NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has sought a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council next month and contacted Moscow to secure its attendance, an alliance spokesman said Sunday.

Stoltenberg has on several occasions in recent months offered to resume dialogue with Moscow through this body, set up in 2002 but currently inactive because of the conflict in Ukraine.

But the Russian authorities have not responded favorably.

“We are in touch with Russia” about the January 12 meeting, said the NATO spokesman, who asked not to be identified.

NATO has consistently denounced Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and has called on Moscow to respect its neighbor’s territorial sovereignty.

The West has long accused the Kremlin of providing direct military support to pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, who seized two regions shortly after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014.

Russia denies the claims and Putin has suggested that the conflict, which has claimed over 13,000 lives, is genocidal.

The Kremlin has grown increasingly insistent that the West and NATO are encroaching dangerously close to Russia’s borders.

Earlier this month, Moscow presented the West with sweeping security demands, saying NATO must not admit new members and seeking to bar the United States from establishing new bases in former Soviet republics.

The January 12 meeting is the first proposed by Stoltenberg since Moscow made its demands.

A two-day meeting of the military chiefs of NATO’s 30 member states is scheduled to start the same day in Brussels.

On Thursday, Stoltenberg reaffirmed his support for Ukraine against the military build-up across the border in Russia and the Kremlin’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he would ponder various options if the West fails to meet Moscow’s demands for security guarantees, amid heightened tensions involving a massive deployment of Russian troops near Ukraine. 

Moscow earlier this month submitted draft security documents demanding an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and military cooperation with countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, among other things. 

Speaking at his annual news conference last week, Putin urged the West to meet the demands “immediately,” listing off a litany of grievances about Ukraine and NATO. 

He warned that Moscow would have to take adequate measures if the West continues its “aggressive” course “on the threshold of our home.” 

Asked to specify what Moscow’s response could be, he said in comments aired by Russian state TV on December 26 that “it could be diverse,” adding: “It will depend on what proposals our military experts submit to me.” 

He did not elaborate. 

U.S. officials have said publicly that they were willing to hold talks on the Russian demands. Privately, however, officials in Washington and elsewhere have said some of the demands are either unworkable, impossible, or fundamentally contrary to Western values. 

The United States and its allies have agreed, however, to launch security talks with Moscow next month to discuss its concerns. 

On December 25, a NATO official was quoted as saying Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had decided to convene a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on January 12 and that the alliance was in contact with Russia on the matter. 

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the proposal was still under consideration, with the format and timing needing clarification. 

It would be the first meeting of the council in 2 1/2 years. 

Kyiv and its Western backers accuse Russia of having massed around 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders in a possible prelude to an invasion. The United States and the European Union have threatened Moscow with harsh consequences in the event of a military escalation. 

Russia has denied intending to launch an invasion. 

Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and shortly after threw its support behind separatists battling Ukrainian government forces in the country’s east in a conflict that has claimed more than 13,200 lives since April 2014. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on December 25 that more than 10,000 troops had finished monthlong drills near Ukraine, and that the soldiers involved were returning to their permanent bases. 

The ministry said in a statement that the exercises for Southern Military District forces had taken place in a host of southern Russian regions such as Rostov and Krasnodar, and further afield, including in Stavropol, Astrakhan, and the North Caucasus. 

Combat training sessions were also held in Russia’s ally Armenia, occupied Crimea, and the Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it said. 

Information from AP, AFP and Current Time were used in this report.
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France has recorded more than 100,000 virus infections in a single day for the first time in the pandemic and COVID-19 hospitalizations have doubled over the past month, as the fast-spreading omicron variant complicates the French government’s efforts to stave off a new lockdown. 

More than 1 in 100 people in the Paris region have tested positive in the past week, according to the regional health service. Most new infections are linked to the omicron variant, which government experts predict will be dominant in France in the coming days. Omicron is already dominant in Britain, right across the Channel. 

Meanwhile a surge in delta variant infections in recent months is pushing up hospital admissions in France, and put ICUs under strain again over the Christmas holidays. More than 1,000 people in France with the virus died over the past week, bringing the country’s overall death toll to more than 122,000. 

President Emmanuel Macron’s government is holding emergency meetings Monday to discuss the next steps in tackling the virus. Some scientists and educators have urged delaying the post-holiday return to school, or suggested re-imposing a curfew. 

But France’s education minister says schools should open as usual on Jan. 3, and other government officials are working to avoid measures that would hammer the country’s economic recovery. 

Instead the French government is hoping that stepped-up vaccinations will be enough. The government is pushing a draft law that would require vaccination to enter all restaurants and many public venues, instead of the current health pass system which allows people to produce a negative test or proof of recovery if they’re not vaccinated. 

In neighboring Belgium, the government imposed new measures starting Sunday that ordered cultural venues like movie theaters and concert halls to close. 

Some venues defied the ban, and thousands of performers, event organizers and others demonstrated Sunday in Brussels against the decision, carrying signs reading “The Show Must Go On” or “No Culture No Future.” They accuse the Belgian government of double standards because it allowed Christmas markets, with their boisterous crowds and mulled wine drinking, to stay open, along with restaurants and bars. 

Even the scientific committee advising the Belgian government had not asked for the culture industry closures, leaving virologist Marc Van Ranst to ponder that, in Belgium, “gluhwein beat culture.”

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has gone farther than most European countries and shut down all nonessential stores, restaurants and bars and extended the school holidays in a partial new lockdown. 

In Britain, where the omicron variant has been dominant for days, government requirements have been largely voluntary and milder than those on the continent, but the Conservative government said it could impose new restrictions after Christmas. The U.K. hit a new high of 122,186 daily infections on Friday, but did not report figures for Christmas. 

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland imposed new restrictions Sunday on socializing, mainly limiting the size of gatherings, moves that the restaurant, pub and nightclub industries have described as economically devastating.
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As 2021 nears its end, hopes that the coronavirus pandemic might be ending are rapidly fading – as the new omicron variant sweeps across the world. Henry Ridgwell looks back on a tumultuous year in Europe as populations and policymakers struggled to return to normality. Producer: Barry Unger
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Britain’s Queen Elizabeth spoke of the loss of her husband, Prince Philip, on Saturday, remembering the “mischievous twinkle” in his eyes in an unusually personal Christmas message to the nation.

The 95-year-old monarch said that while Christmas was a time of happiness for many, it could be hard for those who had lost loved ones, and this year especially she understood why, having lost Philip, 99, in April after 73 years of marriage.

“His sense of service, intellectual curiosity and capacity to squeeze fun out of any situation were all irrepressible,” she said in her traditional pre-recorded festive broadcast, paying tribute to “my beloved Philip.”

“That mischievous enquiring twinkle was as bright at the end as when I first set eyes on him,” she said.

The queen said she knew Philip would want his family to enjoy Christmas, and there would be joy for them despite the absence of his “familiar laugh.”

She delivered her address seated at a desk on which stood a photograph of herself and Philip, standing arm-in-arm and smiling at each other. The photo was taken in 2007, when the couple were marking their Diamond Wedding Anniversary.

For her broadcast, the queen wore a sapphire brooch that she wore on her honeymoon in 1947 and for the Diamond Wedding portrait. Photos of her and Philip at various stages of their lives appeared on the screen while she spoke.

Elizabeth is spending Christmas at Windsor Castle, west of London, for the second year running, a break from royal tradition caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. A palace source said this reflected a precautionary approach when the omicron variant is spreading fast.

Police arrested at 19-year-old man on the grounds of the castle about 8:30 a.m. local time. The man, from Southhampton, didn’t enter any buildings and was being held on suspicion of possessing a weapon, Thames Valley Police Superintendent Rebecca Mears said.

Prince Charles, his wife, Camilla, and other royal family members arrived later in the morning for a Christmas church service at St George’s Chapel within the Windsor Castle complex.

There was no suggestion that any of the royal family’s plans had been disrupted by the incident.

Usually, all the Windsors gather for Christmas at another one of the     queen’s homes, the Sandringham estate in eastern England. Their walk to a nearby church for a Christmas service is a staple of the royal calendar.

With Britain’s daily COVID-19 infection numbers hitting records, the queen last week canceled a pre-Christmas lunch with her family, also as a precaution.

In her message, she also spoke of her upcoming Platinum Jubilee year, which starts in February and will mark her 70 years on the throne. She is the longest-reigning monarch in British history, having in 2015 overtaken her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.

She said she hoped the jubilee would be a chance for people “to give thanks for the enormous changes of the last 70 years, social, scientific and cultural, and also to look ahead with confidence.”
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Senior German and Russian government officials have agreed to a rare in-person meeting next month in an effort to ease political tensions over Ukraine, a German government source said Saturday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s foreign policy adviser Jens Ploetner and Russia’s Ukraine negotiator Dmitry Kozak agreed to meet after a lengthy phone conversation Thursday, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The German government has not made any official comment.  A spokesman for Kozak declined to comment.

There has been a flurry of phone calls between western leaders and Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months over Russia’s military build-up on the Ukrainian border and resulting fears of an invasion.

In-person meetings between senior Western and Russian government officials have been few and far between, though U.S. President Joe Biden held talks with President Putin in Geneva last June.

Since taking office this month, Scholz has emphasized the need for dialog with Russia over its military build-up on the Ukrainian border while joining western allies in backing sanctions should Moscow invade.

Berlin doubts more than Washington whether Russia actually wants to attack Ukraine and is keen to de-escalate tensions, two government sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Critics accuse Germany of being beholden to Putin because of its need for Russian gas, attacking construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between the countries, bypassing Ukraine.

Berlin says Nordstream 2 is not political and would be only one of several pipelines transporting Russian gas to Europe.

“The German side’s goal remains to achieve a swift reactivation of the Normandy format,” the German government source said, referring to multilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany.

SPD parliamentary leader Rolf Mutzenich told Reuters the party was not “naive” and knew who it was dealing with, adding that it still believes that engagement could help to de-escalate the Ukraine situation.
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Scientists declared the eruption on Spain’s La Palma officially over on Saturday, allowing islanders to breathe a sigh of relief nearly 100 days after the Cumbre Vieja volcano began to spew out lava, rock and ash and upended the lives of thousands.

After bursting into action on Sept. 19, the volcano suddenly went quiet on Monday Dec. 13 but the authorities, wary of raising false hope, held off until Christmas Day to give the all-clear.

“What I want to say today can be said with just four words: The eruption is over,” Canary Islands regional security chief Julio Perez told a news conference on Saturday.

During the eruption, lava had poured down the mountainside, swallowing up houses, churches and many of the banana plantations that account for nearly half the island’s economy.

Although property was destroyed, no one was killed. Maria Jose Blanco, director of the National Geographic Institute on the Canaries, said all indicators suggested the eruption had run out of energy but she did not rule out a future reactivation.

Some 3,000 properties were destroyed by lava that now covers 1,219 hectares – equivalent to roughly 1,500 soccer pitches – according to the final tally by the emergency services.

Of the 7,000 people evacuated, most have returned home but many houses that remain standing are uninhabitable due to ash damage. With many roads blocked, some plantations are now only accessible by sea.

German couple Jacqueline Rehm and Juergen Doelz were among those forced to evacuate, fleeing their rented house in the village of Todoque and moving to their small sail boat for seven weeks.

“We couldn’t save anything, none of the furniture, none of my paintings, it’s all under the lava now,” said Rehm, 49, adding that they would move to nearby Tenerife after Christmas. “I’m not sure it’s really over. I don’t trust this beast at all,” she said.

The volcanic roar that served as a constant reminder of the eruption may have subsided and islanders no longer have to carry umbrellas and goggles to protect against ash, but a mammoth cleanup operation is only just getting underway.

The government has pledged more than $453 million (400 million euros) for reconstruction but some residents and businesses have complained that funds are slow to arrive.

($1 = 0.8836 euros)
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On Christmas Day, in his message to the city and the world, Pope Francis stressed the importance of being open to dialogue to resolve the large number of conflicts, crises and disagreements that exist in today’s world. He mentioned Syria, Iraq and Yemen as examples of countries where longstanding conflicts have caused endless suffering.

As customary on Christmas Day, Pope Francis appeared at the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica overlooking the square to deliver his “Urbi et Orbi” message and blessing to the city and to the world, a tradition he had to make a break from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing those gathered at the Vatican on this rainy, wintry day and the millions watching him live on television, Francis said the need for patient dialogue at this time of pandemic is even more necessary in the world.  

The pope said that “our capacity for social relationships is sorely tried; there is a growing tendency to withdraw, to do it all by ourselves, to stop making an effort to encounter others and do things together.”

He also turned his comments to the international situation, where “we continue to witness a great number of conflicts, crises and disagreements.” These, he added, never seem to end and people hardly notice them.

We have become so used to them, Francis said, that immense tragedies are now being passed over in silence: we risk not hearing the cry of pain and distress of so many of our brothers and sisters.

Francis said the risk is that of avoiding dialogue, and that the complex crisis of the world pandemic will lead to taking of shortcuts rather than the longer paths of dialogue, which, he stressed, are the way to the resolution of conflicts and lasting benefits for all.  

Among the nations that the pope singled out were Syria, where for more than a decade the war has resulted in many victims and an untold number of displaced people, Iraq, still struggling to recover from a lengthy conflict, and Yemen.

Let us listen to the cry of children arising from Yemen, Francis said, where an enormous tragedy, overlooked by everyone, has silently gone on for years, causing deaths every day.  

Francis mentioned other conflict areas in the world, including the Middle East, where the continuing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians drag on without a resolution. He also spoke of the Afghan people, tested by more than 40 years of conflict, and the people of Myanmar, where intolerance and violence have targeted Christian communities.

He did not forget Africa, mentioning Ethiopia, the Sahel region and Sudan.

The pope prayed for the peoples of the countries of North Africa, tormented by divisions, unemployment and economic inequality.

At this time of pandemic, Francis also reminded the world and asked for prayers for the victims of violence against women, for young children and adolescents suffering from bullying and abuse, and for the elderly. He prayed that the current health crisis be overcome and that the necessary health care and vaccines in particular be provided to those who need them most. 
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Worshippers in face masks filed into Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois Church across from the Louvre Museum on Friday for Christmas Eve Mass and were greeted by the rector of the closed Notre-Dame Cathedral. 

It was the second year that holiday services were held under the shadow of the coronavirus. 

Everyone was masked, and members of the congregation sprayed people’s hands with disinfectant as they entered. Children in the choir sang while masked and spaced out across the podium. They had to produce negative coronavirus tests to participate.

“We have very strict rules in place,” said Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, rector of Notre-Dame, which has been closed since a devastating fire nearly three years ago. “The communion wafer is placed into worshippers’ hands, and there is no kiss of peace. There is no contact whatsoever.” 

Chauvet has been leading the congregation at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois while the cathedral is being repaired. 

In the lead-up to Christmas, France has recorded its highest number of daily coronavirus infections so far, and hospitalizations for COVID-19 have been rising. But the government has held off on imposing curfews, closures or other restrictions for the festivities.

‘We have to live’

Maria Valdes, a dual Mexican-French citizen at Mass, said she was resigned to the restrictions of the pandemic. She has gotten used to the ever-changing rules and regulations in her private and public life.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have to live because this is a virus that isn’t just going to go away,” Valdes said. “Respect the rules, but we have to live.” 

Chauvet said before celebrating the Mass that much as the fire ravaged Notre-Dame, the pandemic has devastated communities, whole towns and families. The lockdowns and isolation have left people disoriented, tired and emotionally exhausted, he said.

“I meet with people who wonder if they are going to manage to get out of this situation, people who are sometimes losing hope,” he said.

“Christmas is hope,” Chauvet added. “We have to continue to fight, to reach the point where we can try to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

In September, the famed medieval cathedral was finally deemed stable and secure enough to start reconstruction from the blaze in April 2019 that tore through its roof and toppled its spire. Work on the spire started a few days ago, and authorities hope to have Notre-Dame open to visitors and religious services in 2024, the year Paris hosts the Olympics.

Carpenters, scaffolding experts, professional climbers, organ mechanics and others are taking part in the effort, which includes special temporary structures to secure the iconic towers, vaults and walls of the huge, roofless structure, and a special “umbrella” to protect it from the weather.

“It’s not simple,” Chauvet said of the work. But, he said, like people in his congregation will recover from the pandemic, the cathedral will recover its past glory. 

“The spire will be the same. The roof will be the same,” he said.
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At least three people died when a migrant boat sank in the Aegean Sea on Friday, just hours after similar sinking claimed 11 lives, Greece’s coast guard said.

The latest tragedy, the third since Wednesday, came amid high smuggler activity not seen in Greek waters in months.

The coast guard said it found three bodies and rescued 57 people from a boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros.

Hours earlier, 11 bodies were recovered from a boat that ran aground on an islet north of the Greek island of Antikythera on Thursday evening.

Ninety people stranded on the islet were rescued, including 27 children and 11 women, the coast guard said.

On Wednesday, a dinghy carrying migrants capsized off the island of Folegandros, killing at least three people.

Thirteen people were rescued, while dozens remain missing, Greek authorities said.

Survivors gave conflicting accounts: Some said there had been 32 people on board, while others put the number around 50, a coast guard official told AFP.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said the Folegandros accident was the worst in the Aegean Sea this year.

“This shipwreck is a painful reminder that people continue to embark on perilous voyages in search of safety,” said Adriano Silvestri, the UNHCR’s assistant representative in Greece.

Earlier Friday, the coast guard intercepted another boat with 92 men and boys on board after it ran aground on the coast of the Peloponnese peninsula.

Three suspected smugglers who fled the boat on foot were later arrested.

The UNHCR estimates that more than 2,500 people have died or gone missing at sea in their attempt to reach Europe from January through November this year.

Nearly 1 million people, mainly Syrian refugees, arrived in the European Union in 2015 after crossing to Greek islands close to Turkey. 
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It may be known as midnight Mass, but for the second year running, Pope Francis chose to celebrate the service marking the birth of Jesus Christ in the early evening.

Although conditions at the Vatican this year differed from last year, when Italy was in near-total lockdown, authorities did step up restrictions this Christmas season as well, as COVID-19 infections, particularly of the omicron variant, continued to rise fast.

Last year, a very limited number attended the pope’s Christmas Eve Mass, while this year St. Peter’s Basilica was filled with faithful, although all were wearing masks, including all the Mass concelebrants. The Vatican on Thursday tightened restrictions to enter all Vatican offices. Employees must now show they are fully vaccinated or show evidence they have recovered from COVID-19.

At the start of his homily, Pope Francis told the faithful of the message the night Jesus was born. To you is born this day a saviour, who is Christ the Lord, the pope said — a poor child, wrapped in swaddling cloth, a baby lying in the dire poverty of a manger, with shepherds standing by. The pope said God is in littleness, adding that the message is that God does not rise up in grandeur but lowers himself into littleness.

Littleness, Francis said, is what God chose to draw near to us, to touch our hearts, to save us and to bring us back to what really matters. God does not seek power and might, the pope added; he asks for tender love and interior littleness. And that grace of littleness, he said, is what we should be asking for at Christmas.

The pope urged the faithful to put aside complaints, gloomy faces and greed that never satisfies. Accepting littleness, the pontiff added, also means honoring the poor. Jesus is born close to the shepherds who were there to work because they were poor.

God came to fill with dignity the austerity of labor, the pope said; he reminds us of granting dignity to men and women through labor. On the day of life, he added, let us repeat: No more deaths at the workplace!

On Christmas Day, Francis is expected to deliver his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” message and blessing to the city and to the world.
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The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office has asked a court to arrest former President Petro Poroshenko on suspicion of high treason and financing pro-Russian separatists, a lawmaker from Poroshenko’s faction in parliament said Friday.

“On Christmas Eve, the prosecutor general office confirmed the information … that the prosecutor general had approved a motion to arrest Poroshenko with the possibility of bail set at 1 billion hryvnia [$37 million],” Iryna Gerashchenko said on Facebook.

The prosecutor general’s office declined to confirm Gerashchenko’s claim.

On Monday, the state investigative bureau said Poroshenko, who is visiting Poland, was suspected of “facilitating the activities” of terrorist organizations in a preliminary conspiracy with an unnamed group of people, including some top officials in Russia.

The next day, Poroshenko dismissed as unacceptable a decision by authorities to investigate him for high treason. His party said the accusation was fabricated on the instructions of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“Our political team views the recent actions [of the presidential office] and its fully controlled security forces as political repression against the opposition and its leader, selective justice, intimidation and pressure,” Gerashchenko said.

Ukraine has been at war with Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region since 2014. Moscow has unnerved the West with a troop buildup near Ukraine in recent months.
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The year 2021 saw a new migrant crisis on Europe’s borders – as thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa travelled to Belarus and tried to cross the border into Poland and the European Union. Henry Ridgwell reports.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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New satellite images captured by a private U.S. company show that Russia has continued to build up its forces in annexed Crimea and near Ukraine in recent weeks while pressing the United States for talks over security guarantees it is seeking.

Reuters could not independently verify the latest images from U.S.-based Maxar Technologies. The Kremlin reiterated on Friday that it reserves the right to move its own forces on Russian territory as it sees fit and that Western countries were carrying out provocative military maneuvers near its borders.

U.S., European and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of building up troops again near Ukraine’s border since October after an earlier brief buildup in April, when Maxar also released images. U.S. President Joe Biden and other leaders say Moscow appears to be weighing an attack on Ukraine as soon as next month, something Moscow has repeatedly denied.

The images released late on Thursday showed a base in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, packed with hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks as of Dec. 13. A Maxar satellite image of the same base in October showed the base was half empty.

Maxar said a new brigade-level unit, comprised of several hundred armored vehicles that include BMP-series infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, self-propelled artillery and air defense equipment, had arrived at the Russian garrison.

“Over the past month, our high-resolution satellite imagery has observed a number of new Russian deployments in Crimea as well as in several training areas in western Russia along the periphery of the Ukraine border,” Maxar said in a statement.

It cited increased activity at three sites in Crimea and at five sites in western Russia.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia wanted to avoid conflict, but needed an “immediate” response from the United States and its allies to its demands for security guarantees. Moscow has said it expects talks with U.S. officials on the subject to start in January in Geneva.

When asked on Friday about the build-up of Russian troops near Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was acting to defend its own security.

“Russia is moving its own troops around on its own territory against the backdrop of highly unfriendly actions by our opponents in NATO, the United States and various European countries who are carrying out highly unambiguous maneuvers near our borders,” said Peskov.

“This forces us to take certain measures to guarantee our own security.”

Biden has threatened strong economic and other measures if Russia invades Ukraine, building on sanctions imposed over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and backing for an ongoing separatist rebellion by pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine. A U.S. official has said new retaliatory measures could include tough export controls.

Russia says it wants NATO to halt its eastwards expansion and is seeking guarantees that the Western military alliance will not deploy certain offensive weapons to Ukraine and other neighboring countries.

Other Maxar images showed a build-up at the Soloti staging ground in Russia close to the Ukrainian border, with photos shot at the start of December showing a larger concentration of military hardware than in September.

Other pictures showed continuing build-ups at Yelnya, a Russian town around 160 miles (260 km) north of the Ukrainian border, and at the Pogonovo training ground near the southern Russian city of Voronezh.
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The White House said Thursday that Washington is keeping a keen eye on Moscow and remains committed to diplomacy during upcoming high-level talks. This comes amid increasingly heated rhetoric from Russia’s leader, who on Thursday accused U.S. and NATO allies of undermining his country as he continues to mass troops near Russia’s border with Ukraine.

“You expanded NATO to the east,” President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, during his customary marathon end-of-year press conference, where he also accused Western intelligence services of trying to break up the Russian federation by using terrorist groups. “Of course, we asked you not to do it, as you promised you wouldn’t. 

“But we were told: ‘Where is this written on paper? It isn’t, so you can buzz off. We don’t give a damn about your concerns.’ This happened year after year, and every time we pushed back and tried to prevent something or express our concern, [we were told], ‘No, buzz off with your concerns, we’ll do as we please.’ ” 

“Facts are a funny thing,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday, responding to reporters’ questions about Putin’s accusations. “And facts make clear that the only aggression we’re seeing at the border of Russia and Ukraine is the military buildup by the Russians and the bellicose rhetoric from the leader of Russia.”

Psaki said the U.S. will hold high-level talks with the Russian government in early January, but she did not give further details on when the talks may happen, where they will take place or who will be involved. Administration officials have declined to respond publicly to Moscow’s demands, which include that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and that the security alliance reduce its deployments in Central and Eastern Europe. 

“However Russia has chosen to handle things, we don’t plan to negotiate in public,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday. “It does not strike us as constructive or the way that progress has been made in such diplomatic conversations in the past. We are not going to respond to every proposal or comment that is made, including from the Russian president.” 

Earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden held a virtual call with Putin. During that call, the two men discussed the estimated 100,000 troops gathered on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited troops in the eastern Donetsk region earlier this month and said his forces are capable of fending off a Russian offensive.

Biden hosted Zelenskiy at the White House in September, and he assured him then that the U.S. was “firmly committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression.” 

The White House also has made clear there will be “significant consequences” if Russia invades. These include harsh economic sanctions and increased security support for Ukraine.

“All that planning is well underway on our side, and we are ready to act if and when we need to,” the administration official said. 

But does Putin plan to cross that border? Analyst Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute doesn’t think the Russian president does: For one thing, Kagan wrote, it would be “by far the largest, boldest and riskiest military operation Moscow has launched since the 1979 inva­sion of Afghanistan.” 

“It would be a marked departure from the approaches Putin has relied on since 2015, and a major step-change in his willing­ness to use Russian conventional military power overtly,” he wrote, in an assessment published earlier this month. “It would cost Russia enormous sums of money and likely many thousands of casualties and destroyed vehicles and aircraft.” 
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Polish Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware nearly three dozen times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s campaign against the right-wing populist government in parliamentary elections, an internet watchdog found.

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone — then doctored in a smear campaign — were aired by state-controlled TV in the heat of that race, which the ruling party narrowly won. With the hacking revelation, Brejza now questions whether the election was fair. 

It’s the third finding by the University of Toronto’s nonprofit Citizen Lab that a Polish opposition figure was hacked with Pegasus spyware from the Israeli hacking tools firm NSO Group. Brejza’s phone was digitally broken into 33 times from April 26, 2019, to October 23, 2019, said Citizen Lab researchers, who have been tracking government abuses of NSO malware for years. 

The other two hacks were identified earlier this week after a joint Citizen Lab-Associated Press investigation. All three victims blame Poland’s government, which has refused to confirm or deny whether it ordered the hacks or is a client of NSO Group. State security services spokesman Stanislaw Zaryn insisted Thursday that the government does not wiretap illegally and obtains court orders in “justified cases.” He said any suggestions the Polish government surveils for political ends were false. 

NSO, which was blacklisted by the U.S. government last month, says it sells its spyware only to legitimate government law enforcement and intelligence agencies vetted by Israel’s Defense Ministry for use against terrorists and criminals. It does not name its clients and would not say if Poland is among them.

Citizen Lab said it believes NSO keeps logs of intrusions so an investigation could determine who was behind the Polish hacks.

EU response 

In response to the revelations, European Union lawmakers said they would hasten efforts to investigate allegations that member nations such as Poland have abused Pegasus spyware.

The other two Polish victims are Ewa Wrzosek, an outspoken prosecutor fighting the increasingly hardline government’s undermining of judicial independence, and Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented senior leaders of Brejza’s party, Civic Platform, in sensitive cases. 

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday dismissed revelations that Giertych and Wrzosek were hacked as “fake news.” Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said he had no knowledge of “illegal actions aimed at the surveillance of citizens” but also said Poland was “not helpless” in taking action against people suspected of crimes. 

Giertych was hacked 18 times, also in the run-up to 2019 parliamentary elections that the ruling Law and Justice party won by a razor-thin margin. That victory has continued an erosion of democracy in the nation where the popular 1980s protest movement Solidarity presaged the eventual collapse of the Soviet empire. 

The intense tempo of the hacks of Brejza and Giertych “indicates an extreme level of monitoring” that raises pressing questions about abuses of power, Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton said. Pegasus gives its operators complete access to a mobile device: They can extract passwords, photos, messages, contacts and browsing history, and activate the microphone and camera for real-time eavesdropping. 

“My heart sinks with each case we find,” Scott-Railton added. “This seems to be confirming our worst fear: Even when used in a democracy, this kind of spyware has an almost immutable abuse potential.”

Other confirmed victims have included Mexican and Saudi journalists, British attorneys, Palestinian human rights activists, heads of state and Uganda-based U.S. diplomats. 

An NSO spokesperson said Thursday that “the company does not and cannot know who the targets of its customers are, yet implements measures to ensure that these systems are used solely for the authorized uses.” The spokesperson said there is zero tolerance for governments that abuse the software; NSO says it has terminated multiple contracts of governments that have abused Pegasus, although it has not named any publicly. 

Despite any measures NSO might be taking, Citizen Lab notes, the list of abuse cases continues to grow. 

Doctored texts

Brejza, a 38-year-old attorney, told the AP that he has no doubt data stolen from his phone while he was chief of staff of the opposition coalition’s parliamentary campaign provided critical strategy insights. Combined with the smear effort against him, he said, it prevented “a fair electoral process.”

Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored to make it appear as if he created an online group that spread hateful anti-government propaganda; reports in state-controlled media cited the altered texts. But the group didn’t exist. 

Brejza says he now understands where TVP state television got them. 

“This operation wrecked the work of staff and destabilized my campaign,” he said. “I don’t know how many votes it took from me and the entire coalition.” 

Brejza won his Senate seat in that October 2019 race. But since the ruling party held on to the more powerful lower house of parliament, it has steered Poland further away from EU standards of liberal democracy. 

Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said at the time that control of state media gave the ruling party an unfair advantage but called the elections essentially free. They were unaware of the hacking. 

Brejza has been a Law and Justice party critic since it won power in 2015. For example, he has exposed large bonuses paid to senior government officials. In another case, he revealed that the postal service sent tens of thousands of dollars to a company tied to ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Brejza fears the hacking could have compromised whistleblowers who had reached out to him with evidence. 

NSO Group is facing daunting financial and legal challenges — including the threat of default on more than $300 million in debt — after governments used Pegasus spyware to spy on dissidents, journalists, diplomats and human rights activists from countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico and the United States. The U.S. blacklisting of NSO has effectively barred U.S. companies from supplying technology to the Israeli firm.
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A freelance journalist, who has worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service, remains in jail on unspecified charges, despite serving two 10-day sentences on controversial hooliganism charges, his relatives said Thursday.

Andrey Kuznechyk’s family told RFE/RL that they were officially informed that the journalist was being transferred from the notorious Akrestsina detention center, where many inmates have said they were tortured, to another facility in Minsk. 

The family was also told that a criminal case on unspecified charges had been launched against Kuznechyk.

Kuznechyk has been held by authorities since late November.

After going for a bike ride on the 25th of last month, Kuznechyk returned to his apartment, accompanied by four men in civilian clothes, according to his wife, Alesya Rak. 

The men, who did not show any identification, then searched their apartment, Rak said, only avoiding the rooms of their two young children.

Kuznechyk was then led away by the group, who did not give a reason for his detention.

The journalist was sentenced to 10 days in jail the following day, after a trial in which he refused to accept a guilty verdict on hooliganism charges.

On December 6, when his initial sentence ended, he was not released, but handed another 10-day jail term, also on a hooliganism charge.

Kuznechyk’s relatives told RFE/RL at the time that the journalist continues to maintain his innocence.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly has said the extension of Kuznechyk’s sentence “on absurdly fabricated charges” should be considered a crime in itself.

“Andrey’s state-sponsored kidnapping continues, all in furtherance of the Lukashenko regime’s efforts to block independent information from reaching the Belarusian people. Andrey should be allowed to return to his family immediately,” Fly said in a statement on December 6, referring to authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko.

Tensions have been running high in Belarus since Lukashenko, in power since 1994, was declared the winner of an August 2020 presidential election that opponents and the West say was rigged.

Many Western nations have since refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus, leaving him more reliant than ever on Russia, which analysts say is using his weakened position to strengthen its hold over its smaller neighbor.

Tens of thousands of people have been detained, and human rights activists say more than 800 people are now in jail as political prisoners.

Independent media and opposition social media channels have been targeted as well.

The group Reporters Without Borders has described Belarus as the most dangerous country in Europe for media personnel. 
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Belarus’s Interior Ministry has added RFE/RL’s Belarus Service, known locally as Radio Svaboda, to its registry of extremist organizations, in a continued clampdown on independent media and civil society sparked by an eruption of protests against authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko’s claim he won a presidential election last year that the opposition says was rigged.

According to the statement issued by the ministry on December 23, “a group of citizens associated via Radio Svaboda’s internet resources were determined to be an extremist group.”

The move means that Belarusians who subscribe to Radio Svaboda online could face up to six years in prison.

The move comes almost three weeks after a court in Minsk designated Radio Svaboda’s official Telegram channel and some of the broadcaster’s social media accounts as extremist.

Authorities in Belarus have declared hundreds of Telegram channels, blogs and chatrooms as “extremist” since the country was engulfed by protests since the August 2020 presidential election, which handed Lukashenko a sixth consecutive term.

In response, the government has cracked down hard on the pro-democracy movement, arresting thousands of people and pushing most of the top opposition figures out of the country. There have also been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment, and several people have died.

Dozens of news websites have been blocked in Belarus and independent media shuttered as part of a sweeping crackdown on information in the wake of the unprecedented protests.

The website of RFE/RL’s Belarus Service has been blocked within Belarus since August 21, 2020, while the accreditation of all locally based journalists working for foreign media, including RFE/RL, were annulled by the Belarusian authorities in October 2020.

Lukashenko, who has run the country since 1994, has denied any fraud in the election and refuses to negotiate with the opposition on a political transition and new elections.

The West has refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus and in response has imposed several waves of sanctions against the government and other officials accused of aiding and benefiting from the crackdown.
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President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the West provide Russia with security guarantees “immediately” amid spiraling tensions involving a massive deployment of Russian troops toward Ukraine. 

Speaking at his annual news conference on December 23, Putin responded testily to a reporter’s question about Russia’s intentions, listing off a litany of grievances about Ukraine and about NATO. 

He also referred to a list of demands that Russian officials released publicly earlier this month that amounted to a major restructuring of European security and NATO’s policies. 

“You should give us guarantees. You! And without any delay! Now!” he said, responding to a question from a Sky News reporter. 

Putin repeated past Kremlin assertions that the United States had placed missile systems on Russia’s border. 

He appeared to be referring to the anti-missile Aegis Ashore systems that the United States has deployed to NATO allies Romania and Poland in recent years. Washington has insisted that the systems are needed to defend Europe against threats from Iran’s missiles, and are ineffective against Russia’s arsenal. 

“Is it us who placed missiles next to the U.S. borders?” Putin said, responding to another question. “No. It is the U.S. with its missiles who came to our home and are on the threshold of our home….Is it an unusual demand? Do not place any more assault systems next to our home? What is unusual about it?” 

Responding to an earlier question, Putin appeared to give a positive signal regarding proposed upcoming talks between Russia, the United States, and possibly other Western allies. 

U.S. and Russian diplomats are tentatively scheduled to meet for new talks, reportedly in Geneva, sometime after the New Year. 

“We have so far seen a positive reaction,” he said. “Our U.S. partners told us that they are ready to begin this discussion, these talks, at the very start of next year.” 

“I hope that’s how it will all play out,” he said. 

The Russian demands, released publicly on December 17, call for prohibiting NATO from expanding further to the east and leaving Ukraine and several other countries as buffer states with limited sovereignty when it comes to military affairs. 

In recent weeks, the United States, NATO, and Kyiv have raised the alarm over around 100,000 Russian troops deployed near the border with Ukraine and in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. 

U.S. officials have said Moscow is planning for a possible military offensive that, if it happens, could come within weeks. 

The new military buildup has become the backdrop for Putin’s push for the United States and NATO to give Russia sweeping “security guarantees” that would drastically alter the post-Cold War order in Europe. 

Putin has said he does not want a war but has been adamant that if new fighting breaks out, it will be the fault of Kyiv and the West. 

During the news conference, he also repeated past accusations against Ukraine, asserting that Kyiv was preparing a new military offensive in the eastern regions where war has been ongoing for more than 7 years now. 

“Now they tell us, war, war, war. It seems they are preparing another operation [in Donbas] and are warning us not to get in the way, or there’ll be sanctions,” Putin said. He also accused the West of creating “anti-Russia” sentiment in Ukraine by arming it and “brainwashing the population.” 

“We are doing our best to establish good-neighborly ties with Ukraine. But it is impossible to do so with the current leadership. People in Ukraine who want to work with us are facing pressure or even being killed,” he said. 

The news conference is one of three carefully orchestrated, nationally televised public events that Putin holds almost every year, as part of an effort to showcase his dominance of Russia’s political life. 

In past years, press conferences have gone more than three hours; the longest was last year, at 4 1/2 hours. 

Because of pandemic restrictions, journalists were required to submit three negative PCR tests in order to enter the hall. Organizers also set up “disinfection tunnels” — a unproven technology that sprays individuals with a disinfectant as they walk through. 

Earlier in the news conference, Putin extolled his government’s efforts in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and bolstering the country’s economic growth. 

Like many countries, Russia has struggled to get its COVID-19 infections under control — an effort that has been hampered by widespread vaccine hesitancy. 

Less than 50% of the country’s 146 million people have been fully vaccinated so far, even though Russia was the first in the world to approve and release a coronavirus vaccine a year ago. As of December 23, Russia has reported 10.2 million cases, and 300,000 deaths, according to the national coronavirus information center. 

“After facing the coronavirus infection’s challenges and the necessary restrictions caused by it in the economy, as well as in the social sphere, our economy, turned out to be more mobilized and better prepared for such shocks than the world’s other developed economies,” he said. 
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