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The fallout from Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny and exile to Belarus has rattled nerves in the Baltic countries and is expected to broaden NATO’s agenda beyond Ukraine during talks at its annual summit later in July. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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A Moscow court on Thursday sentenced a Russian media publisher to eight years in prison in absentia for criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ilya Krasilshchik, who left Russia after the invasion and now lives in Berlin, is a former publisher of the exiled Russian news outlet Meduza, which is based in Latvia.

Krasilshchik was charged in absentia in April 2022 with “spreading fake news about the Russian military motivated by political hatred” over comments about the massacre of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, by Russian troops.

Spreading “false information” about Russia’s military became a criminal offense in Russia soon after the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

Krasilshchik now runs the “Help Desk” project, a media platform and service that helps those impacted by the war in Ukraine.

Besides his previous work at Meduza, he formerly served as editor-in-chief of the Russian lifestyle magazine Afisha.

In addition to the prison sentence, the Moscow court banned him from administering websites for four years.

Responding to the sentence on Twitter, Krasilshchik said he “will now have four years of excuses for why I’m not answering messages.”

The press freedom group the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, called on Russia to drop the charges against Krasilshchik when they were brought against him last year.

“Russia’s new laws criminalizing so-called ‘fake’ information about the war in Ukraine serve only one purpose: to censor and criminalize accurate coverage of the conflict,” Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, said in a statement at the time.

In a Facebook post commenting on the sentence, Krasilshchik said he will not appeal the sentence.

“The circus is over, and to hell with it,” he wrote.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
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Turkey has condemned Wednesday’s public burning of a Quran in Stockholm and analysts say the incident will likely give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even more reason to veto Sweden’s bid to join NATO. Erdogan has already threatened to block Sweden’s membership because he accuses Stockholm of harboring Kurdish separatists who he says are terrorists. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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More than three million Syrians have made Turkey home since the start of their country’s conflict in 2011. Despite the challenges of life in Turkey, many have remained active, trying to help other Syrian refugees. VOA’s Eyyup Demir has the story from Ankara, narrated by Sirwan Kajjo.
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The Kremlin said Thursday it could not provide information about Russian General Sergei Surovikin, who has not been seen in public since Saturday, when Wagner mercenary group head Yevgeny Prigozhin led a mutiny attempt against the Russian military.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he could not clarify the situation with Surovikin and said they should contact the defense ministry.

Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, appeared in a video Saturday urging the Wagner group to halt any moves against the army and return to their bases.

Prigozhin arrived in Belarus earlier this week at the invitation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as part of a deal to halt the mutiny.

It still is not clear where Prigozhin is in Belarus, how many fighters accompanied him or how long he plans to stay there.

Peskov told reporters Thursday that he did not have information about Prigozhin’s location.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin has “absolutely” been weakened inside Russia by Prigozhin’s rebellion effort.

But Biden, speaking to reporters at the White House, said it was “hard to tell” the extent to which Putin is diminished.

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, echoed Biden’s comments when speaking with VOA’s Russian service on Wednesday.

“On balance, Putin is much weaker today than he was just four or five days ago. Elites in Russia, soldiers in Russia are all watching this and wondering, ‘What’s happened to our leader?’”

“And I think that’s good. Because a weakened Russia might do less in terms of damage, principally in Ukraine,” McFaul said.

While pledging that Prigozhin would be safe in Belarus, Putin has expressed mixed views about the Wagner Group since the rebellion. Putin has characterized Wagner’s leaders as traitors but said the rank-and-file mercenaries “really showed courage and heroism” in their fight against Kyiv’s forces.

Prigozhin’s arrival in Belarus came as Putin said Tuesday that Moscow had paid $1 billion between May 2022 and May 2023 to fully fund the Wagner mercenary fighters, contrary to claims by Prigozhin that he had financed his mercenaries.

Russia once denied the existence of the Wagner Group but it has advanced Russia’s interests in several African and Middle Eastern countries.

Many of the Wagner fighters in Ukraine were convicted criminals freed from Russian prisons on the promise that if they fought in neighboring Ukraine for six months, the remaining portions of their sentences would be rescinded.

Prigozhin said earlier this year that he had always financed Wagner but had looked for additional funding after Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine.

Prigozhin said Monday that his troops’ advance on Moscow had not been an attempt to overthrow the Russian government and that he remained a patriot.

VOA’s Russian service contributed to this report. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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LONDON – Britain’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful, London’s Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday, in a major setback for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has pledged to stop migrants arriving across the Channel in small boats.

Under a deal struck last year, Britain’s government planned to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive on its shores more than 6,400 kilometers to the East African country.

The first planned deportation flight was blocked a year ago in a last-minute ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which imposed an injunction preventing any deportations until the conclusion of legal action in Britain.

In December, the High Court ruled the policy was lawful, but that decision was challenged by asylum seekers from several countries along with human rights organizations.

Announcing the Court of Appeal’s decision, three senior appeal judges ruled, by a majority, that Rwanda could not be treated as a safe third country.

“The deficiencies in the asylum system in Rwanda are such that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that persons sent to Rwanda will be returned to their home countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment,” judge Ian Burnett said.

Burnett said he himself disagreed with the other two judges on this point.

The ruling is a huge blow for Sunak who is dealing with stubbornly high levels of inflation, declining public support, and is under increasing pressure from his own party and the public to deal with migrant arrivals in small boats.

Sunak has made “stop the boats” one of five priorities and is hoping a fall in arrivals might help his Conservative Party pull off an unexpected win at the next national election. 
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Latest developments:  

European Union leaders to discuss security assistance for Ukraine at summit. 





U.S. State Department approves sale of up to $15 billion in Patriot missile defense systems for Poland. 

Crews in Ukraine found a body Thursday in the rubble of a pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, bringing the death toll from a Russian missile attack on the site to 12 people. 

Ukrainian authorities said the dead include three children, and that the attack injured another 60 people. 

Ukraine’s counterintelligence service said Wednesday it arrested a man it accused of helping Russia direct the attack. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said those who help Russia “destroy life” deserve maximum punishment. 

“Anyone in the world who does not understand that one cannot be an accomplice of a terrorist state must be held accountable by the entire international community,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “The spotter is being charged with treason. The possible punishment is life imprisonment. Accomplices of a terrorist state must be treated as betrayers of humanity.” 

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday his foreign ministry would send a note of protest to Russia after the strike in Kramatorsk injured “three defenseless Colombian civilians.” 

Petro tweeted that Russia “violated the protocols of war.” 

The restaurant was frequented by journalists, aid workers, and soldiers as well as local residents. The Security Service of Ukraine provided no evidence for its claim that the man filmed the restaurant and told the Russians about it.

Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov repeated Russia’s claim that it does not target civilians.    

The strike during dinnertime on Tuesday was one of several Russia launched on Ukrainian cities throughout the evening and into early Wednesday.  

Kramatorsk is west of the front lines where fighting is taking place in Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.  

A Russian airstrike on the city’s railway station in April 2022 killed 63 people.  

Ukraine also reported a Russian missile strike Tuesday in Kremenchuk, which came exactly a year after a Russian attack there killed at least 20 people at a shopping mall.    

“Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and to the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done — defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” said Zelenskyy.  

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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WASHINGTON – The fallout from Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny and exile to Belarus is set to broaden the agenda beyond Ukraine in talks at the upcoming annual NATO summit in July 11–12.

The meeting will take place in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, just 35 kilometers from the border of Prigozhin’s new home base, highlighting urgency to fortify the alliance’s eastern flank and increase defense spending.

It is still not clear how many members of Prigozhin’s mercenary army will accompany him to Belarus, but the thought of them setting up camp just a few hours away is rattling nerves in the Baltic countries of Lithuania and Latvia as well as Poland. All of them share a land border with Belarus.

Lithuania and Latvia quickly urged NATO members to bolster their defense, noting the speed with which Wagner forces had advanced on Moscow.

“Our countries’ borders are just hundreds of kilometers from that activity, so it could take them eight to 10 hours to suddenly appear somewhere in Belarus close to Lithuania,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said Tuesday.

Fortification efforts began immediately. On Monday, Germany announced it will permanently station a 4,000-strong army brigade in Lithuania, something Vilnius has demanded since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Until the Wagner uprising, Berlin was only willing to deploy its troops to Lithuania on a temporary basis.

On Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it was too early to say what the Wagner presence in Belarus could mean for the alliance, but vowed that NATO would protect “every ally, every inch of NATO territory” against threats from “Moscow or Minsk.”

The Wagner fallout also bolsters the case for NATO to increase its defense spending. Earlier this month Stoltenberg reiterated the need for each alliance member to commit at least 2% of their GDP to defense, a long-standing NATO goal.

A NATO report released in March shows that while defense spending across the alliance increased by 2.2% from 2021-22, only seven of NATO’s 30 member states in 2022 met the 2% target – the United States, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the United Kingdom.

Russian instability

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he believed Putin had “absolutely” been weakened inside his country from his clash with Prigozhin but that it was “hard to tell” the extent to which Putin had been diminished.

As soon as the chaos unfolded in Russia, Biden said he directed his national security team to prepare for “a range of scenarios,” and convened a video call with NATO allies.

“We had to make sure we gave Putin no excuse to blame this on the West or to blame this on NATO,” Biden said Monday. “We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it. This was part of a struggle within the Russian system.”

However, it’s clear that in Vilnius Biden and NATO leaders will need to address questions of the broader threat posed by Russia and its ally Belarus.

“We’ve gone from thinking about Ukraine as a slightly isolated conflict to again thinking about NATO having this incredibly long, thousands of miles border, all down Finland and down Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,” said Kristine Berzina, managing director for German Marshall Funds North and co-leader of GMF’s Russia Transatlantic Initiative.

“And Poland, because of Kaliningrad,” she told VOA, referring to the Russian exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania where Moscow has stationed thousands of troops.

“Is Russia unstable? What happens to the nuclear arsenal should Russia be unstable? What happens if you have someone who is more warmongering than Putin coming to power in Russia, and perhaps less predictable? These are questions for NATO itself to answer,” Berzina added.

Concern about Russian instability is decades old, said Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia who is now director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

“Russia has nuclear weapons, and we don’t want those nuclear weapons to get into the hands of people irresponsible,” he told VOA.

Diplomatic end

McFaul argues that since the mutiny attempt by Wagner soldiers was sparked by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, leaders concerned with Russian instability would be well-served to find a diplomatic end sooner rather than later.

“Whether you’re President Biden, or Xi Jinping in China, I think this is the time to put more pressure on Mr. Putin to end his war in Ukraine,” he said. “Because the longer that war goes on, the more likely we are going to see future events of instability inside Russia.”

Administration officials have long underscored that the way to ending the conflict is by boosting Ukraine’s battle capabilities to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in the negotiation table.

The biggest impediment to reaching a diplomatic settlement for a “just and durable peace” is Putin’s conviction that he can outlast Ukraine and NATO, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken during an event at the Council of Foreign Affairs think tank Wednesday.

“The more we’re able to disabuse him of that notion, the more likely it is that at some point, he’ll come to the table,” Blinken said.

As NATO leaders meet in Vilnius to address the concerns surrounding Wagner, they must also decide on the kind of security guarantee to provide to Kyiv. On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded clarity on his country’s future in the alliance during the summit.

“During the war we cannot become a member of NATO, but we must be confident that after the war we will be,” he said. “And this is exactly the signal we want to receive, that after the war Ukraine will be a member of NATO.” 
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PARIS – Protesters shot fireworks at police and set cars ablaze in the working-class Paris suburb of Nanterre on Wednesday, in a second night of unrest following the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old boy during a traffic stop there. 

The use of lethal force by officers against the teenager, who was of North African origin, has fed into a deep-rooted perception of police brutality in the ethnically diverse suburbs of France’s biggest cities.  

Shortly before midnight, a trail of overturned vehicles burned as fireworks fizzed at police lines on Nanterre’s Avenue Pablo Picasso.  

Police clashed with protesters in the northern city of Lille and in Toulouse in the southwest, and there was also unrest in Amiens, Dijon and the Essonne administrative department south of the French capital, a police spokesman said. 

French media reported incidents in numerous other locations across greater Paris. Videos on social media showed dozens of fireworks being directed at the Montreuil town hall, on the eastern edge of Paris. 

Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron called the shooting “unexplainable and inexcusable.”  

A police officer is being investigated for voluntary homicide for shooting the youth. Prosecutors say the youth had failed to comply with an order to stop his car. 

The interior ministry has called for calm and said 2,000 police have been mobilized in the Paris region. 

Rights groups allege systemic racism inside law enforcement agencies in France, a charge Macron has previously denied. 

A video shared on social media, verified by Reuters, shows two police officers beside the car, a Mercedes AMG, with one shooting at the driver at close range as the car pulled away. The driver died shortly afterward from his wounds, the local prosecutor said. 

“You have a video that is very clear: a police officer killed a young man of 17 years. You can see that the shooting is not within the rules,” said Yassine Bouzrou, a lawyer for the family. 

Lawmakers held a minute’s silence in the National Assembly, where Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said the shooting “seems clearly not to comply with the rules.” 

The family has filed a legal complaint against the officers for homicide, complicity in homicide and false testimony, the lawyer said. 

In a video shared on TikTok, a woman identified as the victim’s mother called for a memorial march in Nanterre on Thursday. “Everyone come. We will lead a revolt for my son,” she said. 

Unusually frank 

Tuesday’s killing was the third fatal shooting during traffic stops in France so far in 2023, down from a record 13 last year, a spokesperson for the national police said. 

There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, according to a Reuters tally, which shows the majority of victims since 2017 were Black or of Arab origin. 

France’s human rights ombudsman has opened an inquiry into the death, the sixth such inquiry into similar incidents in 2022 and 2023. 

Macron’s remarks were unusually frank in a country where senior politicians are often reticent to criticize police, given voters’ security concerns. 

Two leading police unions fought back, saying the detained police officer should be presumed innocent until found otherwise.  

Macron has faced criticism from rivals who accuse him of being soft on drug dealers and petty criminals, and he has implemented policies aimed at curbing urban crime, including greater authority for police to issue fines. 

Before the violence erupted for a second night, some in Nanterre had expressed hope the unrest would end swiftly.  

“To revolt like we did yesterday won’t change things. We need to discuss and talk,” local resident Fatima said. 
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US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken say Saturday’s armed rebellion in Russia shows that President Vladimir Putin is clearly losing the war in Ukraine and highlights the stark contrast between Putin’s grand ambitions when he started the war and where his army stands now. VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged NATO on Wednesday to send Ukraine a clear signal at a summit next month that it can join the military alliance when Russia’s war on his country ends.

In a speech to parliament on Ukraine’s Constitution Day, he suggested global leaders should stop thinking about how Moscow would react when making decisions about Ukraine and described Russia’s political and military leaders as “bandits.”

He then set out what Kyiv expects of the July 11-12 NATO summit in Lithuania after holding talks in the Ukrainian capital with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.

“We understand that we cannot be a member of NATO during the war, but we need to be sure that after the war we will be,” Zelenskyy told a joint press conference.

“That is the signal we want to get — that after the war, Ukraine will be a member of NATO.”

Zelenskyy said Kyiv also hoped to receive security guarantees at the summit to help protect Ukraine until it is accepted as a NATO member.

Duda said Poland and Lithuania were doing all they could to help Ukraine secure its goals as soon as possible. The two countries are big supporters of Ukraine, and Vilnius is buying NASAMS air defense systems for Kyiv from a Norwegian company.

“We are trying to ensure that the decisions made at the summit clearly indicate the perspective of membership. We are conducting talks on this issue with our allies,” Duda said.

Though Ukraine wants to join as quickly as possible, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is divided over how fast that step should be taken.

Membership obstacles

Western governments such as the United States and Germany are wary of moves they fear could take the alliance closer to entering an active war with Russia, which has long seen NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe as evidence of Western hostility.

“Some states and world leaders still, unfortunately, look back at Russia when making their own decisions,” Zelenskyy said in his speech to parliament. “This can be called an absurd and shameful self-limitation of sovereignty, because Ukrainians proved that Russia should not be feared.”

Russia has occupied swaths of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine, but Kyiv has launched a counteroffensive to try to retake that land.

Zelenskyy reiterated that Kyiv would not accept any peace proposals that would lock in Russian gains and turn the war into a frozen conflict.

Some NATO states have expressed concern about the arrival of Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, in Belarus after leading an aborted mutiny.

Prigozhin has gone into exile in Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wagner fighters would be offered the choice of relocating there.

“The presence of the Wagner Group in Belarus is a very significant signal which, in our opinion, NATO should definitely pay attention to,” Nauseda said. “Questions arise as to why these troops were relocated there. A group of experienced mercenaries can always pose a potential danger.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin had “absolutely” been weakened inside his country by last weekend’s short-lived mutiny led by mercenary Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.

But Biden, speaking to reporters at the White House, said it was “hard to tell” the extent to which Putin had been diminished.

“He’s clearly losing the war in Iraq,” Biden said, meaning to refer to Putin’s 16-month war against Ukraine. “He’s losing the war at home. And he has become a bit of a pariah around the world. And it’s not just NATO. It’s not just the European Union. It’s Japan. It’s … 40 nations.”

Prigozhin intended to try to capture Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, during a visit to a southern region that borders Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported. But Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, found out about the plan two days before it was to be executed, according to Western officials, forcing Prigozhin to move ahead with his rebellion more quickly than he had planned.

Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday at the invitation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally who claimed that he had to talk the Russian leader out of killing Prigozhin in retribution for the Wagner Group’s advance on Moscow last Saturday. Prigozhin called off the rebellion against Putin and his defense leaders well short of a confrontation with Russian troops on the outskirts of the capital.

Lukashenko on Saturday negotiated with Putin over Prigozhin’s departure for Belarus, but it still is not clear where Prigozhin is in Belarus, how many fighters accompanied him or how long he plans to stay there.

Putin has promised Prigozhin’s safety in Belarus, and according to Belarusian state media, the authoritarian Lukashenko has urged Putin to not kill Prigozhin.

“I said to Putin, ‘We could waste [Prigozhin], no problem. If not on the first try, then on the second.’ I told him, ‘Don’t do this,’” Lukashenko said during a meeting with security officials, according to state media.

Western countries have sanctioned Lukashenko, 68, for cracking down on opposition figures and allowing Russia to attack Ukraine last year from Belarusian territory, while more recently letting Russia store tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus for possible use in the conflict in Ukraine.

While pledging that Prigozhin would be safe in Belarus, Putin has expressed mixed views about the Wagner Group since the rebellion against his authority and the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry. Putin has characterized Wagner’s leaders as traitors but said the rank-and-file mercenaries “really showed courage and heroism” in their fight against Kyiv’s forces.

Prigozhin’s arrival in Belarus came as Putin said Tuesday that Moscow had paid $1 billion between May 2022 and May 2023 to fully fund the Wagner mercenary fighters, contrary to claims by Prigozhin that he had financed his mercenaries.

“The content of the entire Wagner Group was fully provided by the state, from the Ministry of Defense, from the state budget. We fully funded this group,” Putin told defense officials in televised remarks. Russia once denied the existence of the Wagner Group, but it has advanced Russia’s interests in several African and Middle Eastern countries.

Many of the Wagner fighters in Ukraine were convicted criminals freed from Russian prisons on the promise that if they fought in neighboring Ukraine for six months, the remaining portions of their sentences would be rescinded.

As it has turned out, however, many of the Wagner recruits were poorly trained, were ill-equipped for warfare on the front lines in Ukraine and were quickly killed.

In addition to Russia’s payments of salaries and incentive awards to the Wagner troops, Putin said Prigozhin’s food and catering business was paid nearly another $1 billion to feed Russian troops.

“I do hope that as part of this work, no one stole anything, or let’s say, stole less. But we will, of course, investigate all of this,” Putin said of the state’s funding of Wagner and Prigozhin’s catering company.

Prigozhin said earlier this year that he had always financed Wagner but had looked for additional funding after Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

Prigozhin said Monday that his troops’ advance on Moscow had not been an attempt to overthrow the Russian government and that he remained a patriot. Prigozhin for weeks had complained that Russian defense officials had not provided his troops enough ammunition.

Putin has assailed the Wagner advance on Moscow as an armed rebellion and ordered that Wagner lose its heavy weaponry while its fighters either join the regular armed forces or accept exile in Belarus.

Russia’s Federal Security Service announced Tuesday that it was closing an investigation into the armed mutiny.

In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the FSB said those involved “ceased activities directed at committing the crime.” Not prosecuting the fighters was part of an agreement late Saturday that ended the mutiny.

Russia’s Defense Ministry also said Tuesday that the Wagner Group was preparing to transfer heavy military equipment to the Russian military.

The U.S. intelligence community “was aware” that the mutiny orchestrated by Prigozhin “was a possibility” and briefed Congress “accordingly” before it began, according to a source familiar with the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Biden said earlier this week, “We made clear we were not involved. We had nothing to do with this.” Biden’s message that the West was not involved was sent directly to the Russians through various diplomatic channels, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. He did not characterize Russia’s response.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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France’s government on Wednesday announced heightened police presence around Paris and other big cities and called for calm after scattered violence erupted over the death of a 17-year-old delivery driver who was shot and killed during a police check. 

The death prompted nationwide concern and widespread messages of indignation and condolences, including from soccer star Kylian Mbappe. 

It also triggered unrest in multiple towns around Paris. Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said 31 people were arrested, 25 police officers injured and 40 cars burned in overnight unrest. 

The tensions focused around the Paris suburb of Nanterre, where lawyers say 17-year-old Nael M. was killed Tuesday during a traffic check. The police officer suspected of firing on him was detained and faces potential manslaughter charges, according to the Nanterre prosecutor’s office. 

The Nanterre neighborhood where Nael lived remained tense Wednesday morning, with police on guard and burned car wreckage and overturned garbage bins still visible in some areas. 

Nael’s mother appealed online for a silent march on Thursday in her son’s honor, near the scene of his death. 

Videos purported to be of the incident were “extremely shocking,” Darmanin said, pledging a full investigation. The images show two police officers leaning into the driver-side window of a yellow car, before the vehicle pulls away as one officer fires into the window. The car is later seen crashed into a post nearby. 

“I call for calm and truth,” Darmanin said. 

He said 1,200 police were deployed overnight and 2,000 would be out in force Wednesday in the Paris region and around other big cities to “maintain order.” 

Deadly use of firearms is less common in France than in the United States. Tuesday’s death unleashed anger in Nanterre and other towns, including around housing projects where many residents struggle with poverty and discrimination and feel police abuse is under-punished. 

A lawyer for Nael’s family, Yassine Bouzrou, told The Associated Press they want the police officer pursued for murder instead of manslaughter, and want the investigation handed to a different region because they fear Nanterre investigators won’t be impartial. 

The lawyers refuted a reported statement by the police that their lives were in danger because the driver had threatened to run them over. 

Mbappe, who grew up in the Paris suburb of Bondy, was among those who were shocked by what happened. 

“I hurt for my France. Unacceptable situation. All my thoughts go to the family and loved ones of Nael, this little angel gone much too soon,” he tweeted. 

The government will hold a security meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss next steps, Darmanin said. 

The victim was wounded by a gunshot and died at the scene, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. A passenger in the car was briefly detained and released, and police are searching for another passenger who fled. 

Several people have died or sustained injuries at the hands of French police in recent years, prompting demands for more accountability. France also saw protests against racial profiling and other injustice in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police in Minnesota. 
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South Korea has for the first time placed sanctions on a former South Korean national for setting up business entities to bypass United Nations Security Council resolutions against North Korea and its nuclear weapons program.

Choi Chon Gon is suspected of engaging in illicit financial deals on behalf of Pyongyang, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday, including co-investing in a Russia-based trade company, Epsilon, with a North Korean.

Choi fled South Korea while under investigation by local authorities, Yonhap reports, and is now based in Vladivostok, having acquired Russian citizenship.

The 66-year-old set up a front company, Hanne Ulaan, in Mongolia in 2019 through which authorities in Seoul believe he acquired goods for Pyongyang, including foodstuffs, estimated to be worth more than $7.6 million.

South Korea also put sanctions for the first time on his North Korean accomplice, So Myong, of North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank in Vladivostok, and the company they co-invested in, Epsilon, as well as Hanne Ulaan in Mongolia.

North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, responsible for the regime’s overseas currencies, was placed under sanction by the United Nations Security Council in 2017.

Seoul hopes that by casting a wide sanctions net centered around Choi, they can prevent the former national from accessing South Korean financial resources, as well as raise awareness of the group’s operations.

Choi and Hanne Ulaan were mentioned in a U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee panel of experts’ report in 2021 which noted that Mongolian authorities had frozen $13,800 in funds after documents flagged their suspected ties to North Korea.
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Politicians from the Five Eyes alliance are meeting in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, where migration and security are top of the agenda. The grouping includes the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Five Eyes alliance is an intelligence-sharing accord among five English-speaking democracies. British Home Secretary Suella Braverman is among those attending meetings in Wellington, New Zealand. 

War and China likely on agenda

The war in Ukraine and China’s growing assertiveness are expected to be discussed at the five-country ministerial talks Wednesday in Wellington. Also on the agenda in the New Zealand capital are cyber security, child sex abuse, and foreign espionage at universities. Delegates are also expected to discuss migration and labor mobility schemes between alliance countries. 

Anne-Marie Brady is a professor in the department of Political Science and International Relations at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury. 

She told VOA Wednesday that the Five Eyes alliance has an important part to play in maintaining global security. 

“Because the rules based international order is under such threat by the behavior of Russia and China and the way they misuse their positions in international organizations such as the (U.N.) Security Council, that is leading to increasing prominence of groupings of interested states,” said Brady. “That relationship of the five countries in Five Eyes is very important and relevant in a very challenging international environment.”   

Alliance formed after war

The Five Eyes alliance began between the United States and Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War. Over the next decade, it was expanded to include Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It has had a reputation for secrecy. 

Earlier this year, it blamed China for recent cyber-attacks targeting “critical infrastructure” in the U.S. Beijing responded by accusing the English-speaking alliance of spreading disinformation.   

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has been in China this week on an official visit. Tuesday, he met Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both leaders acknowledged the importance of the bilateral relationship.  They discussed trade, international relations and the war in Ukraine.   

Hipkins said in a statement that his country’s “relationship with China is one of our most significant and wide-ranging.” 

New Zealand’s exports to China are worth more than $12.8 billion, or a quarter of the country’s total export earnings, according to government data.  
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Latest developments:

Pope Francis' peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi traveled to Moscow weeks after a visit to Kyiv, with the Vatican saying he seeks "a solution to the tragic current situation" of the war in Ukraine.





The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, arrived in Belarus days after an aborted mutiny.

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday a Russian missile attack on the city of Kramatorsk killed at least nine people and injured more than 50 others.  

Emergency services posted photos of rescue teams searching through the rubble at the site that included a restaurant.

Kramatorsk is located west of the front lines where fighting is taking place in Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.

A Russian strike on the city’s railway station in April 2022 killed 63 people.

Ukraine also reported a Russian missile strike Tuesday in Kremenchuk, which came exactly a year after a Russian attack there killed at least 20 people at a shopping mall.

“Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and to the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done — defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Tuesday.

Air defense 

Lithuania said Wednesday it is buying two Norwegian-made NASAMS air defense systems for Ukraine’s military. 

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda announced the deal as he visited Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy. 

“The NASAMS launchers will reach Ukraine in the near future,” Nauseda said on Facebook. 

Zelenskyy welcomed the move, tweeting that he was grateful to the Lithuanian leader. 

“This is an important and timely contribution to protecting Ukraine’s sky and saving lives of Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The United States on Tuesday accused companies in the United Arab Emirates, the Central African Republic and Russia of engaging in illicit gold deals to help fund the mercenary fighters of Russia’s Wagner Group.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement it has sanctioned four companies linked to Wagner and its leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that it alleged were used to help pay the paramilitary’s forces fighting in Ukraine and undertaking operations to support Russian interests in Africa.

“The Wagner Group funds its brutal operations in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali. The United States will continue to target the Wagner Group’s revenue streams to degrade its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and anywhere else,” Brian Nelson, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement.

The State Department said the sanctions were unrelated to Wagner’s short-lived mutiny last weekend against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s defense leadership for its handling of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The sanctions block any assets the companies hold in the U.S. and prohibit them from engaging in new deals in the U.S.

Wagner has fought in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and other countries, and has fought some of the bloodiest battles of the 16-month war in Ukraine, including at Bakhmut. Wagner was founded in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and started supporting pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

The sanctions were imposed on Central African Republic-based Midas Ressources SARLU and Diamville SAU; UAE-based Industrial Resources General Trading; and Russia-based DM, a limited liability company.

Russia’s embassy in Washington and Industrial Resources did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters could not immediately reach a spokesperson for Midas Ressources, Diamville or Limited Liability Company DM.

Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov, a Russian national, was also sanctioned. The Treasury Department accused him of being an executive in the Wagner Group and said he worked closely with senior Malian officials on weapons deals, mining concerns and other Wagner activities in the country.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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As a veteran correspondent for National Public Radio, Sylvia Poggioli spent the bulk of her 41-year career at the American broadcaster living and reporting in Italy.  

Now, as she moves into retirement, the Rhode Island-born journalist is watching with interest at how the change in Italy’s government is affecting the media and some of the key issues she has covered there over the years, including immigration.  

Last October, Giorgia Meloni — head of Fratelli d’Italia, or the Brothers of Italy party — became prime minister of Italy, the country’s first far-right leader since the end of World War II. 

Under her administration, the government has blocked humanitarian ships that rescue migrants from docking at Italian ports and ordered the Milan City Council to stop recognizing same sex partners on birth registers. 

Globally, Italy is not often top of mind for press freedom advocates, but a rise in lawsuits, changes at the state broadcaster and a decline in government press briefings are raising concerns.

“There are a lot of frustrating things here. It’s not all ‘White Lotus’ life,” Poggioli told VOA, referring to the television show set at a Sicilian resort. ”Especially Rome — it’s not an easy city. But I’m used to it. I call it home.” 

Poggioli first moved to Italy after college on a Fulbright Scholarship. 

She got her start in journalism in the early 1980s as a correspondent for NPR at a time when she said the outlet “was considered sort of on the liberal fringe.”   

One of her first major stories: a mafia assassination of a prosecutor in Sicily.   

Other stories from her early years include the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981 and the Achille Lauro hijacking in 1985, when Palestinian terrorists seized an Italian cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea.   

Her work eventually brought her to the Balkans, where she covered wars in countries including Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Serbia.  

Looking back, the Rome-based Poggioli is proudest of her coverage of immigration and refugee issues, including the migrant crisis facing countries including Italy and Greece.  

“Those have been the most consequential events that I’ve covered,” she said.

When she retired in March, she was the longest-serving reporter on NPR’s international desk.   

“For many, her name is synonymous with NPR,” the outlet wrote in a statement announcing the reporter’s departure.

Poggioli is exiting a career in journalism just as the industry faces new challenges in Italy.    

One of the most striking aspects for Poggioli is how inaccessible to the media Meloni has made herself. Press conferences are few and far between.   

“There haven’t been any specific curbs or crackdowns,” Poggioli said. “But there’s a lot of wariness, I’d say, about a government that doesn’t make itself accessible to the press.” 

More concerning is the use of lawsuits to target reporters. At least four members of the current government, including Meloni, have filed lawsuits against journalists and outlets over their coverage, according to the free expression group Article 19.

The Italian Embassy in Washington did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.   

In Italy, “investigative journalists are still very much under pressure, and they face threats and lawsuits, and are often overwhelmed by them,” Jessica White, who researches European media freedom at Freedom House, told VOA. “This is a real concern for press freedom in the country. And it also results in higher levels of self-censorship.”  

White is the author of a June Freedom House report looking at conditions for media in Italy and five other European countries.

Despite the challenges, the threat to press freedom in Italy is minor compared with elsewhere. In terms of media freedom, the country ranks 41 out of 180 countries, according to Reporters Without Borders.

To Poggioli, another noteworthy shift is taking place at the state-run broadcaster.

Whenever there’s a change of government in Italy, Poggioli said, the new leadership traditionally installs its own people at the upper levels of state broadcaster RAI.

But, she said, “it’s been more drastic this time.” 

In late May, The Guardian reported that Meloni’s government was exerting “ruthless” influence at RAI.

“They want to take control of Rai and change the narrative to their way of thinking,” one anonymous source told The Guardian.

Several RAI executives and reporters have resigned, with some citing government pressure.  

Among them is former RAI Chief Executive Carlo Fuortes, who in his resignation letter said, “Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a political conflict concerning me and my position, which is weakening Rai and the public service.”  

Still, one source at RAI, who requested anonymity to speak freely about their employer, told VOA they haven’t experienced significant changes.

“The thing is the left has dominated the cultural language for decades,” they said. ”Now the right wants to gain some lost points.” 

RAI did not reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. 

The changes facing the state broadcaster may underscore the significance of outlets like NPR.   

Investing in public media “helps bridge information gaps and fosters an informed citizenry, which is vital for a well-functioning democracy,” Karen Rundlet, who works at the journalism nonprofit the Knight Foundation, told VOA.  

For Poggioli, public broadcasting opened the door to her career.

“I saw a good portion of the world and some very nice experiences. And unfortunately, as journalists, we also cover a lot of really depressing stories too,” she said. “But it’s been a really good ride.”  
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A portrait of an unnamed woman by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt sold for 85.3 million pounds ($108.4 million) on Tuesday, setting a record price for any work of art sold at an auction in Europe, London-based auction house Sotheby’s said.  

The painting, which had been given a guide price of 65 million pounds ($82.9 million), was sold after a tense 10-minute bidding war as auctioneer Helena Newman, Sotheby’s head of impressionist and modern art, eked out the final bids in half-million pound increments.

Described by Newman as a “technical tour de force, full of boundary-pushing experimentation, as well as a heartfelt ode to absolute beauty,” the painting titled “Dame mit Fächer” (“Lady with a Fan”) was still on an easel in Klimt’s studio when he died in February 1918.

“It was created when he was still in his artistic prime and brings together all the technical prowess and creative exuberance that define his greatest work,” she said.

The fall of the hammer at 74 million pounds broke the tension, triggering a collective exhalation in the room and a round of applause. The total price includes fees.

The painting sold to a Hong Kong-based art advisory firm, bidding on behalf of a collector based there.

The previous highest price for a painting sold at auction in Europe was Claude Monet’s “Le Bassin Aux Nympheas” in 2008 at $80.4 million, while the record for any work of art sold at auction in Europe was set by Alberto Giacometti’s bronze “Walking Man I,” which went for $104.3 million in 2010.  

Sotheby’s said the painting was one of a small number of Klimt’s portraits in private collections. It is now the most expensive Klimt artwork sold at auction anywhere in the world.

It was last offered for sale nearly 30 years ago, when it was acquired by the family of the present owner for $11.6 million, according to the auction house.
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A blistering new report by the U.N. human rights office shows that nobody in Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine is without fault and that Ukrainian civilians have been arbitrarily detained by both warring parties, but that the Russian Federation is guilty of most of the crimes and cases of abuse.

The report, which was issued Tuesday, covers a 15-month period from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, to May 2023. The documented material is based on 1,136 interviews with victims, witnesses and others, 274 site visits and 70 visits to official places of detention run by Ukrainian authorities.

Authors of the report note that Ukraine gave them “unimpeded confidential access” to official places of detention and detainees, with one exception. They say “the Russian Federation did not grant us such access, despite our requests.”

The report documents more than 900 cases of arbitrary detention of civilians, including children, and elderly people. It says the majority of these — 864 cases — were perpetrated by the Russian Federation, “many of which amounted to enforced disappearances.”

Matilda Bogner heads the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Speaking from Uzhhorod in western Ukraine, she said her team did not document any cases of arbitrary detention committed by the mercenary Wagner Group because “they do work under the overall control of the army in Russia.”

She noted a previous report published in March had documented cases of arbitrary detention, torture and ill treatment and executions of prisoners of war by the Wagner Group. She added, “None of these cases related to civilian detainees.”

The report documents the summary execution of 77 civilians while they were arbitrarily detained by the Russian Federation.

Bogner said, “It is a war crime to execute a civilian after detention. It is also a gross violation of international human rights law.

“In terms of the 77 public executions, I could not say that it is the tip of the iceberg. I think we have documented a large number of them,” she said. “Clearly, we have not documented them all, but I do not think that there are thousands and thousands of cases that we are not aware of.”

She pointed out that the human rights mission had not documented any summary executions of civilian detainees by the Ukrainian forces.

The report says civilians detained by the Russian authorities in territories under their occupation were perceived as supporters of Ukraine. It says they were held incommunicado, often in deplorable conditions.

The report accuses the Russian armed forces and other authorities of having “engaged in widespread torture and ill-treatment of civilian detainees” and in some cases of subjecting them to sexual violence. It said that torture was used to force victims who were detained in Russian-occupied territory to confess to helping Ukrainian armed forces.

The U.N. monitors have documented 75 cases of arbitrary detention by Ukrainian security forces, “mostly of people suspected of conflict-related offenses.” They note that many of these cases also amounted to enforced disappearances.

The monitors documented that “over half of those arbitrarily detained were subjected to torture or ill-treatment by Ukrainian security forces.” Most of these cases, they say, occurred while people were being interrogated after their arrest.

Authors of the report deplore the lack of accountability for these crimes and the failure of Russian authorities to investigate allegations of arbitrary detention and abuse of civilians by Russian armed forces.

They criticize a law approved by the Russian parliament that would potentially exempt from criminal liability perpetrators of international crimes in occupied regions of Ukraine, “if they are committed to protect the interests of the Russian Federation.”

The report notes the Ukrainian government has convicted 23 people, including 19 in absentia, on allegations of civilian detentions by the Russian Federation.

It says, however, “We are not aware of any completed criminal investigations by Ukrainian authorities into its own security forces for such violations.”
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Italy’s culture and tourism ministers have vowed to find and punish a tourist who was filmed carving his name and that of his apparent girlfriend in the wall of the Colosseum in Rome, a crime that resulted in hefty fines in the past.

Video of the incident went viral on social media. The message reading “Ivan+Haley 23” appeared on the Colosseum at a time when residents already were complaining about hordes of tourists flooding the Eternal City in record numbers this season.

Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano called the writing carved into the almost 2,000-year-old Flavian Ampitheater “serious, undignified and a sign of great incivility.” He said he hoped the culprits would be found “and punished according to our laws.”

Italian news agency ANSA noted that the incident marked the fourth time this year that such graffiti was reported at the Colosseum. It said whoever was responsible for the latest episode risked $15,000 in fines and up to five years in prison.

Tourism Minister Daniela Santanche said she hoped the tourist would be sanctioned “so that he understands the gravity of the gesture.” Calling for respect for Italy’s culture and history, she vowed: “We cannot allow those who visit our nation to feel free to behave in this way.”

In 2014, a Russian tourist was fined $25,000 and received a four-year suspended jail sentence for engraving a big letter ‘K’ on a wall of the Colosseum.

The following year, two American tourists were also cited for aggravated damage after they carved their names in the monument.

Italian tourism lobby Federturismo, backed by statistics bureau ISTAT, has said 2023 is shaping up as a record for visitors to Italy, surpassing pre-pandemic levels that hit a high in 2019.

Outside the Colosseum on Tuesday, visitors called for such monuments to be protected and preserved.

“There is a rich history here. It helps us learn from the past,” Diego Cruz, an American student, said.

Güldamla Ozsema, a computer engineer visiting from Turkey, said his country also had difficulty protecting its monuments from disrespectful tourists.

“I really get angry with them, with this behavior,” Ozsema said.
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While Ukrainian pilots could soon be training to fly U.S.-made F-16s, analysts say the jet fighters won’t be seen on the battlefield anytime soon. In the meantime, the Ukrainian military is using a variety of aircraft in the field. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. VOA footage by Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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Russia’s Federal Security Service announced Tuesday it was closing an investigation into the armed mutiny by Yevgeny Prigozhin and members of his Wagner mercenary group.

In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, the FSB said those involved “ceased activities directed at committing the crime.”

Not prosecuting the fighters was part of an agreement late Saturday that brought the mutiny to an end.

Russia’s defense ministry also said Tuesday that the Wagner group was preparing to transfer heavy military equipment to the Russian military.

Prigozhin’s whereabouts were not clear Tuesday.

Flight tracking websites showed a jet linked to Prigozhin landed in Belarus on Tuesday.

The Wagner leader had said he would go to Belarus as part of a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko to end the mutiny.

Putin address

In a speech to the Russian nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday excoriated the organizers of the Wagner rebellion, calling them “traitors.” 

The Russian leader said the organizers lied to their own people and “pushed them to death, under fire, to shoot their own,” deflecting Wagner fighters’ culpability for storming the southern city of Rostov, which they temporarily seized on their way toward Moscow.

Putin invited the Wagner soldiers and their commanders, whom he called “patriots,” to join the Russian military by signing with the Russian Ministry of Defense or with other law enforcement agencies. He also gave them the option if they wanted to go back to their families and friends or to move to Belarus should they choose.

The Russian leader made no mention of Prigozhin. However, he said the organizers of this rebellion betrayed “their country, their people, betrayed those who were drawn into the crime.”

He also said that through this revolt, the organizers gave Russian enemies what they wanted — “Russian soldiers to kill each other, so that military personnel and civilians would die, so that in the end Russia would lose … choke in a bloody civil strife.”

Putin also said he had deliberately let Saturday’s 24-hour mutiny by the Wagner militia go on as long as it did to avoid bloodshed, and that it had reinforced national unity.

“Time was needed, among other things, to give those who had made a mistake a chance to come to their senses, to realize that their actions were firmly rejected by society, and that the adventure in which they had been involved had tragic and destructive consequences for Russia and for our state,” he said.

Prigozhin on Monday made his first public comments since the brief rebellion he launched against Russia’s military leadership.

“We did not have the goal of overthrowing the existing regime and the legally elected government,” he said in an 11-minute audio message released on the Telegram messaging app.

Instead, Prigozhin said, he called his actions “a march to justice” triggered by a deadly attack on his private, Kremlin-linked military outfit by the Russian military. “We started our march because of an injustice,” the Wagner chief said, claiming that the Russian military had attacked a Wagner camp with missiles and then helicopters, killing about 30 of its men. Russia denied attacking the camp.

Prigozhin claimed the Wagner group was the most effective fighting force in Russia “and even the world.” He said the way Wagner had been able to take control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don without bloodshed and the way it sent an armed convoy to within 200 kilometers (124 miles) of Moscow was a testament to the effectiveness of its fighters.

Russian intelligence services were investigating whether Western spy agencies played a role in the aborted mutiny, the TASS news agency quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying Monday.

The U.S. intelligence community “was aware” that the mutiny orchestrated by Prigozhin “was a possibility” and briefed the U.S. Congress “accordingly” before it began, said a source familiar with the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden said, “We made clear we were not involved, we had nothing to do with this.” Biden’s message that the West was not involved was sent directly to the Russians through various diplomatic channels, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. He did not characterize Russia’s response.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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A German court gave Rupert Stadler, the former head of Audi, a suspended sentence along with a fine Tuesday as he became the highest-ranking executive to be convicted in connection with an emissions cheating scandal. 

As part of a plea deal, the court gave Stadler a 21-month suspended sentence and ordered him to pay $1.2 million. 

Prosecutors did not accuse Stadler of orchestrating the system in which Audi’s parent company, Volkswagen, admitted it used software to rig emissions tests in 11 million diesel vehicles to make them seem less polluting. 

Stadler admitted to continuing to allow vehicles potentially equipped with the software to be sold even after learning about the scam. 

The court gave co-defendant Wolfgang Hatz, a former manager at Audi and Porsche, a two-year suspended sentence along with a $438,000 fine.  An Audi engineer received a 21-month suspended sentence and a $55,000 fine. 

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