, Paris at 50C, that calls for dramatically adapting the metropolis to a future of sizzling summers.

“A catastrophic situation,” she added, “could be a city where only the poor and old people stay, without any solutions.” 

Paris is hardly alone. A series of alarming climate reports are sending municipal planners worldwide back to the drawing board. That is especially so in Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, which endured its hottest summer and second hottest year in 2022. 

Recent weeks alone saw near-record breaking temperatures in parts of Italy, Spain and Greece. Worldwide, last month was likely the hottest on record, according to the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization. 

Even before this latest bout of hot weather, many EU cities had drafted action plans to adapt. More than 100 of them, including Paris, vow to become climate neutral by 2030. But turning plans into action is another matter. 

“We have approximately 80,000 cities and towns in Europe, and all of them are still lagging behind in regard of the necessity to adapt to a changing climate,” said Holger Robrecht, the Europe region’s deputy regional director of ECLEI, Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network of local and regional governments. 

“We don’t have any city in the European region that at this moment is 100% climate resilient,” he added.

Still Robrecht and other climate experts praise Paris, under leftist mayor Anne Hidalgo, for strides in greening the city. Recent changes include expanded tramway and metro lines, a raft of pedestrian-only zones and some 130 kilometers of bike lanes — with another 50 kilometers expected to be added by next July. 

Paris also plans to make next summer’s Olympic Games the most eco-friendly in history, with promises to slash carbon emissions by half compared to previous Games in London and Rio de Janeiro. 

A much more drastic overhaul is needed, experts say, to make the city livable in the years to come. Some draw parallels to the kind of urban revolution nearly two centuries ago under Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, which demolished a tangle of medieval neighborhoods to build elegant avenues that crisscross much of the city today.

City of lights, and green

“In the next 20 years, we need to adapt all the streets around us with trees and with vegetation to create green corridors,” City Councilor Lelievre said, adding, “we could have a real green city like Singapore — and also a light city.” 

Today, however, the very architecture that makes Paris iconic also makes it a heat trap. The city is densely populated, short on large parks like London has, and despite Haussmann, still has many narrow streets with few if any trees. 

Despite Hidalgo’s drive to green the capital, some recent urban renewal plans, including those inherited from her predecessor, favor heat-absorbing concrete over grass and plants. The city’s famous zinc rooftops, candidates for UNESCO World Heritage status, could make top-floor apartments unbearably hot in future summers, if unaltered. 

“During a lot of years, we had no idea it was an obligation to adapt cities and especially Paris against heat waves,” Lelievre said, adding “We had emergency plans for the winter — but not for summer.” 

Adopted unanimously earlier this year, the City Council’s plan sees widening green oases of air corridors and plants now being built in front of schools to all city neighborhoods; reopening fountains and renewing thousands of apartments; and replacing zinc roofs and other surfaces with lighter-colored materials that are more suited for hotter climates.

Some proposals, like creating rooftop terraces with plants and water catchment systems, have already been proposed by Mayor Hidalgo. Key to the latest plan — which doesn’t include a price tag — is loosening up strict French building codes. Paris lawmakers hope parts of the plan will be integrated into upcoming urban renewal and biodiversity legislation.

2003 memories

Other European cities are also getting climate revamps. 

Copenhagen, vulnerable to sea-level rise, has rolled out an ambitious flood adaptation management plan after being hit by record-breaking rainfall in 2011. 

Barcelona’s climate plan aims to increase solar power and green spaces, sometimes by revamping whole neighborhoods. 

Many cities have not forgotten the punishing heat wave of 2003, when an estimated 70,000 people died in Europe, including 15,000 in France. But recent findings also show as many as 60,000 people died in Europe’s 2022 heat wave — suggesting much more needs to be done. 

“Cities want to get prepared” for climate change, said ECLEI’s Robrecht, “but it’s not always reflected in daily decision making — which may turn a green space into a parking lot, or fell a tree that’s 80 years old and gives shade to its citizens.” 

Still, he remains optimistic. “We are still in the early years of our response,” Robrecht said. 
…

China’s exports plunged by 14.5% in July compared with a year earlier, adding to pressure on the ruling Communist Party to reverse an economic slump.

Imports tumbled 12.4%, customs data showed Tuesday, in a blow to global exporters that look to China as one of the biggest markets for industrial materials, food and consumer goods.

Exports fell to $281.8 billion as the decline accelerated from June’s 12.4% fall. Imports sank to $201.2 billion, widening from the previous month’s 6.8% contraction.

The country’s global trade surplus narrowed by 20.4% from a record high a year ago to $80.6 billion.

Chinese leaders are trying to shore up business and consumer activity after a rebound following the end of virus controls in December fizzled out earlier than expected.

Economic growth sank to 0.8% in the three months ending in June compared with the previous quarter, down from the January-March period’s 2.2%. That is the equivalent of 3.2% annual growth, which would be among China’s weakest in three decades.

Demand for Chinese exports cooled after the U.S. Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Asia started raising interest rates last year to cool inflation that was at multidecade highs.

The export contraction was the biggest since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to Capital Economics. It said the decline was due mostly to lower prices, while volumes of goods were above pre-pandemic levels.

“We expect exports to decline further over the coming months before bottoming out toward the end of the year,” said Capital Economics in a report. “The near-term outlook for consumer spending in developed economies remains challenging.”

The ruling party has promised measures to support entrepreneurs and to encourage home purchases and consumer spending but hasn’t announced large-scale stimulus spending or tax cuts. Forecasters expect those steps to revive demand for imports but say that will be gradual.

“Domestic demand continues to deteriorate,” said David Chao of Invesco in a report. “Policymakers have pledged further policy support, which could buoy household spending and lead to an improvement in import growth for the coming few months.”

Exports to the United States fell 23% from a year earlier to $42.3 billion, while imports of American goods retreated 11.1% to $12 billion. China’s politically sensitive trade surplus with the United States narrowed by 27% to a still-robust $30.3 billion.

China’s imports from Russia, mostly oil and gas, narrowed by just under 0.1% from a year ago to $9.2 billion. Chinese purchases of Russian energy have swelled, helping to offset revenue lost to Western sanctions imposed to punish the Kremlin for its invasion of Ukraine.

China, which is friendly with Moscow but says it is neutral in the war, can buy Russian oil and gas without triggering Western sanctions. The United States and French officials cite evidence that China is delivering goods with possible military uses to Russia but haven’t said whether that might trigger penalties against Chinese companies.

Exports to the 27-nation European Union slumped 39.5% from a year earlier to $42.4 billion, while imports of European goods were off 44.1% at $23.3 billion. China’s trade surplus with the EU contracted by 32.7% to $19.1 billion.

For the first seven months of the year, Chinese exports were off 5% from the same period in 2022 at just over $1.9 trillion. Imports were down 7.6% at $1.4 trillion.
…

Poland’s president announced Tuesday that the country would hold its parliamentary election on Oct. 15, marking the official start of an electoral campaign that has informally been underway for months and is being shaped by Russia’s war against Ukraine.

President Andrzej Duda said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the elections for the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm, and for the 100-seat Senate will both take place on that Sunday. Lawmakers will be elected for a four-year term.

The election campaign begins during rising anxieties in Poland over the presence of Russia-linked Wagner mercenaries across the NATO nation’s northeastern border in Belarus, where they have arrived by the thousands since a short-lived mutiny in Russia in June. Tensions have also been growing with ally Ukraine, to the country’s southeast, over grain imports and historical memories of past ethnic conflicts.

Poland’s conservative ruling party, Law and Justice, has been seeking to present itself as strong on national defense given the turmoil across its eastern borders. It has ordered more soldiers to beef up security at the Belarus border and is planning a large military parade on the Aug. 15 Army Day holiday next week to show off new tanks and other military equipment it has been purchasing.

The ruling party — whose leaders have made multiple visits to Kyiv to support the Ukrainian war effort — has also been taking a more confrontational stance with Ukraine of late, as a far-right political group that has been critical of helping Ukraine has been rising in the opinion polls.

Polls show that Law and Justice, which has governed Poland since 2015, is heading toward the election as the most popular party, but is likely to fall short of an outright majority in parliament.

Its main challenger is a liberal-centrist bloc, the Civic Coalition, headed by Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and former president of the European Council. Support for Tusk’s party has grown in past months but mostly at the expense of other opposition parties.

Poland’s geographical position and support for Ukraine and acceptance of large numbers of Ukrainian refugees have attracted two visits since the war started from President Joe Biden.

The praise it won for helping Ukraine has allowed the government to avoid some of the scrutiny it has faced in past years over concerns in the West that its approach to the judiciary, media and LGBTQ+ people and other minorities amounts to democratic backsliding.
…

Watching news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. comic book editor Scott Dunbier felt compelled to help. He reached out to comic book professionals to create “Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds” to raise funds to provide emergency supplies and services to Ukrainians. Genia Dulot has this report.
…

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: 

At least seven people killed in two Russian missile strikes in eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk Monday evening 
The Ukrainian Security Service said Monday that it had detained a Russian informant aiming to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while he was visiting the Mykolaiv region in July. 
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba requested ATACMS long-range missiles in a phone call Monday with his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken. 

Rescuers in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk are digging through the rubble of several buildings destroyed by two back-to-back Russian missile attacks Monday that killed at least seven people.

Pokrovsk is located in the Donetsk region, which has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.  Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, says the two missiles struck about 40 minutes apart, destroying residential buildings, restaurants, shops and administrative buildings and a hotel popular with foreign journalists.

The dead include an emergency official with the Donetsk regional government.  At least 25 people were wounded in the twin attacks.

Meanwhile two people were killed in Russian missile strikes in Kruhliakivka village in Kupiansk district, according to Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration.

Jeddah Summit

The United States characterized as productive China’s participation at the Jeddah peace summit on Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this past weekend.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland held a brief sideline meeting in Jeddah with China’s Special Envoy for Eurasian Affairs and former ambassador to Russia, Li Hui.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that Beijing would uphold an independent and impartial position on a peace settlement.

Wang said China would serve as an “objective and rational voice” at any international forums and “actively promote peace talks.”

Western officials and analysts say Saudi diplomacy was important to securing China’s presence at the talks.

Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom has kept ties with both sides, presenting itself as a mediator and seeking a bigger role on the world stage.

Yermak, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said Monday that the talks dealt a “huge blow” to Russia as the participants agreed to a follow up meeting.

“We will hold another meeting within a month [to a] month-and-a-half and we will move towards [holding] a summit,” Yermak said at a news briefing.

Senior officials from 42 countries participated in the two-day Jeddah peace summit. Russia was not invited to the high-level talks.

Yermak said all the countries present at the talks fully supported Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity, and that only peace initiatives put forward by Ukraine were discussed at the meeting.

He acknowledged that participants had not come to an agreement on parts of Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula, which calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and return of all Ukrainian territory to Kyiv’s control.

With the exception of Russia the high-level talks included delegates from all other BRICS bloc nations: Brazil, India, China and South Africa.

Moscow chided efforts by international officials meeting in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful resolution for the Ukraine war without including Russia in the talks, which it described as lacking “the slightest added value.”

During the two-day summit, the head of Brazil’s delegation, foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim, stressed that “any real negotiation must include all parties,” including Russia, according to a copy of his statement shared with Agence France Presse.

Moscow dismissed the talks as a doomed Western attempt to align the Global South behind Kyiv.

Russia grain attacks

U.N. Spokesperson Farhan Haq said in a news briefing Monday that Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown visited the Danube port of Izmail Saturday, three days after it was hit in an attack on a grain storage facility that damaged thousands of tons of grain that would have been enough to feed approximately 66 million people for a day.

This attack, which is not an isolated incident, follows Russia’s decision to exit the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a move that is already impacting global food prices and is affecting the most vulnerable people.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned Russia’s intensification of attacks on Ukrainian ports, calling for the immediate cessation of all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs continues to sound the alarm about the plight of civilians already facing a dire situation in Ukraine, as the intensification of attacks affecting critical civilian infrastructure in the country will likely worsen humanitarian needs.

Ukrainian counteroffensive

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi on Monday said Kyiv’s counteroffensive is progressing at a steady pace, and that its defensive lines are stable as troops repel Russian attempts to counterattack and distract Ukrainian forces from other parts of the front.

“Heavy fighting is underway, and step-by-step, Ukrainian troops are continuing to create the conditions to advance,” Zaluzhnyi said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app after a telephone call with U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley. “The initiative is on our side.”

Ukraine has so far recaptured several villages in the south and regained some territory around the ravaged city of Bakhmut in the east but has not achieved a breakthrough yet against heavily entrenched Russian lines.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar said Russia was using all its resources to stop Kyiv’s advance, but that Ukrainian troops were advancing steadily toward the southern cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

Ukrainian officials have responded to criticism that the counteroffensive is going slowly, saying they are trying to avoid high casualties as they attack well-fortified Russian lines that are strewn with landmines.

In its latest assessment on the war in Ukraine, Britain’s defense ministry said Tuesday that Russia’s national guard, Rosgvardia, will be equipped with heavy weaponry.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the new measure into law last week for the 200,000-member strong national guard.

The British defense ministry says the decision to boost the forces follows the brief mutiny of the private Wagner military company, which suggests the Kremlin is transforming Rosgvardia as one of the key organizations in Russia to ensure regime security.

Some information is from VOA’s U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer, The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

A Moscow court sentenced Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky on Monday to eight years in prison, finding him guilty of deliberately spreading false information about Russia’s armed forces.

Glukhovsky, who is not in Russia and who was tried in absentia, is best known for writing a science fiction series and is the latest artist to be handed a prison term in a relentless crackdown on dissent in Russia. On Friday, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was convicted on charges of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, lawmakers passed a bill that imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years on those spreading “fake” information that goes against the Russian government’s narrative on the war.

Glukhovsky was found guilty of posting texts and videos on his social media channels that accused Russian servicemen of committing crimes in Ukraine and that Russian prosecutors said were fake.

In April 2022, when he was already outside Russia, Glukhovsky wrote that the war in Ukraine, “unleashed by Putin is becoming more terrible and inhuman every day, and the pretexts under which it was started look more and more insignificant and false.”

Glukhovsky is a Russian journalist and writer who rose to prominence as an author of a widely popular post-apocalyptic novel, Metro 2033, which was followed by several sequels. Glukhovsky has been vocally critical of the Kremlin and was labeled a “foreign agent” in October 2022.

Also on Monday, Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, announced that the politician was placed in solitary confinement immediately after he was convicted on extremism charges.  

Yarmysh said Navalny has been placed in solitary confinement for two weeks, bringing his total time in confinement to 207 days. In addition to his 19-year sentence, Navalny is already serving a nine-year term on a variety of charges that he says were politically motivated.
…

London’s Brick Lane, famed for its street art, appears to be the scene of the latest face-off between pro-democracy supporters and Chinese loyal to President Xi Jinping’s rule.

Over the weekend, big red Chinese characters painted on a white background, extolled “core socialist values,” sentiments first expressed by Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, and embraced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Most of the slogans have since been covered by anti-CCP sentiments, and a Chinese student who led the sloganeers says he has received death threats. 

Early on Saturday, people whitewashed a section of the street art wall, then spray painted a set of 12 two-character words in Chinese. The words included “Democracy,” “Civility,” “Freedom,” “Equality,” “Justice” and “The Rule of Law.” 

As the slogans attracted negative comments online, people went to Brick Lane to paint comments critical of Beijing such as “Free Uighurs” and “Free Tibet.” There were references to the bloody Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.  

When Voice of America visited the site on Monday afternoon, only the word “Friendly” remained on the wall with the other sentiments covered up by slogans targeting the CCP.  

It remains unclear if the people who painted the original slogans were being serious or ironic. 

Wang Hanzheng, a Royal College of Art student who signs his art with name Yi Que, named the piece “East London’s Socialist Core Values” and said the graphic slogans “did not carry a strong political message.” 

“I wanted to see how the core values of socialism could bring a different impact to Brick Lane, which has long been symbolized and commercialized as a space of freedom. I wanted to explore a new way of commercialized artwork,” he said. 

A point of contention was whether it was reasonable for Yi Que to cover multiple artworks at once with white paint, even though local graffiti artworks are usually replaced by others every few weeks. 

Yi Que issued a statement on Monday afternoon, stating that he held “no political stance.”

He said the work aimed to provoke discussions and it showcased conflicts arising from two extreme views. He said he loved China, but he also has the right to reflect on the country through art. 

He defended his work and said the group had consulted local graffiti artists before whitewashing the wall and that the artists did not mind their work being covered. 

Yi Que also said he and his team were facing cyberbullying and death threats. His personal information and that of his parents had been put online.  

“My parents are already quite old. I implore you not to do this. I am very concerned about their safety. Some of my social media accounts have been restricted, but at this moment, I cannot remain silent or back down. I really don’t want to affect my family and friends. I am willing to bear all the doubts and consequences,” he said. “At the same time, I hope people from all walks of life and scholars can offer some assistance. I am in the midst of severe persecution,” he said.

The whitewashed area of slogans covered a tribute to a popular street artist, Marty, painted by his fellow artist and friend, Benzi Brofman. 

On Instagram, Brofman said painting over works like his was part of the street art culture. 

Brofman told VOA Cantonese on Sunday that he was focused on creating new artwork and that Monday was also his birthday; thus, he would “prefer not to waste my time and energy on this issue.” 

“My mind is set on my future art projects that will, hopefully bring joy and comfort to people,” he said.

In an interview with VOA Cantonese, Australia-based Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao called the graffiti “a crude piece of work.” 

Regardless of whether Yi Que was trying to be patriotic or satirical, said Badiucao, the real cost was not borne by them, but the local street artists who have put in weeks or even months of effort for their work. 

“Some may ask, isn’t graffiti about free expression? Aren’t all artworks eventually covered by new ones? Yes, indeed, street art is like a carousel, but street artists don’t cover other artworks randomly,” he said. “Often, we choose to cover old works or ones that have been tagged as heavily damaged. For new works, especially those with commemorative significance, artists tend to choose to show respect.” 

“Perhaps in the eyes of many, this act has caused a thousand waves and is therefore a success,” said Badiucao. “It gave almost everyone what they wanted – Yi Que gained massive fame through the spectacle, ‘little pinks’ patriots got the pride of their slogans being seen in the heart of London, dissenters got evidence exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s threat to freedom of speech. 

“However, after the carnival of chaos, it’s the local artists who are forced to pay the price. They have involuntarily born the cost of this publicity stunt,” Badiucao said.
…

European carriers on Monday reported disruptions and suspended flights across the African continent after Niger’s junta had closed its airspace on Sunday.

Also on Monday, the junta braced for a response from the West African regional bloc after ignoring its deadline to reinstate the country’s ousted president or face the threat of military intervention.

The disruption adds to a band of African airspace facing geopolitical upheavals, including in Libya and Sudan, with some flights facing up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) in detours.

“The closure of Niger’s airspace dramatically widens the area over which most commercial flights between Europe and southern Africa cannot fly,” tracking service FlightRadar24 said in a blog post.

Air France has suspended flights to and from Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali until Friday, the company said Monday, with longer flight times expected in the West African region.

A spokesperson added that Air France expected longer flight times from sub-Saharan hub airports, and that flights between Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and Accra in Ghana were set to operate nonstop.

But aviation analyst James Halstead said that airlines would mostly have to find alternative routes, and that difficulties should be limited given the small number of African air connections.

“I’m not sure this is huge disruption. … It will affect routes from Europe to Nigeria and South Africa and probably from the Gulf of the Ethiopia to West Africa,” he said.

Spokespeople for Lufthansa and Brussels Airlines said that flight times could be between 1½ and 3½ hours longer for rerouted flights.

British Airways in an emailed statement said that it “apologized to those customers affected for the disruption to their journeys,” and that it was working hard to get them on their way again as quickly as possible.

 
…

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:

Russian shelling in Kherson and Kharkiv killed at least three people and wounded three others.
The Ukrainian Security Service said Monday that it had detained a Russian informant aiming to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while he was visiting the Mykolaiv region in July.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba requested ATACMS long-range missiles in a phone call Monday with his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken.

Talks aimed at restoring peace in Ukraine held this past weekend in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, dealt a “huge blow” to Russia as the participants agreed to a follow-up meeting, presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Monday.

“We will hold another meeting within a month, month-and-a-half and we will move towards [holding] a summit,” Yermak said at a news briefing.

Senior officials from 42 countries participated in the two-day Jeddah peace summit. Russia was not invited to the high-level talks.

Yermak said all the countries present at the talks in Jeddah fully supported Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity, and that only peace initiatives put forward by Ukraine were discussed at the meeting.

He acknowledged that the participants had not come to an agreement on parts of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula that calls for the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory to its control.

The high-level talks included delegates from the world economies of the BRICS group, Brazil, India, China and South Africa.

Moscow chided efforts by international officials meeting in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful resolution for the Ukraine war without including Russia in the talks which, it said, do not have “the slightest added value.”

During the two-day summit, the head of Brazil’s delegation, foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim, stressed that “any real negotiation must include all parties,” including Russia, according to a copy of his statement shared with AFP.

Moscow dismissed the talks as a doomed Western attempt to align the Global South behind Kyiv.

But neutral China, which agreed to participate in the peace summit, said it would uphold an independent and impartial position on a Ukraine peace settlement.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi made these comments in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

Wang said China would serve as an “objective and rational voice” at any international multilateral forums and “actively promote peace talks.

Western officials and analysts said Saudi diplomacy had been important in securing China’s presence at the talks.

Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom has kept ties with both sides presenting itself as a mediator and seeking a bigger role on the world stage.

Russia grain attacks

U.N. Spokesperson Farhan Haq said at a news briefing Monday, that the Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown visited the Danube port of Izmail Saturday, three days after it was hit in an attack damaging a grain storage facility, damaging thousands of tons of grain that would have been enough to feed approximately 66 million people for a day.

This attack, which is not an isolated incident, follows Russia’s decision to exit the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a move that is already impacting global food prices and is affecting the most vulnerable people.

The secretary-general already condemned Russia’s intensification of attacks on Ukrainian ports, calling for the immediate cessation of all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs continues to sound the alarm about the plight of civilians already facing a dire situation in Ukraine, as the intensification of attacks affecting critical civilian infrastructure in the country will likely worsen humanitarian needs.

Ukrainian counteroffensive

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is progressing at a steady pace Ukraine’s commander-in-chief said Monday.

Kyiv’s defensive lines are stable as troops are repelling Russian attempts to counterattack and distract Ukrainian forces from other parts of the front, Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

“Heavy fighting is underway, and step-by-step, Ukrainian troops are continuing to create the conditions to advance. The initiative is on our side,” Zaluzhnyi said after a telephone call with U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley.

Ukraine has so far recaptured several villages in the south and regained some territory around the ravaged city of Bakhmut in the east but has not achieved a breakthrough yet against heavily entrenched Russian lines.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar said Russia was using all its resources to stop Kyiv’s advance, but that Ukrainian troops were advancing steadily toward the southern cities of Melitopol and Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov.

Ukrainian officials have responded to criticism that the counteroffensive is going slowly, saying they are trying to avoid high casualties as they attack well-fortified Russian lines that are strewn with landmines.

In its latest assessment on the war in Ukraine, Britain’s defense ministry said Monday, Russia’s air force continues to deploy “considerable resources” in support of ground operations in Ukraine, “but without operational effect.”

The ministry says Russian tactical combat aircraft have typically carried out over 100 missions a day, but they are almost always restricted to Russian-controlled territory “due to the threat from Ukrainian air defenses.”

The assessment also said that while Russian attack helicopters had proved effective at the start of Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive that began in June, it appears to be less able “to generate effective tactical airpower in the south.

Some information for this story came from VOA’s U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer, The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

The European Union and NATO began sending urgent aid Monday to Slovenia after severe flooding over the weekend affecting two-thirds of the small European country killed at least six people and left hundreds homeless.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke by phone with Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob on Monday, expressing his sympathy and NATO’s strong solidarity with Slovenia, a NATO statement said.

“I express my deepest condolences to the people of Slovenia for the loss of life and widespread devastation caused by this weekend’s floods,” Stoltenberg said.

On Sunday, Slovenia and Cyprus activated a European Union Civil Protection Mechanism because of the floods in Slovenia and wildfires in Cyprus that have affected those EU states.

The EU is sending to Cyprus two Canadair firefighting airplanes from the EU’s Civil Protection Pool stationed in Greece. Greece is also sending 20 tons of liquid retardant via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

The flooding in Slovenia was the worst in recent history in Slovenia, a country of some 2 million people, according to Slovenian officials.

France is sending two excavators with engineering units to Slovenia, while Germany is sending two prefabricated temporary bridges and two excavators with the accompanying staff, the European Commission said.

Bulgaria and Croatia have also offered support, including helicopters, excavators, prefabricated bridges and engineering teams. The United States has also deployed staff to Ljubljana to assess the situation and determine urgent humanitarian needs.

The German Interior Ministry said it was sending a team from the Federal Agency for Technical Relief to Slovenia. The first team, specialized in rescue, was expected to arrive Monday and additional teams were expected to follow.

The floods were caused by torrential rains Friday that caused rivers to swell swiftly and burst into houses, fields, villages and towns. Slovenia’s weather service said a month’s worth of rain fell in less than a day.

Experts say extreme weather conditions are partly fueled by climate change. Parts of Europe have seen record heat and wildfires this summer.

Entire villages are still under water in Slovenia. Crops have been destroyed and cars stuck in mud. Major highways in parts of Slovenia have been closed. Many bridges have also collapsed.

Slovenian authorities warned of danger from possible mudslides and swollen rivers that could overflow at any time, overtaking banks of sandbags placed by emergency teams.

Several severe storms in the Alpine nation earlier in the summer blew off roofs, downed thousands of trees and killed one person in Slovenia and four others elsewhere in the region.

Flash floods were also reported in neighboring Austria and Croatia and heavy rains and storms caused major damage farther east in Serbia, which is downstream from the swollen Sava river that flows from Slovenia and Croatia over the Balkans.
…