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Voters in Scotland remain evenly split over supporting independence from the rest of Britain, a poll published by the Sunday Times showed, days after the Scottish government set out plans for a referendum on the subject next year.

Last week, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon announced plans for a second independence referendum to be held in October 2023 and vowed to take legal action if the British government blocks it.

The Panelbase survey showed 48% of respondents were in favor of independence, 47% were opposed and 5% did not know. A previous online Panelbase poll in April had 47% in favor and 49% against.

The latest results were based on a sample size of 1,010 people.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ruling Conservative Party strongly oppose a referendum, saying the issue was settled in 2014 when Scots voted against independence by 55% to 45%.

Other polls in 2022 vary, with some showing a similar split to the 2014 result, and others showing the gap narrowing.

 

 
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Blasts Sunday in a Russian city bordering Ukraine have killed at least three people, Russian officials said.

Dozens of residential buildings were damaged in the explosions in Belgorod. Russian lawmaker Andrei Klishas has called for a military response to the blasts.

“The death of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Belgorod,” Klishas posted on Telegram, “are a direct act of aggression on the part of Ukraine and require the most severe — including a military — response.”

Ukrainian officials have traditionally said very little about attacks on Russia.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the occupied Ukraine city of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, said on Telegram that Ukraine had hit one of four Russian military bases in the occupied territory.

Heavy fighting raged in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region Saturday as Russian forces increased their bombardment of the city of Lysychansk. Russia is targeting the area as its military looks to push deeper into the industrial region, which has become the focus of its latest offensive since failing to capture Kyiv after its Feb. 24 invasion.

Ukrainian separatists backed by Russia said they had encircled the city.

“Today the Lugansk popular militia and Russian forces occupied the last strategic heights, which allows us to confirm that Lysychansk is completely encircled,” Andrei Marotchko, a representative for the separatist forces, told Tass.

Hours after that statement, the Ukrainian army denied Lysychansk had been surrounded, but said heavy fighting was ongoing on the outskirts of the city.

“Now there are fierce battles near Lysychansk, however, fortunately, the city is not surrounded and is under the control of the Ukrainian army,” Ukraine National Guard representative Ruslan Muzychuk told Ukrainian national television, according to Reuters.

“Definitely they are trying to demoralize us,” a Ukrainian soldier returning from Lysychansk told Reuters. “Maybe some people are affected by that, but for us it only brings more hatred and determination.”

Russian forces seized Lysychansk’s sister city, Sievierodonetsk, last month, after some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

In his nightly television address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to maintain their resolve and inflict losses on the “aggressor … so that every Russian remembers that Ukraine cannot be broken.”

“In many areas from the front, there is a sense of easing up, but the war is not over,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is intensifying in different places, and we mustn’t forget that. We must help the army, the volunteers, help those who are left on their own at this time.”

Along with the Lysychansk and Bakhmut areas, the Kharkiv region is seeing some of the front line’s worst fighting. Four people were killed, and three others were wounded in shelling in Izium and Chuguiv, two districts of the northeastern Kharkiv region, according to Oleg Synegubov, Kharkiv chief of district. Russian rockets also struck residential properties in Sloviansk, killing a woman in her garden and wounding her husband, according to a neighbor who spoke with Agence France-Presse.

In Kharkiv, missiles hit some railway infrastructure, but no casualties were reported. The strike damaged railroad tracks and knocked down high voltage power lines.

“After Russian rockets hit at 4 in the morning, the power grid and three high-voltage lines powering traffic lights and [a] substation are damaged,” Pavlo Svistelnikov, manager of the regional power grid, told Reuters. Russian forces have been pounding the city for over a week, killing civilians and hitting apartment buildings and schools, regional authorities said.

The mayor of the southern region of Mykolaiv, which borders the vital Black Sea port of Odesa, reported powerful explosions in the city.

Russia later said it had hit army command posts in the area, but Reuters could not independently verify that report.

After a missile struck an apartment building in Odesa on Friday, Zelenskyy accused Russia of state terror.

“I emphasize, this is an act of deliberate, purposeful Russian terror and not some kind of mistake or an accidental missile strike,” Zelenskyy said. The death toll in that Odesa strike has risen to 21.

Ukrainian military officials said at least 50 civilians have been killed by Russian rocket and missile attacks this week, including 19 killed Monday in a mall in Kremenchuk.

Zelenskyy’s comments came as Ukrainian authorities released video Saturday of Russian fighter jets bombing Snake Island a day after Russia said it had retreated from the island on humanitarian grounds.

Russia also launched new bus service from Crimea to newly seized cities in the eastern sections of Ukraine.

As the war continues the United States announced details of $820 million in additional military aid for Ukraine, including new surface-to-air missile systems and counter-artillery radar.

The 14th U.S. package of military aid includes two air defense systems, known as NASAMS, which can help Ukrainian forces defend against cruise missiles and aircraft.

The latest aid package is designed to help Ukraine counter Russia’s use of long-range missiles and follows calls by Ukrainian officials for Western countries to send more advanced weapons systems that can better match Moscow’s equipment.

A senior U.S. official said the systems are NATO-standard defense systems and are part of an effort to update Ukraine’s air defenses from a Soviet-era system to a modern one.

Among other things, the latest military aid package provides Ukrainians with medium-range rocket systems the United States provided Ukraine in June.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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As Russia’s military continues to pound Ukraine with missiles and other lethal weapons, Western nations have responded in part by targeting Russia’s defense industry with sanctions. The latest round came on Tuesday, when the United States issued new sanctions on some arms makers and executives at the heart of what it dubbed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war machine.”

But a Reuters examination of companies, executives and investors underpinning Russia’s defense sector shows a sizable number of players have yet to pay a price: Nearly three dozen leaders of Russian weapons firms and at least 14 defense companies have not been sanctioned by the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom. In addition, sanctions on Russia’s arms makers and tycoons have been applied inconsistently by these NATO allies, with some governments levying penalties and others not, the Reuters review showed.

Among the weapons moguls who have not been sanctioned by any of those three authorities is Alan Lushnikov, the largest shareholder of Kalashnikov Concern JSC, the original manufacturer of the well-known AK-47 assault rifle. Lushnikov owns a 75% stake in the firm, according to the most recent business records reviewed by Reuters.

The company itself was sanctioned by the United States in 2014, the year Russia invaded and annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. The EU and UK leveled their own sanctions against Kalashnikov Concern this year.

The company accounts for 95% of Russia’s production of machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols and other handheld firearms, and 98% of its handheld military machine guns, according to its website and most recent annual report. Its weapons include the AK-12 assault rifle, an updated version of the AK-47, some of which have been captured from Russian forces by Ukrainian soldiers. The Kalashnikov Concern also produces missiles that can be fired from aircraft or on land.

A former Russian deputy transport minister, Lushnikov once worked for commodities tycoon Gennady Timchenko, a longtime friend of Putin. The United States sanctioned Timchenko in 2014 following Russia’s invasion of Crimea, naming him as a member of the Kremlin’s “inner circle.”

Neither Lushnikov, Timchenko or the Kalashnikov Concern responded to requests for comment.

It’s the same pattern with Almaz-Antey Concern, a Moscow-based defense company specializing in missiles and anti-aircraft systems. The company has been sanctioned by the United States, EU and UK, but CEO Yan Novikov has not been punished.

Almaz-Antey’s website displays the motto “Peaceful Sky is Our Profession.” The company makes Kalibr missiles, which Russia’s Ministry of Defense has credited with destroying Ukrainian military installations. In a statement last month, the ministry said Russia had fired long-range Kalibr missiles at a Ukrainian command post near the village of Shyroka Dacha in eastern Ukraine, killing what the ministry claimed were more than 50 generals and officers of the Ukrainian military.

Reuters was unable to independently verify that claim.

Neither Almaz-Antey nor CEO Novikov responded to requests for comment.

In response to a list of questions submitted by Reuters about Western sanctions aimed at Russia, a Kremlin spokesperson said “the consistency and logic of imposing sanctions, as well as the legality of imposing such restrictions, is a question that should be put directly to the countries that introduced them.”

The Reuters findings come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that current Western sanctions against Russia “are not enough” as Russian troops make gains in their assault on Ukraine’s eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

The Ukrainian military has been outgunned by Russian artillery in places such as the industrial city of Sievierodonetsk, which it ceded to Russian forces last week after weeks of intense fighting.

Putin has portrayed his military’s assault on Ukraine as a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” its democratic neighbor. On Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced it would bar Jill Biden and Ashley Biden, the wife and daughter of U.S. President Joe Biden, from entering Russia indefinitely in what it said was a response to “constantly expanding U.S. sanctions against Russian politicians and public figures.”

U.S. National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Russia’s action was not surprising because “the Russian capacity for these kinds of cynical moves is basically bottomless.”

The Russian invasion has killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, but the exact number is unknown. The United Nations human rights office said, as of Monday, that 4,731 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24, including more than 300 children, with another 5,900 civilians injured in the conflict. The agency said most of the casualties were caused by the use of “explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” and that the actual number of dead and wounded was likely far higher.

The West has levied sanctions on a swath of Russia’s economy to punish Moscow, an effort that so far has done little to deter the Russian offensive. Like the bans on other Russian firms, sanctions on weapons companies are meant to hamper their ability to sell to foreign customers. These penalties limit their access to imported components and generally make it more costly and time-consuming to produce weaponry. Levying sanctions on the people behind those firms goes a step further to make the pain personal. It allows Western nations to go after any mansions, yachts and other offshore wealth of those who supply Russia’s military, and it limits where they can travel abroad.

“You’re demonstrating that being a regime collaborator comes with a cost,” said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official during the Obama administration who worked on U.S. arms transfers and safeguarding U.S. military technology. “They feel it very personally. You’re creating a disgruntled class of people that are tied to the Kremlin,” said Bergmann, now director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based national security think tank.

Ammunition makers unscathed

Other companies in Russia’s defense industry identified by Reuters that have not been sanctioned by the United States, EU or UK include the V.A. Degtyarev PlantZDEGI.MM, a facility 165 miles northeast of Moscow that makes machine guns, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons that are sold to the Russian military. Its weapons include the Kalashnikov PKM and PKTM machine guns, as well as Kord rifles and machine guns, some of which are mounted on armored vehicles.

The Degtyarev Plant did not respond to a request for comment.

Also not sanctioned is the Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant, south of Moscow, where “world-famous cartridges” for pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles are produced, according to an archived version of its website. Neither is the Novosibirsk Cartridge Plant, an ammunition manufacturer that calls itself “one of the leading engineering enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Russia.”

Neither ammunition plant responded to requests for comment.

Last month, Reuters sought comments from sanctions officials in the UK, EU and United States regarding the news agency’s findings that they had failed to punish a raft of Russian defense firms and tycoons fueling Putin’s war effort. As part of that process, Reuters provided those Western authorities with a detailed list of more than 20 companies and more than three-dozen people that had escaped sanctions.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which levies sanctions for Britain, said it could not comment on future sanctions. It added that London and its allies had levied “the largest and most severe economic sanctions that Russia has ever faced, to help cripple Putin’s war machine.” The European Commission and the U.S. Treasury Department, which handle sanctions for Brussels and Washington respectively, declined to comment on the specifics of Reuters’ findings. Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury Department, said in a statement that sanctions have “made it harder for Russia to obtain what it needs to procure and produce weapons.”

On Tuesday, in conjunction with a meeting of leaders of the G7 nations in the German Alps, the Treasury Department released a new round of defense-related sanctions that included eight of the weapons firms and two of the executives on the list provided earlier by Reuters.

One of those newly sanctioned executives, Vladimir Artyakov, has played key roles in Russia’s weapons industry for decades, and serves as the No. 2 executive at Rostec, a military-industrial giant with hundreds of subsidiaries employing more than half a million people, according to its website and annual reports. Artyakov is also the chairman of at least five Russian weapons firms, among them Russian Helicopters JSC, which builds several lines of military helicopters including the Ka-52 “Alligator,” some of which have been shot down and documented in Ukraine.

He has not been sanctioned by the EU or UK.

Artyakov and Russian Helicopters did not respond to requests for comment.

Rostec has been sanctioned by Washington since 2014. On Tuesday the United States targeted the company again, levying sanctions on more than 40 Rostec subsidiaries and affiliates. Among those hit was Avtomatika Concern, a company linked to cyber warfare. It was on the list of Russian defense firms that Reuters had submitted to the Treasury Department last month seeking an explanation as to why the companies had not been sanctioned.

Rostec and Avtomatika Concern did not respond to requests for comment.

Other firms on Reuters’ list that were sanctioned just this week by the Treasury Department include PJSC Tupolev, a maker of fighter jets such as the Tu-22M3 bomber. The Ukrainian military said Tu-22M3 bombers were responsible for a missile strike at a crowded shopping center in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, which killed at least 18 people and injured about 60.

PJSC Tupolev and another firm on Reuters’ list, JSC VNII Signal, have not been sanctioned by the EU or UK. JSC VNII Signal is a producer of mechanical and navigational systems that power Russian military tanks and some of the country’s most advanced missile systems.

PJSC Tupolev and JSC VNII Signal did not respond to requests for comment.

Top brass untouched

Executives at a host of Russian weapons firms, meanwhile, have largely escaped sanctions from Western authorities.

Nearly three months after a Tochka-U ballistic missile hit a train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk on April 8, Russian weapons executives linked to the company that makes those missiles have yet to pay a price. The strike killed more than 50 people, including children, and injured more than 100 others.

The Russian firm JSC Research and Production Corporation Konstruktorskoye Byuro Mashynostroyeniya, known as KBM, has been the primary manufacturer of Tochka-U missiles, according to a U.S. Army database of worldwide military equipment. Neither Washington, Brussels or London have sanctioned Sergey Pitikov, KBM’s chief executive.

The three Western allies have likewise spared Alexander Denisov, the CEO of NPO High Precision Systems, KBM’s parent company. High Precision Systems oversees production of a wide range of missiles, artillery, grenade launchers and machine guns used by Russian troops and outfitted on military helicopters, aircraft, tanks and warships.

Sanctions on Russia’s arms companies and tycoons have been applied inconsistently by the Western allies. The United States and EU have sanctioned High Precision Systems, for example, while the UK has not. The United States has sanctioned KBM, but the EU and UK have not.

High Precision Systems, Pitikov and Denisov did not respond to requests for comment. KBM confirmed that Pitikov is its chief executive, but did not respond to additional questions submitted by Reuters.

Europe and the United States have failed to coordinate sanctions even on makers of banned weapons.

Since the outset of Russia’s invasion in late February, Western governments and human rights groups have decried its use of cluster munitions: small bombs delivered by missiles or rockets, which scatter and explode over an area as large as a city block. A 2008 international treaty bans their use or production under any circumstances because of the devastating effects on civilians.

Russia used a Uragan – which translates to “Hurricane” – rocket launcher system to fire cluster bombs in Kharkiv on March 24, killing eight civilians and injuring 15 others, according to the U.N. human rights office and Ukrainian officials.

The Uragan is made by JSC Scientific and Production Association Splav, a Russian firm whose systems have been sold abroad to countries including India. The company has been sanctioned by the United States, but not by the UK or EU. Its CEO, Alexander Smirnov, has escaped sanctions altogether.

Splav and Smirnov did not respond to requests for comment.

It’s much the same for Splav’s parent company, NPK Techmash. The United States and the EU have sanctioned the firm, but the UK has not. Techmash CEO Alexander Kochkin has not been targeted by American or European authorities.

Techmash and Kochkin did not respond to requests for comment.

In a June 10 statement, the European Commission said there is an effort to align sanctions lists “as much as legally possible” among allies to achieve “the maximum cumulative effect of the sanctions with all our like-minded partners.” In cases where the lists do not align, the Commission statement said, people and companies not currently on the EU’s sanctions list could be added later if there is sufficient evidence.

“Nothing is off the table,” the statement said.

Western connections

One of the highest-profile Russian firms to escape Western sanctions is VSMPO-Avisma CorpVSMO.MM, which is the world’s largest titanium supplier and 25% owned by Rostec. It supplies Russia’s defense industry, but also counts major Western aerospace companies among its clients.

Based in Verkhnyaya Salda, in central Russia, VSMPO-Avisma has subsidiaries with facilities in the United States, Switzerland and the UK, as well as sales and distribution staff in the United States, Europe and Asia, according to its website and annual reports. That’s no doubt a factor that has allowed the company to escape punishment, according to three sanctions and Russian defense experts who spoke with Reuters.

VSMPO-Avisma’s vice chairman and majority shareholder, Russian billionaire Mikhail Shelkov, ranked by Forbes this year as Russia’s 59th-richest person, likewise has not been sanctioned.

According to past press releases, VSMPO-Avisma has long-term contracts to supply titanium to United Aircraft Corp, a Rostec subsidiary that oversees production of Russian fighter jets such as the Su-34 that have been shot down in Ukraine. United Aircraft has been sanctioned by the United States, EU and UK.

VSMPO-Avisma also sells to Europe’s AirbusAIR.PA, and it supplied U.S. aerospace behemoth Boeing CoBA.N up until March, when the Arlington, Virginia-based company said it stopped purchasing titanium from Russia. Boeing had announced just months earlier, in November 2021, that VSMPO-Avisma would be its largest titanium supplier “for current and future Boeing commercial airplanes.”

VSMPO-Avisma and shareholder Shelkov declined to comment. Boeing said in a statement that it has worked since 2014 to diversify its sources of titanium around the world, and that its current inventory and sources “provide sufficient supply for airplane production.”

Airbus did not answer specific questions about its relationship with VSMPO-Avisma. But in an emailed statement it said potential sanctions on Russian titanium “would massively damage the entire aerospace industry in Europe” while doing little to harm Russia because those sales are but a small portion of that nation’s overall exports.

In 2020, foreign sales accounted for about two-thirds of VSMPO-Avisma’s $1.25 billion in revenue, according to the company’s most recent annual report.

That puts Western officials in a tough spot, said Richard Connolly, director of Eastern Advisory Group, a UK consultancy that advises governments and businesses on the Russian economy and its defense industry. Slapping sanctions on VSMPO-Avisma would curtail its lucrative export trade, but it would also force major players in global aviation to switch suppliers or risk sanctions themselves.

“That’s the classic sanctions conundrum: If you want to hurt somebody, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Connolly said.
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Ukrainian-born Karina Lipsman is running for a seat in the US House. VOA’s Yurii Mamon has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Kostiantyn Golubchyk
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The leader of an extremist Norwegian anti-Islamic group was in a spectacular car chase and collision Saturday, minutes after burning a Quran on the outskirts of Oslo.

Norwegian police said they arrested two people, including the driver of a car accused of deliberately ramming the SUV of Lars Thorsen, leader of the radical group “Stop the Islamization of Norway” (SIAN).

The five passengers in the SUV were slightly injured, with one requiring hospital treatment, police said.

A video posted on Facebook showed Thorsen and other activists first drove to Mortensrud, a suburb of Oslo with a large Muslim community.

The handful of activists then placed a burning Quran in the middle of a small intersection, initially managing to push back local people who tried to put out the flames.

An angry crowd gathered, including one woman who grabbed the charred book before climbing into a gray Mercedes.

The SUV of the anti-Islam activists, painted in camouflage livery, then left the scene. But seconds later, it was overtaken by the Mercedes, which first hit it lightly and eventually hit it at speed, overturning the vehicle.

The whole episode was filmed by someone following the car.

The incident came a week after a gunman killed two people and wounded 21 others in central Oslo.

Norway’s domestic intelligence service has described the attack as “an act of Islamist terrorism.”

Scandinavian far-right anti-Islam activists have made a specialty of burning Qurans in neighborhoods with large Muslim populations in recent years.
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London Saturday celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first Pride parade, marking half a century of progress in the fight for equality and tolerance but with warnings that more still needs to be done. 

Several hundred people took part in the first march July 1, 1972, just five years after homosexuality was decriminalized in the U.K. 

Fifty years on, more than 600 LGBTQ+ groups danced, sang and rode floats along a similar route to the original protest, in the first Pride since the coronavirus pandemic, watched by huge cheering crowds. 

London Mayor Sadiq Khan told reporters the event, which organizers said was the “biggest and most inclusive” in its history, was a celebration of community, unity and progress. 

But he said it was also a reminder of the need to “campaign and never be complacent” and the need for “an open, inclusive, accepting world.” 

“We saw this time last week an attack in Oslo just hours before that parade, where two people lost their lives and more than 20 were injured,” he said. 

“So, we’ve got to be conscious of the fact that there’s still a danger to this community of discrimination, bias and violence.” 

Khan’s predecessor as mayor, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said it gave him “the greatest pride to lead a country where you can love whomever you choose to love and where you can be free to be whoever you want to be.” 

The 50th anniversary was a “milestone,” he said, paying tribute to the bravery of those who did it first. 

Peter Tatchell, a veteran gay rights campaigner who took part in the 1972 march, said some from the original event have boycotted the modern-day sponsored version as “depoliticized and commercialized.” 

Campaigning 

In 1972, “Gay Pride,” as it was then known, was a demand for visibility and equality against a backdrop of lingering prejudice, discrimination and fear among many gay men and women about coming out. 

In the 1980s, Pride became a focal point for campaigning against legislation by prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government against the “promotion of homosexuality” in schools. 

It also helped to raise awareness and support for people with HIV/Aids. 

Now, with the rainbow flag of inclusion and tolerance spread ever more widely over the spectrum of human sexuality and gender, Pride in London is more celebration than protest. 

Tatchell said that despite victories such as same-sex marriage, “we are still fighting to ban LGBT+ conversion practices which seek to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” 

“We’re still fighting to secure trans people’s right to change their legal documents with ease by a simple statutory declaration. And of course, we are standing in solidarity with a global LGBT+ movement,” he told AFP. 

Julian Hows, now 67, was at the first march. He said, “progress is always incremental,” criticizing curbs on LGBTQ+ rights around the world. 

“We have to be vigilant. The price of liberation and to keeping people’s human rights intact is vigilance,” he added. 

 

Visibility 

Padraigin Ni Raghillig, president of Dykes on Bikes London, a motorcycle club for gay women, said the event retained part of its original campaigning spirit. 

“It’s still important, I think, to at least once a year to be out and about, and to say, ‘we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going shopping,'” said Ni Raghillig, astride a Harley Davidson. 

Among those marching was a contingent from Ukraine, who criticized homophobia in Russia.  

This year’s Pride saw warnings for people with monkeypox symptoms to stay away, after public health officials said many cases in the U.K. were reported among gay and bisexual men. 

LGBTQ+ campaign group Stonewall said everyone had a part to play to stop the spread of monkeypox, which is passed through close contact regardless of sexual orientation.  
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Several dozen Romanian and Bulgarian firefighters took up their posts in Greece on Saturday, the first members of a European force being deployed to the country to provide backup in case of major wildfires during the summer.  

More than 200 firefighters and equipment from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Romania, Norway and Finland will be on standby during the hottest months of July and August in Greece, where a spate of wildfires caused devastation last summer. A group of 28 Romanian firefighters with eight vehicles, and 16 firefighters from Bulgaria with four vehicles, were the first to arrive for the two-month mission, financed and coordinated  under the European Union’s civil protection mechanism.

“We thank you very much for coming to help us during a difficult summer for our country, and for proving that European solidarity is not just theoretical, it’s real,” Greek Civil Protection Minister Christos Stylianides said Saturday as he welcomed the members of the Romanian mission in Athens.

“When things get tough, you will be side by side with our Greek firefighters so we can save lives and property.”

The Bulgarian firefighters have been stationed in Larissa, in central Greece.

Last summer’s wildfires ravaged about 121,000 hectares of forest and bushland in different parts of Greece as the country experienced its worst heatwave in 30 years.

Following sharp criticism of its response to the fires, the Greek government set up a new civil protection ministry and promised to boost firefighting capacities.

In Greece’s worst wildfire disaster, 102 people were killed when a blaze tore through the seaside town of Mati and nearby areas close to Athens during the summer of 2018.
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The United States announced details Friday of $820 million in additional military aid for Ukraine, including new surface-to-air missile systems and counter-artillery radar.

The latest aid package is designed to help Ukraine counter Russia’s use of long-range missiles and follows calls by Ukrainian officials for Western countries to send more advanced weapons systems that can better match Moscow’s equipment.

The Pentagon said Friday the Biden administration has now sent $7.6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine, including nearly $7 billion since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February.

U.S. President Joe Biden said at a news conference during this week’s NATO summit in Madrid that the United States is “going to support Ukraine as long as it takes.”

The 14th U.S. package of military aid for Ukraine include two air defense systems, known as NASAMS, which can help Ukrainian forces defend against cruise missiles and aircraft.

A senior U.S. official said the systems are NATO-standard defense systems and are part of an effort to update Ukraine’s air defenses from a Soviet-era system to a modern one.

“The Ukrainians are doing a magnificent job of employing their existing air defense systems, but we all know that Soviet-type systems means that it’s Russian made … so over time it will be harder to sustain with the spare parts,” the official said.

The latest military aid package also provides Ukrainians with up to 150,000 rounds of 155-millimeter artillery ammunition as well as additional ammunition for medium-range rocket systems the United States provided Ukraine in June.

On the battlefront Friday, at least 21 people were killed and dozens injured in Russian missile strikes in Ukraine’s Odesa region. At least one of the sites that were hit was a residential building. Ukrainian military officials said two children were among the dead, and the search for survivors is ongoing.

The missile struck the nine-story building in the town of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, according to a Ukraine Defense Ministry statement.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa regional administration, said on Ukrainian state television that a rescue operation continues to free people buried under the rubble after a section of the building collapsed.  Another missile hit a resort facility, Bratchuk said, wounding several people.

Russia has denied targeting civilians in the attack.

“I would like to remind you of the president’s words that the Russian Armed Forces do not work with civilian targets,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff accused Russia of waging a war on civilians.

In his nightly video address Friday, Zelenskyy called the strikes “conscious, deliberately targeted Russian terror and not some sort of error or a coincidental missile strike.”

Friday’s missile attack in Odesa came hours after Russia said it had pulled its forces from Ukraine’s Snake Island on Thursday. The strategic island had become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since Moscow’s invasion four months ago.

Russia had used the Black Sea island near Odesa as a staging ground after seizing it in the early stages of the war, launching attacks on Ukraine from it and monitoring shipments from Ukrainian ports.

Ukraine confirmed Russian forces had pulled out after Ukrainian forces hit the island with missile and artillery strikes overnight, leaving the remaining Russian forces to escape in two speedboats.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed it had left the small island “as a symbol of goodwill” after completing its mission there.

A senior U.S. official said the United States does “not believe there is any credence to what Russia is saying, that this is a gesture of goodwill.” The official said the retreat was more about Ukraine’s efforts to defend the island and Kyiv’s use of weapons like harpoon missiles.

“The Ukrainians made it very hard for the Russians to sustain their operations there, made them very vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes,” the official said.

In other developments, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Ukraine’s parliament that EU membership was “within reach” but urged them to press forward with anti-corruption reforms.

“You have created an impressive anti-corruption machine,” she told the lawmakers by video link Friday. Von der Leyen stressed that Brussels and the EU member states were firmly behind Ukraine in both its battle with the ongoing Russian invasion and the quest to be “reunited with our European family.”

For his part Zelenskyy said Ukraine and the European Union were starting a new chapter of their history after Brussels formally accepted Ukraine’s candidacy to join the 27-nation bloc.

“We made a journey of 115 days to candidate status and our journey to membership shouldn’t take decades. We should make it down this road quickly,” Zelenskyy said.

At the NATO meeting in Madrid, Western leaders, including Biden, proclaimed their continued military and humanitarian support for Ukraine.

Norway announced $1 billion in aid to Ukraine over two years, as Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store visited the country.

The fund is for “humanitarian aid, reconstruction of the country, weapons and operational support to the (Ukrainian) authorities,” the Norwegian government said in a statement Friday.

“We stand together with the Ukrainian people,” Store said in the statement.

“We help support the Ukrainians’ struggle for freedom. They are fighting for their country, but also for our democratic values.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The World Health Organization’s Europe chief warned Friday that monkeypox cases in the region have tripled in the past two weeks and urged countries to do more to ensure the previously rare disease does not become entrenched on the continent.

And African health authorities said they are treating the expanding monkeypox outbreak as an emergency, calling on rich countries to share limited supplies of vaccines to avoid equity problems seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

WHO Europe chief Dr. Hans Kluge said in a statement that increased efforts were needed despite the U.N. health agency’s decision last week that the escalating outbreak did not yet warrant being declared a global health emergency.

“Urgent and coordinated action is imperative if we are to turn a corner in the race to reverse the ongoing spread of this disease,” Kluge said.

To date, more than 5,000 monkeypox cases have been reported from 51 countries worldwide that don’t normally report the disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kluge said the number of infections in Europe represents about 90% of the global total, with 31 countries in the WHO’s European region having identified cases.

Kluge said data reported to the WHO show that 99% of cases have been in men — the majority in men who have sex with men. But he said there were now “small numbers” of cases among household contacts, including children. Most people reported symptoms including a rash, fever, fatigue, muscle pain, vomiting and chills.

Scientists warn that anyone who is in close physical contact with someone who has monkeypox or their clothing or bedsheets is at risk of infection. Vulnerable populations such as children and pregnant women are thought more likely to suffer severe disease.

About 10% of patients were hospitalized for treatment or to be isolated, and one person was admitted to an intensive care unit. No deaths have been reported.

Kluge said the problem of stigmatization in some countries might make some people wary of seeking health care and said the WHO was working with partners including organizers of gay pride events.

In the U.K., which has the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa, officials have noted the disease is spreading in “defined sexual networks of gay, bisexual, or men who have sex with men.” British health authorities said there were no signs suggesting sustained transmission beyond those populations.

A leading WHO adviser said in May that the spike in cases in Europe was likely tied to sexual activity by men at two rave parties in Spain and Belgium.

Ahead of gay pride events in the U.K. this weekend, London’s top public health doctor asked people with symptoms of monkeypox, like swollen glands or blisters, to stay home.

Nevertheless, in Africa the WHO says that according to detailed data from Ghana monkeypox cases were almost evenly split between men and women, and no spread has been detected among men who have sex with men.

WHO Europe director Kluge also said the procurement of vaccines “must apply the principles of equity.”

The main vaccine being used against monkeypox was originally developed for smallpox and the European Medicines Agency said this week it was beginning to evaluate whether it should be authorized for monkeypox. The WHO has said supplies of the vaccine, made by Bavarian Nordic, are extremely limited.

Countries including the U.K. and Germany have already begun vaccinating people at high risk of monkeypox; the U.K. recently widened its immunization program to mostly gay and bisexual men who have multiple sexual partners and are thought to be most vulnerable.

Until May, monkeypox had never been known to cause large outbreaks beyond parts of central and west Africa, where it’s been sickening people for decades, is endemic in several countries and mostly causes limited outbreaks when it jumps to people from infected wild animals.

To date, there have been about 1,800 suspected monkeypox cases in Africa, including more than 70 deaths, but only 109 have been lab-confirmed. The lack of laboratory diagnosis and weak surveillance means many cases are going undetected.

“This particular outbreak for us means an emergency,” said Ahmed Ogwell, the acting director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control.

The WHO says monkeypox has spread to African countries where it hasn’t previously been seen, including South Africa, Ghana and Morocco. But more than 90% of the continent’s infections are in Congo and Nigeria, according to WHO Africa director, Dr. Moeti Matshidiso.

Vaccines have never been used to stop monkeypox outbreaks in Africa; officials have relied mostly on contact tracing and isolation.

The WHO noted that similar to the scramble last year for COVID-19 vaccines, countries with supplies of vaccines for monkeypox are not yet sharing them with Africa.

“We do not have any donations that have been offered to (poorer) countries,” said Fiona Braka, who heads the WHO emergency response team in Africa. “We know that those countries that have some stocks, they are mainly reserving them for their own populations.”

Matshidiso said the WHO was in talks with manufacturers and countries with stockpiles to see if they might be shared.

“We would like to see the global spotlight on monkeypox act as a catalyst to beat this disease once and for all in Africa,” she said Thursday.
…

WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange has appealed to the High Court in London to block his extradition to the United States to face criminal charges, his brother said on Friday, the latest step in his legal battle that has dragged on for more than a decade.

Assange, 50, is wanted by U.S. authorities on 18 counts, including a spying charge, relating to WikiLeaks’ release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which Washington said had put lives in danger.

Last month, Home Secretary Priti Patel approved his extradition, with her office saying British courts had concluded his extradition would not be incompatible with his human rights, and that he would be treated appropriately.

Australian-born Assange’s legal team have lodged an appeal against that decision at the High Court, his brother Gabriel Shipton confirmed. The court must give its approval for the appeal to be heard, but it is likely the legal case will take months to conclude.

“We also urge the Australian government to intervene immediately in the case to end this nightmare,” Shipton told Reuters.

The saga began at the end of 2010 when Sweden sought Assange’s extradition from Britain over allegations of sex crimes. When he lost that case in 2012, he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he spent seven years.

When he was finally dragged out in April 2019, he was jailed for breaching British bail conditions although the Swedish case against him had been dropped. He has been fighting extradition to the United States since June 2019 and remains in jail.

“We’re going to fight this. We’re going to use every appeal avenue,” his wife Stella Assange told reporters after Patel approved his extradition.
…

As Ukrainians seek refuge in any way they can – inside and outside Ukraine – many take their pets with them wherever they go. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has handed full control over a major oil and natural gas project partly owned by Shell and two Japanese companies to a newly created Russian firm, a bold move amid spiraling tensions with the West over Moscow’s military action in Ukraine.

Putin’s decree late Thursday orders the creation of a new company that would take over ownership of Sakhalin Energy Investment Co., which is nearly 50% controlled by British energy giant Shell and Japan-based Mitsui and Mitsubishi.

Putin’s order named “threats to Russia’s national interests and its economic security” as the reason for the move at Sakhalin-2, one of the world’s largest export-oriented oil and natural gas projects.

The presidential order gives the foreign firms a month to decide if they want to retain the same shares in the new company.

Russian state-controlled natural gas giant Gazprom had a controlling stake in Sakhalin-2, the country’s first offshore gas project that accounts for about 4% of the world’s market for liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Japan, South Korea and China are the main customers for the project’s oil and LNG exports.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that there is no reason to expect a shutdown of supplies following Putin’s order.

Shell held a 27.5% stake in the project. After the start of the Russian military action in Ukraine, Shell announced its decision to pull out of all of its Russian investments, a move that it said has cost at least $5 billion. The company also holds 50% stakes in two other joint ventures with Gazprom to develop oil fields.

Shell said Friday that it’s studying Putin’s order, which has thrown its investment in the joint venture into doubt.

“As a shareholder, Shell has always acted in the best interests of Sakhalin-2 and in accordance with all applicable legal requirements,” the company said in a statement. “We are aware of the decree and are assessing its implications.”

Seiji Kihara, deputy chief secretary of the Japanese cabinet, said the government was aware of Putin’s decree and was reviewing its impact. Japan-based Mitsui owns 12.5% of the project, and Mitsubishi holds 10%.

Kihara emphasized that the project should not be undermined because it “is pertinent to Japan’s energy security,” adding that “anything that harms our resource rights is unacceptable.”

“We are scrutinizing Russia’s intentions and the background behind this,” he told reporters Friday at a twice-daily news briefing. “We are looking into the details, and for future steps, I don’t have any prediction for you at this point.”

Asked during a conference call with reporters if Putin’s move with Sakhalin-2 could herald a similar action against other joint ventures involving foreign shareholders, Peskov said, “There can’t be any general rule here.” He added that “each case will be considered separately.”

Sakhalin-2 includes three offshore platforms, an onshore processing facility, 300 kilometers of offshore pipelines, 1,600 kilometers of onshore pipelines, an oil export terminal and an LNG plant.
…

Elon Musk’s deployment of thousands of Starlink satellite internet terminals to Ukraine has been a major help for the country in its fight against Russia. VOA’s Russia Service has the story.
…

The trial of professional women’s basketball player Brittney Griner is set to begin Friday in a Russian courtroom.

The WNBA star has been detained in Russia for more than four months and is facing 10 years in prison on drug smuggling charges.

At the time of her arrest in February, customs officials say the Olympic gold medalist was in possession of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil, an illegal substance in Russia.

Political analysts say Griner’s arrest and trial could not have happened at a worse time. Arrested just a few days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many people believe that Griner has become a political pawn between the United States and Russia.
…

Indonesia’s president ended a trip to Ukraine and Russia saying he hoped for progress reintegrating global food and fertilizer supply lines disrupted by the conflict, and he offered to be a diplomatic bridge between the two nations.

President Joko Widodo, who is the G-20 president this year, was speaking at a news conference alongside his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin after a bilateral meeting in Moscow on Thursday.

His trip followed a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I really appreciate President Putin who said earlier that he will provide security guarantee for food and fertilizer supplies from both Russia and Ukraine. This is good news,” said the Indonesian president, who is widely known as Jokowi.

“For the sake of humanity, I also support the United Nations’ efforts to reintegrate Russian food and fertilizer commodities and Ukrainian food commodities to reenter the world supply chain,” he said.

Jokowi said he had urged leaders of the G-7 during a meeting he attended in Germany this week to ensure sanctions on Russia did not affect food and fertilizer supplies.

The war in Ukraine has caused major disruptions to global trade, with the prices of grain and wheat soaring amid a blockade of Ukrainian seaports and sanctions on Russian commodities such as oil, gas and fertilizer.

Speaking alongside Jokowi in Moscow, Putin denied Russia was blocking Ukrainian grain exports. 

“The Ukrainian military has mined the approaches to their ports,” he said, “No one prevents them from clearing those mines and we guarantee the safety of shipping grain out of there.”

As G-20 president this year, Jokowi has sought to patch up divisions in the group exposed by the war in Ukraine and threats to boycott the summit if Russia attended, as well as leveraging his country’s non-aligned position to push for peace.

On Thursday, he said he had conveyed a message from Zelenskyy to Putin, and said Indonesia remained willing to be a “communication bridge” between the two leaders. He did not say what was in the message.

Separately, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said she had held phone calls with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, among others, about the food crisis and possible ways to re-integrate Ukraine and Russia into the global food chain.
…

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Friday lobbed insults at Russian President Vladimir Putin and slammed his invasion of Ukraine as “incompetent” and “foolish.”

At a speech in Seoul, Mattis compared Putin to the kind of paranoid characters created by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky.

“Putin is a creature straight out of Dostoevsky. He goes to bed at night angry, he goes to bed at night fearful, he goes to bed at night thinking Russia is surrounded by nightmares,” Mattis said.

Mattis has made relatively few public comments since resigning as Pentagon chief in 2018 over a foreign policy disagreement with former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In his speech, Mattis did not address those disagreements in a direct way, saying only Trump had overseen a nontraditional foreign policy that had challenged U.S. relations with its allies.

Mattis’ most pointed comments focused on Putin, whom he portrayed as unhinged and unable to make smart decisions due to the lack of people giving him sound advice.

Asked about the biggest lesson that could be drawn from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Mattis replied, “Don’t have incompetent generals in charge of your operations.”

He also said the Russian invasion was “tactically incompetent” and “strategically foolish.”

“War is enough of a tragedy without adding stupidity on top,” he said.

Mattis also criticized China’s growing relations with Russia and its unwillingness to oppose the war in Ukraine.

A country “cannot be great if they support Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

Addressing his tenure under Trump, Mattis spoke of “raucous times” and called Trump an “unusual leader” but did not directly criticize the former president.

“Democracies will at times go popularist and will at times break with tradition,” he said. “It’s the nature of democracies at times to be testing ideas and all.”

Americans, Mattis said, should respond by “keep[ing] faith in the institutions” and “in those that disagree with you.”

Mattis’ speech was in South Korea, a U.S. ally that dramatically felt the effects of Trump’s nontraditional foreign policy.

Asked how he felt about Trump’s summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Mattis said he was never optimistic about the talks, but that the diplomatic effort was the “right thing to do.”

“As far as what came out of it, nothing. I saw nothing that came out of it,” he said.

Mattis also praised South Korea’s new president, former chief prosecutor Yoon Suk Yeol, for wanting South Korea to play a bigger role in the world.

Yoon, a conservative who has explicitly embraced the United States, has said he wants South Korea to become a “global pivotal state.” This week, Yoon attended the NATO summit in Madrid,  the first time a South Korean leader had attended such a meeting.

Mattis praised Yoon’s presence at the NATO summit, saying “a globally pivotal state in South Korea is in all our best interests.”

He warned, however, against voices in Seoul who have recently called for South Korea to acquire its own nuclear weapons.

“You don’t need nuclear weapons on the peninsula to ensure an extended deterrence so long as there is trust between the ROK and the United States,” he said, referring to an abbreviation of South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.

Opinion polls consistently show that most South Koreans support their country acquiring their own nuclear weapons, especially as North Korea continues developing its own arsenal.

As a candidate, Yoon said he would ask the United States to agree to a nuclear weapons sharing arrangement, or to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons that Washington withdrew from South Korea in the early 1990s — notions quickly rejected by the U.S. State Department.

To avoid such an outcome, the United States and South Korea should continue to build trust, including by demonstrating “extended deterrence” against North Korea’s nuclear weapons, Mattis said.

“I think anything you can do to avoid having these weapons yourselves, you should do. They are horrible weapons,” he said.
…

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations, is visiting Ukraine and Russia for meetings with the leaders of the two warring nations after attending the Group of Seven summit in Germany.

Widodo has sought to maintain a neutral position since the start of the war, and he hopes his efforts will lead to a cease-fire and eventual direct talks between the two leaders.

What does Widodo hope to achieve?

Widodo said he wants to encourage Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to start a dialogue on ending the war, which has caused global food shortages and surges in commodity prices.

“My mission is to build peace, because the war must be stopped and (its effects) on the food supply chain must be lifted,” Widodo said, “I will invite President Putin to open a dialogue and, as soon as possible, to carry out a cease-fire and stop the war.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has choked global markets and contributed to higher prices of meat, dairy products, cereals, sugar and vegetable oils.

“These visits are not only important for Indonesians but also for other developing countries in order to prevent the people of developing and low-income countries from falling into extreme poverty and hunger,” Widodo said.

Why does the war in Ukraine matter to Widodo?

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said it’s important to achieve a resumption of grain exports from Ukraine and food and fertilizer exports from Russia to end shortages and reduce prices.

Rising costs of cooking oil prompted the Indonesian government to temporarily ban exports of palm oil products amid a series of student protests against skyrocketing food prices. Indonesia resumed exports of crude palm oil a month later.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the world’s largest exporters of palm oil, accounting for 85% of global production.

Why might Putin and Zelenskyy listen to Widodo?

As this year’s G-20 president, Indonesia has sought to remain neutral in dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has been guarded in its comments.

Widodo has said he offered Indonesian support in peace efforts to both Putin and Zelenskyy, a move seen as an attempt to unite the G-20 forum divided by the ongoing conflict.

The United States and its allies in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations — a subset of the G-20 — have sought to punish Putin in as many ways as possible, including by threatening a boycott of the G-20 summit to be held later this year in Bali unless Putin is removed from the forum.

Widodo has invited Zelenskyy to the summit along with Putin in hopes it will appease proponents of both Ukraine and Russia and limit any distraction from the forum’s other agenda items. Ukraine is not a member of the forum, but Russia is.

What are his chances of success?

Widodo will be the first Asian leader to visit the warring countries.

His efforts come weeks after Russia said it was looking over an Italian proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the hostilities have essentially ground to a halt.

The Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers met for inconclusive talks in Turkey in March, followed by a meeting of the delegations in Istanbul, which also failed to bring about concrete results.

Gilang Kembara, an international politics researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, an Indonesian think tank, is pessimistic that Putin will listen to Widodo to find a peaceful solution to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

“The chance for that is very slim,” said Kembara, “Indonesia does not have great experience as a peace broker outside the Southeast Asia region.”
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday told Sweden and Finland that he could still block their drives to join NATO if they fail to implement a new accession deal with Ankara.

Erdogan issued his blunt warning at the end of a NATO summit at which the U.S.-led alliance formally invited the Nordic countries to join the 30-nation bloc.

The two nations dropped their history of military nonalignment and announced plans to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Their bids were headed for swift approval until Erdogan voiced concerns in May.

He accused the two of providing a haven for outlawed Kurdish militants and promoting “terrorism.”

Erdogan also demanded they lift arms embargoes imposed in response to Turkey’s 2019 military incursion into Syria.

A 10-point memorandum signed by the three sides on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Tuesday appeared to address many of Erdogan’s concerns.

Erdogan lifted his objections and then held a warm meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden that was followed by a promise of new warplane sales to Turkey.

Yet Erdogan told reporters at an impromptu press conference held as the summit ended that the memorandum did not mean Turkey would automatically approve the two countries’ membership.

New countries’ applications must be approved by all members and ratified by their respective parliaments.

Erdogan warned that Sweden’s and Finland’s future behavior would decide whether he forwarded their application to the Turkish parliament.

“If they fulfil their duties, we will send it to the parliament. If they are not fulfilled, it is out of the question,” he said.

A senior Turkish diplomat in Washington said the ratification process could come at the earliest in late September and may wait until 2023, with parliament going into recess from Friday.

One Western diplomatic source in the hallways of the NATO summit accused Erdogan of engaging in “blackmail.”

’73 terrorists’

Erdogan delivered his message one day after Turkey said it would seek the extradition of 12 suspects from Finland and 21 from Sweden.

The 33 were accused of being either outlawed Kurdish militants or members of a group led by a U.S.-based preacher Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup.

But Erdogan appeared to up the ante on Thursday by noting that Sweden had “promised” Turkey to extradite “73 terrorists.”

He did not explain when Sweden issued this promise or provide other details.

Officials in Stockholm said they did not understand Erdogan’s reference but said that Sweden strictly adhered to the rule of law.

“In Sweden, Swedish law is applied by independent courts,” Justice Minister Morgan Johansson said in a statement to AFP.

“Swedish citizens are not extradited. Non-Swedish citizens can be extradited at the request of other countries, but only if it is compatible with Swedish law and the European Convention,” Johansson said.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Wednesday that Erdogan appeared to be referring to cases that had already been processed by officials and the courts.

“I would guess that all of these cases have been solved in Finland. There are decisions made, and those decisions are partly made by our courts,” Niinisto told reporters in Madrid.

“I see no reason to take them up again.”

Most of Turkey’s demands and past negotiations have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora.

Sweden keeps no official ethnicity statistics but is believed to have 100,000 Kurds living in the nation of 10 million people.

The Brookings Institution warned that Turkey’s “loose and often aggressive framing” of the term “terrorist” could lead to problems in the months to come.

“The complication arises from a definition of terrorism in Turkish law that goes beyond criminalizing participation in violent acts and infringes on basic freedom of speech,” the U.S.-based institute said in a report.
…

Turkey’s media regulator blocked access Thursday to the Turkish language services of Voice of America and Deutsche Welle after the international public broadcasters did not apply for licenses the regulator had requested.

In February, the Radio and Television Supreme Council, known as RTUK, gave three international broadcasters, including Voice of America’s Turkish Service, short notice to obtain broadcast licenses or have their content blocked. That order also included Germany’s Deutsche Welle.

Ilhan Tasci, an RTUK board member from the main opposition Republican People’s Party and vocal critic of the licensing demand, announced Thursday on Twitter that access to Deutsche Welle’s Turkish-language service, DW Turkce, and VOA had been blocked by a court decision.

“Access to DW Turkce and Voice of America, which did not apply for licenses, has been blocked by the Ankara Criminal Court of Peace, upon the request of the RTUK board,” Tasci said Thursday. “Here is your freedom of press and advanced democracy!” he added sarcastically. 

 

The February licensing decision was based on a regulation that went into effect in August 2019. At that time, several media freedom advocates raised concerns about possible censorship because the regulation granted RTUK the authority to control all online content.

RTUK’s deputy head, Ibrahim Uslu, dismissed the censorship criticisms, saying the decision “has nothing to do with censorship but is part of technical measures.”

Under the regulation, RTUK has been authorized to request broadcast licenses from “media service providers” in order for their radio, TV broadcasting and on-demand audiovisual media services to continue their online presence.

The regulation allows RTUK to impose fines, suspend broadcasting for three months or cancel broadcast licenses if the licensees do not follow RTUK’s principles.

With this decision, the authority of RTUK over news websites was used for the first time, said Can Guleryuzlu, president of the Progressive Journalists Association.

VOA and Deutsche Welle “reported on many issues that were followed by millions and that the national press could not bring to the agenda,” and “with the last decision of the judiciary, [that] has been blocked. The judiciary turned its face not to justice but to the government in Turkey,” Guleryuzlu added.

Yaman Akdeniz, a cyberlaw professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, told VOA Turkish “complete access blocking to these news websites can only be described as censorship.”

The court’s decision to block access to VOA Turkish came on the heels of the meeting between President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for VOA in February confirmed the network was aware of the RTUK demand.

“VOA believes any governmental efforts to silence news outlets is a violation of press freedom, a core value of all democratic societies,” the spokesperson, Bridget Serchak, said.

“Should the Turkish government formally block our websites, VOA will make every effort to ensure that its Turkish-speaking audience retains access to a free and open internet using all available methods,” she added.

DW’s director-general, Peter Limbourg, said in February that the broadcaster would appeal the decision.

In a statement published by DW, he said the request would give “Turkish authorities the option to block the entire service based on individual, critical reports unless these reports are deleted.”

Turkey has a poor record for press freedom, ranking 149th out of 180 countries, where 1 is freest, on the World Press Freedom Index.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which compiles the annual index, says that discriminatory practices against media in Turkey are commonplace and that the RTUK “helps to weaken critical TV channels economically, by giving them heavy fines.”

Ezel Sahinkaya and Begum Ersoz of VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report. Some information came from Reuters. 
…

NATO leaders concluded their three-day meeting in Madrid Thursday with the Western security alliance strengthening its defense against Russian aggression, warning of global challenges posed by China and inviting neutral countries Finland and Sweden into the group.

U.S. President Joe Biden described the summit as “historic.”

“The last time NATO drafted a new mission statement was 12 years ago,” Biden said, referring to a document also known as the alliance’s Strategic Concept.

“At that time, it characterized Russia as a partner, and it didn’t mention China. The world has changed, changed a great deal since then, and NATO is changing as well. At this summit, we rallied our alliances to meet both the direct threats that Russia poses to Europe and the systemic challenges that China poses to a rules-based world order. And we’ve invited two new members to join NATO,” Biden said.

Biden reiterated that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has only strengthened NATO.

“He tried to weaken us, expected our resolve to fracture but he’s getting exactly what he did not want,” Biden said. “He wanted the ‘Finland-ization’ of NATO. He got the ‘NATO-ization’ of Finland.”

On Wednesday Putin dismissed the imminent expansion of the Western alliance.

“With Sweden and Finland, we don’t have the problems that we have with Ukraine. They want to join NATO, go ahead,” Putin told Russian state television.

“But they must understand there was no threat before, while now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in kind and create the same threats for the territories from which threats towards us are created,” he warned.

As it sets to expand, NATO leaders agreed on a massive increase in troop deployments across Europe. A total of 300,000 soldiers will be placed at high readiness across the continent starting next year to defend against potential military attacks by Moscow on any member of the alliance – what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg characterized as “the most serious security crisis” since the Second World War.      

To bolster NATO’s defense, the United States is also set to establish a permanent headquarters for the U.S. 5th Army Corps in Poland, add a rotational brigade of 3,000 troops and 2,000 other personnel to be headquartered in Romania, and send two additional squadrons of F-35 fighter jets to Britain.   

Reaffirming commitments made by other Western leaders, Biden said the U.S. will stand firm against Russia’s aggression. He offered little indication the conflict would conclude anytime soon, suggesting that Americans would have to bear high gas prices longer.

“As long as it takes, so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine,” he said.

China challenge

Biden said the summit has brought together “democratic allies and partners from the Atlantic and the Pacific” to defend the rules-based global order against challenges from China, including its “abusive and coercive trade practices.” 

NATO leaders have also called out the “deepening strategic partnership” between Beijing and Moscow as one of the alliance’s concerns.

Beijing is not providing military support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, but Chinese leader Xi Jinping has stated support for Moscow over “sovereignty and security” issues. The country continues to purchase massive amounts of Russian oil, gas and coal. 

Biden noted that for the first time in the transatlantic alliance’s history, Asia Pacific leaders from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea participated at the summit.

With the reemergence of great power conflict, a strategic competitor sitting in each region, and an evolving Russia-China relationship, there are many common challenges that European and Asia-Pacific partners must discuss together, said Mirna Galic, senior policy analyst on China and East Asia at the United States Institute of Peace.

Galic told VOA these include issues already being worked on, such as cyber defense, maritime security and space, as well as those that will require some new thinking, such as intermediate-range nuclear forces, missile defense, inter-theater deterrence and defense, and how to push back on great power use of force in contravention of international norms.

“The last is certainly relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine but also has parallels with China and Taiwan, which is why Ukraine is seen as more than a European security issue,” Galic said.

In his remarks at the end of the NATO summit, Biden also touted the West’s latest counter to China’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“We also launched what started off to be the Build Back Better notion, but it’s morphed into a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment,” he said referring to the “Build Back Better World” initiative announced at the 2021 meeting of the Group of Seven leaders in Cornwall, UK and relaunched earlier this week as the PGII at the G-7 summit of leading industrialized nations in Krün, Germany.

Officials say PGII will offer developing nations $600 billion in infrastructure funding by 2027 and be a better alternative to China’s BRI that critics have characterized as “debt trap diplomacy.”
…

A Britain-based group says its latest study of worldwide free expression rights shows only 15% of the global population lives where people can receive or share information freely.

In its 2022 Global Expression Report, Article19, an international human rights organization, said that in authoritarian nations such as China, Myanmar and Russia, and in democracies such as Brazil and India, 80% of the global population live with less freedom of expression than a decade ago.

The report said authoritarian regimes and rulers continue to tighten control over what their populations see, hear and say.

While mentioning Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the report singles out China’s government for “exerting ultimate authority over the identities, information and opinions” of hundreds of millions of people.  

The annual report examines freedom of expression across 161 countries using 25 indicators to measure how free each person is to express, communicate and participate in society, without fear of harassment, legal repercussions or violence. It creates a score from zero to 100 for each country.

This year, the report ranks Denmark and Switzerland tops in the world, each with scores of 96. Norway and Sweden each have scores of 94, and Estonia and Finland both scored 93. The study said the top 10 most open nations are European.

Article 19 ranks North Korea as the most oppressive nation in the world with a score of zero. Eritrea, Syria and Turkmenistan had scores of one, and Belarus, China and Cuba had scores of two.   

The United States ranked 30th on the scale. In 2011, it was 9th in the world. The U.S. has seen a nine-point drop in its score, putting the country on the lower end of the open expression category. It was globally ranked in the lowest quartile in 2021 in its scores for equality in civil liberties for social groups, political polarization and social polarization, and political violence.

The report said that over the past two decades, there have been more dramatic downward shifts in freedom of expression around the world than at any time. Many of these occur as the result of power grabs or coups, but many more nations have seen an erosion of rights, often under democratically elected populist leaders.

Article 19 takes its name from the article under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
…

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that 144 of the country’s fighters were freed from Russian captivity via “an exchange mechanism” and that nearly 100 of the freed fighters had participated in the defense of the Ukrainian coastal city of Mariupol.

Earlier, a leading Ukrainian parliamentarian told VOA that Kyiv and Moscow were undergoing a process of prisoner exchange and that Roman Abramovich, a Russian businessman with ties to Putin, was playing “an active role” in the talks.

 

Hours later, in his nightly address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the development “optimistic and very important.” Zelenskyy said 59 of the soldiers that returned to Ukraine were members of the National Guard, followed by 30 servicemen with the Navy, 28 who had served in the Army, 17 with Border Guards and 9 who fought as territorial defense soldiers and one had been a policeman.

“The oldest of the liberated is 65 years old, the youngest is 19,” he said in the video broadcast. “In particular,” Zelenskyy added, “95 Azovstal defenders return[ed] home.”

The defense of Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol stood out as a particularly fierce struggle between Ukrainian and Russian forces from March to May. It ended with an unknown number of casualties on Ukraine’s side and close to 2,500 Ukrainian fighters in Russian captivity, according to figures released by the Russian side.

Wednesday’s news came on the heels of an announcement a day earlier that 17 Ukrainians, including 16 servicemen and one civilian, were freed from Russian captivity in an exchange that saw 15 Russians released and that the bodies of 46 fallen Ukrainian soldiers returned home. In return, Ukraine handed Russia 40 of their fallen servicemen. Among the 46 fallen Ukrainian fighters, 21 took part in the defense of Azovstal, according to the Ukrainian government.

David Arakhamia, leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party in the Ukrainian parliament, told VOA during a visit to Washington earlier this month that Abramovich was playing “an active role” in prisoner exchange talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

“As a human being, I think he has [the] intention to stop the war, he doesn’t like the idea that Russia invaded Ukraine,” Arakhamia said of Abramovich.

As negotiations are concerned, “He’s trying to play the neutral role, but for us, we treat him as a Russian representative. He’s closer to Mr. Putin [than to the Ukrainian side], of course,” Arakhamia said, adding that Ukraine sees Abramovich as a “messenger” who could deliver messages to Russian President Vladimir Putin “in their original form.”

Abramovich was the owner of the British football club, Chelsea. He made arrangements for its sale in the aftermath of Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions put in place by Britain, the United States and other western nations against Russian businessmen believed to have benefited from close ties with the Russian government and Putin.

On Wednesday, Zelenskyy concluded his nightly address to the nation by thanking those who played a part in securing the return home of 144 Ukrainian fighters from Russian captivity.

“I am grateful to the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine and to everyone who worked for this result. But let’s talk about this later. We will do everything to bring every Ukrainian man and woman home,” Zelenskyy said.

As the war enters the fifth month, the exact number of prisoners held by each side has not been made public. Little is known about how they are treated or precisely where they’re held.
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The United States will strengthen its forces in Europe as NATO faces up to the threat from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. President Joe Biden announced the deployments at the NATO summit in Madrid. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday for dropping his objections to the bids by Sweden and Finland to join NATO, leading the way for the military alliance to expand even closer to Russia.

“I want to particularly thank you for what you did putting together the situation with regard to Finland and Sweden,” Biden told Erdogan during a one-on-one meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Madrid. “You’re doing a great job.”

In response, speaking through an interpreter, Erdogan said that Biden’s “pioneering in this regard is going to be crucial in terms of strengthening NATO for the future, and it’s going to have a very positive contribution to the process between Ukraine and Russia.”

Turkey, Finland and Sweden on Tuesday signed a memorandum deepening their counterterrorism cooperation, addressing Ankara’s concerns that the two Nordic countries are not doing enough to crack down on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union, the U.S. and others.

Finland and Sweden also agreed not to support the Gulenist movement, led by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, which Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup attempt and other domestic problems.

Helsinki and Stockholm will also end support for the so-called Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria, part of the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting against the Islamic State group. Additionally, Sweden agreed to end an arms embargo against Turkey that dated to its 2019 incursion into Syria.

 

Invitation to join NATO

With Turkey withdrawing its veto, NATO formally invited Finland and Sweden to join the alliance earlier Wednesday.

“It sends a very clear message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. We are demonstrating that NATO’s doors are open,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, characterizing the invitation process as “the quickest in history.”

Helsinki and Stockholm will bring great military capability and strategic outlook to the alliance, said Jim Townsend, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy, now at the Atlantic Council.

“Both nations — because they were neutral — they had to spend a lot of money and make a lot of effort to be a very professional force because they weren’t in an alliance. They had to depend on themselves,” Townsend told VOA. “It took the wolf being at the door for those nations to come in.”

 

The two countries applied to join in May, but the process began months earlier during the initial phase of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Biden reaching out to the leaders to discuss the possibility of joining NATO, a senior U.S. administration official told reporters Tuesday.

Since then, the U.S. has been “painstakingly working to try and help close the gaps between the Turks, the Finns and the Swedes,” the official said. “All the while trying, certainly in public, to have a lower-key approach to this so that it didn’t become about the U.S. or about particular demands on the U.S.,” he said, referring to Ankara’s long-standing request to purchase U.S. F-16 fighter jets.

Biden phone call

The official denied that Ankara made the warplane request a precondition to withdraw its objections. However, he noted that Biden conveyed Tuesday during a phone call to Erdogan his desire to “get this other issue resolved, and then you and I can sit down and really, really talk about significant strategic issues.”

The day after Ankara lifted its veto, the administration announced its support for the potential sale of the fighter jets.

Celeste Wallander, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon, told reporters that Washington supports Ankara’s effort to modernize its fighter fleet.

“That is a contribution to NATO security and, therefore, American security,” she said.

In 2017, despite American and NATO opposition, Turkey signed a deal to purchase the S-400 Russian missile defense system. In response, Washington issued sanctions and kicked Ankara out of its newest, most advanced F-35 jet program. Since then, Turkey has sought to purchase 40 modernized F-16s, which are older models of the American fighter jets, and modernization kits for another 80 F-16s.

Wallander said any F-16 sales “need to be worked through our contracting processes.” A deal would likely require approval from Congress.

Ukraine grain

In their meeting, Biden also thanked Erdogan for his “incredible work” to establish humanitarian corridors to enable the export of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world amid the war.

“We are trying to solve the process with a balancing policy. Our hope is that this balance policy will lead to results and allow us the possibility to get grain to countries that are facing shortages right now through a corridor as soon as possible,” Erdogan said in response.

Turkey has played a central role in negotiations with Kyiv and Russia to increase the amount of grain that can get out of Ukraine. Tens of millions of people around the world are at risk of hunger as the conflict disrupted shipments of grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s leading producers.

Earlier this month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met his Russian counterpart to discuss unlocking the grain from Black Sea ports but failed to reach an agreement. Hurdles remain, including payment mechanisms and mines placed by both Moscow and Kyiv in the Black Sea.

Turkey has suggested that ships could be guided around sea mines by establishing safe corridors under a U.N. proposal to resume not only Ukrainian grain exports but also Russian food and fertilizer exports, which Moscow says are harmed by sanctions. The U.N. has been “working in close cooperation with the Turkish authorities on this issue,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

VOA’s Henry Ridgwell contributed to this report.
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