Turkey is paying a heavy economic price for its dependency on Ukrainian and Russian wheat, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sees wheat exports drying up.  The shortages are raising further concerns in Turkey about skyrocketing inflation, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is bringing the Europe Union together in ways it never was before — not just its leaders but also ordinary Europeans. That’s not always been the case. Lisa Bryant looks at what this means for the EU — and whether this unity can last.
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The World Health Organization warns the fight against tuberculosis is at a critical juncture. It says the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed gains made since 2000 in saving lives from the infectious disease. For the first time in over a decade, the WHO says TB deaths increased in 2020.

It says around 1.5 million people died of TB during that pandemic year because of disruptions in services and lack of resources. Most deaths have occurred in developing countries, with conflict affected countries across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East at greatest risk.

The director of the WHO’s Global Tuberculosis Program, Tereza Kaseva, says an extra $1.1 billion a year is needed for the development of new tools, especially new vaccines, to achieve the goal of ending TB by 2030.

She says investing in the fight against tuberculosis is a no-brainer given the benefits gained for each dollar spent.

“For every one dollar invested to end TB, 43 is returned as the benefits of a healthier, functioning society…Ending TB by 2030 can lead to avoiding 23.8 million tuberculosis deaths and almost 13 trillion U.S. dollars in economic losses.”

The WHO says extra funding would allow the world to treat 50 million people with TB, including 3.7 million children and 2.2 million with drug-resistant TB. WHO officials say that would be particularly beneficial for children and young adults who lag adults in accessing TB prevention and care.

Team leader of vulnerable populations in the WHO’s global TB program, Kerri Viney, says 1.1 million children and young adolescents become ill with tuberculosis every year.
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Marina Ovsyannikova, the Russian journalist who protested Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by bursting onto the set of a flagship television news show, says her colleagues at Kremlin-controlled TV Channel One are scared and she doesn’t regret for one moment her action.

The 43-year-old television journalist last week held up a banner behind the news anchor during a live broadcast denouncing the aggression in Ukraine and shouted, “stop the war.” On the banner she wrote: “No War” and “They are lying to you here.”

“My colleagues are scared,” Ovsyannikova told VOA. “The heads of Channel One forbade them to discuss this incident. Several colleagues quit, the rest — continue to work. They need to feed their families; they cannot find other work in such a difficult time. Because of Western sanctions, people have become real hostages of the difficult economic situation in Russia,” she added.

Ovsyannikova has declined an asylum offer from France after she staged her protest to challenge the Kremlin’s narrative of the invasion, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin has dubbed a “special military operation.” She was detained and fined $290 for loading a video onto YouTube denouncing the invasion, but her lawyer, Anton Gashinsky, told VOA more serious charges could be filed against her.

“Her action on the First Channel live has not yet been assessed by law enforcement agencies” he said. He added: “So far, Marina has not been summoned for interrogation. We do not have any official information about the investigation being carried out against her.”

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has launched a probe into her actions, according to Russian news agency TASS.

“A preliminary inquiry is being conducted regarding Ovsyannikova to determine whether her actions constitute a crime under Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code [‘Public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation’],” the news agency quoted an official saying. If found guilty of the charge Ovsyannikova could be jailed for 15 years.

Ovsyannikova has a 17-year-old son and a daughter. Her lawyer told VOA: “During the detention she was treated with respect, they were polite, they did not use physical force.” She was held for 14 hours but was denied a lawyer even though she demanded legal representation “about 20 times,” Gashinsky said.

No regrets

She does not recant a single word of her condemnation of the war. “She is happy that she was able to show the whole world that Russian people are mostly against armed conflicts. And those who support armed conflicts, Marina’s quote: ‘poisoned by state information propaganda.’ Marina is a pacifist. She believes that all conflict situations can be resolved through negotiations,” he added.

Gashinsky said: “It’s not easy for her now. Together with her are her two children and two golden retrievers. She has loans for a car and her house. Now she has lost the only source of income that she had, and she has no savings. She receives alimony from her ex-spouse for the maintenance of children. But she, like a real Russian woman, said that she would cope with all the difficulties.”

Ovsyannikova told VOA, via her lawyer, she is not making plans as “the future of our country is unknown and very foggy now and Russia is plunged into darkness.”

Others targeted

This week, Russian prosecutors also opened a case against journalist Alexander Nevzorov, who has more than 1.6 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, accused of deliberately spreading false information about the war in Ukraine. In an open letter to Russia’s top investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, Nevzorov dubbed the investigation “ridiculous.” The probe is focused on Nevzorov’s postings on Instagram and YouTube about Russia’s armed forces deliberate shelling of a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian port town of Mariupol.

Nevzorov said the case against him was meant as a signal to journalists in Russia to show “the regime is not going to spare anyone.”

Russian authorities have been adding more and more offenses to try to shut down independent reporting on the war or any coverage that challenges the Kremlin version of what is happening in Ukraine, say Russian journalists.

On Tuesday, the Russian parliament passed amendments to the Criminal Code that would expand a new law of spreading of falsehoods to allow authorities to prosecute those deemed to have spread false information about the work of state bodies abroad.

A Moscow court this week granted prosecutors’ request to designate Meta an “extremist” organization and Russia’s federal censor instructed media organizations to stop displaying the logos of Meta, Facebook, and Instagram, all three are now being blocked on Russia’s internet along with Twitter. Television network Euronews is also now being blocked.

Most foreign news organizations have pulled their correspondents out of Russia and Russia’s few remaining independent digital news outlets have also gone into exile.

The editor of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, who received a Nobel Peace Prize last year announced this week he will auction his medal and donate the prize proceeds to an NGO that supports Ukrainian refugees. The paper has called on the Kremlin to: “Stop combat fire, exchange prisoners, release the bodies of the dead, provide humanitarian corridors and assistance, and support refugees.”

On Tuesday Russian investigative reporter Svetlana Prokopyeva announced she had left her home in the Russian town of Pskov and is now in Riga, Latvia. Two years ago, she was found a guilty of “justifying terrorism” in her reporting but was issued a fine rather than jailed in a case that was closely followed by the international media and rights groups. Her home was raided on March 18 during which she was forced to the floor and handcuffed. She was interrogated at a police station for allegedly spreading lies about the region’s governor.

“Yes, I am in Riga. I never thought this would happen in my life,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “I thought I would renovate the greenhouse, which was bent under the snow, and in the summer, maybe I’ll make a foundation under the house,” she added. “And I will be back. As soon as it is possible,” she added.

Some reporting for this story is from Reuters.
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Chinese enterprises are caught between the high reputational risk of remaining in Russia during its war on Ukraine and the pro-Moscow sentiment that dominates China’s state-controlled media. So far, most have chosen to remain silent.

According to the Yale School of Management, more than 400 companies have announced their withdrawal from Russia’s economy since Putin launched the war on Feb. 24. Most are based in the U.S., European Union, Japan and South Korea.

Salvatore Babones, an associate professor at the University of Sydney with expertise in the political economy of the Indo-Pacific region, said that for companies outside China, the desire to maintain a positive public image prompted their withdrawal from Russia.

“The risk of remaining in Russia is reputational,” he told VOA Mandarin in a phone interview. “Russia is a relatively small market, and there’s a huge public reaction against Russia right now. They (the companies) are responding to consumer pressure.”

Russia’s imports from China totaled about $54.9 billion in 2020. China is the largest source, followed by Germany, at $23.4 billion, and the United States, with just over $13.2 billion, according to the website Trading Economics, which uses figures from the United Nations COMTRADE database. By comparison, the site reports that China’s exports to the U.S. in 2020 totaled $452.6 billion.

Dan Harris, a trade lawyer who specializes in doing business in emerging markets and co-authors the China Law Blog, said the business calculus has changed because of the sanctions imposed on Russia.

“Companies that are not sanctioned … they are saying ‘I’m out’ because of reputational reasons or because it’s not worth figuring out and risking getting in trouble to sell a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of product to Russia. It’s just easier and safer to get out,” he told VOA Mandarin by phone.

A different approach

But while non-Chinese firms rush to exit Russia, most Chinese firms, especially those in the technology sector, have so far chosen to stay put.

The U.S. and other nations have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, including import bans on energy, export bans on advanced technology, and moves to exclude Moscow from the SWIFT system that banks and other financial institutions use for global financial transactions.

In a phone call on Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Chinese President Xi Jinping that Beijing would face severe consequences should it choose to provide aid to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war effort.

On March 14, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index hit a six-year low on fears that Chinese firms could be ostracized if Beijing sided with Russia, according to Bloomberg.

But on Chinese social media, where sentiment against the war is heavily censored, netizens overwhelmingly support Russia. A CNN analysis showed that during the first week of the Russian invasion, half of the most shared content on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo contained information attributed to a Russian official or comments picked up directly from Russian state media.

Consequently, some Chinese companies have doubled down on their support for Moscow, while others have changed course after getting hammered online for announcing plans to halt operations in Russia.

The Chinese government has refused to call Russia’s action in Ukraine an invasion. In a daily briefing on March 15, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China was “deeply grieved to see that the situation in Ukraine has reached its current state,” and he insisted the country was working for peace talks.

Didi, a ride-hailing app, faced public backlash after announcing that it would withdraw from the Russian market on March 4. Chinese netizens criticized the company, accusing it of giving in to pressure from America. Later, the company made a U-turn and said it would continue operating in Russia.

Hong Kong-based Lenovo Group, which announced the suspension of its shipments to Russia in late February, faced similar criticism on Chinese social media. Sima Nan, a Chinese television pundit known for his nationalistic and anti-American sentiment, wrote on his Weibo account that “Lenovo’s decision to follow America’s footstep is disgusting.”

This public support for Russia has left companies with little room to maneuver, according to Babones.

“The Chinese government suppresses any kind of discussion (that condemns Russia),” he said. “I can’t imagine that in China we would see a mass condemnation of Russia leading to the pressure on Chinese companies to exit the market.”

China’s official position on Moscow’s invasion has straddled both sides. Beijing has called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict while maintaining that the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia are counterproductive.

The Japanese business publication Nikkei Asia quoted an official at a major Chinese telecommunication company on March 9 as saying most Chinese companies “will not express opinions that conflict with the government’s stance.” At the same time, the official said, the companies will shy away from “any statements that are friendly to Russia to avoid boycott from Western companies.”

A former executive at the Chinese telecommunication firm Xiaomi told the Financial Times — and was quoted elsewhere as saying — that “it is politically sensitive to openly announce a sales suspension in the Russian market like Apple and Samsung, but from a business perspective, it makes (sense) to stand by and watch what happens next.”

Cost to Chinese firms

That wait-and-see approach might be costly to Chinese firms, according to experts. And firms that are more openly supportive of Russia risk a loss of international market share, forcing them to recalculate the risks of remaining in Moscow.

For example, at the telecommunications giant Huawei, just the rumor that it was helping the Russians defend against cyberattacks had reputational costs.

These stemmed from a March 6 report by the Daily Mail, a British newspaper, that cited “reports in China” as saying Huawei has been helping Russia stabilize its internet network after cyberattacks since the start of the Ukraine crisis.

The Daily Mail also cited a report on a Chinese news site that claimed Huawei would use its research centers to train 50,000 technical experts in Russia. The Chinese report has been deleted.

On March 9, the two remaining British members of Huawei U.K.’s board of directors resigned over the claim. Meanwhile, Robert Lewandowski, a Polish professional footballer designated Best FIFA Men’s Player of 2020 and 2021, announced the early termination of his sponsorship deal with Huawei.

The former regional ambassador of Huawei in his home country and other parts of Europe, Lewandowski wore an armband in the Ukrainian colors of yellow and blue during a match and said, “The world cannot accept what is happening there. I hope the whole world will support Ukraine.”

Harris, the trade lawyer, said that Huawei is already on the “do not trade” list of the U.S. and some of its allies, and companies in other parts of the world, particularly those in Central and Eastern Europe, might decide to cut ties with the Chinese firm to avoid violating sanctions imposed by Washington and other governments.

“If you’re dealing with China right now, you should be looking at what the world has done to Russia and figure that that could very well happen to China within the next few months,” Harris said.

“It might not happen if China backs away from Russia, but if China doesn’t back away from Russia, there are going to be a lot of sanctions, and things are going to get really bad.”
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Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
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The United States assesses that members of Russia’s military, since their invasion of Ukraine last month, have committed war crimes there and vows that those responsible will be held accountable. VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia will only accept payments in rubles for gas deliveries to “unfriendly countries,” which include all EU members, after Moscow was hit by unprecedented sanctions over Ukraine.

Immediately after his announcement, the ruble, which has plummeted since the start of the Ukraine conflict, strengthened against the dollar and euro, while gas prices rose.

“I have decided to implement a set of measures to transfer payment for our gas supplies to unfriendly countries into Russian rubles,” Putin said during a televised government meeting.

He added, however, that Russia will continue supplying the volume of gas outlined in its contracts.

Putin ordered Russia’s central bank to implement the new payment system within a week, saying it must be transparent and will involve the purchase of rubles on Russia’s domestic market.

Putin also hinted that other Russian exports may be affected.

Later Wednesday the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced it too will insist its international partners pay it in rubles.

“We will also conclude all our external agreements in rubles,” Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin was quoted as saying by the official Tass news agency.

“It is clear that delivering our goods to the European Union, the United States and receiving dollars, euros, other currencies no longer makes sense to us,” Putin said.

Ukraine was quick to denounce Russia’s “economic war” on the EU and its efforts to “strengthen the ruble.”

“But the West could hit Russia with an oil embargo that would cause the Russian economy to plunge,” Ukrainian presidential advisor Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.

“This is now a key economic battle, and the West must collectively win it,” he added.

Crippling sanctions

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, whose country imported 55% of its natural gas from Russia before the conflict, said Putin’s demand was a breach of contract and that Berlin will discuss with European partners “how we would react to that.”

Austria’s OMV energy company said Wednesday that it would keep paying for Russian gas in euros despite the announcement.

“We don’t have any other basis for the contract. I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise,” OMV CEO Alfred Stern told Austrian television.

Western countries have piled crippling sanctions on Moscow since it invaded Ukraine.

The West froze about $300 billion of Russia’s foreign currency reserves abroad, a move that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday described as theft.

But while the United States banned the import of Russian oil and gas, the EU, which received around 40% of its gas supplies from Russia in 2021, has retained deliveries from Moscow.

Brussels, however, has set a target of slashing Russian gas imports by two-thirds by the end of the year and is eyeing an oil embargo.

“Russia is now trying to pressure the West with counter sanctions — and reduce its dependence on foreign currencies,” Swissquote senior analyst Ipek Ozkardeskaya told AFP.

‘Upend opponents’

Analyst Timothy Ash of BlueBay Asset Management said, however, that it was “hard to see Putin’s move as ruble positive.”

Ash said Putin is essentially trying to force Western countries to trade with Russia’s central bank, which they have sanctioned.

“It will just accelerate diversification away from Russian energy,” he added.

According to investment group Locko Invest, the countries declared “unfriendly” by Russia account for more than 70% of Russia’s energy exports in terms of earnings.

The group also highlighted the danger for Gazprom of running out of foreign currency to honor its debts in the future.

But Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Foundation said: “Putin definitely knows how to build and exploit leverage.”

“Putin has routinely used escalation in such situations to upend his opponents’ best-laid plans. No reason to doubt that that’s changed,” Weiss said on Twitter.
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The U.N. General Assembly began a lengthy debate Wednesday over two draft resolutions that seek to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, where millions wait for food, water and medical supplies or the chance to escape their besieged country safely.  

“Thousands of Ukrainians have lost their lives over this month: young and old, women and men, civilians and military,” Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said of Russia’s war, which began in the early hours of February 24. “They died because Russia decided to attack — attack Ukraine, attack peace, attack all of us. Every day of the Russian war against Ukraine aggravates the humanitarian situation further and further.”  

The numbers are staggering. In barely one month, the United Nations says, 3.5 million people have fled to neighboring countries, and 6.5 million are displaced within Ukraine. The U.N. estimates that 12 million people in the country need humanitarian assistance. The situation deteriorates daily.  

U.N. member states have before them two resolutions. Both call for an immediate cease-fire and protection of civilians, critical civilian infrastructure, aid workers and medical personnel.  

But there is one glaring difference: One text names Russia as the aggressor and calls on it to cease its actions against Ukraine, while the second text names no aggressor and essentially puts Ukraine — which was attacked — on the same level as its attacker.  

Mexico and France, along with Ukraine, were among the 25 countries that drafted the text that names Russia, and their resolution has more than 80 co-sponsors in the General Assembly.  

South Africa is the author of the second text.  

“South Africa believes that the political and strategic issues pertaining to the conflict in Ukraine should be discussed but not in the context of a resolution addressing the humanitarian situation,” Ambassador Mathu Joyini told the assembly. She said her government’s draft resolution attempts to do that.  

Wednesday’s debate saw more than 60 delegations take the floor. The discussion will continue Thursday morning, and a vote is expected to follow.  

Any result would not have a legally binding effect on Russia, but with strong international backing, it would express the will of the world that the hostilities should stop and people should be helped.  

An overwhelming number of speakers expressed support for the Western draft, underscoring Russia’s destruction of Ukraine, including its siege on the southern port city of Mariupol, and the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of civilians and critical infrastructure.  

“In light of the tragedy that is unfolding, the General Assembly has to take its responsibility to address this humanitarian catastrophe and urgently call on Russia to respect the basic principles of international humanitarian law that applies to everyone,” European Union Ambassador Olof Skoog said on behalf of the 27-member bloc.  

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield pointed to the humanitarian impact of the war, which is disrupting global supplies of critical items such as wheat and fuel, which was also addressed in the resolution under consideration.  

“The accelerating spike of food prices, food shortages and corresponding insecurity threatens to further destabilize fragile societies, increase hunger and drive migration,” she said. “And this comes at a time when the global humanitarian system was already stretched more than ever before — a time when the World Food Program is feeding more than 138 million people in over 80 countries.” 

Only Syria took the floor to support Russia. Moscow has provided military backing to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad since 2015 in its brutal war against its population. Even Belarus, which hosts Russian troops on its territory and is believed to be considering involving its own military in Ukraine to support Russia, did not address the General Assembly.  

Also absent from the debate were Eritrea and North Korea, which round out the countries that have publicly supported Moscow at the United Nations.  

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the Western text as having “blatantly anti-Russian elements.”  

“Let me be clear: This scenario will make a resolution to the situation in Ukraine more difficult,” Nebenzia said. “Because more likely, it will embolden Ukrainian negotiators and would nudge them to maintaining the current unrealistic position, which is not related to the situation on the ground nor to the need to tackle the root causes, which meant that Russia had to start, almost a month ago, its special military operation in Ukraine.”  

Isolation 

Nebenzia said if countries want to help the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, they should vote for Moscow’s draft resolution in the U.N. Security Council.  

That draft went for a vote late Wednesday. Non-council members Belarus, Syria and North Korea were the co-sponsors.  

Of the 15 council members, only Russia and China supported the text (China was not a co-sponsor, though). In a rare occurrence, 13 council members abstained from voting. Without nine positive votes and no vetoes, the measure failed.  

Several council members pointed out that the resolution did not call for an immediate and unconditional end to the hostilities or name the cause of the humanitarian crisis — Russia’s invasion.  

Honoring Albright 

On Wednesday, former U.S. Secretary of State and onetime U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright died. Council members stood for a moment of silence in tribute to her. Thomas-Greenfield cited her ahead of the vote.  

“Secretary Albright once warned, ‘Take it from someone who fled the Iron Curtain, I know what happens when you give the Russians a green light.’ And that is what we will do today if we pass this resolution.” Thomas-Greenfield warned. 

Meanwhile, humanitarians continue, without strong guarantees for their safety, to try to bring livesaving aid to millions of Ukrainian civilians, many of whom are stranded in areas with active hostilities.  
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Western leaders meeting in Brussels about Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine are expected to spend a significant amount of time talking about China.

U.S. security officials say they have yet to see any sign that Beijing is providing Moscow with military equipment or other aid to boost the Russian forces. But Western officials warn China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion and its willingness to parrot Kremlin propaganda are cause for concern.

“We face a fundamentally changed security environment where authoritarian powers are increasingly prepared to use force to get their way,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday, the day before a meeting of the alliance’s heads of state.

“Beijing has joined Moscow in questioning the right of independent nations to choose their own path,” he added. “So, I expect we will also address the role of China in this crisis.”

So far, China has sought to avoid political conflict over the war in Ukraine, saying it recognizes Ukraine’s sovereignty while also agreeing with Russia that NATO expansion has raised “legitimate security concerns.”

At the same time, analysts caution that China has used social media to echo the Kremlin’s talking points about the war.

Posts by Chinese officials and news outlets have “remained largely aligned with Russian messaging,” according to analysis by the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks online propaganda.

” ‘NATO’ was the tenth most used key phrase in Chinese tweets last week, as Chinese officials and state media continue to frame potential NATO enlargement as the root cause of Russia’s invasion,” the alliance said, noting Beijing also repeated Russian disinformation efforts tying the U.S. to biological weapons labs in Ukraine.

But what NATO members find most concerning is Beijing’s willingness to side with Moscow against core values such as self-determination, Stoltenberg said.

“China now for the first time has questioned some of the key principles of our security, including the right for every nation in Europe to choose his own path,” he said. “That’s new.

“I expect the leaders, when they meet tomorrow, to call on China to condemn the invasion and to engage in diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful way to end this war as soon as possible and not provide material support,” Stoltenberg said.

Some U.S. lawmakers think Russia’s stalled military efforts in Ukraine may be giving Chinese leadership reason to have second thoughts about using force, specifically in relation to Taiwan.

“China is looking at Russia, too, and they’re beginning to ask questions,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed told the Defense Writers Group on Wednesday, noting that China has yet to truly test its newfound military might.

“I think the Chinese are constantly thinking about their posture towards Taiwan,” he said. “Now they have some more data. … They might be getting second thoughts.” 
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The Biden administration on Wednesday accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine.

“Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The accusations come as both Blinken and President Joe Biden head to Europe for an emergency NATO summit to address the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Blinken said he would share information with allies and partners.

“We’ve seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities. Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded,” Blinken said, citing ongoing attacks in Mariupol and other areas.

“The U.S. government will continue to track reports of war crimes and will share information we gather with allies, partners, and international institutions and organizations, as appropriate. We are committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available, including criminal prosecutions,” Blinken added.

Last week, Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Thousands of international volunteers have come to Ukraine to help in the fight against Russia’s invasion. Many are former soldiers and their reasons for coming to Ukraine vary. As VOA’s Celia Mendoza reports from Korczowa, Poland, some are now going back home.
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U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price says officials from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow visited American basketball player Brittney Griner in a Russian prison and reported she is in good condition.

Griner, 31, was detained in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on a flight from New York. When authorities scanned her luggage, they say they found illegal cannabis vaping cartridges.

If convicted, she could face five to 10 years in prison.

Earlier this month, Griner learned she would be in jail until at least May 19 while the investigation continues.

Griner, who plays in Russia during the WNBA offseason, is reportedly sharing a cell with two others.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke about the case.

“There’s only so much I can say given the privacy considerations at this point,” Blinken said. “Whenever an American is detained anywhere in the world, we of course stand ready to provide every possible assistance, and that includes in Russia.

“We have an embassy team that’s working on the cases of other Americans who are detained in Russia. We’re doing everything we can to see to it that their rights are upheld and respected.”

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
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Baltics long seen as one of NATO’s most vulnerable regions
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US officials warn situation could worsen as Moscow grows increasingly frustrated, targets civilians 
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Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
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On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden heads to Brussels and Warsaw to coordinate with Western allies on the next phase of military, economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. White House Bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report, narrated by correspondent Anita Powell from Brussels.
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Nearly a month after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, there are growing indications Ukrainian forces are going on the offensive, targeting Russian troops and, in some cases, retaking lost ground. 

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that its forces had retaken Makariv, a suburb of the capital of Kyiv, following heavy fighting.  

Ukraine’s military also appeared to launch counteroffensives in the eastern city of Izyum, 120 kilometers southeast of Kharkiv, and in areas near the city of Kherson in the southern part of the country. 

U.S. officials declined to comment on the Ukrainian efforts, but they did say that in some parts of the country, the momentum appears to be shifting. 

“We have seen indications that the Ukrainians are going a bit more on the offense now,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters late Tuesday. 

“They have been defending very smartly, very nimbly, very creatively in places that they believe are the right places to defend,” he said. “And we have seen them now in places, particularly in the south near Kherson, they have tried to regain territory.” 

Other U.S. officials were even more blunt about the state of Russian military operations. 

“Russia has thus far manifestly failed,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters about the Kremlin’s plans for Ukraine. 

“Whether Russia takes a city, takes a town or takes more territory, they are never going to be able to achieve the purpose they set out … which was to bring this country to heel,” he said. “The brave citizens of Ukraine are refusing to submit. They are fighting back.” 

On its English-language Telegram feed, Russia’s Ministry of Defense portrayed a vastly different war effort, praising Russian forces as they advanced on parts of southeastern Ukraine while Ukrainian forces fled, and claiming success in taking out Ukrainian fuel depots and positions with “high-precision long-range” weapons. 

A senior U.S. defense official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence, confirmed Russian ships in the Sea of Azov had begun shelling the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which has been under heavy fire for days. 

But the official said other intelligence suggests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become a logistical nightmare, with Russian forces still struggling to overcome shortages of fuel, food and precision-guided munitions. 

Pentagon officials said Tuesday those shortages could be part of the reason Russia has “at least in one instance” used an advanced hypersonic missile to take out a Ukrainian military storage facility, a move one official described as a “head-scratcher.”  

Even basic supplies seem to be lacking. 

“We picked up some indications that some of their soldiers are suffering from frostbite because they lack the appropriate cold weather gear,” the official said. “Troops have actually suffered and [have been] taken out of the fight.” 

Civilians, too, are taking a toll as fighting rages across the country. 

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, said Tuesday that more than 3.5 million people are believed to have fled Ukraine, seeking refuge in Poland, Romania, Moldova and Hungary.  

Those who have not been able to escape are facing an increasingly dire situation. 

“There is nothing left” in Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in a video address Tuesday to the Italian parliament, a day after the government in Kyiv rejected a Russian ultimatum to surrender the city by dawn. 

And hopes of reaching survivors with aid appear to be fading. 

“The reality is that right now the humanitarian system is entirely broken down,” Steve Gordon, the humanitarian response adviser for a Mercy Corps, said in a statement. 

Cities and towns experiencing the most intense fighting “don’t have more than 3-4 days’ worth of essentials, like food,” he added. 

The U.S., meanwhile, warned Russia is increasingly taking out on civilians its inability to achieve its objectives in Ukraine. 

“Clearly, there are civilian casualties, and clearly, they’re mounting every day because of the indiscriminate attacks that the Russians are conducting … as they become more frustrated,” Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon. 

“We believe we should call it like we see it, and we believe that there are war crimes being conducted by the Russian forces,” he added. 

Russia has repeatedly rejected accusations of war crimes, even as the United States and other Western countries raise concerns that Russia may be preparing to use chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine, or even nuclear weapons. 

“If it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN Tuesday when asked whether Moscow might consider unleashing some of its nuclear arsenal. 

“We have a concept of domestic security, and it’s public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used,” he added. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin put his country’s nuclear deterrent forces on high alert, something officials at the White House and Pentagon continue to monitor. 

“We are constantly monitoring for that potential contingency, and of course we take it as seriously as one could possibly take it,” Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, told reporters. “We will be consulting with allies and partners on that potential contingency … and discussing what our potential responses are.” 

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to travel to Brussels on Wednesday to meet with NATO and European allies. 

They are expected to announce a new round of sanctions against Russia as well as longer-term adjustments to NATO’s force posture in Europe. 

While in Brussels, Biden will also meet with G-7 and European Union leaders before traveling to Poland. 

U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  

 
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Multiple, small earthquakes that have been rattling a mid-Atlantic Portuguese island for three days could trigger a stronger tremor or a volcanic eruption, experts said on Tuesday, as authorities urged people not to travel there. 

The number of earthquakes recorded on the volcanic island of Sao Jorge in the Azores archipelago since Saturday afternoon has increased to around 1,800 from an earlier figure of 1,329, said Rui Marques, head of the region’s CIVISA Seismovolcanic Surveillance and Information Center. 

Only 94 of the 1,800 earthquakes, with a magnitude of between 1.7 to 3.3 registered so far have been felt by the population, Marques told the Lusa news agency. 

Sao Jorge, one of nine islands that make up the Azores, is home to around 8,400 people and is part of the archipelago’s central group, which includes the popular tourist destinations of Faial and Pico, which are also volcanic. 

The series of small quakes, known as a swarm and which have caused no damage so far, were reported along the island’s volcanic fissure of Manadas, which last erupted in 1808. 

Sao Jorge’s municipalities have activated emergency plans as a precaution. 

“All scenarios are on the table,” Marques told Antena 1 radio station. “On one hand, we could see an earthquake of greater magnitude that can cause some destruction. … On the other hand, we have the scenario of an eruption.” 

‘Seismic crisis’ 

Marques urged inhabitants to remain vigilant, although he said the earthquakes were of tectonic origin, referring to movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates, rather than volcanic. 

“We should not treat this as a purely tectonic crisis but as a seismic crisis that is taking place in an active volcanic system,” Marques said. 

CIVISA set up two additional seismic monitoring stations on the island and deployed a team to measure soil gases, an indicator of volcanic activity. Levels seemed normal so far, Marques said. 

The Civil Protection authority said earlier on Tuesday it was working with other entities to prepare a response in case a big earthquake or eruption took place. 

In a separate statement on Tuesday evening, it advised people to avoid all but essential travel to the lush green island to ensure authorities face no “additional constraints” if they need to help the local population. 

The sudden increase in seismic activity is reminiscent of the earthquake swarms detected prior to the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Spain’s La Palma Island last year, some 1,400 km southeast of the Azores.  

 
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Rights activists in Azerbaijan say the government’s recent sentencing to prison of an opposition party leader on charges of slander is another sign of how defamation laws are being used against political opponents and civil society activists in the country.

Last month the Baku Appellate Court upheld the five-month prison sentence given to Ali Aliyev, the chairman of the opposition Citizens and Development Party on defamation charges under a lawsuit filed by a border guard.

Ali Aliyev and his lawyer, Javad Javadov, say his imprisonment is a violation of his freedom of expression and retaliation for his political activities.

Border guard Emil Jafarov filed the lawsuit against Ali Aliyev in response to his comments in a YouTube interview in which Aliyev expressed his doubts about Jafarov’s chances of surviving a deadly helicopter crash on November 30 of last year during training flights at the Garaheybat airfield in the Khizi region. Some 14 servicemen died in the crash and two were injured, one of whom was Lieutenant Colonel Emil Jafarov.

Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office blamed the helicopter crash on pilot error. However, Ali Aliyev had suggested the possibility Russia was involved, speculating it could have been sabotage. In his interview, Aliyev argued that it was impossible for someone to survive a deadly helicopter crash with no burns and only minor injuries. So he suggested that Jafarov’s presence on the flight was staged to back up the government’s explanation.

Aliyev’s lawyer complained of unfair treatment by the court and said his client was not given the chance to defend himself.

Human rights defender Zafar Ahmadov told VOA that defamation in Azerbaijan has reached unbearable levels, but high-profile slander cases like Aliyev’s are highlighting the issue and leading to more public discussion.

“There is no criminal act here. Of course, he should have been released. It has been proved once again that this is a political order. But in any case, Ali Aliyev, with his arrest, has served a sacred cause, which today has probably given a great impetus to the fight against defamation in the world, including Azerbaijan.”

Debate over criminalizing defamation

Independent lawyers and human rights activists believe that articles criminalizing defamation and insult in the media should be removed from the Criminal Code, which carries a penalty of more than $500 and maximum imprisonment of 3 years.

In addition, Article 323 of the Criminal Code, which deals with the dissemination of defamatory statements against the president of Azerbaijan, carries a punishment of imprisonment for up to five years.

Lawyer Khalid Agaliyev says that the issue of abolishing criminal liability for libel and insult has been on the government’s agenda several times.

“Relevant laws and drafts have been developed, particularly with the support of the OSCE,” he said. “But in the end, the government has not approved them.”

The media legal expert believes that the criminal liability for defamation intimidates the media, journalists, and those who exercise the right to freedom of expression, in the first place, and discourages criticism.

“The abolition of accountability will further encourage people to express themselves freely. Apparently, the government does not see the need for this and is delaying the adoption of the law,” Agaliyev said.

Azerbaijan committed to removing or changing its libel and insult laws upon its accession to the Council of Europe. But it has not yet done so.

Zahid Oruj, a member of the Azerbaijani parliament and chairman of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee, told VOA that not all Council of Europe member states have adopted legislation on defamation.

He said that the Azerbaijani government has been actively working to include the project on defamation to be considered in its legislative system. According to him, under the new law, journalists will not be punished in a criminal court, but they could still face administrative liabilities.

“The Azerbaijani government, especially with collaboration of OSCE and the relevant structures of the Council of Europe, has been actively lobbying, promoting, advocating, holding joint meetings, raising awareness and doing other activities to include this project in our legislative system, especially since 2012. In other words, journalist’s actions would not be treated at the level of criminal law, and sanctions against them would be removed from the relevant law. But the journalists administrative liability would remain,” Oruj said.

In his view, finding consensus on the issue is a challenge.

“In other words, it is not so easy to find a trilateral agreement between the media, relevant government agencies and society, which is necessary for the adoption of such a law.”

Local and international organizations report that defamation charges against citizens, public and political figures, and especially journalists, have increased in Azerbaijan in recent years.

Lawyer Agaliyev says that between 2017 and 2019, journalists were sued 72 times for slander and insult.

Azerbaijan is among 56 countries included in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report in the “non-free” category. Azerbaijan, along with 15 other countries, had the worst score in the category of political rights and civil liberties.

This story was originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service.
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The emergence of thousands of foreigners volunteering to fight for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion has drawn sharply differing responses from the governments of those pro-Ukraine fighters, some of whom are from Russia itself and its ally Belarus.

The three main types of responses identified by VOA include Western governments giving tacit or explicit permission to citizens to help Ukraine defend itself; Asian governments ordering citizens not to enter the fight; and Russian and Belarusian authorities denouncing citizens who are fighting on Ukraine’s side and threatening them with severe reprisals.

In its latest estimate, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said March 6 that “almost 20,000 … experienced [military] veterans and volunteers” had applied to join its International Legion of Defense of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have not said how many of those applicants are in the country, but its defense ministry said those who had arrived by March 11 were from more than 50 countries.

A Ukrainian government website has identified eight of those countries as Britain, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Israel, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland.

A Ukrainian Embassy official in Washington told VOA earlier this month that 3,000 Americans were among the applicants for the international legion. The official said most of the others were from post-Soviet states such as Georgia and Belarus.

VOA cannot independently confirm the Ukrainian legion’s size or composition. Multiple reports have said an unknown number of foreigners seeking to fight alongside Ukrainian forces also have crossed into the country without going through its procedures for enlisting in the legion.

Among the pro-Ukraine fighters involved in the war are Russian and Belarusian citizens who have been helping to defend Ukraine for years.

They include exiled fighters from the Russian republic of Chechnya who have opposed Moscow since it crushed their separatist campaign in Chechnya after two wars in the 1990s and 2000s.

Chechen fighters have been in Ukraine since 2014, resisting Russian forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, according to Britain-based Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev. The Chechen fighters have not disclosed their numbers.

Exiled Belarusian fighters opposed to Russia and its close ally, longtime Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, also have been active in Ukraine’s defense since 2014, according to independent Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva.

Earlier this month, the fighters — whose “Kastus Kalinouski” battalion is named after a 19th century Belarusian nationalist — posted images on Telegram channel @belwarrior, showing themselves helping their Ukrainian allies in the current war. Lithuania-based exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tweeted a video of the battalion on March 13.

The Russian government has been labeling the pro-Ukraine Chechen fighters as terrorists for years. In recent weeks, the Moscow-appointed leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has used his Telegram channel and TV appearances to warn the pro-Ukraine Chechen “traitors” that his own forces in Ukraine will hunt down and kill them and harm their family members.

While Lukashenko has not publicly threatened violence against the Belarusian fighters defending Ukraine, he used a March 15 meeting with his security chiefs to call them “crazy” and accused them of fighting only for money.

The Belarusian foreign ministry did not respond to a VOA email asking whether the pro-Ukraine Belarusian fighters could face penalties or punishment if they ever return to Belarus.

Unlike Russia and Belarus, Georgia has been relatively quiet about the years-long presence in Ukraine of some of its citizens who have been part of a pro-Kyiv legion. The Georgian government did not respond to a VOA request for comment about its position on the legion joining Ukraine’s fight against the current Russian invasion. Georgia has had two of its own regions occupied by Russian invaders since a 2008 war.

Former Georgian military officer Mamuka Mamulashvili founded the legion in 2014 to help Ukraine fight the Russian invasion of Donbas that year. He told the British newspaper The Independent earlier this month that he was expecting hundreds of new recruits, including around 400 Georgians, 100 Britons and 50 Americans.

The legion’s involvement in Ukraine has intensified a dispute between Georgia’s government and opposition about how much Tbilisi should support Kyiv in resisting the Russian invasion.

Some other countries in Asia, however, have been unequivocal about their opposition to their citizens fighting in Ukraine.

The Uzbek justice ministry posted a February 28 warning on the social media app Telegram, four days after Russia began the invasion, saying any Uzbek citizen who enlists in a foreign military or security service may commit a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, responding this month to a VOA Urdu Service question, said Islamabad does “not want any Pakistani to be involved” on either side of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Such responses are typical of Asian nations where citizens have significant ties to both Russia and the West and may be motivated to fight for either the Russian or Ukrainian side, said Canadian historian and legal scholar Tyler Wentzell of the University of Toronto in a VOA interview.

“Saying ‘no one can fight on any side of this [foreign] conflict’ is likely a policy you would see in a country where citizens’ participation in one side of a conflict or the other needs to be stamped out to avoid citizens ending up fighting each other and exacerbating schisms at home,” he said.

In Uzbekistan’s case, former U.S. ambassador to the Central Asian nation and Atlantic Council analyst John Herbst said its public emphasis on a law against fighting for foreign governments is part of a traditional Uzbek desire to keep security matters under control.

“It is a fear of Uzbek citizens [in Ukraine] making decisions with geopolitical implications that might complicate Uzbekistan’s foreign policy, and a fear of what might happen after they come back to Uzbekistan,” Herbst said.

Western nations also have laws barring citizens from certain foreign military enlistments that could drag their governments involuntarily into foreign conflicts. But officials either have been silent on applying such laws to citizens seeking to defend Ukraine, given mixed messages on the issue or explicitly encouraged citizens to join the fight against the Russians.

The Biden administration has discouraged Americans from volunteering to fight for Ukraine. But it has issued no public warnings about such volunteers risking U.S. prosecution or penalties.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters earlier this month that if Americans want to help Ukraine, they should donate to relief agencies.

“We still do not believe Ukraine is a safe place for Americans. We urge them not to go,” he said.

U.S. officials have not said whether they would take action under the Neutrality Act against Americans who ignore that advice. The law applies fines or imprisonment to any U.S. citizen who, within U.S. jurisdiction, “accepts and exercises a commission [payment]” to serve another country in a war against any foreign entity with whom the U.S. is at peace.

In a March 15 op-ed for U.S. online forum Just Security, Ohio State University law professor Dakota Rudesill said Americans joining Ukraine’s fight against Russian invaders risk violating the Neutrality Act because the U.S. is in a state of peace with Moscow, albeit a strained one. But Rudesill noted that the law has ambiguous terms, for example not addressing whether Americans can fight for another country without being paid. He also said it has not been consistently enforced.

Canada, home to the world’s third largest Ukrainian community after Ukraine and Russia, has been less ambiguous than the U.S. in its approach to the issue. In a February 27 news conference, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly expressed understanding for Canadians of Ukrainian descent who make an “individual decision” to defend Ukraine.

“Let me be clear: We are all very supportive of any form of support to Ukrainians right now,” she said.

Canadian officials have made no mention of invoking a foreign enlistment law making it an offense for citizens to join the armed forces of a country at war with another state “friendly” to Ottawa.

“We’re not friendly with Russia,” said University of Toronto’s Wentzell. “So I don’t think the Canadian government is going to use this law against Canadians who volunteer to defend Ukraine,” he said.

Britain’s Foreign Office advised its citizens on March 9 that “if you travel to Ukraine to fight, or to assist others engaged in the conflict, your activities may amount to offenses against U.K. legislation, and you could be prosecuted on your return to the U.K.”

But in a report published the same day, the BBC said many of the hundreds of former British soldiers who expressed a desire to defend Ukraine had told the British news outlet that they were getting mixed messages from the government about whether they should do so. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had told the BBC in a February 27 interview that she would “absolutely” support British citizens going to Ukraine to fight “if that is what they want to do.”

Latvia, a post-Soviet state bordering Russia and a member of the NATO alliance of Western nations, has been one of Europe’s most vocal supporters of citizens who want to fight for Ukraine’s defense. Its parliament approved a February 28 law allowing Latvians to do so.

Reuters cited Juris Rancanis, a Latvian lawmaker who led the drafting of the measure, as saying: “Our citizens who want to support Ukraine and volunteer to serve there to defend Ukraine’s independence and our common security must be able to do so.”

One reason Western governments have not unequivocally forbidden their citizens from fighting the Russians, as some in Asia have done, is that the populations of those Western nations are overwhelmingly supportive of the Ukrainian people, said Wentzell.

“There will be pockets of people in the West who support Russian policy, but they will be the minority. And for the most part, they will stay silent or out of the way,” he said.

This story was a collaboration involving VOA’s English News Center and VOA’s Ukrainian, Russian, Georgian, Uzbek and Urdu Services. Myroslava Gongadze, Cevdet Seyhan, Jaleel Akhtar, Ia Meurmishvili, Igor Tsikhanenka and Fatima Tlis contributed. Some information came from Reuters.
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With Russia’s ground invasion largely stalled and stuttering, a minority view is emerging among some Kremlin watchers that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s days are numbered.  

“Whatever Putin does, he does not look as if he can survive for long,” tweeted Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist and former economic adviser to the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine. 

Aslund believes a major power struggle is already evident inside the Kremlin. Others who hazard that Putin’s position is becoming precarious point to the public opposition to Russia’s war on Ukraine by Arkady Dvorkovich, a veteran Russian government official and a former Russian deputy prime minister. 

Dvorkovich last week told the American magazine Mother Jones, “My thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians,” he said, adding, “Wars are the worst things one might face in life… including this war.”

“Wars do not just kill priceless lives,” Dvorkovich was quoted as saying. “Wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or destroy relationships and connections,” he explained.

Other seasoned Kremlin watchers are not yet persuaded Putin is at any immediate risk, saying the opposition is mainly coming from Yeltsin-era oligarchs who have little political sway and are intimidated by the security strongmen around Putin. The strongmen are nicknamed “siloviki” and, like Putin, came into politics from the security, intelligence or military services.

They share Putin’s revanchist aim of reversing the territorial losses suffered when the Soviet Union splintered apart.

“There is a general feeling that, objectively, a split is already happening among the elites: former Yeltsin oligarchs versus Putin’s conservative elites. This isn’t a confrontation or a political struggle; it is simply a case of two camps exhibiting opposing views about how to proceed in the current situation,” according to Tatiana Stanovaya, an independent analyst and non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think tank.

“The former has the economy in their hands and the latter control politics. The oligarchs are intimidated and under pressure, while the conservative elites are on horseback with drawn swords.”

Dvorkovich’s voice has been a very rare one from within Russia’s political upper echelons to express criticism of Putin’s war on Ukraine. And he appears already to have been punished for the dissent. He was immediately labeled a traitor for his remarks by Russian lawmakers. And a few days after he expressed his opposition, he stepped down as chair of the Skolkovo Foundation, a high-tech fund set up to help diversify Russia’s economy and to build a Russian rival to Silicon Valley outside Moscow. 

The Skolkovo Foundation also published a recanting statement from Dvorkovich, in which he condemned Western sanctions on Russia and derided a world order in which “Nazism and the domination of one nation over others is possible,” a reference to the United States. 

Aside from Dvorkovich, no senior Kremlin-associated figure has stepped out of line. On Monday Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, who served as Russian president from 2008 to 2012 and as Putin’s prime minister from 2012 to 2020, became noticeably more bellicose.

Medvedev has presented himself at various times as a modernizer and technocrat and might have been regarded as someone likely to harbor reservations about the invasion. But he has ratcheted up his support for the war and Monday launched veiled threats against Poland in an essay that dubbed “imbecilic” Polish leaders as “vassals” of the United States. He described Poland as the “most evil, vulgar and shrill critic of Russia.”

And he echoed Putin’s oft repeated grievances against the West for what the Russian leader sees as a minimizing by the West’s politicians of Russia’s role in defeating Nazi Germany.  Medvedev accused Warsaw of trying to scrub Soviet “liberators” out of history. 

“In Poland they dream of forgetting about the Second World War. Firstly, about those Soviet soldiers who defeated Fascism and expelled the invaders from Polish cities. The Fascist occupation is openly equated with the Soviet. It is difficult to come up with a more deceitful and disgusting rhetoric, but the Poles succeed,” he wrote.

Only a handful of Russia’s oligarchs and super-wealthy have spoken out against the invasion. Billionaire Mikhail Fridman, founder of the country’s largest private bank Alfa Bank, was the first, calling for an end to the “tragedy” and “bloodshed.” Metals mogul Oleg Deripaska wrote on Telegram earlier this month: “Peace is very important! Negotiations must begin as soon as possible!” And Oleg Tinkov, another billionaire banker, has described the conflict as “unthinkable and unacceptable.” 

Nonetheless, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has fueled speculation about the prospects of Putin being overthrown as a result of a Kremlin coup. On Facebook, the Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine claimed it had information that a “group of influential people in opposition to Vladimir Putin is being formed among the Russian business and political elite.”

Angry at the personal financial losses of the war they are enduring thanks to Western sanctions and frustrated by the lack of military progress on the ground, “their goal is to remove Putin from power as soon as possible,” the agency claimed. It identified a top Russian spymaster, Alexander Bortnikov, who is one of five key members of Putin’s inner circle, as a potential successor. “It is known that Bortnikov and some other influential members of the Russian elite are considering various options for removing Putin from power. In particular, poisoning, sudden illness, or other ‘accident’ is not excluded,” the agency concluded. 

There have been unverified reports that Bortnikov’s star has been falling in the Kremlin and that Putin may be blaming him partly for the lack of military progress on the ground as the battle plans were likely drafted on the pre-war intelligence Bortnikov was feeding him. But that might also disqualify him as a potential successor for any in the elite who really want Putin out, a Western security official told VOA. 

He said he “can’t see any of the security people around Putin,” men like Bortnikov or Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, who worked with Putin closely for years in the KGB, turning on him. “If Putin goes down; they go down,” he said.

Other Western intelligence sources VOA spoke with also were skeptical of the Ukrainian coup claim, suggesting it may have been made to sow doubts about loyalty within the top echelons of Putin’s Kremlin. “Bortnikov has been a hawk, remember he has been a loyal intelligence apparatchik and is cut from very much the same Soviet cloth as Putin and has set about with relish suppressing dissent and has even justified Stalin’s Great Purge,” said one Western official.
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