The world’s largest security body on Sunday called for the “immediate release” of four of its Ukrainian members detained in pro-Russian separatist territories in the country’s east.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) evacuated many of its staff from the country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. 

Many had been in the east to observe a cease-fire after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and several Ukrainian members have stayed on.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, whose country currently chairs the OSCE, said the detention of four members “for engaging in administrative activities that fall within their official functions as OSCE staff” was “unacceptable.”

“We call for their immediate release,” he said. “They have been held without charge for a period of time now and the OSCE and their families have not been sufficiently informed of the situation.”

Earlier Sunday, the OSCE said on Twitter it was “extremely concerned” that several members had been “deprived of their liberty,” in line with Russian media reports they had been arrested.

It added that it was “using all available channels to facilitate their release.”

The security services of the Lugansk separatists said this month they had arrested two members of the OSCE mission, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. 

TASS said one of them had “confessed” to passing “confidential military information to representatives of foreign special services” and that a high treason investigation had been opened against him.

The Donetsk separatist prosecutor’s office confirmed he had opened espionage probes against several OSCE employees suspected of having collected and transmitted “information constituting state secrets” to the Ukrainian secret services.

The prosecutor’s office said this included videos, revealing the position of separatist military units. 

On Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter, also called for the members of the body’s Ukraine Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to be released. 

“Russia’s lies claiming Ukrainian OSCE_SMM staff spied for the Ukrainian government are reprehensible,” he said on Twitter. 

The OSCE international observation mission in Ukraine was not renewed at the end of March, after Moscow blocked the proposal.

Authorities in Ukraine’s separatist regions have given OSCE staff until the end of April to cease all activities. 

The Vienna-based OSCE has 57 member states on three continents — including Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
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April 24 marks two months of war in Ukraine, and Easter for Orthodox Christians, the vast majority of the country’s population. Services this year in battle-worn areas were often sparse amid growing numbers of deaths, injuries and families fleeing their homes. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Irpin in Ukraine with Yan Boechat in Kharkiv.
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President Joe Biden on Sunday commemorated the 107th anniversary of the start of the “Armenian genocide,” issuing a statement in memory of the 1.5 million Armenians “who were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination.”

The statement did not reference the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Biden has called a genocide. Yet Biden used the anniversary to lay down a set of principles for foreign policy as the United States and its allies arm Ukrainians and impose sanctions on Russia.

“We renew our pledge to remain vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” the president said. “We recommit ourselves to speaking out and stopping atrocities that leave lasting scars on the world.”

In 1915, Ottoman officials arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople, now Istanbul. The Biden statement notes that this event on April 24 marked the beginning of the genocide.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, Biden used the term “genocide” for the first time during last year’s anniversary. Past White Houses had avoided that word for decades out of a concern that Turkey — a NATO member — could be offended.

Turkish officials were angered by Biden’s declaration a year ago, with the foreign ministry issuing a statement that said, “We reject and denounce in the strongest terms the statement of the President of the US regarding the events of 1915 made under the pressure of radical Armenian circles and anti-Turkey groups.”
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Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide, called overnight for the opening of humanitarian corridors in Ukraine where he said, “an indescribable human tragedy is unfolding.”

Bartholomew, who has previously called for an end to war in Ukraine, said that he hoped this year’s Easter would be “the impetus to open humanitarian corridors, safe passages to truly safe areas for the thousands of people surrounded in Mariupol.”

“The same applies to all other regions of Ukraine, where an indescribable human tragedy is unfolding… We call once again for an immediate end to the fratricidal war, which, like any war, undermines human dignity,” Bartholomew said after an Easter service in Istanbul, where he is based.

The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose backing for Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has dismayed many fellow Christians, said on Saturday he hoped it would end quickly but again did not condemn it.

In 2019, Bartholomew, the spiritual head of some 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians worldwide, granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, making it independent, in a historic split strongly opposed by Russia.
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France began voting in a presidential runoff election Sunday in a race between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and far-right politician Marine Le Pen.

Macron is in pole position to win reelection for a second five-year term in the country’s presidential runoff, yet his lead over Le Pen depends on one major uncertainty: voters who could decide to stay home.

A Macron victory in this vote — which could have far-reaching repercussions for Europe’s future direction and Western efforts to stop the war in Ukraine — would make him the first French president in 20 years to win a second term.

All opinion polls in recent days converge toward a win for the 44-year-old pro-European centrist — yet the margin over his 53-year-old nationalist rival varies broadly, from 6 to 15 percentage points, depending on the poll. Polls also forecast a possibly record-high number of people who will either cast a blank vote or not vote at all.

Both candidates are trying to court the 7.7 million votes of a leftist candidate defeated in the first vote. Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. on Sunday and close at 7 p.m. in most places, apart from big cities who have chosen to keep stations open until 8 p.m.

For many who voted for left-wing candidates in the first round April 10, this runoff vote presents a unpalatable choice between a nationalist in Le Pen, and a president who some feel has veered to the right during his first term. The outcome could depend on how left-wing voters make up their minds: between backing Macron or abstaining and leaving him to fend for himself against Le Pen.
…

Rescue workers in southern Poland have reached four of the 10 miners who went missing early Saturday after a powerful underground tremor and methane gas discharge hit, mining authorities said. It was the second coal mine accident this week in Poland.

The condition of the four was not immediately released and officials said there was no verbal contact with any of the missing miners. The rescue team could not immediately bring the four to the surface and more teams will be sent to the area, said Edward Paździorko, deputy head of the Jastrzebska Spolka Weglowa company (JSW) that operates the Borynia-Zofiowka mine.

The accident occurred at 3:40 a.m. Saturday some 900 meters underground, forcing dozens of workers to flee the mine and leaving authorities unable to contact 10 miners. It was the second colliery accident in just four days in the coal mining region around the town of Jastrzebie-Zdroj, near the Czech border.

Repeated methane blasts since Wednesday at the nearby Pniowek mine have killed five miners, left seven miners and rescue workers missing and injured dozens of others. The search for those missing at Pniowek was suspended Friday after new explosions late Thursday injured 10 rescue workers, some seriously.

Both mines are operated by JSW.

The company said 52 workers were in the area of the tremor Saturday at the Borynia-Zofiowka mine and 42 of them were able to leave the shaft on their own without injury. A rescue operation involving 12 teams was launched for the missing miners, but authorities said they had to work carefully due to the high levels of methane still in the mine.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Twitter that this was “devastating news again” from the mining region and said his prayers are with the missing and their relatives.

He said the accidents will be thoroughly investigated and procedures and equipment at the mines will be examined.

Poland relies on its own coal and coal imports for almost 70% of its energy needs, drawing criticism from the European Union and environmental groups who are concerned about CO2 emissions and meeting climate change goals. Most Polish coal mines are in the southern Silesia region.

The Polish government has been scaling down the use of coal and recently announced it would end coal imports from Russia by May, part of Poland’s drive to reduce its dependence on Russian energy in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. 
…

Turkey has closed its airspace to Russian civilian and military planes flying to Syria, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying Saturday by local media. 

The announcement marks one of the strongest responses to date by Turkey, which has cultivated close ties with Moscow despite being a member of the NATO defense alliance, to Russia’s two-month military assault on Ukraine. 

“We closed the airspace to Russia’s military planes — and even civilian ones — flying to Syria. They had until April, and we asked in March,” Turkish media quoted Cavusoglu as saying. 

Cavusoglu said he conveyed the decision to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, who then relayed it to President Vladimir Putin.   

“One or two days later, they said: Putin has issued an order, we will not fly anymore,” Cavusoglu was quoted as telling Turkish reporters aboard his plane to Uruguay.   

Cavusoglu added that the ban would stay in place for three months. 

There was no immediate response to Turkey’s announcement from Russia, which together with Iran has been a crucial supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the war-torn country’s civil war. 

Turkey has backed Syrian rebels during the conflict. 

Ankara’s relations with Moscow briefly imploded after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border in 2015. 

But they had been improving until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Turkey views as an important trade partner and a diplomatic ally. 

Turkey has been trying to mediate an end to the conflict, hosting meetings between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul, and another between Lavrov and Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Antalya. 

Ankara is now trying to arrange an Istanbul summit between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, although Cavusoglu conceded that the prospects of such talks at this point remain dim.  

“If they want a deal, it’s inevitable,” Cavusoglu was quoted as saying. “It might not happen for a long time, but it can happen suddenly.” 
…

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Saturday it was working to secure the release of a number of Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) members who had been detained in eastern Ukraine.

“The OSCE is extremely concerned that a number of SMM national mission members have been deprived of their liberty in Donetsk and Luhansk. The OSCE is using all available channels to facilitate the release of its staff,” its media office said in response to a query, giving no more details.

In an address to the 157-member body on Friday, Britain’s deputy ambassador to the Vienna-based OSCE had criticized Russia for refusing to extend the SMM’s mission in Ukraine beyond March.

“And now we have received alarming reports that Russia’s proxies in Donbas are threatening Mission staff, equipment and premises and that Russian forces have taken SMM staff members captive,” Deirdre Brown had said in her address, which was released by the British government.

The OSCE said in March it had evacuated nearly 500 international mission members from Ukraine.

The OSCE media office said on Saturday the SMM continued to assist remaining national staff in Ukraine in trying to relocate to safer areas.

“Contacts with national mission members continue on a daily basis, including in order to ascertain their whereabouts and assist them, to the extent possible, should they decide to re-locate,” it added.
…

The World Health Organization warns the health system in eastern Ukraine has all but collapsed, putting the lives of thousands of people trapped in Mariupol and other besieged areas at risk.   

U.N. health officials say it is critical they be granted immediate access to Mariupol and other areas hardest hit by fighting in eastern Ukraine. They say they have received reports that nearly all health facilities and hospitals in areas like the Luhansk region either are damaged or destroyed.  

The WHO is appealing for access to affected areas to assess health needs and to provide critical medical supplies to the sick and injured. Speaking from Lviv in western Ukraine, WHO spokesman Bhanu Bhatnagar said the WHO so far has not been able to enter Mariupol and does not know the health status of the besieged population.

Mariupol has been subjected to relentless bombing and shelling by Russian forces for the past two months. The city has been razed to the ground. Tens of thousands of people reportedly are living in underground bunkers, with limited food, water, and medical supplies.

Bhatnagar said the WHO is moving supplies it thinks are needed in Mariupol closer to the city. But he added it is essential that a safe passage is created quickly.

“We need a cessation of fighting for at least two days in order to move vital supplies in, but also assess the health needs,” he said. “We anticipate the worst. A health system that has collapsed completely and that brings with it all kinds of knock-on effects.  Of course, there are people with conflict-related injuries that need help.”  

Bhatnagar noted there also are people with chronic conditions and other health care needs that do not have access to vital medicine. He said the findings of a new WHO survey of 1,000 households across Ukraine show the devastating impact this war is having on access to health care.

“Two out of five households have at least one member with a chronic illness, like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease,” he said. “Of those, one in three is struggling to access healthcare for those chronic conditions.  Our survey also finds that the war is affecting people’s health-seeking behavior, with less than a third of households saying they sought out health services recently.”  

Bhatnagar added that 39% of people say the security situation inhibits them from seeking care for their illness, while 27% say no health care services are available in their area.

The WHO has confirmed 162 attacks on health care facilities and personnel, with at least 73 people known to have been killed.
…

France goes to the polls Sunday for the final round of voting in the presidential election, with Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally party just a few points behind incumbent Emmanuel Macron. A Le Pen victory would have big implications for European security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Putin links

In a fiery televised debate Wednesday, incumbent President Emmanuel Macron sought to highlight links between Marine Le Pen’s far-right party and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her National Rally party took several loans from Russia in 2014, including a $9.75 million loan from the Kremlin-linked First Czech Russian Bank.  

“For our country, this is bad news, because you depend on the Russian regime and you depend on Putin.,” Macron said. “You don’t speak to other leaders, you speak to your banker when you speak to Russia, that’s the problem… None of us went to seek financing from a Russian bank, and especially not from one that is close to power in Russia.”

Le Pen said it was well known that French banks had refused to lend her money, so she sought financial assistance in Russia. 

NATO changes

What would a Le Pen presidency mean for Europe’s security at a time of conflict? Her approach to Russia is in stark contrast to that of most Western leaders. Speaking at a press event earlier this month, she outlined her policy on the conflict in Ukraine.

“As soon as the Russian-Ukrainian war is over and has been settled by a peace treaty, I will call for the implementation of a strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia.” Le Pen said.

While she has condemned the invasion of Ukraine, the 53-year-old National Rally leader has been far less critical of Vladimir Putin himself. She has criticized the supply of heavy weapons to Ukraine by NATO members and plans to weaken French links with the alliance. 

“Once elected president, I will leave NATO’s integrated command, but I won’t renounce the application of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on collective security.” Le Pen told reporters April 13.

Western unity

A Le Pen victory would severely weaken Western unity against Russia, says French political analyst Renaud Foucart of Lancaster University. 

“She has been among the first if not the only French candidate to recognize Crimea, the annexation of Crimea by Russia. So very, very clearly she will not be in favor of stronger sanctions. She has opposed them, and she has been very, very vocal about opposing sanctions on fossil fuels, on gas, on oil from Russia.,” Foucart told VOA.

However, in recent weeks Le Pen has risen in the polls, despite her past links with a Russian regime accused of war crimes in Ukraine. Gérard Araud, a former French ambassador to the United Nations and now a distinguished fellow with the Atlantic Council, says Le Pen has attempted to transform her image during the campaign.

“She has distanced herself somehow really from Putin. She has condemned the attack against Ukraine. Second point, you know in France — like in the U.S. — elections are decided not on foreign policy issues but on domestic policy issues. And like in the U.S., France is facing a wave of inflation.” 

Le Pen has focused her campaign on the rising cost of living and has characterized Macron as an aloof president more obsessed with Europe than France. Polls shows she has gained votes in poorer areas of France, and among younger generations who feel disillusioned by a lack of jobs and opportunities.

Frexit?

For years, Le Pen campaigned for France to leave the European Union. Now she says so-called “Frexit” is not her policy.

“The British got rid of the Brussels bureaucracy, which they could never bear, to move to an ambitious concept of global Britain,” she said April 13, in reference to Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the EU. 

“This is not our project. We want to reform the E.U. from the inside. The more we free ourselves from the Brussels straitjacket while remaining inside the EU, the more we will open ourselves up to the wider world. It seems to me that’s what the British understood well,” Le Pen said.

Former French Ambassador to the U.N. Gérard Araud says Le Pen’s reform agenda is so radical that it will inevitably fail.

“She is going to change it so dramatically, so radically, that actually either she won’t implement her program or she will leave the European Union.”

“If she is elected, basically it will be quite chaotic. The euro will go down, and there will be an emerging crisis between Paris and Berlin because she wants really to put an end to all Franco-German cooperation. And of course a crisis with Brussels, with lots of uncertainties down the road,” Araud told VOA.

Analyst Renaud Foucart agrees: “Most importantly, she’s not clear about who her allies (in the EU) would be. In order to reach that kind of agreement you would need to find other countries that are like-minded. But even within her own political family… she doesn’t seem to be able to find agreement.”

Global reaction

European leaders have largely avoided commenting on the elections. However, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, a NATO ally, said Thursday that ‘it would be a good thing for the world’ if Macron was re-elected.

Even if Macron does win a second term, France faces difficult problems in the years ahead, says Gérard Araud.

“Socially, there is something which is very unhealthy. Because Macron has been elected in 2017, and if he is re-elected in 2022, it will be the same – basically by the ‘haves’ against the ‘have-nots’. And so there is this deep rift in the French society,” Araud said.
…

France and Germany have armed Russia with nearly $300 million worth of military equipment that is “likely being used in Ukraine,” according to an exclusive report, based on European Commission data, in The Telegraph, a British newspaper.

The hardware was sent, the newspaper reports, despite a European Union-wide embargo on arms to Russia that was imposed following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Germany has defended the sales, saying the items were “dual-use” equipment and that Russia had said they were needed for civilian, not military use.

The newspaper said the equipment sent to Russia included “bombs, rockets, missiles and guns.”  French firms also sent “thermal imaging cameras for more than 1,000 Russian tanks as well as navigation systems for fighter jets and attack helicopters,” The Telegraph reported.

At least 10 EU member states have sent almost $380 million worth of military equipment to Russia, The Telegraph reported, with 78% of that total coming from French and German companies.

Other European countries that sold arms to Russia include Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Italy, according to The Telegraph.

Cristian Terhes, a Romanian member of the European parliament shared with The Telegraph the EU analysis of the probe into what countries have sold military goods to Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday seized on remarks by a Russian general as evidence that Moscow would invade other countries if it succeeded in Ukraine. The general had said Russia aimed to capture all of southern and eastern Ukraine and link it to a breakaway province in neighboring Moldova.

“This only confirms what I have already said multiple times: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was intended only as a beginning,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address Friday.

He said comments earlier Friday by Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, show that Russia will not stop with Ukraine.

Russian state news agencies quoted Minnekayev as saying that Moscow wanted to seize Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region, provide a land corridor to link with the Crimean Peninsula, and capture the country’s entire south as far west as a Russian-occupied breakaway region of Moldova. That would mean carrying the offensive hundreds of miles past the current lines and to the border with Moldova.

Moldova summoned Russia’s ambassador Friday to express “deep concern” over the general’s comments.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter declined to comment on the Russian general’s statement but said Washington firmly supported Moldova’s sovereignty.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the comments by the Russian general showed that Russia’s previous claims that it had no territorial ambitions were not true.

“They stopped hiding it,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on Twitter, adding that Russia has “acknowledged that the goal of the ‘second phase’ of the war is not victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine. Imperialism as it is.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said Russia had no intention of permanently occupying Ukrainian cities. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, a move that was widely condemned by the international community.

Russian ship

Russia’s Defense Ministry acknowledged Friday for the first time that the crew of the missile cruiser Moskva suffered casualties when the ship sank last week.

It said one serviceman died and 27 were missing.

Ukraine and the United States said the ship was hit by Ukrainian cruise missiles, while Russia blamed the sinking on a fire.

Immediately following the incident, Russia said the entire crew of the ship had been rescued. Moscow said Friday that 396 crew members had been rescued.

Military meeting

The Pentagon said Friday that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will hold a meeting April 26 in Germany with defense officials and military leaders from more than 20 countries to discuss Ukraine’s defense needs.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that about 40 nations were invited to the meeting and responses were still arriving.

He said the talks, which include both NATO and non-NATO countries, will be held Tuesday at Ramstein Air Base.

Zelenskyy said Friday that allies were finally delivering the weapons that Ukraine had sought to defend itself.

Canada announced Friday it had provided heavy artillery to Ukraine, following a pledge by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Diplomatic efforts

In diplomatic activity Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington. The State Department said Blinken “reinforced our determination to help Ukraine successfully defend itself against Russia’s brutal and unjustified war of aggression.”

The U.N. announced Friday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will meet Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. He’ll also hold meetings and have a working lunch with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Guterres will then travel on Thursday to Ukraine, where he will meet with Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. The U.N. said he would also meet with staff of U.N. agencies to discuss the scaling up of humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians.

The U.N. chief wrote to Putin and Zelenskyy earlier in the week requesting meetings to discuss the next steps toward peace in Ukraine.

Guterres also appealed this week for a four-day humanitarian pause to coincide with Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated in Ukraine and Russia. So far, those efforts have failed.

At a Friday press conference in Moscow, Lavrov said talks to end the fighting in Ukraine are at a standstill because Kyiv has not responded to Moscow’s latest set of proposals.

“Another proposal we passed on to Ukrainian negotiators about five days ago, which was drawn up with their comments taken into account; it remains without a response,” Russia’s top diplomat said.

However, Russia’s lead negotiator at the talks with Ukraine, Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, confirmed that he had engaged in several lengthy conversations with the head of the Ukrainian delegation on Friday, The Associated Press reported.

Alleged war crimes

In Geneva, the U.N. human rights office said Friday there was growing evidence that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine.

“Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and wrecking hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that may amount to war crimes,” said Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The U.N. said it appeared that Ukraine had also used weapons with indiscriminate effects.

VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

Russian authorities have opened a criminal case against a prominent opposition activist and remanded him in pre-trial detention Friday for allegedly spreading “false information” about the country’s armed forces.

A court in Moscow ordered Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. held in detention until June 12.

Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov told reporters that the false information case against Kara-Murza cited a March 15 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives, in which he denounced the war in Ukraine, as the basis for the latest charges. The activist rejects the accusations.

Russian media reported that similar charges were being drawn up against outspoken tech executive Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of Russia’s top independent news site, Meduza. The moves against the two Kremlin critics are part of a widening crackdown against individuals speaking out against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading false information about its military shortly after its troops rolled into Ukraine in late February. The offense is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Human rights advocates so far have counted 32 cases targeting critics of the invasion.

Kara-Murza is a journalist and a former associate of late Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in 2015, and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was jailed for years in Russia. Kara-Murza himself was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017.

Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers denounced the Russian government’s moves against Kara-Murza.

“I am deeply disturbed over news reports regarding the arrest and political persecution of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza,” Bowers said in a statement. “Don’t forget about these freedom fighters, like Vladimir Kara-Murza. We must remember names!”

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey tweeted: “Kara-Murza’s brave opposition to Putin has inspired us all. Arizona will always stand for freedom. And we will support those like Kara-Murza who take a stand against oppression.”

Krasilshchik, the tech executive who left Russia in early March, told Meduza that he had learnt about the case against him from news reports, which by Friday evening remained unconfirmed. Russian media have linked the charges to an Instagram post, featuring what Krasilshchik said was the photo of charred human remains in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

“You can’t recover after seeing the images from Bucha,” the photo caption read. “You feel that the army of this country of ours, it’s capable of anything … and so is the country. That we’re just an order away from mass executions.”

Also Friday, veteran Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov said in an online statement that he was “temporarily” leaving the country.

Ponomaryov, a former State Duma lawmaker who had helped found Russia’s oldest human rights organization in the 1980s, has been a vocal opponent of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and initiated multiple public petitions against it.

In his statement Friday, he claimed to be “allowing himself to take a vacation” to “look after my health …, but also think through the difficult situation in which we all find ourselves, and plan further (campaigning) activities, which we cannot stop by any means.”

“I doubt my time away will be long,” he added.

In a separate move Friday, the Russian justice ministry added Kara-Murza and several other prominent Kremlin critics to the registry of “foreign agents.” The designation implies additional government scrutiny and carries strong pejorative connotations that can discredit those on the list.

The new additions to the registry included Leonid Volkov, top ally of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Alexei Venediktov, former editor-in-chief of Russia’s oldest critical radio station, Ekho Moskvy. The station was taken off the airwaves shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.  
…

A 5.7-magnitude earthquake rocked southern Bosnia late Friday, killing one person and injuring several others, local media reports said.

A 28-year-old woman who was injured when a rock fell on her house in the town of Stolac, near Mostar, died in hospital, a medical source quoted by media said. Several others were slightly injured, including members of the victim’s family.

The earthquake also toppled walls and caused property damage in several other localities, including Mostar and the town of Ljubinje, according to local and civil defense authorities.

The shallow quake struck at 2107 GMT and was centered 14 kilometers northeast of Ljubinje, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

It was felt across the Balkans as far away as Belgrade, Zagreb and Skopje, more than 400 kilometers from the epicenter, according to AFP correspondents. Reports to the USGS indicated the quake was also felt in Albania and southern Italy.

It was followed by several weaker aftershocks.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre warned that “aftershocks are likely to happen in the coming hours and days.”

The Balkans is prone to seismic activity, and earthquakes are frequent.

A 6.4-magnitude quake on Dec. 29, 2020, in the Petrinja region of Croatia, near the capital Zagreb, killed seven people and destroyed hundreds of buildings and houses.

In March 2020, Zagreb was hit by a 5.3 tremor that caused extensive damage. In November 2019, more than 50 people were killed in Albania by a 6.4 earthquake that also left thousands homeless. 
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seized Friday on remarks by a Russian general as evidence that Moscow will invade other countries if it succeeds in Ukraine. The general had said Russia aimed to capture all of southern and eastern Ukraine and link it up with a breakaway province in neighboring Moldova.

“This only confirms what I have already said multiple times: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was intended only as a beginning,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address.

He said the comments earlier Friday by Rustam Minnekayev, deputy commander of Russia’s central military district, showed that Russia would not stop with Ukraine.

Russian state news agencies quoted Minnekayev as saying that Moscow wanted to seize Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region, provide a land corridor to link up with the Crimean Peninsula, and capture the country’s entire south as far west as a breakaway, Russian-occupied region of Moldova. That would mean carrying the offensive hundreds of miles past the current lines and to the border with Moldova.

Moldova summoned Russia’s ambassador Friday to express “deep concern” about the general’s comments.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter declined to comment on the Russian general’s statement but said Washington firmly supported Moldova’s sovereignty.

Ukraine’s defense ministry said the comments by the Russian general showed Russia’s previous claims that it has no territorial ambitions were not true.

“They stopped hiding it,” Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Twitter, adding that Russia had “acknowledged that the goal of the ‘second phase’ of the war is not victory over the mythical Nazis, but simply the occupation of eastern and southern Ukraine. Imperialism as it is.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said Russia had no intention of permanently occupying Ukranian cities. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, a move that was widely condemned by the international community.

Russian ship

Russia’s defense ministry, meanwhile, acknowledged Friday for the first time that the crew of the missile cruiser Moskva suffered casualties when it sank last week.

It said one serviceman died and 27 went missing during the ship’s sinking.

Ukraine and the United States said Ukrainian cruise missiles had hit the ship, while Russia blamed the sinking on a fire.

Following the incident, Russia said the entire crew of the ship had been rescued.

Moscow said Friday that 396 crew members had been rescued.

Military meeting

The Pentagon said Friday that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin would meet next week in Germany with defense officials and military leaders from more than 20 countries to discuss Ukraine’s defense needs.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said about 40 nations were invited to the meeting and that responses were still arriving.

He said the talks, which will include both NATO and non-NATO countries, would be held Tuesday at Ramstein Air Base.

Zelenskyy said Friday that allies were finally delivering the weapons that Ukraine had sought to defend itself.

Canada announced Friday that it had provided heavy artillery to Ukraine, following a pledge by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

U.S. President Joe Biden authorized another $800 million in U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on Thursday, declaring it was necessary to help Kyiv’s forces repel Russian fighters in the critical battles unfolding in the eastern region of the country.

Diplomatic efforts

In diplomatic activity Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington. The State Department said Blinken “reinforced our determination to help Ukraine successfully defend itself against Russia’s brutal and unjustified war of aggression.”

The U.N. announced Friday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres would meet Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. He’ll also hold meetings and have a working lunch with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The U.N. chief wrote to Putin on Tuesday requesting a meeting to discuss the next steps toward peace in Ukraine. He also wrote to Zelenskyy. Guterres’ representative said his office was in contact with the government in Kyiv about scheduling a visit there as well.

Guterres also appealed this week for a four-day humanitarian pause to coincide with Orthodox Easter, which is celebrated in Ukraine and Russia. So far, those efforts have failed.

At a Friday press conference in Moscow, Lavrov said talks to end the fighting in Ukraine were at a standstill because Kyiv had not responded to Moscow’s latest proposals.

“Another proposal we passed on to Ukrainian negotiators about five days ago, which was drawn up with their comments taken into account, it remains without a response,” Russia’s top diplomat said.

However, Russia’s lead negotiator at the talks with Ukraine, Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, confirmed that he’d engaged in several lengthy conversations with the head of the Ukrainian delegation on Friday, The Associated Press reported.

Alleged war crimes

In Geneva, the U.N. human rights office said Friday that there was growing evidence that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine.

“Russian armed forces have indiscriminately shelled and bombed populated areas, killing civilians and wrecking hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure, actions that may amount to war crimes,” said Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

The U.N. said it appeared that Ukraine had also used weapons with indiscriminate effects.

On Thursday, Putin declared the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol “liberated,” after nearly two months of fighting, even though Russian forces have not been able to penetrate the city’s massive Azovstal steel plant that remains in the hands of Ukrainian fighters and civilians.

Zelenskyy said Russian forces controlled most of Mariupol but that Ukrainian troops did remain in part of the besieged city.

VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

The long-running trial of Turkish activist and philanthropist Osman Kavala nears its end as he and seven other defendants delivered their final defense statements on Friday.

In the trial, known as the Gezi Park trial, Kavala and 15 other defendants face many accusations, including attempting to overthrow the government and organizing the 2013 Gezi Park protests. Kavala denies the charges.

The Gezi Park protests began as an environmental demonstration in an Istanbul park and then turned into nationwide anti-government unrest against then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Eight protesters were killed during the protests.

Kavala, 64, has been in jail for four and a half years without a conviction, and he spent 19 months of this time in pre-trial detention. If convicted, Kavala faces a life sentence.

Speaking to the court Friday by video link from prison, Kavala said, “It is evident that those who issued the indictment did not feel constrained by laws, considering that they will receive political support as they intended to prolong my detention.”

ECHR ruling

In December 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) released a ruling in favor of an immediate release of Kavala, saying there is a lack of reasonable suspicion that he committed a crime. As a member state of the Council of Europe, Turkey is legally bound by ECHR rulings, but it has not complied in the Kavala case.

In February, the Council of Europe (CoE) Committee of Ministers began proceedings against Turkey over its failure to respect the ECHR ruling. The proceedings mean that Ankara faces a suspension of its voting rights in the CoE.

Political case

Many human rights activists assert the case is politically motivated.

“This case has been a political case from its very beginning, and it was shaped directly by the president,” Mehmet Durakoglu, head of the Istanbul Bar Association, told VOA.

As a lawyer who has followed all of the hearings in the Gezi Park trial, Durakoglu said the prosecution has not presented a case that would justify a conviction.

“There is not even the slightest bit of evidence. Architects have been prosecuted for doing architecture, city planners for doing city planning and lawyers for practicing law. Under normal circumstances, no sentence should be delivered in this case,” Durakoglu noted.

The court had been expected to reach a verdict on Friday, but it postponed the hearing until Monday to allow defense lawyers to finish their statements.

Prosecutor Edip Sahiner has asked for Kavala and architect Mucella Yapici to be convicted of attempting to overthrow the government through violence, which would carry a sentence of up to life in prison without parole.

The courtroom was packed with some 200 people, including opposition members, rights groups, and Western diplomats.

Soros allegations

The Gezi Park trial indictment alleges that Hungarian-born, U.S.-based financier George Soros and his Open Society Foundation were behind the protests, and that they acted through Kavala, a former member of Open Society’s Turkey branch board.

Both Kavala and the Open Society Foundation deny these accusations. The foundation ceased its operations in Turkey in 2018, saying that it was no longer possible to work in the country.

“The fact that no member of the Open Society Foundation board other than me was summoned to testify and that George Soros is not among the accused shows that people who wrote this indictment do not believe this scenario that Soros organized and financed the Gezi protests through me,” Kavala said in his final defense statement.

Erdogan has publicly called Kavala “Soros scum” and “domestic Soros.”

Kavala’s prolonged detention stirred a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the embassies of 10 Western countries, including the United States, Canada and Germany, last October.

In response to the embassies calling for Kavala’s release in a letter, Erdogan threatened them to be “persona non grata.” The embassies responded with one-sentence public statements reiterating their “compliance with Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.” The article regulates diplomatic norms against interference in the internal affairs of host states.

After the court hearing, Evren Isler, one of Kavala’s lawyers, told reporters the judicial panel’s actions were detached from the facts.

“Today’s hearing has shown us once again how the judicial panel has lost touch with the facts. No matter what we said, the panel gave the impression that they did not care,” Isler said.

“One of the many violations, in this case, is the violation of the right to a fair trial. The judicial panel is obliged to give the impression that they protect the right to a fair trial,” Isler underscored.

This story was originated in VOA’s Turkish service. Some information in this report came from Reuters.
…

Rights activists in Azerbaijan are accusing the government of manufacturing false charges to arrest critics who have been returned to the country after failing to gain asylum in Germany.

Samir Ashurov was detained on April 19 on charges of assault with a knife, just weeks after he was deported from Germany back to his native country.

Ashurov had fled to Germany in 2018 when he was a member of the opposition REAL Movement. After leaving Azerbaijan, Ashurov continued criticizing the Azerbaijani government.

He was readmitted to Azerbaijan on March 29, after the German government refused to grant him asylum.

His lawyer, Elchin Sadiqov, told VOA that Ashurov had left his house earlier this week planning to renew his passport so that he could again leave the country. Instead, he said, Ashurov was attacked in the street and had a knife planted on him.

“He said that a man approached him near a metro station in Baku, shouting and knocking him to the ground. Samir ran away and shouted, ‘Police,’ and that’s when the police officers immediately detained him,” Sadiqov said.

“They then put a knife in the right pocket of his jacket,” Sadiqov said. “He took the knife out and threw it away. Then they put it back in his left pocket. He was then taken to the 24th Police Station of the Nizami District Police Office.”

Ashurov’s lawyer said he was tortured in custody and now was on a hunger strike, protesting his arrest.

“He said that he was beaten at the police station,” said Sadiqov. “When I met him, he had bruises on his chest and groin. He said he had been on a hunger strike since April 19 to protest his arrest.”

Elshad Hajiyev, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, called these allegations completely unfounded.

“Samir Ashurov is charged with a specific crime, and what his lawyer says is a defense. And that’s understandable,” he said.

A targeted campaign

Government critics say authorities are using criminal charges to jail political opponents, in particular those who have spoken out while seeking asylum abroad. They say it’s part of a coordinated campaign by President Ilham Aliyev.

“I met Samir Ashurov last week after his deportation from Germany. He told me that he had been summoned to the prosecutor’s office several times, was being monitored and that preparations were being made for his arrest,” Tofiq Yaqublu, deputy chairman of the opposition Musavat Party and a senior politician of the National Council of Democratic Forces, wrote on Facebook.

Ashurov, who spoke with VOA earlier this month following his return from Germany, said he was also questioned at the airport about why he had left the country.

“I said that I was facing political persecution in Azerbaijan,” he said. “I told them that I had been arrested twice under false pretenses. I told them that I would be one of the victims of the government. Just like four political activists before me — Malik Rzayev, Mutalim Orujov, Punhan Karimli and Jafar Mirzayev were arrested.”

He also predicted that he would be detained in the future. “This regime will arrest me again on false charges,” Ashurov told VOA.

In January, Mirzayev, a member of the Germany-based DAS (Elect a Democratic Azerbaijan) group, was detained on charges of drug trafficking and sentenced to four months of pretrial detention. Mirzayev faces between five and 12 years in prison.

Karimli, a member of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA); Rzayev and Orujov have also been charged with drug trafficking.

Some see coordinated campaign

Some rights activists argue that the arrests are part of a coordinated effort aimed at migrants who sought asylum in other countries.

“Political activists deported from Germany were being arrested on drug charges. Now they have switched from drugs to knives,” Afgan Mukhtarli, an investigative journalist, human rights defender and former political prisoner currently living in Germany, said in a Facebook post. “We knew Samir would be arrested. Ilham Aliyev takes revenge on migrants. In his speeches, he repeatedly targeted migrants, calling them agents.”

Zafar Ahmadov, co-founder of a human rights NGO known as “Defense Line,” told VOA that the fate of readmitted political activists continues to be a concern.

“The arrest of all five readmitted political activists is not a coincidence,” said Ahmadov, who is also a member of the Democracy for Azerbaijan (AND) movement. “As a rule, we raise the issue of readmitted human rights activists before the EU Delegation and the embassies of EU member states.”

The German Embassy in Azerbaijan on Thursday told VOA it was monitoring Ashurov’s case.

“We are monitoring such incidents. We hold regular talks with the Azerbaijani government on human rights issues,” the embassy officials said.

Pact on repatriation

The European Union and Azerbaijan in 2014 signed an agreement on the repatriation of persons residing without authorization. Since the signing of the agreement, more than 2,000 people have been returned to Azerbaijan, including 420 in 2021.

International human rights organizations, including Freedom House and Human Rights Watch, report that the government of Azerbaijan frequently arrests individuals exercising their fundamental rights on trumped-up charges.

The Azerbaijani government, on the other hand, says people are not persecuted for their political beliefs.

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service.
…

The French military has accused Russian mercenaries of creating a mass grave and falsely blaming it on the French.

The French Army says it has drone video, seen by news agencies Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, of Russian mercenaries burying bodies near Gossi, Mali, where the French army withdrew from a military base this week.

Video of what appears to be a similar location circulated Thursday on Twitter, showing a blurred image of what are alleged to be bodies buried in the sand. The accompanying Twitter message says the departing French army left that scene behind in Gossi.

Speaking to AFP and AP, the French Army said the mercenaries created the site to circulate images and blame the French army to stoke anti-French sentiment in Mali.

The drone video was reportedly captured Thursday morning, but the French army left Gossi on Tuesday. France recently said it would withdraw its troops from Mali in a operation expected to take four to six months.

A Twitter account named “Dia Diarra” posted a video Thursday, including what appears to be bodies partially buried in the sand, with the caption, “This is what the French left behind when they left the base at Gossi. These are excerpts from a video that was taken after they left! We cannot keep silent about this!”

“Dia Darra” claims to be a Malian veteran and “patriot” and posts mostly pro-Malian military and pro-Russia content. The original profile photo used for the account could also be seen on the Russian social media website VK on an account of a man believed to be located in Colombia.

After that was pointed out by several Twitter users, the profile picture was changed to a photo of Malian President Assimi Goita. The account has been active since January 2022.

Many governments have accused the Malian army of working with mercenaries from the Russian company the Wagner Group which, critics say, has close ties to the Russian government.

Mali’s government denies the allegation, saying it works only with “Russian instructors.”

In March, Human Rights Watch reported that residents of Moura, in central Mali, said that hundreds of civilians were killed by the Malian army while working with “white soldiers,” who spoke a language not familiar to them.

VOA spoke to a man who saw 12 to 15 men killed and witnessed both Malian and white soldiers in the village during the five-day operation.
…

India and Britain have agreed to boost economic as well as defense ties that could eventually help New Delhi move away from its dependance on Russian arms.   

Following talks in New Delhi between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, who is on a two-day visit to India, the two sides said they will wrap up a free trade deal by October and announced a security partnership.  

“We have agreed a new and expanded defense and security partnership, a decadeslong commitment that will not only forge tighter bonds between us, but support your goal of Make in India,” Johnson said, referring to Modi’s push to expand domestic manufacturing of weaponry.    

Despite pressure from its Western allies, like the United States and Britain, India has taken a neutral position on the Ukraine crisis, refusing to condemn Russia or join sanctions imposed by Western countries.   

Analysts attribute India’s stance partly to the fact that India sources much of its military equipment from its former Cold War ally.   

Britain said it will ensure faster delivery of defense equipment by streamlining licensing rules for exporting military hardware to India. Officials in New Delhi called it a “welcome development.”  

Britain is offering next-generation defense and security collaboration across five domains — land, sea, air, space and cyber — to face complex new threats, according to the British Embassy.   

“What we are looking for is a combination of U.K.’s technology and our production base to make it a win-win situation,” Indian Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla told reporters.   

Indian Prime Minister Modi told reporters that both sides underscored the importance of diplomacy and dialogue to settle the Ukraine crisis.   

Indian Foreign Secretary Shringla said that there was no “pressure” on India over the position it has taken.   

Modi said he also stressed a “free, open, inclusive and rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific,” in an apparent reference to China’s aggressiveness in the region.  

Both leaders sounded an upbeat note on strengthening ties. Using Hindi words, Johnson called Modi a “khaas dost,” or special friend, and said, “Our relations have never been as strong or as good between us as they are now.”  

It was “historic” that Johnson’s visit to India came in the 75th year of its independence, Modi said.  

Johnson said a free trade pact, when signed, could take trade between the two countries “to a whole new level.” The deal is expected to double their current trade of $50 billion by 2030.  

The British prime minister also announced that Britain is to reopen its embassy in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, at a news conference he held after his talks with Indian leaders.     

“The extraordinary fortitude and success of (Ukraine) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy in resisting Russian forces in Kyiv means I can announce that very shortly, next week, we will reopen our embassy in Ukraine’s capital city,” Johnson said.   

The main British diplomatic mission had been moved to the western city of Lviv in February.    

In response to a question, the British leader said it remained a “realistic possibility” that Russia could win the war in Ukraine.    

“Putin has a huge army. He has a very difficult political position because he has made a catastrophic blunder. The only option he now, he now has is to use his appalling, grinding approach led by artillery, trying to grind the Ukrainians down,” Johnson told reporters.   

Saying that it was important to keep up “wave after wave” of pressure on Russia, he said Britain was seeing what it could do to reinforce the supply of military equipment, such as tanks to Poland, so that it could send heavier weaponry to Ukraine. 

 
…

A Greek prosecutor said on Thursday she had begun an investigation into an allegation by a journalist that his smartphone had been infected by surveillance software in an operation by the country’s intelligence service.

A spokesman for Greece’s EYP intelligence service told Reuters it had no comment on Greek media reports detailing the assertion by Thanasis Koukakis, 43, a financial journalist who works for CNN Greece and has done investigative reporting on financial crimes.

The allegation comes as the European Union (EU) is beginning to follow the United States in taking a harder look at spyware merchants and the use of powerful surveillance software.

“A preliminary investigation has begun on the matter,” the prosecutor, who declined to be identified, told Reuters, adding the probe would seek to determine whether there had been a breach of the country’s telecommunications privacy legislation.

Koukakis told Reuters he believed his phone had been infected by Predator spyware developed by Cytrox, a Europe-based surveillance company. Cytrox Predator spyware is sold in Greece by Intellexa, which did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Koukakis, who first suspected EYP was listening to his calls in July 2020, asked independent telecommunications privacy authority ADAE to determine whether a privacy breach had taken place and if so whether it had been ordered by a prosecutor.

“I could not believe I was being wiretapped,” Koukakis told Reuters.

Koukakis said the authority responded in July 2021, saying it had not found anything violating the law on the confidentiality of communications.

ADAE’s reply came four months after the government passed an amendment to the privacy law barring it from informing individuals subject to eavesdropping for national security reasons. The amendment took effect retroactively.

ADAE had no immediate response. The legal counsel for ADAE, Katerina Papanicolaou, told Reuters she was not authorized to comment on the matter.

After his phone “started acting strangely” in what appeared to be a second spying attempt, Koukakis said he asked for help from Toronto University’s Citizen Lab, which tracks the spyware industry. Citizen Lab researcher Bill Marczak confirmed the Lab analyzed Koukakis’s phone and found traces of Predator spyware.

“We analyzed it and confirmed a Cytrox infection,” he told Reuters. “We identified the SMS on the phone used to target him … it is the first Greek case we have been able to confirm.”

Commenting on the reported bugging of Koukasis’ phone, government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou told reporters this week Greek authorities do not use the spyware allegedly involved in the hacking and do not do business with companies selling it.

The EU considers the use of spyware against journalists unacceptable.

Koukakis’ case will be investigated by EU lawmakers tracking the spread of espionage software in Europe, said Sophie in’t Veld, a Dutch member of the European parliament. The Greek case “would very much fall within the scope of our inquiry,” she said.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol “liberated,” after nearly two months of fighting, even though Russian forces have not been able to penetrate the city’s massive Azovstal steel plant that remains in the hands of Ukrainian fighters and civilians.

Rather than storming the plant, Putin has instead ordered a blockade of the facility, sealing it off “so that not even a fly comes through,” a tactic observers believe will save Russian soldiers’ lives and possibly starve out the fighters and civilians inside the plant.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say evidence of mass graves outside Mariupol has emerged. Photographs from Maxar Technologies, a U.S. satellite imagery company, appear to show images of at least 200 new graves in the town of Manhush.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the World Bank Thursday that his country needs as much as $7 billion a month in support and will need hundreds of billions to recover from Russia’s invasion.

U.S. President Joe Biden authorized another $800 million in U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on Thursday, declaring it was necessary to help Kyiv’s forces repel Russian fighters in the critical battles unfolding in the eastern region of the country.

“This package includes heavy artillery weapons, dozens of howitzers and 144,000 rounds of ammunition,” Biden said in a short White House speech. He said the new arms shipment was particularly aimed at helping Ukraine’s forces fight in the Donbas region, which is flatter, more open terrain than where earlier fighting had occurred to the west.

Biden said the new assistance, on top of another $800 million package announced last week, “almost” exhausts congressional authorization for U.S. military aid to Ukraine. But the president said he would soon ask Congress for even more money for Ukraine’s forces.

Biden said the United States and its Western allies remain united in their resolve to assist Ukraine in fighting back against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eight-week invasion.

“The most important thing is holding the world together” against Russia, Biden said. “So far, so good.”

Biden vowed that Putin “will never succeed in occupying all of Ukraine. Putin has failed to achieve his grand ambitions on the battlefield. Kyiv still stands,” the president said.

New refugee aid

In other war-related actions, Biden said he was sending $500 million to Ukraine in new economic aid, streamlining a humanitarian refugee effort to allow Ukrainians escaping the ravages of war in their homeland to move more quickly to the United States if they want and banning all Russian ships from docking at U.S. ports.

Earlier Thursday, Putin ordered his forces not to storm a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol where the last remaining Ukrainian forces have been holed up in the port on the north coast of the Sea of Azov.

In a televised meeting, Putin told Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that Russian forces should blockade the plant “so that a fly cannot not pass through,” and that going forward with a plan to storm the site would unnecessarily risk Russian troops.

Shoigu told Putin that there were 2,000 Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal plant, but that the rest of Mariupol, a key port city, had been “liberated.”

Biden claimed, “There is no evidence Mariupol has fallen,” but weeks of Russian bombing has all but flattened much of the city.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk demanded Russia allow for the evacuation of civilians and wounded soldiers from the plant through a humanitarian corridor.

“There are about 1,000 civilians and 500 wounded soldiers there. They all need to be pulled out of Azovstal today,” Vereshchuk said in an online post Thursday.

Vereshchuk also said four buses were able to evacuate civilians from Mariupol on Wednesday.

More than 100,000 Ukrainians are believed to be trapped in Mariupol, where 400,000 people lived before Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24.

“The conditions there are truly horrific,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday at a diplomatic conference in Panama. He underscored that attempted humanitarian corridors to allow Mariupol residents to escape “have fallen apart very quickly.”

The fight over Mariupol is part of a broader Russian offensive in the strategically important Donbas region, where Moscow has been boosting its military presence.

“Moscow’s current objective is to broaden its control in the east and south. Ideally, they would like to grab Kharkiv and Odesa,” John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told VOA. “But those are tall orders. They may have to settle for Mariupol.”

On March 25, following losses in northern Ukraine, Moscow announced a major shift in strategy and removed forces from the north, including the suburbs of the capital, Kyiv, to consolidate military gains in the Donbas and establish a land bridge to the Crimea Peninsula, which it seized in 2014.

Analysts say if Russian forces gain complete control of the Donbas, their diplomats will hold a stronger hand in peace negotiations and be in a better position to demand autonomy for the region.

“But even if (Putin) makes large gains in the east and south and accepts a settlement that gives him control of his new conquests, that does not mean that he will be satisfied,” Herbst said.

U.S. Defense Department analysts say the battle for the Donbas region, where fighting has been ongoing since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, could last for months more.

The United States slapped new sanctions Wednesday on dozens more individuals and entities accused of evading ongoing financial penalties imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

“The Department of Treasury sanctions Transkapitalbank — a key Russian commercial bank that has offered services to banks globally to evade international sanctions, and more than 40 individuals and entities that are part of a Russian sanctions-evasion network led by Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

Psaki said Washington also has imposed sanctions on companies in Russia’s virtual currency mining industry and applied visa restrictions on more than 600 individuals in response to human rights abuses by Russia and Belarus.

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

A Russian tanker impounded by Greece this week and reportedly carrying Iranian oil will be released amid confusion about sanctions on its owners.

“The coast guard has been ordered by the anti-money laundering authority to release the vessel,” a Greek government official said, without providing further details.

On Tuesday, Greek authorities impounded the 115,500-deadweight tonnage Russian-flagged Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, on the southern coast of the island of Evia.

They said the ship was impounded as part of EU sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, the EU banned Russian-flagged vessels from its ports, with some exemptions, as it adopted new sanctions against Russia for what the Kremlin describes as a “special military operation.”

The Pegas tanker was also among five vessels sanctioned by the United States on Feb. 22, 2022 — two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — as part of broader sanctions against Promsvyazbank, a bank Washington described as critical to Russia’s defense sector.

Promsvyazbank said it and its unit PSB Lizing were not the owners of the tanker as it was bought back by its owner in April 2021.

Promsvyazbank did not name the new owner. PSB Lizing said the owner was TransMorFlot. TransMorFlot was not available for comment.

Greek sources close to the matter said that following checks there were no legal grounds to continue impounding the Pegas as the ship had recently changed ownership and its new owner was not on an EU sanctions list.

Iranian oil

On Tuesday, U.S. State Department welcomed Greece’s efforts to implement the sanctions “initiated in response to Russia’s brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine” and said it was aware of reports that the tanker was loaded with Iranian crude oil.

Eikon tanker tracking shows the Pegas has been floating around the Mediterranean since September 2021 after loading in the Gulf in August.

Three industry sources said it had Iranian oil on board but struggled to sell it to a customer in Europe, which alongside the United States has a ban on Iranian oil.

U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which monitors Iran-related tanker traffic, also said the Pegas loaded around 700,000 barrels of crude oil from Iran’s Sirri Island on Aug. 19, 2021.

Prior to this load, the Pegas transported over 3 million barrels of Iranian oil in 2021, with over 2.6 million of those barrels ending up in China, according to UANI analysis.

A Greek coast guard official confirmed it had received the decision made by the anti-money laundering unit, an independent authority, but said the order had not yet been officially served to Pegas.

The Pegas, which was renamed Lana in March, had earlier reported an engine problem. It was headed to the southern Peloponnese peninsula to offload its cargo onto another tanker but rough seas forced it to moor just off Karystos where it was seized, according to the Athens News Agency.
…

Onstage, they dance through hoops and perform acrobatics with smiles on their faces. Off it, they hold anguished phone calls with family back in Ukraine.

Dancers Anna and Olga have found a sense of calm performing in a circus near New York, but they are still living the war they fled thousands of miles away.

“I spent a month without a full night’s sleep. We couldn’t go out to buy food — we were stressed and shaken all the time. It was scary,” recalls Anna Starykh, who left Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February.

Now the 21-year-old is performing with the Flip Circus in the New York City suburb of Yonkers, where she can sleep without being woken by explosions.

More than 4,500 miles away from Kyiv, in a parking lot near the banks of the Hudson River, Starykh and her friends prepare to perform with colleagues from across Europe and South America.

The stage has become their sanctuary.

“Work really helps (us) to calm down and stay positive,” she tells AFP.

Their concern for their family members back home is palpable, though.

“I don’t know in which situation they will be next day, next week, next month. I cry about this,” says 22-year-old Olga Rezekina, who also fled Ukraine after the invasion began and whose parents and brother live in Odesa.

Rezekina and Starykh arrived in the United States with 20-year-old Anastasiia Savych, a Flip Circus veteran who had returned to Ukraine with other circus members to renew her visa when Russian tanks crossed the border Feb. 24.

All are graduates of the Bingo Circus Theater, a circus academy in Ukraine. Rezekina and Starykh joined Flip to replace two of Savych’s male colleagues, who were mobilized to fight and stayed in Ukraine.

On the day of the invasion, Savych left Kyiv for Poland on the train.

“I never saw the capital so empty. No cars, no people outside. Everything was closed. It was like in a horror movie,” she tells AFP.

Two other Ukrainian dancers in their troupe fled via Romania and joined up with them in America on March 10.

‘Leave problems backstage’

They are among more than 5 million people who have left Ukraine since the invasion, according to United Nations estimates.

“When I just arrived here, I felt guilty,” says Savych, whose mother convinced her that she would not be able help the family by staying in Ukraine.

Now she waits to hear that the war is over and that “we won,” Savych says.

“I’m 20 years old and want stay young and not speak about the war,” she tells AFP.

The three friends all have similar but different dreams for the future.

“Live and be safe,” says Starykh, when asked hers. “Traveling around the world,” says Rezekina, while Savych hopes to live permanently in the U.S.

Alexa Vazquez, who helps run Flip — the circus was founded by her family in Mexico more than 50 years ago — says it was difficult getting the women out of Ukraine with airports closed.

“To have these girls here with right now safe means a world to us, especially to me, because they are friends, they are family. We can support them in any way possible,” she tells AFP.

The Ukrainians appear several times in the show, in which animals do not perform.

“People come and they want to look at a good show. You can leave your problems backstage,” concludes Rezekina. 
…

The British government is facing strong backlash from opposition parties and human rights groups after announcing plans earlier this month to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda for processing, in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats.

The British government says the prospect of being sent to Rwanda will deter migrants from embarking on the treacherous journey.

Record numbers

More than 4,500 migrants have crossed the English Channel from France to Britain in small boats this year, four times more than the total this time last year. There have been dozens of fatalities, including 27 migrants who drowned when their boat capsized off the northern French coast in November.

There is broad political agreement that the dangerous treks must stop, along with bitter debate about how that can be accomplished.

Britain’s latest plan is to fly migrants more than 6,000 kilometers to Rwanda, where they will be put in holding centers while their asylum claims are processed. Britain’s home secretary, Priti Patel, signed the policy alongside Vincent Biruta, Rwanda’s minister of foreign affairs, during a visit to Kigali earlier this month.

“The persistent circumventing of our laws and immigration rules and the reality of a system that is open to gain and to criminal exploitation has eroded public support for Britain’s asylum system and those who genuinely need access to it,” Patel told reporters. “Putting evil people, smugglers, out of business is a moral imperative. It requires us to use every tool at our disposal and also to find new solutions.”

“Working together, the United Kingdom and Rwanda will help make the immigration system fairer, ensure that people are safe and enjoy new opportunities to flourish. We have agreed that people who enter the U.K. illegally will be considered for relocation to Rwanda to have their asylum claims decided and those who are resettled will be given the support, including up to five years of training, with the help of integration, accommodation, [and] health care so that they can resettle and thrive,” the British home secretary said on April 14.

Britain has paid Rwanda an initial $156 million for a five-year trial plan. Britain will also pay Rwanda for each migrant the African nation accepts.

“This [plan] will not only help them, but it will benefit Rwanda and Rwandans and help to advance our own development,” Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta told reporters.

Bitter backlash

The policy has prompted a furious response in Britain and elsewhere. Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby — the most senior cleric in the Anglican Church — criticized the policy in his Easter sermon. “Subcontracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God,” Welby said.

Migrant support groups say Britain should not be outsourcing refugee processing to Rwanda, a country where London itself has flagged human rights concerns.

“We think it’s inhumane, it’s going to be very expensive, and it won’t be effective,” James Wilson, deputy director of the group Detention Action, told VOA. “The U.K. is a signatory to the refugee convention. We have a legal and moral obligation to be assessing any asylum claims to the U.K. in the U.K.”

Wilson said the government should provide safe routes for refugees to reach Britain. “A humanitarian visa system, so that those who have reached France and are looking to claim asylum in the U.K. and having some grounds for doing that would be able to apply for a visa to come to the U.K. to have their asylum claim considered. If we put that kind of scheme in place, which we think is entirely practicable, it would end the need for Channel crossings,” he told VOA.

Patel says Rwanda is “a safe and secure country with the respect for the rule of law and clearly a range of institutions that evolved and developed over time.” She also said Rwanda already has resettled almost 130,000 refugees from multiple countries.

UN objections

Britain says asylum-seekers should apply for refugee status in the first safe country they arrive in, including France. The United Nations disagrees. “There’s nothing in international law that says you have to ask in the first country you encounter,” said Larry Bottinick, a senior legal officer for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“UNHCR understands the frustration of the U.K. government on that and is not in favor of Channel crossing, of course. We think there’s more effective ways and more humane ways to address this,” Bottinick told The Associated Press.

Australia lessons

Until 2014, Australia sent thousands of migrants to offshore processing centers in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island of Nauru. Many asylum-seekers are still being held in these facilities. The policy failed to deter migrants, says analyst Madeline Gleeson, a senior research fellow at the Kaldor Center for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

“In the first year of offshore processing being in place, more people arrived in Australia by boat than at any other time in recorded history of asylum-seekers arriving that way,” she said.

Gleeson says Britain has indicated that only some migrants will be sent to Rwanda, and they are likely to be single men.

“If that is the case, what you might find is that the next boats coming across the Channel belonged to those groups which are not going to go to Rwanda — so you might see increased numbers of women and children coming on that boat,” she said. “And the concern there is if those boats sink or if they run into trouble, you’re likely to have a much higher human toll if there are more women and children on the boat.

“There will be a cap on how many people can go to Rwanda. And so, the U.K. risks running into the problem we found here in Australia, which is very quickly — within 12 weeks of this policy starting — we had already maxed out the full capacity offshore,” Gleeson told VOA.

There are further concerns the migrants sent to Rwanda will simply try again to reach Britain, thereby fueling the human trafficking gangs that operate from Africa to Europe and on toward the English Channel.
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Britain plans to send asylum-seekers thousands of miles away to Rwanda for processing, in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the policy has triggered a backlash in Britain.
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