The trial of professional women’s basketball player Brittney Griner is set to begin Friday in a Russian courtroom.

The WNBA star has been detained in Russia for more than four months and is facing 10 years in prison on drug smuggling charges.

At the time of her arrest in February, customs officials say the Olympic gold medalist was in possession of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil, an illegal substance in Russia.

Political analysts say Griner’s arrest and trial could not have happened at a worse time. Arrested just a few days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many people believe that Griner has become a political pawn between the United States and Russia.
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Indonesia’s president ended a trip to Ukraine and Russia saying he hoped for progress reintegrating global food and fertilizer supply lines disrupted by the conflict, and he offered to be a diplomatic bridge between the two nations.

President Joko Widodo, who is the G-20 president this year, was speaking at a news conference alongside his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after a bilateral meeting in Moscow on Thursday.

His trip followed a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I really appreciate President Putin who said earlier that he will provide security guarantee for food and fertilizer supplies from both Russia and Ukraine. This is good news,” said the Indonesian president, who is widely known as Jokowi.

“For the sake of humanity, I also support the United Nations’ efforts to reintegrate Russian food and fertilizer commodities and Ukrainian food commodities to reenter the world supply chain,” he said.

Jokowi said he had urged leaders of the G-7 during a meeting he attended in Germany this week to ensure sanctions on Russia did not affect food and fertilizer supplies.

The war in Ukraine has caused major disruptions to global trade, with the prices of grain and wheat soaring amid a blockade of Ukrainian seaports and sanctions on Russian commodities such as oil, gas and fertilizer.

Speaking alongside Jokowi in Moscow, Putin denied Russia was blocking Ukrainian grain exports. 

“The Ukrainian military has mined the approaches to their ports,” he said, “No one prevents them from clearing those mines and we guarantee the safety of shipping grain out of there.”

As G-20 president this year, Jokowi has sought to patch up divisions in the group exposed by the war in Ukraine and threats to boycott the summit if Russia attended, as well as leveraging his country’s non-aligned position to push for peace.

On Thursday, he said he had conveyed a message from Zelenskyy to Putin, and said Indonesia remained willing to be a “communication bridge” between the two leaders. He did not say what was in the message.

Separately, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she had held phone calls with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, among others, about the food crisis and possible ways to re-integrate Ukraine and Russia into the global food chain.
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Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday lobbed insults at Russian President Vladimir Putin and slammed his invasion of Ukraine as “incompetent” and “foolish.”

At a speech in Seoul, Mattis compared Putin to the kind of paranoid characters created by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.

“Putin is a creature straight out of Dostoevsky. He goes to bed at night angry, he goes to bed at night fearful, he goes to bed at night thinking Russia is surrounded by nightmares,” Mattis said.

Mattis has made relatively few public comments since resigning as Pentagon chief in 2018 over a foreign policy disagreement with former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his speech, Mattis did not address those disagreements in a direct way, saying only Trump had overseen a nontraditional foreign policy that had challenged U.S. relations with its allies.

Mattis’ most pointed comments focused on Putin, whom he portrayed as unhinged and unable to make smart decisions due to the lack of people giving him sound advice.

Asked about the biggest lesson that could be drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mattis replied, “Don’t have incompetent generals in charge of your operations.”

He also said the Russian invasion was “tactically incompetent” and “strategically foolish.”

“War is enough of a tragedy without adding stupidity on top,” he said.

Mattis also criticized China’s growing relations with Russia and its unwillingness to oppose the war in Ukraine.

A country “cannot be great if they support Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

Addressing his tenure under Trump, Mattis spoke of “raucous times” and called Trump an “unusual leader” but did not directly criticize the former president.

“Democracies will at times go popularist and will at times break with tradition,” he said. “It’s the nature of democracies at times to be testing ideas and all.”

Americans, Mattis said, should respond by “keep[ing] faith in the institutions” and “in those that disagree with you.”

Mattis’ speech was in South Korea, a U.S. ally that dramatically felt the effects of Trump’s nontraditional foreign policy.

Asked how he felt about Trump’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Mattis said he was never optimistic about the talks, but that the diplomatic effort was the “right thing to do.”

“As far as what came out of it, nothing. I saw nothing that came out of it,” he said.

Mattis also praised South Korea’s new president, former chief prosecutor Yoon Suk Yeol, for wanting South Korea to play a bigger role in the world.

Yoon, a conservative who has explicitly embraced the United States, has said he wants South Korea to become a “global pivotal state.” This week, Yoon attended the NATO summit in Madrid,  the first time a South Korean leader had attended such a meeting.

Mattis praised Yoon’s presence at the NATO summit, saying “a globally pivotal state in South Korea is in all our best interests.”

He warned, however, against voices in Seoul who have recently called for South Korea to acquire its own nuclear weapons.

“You don’t need nuclear weapons on the peninsula to ensure an extended deterrence so long as there is trust between the ROK and the United States,” he said, referring to an abbreviation of South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.

Opinion polls consistently show that most South Koreans support their country acquiring their own nuclear weapons, especially as North Korea continues developing its own arsenal.

As a candidate, Yoon said he would ask the United States to agree to a nuclear weapons sharing arrangement, or to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons that Washington withdrew from South Korea in the early 1990s — notions quickly rejected by the U.S. State Department.

To avoid such an outcome, the United States and South Korea should continue to build trust, including by demonstrating “extended deterrence” against North Korea’s nuclear weapons, Mattis said.

“I think anything you can do to avoid having these weapons yourselves, you should do. They are horrible weapons,” he said.
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Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations, is visiting Ukraine and Russia for meetings with the leaders of the two warring nations after attending the Group of Seven summit in Germany.

Widodo has sought to maintain a neutral position since the start of the war, and he hopes his efforts will lead to a cease-fire and eventual direct talks between the two leaders.

What does Widodo hope to achieve?

Widodo said he wants to encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to start a dialogue on ending the war, which has caused global food shortages and surges in commodity prices.

“My mission is to build peace, because the war must be stopped and (its effects) on the food supply chain must be lifted,” Widodo said, “I will invite President Putin to open a dialogue and, as soon as possible, to carry out a cease-fire and stop the war.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has choked global markets and contributed to higher prices of meat, dairy products, cereals, sugar and vegetable oils.

“These visits are not only important for Indonesians but also for other developing countries in order to prevent the people of developing and low-income countries from falling into extreme poverty and hunger,” Widodo said.

Why does the war in Ukraine matter to Widodo?

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said it’s important to achieve a resumption of grain exports from Ukraine and food and fertilizer exports from Russia to end shortages and reduce prices.

Rising costs of cooking oil prompted the Indonesian government to temporarily ban exports of palm oil products amid a series of student protests against skyrocketing food prices. Indonesia resumed exports of crude palm oil a month later.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world’s largest exporters of palm oil, accounting for 85% of global production.

Why might Putin and Zelenskyy listen to Widodo?

As this year’s G-20 president, Indonesia has sought to remain neutral in dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has been guarded in its comments.

Widodo has said he offered Indonesian support in peace efforts to both Putin and Zelenskyy, a move seen as an attempt to unite the G-20 forum divided by the ongoing conflict.

The United States and its allies in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations — a subset of the G-20 — have sought to punish Putin in as many ways as possible, including by threatening a boycott of the G-20 summit to be held later this year in Bali unless Putin is removed from the forum.

Widodo has invited Zelenskyy to the summit along with Putin in hopes it will appease proponents of both Ukraine and Russia and limit any distraction from the forum’s other agenda items. Ukraine is not a member of the forum, but Russia is.

What are his chances of success?

Widodo will be the first Asian leader to visit the warring countries.

His efforts come weeks after Russia said it was looking over an Italian proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the hostilities have essentially ground to a halt.

The Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers met for inconclusive talks in Turkey in March, followed by a meeting of the delegations in Istanbul, which also failed to bring about concrete results.

Gilang Kembara, an international politics researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an Indonesian think tank, is pessimistic that Putin will listen to Widodo to find a peaceful solution to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

“The chance for that is very slim,” said Kembara, “Indonesia does not have great experience as a peace broker outside the Southeast Asia region.”
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday told Sweden and Finland that he could still block their drives to join NATO if they fail to implement a new accession deal with Ankara.

Erdogan issued his blunt warning at the end of a NATO summit at which the U.S.-led alliance formally invited the Nordic countries to join the 30-nation bloc.

The two nations dropped their history of military nonalignment and announced plans to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Their bids were headed for swift approval until Erdogan voiced concerns in May.

He accused the two of providing a haven for outlawed Kurdish militants and promoting “terrorism.”

Erdogan also demanded they lift arms embargoes imposed in response to Turkey’s 2019 military incursion into Syria.

A 10-point memorandum signed by the three sides on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Tuesday appeared to address many of Erdogan’s concerns.

Erdogan lifted his objections and then held a warm meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden that was followed by a promise of new warplane sales to Turkey.

Yet Erdogan told reporters at an impromptu press conference held as the summit ended that the memorandum did not mean Turkey would automatically approve the two countries’ membership.

New countries’ applications must be approved by all members and ratified by their respective parliaments.

Erdogan warned that Sweden’s and Finland’s future behavior would decide whether he forwarded their application to the Turkish parliament.

“If they fulfil their duties, we will send it to the parliament. If they are not fulfilled, it is out of the question,” he said.

A senior Turkish diplomat in Washington said the ratification process could come at the earliest in late September and may wait until 2023, with parliament going into recess from Friday.

One Western diplomatic source in the hallways of the NATO summit accused Erdogan of engaging in “blackmail.”

’73 terrorists’

Erdogan delivered his message one day after Turkey said it would seek the extradition of 12 suspects from Finland and 21 from Sweden.

The 33 were accused of being either outlawed Kurdish militants or members of a group led by a U.S.-based preacher Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup.

But Erdogan appeared to up the ante on Thursday by noting that Sweden had “promised” Turkey to extradite “73 terrorists.”

He did not explain when Sweden issued this promise or provide other details.

Officials in Stockholm said they did not understand Erdogan’s reference but said that Sweden strictly adhered to the rule of law.

“In Sweden, Swedish law is applied by independent courts,” Justice Minister Morgan Johansson said in a statement to AFP.

“Swedish citizens are not extradited. Non-Swedish citizens can be extradited at the request of other countries, but only if it is compatible with Swedish law and the European Convention,” Johansson said.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Wednesday that Erdogan appeared to be referring to cases that had already been processed by officials and the courts.

“I would guess that all of these cases have been solved in Finland. There are decisions made, and those decisions are partly made by our courts,” Niinisto told reporters in Madrid.

“I see no reason to take them up again.”

Most of Turkey’s demands and past negotiations have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora.

Sweden keeps no official ethnicity statistics but is believed to have 100,000 Kurds living in the nation of 10 million people.

The Brookings Institution warned that Turkey’s “loose and often aggressive framing” of the term “terrorist” could lead to problems in the months to come.

“The complication arises from a definition of terrorism in Turkish law that goes beyond criminalizing participation in violent acts and infringes on basic freedom of speech,” the U.S.-based institute said in a report.
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Turkey’s media regulator blocked access Thursday to the Turkish language services of Voice of America and Deutsche Welle after the international public broadcasters did not apply for licenses the regulator had requested.

In February, the Radio and Television Supreme Council, known as RTUK, gave three international broadcasters, including Voice of America’s Turkish Service, short notice to obtain broadcast licenses or have their content blocked. That order also included Germany’s Deutsche Welle.

Ilhan Tasci, an RTUK board member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party and vocal critic of the licensing demand, announced Thursday on Twitter that access to Deutsche Welle’s Turkish-language service, DW Turkce, and VOA had been blocked by a court decision.

“Access to DW Turkce and Voice of America, which did not apply for licenses, has been blocked by the Ankara Criminal Court of Peace, upon the request of the RTUK board,” Tasci said Thursday. “Here is your freedom of press and advanced democracy!” he added sarcastically. 

The February licensing decision was based on a regulation that went into effect in August 2019. At that time, several media freedom advocates raised concerns about possible censorship because the regulation granted RTUK the authority to control all online content.

RTUK’s deputy head, Ibrahim Uslu, dismissed the censorship criticisms, saying the decision “has nothing to do with censorship but is part of technical measures.”

Under the regulation, RTUK has been authorized to request broadcast licenses from “media service providers” in order for their radio, TV broadcasting and on-demand audiovisual media services to continue their online presence.

The regulation allows RTUK to impose fines, suspend broadcasting for three months or cancel broadcast licenses if the licensees do not follow RTUK’s principles.

With this decision, the authority of RTUK over news websites was used for the first time, said Can Guleryuzlu, president of the Progressive Journalists Association.

VOA and Deutsche Welle “reported on many issues that were followed by millions and that the national press could not bring to the agenda,” and “with the last decision of the judiciary, [that] has been blocked. The judiciary turned its face not to justice but to the government in Turkey,” Guleryuzlu added.

Yaman Akdeniz, a cyberlaw professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, told VOA Turkish “complete access blocking to these news websites can only be described as censorship.”

The court’s decision to block access to VOA Turkish came on the heels of the meeting between President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for VOA in February confirmed the network was aware of the RTUK demand.

“VOA believes any governmental efforts to silence news outlets is a violation of press freedom, a core value of all democratic societies,” the spokesperson, Bridget Serchak, said.

“Should the Turkish government formally block our websites, VOA will make every effort to ensure that its Turkish-speaking audience retains access to a free and open internet using all available methods,” she added.

DW’s director-general, Peter Limbourg, said in February that the broadcaster would appeal the decision.

In a statement published by DW, he said the request would give “Turkish authorities the option to block the entire service based on individual, critical reports unless these reports are deleted.”

Turkey has a poor record for press freedom, ranking 149th out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest, on the World Press Freedom Index.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the annual index, says that discriminatory practices against media in Turkey are commonplace and that the RTUK “helps to weaken critical TV channels economically, by giving them heavy fines.”

Ezel Sahinkaya and Begum Ersoz of VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report. Some information came from Reuters. 
…

NATO leaders concluded their three-day meeting in Madrid Thursday with the Western security alliance strengthening its defense against Russian aggression, warning of global challenges posed by China and inviting neutral countries Finland and Sweden into the group.

U.S. President Joe Biden described the summit as “historic.”

“The last time NATO drafted a new mission statement was 12 years ago,” Biden said, referring to a document also known as the alliance’s Strategic Concept.

“At that time, it characterized Russia as a partner, and it didn’t mention China. The world has changed, changed a great deal since then, and NATO is changing as well. At this summit, we rallied our alliances to meet both the direct threats that Russia poses to Europe and the systemic challenges that China poses to a rules-based world order. And we’ve invited two new members to join NATO,” Biden said.

Biden reiterated that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has only strengthened NATO.

“He tried to weaken us, expected our resolve to fracture but he’s getting exactly what he did not want,” Biden said. “He wanted the ‘Finland-ization’ of NATO. He got the ‘NATO-ization’ of Finland.”

On Wednesday Putin dismissed the imminent expansion of the Western alliance.

“With Sweden and Finland, we don’t have the problems that we have with Ukraine. They want to join NATO, go ahead,” Putin told Russian state television.

“But they must understand there was no threat before, while now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in kind and create the same threats for the territories from which threats towards us are created,” he warned.

As it sets to expand, NATO leaders agreed on a massive increase in troop deployments across Europe. A total of 300,000 soldiers will be placed at high readiness across the continent starting next year to defend against potential military attacks by Moscow on any member of the alliance – what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg characterized as “the most serious security crisis” since the Second World War.      

To bolster NATO’s defense, the United States is also set to establish a permanent headquarters for the U.S. 5th Army Corps in Poland, add a rotational brigade of 3,000 troops and 2,000 other personnel to be headquartered in Romania, and send two additional squadrons of F-35 fighter jets to Britain.   

Reaffirming commitments made by other Western leaders, Biden said the U.S. will stand firm against Russia’s aggression. He offered little indication the conflict would conclude anytime soon, suggesting that Americans would have to bear high gas prices longer.

“As long as it takes, so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine,” he said.

China challenge

Biden said the summit has brought together “democratic allies and partners from the Atlantic and the Pacific” to defend the rules-based global order against challenges from China, including its “abusive and coercive trade practices.” 

NATO leaders have also called out the “deepening strategic partnership” between Beijing and Moscow as one of the alliance’s concerns.

Beijing is not providing military support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, but Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stated support for Moscow over “sovereignty and security” issues. The country continues to purchase massive amounts of Russian oil, gas and coal. 

Biden noted that for the first time in the transatlantic alliance’s history, Asia Pacific leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea participated at the summit.

With the reemergence of great power conflict, a strategic competitor sitting in each region, and an evolving Russia-China relationship, there are many common challenges that European and Asia-Pacific partners must discuss together, said Mirna Galic, senior policy analyst on China and East Asia at the United States Institute of Peace.

Galic told VOA these include issues already being worked on, such as cyber defense, maritime security and space, as well as those that will require some new thinking, such as intermediate-range nuclear forces, missile defense, inter-theater deterrence and defense, and how to push back on great power use of force in contravention of international norms.

“The last is certainly relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but also has parallels with China and Taiwan, which is why Ukraine is seen as more than a European security issue,” Galic said.

In his remarks at the end of the NATO summit, Biden also touted the West’s latest counter to China’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“We also launched what started off to be the Build Back Better notion, but it’s morphed into a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment,” he said referring to the “Build Back Better World” initiative announced at the 2021 meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Cornwall, UK and relaunched earlier this week as the PGII at the G-7 summit of leading industrialized nations in Krün, Germany.

Officials say PGII will offer developing nations $600 billion in infrastructure funding by 2027 and be a better alternative to China’s BRI that critics have characterized as “debt trap diplomacy.”
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A Britain-based group says its latest study of worldwide free expression rights shows only 15% of the global population lives where people can receive or share information freely.

In its 2022 Global Expression Report, Article19, an international human rights organization, said that in authoritarian nations such as China, Myanmar and Russia, and in democracies such as Brazil and India, 80% of the global population live with less freedom of expression than a decade ago.

The report said authoritarian regimes and rulers continue to tighten control over what their populations see, hear and say.

While mentioning Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the report singles out China’s government for “exerting ultimate authority over the identities, information and opinions” of hundreds of millions of people.  

The annual report examines freedom of expression across 161 countries using 25 indicators to measure how free each person is to express, communicate and participate in society, without fear of harassment, legal repercussions or violence. It creates a score from zero to 100 for each country.

This year, the report ranks Denmark and Switzerland tops in the world, each with scores of 96. Norway and Sweden each have scores of 94, and Estonia and Finland both scored 93. The study said the top 10 most open nations are European.

Article 19 ranks North Korea as the most oppressive nation in the world with a score of zero. Eritrea, Syria and Turkmenistan had scores of one, and Belarus, China and Cuba had scores of two.   

The United States ranked 30th on the scale. In 2011, it was 9th in the world. The U.S. has seen a nine-point drop in its score, putting the country on the lower end of the open expression category. It was globally ranked in the lowest quartile in 2021 in its scores for equality in civil liberties for social groups, political polarization and social polarization, and political violence.

The report said that over the past two decades, there have been more dramatic downward shifts in freedom of expression around the world than at any time. Many of these occur as the result of power grabs or coups, but many more nations have seen an erosion of rights, often under democratically elected populist leaders.

Article 19 takes its name from the article under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
…

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that 144 of the country’s fighters were freed from Russian captivity via “an exchange mechanism” and that nearly 100 of the freed fighters had participated in the defense of the Ukrainian coastal city of Mariupol.

Earlier, a leading Ukrainian parliamentarian told VOA that Kyiv and Moscow were undergoing a process of prisoner exchange and that Roman Abramovich, a Russian businessman with ties to Putin, was playing “an active role” in the talks.

Hours later, in his nightly address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the development “optimistic and very important.” Zelenskyy said 59 of the soldiers that returned to Ukraine were members of the National Guard, followed by 30 servicemen with the Navy, 28 who had served in the Army, 17 with Border Guards and 9 who fought as territorial defense soldiers and one had been a policeman.

“The oldest of the liberated is 65 years old, the youngest is 19,” he said in the video broadcast. “In particular,” Zelenskyy added, “95 Azovstal defenders return[ed] home.”

The defense of Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol stood out as a particularly fierce struggle between Ukrainian and Russian forces from March to May. It ended with an unknown number of casualties on Ukraine’s side and close to 2,500 Ukrainian fighters in Russian captivity, according to figures released by the Russian side.

Wednesday’s news came on the heels of an announcement a day earlier that 17 Ukrainians, including 16 servicemen and one civilian, were freed from Russian captivity in an exchange that saw 15 Russians released and that the bodies of 46 fallen Ukrainian soldiers returned home. In return, Ukraine handed Russia 40 of their fallen servicemen. Among the 46 fallen Ukrainian fighters, 21 took part in the defense of Azovstal, according to the Ukrainian government.

David Arakhamia, leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party in the Ukrainian parliament, told VOA during a visit to Washington earlier this month that Abramovich was playing “an active role” in prisoner exchange talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

“As a human being, I think he has [the] intention to stop the war, he doesn’t like the idea that Russia invaded Ukraine,” Arakhamia said of Abramovich.

As negotiations are concerned, “He’s trying to play the neutral role, but for us, we treat him as a Russian representative. He’s closer to Mr. Putin [than to the Ukrainian side], of course,” Arakhamia said, adding that Ukraine sees Abramovich as a “messenger” who could deliver messages to Russian President Vladimir Putin “in their original form.”

Abramovich was the owner of the British football club, Chelsea. He made arrangements for its sale in the aftermath of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions put in place by Britain, the United States and other western nations against Russian businessmen believed to have benefited from close ties with the Russian government and Putin.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy concluded his nightly address to the nation by thanking those who played a part in securing the return home of 144 Ukrainian fighters from Russian captivity.

“I am grateful to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine and to everyone who worked for this result. But let’s talk about this later. We will do everything to bring every Ukrainian man and woman home,” Zelenskyy said.

As the war enters the fifth month, the exact number of prisoners held by each side has not been made public. Little is known about how they are treated or precisely where they’re held.
…

The United States will strengthen its forces in Europe as NATO faces up to the threat from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. President Joe Biden announced the deployments at the NATO summit in Madrid. Henry Ridgwell reports.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday for dropping his objections to the bids by Sweden and Finland to join NATO, leading the way for the military alliance to expand even closer to Russia.

“I want to particularly thank you for what you did putting together the situation with regard to Finland and Sweden,” Biden told Erdogan during a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Madrid. “You’re doing a great job.”

In response, speaking through an interpreter, Erdogan said that Biden’s “pioneering in this regard is going to be crucial in terms of strengthening NATO for the future, and it’s going to have a very positive contribution to the process between Ukraine and Russia.”

Turkey, Finland and Sweden on Tuesday signed a memorandum deepening their counterterrorism cooperation, addressing Ankara’s concerns that the two Nordic countries are not doing enough to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union, the U.S. and others.

Finland and Sweden also agreed not to support the Gulenist movement, led by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, which Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup attempt and other domestic problems.

Helsinki and Stockholm will also end support for the so-called Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria, part of the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting against the Islamic State group. Additionally, Sweden agreed to end an arms embargo against Turkey that dated to its 2019 incursion into Syria.

Invitation to join NATO

With Turkey withdrawing its veto, NATO formally invited Finland and Sweden to join the alliance earlier Wednesday.

“It sends a very clear message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. We are demonstrating that NATO’s doors are open,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, characterizing the invitation process as “the quickest in history.”

Helsinki and Stockholm will bring great military capability and strategic outlook to the alliance, said Jim Townsend, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy, now at the Atlantic Council.

“Both nations — because they were neutral — they had to spend a lot of money and make a lot of effort to be a very professional force because they weren’t in an alliance. They had to depend on themselves,” Townsend told VOA. “It took the wolf being at the door for those nations to come in.”

The two countries applied to join in May, but the process began months earlier during the initial phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Biden reaching out to the leaders to discuss the possibility of joining NATO, a senior U.S. administration official told reporters Tuesday.

Since then, the U.S. has been “painstakingly working to try and help close the gaps between the Turks, the Finns and the Swedes,” the official said. “All the while trying, certainly in public, to have a lower-key approach to this so that it didn’t become about the U.S. or about particular demands on the U.S.,” he said, referring to Ankara’s long-standing request to purchase U.S. F-16 fighter jets.

Biden phone call

The official denied that Ankara made the warplane request a precondition to withdraw its objections. However, he noted that Biden conveyed Tuesday during a phone call to Erdogan his desire to “get this other issue resolved, and then you and I can sit down and really, really talk about significant strategic issues.”

The day after Ankara lifted its veto, the administration announced its support for the potential sale of the fighter jets.

Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon, told reporters that Washington supports Ankara’s effort to modernize its fighter fleet.

“That is a contribution to NATO security and, therefore, American security,” she said.

In 2017, despite American and NATO opposition, Turkey signed a deal to purchase the S-400 Russian missile defense system. In response, Washington issued sanctions and kicked Ankara out of its newest, most advanced F-35 jet program. Since then, Turkey has sought to purchase 40 modernized F-16s, which are older models of the American fighter jets, and modernization kits for another 80 F-16s.

Wallander said any F-16 sales “need to be worked through our contracting processes.” A deal would likely require approval from Congress.

Ukraine grain

In their meeting, Biden also thanked Erdogan for his “incredible work” to establish humanitarian corridors to enable the export of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world amid the war.

“We are trying to solve the process with a balancing policy. Our hope is that this balance policy will lead to results and allow us the possibility to get grain to countries that are facing shortages right now through a corridor as soon as possible,” Erdogan said in response.

Turkey has played a central role in negotiations with Kyiv and Russia to increase the amount of grain that can get out of Ukraine. Tens of millions of people around the world are at risk of hunger as the conflict disrupted shipments of grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s leading producers.

Earlier this month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met his Russian counterpart to discuss unlocking the grain from Black Sea ports but failed to reach an agreement. Hurdles remain, including payment mechanisms and mines placed by both Moscow and Kyiv in the Black Sea.

Turkey has suggested that ships could be guided around sea mines by establishing safe corridors under a U.N. proposal to resume not only Ukrainian grain exports but also Russian food and fertilizer exports, which Moscow says are harmed by sanctions. The U.N. has been “working in close cooperation with the Turkish authorities on this issue,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

VOA’s Henry Ridgwell contributed to this report.
…

The lone survivor of a team of Islamic State extremists was convicted Wednesday of murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole in the 2015 bombings and shootings across Paris that killed 130 people in the deadliest peacetime attacks in French history.

The special court also convicted 19 other men involved in the assault following a nine-month trial.

Chief suspect Salah Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder in relation to a terrorist enterprise. The court found that his explosives vest malfunctioned, dismissing his argument that he ditched the vest because he decided not to follow through with his attack on the night of Nov. 13, 2015.

Abdeslam, a 32-year-old Belgian with Moroccan roots, was given France’s most severe sentence possible.

Of the defendants besides Abdeslam, 18 were given various terrorism-related convictions, and one was convicted on a lesser fraud charge. They were given punishments ranging from suspended sentences to life in prison.

During the trial, Abdeslam proclaimed his radicalism, wept, apologized to victims and pleaded with judges to forgive his mistakes.

For victims’ families and survivors of the attacks, the trial has been excruciating yet crucial in their quest for justice and closure.

For months, the packed main chamber and 12 overflow rooms in the 13th century Justice Palace heard the harrowing accounts by the victims, along with testimony from Abdeslam. The other defendants are largely accused of helping with logistics or transportation. At least one is accused of a direct role in the deadly March 2016 attacks in Brussels, which also was claimed by the Islamic State group.

The trial was an opportunity for survivors and those mourning loved ones to recount the deeply personal horrors inflicted that night and to listen to details of countless acts of bravery, humanity and compassion among strangers. Some hoped for justice, but most just wanted tell the accused directly that they have been left irreparably scarred, but not broken.

“The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people,” said Dominique Kielemoes at the start of the trial in September 2021. Her son bled to death in one of the cafes. Hearing the testimony of victims was “crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation,” Kielemoes said.

“It wasn’t a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations,” she said.

France was changed in the wake of the attacks: Authorities declared a state of emergency and armed officers now constantly patrol public spaces. The violence sparked soul-searching among the French and Europeans, since most of the attackers were born and raised in France or Belgium. And they transformed forever the lives of all those who suffered losses or bore witness.

Presiding judge Jean-Louis Peries said at the trial’s outset that it belongs to “international and national events of this century. ” France emerged from the state of emergency in 2017, after incorporating many of the harshest measures into law.

Fourteen of the defendants have been in court, including Abdeslam, the only survivor of the 10-member attacking team that terrorized Paris that Friday night. All but one of the six absent men are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq; the other is in prison in Turkey.

Most of the suspects are accused of helping create false identities, transporting the attackers back to Europe from Syria or providing them with money, phones, explosives or weapons.

Abdeslam was the only defendant tried on several counts of murder and kidnapping as a member of a terrorist organization.

The sentence sought for Abdeslam of life in prison without parole has only been pronounced four times in France — for crimes related to rape and murder of minors.

Prosecutors are seeking life sentences for nine other defendants. The remaining suspects were tried on lesser terrorism charges and face sentences ranging from five to 30 years.

In closing arguments, prosecutors stressed that all 20 defendants, who had fanned out around the French capital, armed with semi-automatic rifles and explosives-packed vests to mount parallel attacks, are members of the Islamic State extremist group responsible for the massacres.

“Not everyone is a jihadi, but all of those you are judging accepted to take part in a terrorist group, either by conviction, cowardliness or greed,” prosecutor Nicolas Braconnay told the court this month.

Some defendants, including Abdeslam, said innocent civilians were targeted because of France’s policies in the Middle East and hundreds of civilian deaths in Western airstrikes in Islamic State-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq.

During his testimony, former President François Hollande dismissed claims that his government was at fault.

The Islamic State, “this pseudo-state, declared war with the weapons of war,” Hollande said. The Paris attackers did not terrorize, shoot, kill, maim and traumatize civilians because of religion, he said, adding it was “fanaticism and barbarism.”

During closing arguments Monday, Abdelslam’s lawyer Olivia Ronen told a panel of judges that her client is the only one in the group of attackers who didn’t set off explosives to kill others that night. He can’t be convicted for murder, she argued.

“If a life sentence without hope for ever experiencing freedom again is pronounced, I fear we have lost a sense of proportion,” Ronan said. She emphasized through the trial that she is “not providing legitimacy to the attacks” by defending her client in court.

Abdeslam apologized to the victims at his final court appearance Monday, saying his remorse and sorrow is heartfelt and sincere. Listening to victims’ accounts of “so much suffering” changed him, he said.

“I have made mistakes, it’s true, but I am not a murderer, I am not a killer,” he said.
…

NATO heads of state and government meeting in Madrid on Wednesday approved a new Strategic Concept for the alliance, naming “Russia’s aggression,” “systemic challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China” and the “deepening strategic partnership” between the two countries as its main priorities.

In this document, the Western military alliance that was formed after the Second World War defined Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” and for the first time addressed challenges that Beijing poses toward NATO’s security, interests and values.

At the summit that runs until Thursday, the alliance agreed to boost support for Ukraine as it defends itself from the Russian invasion, now in its fifth month. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters earlier this week that NATO will boost the number of troops on high alert by more than sevenfold to more than 300,000 — amid what he characterized as “the most serious security crisis” since the Second World War.

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced the United States is bolstering its military presence in Europe, including the deployment of additional naval destroyers in Spain and positioning more troops elsewhere, in response to “changed security environment” and to strengthen “collective security.”

Biden said the U.S. would establish a permanent headquarters for the U.S. 5th Army Corps in Poland, add a rotational brigade of 3,000 troops and 2,000 other personnel to be headquartered in Romania, as well as send two additional squadrons of F-35 fighter jets to Britain. 

“Earlier this year, we surged 20,000 additional U.S. forces to Europe to bolster our lines in response to Russia’s aggressive move, bringing our force total in Europe to 100,000,” he said, adding the U.S. will continue to adjust its defense posture “based on the threat in close consultation with our allies.”

Also Wednesday, in a virtual address to NATO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country needs more advanced weapons and approximately $5 billion per month to defend itself.

“This is not a war being waged by Russia against only Ukraine. This is a war for the right to dictate conditions in Europe—for what the future world order will be like,” Zelenskiyy told summit leaders.

NATO allies plan to continue to give military and types of support to Ukraine indefinitely, said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a security analyst at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

“What I’ve heard collectively from everyone is that insight of how important it is that Russia does not win, the idea being that if Russia learns the lesson that widespread use of military force gains it something, Europe will not be stable or safe in the future, and therefore Russia must not win, Ukraine must win,” he told VOA.

Significant shift

NATO’s Strategic Concept’s language suggests a significant shift in its unity and sense of urgency on great power rivalry, said Stacie Goddard, professor of political science at Wellesley College. She underscored the alliance’s warning of a deepening Russia-China partnership as a challenge to the existing order.

“To be sure, these are only words, but both the novelty and the clarity of the rhetoric is striking,” she told VOA.

Beijing is not backing Russia’s war in Ukraine militarily, but Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stated support for Moscow over “sovereignty and security” issues. The country continues to purchase massive amounts of Russian oil, gas and coal.

“This is seen as extremely threatening, not only to the United States, but to Europe as well,” said Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center, to VOA.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that allies have had “growing concerns about China’s unfair trade practices, use of forced labor, theft of intellectual property and their bullying and coercive activities, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but around the world.”

NATO’s Strategic Concept is an assessment of security challenges and guides the alliance’s political and military activities. The last one was adopted at the NATO Lisbon Summit in 2010, and ironically included the words: “NATO poses no threat to Russia. On the contrary: we want to see a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia.”

Sweden and Finland

Biden praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who on Tuesday dropped his objections to bids from Sweden and Finland bids to join the alliance.

“I want to particularly thank you for what you did putting together the situation with regard to Finland and Sweden, and all the incredible work you’re doing to try to get the grain out of Ukraine,” Biden told Erdoğan during a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of the summit.

With Ankara lifting its veto of NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, the administration threw its support behind the potential sale of U.S. F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

As NATO is set to expand membership, the summit also focused on reinforcing partnerships with non-NATO countries. Participating in the summit are leaders from Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

“President Putin has not succeeded in closing NATO’s door,” Stoltenberg said. “He’s getting the opposite of what he wants. He wants less NATO. President Putin is getting more NATO by Sweden and Finland joining our alliance.”

NATO’s Strategic Concept also states that climate change is “a defining challenge of our time.”

VOA’s Chris Hannas and Henry Ridgwell in Madrid contributed to this story.
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NATO leaders are gathering in Madrid, Spain, for a summit that will include discussion of support for Ukraine and how the alliance will adapt to face current and future challenges.

The leaders are expected to agree to boost support for Ukraine as it defends itself from a Russian invasion.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters the gathering will be a “historic and transformative summit for our alliance,” adding that it comes amid “the most serious security crisis we have faced since the second world war.”

Russia’s attack is also influencing NATO’s own long-term plans, with a new strategic concept that includes what the alliance has called its “changed security environment.” The guiding agreement will also address other challenges, including China.

In the short term, NATO is strengthening its readiness to respond to outside threats, including boosting the number of troops under direct NATO command and pre-positioning more heavy weapons and logistical resources.

As NATO members consider the applications for Sweden and Finland to join the alliance, the summit is also set to include talks about reinforcing partnerships with non-NATO countries. Participating in the summit are leaders from Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

Other areas of discussion include terrorism, cyberattacks and climate change.
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A German court on Tuesday handed a five-year jail sentence to a 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, the oldest person to go on trial for complicity in war crimes during the Holocaust. 

Josef Schuetz was found guilty of being an accessory to murder in at least 3,500 cases while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, from 1942 to 1945. 

Given his age, Schuetz is highly unlikely to be put behind bars.

The pensioner, who now lives in Brandenburg state, had pleaded innocent, saying he did “absolutely nothing” and had not even worked at the camp. 

“I don’t know why I am here,” he said at the close of his trial Monday. 

But presiding judge Udo Lechtermann said he was convinced Schuetz had worked at Sachsenhausen and had “supported” the atrocities committed there. 

“For three years, you watched prisoners being tortured and killed before your eyes,” Lechtermann said. 

“Due to your position on the watchtower of the concentration camp, you constantly had the smoke of the crematorium in your nose,” he said. “Anyone who tried to escape from the camp was shot. So every guard was actively involved in these murders.” 

More than 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, gays and regime opponents, were detained at the Sachsenhausen camp from 1936 to 1945. 

Tens of thousands of inmates died from forced labor, murder, medical experiments, hunger or disease before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops, according to the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum. 

Contradictory statements 

Schuetz, who was 21 when he began working at the camp, remained blank-faced as the court announced his sentence. 

“I am ready,” said Sc

huetz when he, dressed in a gray shirt and striped trousers, entered the courtroom in a wheelchair.

Schuetz was not detained during the trial, which began in 2021 but was postponed several times because of his health. 

His lawyer, Stefan Waterkamp, told AFP he would appeal, meaning the sentence will not be enforced until 2023 at the earliest. 

Thomas Walther, the lawyer who represented 11 of the 16 civil parties in the trial, said the sentencing had met their expectations and “justice has been served.” 

But Antoine Grumbach, 80, whose father died in Sachsenhausen, said he could “never forgive” Schuetz as “any human being facing atrocities has a duty to oppose them.” 

During the trial, Schuetz had made several inconsistent statements about his past, complaining that his head was getting “mixed up.” 

At one point, the centenarian said he had worked as an agricultural laborer in Germany for most of World War II, a claim contradicted by several historical documents bearing his name, date and place of birth. 

‘Warning to perpetrators’ 

After the war, Schuetz was transferred to a prison camp in Russia before returning to Germany, where he worked as a farmer and a locksmith. 

More than seven decades after World War II, German prosecutors are racing to bring the last surviving Nazi perpetrators to justice. 

The 2011 conviction of former guard John Demjanjuk on the basis that he served as part of Hitler’s killing machine, set a legal precedent and paved the way for several of these justice cases. 

Since then, courts have handed down several guilty verdicts on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused. 

Among those brought to late justice were Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at Auschwitz. 

Both were convicted at the age of 94 of complicity in mass murder but died before they could be imprisoned. 

However, Schuetz’s five-year sentence is the longest handed to a defendant in such a case. 

Guillaume Mouralis, a research professor at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research, told AFP the verdict was “a warning to the perpetrators of mass crimes: whatever their level of responsibility, there is still legal liability.”
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NATO ally Turkey lifted its veto over Finland and Sweden’s bid to join the Western alliance on Tuesday after the three nations agreed to protect each other’s security, ending a weeks-long drama that tested allied unity against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The breakthrough came after four hours of talks just before a NATO summit began in Madrid, averting an embarrassing impasse at the gathering of 30 leaders that aims to show resolve against Russia, now seen by the U.S.-led alliance as a direct security threat rather than a possible adversary.

It means Helsinki and Stockholm can proceed with their application to join the nuclear-armed alliance, cementing what is set to be the biggest shift in European security in decades, as the two, long neutral Nordic countries seek NATO protection.

“Our foreign ministers signed a trilateral memorandum which confirms that Turkey will … support the invitation of Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said in a statement.

“The concrete steps of our accession to NATO will be agreed by the NATO allies during the next two days, but that decision is now imminent,” Niinisto said.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Turkey’s presidency confirmed the accord in separate statements, after talks between the NATO chief, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Niinisto.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, “Fantastic news as we kick off the NATO summit. Sweden and Finland’s membership will make our brilliant alliance stronger and safer.”

Stoltenberg said NATO’s 30 leaders would now invite Finland, which shares a 1,300 km border with Russia, and Sweden to join NATO, and that they would become official “invitees.”

“The door is open. The joining of Finland and Sweden into NATO will take place,” Stoltenberg said.

However, even with a formal invitation granted, NATO’s 30 allied parliaments must ratify the decision by leaders, a process that could take up to a year.

Terms of the deal

Turkey’s main demands, which came as a surprise to NATO allies in May, were for the Nordic countries to stop supporting Kurdish militant groups present on their territory and to lift their bans on some sales of arms to Turkey.

Stoltenberg said the terms of the deal involved Sweden intensifying work on Turkish extradition requests of suspected militants and amending Swedish and Finnish law to toughen their approach to them.

Stoltenberg said Sweden and Finland would lift their restrictions on selling weapons to Turkey.

Turkey has raised serious concerns that Sweden has been harboring what it says are militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. Stockholm denies the accusation.

The Turkish presidency statement said the four-way agreement reached on Tuesday meant “full cooperation with Turkey in the fight against the PKK and its affiliates.”

It also said Sweden and Finland were “demonstrating solidarity with Turkey in the fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”

U.S. President Joe Biden, who arrived in Madrid before a dinner with his fellow NATO leaders, did not directly address the issue in his public comments with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and King Felipe of Spain.

But he stressed the unity of the alliance, saying NATO was “as galvanized as I believe it’s ever been.”

Biden is to have a meeting with Erdogan during the NATO summit. Erdogan said before leaving for Madrid that he would push Biden on an F-16 fighter jet purchase.

He said he would discuss with Biden the issue of Ankara’s procurement of S-400 air defense systems from Russia which led to U.S. sanctions as well as modernization kits from Washington and other bilateral issues.

The resolution of the deadlock marked a triumph for intense diplomacy as NATO allies try to seal the Nordic accession in record time as a way of solidifying their response to Russia — particularly in the Baltic Sea, where Finnish and Swedish membership would give the alliance military superiority.

In the wider Nordic region, Norway, Denmark and the three Baltic states are already NATO members. Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” helped overturn decades of Swedish opposition to joining NATO.
…

President Joe Biden’s administration added five companies in China to a trade blacklist on Tuesday for allegedly supporting Russia’s military and defense industrial base, flexing its muscle to enforce sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the trade blacklist, said the targeted companies had supplied items to Russian “entities of concern” before the February 24 invasion, adding that they “continue to contract to supply Russian entity listed and sanctioned parties.”

The agency also added an additional 31 entities to the blacklist from countries including Russia, UAE, Lithuania, Pakistan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, according to the Federal Register entry. However, of the 36 total companies added, 25 had China-based operations.

“Today’s action sends a powerful message to entities and individuals across the globe that if they seek to support Russia, the United States will cut them off as well,” Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez said in a statement.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Three of the companies in China accused of aiding the Russian military, Connec Electronic Ltd., Hong Kong-based World Jetta, and Logistics Limited, could not be reached for comment. The other two, King Pai Technology Co., Ltd and Winninc Electronic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hong Kong is considered part of China for purposes of U.S. export controls since Beijing’s crackdown on the city’s autonomy.

Blacklisting of firms means their U.S. suppliers need a Commerce Department license before they can ship to them.

The United States has set out with allies to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion, which Moscow calls a “special operation,” by sanctioning a raft of Russian companies and oligarchs and adding others to a trade blacklist. 

While U.S. officials had previously said that China was generally complying with the restrictions, Washington has vowed to closely monitor compliance and rigorously enforce the regulations.

“We will not hesitate to act, regardless of where a party is located, if they are violating U.S. law,” Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration Thea Rozman Kendler said in the same statement.
…

NATO leaders began arriving in Madrid Tuesday for a crucial summit on the alliance’s future – dominated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threat Moscow poses to the West. Henry Ridgwell reports from the Spanish capital.
…

One of France’s most high-profile trials in history wraps up this week amid a sharply changing security landscape across Europe, where the war in Ukraine and far-right violence have reshaped threat perceptions once dominated by Islamist extremism.

Verdicts are expected Wednesday in Paris, where 20 men stand accused of being involved in the November 2015 Islamic State attacks around the French capital in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more wounded.

Top defendant Salah Abdeslam, considered the lone surviving attacker, has captured news headlines throughout the months-long trial. He risks life without parole, France’s toughest sentence.

Since opening last September, the trial has revived memories of Islamist violence that spiraled across Europe and the Middle East a few years ago, when IS controlled a swath of Iraq and Syria, and French and other fighters were recruited to join its ranks and sow chaos at home.

But today, the IS caliphate has collapsed. Jihadi violence has dispersed, transformed and migrated to sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, other security threats are on the rise in Europe, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marking the newest and possibly most significant change, analysts say.

“After the war on terror that has dominated the last 20 years, there is a return to the politics of great power rivalries, to the more traditional nature of international relations,” said Thomas Renard, director of the International Center for Counter-Terrorism, referring not only to a rising Russia but also China.

“That doesn’t mean terrorism is going to magically disappear,” Renard added, “but it’s going to be a lesser priority, certainly at the international level.”

Across Europe and other Western countries, terrorist attacks declined by more than two-thirds in 2021 from their peak in 2018, according to the Global Terrorism Index that was published in March by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Meanwhile, Africa’s Sahel has become the world’s latest terror hotspot, the index said.

In Europe, politically motivated attacks — driven by far-left and far-right ideologies —have eclipsed Islamist and other religiously driven attacks that once controlled the region’s terrorism landscape, the index found.

“Terrorism is becoming more centered in conflict zones, underpinned by weak governments and political instability,” IEP Executive Chairman Steve Killelea said, adding, “as [the] conflict in Ukraine dominates global attention, it is crucial that the global fight against terrorism is not sidelined.”

Bodies, haunted survivors

A few years ago, there was little chance that terrorism would be sidelined. In January 2015, Paris saw a pair of radicalized brothers and a fellow assailant gun down more than a dozen people in separate attacks targeting the satirical Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket.

In November of that year, Paris experienced far worse: a bloody bombing and shooting rampage by a French-Belgian IS cell on a balmy Friday night. The extremists targeted young people packing the city’s bars, restaurants, soccer stadium and the Bataclan concert hall, leaving a trail of hundreds of bodies and haunted survivors in its wake.

With police barricading streets around Paris’ main courthouse during the lengthy trial, Abdeslam has been variously contemptuous, defiant and seemingly contrite.

He has apologized to victims, yet maintained allegiance to IS. Abdeslam claimed he chose not to detonate his explosive belt to avoid more carnage. Prosecutors argued instead that the belt malfunctioned.

Many of the 19 remaining defendants also face life sentences for playing key roles in assisting the killers in November 2015. Several have been tried in absentia.

After 2015, Europe experienced dozens of other deadly attacks. The following year saw bombings in Brussels and an attack on a Christmas market in Germany. Terrorists also mowed down pedestrians in the French Riviera city of Nice in July 2016 and on the London Bridge a year later. Among the most horrific incidents was the beheading of a French schoolteacher in a Paris suburb, in October 2020.

Today, experts and state security services worry not only about the potential threat posed by Islamists who have recently been released from European prisons or soon will be, but also other challenges.

“The threat has become more diffuse and more diverse,” Renard said. “We’re no longer confronted with a clear terrorist organization with a clear network of trained individuals. Rather, we’re dealing with a lot of loose individuals, loners, either linked to jihadi or to far-right ideology.”

Russia’s influence in Africa

Russia’s war in Ukraine is also reshaping European security priorities both at home —where the European Union has designated billions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine, and where Baltic states fear they may be next in Moscow’s crosshairs — and in Africa.

In Mali, Russia’s Wagner Group, with its reportedly close ties to the Kremlin, has edged out France and the European Union as the ruling junta’s key partner in its war on terror. Along with fighting the country’s myriad armed groups, Wagner mercenaries are allegedly waging a disinformation war against France and are blamed by rights groups for civilian atrocities.

Russia’s influence and interests extend well beyond Mali, analysts say, with Wagner a potent force in the Central African Republic, and Moscow’s influence expanding in other Sahel countries.

“The EU increasingly understands that its contest with Russia — sparked by [Russian] President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine — is spreading to different theaters, including those in Africa,” European Council on Foreign Relations analysts Andrew Lebovich and Theodore Murphy wrote in a recent commentary.

Their warning — also signaled by France in recent months — is being echoed in other European capitals, including Madrid, ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Spain.

Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine could spin off other security threats, Renard said, pointing to the influx of foreign volunteers joining Ukraine’s side against Russia.

“If this conflict continues over time and loses international attention, you could see some of these battalions splinter and reorganize along more ideological narratives. And that could become another form of terrorist organization,” Renard said.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday he stressed the need for a “powerful missile defense system for Ukraine to prevent Russian terrorist attacks” in talks with NATO’s leader. 

The phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg came ahead of the start of a summit of NATO leaders in Madrid where Ukraine is expected to be among the major topics of discussion. 

“At our NATO summit we will step up support for our close partner Ukraine, now and for the longer term,” Stoltenberg tweeted after speaking with Zelenskyy. “NATO allies stand with you.” 

Stoltenberg said Monday that the Western military alliance is declaring a sevenfold increase in the number of its troops on standby alert — from 40,000 to more than 300,000. 

Rescue crews in central Ukraine worked Tuesday to search for survivors at a shopping center where Russian forces carried out a missile strike on Monday, killing at least 18 people. 

Zelenskyy said there were more than 1,000 civilians inside the mall in the city of Kremenchuk at the time of the attack, which he called “calculated.” 

“This is not an accidental hit, this is a calculated Russian strike exactly onto this shopping center,” Zelenskyy said Monday in his nightly video address. He added that the strike “is one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.” 

Zelenskyy had said earlier on Telegram that the number of casualties is “impossible to even imagine” and said the shopping center, in a city 300 kilometers southeast of the capital, Kyiv, was “no danger to the Russian army, no strategic value.” 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted, “The world is horrified by Russia’s missile strike today, which hit a crowded Ukrainian shopping mall — the latest in a string of atrocities. We will continue to support our Ukrainian partners and hold Russia, including those responsible for atrocities, to account.” 

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called the attack “deplorable” and said the U.N. Security Council would meet Tuesday at Ukraine’s request following the strike. 

Group of Seven 

The missile strike took place as the Group of Seven leading industrialized economies met in Germany’s Bavarian Alps and pledged continued support for Ukraine. 

Leaders from the group called Monday’s missile strike “abominable” and said in a joint statement, “We stand united with Ukraine in mourning the innocent victims of this brutal attack.” 

The United States and the other members of the G-7 on Monday imposed new sanctions against Russia for its four-month invasion of Ukraine. 

These include measures to cut off Moscow from materials and services needed by its industrial and technology sectors. 

The White House said the United States will commit $7.5 billion as part of a G-7 effort to help Ukraine cover its short-term budget needs, and that the governments are making “an unprecedented, long-term security commitment to providing Ukraine with financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support as long as it takes.” 

In a joint communique, the G-7 said, “We remain appalled by and continue to condemn the brutal, unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine by Russia and aided by Belarus. We condemn and will not recognize Russia’s continued attempts to redraw borders by force.” 

Zelenskyy addressed the conference by video link earlier Monday and requested more weapons as well as help exporting grain past Russian blockades. 

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

Giving aid to Ukraine and pain to Vladimir Putin – those are the measures leaders of the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies zeroed in on Monday as they listened to Ukraine’s president plea for more help. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Telfs, Austria.
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to this week’s NATO summit in Madrid, threatening to veto Finland’s and Sweden’s bid to join the Atlantic alliance.

Ankara is warning it’s not ready to lift its veto threat of their NATO membership bid ahead of the alliance’s summit in Madrid on Tuesday.  

Erdogan’s chief adviser Ibrahim Kalin, speaking on Turkish TV Sunday, said Turkish demands had not been met. 

Kalin said Turkey has brought negotiations to a certain point and it is not possible for Turkish leaders to take a step back. He said Turkish diplomats told this to their counterparts and made it clear the next step is up to them.  

Erdogan wants Sweden and Finland to end their support of the Syrian Kurdish fighters of the YPG, which is linked to the PKK group that has been fighting the Turkish forces for decades, and which the Turkish government considers a terrorist organization.  

Finland and Sweden support the YPG, as do some NATO members, including the United States, in the war against the Islamic State group.  

Ankara also accuses Stockholm of giving sanctuary to people it says were responsible for the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. Local Turkish media reported Monday the Turkish government has submitted a list of people it wants extradited from Sweden and Finland.  

Turkey’s growing list of demands is a sign that Ankara has a broader agenda, said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

“Turkey wanted clearly a more expanded big grand bargain with NATO. It’s not getting that,” Aydintasbas said. “Instead, it’s getting a more bilateral conversation (among) Sweden and Finland (and) Turkey, and this has been a source of frustration. Erdogan wanted President (Joe) Biden himself to come into this conversation and put some incentives on the table. This hasn’t happened.” 

Aaron Stein of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia said despite Turkey’s potential veto, Sweden’s and Finland’s security will still be assured from any Russian threat. 

“Turkey can hold back, but they are not going to hold back the alliance. Things will move forward,” Stein said. “And let’s be clear here: The most important NATO member country is the United States. It’s the country that guarantees the security of them all. So, If the U.S. gives security to these two countries — which Joe Biden has effectively done — well, we’ve reassured in terms of what the U.S. will do: It will be to increase allied presence in Finland and Sweden.” 

Erdogan is due to hold a series of meetings at the Madrid summit aimed at resolving the impasse.  

Analyst Aydintasbas said a deal can still be reached.   

“It can drag on, or it can be resolved at the NATO summit. Depends on how (much) bigger reward NATO member states and NATO itself wants to put on the table,” Aydintasbas said. “Also depends on how much pressure there will be on Turkey. I think what Erdogan is seeking is at least visibility with NATO leaders, that he can present to the Turkish public as the global leader that has brought a big diplomatic victory for Turkey.” 

Analysts say Erdogan is falling behind in the polls and needs a boost as he faces reelection a year from now. They also say the president knows that standing up to NATO plays well with his voting base and he may want to retain leverage over his alliance partners beyond the Madrid summit.  

 
…

Russia moved closer Sunday to defaulting on international debt payments for the first time in a century. 

Interest payments totaling $100 million on two bonds were originally due May 27, but carried a 30-day grace period. 

Russia has struggled to make such payments due to restrictions on its financial activities and sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine in February. 

Russia’s attack on Ukraine continued on Sunday, when Russian forces launched new missile attacks on Ukraine’s two biggest cities, the capital of Kyiv and Kharkiv. 

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least two apartment buildings in the city were hit, leaving at least one person dead, and four others injured. 

Russia ramped up its use of cruise missiles, striking targets across northwestern Ukraine. Air raid sirens blared in several cities. 

“It’s more of their barbarism,” U.S. President Joe Biden said of the Russian strike on Kyiv as he appeared at a G-7 welcoming ceremony with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a key focus of the summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address the meeting Monday. 

Biden said that the United States and the other G-7 economies will ban the import of Russian gold, the latest sanction imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month. 

The leaders of the G-7 nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — are trying to maintain unity against Russia, even with the war’s growing toll on the global economy, including in the U.S., which is confronting a four-decade high surge in consumer prices. 

The new attack on Kyiv came a day after the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, a major victory for Russia after weeks of fierce fighting. 

Russia now controls virtually all of the Luhansk province, part of the eastern Donbas region that Moscow is trying to take over, one of its major war aims. 

Ukraine said Russian forces had fully occupied Lysychansk, a neighboring city of Sievierodonetsk, in the eastern Luhansk region. Moscow claimed it had encircled about 2,000 Ukrainian troops in the area. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Shackled and looking wary, WNBA star Brittney Griner was ordered to stand trial Friday by a court near Moscow on cannabis possession charges, about 4 1/2 months after her arrest at an airport while returning to play for a Russian team. 

The Phoenix Mercury center and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist also was ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial. Griner could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned. 

At Monday’s closed-door preliminary hearing at the court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months. Photos obtained by The Associated Press showed the 31-year-old in handcuffs and looking straight ahead, unlike a previous court appearance where she kept her head down and covered with a hood. 

Her detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine. 

Amid the tensions, Griner’s supporters had taken a low profile in hopes of a quiet resolution, until May, when the State Department reclassified her as wrongfully detained and shifted oversight of her case to its special presidential envoy for hostage affairs — effectively the U.S. government’s chief negotiator. 

Griner’s wife, Cherelle, urged President Joe Biden in May to secure her release, calling her “a political pawn.” 

Her supporters have encouraged a prisoner swap like the one in April that brought home Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug trafficking conspiracy. 

Russian news media have repeatedly raised speculation that she could be swapped for Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” who is serving a 25-year sentence on conviction of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and providing aid to a terrorist organization. 

Russia has agitated for Bout’s release for years. But the discrepancy between Griner’s case — she allegedly was found in possession of vape cartridges containing cannabis oil — and Bout’s global dealings in deadly weapons could make such a swap unpalatable to the U.S. 

Others have suggested that she could be traded in tandem with Paul Whelan, a former Marine and security director serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction that the United States has repeatedly described as a set-up. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asked Sunday on CNN whether a joint swap of Griner and Whelan for Bout was being considered, sidestepped the question. 

“As a general proposition … I have got no higher priority than making sure that Americans who are being illegally detained in one way or another around the world come home,” he said. But “I can’t comment in any detail on what we’re doing, except to say this is an absolute priority.” 

Any swap would apparently require Griner to first be convicted and sentenced, then apply for a presidential pardon, Maria Yarmush, a lawyer specializing in international civil affairs, told Kremlin-funded TV channel RT. 
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