Russian police have put prominent Russian American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.

It is the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown against dissent in Russia that has intensified since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine more than 21 months ago, on Feb. 24, 2022.

The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the online wanted list of Russia’s Interior Ministry, and The Associated Press was able to confirm that it was. It wasn’t clear from the profile when exactly Gessen was added to the list.

Russian media reported last month that a criminal case against Gessen, an award-winning author and an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was launched over an interview they did with the prominent Russian journalist Yury Dud. 

In the interview, which was released on YouTube in September 2022 and has since been viewed more than 6.5 million times, the two among other things discussed atrocities by Russian armed forces in Bucha, a Ukrainian town near Kyiv that was briefly occupied by the Russian forces.

After Ukrainian troops retook it, they found the bodies of men, women and children on the streets, in yards and homes, and in mass graves, with some showing signs of torture. Russian officials have vehemently denied their forces were responsible and have prosecuted a number of Russian public figures for speaking out about Bucha, handing some lengthy prison terms.

Those prosecutions were carried out under a new law Moscow adopted days after sending troops to Ukraine that effectively criminalized any public expression about the war deviating from the official narrative. The Kremlin has insisted on calling it a “special military operation” and maintains that its troops in Ukraine only strike military targets, not civilians.

Between late February 2022 and early this month, 19,844 people have been detained for speaking out or protesting against the war while 776 people have been implicated in criminal cases over their anti-war stance, according to the OVD-Info rights group, which tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.

Gessen, who holds dual Russian and American citizenships and lives in the U.S., is unlikely to be arrested, unless they travel to a country with an extradition treaty with Russia. But Russian court could still try them in absentia and hand them a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Pressure is also mounting on dissidents imprisoned in Russia. On Friday, supporters of Alexei Gorinov, a former member of a Moscow municipal council sentenced to seven years in prison for speaking out against the war, reported that his health significantly deteriorated in prison, and he is not being given the treatment he needs.

Gorinov was sentenced last year and is currently serving time at a penal colony in the Vladimir region east of Moscow. In a post on the messaging app Telegram, his supporters said his lawyer visited him on Friday and said Gorinov “doesn’t have the strength to sit up on a chair or even speak.” He told the lawyer that he has bronchitis and fever, but prison doctors claim he doesn’t need treatment, the post said.

The 62-year-old Gorinov has a chronic lung condition, and several years ago had part of a lung removed, the post said.

Allies of imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny were also concerned about his well-being on Friday.

Navalny is serving a 19-year prison term on the charges of extremism in the same region as Gorinov, and for the last three days his lawyers have not allowed to visit him, the politician’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X, formerly known as Twitter. Yarmysh said that letters to Navalny were also not being delivered to him.

“The fact that we can’t find Alexey is particularly concerning because last week he felt unwell in the cell: he felt dizzy and lay down on the floor. Prison officials rushed to him, unfolded the bed, put Alexey on it and gave him an IV drip. We don’t know what caused it, but given that he’s being deprived of food, kept in a cell without ventilation and has been offered minimal outdoor time, it looks like fainting out of hunger,” Yarmysh wrote.

She added that the lawyers visited him after the incident, and he looked “more or less fine.”

Navalny is due to be transferred to a “special security” penal colony, a facility with the highest security level in the Russian penitentiary system. Russian prison transfers are notorious for taking a long time, sometimes weeks, during which there’s no access to prisoners, and information about their whereabouts is limited, or unavailable at all.

Navalny, 47, has been behind bars since January 2021. As President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, he campaigned against official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests. His 2021 arrest came upon his return to Moscow from Germany, where he recuperated from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Navalny has since been handed three prison terms and spent months in isolation in prison for alleged minor infractions. He has rejected all charges against him as politically motivated.
…

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv took down a statue of a Red Army commander from a central boulevard Saturday as part of a campaign to remove Soviet-era monuments from Ukraine.  

Municipal workers tore down the statue of Mykola Shchors, a Soviet field commander during the Russian Civil War, erected in the 1950s. A small group of onlookers applauded as a crane lifted the statue of Shchors on horseback and placed it onto a flatbed truck.  

“Derussification and decommunization are continuing. We have already dismantled more than 60 monuments related to the history and culture of Russia and the Soviet Union,” Mykhailo Budilov, director of the city’s Department of Territorial Control, said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.  

City officials said the statue would be stored in a museum.    

Authorities in Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa dismantled a prominent statue of Catherine the Great last year after a monthslong campaign by activists.  

Putin seeks reelection in 2024  

Ukraine Saturday decried Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territories such as Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the east and south of the country, declaring them “null and void” and vowing to prosecute any election monitors there.    

In Russia, activists reacted, saying they will put up a fight against President Vladimir Putin as he seeks reelection in March.  

Many of the opposition leaders are either in prison at home or live in exile, they say they hope to undermine the widespread public support the Russian president enjoys and turn popular opinion against his devastating war in Ukraine. Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny said in a statement relayed by his team that “no one but us will step into this battle for the hearts and the minds of our fellow citizens.”  

Putin on Friday announced his candidacy in the presidential election in March, after a Kremlin award ceremony during which war veterans and others pleaded with him to seek reelection in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called “spontaneous” remarks.

For Putin, 71, the election is a formality: with the support of the state, the state-run media and almost no mainstream public dissent, he is certain to win. He has no discernable successor. He has served as president since 2000, longer than any other ruler of Russia since Josef Stalin.  

About 80% of Russians approve of Putin’s performance, according to the independent pollster Levada Center. But it is not clear if that support is genuine or the result of Putin’s oppressive regime, which cracks down on any opposition.    

EU aid debate    

Essential components in Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia are stuck at the Polish border as Polish truckers are continuing their blockade on the border with Ukraine complaining that they cannot compete with Ukrainians’ lower prices of goods and urging the EU to reinstate the limits on the number of Ukrainian trucks that can enter the bloc.  

About 200 pickup trucks needed to transport ammunition and evacuate the wounded from the front line are also blocked at the border because “deliveries have practically stopped,” said Ivan Poberzhniak, head of procurement and logistics for Come Back Alive, Ukraine’s largest charitable organization providing the military with equipment.  

Part of the mileslong blockade include 3,000 tourniquets bound for the battlefront as well as parts for drones.    

Despite Poland and other nearby countries being some of Ukraine’s biggest supporters in the war, resentment has built from truckers and farmers, who are losing business to lower-cost Ukrainian goods and services flowing into the world’s biggest trading bloc. The existing tension underscores the challenges of Ukraine’s integration into the EU if approved.    

Ukraine is also facing hurdles from Hungary, another EU member. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has threatened to block the EU’s $53 billion budget proposal to assist Kyiv through 2027.  

A senior EU official who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity said if Hungary does veto the aid package, the EU could allocate a smaller amount of money to Ukraine for a shorter time, or the other 26 EU countries could extend their national contributions bilaterally to Kyiv.    

“We know how existential it is. European leaders are responsible people — at least 26,” said the official, who is involved in an EU summit scheduled for next week.  

Ukraine depends on economic aid from the West to keep its war against Russia going.    

Hungary is also planning on blocking EU membership talks for Ukraine at next week’s summit.  

The EU is due to consider a legal proposal Tuesday allowing the use of sanctioned Russian frozen assets to help Ukraine. However, EU officials say Ukraine might not see the money anytime soon because EU members are bickering over the amounts pledged for Ukraine.  

The EU executive says $30 billion worth of private Russian assets and a further $223 billion of the Russian central bank’s funds have been confiscated.  

Some $135 billion of the latter sum is held by Belgian company Euroclear. Belgium estimated it would collect $2.5 billion in taxes on that in 2023 and 2024. It said it would use those proceeds for Ukraine.  

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

A man with dual U.S.-Russian nationality has been placed in pre-trial custody in St. Petersburg for “rehabilitating Nazism” in posts on social media, the city’s court service said Saturday. 

Yuri Malev was charged over posts in which he was alleged to have denigrated the St. George’s ribbon, a symbol of Russian military valor. One contained obscene language and the other showed a picture of a corpse wearing the ribbon. 

The court service said this showed disrespect for society and insulted the memory of the Great Patriotic War, as Russians refer to World War II. 

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reported detention but had no further comment on the case. Representatives for Malev could not be immediately reached. 

‘Partially admitted guilt’

The court service statement said Malev, who was detained in St. Petersburg on Friday, had “partially admitted guilt,” but did not elaborate. He was placed in custody until February 7. 

Several Americans and dual citizens are being held in Russia, including former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich. Earlier this week, the State Department said Russia had rejected a substantial proposal to release both men, who have been charged with spying, an allegation the United States has denied. 

Last week, a Russian court extended the pre-trial detention of Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent,” an offense that carries up to five years in prison. 
…

An Iranian court has begun the trial of a Swedish national employed by the European Union who was detained last year, Sweden’s foreign minister said Saturday. 

“I have been informed that the trial of Johan Floderus has begun in Tehran,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Swedish news agency TT. 

“The Swedish charge d’affaires was at the court but was refused the right to participate in the trial. Sweden has … requested the right to be present when the trial resumes.” 

Floderus was detained in April 2022 while on holiday in Iran for what his family said was alleged spying. Billstrom did not specify what Floderus had been charged with.  

Floderus’ family has said he was detained “without any justifiable cause or due process.” 

Rights groups and Western governments have accused the Islamic Republic of trying to extract political concessions from other countries through arrests on security charges that may have been trumped up. Tehran says such arrests are based on its criminal code and denies holding people for political reasons. 

Relations between Sweden and Iran have been tense since 2019, when Sweden arrested a former Iranian official for his part in the mass execution and torture of political prisoners in the 1980s. Hamid Noury was sentenced to life in prison last year, prompting Iran to recall its envoy to Sweden in protest. 

In May, Iran executed a Swedish-Iranian dissident convicted of leading an Arab separatist group Tehran blames for a number of attacks including one on a military parade in 2018 that killed 25 people. 
…

The family of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody, has been banned from traveling to France to collect a top rights prize awarded posthumously, their lawyer said Saturday.

Amini died at age 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran’s religious police for allegedly breaking the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Her family and supporters say she was killed. Iranian authorities claim she died in custody from a previously undisclosed medical condition.

In October, the European Union awarded its top rights honor, the Sakharov Prize, to her and the global movement her death triggered.

On Saturday, her family’s lawyer in France, Chirinne Ardakani, told AFP that Amini’s parents and brother had been “prohibited from boarding the flight that was to take them to France for the presentation of the Sakharov Prize.”

She said the family were banned from leaving Iran despite having a valid visa, and their passports were confiscated.

Ardakani said Iranian authorities “have never been so mobilized to prevent the families of the victims from speaking to the international community.”

Mahsa Amini’s death triggered mass protests in Iran.

It also generated a global movement known as “Woman, Life, Freedom,” calling for the end of Iran’s imposition of a headscarf on all women and an end to the Muslim cleric-led government in Tehran.

Iranian security forces have cracked down on the protests domestically, killing hundreds, and have executed dozens for allegedly participating in what officials have called “riots.”

The “Woman, Life, Freedom” campaign continues in cities around the world, with frequent demonstrations in which Amini’s photo is held aloft.

The Sakharov Prize, which comes with a 50,000-euro ($53,000) endowment, was to be handed over in a European Parliament ceremony on December 13.
…

Ukraine on Saturday strongly condemned Russia’s plans to hold presidential elections on occupied Ukrainian territory in the spring.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the planned elections “null and void” and pledged that any international observers sent to monitor them would “face criminal responsibility.”

Lawmakers in Russia on Thursday set the country’s 2024 presidential election for March 17.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the election. He is all but certain to win.

Russian authorities plan to arrange voting in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — territories Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in September last year but does not fully control — together with the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

The announcement of the presidential election follows local elections for Russian-installed legislatures in occupied parts of Ukraine in September. The votes were denounced as a sham by Kyiv and the West.

“We call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia’s intention to hold presidential elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to impose sanctions on those involved in their organization and conduct,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said.
…

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya says she and her cabinet are planning to issue passports next year that could ease travel hurdles for many Belarusians forced to live in exile.

The political activist, who was declared the winner in the 2020 presidential election by outside observers but was forced into exile after incumbent Alexander Lukashenko seized power, told VOA in an interview in Washington on Thursday that issuing passports would be an unprecedented initiative for her exile government. Lukashenko has banned the country’s embassies from renewing passports for citizens who live abroad.

“I understand the fear [that some might have] about this project, but unconventional times need unconventional decisions. It is necessary to show dictators they cannot own people. They cannot make people return home and detain them,” Tsikhanouskaya said.

Tsikhanouskaya lives with her two children in Vilnius, Lithuania. Her husband, popular video blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski, 43, was arrested shortly after announcing his candidacy for the 2020 presidential vote. Later, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Lukashenko regime.

Tsikhanouskaya came to the U.S. capital with members of her cabinet to participate in the Strategic Dialogue, a bilateral forum between U.S. officials and the Belarusian Democratic Forces.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: I know you came to Washington this time to take part in this initiative called the Strategic Dialogue. Can you tell us more about it?

Belarus opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: Strategic Dialogue is a new level of relationship between the USA and the democratic forces of Belarus. I hope that at the beginning of the strategic dialogue, working groups between the U.S. government and democratic forces will be launched on different topics.

We need a consistent focus on problems such as political prisoners in our country, threats to our independence, accountability for representatives of the regime who committed crimes against people, who became complicit in the war and abduction of Ukrainian children.

Of course, one important issue is commitment to the future because we all understand that sooner or later there will be negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, because of this war, and Belarus should be a part of that. Belarus shouldn’t be given as a consolation prize for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin during these negotiations.

VOA: In September, Lukashenko issued a decree basically banning the Belarusian embassies from issuing passports overseas to Belarusian citizens. Why do you think he has done that?

Tsikhanouskaya: Of course it’s revenge on all those people who are opposing the regime. And he can’t reach them because they live at the moment in peaceful countries, but they are not giving up the fight against Lukashenko’s regime. So that’s why he wants to make life more difficult for people, and of course, it’s a huge challenge for us because Belarusians can’t live illegally in different countries.

But when you can’t renew your passports, you can’t register your newborn children or you can’t get any documents, so it’s rather difficult. So that’s why we are working of course on this issue with our other credit partners, and we are proposing a short-term solution to this issue and a long-term solution.

As a short-term solution, we are asking to give passports of foreigners to Belarusian people and here in the USA to provide temporary protection status to Belarusians because of this extraordinary situation.

But what is more important for us is to issue our own passports – passports of new Belarus to Belarusians. It’s rather unprecedented. No one has done this before, but it will be the more systematic approach.

VOA: Who will be the issuing authority for these passports?

Tsikhanouskaya: It will be the united transitional cabinet that was launched last year, the government of the democratic forces [of Belarus].

VOA: When are you expecting to issue the first batch of passports?

Tsikhanouskaya: So the first specimen supposedly will be produced the beginning of next year. We will send the specimens to Brussels for them to evaluate and to capitals of different countries to see what can be done.

VOA: Are you in discussions with the U.S. government, with the EU, with other countries’ governments? Will they be accepting those passports, and what will be the standard for them?

Tsikhanouskaya: Actually, this project is [perceived] rather cautiously because nobody has done this before, and everything new is scary, usually. We haven’t heard any negative feedback on this project. But of course, you know, people have to take this into their hands, send it to [government] ministries for them to believe in the possibility of recognition.

But I know that it’s necessary for us, so that’s why we insist. We’ll explain why it’s necessary to do; we’ll give pros and cons of this. I understand some fear about this project. But I am simply sure that nonconventional times need nonconventional decisions, and it’s necessary to show dictators they can’t own people. They can make people return home and detain them, but to give opportunity to people to be inventive, to be creative, just support us.

[The U.S. State Department did not reply to VOA’s request for a comment about the passport initiative before publication.]

VOA: There was some controversy regarding what to actually call it. Is it like just an ID card? Is it a travel permit? Or is it a full-fledged national alternative Belarusian passport? What are they?

Tsikhanouskaya: It’s a good question, because I think that passport can play different roles. For sure, it’s an identification document – it will be given on the basis of your old passport – but for sure you will need visas in order to travel. It [also] will be a document to help apply for residence permits in different countries.

VOA: You call Moscow’s actions and dominance in Belarus “cultural and identity genocide” toward the Belarusian people. Can you please elaborate on what you mean by that?

Tsikhanouskaya: What’s happening in Belarus now with the allowance of illegitimate Lukashenko is a silent war. It’s not visible from abroad. Nobody pays attention that there is a process of Russification in Belarus. They take our joint Belarusian and European heroes, monuments from museums, and put “Russian” instead. They change road signs from Belarusian language to Russian. We see how they influence Belarusian media and education, in the military sphere, in the economic sphere. It’s a creeping occupation of our country. And it goes on without any attention from democratic countries. Our independence is at stake at the moment, and we need powerful countries who will help us protect it.

VOA: Why do you think Lukashenko is allowing this to happen? Because it looks like he may completely lose autonomy, and if things go south, he can be replaced by Moscow. No?

Tsikhanouskaya: Lukashenko has never valued everything Belarusian. He never speaks the Belarusian language. [Lukashenko has publicly spoken in Belarusian on just a few occasions.]

When he came to power, he changed our national symbols to pro-Soviet ones, and he’s the most pro-Soviet Union person or pro-Russian person in Belarus. He’s ready to sacrifice our serenity in exchange to stay in power. Moreover, I suppose that he dreams to be president of the whole Russian empire, to replace Putin instead.
…

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock discussed the fate of Germans held in Iran Friday with her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian, her ministry said. 

The two ministers held a telephone call with a “particular focus… on German consular cases,” the ministry wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Jamshid Sharmahd, a German citizen of Iranian descent, was abducted in late July 2020 by the Iranian authorities and sentenced earlier this year to be hanged for “corruption on earth.” 

Iran’s Supreme Court in April confirmed the death penalty. 

German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi, in her late 60s, was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in jail in August 2021 after being arrested at her Tehran apartment in October 2020.  

Taghavi was convicted on national security charges. 

Germany came under pressure over its Iran policy last week after a prominent women’s rights campaigner stormed out of a government meeting and accused officials of helping Tehran “silence dissidents.” 

Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad said she had walked out of the meeting at the German foreign ministry after she was told the talks had to be “kept secret.” 

Sharmahd’s daughter, Gazelle Sharmahd, wrote a post on X in support of Alinejad. 

The families of German prisoners in Iran have been told by the German government for three years that “talks behind closed doors are better because publicity endangers the hostages,” she wrote. 

“But what has this public silence and confidential dialogue brought us?” 

A spokesperson for the foreign ministry responded that Germany’s “stance toward the Iranian regime is very clear and we condemn where it violates human rights.” 

Baerbock and Amirabdollahian on Friday also discussed “their different perspectives on regional issues,” the foreign ministry said. 

Baerbock “called on Iran to contribute to de-escalation,” it added. 
…

Russian airstrikes, shelling and bad weather have damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving 500 settlements in intermittent energy blackouts.

Ukraine’s grid operator Ukrenergo reported that energy consumption hovered near record highs on Friday, straining the already fragile power grid.

For a second winter, Russia is targeting the country’s electric infrastructure, sending dozens of drones on an almost nightly basis to hit power-generating facilities and distribution networks across the country.

Ukrenergo said a thermal power plant in the east had again been damaged by systematic and prolonged shelling, and elsewhere a power facility had been shut down for emergency repairs.

Meanwhile Ukrenergo urged residents to economize on the use of electricity in the face of continued Russian attacks.

“This morning Ukrenergo again recorded a high level of consumption, which is almost equal to yesterday’s record,” the grid operator said in a statement, adding that consumption was at its highest levels so far this heating season.

Ukraine, an energy exporter before Russia’s invasion in February 2022, has been forced to turn to emergency power imports from neighboring Romania and Poland this week to meet demand, Ukrenergo said.

“The power system remains in a difficult situation. For now, there is no free capacity at power plants,” it said.

EU aid debate

The European Union will find ways to provide financial aid to Ukraine despite Hungary’s threat to veto EU assistance, a senior official said Friday. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has threatened to block the EU’s 50-billion-euro ($53 billion) budget proposal to assist Kyiv through 2027.

A senior EU official who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said if Hungary does veto the aid package, the EU could allocate a smaller amount of money to Ukraine for a shorter time, or the other 26 EU countries could extend their national contributions bilaterally to Kyiv.

“We know how existential it is. European leaders are responsible people — at least 26,” said the official, who is involved in an EU summit scheduled for next week.

Ukraine depends on economic aid from the West to keep its defensive war against Russia going.

A senior EU diplomat, also speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, expressed hope that a compromise might be reached like last year when Orban objected to the EU’s $18 billion financial package aid to Ukraine but ultimately approved it after securing concessions from the EU for his country.

Hungary is also planning on blocking EU membership talks for Ukraine at next week’s summit.

The EU is due to consider a legal proposal on Tuesday allowing the use of sanctioned Russian frozen assets to help Ukraine. However, EU officials say Ukraine might not see the money any time soon because EU members are bickering over the amounts pledged for Ukraine.

The EU executive says some 28 billion euros worth of private Russian assets and a further 207 billion euros of the Russian central bank’s funds have been confiscated.

Some 125 billion euros of the latter sum is held by Belgian company Euroclear. Belgium estimated it would collect 2.3 billion euros in taxes on that in 2023-24. It said it would use those proceeds for Ukraine.

Putin presidency 2024

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Friday his candidacy in the presidential election next March, after a Kremlin award ceremony during which war veterans and others pleaded with him to seek reelection in what Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called “spontaneous” remarks.

Putin, who was handed the presidency by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has already served as president for longer than any other ruler of Russia since Josef Stalin.

For Putin, 71, the election is a formality: With the support of the state, the state-run media and almost no mainstream public dissent, he is certain to win. He has no discernible successor.

About 80% of Russians approve of Putin’s performance, according to the independent pollster Levada Center. But it is not clear if that support is genuine or the result of Putin’s oppressive regime, which cracks down on any opposition.

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

The emergence of a Middle Corridor — a transit network linking Asia with European markets by way of Central Asia, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus — is rapidly gaining momentum as an alternative to Russia-controlled routes.

While the Trans-Caspian routes, also sometimes referred to as the China-Central Asia-West Asia Corridor, have come into their own over the past 30 years, Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has prompted a significant increase in traffic over the routes.

Gaidar Abdikerimov, who heads the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) association, reports that his network now comprises 25 transport and logistics companies including ports, vessels, railways and terminals. Its members also include 11 countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, China and Singapore.

“This all means that there is a high interest in our route,” Abdikerimov said in a recent forum at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI) in Washington. He told the audience that over the past 10 months, more than 2.256 million tons of cargo have been transported over the route.

Abdikerimov’s office is based in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. The oil-rich republic stretches from China’s northwestern frontier to the Caspian Sea, where cargo can be offloaded onto ships and carried to Azerbaijan in the Caucasus.

“We have decreased the estimated delivery time of transit container trains from 38 days to 19 days,” he said.

The World Bank stressed the “catalyzing potential” of the Middle Corridor in a November 27 report that focused on its beneficial impact on Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia – Azerbaijan’s western neighbor providing access to the Black Sea.

“There was indeed a spike in the volume of traffic in 2022,” said Charles Kunaka, a lead transport specialist at the World Bank. “We see the Middle Corridor as adding to the resilience of the transport networks across the region, and especially connectivity between Europe, Central Asia, and East Asia.”

The World Bank foresees two major types of commerce flowing through the Middle Corridor, the first being trade between China and Europe.

“We see this type of trade as being relatively elastic. And we saw this in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that most of this trade initially switched to the Middle Corridor,” Kunaka said in a presentation to the CACI forum.

“But after some time, because of the constraints that still affect the performance of the Middle Corridor, we see some of this trade switching to maritime transport, for instance.”

The second flow is within the region itself, which the World Bank sees as a “more solid foundation for the development of the Middle Corridor.” Much of the traffic in this category involves fertilizers, minerals and grains.

Kunaka underscored the importance of collaboration among governments, the private sector, development banks and other relevant institutions if the route is to overcome several obstacles to its continued growth, including logistical and bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Grievances expressed by stakeholders in the project include high costs, unreliability, bottlenecks, poor service quality and a lack of transparency and traceability, he said.

Digitalization and the use of electronic documents by both the railways and on the Caspian Sea would ease the process, Kanaka suggested.

“A combination of investments and efficiency measures can reduce travel times along the corridor by half and triple trade flows by 2030,” said the World Bank report. “A fully functioning corridor would help to shield China-Europe trade and supply chains from shocks.”

Abdikerimov agreed, stressing that the Trans-Caspian routes must also connect with the Black Sea ports.

“Speed, quality service, sustainability and safety. We are systematically going towards these goals,” he said at the CACI forum.

Brenda Shaffer of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, believes the World Bank study is an indication that “the Middle Corridor is increasingly of interest to multiple stakeholders.”

Speaking on the same virtual panel as Abdikerimov, Shaffer described an emerging alliance among Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, pointing to a growing convergence in the messaging of these countries’ diplomats in Washington and other capitals.

She thinks the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “created a security threat to the region, especially to those that border Russia, such as Kazakhstan.”

For Shaffer, Turkey is a unique player, steadily boosting its role in the Caspian region.

By backing Azerbaijan during its invasion to reconquer the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been under the de facto control of ethnic Armenians since the early 1990s, Ankara demonstrated “that cooperation with Turkey can have meaningful security benefits.”

She also expects Turkmenistan’s gas exports — currently directed mainly toward China — to shift westward.

“Increasing volumes of oil are going across the Caspian in various forms of small tankers,” she said, adding that all sides find it in their interests to increase those volumes significantly.

“Turkmenistan is dealing with potential demand destruction or lack of reliability of demand from China, surprisingly, for gas. As Russia increases its gas exports to China, they’re cheaper,” Shaffer said.

CACI’s Mamuka Tsereteli urges the U.S. government to focus on the value of increasing connectivity across the Black and Caspian seas through Central Asia and beyond.

“For Central and Eastern European states with a decades-long dependency on Russian resources in Russia-linked infrastructure, South Caucasus and Central Asia are major potential alternatives,” Tsereteli said.

Tsereteli hopes the United States and the EU will help in the development of the Middle Corridor, pointing out that Central Asia is also a large market for Western goods and services.

Kazakhstan’s Abdikerimov underlined that “Russia is definitely not fond of this Middle Corridor,” even though the goal has never been to avoid or exclude it. He said the Trans-Caspian transport network he oversees has always had its eyes on Turkey, North Africa and Southern Europe.
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Javier Vrox, the host of a political program on a YouTube channel in Chile who constantly monitors social networks in his country, recently noticed an uptick in pro-Russian political messaging, which had already been common in the country.

“They copy and paste the same messages on social media — that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is an actor, that he is a funny president; they copy those videos of Zelensky’s past TV series, making the point that he is an actor and a liar.”

According to Vrox, such reports aim to convince Chileans that Ukrainians only pretend to be victims of Russian aggression but are themselves a regional threat, and that NATO and the United States, by that logic, are its partners and equally hostile to Chile while Russia is a reliable ally.

“I think they’re doing a great job of tagging influencers, people from Twitter, now X, to share video messages and posts … to create the idea that if you’re a friend of the U.S., you’re an enemy to Chile,” said Vrox, who added that some posts referred to Ukrainian leaders as “Nazis,” even though Zelenskyy himself is Jewish.

These sentiments are not shared by Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who has publicly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine and met with Zelenskyy in September 2023 during the U.N. General Assembly in New York to discuss a possible Ukraine-Latin America summit.

“Chileans don’t really support Ukraine; they think that Ukrainians are trying to manipulate the media to look like victims,” said Vrox. But “Boric supports Zelenskyy’s government, so a weird situation has developed.”

Well-funded network

James Rubin, the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center special envoy and coordinator, agreed in an interview with VOA last month that Russia is “covertly co-opting local media and influencers to spread disinformation and propaganda” in Latin America.

In a public statement issued on November 7, the State Department said Russia “is currently financing an ongoing, well-funded disinformation campaign across Latin America,” spanning at least 13 countries, from Argentina and Chile in the south all the way to Mexico in the north.

“A cultivated group of editorial staff would be organized in a Latin American country, most likely in Chile, with several local individuals and representatives — journalists and public opinion leaders — of various countries in the region,” the statement said.

“A team in Russia would then create content and send the material to the editorial staff in Latin America for review, editing, and ultimately publication in local mass media.”

Christopher Hernandez-Roy of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, said Russia has a “legacy of propaganda” in the region going back to the Cold War.

Hernandez-Roy is a CSIS Americas Program deputy director and senior fellow.

The Soviets, he said, were “supporting revolutionary movements throughout the region, including military support in the case of Cuba, Nicaragua and other places, Central America in general, in the 70s and 80s.”

The annexation of Crimea in 2014, he said, became the starting point of a new wave of disinformation in the region.

“It’s around then that you start to see maybe an uptick in Russia’s influence or trying to influence narratives in the Western Hemisphere,” he told VOA. “In those three years — 2014, 2015 and 2016 — you start to see, for instance, ‘Russia Today’ coming online in Chile and Mexico, and I think in Argentina, as well.”

According to an October report by the United States Institute of Peace, Actualidad RT (Russia Today in Spanish) and Sputnik Mundo are the key purveyors of Russian state media in the region. Hernandez-Roy said these two media organizations have about 32 million regular listeners in Latin America, which has 667 million inhabitants.

“So, [even] 30 million is quite significant, and those are [merely] the overt ways,” he said. “Russia has a much more sophisticated apparatus than just simply its visible media outlets, [such as] using social media, sympathetic journalists, sympathetic influencers and Russian automated bots on social media. It can amplify its messages, which then are picked up by other sympathetic mechanisms.”

“We know [Actualidad RT] have offices in Havana, Buenos Aires and Caracas,” said Armando Daniel Armas, a Venezuelan opposition politician currently living in Europe. “We know that [Actualidad RT] have over 200 Spanish-speaking, let’s say, journalists working in Moscow … who allocate resources to find professional people, good people with content” to perpetuate Russian narratives on the ground in Latin American.

The object, according to U.S. officials, is to have Russian public relations and internet companies recruit and cultivate Latin American journalists, influencers and public opinion leaders to seed their publications and broadcasts with content favorable to Moscow while hiding any links to the Kremlin.

“They’ve been somewhat successful in using RT and Sputnik in Latin America,” Rubin told VOA in November. “The difference here is they’re trying to operate surreptitiously. They’re trying to create content in Russia and launder it through Latin American journalists. They are covertly co-opting local media and influencers to spread disinformation and propaganda.”

U.S. officials said it is unclear how many of the journalists and opinion leaders are aware they are being fed Russian disinformation, although a senior State Department official told VOA, “There are definitely some willing participants.”

Others involved in the network may be sympathetic to the Russian viewpoints but unaware that the directions are coming from Moscow.

Russia’s ultimate objective, said Hernandez-Roy, is to convince people in Latin America that Moscow is not the only one to blame — that there’s blame on both sides in a war caused by the U.S. and NATO.

“Essentially, what they’re trying to do is to make sure that the region is neutral,” said Hernandez-Roy. “We’re not talking about Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which, of course, are completely on the Russian side.”

Soft diplomacy

Yuriy Polyukhovych, Ukraine’s ambassador to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, points to another asset utilized to influence opinions in Latin American that Moscow has used since Soviet times: its diplomatic corps.

“Russian ambassadors, Russian embassies here are a part of Russia’s propaganda machine,” he told VOA. “They’ve been doing their work for many years. These are not embassies of four or five persons. These embassies have 60, 70, 80 people each. Imagine what can be done with such a group of people! According to our information, some work for the intelligence service.”

At the same time, said Ukrainian Ambassador to Argentina Yuriy Klymenko, the Russian war against Ukraine at least somewhat undermined Russia’s standing in Latin America, presenting a diplomatic opportunity for the United States and its allies.

“From my experience, it is now considered bad manners to invite representatives of Russia to diplomatic or other public events,” he told VOA.

Yuriy Polyukhovych once called Latin America a region of “contact diplomacy,” emphasizing the need to work directly with local populations to counteract Russian influence. Hernandez-Roy suggested the U.S. project more soft power in the region.

“The U.S. used to project much more soft power decades ago than today,” he said. “Soft power means people-to-people exchanges, more high-level visits, cultural interchanges.”

Kyiv, he said, should allocate more resources to the region and conduct active diplomacy with high-level visits and ambassadors to counter Russian narratives.

This story originated in VOA’s Ukrainian Service. VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed reporting.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Friday he is running for another six-year term, one day after lawmakers in Russia’s upper house of parliament set the date for the next presidential election for March 17, 2024. 

Putin made the announcement on Russian state television following a ceremony at the Kremlin for military personnel. 

During a conversation with military officer Lieutenant Colonel Artyom Zhoga, Putin said that he “had different thoughts at different times, but this is a time when a decision has to be made,” and said he was running for president. 

The state-run news agency quoted the officer as confirming what the president had said.

Carnagie Russia Eurasia Center analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told the Associated Press she thinks the announcement was likely made in a low-key way instead of a formal speech to reflect Putin’s modesty, showing he is more concerned with doing his job than participating in fanfare. 

Observers say the 71-year-old Putin — already Russia’s longest-serving ruler — will have no trouble being reelected, as any serious opposition he might face is in jail or otherwise out of the picture. 

Russian elections during Putin’s term have not been known for their fairness or transparency. 

The U.S. State Department bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs reports the Russian government uses “arbitrary designations, criminal convictions, and administrative barriers to disqualify potential opposition candidates, ensuring no independent voices can participate in government processes.”

The state department said new constitutional amendments approved by the government and endorsed in a nationwide vote in July 2020 will, among other things, provide Putin the opportunity to remain in power until 2036.

Putin was first appointed as acting president in 1999 by Boris Yeltsin, who resigned because of ill health. Putin was first elected in 2000. In 2008, facing constitutional limitations, he stepped aside to serve as prime minister while ally Dmitry Medvedev served as president. Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. 

Some information for this report were provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 
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Japan has pledged $4.5 billion to Ukraine for its war against Russia, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Thursday, $1 billion of which is designated for humanitarian aid.

“Japan is consistent and very principled in its support of our country and our people, and I am grateful for this assistance,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Thursday.  He said Japan’s decision to support Ukraine was “very timely and much-needed.”

A Russian drone attack killed one person and damaged port infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odesa region, the regional governor said Thursday.

Oleh Kiper said Odesa was under attack for two hours, and that while air defenses shot down most of the Russian drones involved, some of them made it through.

He identified the victim as a truck driver, and said the drone attack damaged a warehouse, elevator and trucks near the Danube River.

Ukraine’s military said Russia’s aerial attack involved a total of 18 drones targeting Odesa in southern Ukraine and the Khmelnytskyi region in the western part of the country.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 15 of the 18 drones, the military said.

U.S. aid

Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday blocked $110 billion in aid for Ukraine and Israel, as well as some security measures for the U.S. southern border.

U.S. President Joe Biden had asked Congress for almost $106 billion to fund the wars and border needs.

The vote Wednesday was 49 votes in favor and 51 against, leaving the measure short of the 60 votes needed in order to proceed.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who supports Ukraine aid, told his party members to reject the aid package because it did not include policy changes, something lawmakers have fought over for years.

Earlier Wednesday, Biden implored Congress to approve more arms aid for Ukraine, saying that failing to pass the assistance would be the “greatest gift” the United States could hand Russian President Vladimir Putin in Putin’s nearly two-year war against the neighboring country.

At the same time, the U.S. Defense Department announced new security assistance for Ukraine that is the Biden administration’s 52nd allotment of equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. It contains air defense capabilities, artillery ammunition, anti-tank weapons and other equipment.

The $175 million military aid package includes guided missiles for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, anti-armor systems, and high-speed anti-radiation missiles, according to the Pentagon and State Department.

Speaking briefly at the White House, the U.S. leader said that if Putin defeats Ukraine, “it won’t stop there,” and Moscow would invade neighboring NATO countries the U.S. is legally bound to defend.

“If NATO is attacked,” Biden said, “We’ll have American troops fighting Russian troops. We can’t let Putin win.”

With the new tranche of aid, Biden emphasized in a statement that “security assistance for Ukraine is a smart investment in our national security. It helps to prevent a larger war in the region and deter potential aggression elsewhere.”

Some Republican lawmakers in both the Senate and House of Representatives say they will not approve the additional Ukraine assistance without adopting much stricter U.S.-Mexico border controls, such as blocking all illegal migration.

Biden said, “I support real solutions at the border … to fix the broken immigration system,” but called for a compromise with opposition Republicans, not blanket acceptance of shutting the border, one of the demands of some Republicans.

The president said Republicans “have to decide whether they want a political solution or a real solution. This has to be a compromise.”

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The Biden administration is running out of time to secure a deal on tens of billions of dollars in wartime aid for Ukraine and Israel that Senate Republicans blocked Wednesday. President Joe Biden has signaled he is willing to compromise on Republicans’ demands on border security to get the package through. But his aides accuse Republicans of ignoring Biden’s proposal. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports. Camera: Oleksii Osyka. Contributors: Tatiana Vorozhko, Katherine Gypson.
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The address on the invitation to the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize says it all. “Ms. Narges Mohammadi, c/o Evin Prison, Tehran province, Iran.”

Mohammadi, 51, awarded the prize in October in recognition of two decades of work defending human rights in Iran, in defiance of constant persecution by the Islamic republic, remains in prison in Iran with no hope of release, let alone attending the glitzy event in Oslo on Sunday.

Instead, it will be her twin children Ali and Kiana, 17, who will attend the awards ceremony and deliver her speech, sharing the message of a mother of whom they are fiercely proud but who they have not seen for almost nine years and not even spoken to by phone for 20 months.

They now live in Paris with their father and Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani. The awards she has won weigh the bookshelves of their apartment, which is marked by the spirit of the rights campaigner, even as she remains in jail thousands of kilometers away.

“We are not nervous. We are very proud to be able to be the voice of our mother and do our best to move things forward. The prize will reinforce our determination to go to the end,” Ali said.

He emphasized that the prize was not just for her mother but all Iranian women and men who rose up against Iran’s clerical authorities in the protest movement that started in September 2022.

His twin sister, Kiana, proudly showed the dress she bought for the ceremony but insisted “even if I went in my pajamas, what counts is the message, what counts is the speech.”

‘Release almost impossible’

Mohammadi wrote the speech from prison, and it was safely received by her family. But they said they will only read it at the last moment in order to discover its message with everyone else.

Amid all the excitement of the trip to Oslo, the family knows that the prize, whose award to Mohammadi was rapidly denounced by the Iranian authorities, will do little to help her find a way out of Evin prison in Tehran.

“They have a hatred without end for her. And as she won the Nobel Prize her release will be almost impossible. I prefer to anticipate and not be disappointed,” Kiana said.

Narges Mohammadi’s most recent stint in jail began with her arrest in November 2021 and she is embroiled in numerous cases supporters say are linked to her activism.

Prison has marked the life of this family, who struggle to produce any picture showing the four of them together. Taghi Rahmani is also a veteran activist repeatedly jailed in Iran before coming to France a decade ago.

“When we were 4 years old, our dad went to prison. From then on it was either him or our mother in prison. We got used to living without one or the other,” Ali said.

Taghi Rahmani said that the awarding of the prize to Mohammadi had created “many problems” for his wife inside Evin, with the latest restriction a complete cutting off of her right to make phone calls that has yet to be restored.

Mohammadi is prohibited from calling her husband or children in France. But she has been allowed until recently to speak to family inside Iran, crucial communications for staying in touch with the world.

But Rahmani emphasized she was “first of all very happy with the prize as her voice can be heard even more loudly in the world.”

‘Victory not easy but certain’

The years of incarceration have taken a toll on the family, with Ali recalling that their last conversation dates back to just before her most recent jailing.

“She said ‘I am going back to prison, look after your sister and father well and stay strong. Stay strong for me.’ I told her the same thing. ‘We are very proud of you, don’t be worried for us. We support you 100%.'”

He said he believed his mother would be released “when our goal is reached, freedom and democracy is reached.”

“It will be very complicated. But I have a lot of hope to be able to see my mother and a free Iran. My mother has an important saying ‘Victory is not easy but it is certain.'”

In her teenage bedroom full of stuffed animals, makeup and photos, Kiana has a framed photo of Narges Mohammadi with her two children.

“I forgot the sound of her voice, her height, what she looks like in person,” she said. “I accepted this life. It’s a horrible pain to live without your mother, but we don’t complain.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised his country’s relations with Iran at a meeting in Moscow with his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi, as the two discussed the Israel-Hamas war. 

Since launching its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has sought to deepen its economic and political ties with Tehran. Both nations have been hit with Western sanctions.

“Our relations are developing very well. Please convey my best wishes to leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei,” Putin told Raisi, referring to Iran’s head of state. 

“Thanks to his support, we have gained good momentum over the past year,” Putin said. 

Western countries have accused Tehran of supporting Russia’s offensive in Ukraine by providing it with large quantities of drones and other weaponry. 

The two also discussed the two-month-long Israel-Hamas war, which has drastically ratcheted up tensions between Israel and Arab states in the Middle East. 

“It is very important for us to exchange views on the situation in the region, especially with regard to the situation in Palestine,” Putin said. 

Putin spoke with Israeli and Arab leaders shortly after the war began and has sought to position himself as a potential peace mediator between the warring sides.
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Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the western Ukrainian town of Lviv has become a refuge and transit point for more than 5 million internally displaced Ukrainians. A relatively safe town, Lviv has emerged as the stronghold of Ukraine’s resistance. Myroslava Gongadze narrates the city’s journey in adapting to the challenges posed by the new realities of war. Camera: Yuriy Dankevych. Video editor: Daniil Bratushchak.
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The European Union has voiced concerns about a surge in migration from Africa after Niger repealed a law that criminalized the transport of migrants in the country. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia Wednesday on a quick tour in what observers say is a show of defiance against Western efforts to isolate him through sanctions and an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from the VOA Moscow bureau.
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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday called snap presidential elections in February, in a move expected to extend the decades-long authoritarian rule of his family.

Aliyev’s popularity is soaring after his military recaptured the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists in a lightning offensive in September.

A decree published by the presidency ordered officials to hold a “snap election” on Feb. 7 next year. Elections had previously been scheduled for 2025.

A state-run pollster recently said 75% of the population approve of Aliyev’s handling of the Karabakh conflict, which saw the mass exodus of ethnic Armenians living in the long-disputed mountainous territory.

“Aliyev’s approval ratings had always been high, and they skyrocketed after the victorious military operation in Karabakh in September,” independent political analyst Farhad Mamedov told AFP. “He is at the peak of his popularity.”

Aliyev sent troops to Karabakh on Sept. 19 and after just one day of fighting, Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the disputed region for three decades laid down arms and agreed to reintegrate with Baku.

Azerbaijan’s victory marked the end of the territorial dispute, which saw Azerbaijan and Armenia fight two wars — in 2020 and the 1990s — that have claimed tens of thousands of lives from both sides.

It also sparked fears — particularly among Armenians — of a broader conflict in the region in which Azerbaijan could aim to create a land corridor to its Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory.

Aliyev insists Baku has no territorial claims to Armenia and rules out a fresh conflict.

The arch-foe countries are now negotiating a comprehensive peace treaty, but the Western-mediated talks have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.

‘Unchallenged dynasty’

Aliyev, 61, has ruled the energy-rich country with an iron fist since 2003, when he succeeded his father, Heydar, a former KGB officer and Communist-era boss.

He was last re-elected with 86% of votes in a snap election in April 2018.

All leadership polls held in Azerbaijan under Aliyevs’ rule were denounced by opposition parties as fraudulent.

Supporters have praised the Aliyevs for turning a republic once thought of as a Soviet backwater into a flourishing energy supplier to Europe.

But critics argue they have crushed the opposition, stifled media, and used their power to amass a fortune that funds a lavish lifestyle for the president and his family.

Rights activists have recently decried the arrest of several high-profile journalists known for investigations into corruption among the political elite.

In 2009, Azerbaijan adopted constitutional amendments that removed the two-term limit to the presidential mandate, meaning Aliyev could potentially become a president for life.

In 2016, after a constitutional referendum at which presidential terms were extended from five to seven years, he appointed his glamorous wife Mehriban Aliyeva as first vice president.

The amendments drew criticism from constitutional law experts of the Council of Europe rights watchdog as “severely upsetting the balance of powers” and giving the president “unprecedented” authority.

Bolstered by billions in oil money, Aliyev has overseen years of steady economic growth and followed a pragmatic foreign policy agenda, treading carefully between Russia and the West.

That calculating approach saw him likened in one U.S. diplomatic cable to the coldblooded fictional character of Michael Corleone from “The Godfather” movies.

“His goal appears to be a political environment in which the Aliyev dynasty is unchallenged,” said the cable, released by whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks.
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Denmark’s parliament passed a bill on Thursday that makes it illegal to burn copies of the Quran in public places, after protests in Muslim nations over the desecration of Islam’s holy book raised Danish security concerns.

Denmark and Sweden experienced a series of public protests this year where anti-Islam activists burned or otherwise damaged copies of the Quran, sparking tensions with Muslims and triggering demands that the Nordic governments ban the practice.

Denmark sought to strike a balance between constitutionally protected freedom of speech, including the right to criticize religion, and national security amid fears that Quran burnings would trigger attacks by Islamists.

Domestic critics in Sweden and Denmark have argued that any limitations on criticizing religion, including by burning Quran, undermine hard-fought liberal freedoms in the region.

“History will judge us harshly for this, and with good reason… What it all comes down to is whether a restriction on freedom of speech is determined by us, or whether it is dictated from the outside,” said Inger Stojberg, leader of the anti-immigration Denmark Democrats party, who opposed the ban.

Denmark’s centrist coalition government has argued that the new rules will have only a marginal impact on free speech and that criticizing religion in other ways remains legal.

Breaking the new law would be punishable by fines or up to two years in prison, the government has said.

Sweden, too, is considering ways to legally limit Quran desecrations but is taking a different approach than Denmark. It is looking into whether police should factor in national security when deciding on applications for public protests.
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