Jailed Russian opposition leader Navalny reported dead; Western leaders blame Kremlin

Jailed Russian opposition leader Navalny reported dead; Western leaders blame Kremlin

Post By World Alexei Navalny dead, Navalny, Navalny dead, Navalny Putin, Navalny russia, Russia, russia news, Vladimir Putin

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most famous opposition leader, died on February 16 after collapsing and losing consciousness at the penal colony north of the Arctic Circle where he was serving a long jail term, the Russian prison service said.

Navalny, 47, rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning President Vladimir Putin and the Russian elite whom he accused of vast corruption, avarice and opulence.

The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny “felt unwell” after a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km (1,200 miles) north east of Moscow. He lost consciousness almost immediately, it said.

“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results. Doctors of the ambulance stated the death of the convict,” the prison service said, adding that causes of death were being established.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates will not go unpunished if the death of Alexei Navalny, as reported by Russian officials, turns out to be true, the Kremlin critic’s wife, Yulia, said. Yulia Navalny called upon the international community to come together and fight against the “horrific regime” in Russia, in a statement at the Munich Security Conference, speaking in Russian via an interpreter. Navalny’s mother was quoted by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta as saying that her son had been “alive, healthy and happy” when she last saw him on February 12. Novaya Gazeta reported that Lyudmila Navalnaya wrote in a Facebook post on Friday: “I don’t want to hear any condolences. We saw him in prison on the [Feb] 12, in a meeting. He was alive, healthy and happy.”

Mr. Putin has been told about Navalny’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Mr. Putin, who is running for re-election in a month, was shown on a television clip visiting a factory in the Urals.

Meanwhile, the press secretary of Navalny said on the X social media platform on Friday that she was unable to confirm his death, which was reported by the country’s prison service earlier.

The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is spreading the news of Alexey Navalny’s death in IK-3. We have no confirmation of this yet. Alexey’s lawyer is currently on his way to Kharp. As soon as we have some information, we will report on…

— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 16, 2024

Kira Yarmysh said that Navalny’s lawyer was travelling to the site of the prison where he had been serving his sentence.

The former head of Navalny’s political organisation Leonid Volkov alleged that if it were true that he is dead, then Russian President Vladimir Putin killed him.

Mr. Volkov wrote on X: “We have no basis to believe state propaganda. If it’s true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died’, but only that ‘Putin killed him’. But I don’t believe them for a second.”

‘Russia responsible for Navalny’s death’: World leaders react

Western governments and Russian opposition figures said the Kremlin was responsible for Navalny’s death.

The White House said the death, if confirmed, would be “a terrible tragedy.” Speaking on NPR, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also added the Kremlin’s “long and sordid” history of harming its opponents “raises real and obvious questions about what happened here.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the reports underscore what he described as the “weakness and rot” of the system President Vladimir Putin built. “First and foremost, if these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family,” Mr. Blinken said in Munich.

“Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this,” Mr. Blinken added.

“We’ll be talking to the many other countries concerned about Alexei Navalny, especially if these reports bear out to be true,” Blinken said.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said news of Alexei Navalny’s death was terrible. “This is terrible news. As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life,” Sunak said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Russia, for whom this is a huge tragedy,” he added.

The European Union said held President Vladimir Putin’s Russia solely responsible for the death. “Alexei Navalny fought for the values of freedom and democracy. For his ideals, he made the ultimate sacrifice,” European Council President Charles Michel posted on X. “The EU holds the Russian regime for sole responsible for this tragic death.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he was “deeply saddened and disturbed” by the reports. “We need to establish all the facts, and Russia needs to answer all the serious questions about the circumstances of his death,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.

Navalny has paid with his life for his ‘resistance to a system of oppression’, French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said in comments on the death of the famous Russian political activist. “His death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime”, said Sejourne.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the news “disturbing”, adding that it served as a warning to the rest of the world. “We express our heartfelt condolences and hope that full clarity will be revealed over this disturbing event,” Ms. Meloni said in a statement.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was “very sad” about reports, adding that it was a “terrible” sign of how Russia as a country had changed in recent years.

Who is Alexei Navalny, who has become the most vocal and effective critic of Russia’s government and President Vladimir Putin? https://t.co/9HUGVXFh5N pic.twitter.com/0F3KMtzRUU

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 19, 2021

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said on X on Friday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”. “Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as the politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime. My condolences to the family and friends,” he wrote.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares demanded a “clarification of the circumstances” of the death of Alexei Navalny in prison. “Deeply shocked by the death of Alexei Navalny. We demand clarification of the circumstances of his death, which occurred during his unjust imprisonment for political reasons,” Albares wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that what she called Western accusations about the death of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny were “self-revealing”.

In a statement posted on the messenger app Telegram, Ms. Zakharova said that forensic results on Navalny’s death were still unavailable but that the West had already reached its own conclusions. Ms. Zakharova did not clarify which accusations she was referring to.

Biden says Putin responsible for on Navalny’s death

U.S. President Joe Biden said he was “not surprised” but “outraged” after the reported death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. “He bravely stood up to the corruption, the violence and all the bad things the Putin government was doing,” Biden said at the White House of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.”

God bless Alexei Navalny, his courage will not be forgotten’

Biden adds that this is the time for “greater unity” among Nato allies to stand against Vladimir Putin, in spite of the Russian president’s “desperate attempts to stamp out any oppositon”.

The White House was seeking more information about Navalny’s death at a Russian penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, where he was dispatched less than two months ago.

Opposition leader

Navalny’s exposes, posted on his YouTube channel racked up millions of views and brought tens of thousands of Russians to the streets, despite Russia’s harsh anti-protests laws.

He was jailed in early 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was recuperating from a near-fatal poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent.

Editorial | Poison and prison: On political importance of Navalny

In a string of cases he was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges widely condemned by independent rights groups and in the West as retribution for his opposition to the Kremlin.

His return to Russia despite facing jail put him on a collision course with Putin, after Navalny blamed the poisoning attack in Siberia on the Kremlin.

“I’m not afraid and I call on you not to be afraid,” he said in an appeal to supporters as he landed in Moscow, moments before being detained on charges linked to an old fraud conviction.

His 2021 arrest spurred some of the largest demonstrations Russia had seen in decades, and thousands were detained at rallies nationwide calling for his release.

In prison, Navalny’s team said he had been harassed and repeatedly moved to a punitive solitary confinement cell.

He said guards had subjected him and other inmates to “torture by Putin”, making them listen to the President’s speeches.

From behind bars he was a staunch opponent of Moscow’s full-scale military offensive against Ukraine.

The Kremlin moved to dismantle his organisation, locking up his allies and sending dozens of others into exile.

Late last year he was moved to a remote Arctic prison colony in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region in northern Siberia.

The last post on Navalny’s Telegram channel, which he managed through his lawyers and team in exile, was a tribute to his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, posted on Valentine’s Day.

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ICJ partially rejects Ukraine ‘terror’ case against Russia

Post By World Russia, Ukraine, ukraine war

All the latest developments on the war in Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine swap scores of POWs despite tensions over a plane crash last week

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged about 200 prisoners of war each, the countries said Wednesday, despite tensions stemming from last week’s crash of a military transport plane that Moscow claimed was carrying Ukrainian POWs and was shot down by Kyiv’s forces.

After the 24 January crash of the Il-76 plane in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine, some Russian officials had publicly questioned the possibility of future POW swaps.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the countries exchanged 195 POWs each. After the statement was released, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 207 Ukrainians were freed. There was no immediate explanation for the different figures.

“We remember each Ukrainian in captivity. Both warriors and civilians. We must bring all of them back. We are working on it,” Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter.

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s ombudsman for human rights, said on social media that it was the 50th such exchange since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly two years ago, with a total of 3,035 POWs repatriated.

Among the Ukrainians released were members of the armed forces, National Guard, Border Service and national police, said Andrii Yermak, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office. He added that some of them had been captured while defending Mariupol, Azovstal, and Snake Island.

The Russian military said, without providing details or evidence, that the Russian POWs who were swapped Wednesday “faced deadly danger in captivity” and will be flown to Moscow for treatment and rehabilitation.

Moscow had said 65 Ukrainian POWs had been aboard the military transport that crashed 24 January. Ukrainian officials confirmed that a swap was due to take place that day and was called off, but said it has seen no evidence the plane was carrying the POWs.

Meeting with his campaign staff in Moscow as he ramps up his run for reelection, President Vladimir Putin said Russian investigators concluded that Ukraine used US-supplied Patriot air defence systems to shoot down the transport plane. Ukrainian officials didn’t deny the plane’s downing but didn’t take responsibility and called for an international investigation.

Putin said Russia wouldn’t just welcome but would “insist” on an international inquiry on what he described as a “crime” by Ukraine.

ICJ judges largely reject Ukraine’s “terror” case against Russia

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected on Wednesday almost all of Ukraine’s claims on Russia violating the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

The United Nations’ top court rejected large parts of the case filed by Ukraine, alleging that Russia bankrolled separatist rebels in the country’s east a decade ago and discriminated against Crimea’s multi-ethnic community, the International Court of Justice ruled Wednesday that Moscow violated articles of two treaties.

Russia has not fulfilled its obligations only on one provision of the convention, said ICJ President Joan Donoghue while reading out the decision in The Hague.

“Russia failed to fulfill its obligations to conduct investigations against individuals who allegedly could finance terrorism in Ukraine,” she said.

Most of Ukraine’s claims under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination were also found to be ungrounded.

“The Court rejects all other claims of Ukraine in relation to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” the order read.

However, it added that Russia had violated its obligations under Articles 2 and 5 of the convention through its implementation of its educational system in Crimea after 2014 with regard to schooling in the Ukrainian language.

Even though it rejected far more of Kyiv’s claims under the treaties, Anton Korynevych, a lawyer representing Ukraine at the ICJ, said it was a “really important day” because the court had still ruled that Russia had “violated international law.”

Ukraine sued Russia for violating both conventions in 2017, and labeled breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk “terrorist organisations financed by Russia.”

Kyiv also insisted that Russia was allegedly conducting a targeted campaign of racial discrimination against Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea.

The court also rejected Ukraine’s request for Moscow to pay reparations for attacks in eastern Ukraine blamed on pro-Russia Ukrainian rebels, including the 17 July 2014, downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that killed all 298 passengers and crew.

Azov Brigade uses a howitzer to fire at Russian positions in eastern Ukraine

An artillery unit of the Azov Brigade in eastern Ukraine has used a howitzer to fire at Russian positions, as Ukraine’s forces continue to grapple with ammunition shortages.

The unit, embedded in the forest near Lyman, said Russian forces were attempting to advance and their work was crucial to hold them back.

The situation in the Kreminna direction is tense with Russians making assaults every day, the soldiers say.

“As on the entire frontline, it is quite tense here because there are active assaults that we are fighting back and this requires a lot of ammunition,” said “Vyarag”, an Azov Brigade howitzer calculation commander.

The brigade is facing a lack of ammunition and parts to repair the American howitzers they received last September.

For now, they have only 10% of the total number they need to fight Russians said one of the commanders of the artillery division.

The brigade said that they are constantly inventing new fighting strategies to deter the Russians, but to go on a counterattack to win, more ammunition is needed.

Even with a shortage of ammunition, soldiers are not lacking motivation.

Putin holds meeting on development of occupied Ukrainian territories

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday chaired a meeting on the economic development of occupied Ukrainian territories.

Moscow spent almost two trillion rubles on a “comprehensive” development programme of Russia-held parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions last year, Putin said.

Over two million local residents there are already receiving social security payments, he added.

“The economy is gradually recovering, including industry. More than one-and-a-half hundred enterprises in mechanical engineering, metallurgy, mining, and other important industries in all these regions have resumed work.

Support for farmers has been established, banks and shops are operating,” Putin claimed.

He urged Russian banks to start working in the occupied territories.

“Everything that was feared before – sanctions – has already happened. What is there to be afraid of? You need to enter these territories and work more actively there,” Putin said.

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Russia faces new ICJ ruling as European leaders say they let Kyiv down

Post By World Roman Abramovich, Russia, Ukraine, ukraine war

The latest developments from the war in Ukraine.

European leaders admit EU has ‘fallen short’ of its goals to help Ukraine

In a letter published in the Financial Times on Wednesday, five European leaders admitted “the hard truth” that the European Union has “fallen short” of its goal to supply Ukraine with 1 million artillery rounds before the end of March 2024.

In the document, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Czech Republic’s Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Netherlands’ Prime Minister Mark Rutte wrote that the EU “can’t just give up on our promise.”

“If Ukrainian soldiers are to keep up the fight, the need for ammunition is overwhelming,” the letter reads. “And the EU member states’ delivery of arms and ammunition to Ukraine is more important than ever.”

The leaders called for the EU to redouble its efforts to support Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion and provide Kyiv “the ammunition and weapon systems, including howitzers, tanks, UAVs and air defence” it urgently needs.

Ruling due in Russian separatist funding case

The United Nations’ top court plans to rule today on Ukraine’s allegations that Russia bankrolled separatist rebels in the country’s east a decade ago and has discriminated against Crimea’s multiethnic community since its annexation of the peninsula.

The legally binding final ruling is the first of two expected decisions from the International Court of Justice linked to the decade-long conflict between Russia and Ukraine that exploded into a full-blown war almost two years ago.

The case, filed in 2017, accuses Russia of breaching conventions against discrimination and the financing of terrorism. Ukraine wants the court to order Moscow to pay reparations for attacks and crimes in the country’s east, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July 2014.

The court is also expected to rule Friday on Russia’s objections to its jurisdiction in another case filed by Ukraine shortly after Russian troops invaded in February 2022. It alleges that Moscow launched its attack based on trumped-up genocide allegations.

The court already has issued an interim order for Russia to halt the invasion, which Moscow has flouted.

European Commission extends duty-free policy with Ukraine

The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it would extend the suspension of import duties on Ukrainian agricultural exports for another year, til June 2025.

The announcement is likely to fuel the anger of farmers who have been protesting across Europe for measures to protect them from the influx of cheaper imports and to recognise the value of their work.

Belarusian rock band critical of Putin detained in Thailand

Members of a rock band that has been critical of Moscow’s war in Ukraine remained locked up Tuesday in a Thai immigration jail, fearful that they could be deported to Russia as a reported plan to let them fly to safety in Israel was apparently suspended.

The progressive rock band Bi-2 said on Facebook they had information that intervention from Russian diplomats had scuttled the plan, even though tickets had already been purchased for their flight.

“The group participants remain detained at the immigration centre in a shared cell with 80 people,” the post said. It said they declined to meet with the Russian consul.

The group later said on the Telegram messaging app that its singer, Yegor Bortnik, whose stage name is Lyova, boarded a flight for Israel late Tuesday, but the other members remained in jail.

The seven band members were arrested last Thursday after playing a concert on the southern resort island of Phuket, reportedly for not having proper working papers. On Facebook, they said all their concerts “are held in accordance with local laws and practices.” Phuket is a popular destination for Russian expats and tourists.

The detained musicians “include Russian citizens as well as dual nationals of Russia and other countries, including Israel and Australia,” the group Human Rights Watch said in a statement Tuesday. Those holding only Russian citizenship are thought to be most at risk.

Bi-2 has 1.01 million subscribers to its YouTube channel and 376,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Ukraine’s promises to Hungarian minority fall short, says Orbán

Members of a sizeable ethnic Hungarian minority in Ukraine continue to disrupt relations between Budapest and Kyiv, threatening to derail key financial support for the Ukrainian war effort.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has long alleged that Ukraine’s government is infringing upon the right of Hungarian-speaking students, and of the roughly 75,000 ethnic Hungarians residing in the Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia, to speak their native language in education and public administration.

His government has blocked crucial EU funding for Ukraine and threatened to impede the war-ravaged country’s efforts toward eventually joining the bloc, bringing diplomatic ties to worrying lows.

The dispute over language is rooted in Ukraine’s efforts to bolster its national identity after Russia-backed rebels took control of two regions in the country’s east in 2014 and Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Aimed at combating Russian influence, but ultimately affecting other minority languages, a law was passed in 2017 that made Ukrainian the required language of school study past the fifth grade.

But in December, Ukraine amended its education and language laws to comply with the EU’s membership requirements, and restored many of the language rights demanded by Budapest – prompting a sigh of relief from the region’s Hungarian community.

UK tries to free up frozen Abramovich Chelsea funds

UK lawmakers expressed frustration Wednesday that funds from the sale of the Chelsea Football Club have not yet gone to support Ukrainian war victims as had been promised nearly two years ago by the former owner, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

Abramovich sold Chelsea in 2022 after being sanctioned by the British government for what it called his enabling of Russia’s “brutal and barbaric invasion” of Ukraine.

He pledged to donate the £2.5 billion (nearly €3 billion) from the sale to victims of the war. But almost 20 months later, the funds are still frozen in a bank account in an apparent disagreement with the British government over how they should be spent.

The stalemate highlights the difficulty Western governments face in reallocating frozen Russian assets to Ukraine – even those that have been pledged by their owner.

“We are all completely baffled and frustrated that it has taken so long,” said Lord Peter Ricketts, chair of the European Affairs Committee in the British House of Lords, which produced the report.

“We can’t understand why either Abramovich or the British government didn’t ensure that there was more clarity in the original undertaking which … would avoid arguments about exactly who in Ukraine would get this money,” Ricketts said.

The impasse “reflects badly on both Mr Abramovich and the Government,” the report said.

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Ukraine lets slip the cats of war

Post By Politics Artillery, drones, media, military, Russia, social media, Ukraine, War, War In Ukraine, weapons

Wars are fought by soldiers using bullets, shells and missiles, but also with ideas and propaganda — which explains why cats have become the latest battlefront in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s social media are full of felines, showing how they help soldiers as emotional support animals, attract donations to the military with their fluffy cuteness, and also fight invaders — in this case mice.

Russia is fighting back by humanizing its invading soldiers — often used in “meat wave” attacks against Ukrainian positions and accused of atrocities against civilians — by showing them with their own cats.

Cats usually arrive at Ukrainian army positions from nearby villages or towns destroyed by war. Abandoned by their owners, the pets seek human protection from the constant shelling, drone strikes and minefields.

“When this scared little creature comes to you, seeking protection, how could you say no? We are strong, so we protect weaker beings, who got into the same awful circumstances as we did, just because Russians showed up on our land,” explained Oleksandr Yabchanka, a Ukrainian army combat medic.

Cats and other animals bring comfort to Ukrainian soldiers. “Some adopt them and take them home, others prefer to keep them in the trenches and even pass them on to other units during rotation,” said Oleksandr Shtupun, a Ukrainian army spokesperson.

The adopted felines also fight their own battles against the mice that infest the trenches and chew Starlink satellite comms cables and car wiring, destroy food supplies and military gear, and even nip the fingers of sleeping soldiers.

“If cats live in our trenches, mice will almost always stay away,” Yabchanka said.

Syrsky the cat

Ukrainian Army Land Forces Commander Oleksandr Syrsky is known as one of the country’s most effective combat leaders; he is less famous for having a feline namesake with a lethal reputation. Roman Sinicyn, a Ukrainian army officer and the human of Syrsky the Cat, claims the naming was coincidental.

“He got the name because he likes cheese [syr in Ukrainian]. Of course, a cat with the same name as our general has already become a military joke,” Sinicyn said.

Even General Syrsky found it funny … to Sinicyn’s infinite relief. The officer met Syrsky the cat on a combat mission in a frontline village where, for a month, soldiers had been living in an abandoned house infested with mice.

“Most of the locals evacuated, so the cats took over. We caught Syrsky and food-persuaded him to stay with us. He helped to solve our mouse problem,” Sinicyn said.

Roman Sinicyn, a Ukrainian army officer and the human of Syrsky the Cat | Roman Sinicyn

“The mice run over you while you sleep, they get into your stuff. They chew everything. We had to throw out two boxes of our packed rations because of mice,” Sinicyn explained.

Once Syrsky was installed, the soldiers would listen to his nightly patrols against rodents.

“I took him home when we left that position. Now he lives with my family in Kyiv, but he continues to help the army. We used his social media popularity to collect €147,000 for Mini Shark UAV complexes for adjusting artillery,” Sinicyn said.

Shaybyk the lover

Oleksandr Liashuk, from the Odesa region in southwest Ukraine, gave a purr-out to Shaybyk — one of four stray kittens living with his unit on the southern front in 2022.

“Shaybyk had the biggest charisma. It was getting cold, so I took him with me one night into my sleeping bag. And that’s when I fell in love with that cat,” said Liashuk, 26. “He’s not just my best friend, he’s my son.”

Since then, Shaybyk has moved to different positions with Liashuk, with the pair becoming a viral sensation for their joint patrol videos.

Shaybyk has moved to different positions with Liashuk, with the pair becoming a viral sensation for their joint patrol videos | Oleksandr Liashuk

Liashuk describes his cat as the perfect hunter. “Once we were at the position in the forest and he caught 11 mice in one day. Sometimes [he] brings mice to my sleeping bag,” he boasted.

Despite their bond, Shaybyk remains a free cat, but he has always returned to Liashuk. In June he disappeared for 18 long days until he was found by Ukrainian soldiers at a position several kilometers away, chilling with the local felines. “He just needed some love. I call it a vacation,” Liashuk said.

Shaybyk and Liashuk also collect donations for the Ukrainian army, with Shaybyk receiving a special award in September for helping to raise money to buy seven cars and other supplies.

Karolina the mother

Yabchanka says he was never a cat person.

That changed two years ago, the day he met Karolina — a sassy stray who showed up at his unit’s position in the village of Serebrianka, Donetsk region.

“One day Karolina jumped on our sleeping spot, even though she was not allowed to. We started swearing. In response, she started giving birth. That is how we got ourselves a family of six cats,” Yabchanka said.

During a rotation, Karolina and her kittens moved with Yabchanka’s unit until they grew old enough to be adopted.

“We quickly found them their homes. But Karolina and her white kitten Honor stayed with me. I took them to Lviv, my home town. My mother was so happy she got two frontline cats,” Yabchanka laughed.

A year later a small dog, Shabrys, whom Yabchanka picked up near Kupiansk in Kharkiv region, joined the Lviv cat gang.

“Now we’re never bored at home,” he said, showing dog-cat fight videos. “You can’t abandon poor creatures who chose you as their last hope.”

Herych the high-bred

Unlike frontline strays, Herald, known as Herych, is a cat aristocrat. As soon as Russia invaded, Herych, a Scottish Fold, joined his human, Kyrylo Liukov, a military coordinator for the Serhiy Prytula Volunteer Foundation, which delivers supplies to frontline units.

Herych, who lives with Liukov in Kramatorsk, a city in Donetsk region, traveled to the front more than 20 times.

Unlike other frontline animals, Herych remains calm during Russian shelling | Kyrylo Liukov

“Every time he was the star of a show, with so many fighters running to us to pet him and take a picture with him,” Liukov said. “Herych was patient — though a little shocked.”

Unlike other frontline animals, Herych remains calm during Russian shelling. “At most he just turns his head to the sound and that’s all,” Liukov said.

Like Syrsky, Herych uses his online popularity to help Ukraine’s army, fronting a campaign that raised several million hryvnias (a million hryvnia is about €25,000) to purchase cars for the military.

The enemy’s cats

Russian propaganda has jumped on the story of Ukraine’s “mobilizing cats” as a sign of its desperation.

Meanwhile, regional outlets have published scores of similar stories about cats on the Russian side of the frontline, presumably in order to humanize the military in the wake of ongoing independent reports about Russian war crimes in Bucha and other places in Ukraine.

Late last year, the regional department of the Emergency Situations Ministry in western Russia’s Oryol, about 300 km from the Ukraine border, reported sending a cat named Marusya to the front to help fight mice.

“She will help boost soldiers’ morale and protect their sleep, defend food supplies,” the ministry said in a statement. “We’re sure that Marusya will do well and will soon return home!”

The Russian stories, however, tend to feature cats taken in by Russian soldiers after they were allegedly abandoned by their Ukrainian owners.

“It’s hard to imagine life without him,” the local VN.ru outlet based in Siberia’s Novosibirsk wrote of a black cat nicknamed Copter. “Together with the soldiers he discusses tactical plans, samples dishes and stands guard.”

Moscow tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets ran a story about a cat named Bullet who protected the commander of a motorized rifle unit by climbing onto his head to warn him of mines and enemy fire.

Another outlet in Samara published a video of a soldier stroking a cat described as the unit’s “therapist.”

“Their purring has a soothing effect and makes you feel at home,” the soldier said.

It wouldn’t be the first time Russia has weaponized cats for propaganda.

Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait separating the peninsula from the Russian mainland, a ginger-and-white cat called Mostik — Russian for “Little Bridge” — won nationwide fame as the bridge’s mascot.

He was even given an Instagram account, lending a cuddly veneer to what the West had condemned as a flagrant violation of international law.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct the name of Shabyk’s human; it is Oleksandr Liashuk.

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Sweden’s call for population to prepare for war sparks panic and criticism

Post By World Europe, Features, military, Russia, sweden, Ukraine, War

It’s been described as a bombshell moment. The upper echelons of Sweden’s government and defence forces last week shocked the nation by explicitly warning that war might come to Sweden, and that each and every Swede should prepare themselves. While some have taken the warning seriously and flocked to the stores to stock up on fuel and survival kits, others have accused the country’s leaders of fear-mongering.

Gustav Wallbom, a 37-year-old entrepreneur and farmer who was conscripted into Sweden’s compulsory military service before it was put on hold between 2010 and 2017, was not the least bit surprised by the call for Swedes to ready themselves for war.

“The fact that Russia, which is very near Sweden, is unreliable is not something new, and all the cases of espionage lately and Russia’s attempts to influence [public opinion] just add to that,” he said.

Heeding the call from officials, Wallbom, like many other Swedes, immediately headed to the hardware store to stock up on equipment for his and his family’s “crisis kit”.

“I bought fuel, lamp oil, matches and water tanks,” said Wallbom, who is a military reservist and who, as late as last week, received a letter announcing his new posting in the case of war.

Gustav Wallbom, a Swedish military reservist, was not the least surprised by the officials’ warnings of the dangers of Russia. © Gustav Wallbom, private

“I’m more surprised that some feel that the dangers have been exaggerated,” he said. “To me, that’s like burying your head in the sand.”

Wallbom was referring to what had happened at an annual security conference in Sälen in western Sweden a week ago.

Carl-Oscar Bohlin, the minister for civil defence, had told a stunned audience that “war could come to Sweden”, and that the tiny Nordic nation of 10.4 million needs to gear up. Fast.

Further fuel was added to the fire when Sweden’s commander-in-chief, Micael Bydén, then warned the same gathering that “Russia’s war against Ukraine is just a step, not an end game”. In a follow-up interview with national broadcaster TV4, he said that that all Swedes needed to prepare for war.

“We need to realise how serious the situation really is, and that everyone, individually, need to prepare themselves mentally,” he said.

Where are the bomb shelters?

Although this was not the first time the country’s officials had warned against the dangers of their increasingly aggressive neighbour Russia, it was the first time they explicitly said Sweden could potentially become its target – and a warzone.

Elin Bohman, a spokeswoman at the Swedish civil contingencies agency (MSB), which specialises in crisis management, said the comments had prompted a 3,500 percent increase in visits to the agency’s web-based map of bomb shelters, and a 900 percent increase in downloads of its information booklet “If crisis or war comes”.

“We haven’t experienced such demand since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine,” she said.

Sweden's information booklet 'If crisis or war comes' is distributed to all Swedish households and can also be downloaded. — The information booklet ‘If crisis or war comes’ was issued for the first time during World War II. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea it was revived again. © Thomas Henrikson, Handout MSB

The booklet was first issued during World War II and was distributed to all Swedish households in waves throughout the Cold War until 1961. In 2018, it was revised and re-issued again on the back of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“[The illegal annexation] was an awakening for the Swedish preparedness system,” Bohman explained. “All of a sudden the global situation changed, meaning we went from focusing only on peacetime crises to also include total defence planning in a bid to strengthen our total defence system. And a part of that was to ensure that we have a well-informed and prepared population.”

In 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the booklet was sent out again. It contains information on how to prepare for and act in a crisis situation, ranging from everything from power cuts and forest fires to cyber attacks and war.

At the same time, MSB also encouraged Swedes to prepare “crisis kits” at home, containing necessities like a radio, food, water, a sleeping bag and a camping stove.

The Swedish 'If crisis or war comes' booklet contains information on how to best prepare for a crisis or a war situation. — The booklet contains information on how to prepare for a crisis, including war. © Thomas Henrikson, Handout MSB

Some companies have since capitalised on this new “crisis kit” market, offering ready-made food kits that can last up to 25 years.

Multiple arrests, cyber-attacks and GPS-jamming

Since 2022, and in particular after Sweden defied Russian threats and launched a bid to join the NATO military alliance, the situation in the country has grown more and more tense. Prior to its NATO application, Sweden had not been aligned militarily for 200 years. Neither Turkey nor Hungary have green-lit the application yet, but the Turkish decision is now only a parliament vote away.

In the past year alone, Swedish police have arrested several people suspected of spying or carrying out information-gathering for Russia. Swedish authorities have also seen a surge in cyber-attacks, and in December, a large area over the Baltic Sea was subject to a number of GPS-jamming incidents, causing several airplanes to lose their satellite-derived navigation signals. In the same period, Russia carried out a military exercise in the area with the aim of “undermining enemy navigation and radio communications”.

“Some threats have intensified, [as has] the pure military threat, the threat of an armed attack, and the fact that we might be drawn into an escalation of the war in Ukraine. We’re seeing that very clearly when we study Russia,” Thomas Nilsson, the head of Sweden’s military intelligence and security service MUST told Swedish Radio in an interview on the sidelines of the security conference.

The TikTok backlash

But although last week’s comments may have been intended to place the Swedes on guard more than anything else, they also generated many negative reactions. Especially after making it onto the social media platform TikTok, whose main audience largely consists of children and teenagers.

“My children saw the TikTok and asked us about it,” said one Swedish mother of two who did not want to be named. “It’s hard for kids to focus and watch full clips, so what they basically see is just the headline: “War could come to Sweden”.

The child of one of her colleagues had seen the clip and come home in tears, she said.

Swedish child protection group BRIS said its hotline had been saturated with calls from worried children after the blunt comments on war had spread online, prompting its secretary general Magnus Jagerskog to plead with media to take more care in how they relay news to children.

“For many children who are easily anxious or who are already worried about war, it became [even more] difficult when they were faced with social media posts and adults talking on the news about war,” he wrote in a statement.

But the comments have also resulted in a political backlash. While the right-wing government has been accused of trying to win over supporters from the far right, the army has been accused of fear-mongering in a bid to up the annual defence spending budget.

“Playing with the threat of war as part of the political opinion campaign is immoral but who is surprised?” Carl Tham, a former minister and a member of the Social Democrat opposition, wrote in an opinion piece in daily tabloid Aftonbladet.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, whose right-wing party is in a government coalition with the far-right Sweden Democrat party, has defended the hardened war rhetoric.

“A government should of course speak clearly, anything else would be irresponsible,” he told Radio Sweden in an interview on Thursday, but noted that “there is nothing that suggests that war is at the door”.

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Cynical mimicry: China and Russia talk anti-corruption at the UN

Post By World belt and road initiative, China, corruption, euroviews, Russia, united nations

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

Redefining terms like anti-corruption, human rights, democracy, and integrity — even when self-evidently disingenuous — provides China the cover to mimic the mechanisms of good governance while blunting efforts to hold authoritarian regimes accountable, Elaine Dezenski writes.

Representatives from hundreds of countries assembled last month at a UN conference in Atlanta, Georgia, to talk about global efforts to combat corruption.

While the event of more than 3,000 attendees hardly made the local news, it proved to be a brilliant opportunity for authoritarian regimes to muddle an issue that negatively affects the lives and livelihoods of billions of people.

Disingenuous objections by Azerbaijan were meant to limit the participation of anti-corruption activists, while representatives from China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia spoke about the importance of transparency and even denying safe havens for illicit financial flows.

There were entertaining moments — a Russian panel on anti-corruption devoted its entire hour to discussing the difficulty of choosing a winner of its 1990s-style youth contest for the best anti-corruption poster or video.

China handed out “little red boxes” to the other panellists after a particularly bland discussion of how academics can assist anti-corruption efforts — a panel where the Russian moderator appeared to make an overt request for greater China “funding”.

It all adds up to a worrying and much larger trend on full display — the democratisation of kleptocracy.

Beijing pats itself on the back

The highlight for authoritarian double-talk, however, was unquestionably China and its self-congratulatory presentation on integrity within its notoriously corrupt Belt and Road Initiative.

It was a sixty-minute tour de force, touting the various “high-level principles” and the “firm stances” on integrity building without ever providing a single concrete action to practically address — or even admit to — the massive corruption scandals caused by China’s opaque disbursal of a trillion dollars in BRI spending.

Instead of action, the China panel pushed weak and non-credible platitudes: “Every construction project will be completed with integrity. Each penny of public funds will be well spent. Every corrupt person will be brought to justice.”

Apparently, the Chinese Communist Party is now available to help the world unwind China’s bad behaviour over the last decade of the BRI.

Beijing gave no support for its claims, though they did note that “an opinion poll shows that 97.4% of the Chinese people are satisfied with the progress in the fight against corruption.”

To bolster the claims of integrity in global BRI projects, public officials from Cambodia, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia shared the stage with the Chief Inspector from China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), who offered that the state-owned company “show[s] zero tolerance to acts such as corruption, fraud, and colluding,” despite widespread allegations of corruption against CSCEC in BRI projects in Zambia, Guyana, Georgia, the Philippines, Pakistan, or Hungary.

The World Bank’s debarment of CSCEC in 2019 seems to stand alone as an appropriate and effective multi-lateral act of courage.

‘A more equitable and prosperous world for all’?

The nonsense narrative deepened with the BRI Integrity panel keynote address of Ghada Waly, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the UN agency that oversees and safeguards the implementation of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.

More than 180 countries have signed the convention, including China’s adoption of it in 2006.

Waly, the UN’s top anti-corruption official, shared the stage with Chinese officials to announce that “the Belt and Road Initiative charts a road towards a more equitable and prosperous world for all.”

Given the astounding levels of corruption reported in BRI countries, Waly missed the opportunity to call out the BRI for what it has come to represent — a decade of questionable deals, large-scale corruption, vanity projects, opaque terms and conditions, and failing infrastructure, including in her home country of Egypt.

While it is understandable that UN discussions reflect a level of diplomacy and respect, surely it is not impossible to speak the truth, or at least refrain from appearing oblivious to reality.

China’s integrity double-talk is, of course, part of a broader push to extend political and economic influence by bending the UN and other international bureaucracies toward more empty platitudes that allow China (and others) to continue its export their own set of deal terms, rules, norms, and standards around the world.

In dire need of an honest conversation

Adopting the popular and valuable language of Western liberal democracies by redefining terms like anti-corruption, human rights, democracy, and integrity — even when self-evidently disingenuous — provides China the cover to mimic the mechanisms of good governance while blunting efforts to hold authoritarian regimes accountable.

A BRI document titled “Achievements and Prospects of Belt and Road Integrity Building,” argues that “integrity is the moral ‘bottom line’ and the legal ‘red line’ for Belt and Road cooperation.”

Later in the same document, we see why China’s notion of integrity lacks meaning: “We need to … respect the right to choose one’s own way of fighting corruption.”

In other words, no country can judge another country’s methods for fighting corruption, even if those methods achieve nothing at all.

To be clear, bashing a UN agency will not undo the ongoing whitewash of the global anti-corruption agenda. It is past time for governments to call out the double-speak.

For the UNCAC to have real weight — and generate outcomes that are good enough for the local nightly news — it’s time for UNCAC signatories to hold themselves and each other accountable, starting with an honest conversation.

Elaine Dezenski is Senior Director and Head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Almost a dozen killed in Russian strike on Pokrovsk in east Ukraine

Post By World Crimea, drones, Europe, Kyiv, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine war analysis

A Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk killed almost a dozen people on Saturday, regional officials said. President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “all necessary rescue forces” had been deployed to the town and that a recovery mission was continuing. Read our liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

8:00pm: ‘All necessary rescue forces’ deployed, Zelensky says

Reacting to the deadly strike in the eastern town of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “all necessary rescue forces” had been deployed and that emergency services were still sifting through the rubble.

Zelensky went on to offer his condolences to all those who had lost loved ones in the strike.

00:22

6:04pm: Almost a dozen killed by Russian strike on eastern Ukraine town of Pokrovsk

At least 11 people were killed by a Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk on Saturday, the regional governor said. Eight people were also wounded when Russian forces hit the area with S-300 missiles.

“Eleven dead, including five children – these are the consequences, for now, of strikes on Pokrovsk district,” wrote Vadim Filashkin, the governor of the Ukrainian-held part of the Donetsk region, on Telegram.

“The main blow was dealt to Pokrovsk and Rivne in the community of Myrnograd,” he added.

The town of Pokrovsk, which had a population of 60,000 before the war, was hit by a deadly bombardment last August that left nine people dead and 82 injured.

Pictures that Filashkin posted online showed rescue squads sifting through large piles of smouldering rubble in the dark as well as a burned-out vehicle.

Filashkin said the attack showed Russian forces were “trying to inflict as much grief as possible on our land”.

Deadly Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk

4:02pm: Blinken presses Turkey on Sweden’s NATO bid

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the importance of Turkey ratifying Sweden’s NATO membership in talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday in Istanbul, the first leg of Blinken’s trip to the Mideast focused on the war in Gaza.

The State Department said Blinken and Erdogan discussed both “completing Sweden’s accession to NATO and strengthening trade and investment between the United States and Turkey”.

A key committee in the Turkish parliament approved Sweden’s bid to join NATO in late December after months of delays but it awaits a vote by the full Turkish parliament.

Foreign Minister Fidan said Turkey was awaiting the outcome of Ankara’s request to upgrade its fleet of US-made F-16 fighter jets and stressed that the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership ultimately lay in the hands of the Turkish parliament. Erdogan has also linked Swedish ratification to the delivery of F-16s.

Erdogan has used Turkey’s veto power in NATO to compel Sweden to take a tougher stance with pro-Kurdish groups in Stockholm that Ankara views as “terrorists”.

Sweden and Finland dropped decades of military non-alignment and sought to join the alliance after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Their bids won fast-track approval from all NATO members except Turkey and Hungary.

3:10pm: Russia cancels Orthodox Christmas masses in Ukraine border city

Russia said Saturday that it would cancel Orthodox Christmas midnight masses in the city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border, a day after officials offered to evacuate worried residents amid increasing attacks.

Belgorod has been hit with near daily Ukrainian attacks in recent days, the deadliest of which killed 25 people on December 30.

Russia celebrates Orthodox Christmas on January 7 and midnight masses are held on the night of January 6.

The mayor of Belgorod, Valentin Demidov, said on social media he agreed with local church leaders that “night masses in Belgorod would be cancelled in connection to the operational situation”.

2:04pm: Ukraine shows evidence Russia fired North Korean missile at Kharkiv

The Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office provided further evidence on Saturday that Russia attacked Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea, showcasing the fragments.

A senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia hit Ukraine this week with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time during the February 2022 invasion.

Dmytro Chubenko, spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, said the missile – one of several that hit the city of Kharkiv on January 2 – was visually and technically different from Russian models.

“The production method is not very modern. There are deviations from standard Iskander missiles, which we previously saw during strikes on Kharkiv. This missile is similar to one of the North Korean missiles,” Chubenko told the media as he displayed the remnants.

He said the missile was slightly bigger in diameter than the Russian Iskander missile while its nozzle, internal electrical windings and rear parts were also different.

“That is why we are leaning towards the version that this may be a missile which was supplied by North Korea.”

Chubenko declined to give the exact name of the missile’s model.

A Kharkiv prosecutor's office expert on January 6 inspects the remains of a missile used during an attack on the city on January 2, 2024. — A Kharkiv prosecutor’s office expert on January 6 inspects the remains of a missile used during an attack on the city on January 2, 2024. © Sergey Bobok, AFP

2:02pm: Denmark to complete transfer of US-made F-16s to Ukraine by June

Denmark’s transfer of 19 American-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will take place in the second quarter of 2024, once Ukrainian pilots have completed training, the defence ministry said Saturday.

“Based on the current timetable, the donation should take place in the second quarter of 2024,” the Danish ministry said in a statement.

“It’s mainly an issue of finishing the training of Ukrainian personnel who will operate the planes.”

12:00pm: Russia on track to lose half a million soldiers, UK defence ministry says

If the numbers of Russian losses continue at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine, the UK ministry of defence said in a post on X on Saturday.

The average daily number of Russian casualties in Ukraine has risen by almost 300 during the course of 2023.

If the numbers continue at the current rate over the next year, Russia will have lost over half a million personnel in Ukraine.

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/m4SV6XMRMS

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 6, 2024

10:11am: Kyiv says its drone attack hit Crimean airbase

Ukraine‘s air force says it hit the Saki airbase in western Crimea in an overnight drone attack. Moscow previously said that it had successfully downed four drones over the peninsular overnight.

“Saki airfield! All targets have been shot!” Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine’s air force, said on social media.

Ukraine has targeted Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, since the start of Moscow’s full-scale offensive.

Kyiv said Friday that it had targeted a command post near Sevastopol on Thursday.

9:31am: Russia to produce over 32,000 drones each year by 2030, state media says

Russia plans to produce more than 32,000 drones each year by 2030 and for domestic producers to account for 70 percent of the market, the TASS news agency cited First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov as saying on Saturday.

Drones have been widely used by Moscow and Kyiv since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and both sides are sharply increasing military production as the war drags on.

“The annual production volume of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – excluding educational UAVs – is planned at 32,500 units,” Belousov told TASS. “This is almost three times higher than current production volumes.

“At the same time, it is planned that the share of Russian UAVs will make up 70 percent of the market in this type of UAV.”

9:27am: Russia says it downed four Ukrainian missiles over Crimea overnight

Russia on Saturday said its forces shot down four Ukrainian missiles over Moscow-annexed Crimea over night.

“Air defence on duty intercepted and destroyed four Ukrainian missiles over the Crimea peninsula,” the Russian defence ministry said.

4:18am: Russia offers to relocate Belgorod residents after shelling

Russian officials in the southern border city of Belgorod offered to evacuate worried residents on Friday, an unprecedented announcement that follows waves of fatal Ukrainian attacks.

The Kremlin has tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy on the home front, but the recent strikes on Belgorod have brought the Ukraine conflict closer to home for Russians.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov’s assurance that scared civilians can relocate represents the furthest-reaching measure taken by any major Russian city since Moscow ordered the invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)

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A lookahead for 2024: US elections, Paris Olympics, COP 29 and more

Post By World Africa Cup of Nations, BRICS, D-Day commemorations, donald trump, Elections, Europe, European Parliament, india, Joe Biden, Russia, Taiwan

The year 2024 may have only just begun but it looks set to be an action-packed one. With a number of pivotal political, environmental, cultural and athletic events on the horizon, it can be difficult to keep track of what’s to come. FRANCE 24 sets out a a timeline of a few major events that are certain to define 2024.

Issued on: 01/01/2024 – 19:10

7 min

Expansion of five-nation BRICS group

BRICS – an intergovernmental bloc that currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – has opened its doors to five new members. The decision was reached at the 2023 annual BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August. As of January 1, 2024, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia are members of the bloc. Argentina was invited to join but its new president Javier Milei decided to pull out.

With the expansion, the alliance reaffirms its status as the voice of the Global South and is likely to bear more weight on the international stage, which has been dominated by Western nations since the end of the Cold War. Combined, the expanded BRICS represents a population of about 3.5 billion, which accounts for 45% of the world’s population.

In the pressure cooker of Taiwan’s presidential election

The first election of 2024 is a high-stakes race with regional and global implications. On January 13, Taiwan’s voters will choose between three candidates: Vice President Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party, after the two opposition parties failed to form an alliance. China, fiercely hostile to the current government, has called the race a choice between war and peace. It considers Taiwan to be an integral part of its territory and has recently escalated its intimidation campaign around the island to levels unseen in decades. The election results risk igniting tensions between the US and China. Although the US has said it does not support Taiwan independence, it supports its democracy and supplies the island with military aid.

Africa Cup of Nations to kick off in Ivory Coast

Ivory Coast is gearing up to host the 34^th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, which will take place from January 13 to February 11. Will the Ivorian elephants be crowned winners on home soil? Will they dethrone winners of the last African Cup, Senegal’s mighty Lions of Teranga? Only time will tell. The first match will see hosts Ivory Coast take on Guinea-Bissau at the Alassane Ouattara Stadium north of Abidjan at 8pm GMT.

Putin looks set for re-election in Russian presidential election

Russians head to the polls on March 17 to cast their ballots in a presidential election that is likely to see President Vladimir Putin prolong his twenty-year-long grip on the country. Putin has ruled Russia since the start of the century – winning four presidential terms with a brief interlude as prime minister. The 71-year-old has methodically quashed any form of opposition in recent years. His most high-profile rival, Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, is currently serving a 19-year prison sentence in a penal colony north of the Arctic. Despite starting an immensely costly war in Ukraine that has killed thousands of Russian soldiers and sparked repeated attacks within the country’s borders, Putin still commands wide support.

Indians to head to polls as Modi seeks third term in general elections

Hundreds of millions of Indians will head to the polls between April and May in general elections that are expected to hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi a third term in office. The Hindu nationalist leader has a substantial lead in opinion polls and will hit the 2024 campaign trail on the heel of three major state election victories for his party in December. But concerns have been raised over what a third term would mean for democracy in India amid a widespread clampdown on press freedom and growing criticism of human rights violations, particularly against the country’s minority Muslim community.

Celebrating the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy

France will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings along the Normandy coastline during World War II. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces mounted the largest amphibious invasion the world has ever seen – an event that marked the beginning of the liberation of German-occupied Western Europe. Heads of state, veterans and officials will attend an international ceremony on Omaha Beach to honour the memory of these events and pay tribute to the fallen.

A fresh European Parliament

The 2024 European Parliament elections will be held between June 6-9, and is expected to be one of the most contentious in history due to the rise of the far right in several member nations. European citizens will cast their vote to renew the 720-member EU institution, currently dominated by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). The 2024 elections are the first European Parliament polls since the UK officially left the bloc on January 31, 2020, following the Brexit vote. European Parliament elections are routinely dogged by low voter turnout. But the election issues at stake are critical for the future of the continent, including energy, inflation, the post-pandemic economic recovery and the EU’s foreign policy.

Paris to host the 2024 Olympics, Paralympics

A century after hosting its last Olympic Games in 1924 – and for the third time in its history – Paris is set to welcome another summer of sport with the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. From July 26 to August 11, the City of Light will host the world’s most talented athletes in the biggest sporting event ever held in France. Handball, football and rugby tournaments are set to kick off as early as July 24. The Paralympic Games will take place directly after the Olympics, between August 28 and September 8. But not all nations will have their top athletes representing them on the ground. Athletes from Russia and Belarus will only be able to compete as neutrals outside of team events due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, and Guatemala has been barred because of its government’s interference with the independence of its Olympic committee.

Trump v. Biden Part Two?

The upcoming presidential election in November might look a lot like the Joe Biden-Donald Trump race of 2020, but it’s shaping up to be quite different. Trump now faces four criminal trials and has just been disqualified from the 2024 ballot by a third US state. Biden, now grappling with two devastating wars in Gaza and Ukraine, is being investigated by the US House of Representatives on whether he improperly benefited from his son’s foreign business dealings. The 60^th US presidential election will undoubtedly be the most closely watched political event of 2024. Only if Trump and Biden make it through the primaries of their respective parties and are nominated can they hope to become the next US president. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley are among those taking on Trump, while self-help guru Marianne Williamson and Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips are mounting a challenge to Biden.

Azerbaijan to host COP 29

Oil and gas producer Azerbaijan will host this year’s COP 20 climate summit. The country won the bid after garnering support from other Eastern European nations in early December 2023 and came after months of geopolitical deadlock over where the summit would be held. Russia had vowed to veto any bid by an EU country. The UN conference will take place in the capital city of Baku from November 11 to 24. The main issue on the agenda is likely to be financing “the transition away from fossil fuels”.

Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral to reopen

Five years after a fire ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral on April 15, 2019, the doors of Paris’s most visited monument will reopen on December 8. Tourists and worshippers will once again be able to admire the sculptures and decorations of this medieval minor basilica, considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. When it reopens, Notre-Dame should be able to welcome 14 million visitors a year, two million more than before the fire. It will also be equipped with a unique fire protection system. President Emmanuel Macron has invited Pope Francis to the cathedral’s reopening ceremony.

A person takes a photograph at dusk of Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral with the wooden structure of the new spire in place during reconstruction work, on the Ile de la Cite in Paris on November 28, 202 — The outline of the new spire of Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral can be seen on November 28, 2023. © Ludovic Marin, AFP

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Russia launches 122 missiles in one of biggest attacks on Ukraine since start of war

Post By World drones, Europe, Kremlin, Kyiv, Odesa, rishi sunak, Russia, Ukraine, USA, Volodymyr Zelensky, War

Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 18 civilians across the country in what an air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the 22-month war.

AFP reporters in Kyiv heard several powerful explosions in the early hours of Friday and saw thick black smoke billowing from a warehouse.

“We haven’t seen so much red on our monitors for a long time,” said Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukraine‘s air force, explaining that Russian forces had first launched a wave of suicide drones followed by missiles.

The Ukrainian air force intercepted 87 of the missiles and 27 of the Shahed-type drones overnight, Ukraine’s military chief Valery Zaluzhnyi said.

Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel: “The most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to the Ukrainian air force, the previous biggest assault was in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles against Ukraine. This year, the biggest was 81 missiles on March 9, air force records show.

“There are people killed by Russian missiles today that were launched at civilian facilities, civilian buildings,” presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

“We are doing everything to strengthen our air shield. But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror,” he said on Telegram.

Two people were confirmed dead in the capital Kyiv, with more people thought to be trapped under rubble at a warehouse damaged by falling debris, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram messenger.

He also said the capital’s air defences were working intensively.

A metro station whose platforms were being used as an air raid shelter was damaged, he said.

Sergiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said a warehouse with an area of around 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) was burning in the northern Podil district.

“There are many wounded, the number is being clarified,” he said.

In other districts of the city, an uninhabited multistorey block of flats also caught fire and a private house was damaged, Popko said.

Maternity hospital struck

In the central Shevchenko district, a residential building was damaged and there was also a fire in a warehouse with six believed to be injured, Popko said.

Klitschko wrote on social media that there appeared to be three people still under rubble of the warehouse while three others had been rescued.

The overnight attacks came days after Ukraine struck a Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia in a major setback for the Russian navy.

Drones and missiles struck at least five other Ukrainian cities on Friday, including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, Dnipro in the east and Odesa in the south, the cities’ mayors and police said.

“So far we have counted 22 strikes in different districts of Kharkiv,” the mayor, Igor Terekhov, said on television.

“There are currently seven injured in hospital. Unfortunately one person has died.”

In Lviv, governor Maksym Kozytsky said that “one person was killed and three wounded”.

In Dnipro, the mayor, Borys Filatov, said there were injured and dead. The health ministry said that a maternity hospital in the city had been “severely damaged”.

Two people were killed in the Black Sea port city of Odesa and at least 15 were injured, including two children, as missiles hit residential buildings, the regional governor said.

Ukraine’s southern command said 14 attack drones had been destroyed in the south of the country and there were no casualties reported.

The Polish army said a Russian missile passed through Polish airspace on Friday, entering from and then back into Ukraine, as Russia pummelled Ukraine with the barrage.

“Everything indicates that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace … It also left our airspace,” General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the general staff of the Polish armed forces, told reporters.

“The object arrived from the Ukrainian border,” Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, spokesman of the operational command of the armed forces, earlier told news channel TVN24.

“There was intense shelling of Ukrainian territory at night so this incident could be linked to that.”

He said the airspace violation occurred near the Polish border city of Zamosc.

Crucial Western support

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday said Moscow’s latest missile strikes on Ukraine showed Russian President Vladimir “Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy”.

“We will not let him win. We must continue to stand with Ukraine – for as long as it takes,” he added on X, formerly Twitter.

These widespread attacks on Ukraine’s cities show Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy.

We will not let him win.

We must continue to stand with Ukraine – for as long as it takes. https://t.co/cf6aDNwPjD

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) December 29, 2023

On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United States for releasing the last remaining package of weapons available for Ukraine under existing authorisation, as uncertainty surrounds further aid to his war-torn country.

Zelensky had warned that any change in policy from the US – Kyiv’s main backer – could have a strong impact on the course of the war.

“I thank President Joe Biden, Congress, and the American people for the $250 million military aid package announced yesterday,” Zelensky said on social media.

In an interview published on Friday, Christian Freuding, a German general who oversees the German army’s support for Kyiv, said Russia was severely weakened but was showing greater “resilience” than Western allies had expected at the start of the war.

“We perhaps did not see, or did not want to see, that they are in a position to continue to be supplied by allies,” he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters, AP)

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Navalny’s penal colony in the Arctic is direct heir to Russia’s Gulag

Post By World Alexei Navalny, Europe, poisoning, presidential elections, prisons, Russia, Vladimir Putin

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 19-year prison sentence, has been transferred to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. The IK-3 penal colony, located in Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 km (1200 miles) northeast of Moscow, is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Penal colonies are descendants of Soviet-era Gulags, the notorious Stalin-era labour camps where thousands of Russians lost their lives.

For three weeks his family, allies and lawyers had no news of him. But on December 25, there finally came word from jailed Kremlin critic Navalny. He resurfaced on social media platform X with a string of sardonic posts to say he had been transferred to a prison north of the Arctic Circle.

Navalny, 47, founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), has been behind bars since early 2021. In August, a court extended his prison sentence to 19 years on extremism charges. He has now been transferred to the IK-3 prison colony of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region, nearly 1,900 kilometres north-east of Moscow.

At the beginning of December Navalny disappeared from the IK-6 prison colony in the Vladimir region, some 250 kilometres east of Moscow, where he had spent most of his detention. His disappearance even provoked alarm from the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who posted a message on X before Christmas, saying he was “deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Aleksey Navalny”.

After sending hundreds of requests to detention centres across Russia, Navalny’s allies on Monday said they had managed to locate him, adding that Navalny’s lawyer was able to visit him.

In a series of sardonic messages published on X on Tuesday, Navalny said he was “fine” and “relieved” that he had arrived at the new prison.

“I am your new Santa Claus. Well, I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (a traditional Russian winter footwear). I have grown a beard for the 20 days of my transportation,” he said.

1/9 I am your new Santa Claus.

Well, I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (a traditional Russian winter footwear). I have grown a beard for the 20 days of my transportation.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) December 26, 2023

‘Climate as a tool of repression’

But Navalny’s mocking words belie the harsh reality of his new prison accommodation.

In Kharp, Navalny will have to content with temperatures as low as -40°C in winter. His access to emails and visiting rights will be severely restricted.

“Although Navalny is always provocative and always retains his sense of humour, he has health problems, and will have to grapple with the isolation, even torture that exists in some Russian prisons,” said Sylvie Bermann, who served as French ambassador to Russia from 2017 to 2019.

“Weather conditions are very harsh, much harsher than in previous colonies,” said Marc Élie, a researcher specialising in the history of the Soviet Union at the Centre for Russian, Caucasian and Central European Studies (CERCEC) in France.

“There’s little light for six months of the year, and in summer you’re attacked by mosquitoes and midges,” he said.

The IK-3 penal colony is one of 700 labour camps currently operating in Russia, where some 266,000 inmates are currently detained – a relatively low figure compared to the near 420,000 prisoners in 2022.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year, Moscow has sent some 100,000 inmates to fight on the frontline.

“In Russia, you have four types of detention: the open-type colony, in which inmates are very free; the general regime, in which the majority of inmates are locked up in barracks; the severe regime, with tighter restrictions, notably on visiting rights; and the exceptional regime, in which Navalny finds himself,” Élie said, adding that “this last regime is reserved for the most dangerous prisoners, those sentenced to life imprisonment or those whose death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment”.

Experts on Russia view these penal colonies as part of the legacy of the Gulag, the concentration camp system that deported more than 20 million people during the Soviet era. Although the Gulag officially disappeared after Stalin’s death in 1953, some of its features live on in today’s prison system.

Founded in 1961, the IK-3 penal colony – also known as Polar Wolf – was built on the site of the former 501st Gulag.

“The prison system retained a number of features dating back to the Stalinist era, particularly the idea of [using] the climate as a tool of repression,” said University of Strasbourg lecturer Emilia Koustova.

“These are also very isolated places. For three weeks, no one knew where Navalny was. The use of arbitrary [detention], which has been in place since the Stalinist era, is aimed at severing the ties between prisoners and their loved ones. This severing of ties becomes a means of repression and terror, or blackmail,” said Koustova.

Before his transfer to IK-3, Navalny was subjected to multiple periods of solitary confinement.

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said last October that he spent a total of “236 days” in a small isolation cell.

Putin’s punishment

Considered by Putin as his main political foe, Navalny continues to pay the price for his relentless criticisms of the Kremlin’s despotic regime.

Before his arrest in January 2021, Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in August 2020, requiring emergency hospitalisation and lengthy rehabilitation in Germany.

Putin denied any involvement in the operation, stating at a news conference that If Russian security services had wanted to poison Navalny, “they would have finished the job”.

“Putin clearly has a very particular attitude towards Navalny, he never mentions his name. There’s a desire to disregard him while pursuing him relentlessly. His transfer to a colony characterised by a particularly harsh regime is representative of this,” said Koustova, who is also on the board of the human rights NGO Mémorial France.

Navalny’s transfer also comes three months before Russia’s next presidential election, in which Putin is running.

“Alexei Navalny will no longer be able to get his political message across on this issue,” Koustova said.

Putin’s bid for another six-year term in office, authorised by the 2020 constitutional referendum, would appear to be a mere formality in the absence of opposition.

The last opponents who tried to unseat Russia’s strongman such as Andrei Pivovarov, ex-director of the Open Russia movement, and 38-year-old opposition figure Ilya Yashin, have been killed or imprisoned.

According to Mémorial France, whose central body was dissolved by the Russian Supreme Court in September 2021, there are currently more than 500 political prisoners in Russia as of 2022.

Last Saturday, the Russian Electoral Commission banned former TV journalist Ekaterina Duntsova, 40, from standing in the upcoming election, citing 100 “mistakes” on her application form.

“In truth, there is no credible opposition, not to mention the fact that many people of her (Duntsova) generation are very much in favour of Vladimir Putin’s re-election. He has every chance of being re-elected with a fairly high turnout,” Bermann said

The Russian presidential election is scheduled for March 17, 2024.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

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