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A senior Ukrainian official says her country will not bow to threats of military action from Russia and is prepared to fight to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva says she does not believe Russia intends to invade her country. Rather, Yevheniia Filipenko says Russia’s main objective is to destabilize Ukraine politically, economically and militarily through the threatened use of force.

Filipenko says Russia’s massive troop and weapons buildup along Ukraine’s border is aimed at achieving that result. She adds the large joint Russia-Belarus military exercise and the naval drills taking place in the Black Sea are part of the same plan.

The Ukrainian envoy says her government’s goal is to discourage Russia from pursuing its aggressive course against Ukraine, Europe, and the European security order. That, she says, will be done through diplomatic means. She adds, however, that her country will not cross certain red lines in negotiating a diplomatic solution to the prevailing threat.

“No concessions on sovereignty, territorial integrity within internationally recognized borders. Second, no direct [dialogue] with Russian occupation administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk. And third, only the people of Ukraine have the right to define [their] foreign policy course,” Filipenko said.

Russia-backed rebels of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics have been waging war against the Ukrainian government since 2014. The United Nations estimates more than 13,000 people have been killed in that war of separation, which continues. The two separatist republics are located in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denies planning to invade Ukraine. He has demanded that the West reject the possibility of Ukraine joining the NATO alliance and that Western allies pull back their troops and armaments closest to Russia.

Filipenko says the days when countries tried to impose their decisions on Ukraine are over. She says Ukraine will not bow to threats that will weaken the state and undermine its economic and financial stability. She says Ukraine is stronger, more resilient, and better prepared now to defend itself than it was in 2014. That was when Russia invaded Crimea and annexed the peninsula.

“We have a very strong Ukrainian army, which is very determined to defend Ukraine and not to allow any further military occupation should the Russians make [the] decision to invade, to further invade Ukraine,” she said.

Filipenko says Moscow will pay a very high price if it invades. She says Ukraine’s international partners have designed a comprehensive package of deterrence measures that will have serious economic and political consequences for Russia should it launch an offensive.
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LONDON — Britain’s Prince Charles has tested positive for COVID-19 and is self-isolating, his office said Thursday.

A message on his official Twitter page said Charles tested positive on Thursday morning and was “deeply disappointed” not to be able to attend a scheduled visit in Winchester, England.

Charles, 73, met dozens of people during a large reception at London’s British Museum on Wednesday evening. He was accompanied by his wife Camilla, and was in close contact with Britain’s Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, among others.

Charles’ office, Clarence House, confirmed that he is triple vaccinated.

It was not immediately clear what his condition was or whether Charles had recently met with his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The queen, 95, marked her Platinum Jubilee on Sunday by expressing her wish for Camilla to be known as Queen Consort when Charles becomes king.

Camilla carried on with her engagements as scheduled on Thursday, visiting a sexual assault referral center in London.

Charles previously contracted the coronavirus in March 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic. Officials said he had mild COVID-19 symptoms then. Charles and Camilla isolated at Queen Elizabeth II’s Balmoral estate in Scotland at the time.

Spain’s King Felipe VI, 54, and Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, 81, also tested positive for the coronavirus this week.
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Turkey’s media regulator on Wednesday gave three international broadcasters, including Voice of America’s Turkish Service, short notice to obtain broadcast licenses or have their content blocked.

The order from the Radio and Television Supreme Council, known as RTUK, also affects German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Euronews, the regulator’s opposition board member said.

“A decision was taken with a majority of votes that 72 hours be granted to the websites of amerikaninsesi.com, dw.com/tr, and tr.euronews.com to get licenses,” Ilhan Tasci, a member of RTUK’s board, said in a tweet.

Tasci, who was appointed to the board by the opposition Republican People’s Party, criticized the decision, calling it a further assault on media freedom in Turkey.

Regulation

The decision is 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.

Also, with 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.

“Media service providers” has been defined broadly in the regulation to include online news outlets and digital streaming platforms such as Netflix.

The broadcast license, which covers 10 years, costs $7,382 (100,000 Turkish liras) for digital streaming platforms and online TV broadcasting.

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.

RTUK has been implementing the regulation among digital streaming platforms. In November 2020, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video received licenses from the regulator, RTUK’s head, Ebubekir Sahin, announced on Twitter.

In December 2021, RTUK ordered Netflix to remove the Spanish movie More the Merrier, saying the movie was “based on a fiction in which homosexuality, incest relationships and swinging are intensely experienced” and included immoral scenes that violated the “spiritual values of the public.”

Censorship concerns

The announcement Wednesday marked the first time RTUK has used its regulatory power over online news outlets.

RTUK’s deputy head, Ibrahim Uslu, confirmed the decision to German news agency dpa over the phone.

Uslu told dpa that RTUK would publish a detailed notice of its decision on its website “within a week to 10 days,” and after that, the broadcasters would have 72 hours to comply.

Uslu dismissed censorship criticisms, saying that the decision “has nothing to do with censorship but is part of technical measures.”

Some media freedom advocates point out that RTUK’s latest decision could force more international public broadcasters to obtain licenses from the regulator if they want to operate in Turkey, just as is happening with VOA.

“These [international public broadcasters] will have to obtain licenses from Turkey, and in this context, they will have to implement the RTUK and court decisions. Otherwise, access to the websites of these organizations may be blocked from Turkey upon the request of RTUK,” Yaman Akdeniz, a cyberlaw professor at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, told VOA.

“So organizations outside of Turkey that broadcast and still provide news more freely in Turkish will also be targeted through RTUK before the 2023 elections,” Akdeniz added.

Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, seconded Akdeniz’s remarks.

“The requirement put before VOA, DW and Euronews is another attempt to control the independent reporting, especially in view of elections set for 2023,” Said told VOA.

The next presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 2023, but the opposition parties have been calling for an early election.

Said emphasized the importance of international public broadcasters’ presence in the Turkish media landscape, pointing to the decline in media freedom in Turkey.

“Many critical journalists now work for international media outlets because they were fired from or left mainstream media outlets in recent years because it became difficult, if not impossible, to work there due to censorship,” Said told VOA.

If VOA, DW and Euronews “will not be able to continue their work in Turkey, these highly qualified professionals will become a victim of new regulations,” Said added.

RTUK’s independence

Several media freedom advocates have long criticized RTUK. Human Rights Watch says the regulator fails to meet standards of impartiality and independence because of its political alignment with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“When we look at the track record of the RTUK, we see that its board is unwilling to warn or fine the pro-government outlets while acting quite harshly towards critical media outlets,” Said told VOA.

RTUK’s nine members are nominated by political parties in proportion to their representation in the parliament. Currently, the AKP and the allied Nationalist Movement Party hold the majority.

RTUK did not respond to VOA’s requests for comment.

In an email to VOA’s Turkish Service in response for a request for comment, a VOA spokesperson said VOA was aware of RTUK’s requirement for an operating license.

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

Deutsche Welle did not respond to VOA’s request for comment but did post a story on its website.

“We have learned from the media about a possible decision by the RTUK that could also haveimplications for DW,” a DW spokesperson said. “However, we will be able to make a conclusive analysis and decide how to proceed only once we have received official notification from the authority.”

Euronews said it could not comment on the issue for the time being.

VOA’s Turkish Service has been broadcasting to Turkey since 1948. The service has provided essential news for the Turkish-speaking audience through its website and TV programming.

In 2019, the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), a pro-government think tank in Turkey, published a 202-page report titled “The Offshoots of International Media Organizations in Turkey” and profiled journalists working for Turkish language services of international public broadcasters, including Voice of America. The report alleged that the broadcasters’ coverage of Turkey was one-sided and unfair to the Turkish government.

On Twitter, another opposition member of the RTUK board, Okan Konuralp, called RTUK’s decision an application of SETA’s report.

“However, this move to suppress the international media is also doomed to failure,” he added.

VOA’s Hilmi Hacaloglu and Can Kamiloglu contributed to this report, some information for which came from Reuters.
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  Britain on Thursday urged Russia to take a “diplomatic route that avoids conflict and bloodshed” while warning against any Russian moves that undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.

“Fundamentally, a war in Ukraine would be disastrous for the Russian and Ukrainian people and for European security and together NATO has made it clear that any incursion into Ukraine would have massive consequences and carry severe costs,” British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said as she met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Western governments have been calling on Russia to take steps to de-escalate the crisis that has come with it massing more than 100,000 troops near the border, deploying warships to the Black Sea and sending more troops and military equipment to Belarus, another Ukrainian neighbor, for military drills that began Thursday.

Ukraine also launched its own military drills Thursday with both set to last until Feb. 20.

Lavrov said Thursday that only “mutually respectful dialogue” can lead to normalized relations.

“Ideological approaches, ultimatums, threats — this is the road to nowhere,” Lavrov said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is meeting Thursday with leaders of Poland and NATO as he urges what his office called “solidarity with NATO allies who bear the brunt of Russian aggression.”

Johnson has ordered 1,000 British troops be ready to respond to a potential humanitarian crisis resulting from a Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

“What we need to see is real diplomacy, not coercive diplomacy,” Johnson said in a statement. “As an alliance we must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise. That includes the security of every NATO ally and the right of every European democracy to aspire to NATO membership.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday Russia has been taking escalatory steps in recent weeks and the United States hopes that changes.

“I think as we look at the preparation for these military exercises, again, we see this as certainly more of an escalatory and not a de-escalatory action as it relates to those troops and the military exercises,” Psaki said. 

Top Russian commanders arrived in Belarus on Wednesday, set to oversee 30,000 Russian troops as they train with the Belarusian military.

Russia has moved S-400 surface-to-air missile systems and numerous fighter jets into Belarus for the exercises, with Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian armed forces’ general staff, in command of the drills. 

The training in Belarus is the latest threat to Ukraine, whose capital, Kyiv, is 210 kilometers to the south.

Ukraine’s military exercises involve unmanned aircraft and antitank missiles supplied by Ukraine’s Western allies.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was staging the joint exercises with Belarus to combat “unprecedented security threats.”

Western intelligence experts say they believe Moscow has about 70% of its strike force in place for an attack on its one-time Soviet republic, which that has leaned to the West in recent years and seeks to join NATO.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied he plans to invade Ukraine but demanded that the West reject the possibility of Ukraine joining the 30 countries already in NATO and that the Western allies pull back their troops and armaments closest to Russia.

In response, the West has said Russia has no veto power over who belongs to NATO but that it is willing to negotiate with Moscow over the placement of missiles in eastern Europe and periodic NATO military drills.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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The so-called Minsk accords of 2014 and 2015 attempted to end the war in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine between Ukraine and Russian-speaking separatists in the disputed areas of Donetsk and Luhansk.

In 2014, representatives of Ukraine and Russian separatists agreed to a 12-part cease-fire deal in the Belarus capital of Minsk. The deal included a prisoner exchange, humanitarian assistance and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the disputed area.

But the agreement quickly broke down after both sides violated the terms.

The two sides tried again in 2015, this time with representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

In the second deal, a 13-part agreement was signed, which called for an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons, OSCE monitoring, amnesty for those involved in fighting, hostage and prisoner exchanges, full control of Ukraine’s state border, withdrawal of foreign troops, reestablishment of economic and social ties, and elections in the disputed areas, among other provisions. It also offers regions where pro-Russian separatists hold sway a measure of autonomy that could impact central government decision-making.

Leaders from France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine were present and issued a statement in support of the deal. It was also endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.

But most of the provisions were not implemented because Russia insisted it was not involved in the conflict and therefore could not withdraw forces because it did not have any deployed there, according to Reuters. Russia insisted that any agreements be made between Ukraine and the disputed regions. Ukraine refused a dialogue with the separatists.

Still, according to CNN, most of the worst fighting stopped, and the OSCE patrols the area reporting cease-fire violations.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters. 

 
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Britain ordered 1,000 troops to be on a state of readiness to provide support in the event of a humanitarian crisis caused by any Russian aggression, ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the leaders of NATO and Poland on Thursday. 

Johnson will go to Brussels and Warsaw to stress the need to hold firm on NATO’s principles and discuss ways that Britain can provide military support while Russia amasses its troops near Ukraine’s border. 

Johnson’s trip is one among a wave of international diplomatic efforts. French President Emmanuel Macron met Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this week, and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is due to have in-person meetings with U.S. allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference next week. 

Britain’s foreign secretary and defense secretary are also due in Moscow this week for talks with their counterparts. 

“The U.K. remains unwavering in our commitment to European security,” Johnson said in a statement. “As an alliance, we must draw lines in the snow and be clear there are principles upon which we will not compromise.” 

Britain said on Monday that it would send a further 350 troops to Poland, after it sent 100 troops last year to help with a migrant crisis at its border with Belarus. 

Johnson’s office repeated on Wednesday that any further military incursion of Ukraine by Russia would likely create the mass forced displacement of people on Europe’s border, affecting countries like Poland and Lithuania. In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. 

Johnson’s office said the prime minister would also discuss with NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg the U.K.’s offer to bolster the alliance’s defenses, including a doubling of troops in Estonia, more RAF jets in southern Europe, and the sailing of both the Trent patrol vessel and a Type 45 destroyer to the Eastern Mediterranean.  
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called Wednesday for “pausing” diplomatic relations with Spain, not breaking them, as he escalated his criticism of Mexico’s former colonial power, which he says has exploited Mexico. 

Lopez Obrador made the comments at a regular news briefing during which he requested a “breather” in official ties, stating “the relationship is not good” currently.

The Mexican president has been consistent in his assertion that Spanish authorities and corporations have been exploiting the North American country, particularly in the energy sector. 

“They were like the owners of Mexico,” Lopez Obrador said to the media as he took to task the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.  

“They plundered us,” Lopez Obrador said, targeting the role of Spanish investment in the country. “Perhaps when the government changes, relations will be restored, and I wish that when I’m no longer here they wouldn’t be what they were before.” 

Lopez Obrador has proposed changes to Mexico’s energy market that have drawn criticism. In his defense, he said his proposal would end abuses that have benefited a few. He cited as examples power company Iberdrola and oil firm Repsol as Spanish companies that benefited from past Mexican governments. 

The Mexican president’s comments regarding Spain surprised Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares. 

“I’d like to make clear that Spain’s government has done nothing that could justify any declaration of this kind,” he said Wednesday, according to Reuters. “What’s clear from business ties between our countries is that far from pausing, investment flows have only been rising for years.” 

Lopez Obrador’s ire toward the Spanish rose early in his administration. He had been in office a little more than a month when, in early 2019, he sent a letter to the king of Spain and Pope Francis asking them to apologize for the exploitation committed in the 500 years since Spain’s conquest of Mexico. The Spanish government rejected the request.   

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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Ukrainian communities in some large California cities are taking to the streets in peaceful demonstrations to express support for their homeland as Russia seems to be preparing to invade Ukraine. Khrystyna Shevchenko has this report from California.
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French President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing a poisoned peace plan, say critics in Europe, who fear the outcome of his talks this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin could be to strengthen Moscow’s hand in the crisis over Ukraine. 

A backlash is building to Macron’s visits this week to Moscow and Kyiv among fellow European leaders. They worry the French leader strayed from an agreed script and that his mooting of new security guarantees for Russia risks encouraging Putin in what they see as a Kremlin effort to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence over neighboring European nations. 

The details of the five hours of face-to-face discussions the French leader held with Putin Monday have not been made known publicly, but Macron has hinted at shifts in NATO’s position — including Ukraine shelving its hopes of joining the Western alliance — that alarm the leaders of some member states. They worry Macron risks encouraging Russian brinkmanship and warmongering and is handing the Russian leader too many opportunities for maneuver and chances to split NATO. 

Macron flew between Russia and Ukraine on a mission to calm tensions and find a diplomatic solution to avert war at a time of growing Western concern that Russia is planning to invade its neighbor, along whose borders it has deployed an estimated 140,000 troops, according to Ukrainian authorities. 

The Kremlin denies it has any intention to invade, saying talk of war is alarmist. French officials say Macron has coordinated fully with France’s allies, kept to an agreed script, and is taking on the role of the friendly cop, leaving it to U.S. President Joe Biden to be the tough cop with Putin.

The canvassing to reporters before and after Macron’s talks with Putin by French officials of the idea of Ukraine remaining a neutral country is causing unease especially in the capitals of eastern Europe and the Baltic States. French officials have raised to reporters the possibility of the “Finlandization” of Ukraine.  

Finland chose in 1947 not to become a NATO member and signed a treaty with Russia that included limiting the size of its army and other constraints restricting national sovereignty. Ironically, the current and growing crisis over Ukraine has prompted Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, to float the idea of his country joining NATO. 

Ingrida Šimonytė, Lithuania’s prime minister, has been publicly skeptical about the French president’s diplomatic mission to Moscow and is wary of offering concessions to Russia. She warned this week, “Neutrality helps the oppressor and never the victim.”  

Macron’s advocacy for the implementation of the Minsk peace protocol of 2015 is also causing unease, especially in Kyiv. Ukraine’s president notably refrained Tuesday from re-committing fully to the agreement, which outlined a final settlement in the country’s eastern Donbass region, parts of which have been under Russian occupation since April 2014, and where an estimated 32,000 Russian troops are currently stationed.   

Speaking at a joint press conference in Kyiv Tuesday with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Macron announced the leaders of both Russia and Ukraine had committed to honoring the Minsk accords. “We now have the possibility of advancing negotiations,” Macron said.  

Zelenskiy did not directly mention the Minsk agreement, which is highly unpopular in Ukraine, saying instead he hoped a scheduled meeting of German, French, Ukrainian and Russian officials in Berlin later this week might pave the way to revive the stalled peace process. 

“We have a common view with President Macron on threats and challenges to the security of Ukraine, of the whole of Europe, of the world in general,” Zelenskiy said. “I do not really trust words, I believe that every politician can be transparent by taking concrete steps,” he added. 

Trust about Russia’s intentions is in short supply in Ukraine, and the Minsk accords, agreed to by Kyiv at a time it was losing the war in the east and had little option but to sign, is seen as a means for the Kremlin to restrict the country’s sovereign rights and dominate its neighbor. 

The agreement was meant to bring fighting to a halt in the Donbass and proposed that the two “breakaway republics” in the region be reintegrated into Ukraine but retain considerable powers of self-government. Moscow, Kyiv, and Western governments have all said they believe in the deal, but it has never been implemented and fighting has continued in eastern Ukraine, where more than 14,000 people have been killed since 2014. 

Selling the Minsk deal now to Ukrainians would prove an uphill struggle, says former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin. There would be considerable public resistance, and debate over the accord would exacerbate political divisions in Ukraine, which the Kremlin would seek to worsen. Ukrainian politicians have long argued the Minsk accords amount to a capitulation and would undermine Ukraine by giving the Donbass considerable scope to weaken the capacity of Kyiv to enact policies. It would also force constitutional changes.  

Kyiv and Moscow also interpret the agreement differently; Moscow believes it would give pro-Russia Donbass a veto over Ukraine’s foreign policy. Ukraine’s current foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, last week ruled out the Donbass being given any special status.  

Author and University of Oxford academic Timothy Garton Ash, a noted authority on central Europe, has been critical of the deal since its signing. Ash says it amounts to a “major concession from Kyiv to Moscow, as it largely gives Moscow what it wants, which is autonomy for the Kremlin’s so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic — the Russian-controlled areas of eastern Donbass in Ukraine — and a veto in effect on Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation.” 

Bruno Maçães, a Portuguese politician and former European affairs minister, says the Minsk agreement isn’t a solution. “It was dispiriting to watch how Macron insisted on the Minsk protocol as a solution to the crisis. A solution it cannot be since Putin’s desire to impose Minsk on Ukraine is what created the crisis in the first place.” 

In a commentary, he warned, “Yet President Zelenskiy might not be able to shake off the pressure. Ukraine is highly dependent on financial and military support from the West. If leaders such as Macron or Biden decide to exert all their influence to force the Ukrainian president’s hand, can he stand firm? We will soon find out.”  

The Élysée Palace says the Macron trip has provided breathing space and will help the West, Ukraine and Russia find a way to resolve differences by diplomatic negotiations. 

Asked whether Macron’s shuttle diplomacy was useful or getting in the way of NATO, Anders Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and onetime NATO secretary general, told British broadcaster Sky News, “I think all kinds of dialogue is positive, but I don’t think we should be naive.  

“We should realize that appeasement with dictators does not lead to peace, it leads to war and conflict, and that’s exactly the case with President Putin. After his meeting with President Putin, Macron declared that Putin had promised no escalation of the military conflict, but immediately after, the Kremlin denied that Putin had made that pledge. So it shows that you shouldn’t be naive.” 

 
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As efforts to calm tensions between Moscow and Kyiv continue, civilians along the border are planning what they will do if Russia invades Ukraine. For VOA, Olena Adamenko spoke to residents in the Sumy region of northeast Ukraine in this story narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Mykhailo Zaika
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A Belarusian cross-country skier has fled the country with her family because of fears of reprisals by authorities after she was barred from competition over the family’s political views, she and her father said.

Darya Dolidovich and her family are now in Poland, where she hopes to continue training, Sergei Dolidovich, a seven-time Olympian cross-country skier who also coaches Darya, told Reuters in an interview by video call with his daughter on Tuesday.

Reuters reported last month that 17-year-old Darya was barred from competing for what Sergei and his daughter believe were his participation in street protests against the 2020 re-election of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that opponents said was fraudulent. Lukashenko has denied rigging the vote.

“Darya has been stripped of her right to take part in competitions,” he said. “I don’t see the possibility of her continuing her career in Belarus.”

“We could be accused of staging a demonstration and shouting (opposition) slogans, then just be sent to prison,” he said.

“Three months ago, I couldn’t have imagined, even in a nightmare, that I would end up leaving my country.”

The Dolidovich family’s departure comes a few days into the Beijing Winter Olympics, where the Belarusian national team is under scrutiny following the defection of sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya at the Tokyo Games last year.

Darya, one of the country’s most promising junior cross-country skiers, said last month that the Belarus Ski Union deactivated her FIS code, an individual identifying number required for athletes to take part in competitions run by the International Ski Federation (FIS).

The Belarus Ski Union told Dolidovich’s coaching staff that it deactivated her FIS code in December in response to a decision by the Belarus Cross-Country Skiing Federation, according to a Jan. 31 letter reviewed by Reuters. The letter did not say why that decision was made.

In response to questions from Reuters, the FIS said it had not heard back from Belarusian ski officials since requesting further information last month on the deactivation of Darya Dolidovich’s FIS code.

The Belarus Cross-Country Skiing Federation and the Belarus Ski Union did not respond to requests for comment.

Uncertainty ahead

Darya Dolidovich was supposed to graduate from secondary school this year, but it is unclear how she will pursue her studies in Poland.

“I had planned to finish school in Belarus, but my parents said that we were moving,” she said. “I’m upset, of course. It would have been simpler to stay a few months and finish school.”

Dolidovich said she was keen to continue skiing in the hopes of keeping her Olympic dream alive.

Several elite Belarusian athletes have been jailed or kicked off national teams for voicing opposition views and joining protests that erupted in 2020 over Lukashenko’s re-election.

The repression of Belarusian athletes, including the attempt to forcibly repatriate Tsimanouskaya during the Tokyo Olympics, has drawn international condemnation.

Last week, the United States announced it was imposing visa restrictions on several Belarusian nationals, citing Tsimanouskaya’s case and other instances of what it called extraterritorial counter-dissident activity.

Another Belarusian cross-country skier, Sviatlana Andryiuk, was also stripped of her FIS code, a decision that prevented her from taking part in a qualifying event that could have earned her a berth at the Beijing Olympics.

Andryiuk, who told Reuters last month that she had been accused of being an opposition supporter, described her political views as neutral.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the optimal resolution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis is a diplomatic one and that he expects to consult with his counterparts from France, Germany and Britain in the coming days.

“As you all know, we have been engaged in a two-track strategy where we have, on the one hand, been pursuing diplomacy — by far the preferable course, the responsible course — but at the same time building up strong deterrence to dissuade Russia from taking aggressive action,” Blinken told reporters traveling with him to Australia for a meeting of the so-called Quad countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday a resolution could take months. 

“You must not underestimate the tension that surrounds the situation that we are living through, its unprecedented nature,” Macron said in Kyiv, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “I do not believe this crisis can be solved thanks to a few hours of discussions.”  

Macron had spent five hours talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.

The French leader said his discussions with Putin had helped ensure that “there’s no degradation and no [further] escalation” of the standoff between Russia and Ukraine and the Western alliance supporting the Kyiv government.

“I believe for my part that there are concrete, practical solutions that will allow us to move forward,” Macron said after meeting with Zelenskiy.

Macron acknowledged the crisis is not over, saying, “In adopting this threatening posture, Russia decided to put pressure on the international community.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday there were “seeds of reason” in proposals Macron had made to Putin. Peskov, however, rejected suggestions the crisis had been resolved, saying, “So far, we don’t see and feel the readiness of our Western counterparts to take our concerns into account.”

“In the current situation, Moscow and Paris could not make a deal,” Peskov said. “France is an EU and NATO member. France is not leading NATO,” the 30-nation Western military alliance dominated by the United States.

NATO has rejected Moscow’s demands that it end its expansion into eastern Europe nearest Russia and eliminate the possibility of Ukraine, a one-time Soviet republic, from joining NATO. The West says it is willing to negotiate over the positioning of missiles in eastern Europe and NATO troop maneuvers.

On Monday night, the Russian leader refused to rule out the possibility of invading Ukraine, while leaving the door open to further diplomacy. Putin said he would speak with Macron again by phone after the French president’s talks with Zelenskiy.

For his part, Zelenskiy said after discussions with Macron that he wants Putin to exhibit good intentions by pulling back troops from the Ukrainian border.

“Openness is always great, if it’s true, and not a game, but serious openness, not a joke, and understanding that there is a serious danger,” Zelenskiy told reporters following his talks with Macron.

“I do not really trust words, I believe that every politician can be transparent by taking concrete steps,” Zelenskiy said.

Macron said both Putin and Zelenskiy committed themselves to honoring the Minsk Accords signed in 2014 and 2015 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany. It was a response to Moscow’s 2014 unilateral annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, with the unmet goal of ending the fighting between Kyiv’s forces and Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. About 14,000 have been killed in the last eight years in the region.

“We have now the possibility of advancing negotiations,” Macron told reporters following his talks with the Ukrainian president. 
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CANBERRA — The foreign ministers of Australia and Lithuania agreed Wednesday to step up cooperation on strategic challenges, in particular pressures from China.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and his Australian counterpart Marise Payne met Wednesday at Parliament House. 

Australian exporters have lost tens of billions of dollars to official and unofficial Chinese trade barriers covering coal, wine, beef, crayfish and barley that have coincided with deteriorating relations with Beijing. 

Lithuania, a country of 2.8 million in the Baltic region, more recently drew Beijing’s ire after breaking with diplomatic custom by agreeing that Taiwan’s office in its capital Vilnius would bear the name Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei, a term used by other countries to avoid offending Beijing. 

“For quite a while, Australia was probably one of the main examples where China is using economy and trade as a political instrument or, one might say, even as a political weapon,” Landsbergis said. 

“Now Lithuania joins this exclusive club . . . but it is apparent that we’re definitely not the last ones,” he added.

Payne said she agreed with Landsbergis on the importance of like-minded countries working together with a consistent approach to maintaining the international rules-based order, free and open trade, transparency, security and stability.

“There are many colleagues with whom the foreign minister (Landsbergis) and I work and engage on these issues . . . the more I think we are sending the strongest possible message about our rejection of coercion and our rejection of authoritarianism,” Payne said.

Landsbergis welcomed Australia to World Trade Organization consultations over a complaint by the European Union accusing Beijing of holding up goods — both from member nation Lithuania and from EU companies that use Lithuanian components — at China’s borders. 

“We need to remind countries like China or any other country that would wish to use trade as a weapon that like-minded countries across the globe . . . have tools and regulations that help withstand the coercion and not to give in to . . . political and economic pressures,” Landsbergis said. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Tuesday that China was adhering to WTO rules in its dealings with Lithuania. 

“The so-called ‘coercion’ of China against Lithuania is purely made out of thin air,” he said Tuesday. 

“China urges Lithuania to face up to the objective facts, mend its ways and come back to the right track of adhering to the one-China principle. It should stop confounding right with wrong and maliciously hyping things up, let alone trying to rope other countries in to gang up on China,” Zhao said. 

The one-China principle holds that Taiwan is part of China and the Communist government in Beijing is China’s sole legitimate government. 

Lithuania’s first embassy in the 31-year history of bilateral ties opened in Canberra on Wednesday. Lithuania also offered support for Australia reaching a free trade deal with the EU. Australia plans to open a trade office in Lithuania soon. 

Landsbergis said disruptions by China and Russia of the “global rules-based order” required an international response. “We have to act counter-disruptively. That means reassuring and strengthening our ties and, actually, this rules-based order that provides security for some of us and prosperity also for the others,” he added. 
…

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday there is an opportunity for further negotiations to de-escalate the crisis on the Ukraine-Russian border, after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv. 

“Our desire for the following weeks and months is for the situation to stabilize and for us to be able to re-engage through new mechanisms of guarantees, a sustainable de-escalation,” Macron said Tuesday.

“In this context, the calm that you demonstrate, the reflection from all participating parties, both in words and in actions, are indispensable,” Macron told Zelenskiy at a press conference following the talks.

Warships

Meanwhile, the Russian military build-up around Ukraine continues unabated. Six Russian warships headed to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean Tuesday. Moscow has deployed over 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine and a further 20,000 in neighboring Belarus, where they are taking part in joint military exercises. The West fears an invasion could be imminent but Moscow denies it has any such plans.

The French president said he had received assurances from Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Moscow on Monday. 

“On the discussions on military and security aspects, as I have said very clearly yesterday, we have had exchanges with President Putin, and he told me that he would not be behind any escalation. I think that is important,” Macron said.

However, a Kremlin spokesperson disputed that President Putin had given any guarantees over halting military exercises close to the Ukrainian border.

Minsk agreement

President Macron said the key to ending the crisis is the implementation of the Minsk Protocol, a roadmap sponsored by France and Germany through the so-called Normandy Format talks aimed at ending the conflict between Russian-backed rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine. 

“The Minsk agreements are also the best protection of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Based on the commitment of the two sides, Russian and Ukrainian, we now have the possibility of advancing negotiations… This shared determination is the only path that will allow us to build peace, the only path that will allow us to build a viable political solution,” Macron said.

Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy agreed there was an opportunity, but said that Russian President Putin must prove his commitment. 

“Generally, I don’t quite trust words. That’s why I think that every politician can show his or her openness by concrete deeds,” Zelenskiy said. 

“The first steps are what Emmanuel [Macron] mentioned,” Zelenskiy added. “We have a platform, the Normandy Format. We react very positively to the meeting of the political advisers in the coming days. I believe that after this meeting, there can be an opportunity — if there is openness — for a meeting of the leaders. And there, one can demonstrate one’s subjectivity, and one’s openness.”

The Minsk agreements would see the eastern Donbas region, much of which is currently under the control of pro-Russian rebels, reintegrated into Ukraine, but with political autonomy. 

Kyiv Concerns

Ukraine remains deeply skeptical of the deal, says Alexander Titov, a Russia analyst at Queens University Belfast. “Moscow sees Minsk [agreements] as a way of re-establishing some form of presence in Ukraine for its pro-Russian forces and stopping Ukraine from formal NATO membership. Ukraine, for exactly the same reasons, opposes it,” Titov told VOA.

There are concerns in Ukraine over what President Macron may have offered Russia, according to Quentin Peel of the London-based policy group Chatham House.

“Ukrainians are very suspicious that behind it all Russia simply wants to give the separatists in the Donbas a veto over any future constitutional arrangement in Ukraine. So the Ukrainians are suspicious that Macron might try and force them to give that away. But having said that, I think it’s probably the only diplomatic way forward that is visible,” Peel told VOA.

That explains why Ukraine is trying to calm the situation, says Titov. “There is a lot of talk in Kyiv and Ukraine more generally about the whole crisis being kind of exaggerated in order to force Ukraine to actually implement the Minsk agreements as a way of kind of calming down Putin.”

Putin pride

Despite those suspicions, Macron has kept diplomatic channels open. “I think what Emmanuel Macron has spotted is the need to play up to Putin’s sense of pride. By coming to Moscow and sitting with Putin and giving Putin, if you like, almost the lead in the negotiations — that’s exactly what the Russian president really craves for,” Peel told VOA.

Whether that will be enough to avert conflict remains to be seen. European diplomatic efforts continue next week, when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due to visit Moscow for talks with President Putin.
…

The former communist countries of eastern Europe are growing increasingly nervous about what they see as a revanchist Russia, with their governments carefully watching the Ukraine crisis for clues to where else Russian leader Vladimir Putin could stir trouble.

Britain announced Monday that 350 Royal Marine Commandos who were on exercises in Norway will be diverted to Poland to take part in “contingency planning.” The move comes as tensions build around Russia’s deployment of forces on Ukraine’s borders in the biggest military build-up since 1945.

A British defense official said the diversion is about “reassurance to eastern European partners” who fear Putin is using Ukraine as a battering ram in a campaign to upend the post-Cold War security settlement in Europe and reestablish a Russian sphere of influence across Eastern Europe.

And Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Tuesday he is prepared to deploy warplanes to Bulgaria and Romania and warships to the Black Sea. Britain will not “flinch,” he said.

NATO presence

NATO has troops rotating in and out of eastern Europe in what officials in the Western alliance’s headquarters in Brussels describe as a persistent, but not permanent, presence. They say troop deployments have been intentionally light from the Baltics to the Black Sea in a bid to deter but not to provoke Russian aggression.

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, there have been four battle groups containing a total of 5,000 troops in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, led by the U.S., Germany, Canada and Britain.

The United States has ordered a further 3,000 troops to strengthen the defenses of NATO’s eastern allies, with the first arriving Saturday at Rzeszów military base in southeastern Poland. And Germany is preparing to reinforce its small battle group of 1,200 troops currently in Lithuania

NATO is considering a longer-term military posture in eastern Europe, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday.

“We are considering more longer-term adjustments to our posture, our presence in the eastern part of the alliance. No final decision has been made on that but there is a process now going on within NATO,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Stoltenberg’s remarks were praised by eastern European governments.

“Based on historical experience, we see that only a decisive deterrence policy can stop any potential Russian aggression and based on the very same history, we do see that the policy of appeasement only encourages the potential enemy to do something,” Mariusz Blaszczak, the Polish defense minister, said Monday.

Putin’s next move

Polish analysts say there are real fears in central and eastern Europe that settled borders are now under threat. If Putin decides to add more Ukrainian territory to what he seized in 2014, they ask, what will stop him from using coercive diplomacy or hybrid warfare to manufacture a crisis elsewhere?

Putin has frequently lamented that the breakup of the Soviet Union left 25.3 million ethnic Russians outside the Russian Federation, many of them living in former Soviet republics, including the Baltic states. The presence of a sizable ethnic Russian minority in Ukraine has been used by the Kremlin for leverage, and some leaders of the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Estonia worry the same could happen with their countries.

“In Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn, the mood is full of anxiety,” say historian Karolina Wigura and political analyst Jarosław Kuisz.

“The Russian military menace to Ukraine reawakens old traumas and, paradoxically, not only those generated from the east. Another angst is, to put it bluntly, that the West will again abandon us,” they added in a commentary.

“Many citizens of central and eastern Europe have clear memories of living under Moscow’s rule. For them, 30 years of independence is not long enough to banish the worry that we are trapped in a cycle of ever-repeating history,” they added.

NATO deployments — which are dwarfed by Russia’s military buildup — are going some way to steady nerves but there are fears that Putin no longer feels bound by the post–Cold War order, which he believes is against Russia’s national interests. Russian troll factories have long targeted the Baltic states with disinformation using messaging similar to the propaganda focused on Ukraine — namely NATO is occupying them, and Russian minorities are under threat, say analysts.

Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, said recently: “The Baltic states are a NATO peninsula and therefore we have our worries.”

Estonia has been the target of a series of cyber-attacks since 2007, which are blamed on Russia and started amid an Estonian-Russian row about the relocation of a Soviet memorial in Tallinn.

Nearly a quarter of Estonia’s population is ethnic Russian, and while integration has proceeded apace most ethnic Russians send their children to Russian language schools and watch Russian media. The country’s third largest city, Narva, is 80% ethnic Russian and analysts see it as the most likely target for Moscow if the Kremlin decides to foment trouble.

Arvydas Anusauskas, the Lithuanian defense minister, points to the channeling of Russian troops to neighboring Belarus for large-scale military exercises as unnerving and says the drills pose a “direct threat” to his country.

Relations between Lithuania and Russia have also been frosty since the country became the first of the Baltic states, and first Soviet republic, to gain independence in 1990. Russian troops remained in Lithuania for another three years as then-Russian leader Boris Yeltsin linked troop withdrawals to issues concerning the Russian minority in the country. Fifteen percent of Lithuania’s population is ethnic Russian. Since independence, Lithuanian leaders have visited Moscow only three times.

“This is now an area full of weaponry. Russian troops that are in the south of his country can be moved very quickly. There are sorts of hybrid attacks under way. Pipelines falling apart. This is how unfortunately these regimes operate. There are no red lines they will not cross,” she said.

Šimonytė questioned Monday’s meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin, displaying wariness about the French president’s diplomatic mission to Moscow. Like other Baltic leaders, she is wary of the idea, apparently mooted by Macron, that Ukraine should be blocked from joining NATO. Reports said Macron suggested Ukraine should remain permanently neutral.

“Neutrality helps the oppressor and never the victim,” Šimonytė said.

Lithuanian defense officials fear the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which is squeezed between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, could become the focus for a dangerous economic and military conflict between Russia and NATO, especially if the Western alliance doesn’t stand up to the Kremlin in the crisis over Ukraine.

“This is a 1938 moment for our generation,” Ingrida Šimonytė, Lithuania’s prime minister, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a reference to the appeasement of Nazi Germany by the British and French. She fears substantial Russian forces will remain indefinitely in Belarus whatever happens in Ukraine and that would change the security landscape.
…

The Ukrainian military says the number of artillery attacks on the border between Ukraine and the Russia-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions have decreased though Moscow continues mass troops just inside its border. Victor Lymar traveled to the region and has this story narrated by Anna Rice.
…

Paris — Plastic has infiltrated all parts of the ocean and is now found “in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale” wildlife group WWF said on Tuesday, calling for urgent efforts to create an international treaty on plastics.

Tiny fragments of plastic have reached even the most remote and seemingly pristine regions of the planet: it peppers Arctic sea ice and has been found inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean, the Mariana Trench.

There is no international agreement in place to address the problem, although delegates meeting in Nairobi for a United Nations environment meeting this month are expected to launch talks on a worldwide plastics treaty.

WWF sought to bolster the case for action in its latest report, which synthesizes more than 2,000 separate scientific studies on the impacts of plastic pollution on the oceans, biodiversity and marine ecosystems.

The report acknowledged that there is currently insufficient evidence to estimate the potential repercussions on humans.

But it found that the fossil-fuel derived substance “has reached every part of the ocean, from the sea surface to the deep ocean floor, from the poles to coastlines of the most remote islands and is detectable in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale.”

According to some estimates, between 19 and 23 million tons of plastic waste is washed into the world’s waterways every year, the WWF report said.

This is largely from single-use plastics, which still constitute more than 60% of marine pollution, although more and more countries are acting to ban their use.

“In many places (we are) reaching some kind of saturation point for marine ecosystems, where we’re approaching levels that pose a significant threat,” said Eirik Lindebjerg, Global Plastics Policy Manager at WWF.

In some places there is a risk of “ecosystem collapse,” he said.

Many people have seen images of seabirds choking on plastic straws or turtles wrapped in discarded fishing nets, but he said the danger is across the entire marine food web.

It “will affect not only the whale and the seal and the turtle, but huge fish stocks and the animals that depend on those,” he added.

In one 2021 study, 386 fish species were found to have ingested plastic, out of 555 tested.

Separate research, looking at the major commercially fished species, found up to 30% of cod in a sample caught in the North Sea had microplastics in their stomach.

Once in the water, the plastic begins to degrade, becoming smaller and smaller until it is a “nano plastic,” invisible to the naked eye.

So even if all plastic pollution stopped completely, the volume of microplastics in the oceans could still double by 2050.

But plastic production continues to rise, potentially doubling by 2040, according to projections cited by WWF, with ocean plastic pollution expected to triple during the same period.

Lindebjerg compares the situation to the climate crisis — and the concept of a “carbon budget,” that caps the maximum amount of CO2 that can be released into the atmosphere before a global warming cap is exceeded.

“There is actually a limit to how much plastic pollution our marine ecosystems can absorb,” he said.

Those limits have already been reached for microplastics in several parts of the world, according to WWF, particularly in the Mediterranean, the Yellow and East China Seas (between China, Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula) and in the Arctic sea ice.

“We need to treat it as a fixed system that doesn’t absorb plastic, and that’s why we need to go towards zero emissions, zero pollution as fast as possible,” said Lindebjerg.

WWF is calling for talks aimed at drawing up an international agreement on plastics at the U.N. environment meeting, from February 28 to March 2 in Nairobi.

It wants any treaty to lead to global standards of production and real “recyclability.”

Trying to clean up the oceans is “extremely difficult and extremely expensive,” Lindebjerg said, adding that it was better on all metrics not to pollute in the first place.
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President Joe Biden says he and Germany’s new chancellor are in lockstep over the perilous situation in Ukraine, where the specter of an imminent Russian invasion haunts all of Europe. The two leaders held their first in-person meeting on Monday. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
…

Millions of people around the world enjoy a daily cup of coffee; however, their daily caffeine fix could be under threat because climate change is killing coffee plants, putting farmers’ livelihoods at risk.

Inside the vast, steamy greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the leafy suburbs of west London, Aaron Davis leads the research into coffee.

“Arabica coffee, our preferred coffee, provides us with about 60% of the coffee that we drink globally. It’s a delicious coffee, it’s the one we love to drink. The other species is robusta coffee, which provides us with the other 40% of the coffee we drink – but that mainly goes into instant coffees and espresso mixes,” Davis explains.

The cultivation of arabica and robusta coffee beans accounts for millions of livelihoods across Africa, South America and Asia.

“These coffees have served us very well for many centuries, but under climate change they’re facing problems,” Davis says.

“Arabica is a cool tropical plant; it doesn’t like high temperatures. Robusta is a plant that likes even moist conditions; it likes high rainfall. And under climate change, rainfall patters are being modified, and it’s also experiencing problems. In some cases, yields are dramatically reduced because of increased temperatures or reduced rainfall. But in some cases, as we’ve seen in Ethiopia, you might get a complete harvest failure and death of the trees.”

The solution could be growing deep in the forests of West Africa. There are around 130 species of coffee plant – but not all taste good. In Sierra Leone, scientists from Kew helped to identify one candidate, stenophylla, growing in the wild.

“This is extremely heat tolerant. And is an interesting species because it matches arabica in terms of its superb taste,” Davis says.

Two other coffee species also show promise for commercial cultivation in a changing climate: liberica and eugenioides, which “has low yields and very small beans, but it has an amazing taste,” according to Davis.

Some believe the taste is far superior. At the 2021 World Barista Championship in Milan, Australia’s Hugh Kelly won third prize with his eugenioides espresso. Kelly recalled the first time he tasted it at a remote farm in Colombia. “It was a coffee like I’ve never tasted before; as I tasted it, it was unbelievably sweet … I knew that sweetness and gentle acidity were the bones for an incredible espresso,” Kelly told judges in Milan.

Researchers hope Kelly’s success could be the breakthrough moment for these relatively unknown beans.

The team at the Botanic Gardens is working with farmers in Africa on cultivating the new coffees commercially. Catherine Kiwuka of the Ugandan National Agricultural Research Organization, who oversees some of the projects, says challenges still lie ahead.

“What requirements do they need? How do we boost its productivity? Instead of it being dominated by only two species, we have the opportunity to tap into the value of other coffee species.”

It’s hoped that substantial volumes of liberica coffee will be exported from Uganda to Europe this year. Researchers hope it will provide a sustainable income for farmers – and an exciting new taste for coffee drinkers.
…

At their first meeting in four years, officials of the U.S.-European Union Energy Council confronted an urgent, short-term priority – bolstering natural gas supplies amid a Russian threat to invade Ukraine – and a longer-term concern: mitigating climate change.

“We’re coordinating with our allies and partners, with the energy sector stakeholders, including on how best to share energy reserves in the event that Russia turns off the spigot or initiates a conflict that disrupts the flow of gas through Ukraine,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken following Monday’s meeting in Washington.

Moscow has threatened to halt the flow of gas to Europe if economic sanctions are imposed as a result of any further Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“This crisis has been pushing trans-Atlantic unity,” according to Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

“In the medium term, there is the climate neutrality,” explained Borrell, who is also the vice president of the European Commission. “In the short term, it’s security of supplies of gas. Both things go together.”

Europe is likely to rely more on the United States for its gas supplies as a result of the crisis. President Joe Biden has pledged to help Europe find additional liquified natural gas from sources in the United States and other countries if Russia-Ukraine tensions cause disruptions.

“We think we can make up a significant portion of it that would be lost,” Biden said at a White House news conference alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday afternoon.

That is seen by some environmentalists as counter-productive to achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, something the United States and the European Union have pledged to work together to accomplish.

European officials “are not doing everything they need to be to get their addiction to gas ramped down as fast as possible. They’re really convinced that they need gas, and they see the U.S. as a supplier for that,” Aki Kachi, senior policy analyst at NewClimate Institute in Germany, told VOA News. “Generally, in both the EU and the U.S., there’s a lack of understanding about the climate impacts of gas.”

“Germany has decided to phase out the use of oil and gas very soon and by 2045 Germany will have a carbon-neutral economy as one of the strongest economies of the world,” Scholz told reporters at the White House. “It’ll probably be the biggest industrial modernization project in Germany in 100 years.”

The trans-Atlantic partnership has pledged to increase collaboration on reducing emissions from fossil fuels and expanding use of energy from the sun, wind, batteries and hydrogen.

“As we face geopolitical tensions and the challenge of climate change, we need more, not less, trans-Atlantic cooperation,” Kadri Simson, the European Commission’s energy commissioner, said at the meeting’s opening.

At the start of Monday’s discussion, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the goals set out in Washington and Brussels have significant geo-political ramifications at a time when energy prices have “gone through the roof” on both sides of the Atlantic amid the threats from Russia.

“This is not just an energy and climate issue,” Granholm told the meeting. “It also is potentially the greatest peace plan that ever existed, to be able to build out energy independence from clean energy.”

Together, the economies of the U.S. and the EU represent about 45% of the world’s economic output, and an even smaller percentage of global carbon dioxide emissions. That means for the world to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, the legally binding international treaty on climate change, other major emitters will need to make good on their ambitious pledges.

“If only the EU and the U.S. are taking action, it wouldn’t be enough,” Kachi noted. “But it’s not really the case because China and India and other countries are also major investors in renewables.”
…

In eastern Ukraine, tensions over threat of a Russian invasion continue to rise, although in the eastern town of Avdiivka, along the frontlines facing Kremlin-backed separatists, the war has never ceased since 2014. For VOA, Ricardo Marquina traveled there and has this report narrated by Elizabeth Cherneff.
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Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in Africa have in recent years been backed by private military contractors, often described as belonging to the “Wagner group” — an entity with no known legal status.   

Most recently, Western nations have condemned the alleged arrival of Russian mercenaries in Mali’s capital Bamako, a claim denied by the junta that seized power in 2020.   

As relations with France worsen, the military rulers may be looking for ways to make up for shrinking numbers of European troops fighting Mali’s years-old jihadist insurgency.   

“Mercs [mercenaries] working in Africa is an established norm” thanks in part to decades of operations by contractors from South Africa, said Jason Blazakis of the New York-based Soufan Group think tank.   

“The Wagner folks are walking through a door that has long been open to their ilk,” he added.   

No information is publicly available about the group’s size or finances.   

But around Africa, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington has found evidence since 2016 of Russian soldiers of fortune in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR), Madagascar and Mozambique.   

Botswana, Burundi, Chad, the Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are also on the CSIS’s list.   

In Africa “there is a convergence of many states’ interests, including China’s,” Alexey Mukhin of the Moscow-based Centre for Political Information told AFP.   

“Every state has the right to defend its business assets,” he added.   

‘Hysteria’ 

Wagner does not officially exist, with no company registration, tax returns or organizational chart to be found.   

When the EU wanted to sanction the group in 2020, it targeted Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who is suspected of running Wagner.   

It imposed further sanctions in December last year when mercenaries’ arrival in Mali appeared certain — drawing accusations of “hysteria” from Moscow.   

Western experts say military contractors are embedded in Russia’s official forces like intelligence agencies and the army, providing plausible deniability for Moscow.   

Their deployment to African countries aims to “enable Russia to… regain this sphere of influence” that fell away with the collapse of the Soviet Union, said CSIS researcher Catrina Doxsee.   

The mercenaries’ presence has been growing even faster since a 2019 Russia-Africa summit.   

Moscow has been active “especially in what has traditionally been France’s zone of influence” in former colonies like CAR and Mali, said Djallil Lounnas, a researcher at Morocco’s Al Akhawayn university.   

While military contractors sometimes shepherd Russian arms sales, the revenue “really pales compared with the profit they are able to generate from mining concessions and access to natural resources,” Doxsee said.   

That makes unstable countries with mineral or hydrocarbon wealth prime customers — such as in Syria where the mercenaries first became known to the wider public.   

No questions asked 

Lounnas said that another advantage for clients is a lack of friction over human rights and democracy that might come with Western partners.   

“Russia has its interests. It doesn’t ask questions,” he added.   

Reports of violence and abuse on the ground suggest that same latitude may extend to the mercenaries themselves.   

In the CAR, the United Nations is probing an alleged massacre during a joint operation by government forces and Wagner fighters.   

One military source told AFP that more than 50 people died, some in “summary executions.”

On Thursday, the European Union said it would not resume military training in the CAR — suspended since mid-December — unless the country’s soldiers stop working for Wagner.   

Meanwhile the mercenaries’ results do not always measure up to the hopes of the governments that hire them.   

In Libya, Russian mercenaries suffered heavy losses in Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s year-long attempt to conquer the capital Tripoli, which was ultimately unsuccessful.   

And in Mozambique, the Russians retreated in the face of Islamic State group jihadists, ultimately losing out to South African competitors.   

Although lacking language skills and experience with the terrain, Wagner “were picked because they were the cheapest”, Doxsee said.   

“They didn’t have what it took to succeed,” she added, noting that “they’ve had a fair few failures” across Africa.   

Succeeding completely might actually harm the mercenaries’ business model, which thrives on unrest, conflict and crisis.   

“If a country such as the CAR hires them to train forces, to help them in their military efforts, it’s in their interest to accomplish that just well enough to continue to be employed,” Doxsee said.  

“If they actually were to do it well enough to resolve the conflict, they would no longer be needed.”
…

Vladimir Putin has done much to rehabilitate Russia’s Soviet past, a rehabilitation that has grown apace with memorials once again erected to Joseph Stalin, and officials no longer embarrassed to hang portraits of the late Soviet dictator in their offices.

And the Russian president appears also to be copying the coercive diplomacy — with its mix of threats, hard power and brinkmanship — adopted by his Soviet predecessors, according to historians and former diplomats.

The Kremlin and its ally China called on the United States and NATO Friday to turn back on “Cold War approaches,” but the Russian military buildup on the borders of Ukraine harks back in many ways to the tactics pursued by Stalin and his successor, Nikita Khrushchev.

“We may be seeing Putin’s version of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s bluster and threats in 1961 over then-divided Berlin — an attempt to intimidate a U.S. president into offering concessions at a moment of perceived U.S. weakness today as a result of the American defeat and withdrawal from Afghanistan and domestic political division,” notes Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

He added in a commentary for Just Security, an online national security forum, “Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Putin demands that the West help restore its empire in Europe, the imposition of which by Joseph Stalin was the original cause of the Cold War. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed a lot about Kremlin views of the countries between Germany and Russia when he said in December that the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact left them not free or sovereign but ‘ownerless.’”

Testing the resolve and resilience of opponents with displays of brinkmanship goes back further and was honed by Stalin, starting almost immediately after the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Reich. In a new book, “Checkmate in Berlin,” British historian Giles Milton chronicles how Stalin tested and bewildered his wartime Western allies by harassing them at every turn in the German capital, which was divided into Soviet, American, British and French zones of occupation.

His goal was to wear them down and evict them not only from Berlin but the whole of Germany. The machinations included military standoffs that saw Red Army troops trespassing into the West’s zones of occupations, stacking the police and district administrations in Berlin with Moscow loyalists and building up the Communist Party, all done with astonishing, clandestine nimbleness to keep the Americans, the British and French wrong-footed.

The Soviets used propaganda and misinformation adeptly, making it impossible to determine what news was true and what was false, and with the overall goal of trying to turn Berliners against the West, says Milton.

“One of the most powerful propaganda tools was Radio Berlin, whose studios had been captured intact in May 1945. None of the broadcasters was subjected to denazification. According to one American intelligence agent, the station continued ‘with the same personnel that had been there under the Nazis. They just changed the colors of the shirts,’” Milton writes.

The crisis slowly came to a head. Washington and London eventually hardened their resistance to Soviet demands and maneuvers, partly persuaded to do so by American diplomat George Kennan, who sent a telegram of more than 5,000 words from Moscow to Washington, the longest the State Department had ever received. In the so-called Long Telegram, Kennan outlined Stalin’s expansionist and antagonistic intentions, and recommended strategic patience and containment of the Soviet Union.

In June 1948, Soviet forces blockaded rail, road and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin, starving them of electricity as well as essential food and coal. The United States and the United Kingdom responded with a herculean and ingenious campaign, known as Operation Vittles, (Berlin airlift) and airlifted enough food and fuel to feed and provide heat for 2.5 million West Berliners from air bases in western Germany.

The crisis ended in May 1949 with the blockade lifted when Stalin eventually conceded he couldn’t starve and freeze West Berliners into submission. The United States and Britain also mounted a counter-blockade on eastern Germany, causing severe shortages in turn, which the Kremlin feared might trigger political upheaval in their sphere of influence. The Berlin airlift acted as a spur for Western powers to set up NATO, Milton says.

John Lewis Gaddis, an eminent historian of the Cold War, also sees parallels between the coercive diplomacy employed by the Kremlin with its mixture of hard power and diplomatic know-how. In a recent radio interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Gaddis said Kennan’s analysis of the conduct of Soviet leadership is relevant today.  

Kennan wrote that the Soviet Kremlin didn’t believe in “peaceful coexistence” with the West, a belief springing from a “traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity” and a conviction that the West was menacing but wracked by growing internal political convulsions and destined finally to succumb.

“That is exactly Putin today,” said Gaddis.
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Britain’s health secretary says he wants the people who have delayed their non-COVID medical appointments to come back to the National Health Service.

Sajid Javid told Sky News, “I want them all to come back because I want them to know the NHS is there, it’s open for them.”

Javid said the NHS estimates between 8 to 9 million people “stayed away from NHS because they were asked to,” as healthcare workers dealt with COVID patients. Now, however, the health secretary said, the NHS is ready to deal with the backlog.

He said a new online service will allow patients to see where they are on a waiting list and that billions of pounds are being invested “to get through the COVID backlog.”

South Korean public health officials have reported the country’s tally of COVID infections passed the one-million-mark Sunday. Authorities also reported a record 38,691 new infections Sunday.

Australia said Monday it is opening its borders and it ready to welcome vaccinated travelers from around the world, beginning February 21. “If you’re double-vaccinated, we look forward to welcoming you back to Australia,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. The country’s closed border policy has put a strain on the country’s tourism industry.

American figure skater Vincent Zhou tested positive Monday for COVID. He is scheduled to compete Tuesday. He will be tested again before the short program, but if he continues to test positive, he will not be allowed to skate.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Monday that there are more than 395 million global COVID infections and nearly 6 million global COVID deaths. The center said more than 10 billion COVID vaccines have been administered.
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