The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Friday on alleged manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine at the request of Moscow, whose credibility on chemical weapons was questioned during a session on Syria.

Russia on Thursday accused the United States of funding research into the development of biological weapons in Ukraine, which has faced an assault by tens of thousands of Russian troops since Feb. 24.

Both Washington and Kyiv have denied the allegations, with the United States saying they were a sign that Moscow could soon use the weapons itself.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed Russia’s allegations in a video address on Thursday, saying, “No one is developing any chemical or any other weapons of mass destruction” in Ukraine.

Western states have charged that Russia is employing a ruse by accusing their opponents and the United states of developing biological and chemical weapons to lay the ground for their possible use in Ukraine — something Moscow has been accused of doing in Syria.

At a monthly Security Council meeting on the use of chemical weapons in Syria — a case that remains unresolved and continues to suffer from a U.N.-denounced lack of information from Damascus — both Washington and London raised Ukraine.

“The Russian Federation has repeatedly spread disinformation regarding Syria’s repeated use of chemical weapons,” the deputy U.S. envoy to the U.N., Richard Mills, said.

“The recent web of lies that Russia has cast in an attempt to justify the premeditated and unjustified war it has undertaken against Ukraine, should make clear, once and for all, that Russia also cannot be trusted when it talks about chemical weapon use in Syria.”

Mills’ U.K. counterpart, James Kariuki, denounced Moscow’s attack on Ukraine and said the “parallels with Russian action in Syria are clear.”

“Regrettably, the comparison also extends to chemical weapons, as we see the familiar specter of Russian chemical weapons disinformation raising its head in Ukraine.”

In 2018, Moscow accused the United States of secretly conducting biological weapons experiments in a laboratory in Georgia, another former Soviet republic that, like Ukraine, has ambitions to join NATO and the European Union.

The Security Council meeting Friday is slated to begin at 11 a.m. (1600 GMT). 
…

Beijing is controlling messaging on the war in Ukraine, analysts and observers say, as social media companies and traditional Chinese state media outlets have been suppressing voices critical of Russia’s invasion. 

On February 22, Horizon News, an affiliate of China’s state-owned Beijing News, accidentally posted on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, censorship instructions related to posts on the Russia-Ukraine war. 

“Do not post anything unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western,” the now deleted directive said. “If using hashtags, only use those started by People’s Daily, Xinhua, or CCTV.” 

During an opening speech in Beijing last Friday, Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, commented on the war in Ukraine without naming specific countries. “I am horrified at what is taking place in the world right now. The 21st century is a time for dialogue and diplomacy, not war and hate,” he said.  

The China Central Television (CCTV) interpreter, however, did not translate that portion of his remarks during the broadcast. 

Last weekend, Chinese video streaming company iQiyi Sports refused to broadcast English Premier League matches because of the league’s planned shows of support for Ukraine. 

According to Carl Minzner, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, since the signing of the February 4 joint statement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, Chinese foreign policy “has been locked into a pro-Russia” stance. 

“China’s top leader has personally tied his country to Russia. And that political orientation has set the tone for state media coverage of the Ukraine war in China itself,” Minzner told VOA. “Deviation from that stance, criticizing it, or even merely pointing out the horrific consequences of Russia’s war to civilians, risks raising questions about Xi’s own decision to support Russia so strongly at the outset.” 

Last week, while in Germany, Chinese TV celebrity Jin Xing criticized Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through a posting on Weibo. 

“A crazy Russian man said: If I don’t continue to be president, I don’t want this world!” Jin, who has over 13 million followers on Weibo, said in her now deleted post. “Stop the war and pray for peace!” 

“I didn’t delete Weibo myself, it was blocked by the system!” she wrote after the online platform deleted her post. 

On March 1, Jin asked users critical of her opinions to use their real names. She has not posted comments on her Weibo account since. 

One Weibo user, Tao Wen, who has over half a million followers, commented on Jin’s post, saying, “The lives you respect do not include those who were massacred by the Ukrainian Nazis in eastern Ukraine,” a sentiment that echoes Putin’s justification for sending troops into the country.  

Nazis, however, are not currently in charge of Ukraine. Its leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish and has relatives who were killed in the Holocaust. 

On the website of Sina, the parent company of Weibo, an article was published Thursday about Jin’s deleted comment. The writer suggested that Jin’s career path in China “may not be as smooth as before” because of her post. 

Sina Weibo is not the only Chinese social media platform where voices “unfavorable to Russia” are censored. 

Wang Jixian, a Chinese citizen living in Ukraine since December, started posting on Chinese social media WeChat what he was learning from local Ukrainian news about the war. 

“So, I was posting and nicely asking people to correct me or to inform me about the reality if they believe they know much better,” Wang said. 

He soon discovered that his WeChat account had been blocked. 

“I got so much unnecessary stress from WeChat,” Wang told VOA in a phone interview on Monday. “This morning, I sent my parents (a WeChat message), ‘Hey, I’m safe’ and suddenly found I had been blocked.” 

Wang said he saw on Chinese social media stories about the war that were “completely opposite” to what he is seeing on Ukrainian media. 

According to Yaqiu Wang, a senior researcher on China at Human Rights Watch, since Beijing and Moscow are strategic allies, Beijing “prevents Chinese people from knowing the truth” about the conflict. 

“Information control has always been the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party’s rule of China,” Wang told VOA. “Without censorship and propaganda, without covering up its abuses and deceiving the public, the party simply wouldn’t be able to stay in power.” 

 
…

President Joe Biden will announce Friday that, along with the European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the U.S. will move to revoke “most favored nation” trade status for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

That’s according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement. The person said each country would have to follow its own national processes. Stripping most favored nation status from Russia would allow the U.S. and allies to impose tariffs on Russian imports, increasing the isolation of the Russian economy in retaliation for the invasion.

Biden’s move comes as bipartisan pressure has been building in Washington to revoke what is formally known as “permanent normal trade relations” with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed the U.S. and allies to take the action against Russia in remarks to Congress over the weekend. It follows days after the Biden moved to ban imports of Russian oil and gas products.

Biden, after initially slow-walking congressional efforts to take the trade action against Russia, was set to embrace lawmaker efforts to do just that on Friday.

The White House said Biden would speak Friday morning to announce “actions to continue to hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine.”

Monday, Democrats on the powerful House Ways & Means Committee posted, then removed, an announcement on a bipartisan bill to ban Russian oil imports and slap further trade sanctions on the country, according to an aide, because of pushback from the White House against acting before Biden had coordinated with allies and reached a decision on both matters. The House voted Wednesday on a narrower bill to ban Russian energy imports after Biden instituted the ban by executive order.

Canada was the first major U.S. ally to remove most favored nation status for Russia last week.

Biden’s action was first reported by Bloomberg News. 
…

VOA News reporter Celia Mendoza visited the village of Medyka, in Poland, one of the busiest border crossings since the start of Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is what she saw.
…

Washington on Thursday warned Moscow about what some observers describe as war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine. U.S. officials say Russia is “turning to a strategy of laying waste to population centers” in Ukraine, as high-level talks between the warring parties made no progress.

“We’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would under the Geneva Conventions constitute a war crime,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price, though he did not specifically accuse Russia of committing such crimes.

Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s plan to quickly capture Ukraine, it is clear now, has failed,” Price said of the two-week-old invasion. “So, he is now turning to a strategy of laying waste to population centers to try to break the will of the people of Ukraine, something he will not be able to do.”

Russia has denied targeting civilians in its invasion of Ukraine.

Vice President Kamala Harris said in Poland that she supported a United Nations inquiry into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that would look at “all alleged rights violations and abuses, and related crimes.”

Harris spoke before meeting in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda in a show of U.S. support for NATO’s allies in Eastern Europe.

“Absolutely, there should be an investigation, and we should all be watching,” she said.

Duda added, “It is obvious to us that in Ukraine, Russians are committing war crimes.”

On Wednesday, Amnesty International said an investigation it conducted into the March 3 Russian airstrike that reportedly killed 47 civilians in the city of Chernihiv concluded that the events there “may constitute a war crime.”

The global human rights group said interviews and video analysis indicated unguided aerial bombs known as “dumb bombs” were used to mostly target civilians standing in line for food.

Harris’ comments came one day after a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol killed at least three people, including a child, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the hospital attack genocide and again called on NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, declaring, “You have power, but you seem to be losing humanity.”

Russia responded to allegations it bombed the hospital by calling it “fake news.” It said the building was a former maternity hospital that had long been taken over by troops.

“Russia has definitely been violating international law since the beginning of the aggression,” Ivana Stradner, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who researches international law, said via Skype. “We are seeing the killings of civilians. They’re using weapons that are contrary to international law. So certainly, there is numerous evidence that we can use to argue that Russia has been committing war crimes.”

She agreed with calls for an inquiry, but added, “I have to be very realistic about these things. I’m not very hopeful that we can hold Russia and Vladimir Putin accountable.”

The two bodies that prosecute war crimes, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, are limited in what they can do, she explained.

War crimes cases are often referred to the international court by the U.N. Security Council, but Russia’s position as a permanent member of that council means it can easily veto such a referral.

Furthermore, Russia, Ukraine and the United States are not signatories to the statute that established the International Criminal Court, though Ukraine has accepted its jurisdiction. And finally, she said, these international courts don’t have their own police forces. They count on states to cooperate, which they do not always do.

War marches on

Ukrainian officials also said no progress was made Thursday during high-level talks in Turkey.

Speaking at a news conference at the conclusion of the talks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he and his Russian counterpart made no progress toward negotiating a 24-hour cease-fire, adding it appeared Russia would continue its offensive until Ukraine surrendered, something he said Kyiv would not do.

“I want to repeat that Ukraine has not surrendered, does not surrender, and will not surrender,” Kuleba said.

Speaking separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia’s military operation was going according to plan and accused the West of “behaving dangerously” over Ukraine.

Lavrov said Russia was ready to resume talks and added Putin would not refuse a meeting with Zelenskyy to discuss “specific” issues. He blamed Western powers for the war, maintaining Russia was forced to invade Ukraine because the West had rejected “our proposal on security guarantees.”

U.S. President Joe Biden applauded Turkey’s “efforts to support a diplomatic resolution to the conflict” after a telephone call Thursday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to a White House statement.

The Turkish initiative is among several diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the escalating conflict. Both Israel and France are hoping to find a solution through direct talks with Putin.

VOA’s Jamie Dettmer, Anita Powell and Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
…

Praise for the way U.S. agencies secured and shared intelligence on Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine are being tempered by growing concern that one of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns is starting to take hold in the United States and the West.

For days, officials at the White House, State Department and Pentagon have been pushing back against Moscow’s claims — increasingly repeated by far-right and far-left social media channels, as well as by some mainstream media in the United States — that Russian forces have found, and in some cases destroyed, Ukrainian biological weapons labs funded by the U.S.

“I’m fearful that this could be the new direction of a Russian false flag operation,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat, told top U.S. intelligence officials at a hearing Thursday.

The committee’s ranking Republican, Senator Marco Rubio, said the Russian accusation, combined with recent comments by some U.S. officials, have “got some people fired up.”

U.S. intelligence officials echoed their concerns, noting that while there are more than a dozen so-called biolabs in Ukraine, their work is focused on understanding and preventing pandemics and the spread of infectious disease, and nothing more.

“Let me be clear. We do not assess that Ukraine is pursuing either biological weapons or nuclear weapons … the propaganda that Russia is putting out,” Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the lawmakers.

Haines said that while Washington has in the past provided some assistance, it has been in the context of biosafety, and mirrors U.S. outreach to other countries that have similar medical research facilities.

“This influence campaign is completely consistent with long-standing Russian efforts to accuse the United States of sponsoring bioweapons work in the former Soviet Union,” Haines added.

The U.S. spy chief was equally blunt.

“Unlike Russia, which does have chemical weapons and has used them and has done biological research and has for years, Ukraine has neither,” Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns told the Senate panel.

The threat from biological research facilities, like the ones in Ukraine, “is in no way akin to the kind of threats that would be posed by weapons research and development,” Burns said.

Instead, Burns raised concern that Russia might be telegraphing one of its next moves in its now two-week-old invasion of Ukraine.

“This is something … that’s very much a part of Russia’s playbook,” he said. “They’ve used those weapons against their own citizens. They’ve at least encouraged the use in Syria and elsewhere, so it’s something that we take very seriously.”

Rumors about supposed U.S.-backed Ukrainian bioweapons facilities first began popping up months ago but appear to have started to gain traction among some U.S. and Western audiences in late February.

“You’re asking me about bioweapons sites in labs in Ukraine, and by my count there are more than 20,” Joe Oltmann, the co-host the Conservative Daily Podcast, told VOA this past Monday, after having debated the charge on his show the previous week.

“I promise you that the U.S. Department of Defense did not give somebody money for drywall to renovate it or couches,” he said.

Talk about such facilities seemed to gain additional momentum on Tuesday, after Rubio asked about the labs during a hearing by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of,” replied Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland.

“We are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach,” she added.

Russian accounts and Russian-affiliated media seized on the comments, taking to social media to reinforce the narrative.

“The information received from various sources confirms the leading role of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency in financing and conducting military biological research on the territory of Ukraine,” Russia’s Ministry of Defense posted on its English-language Telegram channel Thursday.

“It is highly likely that one of the objectives of the U.S. and its allies is to create bioagents capable of selectively targeting different ethnic populations,” the Russian ministry added.

The Pentagon on Wednesday rejected the allegations by Russia and others, calling them “absurd.”

“In the words of my Irish Catholic grandfather, it’s a bunch of malarkey,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. “We are not, not developing biological or chemical weapons inside Ukraine.”

U.S. intelligence officials Thursday told lawmakers that contrary to the Kremlin’s accusations, the real danger from the labs comes if or when Russian troops capture the facilities.

The medical research labs “all have equipment or pathogens or other things that you have to have restrictions around because you want to make sure that they’re being treated and handled appropriately,” Haines said. “We have to be concerned the same way we have to be concerned about a nuclear power plant.”
…

Twitter says it has created a version of its microblogging service that can be used by Russians despite the regular version of the service being restricted in the country.

The service will be available via a special “onion” URL on the darkweb that is accessible only when using a Tor browser.

Onion URLs and Tor have long been used by those seeking to work around censorship as well as those who are involved in illegal activities on the darkweb.

The announcement of the new site was made by a software engineer who does work for Twitter.

“This is possibly the most important and long-awaited tweet that I’ve ever composed.

“On behalf of @Twitter, I am delighted to announce their new @TorProject onion service,” wrote Alec Muffett.
…

The United Nations estimates that with Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, more than 12 million Ukrainians inside their country and about 4 million refugees will need assistance in the coming months. Some New Yorkers are stepping in to help. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Natalia Latukhina.
…

Acts of vandalism. Cancel culture. Financial hits. Putin’s war on Ukraine is causing problems for some Russians living in the United States. As VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports, many oppose Moscow’s aggression and are speaking out for peace. Ihar Tsikhanenka contributed to this report.
…

Ukraine is dominating a two-day European Union summit outside Paris, where leaders are discussing ways to cut their energy ties with Russia, shore up their defense, and consider Kyiv’s membership application.

The European Union is not following the United States in immediately banning imports of Russian oil and gas. But EU leaders, meeting at Versailles outside Paris, are looking to phase out the bloc’s energy reliance on Moscow as quickly as possible as part of a broader autonomy drive, including in European defense. 

Ahead of the summit, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte discussed the challenges.

“I would not plead to cut off our supplies of oil and gas today from Russia. It’s not possible, because we need the supply and that’s the uncomfortable truth. But we can do more to get the green agenda going, to decarbonize our economies, also making use of all the reforms in the European green package as we have agreed earlier,” Rutte said.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has outlined a mix of measures in this direction that include cutting gas imports from Russia by two-thirds this year. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the move in necessary as Moscow is using energy as a way to further its own goals.

“As you’ve seen Russia has instrumentalized energy over the past month, if not to say years, to put pressure — not only on Ukraine but also on the European Union. And we are now really determined to get out of the dependency of Russian gas,” von der Leyen said.

Sebastien Maillard of the Jacques Delors Institute, a Paris-based research group, says it’s also about European principles. 

“We are every day purchasing Russian gas and Russian coal and purchasing (funding) the war against Ukraine,” he said. 

The EU’s autonomy push could be a boon for renewable energy. But some fear the opposite, at least in the short term — that Europe could delay meeting ambitious climate goals by relying more on polluting energies like coal. That could be the case of Germany or Poland, for example, which are highly dependent on Russian oil and gas. 

Cushioning the fallout of sanctions against Russia will also be key. European consumers and businesses will be paying higher heating and other energy costs — something French President Emmanuel Macron warned his nation about last week. 

Analyst Martin Quencez of the German Marshall Fund says Europe must take robust measures to reduce the fallout. 

“If the EU response is not strong enough, this will affect our ability to vote [on] new sanctions in the coming weeks and months.” 

EU leaders will also examine applications by Ukraine as well as Georgia and Moldova to join the 27-member bloc — a process that, even if fast-tracked, could take years. 
…

As Turkey and Israel take their biggest step in years toward reviving strained relations, some analysts say the two regional powers prefer going it alone in another diplomatic effort — trying to mediate a peaceful resolution of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog in Ankara on Wednesday, calling it a “historic visit that will be a turning point in relations” that have been strained for more than a decade. Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, is the most senior Israeli official to visit Turkey since the last visit by an Israeli prime minister in 2008.

Speaking alongside Herzog, Erdogan told reporters he and the Israeli president “exchanged views about events in Ukraine” and expressed hope that their meeting will create new opportunities for bilateral and regional cooperation. He did not elaborate.

Herzog expressed appreciation to Erdogan for inviting the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers to meet jointly with Turkey’s top diplomat in Antalya on Thursday. The planned meeting will be the highest-level dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24.

“The war in Ukraine is a humanitarian disaster, which is shocking the whole world,” Herzog said. “We cannot remain indifferent to such human suffering, and I welcome any endeavor that will lead to the end of the bloodshed.”

Herzog said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the government also are “doing their utmost on this matter.” Regarding Turkey’s mediation effort, he said “I pray for positive results.”

Bennett flew to Moscow on March 5 for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the only foreign leader known to have made the journey after Russia began its invasion, which has isolated Putin from the West.

The Israeli prime minister’s mediation effort also has involved regular contact with Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz through phone calls and WhatsApp messages, U.S. news site Axios reported on Wednesday.

There are no indications that Bennett and Erdogan have coordinated those diplomatic efforts, according to several international security analysts contacted by VOA. They also said Turkey and Israel have a variety of motivations to pursue their mediation bids separately.

Erdogan has been offering to support dialogue to resolve Russia-Ukraine tensions since at least April 2021, when he hosted Zelenskyy for talks in Istanbul as Kyiv raised alarm over Russia’s troop buildup near Ukraine’s border. The Turkish president later traveled to the Russian city of Sochi in September for talks with Putin.

Oxford University international relations scholar Samuel Ramani said Turkey began its mediation efforts last year as more of a messenger between Putin and Zelenksyy, but has now transitioned to more of a formal mediation role.

“Israel seems confined at this stage to being a messenger. So, Turkey is much further ahead in this regard, and that’s probably why Erdogan is not cooperating with Israel,” Ramani said.

Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based analyst for the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, said Erdogan also sees an opportunity as a Russia-Ukraine mediator to repair recent damage to Turkey’s relations with its Arab and Western partners and allies.

She said Turkey developed a reputation in some Arab states as a meddler in their affairs in recent years, while also incurring U.S. anger and sanctions for buying a Russian air defense system that Washington sees as undermining the NATO alliance of which Ankara is a member.

“If the Turks play a constructive role as a mediator and improve their international standing, I don’t see how that would be augmented by coordinating with the Israelis directly,” Notte said. “If anything, the Turks want to have the limelight for themselves rather than sharing it with another regional player,” she added.

Israel’s motivations for pursuing a solo mediation bid are different from Turkey’s, said Yaakov Amidror, an Israel-based analyst for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.

One of the motives is idealistic, he said. “In Israel, we see this war as a big tragedy that should be stopped.”

Unlike Turkey, Israel also has relatively few conflicting security interests with Russia and sees that as an advantage in being trusted as a messenger between Russia and Ukraine, Amidror added.

Another factor inhibiting coordination of Israeli and Turkish mediation efforts is that the political leaders of the two sides have only just started rebuilding trust after years of tensions, said analyst Gallia Lindenstrauss of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. The two nations withdrew ambassadors from their respective embassies in 2018 and have not said when they will return.

Notte said she believes Israel and Turkey would only see a benefit to cooperation as mediators if they calculate that it would heighten the chance of a positive outcome.

“But I’m not very hopeful for any kind of international mediation because I don’t believe Russia has made a strategic decision to back away from its maximalist demands,” Notte said. “It’s not so much to do with the abilities of Turkey and Israel as mediators, as it is with the calculus right now in the Russian government.” 
…

Rich Russians are trying to shift some of their wealth from Europe to Dubai to shield assets from a tightening wave of Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, financial and legal sources said.

Dubai, the Gulf’s freewheeling financial and business hub, has long been a magnet for the globe’s ultra-rich and the United Arab Emirates’ refusal to take sides between Western allies and Moscow has signaled to Russians that their money is safe there.

The UAE, which over the years has deepened its ties with Russia, has not matched sanctions imposed by Western nations and its central bank has so far not issued guidance regarding Western sanctions.

In many cases, wealthy Russians are seeking to shift funds to Dubai that are now in Switzerland or London — which have both sanctioned Russian individuals and organizations, a senior banker at a large Swiss private bank and a lawyer familiar with the matter said.

The lawyer, who is based in Dubai, said his firm had received inquiries from Russian entities on how quickly they could move “very significant funds” worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Gulf Arab state.

“The UAE is a nice medium — a few hours away by flight and doesn’t have a regulator completely in cahoots with Western regulators,” an investment management professional said.

The Dubai Media Office, UAE foreign ministry and central bank did not immediately respond to a query about the scale of Russian funds flowing into Dubai.

The senior private banker said in some cases, Russian clients with accounts at private banks were opening accounts with that same bank’s UAE branch. Others were opening accounts with local banks, the banker added.

Russians, facing a crumbling economy at home, are also looking to put their money in investments including real estate and buying into funds which do not disclose ownership information, another financial source said.

Dubai, a global tourism destination, has long been popular with Russians, who were among the top visitors to the emirate and purchasers of real estate even before the war and ensuing sanctions threw its economy into turmoil and its currency tumbled to record lows.

The UAE in 2018 introduced a “golden” visa program — which grants 10-year residency — to investors and other professionals.

Banks cautious

The UAE’s decision to abstain in a United Nations Security Council vote condemning the invasion, coupled with Gulf sovereign wealth funds maintaining their exposure to Russia, was taken as reassurance to wealthy Russians, the sources said.

There is no indication that the Russian wealth flowing to Dubai is subject to Western sanctions. However, bankers said there was a risk of reputational harm to institutions receiving Russian funds as multinationals around the world cut ties with Moscow.

Some major UAE banks are taking a cautious approach. Banks operating in the Gulf state have in the past been penalized for non-compliance with sanctions on countries including Iran and Sudan.

And global financial crime watchdog The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) last week put the UAE on a “grey list” of jurisdictions subject to increased monitoring.

“Being on the grey list, they (UAE) probably have to be more careful than normal. Now, the last thing they want is for Europe to use this as a further reason to keep them on this list,” the lawyer said.

The Dubai Media Office, UAE foreign ministry and central bank did not immediately respond to questions regarding guidance to banks and businesses on how to comply with sanctions on Russia, or on what protocols are in place should other countries request the seizure of any sanctioned assets, should they be in the UAE.

Two sources familiar with the matter said businesses in the UAE would spend more time looking into the origins of their funds through a so-called Know-Your-Customer process.

Wealth management

A source at a Dubai bank said that funds from Russians are not being accepted for wealth management, though they could set up deposit accounts.

“In principle, they can do it,” but the bank has high compliance hurdles to clear internally to accept Russian money, including evidence of where it came from, the source said.

The UAE’s nascent private wealth industry has not yet reached the scale or sophistication to fully absorb wealth stored in Switzerland and other traditional money shelters, sources said.

“They might take some, but I find it hard to imagine that they would take it all,” the investment management professional said. “It’s not just the servicing element, but the investment management which most of these banks lack.”
…

Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine   
…

While soaring oil prices hit consumers worldwide, their misfortune means a fortune for others.

There will certainly be a “significant boost in government revenue” for some oil-producing African countries as oil prices hit their highest levels since 2008 after the U.S bans imports of Russian oil, the African Energy Chamber tells VOA.

“Nigeria, Angola, Libya, South Sudan, Gabon, the Congo and Ghana are going to see a significant boost in government revenue,” said Verner Ayukegba, senior vice president at Johannesburg-based African Energy Chamber.

However, he said, despite the economic breather for these African economies, most of the countries on the continent are heavily dependent on imports of refined products and will see their expenditures balloon.

“Countries like South Africa who are not producers but major economies who import crude oil to be able to refine for their industries, countries are going to see an increase in their import bills,” he said.

Skyrocketing crude oil prices and the rising cost of living on the continent also threaten to increase inflation, says Bala Zakka, a petroleum engineer based in Lagos, Nigeria.

“In Nigeria today, diesel has been deregulated. A liter of diesel goes for 450 Nigerian Naira ($1.08), and this is where you will appreciate the pains that Nigerians are going through,” Zakka said.

The oil analyst was unhappy that Africa’s most populous nation of 200 million people relies on imported refined products despite having the capacity to locally refine oil for domestic use like gas, diesel and kerosene.

Nigeria is the main oil producer in Africa and the largest crude oil exporter on the continent.

According to data from Statista, in 2020, Nigeria led the exports of crude oil from Africa. Overall, those exports amounted to about 5.4 million barrels per day in that year.

Meanwhile, the African Energy Chamber’s Ayukegba said that because of the uptick in oil prices globally, most African nations are likely to see more exploration for new oil and gas sources.

“Exploration spend is going to lead to much more oil and gas activities off the coast of Africa. The Gulf of Guinea for instance, and also in onshore locations,” he told VOA.

”There’s drilling going on in places like Namibia at the moment, where Total and Shell have come up with significant discoveries,” he added.
…

Against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a European Union summit later this week aims to assert the bloc’s energy independence from Russia — and strengthen its collective defense. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.

Camera: Lisa Bryant Produced by: Rob Raffaele
…

A French court on Wednesday sentenced to jail terms of up to 13 years three men charged with connections to the brutal 2016 jihadi killing of an 85-year-old priest. 

Father Jacques Hamel was found with his throat slit at the foot of the altar on July 26, 2016, at his small church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class suburb of Rouen in northwest France. 

Two 19-year-old assailants, Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean, also seriously wounded a worshipper after bursting in during Mass and taking hostages before being killed by police as they tried to leave the church. 

They claimed in a video to be members of the Islamic State group, which later called them its soldiers retaliating for France’s fight against jihadis in Syria and Iraq. 

With the assailants dead, the three suspects on trial — Jean-Philippe Jean Louis, Farid Khelil and Yassine Sebaihia — were charged with “association in a terrorist act.”  

They had all been in contact with the assailants, and Jean Louis traveled with Petitjean to Turkey just weeks before the attack in an attempt to reach Syria. 

The Paris court sentenced Sebaihia to eight years in prison, Khelil to 10 years and Jean Louis to 13 years. 

The court ruled that even if they did not know the details of the plot, they were “perfectly aware that Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean belonged to an association of criminals and were preparing a violent action.” 

The fourth defendant, Rachid Kassim, presumed dead in Iraq, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for complicity in the killing.  

Defendants are tried in France even if they are presumed, but not confirmed, to be dead. 

Jean Louis, 25, was found to have run a Telegram channel in the area, which played a central role in spreading jihadi ideas among youth. 

Khelil, 36, was told he had consistently reinforced the determination of Petitjean, his cousin, to carry out an act of terror. 

Sebaihia, 27, meanwhile, had visited Kermiche two days before the killing and was found to have been aware of the killers’ intentions. 

The trial was marked by scenes of reconciliation between the accused and relatives of the victim, which have been almost unheard of in the legal processes over the spate of jihadi killings in France since 2015. 

Khelil had earlier on Wednesday asked for forgiveness from the family, a move that the priest’s sister Roseline Hamel said “had done a lot of good.” 

Ahead of the verdict, Roseline Hamel had also reached out to the four sisters of Jean Louis to comfort them and had given a photo of her brother to each of the three accused.

Hamel’s murder came as the country was on high alert over a series of jihadist attacks that began with a massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and that have claimed more than 250 lives. 
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that a Russian airstrike had destroyed a maternity hospital in the southeastern port city of Mariupol and that children were among those “under the wreckage.”

Russia has not commented on the allegation. It has denied targeting civilians in its invasion of Ukraine.

A senior Ukrainian official, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said authorities were trying to determine the number of people who might have been killed or wounded.

The hospital attack led Zelenskyy to again call on NATO to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine, declaring, “You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”

A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday that the United States was in talks with Ukraine and other “allies and partners” to provide Kyiv with defensive weapons that do not involve more air defense capabilities.

The U.S., however, has deployed two Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries in Poland, according to Marine Captain Adam Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. European Command. Miller said in a statement Wednesday the missile batteries, normally stationed in Germany, had been repositioned at Poland’s “invitation.”

“This defensive deployment is being conducted proactively to counter any potential threat to U.S. and Allied forces and NATO territory,” Miller said.

Discussions about jets

One day after the U.S. rejected Poland’s offer to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany as a way of helping Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to reporters from Washington along with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, was asked whether it was possible for Ukraine to get the Russian fighter jets.

“We are consulting very closely with Poland and other allies to address the considerable logistical challenges,” Blinken said.

Russia criticized Poland’s offer to send the jets to Germany, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday calling it a “potentially dangerous scenario.”

Poland said Tuesday that its air force was “ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all” of its MiG-29 jets to Ramstein, placing them “at the disposal of the government of the United States of America.”

In exchange, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked that the U.S. send Poland aircraft with similar operational capabilities.

Earlier Wednesday, Russia announced plans for new cease-fires to allow civilians to leave several parts of Ukraine besieged by Russian forces, despite Ukrainian officials’ accusations that Moscow had shelled another evacuation route in the southern part of the country.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russia had confirmed evacuation routes would lead out of Sumy, Mariupol, Enerhodar, Volnovakha, Izyum and several towns near the capital, Kyiv.  Vereshchuk said 5,000 people were able to evacuate Sumy on Tuesday. 

‘Apocalyptic’ situation

But in Mariupol, where a Russian siege has left the southeastern port city with dwindling supplies of electricity, heat, food and water, efforts to get people out Tuesday failed, with Vereshchuk saying Russian forces had fired on a humanitarian cargo convoy.

“The situation in Mariupol is apocalyptic,” Red Cross spokesperson Ewan Watson said.

Blinken also said Wednesday that Russia’s proposals to create humanitarian corridors from Ukraine to Russia were “absurd” as he called for Moscow to allow civilians in Ukraine to leave safely.

“It’s offensive to suggest the Ukrainian people should seek refuge from the very government that has demonstrated such disregard for their lives,” Blinken said.

In other developments Wednesday, the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe nearly 36 years ago, lost power after its power grid source was damaged, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

Kuleba tweeted that the plant was relying on reserve diesel generators with the capacity to power it for 48 hours, after which the cooling of spent nuclear fuel would halt, raising the possibility of “imminent” radiation leaks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “barbaric war puts entire Europe in danger. He must stop it immediately,” tweeted Kuleba, who also called on the global community to demand that Russia impose a cease-fire to allow for repairs.

‘Economic war’

Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters Wednesday that the United States was waging an “economic war on Russia.” His comments came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a ban on Russian oil and other energy imports. 

The United Nations’ refugee agency said Wednesday that more than 2.2 million people had fled Ukraine. More than half have gone to Poland.

Kuleba and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are scheduled to meet Thursday in Turkey to discuss the situation. Kuleba said he would propose a direct meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin.

Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.  Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris travels to Poland’s capital, Warsaw, Wednesday as the Biden administration and its NATO allies debated the best ways to fortify Ukraine while avoiding being drawn directly into the fighting, which would risk a wider European war.

U.S. officials say Harris will be carrying a message to Poland that the United States stands “firmly and resolutely” with NATO allies and will continue to provide aid to Ukraine.

Her visit, however, coincides with diplomatic turbulence over a Polish offer, which caught Washington by surprise, to donate its Soviet-era MiG-29 warplanes to the U.S. for the fighter jets to be transferred to Ukraine. In turn, Warsaw wants Washington to replenish its air force with American-made planes.

The Polish government didn’t get the green light from the Biden administration before going public with the plan, and the Pentagon Tuesday rejected the idea as not “a tenable one.” Victoria Nuland, the third most senior U.S. State Department official, only learned the scheme had been made public by the Poles as she was giving testimony before a Capitol Hill committee and was questioned about it by senators.

Polish officials say they were only taking up a suggestion made by the Biden administration. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was considering providing planes to Poland, if Warsaw decided to donate the MiG-29s.

And they emphasize no final decision has been made, saying the final responsibility for the move would need the backing of the entire NATO alliance. In his statement Tuesday about the scheme, Poland’s foreign minister said the Polish government is “ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MIG-29 jets to the Ramstein Air Base and place them at the disposal of the government of the United States of America.”

They say international press coverage suggesting the U.S. dismissal of the plan is an indication of a fracture in NATO’s common front against Russia is an overstatement.

“There might have been some miscommunication between us and Washington,” a senior Polish official told VOA on the condition of anonymity. “But all alliance partners are trying to plot a way forward to assist Ukraine while at the same time reducing the risk of a wider war. The transfer of the planes would have to be part of a NATO initiative.”

Earlier, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said a decision about providing to Ukraine 28 MiG-29s, planes which are familiar to Ukrainian pilots, needed to be a joint decision made by all NATO members. “We did not agree to supply planes by ourselves because it must be the decision of the whole of NATO,” he said during a press conference in Warsaw.

News about a possible transfer of MiG-29s had been greeted in Kyiv with jubilation. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his aides have lobbied NATO for additional jets to help it battle Russia in the skies over Ukraine. They have also been urging NATO to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine to protect the country from Russian airstrikes.  

Zelenskyy, who has accused the West of failing to fulfill “promises,” said Wednesday the international community would be responsible for a mass “humanitarian catastrophe” if it did not impose a no-fly zone to protect his country. “When will there be a decision? Look, we’re at war!” Zelenskyy said in a video posted on his Telegram channel. “We ask you again to decide as soon as possible. Send us planes.”

But the U.S. is not the only NATO partner wary of being sucked into the war. A senior U.K. minister, Grant Shapps, told British broadcasters Wednesday NATO allies must be sure they are “not inadvertently doing something which escalates this war” with their actions in Ukraine and risk sparking a wider European conflict. All NATO partners “work together” in their efforts to help Ukraine defend itself but as part of “a defensive organization.”

While some NATO partners are more bullish, like the Poles, others, including Italy, fear a transfer of warplanes or an imposition of a no-fly zone would be viewed by Moscow as a casus belli (provocation of war). Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that any move by the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would be akin to “participating in the armed conflict” against Moscow.

The Russian leader has previously threatened NATO with consequences if it involves itself in the war and has put his nuclear forces on standby.

Nonetheless, as Russian forces bombard Ukrainian towns and shell-fleeing civilians, political pressure is mounting on Western leaders to consider imposing the no-fly zone, prohibiting Russian planes from flying over Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden and NATO officials say there would be logistical problems, especially with moving in sufficient anti-missile batteries to intercept Russian missiles and air defense systems to protect patrolling NATO warplanes. And there would be a high likelihood of coming into direct conflict with the Russian military.

Still, some former NATO generals have broken with the current consensus against imposing a no-fly zone. Retired British General Chris Deverell said this week NATO faces a stark choice between fighting Putin now or facing war later. Deverell told British reporters he had changed his mind about a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Deverell, who was in charge of military intelligence, cyber and special forces and retired in 2019, said, “I have been against the imposition of a no-fly zone by NATO in Ukraine, believing that it would surely escalate the conflict. But Putin seems hell-bent on escalation. So, the question is becoming: does NATO fight him now or fight him later?”

And a former U.S. NATO supreme commander in Europe is also calling for a no-fly zone. General Philip Breedlove said the move could be carried out without the “bellicose rules of engagement” that could spark a wider conflict with Russia. “How many casualties does it take before we take a different approach to this war?” he asked.

More than two dozen U.S. foreign policy experts, several former diplomats and White House advisers, have issued an open letter to President Biden urging that a “limited” no-fly zone be established over Ukraine to deter Russia’s aerial attacks. Notable co-signers include Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Obama administration and George W. Bush-era ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst.

Some current serving generals disagree. Admiral Tony Radakin, Britain’s chief of the defense staff, said this week a no-fly zone wouldn’t help as most of the destruction and civilian deaths are being caused by artillery bombardments. “It’s not coming from Russian aircraft,” he argued.

“NATO has been very careful to keep itself out of a direct conflict with Russia,” former U.K. representative to NATO Nicholas Williams said this week. He said in London that NATO is focused on bolstering the defenses of its members. “And so, I don’t think NATO will change its view.”

But, he says, as in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, public pressure and outrage may well force NATO to act.
…

In an impassioned video speech earlier this week, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the Russian shelling of fleeing civilians from a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, saying there can be no forgiveness for the shooting of unarmed people.

“Instead of forgiveness, there will be a day of judgment,” he intoned.

Germany and Britain are among European countries that want to ensure there is judgment and are in the process of setting up war crimes units to gather evidence to be used later for war crime prosecutions.

Lists of incidents are already being drawn up amid rising international outrage over attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure, say European officials. As of Monday, the United Nations had recorded 474 civilian deaths and 861 civilians injured as a direct result of the conflict triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

But U.N. and Ukrainian officials say the death toll could be much higher.

Germany’s justice minister, Marco Buschmann, told a German newspaper Tuesday that the country’s federal prosecutor has started to collect evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine is “a serious violation of international law that cannot be justified by anything,” Buschmann said. “Possible violations of international criminal law must be consistently prosecuted,” he added.

Spain’s public prosecutor’s office has also opened a probe into possible “serious violations of international humanitarian law by Russia in Ukraine.” The aim is to “determine the criminal nature” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the office said in a statement.

And Britain is in the process of assembling a war crimes unit based in Poland, U.K. officials say. It will also collaborate with investigators from the Metropolitan Police in London who are gathering evidence of alleged war crimes stretching back to 2014 as part of a broader investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police have appealed for anyone who may have been a victim of a war crime in Ukraine, or witnessed one, to contact them. The ICC probe could include the slaughter by snipers of 53 protesters in Kyiv’s Maidan square on February 20, 2014, during the final days of the uprising which toppled then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced last week that he was going ahead with an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion. The announcement came after 39 countries requested a probe.

Separately, Ukraine Monday urged the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, to order Russia to stop its devastating invasion, saying Moscow is already committing widespread war crimes and “resorting to tactics reminiscent of medieval siege warfare.” The ICJ is the U.N.’s top court and has the authority to settle disputes between states in accordance with international law. It can give advisory opinions on international legal issues.

According to Der Spiegel magazine, the decision to launch a German probe was spurred by mounting reports of the Russian use of cluster bombs, air-dropped or ground-launched explosives that release smaller submunitions. German investigators say the use of cluster bombs will figure prominently in the initial stages of the inquiry.

They are also investigating reports that Russia has drawn up lists of Ukrainian politicians and activists marked for execution by Russian forces. They also will examine whether any war crimes were committed in the Russian shelling of a nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia. World leaders accused Russia of endangering the safety of an entire continent with the shelling. Ukraine’s president dubbed it “nuclear terror.”

The German investigation will begin as a structural probe which will focus on specific alleged war crimes and seek to identify the chain of command behind them before pinpointing individual suspects, say German prosecutors.

One German official told VOA the probe will almost certainly cover Russia’s use of a 500-kilogram bomb on a residential area in the Sumy area, in what the Ukrainian parliament dubbed a “crime against humanity.”

In a statement, the parliament said, “Russian planes dropped bombs on Sumy, Ukraine. There are civilian casualties. The bombs hit residential areas of the city. Houses of civilians were demolished and damaged. This is a targeted attack on civilians. The Russian occupants saw what they were attacking.” At least 21 people, including two children, were killed in the airstrike on the northeastern city, according to regional authorities.

Prosecutors from Germany and other European nations are also likely to focus on the shelling and shooting of civilians Sunday in Irpin, a satellite town on the outskirts of Kyiv, when Russian troops opened fire on them as they made their way to a fleet of yellow buses local authorities had arranged for an evacuation. A total of eight people died, including a family with two children, who were killed by mortar fire.

The scene was captured on video by independent news organizations, including by reporters of The New York Times, with the footage showing civilians throwing aside suitcases and plastic bags and diving for any cover they could find as mortars landed.

Ukrainian officials have accused the Russians of purposefully shelling the civilians. Kyiv says Russian commanders knew the victims were non-combatants trying to escape as Russian drones had been flying over the area just moments before the thump and crump of mortars turned a road leading from a buckled bridge into a killing zone.

“They are shelling us without mercy,” a shell-shocked Marina Starodubtseva told reporters on the scene as she dragged her young daughter into a bus while Ukrainian territorial defense force volunteers assisted the elderly and infirm over a nearby guardrail.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denies the accusation of deliberately targeting Irpin’s civilians.

Other possible war crimes likely to figure in the probes include attacks on health care facilities, leading to the deaths of at least nine people, according to the World Health Organization.

The agency has documented 16 attacks on such facilities since the launch of the Russian invasion. There has been a significant increase in attacks on these facilities as well as ambulances. On Saturday, the agency recorded half a dozen attacks. Catherine Smallwood, a WHO manager for Europe, said during a press briefing Tuesday the attacks have been “increasing quite rapidly over the past few days.”

Hans Henri Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said the agency “strongly condemns” the attacks, adding, “Health workers, hospitals and other medical facilities must never be a target at any time, including during crisis and conflicts.” The agency has called for safe passage for medical supplies.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says it managed earlier this week to intercept a Russian cruise missile as it was bearing down on the country’s most important children’s medical center, the Okhmatdyt Hospital in Kyiv.

The ICC likely will face daunting challenges to filing prosecutions for alleged Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine, say legal analysts. “It is extremely difficult to prove intent to commit war crimes. So difficult, that only six people have been convicted by the ICC and served sentences,” according to Catherine Gegout, an analyst at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (the Institute for Advanced Study) in Bremen, Germany.

The greater and more immediate legal threat may come from the German courts, which are less constricted by bureaucracy and procedure.

Germany observes the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute crimes against international law that take place outside the country, regardless of whether the victims or perpetrators are German nationals. Germany has recently used the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed by members of the Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq. In January, a German court handed a former Syrian colonel a lifetime prison sentence for his role in overseeing the murder of 27 people and the torture of 4,000 others 10 years ago.
…

The European Union has agreed to expand its third round of sanctions being imposed on Russia to target a larger number of oligarchs and officials close to President Vladimir Putin over Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The French Presidency of the European Council said in a series of tweets on March 9 that the new sanctions added would apply to “Russian leaders and oligarchs and their family members implicated in the Russian aggression against Ukraine.”

The third round of sanctions being imposed on Russia, the largest EU package agreed since the invasion began on February 24, includes a freeze on the Russian central bank’s assets in the bloc and a ban on Kremlin media in the European Union.

The French Presidency said the new sanctions approved on March 9 also include targeting the maritime sector and measures aim at excluding three Belarusian banks from the SWIFT financial payment messaging system, while also clarifying the issue of cryptocurrencies and giving a complete list of technologies and goods that cannot be sold between Russia and the bloc.

It did not detail which banks in Belarus, which has assisted Moscow in the invasion, are affected or which technologies and goods are included in the sanctions.

“These sanctions will be formally adopted by the Council by written procedure with a view to their rapid publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,” it said.

The EU has now sanctioned 680 people and 53 entities since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, recognized the independence of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, and invaded the country in February.
…

WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will collaborate with Poland and Romania on next steps to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and reassure them of Washington’s support during her meetings with leaders of both countries starting Thursday. 

The countries have been increasingly anxious about Russia’s aggression in the region and are NATO’s easternmost members. They share a border with Ukraine, where thousands of refugees are flooding in.

Harris will focus on ways NATO members can implement the economic sanctions put in place and how they can stay aligned and move forward together, senior administration officials said. 

She will also engage with Ukrainian refugees in Poland, discuss continuing humanitarian and security assistance to Ukraine and the region, they said. The number of refugees created by the invasion has surpassed 2 million.

The vice president will discuss the issues in Warsaw with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is also visiting the region, they said. 

“A lot of our discussions in these two capitals will be about establishing next steps… and how we move the ball forward,” said one of the officials. 

The Eastern Europe visit comes on the heels of Harris’ trip to Germany for a security conference, where she met U.S. allies and partners including Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy in an effort to keep European allies unified as the Russian invasion of Ukraine became imminent. 

The trip is a sign of President Joe Biden’s increasing faith in Harris’s skills to carry out high-stakes diplomacy. It is also an effort by the administration to manage nervous allies, continue its campaign to isolate Moscow internationally even as the U.S. tries to avoid direct conflict with Russia. 

On Tuesday, the United States rejected a surprise offer by Poland to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets to a U.S. base in Germany as a way to replenish Ukraine’s air force in its defense against invading Russian forces.

The U.S. administration officials said a dialog on how best to provide security assistance to Ukraine will continue but did not offer details on how the vice president plans to address the situation with Poland.

Harris will use the trip to reiterate the message that “Putin has made a mistake that will result in resounding strategic defeat for Russia,” one of the administration officials said.

The Kremlin describes its actions as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine and unseat leaders it calls neo-Nazis. 
…