…

Washington — The discovery of a North Korean missile in Ukraine that had more than 200 components from U.S. and European companies revealed loopholes that North Korea uses to evade sanctions, said analysts.

North Korea is operating its arms factories at full capacity to supply Russia with weapons needed to fight Ukraine, said South Korean Defense Minister Shin Wonsik at a news briefing on Monday.

South Korea estimates Pyongyang sent about 6,700 containers to Russia since September, Shin said, according to South Korean media.

The U.S. puts the number even higher, estimating that North Korea delivered more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munition-related materials to Russia since September.

The U.S. announced the estimates on Friday as it issued sanctions against more than 500 individuals and entities in Russia.

North Korean weapons have been turning up on the Ukraine battlefield since December, according to the Security Service of Ukraine. It said on Thursday that Russia has fired at least 20 North Korean missiles at Ukraine since then, adding that the missiles had killed or injured civilians.

Russia denied any military or technical cooperation with North Korea during a Jan. 26 news briefing conducted by Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

VOA contacted the North Korean mission at the United Nations in New York City for comment but received no response.

Investigators determined a missile recovered on Jan. 2 in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was made with components from U.S. and European companies, according to a report by the U.K.-based investigative group Conflict Armament Research (CAR), first reported by CNN on Feb. 20.

The CAR report found that of the 290 components from the North Korean missile that were examined, about 75% originated with U.S.-based companies. About 16% of the components were linked to European companies.

The report said more than three quarters of the components were produced between 2021 and 2023 and that the missile could not have been made before March 2023. The report said, however, CAR “will not identify the companies linked to their production.”

U.N. member states have been banned from exporting materials and technologies that North Korea could use to make ballistic missiles since the Security Council passed Resolution 1718 in 2006.

Experts said U.S. companies whose parts ended up in the North Korean missile probably did not know the identity of the end user.

Aaron Arnold, a former member of the U.N. Panel of Experts for North Korea’s sanctions, said, however, that the discoveries show “how porous Western export control systems can be.”

Arnold, who is currently a senior associate fellow at Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Service Institute, told VOA via email on Friday that some of the items that ended up in the North Korean missile are items that can be used to make weapons as well as commercial goods.

“While I can’t say for sure in this particular case, some of the micro-electronics are dual use, meaning, they could be commonplace and used in other commercial applications,” Arnold said. “Some of the Western micro-electronics found in Russian drones, for example, are also used in refrigerators.”

Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, emailed VOA on Monday that in addition to dual-use items, “the focus on sanctions enforcement should be on more important components.”

Such components could include “non-domestic electronic components” that the CAR report said were found in the North Korean missile.

Arnold and other experts said North Korea’s practice of using third-party countries to smuggle banned items makes it difficult to detect components headed into the country. But they said it is possible to use established procurement networks to track components back from the missile to identify intermediaries.

Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow and sanctions expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a telephone interview with VOA on Friday, “Part of the biggest challenge is going after those who help North Korean sanctions evasion.”

He continued, “China, Russia, North Korea, Iran — these countries are experts in avoiding U.N. and U.S. sanctions. They are smart enough not to use their names and avoid any suggestion that it’s Russia or North Korea or Iran or China trying to buy these items. Part of the challenge is to lift that veil.”

Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington who helped draft the Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016, said via email these discoveries could be “an opportunity for the Commerce Department to trace North Korea’s procurement networks from each component through its supply chain and put the middlemen on its entity list.”
…

…

The $95 billion foreign aid package approved by the U.S. Senate this month remains stalled in the Republican-majority House of Representatives, jeopardizing the delivery of $60 billion in aid to Ukraine to help it defeat Russia. Congressional leaders met with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to discuss the impasse. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more.
…

washington — The United States might not be ready for the onslaught of disinformation and cyberattacks expected to hit the country ahead of this year’s presidential elections, according to a top U.S. lawmaker.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner told a cybersecurity conference in Washington that despite efforts by various U.S. government agencies to protect against election meddling, there are still gaps, especially when it comes to foreign influence campaigns.

“I worry that we are less prepared for foreign intervention in our elections in 2024 than we were in 2020,” he told the Trellix Cybersecurity Summit.

He added that the prevalence of artificial intelligence could also make Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election look “like child’s play.”

Top U.S. law enforcement and cybersecurity officials have repeatedly voiced confidence in their ability to protect the nation’s voting infrastructure from attacks from any number of U.S. adversaries.

“Americans can be confident in our election system and our democracy,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers last month, backed by the leaders of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency.

But officials have expressed concerns about influence operations, especially from Russia, China and Iran, designed to exploit existing U.S. domestic political divisions.

Warner on Tuesday said he believes that is where Washington election defenses are most vulnerable, citing a court ruling that has prohibited social media companies from sharing information about potential foreign influence operations with the FBI or CISA.

“That ought to scare the hell out of all of us,” he said, adding that voter susceptibility may be at an all-time high.

“We’ve got a whole lot of more Americans in 2024, unfortunately, that are more willing to believe or have less faith in our system to start with,” Warner said.

Warner’s warning about Russian election meddling echoes comments by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

“There’s plenty of reason to be concerned,” Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “There is a history here in presidential elections by the Russian Federation, by its intelligence services.”

Those concerns, however, have riled some lawmakers and conservative commentators, who argue the White House is trying to resurrect what they call the “Russia hoax” — the narrative voiced by many Democrats that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help former President Donald Trump win.

Warner, talking to reporters, dismissed such arguments.

“Anyone who doesn’t think the Russian intel services have and will continue to interfere in our elections … I wonder where they’re getting their information to start with,” he said in response to a question from VOA.

In a declassified intelligence report on the U.S. 2022 elections, released late last year, the National Intelligence Council assessed with high confidence that Russia, along with China and Iran, ran operations that sought to influence the outcomes.

“The Russian Government and its proxies sought to denigrate the Democratic Party before the midterm elections and undermine confidence in the election, most likely to undermine U.S. support for Ukraine,” the report said.

China targeted a “handful of midterm races involving members of both U.S. political parties,” it added.

Both Russia and China have previously denied allegations of running influence operations aimed at U.S. elections.
…

…

…

MOSCOW — Veteran human rights activist Oleg Orlov was sentenced on Tuesday by a Moscow court to two and a half years in prison after he was found guilty of discrediting Russian’s armed forces in a trial that has been condemned by international observers as politically motivated.

Orlov, 70, has served for more than two decades as one of the leaders of rights group Memorial. It won a share of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, a year after being banned and dissolved in Russia.

Memorial said Orlov was handcuffed after the verdict, and the court ordered him to be taken immediately into custody.

In his closing remarks to the trial on Monday, Orlov decried the “strangulation of freedom” in Russia, which he referred to as a “dystopia.”

The case against him stemmed from an article he wrote in 2022 in which he said Russia under President Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism.

He was initially fined $1,628 by a district court last year, but a retrial was ordered and prosecutors sought a jail sentence of two years and 11 months.

The U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, called Orlov’s trial “an orchestrated attempt to silence the voices of human rights defenders in Russia.”

Memorial, founded in 1989, has documented human rights abuses from the time of Soviet leader Josef Stalin to the present and defended freedom of speech, with a focus on identifying and honoring individual victims.
…

…

STATE DEPARTMENT — With a science and technology agreement between the United States and People’s Republic of China due to expire Tuesday, the State Department said it is negotiating to “amend, extend, and strengthen protections within” the agreement but declined to specify if the U.S. would extend the deal.

“We are not able to provide information at this time on specific U.S. negotiating positions or on whether the agreement will be extended past its current expiration date,” a State Department spokesperson told VOA.

The Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement is a framework for U.S. governmental collaborations with China in science and technology.  

U.S. officials have said the STA provides consistent standards for government-to-government scientific cooperation between the U.S. and China.  

While the agreement supports scientific collaboration in areas that benefit the United States, U.S. officials acknowledge the challenges posed by China’s national science and technology strategies and its domestic legal framework.

Critics, including U.S. lawmakers, point out China’s restrictions on data and a lack of transparency in sharing scientific findings. Washington is also concerned about personal safety of American scientists who travel to China, as well as Beijing’s potential military application of shared research.

A report by Congressional Research Service said China’s cooperation under the agreement has not been consistent. For example, “China reportedly withheld avian influenza strains required for U.S. vaccines and in 2019, cut off U.S. access to coronavirus research, including U.S.-funded work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” said the CRS.

Advocates for renewing the agreement want to maintain some level of official and unofficial contacts amid strained relationship between the two countries.  

During a recent discussion hosted by the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), panelists said the STA is “important symbolically” and gives confidence to researchers on both sides to deepen their engagement with counterparts.

“In the event of the agreement’s non-renewal, the mutual confidence that sustains and underpins collaboration is bound to suffer,” said ICAS in its post-event summary.

Dean Cheng, a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said the American system is far more open, so China will typically be able to gather information regardless of whether there is an agreement.

“The STA is no guarantee that American scientists will, in fact, be able to access Chinese research, information, or scholars, whereas the Chinese side will use the STA as a means of establishing an even greater presence in the U.S.,” Cheng told VOA, adding the “strategic advantage” under the deal will likely be with the PRC.

The STA was originally signed in 1979 by then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter and then-PRC leader Deng Xiaoping. Under the agreement, the two countries cooperate in fields including agriculture, energy, space, health, environment, earth sciences and engineering, as well as educational and scholarly exchanges.

U.S.-China science and technology activity increased in November 2009 with new agreements on joint projects in electric vehicles, or EVs, renewable energy, and the creation of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, or CERC, a 10-year research effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

The agreement has been renewed approximately every five years since its inception, with the most recent five-year extension occurring in 2018. Last August, it received a six-month extension as officials from the two countries undertook negotiations to amend and strengthen the terms.
…

…

…

The U.S. military has been forced to dip into its own funding to cover American training of Ukrainian forces, a strategy that could leave the Army short on finances in Europe as the Russian war on Ukraine enters its third year. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has details.
…

…

ATHENS, Greece — Greece on Monday formally agreed to participate in and lead a European Union maritime security operation in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping from attacks by Houthi militants in Yemen.

A security committee led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ordered the participation of a Greek frigate in the Aspides operation — named for the Greek word for “shield” — that was launched last week.

The mission will be run from a military base in Larissa, in central Greece, under the command of Greek navy Commodore Vasilios Griparis.

Greece, a major commercial shipping power, has been directly affected by the Houthi attacks. The port of Piraeus, near Athens, reported a 12.7% drop in activity at its container terminal in January, on an annual basis.

“We all understand that participation in this operation involves risks, significant risks,” Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said Monday while on a visit to the navy frigate Hydra at a naval base near Athens.

The frigate departed on the mission late Monday. 

“Greece, as a maritime power with a leading role in global shipping, attaches great importance to the need to safeguard the freedom of navigation, as well as the life of Greek seafarers,” Dendias said.

Germany, Italy and France will also provide warships for the mission, joining the Hydra, while Italy will assume tactical command, according to Greek officials.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius visited the German navy frigate Hessen that is taking part in Aspides, while on a trip to the Greek island of Crete last week. The vessel has since sailed southward to the Red Sea, German authorities said.

Officials in Athens have described the Aspides mission as defensive, adding that Greece would not take part in U.S.-led attacks against Houthi military targets in Yemen.

The Iranian-backed Houthis say their attacks on commercial ships with drones and missiles are a response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas, which began in October.

At a parliamentary committee hearing last week, Dendias said keeping the lines of maritime trade open was an “existential necessity for Greece.”

“We do not take a position on the Houthi issue,” Dendias told lawmakers at the hearing. “But we do challenge the right of anyone to fire at our ships, at European ships, and at ships that sail the region and come to our ports.”
…

washington — An internal review blames privacy restrictions and staff hesitancy for the Pentagon’s failure last month to quickly notify the president and other senior leaders about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization for complications from prostate cancer surgery.

The review, which was done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization, which included several days in the intensive care unit. And it says flatly there was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate.”

Instead, the 30-day examination of the lapse — which angered the White House and members of Congress — says procedures must be improved and information shared better about when the defense secretary must transfer decision-making authorities to the deputy.

Austin has been called to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a House hearing and is expected to face sharp criticism. The Defense Department’s inspector general is also conducting a review, which has not yet been completed.

Austin was diagnosed with prostate cancer in early December and went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for surgery on December 22. On January 1, he was taken back to Walter Reed by ambulance after experiencing significant pain and was moved to the intensive care unit the next day.

Although he transferred decision-making authorities to Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks during his initial surgery and then again when he was in intensive care, he did not tell her why and he did not inform the White House.

Pentagon officials have acknowledged that public affairs and defense aides were told on January 2 that Austin had been hospitalized but did not make it public and did not tell the military service leaders or the National Security Council until January 4. Only then did President Joe Biden find out. It took four more days before the reason for his hospitalization was disclosed.

Defense officials released an unclassified summary of the review on Monday and a set of recommended changes. The review suggests there was no established method for handling such an incident, and the fact that his hospitalization was “unplanned” contributed to the failure to let others know.

It also says Austin’s staff was limited by medical privacy laws that prohibited doctors from providing information and they “were hesitant to pry or share any information they did learn.” It adds that since Austin’s condition was “in flux” they could not ensure “timely secured communications.”

Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Monday that Austin’s aides found themselves in an “unprecedented situation.” He said that as Austin was being moved into intensive care, his aides recognized that he would not have access to critical communications, and they made the decision to transfer authorities to the deputy.

The fact that staff and not Austin made the decision raised questions about who was in control of the department at that moment, including America’s nuclear arsenal. Ryder said there were “no gaps” in command and control of the department.

Pressed on the lack of blame and whether anyone is being disciplined, Ryder said, “as the secretary has said, the buck stops with him and he’s taking responsibility for not notifying the president and the White House sooner.”

He added that “dedicated public servants were doing what they thought was the right thing.”

The 30-day review was finished and submitted to Austin on February 8, but only parts of it were publicly released. The Pentagon has argued that portions of the report are classified.

Austin, in a press briefing after he returned to work, told reporters that he never told his staff to keep his surgery and hospitalization secret from the White House, but acknowledged he should have handled it differently and he apologized for keeping Biden and others in the dark. He denied there was a culture of secrecy in his office, and also said that staff members may have perceived that “they’re doing things in my best interest.”

The recommended changes include better guidelines for the transfer of authorities and better reporting requirements during those incidents.

His secrecy about the hospitalizations prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to ensure it will be informed any time a Cabinet head transfers decision-making authorities when they are unreachable due to medical, travel or other reasons.
…

London — Sweden is set to officially join NATO after Hungary finally gave its approval Monday, the last member of the Western alliance to ratify the bid.

Analysts say the addition of the Nordic nation to NATO as its 32nd member will bring significant military capabilities to the Western alliance.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was a “historic day” for his country.

“Sweden is now leaving 200 years of neutrality and nonalignment behind us. It is a big step. We must take that seriously. But it is also a very natural step that we are taking,” Kristersson said at a news conference in Stockholm on Monday, following the Hungarian approval.

“Membership of NATO means that we now join a large number of democracies that work together for peace and freedom. A new home where neighbors cooperate for safety and a group of countries that, in practice, we have belonged for a very long time,” he added.

Hungary vote

Hungarian lawmakers passed the vote with an overwhelming margin of 188 in favor of Sweden’s accession and only six against the motion.

Earlier, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had urged MPs to approve the bid.

“The Swedish-Hungarian military cooperation and Sweden’s accession to NATO will strengthen Hungary’s security,” Orban said ahead of the vote.

Sweden’s submitted its application to join NATO along with Finland in May 2022, three months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Finland’s application was ratified relatively quickly, and it joined the alliance in April 2023. However, Sweden’s bid was held up by Turkey and Hungary. Ankara claimed that Sweden was harboring Kurdish groups, which it considers terrorists. Turkey eventually approved the NATO bid in January after Sweden introduced new anti-terror laws.

Hungary’s objections to Sweden’s NATO accession were less clear.

Orban had voiced anger over Sweden’s criticism of a perceived democratic backsliding in his country.

A visit by Kristersson to Budapest last Friday – and the purchase by Hungary of four Swedish Gripen fighter jets – appear to have helped overcome the tensions.

US ambassador

The U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who has been critical of Budapest’s delaying the ratification, welcomed the vote.

“Sweden’s accession to NATO will advance the security of the United States, the security of Hungary and the security of the alliance, and this has been a decision that has taken some time and we look forward to it,” Pressman told reporters outside the Hungarian parliament.

“Sweden has been waiting to join the alliance for now almost two years and a step forward has [been] taken, and this process should conclude rapidly,” he added.

Swedish forces have been training alongside NATO forces for decades, but formal membership will allow far deeper coordination of deployment and defense planning.

Sweden is expected to officially join NATO in the coming days or weeks, breaking its long-held policy of military non-alignment.

“The final piece of the puzzle falling into place, making NATO’s position in the Nordic-Baltic region whole. Sweden gains security in a crowd and supported by American nuclear deterrence,” said Robert Dalsjo, a senior analyst at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, adding that valuable military capabilities will be added to the alliance.

“We have a modern air force, with Gripen planes. We have excellent submarines, especially adapted to the conditions in the Baltic Sea. We have a small but high-tech navy and we have, on the ground, we have sub-arctic capabilities,” Dalsjo told Reuters.

Baltic defense

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are widely seen as among the most vulnerable NATO member states to a potential attack by Russia. Having Finland and Sweden in the alliance creates a powerful deterrence, according to Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

“Enabling the defense of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia from different angles. It will be possible to do very large, combined, air operations looking at directions from north Finland, and northwest to western Sweden, with both of those countries as NATO members, something that was not possible to plan as little as a year ago,” Salonius-Pasternak told VOA.

Swedish public opinion swung dramatically in favor of joining NATO after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The latest opinion polls suggest around two-thirds of Swedes approve of its membership.

Stockholm residents largely welcomed Hungary’s ratification of the bid.

“Finally, it’s been a long wait until Hungary to get the acceptance in the Parliament and what’s behind the scenes for it taking this long. But it’s good to finally be here. We have been preparing for a bit of time for this,” Jimmy Dahllof, a boat captain from Stockholm, told Agence France-Presse.

Finland’s experience of joining NATO has lessons for Sweden, said Helsinki-based Salonius-Pasternak.

“It’s the first steps of an ongoing process – a cultural change at the highest political level, societal level – that we are now responsible for our own defense but together and as part of an alliance, rather than solely ‘we alone’ thinking. And this I honestly think will be a generational shift,” he told VOA.

An accession ceremony is expected in the coming days after final formalities of Sweden’s membership are completed. Writing on X, formerly Twitter, NATO’s secretary-general said Monday that Sweden’s accession “will make us all stronger and safer.”

Russia response

Russia did not immediately respond to Hungary’s ratification. In the past Moscow has said that NATO membership would make Sweden “a legitimate target for Russian retaliatory measures.”

Kristersson said Monday that Moscow had itself to blame.

“As far as Russia is concerned, the only thing we can safely expect is that they do not like Sweden becoming a NATO member. They didn’t like Finland becoming a NATO member either,” Kristersson said. “The whole purpose was to emphasize that a country like Ukraine would not be allowed to choose its own path. Instead of accepting that Russia had veto rights over Ukraine’s way forward, NATO has now, soon instead gained two new members.”

He added, “Russia does not like it. What else they do, we cannot know. We are prepared for all sorts of things. What we see all the time are disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and that sort of thing. I think our whole part of the world is on its toes to face many different things.”
…

…

More than 20,000 people gathered at a rally in Warsaw Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite a difficult situation on the Polish-Ukrainian border, where Polish farmers, complaining about unfair competition, have almost completely blocked the export of some Ukrainian goods, Polish politicians reassured demonstrators that their support of Ukraine is unchanged. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Warsaw. Camera: Daniil Batushchak
…

…