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“There is no alternative to Ukrainian victory,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said via video link Friday to the Munich Security Conference. “We have to liberate Ukraine – and Europe. Because when the Russian weapon shoots at us, it is already pointed at our neighbors.”

Also attending the gathering was a delegation of about 50 U.S. lawmakers to affirm bipartisan support for U.S. aid to Ukraine. Four delegations of Democratic and Republican leaders and members of the Senate and House joined hundreds of politicians, military officers, and diplomats from around the world at the event.

The U.S. delegation is one of the largest since the creation of the conference in 1963, U.S. officials said. The Russian invasion on Ukraine has fortified the NATO alliance and the European Union, and it has unified members of the U.S. Congress.

“We are here to send a clear message to this conference and everyone around the world: the U.S. is on a bipartisan basis totally behind the effort of help Ukraine,” Mitch McConnell, the Democratic-controlled Senate’s Republican minority leader, told Reuters after meeting with conservative German politicians.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing President Joe Biden directly to send F-16 warplanes to Ukraine. Five House members argued in a letter sent Thursday to Biden and obtained by Politico that modern jets that Kyiv has sought, but the administration has so far not agreed to, “could prove decisive for control of Ukrainian airspace this year.”

“The provision of such aircraft is necessary to help Ukraine protect its airspace, particularly in light of renewed Russian offensives and considering the expected increase in large-scale combat operations,” the lawmakers wrote.

The letter was composed by Maine Democrat Jared Golden. Also signing on were Democrats Jason Crow of Colorado and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Republicans Tony Gonzales of Texas and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.

The lawmakers contend that either the Lockheed Martin-manufactured F-16 or something similar would give Ukrainian forces greater capability than ground-based artillery provided by the U.S. and other nations.

Ukrainian air force spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ignat told VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze that “modern multipurpose fighter jets are urgently needed to obtain advantages in the air and land fire support of Ukraine’s troops.

“Given that the F-16 is one of the most common multirole aircraft in the world, which can engage both ground and air targets with a wide range of weapons, this aircraft is the most likely candidate for the progressive rearmament of the air force of Ukraine to this type of fighter,” he said.

Ignat added that these aircraft would become part of Ukraine’s air defense, as they are capable of effectively destroying enemy cruise missiles and Iranian attack drones.

“We have dozens of pilots with the appropriate level of training and knowledge of the English language,” he said.

Bakhmut offensive

Ukrainian soldiers are pleading for more weapons as they fight to hold off a Russian offensive on the small eastern city of Bakhmut. Russian rockets and artillery pummeled a residential district in the city on Thursday, killing three men and two women and wounding nine, Ukraine’s prosecutor general said, adding it was being investigated as a war crime.

Nearly one year into the invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops are intensifying assaults in the east. The Ukrainian government has urged all remaining residents in the city to leave, as heavy fighting is expected to continue.

Russian troops have been trying to take Bakhmut for months, and the city, which once had 70,000 inhabitants, is under virtually constant shelling.

“If you are rational, law-abiding and patriotic citizens, you should leave the city immediately,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. She made the appeal via the Telegram messaging app Friday, to what is believed to be about 6,000 people still in the city, in the Donetsk region.

Vereshchuk said those who stay would endanger themselves and their families, but also hinder the work of those who are trying to help them, such as defense and security forces or volunteers.

The British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence update about Ukraine that it has become “increasingly difficult” for the Kremlin to insulate the Russian population from the war in Ukraine.

“A December 2022 Russian poll reported that 52% had either a friend or relative who had served in the so-called Special Military Operation,” the ministry said.  
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They fought on the same side and together won Olympic gold, young men from Russia and a newly independent Ukraine, joined for one last medal-winning hurrah on a short-lived post-Soviet Unified Team at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Now, former fencers Vadym Guttsait and Stanislav Pozdnyakov are on opposite sides of the war that Russia is waging on Ukraine. Both have risen to become senior sports administrators, respectively heading the Ukrainian and Russian Olympic committees. The nearly year-old invasion has utterly shredded what was left of their friendship and they’re now fighting each other in a divisive and growing split within the Olympic movement over whether Russia and ally Belarus should be barred from next year’s Paris Games.

Guttsait, who is also Ukraine’s sports minister as well as its Olympic committee president, now has only contempt for his former teammate. Guttsait calls Pozdnyakov “my enemy” and says their friendship began to collapse when Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Moscow’s full-scale invasion, which enters its second year next week, was the last straw. Guttsait blames the Russian Olympic Committee president for making supportive comments of the assault.

“I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to know him at all. He is my enemy, who supports this war, who considers it an honor for athletes to take part in the war against Ukrainians, to kill Ukrainians,” Guttsait said. “Therefore, for today and forever, this person does not exist for me.”

The issue of whether athletes from Russia and Belarus should be allowed to compete is shaping up as the biggest potential spoiler of next year’s Paris Olympics. Guttsait is threatening a Ukrainian boycott if Russians and Belarusians are there and he is mobilizing support from other countries, backed by the wartime star power of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russia and Belarus, on the other hand, are clinging to a lifeline thrown to them by the International Olympic Committee, which says some of their athletes may be able to return to international competition despite the war. The IOC suggests that their athletes who have not actively supported the war could try to qualify and compete as “neutral athletes,” stripped of national team uniforms, flags and anthems. Pozdnyakov has said Russia is preparing as if its athletes are going to Paris.

In an interview late Tuesday with The Associated Press, Guttsait laid out the process that could lead to a Ukrainian boycott of Paris if that happens. The minister said his own personal opinion is that “we need to boycott” if Russians and Belarusians attend. But he added that the decision isn’t his alone to make and said the Ukrainian Olympic Committee will convene an extraordinary meeting and “we will decide together whether we will participate or not.”

“This is a very important question, it is a very serious question and difficult for every athlete, for every coach who prepares all his life to go to the Olympic Games,” he said. “But while our people are dying, women and children are being killed, our cities are being destroyed, we stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. In my opinion, this is more important than going to the competition. But we need to make this political decision together with our Olympic family.”

Before any decision for a full boycott, Ukrainian athletes could also show opposition by withdrawing from Olympic qualifying competitions that allow Russian and Belarusian entrants. Guttsait cited the example of the European wrestling championships in Croatia in April. If Russian and Belarusian athletes compete, Ukrainian wrestlers will either not attend “or they will come and not take part,” Guttsait said.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach is facing a widespread backlash from Ukraine and its allies for opening a door for some athletes from Russia and Belarus to return to international competition. Bach argues that the Olympic movement has a “unifying mission of bringing people together” and a proven track record of opening lines of communication between nations divided by conflict. He cites the example of North and South Korea, which fielded a joint women’s hockey team at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Guttsait noted, however, that there are also Olympic precedents for keeping nations out. Germany and Japan were not invited to the 1948 London Olympics after they were the aggressors in World War II and South Africa was excluded from 1964-1988 because of its racist Apartheid laws.

The minister said support among Russian athletes for the invasion makes their presence at the Paris Olympics unthinkable while the war rages. He also noted that Russian athletes are often enrolled in the country’s armed forces.

Ukrainian athletes, on the other hand, are facing the miseries of war as they try, as best they can, to ready themselves for Paris.

“I really want all people to understand how we prepare, how our athletes live, that our athletes train while cruise missiles are flying, bombs are flying,” Guttsait said. “The Olympic Games are great, they unite the whole world, but not those athletes who support this war and this aggression.” 
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US President Joe Biden is gearing up to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with a speech in neighboring Poland on Tuesday, where he will reiterate the US commitment to support the defense of Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes.’ This despite growing Republican reticence and softening overall support among Americans. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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A Belarusian blogger arrested after Minsk diverted the commercial flight he was on in 2021 went on trial in the country’s capital Thursday.

Raman Pratasevich, who ran the news channel Nexta, is facing charges including organizing mass unrest and plotting to overthrow the government.

One of Nexta’s founders, Stsiapan Putsila, and a site administrator, Yan Rudzik — both of whom no longer live in Belarus — are being in tried in absentia.

The Nexta channel, which ran via a messaging app, gained popularity as a way to share news and information in 2020 during the contested reelection of President Alexander Lukashenko and the mass protests that followed.

Authorities in November 2020 issued an arrest warrant for Pratasevich and Putsila, both of whom were already living outside the country.

Pratasevich was arrested in May 2021 when a bomb hoax was used to divert the Ryanair passenger jet he was traveling on from Greece to Lithuania.

The U.S. and the European Union denounced the move as a hijacking and imposed sanctions against Lukashenko’s government.

A U.N. investigation into the diverted flight determined in 2022 that the purported threat used to divert the plane was “deliberately false and endangered its safety.”

The report by the International Civil Aviation Organization concluded that Belarus committed “an act of unlawful interference,” in diverting the flight.

The U.N. agency oversees rules on civil air space but has no power to impose sanctions, AFP reported.

Since his arrest, Pratasevich has appeared on state television in what analysts have described as forced confessions. The blogger has been held under house arrest while awaiting trial.

Last year, a court convicted his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who was also on the diverted flight, for inciting social hatred. She was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Belarus Embassy in Washington did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.

‘Crackdown on free speech’

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Belarus to drop the charges against Pratasevich and his absent co-defendants.

In a statement, Gulnoza Said of CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program said the charges are “a cynical display of the vindictive nature of the Belarusian government, which is determined to retaliate against those who covered the 2020 protests.”

In an email Friday, Said told VOA, “My observation is that the authorities stopped even pretending that it’s not a crackdown on free speech and free media. The masks are off. Lukashenko doesn’t seem to bother with his image in the West anymore.”

Belarus is one of the worst jailers of journalists globally, after mass arrests of media workers who covered the protest movement, according to the CPJ and other rights organizations.

More than 30 journalists are behind bars, either awaiting trial or serving sentences, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists. Two of those detained contributed to VOA sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Speaking about the mass arrests, Volha Khvoin, who is on the board of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, told VOA last month, “This is their sacrifice for freedom of speech.”

Said told VOA that the CPJ is concerned about the plight of journalists in Belarus, adding that “lengthy prison sentences have also become a norm.”

“The trials are mostly held behind closed doors. Lawyers are forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement so [they] cannot reveal any information,” she said. “The authorities seem to want to teach a lesson to the Lukashenko regime’s critics by showing that anybody voicing dissent will face a very harsh punishment.”

Belarus has a poor record for media freedom. The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders describes it as “Europe’s most dangerous country for journalists until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

The country ranks 153rd out of 180 countries on the RSF Press Freedom Index, where No. 1 signals the best environment for media.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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Nearly 50 lawmakers from both major political parties of the United States on Friday attended the start of Europe’s premier annual security conference to affirm bipartisan support for U.S. aid to Ukraine.

Four delegations of Democratic and Republican leaders and members of the Senate and House converged as one of the largest groups of U.S. lawmakers to attend the Munich Security Conference since its inception in 1963, U.S. officials said.

Hundreds of politicians, military officers and diplomats from around the world gathered in Munich a week before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging allies to speed up weapons deliveries.

The war has tested not only the unity of the NATO alliance and European Union, but the ability of the U.S. parties to overcome deep policy differences.

“We are here to send a clear message to this conference and everyone around the world: The U.S. is on a bipartisan basis totally behind the effort of help Ukraine,” Mitch McConnell, the Democratic-controlled Senate’s Republican minority leader, told Reuters after meeting conservative German politicians.

Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder said McConnell’s unequivocal support for Ukraine was welcome after the uncertainty of the former President Donald Trump administration’s isolationist America First policy.

“Today is a very good signal,” he said.

Other prominent U.S. lawmakers in Munich included Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Republican chairmen of the House foreign relations and intelligence committees and their Democratic Senate counterparts.

The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in last year’s mid-terms raised questions about the future of the U.S. aid on which Kyiv depends to halt a new offensive by Russia in a war that has killed thousands and displaced millions.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy declared there would be no “blank check” for Ukraine and far-right Republicans hold that resources are needed to address other pressing problems.

Some senators share that view. On Thursday, Republican Senator Josh Hawley had urged an end to U.S. military aid to Ukraine until the European allies increased their backing, saying sending arms to Kyiv was threatening the ability of the U.S. to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

But Lindsey Graham, a leading advocate of aiding Ukraine, said in Munich that China would be encouraged to invade Taiwan if the U.S. and its European allies failed to back Ukraine.

“If you care about China and you don’t get the connection between Russia, Ukraine and China, you are missing a lot,” Graham told Reuters.

But Republicans and some Democrats also say President Joe Biden’s administration should better explain its Ukraine policy.

The United States is Ukraine’s leading military aid supplier at some $30 billion, including long-range artillery, air defense systems and advanced armored vehicles.

There are now calls on both sides of the Atlantic for Ukraine to receive advanced Western fighter jets.
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Russians who fear persecution due to their opposition to Moscow’s war on Ukraine continue to seek asylum in the U.S. after the White House announced its new policy in September. Many are coming through Mexico. Nina Vishneva reports on a mother and her three children who made that journey. Anna Rice narrates the story.
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Kosovo feted 15 years of independence with a parade of soldiers and police cheered by thousands in Pristina on Friday with an eye to a normalization deal with Serbia, key to stability in a region still scarred from ethnic wars in the 1990s.

Crowds waving Kosovo and Albanian flags lined a main street in the capital as police and troops marched past, but there were no celebrations in the country’s north where minority Serbs have long resisted Pristina’s authority.

“Our independence was achieved through struggle and sacrifice, but our independence will only grow through work,” Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said ahead of the parade.

Tensions with Serbia linger as Belgrade continues to support the refusal of 50,000 minority Serbs in north Kosovo to accept the country’s independence, declared almost a decade after an uprising against repressive Serbian rule.

Serbia, whose forces were driven out of ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo by NATO bombing to stop a brutal security crackdown by Belgrade, still deems its former southern province an integral part of its territory.

U.S. and European Union envoys are pressing the countries to approve a peace plan presented in mid-2022 under which Belgrade would stop lobbying against Kosovo having a seat in international organizations including the United Nations.

The office of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced that Kurti would meet Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Brussels on February 27 to discuss the 11-point plan.

Under it, Kosovo would commit to forming a semi-autonomous association of Serb-majority municipalities in the north, where nationalist Serbs have clashed repeatedly with police trying to apply the Pristina government’s writ.

Belgrade and Pristina have both accepted the EU plan in principle, though they have said further negotiations would be needed.

Resolving their volatile standoff is a major condition for Serbia and Kosovo to progress toward EU membership.

“We welcome your endorsement of the EU proposal on normalization, with the eventual goal of mutual recognition which would help secure a more peaceful and prosperous future for the people of both Kosovo and Serbia,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a letter to Kosovo counterpart Vjosa Osmani on Thursday evening.

Ali Reshani, 73, among thousands of Kosovars gathering in Pristina’s streets for the February 17 independence anniversary, told Reuters: “Thanks to God we have our own police, we also have our own army. I expect better days.”

He added: “I hope God will give good things to the Americans for helping us.”

The anniversary was ignored in the Serb-majority town of North Mitrovica in north Kosovo.

Local Serb taxi driver Lazar Kostic, 58, said he had ethnic Albanian friends but was in touch only by phone. “[Kosovo] doesn’t mean anything to me personally. It is not a state and for me it never will be,” he told Reuters.

Alluding to the former federal, multinational Yugoslavia torn apart by ethnic wars in the 1990s, he said: “We grew up during times when it was not important who or what you were or what your name was. Those were the happy times. But, when politics got involved in our lives, it became another story.”
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Turkish rescuers pulled a teenage boy alive from the rubble of a collapsed building 260 hours after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck southeast Turkey and Syria, Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported Friday.  

Fourteen-year-old Osman Halebiye was taken to a hospital in Antakya.  

Later, two men, Mehmet Ali Sakiroglu, 26, and Mustafa Avci, 33, were rescued from the same building’s rubble, news agency DHA said.   

After he was rescued, Avci saw his newborn baby on a cellphone call with his parents, according to Reuters.  

The rescue efforts in Turkey have come amid criticism about unenforced building codes. Thousands of buildings collapsed in the February 6 earthquake, leaving massive amounts of rubble for rescue teams to search through.

More than 41,000 people in Turkey and Syria have been killed in the earthquake and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes. 
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Joint naval exercises including South Africa, Russia, and China get underway in waters off South Africa’s east coast Friday, despite U.S. concerns and Ukrainian condemnation. Critics say the 10-day military drills will do little to benefit South Africa and act as a propaganda boost for Moscow on the one-year anniversary of its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

While the West is upping its arms shipments to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion, South Africa begins wargames today with Russian warships that proudly support the offensive.  

Russia’s “Admiral Gorshkov,” which arrived in Cape Town this week, is marked with the Kremlin’s pro-war symbol, the letter ‘Z.’   

Critics say the optics of South African servicemen aboard the frigate near the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion would be a coup for Moscow and a shame to the country of freedom fighter Nelson Mandela.

Ukrainian Ambassador to South Africa Liubov Abravitova told VOA she condemns the drills.

“It is very disturbing that South Africa will be hosting the military exercise with the country, aggressor, invader, that is using its military force against peaceful country, bringing destruction and trying to eliminate Ukrainian nation,” Abravitova said.

South Africa has repeatedly defended its neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine and its right to relations with Russia, a fellow member of the BRICS trade bloc with Brazil, India, and China.  

South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, last month welcomed her visiting Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov and said Pretoria wouldn’t be bullied into choosing sides.  

The opposition Democratic Alliance  though, says Pretoria’s hosting the drills shows it has dropped any pretense at neutrality.  

Democratic Alliance shadow defense minister Kobus Marais adds the drills, called Mosi II, won’t benefit South Africa’s depleted navy and the funds would be better spent elsewhere.

“Given our very limited naval capabilities, resources and other higher priorities, we can gain little or no value from Exercise Mosi II, especially from the presence and possible launch of the hypersonic missile,” Marais said.

The Gorshkov is equipped with hypersonic Zircon missiles, which Russian state media report could be fired in a training launch during the drills. 

South African officials have denied the missile launch will be part of the 10 days of exercises, which also include China’s navy.  

South Africa’s Defense Department said this is not the first war game with Russia and that it previously joined military drills with its Western allies as well. 

However, South Africa this year declined an invitation to join U.S.-led multinational maritime drills in the Gulf of Guinea.

South African Institute of International Affairs Russia expert Steven Gruzd says Pretoria is trying to straddle both sides.

“South Africa does see a future in which Russia and China are both very, very important partners, but it’s still also trying to balance its relations with Western states,” said Gruzd. “There may be some fallout, we’re not sure of what kind, but the U.S. is certainly not happy at all that South Africa is taking part in these exercises.”

Asked to comment on the drills, the U.S. State Department told VOA by email it noted them with concern “even as Moscow continues its brutal and unlawful invasion of Ukraine.”

The statement went on to say, “We encourage South Africa to cooperate militarily with fellow democracies that share our mutual commitment to human rights and the rule of law.”  

Since Russia’s invasion last February, U.S. officials estimate tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed along with as many as a hundred thousand troops or more on each side.  

The Russian Embassy in South Africa and South Africa’s Defense Ministry did not reply to requests for comment.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to address the annual Munich Security Conference on Friday via video link.

Last year, the conference attendees implored Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine.

This year the conference is opening just days ahead of the Feb. 24 anniversary of the invasion.

Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that 101 people had been released from Russian captivity Thursday.

“Keeping the situation on the frontline under control and preparing for any escalation steps of the enemy is a priority for the nearest future,” he said.

“Moving forward with the further liberation of our land is a priority that we are carefully preparing,” he added.

The British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine that the Russian Defense Ministry and its private contractor have “likely suffered” 175,000-200,000 casualties since the beginning of the invasion, with approximately 40,000-60,000 killed, representing “a high ratio of personnel killed.”

In addition, the update said that the Wagner Group’s convict recruits have “probably experienced a casualty rate of up to 50%.”
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The United States brought its most advanced fighter jet, the F-35, to India for the first time this week alongside F-16s, Super Hornets and B-1B bombers as Washington looks to woo New Delhi away from its traditional military supplier, Russia.

India, desperate to modernize its largely Soviet-era fighter jet fleet to boost its air power, is concerned about Russian supply delays due to the Ukraine war and faces pressure from the West to distance itself from Moscow.

The American delegation to the weeklong Aero India show in Bengaluru, which ends on Friday, is the biggest in the 27-year history of the show and underlines the growing strategic relationship between the United States and India.

In contrast, Russia, India’s largest weapons supplier since the Soviet Union days, had a nominal presence. Its state-owned weapons exporter Rosoboronexport had a joint stall with United Aircraft and Almaz-Antey, displaying miniature models of aircraft, trucks, radars and tanks.

At previous editions of the show, Rosoboronexport had a more central position for its stall, although Russia has not brought a fighter jet to Bengaluru for a decade after India began considering more European and U.S. fighter jets.

Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets have already entered the race to supply fighter jets for the Indian Navy’s second aircraft carrier and Lockheed Martin’s F-21, an upgraded F-16 designed for India unveiled at Aero India in 2019, are also being offered to the air force.

A $20 billion air force proposal to buy 114 multi-role fighter aircraft has been pending for five years, brought into sharp focus by tensions with China and Pakistan.

The F-35 is not being considered by India “as of now,” according to an Indian Air Force (IAF) source, but the display of two F-35s at Aero India for the first time was a sign of New Delhi’s growing strategic importance to Washington.

It was “not a sales pitch” but rather a signal to the importance of the bilateral defense relationship in the Indo-Pacific region, said Angad Singh, an independent defense analyst.

“Even if weapons sales aren’t the cornerstone of the relationship, there is a cooperation and collaboration at the military level between India and the U.S.,” he added.

The United States is selective about which countries it allows to buy the F-35. When asked if it would be offered to India, Rear Admiral Michael L. Baker, defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in India, said New Delhi was in the “very early stages” of considering whether it wanted the plane.

An IAF spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on its interest in F-35s.

Ahead of the show, Russian state news agencies reported that Moscow had supplied New Delhi with around $13 billion of arms in the past five years and had placed orders for $10 billion.

The United States has approved arms sales worth more than $6 billion to India in the last six years, including transport aircraft, Apache, Chinook and MH-60 helicopters, missiles, air defense systems, naval guns and P-8I Poseidon surveillance aircraft.

India also wants to manufacture more defense equipment at home in collaboration with global giants, first to meet its own needs and eventually to export sophisticated weapons platforms.
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The head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group said  Thursday that it could take months to capture the Ukraine city of Bakhmut and slammed Moscow’s “monstrous military bureaucracy” for slowing gains.

Russia has been trying to encircle and take over the battered industrial city before February 24, the first anniversary of what it terms its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

“I think it’s [going to be in] March or in April,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in one of several messages posted online.

“To take Bakhmut you have to cut all supply routes. It’s a significant task,” he said. “Progress is not going as fast as we would like.”

“Bakhmut would have been taken before the new year,” he added, “if not for our monstrous military bureaucracy.”

Prigozhin has previously accused the Russian military of attempting to steal victories from Wagner, a sign of his rising clout and the potential for dangerous rifts in Moscow.

Wagner’s claims to have captured ground without help from the regular army, which Prigozhin regularly criticizes, have spurred friction with senior military leadership.

In Bakhmut, a deputy commander with a mortar unit of the State Border Guard of Ukraine said fighting remained intense.

“We have to acknowledge the enemy’s successes,” he said. “There’s a regular Russian army here and they also have regular artillery groups, and they shoot accurately as well.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region where Bakhmut lies last year, but his forces are still fighting Ukrainian troops there.

The fierce fighting for the eastern city is now the longest-running battle of Russia’s campaign and Moscow’s key military objective.

Taking Bakhmut would be a major win for Moscow, but analysts say its capture would be mainly symbolic as the salt-mining town holds little strategic value.

Prigozhin, who is close to Putin, said the speed of Russian progress in the grinding battle would depend on whether Ukraine continued to send reserves.

Ukraine, determined not to cede any ground ahead of an anticipated counteroffensive in the spring, has been asking for more modern weapons from its allies.
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Hundreds of Ukrainian men charged across windswept northern England in army drills on Thursday, some of the more than 10,000 sent to Britain over the last year to turn them into soldiers in the war against Russia.

Under the tutelage of forces from Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, among others, the Ukrainians are learning over five weeks about the laws of armed conflict, urban and trench warfare, weaponry and battlefield medicine.

Britain’s government said on Thursday it aims to double the number taught in 2023 to 20,000, across a handful of locations around the country.

The move is one part of a ramping-up of support for Ukraine, after NATO alliance officials met the previous day to plot more assistance for Kyiv. Britain is sending 14 Challenger tanks and hundreds more missiles.

One of the recruits, a 48-year Ukrainian furniture maker who called himself Nick, said a year ago he could not have envisaged that he would be taking lessons in warfare in the north of England.

“I will have to use that knowledge to protect our country because there is a lot of blood in Ukraine nowadays and someone has to protect the motherland,” he said via an interpreter.

Training in a more ‘Western way’

Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, saying it had to protect Russian speakers from persecution and prevent the western NATO alliance from using Ukraine to threaten Russia’s security.

Kyiv and its Western allies, including Britain, say these are baseless pretexts for an unprovoked war of acquisition.

On Wednesday, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Britain is training Ukrainian soldiers to fight in a more “Western way” and use less ammunition than the traditional Soviet way of fighting.

Soldiers learn how to shoot, fight in houses

At the trench warfare grounds, where Ukrainian men in combat gear ran through muddy tunnels and dense forests with blank-firing rifles, British Army Corporal Carter, who declined to give his first name, said the Ukrainians were learning from the world’s top forces.

“I’m sure when they go back they’ll be able to survive and effectively win,” he said.

The program also includes urban warfare, where men train how to fight in ordinary houses and civilian structures, and shooting practice.

Nick, the Ukrainian soldier, said he would return to Ukraine with confidence.

“I think that all of us will be ready to come back, because Ukraine really needs us, the soldiers who will stand for Ukraine,” he said.
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As the number of people killed by the February 6 earthquake in Turkey and Syria keeps rising, so do the funding and donations from different parts of the world aimed at assisting survivors.

An online donation campaign launched by Saudi Arabia has raised more than $100 million from over 1.6 million individuals and companies in just over a week.

The Saudi government has also delivered planes loaded with food, medicine and shelter supplies, and has deployed search and rescue teams, according to the kingdom’s relief agency.

Other wealthy Arab kingdoms responded similarly. Only a day after the quake, the United Arab Emirates announced $100 million in humanitarian assistance for some of the millions of people displaced in Turkey and Syria amid punishing low temperatures.

Qatar has announced it will deliver 10,000 portable cabins and trailers that the oil-rich kingdom used during the 2022 World Cup in Doha, on top of food and medical aid.

Aid, even in small amounts, has poured in from every Muslim-majority country. Even Afghanistan, which faces nearly universal poverty under the repressive Taliban regime, has donated about $200,000 in cash.

Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre, director of the Humanitarian Action Initiative at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, said there is a diplomatic as well as a humanitarian element to the largesse.

“What we’re seeing is a normalization of relations between these states and Syria and Turkey,” Deloffre told VOA, adding that the Saudi royals and their allies are trying to reestablish ties with the Syrian regime in a bid to diminish Iran’s influence in the region.

The Gulf region’s Sunni monarchies accuse the Shia regime in Iran of trying to reshape regional power dynamics, a charge Tehran denies.

Iran also has sent aid supplies to Turkey and Syria.

A second Iran air force plane carrying relief supplies landed in Turkey on Tuesday. Iranian aid workers have set up emergency health clinics in the quake-affected areas and have assisted local authorities in rescue efforts, according to Iranian officials.

Deadly, destructive

As of Thursday, the number of people killed by the 7.8-magnitude quake stood at about 42,000 — over 36,000 in Turkey and some 5,800 in Syria — which makes it the fifth deadliest earthquake in the last 25 years.

The disaster has also caused at least $25 billion in economic damage in Turkey, JP Morgan Chase said on Thursday.

The Turkish economy was already squeezed by soaring inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency.

There has been no assessment of long-term economic damage in Syria, where years of war have shattered the national economy. About 9 million Syrians are impacted by the earthquake, the U.N. said.

The U.N. appealed Thursday for $1 billion to provide humanitarian relief in both countries over the next three months. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the money would “allow aid organizations to rapidly scale up vital support,” including in the areas of food security, protection, education, water and shelter.

The U.N.  launched a $397 million appeal to help quake victims in Syria earlier this week. The United States has pledged $85 million in an initial response.

“The State Department is working through U.N. agencies and NGOs to provide emergency assistance in Türkiye and in Syria, including providing hot meals, water, medical care and supplies, non-food items such as blankets and hygiene kits, temporary shelter, and structural engineers,” a spokesperson told VOA in written answers.

The State Department adopted the new spelling of Turkey in January at the request of the Turkish Embassy in Washington.
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In the Ukrainian village of Nova Kozacha – just six kilometers from Russia – war has brought death, destruction and separated families on both sides of the border. Yan Boechat reports. Artur Chupryhin contributed.
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Moldova’s parliament approved a pro-Western government led by new Prime Minister Dorin Recean on Thursday after he pledged to revive the economy and chart a course towards the European Union.

Recean, 48, was nominated on Friday by President Maia Sandu to replace Natalia Gavrilita whose government resigned following a difficult 18 months in office marked by economic turmoil and alleged meddling by Russia.

Recean, a former interior minister and presidential aide, secured the approval of 62 lawmakers in the 101-seat parliament after outlining his policy plans in a program entitled “Prosperous, Secure, European Moldova.”

“We want to live in a safe world where international treaties are respected, where problems between countries are resolved through dialog, where there is respect for small states,” the program declared.

“We want to be full members of the European Union,” it added.

Recean said before the parliamentary vote that his government would include only four ministers who were not in the old one — the ministers for finance, infrastructure, justice and energy.

He is an experienced politician who had been serving as secretary of the Supreme Security Council, an advisory body on military and national security matters, and was interior minister from 2012 to 2015.

Moldova, a former Soviet republic of 2.5 million people that borders Ukraine and EU member Romania, is already a candidate to join the EU but the process usually takes several years.

Its economy is highly dependent on Russian gas flows and has been hit by the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine. High energy and food prices pushed up inflation in 2022 and sparked anti-government protests as Moldova hosted large numbers of displaced persons from Ukraine.

Sandu has repeatedly accused Russia of trying to destabilize Moldova and accused Moscow on Monday of plotting to topple the country’s leadership, stop it joining the EU and use it in the war against Ukraine.

Russia, which has troops in Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region, denied the allegations.

Tensions have at times been exacerbated by missile debris landing on Moldovan territory after Russian attacks on Ukraine.

In the fourth such incident of the war, police said on Thursday missile debris had been found in northern Moldova near the border with Ukraine soon after the latest wave of Russian air strikes. Moscow did not immediately comment on the report.
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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday “the time is now to ratify both Finland and Sweden” as new members of the alliance.

Speaking during a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Stoltenberg said the main issue is not whether the two countries are ratified together, but that their ratification comes “as soon as possible.”

Çavuşoğlu said Turkey could evaluate the two bids separately.

Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not ratified Finland’s and Sweden’s accession in a process that must be unanimous.

Finland and Sweden applied to join following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Turkey has expressed more reluctance about Sweden, accusing the government there of being too lenient toward groups that Turkey considers terror organizations.

Stoltenberg said Thursday that both Sweden and Finland have implemented policies that recognize the concerns that Turkey has expressed, and that terrorism would be a major topic at a NATO summit in July.

“This is a Turkish decision,” he said.  “It’s the Turkish government, the Turkish parliament that decides on the issue of ratification.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Thursday in a show of solidarity following last week’s earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria.

Speaking alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Stoltenberg told reporters that NATO stands with Turkey, a NATO member, in its time of need.

“We salute the courage of the Turkish first responders and we mourn with you,” Stoltenberg said.

He said the alliance’s focus now will be on reconstruction and supporting those displaced by the earthquake. Specific efforts he mentioned were setting up temporary housing and using NATO strategic airlift capabilities to bring in thousands of tents to Turkey.

Turkey’s emergency management agency reported Thursday the country’s death toll rose to 36,187 people, with 108,000 others injured. The agency said more than 4,300 aftershocks have hit the area since the massive February 6 earthquake.

Meanwhile, more than 5,500 deaths have been confirmed in neighboring Syria, according to figures compiled by the United Nations humanitarian agency and Syria’s state-run news agency.

Millions of people who survived the quake need humanitarian aid, authorities say, with many survivors left homeless in near-freezing winter temperatures. Rescues are now few and far between.

With much of the region’s sanitation infrastructure damaged or rendered inoperable by the earthquakes, health authorities are facing a daunting task in trying to ensure that people now remain disease-free.

Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said Wednesday people in war-torn Syria also face new challenges.

After visiting Syria in the last few days, she said in a statement, “For more than a decade, people across Syria have experienced the devastation of armed conflict. When the 6 February earthquake struck the region, communities suffered dramatic levels of devastation no matter what side of the frontline they were on. Family and friends were killed, homes were destroyed, and people were displaced yet again. Medical care, safe drinking water, and reliable food supply sources immediately became crucial to survival.”

Relief effort scales up across Syria

Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations are trying to scale up operations in Syria to meet the massive needs.

The U.N. Population Fund’s regional director said that across Syria there are 40,000 women who are pregnant and due to give birth in the next three months.

“Many of the facilities that we visited are already depleted or damaged or both,” Laila Baker, UNFPA’s Arab States Regional Director told reporters by video from Aleppo. “There are stock outs of medications for treating very basic things like the flu, much less something as complicated as having a C[esarean]-section.”

She had just visited a maternity hospital in Aleppo, once a thriving metropolis, now scarred from 12 years of civil war and the earthquake. She said all of the wards were full and the facility lacked basics, such as bed sheets. Exhausted staff were working 18-hour shifts trying to assist as many women as they could.

At makeshift shelters, many in mosques and schools, Baker said there are no toilets.

“For a woman, many of whom are pregnant, they are facing dire circumstances,” she said.

UNFPA launched an appeal on Tuesday for $24 million to cover immediate needs for the next three months.

Separately, 22 trucks from the World Food Program carrying canned food and mattresses, crossed Wednesday into northwest Syria through the Bab al-Hawa border point from Turkey. WFP has also been distributing ready-to-eat meals and other food items in government-controlled areas, including Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. Also Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration delivered shelter and nonfood items through the newly reopened Bab al-Salam crossing.

The United Nations says 117 trucks have crossed into the opposition-controlled northwest since aid started rolling on February 9.

On Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched a $397 million appeal for the earthquake response in Syria, adding that a similar appeal is being drawn up for Turkey.

The VOA Turkish Service contributed to this report, as did correspondent Margaret Besheer at the United Nations. This report includes some information from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The United States is concerned about the expansion of Russia’s nuclear cooperation with the military-led government in Myanmar — also known as Burma — the U.S. State Department said this week.

“We are deeply concerned with — but not surprised by — Russia’s willingness to expand its material support, including through nuclear energy cooperation, to the repressive regime in Burma (Myanmar),” the State Department said in an emailed statement to VOA on Tuesday. “Russia’s actions are prolonging a crisis that threatens our efforts to advance peace and prosperity with our partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific.”

Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation, known as ROSATOM, and the Myanmar junta signed the “intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of the use of nuclear energy” on February 6.

“This agreement is for the cooperation, not only for the small nuclear power plant, but also the applications of nuclear technology in multiple sectors, and it will enhance the socioeconomic development of the country,” said junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing in a signing ceremony last Monday at the newly opened Nuclear Technology Information Center in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.

The two countries’ cooperation on nuclear energy begins “a new chapter in the history of Russian-Myanmar relations,” ROSATOM Director General Alexey Likhachev said during the signing ceremony. “The creation of a new industry in the country will undoubtedly benefit the energy sector, industry and the economy of Myanmar.”

Cooperation after coup

After the February 2021 coup, military-ruled Myanmar rapidly increased nuclear cooperation with Russia. A spokesperson for the Myanmar junta, Major General Zaw Min Tun, confirmed to VOA last Friday that Myanmar would build a small-scale nuclear reactor with Russia’s assistance.

Zaw Min Tun told VOA Burmese by phone that the junta’s nuclear experts “are looking for suitable places in the country to build a small-scale nuclear reactor together with Russian nuclear experts.”

“The feasibility studies will be conducted in several places across the country to build a nuclear reactor. We haven’t chosen a place yet,” he said. “We will do it in the best location with the most favorable and safest environment in order to minimize danger.”

Last September, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visited Russia to attend the Eastern Economic Forum and agreed with Russia on a road map for nuclear cooperation, including the possibility of implementing a small modular reactor project in Myanmar.

The statement by ROSATOM declared that the road map would guide cooperation in the field of “peaceful use of atomic energy” for 2022-23. In addition, experts from both countries would conduct studies about the possible construction of a light-water moderated nuclear reactor in Myanmar.

After 1999, the previous junta in Myanmar began negotiations with Russia on a nuclear reactor project, confirming their plans in January 2002 to build a nuclear research reactor for “peaceful purposes.”

Past nuclear pursuits

Myanmar, however, has been suspected of pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the past.

VOA sought comment from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), asking if the Myanmar junta’s plan for the nuclear reactor would be in accordance with the IAEA’s Additional Protocol. The IAEA has not yet responded.

Myanmar signed a key nuclear nonproliferation agreement, known as the Additional Protocol, with the IAEA in 2013. According to the agreement, the IAEA can expand its access to information and sites related to the country’s nuclear activities.

However, international analysts have concerns that Myanmar lacks the necessary regulatory and management systems to operate a nuclear power facility safely.

“In this type of reactor (a light-water moderated nuclear reactor), after some time, leaking can become a problem if proper maintenance is strictly required,” Myanmar scientist Khin Maung Maung, a professor of physics at the University of Southern Mississippi, said in a statement to VOA. “Here proper maintenance is the key idea. As far as I am aware, there is not a single factory in Myanmar that enjoys this privilege.”

“There is no doubt that they (the military leaders) have the ambition and desire to own nuclear arsenals,” he said, “and acquiring nuclear reactors, no matter how small, is definitely a step in that direction.”

ROSATOM previously said it would supply 10 metric tons of enriched uranium fuel to Myanmar, which, according to scientist Khin Maung Maung, is enough to build a nuclear weapon. Though the country doesn’t have the technical ability to convert the uranium to weapons-grade material, it could potentially use it in a “dirty bomb” scenario.

“With this much fuel in hand, they do not even need to enrich or build a proper weapon,” he said. “But one must be careful and think through all possibilities when dealing with [the] Burmese military.”

Russians visit Myanmar

Last December, a Russian delegation composed of around a dozen senior military officers — led by Colonel-General Kim Alexey Rostislavovich — visited Myanmar. According to the Myanmar state media, the two sides focused on cooperation regarding defense and counterterrorism between the two militaries, saying this would contribute to “regional and global peace.”

Russia, however, has threatened global peace by invading Ukraine, while Myanmar’s military has removed the democratic system in the Southeast Asian country by staging a coup and bloody crackdown on civilians.

According to the State Department, many credible reports show that Russia is providing the Myanmar military with weapons that “enable it to perpetuate violence, atrocities and human rights abuses against the people of Burma.”

“Russia’s backing for the regime is also undermining stability in the broader region,” the State Department said in a statement to VOA on Tuesday. “The United States will continue working with the international community to promote accountability for the coup and all those responsible for the horrific violence, including those who support and arm the military regime.”

VOA’s Burmese Service contributed to this report.
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More than 100 members of the Ukrainian military are in Poland for intense training on the German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks. Ukrainian leaders say the tanks, promised by Western allies three weeks ago, will help save lives and play a key role in the fight against Russian forces. Myroslava Gongadze has more from an Army base in Swietoszow, Poland. Videographer: Daniil Batu
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Ukrainians in Chasiv Yar — a town near Bakhmut in the east of the country — are enduring near-constant shelling as battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces rage close by. Yaroslava Movchan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera — Arthur Shagalin.
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Last week’s disastrous earthquakes have shaken the political fortunes of leaders in Turkey and Syria, analysts say. Some see a possible accelerated path to regime normalization for pariah Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while an onslaught of criticism has engulfed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling into question his re-election bid.

More than a decade of conflict and blocked borders to aid deliveries have hampered access to the rebel-held area of northwest Syria, decimated by the powerful quakes. Turkey has received the lion’s share of international assistance to date. The Norwegian Refugee Council and 35 other nongovernmental organizations are demanding increased support for Syria’s affected areas, saying “the humanitarian response must match the scale of the disaster.”   

Syria expert Charles Lister of the Washington-based Middle East Institute said, “It shouldn’t surprise us that the Assad regime is willing to take advantage of a catastrophic natural disaster to serve its own interests,” citing Syrian government appeals to the United Nations and aid deliveries from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq and Italy. But he warned against lifting sanctions on the government to further its normalization.

“The main area of exploitation is its demand for sanctions relief,” Lister told the Italian Institute of International Political Studies. “There is no correlation between the sanctions imposed on the regime by the United States, the European Union, Canada or the United Kingdom and the delivery of humanitarian aid. In 2022, the billions of dollars of aid that flowed into regime areas, through Damascus, 91% of that was funded by the four sanctioning entities.”

Lister added that “we do probably appear to be on an accelerated path toward the normalization of the regime, but a lot of it will depend on how the regime responds: whether it is stubborn or more pragmatic as it deals with requests for further aid and how it deals with the governments that continue to press against it.”  

Meanwhile, analysts say Erdogan has come under fire for his government’s reaction to the earthquakes, as the death toll rises in the southwest and affects his chances of re-election. 

Dorothee Schmid, who leads the Turkey and Mideast program at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris, said Erdogan “was already in a slightly delicate situation because he has not always been leading in the polls last year. Everybody is wondering whether the popularity of the party is going to be damaged by the difficult response to the earthquakes. The party is really on the front line to confront the growing anger of the local population.”

Schmid also said there a debate about whether Erdogan’s “government is totally unable to cope with the situation or if any government would be completely helpless, given the magnitude” of the quakes.
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The European Union is considering a new set of sanctions totaling 11 billion euros against Russia and several countries providing vital goods that Moscow is using to boost its troops on the battlegrounds in Ukraine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday that the package under consideration by the EU’s 27 member countries seeks to deprive Russia of military equipment it needs and cannot get anywhere else.

It includes proposals to subject seven Iranian entities to sanctions to try to prevent Russia from using Iranian drones to hit Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

The proposals put forward by von der Leyen center on additional electronic weapons components for equipment such as drones, missiles, helicopters and thermal cameras. She had hinted at some of the measures during an EU-Ukraine summit early this month.

If the proposals are endorsed unanimously by the EU members, “we have banned all tech products found on the battlefield,” von der Leyen said.

Ambassadors were to assess what is called a 10th package of sanctions against Russia later Wednesday. It is expected to be discussed during a Monday meeting of EU foreign ministers in hopes of having final approval by the February 24 anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The package also tries to close loopholes that have allowed some measures from earlier packages to be circumvented and seeks to go after oligarchs who try to escape sanctions.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said it will also target 100 additional individuals and entities, including those who have been involved in kidnappings and taking Ukrainian children to Russia.

Usually, EU sanctions are decided in close cooperation with major Western partners such as the United States and Britain. The partners usually announce similar packages within a very short time frame.
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Germany’s air traffic control agency said Wednesday that it is diverting all flights away from the country’s busiest airport, Frankfurt, after a problem with Lufthansa’s computer systems caused major disruption at the German airline.

Agency spokesman Robert Ertler said all plane parking spots in Frankfurt were full because passengers and crews are unable to board the airline’s flights.

“All incoming planes are being diverted to alternative airports” such as as Munich, Nuremberg and Duesseldorf, Ertler told The Associated Press.

Lufthansa Group, which also includes subsidiaries such as Swiss International Air Lines and Eurowings, said the IT outage was caused by construction works in the Frankfurt region.

“This is causing flight delays and cancellations,” the company said. “We regret the inconvenience this is causing our passengers.”

Telephone company Deutsche Telekom later confirmed that an excavator had cut through fiber optic lines at a depth of five meters (16 feet) while working on a railroad line.

The company said parts of the destroyed line had already been repaired and the situation will improve significantly in the course of Wednesday afternoon, German news agency dpa reported.

According to dpa all of Lufthansa’s domestic flights were canceled and passengers were urged to switch to alternative forms of travel, such as trains.
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