Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday he will not allow governments allied with Moscow to be toppled in so-called “color revolutions,” a reference to the series of popular uprisings that have shaken former Soviet republics. 

“We will not allow the boat to be rocked,” Putin said.

During an online meeting with leaders of a Russian-led collective security alliance, Putin blamed last week’s violent unrest in Kazakhstan on “destructive internal and external forces.” He added, “Of course, we understand the events in Kazakhstan are not the first and far from the last attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of our states from the outside.”

Kazakh officials say a 4-year-old girl was among the 164 people who were killed in last week’s protests. Authorities say 5,800 people have been detained. In an effort to halt the protests, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev issued a shoot-to-kill order, enabling security forces to open fire on protesters without warning.

The demonstrations were prompted by a fuel price increase but morphed into a broader protest over the country’s authoritarian rule. Tokayev asked Russia for help in quashing the demonstrations amid concerns about the loyalty of some law enforcement units. Russia and several other members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Eurasian intergovernmental military alliance formed in 1994, responded by sending troops, although most are Russian.

“The measures taken by the CSTO have clearly shown we will not allow the situation to be rocked at home and will not allow so-called ‘color revolutions’ to take place,” Putin said. He added that the CSTO contingent would withdraw once order had been re-established and when Tokayev thought the forces were no longer needed.

The Kazakh leader said while order had been restored, the hunt for “terrorists” was ongoing.

Putin alleged Monday that the violent unrest in Kazakhstan was carried out by terrorists trained abroad. He said the violence bore the hallmarks of a Western-coordinated Maidan operation, a reference to the protests that toppled Ukraine’s pro-Moscow leader in 2014.

“Well-organized and well-controlled groups of militants were used,” Putin said at the CSTO meeting. “(They]) had obviously received training in terrorist camps abroad,” he added.

The CSTO consists of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. When requesting military assistance last week, Tokayev invoked Article 4 of the CSTO pact, which commits members to assist each other to defend against “foreign interference.” It was the first time that Article 4 was cited by any CSTO member. 

The Russian Defense Ministry said around 3,000 paratroopers and other service personnel were being flown to Kazakhstan “around the clock,” with up to 75 transport planes being used in the emergency airlift.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has questioned why Russia deployed troops. America’s top diplomat said Sunday on ABC-TV’s “This Week” that Kazakhstan “has the ability to maintain law and order, to defend the institutions of the state, but to do so in a way that respects the rights of peaceful protesters and also addresses the concerns that they’ve raised — economic concerns, some political concerns.”

Demanding regime change

Sparked by a fuel price increase and cost of living grievances, the protests, which began in the oil-rich western part of the country, rapidly escalated this week into the worst violence Kazakhstan has seen since its independence 30 years ago.

Grievances over fuel prices voiced initially by the protesters grew into a much bigger threat against the government after dozens of people died when Kazakh armed forces opened fire into the crowd. 

Demonstrators have demanded regime change and the departures of Tokayev and the country’s 81-year-old former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down two years ago after nearly three decades in power. Nazarbayev, who retained the official title of “leader of the nation,” is still believed to rule behind the scenes. Protesters reference him with chants of “Get out, old man.”

The demonstrations prompted Tokayev to dismiss his Cabinet and Nazarbayev from his position as head of the country’s security council. Authorities also announced the arrest of Karim Massimov, former head of the National Security Committee, on suspicion of high treason.

Russian officials and pro-Kremlin media have been amplifying claims that the West is behind the agitation and trying to foment another color revolution with the goal of disorienting Russia during major Russia-U.S. security talks this week amid fears the Kremlin may be considering invading Ukraine. 

Russia has previously accused Western powers of being behind popular uprisings revolutions in the former Soviet states of Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine. Kazakhstan has vast energy resources. 

Tokayev told Putin during the online meeting that the unrest was an attempted coup and had been planned for years.

“The main goal was obvious: the undermining of the constitutional order, the destruction of government institutions and the seizure of power,” he said, adding that he would provide proof to back up his claims.

Some Russian analysts have also highlighted the risks of Russian troops maintaining any long-term presence in Kazakhstan.

“For now, this is less an armed intervention than a police operation,” said Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin-linked research group. “But if it drags on, consequences for Russia could mount up,” he told the English language newspaper The Moscow Times.

Erica Marat, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, told The New York Times that Tokayev “traded his country’s sovereignty to Russia for his own power and the interests of kleptocratic elites.”

Lawmakers in Kyrgyzstan last week voted to approve the deployment of 150 troops to Kazakhstan as part of the CSTO operation, but some have voiced opposition. Zhanybek Kydykbayev has warned that deploying troops could discredit Kyrgyzstan in the eyes of the Kazakh people as it signaled the government’s support for Tokayev.

“We should avoid getting involved in Kazakhstan’s internal conflict. And Tokayev’s appeal to the CSTO is, in my opinion, just his attempt to hold onto power,” Kydykbayev told local reporters. 

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday he plans to ask European officials to consider treating COVID-19 more like an endemic illness — a regularly occurring milder disease like the flu — and move away from the detailed tracking system that the pandemic has required.

In an interview with Spain’s Cadena SER radio, Sanchez said deaths as a proportion of recorded cases have fallen dramatically since the initial onset of the pandemic. He said he believes the pandemic has reached a point where the evolution of the disease can “be evaluated with different parameters.”

Sanchez said it would be a gradual, cautious process but said it is time to open the debate “at the technical level and at the level of health professionals, but also at the European level.”

He also confirmed a report from the country’s leading newspaper El País, that Spanish health authorities are already drafting a new monitoring system in which every new infection would not need to be recorded, and that people with symptoms would not necessarily be tested but will continue to receive treatment.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health says a virus, such as the one that causes COVID-19, transitions from a pandemic to an endemic phase when a virus does not go extinct but merely drops in prevalence and severity over a long period of time. 
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Western policy makers remain as puzzled now as their counterparts were on the eve of the Cold War forty years ago about Russia’s geopolitical intentions. 

Is the Kremlin preparing to launch an invasion of its neighbor Ukraine, which increasingly sees itself as part of the West, if sweeping security guarantees Russia has demanded are rebuffed? Or is the ominous Russian military buildup along Ukraine’s borders an exercise in brinkmanship, a maneuver by President Vladimir Putin to try to wring more than he otherwise would from the United States and European allies at the negotiating table? 

Answers to those questions may start coming Monday when senior U.S. and Russian officials meet in Geneva to start discussing Kremlin demands for NATO to withdraw any military presence from the former Soviet satellite countries of Central Europe and to de-escalate the crisis over Ukraine.

Some eight decades ago, Western policymakers were also trying to decipher the intentions of then-Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, a Communist leader whose legacy Putin has done much to try to rehabilitate in Russia. Guy Liddell, a top British intelligence official, lamented in his diary in February 1948 how difficult it was to fathom whether Soviet Russia was planning military aggression.

While the Kremlin proclaimed peaceful intentions and said its maneuvers were “strategically defensive,” Liddell recorded in his diary that Russian actions — from military preparations to propaganda campaigns, from interventions to “attempts at disruption” — were the same that would accompany a “policy planned for aggression” and Western powers therefore had no option but to prepare for the worst and remain vigilant.

Just two weeks later Kremlin-directed communists seized final control over the government of Czechoslovakia. The loss of the last remaining democracy in Eastern Europe concluded the partition of Europe, freezing the two halves of the continent in a four-decade-long Cold War.

Policy makers are split now about what Putin has in mind by camping more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, and whether the military buildup is driven by adventurism or a sense of insecurity, misplaced or not. 

Europe

Some Western diplomats fear Putin intends for talks to fail so he has pretext for pushing deeper into Ukraine, in a repeat of 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and seized a large part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

They are also wrestling with the options available to them to try to deter Putin from making any dramatic military moves on Ukraine. And while all NATO members, and several of Europe’s non-members, have joined the United States in warning of dire consequences and punitive economic sanctions in the event of a Russian move on Ukraine, there are important nuances between the allies, with some Western leaders sounding tougher than others.

Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who wants a face-to-face meeting with Russian leader Putin later this month, has talked of resetting relations with Moscow and recently spoke of seeking “a new start,” although he also cautioned of severe consequences in the event of another Russian assault on Ukraine. Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has been much harder and defiant in his public remarks, reiterating his country’s right to join NATO, if Finns decide to, and flatly rejecting Russian demands that NATO admits no new members. 

Sweden, which is not a NATO member but has been deepening military cooperation with the bloc, is also bristling at Moscow’s expansive demands of no further NATO enlargement, with its foreign minister, Ann Linde, underscoring that Moscow has no right to dictate which countries can join the trans-Atlantic military alliance.

“It should not be up to Russia if we could join or if we could not join NATO,” she said Friday.

Ahead of formal talks this week, NATO officials have dismissed Russia’s wide-ranging security demands as impossible and non-starters. The demands include a halt to further NATO enlargement and a roll-back of any alliance military presence in the seven of the eight former Soviet republics and satellite states of Central Europe which joined the Western alliance in waves since 1999. The Kremlin has also demanded the withdrawal of American tactical nuclear weapons from Europe but has not offered any reciprocal constraints on its arsenal of tactical missiles.

The bilateral American-Russian talks in Geneva, which are being led on the U.S. side by senior State department officials, are to be followed this week by Russia-NATO council negotiations in Brussels and a meeting in Vienna of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a body that includes Russia, Ukraine, and all NATO countries. They amount to a week of high-stakes diplomacy not been seen since the Cold War with Putin seemingly determined to make the dialogue about the whole future security architecture of Europe and Western powers trying to limit discussions. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned against “endless discussions, which is something the West knows how to do and is notorious for.” His boss, President Putin, has also said he is not prepared for talks to drag out for “blathering” that last decades. “They will indulge in endless talk about the necessity of negotiations,” he said on Russian television recently.

Some Western policymakers suspect Putin is trying to rush because the brinkmanship might weaken Western resolve and crack its unity. But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken Sunday told CNN that he worries Putin’s aim is “to re-exert a sphere of influence over countries that previously were part of the Soviet Union.” He added: “We can’t go back to a world of spheres of influence. That was a recipe for instability, a recipe for conflict, a recipe that led to world wars.”

Andrew Marshall of the Atlantic Council, a U.S. research group, says the geopolitical stakes are potentially era-changing. “The outcome of this dispute could decisively rewrite the terms of security on the European continent for an entire generation — just as the decisions of the 1990s did after the end of the Cold War,” he explained in a recent commentary.

Will Putin settle for anything less than a revanchist turning the clock back to when Moscow controlled half of Europe? The Western tactic appears to be to try to draw Putin into the weeds and to discuss some European security arrangements in which both sides have an interest in reaching agreements. Sweden’s Foreign Minister Linde points to arms controls and rules on the size and frequency of military exercises near borders. Linde told Foreign Policy magazine that Moscow’s intentions remain unclear, but “to give diplomacy and dialogue a chance to work is always better than military activities,” she said.

Other analysts believe Putin ultimately is focused on Ukraine and getting it to return to the Russian orbit and that the wider demands over European security architecture are a case of what former U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger once described as the Russian tendency of “kicking all the doors and seeing which fall off their hinges.” 

Russian commentator Vladimir Frolov believes Putin is set on ensuring that Ukraine has “to hammer out its relationship with Russia on Russia’s terms.” But he fears even that a more limited goal is unlikely.

“Escalation remains likely, due to unrealistic requirements being made under artificially short deadlines,” he says.
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Pope Francis Monday said getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is a “moral obligation” as part of caring for the health of oneself and others and urged on international efforts to vaccinate the world’s population.

In a speech to diplomats assigned to the Vatican, the pope said the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause social isolation and to take lives but noted effective vaccinations have effectively lowered the risks from the disease. He said it was important to vaccinate the general population as much as possible, calling for a broad commitment on the personal, political, and international levels.

The pope said everyone has a responsibility to care for their health and the health around us.

“This translates into respect for the health of those around us. Health care is a moral obligation,” he said Monday.

However, Francis said he recognized the “ideological divides” that exist in the world today, bolstered by “baseless information or poorly documented facts.”  He said such ideological statements severe “the bond of human reason with the objective reality of things.”

“Vaccines are not a magical means of healing, yet surely they represent, in addition to other treatments that need to be developed, the most reasonable solution for the prevention of the disease,” he said.

Pope Francis urged a comprehensive commitment by the international community to ensure the “entire world population can have equal access to essential medical care and vaccines,” and called for all states to work through the World Health Organization to support universal access to diagnostic tools, vaccines and drug treatments.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Diplomats from the United States and Russia met Monday in Geneva, beginning a series of high-level talks this week regarding Moscow’s massive troop buildup along its Ukraine border, and Russian demands for Western security guarantees. 

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the meeting began just before 9 a.m. local time, while stressing that the U.S. side has been working in consultation with not only Ukraine, but also with NATO and other allies across Europe. 

“The United States is committed to the principle of ‘nothing about you, without you’ when it comes to the security of our European allies and partners, including Ukraine,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We are lashed up at every level with our allies and partners, and we will continue to be in the days and weeks ahead.” 

After the Geneva talks, Russia is due to hold negotiations with NATO in Brussels on Wednesday and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Thursday in Vienna.

Ahead of Monday’s U.S.-Russia session, top diplomats from both countries expressed little optimism that tensions between their countries would be eased this week.    

“It’s hard to see we’re going to make any progress with a gun to Ukraine’s head,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show.   

“We’re going to listen to Russia’s concerns” about NATO military exercises in central and eastern Europe, Blinken said, but added, “they’re going to have to listen to ours” about the 100,000 troops Russia has amassed along Ukraine’s eastern flank.    

Meanwhile, Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov as saying it was entirely possible that the U.S.-Russia talks could end abruptly after a single meeting.  

“I can’t rule out anything; this is an entirely possible scenario and the Americans… should have no illusions about this,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying. Officials from the two countries held a working dinner Sunday night ahead of the more formal talks on Monday in Geneva.  

“Naturally, we will not make any concessions under pressure and in the course of threats that are constantly being formed by the Western participants of the upcoming talks,” Ryabkov said.  

Blinken reiterated the U.S. threat to impose severe economic sanctions against Moscow in the event it invades Ukraine eight years after its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.    

“Our strong preference is a diplomatic solution, but that’s up to Russia,” Blinken told ABC’s “This Week” show.  

He said there is room for negotiations over military exercises in Europe and renewed arms limitations that he accused Russia of violating in the past.  

The top U.S. diplomat said Russia cannot violate other countries’ borders or dictate whether NATO might accede to Ukraine’s request for membership in the seven-decade-old Western military alliance. He said 60% of Ukrainians favor the country joining NATO.   

Russia has denied it plans to invade Ukraine and demanded an end to NATO expansion and a halt to the alliance’s military exercises in central and eastern European countries that joined it after 1997.  

The United States and NATO have said large parts of the Russian proposals are non-starters.    

Some material in this report came from Reuters. 
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U.S. and Russian officials are meeting this week to address the tensions along the Russian-Ukrainian border. Michelle Quinn reports. Video editor – Mary Cieslak.
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Top U.S. and Russian diplomats expressed little optimism Sunday that tensions between their countries would be eased at high-level discussions this week in Europe over Moscow’s massive troop buildup along its Ukraine border and Russian demands for Western security guarantees. 

“It’s hard to see we’re going to make any progress with a gun to Ukraine’s head,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. 

“We’re going to listen to Russia’s concerns” about NATO military exercises in central and eastern Europe, Blinken said, but added, “They’re going to have to listen to ours” about the 100,000 troops Russia has amassed along Ukraine’s eastern flank. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying it was entirely possible that the U.S.-Russia talks, set to start Sunday night and continue Monday in Geneva, could end abruptly after a single meeting. 

“I can’t rule out anything; this is an entirely possible scenario and the Americans… should have no illusions about this,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying. 

“Naturally, we will not make any concessions under pressure and in the course of threats that are constantly being formed by the Western participants of the upcoming talks,” Ryabkov said. 

Blinken said, “I don’t think we’re going to see any [immediate] breakthrough” in the U.S.-Russia negotiations that continue along with other countries in Brussels and Vienna throughout the week.

But he said, “Ultimately this is up to President [Vladimir] Putin. It’s his actions [with the Ukraine troop buildup] that are precipitating what he says he doesn’t want,” furthering conflict with the United States and its allies.

Blinken reiterated the U.S. threat to impose severe economic sanctions against Moscow in the event it invades Ukraine eight years after its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

“Our strong preference is a diplomatic solution, but that’s up to Russia,” Blinken told ABC’s “This Week” show. He said there is room for negotiations over military exercises in Europe and renewed arms limitations that he accused Russia of violating in the past. 

The top U.S. diplomat, however, said Russia cannot violate other countries’ borders or dictate whether NATO might accede to Ukraine’s request for membership in the seven-decade-old Western military alliance. He said 60% of Ukrainians favor the country joining NATO.

Russia has denied it plans to invade Ukraine and has demanded an end to NATO expansion and a halt to the alliance’s military exercises in central and eastern European countries that joined it after 1997. 

The United States and NATO have said large parts of the Russian proposals are a non-starter. 

Aside from Blinken’s Sunday talk show interviews, a senior official in President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday anonymously laid out the U.S. stance on the talks with Russia. 

“The main threats to European security over the past two decades have come from Russia and the forces with which it is aligned,” the official said. “Russia has twice invaded and occupied its neighbors. It’s interfered in a myriad of elections, including our own.” 

“It’s used chemical weapons to conduct assassinations and violated foundational arms control treaties… So, any serious conversation with Russia about European security is going to have to address those issues…,” the official said. 

The official said the U.S. is not willing to restrict NATO’s membership options. 

“It is not up to Russia, for example, to decide for other countries who they can be allies with,” the official said. “Those are decisions only for those countries and the alliance itself.” 

But the official said the U.S. was ready to talk about the possibility of each side restricting military exercises and missile deployments in the region. 

After the Geneva talks, Russia is also due to hold negotiations with NATO in Brussels on Wednesday and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna on Thursday. 

Some material in this report came from Reuters. 
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Greece this week takes delivery of an ancient fragment that once adorned the Parthenon temple, the country’s most important archeological site. The return from a museum in Italy is being seen as the strongest nudge yet to the British Museum, which holds the largest collection of Parthenon Sculptures and has refused for centuries to return the antiquities to their ancient home.

The marble fragment will be unveiled at the Acropolis Museum Monday, displayed in a full-size representation of the Parthenon’s frieze.

The return is part of a groundbreaking loan deal signed between the Acropolis Museum and the Antonio Salinas Regional Archeological Museum in Sicily, where the artifact has been on display since the 19th century.

The Parthenon fragment, depicting the foot of a goddess, will be lent for a four-year period in exchange for a fifth century B.C. headless statue of the goddess Athena and an eighth century B.C. amphora as part of an extensive cultural exchange agreement. The loan period may be extended a further four years, and the fragment’s move to Greece could eventually become permanent.

Sicily’s councilor for culture, Alberto Samonà, said this is an important cultural exchange that can pave the way for even bigger international exhibits organized by the Salinas museum and the Acropolis museum.

Experts in Greece say the loan deal adds to mounting pressure on Britain to follow suit with the so-called Elgin Marbles, a massive collection of sculptures assembled by Thomas Bruce, the seventh earl of Elgin, who in the early 1800s was the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire, which then controlled Greece. Britain bought them from Elgin in 1816 after a parliamentary inquiry into the legitimacy of his ownership.

The dispute marks one of the longest-standing cultural rows in history, with Athens demanding for decades that the British Museum return the marble masterpieces to Greece. Greeks have accused the late British aristocrat of cultural theft.

Last week, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mistotakis made a new bid for the return of the sculptures as the Acropolis Museum installed 10 fragments of the Parthenon frieze stored in the capital’s archeological Museum.

The return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British museum, he said, is a political and ethical issue with international implications. The prime minister said the return is all about healing a wound created violently and illegally by Elgin.

Mitsotakis raised the issue in talks with his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, late last year, offering to lend some Greek historical treasures to the British Museum.

The prime minister’s office has since said the offer is a matter for the British Museum to decide. It added, however, that the marbles were bound to remain in Britain, arguing they were legally acquired and not the subject of an ownership dispute. 
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Geneva, dubbed the capital of peace, is a favored spot for meetings between the two great post-World War II powers and once again hosts talks between Russia and the United States on Monday.

The tranquil Swiss city held the 1985 summit between US president Ronald Reagan and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev.

Geneva also staged last June’s talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden.

On Monday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and her Russian opposite number, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, will hold much-anticipated discussions on European security and the Ukraine conflict.

Neutral territory

Geneva not only hosts the United Nations — having been the seat of its League of Nations predecessor — and several U.N. agencies; the French-speaking city is also home to the Red Cross and dozens of other international organizations.

Former Swiss president Guy Parmelin called it the “city of peace” at the Biden-Putin summit last year, showing the Alpine nation could play a role in international relations even during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the heart of Europe, Switzerland is known for its centuries of neutrality and was never part of the NATO and Warsaw Pact Cold War blocs that divided the continent following World War II.

Indeed, the talks between Reagan and Gorbachev played an important role in thawing the Cold War ice.

Spooks and experts

In 2009 and 2010 in Geneva, Russia and the United States negotiated the New START treaty on reducing their nuclear arsenals.

The city is home to the U.N.-linked Conference on Disarmament — the only such forum thrashing out arms control and disarmament agreements — and Geneva is therefore brimming with experts in such negotiations.

The city overlooked by Mont Blanc has hosted several meetings between the US and Russian foreign ministers, such as the 2009 summit between Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton.

She offered him a plastic “reset button” to symbolize the revival of relations.

Lavrov and Clinton’s successor John Kerry also met several times for talks in the Calvinist city, on topics such as Syria and Ukraine.

The Russians and Americans, who have large diplomatic representations and a considerable intelligence presence in Geneva, have also organized several meetings there on Syria in recent years.

Since the Biden-Putin summit, Sherman and Ryabkov have held a series of follow-up meetings in Geneva to continue the strategic dialogue and smooth out disputes between Washington and Moscow.

The pair met for the first time at the U.S. mission on July 28 before meeting again at the Russian complex on September 30.

Discretion and security

The two missions are a few hundred meters apart, close to the U.N.’s Palais des Nations headquarters.

As ever, the area will be under high security on Monday.

Switzerland, and Geneva in particular, is appreciated by diplomats of all stripes for its flexibility and discretion as a host state, as well as for the security it offers.

Such conditions saw the city host talks in the 1990s on the Bosnian civil war, the 2013 Geneva interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and, more recently, on the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya.
…

With the fate of Ukraine and potentially broader post-Cold War European stability at stake, the United States and Russia are holding critical strategic talks that could shape the future of not only their relationship but the relationship between the U.S. and its NATO allies. Prospects are bleak.

Though the immediacy of the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine will top the agenda in a series of high-level meetings that get underway on Monday, there is a litany of festering but largely unrelated disputes, ranging from arms control to cybercrime and diplomatic issues, for Washington and Moscow to overcome if tensions are to ease. And the recent deployment of Russian troops to Kazakhstan may cast a shadow over the entire exercise.

With much at risk and both warning of dire consequences of failure, the two sides have been positioning themselves for what will be a nearly unprecedented flurry of activity in Europe this week. Yet the wide divergence in their opening positions bodes ill for any type of speedy resolution, and levels of distrust appear higher than at any point since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

U.S. officials on Saturday unveiled some details of the administration’s stance, which seem to fall well short of Russian demands. The officials said the U.S. is open to discussions on curtailing possible future deployments of offensive missiles in Ukraine and putting limits on American and NATO military exercises in Eastern Europe if Russia is willing to back off on Ukraine.

But they also said Russia will be hit hard with economic sanctions should it intervene in Ukraine. In addition to direct sanctions on Russian entities, those penalties could include significant restrictions on products exported from the U.S. to Russia and potentially foreign-made products subject to U.S. jurisdiction.

Russia wants the talks initially to produce formally binding security guarantees for itself with a pledge that NATO will not further expand eastward and the removal of U.S. troops and weapons from parts of Europe. But the U.S. and its allies say those are non-starters intentionally designed by Moscow to distract and divide. They insist that any Russian military intervention in Ukraine will prompt “massive consequences” that will dramatically disrupt Russia’s economy even if they have global ripple effects.

In a bid to forestall efforts by Russia to sow discord in the West, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to stress that neither Ukraine nor Europe more broadly will be excluded from any discussion of Ukraine’s or Europe’s security.

Biden administration officials allow that neither topic can be entirely ignored when senior American and Russian diplomats sit down in Geneva in Monday ahead of larger, more inclusive meetings in Brussels and Vienna on Wednesday and Thursday that will explore those issues in perhaps more depth.

Still, the mantras “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” and “nothing about Europe without Europe” have become almost cliche in Washington in recent weeks, and senior U.S. officials have gone so far as to say they expect Russia to lie about the content of Monday’s meeting to try to stoke divisions.

“We fully expect that the Russian side will make public comments following the meeting on Monday that will not reflect the true nature of the discussions that took place,” said one senior U.S. official who will participate in the talks. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

That official and others have urged allies to view with “extreme skepticism” anything Moscow says about the so-called Strategic Stability Talks and wait until they are briefed by the American participants to form opinions.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of “gaslighting” and mounting a full-scale disinformation campaign designed to blame Ukraine, NATO and particularly the United States for the current tensions and undercut Western unity. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin is engaged in an all-out war on the truth that ignores Russia’s own provocative and destabilizing actions over the course of the past decade.

“Russia seeks to challenge the international system itself and to unravel our trans-Atlantic alliance, erode our unity, pressure democracies into failure,” Blnken said Friday, going through a list of offending Russian activity ranging from military intervention in Ukraine and Georgia to chemical weapons attacks on Putin critics to election interference in the U.S. and elsewhere, cybercrime and support for dictators.

Despite several conversations between President Joe Biden and Putin, including an in-person meeting last summer, Blinken said such behavior continues, at increasing risk to the post-World War II global order.

Thus, the intensified U.S. and allied effort to forge common positions on both the warnings and the “severe costs” to Russia if it moves against Ukraine. While expressions of unity have been forthcoming, Blinken was not optimistic about prospects for success in the talks.

“To the extent that there is progress to be made — and we hope that there is — actual progress is going to be very difficult to make, if not impossible, in an environment of escalation by Russia,” he said.

Russia, meanwhile, has spun a narrative that it is a threatened victim of Western aggression and wants quick results from the meetings despite what appear insurmountable differences.

Putin has repeatedly warned that Moscow will have to take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the West stonewalls Russia’s demands, and affirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine or the deployment of alliance weapons there is a red line for Moscow that it wouldn’t allow the West to cross.

“We have nowhere to retreat,” Putin said last month, adding that NATO could deploy missiles in Ukraine that would take just four or five minutes to reach Moscow. “They have pushed us to a line that we can’t cross. They have taken it to the point where we simply must tell them, ‘Stop!'”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who will lead Russia’s delegation at the Geneva talks across from U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, said last week that it will quickly become clear whether the talks could be productive.

“It will become clear after the next week’s events whether it’s possible to achieve quick progress, to quickly advance on issues that are of interest to us,” he said in an interview with the daily Izvestia.

“So far, we have heard some pretty abstract comment from the U.S., NATO and others about some things being acceptable and some not and an emphasis on dialogue and the importance for Russia to deescalate. There are very few rational elements in that approach due to the unstoppable and quite intensive military and geopolitical developments of the territories near Russian borders by NATO, the emergence of weapons systems there, activization of drills.”

On Sunday evening, Ryabkov and Shermana will meet over a working dinner to discuss topics for the next day’s talks, a U.S. official said. 

 
…

The European Union is under increasing pressure to further ease rules on airport take-off and landing slots to cut the number of “ghost flights” airlines are running to retain them.

Carriers say the requirement for them to use 50% of their slots — down from 80% in pre-pandemic days — or lose them is forcing them to operate empty or half-empty flights.

A sluggish return to air travel, as travelers shrink away from the omicron COVID variant and quickly changing rules for passengers, is dragging out the practice longer than they planned.

Belgium’s Brussels Airlines, for instance, says it will have to operate 3,000 under-capacity flights up to the end of March.

Its parent company Lufthansa warned last month it expected it would have to run 18,000 “pointless flights” over the European winter.

Belgium’s transport minister, Georges Gilkinet, has written to the European Commission urging it to loosen the slot rules, arguing the consequences run counter to the EU’s carbon-neutral ambitions.

The current reduced quotas were introduced in March last year in a nod to the hardship airlines faced as COVID washed over Europe for a second year running, shriveling passenger numbers.

In December, the commission said the 50% threshold would be raised to 64% for this year’s April-to-November summer flight season.

“Despite our urgings for more flexibility at the time, the EU approved a 50%-use rule for every flight schedule/frequency held for the winter. This has clearly been unrealistic in the EU this winter against the backdrop of the current crisis,” a spokesperson for the International Air Transport Association (IATA) told AFP.

He said the commission needed to show more “flexibility … given the significant drop in passengers and impact of omicron numbers on crewing planned schedules.”

But a commission spokesperson on Wednesday said the EU executive believed “the overall reduced consumer demand… is already reflected in a much-reduced rate of 50% compared to the usual 80%-use rate rule.”

The spokesperson, Daniel Ferrie, said: “The Commission expects that operated flights follow consumer demand and offer much needed continued air connectivity to citizens.” 

 
…

The United States and allies are prepared to discuss with Russia the possibility of each side restricting military exercises and missile deployments in the region, a senior U.S. administration official said on Saturday. 

With crucial talks about Ukraine set to start on Monday in Geneva, the senior Biden administration official said the United States is not willing to discuss limits on U.S. troop deployments or the U.S. force posture in NATO countries in the region. 

President Joe Biden has warned Russia that it will face severe economic consequences if President Vladimir Putin were to launch an invasion of Ukraine. U.S. officials on Saturday provided more details on tough sanctions that could be imposed. 

One restriction, as described by a source familiar with the plan, could target critical Russian industrial sectors, including defense and civil aviation, and would invariably hit Russia’s high-tech ambitions, such as in artificial intelligence or quantum computing, or even consumer electronics. 

The Geneva talks, to be followed by other sessions next week in Brussels and Vienna, are aimed at averting a crisis. Putin has massed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, generating fears of an invasion. 

It remained unclear whether the United States and its European allies can make progress in the talks with Moscow. Putin wants an end to NATO’s eastward expansion and security guarantees, demands the United States says are unacceptable. 

But the senior U.S. official, briefing reporters ahead of the talks, said some areas present opportunities for common ground. 

“Any discussion of those overlapping areas where we might be able to make progress would have to be reciprocal,” the official said. “Both sides would need to make essentially the same commitment.” 

Russia says it feels threatened by the prospect of the United States deploying offensive missile systems in Ukraine, even though Biden has assured Putin he has no intention of doing so. 

“So this is one area where we may be able to reach an understanding if Russia is willing to make a reciprocal commitment,” the official said. 

The United States is also willing to discuss restrictions by both sides on military exercises, the official said. 

“We are willing to explore the possibility of reciprocal restrictions on the size and scope of such exercises, including both strategic bombers close to each other’s territory and ground-based exercises as well,” the official said. 

The official said Washington is open to a broader discussion on missile deployment in the region. In 2019, former President Donald Trump withdrew from the 1987 U.S.-Russia Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, on accusations Moscow was violating the accord. 

A separate senior Biden administration official said penalties being explored in the case of a Russian invasion would not start low and be tightened over time. 

“Instead, we would adopt a ‘start high, stay high’ approach in which we, in coordination with our allies and partners, would immediately impose severe and overwhelming costs on Russia’s economy, including its financial system and sectors deemed critical to the Kremlin,” the official said. 

The United States has been discussing with allies and partners in Europe and Asia a range of trade restrictions under consideration, the source familiar with the planning said. 

No decisions have yet been taken, but restrictions under consideration could impact U.S. products exported to Russia and certain foreign-made products subject to U.S. jurisdiction. 

Russia could be added to the most restrictive group of countries for export control purposes, together with Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. These actions could also restrict export of products made abroad if they contain more than a specified percentage of U.S. content. 

In addition, consideration is being given to exercising U.S. jurisdiction, through the Foreign Direct Product Rule used for Chinese telecom company Huawei, to exports to Russia of all microelectronics designed with U.S. software or technology or produced using U.S. equipment. (( https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-us-could-hit-russia-smartphone-aircraft-part-imports-if-it-invades-2021-12-21/ ))
…

Talks between U.S. and Russian diplomats will begin Monday in Geneva after a weekslong standoff over Russian troop deployments near its border with Ukraine. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this preview.
…

Police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday in Tirana as stone-throwing protesters stormed into the headquarters of Albania’s opposition Democratic Party in a deepening power struggle between party rivals.  

At least one police officer and one protester were injured, and dozens of protesters were arrested, police said. The protests were dispersed in the afternoon.  

The protesters were supporters of former president and prime minister Sali Berisha, who was thrown out of the party last year after Washington banned him from entering the United States over alleged corruption.

Berisha, who denies wrongdoing, has since mounted a leadership challenge against party leader Lulzim Basha. Last month, Berisha called a party assembly and announced himself as leader.

During Saturday’s unrest, Berisha supporters used hammers to smash open newly installed metal security doors at the offices and threw up ladders in a bid to reach the second floor.

Police said in a statement they were forced to intervene after “a group of lawmakers inside the Democratic Party requested police help because lives were in danger.”

Local media said people inside the building had sought to keep the protesters out by spraying fire extinguishers before police arrived.

“The battle will continue as we consider the party building as our home, and we will liberate our home,” said Berisha, speaking just after he was stopped from approaching the building again by police using paper spray against him and his supporters.

The EU office in Tirana called for calm and restraint: “There must be no room for violence in politics,” it said.

The U.S. ambassador in Albania, Yuri Kim, said Washington was deeply concerned about recent tension surrounding the Democratic Party.

“Those inciting violence or undermining the rule of law will be held accountable,” Kim said in a tweet.
…

Novak Djokovic’s legal challenge to the Australian government’s decision to cancel his visa on arrival this week says a certified COVID-19 infection in December meant he qualified for a medical exemption to the county’s vaccination requirements.

A 35-page document lodged in the Federal Circuit and Family Court by his legal team Saturday outlines the Serbian’s case for challenging the visa cancellation which would prevent him from playing in the Australian Open. The challenge will be heard in court on Monday morning.

The tennis world No. 1 has been held in immigration detention in a hotel in Melbourne since Thursday morning after border officials rejected his claim for a medical exemption.

The filing shows Djokovic said he had received a letter from Tennis Australia’s Chief Medical Officer on Dec. 30 stating he had a medical exemption from vaccination on the basis that he had recently recovered from a COVID infection.

The documents show he had tested positive for COVID on Dec. 16, and by Dec. 30 had been free of symptoms or fever in the previous 72 hours.

The application said he had a valid visa to travel and also received an assessment from the Department of Home Affairs stating, “responses indicate(d) that (he met) the requirements for a quarantine-free arrival into Australia where permitted by the jurisdiction of your arrival,” with Victoria the nominated jurisdiction.

The legal documents state that early Thursday morning, after being informed at Melbourne Airport his visa would be rescinded, a confused Djokovic pleaded to be given time to be able to contact Tennis Australia and his agent.

But he said he was “pressured” by authorities to agree to an interview shortly after 6 a.m., despite accepting an earlier offer than he could rest until 8:30 a.m. and saying he “wanted some help and legal support and advice from representatives,” who were still sleeping at the early hour.

Challenged cancellation

The application says Djokovic challenged an official at the airport when told a recent COVID-19 infection was not considered a substitute for a vaccination in Australia.

“That’s not true, and I told him what the Independent State Government medical panel had said and I explained why. I then referred to the two medical panels and the Travel Declaration,” the legal filing quotes the Serbian as saying.

“I explained that I had been recently infected with COVID in December 2021 and, on this basis, I was entitled to a medical exemption in accordance with Australian Government rules and guidance.”

He said he had provided his medical evidence to Tennis Australia for its two-stage independent assessment process, had made his travel declarations correctly and satisfied all requirements to legally enter Australia on his approved visa.

Among the arguments lawyers for the Serbian superstar raised was a section from the Australian Immunization Register which states a person can apply for a temporary vaccine exemption due to a recent “acute major medical illness.”

Djokovic’s legal team said that, among a series of what it says are jurisdictional errors, a delegate for the minister for home affairs did not have “a skerrick of evidence,” using an Australian term for a tiny amount, to suggest the 20-time major champion’s recent infection did not constitute a contraindication.

Tennis Australia’s chief medical officer, Dr. Carolyn Broderick, was one of three medical practitioners on a panel that approved an exemption consistent with guidelines outlined by Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, the filing says.

The document says the first decision was then assessed by a second independent medical panel set up by the Victorian state government, consistent with the process that has been outlined publicly by Tennis Australia. 

 
…

Ukraine is sharpening its accusation that Iran played a sinister role in the 2020 shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane over Tehran as the world marks the second anniversary of the tragedy.

“What happened on January 8th, 2020, was a terrorist act committed against a civilian aircraft,” Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council secretary, said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with VOA Persian.

Danilov also expressed frustration with what he said was Iran’s refusal to cooperate in investigating and providing compensation for the downing of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752.

Iran has acknowledged firing missiles that struck the plane and killed all 176 people on board, but it called the incident an accident and blamed it on a misaligned air defense system and human error by the missile operators. The plane had taken off from Tehran minutes earlier, carrying mostly Iranians and Iranian Canadians who were flying to Kyiv en route to Canada.

The Iranian forces who shot down the Ukrainian plane had been on alert for a U.S. response to a missile strike that Iran launched on American troops in Iraq several hours earlier. Iran had attacked the U.S. troops, wounding dozens, in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad five days previously.

Danilov noted that before and after Iran’s pre-dawn missile strikes on Flight PS752, Iranian authorities had allowed other civilian jets to take off from Tehran airport. “We have the impression that they [the Iranians] had been waiting specifically for our plane. We can assume this,” he said.

Danilov said those who allegedly were waiting to strike the UIA jet were senior Iranian officials. “It must have been an order from senior management. No [air defense] operators can make such a decision on their own.”

The Ukrainian security official’s accusations regarding Iran’s role in the incident were tougher and more detailed than his previous ones.

‘Conscious attack’

In an April 2021 interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, Danilov said he believed the Iranian downing of Flight PS752 was “intentional” and a “conscious attack.”

Ukrainian news site Ukrinform later quoted Danilov as saying in May 2021 that Kyiv was “more and more inclined” to call the Iranian missile strikes a “terrorist act.” Danilov was responding to a Canadian judge’s ruling that month that the “missile attacks were intentional” and “the shooting down of the civilian aircraft constituted terrorist activity under applicable federal law.”

The Ontario court’s ruling came as part of a civil lawsuit brought by relatives of six Flight PS752 victims against Iranian officials, whom they blamed for the tragedy. In a further decision announced Monday, the court awarded the plaintiffs $84 million in damages “for loss of life caused by terrorism.”

Iran’s U.N. mission in New York did not respond to a VOA request for comment on Danilov’s latest statements that the downing of Flight PS752 was a premeditated, terrorist act. VOA made the request in a voicemail on the Iranian U.N. mission’s phone line and in messages sent to the mission by email and on Twitter.

In a separate email exchange with VOA on Friday, Ukraine’s former deputy prosecutor general, Gyunduz Mamedov, used even sharper language to describe Iran’s role in the shootdown.

Mamedov, who was involved in Ukraine’s ongoing criminal investigation of the incident while serving as deputy prosecutor general from 2019 to 2021, said the investigation remains in a pretrial stage in which the classification of the alleged crime is being determined.

“The pre-trial investigation is considering various categories of crime, including an act of terrorism,” Mamedov wrote. “It also is likely that the downing of an aircraft will be classified as a war crime.”

Ukraine has not disclosed evidence that Iran’s shooting down of Flight PS752 was part of a premeditated, intentional act.

‘Full reparations’

Canada, which lost 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents in the shootdown, has not publicly shared Ukraine’s assessments of a sinister Iranian role in the incident.

But Canada joined Ukraine and two other nations whose citizens were among the victims, Britain and Sweden, in issuing a statement Thursday vowing to “hold Iran accountable for the actions and omissions of its civil and military officials that led to the illegal downing of Flight PS752 by ensuring that Iran makes full reparations for its breaches of international law.”

The four nations, which joined together as an International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752, also said that after a first round of talks in July 2020, Iran rejected their January 5 deadline to resume negotiations on their collective demand for reparations. They said they would “now focus on subsequent actions … to resolve this matter in accordance with international law.”

Danilov told VOA that not only has Iran paid no compensation to the Ukrainian victims’ families, but its cooperation with Ukraine’s criminal investigation was nonexistent.

In a statement issued Friday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Tehran has sent letters to embassies of relevant governments declaring a readiness to pay the families of 30 foreign victims.

The Iranian statement said Tehran was ready for “bilateral” talks with the countries whose citizens were killed in the shootdown. But it accused some of those nations, without naming them, of committing “illegal actions” and “trying to exploit this painful incident and the plight of the survivors for their own political purposes.”

Britain, Canada, Sweden and Ukraine have insisted on multilateral negotiations.

Trial questioned

Iran’s Foreign Ministry also noted that the Iranian judiciary has held several court sessions since opening a trial in November of 10 military personnel charged in connection with the shootdown.

In his VOA interview, Danilov questioned the credibility of that trial. “We don’t know whether these people are really responsible, because the processes that took place in Iran were held behind closed doors and foreign representatives were not allowed inside to confirm that this was a transparent, democratic procedure,” he said.

In explaining his belief that the downing of the Ukrainian plane was intentional, Danilov told the Globe and Mail in his April 2021 interview that Iran might have used it as a pre-dawn distraction to calm an escalating confrontation with the more powerful U.S. military.

He also cited Iran’s use of a Russian-made missile system to strike the jetliner. Ukrainian military experts have said such a system is unlikely to mistakenly shoot down a passenger plane.

This story was a collaboration between VOA’s Persian and Ukrainian services and English News Center. Kateryna Lisunova of VOA Ukrainian and Arash Sigarchi of VOA Persian contributed.
…

The top men’s tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, spent Orthodox Christmas in an immigration detention hotel in Australia on Friday as he sought to fend off deportation over the country’s COVID-19 rules and compete in the Australian Open.

Djokovic received calls from his native Serbia, including from his parents and the president, who hoped to boost his spirits on the holiday.

On Instagram, he posted: “Thank you to the people around the world for your continuous support. I can feel it and it is greatly appreciated.”

The 34-year-old athlete and vaccine skeptic was barred from entering the country late Wednesday when federal border authorities at the Melbourne airport rejected his medical exemption to Australia’s strict COVID-19 vaccination requirements.

He has been confined to the detention hotel in Melbourne pending a court hearing on Monday, a week before the start of the tournament, where he is seeking to win his record-breaking 21st Grand Slam singles title.

During the day, Djokovic’s supporters, waving banners, gathered outside the Park Hotel, used to house refugees and asylum-seekers.

A priest from the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church in Melbourne asked to visit the nine-time Australian Open champion to celebrate Orthodox Christmas but was turned down by immigration officials because the hotel is under lockdown.

“Our Christmas is rich in many customs, and it is so important that a priest visits him,” the church’s dean, Milorad Locard, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “The whole thing around this event is appalling. That he has to spend Christmas in detention … it is unthinkable.”

The Australian Border Force said Friday that after further investigations into two other people connected to the Australian Open, one voluntarily left the country, and another was taken into detention pending deportation.

The Czech Embassy identified one of them as 38-year-old doubles player Renata Voráčová and said she won’t play in the tournament.

Australia’s COVID-19 rules say incoming travelers must have had two shots of an approved vaccine or must have an exemption with a genuine medical reason, such as an acute condition, to avoid quarantine. All players, staff, officials and fans need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to enter the tournament venue.

Djokovic flew to Australia after obtaining a medical exemption backed by the country’s tennis federation and approved by the Victoria state government. The grounds for the exemption have not been disclosed. But the Australian government pronounced it invalid when he arrived.

The dispute has become a touchy topic in a city where residents spent 256 days in 2020-21 under severe restrictions on their movement. Djokovic’s exemption stirred allegations that the star athlete got special treatment.

While some players have sympathized with his situation, others have said getting vaccinated would have prevented any drama.

But amid the latest turn in the dispute, even some who have been critical of Djokovic in the past are now seemingly in his corner.

“Look, I definitely believe in taking action, I got vaccinated because of others and for my mum’s health, but how we are handling Novak’s situation is bad, really bad,” Nick Kyrgios, an Australian player and outspoken critic of some of Djokovic’s opinions on vaccinations, posted on Twitter. “This is one of our great champions but at the end of the day, he is human. Do better.”

Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said earlier this week that 26 people connected with the tournament applied for medical exemptions and only a “handful” were granted. Three of those have since been challenged. 
…

The United States is accusing Russia of trying to “gaslight” the world regarding tensions with Ukraine, continually seeking to portray Kyiv as the aggressor even as Moscow plans to mobilize as many as 300,000 troops for a potential invasion.

The accusation came Friday from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, following a virtual meeting of NATO foreign affairs ministers, and ahead of a series of talks involving the U.S., NATO and Russia set for the coming week. 

“We’ve seen this gaslighting before,” Blinken told reporters, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its illegal seizure of Crimea in 2014. Gaslighting is defined by one online dictionary as causing people to doubt their sanity through psychological manipulation. 

“No one should be surprised if Russia instigates a provocation or incident, then tries to use it to justify military intervention,” the top U.S. diplomat added, warning that Russia’s military buildup involves “nearly 100,000 troops today with plans to mobilize twice that number on very short order.” 

“This is a test for Russia,” Blinken added, cautioning progress can be made only “in the context of de-escalation.” 

“If it is serious about resolving the situation in eastern Ukraine and to resolve it diplomatically and peacefully, the Minsk [Agreement] is the way to do it,” he said, adding that a failure to do so would result in “massive consequences.” 

Speaking separately in Brussels earlier on Friday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed Moscow’s willingness to engage in talks this coming week. But he warned that while NATO would listen to Russia’s concerns in “good faith,” the Kremlin must be willing to do likewise on a range of issues, including arms control. 

“For dialogue to be meaningful, it must also address allies’ long-standing concerns about Russia’s actions,” Stoltenberg told reporters. “That has to be reciprocal.” 

Stoltenberg further warned that NATO would not give in to Russian demands. 

“We will not compromise on core principles, including the right for every nation to determine its own path,” he said. “We cannot end up in a situation where we have second class NATO members where NATO as an alliance is not allowed to protect them.” 

Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of carrying out a military buildup of its own and has demanded that NATO agree to a series of security guarantees, including a rollback of the alliance’s military presence in Eastern Europe and that it put an end to any expansion, including possible membership for countries like Ukraine and Georgia. 

In an interview with Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said President Vladimir Putin wanted to see immediate results following the upcoming talks. 

“That’s not a figure of speech,” Ryabkov said, adding that the success or failure of the upcoming talks will depend on “the extent to which our American colleagues are receptive to our demands.” 

On Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke by phone with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu about “risk reduction near Ukraine’s borders.” 

Still, Russia’s tough talk has touched off a flurry of diplomatic activity among Western allies, including calls between NATO officials and the leaders of Finland and Sweden. 

And Blinken spoke by phone Friday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, reassuring Kyiv of U.S. support. 

However, speaking to reporters, Blinken said, “It will be very difficult to make actual progress if Russia continues to escalate its military buildup and its inflammatory rhetoric.” 

And in Brussels, NATO’s Stoltenberg added that the Western alliance is clear-eyed about the upcoming discussions. 

“We need to be prepared for the talks breaking down and that diplomacy will fail,” he said. “That is exactly why we are sending a very clear message to Russia that if they once again decide to use military force against a neighbor, then there will be severe consequences, a high price to pay — economic sanctions financial sanctions, political sanctions.” 

 
…

The speed with which Russia dispatched troops this week to help quell violent demonstrations in neighboring Kazakhstan is testimony to the Kremlin’s recurring fear of “color revolutions,” say Western diplomats and analysts. Moscow must have been horrified by how quickly the protests spread in Kazakhstan, long seen as one of the most stable of the former Soviet countries, they emphasize.  

Sparked by a fuel price hike and cost of living grievances, the protests, which began in the oil-rich western part of the country, rapidly escalated this week into the worst violence the Central Asian nation has seen since turning independent 30 years ago. 

And the grievances over fuel prices voiced initially by the protesters snowballed into a bigger threat against the government after dozens died when Kazakh armed forces opened fire.  

Demonstrators have been demanding regime change and the departure of both Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and the country’s 81-year-old former leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down three years ago after almost three decades in power but retained the official title of “leader of the nation.”  

He is still believed to rule behind the scenes, and protesters reference him with chants of “Get out, old man.” On Wednesday demonstrators in Taldykorgan, a town in southern Kazakhstan, pulled down his statue from the main square. 

Protesters stormed government buildings Wednesday in Almaty, the country’s largest city, and briefly occupied the airport with reports of “dozens” of protesters being killed in clashes along with at least 12 policemen. Thursday saw videos circulating on social media showing Kazakh military units exchanging gunfire with armed opponents in Almaty. 

Russian officials and pro-Kremlin media have claimed the West is behind the agitation and is trying to foment another color revolution with the goal of disorienting Russia on the eve of major Russia-U.S. security talks next week with the United States and NATO amid fears the Kremlin may be considering invading Ukraine. 

Russia has previously accused Western powers of being behind popular uprisings in the former Soviet states of Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine.  

Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, said unrest was foreign-backed and aimed to “undermine the security and integrity of the state by force, using trained and organized armed formations.” Konstantin Kosachev, a senator who chairs the foreign affairs committee of Russia’s upper house of parliament, said the protesters included Islamic militants who had fought in Afghanistan. 

“It’s a tense moment in the former Soviet Union, with Russian troops and tanks surrounding Ukraine on three sides. The last thing Moscow wants or needs is legitimate protests in a country it considers to be in its sphere of interest,” said Melinda Haring, of the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based research organization. “Moscow is looking for a hidden hand. The Kremlin doesn’t accept the protests in Kazakhstan as genuine,” she added. 

Kazakhstan is an important regional power with vast energy resources.  

President Tokayev, who has ordered troops to “shoot to kill without warning” and says protesters who fail to surrender will be “destroyed,” also has blamed outsiders for unprecedented agitation. He alleged in a broadcast to the nation Thursday that Almaty had been attacked by “20,000 bandits” who had a “clear plan of attack, coordination of actions and high combat readiness.”  

Tokayev expressed “special thanks” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, for agreeing to his midweek request for assistance “in overcoming this terrorist threat.”  

The request was formally made to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Moscow-led regional security pact comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Tokayev invoked article 4 of the CSTO pact, which commits members to assist each other to defend against “foreign interference.” It is the first time any CSTO member has cited article 4 of the military alliance, which was formed in 1994.

The Russian defense ministry says about 3,000 paratroopers and other servicemen are being flown to Kazakhstan “around the clock” with up to 75 huge transport planes being used in the emergency airlift. Kazakhstan’s interior ministry said in a statement Friday that 26 protesters had been killed during the unrest, 18 injured and more than 3,000 arrested. It said 700 security personnel had suffered injuries and confirmed 18 had been killed.  

Sporadic gunfire could still be heard Friday in Almaty, despite Tokayev telling Kazakhs that order had largely been restored. “Constitutional order has been mainly restored in all regions,” Tokayev said Friday. “Local authorities are monitoring the situation. But terrorists are still using weapons, causing damage to civilian property. Therefore [a] counterterrorist operation will continue until the total destruction of the militants.” 

Tokayev may have turned to Russia for assistance because he feared not all of his security forces would remain loyal, if the agitation escalated, a British diplomat told VOA. He said in some smaller towns, the police appeared to have sat out the protests and in Aktobe, near the country’s border with Russia, the police are reported to have sided with the protesters. 

Armenia Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, currently CSTO chairman, says the forces will be committed “for a limited period, in order to stabilize and normalize the situation.” And Stanislav Zas, secretary-general of the CSTO, said the outside forces would “minimize and localize threats” to Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity. He, too, said the mission would be temporary. 

Some Russian analysts and Kazakhs have warned the Russian deployment risks triggering further trouble. “Whoever took this decision has absolutely no understanding of the Kazakh mentality,” Polat Dzhamalov, a Kazakh living in Moscow, told the independent TV Rain, an internet channel. “Kazakhs have never tolerated occupation.” 

Some Russian analysts also have highlighted the risks of Russian troops maintaining any longer-term presence and of being dragged into the unrest.

“For now, this is less an armed intervention than a police operation,” said Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin-linked policy organization. “But if it drags on, consequences for Russia could mount up,” he told the English-language newspaper the Moscow Times. 

The United States, Britain and other western countries have urged all sides to show restraint.

“We are concerned about the violent clashes and are following developments closely. We are urging against further escalation and want to see a peaceful resolution,” a spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. 

 
…

The Turkish lira had a very bad year in 2021 and lost a significant amount of its value against the U.S. dollar. That’s led to a cross-border shopping spree from neighboring Bulgaria. VOA’s Umut Colak filed this report from Edirne, Turkey, narrated by Ezel Sahinkaya.
…

A marathon trial of suspects in the November 2015 Paris attack resumed Thursday after a negative COVID-19 test allowed the main suspect to attend. 

Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the 10 assailants, had not appeared in court since November 25 and tested positive at the end of December. 

He is set to take the stand for questioning next Thursday and Friday, an event long awaited by families of the 130 people killed on November 13, 2015. 

In the meantime, there was a tense standoff between the presiding judge and another defendant. 

Osama Krayem, 29, a Swedish national, informed the court through his lawyer that he would remain silent “until the end of proceedings” and refused to even attend the trial, calling it “an illusion.” 

Judge vows force

But when it was Krayem’s turn on Thursday to be questioned about his role in the series of jihadi attacks on bars, restaurants, the Bataclan concert hall and the national stadium, chief judge Jean-Louis Peries said that he would be made to show up. 

“I will have no option but to use force to make him appear on the stand,” he said. 

That turned out to be unnecessary, as Krayem made his way to the bench uncoerced, and sat down next to Abdeslam. 

“It’s good of you to come willingly,” the judge commented. 

Abdeslam, a dual French Moroccan national, was captured in Brussels after discarding his suicide vest and fleeing the French capital in the chaotic aftermath of the bloodshed. 

Bataclan attack

The attack on the Bataclan, where 90 people mostly in their 20s and 30s were massacred as they watched a rock concert, represented the most traumatic of a string of separate attacks claimed by the Islamic State group over several years. 

Abdeslam’s co-defendants are answering charges ranging from providing logistical support to planning the attacks, as well as supplying weapons. 

Krayem, whom Belgian investigators identified as one of the killers of a Jordanian pilot burned alive by IS in early 2015 in Syria, is also under investigation in Sweden for war crimes. 

After four months of proceedings, the trial has now entered a new phase in which the 14 suspects present are to be questioned. Six others are being tried in absentia, although five of them are believed to be dead, mostly in airstrikes in Syria. 

The 2015 attacks began when the first attackers detonated suicide belts outside the national stadium where France was playing a football match against Germany.

A group of gunmen later opened fire from a car on half a dozen restaurants, and Abdeslam’s brother Brahim blew himself up in a bar. 

The trial, the biggest in modern French history, is to last until May. 
…

Russian soldiers have deployed to Timbuktu in northern Mali to train Malian forces at a base vacated by French troops last month, Mali’s army spokesperson said Thursday. 

Mali’s government said last month that “Russian trainers” had arrived in the country, but Bamako and Moscow have so far provided few details on the deployment, including how many soldiers are involved or the Russian troops’ precise mission. 

The Russians’ arrival has generated sharp criticism from Western countries, led by former colonial power France. They say the forces include contractors from the mercenary Wagner Group, which they accuse of human rights abuses in other countries. 

Mali’s government has denied this, saying the Russian troops are in the country as part of a bilateral agreement. 

“We had new acquisitions of planes and equipment from them [the Russians],” the Mali army spokesperson told Reuters. “It costs a lot less to train us on site than for us to go over there. … What is the harm?” 

He did not say how many Russians had been sent to Timbuktu. 

Local residents told Reuters that uniformed Russian men were seen driving around town but could not say how many there were. 

Russia’s defense ministry was not immediately available for comment. 

The Russian forces’ arrival in Mali follows deployments to several other African hot spots, part of what analysts say is an attempt by Moscow to recover influence on the continent after a long absence following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. 

France helped to recapture Timbuktu from al-Qaida-linked militants in 2013. France’s withdrawal from the city is part of a significant drawdown of a previously 5,000-strong task force in West Africa’s Sahel region sent to battle jihadist groups.
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Pope Francis Thursday marked the Catholic feast day of Epiphany, the day traditionally observed to commemorate the three wise men — or Magi — visiting the baby Jesus, by urging people to “follow their dreams.”

During a Mass celebrated at the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope recalled the journey of the Magi, who, according to Scripture, followed a star to Bethlehem where the baby Jesus was born in a manger. He said the three had a sort of “healthy restlessness” driven by a desire to see the Christ child.

Francis said, “They were not content to plod through life, but yearned for new and greater horizons.” He urged people to follow the example of the wise men, and lead their lives “brimming with desire, directed, like the Magi, towards the stars.”

He urged people to move past the “barriers of habit, beyond banal consumerism, beyond a drab and dreary faith, beyond the fear of becoming involved and serving others and the common good.”

Pope Francis said the Catholic Church could learn something from the Magi as well, saying it needs “this deep desire and zeal that should animate our journey of life and faith.”  

The pope appeared to direct his comments specifically at the more conservative members of the Church who balked at his decision to restrict the traditionalist Latin Mass, saying the liturgy could not be trapped in a “dead language.”

The Pope concluded his message by noting the Magi’s return home “by another way,” saying they challenge all of us, as well, to take new paths, to be open to the “creativity of the Spirit.”

The Epiphany is observed in predominantly Catholic nations around the world. Falling 12 days after Christmas, in many places, it is traditionally the last day of the holiday season.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
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The World Health Organization says a new coronavirus variant recently detected in France is nothing to be concerned about right now.

Scientists at the IHU Mediterranee Infection Foundation in the city of Marseille say they discovered the new B.1.640.2 variant in December in 12 patients living near Marseille, with the first patient testing positive after traveling to the central African nation of Cameroon.

The researchers said they have identified 46 mutations in the new variant, which they labeled “IHU” after the institute, that could make it more resistant to vaccines and more infectious than the original coronavirus.  The French team revealed the findings of a study in the online health sciences outlet medRxiv, which publishes studies that have not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal.

Abdi Mahmud, a COVID-19 incident manager with the World Health Organization, told reporters in Geneva earlier this week that, while the IHU variant is “on our radar,” it remains confined in Marseille and has not been labeled a “variant of concern” by the U.N. health agency.

Meanwhile, an international team of health care advocates and experts is calling for 22 billion doses of mRNA vaccine to be administered around the world this year to stop the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant.  The team is urging the production of an additional 15 billion doses of mRNA vaccine, more than double the projected 7 billion doses.

The report says mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna have demonstrated the best protection against several variants by providing cross-immunity through so-called T-cells, an arm of the human immune system that kills virus-infected cells and keeps them from replicating and spreading.

The report was a collaboration among scientists at Harvard Medical School, Columbia University, New York University and the University of Saskatchewan and the advocacy groups PrEP4All and Partners in Health.
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