Month: March 2018

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s surprise address Saturday at a key far right party meeting in France gives a boost to its struggling leader, Marine Le Pen. While other European far-right movements are surging on anti-immigrant platforms, France’s National Front is weakened and divided. Le Pen hopes to rally supporters around a new party name – and possibly a new direction.

Far-right parties in Austria and Italy may be celebrating recent polls, but France’s National Front shows how fast politics can change. Less than a year ago, National Front leader Marine Le Pen came in second in France’s presidential election against current leader Emmanuel Macron, capturing a record one-third of the vote.

But today, the National Front is in disarray. Some of its top officials have quit. Some members have not paid their dues – and the new head of the more mainstream Les Republicains party is tilting rightward to lure others away. A recent poll shows the majority of French don’t want Le Pen to run for president again.

But Le Pen is betting this weekend’s meeting in the northern city of Lille will be a turnaround – partly by rebranding a party founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in the 1970s. National Front members get to vote on a new name for the party, which will be announced on Sunday.

“The National Front has grown up,” Le Pen told French TV Friday night. “It has gone from a party of protest in its youth, to a party of opposition and now a governing party. Changing its name is one way to show this,” she said.

The rebranding is part of a long effort by Le Pen to give the National Front a softer, more mainstream image since taking over leadership from her father seven years ago. The two have since fallen out, and the elder Le Pen was expelled from the party in 2015 over inflammatory remarks. Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen hopes to strike alliances with other nationalist parties before European Parliament elections next year.

Some are not convinced her strategy will work.

Critics include Le Pen’s former right-hand man, Florian Philippot, who quit the National Front last year to form his own party. In a TV interview, he said nobody believes in the National Front anymore – not even Marine Le Pen. He said the party has abandoned its social fight and anti-Europe values.

But analysts believe the anti-immigrant, anti-globalization platforms that resonate in Europe today will continue to give the National Front meaning and votes – under whatever name it adopts.

 
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British government security ministers are holding an emergency meeting to discuss the investigation into the poisoning in England of a Russian who spied for Britain.

The meeting Home Secretary Amber Rudd is leading on Saturday will cover the latest police and intelligence reports from Salisbury, where a military-supported investigation is underway.

Police are looking for clues to the mysterious attack on former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

They were found unconscious on a bench near the River Avon in Salisbury on Sunday. They remain in critical condition in a local hospital, poisoned with what authorities say is a rare nerve agent

Police are searching for clues at the gravesites of Skripal’s wife and son, and at Skripal’s house. A restaurant and pub have also been searched.

 
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Turkey’s president has criticized NATO for not supporting the country’s ongoing military operation against Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Speaking to supporters Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked, “Hey NATO, where are you?” and accused the alliance of double standards. Erdogan said Turkey sent troops to conflict zones when requested, but did not receive support in return.

Turkey launched a solo military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG on January 20 to clear them from Afrin in northwestern Syria. The country considers the YPG a terror organization but its NATO ally, the United States, backs the fighters to combat the Islamic State group.

Erdogan urged NATO to come to the aid of Turkey, saying its borders are “under threat right now.”
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A Turkish court ruled on Friday that two journalists should be released for the duration of their trial for subversion, a lawyer at the courthouse said.

Murat Sabuncu, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Cumhuriyet, and writer Ahmet Sik were ordered released, the lawyer said.

However, Cumhuriyet said that its attorney, Akin Atalay, was remanded in custody until the next hearing, on March 16.

Prosecutors charge that Cumhuriyet was effectively taken over by supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric blamed by the government for a 2016 failed coup. The newspaper and staff deny the charges and say they are being targeted to silence critics of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Prosecutors are seeking up to 43 years in jail for the newspaper staff, who stand accused of targeting Erdogan through “asymmetric war methods.”

Social media posts made up most of evidence in the indictment, along with allegations that staff had been in contact with users of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by Gulen’s followers.

Rights group Amnesty International said on Twitter that the ruling was “long overdue” and called for the release of all jailed journalists in Turkey.

Speaking after his release, Sabuncu said their release was not a reason to be happy, since several journalists remained in prison.

“We should not be happy that we have been released because our release does not mean things have changed in Turkey regarding freedom of speech,” Sabuncu told reporters.

Sik reiterated Sabuncu’s comments, saying he would rather see anger than happiness.

“I am not happy in any way. I don’t want you to be happy while Akin Atalay is still inside. I would prefer if you were angry, for anger will keep us standing,” Sik said.

“Today is not a day for us to be happy, but there will come a day when we will be happy in this country,” he said.

Around 150 media outlets have been shut down and 160 journalists have been jailed, the Turkish Journalists Association says.

Earlier on Friday, Turkey’s highest court overturned a five-year jail sentence for Cumhuriyet’s former editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, saying he should face up to 20 years in prison on espionage charges, the state-run news agency Anadolu said.

Since the July 2016 coup attempt, more than 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs in Turkey, and another 50,000 have been arrested over alleged links to Gulen’s network.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, has denied involvement in the abortive putsch, in which more than 240 people were killed.
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A respected Russian-language business newspaper is reporting a 12-percent drop in President Vladimir Putin’s popularity in cities with more than 1 million inhabitants between mid-January and mid-February.

Moscow-based Vedomosti, which was once a joint venture between Dow Jones, the Financial Times and the publishers of The Moscow Times, based its report on a survey issued by the state-run Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).

According to VTsIOM, Putin’s popularity fell from almost 70 percent to slightly above 57 percent in large and mid-size Russian cities whose populations cumulatively represent roughly one quarter of the electorate.

Valery Fyodorov, director of VTsIOM, was quick to deny the legitimacy of the survey findings his organization published in late February, which revealed the dip in Putin’s popularity.

A VTsIOM follow-up survey conducted from March 2-4, Fyodorov said, showed Putin’s 12-percent plunge was an “insignificant and temporary decrease.”

“On January 10, Putin’s popularity rose to almost 70 percent, and on February 18, it fell to 57.1 percent,” he said. “Now [Putin], in Moscow and St. Petersburg, has an approval rating of 63 percent.”

According to Meduza, a Latvia-based Russian language news outlet, “polls show the same trend” of a 12-percent drop “in cities with populations between 100,000 and 500,000 people.”

“Putin’s candidate rating has remained stable only in cities with populations between 500,000 and 950,000 people, and in smaller towns and villages,” the Meduza report says, adding that VTsIOM also shows an increasing number of undecided voters and people who endorse Pavel Grudinin, the Communist Party’s candidate, in large cities.

Competing ‘with himself’

In some independent Russian media such as Znak.com, where election 2018 is often called the “re-election of Vladimir Putin,” Kremlin officials are already preparing a rally and concert in Putin’s honor on March 18 or 19, when preliminary results of the vote will be announced.

Political scientist Nikolai Petrov of Moscow’s National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRUHSE) says although uneven voter turnout in cities and rural areas may not affect the outcome of the election, severe irregularities would be bad for Putin’s political legacy.

“In this sense, the Kremlin is in a difficult situation,” he told VOA’s Russian Service. “Because the last thing he wants is either a too wide a gap or too low a voter turnout in [Moscow or St. Petersburg], where it is very difficult for him to ensure high turnout.

“Putin is competing not with other presidential candidates, but with himself,” Petrov added, explaining that the aging Russian leader’s last re-election bid was met with massive streets protests in major cities. In this sense, he said, “he must not lose in a significant way in this internal, mental competition” to secure his long-term political and populist legitimacy.

Turnout key

According to NRUHSE social scientist Alexander Kynev, Putin and those tasked with ensuring his re-election walk a fine line when it comes to presenting research about his popular appeal. Excessively high popularity ratings for Putin, he said, risks giving his support base the impression that there is no need to bother going out to the polls.

“In this sense, it may be better to preserve the intrigue and induce the voter, regardless of the fact that the result looks predetermined, to come out and vote on March 18,” Kynev said.

The Kremlin’s preference for a high voter turnout to give a Putin re-election the appearance of democratic legitimacy has been widely reported in international media.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. 
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Spain’s Supreme Court on Friday turned down a request from a jailed Catalan separatist leader to attend the northeastern region’s parliament session, where lawmakers are due to vote on whether to make him president of Catalonia.

Judge Pablo Llarena wrote in a ruling that there was a risk that Jordi Sanchez would repeat the offenses that have landed him in jail. He ordered Sanchez kept in preventive detention without bail.

Sanchez, a prominent secessionist who was elected to parliament last December, has been held in a prison near Madrid since October. He is being detained while Llarena investigates whether he orchestrated protests that hindered officials trying to stop a court-banned Catalan independence referendum that month.

Catalonia’s parliament wants to vote on Sanchez as leader Monday in the latest confrontation with the Spanish government, which argues that anyone who is facing charges and is unable to be present at the debate and vote can’t be elected by the Catalan parliament. It isn’t clear whether Sanchez would have enough votes to be elected in Barcelona.

The Spanish Constitution says Spain is “indivisible,” but that hasn’t stopped separatists trying to break away despite repeated legal setbacks.

 Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s ex-leader who fled to Brussels to escape arrest, announced last week that he was temporarily withdrawing his bid to get his old job back and proposed Sanchez – his No. 2 in the Together for Catalonia party – in his place.

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of new tariffs on steel and aluminum is eliciting strong reactions at home and around the world.

America’s neighbors breathed a sigh of relief at being granted an exemption from the tariffs. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said despite the concession, Canada would continue to push back.

“In recent days, we have worked energetically with our American counterparts to secure an exemption for Canada from these tariffs,” she said. “This work continues and it will continue until the prospect of these duties is fully and permanently lifted.”

Canada is the largest supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States. Freeland ridiculed Trump’s national security justification for the measure, saying: “That Canada could pose any kind of security threat to the United States is inconceivable.”

​Allies combative

Other allies took an equally combative stance. 

“Protectionism, tariffs never really work,” British trade minister Liam Fox said Thursday. “We can deal multilaterally with the overproduction of steel, but this is the wrong way to go about it,” he said.

As did Canada, Fox said it was “doubly absurd” to target Britain with steel tariffs on national security grounds when it only provided the U.S. with 1 percent of its imports and made steel for the American military.

France said it “regrets” Trump’s decision. 

“There are only losers in a trade war. With our EU partners, we will assess consequences on our industries and agree (to an) appropriate response,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire tweeted Thursday.

Last week, Le Maire had warned that any such measures by the U.S. would be “unacceptable” and called for a “strong, coordinated, united response from the EU.”

​Negotiate exemptions

During the announcement of the tariffs, the White House said that countries concerned by the tariffs could try to negotiate possible exemptions.

“The EU is a close ally of the U.S. and we continue to think that the EU must be exempted from these measures,” said EU Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmstrom.

“I will demand more clarity on this issue in the days to come,” she said.

Invitation to a trade war

Others also panned the tariffs as an invitation to a trade war. 

“If you put tariffs against your allies, one wonders who the enemies are,” said the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned, “Choosing a trade war is a mistaken prescription. The outcome will only be harmful. China would have to make a justified and necessary response.”

Brazil also said it planned such negotiations. 

“We will work to exclude Brazil from this measure,” acting Trade Minister Marcos Jorge told Reuters. Brazil is the United States’ No. 2 steel supplier.

​Mixed reactions on Capitol Hill

Many of the reactions around Washington were mixed.

“There are unquestionably bad trade practices by nations like China, but the better approach is targeted enforcement of those bad practices. Our economy and our national security are strengthened by fostering free trade with our allies,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said.

Senator Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, who is not planning to seek re-election, said he will “immediately” draft legislation that attempts to block the tariffs.

“These so-called ‘flexible tariffs’ are a marriage of two lethal poisons to economic growth: protectionism and uncertainty,” Flake said in a statement. “Trade wars are not won, they are only lost.”

But Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virgina said he was “excited” by the idea of tariffs.

“I’m encouraged, I really am, and I think it gives us a chance to basically reboot, get jobs back to West Virginia, back to America,” he said.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May is promising an “appropriate” response if it is discovered that Russia is responsible for poisoning a former Russian spy and his daughter.

“But let’s give the police the time and space to actually conduct their investigation,” she told ITV news Thursday. “Of course, if action needs to be taken, then the government … will do that properly at the right time and on the basis of the best evidence.”

Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Parliament “the use of a nerve agent on British soil is a brazen and reckless act. This was attempted murder in the most cruel and public way.”

A police official told Britain’s Sky News a total of 21 people were injured by the nerve agent released near a shopping center in the southern city of Salisbury.

Three people are still in the hospital — the apparent intended target, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal; his daughter, Yulia; and British policeman Nick Bailey, who came to their aid after he found the two slumped unconscious on an outdoor bench.

An eyewitness told British reporters Yulia Skripal was passed out, frothing at the mouth with her eyes “wide open, but completely white.” He said, “the man went stiff, his arms stopped moving, but he was still looking dead straight.”

Skripal and his daughter were still unconscious and in critical condition as of late Thursday. Bailey was in serious condition, but awake.

Police have been examining security camera footage of the crime scene and are reportedly focusing their attention on a man and woman spotted nearby.

Police have not publicly talked about the nerve agent that poisoned Skripal or who might have been responsible.

But suspicions are pointing to Russia. 

Skripal served in Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU. He was exchanged in a Cold War-type spy swap in 2010 on the runway at Vienna’s airport.

After serving four years in prison in Russia for spying for Britain’s espionage service, MI6, Skripal was one of four Russian double agents exchanged for 10 Russians expelled from the United States, including Manhattan socialite Anna Chapman.

The incident is drawing comparisons to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian KGB officer-turned-British intelligence agent and a highly public critic of President Vladimir Putin.

Litvinenko died an agonizing death days after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel in 2006. British doctors struggled in that case to identify the substance that killed him.

A British inquiry concluded Putin probably approved the killing. The conclusion was angrily dismissed by the Kremlin as a politically motivated smear.

Russia is also denying any involvement in the Skripal poisoning.
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Georgian legislators in Tbilisi are mulling an expedited North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership strategy following nearly a decade of frustrated efforts to join the military alliance.

NATO leaders pledged in 2008 to secure membership for Georgia and Ukraine but stopped short of granting the former Soviet republics Membership Action Plan (MAP) status, which would speed membership.

Now, Tbilisi lawmakers say they are seriously considering a fast-track approach recently put forward by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation think tank.

“In accordance to our national priorities and by consultations with our strategic partners, we will make every effort to accelerate our integration,” Georgian Parliamentary Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze told VOA, referring to the Heritage proposal to grant membership by temporarily excluding the country’s Russian-occupied territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee.

Article 5 says an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members, which is why Moscow strongly opposes the NATO ambitions of Georgia in particular.

“Many are worried that Georgia’s NATO membership will mean automatic war with Russia over the occupied regions,” said Luke Coffey, the analyst who drafted the proposal for the conservative-leaning think tank. “Georgia can be invited to join NATO by amending Article 6 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty.”

Article 6 defines specific territories within a given nation that would be subject to NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee.

“This amendment can be made with Georgia’s accession protocol as it was in 1951 when Turkey and Greece joined the alliance,” said Coffey, describing his fast-track proposal as a temporary measure that would last until — and if — “Georgia’s full, internationally recognized territory is re-established by peaceful and diplomatic means.”

Although Georgia pledged in 2010 to not use force to try to regain control of the two breakaway regions, Russia never reciprocated and continues to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries. The regions comprise 20 percent of Georgian territory, where Russia has maintained thousands of troops since fighting a five-day war against Tbilisi in 2008.

Coffey says offering Georgia NATO membership with an amended Article 6 would allow Georgia to join NATO more quickly and prevent Moscow from keeping other countries out of NATO by effectively occupying part of their territory.

However a top NATO official, who spoke on condition she not be identified, told VOA that the Brussels-based alliance believes Georgia should be able to enter NATO intact.

“Georgia will not be forced to choose between its territorial integrity and membership in NATO,” she said. “We call upon Russia to reverse its recognition of these territories, to stop the construction of border-like obstacles along the administrative boundary lines and to abide by its international commitments.

“This principle is stated in international agreements including the Helsinki Final Act and the NATO-Russia Founding Act, both signed by Russia,” she added. “No third country has a right to interfere on the issue of NATO membership. We support the right of all our partners to make independent and sovereign choices on foreign and security policy, free from external pressure or coercion.”

NATO-readiness questioned

Critics of Georgia’s NATO accession, such as William Courtney, a former U.S. ambassador to Georgia, say Tbilisi hasn’t proven that it is ready for membership.

“NATO allies need to be sure that Georgia can accept the financial burden of NATO membership,” Courtney told VOA.

“Currently, Georgia’s per capita gross domestic product is far below NATO average — it’s only one-fourth as high as the Baltic states,” he said, adding that Georgian rule of law and subpar territorial defenses were also impediments to accession. “Once Georgia is ready to go into NATO, Russia will think harder about engaging in aggression against Georgia because Georgia at that point will be stronger in its defense, stronger in its democracy and economy.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, however, has said, “Georgia has all the practical tools to become a member.”

Georgia is currently the fourth-largest contributor to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, where 870 Georgian military personnel help train, advise and assist Afghan defense and security forces. Georgia was the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the International Security Assistance Force until the program was terminated in 2014.

“NATO [has] accepted countries that were less ready for membership than Georgia is today,” said Mamuka Tsereteli, a senior fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program for transatlantic research and policy.

This story originated in VOA’s Georgian service.
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Rallies are being held across the globe Thursday to both celebrate International Women’s Day, and to demand an end to the exploitation, discrimination and violence that women continue to face.

In the Philippine capital of Manila, hundreds of women dressed in pink and purple took to the streets to protest the 4,000 people killed under President Rodrigo Duterte and his heavy-handed crackdown on illicit drugs.

Human rights activists say Duterte’s vow to kill thousands of illicit drug dealers have led police to carry out extrajudicial killings of suspected dealers and users.

In Seoul, women’s groups used the day to boost support for the American-born “Me Too” movement against sexual assault in the workplace. The movement has spread across the Asian economic giant after a female prosecutor revealed in January that she had been assaulted by a colleague several years ago, leading to the downfall of numerous high-profile men, including a provincial governor who was a leading presidential contender before he was accused of raping his secretary.

And women in Spain will walkout from their jobs Thursday as part of a “feminist strike” to highlight the social and economic disparities between men and women, including huge differences in pay. A recent study found that Spanish women on average were paid nearly 13 percent less than their male colleagues.

In the Indian capital, New Delhi, hundreds of women carrying placards and banners that read “United we fight, United we win,” Don’t Rape,” and “My body, My choice,” marched through the streets to protest domestic violence, sexual attacks and discrimination in jobs and wages.

In Myanmar, de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged women to build peaceful democracies using their strength in politics, economics and social issues.

In Afghanistan, hundreds of women, who would have been afraid to leave their homes during Taliban rule, gathered in the capital, Kabul, to remind their leaders that plenty of work remains to be done to give Afghan woman a voice, ensure their education and protect them from increasing violence.

And in China, students at Tsinghua University used the occasion to make light of a proposed constitutional amendment to scrap term limits for the country’s president.
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British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Thursday will have a plan ready to respond if investigators identify someone responsible for a nerve agent attack against a former Russian double agent.

“There is nothing soft about the UK’s response to any sort of state activity in this country,” she told the BBC. “You may not hear about it all, but when we do see that there is action to be taken, we will take it.”

British counterterrorism police have said Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter were poisoned by a nerve agent Sunday in the normally quiet town of Salisbury.

A police officer who was part of the initial response to the incident was hospitalized. Rudd said Thursday the officer remained in serious condition but was able to talk.

“This is being treated as a major incident of involving attempted murder by the administration of a nerve agent,” Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Mark Rowley said. He would not identify the exact substance used or how it was delivered.

The poisoning is threatening a full-scale security and diplomatic crisis for Britain, with lawmakers demanding the government launch an urgent inquiry into more than a dozen recent suspicious deaths in Britain, all potentially tied to Russian intelligence services.

Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, are fighting for their lives after being found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping mall. Police have been examining CCTV footage and reportedly have focused their attention on a man and woman spotted nearby.

On Tuesday, Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, prompted sharp Russian rebuttals when he assured British lawmakers the government would get to the bottom of the mystery and threatened the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, if the Kremlin were found to have been responsible. Johnson said while he was not pointing the finger at this stage, he described Russia as “a malign and disruptive force.”

His remarks were characterized by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as “wild.” Russian diplomats in London accused Johnson of “demonizing” their country.

Mark Edele, a Russia analyst at the University of Melbourne in Australia, told VOA investigators may never know who was responsible.

“If Russia is behind this, they will certainly deny it. If they’re not behind it, they will also deny it,” Edele said. “And the only way to really find out would be to catch whoever did this, which given the level of professionalism involved is probably unlikely.”

The incident is drawing comparisons to Alexander Litvinenko, a highly public critic of President Putin and a Russian KGB officer-turned-British intelligence agent, who died agonizingly, days after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel in 2006. British doctors struggled in that case to identify the substance that killed him.

A British inquiry concluded the Russian leader probably approved the killing. The conclusion was dismissed angrily by the Kremlin as a politically motivated smear.

An eyewitness to the discovery of Skripal and his daughter, Jamie Paine, told British reporters the woman was passed out, frothing at the mouth and her eyes “were wide open, but completely white.” He said, “The man went stiff, his arms stopped moving, but he was still looking dead straight.” Adding to alarm, one of the emergency service workers who attended the pair has also been hospitalized.

Skripal, who served in Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU, was exchanged in a Cold War-type spy swap in 2010 on the runway at Vienna’s airport. After serving four years in prison in Russia for spying for Britain’s espionage service, MI6, he was one of four Russian double agents exchanged for 10 Russian sleeper agents expelled from the United States, including Manhattan socialite and diplomat’s daughter Anna Chapman.

At the time, Putin, a former KGB officer, issued televised threats against those who had betrayed Russia. “Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers-in-arms. Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on them,” he said.

In 2006, a new Russian law was adopted formally permitting extra-judicial killings abroad of people Russian authorities deemed extremist or terrorists, allowing the Russian president alone to order a killing.

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Skripal had spied for Britain during the 1990s and continued to communicate with MI6 after his retirement in 1999 from the GRU, while working at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Moscow.

Russian prosecutors said Skripal received at least $100,000 for his collaboration with MI6, according to Russian news outlets. At his trial he admitted selling the names, addresses and code names of “several dozen” Russian agents operating in Europe to MI6 over a period of 10 years. British intelligence officials say Skripal identified as many as 300 Russian spies and moles.

A year after the spy swap, he bought a house in Salisbury for $360,000. He lived apparently quietly there with his wife, Lyudmila, until her death from cancer five years ago. But a relative told BBC Russia, “From the first day, he knew it would end badly, and that he would not be left alone,” he said.

As British investigators piece together what happened to Skripal, senior British lawmakers say other suspicious Russia-linked deaths during the past two decades need to be re-examined.

Among them: former oligarch Boris Berezovsky; Scot Young, a businessman impaled on an iron fence after a fall from a window; Badri Patarkatsishvili, a Georgian oligarch who died of an apparent heart attack in 2008; Yuri Golubev, an outspoken Putin critic, and Alexander Perepilichny, who fled Russia for London and gave evidence of high-level corruption to Swiss authorities.

VOA’s Jamie Dettmer, Victor Beattie and Chris Hannas contributed to this report.
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A number of eastern European states have ramped up their opposition to a new gas pipeline linking Russia with Germany.

The Nord Stream 2 project will bring Russian gas directly to Western Europe, but critics say it will increase dependence on Russia and enrich its state-owned energy firms, at a time when Moscow stands accused of undermining European security.

The $11 billion, 1,225-kilometer pipeline is on schedule for completion next year. It is a private project backed by Russian state-owned Gazprom and five energy companies from Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands. It also has the strong backing of the German and Russian governments.

“We support the implementation of this project which is undoubtedly, absolutely free from politics. This is a purely economic and moreover purely commercial project,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after meeting the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, last week in Moscow. Kurz also offered his support for the project.

Doing business with Putin

Many eastern states, however, say Europe should not be engaged in big business with President Putin. Some of the most vocal critics have been the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, whose foreign ministers traveled to Washington last week to meet Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“Security these days is increasingly indivisible. There’s no clear division between internal and external security and also geographically,” Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser told reporters in Washington ahead of the meeting.

The United States is opposed to Nord Stream 2, having sanctioned Russian companies over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, along with foreign companies involved in Russian energy exploration. So far, those sanctions don’t affect the new pipeline.

The European Commission also opposes the project but says there are no legal grounds to prevent the private investment from going ahead.

WATCH: Europe Split on Nord Stream 2 Pipeline as US Warns Against Dependence on Russian Gas

Softening sanctions

Opponents fear any additional revenues for Russia from Nord Stream 2 would soften the impact of sanctions. Many Eastern European states also question whether the new pipeline will benefit them economically, says Noah Gordon, analyst at the Center for European Reform, a London-based research group.

“There could be bottlenecks through central Europe and Eastern Europe, and those places could see prices rise and they might be more exposed to a Russian political gas cutoff. Ukraine would lose about $2 billion a year in transit fees.”

Currently, more than half of Russian gas exports to Europe are routed through Ukraine. Supporters of Nord Stream 2 say it would increase security of supply, citing recent price disputes between Moscow and Kyiv.

The EU hopes to mitigate the risk of increased dependence on Russia by investing in connecting pipelines across European borders.

“The goal is a resilient gas market where gas flows freely across borders,” Gordon said. “For two years, Ukraine hasn’t bought any gas from Russia. Instead they buy gas, Russian gas usually, indirectly from European traders like Germany, like the Dutch. So if the European gas market was in a strong enough state and if Europe was more energy efficient and used less gas, Russian or otherwise, Russia wouldn’t be able to meddle or use gas as a weapon ever again.”

Poland and Lithuania, which vehemently oppose Nord Stream 2, have built terminals for liquefied natural gas, or LNG. The United States wants to boost its LNG exports to Europe.

Both Europe and the U.S. hope that a diversified supply will help reduce Russia’s ability to use gas as a political weapon.
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