RIYADMEDIA

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new york — Former Vice President Mike Pence says he will not be backing Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

“It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” Pence said Friday in an interview with Fox News, weighing in for the first time since the former president became the presumptive GOP nominee. Pence ran against Trump for their party’s nomination but dropped his bid before voting began last year.

The decision makes Pence the latest in a series of senior Trump administration officials who have declined to endorse their former boss’s bid to return to the Oval Office. While Republican members of Congress and other GOP officials have largely rallied behind Trump, a vocal minority has continued to oppose his bid.

It also marks the end of a metamorphosis for Pence, who had long been seen as one of Trump’s most loyal defenders but broke with his two-time running mate by refusing to go along with Trump’s unconstitutional scheme to try to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

When Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, trying to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s win, Pence was forced to flee to a Senate loading dock as rioters outside chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”

To participate in the Republican primary debates, Pence was required to sign a pledge saying that he would support the party’s eventual nominee. And during the first debate in Milwaukee, Pence was among the candidates who raised their hands when asked whether they would support Trump even if he were convicted in one of his four criminal indictments.

But Pence had made clear he had come to harbor serious reservations about Trump’s actions and his policy stances.

“I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again,” he said during his campaign launch speech.

As the campaign progressed, he raised alarms about the party’s resistance to sending aid to Ukraine and called on his fellow Republicans to reject what he called the “siren song of populism” espoused by Trump and his followers.

Pence declined to say for whom he would be voting — “I’m going to keep my vote to myself,” he said — but made clear it wouldn’t be Biden.

“I would never vote for Joe Biden,” he said. “I’m a Republican.”
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new york — Donald Trump’s New York hush-money criminal trial was delayed Friday until at least mid-April as the judge seeks answers about a last-minute evidence dump that the former president’s lawyers said has hampered their ability to prepare their defense. 

Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan agreed to a 30-day delay starting Friday and scheduled a hearing for March 25 after Trump’s lawyers complained that they only recently started receiving more than 100,000 pages of documents from a previous federal investigation into the matter. 

Merchan said he was holding the hearing to determine whether prosecutors should face sanctions or whether the case should be dismissed, as Trump’s lawyers have requested. 

The trial had been scheduled to start March 25. The delay means the trial would start no earlier than April 15. Prosecutors had said they wouldn’t object to a short delay. 

In a letter Friday, Merchan told Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s defense team that he wanted to assess “who, if anyone, is at fault for the late production of the documents,” whether it hurt either side and whether any sanctions were warranted. 

The judge demanded a timeline of events detailing when the documents were requested and when they were turned over. He also wants all correspondence between the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Trump, and the U.S. attorney’s office, which previously investigated the matter in 2018. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche also declined to comment. 

Merchan’s decision upended what had been on track to be the first of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial. Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has fought to delay all of his criminal cases, arguing that he shouldn’t be forced into a courtroom while he should be on the campaign trail. 

Trump’s lawyers wanted a 90-day delay, which would’ve pushed the start of the trial into the early summer, and asked Merchan to dismiss the case entirely. Prosecutors said they were OK with a 30-day adjournment “in an abundance of caution and to ensure that defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.” 

The hush-money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s records to hide the true nature of payments to his attorney, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign to suppress her claims of having had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
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tel aviv, israel — China conducted joint military drills this week with Russia and Iran in the Gulf of Oman, a critical water conduit near the entry to the Persian Gulf.

The five-day exercise, “Maritime Security Belt 2024,” involved both naval and aviation forces, with the primary objective of enhancing the security of maritime economic activities, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

The drills may have been planned long in advance of the current Israel-Hamas war, but their implication and message to regional players and the West are highly significant, analysts say.

More than 20 ships, combat boats, support carriers and navy helicopters participated in the exercise.

Iran’s semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) debuted new warships in the exercise, including the Shahid Soleimani corvette.

“That’s a game changer,” Wendell Minnick, an arms specialist and “China in Arms” podcaster,  told VOA.

“Pay close attention to anti-ship missiles on ships,” Minnick said. “The U.S. Navy has a real problem with these types of missiles.”

The IRGC-operated Shahid Soleimani corvette is equipped with long- and short-range anti-ship cruise missiles. It’s the first Iranian warship outfitted with advanced VLS, or Vertical Launching Systems, for firing surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.

“This gives the U.S. Navy a nightmare scenario of being saturated by multidirectional vectors of attack that they cannot possibly defeat en masse,” Minnick said. “Like being attacked by bees or ants. Eventually they will get you.”

Rear Admiral Mohammad Nozari, the IRGC commander of Iran’s base at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, told the Mehr News Agency the drill’s chief objectives were consolidating regional security, promoting China-Russia-Iran cooperation, and safeguarding global peace and maritime security.

Analysts say Chinese, Russian and Iranian objectives go far beyond the IRGC top naval commander’s stated claims.

“The Chinese and the Russians are using this exercise as a variety of tools disposable to them to show their presence and to pressure the West,” said Meir Javedanfar, who teaches Iranian security studies at Reichman University, in Herzliya, Israel.

“The Chinese are saying these exercises are normal and have nothing to do with what’s happening in the Middle East,” Javedanfar said in an interview with VOA.

“Nevertheless, the fact that these exercises are taking place against the background of an unprecedented U.S. and Western naval presence in the Middle East shows that the rivalry between the China-Russia-Iran front against the Western front is now heating up, and the Middle East waters are playing an important part in this rivalry.”

The rivalry takes on heightened significance when weighed against the recent uptick in Chinese participation in regional drills.

In November, China collaborated with Pakistan in “Sea Guardian 3” joint naval exercises in the Arabian Sea. It was the biggest joint People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Pakistani Navy drill to date and included land and sea phases.

China’s warships are stationed at a naval base in Djibouti near the Red Sea waters where Iranian-backed Houthis declaring solidarity with Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas conflict have since last year repeatedly fired drones and missiles at ships. China has not publicly condemned the attacks.

“If China really wanted the Houthis to stop these attacks against Western shipping, they could pressure the Iranians and the Iranians would listen, but they’re not doing this because they want to pressure Western economies and to show that they have influence in the region,” Javedanfar said.

“The drills play a part in the larger strategy led by China and Russia and Iran,” Javedanfar said.

Sophie Kobzantsev, a Russia analyst and research fellow at the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem, says the Gulf of Oman drill is part strategy, part message.

“From the beginning — the Russia-Ukraine war — Russia’s goal was to create a new world order in which it gets a role or a place as super world power,” Kobzantsev told VOA.

“Part of this concept of the new world order is to partially create a military balance vis-a-vis the West. The drill serves Russia — and Iran and China — in creating the image and the message to the West that there is a counterstrategic military coalition.”

Leading the Russian contingent was the missile cruiser Varyag from its Pacific Fleet, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Naval representatives from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Oman, India and South Africa served as observers during the exercises.

The drills come just a week after NATO’s Nordic Response exercises, the most expansive NATO drills since the Cold War ended in 1991. Nordic Response incorporated military participation of NATO’s newest member states Sweden and Finland.

With an increased U.S. foothold in the Middle East due to its role in mediating the Israel-Gulf States Abraham Accords, pursuing the normalization of Israel-Saudi ties and now mediating between Israel and Hamas, the drill also takes on “countermessage” significance, said Kobzantsev.

The area where the joint drills are taking place is also significant.  An estimated 20% of globally traded oil moves through the narrow Strait of Hormuz passage linking the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

Since 2019 the Gulf of Oman has seen a series of ship seizures and attacks that the U.S. has blamed on Iran, although Tehran has denied any involvement.

“We actually see a kind of formation of the world that is reminding us of the Cold War and that there is a new clash between superpowers in this world,” said Kobzantsev. “The West vs. Russia, China and Iran.”

Marine Security Belt 2024 is the fourth joint China-Russia-Iran military exercise since 2019. 

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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united nations — Ukraine, joined Friday by more than 55 countries at the United Nations, condemned Russia’s attempts to organize elections on occupied Ukrainian land, saying they were not valid.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the Russian Federation’s illegitimate attempts to organize Russian presidential elections in temporarily occupied areas within the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine,” the group said in a statement read by Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, flanked by his counterparts.

“Holding elections in another U.N. member state’s territory without its consent is in manifest disregard for the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said. “Such elections have no validity under international law.”

Starting Friday and continuing through Sunday, Russians are casting votes in polls that international election observers have dismissed as having no chance of being free or fair and are designed to return President Vladimir Putin to power for another six years.

Ukraine, supported by council member Slovenia, requested that the U.N. Security Council meet Friday to discuss Russia’s holding of the vote in areas of Ukraine that Russian forces have seized and occupied, including Crimea and the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

“You convened an entire Security Council meeting to criticize Russia for Russia’s conduct of democratic elections on territories which administratively, politically and economically are part of our country — like it or not,” Russia Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said.

Ukraine’s envoy dismissed the Russian election as a “travesty” and said residents in the occupied areas have been subject to broad intimidation by local authorities to participate in the “sham” election.

“Among them, threats against life, illegal detention, denial of access to health care and social services, threats of deportation and deprivation of property,” Kyslytsya said. “We should not forget that these actions take place at gunpoint.”

“Let’s call this what this is: It’s a blatant propaganda exercise, undertaken in the hopes of somehow strengthening Russia’s false claim to the parts of Ukraine it illegally invaded,” said U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo said as the occupying power, Russia is obligated to uphold Ukrainian laws in the occupied territories. She said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condemned Russia’s intention to conduct presidential elections in these areas as “unacceptable.”
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BERLIN — Ukraine’s backers will use windfall profits on frozen Russian assets to finance arms purchases for Kyiv, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said following a meeting with his French and Polish counterparts aimed at showing unity after weeks of friction. 

At a joint news conference in Berlin, Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reaffirmed their support for Ukraine, whose ammunition-starved troops face their toughest battles since the early days of Russia’s invasion two years ago. 

European support has become increasingly key as U.S. President Joe Biden has been unable to get a big Ukraine aid package through Congress and much of his foreign policy energy is focused on the war in Gaza. 

Scholz said the leaders had agreed on the need to procure more weapons for Ukraine on the global market and to boost the production of military gear, including through cooperation with partners in Ukraine. 

“We will use windfall profits from Russian assets frozen in Europe to financially support the purchase of weapons for Ukraine,” Scholz said as he listed European Union efforts to increase support for Ukraine. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called last month for the EU to consider using such profits to “jointly purchase military equipment for Ukraine.” 

The Commission is expected to make a concrete proposal in the coming days. 

Some EU member countries such as Hungary have signaled reservations about the idea, according to diplomats in Brussels. But Scholz’s comments suggested he is confident that EU countries will ultimately approve the proposal. 

Scholz said the leaders also agreed on the need for the Ukraine Defense Contact group — a U.S.-led group of some 50 countries that provide military support to Ukraine — to set up a coalition to provide long-distance artillery to Kyiv. 

A proposal to set up a long-range missile coalition had already been agreed to in Paris on February 26. It was unclear whether Scholz’s comments referred to this or how Germany, which has opposed sending its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, would participate. 

Defense ministers from the contact group are set to meet early next week at the Ramstein U.S. Air Base in Germany. 

Macron reiterated his warning that it was not just Ukrainian but European security at stake. 

“We will do everything as necessary for as long as needed so that Russia cannot win this war,” Macron said. “This determination is steadfast and implies our unity.” 

He added that the three leaders had agreed on the need to reinforce support for Moldova, which says Russia is trying to destabilize it through a “hybrid war.” 

He said the three leaders had agreed to never initiate an escalation with Russia, a possible way to downplay talk of sending Western ground troops to Ukraine, which has irked Germany. 

The meeting of the so-called Weimar triangle — Germany, France and Poland — came after weeks of tensions, in particular between Scholz and Macron, that had alarmed officials in Kyiv and across the continent. 

A hastily arranged summit in Paris last month had aimed to give fresh impetus to stagnating Western efforts to help Ukraine repel a full-scale Russian invasion that has entered its third year. 

Instead, Macron’s refusal to rule out deploying Western troops to Ukraine triggered a dressing down from Scholz. 

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Reuters that “indecision and uncoordinated action” among Kyiv’s allies was leading to “grave consequences.” 

“Russia starts to get cocky and begins to believe that it can quantitatively squeeze Ukraine,” he said. “Ukraine, in turn, is experiencing a severe shortage of specific resources, primarily shells, and is partially losing the initiative.” 

Tusk said the meeting on Friday showed “that some malicious rumors that there are differences between European capitals are very exaggerated.” 

Tusk, who is seeking to revitalize the Weimar Triangle after eight years of nationalist rule in Warsaw, said Macron and Scholz had accepted his invitation to meet again in early summer to present their next joint plans. 
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BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive arm Friday proposed sacrificing even more climate and environmental measures in the bloc’s latest set of concessions to farmers apparently bent on continuing disruptive tractor protests until the June EU elections.

Angering environmentalists across the 27 nations, the Commission proposed to further loosen rules imposed on agriculture that they said, not so long ago, were inherent parts of the bloc’s strategy to become climate neutral by 2050. That iconic challenge put the EU in the global vanguard of fighting climate change.

“The main goal of these legislative proposals is to further ease the administrative burden for EU farmers and give farmers and Member States greater flexibility for complying with certain environmental conditionalities,” said a statement from Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission.

Under the proposals, the conditions to move farming to become more climate friendly were weakened or cut in areas such as crop rotation, soil cover protection and tillage methods. And small farmers, representing some two-thirds of the workforce and the most active within the continentwide protest movement, will be exempt from some controls and penalties under the new rules.

Politically, the bloc has moved rightward over the past year and the plight of farmers has become a rallying cry for populists and conservatives who claim EU climate and farm policies are little more than bureaucratic bungling from elitist politicians who have lost any feeling for soil and land. The Christian Democratic European People’s Party of von der Leyen had been among the most vocal and powerful in defending the farmers’ cause.

Scientists and environmentalists from around the globe have insisted drastic measures are necessary to keep global warming from getting worse and have pointed out Europe as one of the places with the bleakest prospects.

The Commission’s proposals still need to be endorsed by the member states, but considering previous concessions, they stand a good chance of being accepted quickly, observers said.

Friday’s plans were the EU’s latest concessions in reaction to protests that have affected the daily lives of tens of millions of EU citizens and cost businesses tens of millions of euros due to transportation delays. Others have included shelving legislation on tighter pesticide rules and requirements to let some land lie fallow.

On top of the EU itself, member states have also caved in to several of the demands as the tractor protests shot up the political agenda. Complaints have centered on excessive bureaucracy, intrusive environmental rules and unfair competition from third countries, including Ukraine.

The Commission said that even though more-flexibile measures for farmers were now proposed, the overall EU climate goals remained valid.

“We are the first continent to have made a binding legal commitment to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Not only have we done that,” said Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer, “but we actually fixed a roadmap to 2030 with the legal act to ensure that we are on the right path to meet that objective.”

He insisted Friday’s proposals would not veer from that commitment, even though the fact that “we … adapt from time to time to changing circumstances is obvious.”
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White House — U.S. President Joe Biden is hosting Taoiseach of Ireland Leo Varadkar on Friday for the annual St. Patrick’s Day reception at the White House, amid calls to boycott the event by many in Ireland who are outraged by staunch U.S. support of Israel in its war against Hamas.

Speaking earlier this week in Boston, where almost a quarter of the city’s population claims Irish descent, Varadkar cited Ireland’s “own painful history,” and renewed calls for an “immediate cease-fire” in Gaza, a step that goes beyond the six-week halt in fighting that Biden is pushing for. 

The Irish prime minister said he intends to warn Biden and congressional leaders that if the West does not “see and respect the equal value of a child of Israel and a child of Palestine,” the rest of the world, particularly the Global South, will ignore calls to uphold “rules and institutions that are the bedrock of the civilized world.” 

Polls show Ireland, a Catholic-majority European country, is one of the most pro-Palestinian nations in the world. Many Irish cite their own resistance against British rule as the reason for their support of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Varadkar’s visit comes amid shifting public sentiment among Biden’s Democratic Party on the war in Gaza. On Thursday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S. and an avid supporter of Israel, stunned Israelis by condemning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an “obstacle to peace” and calling for new elections in Israel.

Biden and Varadkar also are set to discuss support for Ukraine’s push against Russian aggression amid a deadlock in the U.S. Congress over funding for Kyiv. The Irish leader is expected to add his voice to the chorus of European leaders urging House Republicans to pass the aid package.

Northern Ireland

First Minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Fein and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionist Party, or DUP, are also in Washington to take part in St. Patrick celebrations.  

The two aim to deliver the message that Northern Ireland is open for business following the recently restored power-sharing deal in Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly, after two years of political infighting between DUP, which favors continued governance with London, and Sinn Fein, which broadly supports reunification with Ireland. 

Biden, who often cites his Irish heritage, has long advocated for the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 peace deal that helped end 30 years of bloody conflict over whether Northern Ireland should unify with Ireland or remain part of the United Kingdom. 

In his visit to Northern Ireland last year, the president promised that American businesses are ready to invest once power-sharing and stability is returned.
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MADISON, Ind. — Authorities in Indiana said they were working to confirm reports of fatalities from a tornado that was part of storm system that also unleashed suspected twisters in parts of Ohio and Kentucky on Thursday, damaging homes and businesses.

Storm damage in Indiana was reported in the east central city of Winchester, according to Indiana State Police, who said they were working to confirm the deaths that had been reported to them.

Joseph Nield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis, said it was highly likely a tornado caused significant damage in the Winchester area, based on radar data and reports from storm spotters and local officials.

“It appears that is the most significant damage that we’ve had reported to us,” he said.

A Facebook post on the Winchester Community High School page said all the schools in that school district would be closed on Friday. Another post said the high school had electricity and was open for emergency use for people who “need somewhere warm and dry.”

Forecasters were also aware of damage in the Lakeview, Ohio, area and across the region and plan to survey the area Friday to confirm the tornado, said Scott Hickman, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio.

A number of buildings in Lakeview were destroyed, Amber Fagan, the president and CEO of the Indian Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, told ABC 6 news.

“It’s pure devastation,” she said. “I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. “Our Lakeview municipal building is demolished. Our laundromat is gone. The old plastics building is just completely demolished. Downtown, it’s bad.”

A spokesperson for Logan County’s Emergency Management Agency confirmed the tornado. She said there were no confirmed reports of fatalities or injuries. Lakeview is in Logan County.

“We had a tornado strike here in Logan County. There is damage, it is still being assessed. We do have people on the ground, doing that work,” the spokesperson said, hanging up before spelling out her name to a reporter.

Earlier, storms damaged homes and trailers in the Ohio River communities of Hanover and Lamb in Indiana.

Jefferson County Sheriff Ben Flint said storms destroyed three or four single-family homes and four or five other structures and demolished several uninhabited campers along the river.

“We were fortunate that no one was injured,” Flint told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Sgt. Stephen Wheeles of the Indiana State Police said a suspected tornado struck Jefferson County, damaging several homes and downing trees and power lines.

He posted photos on X, formerly known as Twitter, showing one home with its roof torn off and another missing roof shingles as well as an image of a baseball-sized hailstone.

Around 2,000 Duke Energy customers in Hanover lost power at one point during the storms, the company reported.

In Kentucky, Trimble County Emergency Management Director Andrew Stark said the storms damaged at least 50 structures, including homes.

“We have a whole bunch of damage,” Stark told the Courier Journal of Louisville.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear issued a statement saying a tornado touched down along the Indiana state border in Gallatin and Trimble counties and there were reports of a couple of minor injuries. He urged Kentuckians to stay aware of the weather as more storms were expected across the state Thursday evening and overnight.

“It does appear that there is some really significant damage, especially to the town of Milton in Trimble County,” Beshear said. “We think there are over 100 structures that are potentially damaged.”

The state’s emergency operations center was activated to coordinate storm response, Beshear said.

Large pieces of hail also was reported in parts of the St. Louis area this afternoon.

There were unconfirmed reports of tornadoes in Jefferson County, Missouri, and Monroe County, Illinois, but no immediate reports of damage.

Severe weather was possible into Thursday night from northeast Texas to Indiana and Ohio, the National Weather Service said on X. It issued a tornado watch for parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri until 9 p.m. Central Daylight Time.
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President Joe Biden faces uncertain prospects in the key swing state of Michigan, where more than 100,000 Democratic voters chose “uncommitted” rather than the president in the recent primary. On Thursday, he visited Saginaw. VOA’s Anita Powell, traveling with the president, reports.
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Russia has rebranded its Wagner paramilitary group as an “expeditionary corps” now controlled by Moscow’s military intelligence arm, and the force is offering a “regime survival package” to autocratic regimes in Africa, Britain’s Royal United Services Institute says. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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Washington — The husband and two daughters of an American journalist jailed in Russia are in Washington this week to call on the U.S. government to do more to help secure the reporter’s release. 

Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian national, has been jailed in Russia since October 2023 on charges of failing to register as a so-called foreign agent and spreading what Moscow views as false information about the Russian army. 

Kurmasheva is a Prague-based editor at the Tatar-Bashkir service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL. The journalist and her employer reject the charges, which carry a combined maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Since Kurmasheva’s jailing, her husband, Pavel Butorin, has consistently called for her immediate release. He and their daughters traveled from Prague to Washington this week as part of the campaign to secure Kurmasheva’s release.  

“I’m here because I think that the U.S. government can and should do more for her release,” Butorin told VOA.  

Butorin is the director of Current Time TV, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA.

While in Washington, Butorin met with State Department officials, but he did not specify to VOA what was discussed during those meetings.  

“We are making — I will say, cautiously — some progress toward the designation of Alsu as a wrongfully detained American journalist,” Butorin said. “I appreciate the support and attention that Alsu’s case has been given by the administration.” 

For months, Butorin, RFE/RL and international press freedom groups have called on the State Department to declare Kurmasheva wrongfully detained, which would open up additional resources to help secure her release.  

Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately reply to a VOA email requesting comment.  

Kurmasheva is one of two American journalists jailed in Russia.  

The other — The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich — has been jailed in Russia since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government deny. The 32-year-old is set to mark one year behind bars on March 29.

The State Department has declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained. 

A State Department spokesperson said U.S. officials have pressed the Russian government for access to Kurmasheva, but those requests have not yet been granted.

“We are deeply concerned about Alsu Kurmasheva’s detention,” the spokesperson told VOA in a statement.  

“The Department of State continuously reviews the circumstances surrounding the detentions of U.S. nationals overseas, including those in Russia, for indicators that they are wrongful,” the spokesperson said regarding a potential wrongful detention determination. 

“I’ve been, again, assured that Alsu’s case is a priority. I’ve heard U.S. officials say that they do think that she is a political prisoner, and they’re working hard on her release,” Butorin said.  

Butorin added that the most just resolution would be for Moscow to drop the charges against his wife, who initially traveled to Russia in May 2023 for a family emergency. Her passports were confiscated when she tried to leave the country in June, and she was waiting for them to be returned when she was detained in October.  

“The charges are absurd — spurious. She’s not a criminal. We know her as a devoted mother to her daughters,” Butorin said. He added that the situation has taken a toll on their two children. 

“My daughters have had to grow up very quickly over these past nine months. It’s been an incredibly stressful situation for our family,” he said. “They want their mother back.”
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WASHINGTON — An appeals court denied Trump White House official Peter Navarro ‘s bid to stave off his jail sentence on contempt of Congress charges Thursday.

Navarro has been ordered to report to a federal prison by March 19. He argued he should stay free as he appeals his conviction for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington disagreed, finding his appeal wasn’t likely to reverse his conviction. His attorneys did not immediately return messages seeking comment but have previously indicated he would appeal to the Supreme Court.

Navarro was the second Trump aide convicted of contempt of Congress charges. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously received a four-month sentence, but a different judge allowed him to remain free pending appeal.

Navarro was found guilty of defying a subpoena for documents and a deposition from the House January 6 committee. He served as a White House trade adviser under then-President Donald Trump and later promoted the Republican’s baseless claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Navarro has said he couldn’t cooperate with the committee because Trump had invoked executive privilege. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta barred him from making that argument at trial, however, finding that he didn’t show Trump had actually invoked it.
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london — Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied he is seeking to oust Western influence in Africa, as new analysis suggests the Kremlin’s military intelligence arm has taken over activities of the disbanded Wagner Russian paramilitary group on the continent.

In a television interview broadcast in Russia on March 13, Putin dismissed claims that Moscow is seeking to displace France as the major partner of countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

“We have not ousted anyone. It’s just that the African leaders of certain countries made agreements with Russian economic operators, wanted to work with them and did not want to work in certain areas with the French. It wasn’t even our initiative, it was an initiative of our African friends,” Putin said.

“We are not instigating anyone and do not seek to turn anyone against France. To be honest, overall, we do not have national tasks at the Russian state level there. We’re just being friends with them, that’s all,” the Russian president added.

‘Regime survival package’

In the past decade, analysts say Moscow has sought to extend its influence in Africa through the deployment of Russian forces — often under the guise of paramilitary fighters — and arms deals with African governments, in return for access to resources.

A recent analysis by Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) suggests that Russia has rebranded the former Wagner paramilitary group as an expeditionary corps which is now under the control of Moscow’s military intelligence arm — known as the GRU — and is offering what it calls a “regime survival package” to autocratic governments in Africa.

“At a time when many Western states were trying to economically isolate Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin saw the development of economic ties with Africa and the Middle East as a means to sanction-proof Russia, and he had a pitch for the leaders of these states,” the report said.

“It centered on the proposition that the ‘international rules-based order’ advocated for by the West structurally favored Western interests, whereas Russia’s emphasis on sovereignty would offer a mutually beneficial partnership. The reality — as Russian officials acknowledged internally — was a renewed Russian colonialism,” the RUSI report added.

Wagner rebranded

Wagner fighters have been deployed in several African countries, including Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. They have frequently been accused of committing widespread human rights abuses.

In June 2023, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was struggling to make progress, Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a failed mutiny against Moscow, accusing the defense ministry of depriving his fighters of ammunition. Wagner was disbanded shortly afterward. Two months later, Prigozhin died in a suspicious plane crash.

That left a dilemma for the Kremlin: What to do about Wagner’s operations in Africa?

“After that so-called mutiny, the decision was made that it would be better to have it more in-house rather than outsourced,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, an associate fellow at RUSI and a co-author of the report.

The analysis shows that Moscow has rebranded the Wagner group as the expeditionary corps of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, with a target of recruiting a further 40,000 troops to serve in the force. Its aim is to secure Russian interests overseas — including access to resources such as oil, gas and minerals — while also reducing Moscow’s vulnerability to Western sanctions.

Russia colonialism

“What they’re doing is just expanding colonialism in the Global South countries. And right now they are very much focused on African countries, but they have plans for Latin America as well, some Asian countries. They will also have political technologists, media experts, intelligence officers who are specialized in political warfare, economic operations. So, pretty much everything to be able not only to infiltrate those Global South countries, but also to establish pro-Russian regimes there,” Danylyuk told VOA.

The RUSI report says Russia helped to foment military coups in parts of Africa and is now seeking to displace Western influence.

Mali

France and other European nations sent troops to Mali in 2013 to help fight an Islamist insurgency. They were withdrawn in 2022 after successive military coups and a breakdown in relations between Paris and Bamako. A 12,000-person United Nations peacekeeping force also pulled out last year at the request of the junta government.

Several hundred Russian-backed fighters are now in Mali supporting the military junta under interim President Colonel Assimi Goita. Moscow also has backed military governments in Niger and Burkina Faso, and is supporting General Khalifa Haftar in Libya against the unity government under Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.

‘Plausible deniability’

The pretense that Wagner was a private army separate from the Kremlin allowed Russia to deny involvement in its Africa operations. “Many of the operations being conducted were either at the expense of other states or violated U.N. Security Council resolutions,” according to the RUSI report.

“The problem for the Expeditionary Corps is that it risks the removal of this plausible deniability… It appears that Russia has finally decided to explicitly challenge the international system rather than pretend to comply with it.”

Western challenge

The authors of the report warn that Russia’s expansion of operations in Africa could have serious consequences for Europe and the West.

“Through persistent instability, Russia can push migration into Europe, creating the conditions… to pursue political destabilization,” the report warns. “Leverage over natural resources is also expanding. Perhaps most problematic, however, is how the pitch for values is giving Russia access to communities that interface with a range of extremist beliefs.”
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FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA — Donald Trump arrived Thursday at a federal courthouse in Florida, where a judge will hear arguments on whether to dismiss the criminal case accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House. 

The motorcade carrying the 2024 Republican presumptive presidential nominee arrived shortly before the hearing was set to begin before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump. 

The dispute centers on the Trump team’s interpretation of the Presidential Records Act, which they say gave him the authority to designate the documents as personal and maintain possession of them after his presidency. 

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team, by contrast, says the files Trump is charged with possessing are presidential records, not personal ones, and that the statute does not apply to classified and top-secret documents such as those kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. 

The Presidential Records Act “does not exempt Trump from the criminal law, entitle him to unilaterally declare highly classified presidential records to be personal records, or shield him from criminal investigations — let alone allow him to obstruct a federal investigation with impunity,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing last week. 

It was not clear when Cannon might rule, but the outcome will determine whether the case proceeds or whether, as Trump’s lawyers hope, it is thrown out before ever reaching a jury — a rare action for a judge to take. 

Cannon is also expected to hear arguments Thursday on a separate but related Trump team motion that says the statute that forms the bulk of the criminal charges — making it a crime to willfully retain national defense information — is unconstitutionally vague as it applies to a former president. 

It is not surprising that defense lawyers are seeking dismissal of the case based on the Presidential Records Act given that the legal team has repeatedly invoked the statute since the FBI’s August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago. 

The law, enacted in 1978, requires presidents upon leaving office to transfer their presidential records to the U.S. government for management — specifically, the National Archives and Records Administration — although they are permitted to retain personal records, including diaries and notes that are purely private and not prepared for government business. 

Trump’s lawyers have said that he designated as personal property the records he took with him to Mar-a-Lago, which prosecutors say included top-secret information and documents related to nuclear programs and the military capabilities of the U.S. and foreign adversaries. 

Cannon has suggested in the past that she sees Trump’s status as a former president as distinguishing him from others who have held onto classified records. 

After the Trump team sued the Justice Department in 2022 to get his records back, Cannon appointed a special master to conduct an independent review of the documents taken during the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search. That appointment was later overturned by a federal appeals court. 

More recently, even while ruling in favor of Smith’s team on a procedural question, Cannon pointedly described the case as the “first-ever criminal prosecution of a former United States President — once the country’s chief classification authority over many of the documents the Special Counsel now seeks to withhold from him (and his cleared counsel) — in a case without charges of transmission or delivery of national defense information.” 

Trump faces 40 felony counts in Florida that accuse him of willfully retaining dozens of classified documents and rebuffing government demands to give them back after he left the White House. Prosecutors in recent court filings have stressed the scope of criminal conduct that they say they expect to prove at trial, saying in one that “there has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct remotely similar to Trump’s.” 

They allege, for instance, that Trump intentionally held onto some of the nation’s most sensitive documents — only returning a fraction of them upon demand by the National Archives — and then urged his lawyer to hide records and to lie to the FBI by saying he no longer was in possession of them. He’s also charged with enlisting staff to delete surveillance footage that would show boxes of documents being moved around the property. 

The hearing is the second this month in the case in Florida, one of four prosecutions Trump confronts as he seeks to reclaim the White House this year. Cannon heard arguments on March 1 on when to set a trial date but has not ruled yet. Both sides have proposed summertime dates for the trial to begin. 
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