Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch. 

Ukraine defiant in face of Russian threat 

Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva said Friday that her country will not bow to threats of military action from Russia and is prepared to fight to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

Ukraine Remains Defiant in Face of Russian Invasion Threat 

Hunger spreading in Horn of Africa

UNICEF warned Wednesday that the Horn of Africa is facing a climate-induced emergency. As many as 20 million people in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia could need water and food assistance in the next six months due to severe recurring drought. 

Horn of Africa Facing Climate-induced Emergency 

Coups on the rise in Africa 

Military coups have been on the rise in Africa over the last year-and-a-half, prompting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to declare that there is an “epidemic” of them. Burkina Faso is the latest, and Guinea-Bissau averted one on February 2. VOA takes a deeper look at the factors fueling these power grabs. 

By the Numbers: Coups in Africa 

In brief 

— Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. On the sidelines, he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. According to a readout, they discussed the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and world conflicts. The secretary-general also told the Chinese officials that he expects them to allow for a “credible visit” of his High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to China, including to Xinjiang, the province where the country’s oppressed Uyghur Muslim minority lives. China has been promising such a visit for several years, and recently said it is fine as long as Bachelet comes to have an exchange, not an investigation. Beijing denies it violates the rights of Uyghurs and says it is combating terrorism. 

— Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed traveled to Addis Ababa for the African Union Summit last weekend. She then visited conflict zones in northern Ethiopia, going to Tigray where she met with the regional president, and to the neighboring provinces of Afar and Amhara, where fighting and its consequences have spilled over, as well as to the Somali region. The U.N. has been seeking a halt to the fighting in the north and expanded access for humanitarian workers. 

— Tropical Cyclone Batsirai made landfall on the east coast of Madagascar on Saturday night, local time. The intense storm killed at least 21 people, including several children, and displaced more than 62,000 people. The U.N. said this week that it is working with its humanitarian partners and coordinating with the government. Surge teams have been deployed and a humanitarian air bridge set up. By Friday, the WFP had distributed 10,000 hot meals at shelters and distributed other food aid to displaced persons. 

— UNESCO expressed concern on Thursday about journalists working in Myanmar. The U.N.’s cultural organization said that in the past year since the military seized power, at least 146 journalists have been arrested, while some 52 journalists, including 12 women, remain under detention. At least three reporters are known to have died in detention. 

Some good news 

After a year-long absence, the iconic tapestry of Pablo Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece “Guernica,” was returned to its place of honor outside the U.N. Security Council on Saturday. 

Iconic Tapestry of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ Back at UN 

Quote of note 

“What we’re appealing for as humanitarian organizations on the ground, is that this military, political strategic chess game, involving Moscow and Minsk and Brussels and Washington and other capitals, that it is concentrating on helping people survive on the ground, protecting them, and avoiding a senseless conflict. Everybody would lose from the conflict, but first and foremost the two million people who live within 20 kilometers from the frontline.” 

— Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, telling VOA in an interview on Monday about his visit last week to eastern Ukraine. 

What we are watching next week 

On February 17, the U.N. Security Council will hold its annual meeting on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which lay out the path to a political settlement in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists. In February 2015, the Security Council endorsed Minsk II in a resolution. This year’s discussion takes place against the backdrop of the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Did you know? 

The U.N. corridors and grounds are full of art, sculptures and unique objects donated by governments, foundations and individual donors, many of which can be seen on public tours of the complex. The Guernica tapestry, mentioned above, is a gift of the American Rockefeller family. (They also donated the land the U.N. complex is built on in New York.) There is also a section of the Berlin Wall on the compound’s north lawn and a fountain paid for by U.S. schoolchildren at the southern entrance to the complex. Among the objects on display in the corridors is a model of the ornate Royal Thai Barge “Suphannahong” carved from teak wood, and a black pot from 300 B.C. from Sudan. On the first floor, there is a painting of a white dove of peace by Macedonian painter Vasko Taskovski. 

 
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As Russia builds up forces along Ukraine’s borders and Chinese officials seek to punish Lithuania for opening a door to Taiwan, the heads of the Lithuanian parliament’s defense and foreign affairs committees called on their allies in Washington for support.

Their message was clear: Lithuania is holding the line against two of America’s most powerful challengers and that U.S. support is critical to its success in defending against aggression from Moscow and Beijing.

“This week in Washington, we’re here to address two issues. One is security, and it’s about Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic region. The other one is China. Those are trade issues, but not only trade issues. It’s about our security as well,” Laima Liucija Andrikiene, chair of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told VOA as she and her colleagues wrapped up a weeklong trip to Washington on Feb. 3.

The delegation was made up of four lawmakers in charge of national security, defense and foreign affairs committees in the Lithuanian parliament, known as the Seimas. They met members of both the Senate and House Baltic caucuses, as well as Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and Republican Senator James E. Risch, the chairman and ranking senior minority member of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, among others.

“The biggest thing happening right now is Russian buildup around Ukraine, it creates so-called strategic uncertainty, which means different scenarios are possible,” said Laurynas Kasciunas, chairman of the National Security and Defense Committee. Whether through negotiations or the “military scenario,” Russia’s goals are the same, he said.

He said Moscow wants not only to “have the veto right” to prevent any NATO enlargement to the east, but also to “create a two- or three-tiered NATO, with second-class membership for the Baltic states,” meaning Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia would remain in NATO formally but “without military exercises in our region, without NATO deployment in our region.”

“We are against that, we reject that, it’s very good for the U.S. and NATO to respond and say they reject this as well,” he said.

Kasciunas also voiced concern about Belarus, his country’s neighbor to the east, which he said has “lost its sovereignty and neutrality” since President Alexander Lukashenko turned to Moscow for help when threatened by mass protests over a disputed 2020 election.

Lithuania has since become a safe haven for activists fleeing Belarus, including exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and her children.

Russia’s deployment of troops into Belarus as part of a buildup for a potential invasion of Ukraine demonstrates how quickly Lithuania — a NATO member state — could be subjected to similar pressure, Kasciunas said. “If two years ago Lukashenko could have 48 hours neutrality, now he [presents] zero neutrality.”

Lithuania this week welcomed decisions made by Germany and the Netherlands to increase the number of troops deployed to Lithuania. U.S. help is also critical, Kasciunas said. He described what this help could look like.

“We have now a rotating military battalion, but we need more combat-ready, more integrated into our national system,” he said. Even more importantly, “no gaps” between rotations, he said.

Until now, U.S. troop rotations into Lithuania have sometimes been separated by weeks or even months, an official at the Lithuanian Embassy told VOA.

Dovile Sakaliene, another National Security and Defense Committee member who was not part of the delegation, said she agrees. “Deterrence is much cheaper than defense,” she said in a phone interview from Lithuania.

“We feel like West Berlin in Cold War times,” Kasciunas said. “We have only a small corridor, the Suwalki Gap, which links us Baltic states with the rest of the NATO system via Poland. Just like NATO defended and deterred the Soviets in West Berlin, we’re also asking NATO to deter possible attacks in the Baltics.”

Kasciunas also recounted some of the decisions made during what he called “a year of anti-communism fight” that angered Beijing, beginning with a strong investment screening mechanism aimed at protecting Lithuania’s strategic assets and ending with an agreement to let Taiwan establish a representative office using the name Taiwan.

“They decided to punish us, not only to punish us but also to prevent others from following suit,” Kasciunas said.

“They not only banned our exports to China, but also Chinese export to Lithuania, which created a lot of problems for companies that depended on Chinese import for their production. And they also harassed international companies, which in their supply chain had some small Lithuanian element, especially German companies.

“They want to make Lithuania a noncredible financial partner, not attractive to foreign direct investment,” he said.

Andrikiene, the Foreign Affairs Committee chair, pointed out that Lithuania became an independent state after 50 years of Soviet occupation 32 years ago. “Without allies, like-minded countries, other democracies from whichever region of the world, we simply wouldn’t have survived, let alone become a successful European Union and NATO member state,” she said.

The presence and concrete support of worldwide democracies is critical, the Lithuanian lawmakers say, if they are to rally their own population and stand up to China’s attempts to isolate the country and harm its image.

One way the U.S. could help is by connecting their northeastern European state with countries providing market access in the Asia-Pacific region, Andrikiene said.

“The United States maintains a dialogue with the Indo-Pacific region, and we were asking for their expertise, their experience and their support for Lithuania. That would be a very concrete assistance and support in addition to political support and resolutions,” she said.

Kori Schake, a senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, told VOA in an exchange of emails that China “is draconian in response to small states’ bravery, fearing that if they aren’t made examples of, others will also gain the courage to resist China’s intimidation.”

Ensuring Lithuania’s success, she said, “is the right response” because it demonstrates solidarity with frontline states that dare to question and spotlight Chinese strategic intentions and practices.

“Same for Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and other countries China is trying to intimidate,” she said.

VOA’s Mandarin Service assisted with filming and video editing.
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A ranking officer in one of North Korea’s elite military cyberwarfare units is being held in an undisclosed location in far eastern Russia after Moscow’s agents thwarted his attempt to defect, according to sources familiar with the matter and documents obtained by VOA’s Korean Service.

Major Choe Kum Chol, a top information technology (IT) specialist in the North Korean People’s Army (KPA), has been held by North Korea’s consulate general in Vladivostok since September after being arrested by Russian police in Razdolnoe, a city about an hour by car from the Pacific Ocean port city. Choe, 33, had been hiding in Razdolnoe to avoid North Korean authorities who had been hunting for him since July when he left his post in Vladivostok after deciding to seek asylum from the Moscow office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), according to multiple sources in Russia who knew Choe.

VOA’s Korean Service has verified the credibility of sources who provided information on Choe and has been in touch with them for several months. To protect their identities, the service cannot provide further information about them. The sources approached VOA hoping to generate international interest in Choe’s case. They provided a copy of Choe’s passport, screenshots of text messages Choe exchanged with several of them, and other documents.

Vladivostok has long maintained Russia’s connections with North Korea. Despite United Nations prohibitions on employing North Koreans, many still work in the area and send home their ruble wages to a regime starved for hard currency. And, according to Japan’s Kyodo News, a group of North Korean IT experts moved from Hong Kong to Vladivostok to evade United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2397 passed in December 2017, prohibiting countries from authorizing work permits to North Korean workers and requiring their departure from overseas jobs by December 2019.

VOA’s Korean Service contacted the UNHCR’s Moscow and Europe regional bureaus as well as the Russian Foreign Ministry and asked if they were aware of Choe’s attempts to seek asylum. Only the Moscow UNHCR office replied, saying Tuesday, “Please note that UNHCR does not provide comments on individual cases.”

Elite education and career

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in 2013 that cyberwarfare, along with nuclear weapons and missiles, are an “all-purpose sword” that guarantees the military’s strike capabilities.

The regime selects young students to train them as hackers, according to a report by South Korea’s public media outlet, KBS.

According to Choe’s credentials obtained by VOA’s Korean Service, he was among those selected for elite training. He received his education in Pyongyang, attending the prestigious Geumseong School for middle and high school and Kim Chaek University of Technology for undergraduate and graduate school. North Korea combines middle and high school education in a six-year program.

Most Kim Chaek graduates are assigned to cyberwarfare units to work as hackers.

But even though Choe was an elite member of an elite force, like any other North Korean working overseas, he was under constant surveillance by Pyongyang, first in China and then in Russia.

The computer encryption specialist was assigned to Vladivostok in May 2019, according to VOA’s Korean Service sources, where he worked in a cyberwarfare unit tasked with undertaking intelligence missions while obtaining much-needed hard currency.

The North Korean won is largely worthless on international markets, and international sanctions have reduced Pyongyang’s access to trade that once provided foreign currency.

North Korea has increasingly resorted to attacks conducted by its cyberintelligence units to steal cryptocurrencies to support development of its nuclear and missile programs to replace income lost due to sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report obtained by Reuters on Saturday.

According to the report, “DPRK cyberactors stole more than $50 million between 2020 and mid-2021 from at least three cryptocurrency exchanges in North America, Europe and Asia.” North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), also uses its hackers to steal technical information.

Shattered dream

According to sources and documents obtained by VOA’s Korean Service, Choe made the decision to defect after losing hope for his future.

North Korea is one of the of the most repressive countries in the world, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Under Kim, the third leader of a nearly 75-year dynasty, the totalitarian government maintains “fearful obedience using threats of execution, imprisonment, enforced disappearance, and forced labor.” During the pandemic, the country has become even more isolated, according to the report.

A source told VOA’s Korean Service that Choe “would see [while working overseas] that nothing in North Korea changed.”

The same source said Choe had spoken of why he wanted to defect.

“He was young. He said he didn’t want to sacrifice his life for Kim Jong Un’s regime. It rules with lies and dictatorship. He said his dream was to live happily in a free world,” continued the source. 

According to VOA’s Korean Service sources, Choe evaded his minders in Vladivostok in July and hid in Razdolnoe as instructed by a network that helps defectors seek asylum from the Moscow office of the UNHCR.

Plan thwarted

The source who knew of Choe’s decision to defect said he last heard from Choe on Sept. 20, the day he was arrested by Russian police. VOA’s Korean Service could not determine how the police knew where Choe was hiding.

“I received a text message from Choe asking for help. He said five police officers came looking for him,” said the source.

Russian authorities handed him over to the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok.

Russian police have a history of arresting North Korean defectors at the request of Pyongyang. According to the U.S. State Department’s human rights report on Russia released in March 2021, Russian police “committed enforced disappearances and abductions” in 2020.

“The Civic Assistance Committee reported that a North Korean citizen who was seeking asylum in Vladivostok was taken to the Artyom City Police Department by individuals in civilian clothes, where he subsequently disappeared,” the report said.

The Civic Assistance Committee (CAC) is a Moscow-based nonprofit organization comprised of a team of lawyers, doctors, consultants, aid workers and interpreters who help refugees and migrants in Russia.

According to a report by the CAC released in 2020, Russia’s Deputy Head of the Federal Migration Service Nikolay Smorodin signed an agreement with North Korean Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Pak Myung Guk in February 2016 to transfer North Koreans who are trying to defect.

“The Russian government legalized the forcible deportation to the DPRK of those Koreans,” said the report.

Svetlana Gannushkina, who heads CAC, told VOA’s Korean Service on Wednesday she had been unaware of Choe’s situation until contacted by the Korean Service.

“We have a lawyer in that city who knows all about Koreans who reside there,” said Gannushkina, referring to Vladivostok. “I’ll try to get more information about (Choe),” she said through an interpreter.

Dangerous decision

The source who last heard from Choe said they and others decided to disclose Choe’s information to VOA’s Korean Service hoping the international community would step in to help.

Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation and a leading North Korean human rights activist, said, “It’s extremely dangerous” for North Koreans who are trying to defect and seek asylum.

“The UNHCR is doing the best (it) can trying to facilitate any refugees that are seeking asylum, but it’s such a difficult environment. And I think North Korea is very aggressive at tracking down and trying to force back anybody who’s trying to escape,” said Scholte.

Several sources said Choe might not have been repatriated to North Korea immediately after his arrest due to Pyongyang’s fear that he might bring COVID-19 into the country. North Korea has virtually sealed itself off from the world since January 2020, although last month it partially reopened the borders it shares with China to allow passage by North Korean freight trains, according to commercial satellite images tracked by The Associated Press.

Value of knowledge

According to Choe’s passport, screenshots of text messages Choe exchanged with several sources and other documents obtained by VOA’s Korean Service, Choe was deeply involved in Pyongyang’s overseas cyberoperations handled by its Enemy Collapse Sabotage Bureau.

The bureau is part of the General Staff Department overseen by North Korea’s military. The Enemy Collapse Sabotage Bureau and the Reconnaissance General Bureau are North Korea’s main cyberwarfare units, and the latter harbors known hacking operations such as the Lazarus Group and Hidden Cobra.

Mathew Ha, an analyst at national security research institute Valens Global, said a defection by a North Korean with Choe’s understanding of North Korea’s cyberwarfare landscape would be of “immense” value to countries such as the U.S. and South Korea.

“In terms of being able to attribute attacks back to North Korea,” a high-level defector from its military cyber command provides value “because the North Koreans have consistently denied any sort of claims from the United States or South Korea regarding (its) culpability on any major cyberattacks including (on) Sony” Pictures Entertainment in 2014.

“It (would) be very valuable,” said Ha. A defector like Choe “could potentially provide crucial information that we really want to know” about. 

 
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Visiting NATO headquarters Thursday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that Europe is facing its biggest security crisis in decades and pledged more military deployments in eastern Europe, in response to Russia’s troop buildup on the border with Ukraine.

“The stakes are very high, and this is a very dangerous moment. And at stake are the rules that protect every nation, every nation big and small,” Johnson said after talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Britain is strengthening its deployments in Estonia and Poland and is considering further deployments in southeastern Europe in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Several NATO members have sent troop reinforcements to allies on NATO’s eastern flank. Many observers say Moscow’s actions have brought the alliance closer together.

Stoltenberg welcomed Britain’s commitment.

“The U.K. is playing a leading role, delivering both militarily and diplomatically,” he said. “Renewed Russian aggression will lead to more NATO presence, not less.”

US carrier strike group

Warships and fighter jets from 28 NATO members conducted exercises off the Italian coast earlier this month. It was the first time since the end of the Cold War that a U.S. Navy carrier strike group was placed under NATO command.

The United States has deployed an additional 3,000 troops to Poland and Romania.

“The focus of this particular mission … is to reinforce the NATO alliance, to build that trust and confidence, to reassure our allies and to strengthen the eastern flank of the NATO alliance,” Colonel Joe Ewers of the U.S. Army 2nd Cavalry Regiment said Wednesday.

France is preparing to send troops to Romania, while Germany — criticized in the past for failing to take a harder line on Russia — is boosting its troop deployment in Lithuania by 350 personnel, in addition to the 500 soldiers already there.

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht called Germany’s participation an important signal for NATO allies.

“We can be relied on, and we are showing that with this strengthening of the battle group,” she told reporters on Monday.

NATO united

In 2017, then-U.S. President Donald Trump described NATO as “obsolete” because, he said, it “wasn’t taking care of terror.” In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron called the alliance “brain dead,” citing a perceived waning commitment by its main guarantor, the United States.

Now, Russia’s actions have served to unify NATO, according to analyst Jonathan Eyal, associate director at the Royal United Services Institute.

“The Russians were demanding not merely an acceptance of a division of Europe into new spheres of influence, but a rollback on all the security arrangements put in place on the continent since the early 1990s at the end of the Cold War. And that was simply so outrageous, so extreme in its scope that quite frankly, it left very little opportunity for countries to disagree that a rejection and a flat-out rejection of such demands was the only approach.”

Eyal added that the role of the United States has been crucial in recent months.

“It’s astounding the amount of meetings, the amount of visits, the amount of effort that the (U.S.) administration put into ensuring that the consensus was kept,” he said.

Public support

Opinion polls show an increase in public support for NATO both in existing member states and in non-NATO allies, including Sweden and Finland. While neither is expected to join the alliance any time soon, both countries have voiced alarm at the Russian troop buildup.

“Nobody wants this to escalate any further. We all want Russia to de-escalate the situation. We want to find peaceful ways out of the situation,” Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin told reporters after meeting European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week.

Putin’s miscalculation?

Russia’s amassing of more than 100,000 troops near the Ukraine border was a miscalculation, Eyal said.

“If Russia was thinking of dividing Europe, what they’ve done over the past few months achieved precisely the opposite,” he said.

But Russia believes it has achieved the objective of keeping Ukraine and Georgia out of the alliance, said Alex Titov, a Russia analyst at Queen’s University Belfast.

“Russia made it very clear, I think abundantly clear, that that is a really big (red) line. As Putin said several times, membership of NATO (for Ukraine and Georgia) would basically mean war with Russia for all NATO countries.”

Despite Moscow’s denials, many Western leaders still believe Russia is planning to invade Ukraine. Rather than highlighting NATO’s divisions, many observers say that threat has galvanized the alliance.

 
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French police warned Thursday they would prevent so-called “Freedom Convoys” from blockading Paris, as protesters against COVID-19 rules began to drive toward the capital.

Inspired by truckers paralyzing the Canadian capital, truckers and other motorists from across France are answering a call to converge on Paris on Friday.

The movement has raised fears of a repeat of the 2018 “yellow vest” anti-government protests that rocked France, only two months before President Emmanuel Macron is expected to seek reelection.

“There will be a special deployment … to prevent blockages of major roads, issue tickets and arrest those who infringe on this protest ban,” the Paris police force said in a statement.

The city’s ban will remain in force until Monday.

Protesters face fines

Police said that anyone blocking roads faced up to two years in prison, a fine of $5,140 and a three-year driving ban.

“If people want to demonstrate in a normal fashion, they can do so,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told the LCI channel. But, he added, “If they want to block traffic, we will intervene.”

The authorities in neighboring Belgium also issued warnings as participants appeared to want to move on to Brussels, the Belgian and European Union capital, on Monday for what they called “a European convergence.”

Brussels Mayor Philippe Close said the city would ban the demonstrations on the simple grounds that no one had applied for a permit for the convoys to enter.

“Measures have been taken to prevent the blockade of the Brussels region,” Close wrote on Twitter.

And Austrian police said no “Freedom Convoy” would be allowed in Vienna, saying the vehicles would cause an “unacceptable nuisance” as well as pollution from fuel emissions.

Many protesters appeared undaunted in France.

“We’ll be heading to the capital whatever happens,” Adrien Wonner, who was planning to set off from the northern Normandy region, told AFP.

‘Yellow vest ‘ prostests

The 27-year-old, a past “yellow vests” protester, added that demonstrators wanted “to make our voices heard” but “not to blockade” Paris.

Anger over coronavirus restrictions is high on their agenda, particularly the “health pass” system that prevents the unvaccinated from entering enclosed public areas such as restaurants, bars, long-distance trains or sports stadiums.

Remi Monde, a prominent social media backer of the convoys, told AFP that their top demand was a “withdrawal of the health pass and all the measures that compel or pressure people to get vaccinated.”

After conventional demonstrations failed to achieve results, “we want to try something else, and see what the government’s response will be to joyous, pacifist people,” he added.

COVID isn’t only issue

But like in Ottawa, the French protests were poised to extend beyond COVID-19 issues, including low wages and high energy costs, the same grievances that fueled the “yellow vest” demonstrations.

The “yellow vests,” so called because they wore fluorescent safety jackets that vehicles in France are required to have, had quickly added “anti-system protests” to their original grievance over fuel price rises, Laurence Bindner, a co-founder of JOS Project, a platform for the analysis of extremist online content, told AFP.

Government spokesman Gabriel Attal said he recognized the public’s weariness with infection control measures. He also indicated that the country may be in a position to drop its obligatory vaccine pass in late March or early April as cases fall.
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French researcher Luc Montagnier, who won a Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering HIV and more recently spread false claims about the coronavirus, has died at age 89, local government officials in France said. 

Montagnier died Tuesday at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a western suburb of the capital, the area’s city hall said. No other details were released. 

Montagnier, a virologist, led the team that in 1983 identified the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, leading him to share the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine with colleague Francoise Barré-Sinoussi.

The French minister for higher education and research, Frédérique Vidal, praised Montagnier’s work on HIV in a written statement Thursday and expressed her condolences to his family.

Inspired by discoveries

Montagnier was born in 1932 in the village of Chabris in central France.

According to his autobiography on the Nobel Prize website, Montagnier studied medicine in Poitiers and Paris. He said recent scientific discoveries in 1957 inspired him to become a virologist in the rapidly advancing field of molecular biology.

He joined the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1960 and became head of the Pasteur Institute’s virology department in 1972.

“My involvement in AIDS began in 1982, when the information circulated that a transmissible agent — possibly a virus — could be at the origin of this new, mysterious disease,” Montagnier said in his autobiography.

In 1983, a working group led by him and Barré-Sinoussi at the Pasteur Institute isolated the virus that would later become known as HIV and was able to explain how it caused AIDS.

American scientist Robert Gallo claimed to have found the same virus at almost exactly the same time, sparking a disagreement over who should get the credit. The United States and France settled a dispute over the patent for an AIDS test in 1987. Montagnier was later credited as the discoverer of the virus, Gallo as the creator of the first test.

Shunned for recent views

Since the end of the 2000s, Montagnier started expressing views devoid of a scientific basis. His opinions led him to be shunned by much of the international scientific community.

As COVID-19 spread across the globe and conspiracy theories flourished, Montagnier was among those behind some of the misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus.

During a 2020 interview with French news broadcaster CNews, he claimed that the coronavirus did not originate in nature and had been manipulated. Experts who have looked at the genome sequence of the virus have said Montagnier’s statement was incorrect.

At the time, AP made multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact Montagnier.

Last year, he claimed in a French documentary that COVID-19 vaccines led to the creation of coronavirus variants.

Experts contacted by The Associated Press explained that variants found across the globe began emerging long before vaccines were widely available. They said the evidence suggests new variants evolved as a result of prolonged viral infections in the population and not vaccines, which are designed to prevent such infections.

Earlier this year, Montagnier delivered a speech at a protest against vaccine certificates in Milan, Italy.

Montagnier was emeritus professor at the Pasteur Institute and emeritus research director at the CNRS. He received multiple awards, including France’s highest decoration, the Legion of Honor.
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Russia opened 10 days of massive military drills in Belarus on Thursday and docked six of its ships at a strategic Black Sea port, drawing a sharp rebuke from Ukrainian officials who characterized Moscow’s actions as further escalating tensions in the region.

The Russian maneuvers in Belarus involved thousands of troops and sophisticated weapons systems such as S-400 surface-to-air missiles, Pantsir air defense systems and Su-35 fighter jets, with some of the training just 210 kilometers north of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the six ships arrived at the port of Sevastopol in Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. They had been on a 13,000-kilometer journey from the Baltic Sea to begin what officials described as naval exercises. The Russian ships are designed for unloading troops, vehicles and material onto land.

Officials in Moscow and Minsk have said Russian troops will withdraw from Belarus after the drills end February 20. But Western officials remain fearful they could be deployed in a Russian invasion of Ukraine, a onetime Soviet republic, along with 100,000 troops Moscow has amassed along Ukraine’s eastern flank.

Actions ‘pose another threat’

Ukrainian officials, who launched their own drills Thursday, assailed the impending naval drills, characterizing them as “destructive activity to destabilize the security situation.” Kyiv accused Russia of violating international law by restricting wide swaths of open waters to conduct missile and artillery fire training.

“These actions pose another threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty in its territorial sea area and in its sovereign rights in the exclusive maritime economic zone,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a statement. “By blocking the recommended sea lanes, the Russian Federation has made it literally impossible to navigate in these areas and allow ships to enter Ukrainian seaports, especially in the Sea of Azov.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in a call with reporters, denied that the drills would affect seagoing commercial operations.

Peskov said Russia was staging the joint exercises with Belarus, its largest ever, to combat “unprecedented security threats … the nature and, perhaps, concentration of which are, unfortunately, much larger and much more dangerous than before.”

Russian officials have denied they plan to invade Ukraine, but diplomatic talks with Western officials have led to a standoff. Russia has demanded that the U.S. and its allies reject Ukraine’s bid for membership in NATO, the Western military alliance formed after World War II.

The West has rejected that as a nonstarter but has said it is willing to negotiate with Moscow over missile deployment and troop exercises in Eastern European countries closest to Russia.

Britain on Thursday urged Russia to take a “diplomatic route that avoids conflict and bloodshed” while warning against any Russian moves that undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Warning of ‘severe costs’

“Fundamentally, a war in Ukraine would be disastrous for the Russian and Ukrainian people and for European security. And together, NATO has made it clear that any incursion into Ukraine would have massive consequences and carry severe costs,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said as she met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Western governments have been calling on Russia to take steps to de-escalate the crisis and have vowed to swiftly impose severe economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine.

Lavrov said Thursday that only “mutually respectful dialogue” could lead to normalized relations.

“Ideological approaches, ultimatums, threats — this is the road to nowhere,” Lavrov said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled Thursday to Brussels to discuss the crisis with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before heading for more meetings with leaders in Poland.

Johnson called the situation the “biggest security crisis that Europe has faced for decades” as he urged solidarity with NATO allies. He told reporters he did not think that Russian President Vladimir Putin had yet decided whether to invade Ukraine, but added, “Our intelligence remains grim.”

Looking for peaceful path

Stoltenberg told reporters he sent a letter to Lavrov inviting Russia for more rounds of meetings to “find a diplomatic way forward.”

“We are prepared to listen to Russia’s concerns and ready to discuss ways to uphold and strengthen the fundamental principles of European security that we all have signed up to,” Stoltenberg said.

He added, “Renewed Russian aggression will lead to more NATO presence, not less.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that Russia had been taking escalatory steps in recent weeks, and that the United States hoped that would change.

“I think as we look at the preparation for these military exercises again, we see this as certainly more of an escalatory and not a de-escalatory action as it relates to those troops and the military exercises,” Psaki said.

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

A senior Ukrainian official says her country will not bow to threats of military action from Russia and is prepared to fight to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva says she does not believe Russia intends to invade her country. Rather, Yevheniia Filipenko says Russia’s main objective is to destabilize Ukraine politically, economically and militarily through the threatened use of force.

Filipenko says Russia’s massive troop and weapons buildup along Ukraine’s border is aimed at achieving that result. She adds the large joint Russia-Belarus military exercise and the naval drills taking place in the Black Sea are part of the same plan.

The Ukrainian envoy says her government’s goal is to discourage Russia from pursuing its aggressive course against Ukraine, Europe, and the European security order. That, she says, will be done through diplomatic means. She adds, however, that her country will not cross certain red lines in negotiating a diplomatic solution to the prevailing threat.

“No concessions on sovereignty, territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders. Second, no direct [dialogue] with Russian occupation administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk. And third, only the people of Ukraine have the right to define [their] foreign policy course,” Filipenko said.

Russia-backed rebels of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics have been waging war against the Ukrainian government since 2014. The United Nations estimates more than 13,000 people have been killed in that war of separation, which continues. The two separatist republics are located in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denies planning to invade Ukraine. He has demanded that the West reject the possibility of Ukraine joining the NATO alliance and that Western allies pull back their troops and armaments closest to Russia.

Filipenko says the days when countries tried to impose their decisions on Ukraine are over. She says Ukraine will not bow to threats that will weaken the state and undermine its economic and financial stability. She says Ukraine is stronger, more resilient, and better prepared now to defend itself than it was in 2014. That was when Russia invaded Crimea and annexed the peninsula.

“We have a very strong Ukrainian army, which is very determined to defend Ukraine and not to allow any further military occupation should the Russians make [the] decision to invade, to further invade Ukraine,” she said.

Filipenko says Moscow will pay a very high price if it invades. She says Ukraine’s international partners have designed a comprehensive package of deterrence measures that will have serious economic and political consequences for Russia should it launch an offensive.
…

LONDON — Britain’s Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19 and is self-isolating, his office said Thursday.

A message on his official Twitter page said Charles tested positive on Thursday morning and was “deeply disappointed” not to be able to attend a scheduled visit in Winchester, England.

Charles, 73, met dozens of people during a large reception at London’s British Museum on Wednesday evening. He was accompanied by his wife Camilla, and was in close contact with Britain’s Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, among others.

Charles’ office, Clarence House, confirmed that he is triple vaccinated.

It was not immediately clear what his condition was or whether Charles had recently met with his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The queen, 95, marked her Platinum Jubilee on Sunday by expressing her wish for Camilla to be known as Queen Consort when Charles becomes king.

Camilla carried on with her engagements as scheduled on Thursday, visiting a sexual assault referral center in London.

Charles previously contracted the coronavirus in March 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic. Officials said he had mild COVID-19 symptoms then. Charles and Camilla isolated at Queen Elizabeth II’s Balmoral estate in Scotland at the time.

Spain’s King Felipe VI, 54, and Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, 81, also tested positive for the coronavirus this week.
…

Turkey’s media regulator on Wednesday gave three international broadcasters, including Voice of America’s Turkish Service, short notice to obtain broadcast licenses or have their content blocked.

The order from the Radio and Television Supreme Council, known as RTUK, also affects German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Euronews, the regulator’s opposition board member said.

“A decision was taken with a majority of votes that 72 hours be granted to the websites of amerikaninsesi.com, dw.com/tr, and tr.euronews.com to get licenses,” Ilhan Tasci, a member of RTUK’s board, said in a tweet.

Tasci, who was appointed to the board by the opposition Republican People’s Party, criticized the decision, calling it a further assault on media freedom in Turkey.

Regulation

The decision is based on a regulation that went into effect in August 2019. At that time, several media freedom advocates raised concerns about possible censorship because the regulation granted RTUK the authority to control all online content.

Also, with the regulation, RTUK has been authorized to request broadcast licenses from “media service providers” in order for their radio, TV broadcasting and on-demand audiovisual media services to continue their online presence.

“Media service providers” has been defined broadly in the regulation to include online news outlets and digital streaming platforms such as Netflix.

The broadcast license, which covers 10 years, costs $7,382 (100,000 Turkish liras) for digital streaming platforms and online TV broadcasting.

The regulation allows RTUK to impose fines, suspend broadcasting for three months or cancel broadcast licenses if the licensees do not follow RTUK’s principles.

RTUK has been implementing the regulation among digital streaming platforms. In November 2020, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video received licenses from the regulator, RTUK’s head, Ebubekir Sahin, announced on Twitter.

In December 2021, RTUK ordered Netflix to remove the Spanish movie More the Merrier, saying the movie was “based on a fiction in which homosexuality, incest relationships and swinging are intensely experienced” and included immoral scenes that violated the “spiritual values of the public.”

Censorship concerns

The announcement Wednesday marked the first time RTUK has used its regulatory power over online news outlets.

RTUK’s deputy head, Ibrahim Uslu, confirmed the decision to German news agency dpa over the phone.

Uslu told dpa that RTUK would publish a detailed notice of its decision on its website “within a week to 10 days,” and after that, the broadcasters would have 72 hours to comply.

Uslu dismissed censorship criticisms, saying that the decision “has nothing to do with censorship but is part of technical measures.”

Some media freedom advocates point out that RTUK’s latest decision could force more international public broadcasters to obtain licenses from the regulator if they want to operate in Turkey, just as is happening with VOA.

“These [international public broadcasters] will have to obtain licenses from Turkey, and in this context, they will have to implement the RTUK and court decisions. Otherwise, access to the websites of these organizations may be blocked from Turkey upon the request of RTUK,” Yaman Akdeniz, a cyberlaw professor at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, told VOA.

“So organizations outside of Turkey that broadcast and still provide news more freely in Turkish will also be targeted through RTUK before the 2023 elections,” Akdeniz added.

Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, seconded Akdeniz’s remarks.

“The requirement put before VOA, DW and Euronews is another attempt to control the independent reporting, especially in view of elections set for 2023,” Said told VOA.

The next presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 2023, but the opposition parties have been calling for an early election.

Said emphasized the importance of international public broadcasters’ presence in the Turkish media landscape, pointing to the decline in media freedom in Turkey.

“Many critical journalists now work for international media outlets because they were fired from or left mainstream media outlets in recent years because it became difficult, if not impossible, to work there due to censorship,” Said told VOA.

If VOA, DW and Euronews “will not be able to continue their work in Turkey, these highly qualified professionals will become a victim of new regulations,” Said added.

RTUK’s independence

Several media freedom advocates have long criticized RTUK. Human Rights Watch says the regulator fails to meet standards of impartiality and independence because of its political alignment with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“When we look at the track record of the RTUK, we see that its board is unwilling to warn or fine the pro-government outlets while acting quite harshly towards critical media outlets,” Said told VOA.

RTUK’s nine members are nominated by political parties in proportion to their representation in the parliament. Currently, the AKP and the allied Nationalist Movement Party hold the majority.

RTUK did not respond to VOA’s requests for comment.

In an email to VOA’s Turkish Service in response for a request for comment, a VOA spokesperson said VOA was aware of RTUK’s requirement for an operating license.

“VOA believes any governmental efforts to silence news outlets is a violation of press freedom, a core value of all democratic societies,” Bridget Serchak, the VOA spokesperson, said.

“Should the Turkish government formally block our websites, VOA will make every effort to ensure that its Turkish-speaking audience retains access to a free and open internet using all available methods,” the VOA spokesperson added.

Deutsche Welle did not respond to VOA’s request for comment but did post a story on its website.

“We have learned from the media about a possible decision by the RTUK that could also haveimplications for DW,” a DW spokesperson said. “However, we will be able to make a conclusive analysis and decide how to proceed only once we have received official notification from the authority.”

Euronews said it could not comment on the issue for the time being.

VOA’s Turkish Service has been broadcasting to Turkey since 1948. The service has provided essential news for the Turkish-speaking audience through its website and TV programming.

In 2019, the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), a pro-government think tank in Turkey, published a 202-page report titled “The Offshoots of International Media Organizations in Turkey” and profiled journalists working for Turkish language services of international public broadcasters, including Voice of America. The report alleged that the broadcasters’ coverage of Turkey was one-sided and unfair to the Turkish government.

On Twitter, another opposition member of the RTUK board, Okan Konuralp, called RTUK’s decision an application of SETA’s report.

“However, this move to suppress the international media is also doomed to failure,” he added.

VOA’s Hilmi Hacaloglu and Can Kamiloglu contributed to this report, some information for which came from Reuters.
…

  Britain on Thursday urged Russia to take a “diplomatic route that avoids conflict and bloodshed” while warning against any Russian moves that undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.

“Fundamentally, a war in Ukraine would be disastrous for the Russian and Ukrainian people and for European security and together NATO has made it clear that any incursion into Ukraine would have massive consequences and carry severe costs,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said as she met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Western governments have been calling on Russia to take steps to de-escalate the crisis that has come with it massing more than 100,000 troops near the border, deploying warships to the Black Sea and sending more troops and military equipment to Belarus, another Ukrainian neighbor, for military drills that began Thursday.

Ukraine also launched its own military drills Thursday with both set to last until Feb. 20.

Lavrov said Thursday that only “mutually respectful dialogue” can lead to normalized relations.

“Ideological approaches, ultimatums, threats — this is the road to nowhere,” Lavrov said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is meeting Thursday with leaders of Poland and NATO as he urges what his office called “solidarity with NATO allies who bear the brunt of Russian aggression.”

Johnson has ordered 1,000 British troops be ready to respond to a potential humanitarian crisis resulting from a Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

“What we need to see is real diplomacy, not coercive diplomacy,” Johnson said in a statement. “As an alliance we must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise. That includes the security of every NATO ally and the right of every European democracy to aspire to NATO membership.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday Russia has been taking escalatory steps in recent weeks and the United States hopes that changes.

“I think as we look at the preparation for these military exercises, again, we see this as certainly more of an escalatory and not a de-escalatory action as it relates to those troops and the military exercises,” Psaki said. 

Top Russian commanders arrived in Belarus on Wednesday, set to oversee 30,000 Russian troops as they train with the Belarusian military.

Russia has moved S-400 surface-to-air missile systems and numerous fighter jets into Belarus for the exercises, with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian armed forces’ general staff, in command of the drills. 

The training in Belarus is the latest threat to Ukraine, whose capital, Kyiv, is 210 kilometers to the south.

Ukraine’s military exercises involve unmanned aircraft and antitank missiles supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was staging the joint exercises with Belarus to combat “unprecedented security threats.”

Western intelligence experts say they believe Moscow has about 70% of its strike force in place for an attack on its one-time Soviet republic, which that has leaned to the West in recent years and seeks to join NATO.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied he plans to invade Ukraine but demanded that the West reject the possibility of Ukraine joining the 30 countries already in NATO and that the Western allies pull back their troops and armaments closest to Russia.

In response, the West has said Russia has no veto power over who belongs to NATO but that it is willing to negotiate with Moscow over the placement of missiles in eastern Europe and periodic NATO military drills.

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

The so-called Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015 attempted to end the war in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine between Ukraine and Russian-speaking separatists in the disputed areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.

In 2014, representatives of Ukraine and Russian separatists agreed to a 12-part cease-fire deal in the Belarus capital of Minsk. The deal included a prisoner exchange, humanitarian assistance and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the disputed area.

But the agreement quickly broke down after both sides violated the terms.

The two sides tried again in 2015, this time with representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In the second deal, a 13-part agreement was signed, which called for an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons, OSCE monitoring, amnesty for those involved in fighting, hostage and prisoner exchanges, full control of Ukraine’s state border, withdrawal of foreign troops, reestablishment of economic and social ties, and elections in the disputed areas, among other provisions. It also offers regions where pro-Russian separatists hold sway a measure of autonomy that could impact central government decision-making.

Leaders from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were present and issued a statement in support of the deal. It was also endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

But most of the provisions were not implemented because Russia insisted it was not involved in the conflict and therefore could not withdraw forces because it did not have any deployed there, according to Reuters. Russia insisted that any agreements be made between Ukraine and the disputed regions. Ukraine refused a dialogue with the separatists.

Still, according to CNN, most of the worst fighting stopped, and the OSCE patrols the area reporting cease-fire violations.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters. 

 
…

Britain ordered 1,000 troops to be on a state of readiness to provide support in the event of a humanitarian crisis caused by any Russian aggression, ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the leaders of NATO and Poland on Thursday. 

Johnson will go to Brussels and Warsaw to stress the need to hold firm on NATO’s principles and discuss ways that Britain can provide military support while Russia amasses its troops near Ukraine’s border. 

Johnson’s trip is one among a wave of international diplomatic efforts. French President Emmanuel Macron met Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week, and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is due to have in-person meetings with U.S. allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference next week. 

Britain’s foreign secretary and defense secretary are also due in Moscow this week for talks with their counterparts. 

“The U.K. remains unwavering in our commitment to European security,” Johnson said in a statement. “As an alliance, we must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise.” 

Britain said on Monday that it would send a further 350 troops to Poland, after it sent 100 troops last year to help with a migrant crisis at its border with Belarus. 

Johnson’s office repeated on Wednesday that any further military incursion of Ukraine by Russia would likely create the mass forced displacement of people on Europe’s border, affecting countries like Poland and Lithuania. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. 

Johnson’s office said the prime minister would also discuss with NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg the U.K.’s offer to bolster the alliance’s defenses, including a doubling of troops in Estonia, more RAF jets in southern Europe, and the sailing of both the Trent patrol vessel and a Type 45 destroyer to the Eastern Mediterranean.  
…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called Wednesday for “pausing” diplomatic relations with Spain, not breaking them, as he escalated his criticism of Mexico’s former colonial power, which he says has exploited Mexico. 

Lopez Obrador made the comments at a regular news briefing during which he requested a “breather” in official ties, stating “the relationship is not good” currently.

The Mexican president has been consistent in his assertion that Spanish authorities and corporations have been exploiting the North American country, particularly in the energy sector. 

“They were like the owners of Mexico,” Lopez Obrador said to the media as he took to task the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.  

“They plundered us,” Lopez Obrador said, targeting the role of Spanish investment in the country. “Perhaps when the government changes, relations will be restored, and I wish that when I’m no longer here they wouldn’t be what they were before.” 

Lopez Obrador has proposed changes to Mexico’s energy market that have drawn criticism. In his defense, he said his proposal would end abuses that have benefited a few. He cited as examples power company Iberdrola and oil firm Repsol as Spanish companies that benefited from past Mexican governments. 

The Mexican president’s comments regarding Spain surprised Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares. 

“I’d like to make clear that Spain’s government has done nothing that could justify any declaration of this kind,” he said Wednesday, according to Reuters. “What’s clear from business ties between our countries is that far from pausing, investment flows have only been rising for years.” 

Lopez Obrador’s ire toward the Spanish rose early in his administration. He had been in office a little more than a month when, in early 2019, he sent a letter to the king of Spain and Pope Francis asking them to apologize for the exploitation committed in the 500 years since Spain’s conquest of Mexico. The Spanish government rejected the request.   

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

Ukrainian communities in some large California cities are taking to the streets in peaceful demonstrations to express support for their homeland as Russia seems to be preparing to invade Ukraine. Khrystyna Shevchenko has this report from California.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing a poisoned peace plan, say critics in Europe, who fear the outcome of his talks this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin could be to strengthen Moscow’s hand in the crisis over Ukraine. 

A backlash is building to Macron’s visits this week to Moscow and Kyiv among fellow European leaders. They worry the French leader strayed from an agreed script and that his mooting of new security guarantees for Russia risks encouraging Putin in what they see as a Kremlin effort to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence over neighboring European nations. 

The details of the five hours of face-to-face discussions the French leader held with Putin Monday have not been made known publicly, but Macron has hinted at shifts in NATO’s position — including Ukraine shelving its hopes of joining the Western alliance — that alarm the leaders of some member states. They worry Macron risks encouraging Russian brinkmanship and warmongering and is handing the Russian leader too many opportunities for maneuver and chances to split NATO. 

Macron flew between Russia and Ukraine on a mission to calm tensions and find a diplomatic solution to avert war at a time of growing Western concern that Russia is planning to invade its neighbor, along whose borders it has deployed an estimated 140,000 troops, according to Ukrainian authorities. 

The Kremlin denies it has any intention to invade, saying talk of war is alarmist. French officials say Macron has coordinated fully with France’s allies, kept to an agreed script, and is taking on the role of the friendly cop, leaving it to U.S. President Joe Biden to be the tough cop with Putin.

The canvassing to reporters before and after Macron’s talks with Putin by French officials of the idea of Ukraine remaining a neutral country is causing unease especially in the capitals of eastern Europe and the Baltic States. French officials have raised to reporters the possibility of the “Finlandization” of Ukraine.  

Finland chose in 1947 not to become a NATO member and signed a treaty with Russia that included limiting the size of its army and other constraints restricting national sovereignty. Ironically, the current and growing crisis over Ukraine has prompted Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, to float the idea of his country joining NATO. 

Ingrida Šimonytė, Lithuania’s prime minister, has been publicly skeptical about the French president’s diplomatic mission to Moscow and is wary of offering concessions to Russia. She warned this week, “Neutrality helps the oppressor and never the victim.”  

Macron’s advocacy for the implementation of the Minsk peace protocol of 2015 is also causing unease, especially in Kyiv. Ukraine’s president notably refrained Tuesday from re-committing fully to the agreement, which outlined a final settlement in the country’s eastern Donbass region, parts of which have been under Russian occupation since April 2014, and where an estimated 32,000 Russian troops are currently stationed.   

Speaking at a joint press conference in Kyiv Tuesday with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Macron announced the leaders of both Russia and Ukraine had committed to honoring the Minsk accords. “We now have the possibility of advancing negotiations,” Macron said.  

Zelenskiy did not directly mention the Minsk agreement, which is highly unpopular in Ukraine, saying instead he hoped a scheduled meeting of German, French, Ukrainian and Russian officials in Berlin later this week might pave the way to revive the stalled peace process. 

“We have a common view with President Macron on threats and challenges to the security of Ukraine, of the whole of Europe, of the world in general,” Zelenskiy said. “I do not really trust words, I believe that every politician can be transparent by taking concrete steps,” he added. 

Trust about Russia’s intentions is in short supply in Ukraine, and the Minsk accords, agreed to by Kyiv at a time it was losing the war in the east and had little option but to sign, is seen as a means for the Kremlin to restrict the country’s sovereign rights and dominate its neighbor. 

The agreement was meant to bring fighting to a halt in the Donbass and proposed that the two “breakaway republics” in the region be reintegrated into Ukraine but retain considerable powers of self-government. Moscow, Kyiv, and Western governments have all said they believe in the deal, but it has never been implemented and fighting has continued in eastern Ukraine, where more than 14,000 people have been killed since 2014. 

Selling the Minsk deal now to Ukrainians would prove an uphill struggle, says former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. There would be considerable public resistance, and debate over the accord would exacerbate political divisions in Ukraine, which the Kremlin would seek to worsen. Ukrainian politicians have long argued the Minsk accords amount to a capitulation and would undermine Ukraine by giving the Donbass considerable scope to weaken the capacity of Kyiv to enact policies. It would also force constitutional changes.  

Kyiv and Moscow also interpret the agreement differently; Moscow believes it would give pro-Russia Donbass a veto over Ukraine’s foreign policy. Ukraine’s current foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, last week ruled out the Donbass being given any special status.  

Author and University of Oxford academic Timothy Garton Ash, a noted authority on central Europe, has been critical of the deal since its signing. Ash says it amounts to a “major concession from Kyiv to Moscow, as it largely gives Moscow what it wants, which is autonomy for the Kremlin’s so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic — the Russian-controlled areas of eastern Donbass in Ukraine — and a veto in effect on Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation.” 

Bruno Maçães, a Portuguese politician and former European affairs minister, says the Minsk agreement isn’t a solution. “It was dispiriting to watch how Macron insisted on the Minsk protocol as a solution to the crisis. A solution it cannot be since Putin’s desire to impose Minsk on Ukraine is what created the crisis in the first place.” 

In a commentary, he warned, “Yet President Zelenskiy might not be able to shake off the pressure. Ukraine is highly dependent on financial and military support from the West. If leaders such as Macron or Biden decide to exert all their influence to force the Ukrainian president’s hand, can he stand firm? We will soon find out.”  

The Élysée Palace says the Macron trip has provided breathing space and will help the West, Ukraine and Russia find a way to resolve differences by diplomatic negotiations. 

Asked whether Macron’s shuttle diplomacy was useful or getting in the way of NATO, Anders Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and onetime NATO secretary general, told British broadcaster Sky News, “I think all kinds of dialogue is positive, but I don’t think we should be naive.  

“We should realize that appeasement with dictators does not lead to peace, it leads to war and conflict, and that’s exactly the case with President Putin. After his meeting with President Putin, Macron declared that Putin had promised no escalation of the military conflict, but immediately after, the Kremlin denied that Putin had made that pledge. So it shows that you shouldn’t be naive.” 

 
…

As efforts to calm tensions between Moscow and Kyiv continue, civilians along the border are planning what they will do if Russia invades Ukraine. For VOA, Olena Adamenko spoke to residents in the Sumy region of northeast Ukraine in this story narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Mykhailo Zaika
…

A Belarusian cross-country skier has fled the country with her family because of fears of reprisals by authorities after she was barred from competition over the family’s political views, she and her father said.

Darya Dolidovich and her family are now in Poland, where she hopes to continue training, Sergei Dolidovich, a seven-time Olympian cross-country skier who also coaches Darya, told Reuters in an interview by video call with his daughter on Tuesday.

Reuters reported last month that 17-year-old Darya was barred from competing for what Sergei and his daughter believe were his participation in street protests against the 2020 re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that opponents said was fraudulent. Lukashenko has denied rigging the vote.

“Darya has been stripped of her right to take part in competitions,” he said. “I don’t see the possibility of her continuing her career in Belarus.”

“We could be accused of staging a demonstration and shouting (opposition) slogans, then just be sent to prison,” he said.

“Three months ago, I couldn’t have imagined, even in a nightmare, that I would end up leaving my country.”

The Dolidovich family’s departure comes a few days into the Beijing Winter Olympics, where the Belarusian national team is under scrutiny following the defection of sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya at the Tokyo Games last year.

Darya, one of the country’s most promising junior cross-country skiers, said last month that the Belarus Ski Union deactivated her FIS code, an individual identifying number required for athletes to take part in competitions run by the International Ski Federation (FIS).

The Belarus Ski Union told Dolidovich’s coaching staff that it deactivated her FIS code in December in response to a decision by the Belarus Cross-Country Skiing Federation, according to a Jan. 31 letter reviewed by Reuters. The letter did not say why that decision was made.

In response to questions from Reuters, the FIS said it had not heard back from Belarusian ski officials since requesting further information last month on the deactivation of Darya Dolidovich’s FIS code.

The Belarus Cross-Country Skiing Federation and the Belarus Ski Union did not respond to requests for comment.

Uncertainty ahead

Darya Dolidovich was supposed to graduate from secondary school this year, but it is unclear how she will pursue her studies in Poland.

“I had planned to finish school in Belarus, but my parents said that we were moving,” she said. “I’m upset, of course. It would have been simpler to stay a few months and finish school.”

Dolidovich said she was keen to continue skiing in the hopes of keeping her Olympic dream alive.

Several elite Belarusian athletes have been jailed or kicked off national teams for voicing opposition views and joining protests that erupted in 2020 over Lukashenko’s re-election.

The repression of Belarusian athletes, including the attempt to forcibly repatriate Tsimanouskaya during the Tokyo Olympics, has drawn international condemnation.

Last week, the United States announced it was imposing visa restrictions on several Belarusian nationals, citing Tsimanouskaya’s case and other instances of what it called extraterritorial counter-dissident activity.

Another Belarusian cross-country skier, Sviatlana Andryiuk, was also stripped of her FIS code, a decision that prevented her from taking part in a qualifying event that could have earned her a berth at the Beijing Olympics.

Andryiuk, who told Reuters last month that she had been accused of being an opposition supporter, described her political views as neutral.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the optimal resolution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis is a diplomatic one and that he expects to consult with his counterparts from France, Germany and Britain in the coming days.

“As you all know, we have been engaged in a two-track strategy where we have, on the one hand, been pursuing diplomacy — by far the preferable course, the responsible course — but at the same time building up strong deterrence to dissuade Russia from taking aggressive action,” Blinken told reporters traveling with him to Australia for a meeting of the so-called Quad countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday a resolution could take months. 

“You must not underestimate the tension that surrounds the situation that we are living through, its unprecedented nature,” Macron said in Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “I do not believe this crisis can be solved thanks to a few hours of discussions.”  

Macron had spent five hours talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.

The French leader said his discussions with Putin had helped ensure that “there’s no degradation and no [further] escalation” of the standoff between Russia and Ukraine and the Western alliance supporting the Kyiv government.

“I believe for my part that there are concrete, practical solutions that will allow us to move forward,” Macron said after meeting with Zelenskiy.

Macron acknowledged the crisis is not over, saying, “In adopting this threatening posture, Russia decided to put pressure on the international community.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday there were “seeds of reason” in proposals Macron had made to Putin. Peskov, however, rejected suggestions the crisis had been resolved, saying, “So far, we don’t see and feel the readiness of our Western counterparts to take our concerns into account.”

“In the current situation, Moscow and Paris could not make a deal,” Peskov said. “France is an EU and NATO member. France is not leading NATO,” the 30-nation Western military alliance dominated by the United States.

NATO has rejected Moscow’s demands that it end its expansion into eastern Europe nearest Russia and eliminate the possibility of Ukraine, a one-time Soviet republic, from joining NATO. The West says it is willing to negotiate over the positioning of missiles in eastern Europe and NATO troop maneuvers.

On Monday night, the Russian leader refused to rule out the possibility of invading Ukraine, while leaving the door open to further diplomacy. Putin said he would speak with Macron again by phone after the French president’s talks with Zelenskiy.

For his part, Zelenskiy said after discussions with Macron that he wants Putin to exhibit good intentions by pulling back troops from the Ukrainian border.

“Openness is always great, if it’s true, and not a game, but serious openness, not a joke, and understanding that there is a serious danger,” Zelenskiy told reporters following his talks with Macron.

“I do not really trust words, I believe that every politician can be transparent by taking concrete steps,” Zelenskiy said.

Macron said both Putin and Zelenskiy committed themselves to honoring the Minsk Accords signed in 2014 and 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. It was a response to Moscow’s 2014 unilateral annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, with the unmet goal of ending the fighting between Kyiv’s forces and Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. About 14,000 have been killed in the last eight years in the region.

“We have now the possibility of advancing negotiations,” Macron told reporters following his talks with the Ukrainian president. 
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CANBERRA — The foreign ministers of Australia and Lithuania agreed Wednesday to step up cooperation on strategic challenges, in particular pressures from China.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and his Australian counterpart Marise Payne met Wednesday at Parliament House. 

Australian exporters have lost tens of billions of dollars to official and unofficial Chinese trade barriers covering coal, wine, beef, crayfish and barley that have coincided with deteriorating relations with Beijing. 

Lithuania, a country of 2.8 million in the Baltic region, more recently drew Beijing’s ire after breaking with diplomatic custom by agreeing that Taiwan’s office in its capital Vilnius would bear the name Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei, a term used by other countries to avoid offending Beijing. 

“For quite a while, Australia was probably one of the main examples where China is using economy and trade as a political instrument or, one might say, even as a political weapon,” Landsbergis said. 

“Now Lithuania joins this exclusive club . . . but it is apparent that we’re definitely not the last ones,” he added.

Payne said she agreed with Landsbergis on the importance of like-minded countries working together with a consistent approach to maintaining the international rules-based order, free and open trade, transparency, security and stability.

“There are many colleagues with whom the foreign minister (Landsbergis) and I work and engage on these issues . . . the more I think we are sending the strongest possible message about our rejection of coercion and our rejection of authoritarianism,” Payne said.

Landsbergis welcomed Australia to World Trade Organization consultations over a complaint by the European Union accusing Beijing of holding up goods — both from member nation Lithuania and from EU companies that use Lithuanian components — at China’s borders. 

“We need to remind countries like China or any other country that would wish to use trade as a weapon that like-minded countries across the globe . . . have tools and regulations that help withstand the coercion and not to give in to . . . political and economic pressures,” Landsbergis said. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Tuesday that China was adhering to WTO rules in its dealings with Lithuania. 

“The so-called ‘coercion’ of China against Lithuania is purely made out of thin air,” he said Tuesday. 

“China urges Lithuania to face up to the objective facts, mend its ways and come back to the right track of adhering to the one-China principle. It should stop confounding right with wrong and maliciously hyping things up, let alone trying to rope other countries in to gang up on China,” Zhao said. 

The one-China principle holds that Taiwan is part of China and the Communist government in Beijing is China’s sole legitimate government. 

Lithuania’s first embassy in the 31-year history of bilateral ties opened in Canberra on Wednesday. Lithuania also offered support for Australia reaching a free trade deal with the EU. Australia plans to open a trade office in Lithuania soon. 

Landsbergis said disruptions by China and Russia of the “global rules-based order” required an international response. “We have to act counter-disruptively. That means reassuring and strengthening our ties and, actually, this rules-based order that provides security for some of us and prosperity also for the others,” he added. 
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