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Travelers heading from the United States to Europe this summer can also help transport relief supplies to Ukraine. Khrystyna Shevchenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Liudmyla Chudyjovych used to have a career as a lawyer in Ukraine and big plans for the future. That was before the Russian invasion forced the 41-year-old to put her daughter’s safety first and leave both her job and home behind.

Since fleeing the town of Stryj in western Ukraine in May, Chudyjovych has found a new job in the Czech Republic. But instead of practicing law, she’s had to settle for work as a housekeeper at a hotel in the capital, Prague.

“It’s just a different stage of my career,” she said. “That’s simply how it is.”

One of the millions of refugees who have fled Ukraine since the Feb. 24 Russian invasion, Chudyjovych considers herself lucky to have a job at all. Not fluent enough in either Czech or English, Chudyjovych said she didn’t mind the work as long as she and her daughter are safe.

Although the European Union introduced regulations early in the war to make it easier for Ukrainian refugees to live and work in its 27 member nations while they decide whether to seek asylum or return home, many are only now starting to find jobs — and many are still struggling.

Some 6.5 million Ukrainians, have entered the EU since February, according to Frontex, the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency, streaming into neighboring countries before many moved on to more prosperous nations in the West. Around half have since returned to Ukraine.

Only a relatively small number of those who stayed had entered the EU labor market by mid-June, according to the European Commission.

A recent Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report looking at the potential impact Ukrainian refugees will have on the EU workforce projected it will be about twice as large as the 2014-17 inflow of refugees, which included many fleeing war in Syria.

The study estimated the Czech Republic, which has the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, would add the most Ukrainians to its workforce by the end of the year, with an increase of 2.2%, followed by Poland and Estonia. About 1.2 million workers would be added to the European workforce overall, mainly in service occupations, the report said.

Still, the influx is unlikely to drive down wages or boost unemployment in European countries, many of which face labor shortages due in part to their aging populations.

“Considering the labor needs of the main host countries, a negative impact in terms of employment or wages for the resident population … seems very unlikely,” the report concluded.

The EU effort to help the Ukrainians has won praise from the U.N. Refugee Agency and other rights groups dealing with migration. But they also note a major difference in the treatment of people fleeing wars or poverty in the Middle East, Africa or Asia, who often have to wait years before overcoming the hurdles for acquiring residency papers or work permits.

Still, there are many challenges ahead for Ukrainian refugees looking for work.

In addition to language barriers, skilled workers from Ukraine often lack documentation to prove their professional credentials to get better-paid employment. Their diplomas may not be recognized in their host countries, meaning many have to take language and training courses before they can seek professional opportunities.

Because men between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving Ukraine, many refugees are women with children, which can be an additional obstacle for trying to find work. Many women are still weighing their options and might decide to return home for the start of the school year in September, officials say, despite the war being far from over.

In Poland, which has taken in about 1 million Ukrainian refugees, more than any other EU nation, just over a third have found work, according to the Polish minister of labor and social policy, Marlena Malag. Some have gotten jobs as nurses or Ukrainian language teachers in Polish schools, while others are working as housekeepers or waitresses.

In Portugal, some of the country’s largest companies have special job recruitment programs for Ukrainians, while the Institute for Employment and Professional Training offers free Portuguese language classes.

In Germany, about half of some 900,000 Ukrainian refugees have registered with the country’s employment agency, though no figures are available on how many have actually found jobs. The Mediendienst Integration group, which tracks migration in Germany, says about half have university degrees, but doesn’t specify how many have been able to work in their professional fields.

Natalia Borysova was chief editor of a morning TV show in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv before fleeing with her daughters, 11 and 13, in March, and settling in the German city of Cologne. She applied for low-paying jobs such as housekeeping, but ultimately decided to turn them down to focus on learning German.

“I’m an optimist and I am sure that I will find a job after learning the language,” the 41-year-old said via WhatsApp. “Perhaps on a different level than in Ukraine, but in the same field. Now it just doesn’t make sense for me to work for the minimum wage.”

Borysova, like other Ukrainian refugees, receives an allowance from the German government that helps the family pay for food and housing, but said she wants to return to work as soon as she masters German.

Chudyjovych is among some 400,000 Ukrainians in the Czech Republic who have registered for special long-term visas that grant access to jobs, health care, education and other benefits. Nearly 80,000 have already found work, the government said.

At the Background café in Prague’s Old Town, 15 Ukrainian refugees work with the Czech staff as part of a project sponsored by the Mama Coffee chain. The refugees also receive free language classes and other programs.

Lisa Himich, 22, from Kyiv, likes it and says “it feels like home here.”

For Chudyjovych, working as a housekeeper is far better than living in fear and under the constant sound of air raid sirens.

“I thought I would miss Ukraine and be homesick but that hasn’t happened at all,” Chudyjovych said. “It’s peaceful here, and I feel like a human being.”
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Closing arguments are expected Thursday in American basketball star Brittney Griner’s drug trial in a Russian court.

Griner is facing a potential sentence of 10 years in prison if convicted.

She was arrested at a Moscow airport in February with what she has acknowledged were vape cannisters with cannabis oil in her luggage.

Griner’s lawyers argued she had no criminal intent and had been prescribed the cannabis to treat pain. U.S. officials said she was wrongfully detained.

Russian officials have said Griner violated Russian law.

In a call last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to accept a prisoner swap that would send Griner and accused spy Paul Whelan – who U.S. officials say is also wrongfully detained – to the United States.

People familiar with the matter say the U.S. proposal would include releasing arms trader Viktor Bout to Russia.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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A code red alert has been declared in Iceland after a volcano erupted Wednesday near the capital, Reykjavik, at a site that erupted last year, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said.

The IMO said the eruption took place in an unpopulated area 30 kilometers from the capital city and that no lives were in danger. 

The eruption is near the site of the Mount Fagradalsfjall volcano, which had been active from March to September of 2021.

If Wednesday’s volcanic activity is confirmed to be similar to the fissures seen last year, the code red aviation alert could be lowered to orange, signaling less danger, an agency spokesperson said.

Lava is reportedly coming from a crack in the ground, according to natural hazard specialist Einar Hjorleifsson, who spoke to Bloomberg.  

Iceland is also known for earthquakes that sometimes cause volcanic eruptions because two of the earth’s largest tectonic plates lie under the country.

Iceland has 32 volcanic areas that are currently active, the highest number in Europe. 
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From the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Jewish community in Russia has not explicitly supported the military actions of the Kremlin, thus undermining President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russian forces are on a mission to denazify Ukraine. Russian Jews avoid talking about this issue, and many have chosen to leave the country. Marcus Harton narrates this report from VOA’s Moscow Bureau.
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PARIS – Fanning out like urban guerrillas through Paris’ darkened streets well after midnight, the anti-waste activists shinny up walls and drain pipes, reaching for switches to turn off the lights.

Click. Click. Click.

One by one, the outdoor lights that stores had left on are extinguished. It’s one small but symbolic step in a giant leap of energy saving that Europe is trying to make as it rushes to wean itself off natural gas and oil from Russia so factories aren’t forced to close and homes stay heated and powered.

Engineer Kevin Ha and his equally nimble friends had been acting against wasteful businesses in Paris long before Russia started cutting energy supplies to Europe in a battle of wills over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. As such, the campaigners were precursors of the energy economy drive becoming all the rage in France, Germany and elsewhere. Their message — that everyone can contribute — is almost word-for-word what public officials from cabinet ministers to mayors are saying now, too.

“Everyone can have a positive impact at their own level, by adopting good practices, by doing the right things to reduce their overall energy footprint,” the 30-year-old Ha said on a recent night of light-extinguishing on the Champs-Élysées boulevard.

The stakes are high. If Russia severs the supplies of gas it has already drastically reduced, authorities fear Europe risks becoming a colder, darker and less-productive place this winter. It’s imperative to economize gas now so it can be squirreled away for burning later in homes, factories and power plants, officials say.

“Europe needs to be ready,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “To make it through the winter, assuming that there is a full disruption of Russian gas, we need to save gas to fill our gas storages faster. And to do so, we have to reduce our gas consumption. I know that this is a big ask for the whole of the European Union, but it is necessary to protect us.”

And although Europe is scrambling to get energy from elsewhere, any difficulties this winter could be a harbinger of worse to come if Russian gas supplies are completely severed and stay off through 2023, said France’s minister overseeing energy, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

“If gas deliveries are cut by the end of the year, that will mean we’ll have a full year without Russian gas, so the following winter could be even harder,” Pannier-Runacher told French senators.

Hence the mounting appeals — already familiar to exasperated parents of wasteful teenagers everywhere — for Europeans to take shorter showers, switch off power sockets and otherwise do what they can.

Germany had been getting about a third of its gas from Russia, making the EU’s biggest economy and most populous nation conspicuously vulnerable. Energy saving is in full swing, with lights going off, public pools becoming chilier and thermostats being adjusted.

The glass dome of the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin, is going dark after it closes to visitors at midnight, and two facades will no longer be lit. Legislators’ office temperatures will drop by 2 degrees to 20 Celsius (68 Fahrenheit) this winter. Berlin City Hall, the Jewish Museum, two opera houses and the landmark Victory Column with panoramic views are among about 200 sites in the German capital that will no longer be lit at night.

Saunas are closing in Munich’s municipal swimming pools, which have chillier water now, too. There’ll only be cold showers at public pools in Hannover, part of a plan by the northern city to cut its energy use by 15%.

“The sum of all the contributions will help us get through this winter and be prepared for the next one,” said Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister. He also told news weekly Der Spiegel he has slashed the time he spends showering.

“It will be a demanding, stony road, but we can manage it,” he said.

With a campaign dubbed “Flip the Switch,” the Netherlands’ government is urging showers of no more than five minutes, using sun shades and fans instead of air conditioning, and air-drying laundry.

Under a law passed Monday in often-sweltering Spain, offices, stores and hospitality venues will no longer be allowed to set their thermostats below 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer, nor raise them above 19 degrees Celsius in winter.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez asked office workers to ditch neckties, presumably to lessen the temptation to use air conditioning. He led by example, appearing at a news conference in an open-necked shirt.

The Italian government also is recommending limits on heating and cooling in public buildings.

In France, the government is targeting a 10% reduction in energy use by 2024, with an “energy sobriety” drive. Mayors are also waging their own war on waste, with fines introduced for air-conditioned or heated stores that leave front doors open; others are working to limit the pain of soaring energy prices.

The 8,000 residents of Aureilhan, in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southwestern France, have been adjusting to nights without street lights since July 11. Extinguishing all 1,770 of them from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. will save money that Mayor Yannick Boubée would rather spend on roads and other maintenance. Otherwise, he said, the town’s 84,000-euro ($86,000) lighting bill in 2021 was on course to nearly triple next year.

“When it comes down to it, there’s no reason to keep the lights on at night,” he said by phone. “It is shaking up our way of thinking.”

Next will be convincing townspeople to agree to less-heated classrooms when schools reopen.

“We’re going to ask parents to put a pullover on their children, all measures that don’t cost anything,” he said. “We have no choice, unfortunately.”
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Voting by Britain’s Conservative Party members to pick the next prime minister has been delayed after a British spy agency warned that cyber hackers could change people’s ballots, The Telegraph reported on Tuesday.

There was no specific threat from a hostile state, and the advice was more general and about the voting process and its vulnerabilities, report added.

As a result of the concerns, the Conservative Party has been forced to abandon plans to allow members to change their vote for the next leader later in the contest, according to The Telegraph.

Postal ballots are also yet to be issued to the around 160,000 party members who have now been warned they could arrive as late as Aug. 11, the report added. The ballots were earlier due to be sent out from Monday, The Telegraph reported.

Former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are competing in the leadership contest to succeed Boris Johnson as the next British prime minister.

Truss leads in opinion polls among Conservative Party members, who will decide who becomes the next prime minister on Sept. 5 after weeks of voting.

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) gathers communications from around the world to identify and disrupt threats to Britain. A spokesperson for the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is a part of the GCHQ, said that it provided advice to the Conservative Party.

“Defending UK democratic and electoral processes is a priority for the NCSC and we work closely with all Parliamentary political parties, local authorities and MPs to provide cyber security guidance and support,” an NCSC spokesperson told Reuters.

“As you would expect from the UK’s national cyber security authority we provided advice to the Conservative Party on security considerations for online leadership voting,” the spokesperson added.
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Tensions between Jerusalem and Moscow are rising over a Russian attempt to close the Jewish Agency office in Moscow. The quasi-governmental Jewish Agency helps Jews immigrate to Israel, but Russia says it violates local laws by gathering information on Russian citizens. Israeli officials say they believe it has more to do with growing Israeli support for Ukraine. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem.
Videographer: Ricki Rosen
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The U.S. imposed new sanctions Tuesday targeting Russian elites, including oligarchs and a woman — one-time Olympic rhythmic gymnast champion Alina Kabaeva — often named in news reports as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lover and mother of four of his children. 

The Treasury Department froze the visa of Kabaeva, 39, and imposed other property restrictions on her. She is a former member of the Russian Duma, the country’s legislative body, and is also head of a Russian national media company that has promoted Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.  

Kremlin opponents and Putin critic Alexey Navalny have called for sanctions against Kabaeva, contending that her news outlet had taken the lead in portraying Western commentary on the invasion as a disinformation campaign. 

Britain sanctioned Kabaeva in May, and the European Union imposed travel and asset restrictions on her in June. 

Among the others sanctioned was Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, an oligarch who owns the Witanhurst estate, a 25-bedroom mansion considered to be the second-largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace. 

The U.S. also blocked movement of his $120 million yacht, the Alfa Nero, and sanctioned his son, Andrey Andreevich Guryev, and his son’s Russian investment firm, Dzhi AI Invest OOO. 

“As innocent people suffer from Russia’s illegal war of aggression, Putin’s allies have enriched themselves and funded opulent lifestyles,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. 

“Together with our allies, the United States will also continue to choke off revenue and equipment underpinning Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.” 

The State Department also imposed additional visa restrictions and other sanctions.  

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “As Ukrainians continue to valiantly defend their homeland in the face of President Putin’s brutal war, Russia’s elite are running massive revenue-generating companies and funding their own opulent lifestyles outside of Russia. Today, the United States is taking additional actions to ensure that the Kremlin and its enablers feel the compounding effects of our response to the Kremlin’s unconscionable war of aggression.” 

 
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A man was charged with intent to “alarm her Majesty” after being arrested at Queen Elizabeth’s Windsor Castle home with a crossbow on Christmas Day last year, police and prosecutors said. 

Jaswant Singh Chail, 20, a resident of Southampton in southern England, was arrested on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where the queen often resides. Chail was carrying a crossbow, prosecutors said.  

At the time of the incident, the queen was at the castle, along with her son and heir Prince Charles, his wife and other close family members. According to police, Chail did not break into any buildings. 

Following an investigation by counterterrorism police, Chail was charged with “discharging or aiming firearms, or throwing or using any offensive matter or weapon, with intent to injure or alarm her Majesty,” an offense under section 2 of the Treason Act of 1842. He has also been charged with threats to kill and possession of an offensive weapon. 

Nick Price, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: “The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against Mr. Chail are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.” 

Chail will appear before London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court on August 17.  

Security breaches at the royal residences are rare. The most serious breach under Elizabeth’s reign happened in 1982 when an intruder climbed a wall of Buckingham Palace, the queen’s home, and made his way to her bedroom.  

In 2003, Aaron Barschak, a man who called himself the “comedy terrorist,” evaded security wearing a pink dress and an Osama bin Laden-styled beard to gatecrash the 21st birthday party of Charles’ elder son, Prince William.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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Thousands of Afghans took refuge in Turkey as the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last year. Many of these Afghans say they are now worried about being sent back. VOA’s Mahmut Bozarslan and Soner Kizilkaya bring us one man’s story in this report, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard. VOA footage by Mahmut Bozarslan and Ogulcan Bakiler. Ezel Sahinkaya contributed.
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The Supreme Court of Russia, acting on a request by the Prosecutor General’s Office, has designated Ukraine’s ultra-right Azov Regiment as a “terrorist” organization.

The court announced the decision on Tuesday against the group, one of the most prominent Ukrainian military formations fighting against Russia in eastern Ukraine.

The court ruled to “recognize the Ukrainian paramilitary unit Azov a terrorist organization and to ban its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the judge was quoted by the state news agency TASS as saying.

The ruling takes immediate effect.

The Azov Regiment is a far-right volunteer group that is part of Ukraine’s National Guard. Formerly known as the Azov Battalion, it espouses an ultranationalist ideology that U.S. law enforcement authorities have linked with neo-Nazi extremism. But supporters see it as a patriotic and effective part of the country’s defense forces.

Russia falsely claims that Ukraine is controlled by Nazis and used that charge as one of the justifications for its unprovoked invasion of the country.

Some relatives of Azov Regiment soldiers have worried that the court’s designation could mean that those who surrendered to Russia, or were captured by Russian forces, could now be tried as terrorists.

The Azov Regiment fought Russian troops for months in the southern city of Mariupol before around 2,500 of its fighters surrendered in mid-May.
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The U.N. secretary-general warned Monday at the start of a nuclear non-proliferation conference that the risks of more nuclear weapons is growing as guardrails to prevent escalation are weakening.

“Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” Antonio Guterres told the opening of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference.

He warned that there are crises with nuclear undertones from the Middle East to the Korean Peninsula, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He said there are nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled around the world.

“States are seeking false security in stockpiling and spending hundreds of billions of dollars on doomsday weapons that have no place on our planet,” he said. Noting that people are in danger of forgetting the lessons of World War II.

Guterres said he would travel to Japan to attend commemorations on August 6 at Hiroshima, where the United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb 77 years ago in an effort to end that war.

Since it entered into force in 1970, the NPT has been a cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Under it, parties are called on to prevent the spread of nuclear arms, promote disarmament as well as international cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear power.

Guterres also urged nations to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear technology to advance development, such clean energy and medical breakthroughs.

“When used for peaceful purposes, this technology can be a great benefit to humanity,” he said.

Russian nuclear saber rattling

Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine was condemned at the meeting by leaders, as well as several regional groups, including those from the Pacific region and Nordic countries.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that in January the five nuclear powers – Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S.—all affirmed that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

“The very next month, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Blinken said. “And it has engaged in reckless, dangerous nuclear saber rattling, with its president [Putin] warning that those supporting Ukraine’s self-defense “risk consequences such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Blinken pointed to Russia’s seizure of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia, saying they are now using it as a military base because they know the Ukrainians cannot fire back at their positions because they could hit a nuclear reactor.

“There is no place in our world—no place in our world—for nuclear deterrence based on coercion, intimidation or blackmail,” Blinken said. “We have to stand together in rejecting this.”

Japan’s prime minister echoed international concerns about Russia’s actions.

“The recent attacks on nuclear facilities by Russia must not be tolerated,” said Fumio Kishida.

“In attacking a country that gave up nuclear weapons, Russia is brutally violating the assurances it gave in the Budapest Memorandum,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, referring to the 1994 agreement in which Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons left on its territory after the USSR’s collapse in exchange for security guarantees.

The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at the start of Russia’s invasion, he laid out seven pillars of nuclear safety that must not be violated during the conflict, including on the safety and security of facilities and the personnel that work at them.

“All these seven principles have been trampled upon or violated since this tragic episode started,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the meeting.

Russia is expected to speak later in the debate.

Trouble spots

Parties to the agreement—there are 191, including the five recognized nuclear weapon states (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States)—are attending the conference, which runs until August 26 and will review implementation and ways to strengthen it.

Ahead of the conference, President Joe Biden said in a statement that the United States is committed to the NPT, its obligations as a nuclear state, and working towards a nuclear-free world. He said his administration is ready to negotiate a new arms control framework with Moscow to replace New START when it expires in 2026.

“But negotiation requires a willing partner operating in good faith,” Biden said. “And Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression in Ukraine has shattered peace in Europe and constitutes an attack on fundamental tenets of international order.” He said Moscow should demonstrate that it is ready to resume work on nuclear arms control with the U.S.

At the conference, Secretary Blinken said the United States keeps its nuclear arsenal—which has shrunk 90% since the end of the Cold War—as a deterrence and would use it only in “extreme circumstances” to defend its own vital interests or those of its allies and partners.

More than 133 governments and nuclear organizations will speak at the debate that started Monday and continues through Thursday.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Reza Najafi is also due to speak this week. World powers have been trying to get Iran to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

Britain and France, which are a part of the agreement, along with the United States, which withdrew under former U.S. President Donald Trump but is seeking a mutual return with Iran, said in a statement that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon.

“We regret that, despite intense diplomatic efforts, Iran has yet to seize the opportunity to restore full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” they said urging Iran to return to the deal.

There was also concern about advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. Secretary Blinken said Pyongyang is planning its seventh illicit nuclear test.

IAEA chief Rossi said he hopes his agency’s inspectors can return to North Korea after being expelled in 2009. “Without that, there will be no trust and there will be no confidence,” Rossie said.

Absentees at the review conference include Israel, India and Pakistan. All are believed to have nuclear weapons but are not NPT signatories.

Some countries also expressed unease about China’s growing nuclear arsenal.

“China’s arsenal is growing,” Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said on behalf of Nordic countries. “We call on China to actively engage in processes on arms control as a responsible nuclear weapons state.”
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Social media users in Turkey could face up to three years in jail for postings that authorities consider to be disinformation under proposed legislation. The move has prompted protests, with critics accusing the government of seeking to silence the last platforms that Turkish citizens have for venting their grievances. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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The Spanish government maybe had a good idea, but the execution of the body positivity campaign has gone horribly wrong. 

The idea was to encourage women to come out and enjoy the beaches – without any worries about how they looked in their swimsuits.

But three of the five women whose photographs were used in the campaign said they had not given permission for the images to be used. 

Arte Mapache the campaign’s creator, has apologized for failing to obtain permission to use the images.  

“Given the – justified – controversy over the image rights in the illustration, I have decided that the best way to make amends for the damages that may have resulted from my actions is to share out the money I received for the work and give equal parts to the people in the poster,” the artist said.

Two of the women in the campaign’s artwork are professional models.  One has a prosthetic leg that was airbrushed out of the campaign artwork. 

Sian Green-Lord told The Guardian, “It’s one thing using my image without my permission, but it’s another thing editing my body, my body with my prosthetic leg … I don’t even know what to say but it’s beyond wrong.”

Juliet FitzPatrick, a cancer survivor, told the BBC that the face of a woman who had a mastectomy may be based on a photograph of her.  However, while the woman in the Spanish government photo has had a single mastectomy, FitzPatrick had a double mastectomy. 

She told the BBC that using her likeness without her permission “seems to be totally against” the theme of the campaign.  “For me it is about how my body has been used and represented without my permission.”

British photographer Ami Barwell who had taken photos of Fitzpatrick told the BBC that she believes Fitzpatrick’s photo was a composite of photos that she had taken of Fitzpatrick and another woman.  

Barwell told the BBC, “I think that the person who created the art has gone through my gallery and pieced them together.” 

Another model, Nyome Nicholas-Williams, who wears a gold bikini in the photo, said her image was taken from her Instagram account without her permission. 
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Grain shipments from Ukraine’s port of Odesa resumed Monday.

The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni was the first to leave port, carrying corn bound for Lebanon. In a statement, Turkey’s defense ministry said other unspecified ships also would depart Ukraine.

Turkey and the United Nations brokered an agreement with Russia and Ukraine in late July to get grain exports going again amid a global food crisis that the U.N. says has been worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The deal calls for safe passage of cargo ships traveling from ports in southern Ukraine through waters in the Black Sea that Russia has controlled since starting the war in late February.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the resumption of exports from Odesa.

“The day of relief for the world, especially for our friends in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, as the first Ukrainian grain leaves Odesa after months of Russian blockade,” Kuleba tweeted. “Ukraine has always been a reliable partner and will remain one should Russia respect its part of the deal.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday the departure of the first ship is “very positive.”

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said ensuring grain can reach global markets “is a humanitarian imperative.”

“The Secretary-General hopes that this will be the first of many commercial ships moving in accordance with the Initiative signed, and that this will bring much-needed stability and relief to global food security especially in the most fragile humanitarian contexts,” Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

Dujarric added that the World Food Program plans to purchase 30,000 metric tons of wheat to load and ship out of Ukraine on a U.N.-chartered vessel.

British say Russians make ‘slow progress’

Also Monday, Britain’s defense ministry said Russian forces had made only slow progress during the previous four days as they tried tactical assaults in the area northeast of Donetsk.

The British ministry said Russia is also likely shifting “a significant number of its forces” from the northern part of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine to southern Ukraine.

For several months, Russia has focused its efforts on the Donbas, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, after facing resistance on its approach to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. A reallocation of resources to the east helped Russia claim control of Luhansk in early July.

Russia’s Black Sea fleet headquarters struck

In southern Ukraine, a small explosive device carried by a makeshift drone hit the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on the Crimean Peninsula on Sunday, wounding six people, local authorities said, while Ukraine said a Russian missile attack killed one of its richest people, a grain merchant.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the drone attack in the port city of Sevastopol, which forced cancellation of ceremonies for Russia’s Navy Day holiday. But the seemingly improvised, small-scale nature of the attack raised the possibility it was the work of Ukrainian insurgents in the territory seized by Russia in 2014, The Associated Press reported.

The drone appeared to be homemade and the explosive device low powered, the Black Sea Fleet’s press service said. Sevastopol is about 170 kilometers from the Ukrainian mainland, but it is unclear where the drone began its flight.

‘Not an accident’

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the mayor of the major port city of Mykolaiv, Vitaliy Kim, said a Russian attack killed one of Ukraine’s wealthiest men, Oleksiy Vadatursky, and his wife, Raisa. Vadatursky headed a grain production and export business.

An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Vadatursky was specifically targeted.

It “was not an accident, but a well-thought-out and organized premeditated murder,” Podolyak said. “Vadatursky was one of the largest farmers in the country, a key person in the region and a major employer. That the exact hit of a rocket was not just in a house, but in a specific wing, the bedroom, leaves no doubt about aiming and adjusting the strike.”

Vadatursky’s agribusiness, Nibulon, includes a fleet of ships for sending grain abroad.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The Kosovo government postponed implementation of a decision that would oblige Serbs in the north of the country to apply for car license plates issued by Pristina institutions after tensions rose between police and local communities that set roadblocks.

Late on Sunday the protesters parked trucks filled with gravel and other heavy machinery on the roads leading to the two border crossings, Jarinje and Bernjak, in a territory where Serbs form a majority. Kosovo police said they had to close the border crossings.

“The overall security situation in the Northern municipalities of Kosovo is tense,” NATO-led mission to Kosovo KFOR said in a statement.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blamed the heightened tension on what she called “groundless discriminatory rules” imposed by Kosovo authorities

Fourteen years after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, some 50,000 Serbs living in the north use license plates and documents issued by Serbian authorities, refusing to recognize institutions under the capital, Pristina. Kosovo has been recognized as an independent state by more than 100 countries but not by Serbia or Russia.

The government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti said it would give Serbs a transitional period of 60 days to get Kosovo license plates, a year after giving up trying to impose them because of similar protests.

The government also decided that as of August 1, all citizens from Serbia visiting Kosovo would have to get an extra document at the border to grant them permission to enter.

A similar rule is applied by Belgrade authorities to Kosovars who visit Serbia.

But following tensions on Sunday evening and consultations with EU and U.S. ambassadors, the government said it would delay its plan for one month and start the implementation on September 1.

Earlier on Sunday, police said there were shots fired “in the direction of police units but fortunately no one was wounded.”

It also said angry protesters beat up several Albanians passing on the roads that had been blocked and that some cars had been attacked.

Air raid sirens were heard for more than three hours in the small town of North Mitrovica inhabited mainly by Serbs.

A year ago, after local Serbs blocked the same roads over license plates, Kosovo’s government deployed special police forces and Belgrade flew fighter jets close to the border.

Tensions between the two countries remain high, and Kosovo’s fragile peace is maintained by a NATO mission that has 3,770 troops on the ground. Italian peacekeepers were visible in and around Mitrovica on Sunday.

The two countries committed in 2013 to a dialog sponsored by the European Union to try to resolve outstanding issues but little progress has been made.
…

There was already plenty of trouble to talk about when a major U.N. meeting on the landmark Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was originally supposed to happen in 2020.

Now the pandemic-postponed conference finally starts Monday as Russia’s war in Ukraine has reanimated fears of nuclear confrontation and cranked up the urgency of trying to reinforce the 50-year-old treaty.

“It is a very, very difficult moment,” said Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Russia’s invasion, accompanied by ominous references to its nuclear arsenal, “is so significant for the treaty and really going to put a lot of pressure on this,” she said. “How governments react to the situation is going to shape future nuclear policy.”

The four-week meeting aims to generate a consensus on the next steps, but expectations are low for a substantial — if any — agreement.

Still, Swiss President Ignazio Cassis, prime ministers Fumio Kishida of Japan and Frank Bainimarama of Fiji, and more than a dozen nations’ foreign ministers are among attendees expected from at least 116 countries, according to a U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly before the conference.

In force since 1970, the Nonproliferation Treaty has the widest adherence of any arms control agreement. Some 191 countries have joined.

Nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire them, while nuclear-armed Britain, China, France, Russia (then the Soviet Union) and the United States agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday. All endorsed everyone’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.

India and Pakistan, which didn’t sign, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel is believed to have a nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it.

Nonetheless, the Nonproliferation Treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (U.S. President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations by 1975) and serving as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament.

The total number of nuclear weapons worldwide has shrunk by more than 75% from a mid-1980s peak, largely thanks to the end of the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. But experts estimate roughly 13,000 warheads remain worldwide, the vast majority in the U.S. and Russia.

Meetings to assess how the treaty is working are supposed to happen every five years, but the 2020 conference was repeatedly delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Challenges have only grown in the meantime.

When launching the Ukraine war in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen” and emphasized that his country is “one of the most potent nuclear powers.” Days later, Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on higher alert, a move that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called “bone-chilling.”

“The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility,” he said.

The events in Ukraine create a tricky choice for the upcoming conference, said Patricia Lewis, a former U.N. disarmament research official who is now at the international affairs think tank Chatham House in London.

“On the one hand, in order to support the treaty and what it stands for, governments will have to address Russia’s behavior and threats,” she said. “On the other hand, to do so risks dividing the treaty members.”

Another uncomfortable dynamic: The war has heightened some countries’ apprehensions about not having nuclear weapons, especially since Ukraine once housed but gave up a trove of Soviet nukes.

Ukraine is hardly the only hot topic.

North Korea appears to have been preparing recently for its first nuclear weapons test since 2017. And talks about reviving the deal meant to keep Iran from developing nukes are in limbo.

The U.S. and Russia have only one remaining treaty curtailing their nuclear weapons and have been developing new technologies. Britain last year raised a self-imposed cap on its stockpile. China says it’s modernizing — or, the U.S. claims, expanding — the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal.

U.S. Ambassador Adam Scheinman, the presidential special representative for nuclear nonproliferation, said Washington hopes for a “balanced” outcome that “sets realistic goals and advances our national and international security interests.”

The Associated Press sent inquiries to Russia’s U.N. mission about Moscow’s goals for the conference. There was no immediate response.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said his country wants to work toward improving global nuclear governance and upholding the international order and will “firmly safeguard the legitimate security and development interests and rights of China and the developing world.”

If the world can’t speak with one voice, disarmament advocates say a strong statement from a large group of countries could send a meaningful message.

In recent years, frustration with the Nonproliferation Treaty catalyzed another pact that outright prohibits nuclear weapons. Ratified by more than 60 countries, it took effect last year, though without any nuclear-armed nations on board.

At a recent meeting in Vienna, participating countries condemned “any and all nuclear threats” and inked a lengthy plan that includes considering an international trust fund for people harmed by nuclear weapons.

Fihn, whose Geneva-based group campaigned for the nuclear ban treaty, hopes the vigor in Vienna serves as inspiration — or notice — for countries to make progress at the U.N. conference.

“If you don’t do it here,” she said, “we’re moving on without you elsewhere.”
…

England beat Germany 2-1 in the final of the European Championship after extra time on Sunday to win its first major women’s soccer title.

Chloe Kelly scored the winning goal on a rebound in the second half of extra time after Germany failed to clear a corner. The game had finished 1-1 after 90 minutes at Wembley Stadium with Lina Magull for Germany canceling out Ella Toone’s goal for England.

After the final whistle, the England players danced and the crowd sang their anthem “Sweet Caroline.” The good-natured atmosphere inside the stadium Sunday drew contrasts with the violent scenes when the England men’s team lost its European Championship final to Italy at the same stadium a year ago.

“I always believed I’d be here, but to be here and score the winner, wow. These girls are amazing,” said Kelly, who returned from a serious knee injury in April. “This is amazing, I just want to celebrate now.”

Kelly took her shirt off to celebrate her goal, earning a yellow card but also a shout-out from Brandi Chastain, who celebrated in similar style when her penalty kick won the World Cup for the U.S. in 1999.

“Enjoy the free rounds of pints and dinners for the rest of your life from all of England. Cheers!” Chastain wrote on Twitter.

The tournament-record crowd of more than 87,000 underlined the growth of women’s soccer in Europe since the last time England and Germany played for a continental title 13 years ago.

On that occasion, Germany surged to a 6-2 win over an England team that still relied on part-time players. Two years later, England launched its Women’s Super League, which has professionalized the game and grown into one of the main competitions worldwide.

That has meant increasing competition for Germany, which was a pioneering nation in European women’s soccer and increasingly faces well-funded rivals in England, Spain and France. England’s title comes 56 years after the nation’s only major men’s title which was also an extra-time win at Wembley over Germany at the 1966 World Cup.

Wiegman remains unbeaten in 12 games as coach at the European Championships after winning the tournament first with the Netherlands and now with England. One of her first moves after England won was to share a hug with 35-year-old midfielder Jill Scott, the only remaining player on either team from England’s 2009 loss to Germany.

The game was refereed by Ukrainian Kateryna Monzul, who fled her home country after Russia invaded. One of Europe’s leading referees, Monzul left her home in Kharkiv, a major city that has been heavily bombarded by Russian forces — and spent five days living in a basement at her parents’ house before leaving the country and eventually living and working in Italy.
…

Hundreds of people from the Nigerian community of the central Italian city of Civitanova Marche took to the streets Saturday to protest the slaying of a Nigerian street vendor.

The killing was caught in cellphone video, but no one intervened to stop the slaying of the disabled man.

Police say an Italian man, Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo, 32, has been arrested in connection with the brutal beating of Alika Ogorchukwu, a 39-year-old husband and father.

The footage of the incident shows Ferlazzo using the vendor’s crutch to strike him down. Ogorchukwu had lost his job as a laborer after being hit by a car. He needed to use a crutch to walk after the accident.

The street vendor was unable to get up after Ferlazzo attacked him, the video shows, because the Italian man used his weight to keep Ogorchukwu down.

“The aggressor went after the victim, first hitting him with a crutch,” police investigator Matteo Luconi said at a press conference.  “He made him fall to the ground, then he finished, causing the death, striking repeatedly with his bare hands.”

An autopsy has been ordered to determine the cause of Ogorchukwu’s death.

“My condemnation is not only for the [crime], but it is also for the indifference,” Civitanova Marche’s mayor, Fabrizio Ciarapica, told Sky News.

“A father was killed in an atrocious and racist way while passersby took video without stopping the aggressor,” said former Premier Matteo Renzi.  He urged people to reflect “on what we are becoming.”

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Saturday for the evacuation of eastern Donetsk province, the region that has seen the fiercest fighting as Russia seeks to fully control it.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including children and the elderly, remain in combat zones of the larger Donbas region, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk. It is also the region where Ukrainian prisoners of war died in a missile attack earlier this week.

Zelenskyy made the announcement Saturday during his nightly video address to his nation.

“The more people leave [the] Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” he said, adding that residents who left would be given compensation, he said according to Reuters.

Zalenskyy promised logistical support to persuade people to leave.

“Many refuse to leave but it still needs to be done,” the president said. “If you have the opportunity, please talk to those who still remain in the combat zones in Donbas. Please convince them that it is necessary to leave.”

Earlier Saturday, Ukraine demanded that Russia be held accountable for a missile attack that killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war at a Russian-operated detention facility in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government on Saturday called on the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to immediately investigate Friday’s attack.

With international outrage building over the missile strike, the United Nations pledged support to help investigate the prison attack.

“In relation to the recent tragedy at the prison in Olenivka, we stand ready to send a group of experts able to conduct an investigation, requiring the consent of the parties,” said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general in a statement released Saturday.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of carrying out the attack. Neither claim could be independently verified. So far, no international aid organizations have been granted access to the bombed-out site. The Red Cross requested access to help evacuate the wounded.

In a statement Sunday, Russia said it has invited United Nations and Red Cross experts to investigate the deaths at the prison, according to Reuters.

The statement from the defense ministry said it was acting “in the interests of conducting an objective investigation” into what it called an attack on the prison earlier in the week.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said 40 prisoners were killed and 75 were wounded at the detention facility located in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region. Russia insisted Ukraine used American-made weapons to hit the prison to prevent its own fighters from surrendering to Russian forces.

Ukraine’s armed forces disputed the claim and said Russian artillery targeted the prison camp to hide the mistreatment of the prisoners.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a deliberate Russian war crime and a mass murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The Ukrainian army is trying to get the bodies of those killed returned, but Russia has only released the names of the dead.

Meanwhile, fighting raged on as Ukraine’s military claimed its forces killed more than 100 Russian soldiers in the southern area of Kherson. Military officials Saturday said its forces bombed railway and road bridges inside Russian controlled territories.

Russia announced Saturday its forces killed more than 130 elite Ukrainian soldiers aboard a train in the Donbas region last week and were making gains in other locations on the battlefield.

Grain shipments

In other developments, the first ship loaded with Ukrainian grain is set to sail from the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk.

Last week Russia and Ukraine agreed to unblock grain exports from Black Sea ports, which have been threatened by Russian attacks since the invasion. The blockade of grain in Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest exporters, has led to sharp increases in global food prices.

Grain shipments from the country were allowed to resume after a U.N. brokered agreement was signed in Turkey last week.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and mentioned the importance of Russia following through on the agreement.

Blinken also warned of consequences should Moscow move ahead with suspected plans to annex portions of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
…

Iran has arrested a Swedish citizen on espionage charges, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday, after a court in Stockholm sentenced a former Iranian official for war crimes earlier this month.

Iran has arrested dozens of foreigners and dual nationals in recent years, mostly on espionage and security-related accusations. Rights groups call that a tactic to win concessions from abroad by inventing charges, which Tehran denies.

“The suspect had been under surveillance by the intelligence ministry during several previous trips to Iran because of (their) suspicious behavior and contacts,” IRNA quoted the Iranian intelligence ministry statement as saying.

It did not give a name or say when the arrest was made but added that the suspect had a history of going to the Palestinian territories, went to non-tourist destinations in Iran, and contacted people, including Europeans, under surveillance.

The intelligence ministry statement accused Sweden of “proxy spying” on behalf of Iran’s archenemy Israel, which it said would draw a “proportional reaction” from Iran.

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said it was aware of the case.

A spokesperson said the case is that of a Swedish man whom the Foreign Ministry had said in May had been detained in Iran. Tehran did not report that arrest at that time. 

Relations between Sweden and Iran have been difficult since Sweden detained and put on trial a former Iranian official on charges of war crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at an Iranian prison in the 1980s.

On July 14, a Swedish court sentenced the man, Hamid Noury, to life in prison.

Iran condemned that as politically motivated.

Among other foreigners and dual nationals held in Iran are Ahmad Reza Jalali, a Swedish-Iranian researcher sentenced to death on charges of spying for Israel.
…

Pope Francis acknowledged Saturday that he can no longer travel like he used to because of his strained knee ligaments, saying his weeklong Canadian pilgrimage was “a bit of a test” that showed he needs to slow down and one day possibly retire.

Speaking to reporters while traveling home from northern Nunavut, the 85-year-old Francis stressed that he hadn’t thought about resigning but said “the door is open” and there was nothing wrong with a pope stepping down.

“It’s not strange. It’s not a catastrophe. You can change the pope,” he said while sitting in an airplane wheelchair during a 45-minute news conference.

Francis said that while he hadn’t considered resigning until now, he realizes he has to at least slow down.

“I think at my age and with these limitations, I have to save (my energy) to be able to serve the church, or on the contrary, think about the possibility of stepping aside,” he said.

Francis was peppered with questions about the future of his pontificate following the first trip in which he used a wheelchair, walker and cane to get around, sharply limiting his program and ability to mingle with crowds.

He strained his right knee ligaments earlier this year, and continuing laser and magnetic therapy forced him to cancel a trip to Africa that was scheduled for the first week of July.

The Canada trip was difficult, and featured several moments when Francis was clearly in pain as he maneuvered getting up and down from chairs.

At the end of his six-day tour, he appeared in good spirits and energetic, despite a long day traveling to the edge of the Arctic on Friday to again apologize to Indigenous peoples for the injustices they suffered in Canada’s church-run residential schools.

Francis ruled out having surgery on his knee, saying it would not necessarily help and noting “there are still traces” from the effects of having undergone more than six hours of anesthesia in July 2021 to remove 33 centimeters of his large intestine.

“I’ll try to continue to do the trips and be close to people because I think it’s a way of servicing, being close. But more than this, I can’t say,” he said Saturday.

In other comments aboard the papal plane, Francis:

Agreed that the attempt to eliminate Indigenous culture in Canada through a church-run residential school system amounted to a cultural “genocide.” Francis said he didn't use the term during his Canada trip because it didn't come to mind. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission determined in 2015 that the forced removal of Indigenous children from their homes and placement in church-run residential schools to assimilate them into Christian, Canadian constituted a “cultural genocide.” “It’s true I didn’t use the word because it didn’t come to mind, but I described genocide, no?” Francis said. “I apologized, I asked forgiveness for this work, which was genocide.” 
Suggested he was not opposed to a development of Catholic doctrine on the use of contraception. Church teaching prohibits artificial contraception. Francis noted that a Vatican think tank recently published the acts of a congress where a modification to the church’s absolute “no” was discussed. He stressed that doctrine can develop over time and that it was the job of theologians to pursue such developments, with the pope ultimately deciding. Francis noted that church teaching on atomic weapons was modified during his pontificate to consider not only the use but the mere possession of atomic weapons as immoral and to consider the death penalty immoral in all cases. 
Confirmed he hoped to travel to Kazakhstan in mid-September for an interfaith conference where he might meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who has justified the war in Ukraine. Francis also said he wants to go to Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, though no trip has yet been confirmed. He said he hoped to reschedule the trip to South Sudan he canceled because of his knee problems. He said the Congo leg of that trip would probably have to be put off until next year because of the rainy season.

…

When the first armored vehicles of Russia’s invading army reached the heart of Chernobyl nuclear plant on the afternoon of Feb. 24, they encountered a Ukrainian unit charged with defending the notorious facility.

In less than two hours, and without a fight, the 169 members of the Ukrainian National Guard laid down their weapons. Russia had taken Chernobyl, a repository for tonnes of nuclear material and a key staging post on the approach to Kyiv.

The fall of Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, stands out as an anomaly in the five-month old war: a successful blitzkrieg operation in a conflict marked elsewhere by a brutal and halting advance by Russian troops and grinding resistance by Ukraine.

Now a Reuters investigation has found that Russia’s success at Chernobyl was no accident, but part of a long-standing Kremlin operation to infiltrate the Ukrainian state with secret agents.

Five people with knowledge of the Kremlin’s preparations said war planners around President Vladimir Putin believed that, aided by these agents, Russia would require only a small military force and a few days to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration to quit, flee or capitulate.

Through interviews with dozens of officials in Russia and Ukraine and a review of Ukrainian court documents and statements to investigators, related to a probe into the conduct of people who worked at Chernobyl, Reuters has established that this infiltration reached far deeper than has been publicly acknowledged. The officials interviewed include people inside Russia who were briefed on Moscow’s invasion planning and Ukrainian investigators tasked with tracking down spies.

“Apart from the external enemy, we unfortunately have an internal enemy, and this enemy is no less dangerous,” the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, said in an interview.

At the time of the invasion, Danilov said, Russia had agents in the Ukrainian defense, security and law enforcement sectors. He declined to give names but said such traitors needed to be “neutralized” at all costs.

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation is conducting a probe into whether the National Guard acted unlawfully by surrendering its weapons to an enemy, a local official told Reuters. The State Bureau of Investigation didn’t comment. The National Guard defended the actions of its unit at the plant, pointing to the risks of conflict at a nuclear site.

Court documents and testimony, reported here for the first time, reveal the role played by Chernobyl’s head of security, Valentin Viter, who is in detention and is being investigated for absenting himself from his post. An extract from the state register of pre-trial investigations, seen by Reuters, shows Viter is also suspected of treason, an allegation his lawyer says is unfounded. In a statement to investigators, Viter said that on the day of the invasion he spoke by phone with the National Guard unit commander. Viter advised the commander not to endanger his unit, telling him: “Spare your people.”

One source with direct knowledge of the Kremlin’s invasion plans told Reuters that Russian agents were deployed to Chernobyl last year to bribe officials and prepare the ground for a bloodless takeover. Reuters couldn’t independently verify the details of this assertion. However, Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation has said it is investigating a former top intelligence official, Andriy Naumov, on suspicion of treason for passing Chernobyl security secrets to a foreign state. A lawyer for Naumov declined to comment.

At a national level, sources with knowledge of the Kremlin’s plans said Moscow was counting on activating sleeper agents inside the Ukrainian security apparatus. The sources confirmed Western intelligence reports that the Kremlin was lining up Oleg Tsaryov, a hotelier, to lead a puppet government in Kyiv. And a former Ukrainian prosecutor general disclosed to Reuters in June that Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, a friend of Putin, had an encrypted phone issued by Russia so he could communicate with the Kremlin.

Tsaryov said the Reuters account of how Moscow’s operation overall unfolded “has very little to do with reality.” He did not address his relationship with the Kremlin. A lawyer for Medvedchuk declined to comment. Medvedchuk is in a Ukrainian jail awaiting trial on treason charges that pre-date the Russian invasion.

Though Russia captured Chernobyl, its plan to take power in Kyiv failed. In many cases, the sleeper agents Moscow had installed failed to do their job, according to multiple sources in Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine Security Council Secretary Danilov said the agents and their handlers believed Ukraine was weak, which was “a total misconception.”

People the Kremlin counted on as its proxies in Ukraine overstated their influence in the years leading up to the invasion, said four of the sources with knowledge of the Kremlin’s preparations. The Kremlin relied in its planning on “clowns – they know a little bit, but they always say what the leadership wants to hear because otherwise they won’t get paid,” said one of the four, a person close to the Moscow-backed separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine.

Putin now finds himself in a protracted, full-scale war, fighting for every inch of territory at huge cost.

But the Russian intelligence infiltration did succeed in one way: It has sown mistrust inside Ukraine and laid bare the shortcomings of Ukraine’s near 30,000-strong Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, which shares a complicated history with Russia, and is now tasked with hunting down traitors and collaborators.

This internal Ukrainian turmoil burst into partial view on July 17. In a video address to the nation, President Zelenskyy suspended SBU head Ivan Bakanov, whom he has known for years, citing the large number of SBU staff suspected of treason. Ukrainian law enforcement sources told Reuters that some SBU staff recounted in conversation with them that they were unable to reach Bakanov for several days after Russia invaded, adding to a sense of chaos in Kyiv. Bakanov didn’t respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Zelenskyy also said 651 cases of alleged treason and collaboration have been opened against individuals involved in law enforcement and in the prosecutor’s office. More than 60 officials from the SBU and the prosecutor general’s office are working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied zones, Zelenskyy added.

Asked to comment on Reuters’ findings, the Ukrainian presidential administration, the SBU and the prosecutor general’s office did not respond. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “All these questions have no relation whatsoever to us, therefore there is nothing for us to comment on here.” The Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, and the defense ministry did not respond to Reuters’ questions.

KGB ties

Moscow’s spy apparatus has been intertwined with Chernobyl for decades. After the 1986 disaster, when a reactor blew up scattering radioactive clouds across Europe, the Soviet KGB stepped in. More than 1,000 KGB staff took part in the clean-up, according to a declassified internal memo to a Ukrainian government minister, dated 1991. Then-KGB boss Viktor Chebrikov ordered his officers to recruit agents among the plant’s staff and instructed that a KGB officer should hold the post of deputy boss of the plant in charge of security, according to another memo – an internal KGB communication from 1986.

Even after Ukraine became independent in 1991, Moscow’s spy chiefs remained powerful there. The first head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service was Nikolai Golushko, who started his career in Soviet Russia. Before his appointment he led the Ukraine arm of the Soviet KGB. Golushko kept most of the Soviet-era officers in their jobs, he wrote in a 2012 memoir.

After four months as Ukraine’s spy chief, Golushko moved back to Moscow to rejoin KGB headquarters, and in 1993 became head of Russia’s newly created Federal Counter-Intelligence Service, precursor to today’s FSB.

In Moscow, Golushko received a visit from the deputy head of Ukraine’s State Security Service, Golushko wrote in the memoir. He recalled how Oleg Pugach, the Ukrainian official, asked for Golushko’s help finding fabric to make the uniforms for Ukraine’s intelligence officers. Golushko also wrote that Kyiv, short of its own resources and expertise, signed deals under which the SBU agreed to share intelligence information with Moscow. In exchange, Moscow provided supplies, technology and expert help with investigations. Reuters approached Golushko for comment. A colleague from an intelligence veterans’ group told Reuters Golushko, now 85, was in ill health and could not answer questions. Reuters was unable to reach Pugach and couldn’t independently confirm Golushko’s account.

Intelligence officers working at Chernobyl officially became part of Ukraine’s security apparatus in 1991, but they continued to take orders from Moscow, said the person with direct knowledge of the invasion plan. “In effect, these were FSB employees,” said the person. The SBU did not respond to questions about Chernobyl or historical ties to Russian intelligence.

The Chernobyl nuclear plant is a vast facility. A giant steel structure encases Reactor No. 4, ground zero of the 1986 disaster. The plant lies just 10 kilometers at the closest point from the border with Belarus, in a dense and highly irradiated forest. Russia’s war planners considered control of Chernobyl to be strategically important because it sat on the shortest route for their advance on Kyiv, according to Western military analysts.

The source with direct knowledge of the invasion plan said that in November 2021 Russia started sending undercover intelligence agents to Ukraine, tasked with establishing contacts with officials responsible for securing the Chernobyl power plant. The agents’ goal was to ensure there would be no armed resistance once Russian troops rolled in. The source said Chernobyl also served as a drop-off point for documents from SBU headquarters. In return for payment, Ukrainian officials handed Russian spies information about Ukraine’s military readiness.

Reuters could not independently verify details of the source’s account, and neither Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation nor the SBU responded to the news agency’s questions. But a review of Ukrainian testimony and court documents and an interview with a local official show that Kyiv is conducting at least three investigations into the conduct of people who worked at Chernobyl. The investigations have identified at least two people suspected of providing information to Russian agents or otherwise helping them seize the plant, according to these documents.

One of the men suspected by Ukrainian prosecutors and investigators of helping Russian forces is Valentin Viter, a 47-year-old colonel in the SBU. At the time of the Russian invasion, Viter was the deputy general-director of the plant responsible for its physical protection.

In May last year, Viter oversaw a routine training exercise that was meant to simulate an attack by armed saboteurs. Armed members of the National Guard unit that protects Chernobyl took part, and rehearsed repelling the attackers by force. Viter said the exercise was a success, according to a video interview posted shortly afterwards on the plant’s website. He also said he hoped Chernobyl’s security team would “not need to apply the knowledge and skills we acquired in a real-life situation.”

Viter was seconded from the SBU to work at Chernobyl as security chief in mid-2019, according to a statement he gave to investigators. In a further statement, he said that on Feb. 18 this year – six days before the Russian invasion – he went on sick leave with a respiratory problem.

By then, Russia was bolstering its troops in Belarus in preparation for an invasion, U.S. officials said at the time. Satellite images shot by U.S. satellite imagery company Maxar on Feb. 15 showed a military pontoon bridge under construction across the Pripyat River in Belarus, north of the power plant. Ukraine’s police, and the SBU, were on heightened alert in response to the Russian threat, and the national police chief said in a statement at the time that security was reinforced at the Chernobyl plant.

On the morning of the Russian invasion, Feb. 24, Viter said, in a statement to investigators, that he was at his home in Kyiv. He telephoned the head of the Chernobyl National Guard unit, who was at his post. By then, people at the plant knew a column of Russian armored vehicles was heading their way.

Viter, according to his testimony to Ukrainian investigators, told the commander, in Russian: “Spare your people.” Viter had no official authority over the National Guard, and Reuters could not determine whether the commander was heeding Viter’s words when the unit surrendered after discussions with the Russian invaders. A National Guard statement identified the unit commander as Yuriy Pindak.

When the Russian soldiers finally retreated from Chernobyl after a 36-day occupation, they took Pindak and most of his unit away as captives. Ukraine says the guards are being held in Russia or Belarus. Russian officials did not comment on the unit’s whereabouts.

Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation is conducting a probe into whether the National Guard broke the law by laying down arms, said Yuriy Fomichev, mayor of the town of Slavutych where most of the Chernobyl workers live. Fomichev said he was not aware of anyone having been charged. The State Bureau of Investigation didn’t respond to Reuters’ questions about the matter.

The National Guard declined to comment on the actions of individual commanders and members of the unit tasked with protecting Chernobyl. “Fighting on the territory of nuclear facilities is prohibited by the Geneva Convention,” it said, adding that this was “one of the reasons” why there was no heavy fighting at the site. It referred questions about any investigation to the Bureau.

Article 56 of an additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions states that nuclear power plants and other dangerous installations should not be attacked.

Viter was arrested in western Ukraine and is now in pre-trial detention there on suspicion of absenting himself from his post. An extract from the court’s register, seen by Reuters, shows that law enforcement agents have initiated a second investigation into Viter for suspected treason by “deliberately assisting the military units of the aggressor country, the Russian Federation, in carrying out subversive activities against Ukraine.” They have yet to uncover evidence tying him to Russian special services.

Viter has said in court statements that he fled Kyiv for the safety of his family two days after Chernobyl was seized but tried to stay in contact with colleagues at the plant.

His lawyer, Oleksandr Kovalenko, said Viter had a legitimate reason for being off work and was unaware that he should stay at Chernobyl. The lawyer said any treason allegation was unfounded and Viter had not been served with a letter of suspicion, a step which usually precedes charges. According to the lawyer, Viter said “Spare your people” to remind the National Guard commander that many people depended on him. Viter did not discuss surrender, Kovalenko said. He added that investigators had not asked Viter about any exchange of documents at Chernobyl.

Cash and emeralds

The extent to which Russia infiltrated Chernobyl has focused Ukrainian authorities’ attention on the SBU, the agency Viter worked for, sources said. In particular, military prosecutors on Viter’s case are interested in his connection to a former Ukrainian official called Andriy Naumov, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation and a transcript of Viter’s questioning seen by Reuters.

Previously an official in the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, by 2018 Naumov had been appointed head of COTIZ, a state enterprise responsible for estate-management of the radioactive exclusion zone around Chernobyl. A major part of COTIZ’s role was to promote “extreme tourism” in the exclusion zone, but the enterprise also had a role in keeping the site secure, according to its website.

After his stint at Chernobyl, Naumov was made the head of the SBU’s department of internal security, a division that investigates other officers suspected of criminal activity. Last year, the agency said it thwarted an assassination attempt on Naumov by other SBU officers. Naumov was later fired as department chief, according to Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda and a law enforcement source.

Naumov vanished shortly before the invasion, a person in law enforcement said. He eventually turned up in Serbia in June. A Serbian police statement issued on June 8 said police and anti-corruption agents had arrested a Ukrainian citizen identified by the initials “A.N.” on the border with North Macedonia. He had been trying to cross into North Macedonia from Serbia. A search of the BMW in which he was a passenger uncovered $124,924 and 607,990 euros in cash, plus two emeralds, the statement said. It said the individual and the unnamed driver of the BMW, who was also detained, were suspected of intending to launder the cash and emeralds, which police believe originated from criminal activities. Volodymyr Tolkach, Ukraine’s ambassador to Serbia, publicly confirmed the arrested man was Naumov.

The State Bureau of Investigation confirmed a local media report that it is conducting a pre-trial investigation into Naumov for state treason. It said it was looking into whether Naumov collected information on the security set-up at Chernobyl while working at the plant and later at the SBU and passed it to a foreign state. The statement did not say what grounds it had for suspecting he passed on secrets or if it had specific evidence linking him to Russia.

On March 31, President Zelenskyy issued a decree stripping Naumov of his brigadier-general rank. The same day, the Ukrainian president announced in an emotional address that Naumov and another SBU general were “traitors” who violated their oath of allegiance to Ukraine. Zelenskyy did not make reference to Chernobyl.

Naumov remains in detention in Serbia and could not be reached for comment. His lawyer in Serbia, Viktor Gostiljac, declined to comment. The SBU did not reply to questions about Naumov.

Decapitation

For Russia’s war planners, seizing Chernobyl was just a stepping stone to the main objective: taking control of the Ukrainian national government in Kyiv. There, too, the Kremlin expected that undercover agents in positions of power would play a crucial part, according to four sources with knowledge of the plan.

Yuriy Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s prosecutor general from 2016 until 2019, revealed to Reuters that at the time he left the role “hundreds” of Defense Ministry employees were under surveillance, approved by his office, because they were suspected of ties to the Russian state. Lutsenko said he believed there were similar numbers of suspected spies in other ministries.

Russia’s war planners were also counting on other allies to help in the takeover, five sources said.

One of the most visible loyalists was Viktor Medvedchuk, a leader of Ukraine’s Opposition Platform – For Life party. Putin is god-father to one of Medvedchuk’s children. Since 2014, Medvedchuk has been a vocal opponent of the popular protests that called for closer ties to the European Union.

Medvedchuk was charged with state treason on May 11, 2021. Investigators from the SBU alleged at the time that Medvedchuk passed secret details about Ukrainian military units to Russian officials, and intended to recruit Ukrainian agents and covertly influence Ukrainian politics. The day before the invasion, he left his home in Kyiv and was planning on leaving the country, in violation of the terms of his bail, according to the SBU.

Medvedchuk was detained on April 12, Zelenskyy announced that day. Zelenskyy immediately posted pictures of him handcuffed, in Ukrainian military fatigues and looking bedraggled. Medvedchuk has since been in detention.

Medvedchuk has denied the treason charges, saying they were falsified and part of a political plot against him. Kremlin spokesman Peskov told reporters on April 13 Medvedchuk had no back-channel communication with the Russian leadership.

Lutsenko, the former Ukraine prosecutor general, told Reuters that before the Russian invasion, Medvedchuk used an encrypted telephone that was issued to him by the Kremlin, equipment reserved only for the most senior Russian officials and pro-Russian separatist leaders. Lutsenko said Ukrainian investigators had managed to hack the encrypted phone system, without disclosing what they found.

Medvedchuk’s lawyer, Tetyana Zhukovska, declined to comment until a court has handed down a decision in the case. The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office did not comment.

Another key figure, according to three sources familiar with the Russian plans, was Oleg Tsaryov, a square-jawed 52-year-old former member of Ukraine’s parliament. He was picked by Kremlin invasion planners to lead the new interim government they planned to install, these sources said. Their comments are the first confirmation from within Russia of U.S. intelligence assessments, reported by the Financial Times earlier this year, that Moscow was considering putting Tsaryov in a leadership role in a puppet government in Kyiv.

Tsaryov has been under Ukrainian and U.S. sanctions since 2014, when, after a bid to win election as Ukrainian president collapsed, he headed up a body called “Novorossiya,” or New Russia. The group pushed the idea of turning southeastern Ukraine into a separate pro-Russian statelet. By the start of this year, he was in Russian-annexed Crimea, where he owns two hotels.

In the early hours of Feb. 24, at the start of the invasion, Tsaryov told his more than 200,000 Telegram followers he had crossed into Kyiv-controlled territory. “I’m in Ukraine. Kyiv will be free from fascists.”

But Zelenskyy did not capitulate. Any expectations in Moscow that he would flee Kyiv or negotiate a deal that would cede to Russia’s demands soon evaporated. In the weeks that followed, Ukrainian forces halted Russian troops’ advance on Kyiv.

Tsaryov never made it to the capital. On June 10, he posted an advertisement to his Telegram followers for his seaside hotel in Crimea, where a one-night stay costs 1,500 rubles ($28) per person per night. Tsaryov is now spending his time in Crimea with visits to Moscow, according to his social media posts.

Paranoia and mistrust

Russia’s campaign of infiltration did, however, stir suspicion and mistrust at some levels of the Ukrainian state, which hampered its ability to govern, especially in the first few days after the invasion.

One stark incident that fueled the tensions in Kyiv’s power corridors related to the death in early March of Denys Kirieiev, a former bank executive, several sources said. He was a member of the Ukrainian delegation that took part in short-lived talks with Russian negotiators on the Ukraine-Belarus border, starting on Feb. 28. A photograph showed Kirieiev sitting alongside Ukrainian officials at the negotiating table.

An advisor to the Zelenskyy administration said, in an online interview, that officers from the SBU shot Kirieiev while trying to arrest him as a Russian spy.

But Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Agency said Kirieiev was its employee and intelligence officer, and that he died a hero while conducting an unspecified special assignment defending Ukraine. A source close to the Ukrainian military told Reuters that Kirieiev was indeed a spy working for Ukraine. He had access to the highest levels of the Russian leadership, this source said, and was feeding back valuable information on invasion plans and other matters to his handlers in Kyiv.

Amid the chaos early in the war, Bakanov, then the head of the SBU, left Kyiv for at least three days after the Russian invasion, according to three people in Ukrainian law enforcement. Two of these people said some SBU staff recounted they were unable to reach Bakanov for several days after Russia invaded. In suspending Bakanov on July 17, Zelenskyy cited an article in Ukraine’s Armed Forces statute, under which servicemen can be relieved of their duties for improper conduct leading to casualties or a threat of casualties.

Bakanov and the SBU did not respond to Reuters’ questions.

Zelenskyy, in his speech, stressed the toll Russian infiltration was taking on his embattled country by speaking of the numerous officials who have been accused of betraying Ukraine.

“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state … poses very serious questions to the relevant leaders,” Zelenskyy said.

“Each of these questions will receive a proper answer.”
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