Russia’s Wagner Group is in control of the eastern portion of the Ukranian Donbas town of Bakhmut, while Ukranian forces are holding on to the western part of the town, according to an intelligence report Saturday from the British Defense Ministry.

With Ukranian forces firing from fortified buildings, the update said, “this area has become a killing zone likely making it highly challenging for Wagner forces attempting to continue their frontal assault westwards.”

The Defense Ministry said, however, that the Ukrainian forces and their supply lines to the west remain vulnerable to Russian attempts to outflank Ukraine forces from the north and south.

Moscow has said capturing Bakhmut is a step toward the Russian military seizing all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Ukraine’s capital had largely restored power Friday, a day after Russia fired a barrage of missiles across the country, which damaged infrastructure and energy supplies.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhii Popko, said power and water had been restored in the capital, but said about 30% of city residents were still without heat. He said repair work was continuing.

Ukrainian authorities said that power was fully restored in the southern region of Odesa and that 60% of residences in the second-largest city of Kharkiv that suffered power outages were back online by Friday.

However, authorities said that significant damage to power supplies remained in the wider Kharkiv region, as well as in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region.

Russia’s missile attacks killed at least six people Thursday in Ukraine and damaged critical infrastructure across the country.

It was the largest such attack on Ukraine in three weeks, with Ukrainian forces saying they shot down 34 of the 81 missiles that Russia fired, far less than the usual ratio, as well as four Iranian-made drones. The Russian onslaught also included the use of hypersonic Kinzhal cruise missiles.

While missile salvos have become a common Russian military tactic, such onslaughts have also become less frequent since the fall.

The British Defense Ministry said Friday that the interval between such strikes will likely grow. It said Russia needs time “to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks were in retaliation for an alleged Ukrainian attack on the Bryansk region of western Russia. Ukraine has denied carrying out the assault.

Moscow said it hit military and industrial targets in Ukraine Thursday “as well as the energy facilities that supply them.”

In other developments Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the funeral in Kyiv of one of Ukraine’s best-known fighters and commanders who died in fighting near Bakhmut. Dmytro Kotsiubailo, 27, was killed a few days ago in battle.

Western support

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who made an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Friday, also attended the funeral of Kotsiubailo, along with thousands of mourners.

During a news conference in Kyiv, the Finnish leader accused Russia of carrying out war crimes and said Russian leaders must be held accountable.

“Putin knows he will have to answer for his crime of aggression,” Marin said.

Russia has denied deliberately targeting civilians or carrying out war crimes.

Also Friday, the White House accused Russia of stirring unrest in Moldova.

White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said U.S. intelligence shows that individuals with ties to Russian intelligence are planning to stage protests in Moldova in the hopes of toppling that country’s pro-Western government.

“As Moldova continues to integrate with Europe, we believe Russia is pursuing options to weaken the Moldovan government probably with the eventual goal of seeing a more Russian-friendly administration in the capital,” Kirby said.

Moldova is a western neighbor to Ukraine. Like Ukraine, the country was once part of the Soviet Union and has had to navigate both historic ties to Russia as well as recent moves toward Europe, including ambitions of joining the European Union.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

After Russia invaded Ukraine, guerrillas from Belarus began carrying out acts of sabotage on their country’s railways, including blowing up track equipment to paralyze the rails that Russian forces used to get troops and weapons into Ukraine.

In the most recent sabotage to make international headlines, they attacked a Russian warplane parked just outside the Belarusian capital.

“Belarusians will not allow the Russians to freely use our territory for the war with Ukraine, and we want to force them to leave,” Anton, a retired Belarusian serviceman who joined a group of saboteurs, told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

“The Russians must understand on whose side the Belarusians are actually fighting,” he said, speaking on the condition that his last name be withheld for security reasons.

More than a year after Russia used the territory of its neighbor and ally to invade Ukraine, Belarus continues to host Russian troops, as well as warplanes, missiles and other weapons. The Belarusian opposition condemns the cooperation, and a guerrilla movement sprang up to disrupt the Kremlin’s operations, both on the ground and online. Meanwhile, Belarus’ authoritarian government is trying to crack down on saboteurs with threats of the death penalty and long prison terms.

Activists say the rail attacks have forced the Russian military to abandon the use of trains to send troops and materiel to Ukraine.

The retired serviceman is a member of the Association of Security Forces of Belarus, or BYPOL, a guerrilla group founded amid mass political protests in Belarus in 2020. Its core is composed of former military members.

During the first year of the war, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko realized that getting involved in the conflict “will cost him a lot and will ignite dangerous processes inside Belarus,” said Anton Matolka, coordinator of the Belarusian military monitoring group Belaruski Hajun.

Last month, BYPOL claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a Russian warplane stationed near the Belarusian capital. The group said it used two armed drones to damage the Beriev A-50 parked at the Machulishchy Air Base near Minsk. Belarusian authorities have said they requested the early warning aircraft to monitor their border.

Lukashenko acknowledged the attack a week later, saying that the damage to the plane was insignificant, but admitting it had to be sent to Russia for repairs.

The iron-fisted leader also said the perpetrator of the attack was arrested along with more than 20 accomplices and that he has ties to Ukrainian security services.

Both BYPOL and Ukrainian authorities rejected allegations that Kyiv was involved. BYPOL leader Aliaksandr Azarau said the people who carried out the assault were able to leave Belarus safely.

“We are not familiar with the person Lukashenko talked about,” he said.

The attack on the plane, which Azarau said was used to help Russia locate Ukrainian air defense systems, was “an attempt to blind Russian military aviation in Belarus.”

He said the group is preparing other operations to free Belarus “from the Russian occupation” and to free Belarus from Lukashenko’s regime.

“We have a two-headed enemy these days,” said Azarau, who remains outside Belarus.

Former military officers in the BYPOL group work closely with the team of Belarus’ exiled opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election that was widely seen as rigged.

The disputed vote results handed him his sixth term in office and triggered the largest protests in the country’s history. In response, Lukashenko unleashed a brutal crackdown on demonstrators, accusing the opposition of plotting to overthrow the government. Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania under pressure.

With the protests still simmering a year after the election, BYPOL created an underground network of anti-government activists dubbed Peramoha, or Victory. According to Azarau, the network has some 200,000 participants, two-thirds of them in Belarus.

“Lukashenko has something to be afraid of,” Azarau said.

Belarusian guerrillas say they have already carried out 17 major acts of sabotage on railways. The first took place just two days after Russian troops rolled into Ukraine.

A month later, then-Ukrainian railways head Oleksandr Kamyshin said there “was no longer any railway traffic between Ukraine and Belarus,” and thanked Belarusian guerrillas for it.

Another group of guerrillas operates in cyberspace. Their coordinator, Yuliana Shametavets, said some 70 Belarusian IT specialists are hacking into Russian government databases and attacking websites of Russian and Belarusian state institutions.

“The future of Belarus depends directly on the military success of Ukraine,” Shametavets said. “We’re trying to contribute to Ukraine’s victory as best we can.”

Last month, the cyberguerrillas reported hacking a subsidiary of Russia’s state media watchdog, Roskomnadzor. They said they were able to penetrate the subsidiary’s inner network, download more than two terabytes of documents and emails, and share data showing how Russian authorities censor information about the war in Ukraine.

They also hacked into Belarus’ state database containing information about border crossings and are now preparing a report on Ukrainian citizens who were recruited by Russia and went to meet with their handlers in Belarus.

In addition, the cyberguerrillas help vet Belarusians who volunteer to join the Kastus Kalinouski regiment that fights alongside Kyiv’s forces. Shametovets said they were able to identify four security operatives among the applicants.

Belarusian authorities have unleashed a crackdown on guerrillas.

Last May, Lukashenko signed off on introducing the death penalty for attempted terrorist acts. Last month, the Belarusian parliament also adopted the death penalty as punishment for high treason. Lukashenko signed the measure Thursday.

“Belarusian authorities are seriously scared by the scale of the guerrilla movement inside the country and don’t know what to do with it, so they chose harsh repressions, intimidation and fear as the main tool,” said Pavel Sapelka of the Viasna human rights group.

Dozens have been arrested, while many others have fled the country.

Siarhei Vaitsekhovich runs a Telegram blog where he regularly posts about Russian drills in Belarus and the deployment of Russian military equipment and troops to the country. He had to leave Belarus after authorities began investigating him on charges of treason and forming an extremist group.

Vaitsekhovich said his 15-year-old brother was recently detained in an effort to pressure him to take the blog down and cooperate with the security services.

The Russian Federal Security Service “is very unhappy with the fact that information about movements of Russian military equipment spills out into public domain,” Vaitsekhovich said.

According to Viasna, over the past 12 months at least 1,575 Belarusians have been detained for their anti-war stance, and 56 have been convicted on various charges and sentenced to prison terms ranging from a year to 23 years.

Anton says he understands the risks. On one of the railway attacks he worked with three associates who were each sentenced in November to more than 20 years in prison.

“It is hard to say who is in a more difficult position — a Ukrainian in a trench or a Belarusian on a stakeout,” he said.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday sought to minimize differences over a Washington plans to subsidize American companies — a concept that has frustrated many in Europe. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.
…

Russia’s repeated use of advanced hypersonic missiles as part of its bombardment of Ukraine may be getting the bulk of the West’s attention, but United States defense officials say it is China that has the world’s leading hypersonic arsenal.

“While both China and Russia have conducted numerous successful tests of hypersonic weapons and have likely fielded operational systems, China is leading Russia in both supporting infrastructure and numbers of systems,” the Defense Intelligence Agency’s chief scientist for science and technology told U.S. lawmakers Friday.

“Over the past two decades, China has dramatically advanced its development of conventional and nuclear-armed hypersonic missile technologies and capabilities through intense and focused investment, development, testing and deployment,” said the DIA’s Paul Freisthler, testifying in front of the House Armed Services Committee.

Unlike ballistic missiles, which fly at hypersonic speeds but travel along a set trajectory, hypersonic weapons are highly maneuverable despite flying at Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.

According to U.S. defense officials, that high-speed maneuverability makes hypersonic weapons especially difficult to detect and, therefore, difficult to stop.

According to the DIA and information gathered by the Congressional Research Service, China operates two research sites for hypersonic weapons, with at least 21 wind tunnels. Some of the wind tunnels can test vehicles flying at speeds of up to Mach 12.

China’s hypersonic arsenal includes the DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle that has a range of 1,600 kilometers.

It also has the DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile, which also carries a hypersonic glide vehicle. During a test of the system in July 2021, the hypersonic weapon circumnavigated the globe, prompting a top U.S. defense official to compare the incident to the start of the original space race in the 1950s.

Beijing also has the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle, with a range of close to 2,000 kilometers, and the Starry Sky-2, a nuclear capable hypersonic prototype.

Russia’s missile attack against Ukraine on Friday included about six of Moscow’s hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. The Kinzhal travels at speeds of up to Mach 10 and has a range of about 2,000 kilometers.

Russia also has the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which it claims can travel at speeds of more than Mach 20 with a range of more than 10,000 kilometers, and the ship-launched Zircon hypersonic missile, with a top speed of Mach 8 and a range of 1,000 kilometers.

The DIA’s Freisthler said Friday that Moscow is also developing an air-launched hypersonic missile (the Kh-95) and has announced plans to place a hypersonic glide vehicle on its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.

The U.S. military has been developing a range of hypersonic weapons, all of which are still in testing or development. Officials have said that, unlike China and Russia, Washington has no plans to arm any of its hypersonic weapons with a nuclear warhead.
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Former England soccer captain Gary Lineker has been taken off the air by the BBC after his comments on Britain’s migration policy sparked a furious spat between the government and the corporation’s highest-paid presenter.

Lineker was told there has to be an agreement on his use of social media before he can return, the BBC said on Friday.

BBC Director General Tim Davie said it had taken “proportionate action.”

The dispute overshadowed a migration deal struck between British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron, with the BBC accused of bowing to political pressure.

On Tuesday, Britain announced details of a new law stating that migrants arriving in small boats across the English Channel would be prevented from claiming asylum and deported either back to their homeland or to so-called safe third countries.

It drew criticism from opposition parties, charities and the United Nations’ refugee agency for its impact on refugees.

Lineker, who has previously hosted refugees in his home, retweeted a post featuring a video of Interior Minister Suella Braverman talking about the law, with the comment “Good heavens, this is beyond awful.”

Challenged by a respondent, he said: “This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”

Lineker faced a backlash to his comments, which were criticized by Sunak’s spokeswoman as “not acceptable,” but said he would “continue to try and speak up for those poor souls that have no voice.”

The BBC said after talks with Lineker and his team that it had decided he would step back from presenting its flagship “Match of the Day (MOTD)” soccer highlights program “until we’ve got an agreed and clear position on his use of social media.”

After four of the show’s regular pundits, former England players Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, Jermaine Jenas and Micah Richards, said they did not wish to appear on the program without Lineker, the BBC said Saturday’s edition would “focus on match action without studio presentation or punditry.”

“Gary Lineker off air is an assault on free speech in the face of political pressure,” the opposition Labour Party said, calling for the BBC to rethink its decision.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon called the BBC’s move “indefensible.”

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: “Individual cases are a matter for the BBC.”

Lineker has hosted “MOTD” for more than 20 years, and the charismatic 62-year-old has never been afraid to voice his opinions about political issues.

But the BBC said it considered his recent social media activity to be a breach of its guidelines.

“We have never said that Gary should be an opinion-free zone, or that he can’t have a view on issues that matter to him, but we have said that he should keep well away from taking sides on party political issues or political controversies,” it added.

The BBC, funded by what is in effect a $192 (159 pounds) annual “license fee” tax on all television-watching households, has a central presence in British cultural life. It says it is committed to being politically impartial.

Last year the BBC’s complaints unit ruled Lineker had failed to meet editorial standards on impartiality when he sent a tweet asking whether the governing Conservative Party would give back money from Russian donors.

BBC Chair Richard Sharp is under pressure for failing to declare his involvement in facilitating a loan for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson shortly before he was appointed to the role. His appointment, made on the recommendation of the government, is now being reviewed by Britain’s public appointments watchdog.
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Britain will pay France around 480 million pounds ($577 million) over three years to try to stop migrants traveling in small boats across the English Channel as the two allies took a major step Friday to end years of bickering in the post-Brexit era.

At a summit designed to rebuild ties, French President Emmanuel Macron greeted British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with smiles and mutual backslapping before they agreed to work more closely together.

Describing it as a “moment to reconnect,” Macron said at a joint news conference that relations had been strained by Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Sunak said the time had come for a new relationship, an “entente renewed,” a reference to the Entente Cordiale of the early 20th century that had smoothed over diplomatic relations between the European powerhouses.

“If we are honest the relationship between our two countries has had its challenges in recent years,” Sunak said. “Today we have taken cooperation to an unprecedented level.”

The two agreed to move forward on nuclear energy cooperation, reaffirmed their backing for Ukraine and vowed to strengthen inter-operability of their military forces, including through the development of future missiles and air defense systems.

But for Sunak, migration was the focus as he looked to tout the deal as another achievement after agreeing to new terms with Brussels on Northern Ireland in February.

In office since October, he has made stopping small boats a priority after the number of migrants arriving on the south coast of England soared to more than 45,000 last year, up 500% in the last two years.

He has proposed new legislation to bar those arriving in small boats from claiming asylum, but for this he needs France’s cooperation to intercept the boats and break the people-trafficking rings behind the flow of arrivals from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and others.

As part of the new deal, Britain will help fund a detention center in France while Paris will deploy more French personnel and enhanced technology to patrol its beaches. Officers from both countries will also look to work with countries along the routes favored by people traffickers.

A British official said London was contributing 30 million euros over three years for the detention center, with the official adding that detained migrants would be sent back to their home countries if they were safe, or to the last country they transited through if their home countries were unsafe.

Firming ties from energy to Ukraine

“We will develop operational needs and will reinforce coordination,” Macron said, while adding that to go further and address the issue of whether migrants could be returned to France would require agreement across the whole bloc.

While the number of applications for asylum in the United Kingdom hit a 20-year high of nearly 75,000 in 2022, it was still below the European Union average. And many EU members are themselves at odds over how to handle migrants, and whether they should be returned to the first EU country they arrived in.

The meeting was the first summit of Europe’s two biggest military and nuclear powers – both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – in five years.

Ties between the two counties have been strained by Brexit, and were particularly difficult during the British premierships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, with Truss at one point declining to say whether Macron was a “friend or foe.”

Sunak and Macron struck up a personal rapport at the COP27 summit in Egypt in November during their first face-to-face meeting, two weeks after Sunak became prime minister, with their warm relationship labeled “Le Bromance” in British newspapers.

The two former investment bankers, who offered each other Rugby Union shirts ahead of a crunch Six Nations match in London on Saturday, were accompanied by seven ministers on each side in Paris and met business leaders from both countries to deepen their economic relationship.

Energy partnerships

British energy supplier Octopus Energy said after the summit that it would invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in the French green energy market over the next two years, while the countries signed two energy partnerships, emphasizing nuclear power as a secure source of low-carbon energy.

“France and the U.K. are working together so that never again can the likes of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin weaponize our energy security,” Sunak said.

With the war in Ukraine, it was also an opportunity for two of Kyiv’s biggest backers to reaffirm their support.

Both leaders emphasized that for now it was imperative to ramp up military support for Ukraine and train its forces to give it an edge on the battlefield and put it in the best position for the day when talks to end the war begin.

“The priority is [the] military,” Macron said.
…

In a dramatic turn of events, Georgian lawmakers have voted to drop a controversial “foreign agents” bill just days after its first reading sparked massive protests over fears the legislation, which mirrored a similar law in Russia, and would have severely restricted dissent and the activity of civil society groups in the country and push it toward authoritarianism. 

Parliament on March 10 voted in the second reading of the draft, a day after the ruling Georgian Dream party announced it was withdrawing the proposed legislation in the face of the protests. 

Lawmakers voted 35-1 against the bill, thus canceling it. The legislation can be brought back within 30 days, but only if it contains changes. 

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Georgian capital over the legislation, and another gathering is planned for March 10, though it is likely to be more celebratory than protest. 

Police had met the demonstrators with tear gas, stun grenades, and water cannons while detaining dozens. 

Georgia’s Interior Ministry said on March 10 that all 133 people who were detained during the protests had been released. It added that almost 60 police officers were injured in clashes during the demonstrations. 

The protests began on March 7 as parliament took up the “foreign agents” legislation despite warnings from critics that the bill, which would force civil society organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to be classified as “foreign agents,” mirrors Russian legislation that has been used to stifle opposition voices and the independent media. 

Georgian Dream officials said the legislation was aimed at bringing transparency and that it needed to hold consultations to “better explain” the law’s purpose in the future. 

In Georgia, anti-Russian sentiment can often be strong. Russian troops still control around one-fifth of Georgia’s territory, most of it taken during a lightning war in 2008 that was ostensibly about breakaway efforts in two northeastern regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. 

By suddenly announcing that the bill was being “unconditionally” withdrawn, Georgian Dream deescalated the current crisis — but tensions are likely to persist over the ruling party and its opponents’ competing visions for the heavily polarized Caucasus country and its nearly 5 million residents. 

The opposition has often criticized Georgian Dream for being too closely aligned with Moscow, and the Kremlin’s current war against another former Soviet republic, Ukraine, has heightened those concerns. 

The introduction of the legislation prompted rebukes from several corners, including diplomats from the European Union and the United States. 

Georgia has been moving toward joining the European Union, but EU officials said the “foreign agents” law would complicate that membership path. Last year, the bloc declined to grant candidate status to Georgia, citing stalled political and judicial reforms. 

President Salome Zurabishvili has said she would veto the bill, although parliament could have overridden her veto. 

Speaking on March 10, French President Emmanuel Macron said Georgia was under pressure while expressing hope that the country could find a “path towards greater serenity” and that there is a “calming down of regional tensions.” 

“Georgia is under some heavy pressure and I hope it can find calm,” he said at a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in Paris. 

Macron dismissed Russian claims that protests in the Caucasus country were orchestrated by the West. 

“There is a tendency in the Kremlin, which is not new, to imagine that every public demonstration is a foreign manipulation because the fundamental belief is that there is neither public opinion nor free people,” Macron said. 

“As an old democracy, we have the right to believe the opposite.” 

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presses. 
…

The European Union wants to hold joint naval exercises as part of plans published Friday to step up its efforts to protect critical infrastructure at sea. 

Concerns about threats to Europe’s maritime infrastructure were heightened by attacks in September on the Nord Stream pipelines, which left them spewing natural gas into the Baltic Sea. 

The EU has updated its maritime security strategy, outlining plans to hold an annual naval exercise from 2024 and coordinate member countries’ national efforts to protect gas pipelines, undersea data cables, offshore wind farms and other critical maritime infrastructure. 

EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius told Reuters that planning had been underway before the Nord Stream blasts, but had been strengthened in response to them. 

“After that, member states were very clear that we need to further strengthen cooperation, build capacity, ensure that our critical infrastructure is better protected,” he said. 

The EU plan sets out to increase cooperation between the EU and NATO, expand coastal patrols and improve efforts to identify threats early — such as by using EU satellite programs to detect unidentified vessels. 

The EU will also produce a risk assessment, disaster recovery plans and regional surveillance plans, according to the strategy. 

“The threat level is increasing,” Sinkevicius said.

Energy infrastructure is a particular concern, as Europe expands its offshore wind farms and its use of liquefied natural gas terminals to replace Russian pipeline gas.

The Netherlands said a Russian ship detected at an offshore wind farm in the North Sea last month was part of attempts by Moscow to gain intelligence to sabotage infrastructure.

Improved surveillance of maritime areas should also help countries monitor and respond to environmental degradation and the effects of climate change such as sea level rise.

Authorities in Sweden, Germany and Denmark are investigating the blasts on the Nord Stream pipelines, which were constructed to supply Russian gas to Europe. They have said the explosions were deliberate but have not said who might be responsible. 
…

Following the wave of missiles strikes that Russia launched Thursday against Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said Friday that the intervals between such strikes will likely grow.

The ministry said that Russia needs time “to stockpile a critical mass of newly produced missiles directly from industry before it can resource a strike big enough to credibly overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.”

Russia launched the barrage of missile attacks across Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least six and leaving hundreds of thousands without heat and electricity.

It was the largest such attack on Ukraine in three weeks, with Ukrainian forces saying they shot down 34 of the 81 missiles that Russia fired, far less than the usual ratio, as well as four Iranian-made drones.

“No matter how treacherous Russia’s actions are, our state and people will not be in chains,” Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address.

He also said he met with members of Ukraine’s cultural committee to discuss “ways to strengthen the capacity of Ukrainian culture to communicate with the world to ensure support for Ukraine.”

“Diplomacy, journalism, and culture are the three areas that do the most to make the world understand our struggle and help us,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks were in retaliation for a recent assault on the Bryansk region of western Russia by what Moscow alleged were Ukrainian saboteurs. Ukraine has denied the claim and warned that Moscow could use the allegations to justify stepping up its own assaults.

Moscow said it hit military and industrial targets in Ukraine “as well as the energy facilities that supply them.” Nearly half of the households in the capital of Kyiv were left without heat as were many in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where the regional governor said 15 Russian strikes hit the city.

About 150,000 households were left without power in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region. In the southern port of Odesa, emergency blackouts occurred because of damaged power lines.

Among the weapons fired were six hypersonic Kinzhal cruise missiles, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.

Nuclear power fears

Thursday’s attack also knocked out the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest. The plant’s operator, Energoatom, said diesel generators were being used to run the plant and that there was enough fuel available to continue for 10 days. The plant was later reconnected to the electrical grid.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi called for urgent action, noting the plant’s power supply had been cut for a sixth time since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago.

“I am astonished by the complacency – what are we doing to prevent this happening? We are the IAEA; we are meant to care about nuclear safety,” Grossi said. “Each time we are rolling a dice. And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out.”

Important stretch

Top U.S. intelligence officials, testifying before lawmakers Thursday, cautioned that the war between Russia and Ukraine is entering a critical period.

“The next four, five, six months are going to be crucial on the battlefield to Ukraine,” CIA Director William Burns told members of the House Intelligence Committee.

“Any prospect for a serious negotiation, which [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin I don’t think is ready for today, is going to depend on progress on the battlefield,” Burns said. “Therefore, I think, analytically, what’s important is to provide all the support that we possibly can, which is what the president and our Western allies are doing for the Ukrainians as they prepare for a significant offensive in the spring.”

During Senate testimony Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Russia’s military has been so badly damaged that it is unlikely Russian forces will be able to make any significant territorial gains for the rest of the year.

But Haines also cautioned Ukraine forces have suffered casualties as well and have been forced to draw heavily on their reserves due to what she described as a grinding war of attrition.

US outreach

Zelenskyy on Wednesday invited the top U.S. House lawmaker to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast on CNN.

“Mr. [Kevin] McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.

Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 of last year, the United States has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when the Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the November midterm elections. Some Republicans have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.

McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine, but that House Republicans will not provide “a blank check” for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.

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

U.S. President Joe Biden will meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday at the White House to discuss potential sanctions against China amid concerns that Beijing is preparing to send weapons to Russia, and Europe’s frustration over Washington’s plans to subsidize American companies under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Biden and von der Leyen also will discuss U.S.-EU coordination to combat the climate crisis through investing in clean technology based on secure supply chains, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

The meeting is the latest in a flurry of high-level diplomacy with European leaders to coordinate support for Ukraine in defending itself one year after Russia’s invasion. Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington last week. Last month, he traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then to Warsaw to visit Polish President Andrzej Duda and leaders of the Bucharest Nine.

‘De-risk this dependency’

Amid the war on Ukraine, Europe is racing to end its reliance on Russia for fossil fuels by ramping up its domestic renewable energy production. To do so, it would need more access to critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth metals, the majority of which are processed by China.

“China produces 98% of Europe’s supplies of rare earths,” von der Leyen said during a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Kingston, Ontario, earlier this week. “Europe needs to de-risk this dependency.”

Von der Leyen, however, has been more cautious in joining the Biden administration in warning China not to arm Moscow in its war effort. During a news conference with Scholz in Meseberg, Germany, earlier this month, she said “no evidence so far” suggested that China was doing so and that the issue of sanctions against Beijing was a “hypothetical question.”

Discriminatory subsidy

Another key topic is the Biden administration’s plan to provide American companies with $369 billion in green subsidies and tax credits aimed at cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030 under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which the EU views as discriminatory. A special task force was set up in October to address these concerns and avoid a trans-Atlantic subsidy race.

Biden and von der Leyen are expected to begin negotiations to allow the EU to have a status similar to that of a free trade partner so that it may be exempt from an Inflation Reduction Act clause that requires a certain percentage of minerals used in manufacturing batteries to be domestically produced or come from a free trade partner.

The EU and Canada have been working toward establishing a “green alliance” to grow respective economies that are “climate-neutral, circular and resource-efficient.” Biden is expected to coordinate on the effort in his visit to Canada later this month.
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Shots were fired inside a building used by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the northern German city of Hamburg on Thursday evening, and several people were killed or wounded, police said.

The shooting took place in the Gross Borstel district, a few kilometers north of the downtown area of Germany’s second-biggest city.

“We only know that several people died here; several people are wounded, they were taken to hospitals,” police spokesman Holger Vehren said.

He said he had no information on the severity of the injuries suffered by the wounded.

Police did not confirm German media reports — which named no sources — of six or seven dead.

The scene of the shooting was the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, a modern, three-story building next door to an auto repair shop.

Vehren said police were alerted to the shooting about 9:15 p.m. local time and were on the scene quickly.

He said that after officers arrived and found people with apparent gunshot wounds on the ground floor, they heard a shot from an upper floor and found a fatally wounded person upstairs who may have been a shooter. He said police did not have to use their firearms.

Vehren said there was no indication that a shooter was on the run and that it appeared likely that the perpetrator was either in the building or among the dead.

Two witnesses interviewed on television, whose names weren’t given, said they heard 12 shots.

Police had no information on the event that was under way in the building when the shooting took place.

They also had no immediate information on a possible motive. Vehren said that “the background is still completely unclear.”

Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher tweeted that the news was shocking and offered his sympathy to the victims’ relatives.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are part of an international church, founded in the United States in the 19th century and headquartered in Warwick, New York. It claims a worldwide membership of about 8.7 million, with about 170,000 in Germany.

Members are known for their evangelistic efforts that include knocking on doors and distributing literature in public squares. The denomination’s distinctive practices include a refusal to bear arms, receive blood transfusions, salute a national flag or participate in secular government.
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Rights groups are warning that independent Turkish media face fines and arrests over critical reporting of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s handling of February’s deadly earthquakes. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Russia said on Thursday that a landmark deal to ensure the safe export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was only being half-implemented, raising doubts about whether it would allow an extension of the agreement set to expire next week.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain blockaded by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports.

The deal was extended for 120 days in November and will renew on March 18 if no party objects. However, Moscow has signaled it will only agree to an extension if restrictions affecting its own exports are lifted.

Russia’s agricultural exports have not been explicitly targeted by the West, but Moscow says sanctions on its payments, logistics and insurance industries are a barrier to it being able to export its own grains and fertilizers.

“There are still a lot of questions about the final recipients, questions about where most of the grain is going. And of course, questions about the second part of the agreements are well known to all,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia has complained that Ukrainian grain exported under the deal is going to wealthy countries. The “second part” refers to a memorandum of understanding with the U.N. that facilitates Russian food and fertilizer exports.

‘It has to be extended’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said the grain deal was part of the country’s plan to end the war and should be extended indefinitely.

Andriy Yermak, quoted by Interfax Ukraine news agency, said any suggestion of ending the grain initiative amounted to “pressure on its intermediaries — Turkey and the U.N.”

“At the very least, it has to be extended by the same term as before,” Yermak was quoted as telling reporters.

Zelenskyy and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres held talks in Kyiv on Wednesday on extending the deal, which Guterres said was of “critical importance.”

There are no plans for direct talks between Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference on Thursday that what he called the “two parts” of the deal, ensuring safe exports of Ukrainian grain and removing barriers to Russian exports, were “inextricably linked.”

“The first part is being implemented, and we are fulfilling all our obligations in this regard together with our Turkish colleagues,” Lavrov said. “The second part is not being implemented at all.”

“If we’re talking about a deal, it’s a package deal. You can only extend what is already being implemented, and if the package is half-implemented, then the issue of extension becomes quite complicated,” Lavrov said.

Top U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan is set to discuss the grain deal with senior Russian officials in Geneva next week.

Ukraine has so far exported more than 23 million metric tons of mainly corn and wheat under the initiative, according to the United Nations. The top primary destinations for shipments have been China, Spain, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands.

“Exports of Ukrainian, as well as Russian, food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” Guterres told reporters on Wednesday.
…

Is the fight for democracy at a turning point? Freedom House documents a global decline for the 17th consecutive year. One of the biggest concerns: media freedom. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains. VOA footage by Saqib Ul Islam.
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China’s government on Thursday criticized the Netherlands for joining Washington in blocking Chinese access to technology to manufacture advanced processor chips on security and human rights grounds.

A Dutch minister told lawmakers Wednesday that exports of equipment that uses ultraviolet light to etch circuits on chips would be restricted on security grounds. ASML of the Netherlands is the only global supplier. Industry experts say a lack of access to ASML’s most advanced technology is a serious handicap for China’s efforts to develop its own chip industry.

Washington in October blocked Chinese access to U.S. tools to make advanced chips that it said might be used in weapons or in equipment for the ruling Communist Party’s surveillance apparatus. The Biden administration is lobbying European and Asian allies to tighten their own controls.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman complained that “an individual country,” a reference to the United States, was trying to “safeguard its own hegemony” by abusing national security as an excuse to “deprive China of its right to development.”

“We firmly oppose the Netherlands’s interference and restriction with administrative means of normal economic and trade exchanges between Chinese and Dutch enterprises,” said the spokeswoman, Mao Ning. “We have made complaints to the Dutch side.”

Mao appealed to the Netherlands to “safeguard the stability of the international industrial and supply chain.”

ASML’s extreme-ultraviolet, or EUV, equipment uses light to etch microscopically precise circuits into silicon, allowing them to be packed more closely together. That increases their speed and reduces power demand.

The Dutch government has prohibited ASML from exporting its most advanced machines to China since 2019, but the company is allowed to supply lower-quality systems.

Chinese manufacturers can produce low-end chips used in autos and most consumer electronics but not those used in smartphones, servers and other high-end products.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and U.S. President Joe Biden held talks in January on ASML’s chip machines.
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Ukrainian officials reported Russian missile strikes Thursday in multiple parts of the country, killing at least five people. 

Ukraine’s military said it shot down 34 of 81 missiles that Russia fired, and that it downed four Iranian-made drones used by Russian forces. 

The governor of the western Lviv region said four people were killed there when a missile hit a residential area. 

In the Dnipropetrovsk, officials said the Russian attacks killed one person and injured two others.   

The governor of the Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, said Russian missiles struck energy infrastructure and that power cuts were in place. Marchenko also said the strikes damaged residential buildings, but that no casualties had been reported.    

In Kharkiv, the regional governor, Oleh Synehubov, said 15 Russian strikes hit the city and surrounding region, with targets that included critical infrastructure facilities. 

Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, was also struck. 

US outreach    

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top U.S. House lawmaker to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN.      

“Mr. [Kevin] McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.   

Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.      

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 of last year, the United States has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when the Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the midterm elections, and some Republican have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.      

McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine but that House Republicans will not provide “a blank check” for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.      

In the CNN interview, Zelenskyy said, “I think that Speaker McCarthy, he never visited Kyiv or Ukraine, and I think it would help him with his position.”      

Many U.S. lawmakers and officials and world leaders have visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv as a show of solidarity, including President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.      

Guterres visit      

Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assailed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy.      

The two were to discuss extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.       

“The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine must be upheld, within its internationally recognized borders,” Guterres said ahead of talks with Zelenskyy.         

“Our ultimate objective is equally clear: a just peace based on the U.N. Charter, international law and the recent General Assembly resolution marking one year since the start of the war,” he said.     

But with fighting raging and no peace talks on the horizon, Guterres said the U.N. is trying “to mitigate the impacts of the conflict, which has caused enormous suffering for the Ukrainian people — with profound global implications.”        

He called for the continuation of Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea with Russian acquiescence. Since July 2022, he said 23 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports, much of it shipped to impoverished countries. Absent a new agreement, the program is set to expire March 18.         

Guterres said the grain exports have “contributed to lowering the global cost of food” and offered “critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index has fallen by almost 20% over the last year.”         

“Exports of Ukrainian — as well as Russian — food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” he said.     

Guterres also called for “full demilitarization” of the region around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, where nearby fighting has periodically shut down the facility and raised fears of a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.         

Attempts for months to end fighting in the region have failed, but Guterres said that safety and security near the power plant are vital so that the facility can return to normal operations.         

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.   
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Georgia’s ruling party announced Thursday it is withdrawing a proposed foreign agent law after the legislation sparked two days of massive protests. 

The measure would have required media and nongovernmental organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as “agents of foreign influence.” 

Opponents of the bill compared it to a 2012 Russian law that has been used to suppress or shut down organizations critical of the Russian government. 

The ruling Georgian Dream party said Thursday the bill was presented in a negative way and that a portion of the public was misled. 

Georgia’s President Salome Zurabishvili had said she would veto the bill if it reached her desk, while other opponents expressed concerns that the measure would affect Georgia’s hopes of joining the European Union. 

Tens of thousands of people protested against the proposal outside the parliament on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Some demonstrators threw objects at police, while officers dispersed crowds with tear gas, stun grenades and water cannons. 

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

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invited the top House lawmaker in the United States to visit Kyiv to see “what’s happening here” in an interview broadcast Wednesday on TV news channel CNN.

“Mr. (Kevin) McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelenskyy told the news outlet through an interpreter.

Responding to CNN, House Speaker McCarthy said, “I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv” to understand it. He said he received information in briefings and other ways.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the U.S. has sent nearly $100 billion in military, economic and relief aid to Ukraine. That aid was sent when President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party controlled both chambers in Congress.

The Republican Party took control of the U.S. House after the midterm elections, and some Republicans have expressed opposition to sending additional arms and financial aid to Ukraine.

McCarthy has said he supports Ukraine but that House Republicans will not provide “a blank check” for additional U.S. assistance to Kyiv without closer scrutiny of how it is being spent.

In the CNN interview, Zelenskyy said, “I think that Speaker McCarthy, he never visited Kyiv or Ukraine, and I think it would help him with his position.”

Many U.S. lawmakers and officials and world leaders have visited Zelenskyy in Kyiv as a show of solidarity, including President Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Guterres calls invasion violation of law

Earlier Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres assailed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy.

The two were to discuss extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine must be upheld, within its internationally recognized borders,” Guterres said ahead of talks with Zelenskyy.

“Our ultimate objective is equally clear: a just peace based on the U.N. Charter, international law and the recent General Assembly resolution marking one year since the start of the war,” he said.

But with fighting raging and no peace talks on the horizon, Guterres said the U.N. is trying “to mitigate the impacts of the conflict, which has caused enormous suffering for the Ukrainian people — with profound global implications.”

He called for the continuation of Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea with Russian acquiescence. Since July 2022, he said, 23 million tons of grain have been exported from Ukrainian ports, much of it shipped to impoverished countries. Absent a new agreement, the program is set to expire March 18.

Guterres said the grain exports have “contributed to lowering the global cost of food” and offered “critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world. Indeed, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index has fallen by almost 20% over the last year.”

“Exports of Ukrainian — as well as Russian — food and fertilizers are essential to global food security and food prices,” he said.

Guterres also called for “full demilitarization” of the region around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest — where nearby fighting has periodically shut down the facility and raised fears of a catastrophic nuclear meltdown.

Attempts for months to end fighting in the region have failed, but Guterres said that safety and security near the power plant are vital so that the facility can return to normal operations.

EU defense ministers push for ammunition

Meanwhile, European Union defense ministers gathered Wednesday in Stockholm with a push to provide more ammunition to Ukrainian forces high on their agenda.

Under a plan by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, the EU states would get financial incentives worth about $1 billion to send ammunition to Kyiv, while another $1 billion would be spent on procuring new ammunition, Agence France-Presse reported.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who attended the Stockholm meeting, said Kyiv needed 90,000-100,000 artillery rounds per month, and that Ukraine’s military is using the ammunition faster than allies can manufacture them, AFP reported.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday, “There is enormous demand out there. … The current rate of consumption compared to the current rate of production of ammunition is not sustainable and therefore we need to ramp up production.”

Stoltenberg said the conflict is “now a war of attrition.”

He said he could not rule out the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut falling into Russian control in the coming days.

“Therefore, it is also important to highlight that this does not necessarily reflect any turning point of the war, and it just highlights that we should not underestimate Russia,” Stoltenberg said. “We must continue to provide support to Ukraine.”

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The World Uyghur Congress, a Germany-based Uyghur rights group, has been nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.

Canadian lawmakers and a leader of the Young Liberals in Norway, the youth wing of Norway’s Venstre political party, nominated the organization. The rights group was cited for its work toward peace, democracy and the plight of the Uyghur and other Turkic people who live under what the nomination letter described as a “repressive regime in China.”

“The World Uyghur Congress has the main purpose of promoting democracy, human rights, and freedom for the Uyghur People and supporting the use of peaceful, non-violent, and democratic means to help the Uyghurs achieve self-determination,” stated the nomination letter. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, one of two Canadian members of parliament who nominated the group, shared the letter with VOA.

The committee that selects the eventual Nobel Peace laureate does not disclose the names of the nominees to the news media or to the candidates. Under its rules, such information must remain secret for 50 years. The awards ceremony takes place in December in Oslo.

The nomination letter noted the WUC has drawn global attention to China’s treatment of Uyghurs with “the overwhelming campaign of physical, religious, linguistic, and cultural repression” by the Chinese government.

“To achieve this, the WUC has a wide range of activities, including campaigning for the rights of people being forcefully disappeared, advocating for the release of political prisoners, protecting the rights of asylum seekers to prevent forcible repatriation to China, and advocating at the UN, EU, and national level, where the WUC has successfully contributed to numerous achievements, which led to the international community developing policies and actions to help secure the rights of the Uyghurs,” Brunelle-Duceppe said in the letter.

Beijing has repeatedly denied mistreating Uyghurs, with China’s state news agency, Xinhua, describing the allegations as “lies” concocted by “anti-China forces in the West.”

“Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion at all, but about combating violent terrorism and separatism,” stated Xinhua in a 2021 article, as it pointed out the region has experienced economic and social development.

The Chinese embassy in Washington criticized the WUC’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“It is hoped that the prize will contribute to global peace and development, rather than falling into a political tool at the disposal of a few politicians,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu told VOA in an email. “The so-called ‘World Uyghur Congress’ has close linkages with terrorist organizations. Nominating such an organization for the Nobel Peace Prize is highly detrimental to world peace and is a great irony of the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Last August, the U.N. human rights office released a report on Xinjiang, stating that the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in so-called vocational education and training centers could constitute crimes against humanity. The United States and several other countries have classified human rights abuses in the region as genocide.

“The Chinese government has perpetrated the same lies for decades,” Zumretay Arkin, advocacy manager of the WUC, told VOA.

“The fact that the WUC was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is proof that the free and democratic world has recognized the WUC’s work as valuable and important. Instead of defaming such organizations, the Chinese government should listen to the democratic world,” Arkin said.

According to the group’s website, the WUC was founded in 2004, in Munich, Germany, after the East Turkistan National Congress and the World Uyghur Youth Congress merged into one organization.

“The main objective of the WUC is to promote democracy, human rights, and freedom for the Uyghur people and to use peaceful, nonviolent, and democratic means to determine their political future,” the group’s website states in its mission statement. “By representing the sole legitimate organization of the Uyghur people both in East Turkistan and abroad, WUC endeavors to set out a course for the peaceful settlement of the East Turkistan Question through dialogue and negotiation.”

East Turkistan is the name some Uyghurs prefer to use instead of Xinjiang, which means “new territory” in Chinese and is what China calls the Uyghur homeland.

“It makes me very proud to see that the World Uyghur Congress’ hard work to end the Uyghur genocide has not gone unnoticed,” Dolkun Isa, the president of the WUC, said in a press statement.

The nomination was also significant because it was “a show of support for the Uyghur people,” Isa said.
…

As parts of southeastern Turkey struggle to recover from last month’s earthquake, many are questioning why so many relatively modern buildings collapsed in the 7.8 magnitude tremor, with some engineers pointing the finger at Turkish government policy.

‘Liquefied’ buildings

Piles of concrete and twisted metal tower over the roadsides in southeast Turkey’s worst-hit towns and cities. Bodies are still buried inside. More than 45,000 people died in the earthquake in Turkey, while the death toll in Syria is estimated at more than 6,000 people.

The damage extends across 11 provinces in Turkey. Millions of metric tons of debris are slowly being removed. But questions over the level of devastation are not going away.

Survivors describe buildings “liquefying” as the tremors hit, each floor collapsing onto the next. Why did some buildings survive relatively unscathed – while others collapsed? 

Construction failures

Hasan Aksungur, chairman of the Chamber of Civil Engineers in the city of Adana on the edge of the earthquake zone, told VOA key stages in the buildings’ construction – what he called interlocking rings – had failed.

“The fact that the buildings next to those [collapsed] buildings, which were exposed to the same impact, were not destroyed shows that either the design, the implementation, or the control stages of these collapsed buildings were broken,” Aksungur said.

Amnesties

Critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan say his government repeatedly offered amnesties for illegal buildings — what Erdogan called “zoning peace” — allowing builders to skip crucial safety regulations. Millions of buildings were certified in this way. 

“Since 1985, there have been consecutive zoning amnesties. In the last ‘zoning peace’ (in 2018), these buildings were given a building registration certificate without being subject to any control — without being subject to anything — by paying certain fees,” Aksungur said. 

Arrests

Since the earthquake, more than 200 people have been arrested on suspicion of breaching building codes, with hundreds more arrest warrants issued.

However, before the earthquake hit, the government was mulling another building amnesty ahead of the May presidential election. President Erdogan boasted of these amnesties during the 2019 election campaign, including on a visit to the province of Hatay, now one of the worst-hit by the earthquake. “We have solved the problems of 205,000 of the citizens of Hatay, with ‘zoning peace’,” he told supporters in Antakya on February 24, 2019.

The Turkish government has not responded to VOA requests for comment.  

Election 

Turkey’s justice minister has pointed out that opposition parties also supported the building amnesties. President Erdogan accused rivals of exploiting the earthquake for political gain. “We know that some are rubbing their hands, waiting for the state and the government to fall under the ruins along with our people,” Erdogan told lawmakers March 1.

Erdogan said the presidential election would be brought forward from June to May 14. It’s not clear how the vote will go ahead in the regions affected by the earthquake.

The emergency response – and what caused more than 45,000 people to lose their lives – looks set to be a key issue as the incumbent president seeks a third term in office.
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As parts of southeast Turkey struggle to recover from last month’s earthquake, many are questioning why so many relatively modern buildings collapsed in the 7.8 magnitude tremor — with some engineers pointing the finger at government policy, as Henry Ridgwell reports. Video: Memet Aksakal, Henry Ridgwell
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