RiyadMedia

The European Union agreed Thursday to impose new sanctions on entities supplying Iranian drones to Russia that were used to strike Ukraine.

The Czech presidency of the European Union announced the agreement in a tweet Thursday, saying it came after three days of talks with EU ambassadors and would go into effect Thursday afternoon.

It said the EU was freezing assets of three individuals and one entity “responsible for drone deliveries.”

It added that the EU was also prepared to extend sanctions against four Iranian entities that were previously sanctioned.

Russian forces have intensified their use of airstrikes during the past week that Ukrainian officials have identified as utilizing Iranian-made drones laden with explosives that are crashed into their targets.

Iran has denied supplying the drones to Russia and Russia has denied using them in Ukraine. 
…

Ukraine is restricting power use Thursday in response to Russian attacks that damaged parts of the country’s electrical infrastructure.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged people to conserve energy in an address late Wednesday.

He said the government was working to create “mobile power supply points for critical infrastructure in cities and villages.”

Ukraine’s power grid operator said supply restrictions would be in place from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., and that as colder months approach, it may need to take such steps again in the future.

Drone controversy

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council met Wednesday in a private meeting at the request of the United States, Britain and France to discuss the issue of Russia using Iranian-made drones in its war in Ukraine.

Washington, London and Paris say Tehran’s supplying of these unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which allows for transfers of restricted items to or from Iran only when approved on a case-by-case basis by the Security Council. No such approval has been sought.

“We had a very clear indication that the drones have been delivered from Iran to Russia and they have been used in Ukraine,” France’s ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told reporters as he left the meeting. “This is a violation of Resolution 2231.”

“We anticipate this will be the first of many conversations at the U.N. on how to hold Iran and Russia accountable for failing to comply with U.N. Security Council-imposed obligations,” said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

“As was outlined during today’s meeting, there is ample evidence that Russia is using Iranian-made UAVs in cruel and deliberate attacks against the people of Ukraine, including against civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” he added, “in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”

Ukrainian officials have said drones used in waves of attacks during the past week, including on the capital, Kyiv, were Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones that Russia used to carry explosives and crash into their targets.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador told reporters that his government categorically rejects the “unfounded and unsubstantiated claims,” which he said are part of a disinformation campaign against his government.

“It is disappointing to pursue their political agenda, these states are trying to launch a disinformation campaign against Iran and make misleading interpretation of the Security Council Resolution 2231 in order to wrongly establish a link between their baseless allegation against Iran with this resolution,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said.

Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy told reporters that the allegations are “baseless,” there have been no arms transfers in violation of the resolution and no Iranian drones were supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

“I would recommend that you do not underestimate the technological capabilities of the Russian drone industry,” Dmitry Polyanskiy said. “I can tell you we know what we do, and we know how to do it.”

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that in the past week alone, more than 100 Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas.

U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this article. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Cattle farmers in Botswana, one of Africa’s top beef exporters to the European Union, have welcomed renewed beef exports to Europe. The move follows a two-month ban that followed an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease and the culling of thousands of cows.

Botswana officials on Monday said the August outbreak near the border with Zimbabwe has been brought under control, although a ban on cattle from the area remains in place.

Due to tough restrictions, beef exports to the European Union had been suspended because of the outbreak in August.

But farmers like Bathusi Letlhare said they are now relieved following Monday’s announcement of the partial lifting of the ban.

“It is a welcome development because the EU is one of the main markets for our beef,” Letlhare said. “They pay good prices, and this, in turn, benefits farmers a lot. It is always bad when we have an FMD outbreak and the market has to be closed.”

Letlhare added that the frequent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have had an adverse impact on the economy.

“I can say 80 percent of households have livestock, and when FMD breaks out and certain markets are closed, it becomes a big challenge to farmers,” Letlhare said. “Farmers cannot move cattle to markets, and there is no income to farmers, and the whole economy is affected.”

Letlhare felt the impact, too.

“I run a butchery, and for 10 days we were not selling beef,” Letlhare said. “And you can imagine the money we lost.”

Botswana’s acting director of veterinary services Kefentse Motshegwa said strict export requirements will be followed. This includes placing cattle in holdings approved for EU export for a period of 40 days before slaughter.

Beef exports will only be allowed from seven of the country’s 19 agricultural zones.

Andrew Seeletso of the Botswana National Beef Producers Union said although meat from other agricultural zones remained banned, the partial resumption of beef exports is welcome.

“It is better than nothing,” he said. “We are hoping that soon enough, the rest of the country will be allowed to sell beef for the EU market. But overall, we are very excited. It’s a good development, and we support it.”

In September, Botswana partially resumed the beef trade, including live cattle sales to neighboring countries, but there was no export to the EU.

The country enjoys duty- and quota-free access to the European market.
…

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pushed back against growing concerns that Republican lawmakers would not keep aid flowing to Ukraine should they retake control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November midterm election.

“The United States has provided Ukraine with robust bipartisan support,” she told reporters Wednesday. “We will continue to work with Congress as we have these past several months on these efforts and support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

The United States has authorized more than $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, with more than $17 billion in security assistance disbursed since the war began in February.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, however, indicated that aid could slow down should the chamber be controlled by Republicans. 

On Tuesday, McCarthy told Punchbowl News that with a recession coming, Americans are not going to write “a blank check” to Ukraine. “They just won’t do it. … It’s not a free blank check,” he said.

Ukrainians, still reeling from Russian drone and missile attacks on their capital, Kyiv, and other cities, leaving much of the country without power, are closely following the U.S. midterm election process, said Olena Shuliak, chairwoman of Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People Party.

“Our people die every day. Every day, we stand defending democracy in the whole world,” she told VOA Ukrainian. “You can see what is happening daily with the shelling and destruction of our houses and killing of our people — you can’t decrease the support only to increase it.”       

Observers say that with rising isolationist tendencies in the Republican Party, some worry that aid to Ukraine would wane, particularly for humanitarian and economic needs. There is less concern for U.S. security assistance, however, considering Republicans generally support the military industrial complex, said Kristine Berzina, a senior fellow for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“What is the desperate need from Europeans right now in Ukraine and all across the [NATO] eastern flank? It is the need for weapons systems, everything from ammunition to very sophisticated weapon systems like HIMARS [High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems], drones,” Berzina told VOA. “The defense budgets are increasing so significantly in Europe that the increase in defense spending is outpacing what is available on the shelf.” 

In May, Congress voted for more than $40 billion in new military and humanitarian assistance, with 57 House Republicans voting against the package. 

Focus on China 

Looming recession aside, some Republican lawmakers have signaled that the U.S. should instead focus more on the threat of China’s military buildup. 

“There are a lot of members that want to see more accountability in the Department of Defense and more of a focus on the threats that are out there,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told reporters last month. “China is moving very aggressively to build up a naval fleet, and right now our naval fleet is in decline.”

Berzina said the conflict in Ukraine is a testing ground not only of the West’s technological warfare capabilities but of its commitment to defend a partner against an aggressor. 

The competitive military environment in Ukraine is giving defense companies reason to innovate and invest in weapon technologies, many of which are being tested on the Ukrainian battlefields.

“That’s going to be important should there be a conflict with China in the future,” she said.

China, she added, is also learning from the West’s reaction to Moscow’s expansionist ambitions.

“Any kind of permissibility in Ukraine also has implications,” she said. “How tough is the U.S. going to be when it comes to Taiwan?” 

Some Republican lawmakers have also cited a need for greater oversight of the aid being sent to Ukraine and complained that the U.S. is shouldering more of the financial burden than other NATO members.

Observers say that stopping U.S. support for Ukraine would wipe out Kyiv’s gains on the battlefield and could alter the course of the war. 

“Is it better to have an investment in Ukraine defense right now before you have to defend half of the European continent?” Berzina asked. “So there’s a fiscally conservative argument to stopping it now before the problem becomes so big that the U.S. has to put more money into it in much bigger places.”

Tatiana Koprowicz contributed to this report.
…

The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that it expects carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels to rise again this year, but by much less than in 2021 due to the growth in renewable power and electric cars.

Last year saw a strong rebound in carbon dioxide emissions — the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming — after the global economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The Paris-based IEA said CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are on course to rise by almost 1% in 2022 compared to the previous year. That’s nearly 300 million metric tons of CO2 more than in 2021, when the burning of gas, oil and coal released about 33.5 billion tons of CO2.

“This year’s increase is driven by power generation and by the aviation sector, as air travel rebounds from pandemic lows,” the agency said.

While coal emissions grew 2% as countries that previously imported natural gas from Russia scrambled for other energy sources, this didn’t outweigh the expansion of solar and wind power, which saw a record rise in 2022.

Oil use also increased as pandemic-related restrictions eased, resulting in more people commuting to work and a rise in air travel.

“The rise in global CO2 emissions this year would be much larger — more than tripling to reach close to 1 billion tons — were it not for the major deployments of renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles around the world,” it said.

Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases need to decline drastically in the coming decades to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), the ambitious threshold agreed in the 2015 Paris climate pact. Scientists say there is little room left for maneuver because temperatures have already risen by about 1.2 Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times.

A report published Wednesday by the environmental think tank World Resources Institute found countries’ current plans for cutting emissions would see them decline just 7% by 2030 from 2019 levels. The group said emissions would need to drop by 43% over that period to meet the Paris goal.

Stepping up global efforts to reduce emissions will be one of the topics at next month’s United Nations climate meeting in Egypt.
…

The European Parliament (EP) has awarded its 2022 Sakharov Prize to “the brave people of Ukraine” in their battle against Russia’s unprovoked invasion in late February.

The EP said in a statement Wednesday that the award went to “brave Ukrainians, represented by their President [Volodymyr Zelenskyy], elected leaders, and civil society.”

“This award is for those Ukrainians fighting on the ground. For those who have been forced to flee. For those who have lost relatives and friends. For all those who stand up and fight for what they believe in. I know that the brave people of Ukraine will not give up and neither will we,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said in the statement.

The annual prize is named after the Soviet physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov and was established in 1988 by the European Parliament to honor individuals and organizations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms.
…

The United States, Britain and France have asked for the U.N. Security Council to discuss the issue of Russia using Iranian drones in the war in Ukraine.

Diplomats said Tuesday the request included asking for a U.N. official to brief the council during a closed-door meeting Wednesday.

Ukrainian officials have said drones used in waves of attacks during the past week, including on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, were Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones that Russia used to carry explosives and crash into their targets.

Iran has denied supplying the drones to Russia, and Russian officials have denied using them.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur told reporters Tuesday he expects more drone attacks against “many cities in Ukraine.”

Pevkur said Ukraine has managed to shoot down about half of attacking drones, but that it still needs more help. Ukrainian officials have in recent days repeated their calls for allies to provide more air defense aid.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that in the past week alone, more than 100 self- Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas.

Russia’s new commander in Ukraine said Tuesday the situation in the southern Kherson region is “very difficult” as Kyiv forces wage an offensive to retake southern and eastern areas that Moscow illegally annexed last month.

“The situation in this area is difficult. The enemy is deliberately striking infrastructure and residential buildings in Kherson,” Russian air force General Sergei Surovikin told the state-owned Rossiya 24 television news channel.

Surovikin said Russia plans to evacuate civilians ahead of Ukraine’s offensive to reclaim Kherson, one of four regions under Russian control.

He called Tuesday for an “organized, gradual displacement” of civilians from four towns on the Dnipro River, a 2,200-kilometer-long river that bisects Ukraine.

Regional head Vladimir Saldo told The Associated Press on Tuesday that residents of Berislav, Belozersky, Snigiryovsky and Alexandrovsky were to be moved across the Dnipro, away from Russian troops building “large-scale defensive fortifications.”

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

As the cold season starts in landlocked Afghanistan, concerns are mounting about widespread hunger, particularly in the rugged parts of the country where the first snowfall blocks the roads.

This year there is hope that 30,000 metric tons of wheat coming from another war-torn country, Ukraine, will mitigate the hunger for some Afghans. The U.N. says hunger is nearly universal in Afghanistan with 97% of its population now living below the poverty line.

“Despite its own suffering in the face of Russia’s brutal invasion, Ukraine has donated 30,000 metric tons of grain through the WFP to alleviate Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis,” U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, tweeted last month.

The World Food Program says the wheat is being milled into flour in Turkey and will be then shipped to Pakistan from where it will be delivered to Afghanistan by trucks.

A spokesperson for WFP told VOA the aid shipment is funded by the U.S. “It is not a donation from Ukraine,” said the spokesperson, Annabel Symington.

VOA asked the State Department whether the U.S. offered any financial incentive to Ukraine for the wheat. The answer: No.

“The U.S. did not play a role in Ukraine’s decision to donate this 30,000 metric tons of wheat to Afghanistan and commends Ukraine for its generosity despite the trying circumstances imposed upon it by Russia’s unjust invasion,” the State Department spokesperson said.

Ukraine sells

In August, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced it was giving $68 million to the WFP to buy 150,000 metric tons of wheat from Ukraine to feed needy countries in Africa and Asia.

“Before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine was one of WFP’s top suppliers of grain and the fourth largest commercial exporter of wheat. Opening the Ukrainian market is a vital step forward in our emergency response,” USAID said in the statement.

Under a deal brokered by Turkey, Ukraine has exported more than 6.4 million metric tons of wheat and other food items in the past two months, according to the U.N.

The Ukrainian shipments have gone to different countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, where food prices have gone up markedly since Russia embarked on its war against Ukraine in February.

The U.S. has also provided aid to Ukrainian farmers to improve their agricultural products, such as spraying pesticides by drones.

“USAID is supporting the farmers of Ukraine in their efforts to continue feeding Ukrainians and feeding the world,” said Samantha Power, the USAID administrator, while visiting a farm in Ukraine on October 6.

In addition to humanitarian aid, the U.S. has given more than $17.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, according to figures from the State Department.

Why give credit to Ukraine?

While Ukraine has sold the wheat to WFP, why has the U.S. been praising Ukrainian “generosity” and “donation” rather than claiming credit for its own financial sponsorship of the wheat aid to Afghanistan?

“Ukraine is the source of this food,” James S. Gilmore, a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told VOA. “The goal here is to allow Ukraine to engage in international commerce. And, once that’s permitted, over top of this war, then I do think that the American people who are funding it and financing it ought to be given credit for that.”

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University, said the U.S. might have preferred to give credit to Ukraine in order to blunt Russia’s onslaught.

“At the moment, Russia is on the diplomatic offensive in among many developing nations, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, scoring points by saying that the U.S. has been imposing various conditionalities on aid and its double standards, etc. And the U.S. is very keen that Ukraine, with which it is allied, is seen in a more positive light among those developing countries,” de Waal told VOA.
…

Viewers of Slovenia’s public broadcaster RTV had an unexpected interruption to the evening news show last month, when journalists entered a studio during a live broadcast to show support for their colleagues.

The protest came after Uros Urbanija, the director of RTV’s TV Slovenia unit, ordered anchor Sasa Krajnc and news editor Vesna Pfeiffer to be reassigned, after Krajnc introduced a segment as being broadcast on the direct instruction of the chief news editor.

The response from RTV’s CEO was swift. In October, he issued letters to all 38 staffers involved, warning they face dismissal if contracts are breached again.

The actions come at a time when the public broadcaster is in the middle of claims of political pressure and editorial interference, with the former ruling center-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) gathering momentum to derail a law that the government says will protect RTV.

Media associations and trade unions say the warning letters are troubling.

One letter, viewed by VOA and signed by RTV’s chief executive Andrej Grah Whatmough, states that the employee entered the studio “without authorization.”

By doing so, the employee used the show “for expressing a personal opinion and thus inadmissibly intervened in the program.”

Any future breaches of contract in the next two years may result in termination, the letter said.

VOA has not identified the person addressed in the letter to avoid possible retaliation.

Journalists at RTV and their trade unions say the letters were issued illegally and should be annulled.

Pfeiffer told VOA she was demoted from being editor of a prominent evening show to working on a morning news program. Krajnc has so far not been reassigned.

Media associations, trade unions and academics view the developments as another worrying step for the public broadcaster.

“Nobody who would want to lead a group of journalists effectively could issue such warnings,” Slavko Splichal, a professor of communication at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Social Sciences, told VOA.

Public broadcaster targeted

The academic described the warning as “clear proof that the management of RTV wants to destroy” the public broadcaster, adding, “If they actually fired all those journalists, its TV news program would collapse.”

Splichal until September was a member of RTV’s Program Council, a body that names the broadcaster’s chief executive and endorses production plans.

Splichal told VOA he resigned last month to signal that he disagrees with developments at TV Slovenia.

International rights groups, including the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), are also troubled by the action.

“This situation seriously undermines RTV’s journalistic mission and poses threats to its independence,” IPI Europe advocacy officer Jamie Wiseman told VOA.

Wiseman said the letters “pose further concerns about the actions of management, who have already been accused by editorial staff of axing shows, removing editors, pressuring or reassigning individual journalists, and attempting to engineer a political shift of editorial content.”

Independent and professional reporting is increasingly difficult at TV Slovenia, and will not be possible in the long run, unless the situation is resolved, said senior TV Slovenia news anchor Igor Evgen Bergant.

Bergant was in the studio as an anchor on the day of the protest and has not received a warning.

“These warnings are scandalous, they are an absolute abuse of the … power of the management against people who are fighting for an independent and autonomous medium,” said Bergant.

Whatmough however, dismissed criticism over the letters.

He did not respond to VOA’s request for further comment but in remarks published on RTV, Whatmough said, “Those are not threats. There was simply a violation of our house rules regarding entering the studio.”

Whatmough said the warnings were issued on the initiative of Urbanija, who was appointed in July.

Urbanija was previously a director of the government communication office under former Prime Minister Janez Jansa. During that time his department alleged bias at RTV and temporarily stopped financing for the state press agency STA.

Whatmough himself was named chief executive in 2021 by the Program Council, which is predominantly made up of members nominated by the-then center-right parliament.

Since his arrival at RTV, a number of popular shows were shortened, moved to less prominent channels, or scrapped.

Urbanija and Whatmough both deny pressuring editors and journalists. They say the changes are necessary to improve ratings and the quality of reporting.

Protection plan stalls

Under a law prepared by Slovenia’s new center-left government, parliament would no longer nominate members of RTV’s Program Council.

Currently, parliament nominates 21 out of 29 members.

But former Prime Minister Jansa’s party is challenging that plan with a November referendum.

His SDS party has collected more than 40,000 signatures to force a referendum on the law passed by parliament in July. Demands for a referendum blocked the legislation from being enacted.

Most analysts say they do not believe the referendum — scheduled for next month — will be successful. But it does bring uncertainty.

“Passing the referendum and enacting the bill would help safeguard the broadcaster’s independence and represent a boost for the (ruling coalition’s) media freedom credentials,” said Wiseman.

“The changes enacted under the previous government have left RTV in the most challenging situation in decades,” he said, enabled by “the disproportionate influence of politics on RTV’s governance structure.”

The law is a move in a positive direction but does not necessarily ensure political independence of RTV’s leadership, said the academic Splichal.

The government for instance, will still control the subscription that most households pay for RTV, and which is a main revenue source, Splichal said.

Splichal welcomed the European Commission’s proposal last month of a European Media Freedom Act to safeguard media independence.

The proposal, in part triggered by increased political pressure on media in Slovenia, lays out rules to protect editorial independence and pluralism, including for public-funded outlets.
…

Ukraine has invited U.N. experts to examine debris from what it says are Iranian-made drones sold to Russia in violation of international sanctions and used to attack Ukrainian towns and cities.    

In a letter sent to the president of the U.N. Security Council and seen by VOA, Ukraine’s ambassador says that according to public information, Russia has been receiving shipments of prohibited items from Iran since January 2016.    

“Specifically, in late August 2022, Mohajer- and Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) were transferred from Iran to Russia,” Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said in the letter. “Ukraine assesses that this is likely part of Iran’s plans to export hundreds of UAVs to Russia.”   

In recent weeks, Ukraine has repeatedly reported Russian attacks on its cities using Iran’s Shahed-136 drones. Iran denies equipping Russia with its drones.   

Kyslytsya noted that both the Mohajer and Shahed drones are manufactured by Qods Aviation, which is subject to an international asset freeze under Security Council Resolution 2231.   

The council adopted that resolution in 2015, codifying the international agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, but certain restrictions remain in place.   

Resolution 2231 allows for transfers of restricted items to or from Iran only when approved on a case-by-case basis by the Security Council. No such approval has been sought.   

“Therefore, the transfers from Iran to Russia should be considered as violations of UNSCR 2231,” Kyslytsya wrote.    

On Monday, Washington said Iran’s actions violate Resolution 2231.     

“Earlier today, our French and British allies publicly offered the assessment that Iran’s supply of these UAVs to Russia is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, and this is something that we agree with,” deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.      

Diplomats said Tuesday that the United States, Britain and France have requested that the U.N. Security Council discuss the Iranian drone issue in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday.    

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also told reporters that the Iranians “have not been truthful about this and deny providing weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine.”    

Jean-Pierre said the United States will enforce sanctions on Russian and Iranian arms trade and “make it harder for Iran to sell these weapons to Russia.”   

 
…

An appeals court in Moscow has rejected jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s move to have his nine-year prison sentence on charges of financial fraud and contempt of court struck down. 

The second court of appeals of common jurisdiction in the Russian capital announced its decision on Tuesday. 

Navalny, who took part in the hearing via a video link from a penal colony, and his defense team insisted that the verdict and sentence handed to the outspoken Kremlin critic in March while he was already serving another prison term from a separate case, are illegal and should be annulled. 

The Lefortovo district court in Moscow handed down the nine-year prison sentence to Navalny on March 22 after finding him guilty of embezzlement and contempt of court, charges that he and his supporters have repeatedly rejected as politically motivated. 

Navalny was arrested in January last year upon his arrival to Moscow from Germany, where he was treated for a poison attack with what European labs said was a Soviet-style nerve agent. 

He was then given a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for violating the terms of an earlier parole because of his convalescence abroad. The original conviction is widely regarded as a trumped-up, politically motivated case. 

Navalny has blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning with a Novichok-style poisonous substance. The Kremlin has denied any role in the attack. 

International organizations consider Navalny to be a political prisoner. The European Union, U.S. President Joe Biden, and other international officials have demanded that Russian authorities release the 46-year-old Kremlin-critic. 

Navalny is currently serving his term in a penal colony in the town of Pokrov in the region of Vladimir, some 200 kilometers east of Moscow. 

 
…

The death toll has risen to 14 after a Russian warplane crashed into a residential area in the Russian port city of Yeysk, causing a massive fire at an apartment building. 

Authorities released the updated death toll on Tuesday. 

The Russian Defense Ministry said the plane was on a training mission Monday when one of its engines caught fire. The plane’s crew safely ejected before the crash.  

Local authorities said the plane crash ignited a massive fire that engulfed several floors of a nine-story apartment building in Yeysk, on the Sea of Azov. 

Several hours after the crash, Regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said emergency services had contained the fire. 

Yeysk, with a population of 90,000, is in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine and is home to a large Russian air base.  

The Defense Ministry said the plane was a Su-34 bomber, a supersonic twin-engine plane that Russia has been using during its war in Ukraine.  

President Vladimir Putin was informed of the crash and ordered government officials to provide all necessary help, the Kremlin said.  

Reuters news agency reported that Russia’s state Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case and sent investigators to the scene of the crash.  

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
…

NATO on Monday began its long-planned annual nuclear exercises in northwestern Europe as tensions simmer over the war in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use any means to defend Russian territory. 

Fourteen of NATO’s 30 member countries were due to take part in the exercises, which the military alliance said would involve around 60 aircraft including fighter jets and surveillance and refueling planes. 

The bulk of the war games will be held at least 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) from Russia’s borders. 

U.S. long-range B-52 bombers will also take part in the maneuvers, dubbed Steadfast Noon, which will run until Oct. 30. NATO is not permitting any media access. 

NATO said that training flights will take place over Belgium, which is hosting Steadfast Noon this year, as well as over the North Sea and the United Kingdom. The exercises involve fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but do not involve any live bombs. 

The exercises were planned before Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February. Russia usually holds its own annual maneuvers around the same time, and NATO is expecting Moscow to exercise its nuclear forces sometime this month. 
…

Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize on Monday for his second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife.

Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla at the English language literary award’s first in-person ceremony since 2019. He also gets a 50,000 pound ($56,810) prize.

Set in 1990 Sri Lanka during the country’s civil war, Karunatilaka’s story follows gay war photographer and gambler Maali Almeida, who wakes up dead.

Time is of essence for Maali, who has “seven moons” to reach out to loved ones and guide them to hidden photos he has taken depicting the brutality of his country’s conflict.

“My hope for Seven Moons is that in the not-too-distant future … it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that these ideas of corruption, race baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work,” Karunatilaka said in his acceptance speech.

“I hope it is read in a Sri Lanka that learns from its stories and that ‘Seven Moons’ will be in the fantasy section of the bookshop and will … not be mistaken for realism or political satire.”

This year’s shortlist of Booker Prize contenders included British author Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker, Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, Small Things Like These by Irish writer Claire Keegan, U.S. author Percival Everett’s The Trees and Oh William! by U.S. author Elizabeth Strout.

“This is a metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west,” judges chair Neil MacGregor said of Karunatilaka’s book.

“It is an entirely serious philosophical romp that takes the reader to ‘the world’s dark heart’ — the murderous horrors of civil war Sri Lanka,” MacGregor added. “And once there, the reader also discovers the tenderness and beauty, the love and loyalty, and the pursuit of an ideal that justify every human life.”

Past winners of the Booker Prize, which was first awarded in 1969, include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel.
…

A photograph of migrants found exposed, without clothing, along the border of Greece and Turkey last week shocked the world and is raising international concerns that the migrants and refugees are becoming the latest victims of a growing dispute between Turkey and Greece. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones reports both nations blame each other for the incident.
…

A Russian warplane has crashed into a residential area in the Russian port city of Yeysk, the military said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the plane was on a training mission Monday when one of its engines caught fire. The plane’s crew safely ejected before the crash.

Local officials said the plane crash ignited a massive fire engulfing several floors of a multistory residential building in Yeysk, on the Sea of Azov. It is not known if there are casualties on the ground.

Yeysk, with a population of 90,000, is in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine and is home to a large Russian air base.

The Defense Ministry said the plane was a Su-34 bomber, a supersonic twin-engine plane which Russia has been using during its war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin has been informed of the crash and has ordered government officials to provide all necessary help.

Reuters news agency reports that Russia’s state Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case and sent investigators to the scene of the crash.

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

The war in Ukraine has provoked an economic crisis in Germany, which was heavily dependent on Russian energy. Not only are small businesses concerned about their survival, economists also say the crisis will force a redirection of the entire German economy. Jacob Russell has this report from Berlin
…

Multiple explosive-laden drones hit Ukraine’s capital during the Monday morning rush, a week after Russian missile strikes broke a period relative calm in Kyiv. 

Ukrainian officials said the drones were Iranian-made Shahed drones, which Russia has used to carry out so-called kamikaze attacks in which the drone are intentionally crashed into a target. 

“All night and all morning, the enemy terrorizes the civilian population,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram. “Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine. The enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t be able to break us.” 

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klichko said among the areas hit was the central Shevchenko district, the same area where Russian missiles struck last week as part of widespread airstrikes across the country.    

Klichko said Monday’s attack killed at least one person, while damaging several apartment blocks and sparking a fire in a non-residential building. He said rescue workers pulled 18 people from the rubble of an apartment building and that two others remained trapped. 

Andrii Yermak, the head of Zelenskyy’s office, said Ukraine needs more air defense systems as soon as possible. 

“More weapons to defend the sky and destroy the enemy,” Yermak tweeted. 

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv called Monday’s attacks against civilians “desperate and reprehensible.” 

“We admire the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people. We will stand with you for as long as it takes,” the embassy tweeted.    

Last week’s attacks interrupted a long stretch of relative quiet in Kyiv.    

Russian President Vladimir Putin said those strikes and the ones elsewhere were in retaliation for an attack on a key bridge linking Crimea to Russia.    

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

For their first trip to a celebrated robotics contest for high school students from scores of countries, a team of Ukrainian teens had a problem. 

With shipments of goods to Ukraine uncertain, and Ukrainian customs officers careful about incoming merchandise, the group only received a base kit of gadgetry on the day they were set to leave for the event in Geneva. 

That set off a mad scramble to assemble their robot for the latest edition of the “First Global” contest, a three-day affair that opened Friday, in-person for the first time since the pandemic. Nearly all the 180-odd teams from countries across the world had been preparing their robots for months.

“We couldn’t back down because we were really determined to compete here and to give our country a good result — because it really needs it right now,” said Danylo Gladkyi, a member of Ukraine’s team. He and his teammates are too young to be eligible for Ukraine’s national call-up of all men over 18 to take part in the war effort. 

Gladkyi said an international package delivery company wasn’t delivering into Ukraine, and reliance on a smaller private company to ship the kit from Poland into Ukraine got tangled up with customs officials. That logjam got cleared last Sunday, forcing the team to dash to get their robot ready with adaptations they had planned — only days before the contest began. 

The event, launched in 2017 with backing from American innovator Dean Kamen, encourages young people from all corners of the globe to put their technical smarts and mechanical know-how to challenges that represent symbolic solutions to global problems. 

This year’s theme is carbon capture, a nascent technology in which excess heat-trapping CO2 in the atmosphere is sucked out of the skies and sequestered, often underground, to help fight global warming. 

Teams use game controllers like those attached to consoles in millions of households worldwide to direct their self-designed robots to zip around pits, or “fields,” to scoop up hollow plastic balls with holes in them that symbolically represent carbon. Each round starts by emptying a clear rectangular box filled with the balls into the field, prompting a whirring, hissing scramble to pick them up. 

The initial goal is to fill a tower topped by a funnel in the center of the field with as many balls as possible. Teams can do that in one of two ways: either by directing the robots to feed the balls into corner pockets, where team members can pluck them out and toss them by hand into the funnel or by having the robots catapult the balls up into the funnels themselves. 

Every team has an interest in filling the funnel: the more collected, the more everyone benefits. 

But in the final 30 seconds of each session, after the frenetic quest to collect the balls, a second, cutthroat challenge awaits: Along the stem of each tower are short branches, or bars, at varying levels that the teams — choosing the mechanism of their choice such as hooks, winches or extendable arms — try to direct their robots to ascend. 

The higher the level reached, the greater the “multiplier” of the total point value of the balls they will receive. Success is getting as high as possible, and with six teams on the field, it’s a dash for the highest perch. 

By meshing competition with common interest, the “First Global” initiative aims to offer a tonic to a troubled world, where children look past politics to help solve problems that face everybody. 

The opening-day ceremony had an Olympic vibe, with teams parading in behind their national flags, and short bars of national anthems playing, but the young people made it clear this was about a new kind of global high school sport, in an industrial domain that promises to leave a large footprint in the 21st century. 

The competition takes many minds off troubles in the world, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the fallout from Syria’s war, to famine in the Horn of Africa and the recent upheaval in Iran. 

While most of the world’s countries were taking part, some – like Russia – were not. 

Past winners of such robotics competitions include “Team Hope” — refugees and stateless others — and a team of Afghan girls.  
…

A Sweden Democrats official was suspended by the far-right party for making degrading comments about Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank.

In an Instagram posting that has now been deleted, Rebecka Fallenkvist called Anne “immoral” among other things, according to Swedish media.

Anne, who wrote a diary while in hiding in Amsterdam before she was captured, died at age 15 in Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February 1945.

The posting by Fallenkvist, a 26-year-old head of television programming for the Sweden Democrats, prompted strong reactions from Jewish groups and Israeli Ambassador Ziv Nevo Kulman, who in a tweet said: “I strongly condemn this despicable insult, disrespectful of the memory of Anne Frank.” His posting included what appeared to be a screen shot of Fallenkvist’s Instagram post.

The Sweden Democrats’ media director, Oskar Cavalli-Bjorkman, told the Swedish news agency TT late Saturday that the party would take Fallenkvist’s “insensitive and inappropriate” comments seriously and launch an internal investigation on the matter.

While it remained unclear what kind of point Fallenkvist wanted to make with her comments on Anne’s diary, later she sent a text message to Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter saying she had been misinterpreted.

“The book is a moving depiction of human good and evil,” Fallenkvist said in her message to the newspaper. “The good Anne, who in the first chapters is like any other young girl living her life in peace and finding an interest in boys (which I highlighted), is contrasted with the evil of Nazism. My story was aimed at the good and human in Anne while not playing down the evil to which she was subjected.”

Sweden Democrats was founded in the 1980s by people who had been active in right-wing extremist groups, including neo-Nazis. The party emerged as Sweden’s second-largest party in the Sept. 11 election under the leadership of Jimmie Akesson.

On Friday, three Swedish center-right parties agreed to form a coalition government with the support of the Sweden Democrats that has moved toward mainstream politics but retains a hard line on immigration.
…

Turkish officials Sunday shot back at Greek allegations that Turkey forced 92 naked migrants into Greece, calling it “fake news” and accusing Greece of the mistreatment.

Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi was “sharing false information” after the official tweeted a photo of the naked migrants Saturday and blamed Turkey, said Fahrettin Altun, the communications director of Turkey’s president.

Altun tweeted in Turkish, Greek and English that this was to “cast suspicion on our country,” while calling on Athens to abandon its “harsh treatment of refugees.”

“Greece has shown once again to the entire world that it does not respect the dignity of refugees by posting these oppressed people’s pictures it has deported after extorting their personal possessions,” he said.

Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Catakli tweeted that the photo showed Greece’s cruelty. “Spend your time to obey human rights, not for manipulations & dishonesty!”

Greek police said Saturday that police officers found the migrants stark naked Friday, “some with bodily injuries” who had entered the country using plastic boats to cross the Evros River, which forms a border between the two countries.

Relations between the two neighboring countries have been tense over a variety of issues, including migration.

Turkey regularly accuses Greece of violently pushing back migrants entering the country by land and sea. Turkey’s coast guard frequently shares videos of such pushbacks.

Greece accuses Turkey, which hosts the largest number of refugees in the world, of “pushing forward” migrants to put pressure on the EU.

The U.N. refugee agency said it was “deeply distressed by the shocking reports,” condemning the “degrading treatment” and calling for an investigation.
…

Rocket fire inflicted new damage in Ukraine Sunday, with pro-Kremlin officials blaming Kyiv for an attack that hit the mayor’s office in separatist-controlled Donetsk, while Ukrainian authorities said Russian missiles hit a city across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, wounding six people.

The mayor’s building in Donetsk, part of the Ukrainian region Russia recently claimed as its own, was seriously damaged, with rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. Nearby cars were burned out.

There were no immediate reports of casualties. The Kyiv government did not claim responsibility for the attack or comment on it.

Ukraine said the attack near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, aside from the injuries, also damaged five power lines, gas pipelines, and several civilian businesses and residential buildings.

Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of firing at and around the plant. It is controlled by Russia but continues to be operated by Ukrainian technicians.

Fighting continued elsewhere as well, with Kyiv saying that Moscow shelled civilian settlements along the front line in the eastern Kharkiv and Luhansk regions. Ukraine said “active hostilities” continued in the southern Kherson region, another key area where Ukraine has advanced in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Russia said its air defenses in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine shot down “a minimum” of 16 Ukrainian missiles, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Britain Questions Russia’s Ability to Continue to Produce Munitions

With the continuing hostilities nearing the eight-month mark, Britain’s defense ministry cast doubt on Russia’s ability to continue to produce weapons during its invasion of Ukraine.

In an intelligence update posted to Twitter on Sunday, the ministry estimated that Russia fired more than 80 cruise missiles into Ukraine on Oct. 10, a move that Russian President Vladimir Putin said was in retaliation for the bombing of the bridge that links Russia to the annexed Crimean Peninsula earlier this month. There has been no claim of responsibility for the blast.

“Russia’s defense industry is probably incapable of producing advanced munitions at the rate they are being expended,” Britain said. “These attacks represent a further degradation of Russia’s long-range missile stocks, which is likely to constrain their ability to strike the volume of targets they desire in future.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his daily address Saturday, thanked the U.S. for its $725 million assistance package, enabling Ukraine to purchase ammunition, artillery, anti-tanks weapons and anti-radar missiles.

Russian strikes continue

Russian forces carried out more sporadic missile strikes Saturday in Ukraine, targeting facilities that provide power to the country and its residential areas.

Kyiv regional Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said the attack damaged a key energy facility in Ukraine’s capital region, but no causalities were reported, and the location was not disclosed.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, urged Kyiv-area residents and people in three neighboring regions to conserve energy during the evening hours of peak demand.

The attack on the power transmission facility came hours after Ukrainian officials said Russia fired artillery into residential areas of Nikopol, southeast of Zaporizhzhia. Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the Nikopol district military administration, said five people were wounded in the Saturday morning attack on the city. He said the attacks were focused on “maximum damage to civilians.”

Russians killed at firing range

At least 11 Russian troops were killed and 15 more were wounded Saturday when two Russian volunteer soldiers opened fire at a military firing range in the southwest Belgorod region near Ukraine, according to the Russian defense ministry.

The defense ministry said the pair of volunteers were from a former Soviet nation and were killed by return fire, describing the incident as a terrorist attack.

“During a firearms training session with individuals who voluntarily expressed a desire to participate in the special military operation (against Ukraine), the terrorists opened fire with small arms on the personnel of the unit,” RIA cited a defense ministry statement as saying.

Some Russian independent media outlets were reporting higher casualties.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in an interview that the attackers were from Tajikistan and had opened fire after an argument over religion, Reuters reported.

Tajikistan is a predominantly Muslim nation in Central Asia. About half of Russians follow various branches of Christianity. The Russian ministry had said the attackers were from a nation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes Tajikistan.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm Arestovych’s comments or independently verify the casualty numbers or other details of the incident.

Information from Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press was used in this report.
…

At least 18 migrants died last week in a deadly sea crossing from Turkey to Greece. It was one of the deadliest in recent years and experts fear more may follow as tension between Greece and Tukey soars in the Aegean Sea that divides them. Anthee Carassava travelled to the island of Lesbos and tracked some of the Somali women who survived the shipwreck.

When monster waves flipped the boat over, thrusting it onto the rocky shores of this craggy island, Ismahan, like scores of other Somali women crammed in the rubber dinghy, struggled to stay alive.

“I was tossed in the sea. But within seconds, people around me were dead and drowning. I reached for a rubber tire that was keeping one the dead woman afloat and clasped on to it, remaining in the rough sea for about an hour until Greek police and authorities came to pull us out.”

“I never thought I would make it. These visions now haunt my head… dead bodies scattered in the sea… I close my eyes but I can no longer sleep,” she said.

She peels off her long purple scarf and reveals bumps and bruises on her head… Scars left behind from her traumatic sea crossing from Turkey.

The journey was the final leg of an escape, as she calls it, from Somalia that began in early August… a risky odyssey for which she paid $900, fleeing the country’s drought and humanitarian crisis, but also the abuse, she confesses, of her husband and his family.

Now, though, a week after the near-death crossing, Ismahan says she would do it again.

“I was left with no other option. I want get asylum here and bring over my eight children — two boys and six girls,” she said.

Scrunched, now, in an Isobox hut in a refugee camp on Lesbos, Ismahan and five other Somali women who survived the sinking, will put in their requests to local authorities on Monday.

And while it is unlikely that strict migration rules here will grant them asylum status, experts here are bracing for more migrant crossings.

Already this year, Greece has seen more than a 150 percent increase in migrant sea crossings from Turkey compared to 2021. Much of this has been linked to the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the political crisis in Somalia and renewed unrest in Lebanon and other pockets of the Middle East.

But it also comes amid renewed tension between longtime rivals but NATO allies Greece and Turkey, as both their leaders face key election years.

Greece has linked the rising rate of refugee flows to Turkish designs to destabilize Greece, accusing it of turning a blind eye to human smugglers making a mint out of migrant misery. It has also slammed NGOs like Aegean Boat Watch for facilitating illegal migrant transfers.

VOA spoke with Tommy Olsen, the head of the group, by phone from Norway, days after the deadly sinking that Turkish smugglers organized.

“To put out these boats out in such weather… it is amazing they even thought of it. And that shows how little human traffickers care about human lives. They just care about the money,” he said.

Olsen said migrants were being used as pawns, as he put it, in a bigger power play, especially as elections near in Greece and Turkey.

Both sides are trying to win and to get votes, so, they need to spike nationalism to appear as defenders against the bad guy on the other side. But in doing so they are using innocent people as tools to reach their goals.

Olsen says the situation in Turkey is becoming so difficult for refugees there, that many are already on the move because they either fear fresh orders to be deported to the countries they escaped, or because a new leader that may succeed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to be less tolerant of the 5 million refugees Turkey has been hosting for nearly a decade now.

“If more people are trying to leave Turkey, more people will be on the move. But what options do they really have? They must cross the Aegean Sea. There is no other option,” he said.

That prospect has Greece bolstering its sea and land patrols to block illegal crossings. It is also appealing to Turkey to do the same. But the U.N. refugee agency fears more sinkings may result from tougher border controls and illegal pushbacks Greece and Turkey have been waging in recent months.

Reyhaneh Shakibaie, head of the UNHC office in Lesbos explains.

“We are very concerned about the loss of lives in the Aegean. We are advising governments to facilitate safe pass ways to asylum that do not require migrants to travel illegally,” he said.

Whether governments, and refugees themselves, will heed such advice is uncertain. Ismahan and others, though, vow to continue their journey to safety at whatever cost.
…

Pope Francis said the need to reform the United Nations was “more than obvious” after the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war exposed its limits, in an extract of his new book published Sunday.

The Argentine pontiff said Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine highlighted the need to ensure the current multilateral structure — especially the UN Security Council — finds “more agile and effective ways of resolving conflicts.”

“In wartime, it is essential to affirm that we need more multilateralism and a better multilateralism,” but the UN is no longer fit for “new realities,” he added in an extract published by La Stampa daily.

The organisation was founded to prevent the horrors of two World Wars from happening again, but although the threat represented by those conflicts was still alive, “today’s world is no longer the same,” said Francis.

“The necessity of these reforms became more than obvious after the pandemic” when the current multilateral system “showed all its limits,” he added.

Francis denounced the unequal distribution of vaccines as a “glaring example” of the law of the strongest prevailing over solidarity.

The 85-year-old advocated “organic reforms” aimed at allowing international organisations to rediscover their essential purpose of “serving the human family” and said international institutions must be the result of the “widest possible consensus.”

The pope also proposed guaranteeing food, health, economic and social rights on which international institutions would base their decisions.

Francis’s new book, “I ask you in the name of God: Ten prayers for a future of hope”, is due to come out in Italy Tuesday.
…