Russia has committed wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine such as willful killings, torture and the deportation of children, a U.N.-mandated investigative body said in a report published on Thursday.

The report, based on more than 500 interviews as well as satellite images and visits to detention sites and graves, comes as the International Criminal Court in The Hague is expected to seek the arrest of Russian officials for forcibly deporting children from Ukraine and targeting civilian infrastructure.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said that Russian forces have carried out “indiscriminate and disproportionate” attacks on Ukraine, resorted to torture, killed civilians outside of combat and failed to take measures to safeguard the Ukrainian population.

“Russian authorities have committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law and violations of international human rights law, in addition to a wide range of war crimes…,” the report said.

The document gave details of torture methods used in Russian detention facilities where victims were subjected to electric shocks with a military phone – a treatment known as a “call to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” – or hung from the ceiling in a “parrot position.”

Russia denies committing atrocities or targeting civilians in Ukraine.
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At least one person was killed and two were injured in an explosion that caused a fire at a building belonging to the border patrol of Russia’s FSB security service in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don on Thursday, local authorities said.

Footage captured by Reuters showed a plume of thick black smoke billowing into the air, near residential buildings and a shopping center in a built-up district of the city.

Local emergency services said an explosion had occurred, igniting a fire that spread to an area covering 880 square meters.

They said one person had been killed and two more injured in the incident.
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The U.S. military released a video Thursday of a Russian military intercept that resulted in the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone Tuesday over the Black Sea.

The video shows a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 dumping fuel as it approaches the U.S. MQ-9 drone from behind and passes over the top.

A second Sukhoi Su-27 approaches in a similar manner, and as it reaches the drone, the video feed is disrupted at the moment the U.S. military says the Russian fighter aircraft collided with the drone.

A final shot shows the video feed restored and that one of the drone’s propellor blades has been bent.

The video’s release came a day after U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke to his Russian counterpart about the encounter.

“The United States will continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows, and it is incumbent upon Russia to operate its military aircraft in a safe and professional manner,” Austin told reporters after announcing that he had “just got off the phone” with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

It was the first call between the two defense leaders since October, according to officials.

The downed U.S. MQ-9 drone was “conducting routine operations” in international airspace Tuesday, according to the U.S. military, when the pair of Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter aircraft intercepted it. U.S. forces brought down the drone in international waters after the Russian jet struck the drone’s propeller.

“We know that the intercept was intentional. We know that the aggressive behavior was intentional. We also know it is very unprofessional and very unsafe,” General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Wednesday.

Milley said he was “not sure yet” whether the physical contact between the Russian aircraft and the drone was intentional.

Russia said it is considering whether to try to retrieve the drone, but U.S. officials said its operatives were able to remotely erase sensitive software on the drone to prevent Russia from collecting secret information before sending the aircraft into the Black Sea.

The U.S. does not have ships in the Black Sea, which is largely controlled by Russia.

“But we do have a lot of allies and friends in the area, and we’ll work through recovery operations. That’s U.S. property,” Milley said.

Russia denied that its Su-27 jets came into contact with the U.S. drone and pinned blame for the crash on the operation of the drone. A U.S. military official told VOA the unmanned MQ-9 has not yet been recovered. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday the United States summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the incident.

The Russian Defense Ministry Telegram channel reported Wednesday that Shoigu has blamed the incident on the United States’ “non-compliance with the restricted flight zone declared by the Russian Federation, which was established as part of a special military operation.”

Earlier Wednesday, Austin and Milley hosted the 10th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group more than a year after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The virtual meeting included 51 participants. Milley said the group promised “a broad mix of air defense systems,” in addition to providing more artillery, armor and ammunition. For example, Sweden will provide 10 more Leopard tanks to Ukraine, and Norway will partner with the United States to provide two additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS.

“Ukraine matters. It matters not to just Ukraine or to the United States, it matters to the world. This is about the rules-based international order,” Austin told reporters Wednesday.

“Russia is running out of capability and out of friends,” he added. “Putin still hopes he can wear down Ukraine and wait us out, so we can’t let up, and we won’t.”
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Dutch farmers dealt a blow to Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s environmental plans Wednesday, ploughing up the political landscape to win elections that will shape the upper house of parliament.

Exit polls showed the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging, BBB), which was founded less than four years ago, riding a wave of recent protests to win the most seats in the Dutch senate.

The farmers’ party immediately vowed to challenge the Rutte government’s plans to cut nitrogen emissions by reducing livestock numbers and possibly closing some farms.

“What is happening here? We really knew we were going to win, but this is so indescribable,” stunned BBB leader Caroline van der Plas told public broadcaster NOS.

She described the nitrogen plans as a “kind of dogma dictated from The Hague”.

The BBB is on course to win 15 seats in the 75-seat senate, ahead of the 10 seats of Rutte’s center-right party, based on exit polls from provincial elections that also determine the make-up of the upper house.

The farmers could now work with other parties in the senate to block nitrogen legislation proposed by Rutte’s four-party coalition, which is on course to lose eight seats to put its total at 24.

‘Don’t feel heard’

The Netherlands has been rocked by months of rowdy demonstrations in which farmers blockaded government buildings with tractors, winning support from international figures including former US president Donald Trump.

Thousands of farmers rallied in The Hague on Saturday. They also used tractors to blockade the location of a televised party leaders’ debate on the eve of the election.

But their cause has struck a chord in the Netherlands, a country with a proud farming tradition that despite its small population of 18 million is the world’s second largest agricultural exporter after the United States.

The Dutch government says it needs to reduce nitrogen emissions by 50% by 2030, blaming fertilizers and manure from agriculture in particular for pollution.

It says it must comply with a Dutch court order saying it had breached EU rules on nitrogen emissions affecting soil and water.

But the farmers say they are being unfairly targeted by the still unfinalized proposals compared to sectors such as construction, industry and transport.

“We don’t really feel heard,” Erik Stegink, national president of the BBB and a pig farmer himself, told AFP ahead of the vote.

“Sometimes we don’t even feel welcome in our own country anymore.”

‘Curious’

Exit polls showed the farmers’ party in first place in all the provinces surveyed, including a stunning 31.3% in its heartland in the rural Overijssel region and 14.3% in North Holland, which includes Amsterdam.

Rutte, the Netherlands’ longest-serving leader who has been in power since 2010, said ahead of the vote he hoped his coalition could resolve the issue.

Tessel van der Veeken, a 21-year-old student voting in The Hague, said she was “not worried but curious” about a BBB win.

Voter Michael van Heck, 69, described the farmers as a “populist party”, adding that he expected a “big victory from the BBB and I hope at least stable” for Rutte’s VVD party.

The farmers have also won support from the global far-right, who allege, without evidence, a sinister “globalist” plot to rob farmers of their land.

But exit polls showed the Dutch far-right Forum for Democracy (FvD) party, which won the last provincial elections in 2019, being virtually wiped out.

Its leader Thierry Baudet has described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “hero” and embraced Covid conspiracy theories.
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Credit Suisse announced Thursday that it would borrow almost $54 billion from the Swiss central bank to reinforce the group after a plunge in its share prices.

The disclosure came just hours after the Swiss National Bank said capital and liquidity levels at the lender were adequate for a “systemically important bank,” even as it pledged to make liquidity available if needed.

In a statement, Credit Suisse said the central bank loan of up to $53.7 billion would “support… core businesses and clients,” adding it was also making buyback offers on about $3 billion worth of debt.

“These measures demonstrate decisive action to strengthen Credit Suisse as we continue our strategic transformation to deliver value to our clients and other stakeholders,” CEO Ulrich Koerner said in the statement.

“My team and I are resolved to move forward rapidly to deliver a simpler and more focused bank built around client needs.”

Credit Suisse, hit by a series of scandals in recent years, saw its stock price tumble off a cliff Wednesday after major shareholder Saudi National Bank declined to invest more in the group, citing regulatory constraints.

Its shares fell more than 30% to a record low before regaining ground to end the day 24.24% down, at 1.697 Swiss francs.

Credit Suisse’s market value had already taken a heavy blow this week over fears of contagion from the collapse of two U.S. banks, as well as its annual report citing “material weaknesses” in internal controls.

Mounting concerns

Analysts have warned of mounting concerns over the bank’s viability and the impact on the larger banking sector, as shares of other lenders sank Wednesday after a rebound the day before.

Credit Suisse is one of 30 banks globally deemed too big to fail, forcing it to set aside more cash to weather a crisis.

Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at trading firm Finalto, said Wednesday that if the bank did “run into serious existential trouble, we are in a whole other world of pain.”

In February 2021, Credit Suisse shares were worth 12.78 Swiss francs, but since then, the bank has endured a barrage of problems that have eaten away at its market value.

It was hit by the implosion of U.S. fund Archegos, which cost it more than $5 billion.

Its asset management branch was rocked by the bankruptcy of British financial firm Greensill, in which some $10 billion had been committed through four funds.

The bank booked a net loss of nearly $8 billion for the 2022 financial year.

That came against a backdrop of massive withdrawals of funds by its clients, including in the wealth management sector — one of the activities on which the bank intends to refocus as part of a major restructuring plan.
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Flash floods killed at least 14 people living in tents and container housing across Turkey’s quake-hit region on Wednesday, piling more pressure on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of crunch elections.

Several more people were swept away by the rushing water, which turned streets into muddy rivers in areas hit by last month’s 7.8-magnitude quake, officials said.

More than 48,000 people died in Turkey and nearly 6,000 in Syria in the Feb. 6 disaster, the region’s deadliest in modern times.

Hundreds of thousands of Turkish quake survivors have been moved into tents and container homes across the disaster region, which covers 11 provinces across Turkey’s southeast.

Torrential rains hit the area Tuesday and the weather service expects them to last until late Wednesday.

Turkish officials said the floods killed 12 people in Sanliurfa, about 50 kilometers north of the Syrian border.

Two people, including a 1-year-old, also died in nearby Adiyaman, where five remain unaccounted for.

Images showed the waters sweeping away cars and flooding temporary housing set up for earthquake victims.

In one viral video, a man dressed in a beige suit and tie reaches out for help while floating down a surging stream alongside a piece of furniture. His fate remains unknown.

Other images showed people pulling victims out of the water with branches and rope.

The Sanliurfa governor’s office said the flooding also reached the ground floor of one of the region’s main hospitals.

Pressure on Erdogan

Facing a difficult reelection on May 14, Erdogan is confronting a furious public backlash over his government’s stuttering response to the biggest natural disaster of his two-decade rule.

Erdogan has issued several public apologies while also stressing that no nation could have dealt quickly with a disaster of such scale.

Erdogan has spent the past few weeks touring the region, meeting survivors and promising to rebuild the entire area within a year.

“By the end of next year, we will build 319,000 houses,” Erdogan told his ruling party members Wednesday in a parliamentary address.

“Beyond the search and rescue, emergency aid and temporary shelter we have provided so far, we have a promise to our nation to restore the cities destroyed in the earthquake within a year,” he said.

Erdogan dispatched his interior minister to the flooded region to oversee the government’s response.

“Currently, we have 10 teams composed of 163 people doing search and rescue work across a 25-kilometer stretch,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters.

“We also have divers. But the weather conditions are not allowing us to do much,” he said.
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The British Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Ukraine can go to trial to avoid repaying $3 billion in loans it said it took under pressure from Russia in 2013 to prevent it from trying to join the European Union.

The court rejected a bid by a British company acting on Russia’s behalf to order Ukraine to repay the loans without facing a trial. Ukraine said it borrowed the money while facing the threat of military force and massive illegal economic and political pressure nearly a decade before Russia invaded its neighbor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that the ruling was “another decisive victory against the aggressor.”

“The Court has ruled that Ukraine’s defense based on Russia’s threats of aggression will have a full public trial,” he tweeted. “Justice will be ours.”

The case was argued in November 2021, and the court was not asked to consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three months later.

Ukrainian authorities allege that the corrupt government of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych borrowed the money from Moscow under pressure before he was ousted in protests in February 2014, shortly before Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

After the 2014 Ukraine revolution, the country’s new government refused to repay the debt in December 2015, saying Moscow wouldn’t agree to terms already accepted by other international creditors.

The case came to British courts because London-based Law Debenture Trust Corp. had been appointed to represent the interests of bondholders. The company initially won a judgment ordering repayment of the loans, but Ukraine appealed.

An appeals court overturned the lower court ruling, agreeing that Ukraine could challenge repayment of the loans on the grounds of duress but rejecting several other legal claims.

Both sides appealed to the Supreme Court, which reached a similar conclusion in favor of Ukraine for different reasons.

The Supreme Court rejected several of Ukraine’s legal arguments, including that its finance minister didn’t have authority to enter into the loan agreement and that Ukraine could decline payment as a countermeasure to Russia’s aggressions.

The ruling, however, said a court could consider whether the deal was void because of threats or pressure that are illegitimate under English law.

While the court noted that trade sanctions, embargoes and other economic pressures are “normal aspects of statecraft,” economic pressures could provide context to prove that Russia’s threats to destroy Ukraine caused it to issue the bonds.

“The success of Ukraine’s defense turns on whether Russia’s threatened use of force imposed what English law regards as illegitimate pressure on Ukraine to enter into the trust deed and related contracts,” the court wrote. “That question can only be determined after trial.”

Ukraine said that a month before it entered into the deal, Yanukovych told his Lithuanian counterpart that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to have Moscow’s banks bankrupt eastern Ukrainian factories if it signed an association agreement with the EU.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the United Kingdom court recognized the coercion.

“Now, the Kremlin will have to disclose all information about the actions against Ukraine in open court,” Shmyhal said. “Justice will definitely prevail. Russia will definitely answer for all its illegal actions and crimes.”
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Russia said Wednesday it had started naval exercises with China and Iran in the Arabian Sea as it seeks to shore up ties with Beijing and Tehran.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the trilateral exercises, dubbed the Marine Security Belt 2023, had begun in the vicinity of the Iranian port of Chabahar.

The naval part of the drills will take place on Thursday and Friday.

Russia will be represented by the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and a medium-sized tanker, the ministry said.

During the naval drills, the ships will perform “joint maneuvers and will carry out artillery firing in daytime and at night,” the statement said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to ramp up political, economic and military ties with China and Iran after he sent troops to Ukraine a year ago, triggering multiple rounds of unprecedented Western sanctions.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the challenge posed by China prompted Britain to publish an updated defense strategy this week, as the country tries to balance strategic threats with financial constraints at home. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Stock markets in Europe and the U.S. tumbled Wednesday as investors worried about the stability of global banking systems in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of two American banks.

Major stock indexes in London, Paris and Frankfurt all plunged by more than 3% while three key U.S. indexes — the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 key stocks, the broader S&P 500 index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq index — also dropped, although by 1% or less in late-day trading. Asian markets increased, mirroring Tuesday gains in the U.S.

The newest worries centered on Credit Suisse, with shares for the beleaguered Swiss lender falling more than 17% after its biggest shareholder, the Saudi National Bank, said it would not invest more money in it.

Problems at Credit Suisse, with outlets in major global financial centers, predated the U.S. government takeover of operations at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the last week.

Credit Suisse said Tuesday that managers had identified “material weaknesses” in the bank’s internal controls on financial reporting as of the end of last year.

But on Wednesday, Credit Suisse chairman Axel Lehmann, speaking at a financial conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, defended the bank’s operations, saying, “We already took the medicine” to reduce risks. “We are regulated. We have strong capital ratios, very strong balance sheet. We are all hands on deck.”

But with the drop in the share price for Credit Suisse, bank stocks in Britain, France and Germany also fell sharply, although not by as much as for Credit Suisse.

S&P Global Ratings said on Tuesday that the failures at the two U.S. banks would have little effect on the fortunes of European banks. But the S&P analysts added, “That said, we are mindful that SVB’s failure has shaken confidence.”

Share prices of other U.S. regional banks like Silicon Valley have fallen sharply in recent days.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Rights advocates in Belarus sounded the alarm about a new heavy crackdown on dissent by the authoritarian government that saw more than 100 people — including several psychologists and psychiatrists — detained in a week.

Viasna, Belarus’ oldest and most prominent rights group, said Tuesday that mass arrests took place in the capital Minsk, as well as in the east and the west of the country. 

The authorities targeted opposition activists, journalists, medical workers, members of shooting sports clubs and people working with drones.

Viasna’s Pavel Sapelka told The Associated Press that Belarus’ security forces are waging “sweeping raids and searches” on those suspected of involvement in a recent attack on a Russian warplane stationed near the Belarusian capital.

“Guerillas” from the country’s opposition BYPOL movement claimed responsibility for the attack on a Beriev A-50 parked at the Machulishchy Air Base near Minsk. 

Russia used the territory of its ally Belarus to invade Ukraine a year ago, and Belarus has continued to host Russian troops, warplanes and other weapons. The opposition activists had said they aimed to undermine that support for the war.

The Belarusian authorities have said they requested that longtime ally Moscow monitor their border, and initially kept quiet about the incident. Days later, Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, acknowledged the attack, saying that the damage to the plane was insignificant, but admitting it had to be sent to Russia for repairs.

According to Belarus’ interior ministry, on March 9 alone, 60 people were detained as part of “intensifying work on those involved in extremist groups and terrorist organizations.” The country’s KGB state security agency also reported detaining a Ukrainian national whom the authorities accuse of attacking the plane, and 20 Belarusian alleged accomplices.

The authorities also reported detaining 30 people in the city of Gomel on the border with Ukraine, “with the purpose of identifying connections with foreign members of extremist groups.” According to Viasna, those detained in Gomel remain in custody in harsh conditions.

The group also reported “inexplicable” mass detentions of Belarusian psychologists and psychiatrists. More than 20 doctors have been detained across the country, and the authorities “demand that they violate doctor-patient confidentiality and report ‘unsavory’ patients they’re treating.”

A total of four journalists have also been detained in Belarus over the past week. 

Among them are Viachaslau Lazarau, who was arrested in Vitebsk and is facing charges of “contributing to extremist activities,” and cameraman Pavel Padabed, who was detained in Minsk on Tuesday for a social media post from 2012. Another journalist, Anatol Hatouchyts in Gomel, was subjected to a home search.

Sapelka from Viasna said, “We know of a hundred detained all across Belarus, but the real scale (of the crackdown) can be much larger.”

“Every act of resisting Lukashenko’s regime triggers a new wave of harsh repression in Belarus,” Sapelka said, adding that the clampdown is aimed at “sowing more fear in an already intimidated society.”

A sweeping crackdown on dissent in Belarus was unleashed by the authorities in 2020 and has continued in waves ever since. It came in response to mass protests that followed an Aug. 2020 election that gave Lukashenko a new term in office. Opposition politicians and Western countries denounced the results as a sham.

Lukashenko, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has ruled the ex-Soviet country with an iron fist since 1994. More than 35,000 people were arrested, and thousands were beaten by police amid the protests, the largest ever held in the country.

“Detentions, raids, torture behind bars continue in Belarus, political prisoners face pressure, and independent media content is being labeled extremist,” Sapelka said. “Repression against those who actively express their views on the war in Ukraine, unleashed by Russia, are intensifying every day.”
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Lithuania, a country that feels directly threatened by Russia, had warned for decades of Russian aggression against its neighbors. Now Lithuanians worry that what is happening in Ukraine could also happen in Lithuania. Ricardo Marquina reports from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, that ordinary people are keep up grass-roots efforts to support their homeland. Jonathan Spier narrates
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Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating says the nation’s agreement to buy and develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in cooperation with Britain and the United States is “the worst deal in all history.” 

Keating attacked the three-nation agreement between Australia, Britain and the United States Wednesday during a speech at the National Press Club in Sydney.   

The multi-decade deal, which could cost Australia as much as $245 billion, was announced Monday by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, British counterpart Rishi Sunak and U.S. President Joe Biden in San Diego under a new trilateral defense partnership known by the acronym AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom and United States). 

The agreement will see American and British nuclear-powered submarines rotating into Australian waters as soon as 2027. By the early 2030s, Australia will buy at least three — and as many as five — U.S.-built nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines designed to hunt and attack other subs. And the three nations will work together to develop a new nuclear attack submarine — a project that could take two decades. 

Keating dismissed the idea that China poses a military threat to Australia, and said it was “rubbish” that a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines could defend the country from a Chinese naval fleet. He said Australia could simply sink the fleet “with planes and missiles.” 

The former prime minister, who served in the post from 1991 to 1996, said the nuclear submarine deal is the worst international decision made by a Labor Party government since World War I, when it failed to impose compulsory military service.   

In addition to the new submarine fleet, the AUKUS partnership  will allow the three countries to share information and expertise more easily in key technological areas such artificial intelligence, cybertechnology, quantum technologies, underwater systems and long-range strike capabilities. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
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March marks the ninth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Many Crimean Tatars had to leave their home after Russian forces overran the peninsula — among them Ernest Suleimanov and his family. They fled to Warsaw where they opened a restaurant named “Crimea” right in front of the Russian embassy in Poland. For VOA from Warsaw, Lesia Bakalets has their story. Videographer: Daniil Batushchak
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French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Central Africa this month has received mixed reviews, with some skeptical of his latest reset of French relations with the continent. It’s part of broader challenges Macron faces in asserting French influence — not just in Africa but also in Europe amid a fast-changing political landscape marked by the war in Ukraine and Russia’s growing influence overseas. From Paris, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA.
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A Moscow court has declared as bankrupt the company that handles the Russian operations of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The order on Monday came after the broadcaster refused to pay fines totaling more than $14 million for failure to comply with Russia’s foreign agent law.

Russia has designated RFE/RL a foreign agent along with more than 30 of the network’s journalists. Since last year’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has also blocked access to foreign media sites including RFE/RL and VOA. Both broadcasters are independent entities under the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

“The Kremlin has now bankrupted our Russian entity, blocked our websites, and designated journalists as foreign agents, but our audience inside Russia continues to grow,” RFE/RL quoted its president and CEO, Jamie Fly, as saying Monday.

Russians “are seeking independent sources of information. This latest assault on our Russian entity will do nothing to change that fact,” Fly said.

RFE/RL likens law to tool of censorship

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that declaring an independent news network as bankrupt “demonstrates how the country’s legislation on so-called ‘foreign agents’ has been used to economically strangle a media outlet.”

RFE/RL has described the foreign agent law as a tool of political censorship. It has challenged Moscow’s actions at the European Court of Human Rights.

Russia’s foreign agent law was expanded to include media after a 2017 U.S. order compelled Kremlin-backed media operating in America to register with the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agent Registration Act, also known as FARA.

Under FARA, companies controlled by foreign governments must report activities, receipts and “informational material.”

But unlike FARA, Russia’s regulations require media outlets registered as foreign agents to mark all content as being created by an outlet that “performs the function of a foreign agent.”

Individuals designated as foreign agents must also file detailed regular reports accounting for any money deposited in their account.

Russia has a dire record for media freedom and has stepped up repressive laws and policies since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) notes that since the start of the war, “almost all independent media have been banned, blocked and/or declared ‘foreign agents.’ All others are subject to military censorship.”

On RSF’s ranking of countries that have the best media environment, Russia placed 155th out of 180.

Media shares news via satellite

With access to credible news obstructed in Russia, USAGM has stepped up efforts to keep news flowing.

In March, the media agency announced plans to expand satellite distribution of the Russian-language news show “Current Time,” which is directed at audiences in Russia and neighboring countries.

“There is a growing appetite across Europe for a reliable and fact-based Russian-language alternative to Kremlin-controlled information,” USAGM head Amanda Bennett said in a statement.
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After a record 32 days without rain, some precipitation — in the form of high winds and storms — has dampened France. But it might be a short-term reprieve.

France’s minister for ecological transition, Christophe Bechu, warns the country can’t count on its severely depleted groundwater tables next summer. He’s called for vigilance in water consumption. Some local authorities are now rolling out water restrictions, which could expand to more places if dry weather persists. They could especially affect major water-consuming sectors such as agriculture and nuclear power.

France is not the only country gripped by drought. So are parts of Italy, Spain, Germany and Britain — along with Turkey and North Africa.

“We are concerned due to the lack precipitation accumulating in the Mediterranean region,” said Andrea Toreti, who heads the drought team for the European Commission’s Copernicus European and Global Drought Observatory.  

Europe must adopt mitigation and adaptation measures to cope with a changing climate that’s becoming the new normal, said Toreti. One step Europe could take, said Toreti, would be to change crop varieties to those favoring less water and shorter growing seasons.

“We need to look not just at tomorrow, but also what will happen in the coming years,” said Toreti.

That’s a step Paris-area grain farmer Jerome Regnault is already considering.

Though the latest rains are good news, they can’t make up for weeks of drought, he said. He and other farmers waited before planting and fertilizing — especially because fertilizer has become expensive since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

French farmers and environmentalists have clashed over the idea of building enormous water basins for agricultural use. Regnault, who doesn’t irrigate, is against massive basins but supports using natural runoff.

Today’s tensions suggest France and other European countries could face more water wars to come.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces what analysts say is his biggest electoral challenge in May elections by a man many have dubbed the Turkish “Gandhi.” Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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The U.S. military says a Russian fighter jet collided Tuesday with a U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance drone operating within international airspace over the Black Sea, causing the drone to crash.
A U.S. military official told VOA the unmanned U.S. MQ-9 has not yet been recovered.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the United States is summoning the Russian ambassador over the incident.

“We are engaging directly with the Russians, again at senior levels, to convey our strong objections to this unsafe, unprofessional intercept, which caused the downing of the unmanned U.S. aircraft.”

He added that U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy “has conveyed a strong message to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

U.S. President Joe Biden was briefed about the incident, according to White House spokesman John Kirby.

“If the message [from Russia] is that they want to deter or dissuade us from flying and operating in international airspace over the Black Sea then that message will fail because that is not going to happen,” Kirby told VOA. 

“We are going to continue to fly and operate in international airspace over international waters. The Black Sea belongs to no one nation and we’re going to continue to do what we need to do for our own national security interests in that part of the world.”

According to U.S. European Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in Europe, two Russian Su-27 aircraft “dumped fuel on and flew in front of the MQ-9 in a reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional manner.”

“One of the Russian Su-27 aircraft struck the propeller of the MQ-9, causing U.S. forces to have to bring the MQ-9 down in international waters. … This incident demonstrates a lack of competence in addition to being unsafe and unprofessional,” EUCOM added.

U.S. Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander, U.S. Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, said in a press release that the collision had “nearly caused both aircraft to crash.”

EUCOM called on Russian forces to act “professionally and safely,” while warning that these types of acts are “dangerous and could lead to miscalculation and unintended escalation.”

Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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