WARSAW — New Prime Minister Donald Tusk set out a pro-European Union vision for Poland and pledged strong support for Ukraine on Tuesday, a day after his appointment ended eight years of nationalist rule that soured relations with the EU.  

Presenting his government’s plans to parliament, Tusk said Poland would be a loyal ally of the United States and a committed member of NATO, and signaled his determination to mend Warsaw’s ties with Brussels after years of feuding over issues ranging from judicial independence to LGBT rights.  

“Poland will regain its position as a leader in the European Union… Poland will build its strength, the position it deserves,” said Tusk, later promising to “bring back billions of euros” from Brussels. 

The European Commission, the EU executive, put significant funds earmarked for Poland on hold when the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party was in power because of concerns over the rule of law. 

Poland has gained approval to access $5.5 billion in advance payments as part of an EU program to encourage a shift from Russian fossil fuels. 

But the rest of a total of $64 billion  in green transition and COVID-19 recovery funds is frozen until Warsaw rolls back a judicial overhaul implemented by PiS which critics say undermined the independence of the courts. 

Despite his pro-EU line, Tusk, who was also prime minister form 2007 to 2014, said he would oppose any changes of EU treaties that would disadvantage Poland.  

“Any attempts to change treaties that are against our interests are out of the question … no one will outplay me in the European Union,” said Tusk, a former president of the European Council, which groups the leaders of EU member states. 

Tusk, 66, also promised his government would make defense a priority and honor previously signed arms contracts. 

PiS came first in an Oct. 15 election and had the first shot at forming a government, but lacked the necessary majority to do so after all other parties ruled out working with it. 

Tusk is expected to win a vote of confidence later on Tuesday, enabling his government to be sworn in by President Andrzej Duda on Wednesday morning. 

But, in a post on X, PiS lawmaker Mariusz Blaszczak called Tusk’s speech a “festival of lies,” criticized it for lacking specific policy details and said: “This is a bad time for Poland.” 

The final months of Mateusz Morawiecki’s PiS government were marked by a souring of relations with Kyiv, mainly over Warsaw’s extension of a ban on Ukrainian grain imports. 

With concerns growing in Kyiv about its Western allies’ commitment to funding its defense against Russia’s invasion, Tusk said Poland would advocate for continued support. 

“We will … loudly and decisively demand the full mobilization of the free world, the Western world, to help Ukraine in this war,” he said. 

Ukraine also faces the possibility that Hungary will not give the green light for it to start EU accession talks at a Brussels summit this week. 

Ties between Warsaw and Kyiv have been strained by a protest by Polish truckers who have blocked some border crossings in a dispute over Ukrainian trucking firms’ access to the EU. 

Tusk said he would quickly resolve issues behind the protest, and that Poland would ensure its eastern border — an external border of the EU — is secure. 

Poland has accused Belarus of orchestrating a migrant crisis on their mutual border. But human rights activists have accused Poland of mistreating migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, who have sought access from Belarus. 

“You can protect the Polish border and be humane at the same time,” Tusk said. 

He said that after he returned from this week’s EU summit he would meet the leaders of the Baltic states in Estonia to discuss the Ukraine war and safe borders. 
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Germany expects Israel to adapt its military strategy to better prevent suffering among Palestinian civilians, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday, marking a slight shift in Berlin toward a more critical stance of its ally.

Germany has staunchly defended Israel’s right to defend itself since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, underscoring its duty to stand by the country’s side in atonement for its perpetration of the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews died.

The government has faced accusations, including from prominent Jewish residents in Germany, of allowing guilt to blinker its response to Israel’s retaliation, which has caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

German government officials have increasingly stressed the need for Israel to adhere to international law in its response to the Hamas attacks but have mostly avoided outright criticism of its actions in the Palestinian territories.

That has changed over the last week, with typically more outspoken foreign minister Baerbock leading the charge.

“We expect Israel … to allow more humanitarian aid, especially in the north, to ensure its military actions are more targeted and cause fewer civilian casualties,” the minister said at a news conference in Dubai on the sidelines of the United Nations climate summit.

Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and residents say it is impossible to find refuge in the densely populated enclave, with around 18,000 people already killed and conflict intensifying. 

“The question of how Israel carries out this battle is central to the perspective of a political solution,” Baerbock added.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who lit the first candle on Berlin’s giant menorah for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah last week in solidarity with the Jewish people, has been less outspoken in his criticism.

Still, Scholz has increasingly called upon Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and denounced the violence of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including in a phone call on Saturday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The foreign ministry last week said it welcomed the U.S. imposition of sanctions on a number of Israeli settlers over attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and called for the EU to consider similar sanctions.

 
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European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday he would propose sanctions against Jewish settlers responsible for violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Borrell was speaking after EU foreign ministers debated possible next steps in their response to the Middle East crisis triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel from Gaza.

While much international attention has focused on the cross-border assault and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza, European officials have also expressed increasing concern about rising violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Borrell said he would propose a special sanctions program to target Hamas – backed by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Italy – but EU also had to act against violent Israeli settlers.

“The time has come to move from words to actions… and to start adopting the measures we can take with regard to the acts of violence against the Palestinian population in the West Bank,” Borrell told reporters after the meeting in Brussels.

U.N. figures show daily settler attacks have more than doubled since the Hamas attack and Israel’s assault on Gaza. 

Borrell said the ministers had not yet shown the unanimous support that would be necessary to pass such a measure, but he stressed he had not yet submitted a formal proposal.

EU officials would draw up a list of people known for attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and he would then propose they be sanctioned for human rights abuses, he said.

Borell did not say what the sanctions would entail but EU officials have said they would involve bans on travel to the EU.

Diplomats have predicted it will be hard to get unanimity for EU-wide bans, as countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary are staunch allies of Israel.

But some suggested a decision last week by the United States, Israel’s biggest backer, to start imposing visa bans on people involved in violence in the West Bank could encourage EU countries to take similar steps.

France said last month the EU should consider such measures and Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told reporters on Monday that Paris was considering domestic sanctions against such individuals. Belgium has said it will ban them from its territory.

To be truly effective, however, any EU ban would have to be enforced across the bloc’s border-free Schengen zone.

The settlements are one of the most contentious issues of the decades-long Israel-Palestinian conflict. They are built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War but which the Palestinians seek for a future independent state. They are deemed illegal by most countries but have consistently expanded over the years.

On the issue of a special sanctions program to target Hamas, Borrell said no minister had opposed the idea and he would bring forward a proposal for approval.

The EU already classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization, meaning any funds or assets that it has in the EU should be frozen.

In recent days, it has added Mohammed Deif, commander general of the military wing of Hamas, and his deputy, Marwan Issa, to its list of terrorists under sanction.

But the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Italy said in a letter to Borrell that a special Hamas sanctions program would send a strong political message and help the EU to target “Hamas members, affiliated groups and supporters of its destabilizing activities.”

 
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A monthlong blockade of Ukrainian border crossings by protesting Polish truck drivers was briefly lifted on Monday at one crossing, but by evening, police said the road leading to it was again impassable.

The lifting of the blockade for a few hours at the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing had allowed vehicles and goods to pass through into Ukrainian territory. Broadcaster Polsat News earlier reported that a Polish mayor had taken action to stop the blockade because he feared it would hurt local jobs.

Polish truckers have been blockading four of the eight road crossings between the two countries since early November to protest Ukrainian drivers getting permit-free access to the EU.

Monday evening, a police spokesperson in the border area said a truck had stopped diagonally across the road leading to the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing due to an apparent breakdown, blocking traffic in both directions.

She said a tow truck was on its way to remove the vehicle.

Earlier on Monday, European Union Commissioner for Transport Adina Vălean had welcomed the reopening of Yahodyn-Dorohusk, calling it “the most significant border crossing point between Poland and Ukraine.”

“I want to remind all involved parties of the damage these protests cause to the European economy, to the supply chains, to other road operators, and Ukraine, a country at war,” she said, calling for the remaining border crossing points to be unblocked without delay.

Thousands of trucks carrying commercial goods have been backed up for weeks at Poland’s border crossings with Ukraine because of the protests, which began on November 6.

The Polish truckers have accused their Ukrainian counterparts of using their permit-free access to the EU to undercut prices and offer services they are not allowed to.

They said on Monday their protest had not ended, and they were taking legal action against a reported local order disbanding one stoppage.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, deputy prime minister for the restoration of Ukraine, said 15 trucks had passed into Ukraine by the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing during the temporary halt. Plans called for trucks to be cleared to head the other way, Kubrakov said on Facebook.

Ukraine’s customs service had earlier reported that the Yahodyn-Dorohusk checkpoint was open in both directions.

It said on Telegram that 1,000 trucks were waiting to enter Ukraine from Poland, and 100 trucks would go in the opposite direction.

The protest has pushed up prices of fuel and some food items in Ukraine and delayed drone deliveries to its troops fighting invading Russian forces.

Both Kyiv and Brussels say the access agreement is not negotiable. But Deputy Infrastructure Minister Serhiy Derkach said Ukraine was open to talks.

“We are ready for a constructive dialog with the Polish authorities to resolve the situation completely and prevent further protests,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.

The Ukrainian border service also reported on Telegram that truckers in Slovakia had resumed a partial blockade of the country’s sole freight road crossing with Ukraine.
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Britain and Norway announced Monday that they were banding together to bolster Ukraine’s navy, saying that strong maritime forces were critical to countering Russia’s aggression and securing grain and steel shipments through the Black Sea.

As part of the effort, Britain is sending two mine-hunting ships, amphibious armored vehicles and coastal raiding boats to Ukraine, U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said.

Shapps and Norwegian Defense Minister Bjorn Arild Gram announced the formation of a maritime capability coalition during a news conference in London, saying other nations were expected to join soon, making it a “truly global affair.”

The European commitment to Ukraine in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion remains firm, despite fears that U.S. funding will be cut off by a political dispute in Congress.

“Securing the seas is the only way to defeat a tyrant like Putin, to guarantee the long-term independence and prosperity for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe,” Shapps said.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron last week trumpeted the success of Ukraine’s tiny naval forces against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet as an example of why the United States and other democracies should continue to provide military aid to the government in Kyiv.

“Ukraine doesn’t even really have a navy, but they have managed to sink about a fifth of the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” Cameron said at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington. “Well, that is … a remarkable thing.”

The new coalition will work with Ukraine to expand its forces in the Black Sea, develop a Ukrainian Marine Corps and enhance the use of river patrol craft to defend inland and coastal waterways, British authorities said.

The package of U.K. aid announced Monday includes 20 Viking armored personnel vehicles, which can be deployed rapidly using helicopters or landing craft and 23 coastal raiding boats that can be used to land small detachments of troops or as a firing platform for heavy machine guns.

Britain also said it had transferred two Sandown class vessels — designed to help clear mines from coastal waters — to Ukraine.

But deployment of the craft has been stalled by Turkey’s decision to prevent ships not based in the Black Sea from passing through the Bosporus Strait — a move designed to prevent the body of water from becoming a theater of war.

Britain first announced a deal to sell the two mine-hunting ships to Ukraine in June 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian personnel began training on the ships last year in Scotland.

“Our goal is to contribute to building a lasting Ukrainian naval capability,” Norway’s defense minister said. “In the further work, I hope Norway, as a sea-faring nation, can contribute with maritime expertise, new technological solutions and innovative thinking.”
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The whereabouts of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny are currently unknown, with his allies saying he is no longer at the penal colony where he had been imprisoned since last year. 

Russian officials have not said where Navalny was taken, and there has been no comment from the Kremlin.

Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said Monday had been due to make a court appearance via video link but did not. She said the prison cited problems with the electricity. The spokeswoman said the last time his lawyers and allies had heard from him was six days ago. 

Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August on charges of extremist activity. He was serving his sentence in a maximum-security prison, Penal Colony No. 6, in the town of Melekhovo in the Vladimir region more than 225 kilometers east of Moscow.

According to the Associated Press, Navalny had been expected to be transferred to a “special security” penal colony with the strictest security level in the Russian prison system. Transferring inmates from one prison to another in Russia can take weeks, with inmates having to take trains across the vast country, with limited to no information given about their well-being or location. 

The United States has expressed concern over the situation, with White House national security spokesman John Kirby saying, “He should be released immediately. He should never have been jailed in the first place.”

Navalny is considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strongest rival. He was arrested in January 2021 after returning from Germany, where he received treatment for nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Moscow has denied involvement.

Navalny has campaigned against corruption and faced a number of charges that he denies.

Some have speculated Navalny’s disappearance was strategically timed, as it is the beginning of a campaign period for a presidential election.

“0% coincidence and 100% direct manual political control from the Kremlin,”

Navalny aide Leonid Volkov posted on X, formerly Twitter, in regard to the timing. “It is no secret to Putin who his main opponent is in these ‘elections’. And he wants to make sure that Navalny’s voice is not heard.”

Navalny’s disappearance also comes as some have grown concerned over his health.

Recently, “He felt dizzy and lay down on the floor. Prison officials rushed to him, unfolded the bed, put Alexei 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,” Navalny spokeswoman Yarmysh said.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The United Nations is appealing for $46.4 billion to provide life-saving assistance to more than 180 million of the world’s neediest people in 72 countries next year. The appeal comes as donor fatigue sets in amid the proliferation of natural and manmade disasters.

In launching its humanitarian appeal Monday, the U.N. warned that conflicts, climate emergencies and collapsing economies are wreaking havoc in vulnerable communities around the world, resulting in “catastrophic hunger, massive displacement, and disease outbreaks.”

Despite the devastating toll taken by these multiple overlapping emergencies on the lives of hundreds of millions of people, “the necessary support from the international community is not keeping pace with needs,” said Martin Griffiths, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

While 300 million people need humanitarian assistance and protection, he noted that lack of money has forced the U.N. to drastically scale down its global humanitarian operations and target aid to fewer of the most destitute people.

“Against the backdrop of a severe and ominous funding crisis,” Griffiths said the U.N. was asking for $10 billion less than last year’s humanitarian appeal for $56.7 billion, noting that only $20 billion, just over one-third of the amount needed for 2023, had been received.

“If we cannot provide more help in 2024, people will pay for it with their lives,” he said.

The U.N. emergency chief cited the Palestinian people and Gaza, Sudan and Sudan westward as the places of greatest need, adding that the crisis in Gaza is likely to divert attention from other areas of great need.

“I think the ones that are being forgotten are parts of Africa, which have traditionally been in the front of our attention,” he said. “Even Ukraine now has difficulty getting on the news. It is becoming more and more difficult to get attention.”

He said, “It is becoming like a hit parade of where the worst place is now” to get the world’s attention.

The consequences of being marginalized by so-called more newsworthy cases are tragic.

For example, the United Nations reports in Afghanistan, 10 million people lost food assistance between May and November; in Myanmar, more than half a million people are living in inadequate living conditions; in Yemen, more than 80% of those in dire straits do not have proper water and sanitation; and in Nigeria, only 2% of women needing sexual and reproductive health services and gender-based violence prevention are receiving it.

While armed conflict remains a leading cause of death, disaster and misery, humanitarians attending the launch of the U.N.’s global humanitarian appeal viewed the global climate emergency as the driving force behind displacement and world hunger.

Attending a high-level panel discussion on humanitarian action in the context of the climate crisis, Joyce Msuya, assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned that human activity had “pushed the planet into an age of fire, heat, floods and drought unlike any humans have faced.”

So far this year, she said climate and weather-related disasters have affected more than 44 million people, causing more than 18,000 deaths.

“The climate crisis also is turbocharging the world’s existing humanitarian crises, plunging people already reeling from disaster into even greater depth of misery,” she said.

Another panelist warned that climate change “was throwing fuel on the embers of crises all over the world.”

Kelly Clements, U.N. deputy high commissioner for refugees, said that drought, floods and other natural disasters have forcibly displaced 114 million people.

“Right now, about two-thirds of forcibly displaced people are in climate vulnerable areas. These also are areas where the overlap with conflict becomes most acute,” she said.

Amadou Seyni, of the International Migrant Women’s Solidarity Association in Turkey, noted that in Niger, 80% of the population, mainly women, depend upon agriculture.

“The effects of climate change now represent a major threat to economic development and a source of conflict,” she said.

In winding up the day’s launch, U.N. emergency chief Griffiths paid tribute to humanitarians. He said they are “saving lives, fighting hunger, protecting children, pushing back epidemics and providing shelter and sanitation in many or the world’s most inhumane contexts.”

Unfortunately, he said many people in urgent need did not receive aid because the hoped-for support did not materialize.

“Throughout the year, humanitarian agencies had to make increasingly painful decisions, including cutting life-saving food, water, and health programming,” he said. “And we would like, we would hope, not to continue this trend into next year.”
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The European Commission recently recommended opening negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova to join the European Union. Ukraine and much smaller Moldova have a lot in common — both former Soviet republics are turning to the West for help modernizing their militaries. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb brings us an exclusive look at Moldova’s security challenges. VOA footage by Ricardo Marquina.
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The national conservatives who have ruled Poland for eight years are expected to finally relinquish power this week to a centrist bloc led by political veteran Donald Tusk.

The transition will come in several steps over three days, starting Monday, nearly two months since Poles turned out in huge numbers to vote for change in a national election. The transition was delayed for weeks by the president, who chose to keep his political allies in office as long as possible.

“READY, STEADY, GO!” tweeted Tusk, who is expected to be chosen as the new prime minister by the evening.

The change of power in Poland is consequential for the 38 million citizens of the central European nation, where collective anger produced a record-high turnout to replace a government that had been eroding democratic norms.

There is relief for many, including women who saw reproductive rights eroded and LGBTQ+ people who faced a government hate campaign that drove some to leave the country.

The change holds important implications for Ukraine and the EU as well.

Tusk, a past EU leader, is expected to improve Warsaw’s standing in Brussels. His leadership of the EU’s fifth largest member by population will boost centrist, pro-EU forces at a time when euroskeptics, such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, are gaining strength.

Poland’s outgoing nationalist government was initially one of Kyiv’s strongest allies after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, but ties have worsened as economic competition from Ukrainian food producers and truckers has angered Poles who say their livelihoods are threatened.

A blockade by Polish truckers at the border with Ukraine counts among the many problems Tusk will have to tackle immediately. The protest has held up the shipment of some military equipment that charities are importing, and Tusk has accused the outgoing government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of mishandling the situation.

The next days will be a choreography of political steps dictated by the constitution.

First, Morawiecki is required to address the Sejm, the Polish parliament’s lower house, and then face a confidence vote which he will lose, bringing an end to his premiership exactly six years after he assumed the office on Dec. 11, 2017. Simple arithmetic indicates he has no chance of surviving the vote. His Law and Justice party won the most seats in the Oct. 15 election but lost its parliamentary majority.

The Sejm is scheduled to elect Tusk later Monday. He must then address lawmakers Tuesday and he will face a confidence vote himself, which he seems sure to win given that he is backed by a majority in the 460-seat body.

It’s a day long awaited by former President Lech Walesa, the anti-communist freedom fighter who had despaired at the unraveling of the democracy he fought for. Though he was hospitalized last week for COVID-19, he nevertheless traveled early from his home in Gdansk to attend the parliamentary session.

Walesa arrived wearing a sweatshirt with the word “Constitution” — a slogan against Law and Justice. He sat in a balcony above the lawmakers with other dignitaries. Many stood to applaud him, chanting his name.

Law and Justice lawmakers did not clap and remained seated.

The final act will involve President Andrzej Duda swearing in Tusk and his government. That is expected to happen on Wednesday.

Tusk then plans to fly to Brussels for an EU summit later in the week where discussions critical for Ukraine’s future are expected as the nation fights off the Russian invasion. 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russia’s closest ally in the EU, is demanding that Ukraine’s membership in the EU and billions of euros in funding meant for the war-torn country be taken off the agenda.

Morawiecki’s government reacted to an economic dispute with Kyiv during the election campaign by banning Ukraine food imports and saying it had stopped sending military aid to Ukraine. Last week, Tusk said he would seek solutions to the truckers’ protest that take into account their financial needs but also regional security.

The power transition has already been playing out for weeks in the Sejm, where Szymon Holownia, the leader of a party allied with Tusk, became the speaker weeks ago and has been trying to encourage more dignified behavior in the sometime raucous assembly.

The lively proceedings led by Holownia, a former reality TV showman, have since become very popular, igniting huge curiosity and emotions that have led to a spike in the number of subscribers to the Sejm’s YouTube channel.

The heightened public interest inspired a movie theater in Warsaw to broadcast the week’s live proceedings on its big screens.
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Afghan special forces trained and funded by Britain and who worked side-by-side with British troops in Afghanistan in the fight against the Taliban are now facing the possibility of being deported from Pakistan, where the Afghan troops and their families fled, according to a BBC report.  

The 200 special forces would likely be targeted for revenge by the Taliban if they were to return to Afghanistan. 

Pakistan says it is ready to deport any Afghans who do not possess the proper papers for residency. 

Failing to relocate the Afghans who worked with the British in Afghanistan “is a disgrace,” Gen. Sir Richard Barrons told the BBC Newsnight. “It reflects that either we’re duplicitous as a nation or incompetent. . . Neither are acceptable.” 

In addition, 32 former Afghan politicians now living in Pakistan who worked with Britain and the U.S. have also not received the proper paperwork that would enable them to travel and live abroad. 

Most members of both groups – the troops and the politicians – have filled out the paperwork to relocate to Britain through the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Program.  

Many have been rejected, while others are still waiting to learn their status more than a year later, the BBC reported. 
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy witnessed the swearing-in on Sunday of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei. 

It was the Ukrainian leader’s first official trip to Latin America as Kyiv continues to court support among developing nations for its 21-month-old fight against Russia’s invading forces. 

During Zelenskyy’s visit to Buenos Aires, his office and the White House announced he would travel to Washington to meet with President Joe Biden on Tuesday. 

Biden has asked Congress for a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel, along with other national security priorities. But the request is caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security. 

The visit to Washington would focus on “ensuring the unity of the U.S., Europe and the world” in supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia, Zelenskyy’s office said. 

In Argentina, Milei welcomed Zelenskyy at the presidential palace after his inauguration. The two shared an extended hug, exchanged words and then Milei, who has said he intends to convert to Judaism, presented his Ukrainian counterpart with a menorah as a gift. They were expected to have a longer one-on-one meeting later on Sunday. 

A political outsider who has railed against what he calls entrenched official corruption in Argentina and promised to uproot the political establishment, Milei ran on a pro-Western foreign policy platform, repeatedly expressing distrust of Moscow and Beijing. 

Zelenskyy phoned Milei shortly after the Argentine’s electoral victory last month, thanking him for his “clear support for Ukraine.” In its readout of the call, Milei’s office said he had offered to host a summit between Ukraine and Latin American states, a potential boon to Kyiv’s monthslong effort to strengthen its relationships with countries of the global south. 

Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials have repeatedly presented Ukraine’s war against Russia as resistance against colonial aggression, hoping to win support from Asian, African and Latin American states that in the past struggled to free themselves from foreign domination, sometimes turning to Moscow for support against Western powers. 

Zelenskyy used the trip to Argentina to meet leaders of several developing countries. He met the prime minister of the West African country of Cape Verde, Ulisses Correia e Silva, on his way to Buenos Aires. Once in Argentina, Zelenskyy met separately with the presidents of Paraguay, Ecuador and Uruguay, his office said. 

“The support and strong united voice of Latin American countries that stand with the people of Ukraine in the war for our freedom and democracy is very important for us,” Zelenskyy said in a statement. 

He also had a phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, discussing “the details of the next defense package from the French Republic, which will significantly enhance Ukraine’s firepower, and the current needs of our country in armaments,” Zelenskyy’s office said.
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Hungarian truckers plan to protest near Hungary’s main border crossing with Ukraine on Monday, aiming to slow the movement of trucks as they demand restrictions on Ukrainian haulers working in the European Union, police said Sunday. 

Police have given permission for the protest in which about a dozen trucks will partially block the main road leading to the Zahony crossing, police said in a reply to emailed questions from Reuters. 

Police did not say how long the protest would last, but website index.hu reported the plan was to partially block the road leading to the border until the end of December. 

Truckers from Ukraine have been exempted from seeking permits to cross into the European Union since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Haulers across eastern Europe have sought to win restrictions on the number of Ukrainian trucks entering the EU. 

“We have asked the EU … to review its agreement signed with Ukraine and consider the interests of haulers in EU members, among them Hungary,” Tivadar Arvay, general secretary of the Association of Hungarian Road Haulers told state news agency MTI. 

In the past weeks trucks at the Poland-Ukraine crossing were backed up for miles as Polish truckers blocked roads to three border crossings.
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Ukraine pushes for more global support as Russia’s president says he seeks a fifth term in the Kremlin. Meanwhile, Kyiv’s bid to join the European Union seems frozen as its troops prepare for another winter at war. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.
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Several thousand people demonstrated against antisemitism in Berlin on Sunday as Germany grapples with a large increase in anti-Jewish incidents following Hamas’ attack on Israel two months ago. 

Police estimated that around 3,200 people gathered in the rain in the German capital, while organizers put the figure at 10,000, German news agency dpa reported. Participants in the protest, titled “Never again is now,” marched to the Brandenburg Gate. 

A group tracking antisemitism in Germany said in late November that it had documented a drastic increase in antisemitic incidents in the month after Hamas’ attack — a total of 994, an increase of 320% compared with the same period a year earlier. 

Germany’s main Jewish leader, Josef Schuster, said that “antisemitism is common practice in Germany in the middle of society,” and called for solidarity with Israel and with Jewish life in Germany. 

Germany’s labor minister, Hubertus Heil, said that many decent people are too quiet on the issue. “We don’t need a decent, silent majority — we need a clear and loud majority that stands up now, and not later,” he said. 

The event had wide support, with the speaker of the German parliament and Berlin’s mayor also among its backers. 
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Israel helped Cyprus foil an Iranian-ordered attack against Israelis and Jews on the island, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Sunday, saying such plots were on the rise since the Gaza war erupted.

Netanyahu’s office gave no details of the planned attack but said in the statement on behalf of the Mossad intelligence service that Israel was “troubled” by what it saw as Iranian use of Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus “both for terrorism objectives and as an operational and transit area.”

The breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in northern Cyprus is recognized only by Turkey, which is sharply critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza since Oct. 7.

The internationally recognized government in the south of Cyprus has close relations with Israel.

Turkish Cypriot officials were not immediately available for comment. The Iranian embassy in Nicosia was closed.

Earlier Sunday, a Greek Cypriot newspaper in Cyprus’s government-controlled south reported authorities had detained two Iranians for questioning over suspected planning of attacks on Israeli citizens living in Cyprus.

The two individuals were believed to be in the early stages of gathering intelligence on potential Israeli targets, the Kathimerini Cyprus newspaper said without citing sources. Those individuals had crossed from the north, it said.

Reuters was unable to verify the details in the newspaper report.

A senior Cyprus official declined to comment, citing policy on issues concerning national security.

It is not the first time that Israel has warned of planned attacks on its citizens in Cyprus.

Netanyahu said in June that an Iranian attack against Israeli targets in Cyprus had been thwarted. Tehran denied being behind any alleged plot to attack Israelis in Cyprus.

Cyprus was split in a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a brief Greek-inspired coup.

Access between the north and south of Cyprus can be done through a number of crossing points straddling a United Nations-controlled ‘buffer zone”. But the 180km (115 mile) line is also known to be porous, with unauthorized crossings over poorly guarded terrain.

Barely a 40-minute flight from Israel, both sides of Cyprus are a popular holiday and investment destination for thousands of Israelis.
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A Swedish national employed by the European Union faces charges in Iran of spying for Israel and ‘corruption on earth’, a capital offense under the country’s Islamic laws, Iranian news agency ISNA said on Sunday. 

Johan Floderus was detained in April 2022 while on holiday in Iran. Sweden’s foreign minister said on Saturday that his trial had begun. 

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 it 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.  
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The September 2023 appointment of Rustem Umerov as Ukraine’s defense minister was well received at home and abroad.  

Noted for his youth and corruption-free record, the 41-year-old has been a top negotiator in talks with Russia. But what has drawn the most notice is Umerov’s ethnic background as a Crimean Tatar, representing an often-overlooked part of Ukraine’s Indigenous history. 

Crimea has a long history of human habitation, having been settled by the Tauri and Scythian people before becoming a Greek and later Roman colony.  

During the medieval period, the peninsula saw rule by the Khazar Empire, Byzantium, the Kyivan Rus, and the Republic of Genoa, as well as invasions and settlements by Goths, Huns, Bulgars, Jews, Turks, Armenians, and more. With the arrival of the Mongol Golden Horde and the adoption of Islam in the 14th century, most of these diverse populations assimilated to the Turkic-speaking Cuman-Kipchak majority, forming the Crimean Tatar identity. 

By the 15th century, the Tatars had cast off Mongol rule and allied with the Ottoman Empire.  

Palaces and ports

The quasi-independent Crimean Khanate was one of the most powerful and wealthy states in Eastern Europe, with splendid palaces and thriving port cities. But much of the Khanate’s wealth was built on supplying slaves to the markets of the Middle East, and their periodic raids to take captives led to conflict with the neighboring Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian Empire. 

It was amidst these clashes that the Cossacks, an early incarnation of the Ukrainian state, would form in the contested territories, at times fighting against the Tatars and at times allying with them against the other powers. However, with the gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century and Russia’s victory in the Russo-Turkish War, the Khanate was left unprotected. In 1783, Catherine II annexed the entire peninsula as the Taurida Oblast of the Russian Empire, violating Russia’s treaty guaranteeing Crimean independence. 

Russian rule was not kind to the Tatars. The tsarist governments considered them a disloyal population, and over the next century, each new war in the region brought fresh waves of persecution.  

Hundreds of thousands of Tatars were expelled or pressured to leave, with their lands confiscated and Russians resettled in their stead, while Tatar language and culture were suppressed. Nevertheless, at the end of the nineteenth century, Tatars still made up over one-third of Crimea’s population and had begun to form a national movement like many others in Europe.  

Starvation, deportation, and violence

Amidst the Russian Empire’s collapse in World War I, the Crimean People’s Republic — the first democratic republic in the Muslim world — was proclaimed in December 1917 and recognized by the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People’s Republic before both ultimately fell to the Bolshevik army. 

In Crimea’s first decade of Soviet rule as an autonomous republic within Russia, Tatars faced starvation, deportation, and violence along with Ukrainians and other populations, as the famines of the early 1920s were followed by man-made famines resulting from Stalin’s forced collectivization.  

When Nazi Germany invaded the peninsula in 1941, thousands of Tatars were killed, displaced, or sent to prison camps. But their worst ordeal was yet to come. By holding out the promise of liberation from Soviet rule, the German occupiers managed to recruit a minority of Tatar collaborators into volunteer battalions, as they had done with many other nationalities — including Russians themselves. Most Tatars had resisted the Nazis and many had fought alongside the partisans and the Red Army, with six earning the highest honor of Hero of the Soviet Union.  

Stalin declares Tatars traitors

Yet upon the peninsula’s reconquest in 1944, Stalin declared the Tatars traitors and ordered the entire population deported — a national trauma known in the Tatar language as the Sürgün, or exile. 

Within 10 days of the order, virtually every Tatar was loaded onto overcrowded, unsanitary cattle trains and transported to remote regions of Uzbekistan and Russia. Of the over 191,000 deported, nearly 8,000 died in transit. Survivors faced not only deadly working conditions with little food or medical care, but were categorized as “special settlers,” prohibited from leaving their place of deportation.  

Crimea was stripped of its autonomous status and subject to mass resettlement by Russians, who moved into the Tatars’ abandoned homes. 

Although their “special settler” status was lifted after Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev’s repudiation of Stalin in 1956, the deportees still could not return to the peninsula, which was by then transferred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.  

Unlike other deported populations, the Crimean Tatar identity had been officially erased and its people grouped with the Central Asian Tatars whose homeland was Russia’s region of Tatarstan. Those who did return to Crimea found it difficult to obtain residency permits or find housing.  

It was only after the rise of an organized Crimean Tatar movement and several high-profile self-immolations protesting the ongoing injustice that the Soviet government officially allowed the Crimean Tatars’ return in 1989, shortly before its collapse. 

By 1991, about 150,000 Tatars had come home. Over the decades, the Tatar movement had forged strong links with other dissidents and national movements and, given their history under Russian rule, overwhelmingly decided their future lies with Ukraine.  

When Crimea voted with the rest of Ukraine’s regions in the 1991 independence referendum, the Tatar vote was instrumental in attaining a narrow pro-independence majority. More Crimean Tatars returned over the next two decades, raising the population to more than a quarter million. And though they faced bureaucratic obstacles, discrimination by Russian-speaking locals, and government dysfunction, they began to rebuild their communities and institutions like the Mejlis council, officially recognized by the Ukranian government as the Crimean Tatars’ representative body in 1999. 

Russian occupation stops progress

Russia’s illegal annexation in 2014 has put a sharp brake on this cultural revival. Under the occupation, the Mejlis has been outlawed, mosques and schools have been shuttered, and public gatherings are banned.  

Tatar citizens face arbitrary detention, surveillance, and killing at the hands of Russian authorities, as well as conscription into the Russian armed forces. Thousands have fled to unoccupied parts of Ukraine. In 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament recognized Crimean Tatars as an Indigenous people of Crimea commemorates the Sürgün as a genocide. 

Thousands have fled to unoccupied parts of Ukraine, whose government now recognizes the Tatars’ Indigenous status and commemorates the Sürgün as a genocide. 

And while the majority of Crimean Tatars remain in the occupied peninsula where their culture is suppressed, the presence of two national minorities among Ukraine’s top military leadership is a reminder of the diverse heritage now threatened by Russia’s unprovoked invasion. 
…

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.  
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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. 
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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.
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