Top U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into the occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine an assault on democracy.

“It’s stunning to see – in this day and age – a tyrant rolling into a country. This is the same tyrant who attacked our democracy in 2016,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference, recalling Putin’s interference in U.S. elections.

Pelosi and other top Democrats returning from participation in the Munich Security Conference this week praised President Joe Biden for working with European allies to maintain a united front in deterring Russia.

“The decision to essentially cancel the process of moving forward with the [Nord Stream 2] pipeline, I think, is a very strong indication of the solidarity of NATO and our other allies to punish Putin for this naked aggression and the prospect of further devastating sanctions,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters of the decision to cancel certification of the key pipeline delivering Russian gas to Europe.

Biden announced Tuesday that the U.S. also would sanction Russian officials and banks in response to Putin’s speech claiming Donetsk and Luhansk were independent of Ukraine. The White House is expected to announce additional sanctions this week.

Sequence of sanctions

Despite significant bipartisan unity for deterring Russian aggression in Ukraine, Democrats and Republicans have struggled to agree on how to sequence sanctions to discourage and penalize Putin for incursions into the independent eastern European nation.

An estimated 150,000 Russian troops have massed at the border with Ukraine in recent weeks. Putin’s claim that Donetsk and Luhansk were no longer a part of Ukraine opened the door for so-called Russian “peacekeeping” troops to go into those areas. The U.S. and its allies called this mission a false-flag operation to allow further incursion into Ukraine.

Congressional Republicans have criticized the White House’s approach to the crisis, calling the Russian leader’s move an invasion and accusing the Biden administration of waiting until it is too late to deter Putin.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the first round of sanctions was “too little, too late. First, these sanctions should have happened before Putin further invaded Ukraine — not after. Second, economic sanctions now need to more aggressively target Putin’s oligarchs to make sure they feel real pain. Third, we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that today’s incremental sanctions will deter Putin from trying to install a puppet government in Kyiv.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a top Capitol Hill ally of former President Donald Trump, had a direct message for Biden late Tuesday: “You said a couple years ago that Putin did not want you to win because you’re the only person that could go toe-to-toe with him. Well, right now, Mr. President, you’re playing footsie with Putin. He’s walking all over you and our allies.”

Working with allies

Democrats praised Biden, though, for working in concert with European allies and avoiding escalating the crisis.

“I think the administration handled this, given the Russian intentions, as well as it could be handled,” Schiff told reporters Wednesday. “They telegraphed in advance the punitive sanctions that would be applied if Russia invaded. I think it makes sense not to enforce those sanctions before Russia invaded. If you do that, then Russia loses its disincentive and figures, ‘Well, we’ve already been sanctioned. We might as well move forward with it.’ ”

Small minorities within both the Republican and Democratic parties have cautioned against escalating tensions with Putin.

“While we work in coordination with our European allies to respond and impose targeted sanctions, we must continue to do all we can to de-escalate and utilize the full power of diplomacy to find a negotiated solution to this crisis,” Democratic Representative Barbara Lee – the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – said in a statement Wednesday.

“I am confident in President Biden’s repeated commitment to keep U.S. military personnel out of any conflict in Ukraine itself,” Lee continued.

Several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus have expressed concern the U.S. could become mired in a ground war in Ukraine, despite Biden’s repeated statements that the U.S. would not commit troops to the conflict.

Senator Bob Menendez and Senator Bob Risch, the top-ranking Democrat and Republican, respectively, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have separately introduced sanctions bills that would end Russian access to international banking transactions, provide hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, and cut off funding for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Congress is in recess this week and will be back in session at the end of the month.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called up army reservists and ordered military exercises for volunteers in newly created territorial defense brigades, but senior opposition lawmakers and former ministers fear the country is ill-prepared for war with Russia — despite their pleas to the government to get organized.

With credible reports mounting of more Russian forces crossing into Moscow’s breakaway republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, a clamor is building from opposition parties in the Verkhovna Rada, the country’s parliament, for much more intensive war-planning. They are demanding the government start in earnest to draft civil defense orders and to mobilize Ukrainians.

Zelenskyy, in a televised address February 22, said Russia’s threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty has compelled him to recall reservists to active duty, but he has urged civilians to go about their normal lives and he has turned his back on mobilizing civilians and to allocate civil defense and emergency roles.

In his short speech overnight Monday, he said: “Regarding security and defense. Today there is no need for general mobilization. We need to promptly replenish the Ukrainian army and other military formations.”

Zelenskyy has been saying for weeks that Ukrainians should remain calm, and he publicly upbraided earlier this month US politicians for warning of an imminent invasion — saying it was damaging Ukraine’s economy and risked panicking Ukrainians unduly. He is being restrained in defense planning for the same reason, political allies told VOA.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, a former deputy prime minister in the government of Zelenskyy’s predecessor Petro Poroshenko and now a lawmaker, complains Zelenskyy has been much too slow to prepare Ukraine for an existential war. She harbors no doubts that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is methodically uncoiling his forces on her country’s borders — and that serious defense planning should have been under way long before now.

For months she and some other opposition lawmakers have been trying to get additional funding for Ukraine’s armed forces, but the legislation has languished in the Verkhovna Rada. The extra funding has only just been included for consideration.

State of emergency

“I really hope that finally today [Wednesday] we will take the decision in the Parliament on allocating additional money to the armed forces of Ukraine in order to both raise salaries for the officers and soldiers but also to be able to buy more weaponry,” she told VOA. She says Zelenskyy should be asking the United States for a Lend-Lease program, modeled on the one Franklin D. Roosevelt set up in World War II, which enabled the US to supply Britain, Russia, and Free France with food, oil and military equipment.

On Wednesday the country’s defense and security council asked Zelenskyy to declare a state of emergency and Zelenskyy has agreed to do so. But he is also being urged by lawmakers to announce martial law in Donbas, something his aides say would be spun by Moscow as provocative.

Klympush-Tsintsadze and other lawmakers are alarmed at the absence of serious civil defense and emergency planning. “We are pushing the government to ensure we have strategic resources available — energy, food, water and medical supplies. We also need to know how many medical professionals we have capable of treating war injuries,” she says.

Asked why she thinks there has been little detailed planning for a bigger war going far beyond eastern Ukraine, she fumes: “I think it’s because for three years, Zelenskyy has been hoping that his special charm will soothe Putin. He seems to think that in order to stop the war all we have to do is stop shooting. And obviously that has proven wrong. There has been a lack of professionalism.”

She says she is being inundated by friends, acquaintances and constituents asking what they can do in a national effort to defend Ukraine, but there is no guidance from the government. Only on Monday did Zelenskyy meet leaders of all the parliamentary factions and parties — the first time he has done so in the three years he has been in office, she complains.

Other prominent lawmakers are anxious about Ukraine’s preparedness for war, although they all believe that Moscow is seriously underestimating the fighting spirit of Ukrainians. They say the international media is too focused on stories about individual Ukrainians displaying fortitude and expressing defiance, but the nuts-and-bolts of fighting a war will be crucial and the media should be asking questions of the government about defense planning.

Opposition discontent

Lesia Vasylenko, one of 20 parliamentarians from Holos (Voice), a liberal and pro-European political party judges that Putin’s speech on Monday amounts to a “declaration of war,” or rather an intention to wage a bigger war, a continuation of aggression against Ukraine that goes back to 2014 when Russia annexed forcibly Crimea and shaped the creation of what she sees as “make-believe” republics in eastern Ukraine.

But she isn’t happy with Zelenskyy’s performance. She says he should have given his response to Putin’s speech not in the early hours of the morning and on television “but in parliament, on the podium, addressing lawmakers, the representatives of the Ukrainian people.”

She told VOA: “It would have had immense impact and meaning to the people of Ukraine and could have raised morale and sent a much more powerful message to Putin.” But she is also frustrated by the lack of preparedness and thinks Zelenskyy thinks only one step ahead, unlike Putin who is thinking four or five moves ahead.

Zelenskyy, a 44-year-old former television star and political novice, has been determined to keep his nerve and to try to cool tensions, say allies.

An informal adviser to Ukraine’s leader said he “also wants to avoid doing anything Moscow could claim is provocative and war-like.” He added: “We need to pace ourselves.” He spoke on condition he not be identified in this article.

Vasylenko adds: “Ukraine is trapped with a national leader who does not think strategically because he doesn’t have the people around him who think strategically. I think that’s the thing that he will be blamed for later. It’s not about knowing everything. It’s about refusing to have in your entourage experts who know what questions to ask and having advisers who can contradict and challenge you. He picked close friends and trusted allies with little technical or government experience over real experts, and we may pay a price for that.”

She and other opposition lawmakers say they have for weeks pleaded with ministers to draw up strategic civil defense plans. Vasylenko has been at the forefront clamoring for details on what energy and food reserves the country has readied but she hasn’t been able to secure answers.

On Friday, some key committees have an oversight hearing with the cabinet of ministers and will be pressing again for details. “But to be honest, I’m very skeptical we will get any answers, because every time we make specific requests for information from ministries or regional departments, we get nothing — they just don’t have any information,” she says.

Some lawmakers who attended last week’s Munich Security Conference say they were disappointed when some European politicians told them Ukraine should be readying to form a government in exile. The suggestions dovetail with unconfirmed reports that U.S. officials have raised with Zelenskyy the idea of relocating from Kyiv to Lviv in western Ukraine near the Polish border — to where the U.S. and some other Western powers have moved their ambassadors.

Klympush-Tsintsadze says when the idea was raised with her at Munich that plans should be drawn up for a government-in-exile, she responded with disgust. “We are not going anywhere,” she says. “People were very disappointed when Western military instructors were withdrawn from Ukraine and when the embassies were relocated. It did not play well with Ukrainians.”

She adds: “I was mad yesterday when a TV journalist from a foreign broadcaster asked me why we would fight back and try to withstand an attack from Russia, which has one of the biggest armies in the World. I reacted emotionally. If my services as a lawmaker are not needed, at that point I will either get a weapon or do something useful and bandage the wounded, I know how to do that.”
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With Russia announcing it will continue its military drills with Belarus, many observers believe it is just another step by Moscow to prepare for a wider invasion of Ukraine. Russia had originally said the drills would end on February 20 – as Maxim Moskalkov reports.
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Greek authorities have suspended the search for 10 people missing in a ferry fire near Greece. The vessel is being towed to a mainland port five days after the blaze started.  

The Euroferry Olympia caught fire last Friday three hours after leaving Igoumenitsa, Greece, for Brindisi, Italy. The ferry was carrying 292 people. Only 278 were evacuated safely to shore. 

Ten people remain unaccounted for. Greek officials said they were thought to be truck drivers from Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, BBC News reported. 

Greek authorities requested Tuesday that the ferry be towed from a spot off the Island of Corfu, where it was originally towed after the blaze, to a safe harbor on mainland Greece. Rescuers will continue operations once the ferry arrives at the mainland.  

Greece’s fire service said Tuesday that “its operational capability for search and rescue (on the ship), in its present position, has been exhausted,” according to a coast guard statement, The Associated Press reported. 

The ferry is expected to arrive midday in the harbor of Astakos, a small port town in western Greece. Relatives of the missing will be provided with housing in Astakos as the search resumes.  

The ferry had been towed Sunday to Corfu, in the Ionian Sea off Greece’s northwest coast. Dozens of fire survivors were taken to a hotel on the island. Extreme temperatures, darkness and smoke made it difficult to search the vessel, said Greek coast guard spokesperson Nikolaos Alexiou, according to The New York Times. 

Earlier Sunday, a 21-year-old truck driver from Belarus was found alive at the stern of the ferry.  

“Tell me I’m alive,” he shouted as rescuers helped him off the ferry, BBC News reported.  

Hours later, a fire crew found the body of a 58-year-old Greek truck driver, the first confirmed death.  

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The company that operates the ferry said the fire had begun in a hold where vehicles were parked, AP reported. Truckers interviewed by Greek state TV said Saturday that some truck drivers might have chosen to sleep in their vehicles rather than in the ferry’s crowded cabins.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 

 
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An hourslong hostage standoff at the Apple Store in Amsterdam ended late Tuesday with police in a car driving into the hostage taker as he ran from the store. His hostage was safe, police said. 

“We can confirm that the hostage taker is out of the Apple Store,” police said in a tweet. “He is lying on the street and a robot is checking him for explosives. Armed police officers have him under control from a distance. The hostage is safe.” 

Police then said that the man did not have explosives and that medical staff were attending to him. There was no word on his condition. 

The motive for the incident was not immediately clear. Local broadcaster AT5 suggested the standoff was the result of an attempted armed robbery. AT5 said witnesses reported hearing shots fired. 

Dozens of police, including heavily armed specialist arrest teams, massed around the store, cleared and sealed off the nearby Leidseplein square and urged people living there or in shops or cafes nearby to remain indoors. The square ringed by bars and restaurants is close to one of the Dutch capital’s main shopping streets.  

Police said dozens of people managed to leave the building during the standoff but declined to give more details about the situation in the popular store. 

As police lines were set up to keep people away from the store, a helicopter could be heard hovering overhead. The police asked people not to publish images or livestream the hostage situation “for the safety of the people involved and our deployment.”  

Earlier, video posted on social media appeared to show an armed person in the store, apparently holding somebody else. It was not clear how many people were in the store. 

A spokesman for Apple in the Netherlands did not respond to requests seeking comment. 

 
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Monday nights in any city — even the liveliest — can be quiet, but on this Monday evening, Kyiv was noticeably more subdued than usual. The roads were emptier, there were fewer pedestrians about, and the bars and restaurants were pretty much abandoned. 

It was as if the season finale of a popular reality TV show was being broadcast. In a sense, an episode of reality TV was playing, but it wasn’t clear if this was a finale or the opening of an especially dark new season. 

Reports from Russia had been circulating from late afternoon that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, would be making a big announcement. 

And when it came — all 56 minutes of it — people were left open-mouthed and afraid about what it might presage. They had half-expected he would recognize the two breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine that Moscow had fashioned eight years ago in the wake of the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine’s president in a popular uprising that infuriated Putin. 

But the bellicosity of the speech; the depth of hostility to the West, as Ukrainians saw it; and what they say was a fanciful narrative about the history of Ukraine left them reeling. 

“I was surprised, but maybe it was to be expected,” 27-year-old makeup artist Aleksandra told me as I interrupted her conversation with her friend Katya, 36, a singer, near Kyiv’s Independence Square, or Maidan. 

“We all started phoning each other, all my friends and family, and some people said his speech means a much bigger war, not just in eastern Ukraine,” she said. “Some people talked about packing their bags and leaving, but we calmed them down.” 

Aleksandra and her husband have talked about what they should do if war creeps nearer. 

“We have discussed two options,” she told me. “Leaving Kyiv for my parents’ village in northwestern Ukraine near Poland. Or maybe we will stay here and be useful — people will need free hands to help.”  

But, she added, “I did think as I listened to Putin, how does one get a gun?” 

That thought has occurred to others. And Ukrainians, who have guns for sport, hunting or self-protection, have been stocking up on ammunition, said Andriy, who works at a gun store in the affluent historic neighborhood of Podil, which overlooks the Dnieper River. 

His store, Armelit, advertises itself as a hunting boutique and stocks some expensive high-end weapons, including vintage British double-barreled shotguns of the type wielded by aristocrats on the historical TV drama “Downton Abbey.” His store was low on ammunition, he said, and he had heard others had none and were scrambling to buy more. 

The buying spree started several weeks ago, when U.S. leaders started to issue ever more dire warnings about the imminence of war. 

“People are buying guns and ammunition for self-protection, national defense and because they worry about looting,” he said. He reels off a list of the most popular calibers of ammunition: .233, 5.56, 7.62. He proudly hands me an English double-barreled shotgun made in 1909 and valued at $20,000. He nods approvingly when I check that the barrels are clear of cartridges. 

Outside in Kontraktova Square, two young boys clamber over a statue of a Cossack. The square is full of people sitting on benches and talking or reading alone. I fall in with two widows, both dressed in red quilt coats, both silver haired.  

“We don’t want war,” 75-year-old Halyna said. She was born in Moscow and married a Russian army officer. Her face livens when she tells me how they traveled before settling in Kyiv. 

“What happens to us doesn’t matter; we have lived our lives,” she said. “But the young — our sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters — are who I worry about. We will give them to Ukraine to help the country, but I worry about them.” 

Then she looks me directly in the eye and says: “What’s happening is a big state is bullying a small state; Russia is an elephant, and we are a rabbit. I have friends all over the world — in Russia, America, Israel and Europe. I like everyone. There’s no need for this.” 

Nearby 20-year-old Myroslava is reading a book. She’s a business student and has just got an internship in a company. Her reaction to Putin’s speech was firm. 

“Yes, unfortunately I saw it,” she said. “I didn’t appreciate his thoughts, and he was telling Russians what they should think.”  

She says that Ukraine has been at war for eight years and she is not afraid.  

“Ukraine has a strong army, and we can protect ourselves, and other countries are supporting us. I just have to believe that,” she said. Her parents have asked her what she intends to do. Will she come home? They would prefer that. But for now, she will remain in Kyiv. 

Later I have drinks with Lesia Vasylenko, 34, a mother and lawmaker. She’s one of 20 parliamentarians from Holos (Voice), a liberal and pro-European political party. She says everyone feels as though they are in limbo. 

“It is a crazy time,” she said. “We are certainly living in a period which will be in the history books, and we are the people who are witnessing and making history, each one of us separately.” 

She judges Putin’s speech as a “declaration of war” or an intention to wage a bigger war, a continuation of aggression against Ukraine that goes back to 2014, when Russia forcibly annexed Crimea and shaped the creation of what she sees as “make-believe” republics in eastern Ukraine. 

She isn’t happy with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who she says should have given his response to Putin not in the early hours of the morning and on television “but in parliament, on the podium, addressing lawmakers, the representatives of the Ukrainian people, and not a short speech saying I have had so many calls with international leaders.” 

“It would have had immense impact and meaning to the people of Ukraine and could have raised morale and sent a much more powerful message to Putin,” she added. 
…

U.S. President Joe Biden cut off the Russian government from international financing on Tuesday and imposed sanctions on two large banks, declaring that its actions in Ukraine were “a flagrant violation of international law.”  

He also ordered the movement of infantry troops and air support from elsewhere in Europe closer to Russia’s borders, as the region girds for possible confrontation. 

In a brief White House speech, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order late Monday to send troops across the eastern Ukraine border into the Luhansk and Donetsk regions was “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Hours earlier, Putin declared the regions as independent, no longer part of Ukraine.  

Biden pointedly asked, “Who in the Lord’s name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belonged to his neighbors?”  

The U.S. leader said his sanctions would cut off the Russian government “from raising money from the West,” and vowed that Russia “will pay an even steeper price (with more sanctions) if its forces advance further” west into Ukraine.  

The sanctions announced Tuesday target three men in Putin’s inner circle: Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service; Sergei Kiriyenko, a top official in Putin’s office; and Peter Fradkov, chairman of Promsvyazbank.  

A senior administration official told reporters that the sanctions target two banks especially close to Russia’s leadership, including one — Vnesheconombank — that holds more than $50 billion in assets.  Daleep Singh, deputy national security adviser for international economics, described it as “a glorified piggy bank for the Kremlin.” 

“Make no mistake — this is only the sharp edge of the pain we can inflict,” he said. 

Some analysts say the administration could have done more.   

“The sanctions announced (Monday) will have almost no impact, either in economic or political terms,” Chris Miller, a Russia analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA. “The sanctions announced today — notably the sovereign debt sanctions — will have a minor, negative macroeconomic impact on Russia.” 

Biden said the United States has no intention of “fighting Russia,” by moving troops from elsewhere in Europe. But he said that “none of us should be fooled; none of us will be fooled” by Putin’s intentions in deploying what he characterized as “peacekeeping forces” into the one-time Soviet republic.  

On Tuesday, Biden also met at the White House with Ukraine’s foreign minister and “reiterated the readiness of the United States, in close cooperation with our Allies and partners, to respond swiftly and decisively to any further Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the White House said.  

In a speech at the Kremlin on Monday, Putin declared that Ukraine was never an independent state and was part of a greater Russian sphere of influence, not a “puppet” of the West.  

“He directly attacked Ukraine’s right to exist,” Biden said of Putin, adding that there is “still time to avert the worst-case scenario” of a full-on invasion through diplomatic settlement of the crisis.  

But, Biden concluded, “We’re going to judge Russia by its actions, not its words.”   

Biden warned Americans, “Defending freedom will have costs,” with higher gasoline prices as world oil prices surge with the threat of further violence in Ukraine and an expanded Russian invasion.  

Biden’s implementation of long-promised sanctions came as other Western allies quickly moved Tuesday to punish Russia with sanctions of their own.      

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz halted authorization for Nord Stream 2, the completed but not yet operational natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, at least temporarily curbing potential fuel deliveries to Germany but also depriving Moscow of revenue from the pipeline.    

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Parliament he had sanctioned five Russian banks and three “high net worth” executives, freezing their assets in Britain and cutting off financial transactions with them.    

“This is the first tranche, the first barrage, of what we are prepared to do,” Johnson said.    

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday gave Putin permission to use military force outside the country, possibly presaging a broader attack on Ukraine   

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “Russian troops are on Ukrainian soil” in Donetsk and Luhansk but that it was not a “fully fledged invasion.”    

For weeks, the U.S. and European allies have warned of swift and severe consequences for Russia if it launched an invasion of Ukraine, a possibility viewed with growing concern as Russia deployed 150,000 troops and military equipment along its border with Ukraine and in Belarus, a Russian ally to the north of Ukraine.       

Russian tanks entered eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region overnight, Western diplomats and residents in Donetsk confirmed to VOA.  It was unclear if their presence constituted significant movement of Russian forces or instead movement of Russian-backed militias already in eastern Ukraine.   

Biden issued an initial set of sanctions Monday in response to Putin’s recognition of the breakaway regions and his order to deploy what he called Russian peacekeeping forces.       

 A senior Biden administration official told reporters that the first round of sanctions was specifically tied to those actions and did not represent the “swift and severe economic measures we have been preparing in coordination with allies and partners should Russia further invade Ukraine.”       

Biden’s Monday order prohibited new investment, trade and financing by Americans in Luhansk and Donetsk after Putin declared them independent from Ukraine.    

From a desk at the Kremlin, Putin delivered a nearly hourlong televised address to the Russian people on Monday, outlining his version of the history of national boundaries in Europe and the 1990s breakup of the Soviet Union.      

Putin also said there was “no prospect” for peace to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, but Moscow has contended it has no plans to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.      

“This wasn’t a speech just about Russia’s security,” a senior U.S. administration official said. “It was an attack on the very idea of a sovereign and independent Ukraine. He (Putin) made clear that he views Ukraine historically as part of Russia. And he made a number of false claims about Ukraine that seemed designed to excuse possible military action. This was a speech to the Russian people to justify war.”    

VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report.     

 
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Germany on Tuesday halted the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea natural gas pipeline project designed to double the flow of Russian gas to Germany, a day after Moscow formally recognized the Russian-occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent states. 

What is Nord Stream 2? 

The more than $11 billion project that has bothered Germany’s allies was completed in September but has been idle pending certification by Germany and the European Union.  

Nord Stream 2 was halted as it was set to ease pressure on European consumers facing soaring energy prices and governments that have spent billions of dollars to limit the impact on their citizens. 

The 1,200-kilometer underwater Nord Stream 2 follows the same path as Nord Stream 1, which was finished more than a decade ago. 

Like Nord Stream 1, the idle pipeline is capable of transporting 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Russia to elsewhere in Europe, potentially boosting the continent’s access to relatively low-priced gas when domestic production is declining. 

Why did Germany support Nord Stream 2? 

Germany, which gets half its gas from Russia, maintained the pipeline was mainly a commercial project to diversify energy supplies for Europe. 

Germany aggressively pursued the pipeline for years, working through the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, several spying scandals and multiple cyberattacks.  

Even as some 150,000 Russian troops steadily assembled on Ukraine’s borders, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not mention the name of the pipeline when asked about possible sanctions against Russia.  

Why is Germany taking action now? 

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to recognize the Russian-occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent.  Hours later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had requested a halt to the pipeline approval process, despite record high gas prices in Europe. 

Scholtz said Russia’s decision to recognize the independence of the rebel-held areas was a “serious break of international law” and that it was necessary to “send a clear signal to Moscow that such actions won’t remain without consequences.” 

Scholz, who succeeded Angela Merkel in December, also said he withdrew a report that Germany was required to submit on how the pipeline would affect energy security.  

Why does Russia want the pipeline? 

The Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom, which owns half of Nord Stream 2, said the pipeline would meet Europe’s needs for relatively affordable gas and supplement existing pipelines in Ukraine and Belarus. 

Gazprom said Nord Stream 2 would offer an alternative to Ukraine’s aging pipeline that it says needs refurbishment. The gas giant also said the new pipeline would lower costs by saving transit fees paid to Ukraine and avoid gas cutoffs like those that occurred briefly in 2006 and 2009 due to Russia-Ukraine disputes over prices and payments. 

Europe is in growing need of gas because it is replacing decommissioned coal and nuclear plants before the energy they produce can be replaced by renewable sources such as wind and solar.  

Why do the United States and most other Western allies oppose Nord Stream 2? 

The European Union and the United States argued that Nord Stream 2 would increase Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and deny transit fees to Ukraine, host to a separate Russian gas pipeline, and make Ukraine more vulnerable to Russian invasion amid Europe’s worst crisis since the Cold War.

They also contend the pipeline would give Russia the possibility of using gas as a geopolitical weapon, as Europe imports most of its gas, 40% of which comes from Russia.  

Ukraine, which has been in conflict with Russia since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, has long opposed Nord Stream 2. The pipeline bypasses Ukraine’s infrastructure, depriving it of more than $1 billion annually in gas transit fees, while making Russia less dependent on cooperation with Ukraine. 

U.S. President Joe Biden waived sanctions against the pipeline’s operator last year in exchange for an agreement from Germany to act against Russia if it used gas as a weapon or attacked Ukraine.

How will suspending Nord Stream 2 affect Europeans this winter? 

European regulators said before Scholz’s move the approval process could not be completed in the first half of this year, meaning the pipeline was not going to help European households meet heating and electricity needs this winter. 

Could Russia cut off gas to Europe in retaliation? 

Many expert observers believe Russia would not cut off supplies to Europe because Gazprom also needs the European market. Russian officials have also emphasized they have no plans to do so. 

Half of Nord Stream 2 is owned by the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom and the rest is divided between the Anglo-Dutch company Shell, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, and Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall. 

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

 
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Despite his country’s recently warming ties with Russia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Moscow’s decision to recognize the two Ukrainian enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Speaking to reporters, President Erdogan described as “unacceptable” Russia’s recognition of the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, calling on all parties to abide by international law.

Turkey has strongly backed Ukraine, even selling Kyiv its latest military drones despite protests from Moscow. Last October, a Kremlin spokesman warned that Turkey’s ongoing arms sales to Ukraine threaten to destabilize the region.

Russia’s increasingly aggressive policy in the shared Black Sea region is causing Ankara concern, says international relations professor Mustafa Aydin of Istanbul’s Kadir Has University.

“Until a few years (ago), Turkey had the most powerful navy in the Black Sea after the Cold War, but now Russia has surpassed,” Aydin said. “Especially the militarization of the zone by Russia, not only Crimea, but across the Black Sea region from Armenia to the north Caucasus, to the Ukrainian border; it puts not only Turkey but all the NATO countries in a defensive position.”

Erdogan has in recent years developed close relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, extending from cooperating in Syria to trade and investment. Asli Aydintasbas, a senior Fellow of the European Council, says that relationship has put Moscow in a strong position with Ankara.

“Russia holds way too many cards. They hold the card of refugees in Syria. One sortie from a Russian fighter jet could get people in Syria to panic and run to the border,” Aydintasbas said. “They hold the natural gas card: Turkey in the middle of winter, does need Russian gas. And Russians have been investing in Turkey’s key infrastructure. They are building Turkey’s first nuclear reactor.”

Analysts point out that Turkey’s dependency on Russian energy exports and cooperation in Syria mean Erdogan will have to tread carefully with Moscow. In addition, Russia sends Turkey its largest number of vacationers, boosting itss key tourism sector, which provides vital foreign currency to the country’s beleaguered economy.

Analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners warns that with the Turkish economy struggling to recover from a currency collapse last year, Turkey is especially vulnerable to any retaliation from Russia.

“If the (Turkish) currency weakens once more obviously, it will immediately pass through to inflation,” Yesilada said. “Then inflation would shoot up to hyperinflation levels which is unstable inflation which may reach three digits.”

Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin – in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt last weekend – criticized sanctions on Russia, saying they were useless. Turkey strongly opposed earlier economic measures against Russia.

As Ankara works to balance relations with both its Western allies and the Kremlin, analysts say this juggling act could face its greatest test in decades if the crisis over Ukraine deepens.
…

Slovakia marked on Monday the anniversary of the 2018 slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee by unveiling a monument to honor them at a central square in the capital of Bratislava.

Prime Minister Eduard Heger and the parents of the two were among those attending the unveiling ceremony.

Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova, both 27, were shot dead at their home in the town of Velka Maca, east of Bratislava, on Feb. 21, 2018.

Kuciak had been investigating possible government corruption when he was killed. The killings prompted major street protests unseen since the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and a political crisis that led to the government’s collapse.

“I thank all those who work to prevent people from forgetting what happened and why it happened,” Kusnirova’s mother Zlatica said.

Three defendants have been sentenced in the case. Among them, a former soldier who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting the two received 25 years in prison. 

In June, Slovakia’s Supreme Court dismissed a lower court’s acquittal of a businessman accused of masterminding the slayings. A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court said the lower court did not properly assess available evidence when it cleared businessman Marian Kocner and one co-defendant of murder.

It ordered a retrial that is scheduled to begin next week.

Prosecutors alleged Kocner ordered the killing. He denies that.

Kocner had allegedly threatened Kuciak following the publication of a story about his business dealings.

In the meantime, Kocner was sentenced to 19 years in prison in a separate forgery case.
…

Russia’s decision to send troops into two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine is forcing a difficult choice for China, which has aligned itself closer with Moscow but could face blowback if it is seen as supporting the unilateral redrawing of international borders, analysts say.

The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday formally recognized the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and ordered what it called “peacekeepers” into the contested regions. The moves followed a fiery speech in which Putin questioned Ukraine’s very statehood, further raising concern he is planning a large-scale invasion.

The situation is tricky for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who earlier this month declared a “no limits” partnership with Russia following a meeting with Putin. The meeting was the latest evidence Russia and China have drawn closer as both attempt to counter U.S. global influence.

But the Ukraine issue is already testing how far that enhanced partnership can go. Analysts say China is likely concerned about foreign turmoil that could impact its economy, especially during a sensitive year of domestic political maneuvering meant to shape what is expected to be Xi’s indefinite rule.

China, which has long insisted it opposes interference in other countries’ internal affairs, may also be worried about its international reputation taking a hit.

On Saturday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Munich Security Conference that the sovereignty of all nations should be respected. “Ukraine is no exception,” he added.

In recent weeks, China has called for restraint on all sides in Ukraine, as well as a return to the Minsk Agreements, which were meant to restore peace following a flare-up of violence along the Russia-Ukraine border in 2014.

But by recognizing the two disputed Ukrainian territories, Putin “obliterated” the Minsk Agreements, in the process essentially destroying a key Chinese talking point, says Derek Grossman, a senior analyst who focuses on Asia at the RAND Corporation, a California-based global policy research organization. “All of that is completely out the window if Russia does invade,” Grossman told VOA.

Speaking late Monday at an emergency meeting on Ukraine at the United Nations Security Council, China’s U.N. envoy Zhang Jun issued only brief remarks, calling for all sides to “exercise restraint.” He did not mention the Minsk Agreements.

The speech “reads like a placeholder,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “China hasn’t decided what its policy response should be yet,” she concluded.

In some ways, the situation mirrors that of 2014, when Russia seized the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine. At the time, China also responded by insisting that Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty should be respected but that the West should consider Russia’s “legitimate security concerns.”

Since then, however, geopolitics has shifted. Not only have U.S.-China ties worsened, China has gotten stronger economically and militarily and is now bolder about challenging U.S. power.

But Ryan Hass, a China scholar at the U.S.-based Brookings Institution, cautioned against assuming China has already chosen to support Russia on the Ukraine issue.

“If there is war in Ukraine, and if China actively attempts to shield Russia from global condemnation, then China may spur a self-harming solidification of blocs” in which China is aligned with “the weakest other major power,” he tweeted.

China may also be reluctant to damage its diplomatic and economic relationship with Europe, which is strongly opposed to a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Beijing needs to be helped toward realizing that going all-in on the China-Russia relationship carries more risks than benefits,” Hass said.

Other analysts are more pessimistic. Russia and China may be determined to form a relationship that can overturn large swaths of U.S. dominance, argued Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, in an editorial in The Washington Post.

“It is really their shared desire to disrupt the international order that creates a common interest,” he said.
…

Germany must introduce regulations to require its privately operated gas storage facilities to reach full capacity before winter to avoid the kind of energy crunch now gripping the country, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Monday. 

Germany’s gas storage facilities are at historically low levels and fears that a possible war between Russia and Ukraine could worsen an energy crisis in Europe has raised the pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to secure supplies. 

“The storage facilities should be full, and we must have an option to control the filling up of the reserves,” Habeck said in a speech to business leaders in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. 

Germany, which relies mainly on Russian gas for heating and manufacturing, fears that Russia could retaliate against any Western sanctions over Ukraine by cutting supplies to Europe. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree recognizing the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent entities, raising the risk of Russian troops entering Ukraine and sparking a war. 

An energy crunch in Europe that drove up prices resulted in Germany entering the winter months with low reserves, which at the start of February stood at just under 35% full, the lowest ever for this time of the year. 

The storage industry is privately organized but handling fees for storage services are regulated. 

Habeck said regulation requiring the private sector to ensure storage facilities are full was a better option than the state buying gas to secure supplies. He said there was enough gas for this winter. 

Options for the state to intervene in boosting storage and withdrawals are limited under current rules. 

High prices and low gas stocks have also stoked fears that industry and households could run short, or pay over the odds, for supplies. 

Germany’s 24 billion cubic meters of gas storage capacity equates to about a quarter of annual domestic consumption. 

 
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday recognized the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent states, signing documents declaring them no longer part of Ukraine. Hours earlier, the separatist leaders of the regions made a video appeal for the independence declaration. 

Location 

The Donetsk and Luhansk regions — collectively known as the Donbas — are in eastern Ukraine, near the border with Russia. The region comprises both Kyiv-controlled parts as well as separatist-controlled areas. Its main industries are coal mining and steel production. 

Population 

Most of the 3.6 million people living in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions speak Russian, a result of a migration of Russian workers to the regions after World War II, during the Soviet era. Moscow has in recent years issued more than 720,000 Russian passports to roughly one-fifth of the region’s population, according to The Associated Press. 

Rebel control 

Pro-Russian separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions took over government buildings in 2014 and proclaimed the regions as independent “people’s republics.” The move followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. 

Fighting  

Since 2014, more than 14,000 people have been killed in fighting in the Donbas region between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces. Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of backing the separatists both militarily and financially, a charge Moscow denies.  

Amid the fighting, a Malaysian airliner was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. International investigators concluded the missile was supplied by Russia and fired from an area controlled by pro-Russian separatists. Russia has denied involvement. 

Independence 

After separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions took power in 2014, they held a vote to declare independence. Until now, no country recognized their bid. On Monday, Putin announced the independence of the regions after meeting with the Russian Security Council. His announcement followed a video appeal by the regions’ separatist leaders for the recognition of independence.  

Regional leaders 

Each of the regions has its own self-proclaimed president. In a vote disputed by Kyiv, Denis Pushilin was elected in 2018 to lead the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, while Leonid Pasechnik is the leader of the Luhansk separatist region. 

Minsk peace process 

Russia’s recognition of the regions effectively ends the Minsk peace agreements, which were never fully implemented. The agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015, had called for a large amount of autonomy for the two regions inside Ukraine. 

Other breakaway regions 

Russia has previously recognized the independence of two Georgian breakaway regions — Abkhazia and South Ossetia — after a brief war with Georgia in 2008. Russia has since stationed troops in those regions and offered Russian citizenship to their populations. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 

 
…

Northern Britain and parts of France and Germany were battered Sunday and Monday by Franklin — the third major storm to strike the region in less than a week. The severe weather has flooded roads, knocked out power and left at least 14 people dead. 

Storm Franklin brought heavy rains and high winds that disrupted travel and prompted more than 140 flood warnings across England and Wales as of Monday.  

The storm moved through Northern Ireland and northern Britain before moving on to France, where a couple in their 70s died Sunday after their car was swept into the English Channel near a small town in Normandy.  

Franklin struck even as crews were attempting to clear fallen trees and restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes hit by storms Dudley and Eunice last week.  

Authorities in England issued more than 300 flood warnings and alerts, while insurers in Germany and the Netherlands estimated the damage from those storms to be at more than $1.7 billion. The German Aerospace Center said the storms would likely result in widespread damage to Europe’s already weakened forests. 

The AccuWeather news service reports this is the first time three such storms have struck Britain and northern Europe in less than a week since Britain’s Meteorological Office began naming storms in 2015. 

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

 
…

Russia has drawn the world’s attention with its aggressive stance toward Ukraine. The former Soviet power has been rebuilding ties with Africa more quietly, strengthening economic and military cooperation, but also raising Western concerns about its tactics and goals there.

Russian flags waved in Burkina Faso’s capital following January’s military coup in the West African nation. A statue unveiled in the Central African Republic last fall shows local soldiers, backed by Russian fighters, protecting civilians.

Those are the more obvious symbols of Russia’s resurgent presence on the continent. Africa is a foreign policy priority, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the first Russia-Africa summit of political and business leaders in 2019.

“We are not going to participate in a new ‘repartition’ of the continent’s wealth,” he said. “Rather, we are ready to engage in competition for cooperation with Africa.”

A second summit is planned for St. Petersburg in October. The first, at the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, generated diplomatic agreements and billions of dollars in deals involving arms, energy, agriculture, banking and more, said the organizer, the Roscongress Foundation.

Moscow has been building new ties and refreshing alliances forged during the Cold War, when the former Soviet Union supported socialist movements across Africa. After the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, it largely withdrew from the continent.

Since at least 2007, especially in the last few years, Russia has been increasing military and other economic involvement in Africa. The 2019 summit produced contracts with more than 30 African countries to supply military armaments and equipment. Businesses, including state-backed commercial interests, have invested heavily in security sectors, technology and industries that extract natural resources such as oil, gas, gold and other minerals.

Rusal is a company that excavates minerals for aluminum in Guinea and nuclear group Rosatom seeks uranium in Namibia. Alrosa, the world’s largest diamond mining company, has pushed to expand operations in Angola and Zimbabwe, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Russia is clearly interested, in search of new economic markets and geopolitical influence in Africa,” said Tatiana Smirnova, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Quebec’s Centre FrancoPaix and an associate with the University of Florida’s Sahel Research Group. “It’s important for Russia.”

Trade between Russia and African countries has doubled since 2015, to about $20 billion a year, African Export-Import Bank President Benedict Oramah said in an interview last fall with Russia’s state-owned Tass news agency, cited by the Russia Briefing investment news site. He said Russia exported $14 billion worth of goods and services and imported roughly $5 billion in African products.

However, Africa does more business with other countries, notably China, its biggest trading partner in recent years.

Russia’s overtures in recent years offer cooperation without the “political or other conditions” imposed by Western countries, Putin has said.

“Russia provides, as did the Soviet Union before, an alternative vision for African nations” based on “this common anti-Western critique,” said Maxim Matusevich, a history professor who directs Russian studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

However, while the Soviets tried to sell socialist ideas of modernization in Africa, Russians today “are not offering any ideological vision,” he said. “What they’re essentially doing is they’re contracting with African elites on a one-on-one basis. … They insist on the importance of sovereignty and contrast that with the West, which is trying to impose its values, such as transparency, honest governance, anti-corruption legislation. Again, I’m not saying the West is always sincere doing that, but that’s the official message – and they [Russians] are not doing any of that.”

Shifting dynamics

The spread of militant Islamist extremism and other violence in Africa has created more openings for Russian military involvement. For instance, five nations in the volatile Sahel region – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – solicited Moscow’s military support in 2018. Russian fighters also have been engaged in Mozambique and Angola.

France’s planned drawdown of troops from Mali, its former colony and partner in the fight against jihadists since 2013, leaves still more room.

Last Thursday, France and its security partners announced they would exit Mali, citing “multiple obstructions” by the military junta that took power in 2020. France will redeploy its 2,400 troops elsewhere in the Sahel.

Private military contractors also are helping advance Moscow’s agendas in Africa, Western observers say. These include fighters in the shadowy Wagner Group, allegedly controlled by Putin associate Yevgeny Prigozhin. Putin has denied any connection with the group.

“It’s not the state,” Putin said. “… It’s private business with private interests tied to extracting energy resources, including various resources like gold or precious stones.”

Those private fighters operate in parallel with the Kremlin, said Joseph Siegle, who directs research for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, part of the U.S. Defense Department. He said they are part of Moscow’s tool kit to prop up weak African leaders in exchange for economic or other advantages.

“Every place we’ve seen Wagner deployed around the world and in Africa – be it Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Central African Republic – it has been a destabilizing force,” Siegle said. “What Russia has been doing has been deploying mercenaries, disinformation, election interference, arms-for-resources deals, opaque contracts … aimed at capturing wider influence.”

That influence can protect Russia’s interests in international circles, Matusevich said, citing Russia’s 2014 seizure of the Crimean Peninsula.

“We know that in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, when Russia was sanctioned in the United Nations, a lot of African nations abstained from the vote,” he said. “So, they are gaining diplomatic support and alternative diplomatic blocs that they can count on.”

The United Nations is investigating reports of “grave” human rights abuses in the Central African Republic, allegedly committed by private military personnel. Meanwhile, Russian mercenaries are glorified as public protectors amid a coup attempt in the 2021 Russian film The Tourist. The movie, set in the Central African Republic, reportedly was funded by Putin ally Pregizhin.

Security concerns

In Mali, the leaders of a 2020 military coup brought in Russian military trainers – and what U.S. and French authorities say are Wagner mercenaries.

Some in Mali welcomed them by waving Russian flags, reflecting not only the country’s historic ties with the former USSR but also public impatience over continued insecurity, said Niagalé Bagayoko, a Paris-based political scientist who chairs the African Security Sector Network. The organization seeks security and justice reforms, and is among advocates for more protections for civilians in the Sahel and more transparency and accountability for military operations there.

“In 2013, the whole Malian population [was] enthusiastic when the French arrived … today they are rejecting their presence,” Bagayoko said.

“To be honest, I would not be very surprised if, in two years or so, the same could happen with the Russian presence,” she said.

African countries are showing a willingness to look beyond a single foreign partner in their efforts to find stability and security, she said. “There is the realization … that being only engaged with single actors …. is restricting the possibility for diplomacy, but also for military apparatus.”

Russia is not the only foreign government trying to broaden influence in Africa, home to vast resources including a surging youth population.

The White House plans a second U.S.-Africa leadership summit later this year, following up on an initial Washington gathering in 2014 and the European Union has announced a new $172 million investment in infrastructure, countering China’s Belt and Road initiative.
…

While the ongoing situation in Ukraine is the world focus, Russia has been rebuilding ties with Africa more quietly, strengthening economic and military cooperation on the continent. That is raising Western concerns about its tactics and goals there, as VOA’s Carol Guensburg reports. Contributor: Danila, Joad. Videographer: Betty Ayoub 
…

WASHINGTON — The United States has warned the United Nations it has information that Russia has lists of Ukrainians “to be killed or sent to camps” in the event of an invasion, according to a letter sent to the U.N. rights chief and obtained by AFP Sunday.

The letter, which came as Washington warned of an imminent invasion by Russian troops massed near the Ukrainian border, says the United States is “deeply concerned” and warns of a potential “human rights catastrophe.”

The United States has “credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation,” the letter says. 

“We also have credible information that Russian forces will likely use lethal measures to disperse peaceful protests or otherwise counter peaceful exercises of perceived resistance from civilian populations,” says the message, addressed to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.

The note, signed by Bathsheba Nell Crocker, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, warns a Russian invasion of Ukraine could bring with it abuses such as kidnappings or torture, and could target political dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities, among others.

Russia has placed more than 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders in recent weeks, the United States and Western allies have estimated.

Moscow denies it plans to attack its neighbor, but is seeking a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO and that the Western alliance will remove forces from Eastern Europe, demands the West has refused. 
…

US has warned of an imminent Russian invasion, saying Moscow would face ‘severe consequences’
…

Greek emergency workers rescued a Belarussian truck driver Sunday from a burning ferry off the island of Corfu and found the body of another man as they combed the wreckage for missing passengers. The discoveries left 10 people still unaccounted for. 

The truck driver, in his 20s, was able to make his way up to the left rear deck on his own, and told rescue workers he heard other voices below. There were no further details identifying the victim, the first body recovered from the ship.  

“The fact that this man succeeded, despite adverse conditions, to exit into the deck and alert the coast guard … gives us hope that there may be other [survivors],” coast guard spokesman Nikos Alexiou told state broadcaster ERT. 

The Italian-owned Euroferry Olympia, which was carrying more than 290 passengers and crew as well as 153 trucks and 32 cars, caught fire Friday, three hours after it left the northwestern Greek port of Igoumenitsa bound for the Italian city of Brindisi. The Greek coast guard and other boats evacuated about 280 people to the nearby island of Corfu.  

The ferry has been towed to the port of Kassiopi, in northeastern Corfu. Firefighters were still battling the blaze in spots Sunday and a thick smoke still blanketed the ship. 

Alexiou said his understanding was that the truck driver hadn’t heard any voices just before making his way onto the deck but added “the situation is evolving.” The survivor was taken to a hospital for a medical exam. 

The extreme temperatures in some parts of the ship have impeded the Greek fire service’s Disaster Management Unit and a team of private rescuers from searching the whole ship. The ferry is slightly listing from the tons of water poured into it to douse the fire but authorities say it’s not in danger of capsizing. 

Two passengers were rescued Saturday. One wasn’t on the ship’s manifest and was presumably a migrant. The other person, a 65-year-old Bulgarian truck driver, had respiratory problems and is on a ventilator in a Corfu hospital’s intensive care unit. 

A Greek prosecutor on Corfu has ordered an investigation into the cause of the fire. The Italy-based company that operates the ferry said the fire started in a hold where vehicles were parked. 

The ship’s captain and two engineers were arrested Friday but were released the same day, authorities said. 

Passengers described the initial evacuation as dramatic. 

“We heard the alarm. We thought it was some kind of drill. But we saw through the portholes that people were running,” truck driver Dimitris Karaolanidis told The Associated Press. “You can’t think something at the time [other than] your family … When I hit the deck, I saw smoke and children. Fortunately, they [the crew] acted quickly.” 
…

Russia on Sunday extended its military drills in Belarus, along Ukraine’s northern border, after two days of sustained shelling in eastern Ukraine between Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

The Russian exercises with Belarusian forces had been scheduled to end Sunday. They were extended amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s show of force along the Ukrainian border with the massing of some 150,000 troops, accompanied by naval exercises in the Black Sea to the south of Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show that the sharp increase in Russian troop deployments in recent weeks, cyberattacks on the Ukrainian defense ministry and major banks last week and now the new outbreak in fighting in eastern Ukraine that killed two Ukrainian soldiers, signal that Moscow is “following its playbook” ahead of large-scale warfare.

“Everything leading up to the invasion is already taking place,” Blinken said.

The separatists in eastern Ukraine have claimed that Kyiv’s forces are planning an attack there, which Ukraine denies.

At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy questioned why the United States and its Western allies, who have vowed to impose swift and tough economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine, are not already doing so.

Blinken said, “As soon as you impose them, you lose the deterrence” to try to prevent an invasion, and if the West were to announce specific sanctions it would impose, Russia “could plan against them.”

The top U.S. diplomat said, however, “Until the tanks are moving” and missiles launched, Western leaders will “try to do everything to reverse” Putin’s mind, “to get him off the course he’s decided.”

Asked whether Putin might be bluffing an invasion with his military buildup, Blinken said, “There’s always a chance.” But Blinken added, “He’s following the script to the letter on the brink of an invasion.”

Still, Blinken said he would meet with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in Europe on Thursday for more negotiations, on condition that Moscow has not launched an invasion before then.

On CBS News’ “Face the Nation” show, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, said, “There [are] no such plans” for an invasion.

He said Russia has “our legitimate right to have our troops where we want on Russian territory.”

Antonov said Russia has withdrawn some troops from near Ukraine “and nobody even said to us, ‘thank you.’” The West says its monitoring of the terrain near Ukraine shows that Russia has not begun to send its troops back to their bases.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who said Friday he is “convinced” Putin plans to invade, is meeting Sunday with his National Security Council to discuss the latest developments.

The U.S. and its NATO allies fear that the Russian forces in Belarus could be deployed in an attack southward on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, while tens of thousands more troops could invade from the east and south into Ukraine.

Despite their belief that Putin has his mind made up to invade, Biden and other Western leaders are holding out hope for a settlement to the crisis, 11th hour diplomacy to avert the first massive warfare in Europe since the end of World War II.

Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said Sunday, “The big question remains: Does the Kremlin want dialogue?”

“We cannot forever offer an olive branch while Russia conducts missile tests and continues to amass troops,” Michel said at the Munich Security Conference. “One thing is certain: if there is further military aggression, we will react with massive (economic) sanctions.”

Some of the Western allies, including the U.S., have shipped arms to Ukraine, but none of its leaders is planning to deploy troops to fight alongside Ukrainian forces in the event of an invasion.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday the United Kingdom will use the “toughest possible” economic sanctions against Russia if it invades Ukraine.

Johnson told the BBC the sanctions would not only target Putin and his associates, “but also all companies and organizations with strategic importance to Russia.”

The British leader said, “We are going to stop Russian companies raising money on U.K. markets, and we are even with our American friends going to stop them trading in pounds and dollars.”

French President Emmanuel Macron had a telephone conversation with Putin Sunday, with Macron’s office saying afterward that the two leaders agreed on the need to find a diplomatic solution.

The two countries’ foreign ministers will meet in the coming days to work on a possible summit involving Russia, Ukraine and allies to establish a new security order in Europe.

Western allies say they are willing to discuss their missile positioning and military exercises in Europe but have balked at Putin’s demand to rule out possible NATO membership for Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

“We need to stop Putin because he will not stop at Ukraine,” Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, said in an interview Sunday in The Daily Mail about Putin’s apparently imminent invasion of Ukraine.

“Putin has said all this publicly, that he wants to create the Greater Russia, that he wants to go back to the situation as it was before where Russia had control over huge swaths of eastern Europe.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Union’s executive commission, said, “The Kremlin’s dangerous thinking, which comes straight out of a dark past, may cost Russia a prosperous future.”

She said if Russia invades Ukraine, Moscow would have limited access to financial markets and tech goods, according to the sanctions package being prepared.
…

Firefighters are struggling to put out a fire that broke out on Wednesday on a vessel carrying thousands of luxury cars, which is adrift off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands, a port official said, adding it was unclear when they would succeed.

The Felicity Ace ship, carrying around 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, some electric with lithium-ion batteries, caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday. The 22 crew members on board were evacuated on the same day.

“The intervention [to put out the blaze] has to be done very slowly,” João Mendes Cabañas, captain of the nearest port in the Azorean island of Faial, told Reuters late on Saturday. “It will take a while.”

Lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles on board are “keeping the fire alive,” Cabañas said, adding that specialist equipment to extinguish it was on the way.

It was not clear whether the batteries sparked the fire.

Volkswagen, which owns the brands, did not confirm the total number of cars on board and said on Friday it was awaiting further information. Ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cabañas previously said that “everything was on fire about five meters above the water line” and the blaze was still far from the ship’s fuel tanks. It is getting closer, he said.

“The fire spread further down,” he said, explaining that teams could only tackle the fire from outside by cooling down the ship’s structure as it was too dangerous to go on board.

They also cannot use water because adding weight to the ship could make it more unstable, and traditional water extinguishers do not stop lithium-ion batteries from burning, Cabañas said.

The Panama-flagged ship will be towed to a country in Europe or to the Bahamas but it is unclear when that will happen.
…

Queen Elizabeth, 95, has tested positive for COVID and is experiencing mild symptoms but expects to continue light duties this week, Buckingham Palace said on Sunday.

“The queen has today tested positive for COVID,” the Palace said. “Her Majesty is experiencing mild cold like symptoms but expects to continue light duties at Windsor over the coming week.”

“She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all appropriate guidelines,” the Palace said.

Charles, 73, the heir to the throne, earlier this month pulled out of an event after contracting coronavirus for a second time. A palace source said he had met the queen just days before.

The health of the queen, the world’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch, has been in the spotlight since she spent a night in hospital last October for an unspecified ailment and then was advised by her doctors to rest.

Elizabeth on Wednesday quipped to members of the royal household that she could not move much as she carried out her first in-person engagement since Charles tested positive.
…

Has U.S. President Joe Biden been boxing in his Russian counterpart, making it awkward for Vladimir Putin to order a “shock and awe” invasion of Ukraine?

The Biden administration’s tactic of publicly disclosing real-time intelligence has raised the eyebrows of some spies, who favor more reticence, but it is drawing praise from information-war specialists and Western diplomats.

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said on Twitter that he thinks the administration may have surprised the Kremlin with how it has competed in an information war that is shaping public perceptions and, possibly, decision-making and even real war planning.

After Biden told reporters in Washington that he is now convinced Putin has chosen to invade Ukraine, including striking at Kyiv, McFaul and other former and current diplomats speculated about whether Biden was carefully hemming in his Russian adversary.

“Biden has given Putin a brilliant off-ramp,” McFaul tweeted. “By announcing to the world that Putin plans to invade, Putin can now embarrass Biden by not invading and blaming the West for beating the ‘drums of war.’ Take it Mr. Putin. Embarrass my president!  (Small price to pay for avoiding war),” he added.

Earlier this month, U.S. and British officials pointed to Feb. 15 or 16 as the likely start date for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. When the invasion did not happen, Kremlin officials quickly ridiculed Washington for its prediction.

“February 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day when Western war propaganda failed,” said Maria Zakharova, the combative Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson, on social media.

“They were humiliated and defeated without a single shot,” she added.

“I’d like to ask,” she later wrote, “if US and British sources of disinformation … could publish the schedule of our upcoming invasions for the year. I’d like to plan my holidays.”

The Kremlin has consistently denied it is planning to invade Ukraine and has accused Western leaders of whipping up “hysteria.” Kremlin-directed media have been telling their domestic Russian audiences that NATO has been fomenting alarmism and is working to shape a false pretext to attack Russia.

Other Western diplomats say the mockery is worth enduring, if it prevents Putin from ordering a re-invasion of Ukraine or disrupts his planning.

“I think Biden and his team have been making a good job of it and waging an information war that must have taken the Kremlin by surprise,” a senior U.N. diplomat told VOA on condition of anonymity.

“It has been fascinating to watch the back and forth: Washington has been forward-leaning and anticipatory and been quick to counter Russian disinformation. And I suspect they have upset some Kremlin plans by highlighting them early,” he added.

He cited the quick calling out of Russia after the Kremlin last week said it was withdrawing forces from the Ukraine’s borders. U.S. and NATO officials were aided in labeling the pullback a ruse by independent commercial satellite surveillance and Earth observation companies, like Maxar, that have been plotting Russia’s military buildup and sharing images with the international media.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though, has been critical of Washington’s information tactics, and earlier last week he distanced himself from American and British warnings of an imminent invasion, straining Kyiv’s relations with Washington. He also half-mocked Western predictions, saying in a national broadcast: “We are told that the Russian invasion will begin on February 16. I therefore declare that this day will be the day of unity in Ukraine.”

That was not the first time Zelenskyy differed with NATO since the crisis began. Occasionally the rift has appeared awkward, considering that Kyiv depends on the Western alliance for military aid and diplomatic support, and has called for new and punitive Western sanctions to be imposed now, and not after an invasion, analysts say.  

Zelenskyy returned to the West’s ominous predictions at the Munich Security Conference, complaining to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris about the frequency of the grave warnings, saying the tactic is damaging Ukraine’s economy and risks demoralizing Ukrainians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is unapologetic about how Washington is competing with Russia in the information war.

He told reporters Sunday, “We’re very confident in the information that we have.  And as I said at the United Nations Security Council the other day, I recognize that in the past, sometimes we’ve come forward with information that’s turned out to be inaccurate.  We’re very confident in the information we have, and we bring it forward not to start a war, but to prevent a war — a war that’s in no one’s interests.”

Some former and current Western intelligence officials worry about the publicizing of raw real-time intelligence appraisals, saying that if predictions are not borne out then the public will conclude the spies got it wrong, lose faith in them and dismiss the reliability of intelligence, when in fact the disclosure may have prevented something from happening.

American and British intelligence agencies remain under a cloud for their inaccurate assessments of how close Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was to making a nuclear bomb and hiding and developing weapons of mass destruction. Those appraisals were used by Washington and London in part to justify the invasion of Iraq and were cited famously by then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in a presentation to the U.N. in February 2003.

Nonetheless, Blinken stands by the intelligence the administration is receiving, saying the scenarios that have been outlined by U.S. intelligence agencies are convincing.  
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U.S. President Joe Biden will meet with the National Security Council on Sunday, the White House announced Saturday as it reaffirmed that “Russia could launch an attack against Ukraine at any time,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

Psaki said Biden was briefed Saturday on Vice President Kamala Harris’ meetings at the Munich Security Conference. Harris met Saturday with Western leaders, among them NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over military drills Saturday as shelling escalated in eastern Ukraine.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reported more than 1,500 cease-fire violations in east Ukraine on Saturday, the highest single-day number this year.

Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday’s exercises, which the Kremlin says were previously planned to check readiness, involved practice submarine launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, with Putin and the president of Belarus looking on.

‘Poised to strike’

Saturday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the more than 150,000 Russian troops that have massed at Ukraine’s border “are now poised to strike,” as he spoke with reporters in Lithuania, where Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called for an increased U.S. troop presence.

At the Munich Security Conference, Harris warned that Russia’s plan was already unfolding.

“There is a playbook of Russian aggression, and this playbook is too familiar to us all. Russia will plead ignorance and innocence. It will create false pretext for invasion, and it will amass troops and fire power in plain sight,” said Harris, who added a Russian invasion would trigger sanctions that include far-reaching financial sanctions and export controls.

She also said the U.S. would bolster NATO’s eastern flank as another deterrent to a Russian military invasion.

Speaking at the conference earlier Saturday, Stoltenberg said Russia, in threatening Ukraine, “will get more NATO” instead of the smaller NATO footprint Putin says he is seeking.

Stoltenberg also said he has sent a letter to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov calling for a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council to avert a conflict in Ukraine. Stoltenberg told the Munich Security Conference that there is no evidence that Russia has withdrawn any of its troops from Ukraine’s borders and there is a real risk of conflict.

“We are extremely concerned because we see that they continue to build up, they continue to prepare. And we have never in Europe seen since the end of the Cold War, such a large concentration of combat-ready troops,” Stoltenberg said.

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy met on the sidelines with Harris, as he sought to rally more military and financial support from Western allies.

As he addressed the audience of high-level officials and security experts from around the world, Zelenskiy pushed back against U.S. predictions of an imminent Russian invasion, declaring “We do not think we need to panic,” Agence France-Presse reported.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, however, told the BBC that evidence points to Russia planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945.”

Fresh attacks

Ukraine’s military accused separatists in two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine – the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics – of carrying out a new wave of attacks Saturday.

The separatists, who also accused Ukraine’s military of carrying out new attacks Saturday, signed mass military mobilization decrees. The head of one of the territories urged all able-bodied men to take up arms against what he claimed is Kyiv’s aggression. The regions have also begun evacuating some civilians from border areas.

Biden said the move was a result of Russian misinformation, saying that it “defies basic logic” that people in Ukraine would “choose this moment” to engage in combat with more than 150,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders.

Ukraine’s military said two of its soldiers were killed Saturday in shelling from pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to AFP, after initially reporting one fatality.

Should Moscow invade Ukraine, it will be critical for the United States to convince the world that Russia is the aggressor and that it did so unprovoked, Max Bergmann, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told VOA.

“This was a master class from the Biden administration in how to win an information war with Russia,” Bergmann said. “The Biden administration has read the Kremlin playbook and they are exposing Russian disinformation as they come across it.”

However, Biden is still offering Putin a de-escalation off-ramp, saying that diplomacy is “always a possibility.” He said, based on the “significant intelligence capability” of the U.S., he has reason to believe Putin will still consider the diplomatic option.

Diplomatic channels

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet in person with Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, on Feb. 24.

In the event of an invasion, Western allies must resolve differences over the timing and severity of sanctions against Moscow. For example, the initial package likely will not include banning Russia from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, system used by 200 countries for international financial transfers.

“We have other severe measures we can take that our allies and partners are ready to take in lockstep with us, and that don’t have the same spillover effects,” said Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser for international economics, who spoke to reporters during Friday’s White House briefing. “But we always will monitor these options and we’ll revise our judgments as time goes on.”

Singh said U.S. measures are not designed to reduce Russia’s ability to supply energy to the world but that it would be “a strategic mistake” for Putin to retaliate against Western sanctions by cutting back energy supplies to Europe.

“Two-thirds of Russia’s exports and half of its budget revenues come from oil and gas, and if Putin were to weaponize his energy supply, it will only accelerate the diversification of the world away from Russian energy consumption,” he said.

Singh added Moscow would be unable to replace technology imports from other countries, including China, if Washington also were to impose tough export controls that it has threatened.

Russian officials have denied they plan to invade Ukraine, but diplomatic talks with Western officials have led to a standoff. Russia has demanded that the U.S. and its allies reject Ukraine’s bid for membership in NATO.

The West has rejected that as a nonstarter but has said it is willing to negotiate with Moscow over missile deployment and troop exercises in Eastern European countries closest to Russia.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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