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Two U.S. senators met with families in Ukraine’s capital Thursday and promised continued humanitarian support for the war-torn country as winter nears.

Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Rob Portman emphasized their commitment to the people of Ukraine while visiting a distribution center in Kyiv and speaking to families bracing for a dark, cold season with inadequate heating and electricity.

Ukrainian authorities say Russian strikes on energy infrastructure have knocked out 40% of the country’s energy system, cutting off power for tens of thousands of people. Although crews make repairs as quickly as possible, it’s not certain they will be able to keep up with the damage.

“Russia has responded to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield by once again attacking not on the battlefield but attacking the civilians of Ukraine. Trying to turn off the lights, turn off the heat, turn off the water. It’s cowardly. It’s brutal,” Portman said at a news conference. “We cannot let this stand.”

‘The most important fight for freedom’

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the U.S. government has provided $1.5 billion in humanitarian assistance to millions of people in Ukraine and neighboring countries, according to the United States Agency for International Development.

Last month, the U.S. announced a $55 million, five-year investment in Ukraine’s heating infrastructure to support repairs and the maintenance of pipes and other equipment needed to heat homes, hospitals, schools and businesses.

Watch related video by VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara:

Coons and Portman’s trip came less than a week before the crucial U.S. midterm elections. Coons said the elections would not impact future support for Ukraine, whatever the outcome.

“I am confident that bipartisan robust American support for the fight of the Ukrainian people will continue in Congress,” he said. “The United States has long been a nation that fights for freedom, and this is the most important fight for freedom in the world today.”

Residents of southern Ukraine’s city of Mykolaiv have been without water for a month. People on the front line of the fighting in the eastern city of Bakhmut live in constant fear of not having heating and electricity, said Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the regional administration of the Donetsk region.

Earlier this week, a barrage of Russian cruise missiles and drone strikes hit Kyiv, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities, knocking out water and power in several areas in apparent retaliation for what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack on its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.

In Kyiv, water was cut off to 80% of the capital city’s more than 3 million people. Residents lined up to fill water containers at hand pumps around the city. Workers quickly repaired the damage, and water supplies resumed within about 12 hours.

“Thank god this water problem is in autumn, when it’s not so cold. But we don’t know what the war will bring in winter,” Yulia Shypik, a Kyiv resident, said while waiting in line at a pump. “It’s the first time in our lives we have a situation like this. We don’t know what will be tomorrow.”

‘The toughest winter of their lives’

Russia’s illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in four regions of Ukraine may make it more difficult for civilians to move in and out of those areas and for aid groups to reach vulnerable people, according to the United Nations.

Aid groups warn that while governments have given tens of billions of dollars to support Ukraine, people are displaced from their homes and living without reliable access to electricity, water and food.

“After eight months of a relentless war, they are preparing to face what may be the toughest winter of their lives,” Matthew Hollingworth, the emergency coordinator in Ukraine for the U.N.’s World Food Program, told The Associated Press.
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Chancellor Olaf Scholz is making his first visit to China as German leader this week, a diplomatically delicate trip while Germany and the European Union work on their strategy toward an increasingly assertive and authoritarian Beijing.

Scholz’s messages will face close scrutiny. While his nearly year-old government has signaled a departure from predecessor Angela Merkel’s firmly trade-first approach, he is taking a business delegation and his trip follows domestic discord over a Chinese shipping company’s investment in a German container terminal.

The leader of Europe’s biggest economy will meet President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang during Friday’s one-day visit. With China still imposing tough COVID-19 restrictions, his delegation won’t stay in Beijing overnight.

Scholz’s visit, the first recently by a major EU leader, comes just after Xi was named to a third term as head of the ruling Communist Party and promoted allies who support his vision of tighter control over society and the economy. It is also accompanied by rising tensions over Taiwan and follows a U.N. report that said Chinese human rights violations against Uyghurs and other ethnic groups may amount to “crimes against humanity.”

A senior German official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in line with department rules, characterized the visit as “an exploratory trip” to find out “where China stands, where China is going and what forms of cooperation are possible with this specific China in the current global situation.”

The official pointed to China’s “particular responsibility” as an ally of Russia to help end the war in Ukraine and press Moscow to tone down its nuclear rhetoric; to concerns over tensions in Taiwan and the broader region; to Germany’s desire for a “level playing field” in economic relations; and to Scholz’s current status as this year’s chair of the Group of Seven industrial powers.

Even as political relations have grown tenser, business ties have flourished. China was Germany’s biggest trading partner in 2021 for the sixth consecutive year, its biggest single source of imports and its No. 2 export destination after the U.S.

Scholz’s government has sought to balance those ties with recognition that China is increasingly a competitor and “systemic rival,” as well as a partner on issues such as climate change. His three-party coalition has pledged to draw up a “comprehensive China strategy.”

That is still pending. But Russia’s war in Ukraine is concentrating minds as Germany grapples with the fallout of having depended on Russia for over half its natural gas supplies. This year, Germany has scrambled to end that dependence, while Russia eventually shut off supplies.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Sunday that she fears “that a mistake Germany made in recent years with Russia could be repeated.” And, she told ARD television, “we must prevent that.”

Baerbock’s comments came after the government argued over whether to allow China’s COSCO to take a 35% stake in a container terminal at the Hamburg port. Baerbock and others in two junior coalition parties opposed the deal while Scholz downplayed its significance. In a compromise, COSCO was cleared to take a stake below 25%, above which an investor can block a company’s decisions.

Scholz has appeared to tread a middle path on China. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, he made Japan rather than China his first Asian destination. He is encouraging companies to diversify, but isn’t discouraging business with China.

After an EU summit last month, he said: “No one is saying that we have to get out of there, we can’t export there any more, we can’t invest there and we can’t import from China any more.”

But, in an increasingly multipolar world, ”we shouldn’t concentrate on just a few countries,” he said, adding that “not putting all your eggs in one basket” is wise.

At the same summit, leaders of the 27-nation EU discussed reducing their dependence on China for technology equipment and raw minerals, and agreed to demand a better balance of economic relations while working with Beijing on global issues.

Scholz said in an article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper that he’s traveling “as a European,” and Berlin consulted closely with European and trans-Atlantic partners before the visit. He said “Germany’s China policy can only be successful if embedded in a European China policy.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Tuesday that Beijing believes Scholz’s visit “will inject new impetus” into the development of the “comprehensive strategic partnership” between the two countries “and contribute to world peace, stability and growth.”

“Current Sino-German relations can be characterized as ‘cold politically and hot economically,’” said Ding Chun, director of the Center for European Studies of China’s Fudan University, using a formulation often used to describe Beijing’s relations with Japan. But Ding said the visit will help promote bilateral relations by showing support for economic ties and multilateralism in the face of calls for “decoupling.”

In Germany, many are warier.

Scholz should warn China against substantial support for Russia in the Ukraine war, make clear to its leaders that Germany is committed to EU unity toward Beijing, and to German managers the extent of the geopolitical risks they might face, said Guntram Wolff, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Some recent decisions “looked more as though they want to take up the Merkel tradition, in which people thought they could bring about change through trade and so on,” he said.

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Thomas Haldenwang, recently made a comparison with the turmoil over the Ukraine war, saying that “Russia is the storm, China is climate change.”

Some human rights groups have urged Scholz to cancel the trip, but German officials argue that they won’t achieve anything if they don’t attempt dialogue.
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Europe has warmed more than twice as much as the rest of the world over the past three decades and has experienced the greatest temperature increase of any continent, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization. 

The report on the state of the climate in Europe follows a summer of extremes. A record-breaking heat wave scorched Britain, Alpine glaciers vanished at an unprecedented rate and a long-lasting marine heat wave cooked the waters of the Mediterranean.  

“Europe presents a live picture of a warming world and reminds us that even well-prepared societies are not safe from impacts of extreme weather events,” WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas said in a statement.  

From 1991 to 2021, temperatures over Europe warmed at an average of 0.5 degree Celsius per decade, the report said, while the global average was just 0.2 degree C. 

Last year, extreme weather events made worse by climate change — chiefly floods and storms — caused more than $50 billion worth of damage in Europe. 

The reason Europe is warming faster than other continents has to do with the fact that a large part of the continent is in the sub-Arctic and Arctic — the fastest-warming region on Earth — as well as changes in climate feedbacks, scientists said. 

For example, fewer clouds over Europe during the summer has meant that more sunlight and heat now reaches the continent, said Freja Vamborg, senior scientist with the Copernicus Climate Change Service. 

Some scientists have called Europe a “heat wave hot spot” as the number of heat waves on the continent has increased faster than in other regions because of changes in atmospheric circulation.  

Although temperatures are rising, the European Union has cut greenhouse gas emissions by 31% between 1990 and 2020, the report said, and it aims to slash emissions by 55% by 2030.  

On November 6, delegates will arrive in Egypt for COP27, the annual U.N. climate summit. 

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are expected to attend. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision not to attend the COP27 climate summit is being kept under review, his spokesman said Monday.
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A landmark deal to allow grain exports from Ukraine, which was back on track Wednesday after being briefly suspended, has played a crucial role in easing a global food crisis sparked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and signed by Moscow and Kyiv on July 22, the agreement established a protected sea corridor to allow grain shipments to resume for the first time since the fighting began in February

Here is what we know about the deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative:

Why was it needed?

When Russian troops attacked in late February, Moscow imposed a blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, halting all agricultural exports from one of the world’s breadbaskets.

The move left 20 million metric tons of grain stranded in Ukraine’s ports, causing food prices to surge worldwide.

Before the war, up to 90% of Ukraine’s wheat, corn and sunflower exports were transported by sea, mostly from Odesa, with many developing countries relying heavily on Kyiv for grain.

Agricultural commodity prices were high before the war because of the post-COVID-19 economic recovery, but the conflict pushed the price of grains such as wheat and corn to levels unsustainable for countries dependent on their import, such as Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia.

What does the deal cover?

The deal ensures the safe export of grain, foodstuffs and fertilizers, including ammonia, from three Black Sea ports in southwestern Ukraine: Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi.

The first grain ship to leave under the U.N.-backed deal set sail on August 1.

According to U.N. figures as of November 1, a total of 9.7 million metric tons of grain and other agricultural products have been transported in the first three months of the initiative, the vast majority involving wheat and corn.

Valid for 120 days, the agreement is up for renewal on November 19 in a process that can be done automatically without further negotiations.

The U.N. says extending the deal is crucial for global food security and is pushing for it to be renewed for one year.

Although the initiative is working well, shipments are about 40-50% lower than what they were before Russia’s invasion, the U.N. says.

How does it work?

According to the U.N.’s website, the agreement establishes a safe corridor between the three Ukrainian ports and an area in Turkish waters where the vessels are inspected before being allowed to continue their journey.

To monitor the agreement, a joint command and control center was set up in Istanbul to oversee smooth operations and resolve disputes.

Known as the Joint Coordination Center (JCC), the JCC has four teams of eight inspectors — two each from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the U.N.

These teams inspect outbound vessels carrying grain at the Turkish inspection area to ensure all merchandise is approved.

The teams also examine empty ships returning to Ukraine to ensure they are not carrying any weapons or other unauthorized goods or people.

Safe passage

The deal establishes a buffer zone of 10 nautical miles around each vessel traveling along the corridor with no military ships, equipment or drones allowed within that radius.

All ship movements logged by the JCC are transmitted to the relevant military authorities to prevent any incidents, with any violations or threats to be handled by the JCC.

At the start of the war, Ukraine mined its main Black Sea ports to head off threats of a Russian attack from the sea, but experts said it would take too long to de-mine all these areas.

The deal allows Ukrainians to guide the ships along safe routes that avoid known mine fields and into and out of its territorial waters.

Deal briefly suspended

On October 29, Russia said it was suspending its participation in the deal, accusing Ukraine of using the shipping corridor to launch a drone attack on its Black Sea fleet in Crimea’s Sevastopol port.

After a call between the Russian and Turkish defense ministers, the deal resumed operation at 0900 GMT on November 2 with Moscow saying it had received written guarantees from Kyiv ensuring the corridor would not be used for attacking Russian forces.
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Ahead of the COP27 climate talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh next week, there are concerns that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reversed progress on tackling global warming, diverting the world’s attention from the climate emergency.

However, there is also some optimism that the energy crisis is turning some countries away from fossil fuels.

Global tensions

U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron are among world leaders due to attend the two-week summit, which begins Sunday. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also confirmed his attendance.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stoked global geopolitical tensions—and the destruction limited to the battlefield. Recent progress in tackling climate change, forged at the COP26 summit in Glasgow last year, has taken a hit, according to Antony Froggatt of the London-based analyst group Chatham House.

“What we saw in Glasgow is a coming together in a very positive way of countries wanting to take action on climate change, the development of coalitions — joint, large coalitions, but also bilateral initiatives such as U.S. and China proposing a new program of work to address climate change. And some of that goodwill has disappeared,” Froggatt told VOA.

“It’s not just in terms of Russia. We see that China has pulled out of that arrangement with the U.S. as a result of [tensions over] Taiwan,” he added. “So, across a number of areas, the geopolitics isn’t so positive.”

Green transition

Speaking to VOA, the executive director of United Nations Environment Program Inger Andersen said the world cannot afford to let the Ukraine conflict distract from the climate emergency.

“We can’t deal with only one crisis and drop everything else. We need to be able to deal with multiple crises. And the truth is, with the war on Ukraine, and with the complexity around oil and gas supplies, there’s an opportunity — and I say that with respect — there is a chance now to really invest in clean and green rather than to invest in hydrocarbon infrastructure,” Andersen said.

Energy outlook

In its annual World Energy Outlook published last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said last week the war in Ukraine will hasten the green energy transition.

“The numbers here … do confirm that the government responses around the world given to this energy crisis, promise to be that we are seeing a turning point in the history of energy, and this crisis indeed accelerates clean energy transitions,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol in an October 27 press conference in Paris.

The IEA added that Europe’s transition away from Russian oil and gas will have a big impact on Moscow’s revenues.

“My colleagues have calculated that the result of the decline in the oil and gas sales between now and 2030, Russia will lose about one trillion U.S. dollars of export revenues,” Birol said.

Coal returns

However, the green energy transition also appears to have taken a backward step. Many European nations, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, are restarting coal-fired power stations in breach of climate pledges, as Russia turns off the gas taps.

“There is a short-term supply gap that will have to be met,” said Froggatt of Chatham House. “But as long as there isn’t huge investment in those fossil fuels, then maybe we just have to accept that. It is sort of the medium-to-longer-term trajectory that I hope we see an acceleration of decarbonization as a result of the war in Ukraine.

“Energy efficiency and energy saving becomes much more economically attractive, which I think is a very positive thing,” he said.

Russia’s invasion has also stoked a global economic crisis, with soaring inflation and looming recessions.

“The attention that global leaders are placing on climate change has diminished,” Froggatt added. “I think there will be increased awareness of the economic predicament that many countries find themselves in the looming global recession that will make financing more difficult.”
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The White House on Wednesday accused North Korea of covertly shipping a “significant number” of artillery shells to Russia in support of its invasion of Ukraine. 

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. believes North Korea is “trying to make it appear as though they’re being sent to countries in the Middle East or North Africa.” He declined to provide a specific estimate of the quantity of ammunition being sent to bolster the Russian effort. 

Kirby said North Korea “is covertly supplying” the ammunition to Russia, but that “we’re still monitoring this to determine whether the shipments are actually received.” He added that the U.S. has “an idea” of which country or countries the North may be funneling the weapons through but wouldn’t specify, because the administration continues to look at how it might respond to North Korea’s actions. 

Kirby insisted the North Korean shipments are “not going to change the course of the war,” citing Western efforts to resupply the Ukrainian military. 

The White House would not specify the mode of transportation or whether the U.S. or other nations would attempt to interdict the shipments to Russia. 

The White House revealed the new intelligence nearly two months after first alleging that U.S. intelligence officials had determined the Russian Ministry of Defense was purchasing millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea for its fight in Ukraine. 

Effect downplayed

Even as the administration revealed information about the covert North Korean artillery shell shipments, the White House also sought to downplay their significance. 

“We don’t believe that they are in such a quantity that they would change the direction of this war or tangibly change the momentum either in the east or in the south,” where some of the heaviest fighting in Ukraine is taking place, Kirby said. 

The finding comes after the Biden administration in August said the Russian military took delivery of hundreds of Iranian-manufactured drones for use on the battlefield in Ukraine. The Biden administration said Iran has also sent personnel to Russian-controlled Crimea to provide technical support on operation of the drones. Iranian officials have denied they have provided drones or other support to Russia. 

North Korea has sought to tighten relations with Russia as much of the West has pulled away, blaming the United States for the Ukraine crisis and decrying the West’s “hegemonic policy” as justifying military action by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself. 

The North Koreans have shown interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine’s east. 

North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow has met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in the Donbas region of Ukraine and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration,” citing his country’s easing of pandemic border controls. 

In July, North Korea became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of the territories, Donetsk and Luhansk, further aligning with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. 

The North’s arms export to Russia would be a violation of U.N. resolutions that ban the country from exporting weapons to or importing them from other countries. Its possible dispatch of laborers to the Russian-held territories in Ukraine would also breach a U.N. resolution that required all member states to repatriate all North Korean workers from their soil by 2019. 
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In Turkey, the right of women to wear religious headscarves has once again become the subject of political debate. With elections less than a year away, the leaders of the country’s main political parties are vowing to legally enshrine women’s rights to wear religious attire, an issue that for decades was the center of a bitter political struggle. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul
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An overwhelming majority of killings of journalists across the world go unpunished, a United Nations agency reported on Wednesday.

“Impunity for killings of journalists remains unacceptably high at 86 percent,” said UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization whose brief includes media issues.

UNESCO called for “all necessary measures to ensure that crimes committed against journalists are properly investigated and their perpetrators identified and convicted.”

The organization called the global immunity rate for journalist killings “shockingly high” in a report to coincide with the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, a U.N.-backed initiative.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement that “freedom of expression cannot be protected when there is such a staggering number of unresolved cases”.

She said impunity had a “chilling effect on investigative reporting.”

While UNESCO welcomed a 9-percentage-point drop in the impunity rate over the past decade, it said this was insufficient to stop what it called “the spiral of violence.”

In 2020 and 2021, the period covered by the report, of the 117 journalists murdered for doing their job, 91 were killed while off the clock.

“Several were killed in front of family members, including their children,” it said.

UNESCO said it was working with member states to develop and implement national media laws and policies.

It also was training judges, prosecutors and security forces “to enforce the rights of journalists and ensure that attacks against them are investigated and prosecuted.”
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The Dutch government on Tuesday ordered China to immediately close “police stations” in the Netherlands, which reports say were used to harass dissidents.

The police posts in Amsterdam and Rotterdam purported to offer diplomatic assistance but they had not been declared to the Netherlands government, Dutch media reported last month.

The reports followed an investigation by Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders in September, which said China had set up 54 overseas police centers around the world, including the two in the Netherlands.

It also said there were three in Britain and three in Canada.

“Because no permission was sought from the Netherlands” for the stations, “the ministry informed the (Chinese) ambassador that the stations must close immediately,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said on Twitter.

He said the ministry had asked the ambassador for clarification on the stations and was investigating the posts’ activities.

The two “police stations” set up since 2018 were used to silence China’s political opponents, broadcaster RTL and investigative website Follow the Money said, quoting a Chinese dissident living in the Netherlands.

According to Safeguard Defenders, the police stations have been used by Chinese police to carry out policing operations on foreign soil, and pressure Chinese nationals to return home to face criminal charges.

China’s foreign ministry said the Dutch reports were “completely false” and the “service stations” were meant to help overseas citizens do things such as renew driver’s licenses.

The first Chinese office was opened in June 2018 in Amsterdam by the Lishui region police force and is headed by two men who started their careers in the Chinese police force before moving to the Netherlands, RTL said.

Police from the Chinese city of Fuzhou opened a second office earlier this year in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, run by a former soldier, according to the broadcaster.

The Dutch foreign ministry said there were “regular signals” from the Dutch Chinese community about receiving “intimidation and threats,” and that it was setting up a hotline.

Canadian federal police said last week they were investigating reports of three stations in the Toronto area.
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In the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the positions held by Russian forces, an artillery unit waits for the signal.

“Ready!” The four soldiers duck and put their hands over their ears. “Fire!”

The shell shoots out of the cannon toward the Russian forces in a burst of flames and smoke.

“According to the coordinates we received, the target is infantry,” says Oleksandr, 37, between two radioed orders.

Oleksandr commands this small group of artillerymen, part of the Ukrainian army’s 58th motorized infantry brigade.

About 30 seconds later, the 50 kilo (110-pound) “fragmentation” shell, pinched from the Russians after their retreat from a nearby town, will explode above the position held by Moscow’s troops, showering them with its payload.

A Ukrainian drone supports the operation “in real time,” monitoring the effectiveness of the strike from the old Soviet D-20 cannon in order to better calibrate the next one.

Bakhmut, in the Donbas, has been the scene of active fighting for the past four months. Since the start of the Russian invasion in February, it is said to be one of the longest and most lethal battlefields for both sides, though there is no estimate of the exact losses.

The front here has almost not budged since the beginning of October, despite a few small gains made by one or other of the opposing forces, only to soon be lost again.

On the Russian side, Moscow is pushing hard, supported by mercenaries from the paramilitary Wagner group, sent to the frontlines and dubbed “disposable soldiers” by the Ukrainians.

For their part, the Ukrainians are holding their lines as they focus on a counteroffensive in the south, while trying to limit losses in the war of attrition being waged by the Russians.

“As the military proverb goes: the sweat of the artillery spares the blood of the infantry,” says Oleksandr, who after another lethal attack on the enemy hopes to have saved the lives of some of his comrades.

The artillery unit now has a few minutes to move before the Russian riposte. In the meantime, they open a packet of sunflower seeds and share them to celebrate the strike.

‘The limousine’

Just five kilometers from the Russian position in the city neighborhoods devastated by the war, the basement of an anonymous-looking building shelters the brigade’s command post and garrison.

It is “the Monday rotation” and 15 or so new soldiers have just arrived, making their way through the underground corridors by the light on their mobile phones.

The infantry wear serious expressions. The quagmire of Bakhmut has a bad reputation.

The 58th, whose motto is “together to victory,” fought the first part of the war on the southern Donbas front, in Pisky, before being redeployed to Bakhmut.

In the smoke-filled room, lit by candlelight when the generator is not working, a soldier sits on a chair filling ammunition, another fetches a barrel of borscht soup, while one more takes a nap in his chair, still wearing his gear.

What awaits them? “The less we know about it, the better,” says a 25-year-old volunteer soldier with the nom-de-guerre “Bullet.”

Above ground, the morning’s bombardment is intensifying. From here, the approach toward the frontline will be by armored vehicle.

Outside, “the limousine” has arrived.

In the BMP-1, a Soviet-era vehicle with somewhat outmoded armor and sometimes referred to as “the tomb of our brothers,” a mix of superstition and good sense prompts the soldiers to sit on the side of the vehicle not exposed to the Russian positions.

The tracks of the BMP-1 cross the river, headed to the northeast sector of Bakhmut, where the 58th brigade has the guard.

‘Total war’

One-and-a-half kilometers from the line of contact, the last covered Ukrainian position in the northeast of Bakhmut sits in an old industrial park.

In this hideout, the last before the “zero line,” five soldiers are tasked daily with high-risk patrols to supply the line of contact with munitions and provide logistical support, as well as to evacuate the injured or dead. AFP is not authorized to go any further than here.

“We go out in two (armored) vehicles. One covers the other,” says “Demon,” 29, his hair plastered to his head as he takes off his helmet.

All the 58th’s actions are done under Russian fire and are covered by RPG rocket-launchers aimed at the enemy.

“Our mission is to leave as quickly as possible and without losing anyone,” Demon says.

“Petrokha,” their sergeant, smokes a cigarette by the entrance to the hangar, keeping one eye on the sky in case any Russian drones might be lurking.

“It’s total war,” he says. “Total because we’re using everything. Artillery, aviation and …” he says before his voice trails off as he gets to the last item: his men.

“(The Russians) are pouring in human meat, men that they no longer think of as men but as munitions,” he says. “It’s 70 years since we’ve seen anything like it.”
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As Ukrainian forces continue to battle Russian troops in the east and south of the country, Europe and the United States are considering additional pressure to convince Russia’s Vladimir Putin to end its invasion.

VOA’s Misha Komadovsky sat down with former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to discuss his proposals for new sanctions against Russian oligarchs, the consequences of labeling Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, and the possible collapse of the Russian Federation as a result of its war against Ukraine.

Former ambassador Michael McFaul is a diplomat and academic who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

VOA: You’ve been working with the office of the President of Ukraine on imposing sanctions against Russian proxies and those who support the Kremlin in its invasion of Ukraine. Currently your primary target is Russian propagandists and opinion leaders. What is the final goal here?

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul: Well, so, first let me clarify what we do and what we informally do, right? So, the group that I coordinate is an international working group that tries to come up with new ideas to suggest ideas for governments for new sanctions. We coordinate with Russia – with the Ukrainian government, Mr. Yermak, but I want to, I want to emphasize that our group is independent from the government of Ukraine, independent from the United States government. Again, we talk to everybody but we’re – our ideas ultimately are just independent analysts. None of us work for any government. Ultimately, we come up with ideas that … can only be implemented by governments, right?

Sanctions, and or by companies, by the way. We – sometimes the target of our activities – are aimed at trying to get companies to rethink what they’re doing. The latest paper that we just put out, it’s an appendix to working paper number three that you just noted, is to give greater attention to what we call the propagandists for Putin’s war. These are not just people on TV supporting the war, but these … can be a variety of kinds of people – soft power as we call it in English, right? – that are indirectly supporting Putin’s regime and Putin’s war. And we believe that there needs to be more attention to these people. That they are not innocents, that that if they are performing concerts in support of the Russian military, especially if they do so in annexed territory that the Russians are illegally occupying, they should pay some consequences for those activities.

VOA: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are trying to convince the U.S. government to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, President Biden said that he would not go ahead with this, and my sources at the White House explained to me that this label could be compared to, you know, a huge blanket that you can put on Russia but it’s difficult to take it off, and it would make, for instance, the Green Deal impossible. So is it a done deal for you, or is there still a chance that the U.S. will recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism at some point?

McFaul: I don’t know the answer to your question. We did publish a paper about that. We believe that the actions that the Russian government is taking inside Ukraine are terrorist acts. They are terrorizing non-combatants. And I’m not a lawyer, but I looked at the language of that law very, very closely. And it’s difficult to say in a normative way that what Russia is doing, somehow, in Ukraine is not terrorism.

And I just remind your viewers, Cuba is on the list. So, tell me is Cuba terrorizing people in a different country to a greater extent than Russia is inside Ukraine? My answer to that is “no.” So I think that’s a very difficult argument for people to make that Russia somehow is a better international actor with regard to terrorism than Cuba is today. Cuba is still on the list.

Now, I know those arguments from the White House. I have colleagues who work in the White House. I understand their concerns, that they think sanctions will be sticky and that you can’t do certain cooperation with Russia if they’re a state sponsor of terrorism, but actually the law gives the President the right to do certain things within the law to grant exemptions. So, it’s not true that we can’t work with them.

I would remind your viewers that Iran is on that list, and yet we negotiated with Iranian diplomats the JCPOA. It didn’t prevent us from sitting down and talking to them about that. That was a large major agreement. So, I think there are ways to move forward if they wanted to. And I want to be clear, I appreciate why the Biden administration is nervous about this step, I just think the outrageous behavior of Russians inside Ukraine, you know, these are terrorist acts from my, by the way I look at them, demands that that we do something different.

And I would say in general I don’t like the dynamics of sanctions where it’s always incrementalism. It’s always just a little bit more, a few more people here, a few more people there. When I don’t see what Putin is doing inside Ukraine as being incremental. You know, he just annexed on paper, not in reality, territory the size of Portugal. That’s outrageous behavior. And so, we need to have a commensurate response to that outrageous behavior, not an incremental response.

VOA: What would this comprehensive response look like? What would it look like? What is your solution here?

McFaul: Well, read our papers. We’ve been very explicit. You know, the paper about state sponsor of terrorism talks very explicitly about if you wanted to go further what you could do. And that’s the blanket part that the administration doesn’t like is exactly the part that I like, that it means you have to do all these things, that your hands are tied that you’re not, you know, choosing which oligarch is good and which oligarch is bad, that you’re actually, you know, you’re doing blanket things, that tie your hands. Like our paper on individual sanctions that we published as well.

We want thousands of Russians that are enabling Putin’s war machine inside Ukraine to be sanctioned. But we also give them a choice by the way, which I think is another innovative thing, rather than, you know, once you’re on the sanctions list it’s very difficult to get off. It’s almost impossible to get off of the list. We frame it in a different way. We sanction, first of all, we say all, all Russian oligarchs. You know, we don’t like this picking and choosing. You know why? Why some are on the list and some are not I think is very difficult to justify. And it leads to a lot of speculation about, you know, why are some getting special deals and others are not.

So, we just say, put them all on the list, all 200 on the Forbes list, and then have them take pro – actions to say I renounce the war, I want to support Ukrainian reconstruction, and then that gives them a chance to get off the list. Same with government officials. We say all of these – if you are in these jobs, you should be on the sanctions list. We’re not going to discriminate between, you know, the governor of this region versus the governor of that region. Just put them all on the list. And then if you want to get off the list, resign from your post. So, that gives you agency about your status.

Same with people that serve on boards of companies, Russian companies including non-Russians. If you’re on the list, we want to sanction everybody on those boards, but then you can choose to resign to get your name off the sanctions list. Then, by the way, somehow – some Americans have, some Russians have, and I applaud their decision to do that. In return then they should be released from those sanctions list.

VOA: So far, the United States has allocated more than $60 billion to support Kyiv. So, talk to me about the U.S. national interest in helping Ukraine.

McFaul: Well, I think there’s two categories of interests. I do believe that the United States is a democracy, that we have made certain mistakes in our past. I’m happy to talk about them especially with the use of military force. But we don’t support imperialism. We don’t support colonization. We don’t support annexation. We don’t support terrorism in terms of our moral stance in the world, and therefore I think we have a moral interest, and I say this is an American myself, I’m against imperialism, I’m for democracy I’m against terrorism.

And so I want my elected leaders to be for those moral positions as well. And in this case, in this war, it’s a dictatorship that has invaded a democracy. It is an imperial power that is trying to recolonize a former colony. And it is a country using indiscriminate force, terrorist acts against noncombatants. And I think for moral reasons therefore we must support the Ukrainians in their fight for their sovereignty, their fight for their democracy and their fight against these barbaric actions against innocent civilians inside Ukraine.

I also think there are concrete American national security interests at stake here as well. So those are two different things. If Ukraine wins this war, it will be reassuring for our NATO allies. It will be comforting for the rest of the world that worries about Russian aggression in Ukraine … is not the only country in the world that worries about that. And I believe that it would be a good signal for other countries thinking of using force. I have in mind China in particular.

I was just in Taiwan a few weeks ago and nobody is cheering for the Ukrainians to win more than the Taiwanese as a signal to China to not take that kind of military action. And that’s, these are all things that are in America’s national security interests.

VOA: Ambassador, sooner or later this war will be over. And I’ve heard a myriad of opinions on what’s going to happen to Russia after this, and some say that it may lead to Russia’s collapse, as it happened to the USSR. Does this scenario look realistic to you and how will the U.S. react to this should it happen?

McFaul: Well again, political scientists aren’t very good about predicting the future. By the way, neither is the CIA. I worked in the government for five years and they missed a lot of things, too, when I was there, so I’m hesitant to answer your question. With that caveat in mind, I would say a couple of things:

One – I do not believe that this war will lead to the collapse of the Russian Federation in the same way that the invasion of Afghanistan by Leonid Brezhnev was one of the precipitants that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I say that because the balance of power between the ethnic republics and Russia is diff – the rest of Russia is different than the Soviet Union.

I say that because a lot of the leaders in the ethnic republics are some of the most loyal people that support Moscow and support Putin. So, I just, I’m not in the category that thinks this will lead to the dissolution of the Russian Federation. I am in the category of people, however, that believe that this is the beginning of the end of Putinism as a political regime and as a political ideology. I don’t think it will happen while Putin’s alive and in power. I think he’ll be in power for a long time. I don’t see that happening.

But at the end of Putin’s reign, whenever that happens, and I’m not a doctor – that’s more a question for a doctor than a political analyst – but whenever he is no longer able to rule Russia, I think that will be the moment of questioning about whether this was a wise thing to do and where we go in the future for Russians.

And right now, you know, I don’t know of a single economic elite that thinks this war was in Russia’s national interest. They have to be quiet. They can’t say that publicly, but this has been a disaster for any major economic elite inside Russia. Russian generals: Is this a good thing for them? Absolutely not. This has been a disaster for them. And I think there will be a big blame game between them and this, you know, the intelligence officers, the FSB people that dragged them into this war with bad intelligence. I think there’ll be real tension between those groups.

Third, Russian society: yes, there are, there are adamant, fervent supporters of Putin’s war. But, if you look at the opinion poll data, the group that is least supportive of Putin’s war are the young, the educated, the urban and the rich. It’s very clear cut. And those numbers are as big as the fervent supporters of the war. Then there’s the [unintelligible] in the middle, right? Then there’s the 60 percent that don’t – that kind of support the war, but they don’t really think about politics, who are now mobilized because of mobilization. The war has finally come to them.

But the support – the anti-war group are just going to grow over time, right? Because the younger people are going to get older, and the older people, the over 65, over 55 that support Putin, over time, that group is going to become smaller. And then I would just remind people that, you know, there are people doing incredibly brave acts. Some are in jail. Some have had to flee their country because they are so fervently against the war. And I don’t think those people are going away. They’re not going to quit. They’re going to keep fighting for a different kind of Russia. And again, I don’t want to pretend to predict the future. We’re talking about years in the future, maybe decades. But the idea that Russia will be permanently against the West, will be permanently acting as an imperial country, I just think that’s a premature prediction.”

VOA: And the last question. I’ve seen your multiple tweets where you were trying to address the Russian people even in Russian, trying to say something like, “Reporter speaks in Russian.” At this point, if you had a chance to talk to those who support Putinism and Putin’s war against Ukraine, what would you tell them?”

McFaul: Well, I would say first, this war, a war of choice by Putin, a senseless war not provoked by any threat to Russia. You know, the absurdity that Ukraine was somehow threatening mighty Russia or that NATO was threatening mighty Russia, is complete nonsense. It is a senseless war, a tragic war that all Ukrainians first and foremost are suffering, but Russians are in the second category of people that are suffering as a result of this horrific war.

And, you know, I hope someday that they understand that there’s no, there’s no advantage to Russia over imperial conquest. Russia is a big country. Why do they need Kherson? They have the largest country in the world. They should devote their energies and resources to developing the territories that they have, rather than conquering new territories, and the sooner that they understand that the better it will be, you know, for all of Russians.

You know, I have two sons. I can’t imagine sending my sons to a war with no purpose, to die for no purpose. I admire greatly (that) Russians – and by the way Ukrainians and the Estonians and Latvians and Georgians – did to fight a truly imperial, fascistic regime that saved the free world in 1945. And when you’re attacked, you must fight. That was a war of purpose.

This is a war with no purpose. And, you know, I would hate to be the mother of the last son that dies in this senseless war. Better to end it now than years down the road when those sons will just keep dying and dying in Ukraine. We know, as you implied, this war is going to end. It’ll end in some kind of negotiation. It will not end in the unification of Ukraine and Russia. So why not just end it sooner rather than later?
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After fleeing Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, two women found find themselves in an unlikely shelter – Nu Boyana Film Studios in Sofia, Bulgaria. Tatiana Vorozhko has the story. VOA footage by Svitlana Koval. Video editing – Kostiantyn Golubchyk.
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Greek authorities have launched a major search and rescue operation for dozens of migrants missing after a boat they were traveling on from Turkey overturned and sank in rough weather overnight between the islands of Evia and Andros.

The coast guard said Tuesday that nine people, all men, had been found on an uninhabited rocky islet in the Kafirea Straits between the two islands, which lie east of the Greek capital. The survivors, who were picked up by a coast guard patrol boat, told authorities there had been a total of about 68 people on board the sailing boat when it sank, and that they had initially set sail from Izmir on the Turkish coast.

Authorities were initially alerted by a distress call in the early hours of Tuesday from passengers saying the boat they were on was in trouble, but they did not provide a location. Weather in the area was particularly rough, with gale force winds. The coast guard said a helicopter, a coast guard patrol boat and two nearby ships were participating in the search and rescue operation.

A separate search and rescue operation was also ongoing since Monday off the coast of the eastern Aegean island of Samos for eight people reported missing after an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants overturned. Four survivors were rescued Monday from that incident. A coast guard aircraft and patrol boat, two nearby ships and a vessel from the European border patrol agency Frontex were participating in the search, authorities said.

Thousands of people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa, Asia and the Middle East attempt to enter the European Union through Greece each year. Most make the short but often perilous crossing from the Turkish coast to nearby Greek islands in inflatable dinghies. Others opt to attempt to circumvent Greece in overcrowded sailboats and yachts heading straight to Italy.

Earlier this month, at least 27 people drowned in two separate incidents. In one, 18 people died when a boat that had set sail from Turkey sank off the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos, while in the other, a yacht carrying about 100 people sank in a gale, killing at least nine and leaving six missing.
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Ukrainian officials called for Russia to be isolated from international bodies after Russian forces carried out attacks on infrastructure targets in multiple Ukrainian cities.

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said Tuesday Russia should be expelled from the G-20 group of nations and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to this month’s G-20 summit in Indonesia should be revoked.

“Putin publicly acknowledged ordering missile strikes on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure,” Nikolenko tweeted. “With his hands stained in blood, he must not be allowed to sit at the table with world leaders.”

In his nightly address Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia “should have no place” on the U.N. Security Council.

“Terror against Ukrainian energy facilities, moreover against the background of Russia’s attempts to exacerbate the global food crisis, clearly indicates that Russia will continue to oppose itself to the entire international community,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s army said Russia’s attacks Monday included more than 50 cruise missiles. The strikes cut off water and electricity to much of Kyiv, but Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Tuesday those services had been restored.

Putin said Monday’s attacks were in response to Kyiv allegedly carrying out drone attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

In response to a journalist who asked if the bombardment was an answer to the recent events on the Black Sea, Putin said, “Partly, yes. But it’s not all we could have done.”

Ukraine has not confirmed or denied attacking the Russian fleet, which Russia cited Saturday as its reason for suspending its participation in a U.N.-led grain initiative.

A senior U.S. military official said the United States is tracking the report of an alleged attack against Russian navy vessels in Sevastopol and said, “We do assess that there were explosions there.”

Putin said Monday that Ukraine fired drones at Russia’s fleet through a zone that was meant to ensure the safety of ships carrying grain.

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told the U.N. Security Council Monday that no ships involved with the U.N. grain deal were in the corridor when the alleged attack took place.

Meanwhile, in an effort to avert world hunger, 12 grain ships sailed from Ukrainian ports, despite Moscow’s pullout from the initiative. They transported 354,500 tons of grain, the most in a day since the program began, suggesting a backlog was being cleared after exports were interrupted Sunday.

However, the transport was again thrown into doubt when Russia’s Defense Ministry said late Monday that it was “unacceptable” for shipping to pass through the Black Sea security corridor.

Lloyd’s of London insurer Ascot has paused insurance for new shipments going through the Ukrainian Black Sea corridor.

“From today, we are pausing on quoting new shipments until we better understand the situation,” Ascot head of cargo Chris McGill said. “Insurance that has already been issued still stands.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Russia’s stopping its participation in the grain initiative is having “immediate, harmful impacts” on global food security.

VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this story. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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October’s Turkish energy deal with Libya’s Government of National Accord is the latest flashpoint in growing tensions between Turkey and Greece. As Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul, the effects of the rivalry are spreading in regions of Europe and the Mideast.
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Afghan special forces soldiers who fought alongside American troops and then fled to Iran after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal last year are now being recruited by the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, three former Afghan generals told The Associated Press.

They said the Russians want to attract thousands of the former elite Afghan commandos into a “foreign legion” with offers of steady, $1,500-a-month payments and promises of safe havens for themselves and their families so they can avoid deportation home to what many assume would be death at the hands of the Taliban.

“They don’t want to go fight — but they have no choice,” said one of the generals, Abdul Raof Arghandiwal, adding that the dozen or so commandos in Iran with whom he has texted fear deportation most. “They ask me, ‘Give me a solution. What should we do? If we go back to Afghanistan, the Taliban will kill us.'”

Arghandiwal said the recruiting is led by the Russian mercenary force Wagner Group. Another general, Hibatullah Alizai, the last Afghan army chief before the Taliban took over, said the effort is also being helped by a former Afghan special forces commander who lived in Russia and speaks the language.

The Russian recruitment follows months of warnings from U.S. soldiers who fought with Afghan special forces that the Taliban was intent on killing them and that they might join with U.S. enemies to stay alive or out of anger with their former ally.

A GOP congressional report in August specifically warned of the danger that the Afghan commandos — trained by U.S. Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets — could end up giving up information about U.S. tactics to the Islamic State group, Iran or Russia — or fight for them.

“We didn’t get these individuals out as we promised, and now it’s coming home to roost,” said Michael Mulroy, a retired CIA officer who served in Afghanistan, adding that the Afghan commandos are highly skilled, fierce fighters. “I don’t want to see them in any battlefield, frankly, but certainly not fighting the Ukrainians.”

Mulroy was skeptical, however, that Russians would be able to persuade many Afghan commandos to join because most he knew were driven by the desire to make democracy work in their country rather than being guns for hire.

AP was investigating the Afghan recruiting when details of the effort were first reported by Foreign Policy magazine last week based on unnamed Afghan military and security sources. The recruitment comes as Russian forces reel from Ukrainian military advances and Russian President Vladimir Putin pursues a sputtering mobilization effort, which has prompted nearly 200,000 Russian men to flee the country to escape service.

Russia’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Yevgeny Prigozhin, who recently acknowledged being the founder of the Wagner Group, dismissed the idea of an ongoing effort to recruit former Afghan soldiers as “crazy nonsense.”

The U.S. Defense Department also didn’t reply to a request for comment, but a senior official suggested the recruiting is not surprising given that Wagner has been trying to sign up soldiers in several other countries.

It’s unclear how many Afghan special forces members who fled to Iran have been courted by the Russians, but one told the AP he is communicating through the WhatsApp chat service with about 400 other commandos who are considering offers.

He said many like him fear deportation and are angry at the U.S. for abandoning them.

“We thought they might create a special program for us, but no one even thought about us,” said the former commando, who requested anonymity because he fears for himself and his family. “They just left us all in the hands of the Taliban.”

The commando said his offer included Russian visas for himself as well as his three children and wife who are still in Afghanistan.

Others have been offered extensions of their visas in Iran. He said he is waiting to see what others in the WhatsApp groups decide but thinks many will take the deal.

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 Afghan special forces fought with the Americans during the two-decade war, and only a few hundred senior officers were airlifted out when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan. Since many of the Afghan commandos did not work directly for the U.S. military, they were not eligible for special U.S. visas.

“They were the ones who fought to the really last minute. And they never, never, never talked to the Taliban. They never negotiated,” former Afghan army chief Alizai said. “Leaving them behind is the biggest mistake.”
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The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Turkey’s bid to shut down lawsuits in U.S. courts stemming from a violent brawl outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington more than five years ago that left anti-government protesters badly beaten.

The justices did not comment in turning away Turkey’s arguments that American law shields foreign countries from most lawsuits. Lower courts ruled that those protections did not extend to the events of May 16, 2017, when during a visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “Turkish security forces violently clashed with a crowd of protesters,” as one judge described the situation.

The Supreme Court’s action allows the lawsuits to proceed. In the lawsuits, protesters claim they were brutally punched and kicked, cursed at and greeted with slurs and throat-slashing gestures. One woman slipped in and out of consciousness and has suffered seizures, and others reported post-traumatic stress, depression, concussions and nightmares, according to the complaints.

The high court had put off a decision about whether to intervene for months, asking for the Biden administration’s views on the legal issues presented.

Turkey can be sued in these circumstances, the Justice Department said in its high court filing, concluding that lower courts were correct in finding that the U.S. ally does not have legal immunity.

Lawyers for the Turkish government had told the court that Erdogan’s security detail had discretion to use physical force because it was protecting its head of state in a potentially dangerous situation.

They described some protesters as “supporters of a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization that poses a genuine national security threat to Turkey.”

The altercation was caught on camera and led to criminal charges against some of Erdogan’s security officers and civilian supporters, two of whom pleaded guilty. Most other charges were dropped. The violence occurred as Erdogan was returning to the ambassador’s residence after a White House visit, where he and then-President Donald Trump pledged cooperation in fighting the Islamic State group.

Erdogan remained in his car after it arrived at the ambassador’s residence while an initial skirmish took place. The lawsuits claim that he ordered a second, more violent attack. Turkey says he did no such thing.
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Two environmental activists glued themselves to a dinosaur display at Berlin’s Natural History Museum on Sunday to protest what they said was the German government’s failure to properly address the threat of climate change.

The women used superglue to attach themselves to poles holding up the skeleton of a large four-legged dinosaur that lived tens of millions of years ago.

“Unlike the dinosaurs, we hold our fate in our own hands,” protester Caris Connell, 34, said as museum visitors milled around the display. “Do we want to go extinct like the dinosaurs, or do we want to survive?”

Fellow activist Solvig Schinkoethe, 42, said that as a mother of four she feared the consequences of the climate crisis.

“This peaceful resistance is the means we have chosen to protect our children from the government’s deadly ignorance,” she said.

The museum didn’t immediately comment on the protest.

The activists were part of the group Uprising of the Last Generation, which has staged numerous demonstrations in recent months, including blocking streets and throwing mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting.
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Germany and the European Union are considering adding Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to the list of terrorist organizations, German Foreign Minister Annalina Baerbock said on Sunday.   

Last week, Germany announced that it would impose tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran outside of the EU sanctions package.  

In an interview Sunday with a German news agency, Baerbock added, “We are also examining how we can list the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.”   

Baerbock’s comments come a day after Hossein Salami, the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, warned protesters that Saturday would be their last day of taking to the streets, signaling that security forces might intensify their crackdown on nationwide protests. 

The Revolutionary Guards are a part of Iran’s military charged with protecting the country’s Islamic political system. It also controls a huge business empire active in almost all sectors of Iran’s economy.      

Iran has been gripped by protests since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police last month, posing one of the boldest challenges to the clerical leadership since the 1979 revolution. 

Iran has accused countries that have expressed support for the protests of meddling in its internal affairs. 

In her interview Sunday, Baerbok also said there are currently no negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Western countries and Iran.   

The U.S. State Department designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization in April, 2019.   

Some material for this article came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Three men were injured early Sunday when a pro-democracy vigil outside the Iranian Embassy in Berlin was attacked, German police said.

An officer guarding the property saw several men, whose faces were covered with scarves, tearing down flags and banners from a trailer parked outside.

They then sought to rip open the door of the trailer, and a scuffle and argument erupted between four men who were inside and the attackers.

The men from the trailer chased the other group — and were then attacked by them, police said. Three of the men from the vehicle were injured, with two needing hospital treatment.

The attackers fled by car.

The trailer had posters on it with slogans such as “Women, Life, Freedom,” which has been commonly used in anti-government protests in Iran, German media reported.

There have been large protests in Germany and other European countries in solidarity with women-led demonstrations in Iran sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

The Iranian protests, now in their sixth week, are the biggest seen in the Islamic Republic for years. 
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Several thousand black-clad fascist sympathizers chanted and sang in praise of the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on Sunday as they marched to his crypt, 100 years after Mussolini entered Rome and completed a bloodless coup that gave rise to two decades of fascist rule.

The crowd of 2,000 to 4,000 marchers, many sporting fascist symbols and singing hymns from Italy’s colonial era, was larger than in the recent past, as the fascist nostalgics celebrated the centenary of the March on Rome.

On October 28, 1922, black-shirted fascists entered the Italian capital, launching a putsch that culminated two days later when Italy’s king handed Mussolini the mandate to start a new government.

The crowd in Predappio, Mussolini’s birthplace and final resting place in the northern Emilia-Romagna region, also was apparently emboldened by the fact that a party with neo-fascist roots is heading an Italian government for the first time since World War II.

Organizers warned participants, who arrived from as far away as Rome, Belgium and the United States, not to flash the Roman salute used by the Fascists, or they would risk prosecution. Still, some couldn’t resist as the crowd stopped outside the cemetery where Mussolini is buried to listen to prayers and greetings from Mussolini’s great-granddaughter, Orsola.

“After 100 years, we are still here to pay homage to the man this state wanted, and who we will never stop admiring,” Orsola Mussolini said, to cheers.

She listed her great-grandfather’s accomplishments, citing an infrastructure boom that built schools, hospitals and public buildings, reclaimed malaria-infested swamps for cities, and the extension of a pension system to nongovernment workers. She was joined by her sister Vittoria, who led the crowd in a prayer.

The crowd gave a final shout of “Duce, Duce, Duce!” Mussolini’s honorific as Italy’s dictator.

Anti-fascist campaigners held a march in Predappio on Friday to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the town — and to prevent the fascists from marching on the exact anniversary of the March on Rome.

Inside the cemetery on Sunday, admirers lined up a handful at a time to enter his crypt, tucked away in a back corner. Each was given a memory card signed by his great-grandaughters with a photo of a smiling Mussolini holding his gloved hand high in a Roman salute. “History will prove me right,” the card reads.

Italy’s failure to fully come to terms with its fascist past has never been more stark than now, as Italy’s new premier, Giorgia Meloni, seeks to distance her far-right Brothers of Italy party from its neo-fascist roots.

This week, she decried fascism’s anti-democratic nature and called its racial laws, which sent thousands of Italian Jews to Nazi death camps, “a low point.” Historians would also add Mussolini’s alliance with Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II and his disastrous colonial campaign in Africa to fascism’s devastating legacies.

Now in power, Meloni is seeking a moderate course for a new center-right government that includes Matteo Salvini’s League party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. But her victory gives far-right activists a sense of vindication.

“I would have voted for Lucifer if he could beat the left,” said organizer Mirko Santarelli, who heads the Ravenna chapter of the Arditi, an organization that began as a World War I veterans group and has evolved to include caretaking Mussolini’s memory. “I am happy there is a Meloni government, because there is nothing worse than the Italian left. It is not the government that reflects my ideas, but it is better than nothing.”

He said he would like to see the new Italian government do away with laws that prosecute incitement to hatred and violence motivated by race, ethnicity, religion and nationality. It includes use of emblems and symbols — many of which were present in Sunday’s march.

Santarelli said the law punishes “the crime of opinion.”

“It is used as castor oil by the left to make us keep quiet. When I am asked my opinion of Mussolini, and it is clear I speak well of him, I risk being denounced,” Santarelli said.

Lawyer Francesco Minutillo, a far-right activist who represents the organizers, said Italy’s high court established that manifestations are permissible as long as they are commemorative “and don’t meet the criteria that risks the reconstitution of the fascist party.”

Still, he said, magistrates in recent years have opened investigations into similar manifestations in Predappio and elsewhere to make sure they don’t violate the law. One such case was closed without charges last week.

To avoid having their message misrepresented, Santarelli asked the rank and file present not to speak to journalists. Most complied.

A young American man wearing a T-shirt with a hand-drawn swastika inside a heart and the words “Brand New Dream,” plus a fascist fez, said he had timed his European vacation to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the March on Rome so he could participate in the march in Predappio. He declined to identify himself, other than to say he was from New Jersey, and lamented there was no fascist group back home to join.

Rachele Massimi traveled with a group four hours from Rome on Sunday to participate in the event, bringing her 3-year-old who watched from a stroller.

“It’s historic,” Massimi said. “It’s a memory.”
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For web: PRAGUE (AP) — Tens of thousands of Czechs gathered in the capital on Sunday to demonstrate their solidarity with Ukraine and their support for democratic values. 

The rally took place in reaction to three recent anti-government demonstrations where other protesters demanded the resignation of the pro-Western coalition government of conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala for its support for Ukraine. Those earlier rallies also protested soaring energy prices and opposed the country’s membership in the European Union and NATO. 

The organizers of the earlier rallies are known for spreading Russian propaganda and opposing COVID-19 vaccinations. 

The people who turned out Sunday in Prague waved the Czech, Ukrainian and EU flags while displaying slogans that read “Czech Republic against fear” and “We will manage it.” 

Sunday’s rally at central Wenceslas Square was organized by a group called Million Moments for Democracy, which was behind several rallies in support of Ukraine following the Feb 24 Russian invasion. The group also previously held massive rallies against the former prime minister, populist billionaire Andrej Babis, calling him a threat for democracy. 

The group said the anti-government protests, which united the far right with the far left. exploited the people’s fear of inflation and the war in Ukraine and were trying to undermine democracy. 

Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, thanked those at the rally in a video message. She said her country has been facing “the darkest moment in its history” but added hope that Russia’s aggression won’t succeed. 

 
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King Charles III announced Sunday he would hold a reception ahead of next month’s COP27 climate summit after being advised not to attend by the government.

Buckingham Palace said the event on November 4 would gather over 200 “international business leaders, decision makers and NGOs” two days before the summit begins in Egypt.

The Palace said the event was to mark the end of the UK’s hosting of COP26.

Charles has long backed environmental causes and spoke at the COP26 event in Glasgow in 2021.

But Downing Street said Friday that the monarch will not go to COP27 after the previous UK government led by Liz Truss advised him it was not the “right occasion” for him to attend.

British PM Rishi Sunak has also decided not to go, instead focusing on domestic issues.

The UK’s COP26 Minister Alok Sharma told The Sunday Times that he was “pretty disappointed that the prime minister is not going”, saying attendance would send a signal about the UK’s “renewed commitment on this issue.”

The Sunday Times reported earlier that Charles was expected to host an event with Sunak set to make a speech.
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Thousands of demonstrators defied an official ban to march Saturday against the deployment of new water storage infrastructure for agricultural irrigation in western France, some clashing with police.

Clashes between paramilitary gendarmes and demonstrators erupted with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin reporting that 61 officers had been hurt, 22 seriously.

“Bassines Non Merci,” which organized the protest, said around 30 demonstrators had been injured. Of them, 10 had to seek medical treatment and three were hospitalized.

The group brings together environmental associations, trade unions and anti-capitalist groups against what it claims is a “water grab” by the “agro-industry” in western France.

Local officials said six people were arrested during the protest and that 4,000 people had turned up for the banned demonstration. Organizers put the turnout at 7,000.

The deployment of giant water “basins” is underway in the village of Sainte-Soline, in the Deux-Sevres department, to irrigate crops, which opponents claim distorts access to water amid drought conditions.

Around 1,500 police were deployed, according to the prefect of the Deux-Sevres department Emmanuelle Dubee.

Dubee said Friday she had wanted to limit possible “acts of violence,” referring to the clashes between demonstrators and security forces that marred a previous rally in March. 

The Sainte-Soline water reserve is the second of 16 such installations, part of a project developed by a group of 400 farmers organized in a water cooperative to significantly reduce water usage in the summer.

The open-air craters, covered with a plastic tarpaulin, are filled by pumping water from surface groundwater in winter and can store up to 650,000 square meters of water. 

This water is used for irrigation in summer, when rainfall is scarcer. 

Opponents claim the “mega-basins” are wrongly reserved for large export-oriented grain farms and deprive the community of access to essential resources.
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